Expositions of Holy Scripture | Page 8

the unwilling
attention of the roisterers, in verses 13-17, which throb with vehemence
of warning and gloomy eloquence. What can such a people come to but
destruction? Knowledge must languish, hunger and thirst must follow.
Like some monster's gaping mouth, the pit yawns for them; and, drawn
as by irresistible attraction, the pomp and the wicked, senseless jollity

elide down into it. In the universal catastrophe, one thing alone stands
upright, and is lifted higher, because all else has sunk so far,-the
righteous judgment of the forgotten God. The grim picture is as true for
individuals and their deaths as for a nation and its decay. And modern
nations cannot afford to have this ulcer of drunkenness draining away
their strength any more than Judah could. 'By the soul only are the
nations great and free,' and a people can be neither where the drink
fiend has his way.
Three woes follow which are closely connected. That pronounced on
daring evil-doers, who not only let sin draw them to itself, but go more
than halfway to meet it, needing no temptation, but drawing it to them
eagerly, and scoffing at the merciful warnings of fatal consequences,
comes first. Next is a woe on those who play fast and loose with plain
morality, sophisticating conscience, and sapping the foundations of law.
Such juggling follows sensual indulgence such as drunkenness, when it
becomes habitual and audacious, as in the preceding woe. Loose or
perverted codes of morality generally spring from bad living, seeking
to shelter itself. Vicious principles are an afterthought to screen vicious
practices. The last subject of the triple woes is self-conceit and pretence
to superior illumination. Such very superior persons are emancipated
from the rules which bind the common herd. They are so very clever
that they have far outgrown the creeping moralities, which may do for
old women and children. Do we not know the sort of people? Have we
none of them surviving to-day?
Then Isaiah comes back to his theme of drunkenness, but in a new
connection. It poisons the fountain of justice. There is a world of
indignant contempt in the prophet's scathing picture of those who are
'mighty' and 'men of strength,'-but how is their strength shown? They
can stand any quantity of wine, and can 'mix their drinks,' and yet look
sober! What a noble use to put a good constitution to! These valiant
topers are in authority as judges, and they sell their judgments to get
money for their debauches. We do not see much of such scandals
among us, but yet we have heard of leagues between liquor-sellers and
municipal authorities, which certainly do not 'make for righteousness.'
When shall we learn and practise the lesson that Isaiah was reading his

countrymen,--that it is fatal to a nation when the private character of
public men is regarded as of no account in political and civic life? The
prophet had no doubt as to what must be the end of a state of things in
which the very courts of law were honeycombed with corruption, and
demoralised by the power of drink. His tremendous image of a fierce
fire raging across a dry prairie, and burning the grass to its very roots,
while the air is stifling with the thick 'dust' of the conflagration,
proclaims the sure fate, sooner or later, of every community and
individual that 'rejects the law of the Lord of Hosts, and despises the
word of the Holy One of Israel.' Change the name, and the tale is told
of us; for it is 'righteousness that exalteth a nation,' and no single vice
drags after it more infallibly such a multitude of attendant demons as
the vice of drunkenness, which is a crying sin of England to-day.

VISION AND SERVICE
'In the year that king Uzziah died I saw also the Lord sitting upon a
throne, high and lifted up, and His train filled the temple. 2. Above it
stood the seraphims: each one had six wings; with twain he covered his
face, and with twain he covered his feet, and with twain he did fly. 3.
And one cried unto another, and said, Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord of
Hosts: the whole earth is full of His glory. 4. And the posts of the door
moved at the voice of him that cried, and the house was filled with
smoke. 5. Then said I, Woe is me! for I am undone; because I am a man
of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips: for
mine eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts. 6. Then flew one of
the seraphims onto me, having a live coal in his hand, which he had
taken with the tongs from off