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SERMON VII.

ISAIAH, Xxii. 12.-14.

And in that day did the Lord of Hofts call to weeping, and to mourning, and to baldness, and to girding with fackcloth; and behold joy and gladness, flaying oxen, and killing fheep, eating flesh and drinking wine; let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we shall die. And it was revealed in mine ears by the Lord of Hofts, Surely this iniquity shall not be purged from you, till ye die, faith the Lord God of Hofts.

HIS paffage is introduced with a loud

and preffing call to repentance. It defcribes the contemptuous behaviour of the people to whom the call was addreffed; and concludes with an alarming denunciation of wrath against those perverse and obftinate tranfgreffors.

Each

Each of these particulars I fhall briefly illuftrate; and then point out our immediate concern in the fubject, and the practical improvement we all ought to make of it.

The First thing that occurs is the call to repentance, verse 12. "In that day did the "Lord of Hofts call to weeping, and to mourning, and to baldness, and to girding "with fackcloth.

The day here referred to was a season of abounding iniquity, as we learn from the first chapter of this book of prophecy, which begins with a heavy charge against the nation of the Jews, published with awful folemnity by God himself, in the following words: Hear, O heavens, and give ear, O earth, "for the Lord hath spoken! I have nourished " and brought up children, and they have re"belled against me. The ox knoweth his

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owner, and the afs his master's crib; but "Ifrael doth not know, my people doth not "confider. Ah finful nation! a people la"den with iniquity, a feed of evil doers, chil"dren that are corrupters. They have forfaken the Lord, they have provoked the

"Holy

Holy one of Ifrael to anger, they have "gone gone away backward." Accordingly the prophet, in befpeaking their attention to the meffage he was about to deliver, addreffed them, in terms of fevere reproach, verse 10. "Hear the words of the Lord, ye rulers "of Sodom; give ear unto the law of our ແ God, ye people of Gomorrah." And the lamentation he utters, verse 21, fhews with what justice and propriety thofe titles of ignominy were applied to them. "How is

"the faithful city become an harlot! It was "full of judgment, righteousness lodged in "it; but now murderers. Thy filver is be

come drofs, thy wine mixt with water. Thy princes are rebellious, and companions "of thieves; every one loveth gifts, and fol"loweth after rewards."

Their boldness and impudence in finning are particularly taken notice of, as high aggravations of their guilt, chap. iii. verfes 8. & "The fhew of their countenance doth 9. "witness against them, and they declare their "fin as Sodom, they hide it not. Their tongue and their doings are against the Lord, to provoke the eye of his glory." Neither

Neither was this accufation limited to the men of that age, for, verse 16. even the daughters of Zion are represented as “haughty, walking with ftretched forth necks and

wanton eyes, walking and mincing as they went," under the cumbersome load of tinkling ornaments, chains, and bracelets, and the many other fuperfluous articles of drefs, of which a catalogue is left on record from the 18th verfe downward, till, at the 24th verse, the fantastic inventory is closed with that humiliating doom: "It shall come to pass, that "inftead of fweet fmell, there shall be stink; "and inftead of a girdle, a rent; and in"ftead of well fet hair, baldnefs; and burning "instead of beauty."

This leads me to mention another circum

ftance, by which the day referred to in my text is distinguished. It was a day of fore rebuke, as well as of abounding iniquity. "Look away from me," faid the prophet, verfe 4th of this chapter, "I will weep bit"terly, labour not to comfort me, because of "the spoiling of the daughter of my people; "for it is a day of trouble, and of treading

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"down,

"down, and of perplexity, by the Lord God "of Hofts in the valley of vision."

Such was the day in which the Lord God of Hofts did call to weeping and mourning, and to baldness, and to girding with fackcloth, i. e. to the deepest humiliation on account of their fins, to the most unfeigned repentance, and amendment of life. That this is the true import of the call appears from a fimilar exhortation, Joel, ii. 12. where, after the Lord had given commandment to blow the trumpet in Zion, and to found an alarm in his holy mountain, that all the inhabitants of the land might tremble in the profpect of that day of darknefs and gloominess, which was foon to be spread over them; he addreffes them in these words: "Turn ye even "to me with all your heart, with weeping "and with mourning, and rent your hearts "and not your garments, and turn unto the "Lord your God."

In every age, and in every climate, weeping and mourning are the natural expreffions of inward forrow. In the eaftern countries, and especially among the Jews, when grief rofe to a great height, tears of lamentations.

were