relish for the deceptive poison which lurks beneath a fair external appearance. To adventure on the ground of an enemy, to show him how you would use his weapons, and assist him a little, is to enlist in the support of his cause. No man ever long pursued this course, without becoming eventually a determined partizan, where he at first pretended only a little amusement.

3. Many sober men, of few opportunities for close investigation, sincerely desire to know the truth on subjects of high importance. Such persons are occasionally guided by authority, or, in other words, receive their opinions from their friends. It is exceedingly discouraging to such minds, in their inquiries concerning religious belief, to see those, who profess to be the friends of truth, supporting the cause and defending the actions of her known enemies. The bystander, seeing how ready the sophist is at argument, with what vehemence he opposes the plainest decisions of reason, giving to falsehood the dress of truth, and making truth appear like falsehood,-is bewildered in the maze, and to relieve the painful suspense of doubting, often adopts the sentiment, that it is safest to believe nothing.

It is descending immeasurably below the standard, by which an honest and dignified mind should fix its decisions. He who has stumbled upon the notion, that very few things can be determined with certainty; that truth is not only difficult of investigation, but all approach to it on subjects of highest interest is impossible,-is prepared to sit down in cold skepticism. No longer does he look beyond the narrow confines of time; for, scorning all the testimony of revelation, and turning his back on heaven, he says, let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die. Some belief, however, he must have. Notwithstanding all former pretensions of freedom from prejudice, and of the superiority of his reason to all the shackles of authority, he is more easily seduced by a specious show, than any other man. Whatever best lulls

him asleep, or drives eternity furthest from his thoughts, is most acceptable. He knows very well there is no comfort in uncertainty, and that none of his doubts will disprove the thing, which he refuses to believe.

4. To sport with truth and resist the remonstrances of conscience, merely for the sake of showing one's ingenuity, is an experiment of tremendous danger. He who has exerted his invention to find plausible arguments to amuse others, will at any time easily employ them in his own justification. Considering our strong affection for whatever we have once defended, and the still stronger attachment to the product of our own labors, it is not surprising, that men cling to their favorite schemes and articles of belief with a grasp so strong, that nothing but almighty power can open their eyes to their delusions, or drive them from the fortress, which they labored with great industry to render impregnable.

Although "time" in its protracted revolutions "obliterates the fictions of opinion," it does not often effect this in the individual, in regard to his own. The erroneous sentiments acquired in contest, like other plunder of war, are keenly watched, and placed among the last possessions to be relinquished.

VER. 1. The vision of Isaiah the son of Amoz, which he saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem, in the days of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah.

The former part of this title belonged perhaps originally to the single prophecy contained in the first chapter. Compare the similar inscriptions, chap. ii, 1; vi, 1; xiii, 1, &c. When the collection of all Isaiah's prophecies was made, the enumeration of the kings of Judah may have been added to form a proper title for the whole book.

By vision is here intended not a common dream, nor a prophetical vision, nor any other mode of divine revelation, but something revealed from God, whatever the mode of communication may have been.Judah denotes the kingdom of Judah, or the two tribes of Judah and Benjamin, with those of the Levites who adhered to them.

Ver. 2. Hear, O heavens; and give ear, O earth!

For Jehovah speaketh.

I have nourished and brought up children,

And they have rebelled against me.

A very spirited and sublime exordium! All nature is called upon to listen to the complaint of Jehovah. He has treated his people with the utmost kindness, and watched over them with a father's tenderness, but they are insensible to his goodness, and ungrateful for his favors. This bold apostrophe is perfectly suited to the solemnity of the occasion and the vivid style of poetry. Compare Deut. xxxii, 1. In a less impassioned, merely prosaic style, the language might have been; I call heaven and earth to witness against the ingratitude of my people. Compare Deut. xxx, 19.

For Jehovah speaketh: what is here said, being the words of God and not of the prophet, deserve the highest attention. The preterite tense is used in the Hebrew in this case to express present time, as in multitudes of instances. See Exod. iv, 22; xi, 4; xix, 8; ls. xvi, 13; xxxvii, 22. To deduce this sense it is unnecessary, with Bp. Lowth, to change the vowel pointing.

Ver. 3. The ox knoweth his owner,

And the ass his master's crib;

Israel doth not know,

My people doth not consider.

So insensible are the Jews, that they fall below the intelligence of the brute creation. See a similar comparison, Jer. viii, 7.

The English word crib is more limited than the original Hebrew word, which properly denotes a stall.-Bishop Lowth, in the third line, inserts the pronoun me; Israel doth not know me. In this he follows the Septuagint, and some other ancient versions. But the expression is more significant without such emendation. Israel doth not know, is brutish, knows nothing. See Is. Ivi, 10; xliv, 18; Job viii, 9; Ps. lxxxii, 5. The authors also of the ancient versions, in supplying the ellipsis, intended to give what they supposed to be the sense, and not to follow the letter. Similar observations may be made with regard to two other emendations of the Bishop in this same verse, namely the

insertion of Vau at the beginning of the third and fourth lines, which lines he renders thus: BUT Israel knoweth not me, NEITHER doth my people consider. The poetic, style, it ought to be observed, often omits to use the conjunctions.

Ver. 4. Ah, sinful nation! a people laden with iniquity!

A race of evil-doers! children that are perverse!

They have forsaken the Lord;

They have rejected with disdain the Holy one of Israel.
They have gone away backward.

This verse may be considered as an explanation of the preceding. The word rendered perverse, admits this meaning, without the emendation, which Bp. Lowth proposes, supported by only a few MSS.-The Holy One of Israel, is God, the supreme object of religious worship. The rendering of the third line is thought by Lowth and the best critics, to be more correct, than that of our common version. Ver. 5, 6. Why should ye be stricken any more?

Ye will revolt more and more.

The whole head is sick, and the whole heart faint.

From the sole of the foot, even to the head, there is no soundness in it;

But wounds, and bruises, and putrefying sores.

They have not been closed, neither bound up,

Neither mollified with ointment.

God here intimates that there is no kind of punishment, which he has not inflicted on his rebellious people, to deter them from transgression; but hitherto without effect. The body politic is described as wounded in every part, and suffering, under the divine displeasure, the most poignant distress.

Lowth here again changes the vowel points without necessity, and renders the first line, On what part will ye smite again?—That oil was anciently used in the dressing of wounds, is evident from the story of the good Samaritan, Luke x, 34.

Ver. 7. Four country is desolate, your cities are burned with fire;
Four land, strangers devour it in your presence,

And it is desolate, as overthrown by strangers. That which has been just expressed in figurative style, is now represented in plain language.-Your land, that is, the produce of your fields.—The last line has been considered by many critics as tautological, as comparing a thing with itself, and of course as unworthy of the sacred penman. Lowth and others incline to correct the text, and then to translate thus; And it is desolate, as if destroyed by an inundation. But this is a desperate remedy. The sense, however, will be sufficiently evident, if we throw the emphasis on the word strangers. Your land is desolate, as if overthrown by strangers, that is, the desolation is such as we might expect from the most barbarous enemies, whose ravages were restrained by no tie of kindred, or sympathy of feeling.

Ver. 8, 9. And the daughter of Zion is left as a shed in a vineyard.
As a lodge in a garden of cucumbers, as a saved city.
Except the Lord of hosts had left us a very small remnant,
We should have been as Sodom, we should have been like
unto Gomorrah.

A little temporary hut, covered with boughs, straw, turf, or the like materials, for a shelter from the heat by day, and the cold and dews =by night, was built in the eastern countries for the watchman that kept the garden or vineyard, during the short season, while the fruit was ripening. See Job xxvii, 18. When the fruit season was past, it was suffered to fall to decay. To a hut of this kind, in its forsaken decayed condition, the daughter of Zion, that is, the Jewish state, now relieved in some measure from its distresses, is compared. In the same view it is compared to a saved city, a city that had suffered much, but yet is saved from the enemy. For this is the natural rendering, which the original word requires, rather than that of our common version. It is also suited to the context.In the two last lines is a reference to the history of Sodom and Gomorrah, which would have been saved, if only a small number of righteous persons had been found in them. See Gen. xviii, 23-33. Except the Lord of hosts had left us a very small remnant, that is, a small number of righteous persons, we should &c.

Ver. 10. Hear the word of the Lord, ye rulers of Sodom,

Give ear to the law of our God, ye people of Gomorrah. The mention of Sodom and Gomorrah, in the preceding verse, suggested to the prophet this spirited address to the rulers and inhabitants of Jerusalem, under the character of rulers of Sodom, and people of Gomorrah. The intimation is, that their character was no better, and that they deserved no better fate.-The law of God here denotes the remonstrance and admonition of which the prophet was now the messenger.

V.11,12,13,14. To what purpose is the multitude of your sacrifices unto me? saith the Lord;

I am full of the burnt offerings of rams, and the fat of fed beasts;

And I delight not in the blood of bullocks, or of lambs, or of he-goats.

When ye come to appear before me,

Who hath required this at your hand, to pollute my courts?
Bring no more vain oblations;

Incense is an abomination unto me;

The new moons, and sabbaths, the calling of assemblies,
I cannot away with; it is iniquity, even the solemn

meeting.

Your new moons, and your appointed feasts, my soul hateth.

They are a trouble unto me, I am weary with bearing them. God expostulates with the Jews on account of their sacrifices, and ceremonial obedience, on which they appear to have rested for the pardon of their sins and reconciliation with God, while they yet led immoral lives. But the Lord requires spiritual worship.

The multitude of your sacrifices, a Hebraism for your numerous sacrifices. The blood and the fat are here mentioned, because the one was sprinkled on or about the altar, and the other burnt upon it.-To tread my courts, in the common version, means to trample upon them, to pol

lute them, as it is rendered above.—A vain oblation is that, which proceeds from an insincere heart, or one which, on that account, is rejected of God.-For iniquity, Lowth, by another unnecessary emendation of the text, renders fast.

Ver. 15. And when ye spread forth your hands, I will hide mine
eyes from you;

Yea, when ye make many prayers, I will not hear.
For your hands are full of blood.

God now denounces punishment for their guilt.-The stretching forth of the hands is the posture of supplicants. See Ex. ix, 29; xvii, 11, 12; 1 Kings viii. Also Horace, Od. iii, 21, 1, Virgil, Æn. i, 93.——I will hide mine eyes from you, that is, I will not regard your prayer. Ver. 16, 17. Wash ye, make you clean,

Put away the evil of your doing from before mine eyes,
Cease to do evil, learn to do well,

Seek judgment, relieve the oppressed,

Judge the fatherless, plead for the widow.

These verses are intimately connected with the last clause of verse 15. The Jews are exhorted to wash their hands stained with guilt, and to cease to oppress the widow and the orphan.-Seek judgment, that is, follow the principles of equity.-Judge the fatherless, that is, do them justice:

Ver. 18, 19, 20. Come now and let us reason together, saith the Lord; Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; Though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool. If ye be willing and obedient,

Ye shall eat the good of the land;

But if ye refuse and rebel,

Ye shall be devoured with the sword;

For the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it.

Jehovah kindly condescends to reason with his people.-Verse 19 appears to be an explanation of verse 18.-Ye shall be devoured in verse 20, is set in opposition to Ye shall eat, in verse 19.

V. 21, 22, 23. How is the faithful city become a harlot;

It was full of equity, righteousness lodged in it,

But now murderers.

Thy silver is become dross,

Thy wine mixed with water.

Thy princes are rebellious, companions of thieves.
Every one loveth gifts, and seekelh rewards,

They judge not the fatherless,

Neither doth the cause of the widow come unto them.

The wicked conduct of the Jewish magistrates and people, is again described, and that in very severe terms.-Jehovah is often represented in the Old Testament, as the husband, protector, and friend of his people. His people, when disobedient to him, are represented as unfaithful, and as going astray after other gods.-Bribery and corruption appear to have prevailed in the courts of justice.-The figurative language, in verse 22, is explained by what follows in verse 23.