A mark of good government, etc.
Three lines of thought are here laid down. We have—
I. A MARK OF GOOD GOVERNMENT. The displacement of the unworthy and the elevation of the good and wise. Under the reign of the righteous King (Isaiah 32:1) the "fool will no longer be called a nobleman," the man of mean character but lofty rank will be made to know his true place in the commonwealth; on the other hand, the man who has in him the qualities of nobility (Isaiah 32:8) shall have the opportunity of dealing graciously and bountifully. There is no surer sign of demoralization, no more certain indication of approaching ruin in any community, than the promotion of the unfit and the unworthy; and there is no healthier symptom than the advancement of the upright and the capable. Let nations, societies, Churches, look to it.
II. A HINT AS TO SIN'S LARGE DIMENSIONS.
1. Its tenacity of purpose. "The vile person will [continue to] speak villany, and his heart [to] work iniquity" (Isaiah 32:6). You may put him in a position in which you might hope that the commonest self-respect would ensure propriety of conduct, but you will be mistaken; the corrupt tree will bear evil fruit on any soil.
2. Its guilefulness. "To practice hypocrisy;" professing justice and purity, it enacts all that is unfair and evil.
3. Its falsity. "To utter error," etc. Sin, especially when found in high places, is most mischievous in that it scatters everywhere the fruitful seeds of error; it poisons the mind with misleading fancies, with shallow notions which may sound well but are essentially false and which conduct to wrong and ruin. Thus it leads men to act "against the Lord," for they pursue a path which he has forbidden, and they diffuse principles which are hostile to his reign.
4. Its heartlessness. (Isaiah 32:6.) What though the issue of those evil actions be that men's hearts are hungry and their souls athirst; what though they bring about impoverishment, destitution—bodily or spiritual, or both together,—let the cup be drained, let the game be played out!
5. Its unscrupulousness. Its "instruments are evil" (Isaiah 32:7).
6. Its effrontery. (Isaiah 32:7.) They whom it is wronging may be the poor, and therefore the appropriate objects of compassion; they may be the innocent, those who are in the right, and therefore the proper objects of regard; nothing but downright falsehood may suffice to prevail against them (Ahab and Naboth). No matter; let the case be established, let sentence be executed!
III. A COMMENDATION OF GENEROSITY. "The liberal deviseth liberal things," etc. (Isaiah 32:8).
1. A man of a noble nature will find opportunities for doing generous things. How well a man serves the Church or the world is not a question of circumstance half so much as a matter of character. Given a free, generous, open-hearted man, and you may confidently reckon on repeated and continuous acts of unselfish usefulness. 'Jesus "went about doing good, for God was with him," and because God was in him; because, in him, as in a perennial fountain, dwelt Divine love, pity, self-sacrifice. We need care comparatively little about arranging opportunities of service, though that is not a matter of indifference; what is of supreme consequence is that those we teach and train should have planted within them the sacred seeds of holy, Christian generosity.
2. Generous measures will give a noble heart stability: by them "he shall stand."
The peaceable fruit of righteousness.
Righteousness and peace may be supposed to be entirely separate things; by those who look only on the surface they may even be imagined to be opposed to one another. In fact, they are closely and even vitally related to each other.
I. THOSE WHO ARE INCAPABLE OF RIGHTEOUSNESS ARE UNRECEPTIVE OF PEACE. To them peace is simply incommunicable; it does not come within the range of their faculties. The horse, the swallow, the salmon, the unintelligent and irresponsible animal, may have quietude and comfort, but it cannot enjoy peace, in the fullest and truest sense in which we use that word. It is only capable of that sense of satisfaction which attends a perfect adjustment of its circumstances to its bodily nature; but that is not peace. Peace is that spiritual contentment which results from inward as well as outward harmony—from a sense of rectitude, a consciousness that everything is right in its most important, most sacred relationships. They who are beneath the sense of responsibility, and are therefore incapable of righteousness, can never possibly attain to the possession of peace; they are constitutionally below it.
II. THEY WHO HAVE LOST RIGHTEOUSNESS MUST REGAIN IT BEFORE THEY CAN HAVE THE HERITAGE OF PEACE.
1. This is so with the comer, unity. When the country, or the company, or the Church has fallen into disorder because it has fallen into error and the commission of wrong, there is but one way to regain the harmony which has been lost. Absolutism will never yield it. Force will not secure it. Compromise will not permanently restore it. Nothing will avail until righteousness is re-established. Justice must be done to those to whom it has been denied. Rights must be conceded to those who have fairly won them. Relations must be adjusted to changed conditions; every one and everything must make way for rectitude. In no other way whatever will the path of peace be found.
2. It is thus with the human soul. We have all wandered from the way of wisdom and of righteousness; we have refused to God the love, the reverence, the service which is his due and which it is our highest interest to render. We have thereby become disordered, disquieted, confused; instead of dwelling in "a peaceable habitation," in "quiet resting-places," we have become inhabitants of a realm of condemnation, reproach, peril,, agitation, misery. There is no way back to the home of rest which we have left behind us but by a return to righteousness; that is to say, by repentance, the turning our back on the sinful selfishness in which we have been living, and becoming right with God, accepting the gracious offer of his Son our Savior (Matthew 11:28, Matthew 11:29).
III. RIGHTEOUSNESS WILL ENSURE PEACE BOTH IN POSSESSION AND IS PROSPECT. It will effect:
1. Reconciliation with God, and the consequent "peace which passes understanding"—a blissful, satisfying "rest unto the soul," which is incomparably more precious than any earthly satisfaction to the body or the spirit.
2. The inward and abiding rest which belongs to spiritual harmony; this is the invariable consequence of the soul being in a right relation with the Supreme, and with its fellows, and of all its faculties being rightly related to one another.
3. A peaceful departure from the present life.
4. A home in the quiet resting-place of the heavenly land.—C.