DISCOURSE IV.

ISAIAH, xxxii. 2.—“A man shall be as an hiding-place from the wind, and a covert from the tempest; as rivers of water in a dry place; as the shadow of a great rock in a weary land."

THE man here spoken of, we think it cannot be doubted, is "the man Christ Jesus." The imagery of the whole prediction, which occupies the first eight verses of the chapter, and which describes the reign of a righteous and benignant sovereign, is all descriptive of the genuine effects and tendencies of the Redeemer's kingdom throughout all periods of its history, and of what will be the general face of things when that kingdom shall finally and universally prevail. Whenever, in the book of prophecy, a reign of such a character is described,—a reign of moral light, and truth, and purity, and peace,—it is uniformly the reign of the Messiah. We entertain, therefore, no shadow of doubt that the prediction here recorded refers, not secondarily, through Hezekiah, to whom it has been attributed, but directly and expressly to the Messiah,-the promised "King

of Righteousness and King of Peace," and to the blessings and the securities of his benignant reign.

The imagery of the text is derived from those wide and parched deserts with which the Holy Land is skirted, and which have supplied the prophets so largely with striking and affecting allusions. The figure is presented to our fancy of a traveller passing through the vast wildernesses, for example of Arabia, so well known to Israel as the scene of their forefathers' wanderings, exposed to the sudden and overwhelming incursion of those terrific winds, which, when they light down in their fury on the desert, heave it up into billows of fiery dust, whose sweeping and resistless tide has buried, not travellers alone, or caravans of the merchant, but proud kings and mighty hosts, in depths of drifted sand; so that no relic of their pomp nor footstep of their march hath been left to tell where ingloriously they perished. The pilgrim beholds afar the rising and approaching storm; he shudders in hopeless terror, or resigns himself in calm despair to his fate,—when suddenly, by a rare unlooked-for providence, he espies within his reach a hiding-place and covert, high-reared above the level of the sandy wreaths, and strong to resist the fury of the sweeping whirlwind. Thither he flees, and there he dwells secure, smiling at the storm as it rushes innoxious by on its red overshadowing wings.-This danger past, we are presented with another scene of the desert-pilgrimage.

The wanderer is proceeding on his journey,—not now in tempest, but in calm,-yet the calm is grim, and dead, and overpowering. In the brazen heavens above there is no cloud, the sun from the very zenith glares directly down, "and fiercely sheds intolerable day." Around him lies the parched sand, and before him a weary path of hot unsheltered wilderness. His soul faileth him for thirst,"-his frame dissolves beneath the penetrating heat. He is ready to lay himself down and die. Sweet then to his ear the sound of waters murmuring near him, and the prospect of a great projecting rock stretching its cool canopy and grateful shadow far across the plain. A new alacrity breathes through his fainting heart, and nerves his languid limbs. With eager gladness he presses beneath the rocky shelter, and in the spring which, from the foot of that doubly beneficent rock, leaps sparkling into day, bathes his baked lips, and refreshes his parched tongue,-till, rested and revived beside the shaded fount, he resumes his course with fresh vigour and desire, and happily arrives at length at his desired destination, the green fields or stately cities that bloom and shine beyond the verge of the wilderness.

Such is the emblem, and the Christian spiritual history is the reality,-a history leading him through a desert world, exposed to fierce and frequent storms, and where he is often apt to sink down in languor and desponding weariness. But then his happiness

is, amidst all the storms and faintings of the wilderness, to have provided for him, by the Almighty Providence, a sheltering covert, a reviving spring, a rock of refreshing shade. That covert,-that spring, -that rock is Christ; in whom, if he do but understand, and feel, and use his privilege of access to him, he may find, amidst all his perils, all his toils, a constant security, and a constant refreshment.

First, then, let us contemplate the man Christ Jesus as the source of the believer's security, according to the image in the first part of the text,-" A man shall be as an hiding-place from the wind, and a covert from the tempest."

And here, 1. We observe, that Christ is the believer's security against the storm of Divine indignation.

You know, my brethren, that the world, which "lieth in wickedness," for that reason lieth beneath the curse. The "children of disobedience" are necessarily the "children of wrath." But what images shall rightly represent all that the curse, the wrath of the Omnipotent let loose upon the soul, implies? O Lord Jehovah, "who knoweth the power of thy wrath? According to thy fear, so is thy wrath." Listen, on this awful subject, to the words of God himself; from their very simplicity more awful than the darkest array of most terrific images: "He that believeth not the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God abideth on him."—" For the

wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who hold the truth in unrighteousness,"" who, after their hardness and impenitent heart, treasure up unto themselves wrath against the day of wrath, and revelation of the righteous judgment of God,-who will render to every man according to his deeds; to them who, by patient continuance in well-doing, seek for glory, honour, and immortality, eternal life; but unto them that are contentious, and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness, indignation and wrath, tribulation and anguish, upon every soul of man that doeth evil; of the Jew first, and also of the Gentile,"-" in the day when the Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven in flaming fire, taking vengeance on them that know not God, and that obey not the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ; who shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord, and from the glory of his power." If such, my brethren, be the plain and literal statements of God's infallible Word, what images of whirlwind and of storm can be esteemed too strong for describing such a vengeance, such a ruin? Do we overstrain propriety when we represent its approach as like that of the tempests to which the text alludes ? "On the wicked he shall rain snares, fire, and brimstone, and an horrible tempest: this shall be the portion of their cup." That tempest is approaching fast, as with a whirlwind's wing,