Isaiah 49

Difficulty in finding out a truth, and in inculcating it (Isaiah 28:10): Precept must be upon precept, line upon line; some may teach all their lives, and the word take no impression. They complain as (Isaiah 49:4): I have spent my labour in vain. Plough on rocks.

Assurance is [〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉], the first fruits of paradise, one smile of God's face, one glance of his eye, one crumb of the hidden manna, is so sweet a delicious, that it deserves our waiting. 3. God has given a promise, that we shall not wait in vain, (Isaiah 49:23…

He is placed as the sun among the lesser stars. The Scripture calls kings fathers (Isaiah 49:23): Kings shall be your nursing fathers — they are to nurse up their subjects in piety, by their good edicts and examples, and to nurse them up in peace and plenty. Such nourishing fath…

The application is to meet with that conceit that befalls all who are in darkness: they think that of all men, God regards them least. 'Zion said, God has forgotten me' (Isaiah 49:15). So David: 'God has forgotten to be merciful.'

God entirely loves his People, Isaiah 43.4. He engraves them upon the Palms of his hands, Isaiah 49.16. He sets them as a Seal upon his Breast, Canticles 8.16.

They are his Hephzibah, or darling (Isaiah 62:4). He engraves them upon the palms of his hands, that they may be never out of his eye (Isaiah 49:16). He rejoices over them with joy, and rests in his love (Zephaniah 3:17).

You are not the first to have mistaken God's ends in desertion. Isaiah 49:14: 'Zion said, The Lord has forsaken me, my God has forgotten me' — was it so indeed? Nothing less — verse 15: 'Can a mother forget?...'

Why, surely it is much easier for you to forget your dear child while living and most endearing, much more when dead and undesirable, than it is for your God to forget you. Isaiah 49:15: Can a woman forget her nursing child, that she should not have compassion on the son of her…

2. Judgment is taken passively for judgment passed on him, and it looks not only to the procedure of Pilate, of the Chief Priest, and of the Scribes and Pharisees, but to a judicial process which the justice of God led against him, in which respect he answered (as the words afte…

3. They are called Christ's seed, in respect of the care that He has of them. Never was a mother more tender of the sucking child, than He is of His believing children; therefore, says the Lord (Isaiah 49:15), a mother may forget her sucking child; but I will not forget you: hen…

May not this make the argument yet the more strong, that He is not seeking this satisfaction of strangers, but of His own people, nor of righteous folks, but of sinners, who are lying under the curse, and whose happiness lies in giving Him this satisfaction? And when it is thus…

A necessity lies upon ministers to go about their work, but when the Word does no more but buff on them, so to speak, it makes them to cry as this same prophet does (Isaiah 6:11), How long Lord? And fourth, this also has influence on their being so much weighted, even the concer…

There is not only impiety, but want of humanity, that the Church had rather that wearied Jesus Christ should fall down and die in the streets, in a rainy and snowy night, when his locks were wet with rain, than that he should come in and lodge in the soul. And let us not think t…

Nor can Jesus Christ but tenderly, lovingly, and compassionately deal with his beloved; for Christ must draw them (John 6:44), sweetly allure them (Hosea 2:14; Isaiah 40:1), take them by the two arms, and teach them to walk, as the mother does the young child, who has not yet le…

Psalm 87:5, and of Sion it is said, this man — Hebrew, [in non-Latin alphabet] man and man shall be born in Sion. Isaiah 49:1: The Lord has called me from the womb, from the bowels of my mother has he made mention of my name. You are (head, or member, or of which the Prophet spo…

And to clear it further, we must conceive that the promises of forgiveness are not as the pardons of a prince, which merely contain an expression of his royal word for pardoning, so as we in seeking of it do rest upon and have to do only with his word and seal which we have to s…

On earth, sureties are accustomed to enter into one and the same bond with the creditors, so as the creditor may seize on which of the two he will, whether on the debtor or on the surety, and so (as usually) on the debtor first, for him we call the principal. But in this covenan…

And the like effect those eminent sufferings of Christ for us, have certainly produced in him; we may see this in parents, for besides that natural affection planted in mothers toward their children, (as they are theirs) the very pains, hard labor, and travail they were at in br…

1 John 5:12. He that has the Son, has life, and he that has not the Son, has not life. We now come to speak of the third way of having Christ, and that is by way of covenant (Isaiah 49:8): I will give you for a covenant of the people, to establish the earth, to cause to inherit…

This assurance that our callings are of God, is of great use. It makes the Minister to make a conscience of his duty: it is his comfort in trouble (Isaiah 49:2; 2 Corinthians 2:15). And to the hearers it is a means of great reverence, and obedience.

For it must suffice us, that the work we take in hand is pleasing to God. And though it be in vain in respect of men, it is not so before God (Isaiah 49:4 and 2 Corinthians 2:18). This must every man remember in his place and calling, for the establishing of his mind against all…

They must remember, that if their Gospel being delivered with such simplicity, with such assiduity, with such evidence and demonstration of the Spirit, be [reconstructed: hid, as it is] hid to them that perish, in whom the God of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelieve…

Under this term he includes all the predictions which relate to the spread of Christ’s kingdom. But if Simeon, when holding a little child in his arms, could stretch his mind to the utmost boundaries of the world, and acknowledge the power of Christ to be everywhere present, how…

Would God, who thus opens the hearts of men, shut his own? Let us also remember that passage of Isaiah, “Though a mother forget her children,” (Isaiah 49:15,) yet the Lord will be like himself, “Le Seigneur ne changera point;” — “the Lord will not change.”

For he means that the day is now at hand, which had been appointed by the eternal purpose of God for the salvation of Jerusalem, and had been foretold by the prophets. Thus (says Isaiah) is the accepted time, this is the day of salvation, (Isaiah 49:8; 2 Corinthians 6:2.) Seek t…

He confirms what he had said about the approaching vengeance of God, by saying that the only method of avoiding destruction will be taken from them. For that was the accepted time, the day of salvation, (Isaiah 49:8; 2 Corinthians 6:2,) so long as that very person who had come t…

He is full of bowels, as the word in James 5:11 signifies. Yea, there are not only bowels of compassion in our God, but the tenderness of bowels, like those of a Mother to her sucking child, Isaiah 49:15 He feels all our pains as if the apple of his eye were touched, Zechariah 2…

To have the breaches made upon our Families repaired, is a Providence to be owned with a thankful heart. When God shall say to a man, as he speaks in another case to the Church, Isaiah 49:20 The Children which you shalt have after you hast lost the other, shall say again in your…

He calls his own sheep by name; this notes a special care Christ has of his sheep, and a special love that he bears to them. So (Isaiah 49:1) the Lord has called me from the womb, from the bowels of my mother has he made mention of my name, it notes the special care, and the spe…

We know how God rebukes it in Sion. Sion said the Lord has forsaken me, and my Lord has forgotten me, Isaiah 49:14. But how foolish is Sion, how froward, how unbelieving in this matter; what ground has she for such sinful despondencies, such discouraging conclusions?

Such will be his Judgement at the last day, when both those, on the one hand, and the other, shall be suprized with his sentence, the one with joy, at the riches of his grace; The other with terror at the severity of his justice, Matthew 25 37, 38, 39. and 44, 45. This case is d…

This reason stands in a comparison of vnequalls, drawen from the lesse to the greater; from the care which is ordinarily seene in naturall parents ouer their children, to prove vndoubtedly the most tender care of our heauenly father ouer us. And this kind of reasoning is vsuall…

4. Misbelief bears out still this to a tempted soul, that Christ cares not for it; indeed, that he disdains such a person and their company. 5. Christ is tender of fainting believers, and of their consolation, even when they suspect him most, and when their suspicions are most u…

It remains then, that they must be the words of the daughters of Jerusalem, wondering at the change that was to be seen on the Church, her case being now compared with what it was before; and wondering at believers in her, upon the same account also, as almost mistaking them, an…

2. It imports, a settledness in that condition, that she may be set there, as the Lord says of Jerusalem, (2 Kings 21:4) there I have put or set my Name, and as it is, (Psalm 132:14) there will I dwell. 3. To be set as a seal on his arm, takes in further, that, as she would be a…

The same is promised, Isaiah 54:17. "No weapon that is formed against thee, shall prosper; and every tongue that shall rise against thee in judgment, thou shalt condemn." And again, Isaiah 49:14, 15, 16. "But Zion said, The Lord hath forsaken me, and my Lord hath forgotten me. C…

Captains pay their bedridden soldiers duly, however they do not march nor carry arms. Though Israel be not gathered, yet he shall be glorious in the eyes of my Lord, and my Lord shall be my strength (Isaiah 49:5). My garland — the banished minister (the title of Aberdeen) — sham…

And therefore consider what a great deal of mischief scandalous lives do, and if you finde your hearts inclining to any sensual way, that you are like to give scandal, take heed of it, for it is the greatest mischief that can be devised. Those who join with the Church of God, sh…

Let, says the spouse, your love be manifested to me in your tender and powerful persuasion of me. Two things are evident in this request: the continual mindfulness of Christ of the soul, as having its condition still in his eye, engraved on his arm (Isaiah 49:15-16), with the ex…

He is Jesus who delivers us from the wrath to come (1 Thessalonians 1:10). 2. It is the delivery of one from bondage or captivity; we are without him, all prisoners and captives: bound in prison (Isaiah 61:1), sitting in darkness, in the prison house (Isaiah 42:7; Isaiah 49:9).…

And he is the Surety of the new covenant, Hebrews 7:22, undertaking for and on behalf of those with whom that covenant was made. Hence he is said to be given for a covenant to the people, Isaiah 42:6, and a leader, Isaiah 49:8. He was the second Adam, 1 Corinthians 15:45-47, to…

And second, as it is free mercy, it is tender mercy, the word in the Prophet signifies tenderness or bowels of compassion, and such are the mercies of our God towards us (Jeremiah 31:20). The bowels of a father (Psalm 103:13), and if you think not that tenderness enough, those o…

It is a pure vulgar piece of goodness to be helpful and bountiful to friends, or to such as are within appearance of requital — it is a trading kind of commerce that: but pity and bounty that needs no inducements, but the meeting of a fit object to work on, where it can expect n…

Natural parents, whose affections are stinted and limited, nay, corrupt and sinful, when a son comes for a fish, will not give him a scorpion; when he comes for bread, will not give him a stone; that were a monstrous thing, vile, and unnatural. So (Isaiah 49:15), Can a woman for…

And then for good magistrates, to patronize and protect God's people, and promote his work with them. There is a promise, Kings shall be your nursing-fathers, and their queens your nursing-mothers, etc. (Isaiah 49:23). Rest from persecution is a great blessing: Then had the chur…

When the Christian religion came first abroad in the world, not many noble, nor many mighty were called; the powers of the world were against it, and yet it held up the head, and was dispersed far and near. Falsehoods need some outward interest to back them, and the supports of…

Go into the sanctuary, and God will help you to reconcile things (Psalm 73:16, 17); otherwise the difficulty will be too hard for you. The children of God that have suspected, or displeased him, have always found themselves in an error (Isaiah 49:14, 15). His promise is the ligh…

3. Man that was created by God, was created to serve him. He formed us from the womb to be his servants, as well as the first man (Isaiah 49:5). Adam indeed was appointed for this use; all other creatures were made to serve God, but man especially by the design of his creation:…

But God as he is metaphorically said to have the affection: so he has an all-sufficient power to remove any evil present, or avert that which is imminent. With that of a Mother (Isaiah 49:15): Can a woman forget her sucking child that she should not have compassion on the son of…

The child cries as if the mother was gone, but she is but hidden, or about other business. Isaiah 49:14-15 — Zion said, The Lord has forsaken me, and my God has forgotten me. In the misgivings of our hearts, we think God has cast off all care, and all thought of us.