I. Let us notice TWO OR THREE PARTICULARS CONTAINED IN THE TEXT, before we pursue the principal inquiry.

1. The persons originally addressed were the children of Israel, a rebellious people; but the words are applicable to sinners of every description.

2. For the people of Israel "a day of visitation" was appointed, and the same may be said of us. There are days Of visitation to individuals as well as to whole nations.

II. PURSUE THE PRINCIPAL INQUIRY: "What will ye do?" etc.

1. Will you plead and expostulate with God? At a throne of grace the sinner may indeed plead with God, but what arguments will avail at the tribunal of His justice?

2. Will you attempt to resist Him!

3. Will you fly from Him! Whither?

4. Will you harden yourselves against Him; and seeing you cannot escape punishment, endeavour to support yourselves under it as well as you can; saying, with impenitent Israel, "Truly this is a grief, and I must bear it"? (Jeremiah 10:19). "Who can stand before His indignation?" (Joel 2:11; Nahum 1:2-6).

5. Will you cast yourselves at His feet, and adopt the humble and submissive language of David: "If He say, I have no delight in thee, here am I; let Him do to me as seemeth good in His sight"? This certainly would be highly proper, before the decree is gone forth, and such humiliation would be accepted; but it cannot be done afterwards, or if done, it would not avail Propose then to yourselves another question: What shall I do before this day of visitation come, that I may avoid the tremendous consequences?

(B. Beddome, M. A.)

II. IT IS OF THE GREATEST IMPORTANCE TO BE PREPARED FOR THIS DAY.

1. Because your happiness, when the day of visitation comes, will depend upon it.

2. It will be positive misery to be unprepared.

3. You have an invaluable treasure in peril.

4. If you come to judgment unprepared it will be too late forever.

III. GOD IN HIS MERCY PRESSES THIS SOLEMN QUESTION UPON OUR SERIOUS AND DEVOUT CONSIDERATION.

1. It appears clear that God does sincerely desire the happiness of all men.

2. His thus pressing this solemn thought upon men's consideration shows that they are unwilling to obey God.

3. Man's want of happiness is entirely with himself and not with God.

(N. M. Harry.)

I. Where will ye LEAVE your glory? It is, then, after all, not really united to the man. He expends the ardour of his soul to combine it with his being — to make it his very substance — but it is extraneous still! He may have to go where it will not accompany him.

II. And WHERE will they leave their glory? Where, that it can in any sense continue to be theirs — theirs, for any beneficial or gratifying effect to them? What will it be to them how it falls to other mortals? Nothing is more mournful than parting with what is passionately loved, under a perfect certainty of possessing it no more.

III. As the concluding part of these meditations, let us briefly APPLY THEM TO SEVERAL OF THE FORMS OF THIS WORLD'S GLORY. There is presented a Christian, a heavenly, an eternal glory. When the lovers of glory are invited to this, and scorn it, and reject it, what is it that they take?

1. The most common form of the idolised thing is — what may be called the material splendour of life; that which immediately strikes the senses. But they must leave their glory.

2. It is, in part, a different and additional form of the world's glory, when we mention elevated rank in society. All know how vehemently coveted and envied is this glory, — how elated, for the most part, the possessors of it feel. But the thought of leaving it! With what a grim and ghostly aspect this thought must appear, when it will sometimes intrude!

3. The possession of power is perhaps the idol supreme; to have at control, and in complete subjection, the action and the condition of numbers of mankind; to see the crowd, whether in heart obsequious or rebellious, practically awed, submissive, obedient. But it is not that voice that is long to command!

4. We might have named martial glory, — the object of the most ardent aspiration, and of the most pernicious idolatry. There is often an utter delusion in this expectation.

5. In the last place might be named intellectual glory, — that of knowledge, talent, and great mental performance. If, in that passion for renown, you have exerted great powers of mind to do fatal mischief — to overwhelm truth — to corrupt the morals — to explode religion — to degrade the glory of the Redeemer — what then? If you can, in that world, have any vital sympathy with your fame, your influence remaining in this, the consequence would but be a quick continual succession of direful shocks, conveyed to your living spirit from what your works are doing here. Contrast with all them forms of folly, the predominant aim of a Christian — which is "glory" still; but a glory which he will not have to leave; a glory accumulating for him in the world to which he is going.

(John Foster.)

     4448   forests
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Nob. Bahurim.
That Nob was placed in the land of Benjamin, not far from Jerusalem, whence Jerusalem also might be seen,--the words of the Chaldee paraphrast, upon Isaiah 10:32, do argue. For so he speaks; "Sennacherib came and stood in Nob, a city of the priests, before the walls of Jerusalem; and said to his army, 'Is not this the city of Jerusalem, against which I have raised my whole army, and have subdued all the provinces of it? Is it not small and weak in comparison of all the fortifications of the Gentiles, …
John Lightfoot—From the Talmud and Hebraica

Covenanting Predicted in Prophecy.
The fact of Covenanting, under the Old Testament dispensations, being approved of God, gives a proof that it was proper then, which is accompanied by the voice of prophecy, affording evidence that even in periods then future it should no less be proper. The argument for the service that is afforded by prophecy is peculiar, and, though corresponding with evidence from other sources, is independent. Because that God willed to make known truth through his servants the prophets, we should receive it …
John Cunningham—The Ordinance of Covenanting

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If then the prophets prophesied that the Son of God was to appear upon the earth, and prophesied also where on the earth and how and in what manner He should make known His appearance, and all these prophecies the Lord took upon Himself; our faith in Him was well-founded, and the tradition of the preaching (is) true: that is to say, the testimony of the apostles, who being sent forth by the Lord preached in all the world the Son of God, who came to suffer, and endured to the destruction of death …
Irenæus—The Demonstration of the Apostolic Preaching

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"To remember His Holy Covenant; to grant unto us that we, being delivered out of the hands of our enemies, should serve Him without fear, in holiness and righteousness before Him, all our days."-LUKE i. 68-75. WHEN Zacharias was filled with the Holy Spirit and prophesied, he spoke of God's visiting and redeeming His people, as a remembering of His Holy Covenant. He speaks of what the blessings of that Covenant would be, not in words that had been used before, but in what is manifestly a Divine revelation …
Andrew Murray—The Two Covenants

The Instrumentality of the Wicked Employed by God, While He Continues Free from Every Taint.
1. The carnal mind the source of the objections which are raised against the Providence of God. A primary objection, making a distinction between the permission and the will of God, refuted. Angels and men, good and bad, do nought but what has been decreed by God. This proved by examples. 2. All hidden movements directed to their end by the unseen but righteous instigation of God. Examples, with answers to objections. 3. These objections originate in a spirit of pride and blasphemy. Objection, that …
John Calvin—The Institutes of the Christian Religion

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And He hath on His vesture and on His thigh a name written, K ING OF K INGS AND L ORD OF L ORDS T he description of the administration and glory of the Redeemer's Kingdom, in defiance of all opposition, concludes the second part of Messiah Oratorio. Three different passages from the book of Revelation are selected to form a grand chorus, of which Handel's title in this verse is the close --a title which has been sometimes vainly usurped by proud worms of this earth. Eastern monarchs, in particular, …
John Newton—Messiah Vol. 2

Humility is the Root of Charity, and Meekness the Fruit of Both. ...
Humility is the root of charity, and meekness the fruit of both. There is no solid and pure ground of love to others, except the rubbish of self-love be first cast out of the soul; and when that superfluity of naughtiness is cast out, then charity hath a solid and deep foundation: "The end of the command is charity out of a pure heart," 1 Tim. i. 5. It is only such a purified heart, cleansed from that poison and contagion of pride and self-estimation, that can send out such a sweet and wholesome …
Hugh Binning—The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning

Purposes of God.
In discussing this subject I shall endeavor to show, I. What I understand by the purposes of God. Purposes, in this discussion, I shall use as synonymous with design, intention. The purposes of God must be ultimate and proximate. That is, God has and must have an ultimate end. He must purpose to accomplish something by his works and providence, which he regards as a good in itself, or as valuable to himself, and to being in general. This I call his ultimate end. That God has such an end or purpose, …
Charles Grandison Finney—Systematic Theology

A Discourse of the House and Forest of Lebanon
OF THE HOUSE OF THE FOREST OF LEBANON. ADVERTISEMENT BY THE EDITOR. That part of Palestine in which the celebrated mountains of Lebanon are situated, is the border country adjoining Syria, having Sidon for its seaport, and Land, nearly adjoining the city of Damascus, on the north. This metropolitan city of Syria, and capital of the kingdom of Damascus, was strongly fortified; and during the border conflicts it served as a cover to the Assyrian army. Bunyan, with great reason, supposes that, to keep …
John Bunyan—The Works of John Bunyan Volumes 1-3

Of Antichrist, and his Ruin: and of the Slaying the Witnesses.
BY JOHN BUNYAN PREFATORY REMARKS BY THE EDITOR This important treatise was prepared for the press, and left by the author, at his decease, to the care of his surviving friend for publication. It first appeared in a collection of his works in folio, 1692; and although a subject of universal interest; most admirably elucidated; no edition has been published in a separate form. Antichrist has agitated the Christian world from the earliest ages; and his craft has been to mislead the thoughtless, by …
John Bunyan—The Works of John Bunyan Volumes 1-3

The Providence of God
Q-11: WHAT ARE GOD'S WORKS OF PROVIDENCE? A: God's works of providence are the acts of his most holy, wise, and powerful government of his creatures, and of their actions. Of the work of God's providence Christ says, My Father worketh hitherto and I work.' John 5:17. God has rested from the works of creation, he does not create any new species of things. He rested from all his works;' Gen 2:2; and therefore it must needs be meant of his works of providence: My Father worketh and I work.' His kingdom …
Thomas Watson—A Body of Divinity

Concerning Christian Liberty
CHRISTIAN faith has appeared to many an easy thing; nay, not a few even reckon it among the social virtues, as it were; and this they do, because they have not made proof of it experimentally, and have never tasted of what efficacy it is. For it is not possible for any man to write well about it, or to understand well what is rightly written, who has not at some time tasted of its spirit, under the pressure of tribulation. While he who has tasted of it, even to a very small extent, can never write, …
Martin Luther—First Principles of the Reformation

And for Your Fearlessness against them Hold this Sure Sign -- Whenever There Is...
43. And for your fearlessness against them hold this sure sign--whenever there is any apparition, be not prostrate with fear, but whatsoever it be, first boldly ask, Who art thou? And from whence comest thou? And if it should be a vision of holy ones they will assure you, and change your fear into joy. But if the vision should be from the devil, immediately it becomes feeble, beholding your firm purpose of mind. For merely to ask, Who art thou [1083] ? and whence comest thou? is a proof of coolness. …
Athanasius—Select Works and Letters or Athanasius

Isaiah
CHAPTERS I-XXXIX Isaiah is the most regal of the prophets. His words and thoughts are those of a man whose eyes had seen the King, vi. 5. The times in which he lived were big with political problems, which he met as a statesman who saw the large meaning of events, and as a prophet who read a divine purpose in history. Unlike his younger contemporary Micah, he was, in all probability, an aristocrat; and during his long ministry (740-701 B.C., possibly, but not probably later) he bore testimony, as …
John Edgar McFadyen—Introduction to the Old Testament