the excellency of Carmel and Sharon; they shall see the glory of the Lord, and the excellency of our God."

While our Saviour was doing the will of his Father on the earth, this prophecy was splendidly fulfilled, as he strengthened the weak hands, as He confirmed the feeble knees, as He opened the eyes of the blind, and unstopped the ears of the deaf, making the lame man to leap as an hart, and the tongue of the dumb to sing; nay, at his word the dead shook off the dishonours of the grave and awoke to life. To the weary and heavy-laden He gave rest; to every care and every disease He brought a consolation and a cure; to the sinner He proclaimed forgiveness; to fallen man He opened the door of everlasting life.

Under the metaphor of streams bursting forth in the desert, his salvation of the hopeless, and the destitute of God's vivifying influences is described, and his reclamation of the Gentiles from their idolatry and dead works is intended. The figure of aridity and desolation, in which this state of the human heart is set forth, is immediately contrasted with fertility, as the symbol of the regenerating operation of Christ: e. g. the parched ground shall become a pool, and the thirsty land springs of water; in the habitation of dragons, where each lay, shall be grass

with reeds and rushes. The royal road, which leads to it shall be called the way of holiness; the unclean shall not pass over it, but it shall be for those; the wayfaring men, though fools, shall not err therein. How strikingly has all this prophecy been accomplished! The partition wall between Jew and Gentile has been broken down, and the Gentile has embraced the soul-cheering Gospel of Jesus Christ; his heart has, as it were, been moistened by his Divine grace, and has brought forth the works of the Spirit. The way of the Lord is so easy to find, that "wayfaring men, though fools, shall not err therein." The humblest in mind and intellect, as well as the superior in mental endowments, derive the same benefits from the mercies of Jehovah; for while his religion is plain and simple enough for the poor to derive consolation and salvation from it, there is sufficient for the more learned to devote their faculties to it.

CHAP. xl. 1—5..

LUKE iii. 2-6.

In the chapter preceding the fortieth, the Babylonian captivity is foretold by the prophet, and in the fortieth the restoration of the Jews. But the prediction is not confined to that redemption-a redemption of a higher consideration is predicted, even the redemption by Jesus Christ of the whole world from sin. This is the spiritual sense of the

prophecy, for which we have the authority of Jesus Christ Himself. This chapter commences with consolatory predictions, and in finer or more sublime language they could not possibly have been conveyed. All that is touching to the soul, and the most likely to move the heart of man is to be found in this and the subsequent chapters of Isaiah. In the previous he had foretold the desolation of empires, and the crash of worlds; and although these mighty events had been softened down by his pointing occasionally to the Messiah, the great Deliverer, still they afforded not that great consolation in such majestic language as the fortieth, and many of the following chapters. What can be grander than the following eloquent burst of the prophet! and this too immediately after he had predicted the sufferings and captivity of God's peculiar people :-"Comfort ye, comfort ye my people', saith your God. Speak ye comfortably to Jerusalem, and say unto her, that her warfare is accomplished, that her iniquity is pardoned for she hath received of the Lord's hand double for all her sins." The sufferings of Judah were great, but the Lord punished Judah for sin; and thus having preserved his justice, his mercy was displayed by the consolation, He brought to his

'The Septuagint has it thus :-' "Comfort ye, comfort ye my people, O Priests, saith your God."

people. But not only her iniquity, but the iniquity of the whole world was pardoned, when the Son of God made intercession with heaven. For sinners "received of the Lord's hand double for all their sins," i. e. his mercy was not commensurate with sin, but his benefits were greater, were double that, which his people actually deserved. The redemption was larger in extent than man's apostasy. Therefore God's mercy was double'. The third verse of this chapter was fulfilled by John the Baptist preceding the Messiah. The idea is taken from harbingers going before the Eastern monarchs, whenever they took a journey, in order to remove all impediments, and to let the people know, that royalty was approaching. When John the Baptist came, he applied this prophecy to himself. It was necessary for him to precede the Messiah, not only for the fulfilment of prophecy, but to prepare the minds of the people, that they might the better receive the good tidings of the Lord. The exalting of the valleys and the levelling of the mountains, and the straightening of the crooked ways, and the smoothing of the rough places, are only metaphorically put for the

1

Bishop Lowth explains the double thus: "Double in proportion to God's usual severity in punishing men's sins." But as we do not suppose, that God would punish one people more than another for the same crime, it can scarcely bear the Bishop's interpretation, and be compatible to the justice of God.

barren state of the Jewish Church and the people, previously to the coming of Christ. The glory of the Lord could only be revealed by the advent of Messiah, and "all flesh," or the Gentiles, could only see salvation by the advent of Christ'. Hence it is absolutely certain, that this prophecy was literally fulfilled, at the time the Gospel was proclaimed.

CHAP. xl. 11.

JOHN X. 11. 14.

In the eleventh verse of the fortieth chapter, Christ is brought before us, as the good Shepherd of the Christian flock, in a manner, which, amidst beautiful and glowing language, corresponds to the description, which He gave of Himself in that character; and in the two preceding verses, this good Shepherd is, in terms removed from all cavil by their explicitness, pronounced to be God, or the Lord God; so that impartially reviewing the series of predictions, we find the whole uniting in a clear exemplification of Christ's real dignity, and positively maintaining his Divinity.

CHAP. xlii. 1-3.

MATT. xii. 14-17.

The forty-second chapter commences, "Behold

'The Septuagint has it, as St. Luke, not as in our version, "all flesh shall see it together," but "all flesh shall see the salvation of God."