for light, but behold obfcurity; for brightness, but we walk in darkness. Our tranfgreffions are multiplied before thee, and our fins testify against us: for our tranfgreffions are with us; and as for our iniquities, we know them.

Sometimes he speaks of the great defection, as if it had been in fome period, previous to that wherein he lived. The Lord faw, fays he, and it difpleafed him, &c. He faw that there was no man, and wondered that there was no interceffor: his arm brought falvation unto him, and his righteousness it upheld him. He put on righteousness as a breastplate, &c.—Sometimes he speaks in the future tense; According to their deeds, accordingly he will repay ;to the ifles he will repay recompence: fo fhall they fear. the name of the Lord from the weft, and his glory from the rifing of the fun. And in the fame tense run the words of our reading, When the enemy SHALL come in like a flood, the Spirit of the Lord SHALL lift up a standard against him.

It is undeniable, however, that all these speeches respect one and the fame fubject: an awful apoftacy obferved and punished by God; and the exemplary judgment followed with a flood of glory, as it had been preceded by a deluge of vice.

These things are clofely connected as caufe and effect. That the prophet ufes the past tense, in fpeaking of them, is no argument that they took place before his time. Seated high on the mount of revelation, and feeing far into futurity, he often fpeaks of things far distant, as if already past: witness the fifty-third chapter of his prophecy, where he mentions the Saviour's fufferings, not as future,

but as paft: He was wounded for our tranfgreffions, &c. As little, I apprehend, will the use of the prefent tense prove, that the prophet had only that generation in his eye wherein he lived. wherein he lived. Great corruptions, indeed, did then abound; and hence, in the beginning of his book, he addreffes the grandees as the rulers of Sodom, and the populace as the people of Gomorrah, chap i.

The deluge of immorality here defcribed, was to be followed with sweeping judgments from the Lord; and these with a flow of glory that should fill the earth. For, no fooner has the prophet mentioned the recompence repaid to the enemies of the Lord, but he immediately adds, So fhall they fear the name of the Lord from the weft, and his glory from the rifing of the fun. But fuch an extenfive fpread of genuine religion was never known under the Old-Teftament: that was referved to be the glory of the New.-I therefore conceive, that the time to which our text refers, belongs to the NewTeftament difpenfation, not to the Old.

But ftill the question recurs, Is that time already elapfed; or, is it yet to come? Does it belong to the primitive age of Christianity; or to the glory of the latter days? The venerable Vitringa*, whofe praise is in all the churches, thinks that the time to which our text relates, is yet to come. He lays down an hypothefis, and fupports it with no contemptible arguments, that both the preceding chapter, and this where my text lies, have a reference, not to the people of Isaiah's times, but to the Proteflant churches brought forth from myftical

* Vitringa in Jefaim, cap. Iviii, 1. and lix. 1.

Babylon; with this difference, that the fifty-eighth chapter agrees to them, as established by various kingdoms and common-wealths, after the light of the Reformation: whereas this fifty-ninth, represents them fuch as they shall be about that time when their interest fhall greatly fink, both by increasing vice, and by the attempts of their mighty enemies, immediately before the deliverance to be vouchfafed by God. For, as he justly observes, the great and glorious things mentioned in the fixtieth chapter, as following the judgments on the enemy, have never yet had their accomplishment; nor can they with any propriety be applied to any paft period of the church, Jewish or Chriftian. And what more and more perfuades me, that the attack, and the glorious repulse referred tó in my text, are yet to come, is, that the conversion of the Jews ftands immediately connected with these events. For the prophet, having mentioned the enemy coming in like a flood, and the Spirit of the Lord lifting up a standard against him, immediately adds, And the Redeemer fhall come to Zion, and unto them that turn from tranfgreffion in Jacob.

That these words refpect the converfion of the Jews is abundantly evident from Rom. ii. 26. where they are quoted, in proof of that great event, for which Chriftians daily pray.-It is true, indeed, as Vitringa obferves, that the apostle, in Rom. xi. 26. has respect not to this paffage only, but to others; and efpecially to Pfal. xiv. 7.: and remarkable it is, that the subject of that Pfalm is the fame with that of this prophecy in Isaiah lix.; not only the things, but even fome phrases agree. For there an univerfal corruption is first described, during which

the church of God is reduced to a small number; and then the prayer is fubjoined, O that the falvation of Ifrael were come out of Zion!

Here also a great torrent of corruption is described, as carrying down all before it; and then, as in answer to the prayer, Pfalm xiv. 7. it is promifed, that the Redeemer fhall come to Zion. The fourteenth Pfalm was written by David, at which time there could be no thoughts of the Babylonifh captivity. But David in Spirit fpeaketh of that very long captivity of the Jewish nation in spiritual blindnefs and bondage, under which they have lain upwards of these seventeen hundred years; and from which they at laft fhall be delivered. There it is written, They are corrupt; they have done abominable works: and here, their corruption and their works are described at large. There it is faid, The Lord looked to fee if there were any that did understand, and feek God: they are all gone afide, there is none that doth good, no not one. Here it runs, The Lord faw, and it difpleafed him, that there was no judgment. He faw that there was no man, and wondered that there was no interceffor. There, the workers of iniquity, are faid to eat up the people of the Lord: Here, he that departeth from evil maketh himself a prey.

The apoftle joins part of the fourteenth Pfalm, and of this fifty-ninth of Ifaiah, in proving that both Jews and Gentiles are all under fin, Rom. iii. 10, 17.; and he joins Pfal. xiv. 7. and Ifa. lix. 20. in defcribing the deliverance from a long spiritual captivity, Rom. xi. 26. As Jews and Gentiles will be deeply plunged in depravity, the Chriftian

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churches being very low, and Jewish infidelity awfully increasing; fo the fame Redeemer will bring deliverance to both, by coming in his Spirit. Blindness is happened to Ifrael, until the fulness of the Gentiles be come in, fays the apoftle, Rom, xi. 25,26. and fo all Ifrael fhall be faved: as it is written, viz. in Ifa. lix. 20. There fall come out of Zion the Deliverer, and shall turn away ungodliness from Jacob. The only difficulty attending the apoftolic application of this paffage to the converfion of the Jews, is, that our prophet fays, The Redeemer fhall come TO Zion; and the apoftle fays, He fhall come OUT OF Zion. Our prophet fays, He fhall come unto them that turn from tranfgreffion in Jacob; the apoftle fays, He fhall turn away ungodlinefs from Jacob. It is well known, that the apoftle follows the feptuagint; varying from it, only in one prepofition. is as well known, that the New-Teftament writers, in quoting Old-Teftament fcriptures, do not tie themselves down to the ftrictnefs of a tranflation; but often throw light upon what they quote. Thus, the apoftle fays nothing contrary to the prophetic paffage, only, like his office, he renders it more plain, and gives it a still more evangelic turn. He fays, that the Deliverer fhall come out of Zion, viz. out of the Zion above to the Zion below, the militant church. And he fhall not only come unto them that turn from tranfgreffion in Jacob; (as if their turning from it were like the caufe, or condition, to precede his coming;) but, that by his very coming, fo full of grace, he shall turn away iniquities from Jacob. As he fhall come out of Zion, fo alfo to Zion: as to turn away iniquities