_That the righteous may be saved._ Did He not send His prophets forth to instruct and warn, even the men in whose hearts are the germs of righteousness and holiness of life would follow the multitude to do evil: _they_ hear, and turn, and live: and this is ample justification of the prophet's mission. Those who perish would have perished without it; but without it those who are saved would have perished also. And in this respect Isaiah's ministry was not in vain: while to the vast majority of the nation it was "the savour of death unto death," it was to a few--"the holy seed" of whom also this chapter speaks to us--"the savour of live unto life." They learned to trust, not in Assyria nor in Egypt, but in the Holy One of Israel, and therefore were "kept in perfect peace" amid all the convulsions and catastrophes of their time. The passage seemed at the outset full of mystery; our tendency was to shun it as one that would not bear investigation, as one about which the least that could be said the better, as one which we could have wished had never been written. What do we see now? That here we have an illustration of the Psalmist's saying, "Clouds and darkness are round about Him"--so to our purblind vision it seems, the brightness being _so_ bright that it dazzles and blinds us; "but righteousness and judgment are the habitation of His throne." What should we learn from this? 1. _Never to fear to investigate anything in God's Word._ There is nothing here which its friends need wish to hide out of sight; it is all worthy of Him from whom it came (Ps. xix. 9). 2. _Never to distrust God because of anything in either His Word or His Providence._ Things that might cause distrust we shall meet with; some of them we shall never explain here, when we can know only "in part;" yet let us keep fast hold of the glorious and gladdening truth, that "in Him is no darkness at all." God is light; God is love. FOOTNOTES: