[2] This we may rest satisfied of, that whensoever God's hand is upon us, we must either yield a voluntary, or be forced to a violent, submission. If our stubbornness is such that we will not bend, it is certain that our weakness is also such that we must needs break. If God's message will not win upon Pharaoh, His plagues shall compel him, and therefore, when He sent Moses to him, He put a rod into his hand, as well as a word into his mouth. When God fully purposes to afflict a man, he is like a bird in a net, the more he strives and flutters, the more he is entangled; for the Supreme Judge of all things is resolved to go through with His great work of judgment, and to make all obstinate, sturdy sinners know, that He has power to constrain where His goodness will not persuade.--_South,_ 1633-1716. THE DIVINE IDEA OF REDEMPTION. i. 25, 26. _And I will turn my hand upon thee, and purely purge away thy dross, and take away thy tin: and I will restore thy judges as at the first, and thy counsellors as at the beginning: afterward thou shalt be called, The city of righteousness, The faithful city._ We have here the promise of a redemption which God would accomplish for Jerusalem, and from the terms of the promise, especially taken in connection with the preceding statements (vers. 21-23), we may learn what God's idea of redemption is: it is to purge away all that debases and to restore all that is lost. In other words, _redemption consists in restoration to the Divine ideal._ Such was the redemption which God promises to accomplish for Jerusalem; such is the redemption which He offers to accomplish for us. Here we have-- +I. A correction of a common error.+ Most men, when they hear of redemption, think of it merely as salvation from suffering, rescue from the peril of hell. This is a _consequence_ of redemption, but redemption consists in the cleansing of our nature from all defilement, and in our restoration to the Divine ideal of humanity (Col. iii. 10; Eph. iv. 24, 13). God is going to do something grander for us than save us from hell. He is going to make us "meet" for heaven (1 John iii. 2). It would be truer to say that God's idea of redemption is "salvation _by_ suffering," than to say that it is "salvation _from_ suffering." The figure used in the text is expressive of the keenest suffering--"I will purge away thy dross." but dross is purged away by _fire!_ Suffering is one of the instruments which God most frequently uses to save men from sin.