LECTURE XXXVIII.

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ISAIAH v.1.

Now will I sing to my well-beloved a song of my beloved touching his vineyard.

Whatever difficulties we may find in understanding and applying many parts of the prophetical Scriptures, yet every thinking person could follow readily enough, I suppose, the chapter from which these words are taken, as it was read in the course of this morning’s service; and he would feel, while understanding it as said, immediately and in the first instance, of the Jewish Church or nation, seven centuries and a half before the birth of our Lord, that it was no less applicable to this Christian church and nation at the present period.  We cannot, indeed, expect to find a minute agreement in particular points between ourselves and the Jews of old; the difference of times and circumstances renders this impossible; both they and we stand, on the one hand, in so nearly the same relation to God, and we both so share, on the other hand, in the same sinful human nature, that the complaints, and remonstrances of the prophets of old may often, be repeated, even in the very same words, by the Christian preacher now.

If this be so, then the language of various parts of the service of the Church in this season of Advent ought to excite in us no small apprehension; for whilst the lessons from the Old Testament describe the evil state of the Jewish people in the eighth century before Christ, and threaten it with destruction, so the gospels for this day, and for last Sunday, speak of the evil state of the same people when our Lord was upon earth; and the chapter from which the gospel of this day is taken, contains, as we know, a full prophecy of the destruction that was, for the second time, going to overwhelm the earthly Jerusalem.  We cannot but fear, therefore, that if our state now be like that of God’s people of old, eight centuries before our Lord’s coming, and again like their state at his coming:  and if, after the first period, their city and temple were burnt, and they were carried captive to Babylon,—­and again, after the second period, the city and temple were burnt again, and the people were dispersed, even to this day,—­that, as the punishment has twice surely followed the sin, so it will not fail to find it out in this third case also.

And be it remembered that the people, or church of God, as such, can receive their punishment only in this world:  for, taken as a body, it is an institution for this world only.  We each of us, no doubt, shall have our own separate individual judgment after death; and, in the mean time, our fortunes and our character often bear no just correspondence with each other.  But nations and churches have their judgments here:  and although God’s long-suffering so suspends it for many generations that it may seem as if it would never fall, yet does it come surely at the last; and almost always we can ourselves trace the connexion between the sin and the punishment, and can see that the one was clearly the consequence of the other.  And thus our church and nation may feel their national judgments in this world quite independently of the several personal judgments which will be passed upon us each hereafter individually, when we stand before Christ’s judgment seat.