He will be eased of his adversaries, by taking vengeance on his enemies; he will spue them out of his mouth, and so be eased of them, Rev. iii. 16. He speaks with pleasure of the day of vengeance being in his heart, ch. lxiii. 4. If God's professing people conform not to his image, as the Holy One of Israel, (v. 4.) they shall feel the weight of his hand as the Mighty One of Israel: his power, which was wont to be engaged for them, shall be armed against them.
Two ways God will ease himself of this grievance:
(1.) By reforming his church and restoring good judges in the room of those corrupt ones. Though the church has a great deal of dross in it, yet it shall not be thrown away, but refined; (v. 25.) "I will purely purge away thy dross; I will amend what is amiss. Vice and profaneness shall be suppressed, and put out of countenance; oppressors displaced, and deprived of their power to do mischief." When things are ever so bad, God can set them to rights, and bring about a complete reformation; when he begins, he will make an end, will take away all the tin.
Observe, [1.] The reformation of a people is God's own work; and, if ever it be done, it is he that brings it about; "I will turn my hand upon thee; I will do that for the reviving of religion, which I did, at first, for the planting of it." He can do it easily, with the turn of his hand; but he does it effectually, for what opposition can stand before the arm of the Lord revealed? [2.] He does it by blessing them with good magistrates, and good ministers of state; (v. 26.) "I will restore thy judges, as at the first, to put the laws into execution against evil-doers; and thy counsellors, to transact public affairs, as at the beginning;" either the same persons that had been turned out, or others of the same character. [3.] He does it by restoring judgment and righteousness among them, (v. 27.) by planting in men's minds principles of justice, and governing their lives by those principles. Men may do much by external restraints; but God does it effectually by the influences of his Spirit, as a Spirit of Judgment, ch. iv. 4.—xxviii. 6. See Ps. lxxxv. 10, 11. [4.] The reformation of a people will be the redemption of them and their converts, for sin is the worst captivity, the worst slavery; and the great and eternal redemption is that by which Israel is redeemed from all his iniquities; (Ps. cxxx. 8.) and the blessed Redeemer is he that turns away ungodliness from Jacob, (Rom. xi. 26.) and saves his people from their sins, Matth. i. 21. All the redeemed of the Lord shall be converts, and their conversion is their redemption. Her converts, or, they that return of her; so the margin. God works deliverance for us, by preparing us for it with judgment and righteousness. [5.] The reviving of a people's virtue, is the restoring of their honour; Afterward thou shalt be called the city of righteousness, the faithful city; First, Thou shalt be so; the reforming of the magistracy is a good step toward the reforming of the city and the country too. Secondly, Thou shalt have the praise of being so; and a greater praise there cannot be to any city, than to be called the city of righteousness, and to retrieve the ancient honour, which was lost, when the faithful city became a harlot, v. 21.
(2.) By cutting off those that hate to be reformed, that they may not remain either as snares, or as scandals, to the faithful city. [1.] It is an utter ruin that is here threatened. They shall be destroyed and consumed, and not chastened and corrected only. The extirpation of them will be necessary to the redemption of Zion. [2.] It is a universal ruin, which will involve the transgressors and the sinners together; the openly profane, that have quite cast off all religion, and the hypocrites, that live wicked lives under the cloak of a religious profession—they shall both be destroyed together; for they are both alike an abomination to God, both those that contradict religion, and those that contradict themselves in their pretensions to it. And they that forsake the Lord, to whom they had formerly joined themselves, shall be consumed as the water in the conduit-pipe is soon consumed when it is cut off from the fountain. [3.] It is an inevitable ruin; there is no escaping it.
First, Their idols shall not be able to help them; the oaks which they have desired, and the gardens which they have chosen; the images, the dunghill-gods, which they have worshipped in their groves, and under the green trees, which they were fond of, and wedded to, for which they forsook the true God, and which they worshipped privately in their own gardens, even then when idolatry was publicly discountenanced. This was the practice of the transgressors and the sinners; but they shall be ashamed of it, not with a show of repentance, but of despair, v. 29. They shall have cause to be ashamed of them; for after all the court they have made to them, they shall find no benefit by them; but the idols themselves shall go into captivity, ch. xlvi. 1, 2. Note, They that make creatures their confidence, are but preparing confusion for themselves. You were fond of the oaks and the gardens; but you yourselves shall be, 1. Like an oak without leaves, withered and blasted, and stripped of all its ornaments. Justly do those wear no leaves, that bear no fruit; as the fig-tree that Christ cursed. 2. Like a garden without water, that is neither rained upon, nor watered with the foot, (Deut. xi. 10.) that has no fountains, (Cant. iv. 15.) and consequently, is parched, and all the fruits of it gone to decay. Thus shall they be, that trust in idols, or in an arm of flesh, Jer. xvii. 5, 6. But they that trust in God never find him as a wilderness, or as waters that fail, Jer. ii. 31.
Secondly, They shall not be able to help themselves; (v. 31.) Even the strong man shall be as tow; not only soon broken, and pulled to pieces, but easily catching fire; and his work, (so the margin reads it,) that by which he hopes to fortify and secure himself, shall be as a spark to his own tow, shall set him on fire, and he and his work shall burn together. His own counsels shall be his ruin; his own sin kindles the fire of God's wrath, which shall burn to the lowest hell, and none shall quench it. When the sinner has made himself as tow and stubble, and God makes himself to him as a consuming fire, what can prevent the utter ruin of the sinner?
Now all this is applicable, 1. To the blessed work of reformation, which was wrought in Hezekiah's time, after the abominable corruptions of the reign of Ahaz. Then good men came to be preferred, and the faces of the wicked were filled with shame. 2. To their return out of their captivity in Babylon, which had thoroughly cured them of idolatry. 3. To the gospel-kingdom, and the pouring out of the Spirit, by which the New Testament church should be made a new Jerusalem, a city of righteousness. 4. To the second coming of Christ, when he shall thoroughly purge his floor, his field, shall gather the wheat into his barn, into his garner, and burn the chaff, the tares, with unquenchable fire.
CHAP. II.
With this chapter begins a new sermon, which is continued in the two following chapters. The subject of this discourse is Judah and Jerusalem, v. 1. In this chapter, the prophet speaks, I. Of the glory of the christians, Jerusalem, the gospel-church in the latter days, in the accession of many to it, (v. 2, 3.) and the great peace it should introduce into the world, (v. 4.) whence he infers the duty of the house of Jacob, v. 5. II. Of the shame of the Jews, Jerusalem, as it then was, and as it would be after its rejecting of the gospel, and being rejected of
