The Happy Effects of the Pouring out of the Spirit

Next Part The Happy Effects of the Pouring out of the Spirit 2

"Upon the land of my people shall come up thorns and briers; yes, upon all the houses of joy in the joyous city: Because the palaces shall be forsaken; the multitude of the city shall be left; the forts and towers shall be for dens forever, a joy of wild donkeys, a pasture of flocks; Until the Spirit is poured upon us from on high, and the wilderness be a fruitful field, and the fruitful field be counted for a forest. Then judgement shall dwell in the wilderness, and righteousness remain in the fruitful field. And the work of righteousness shall be peace; and the effect of righteousness quietness and assurance forever. And my people shall dwell in a peaceable habitation, and in sure dwellings, and in quiet resting places; When it shall hail, coming down on the forest; and the city shall be low in a low place." Isaiah 32:13-19

"And for the land of my people, a land overgrown with thorns and briers— yes, mourn for all houses of merriment and for this city of revelry. The fortress will be abandoned, the noisy city deserted; citadel and watchtower will become a wasteland forever, the delight of donkeys, a pasture for flocks—until the Spirit is poured upon us from on high, and the desert becomes a fertile field, and the fertile field seems like a forest. Justice will dwell in the desert and righteousness live in the fertile field. The fruit of righteousness will be peace; the effect of righteousness will be quietness and confidence forever. My people will live in peaceful dwelling places, in secure homes, in undisturbed places of rest." Isaiah 32:13-19

It is our lot to be born in an age of blood and slaughter; an age, in which mankind remarkably exemplify the character given of them long ago by an inspired pen, "Hateful, and hating one another;" an age, which has seen a strange revolution in that Britainabout three hundred years ago had crushed the power of France, and had the crown of that kingdom made over to her by treaty—now everywhere defeated by that very power; an age, in which the cause of liberty and the Protestant religion is in the most alarming danger, from the formidable confederacy of Popish tyrants and their vessels; an age, in which our liberty, our property, our lives, and our religion, which should be dearer to us than all, are no longer insured to us with the usual firmness of the British constitution—but disputed with a powerful invader; and the outcome of the contest is dreadfully uncertain. And in such an age can there be so stupid a soul among us, as to be thoughtless and unconcerned? Surely, if we have anything of the man, the patriot, the Christian, within us—we must be deeply solicitous about these important interests, and anxious for a remedy to our bleeding country and nation.

I need not detain you with a particular account of the present mortifying and alarming situation of our public affairs. I need not tell you of slaughtered families, mangled corpses, men, women, and children, held in barbarous captivity in the dens of savages; routed garrisons, demolished fortifications, deserted, desolated settlements, upon our frontiers. I need not remind you of defeated armies, blasted expeditions, and abortive schemes—of divided, dilatory counsels on both sides the ocean—a jangling, unsettled government, and an uneasy, murmuring, clamorous people. I need not tell you that our enemies have pushed their conquests with surprising rapidity, and executed all their schemes; while all our attempts to stop their progress have issued in disappointment and mortification; and that they are now become formidable, even in America, where, a few years ago, they were so contemptible.

I need not tell you that our hopes are lowered as to our brave ally, the king of Prussia, who has lately been routed, and obliged to break up the siege of Prague; and who has almost the half of the powers of Europe for his enemies. He stands the single champion of the Protestant cause upon the continent; and should he be crushed, that important cause would probably fall with him, especially in Germany.

I need not tell you how gloomy and discouraging the prospect is before us, from the growing power of the French—from their great influence with the Indian savages—from the naked and defenceless state of our country—from the dastardly, secure spirit that prevails among the generality, and from many causes that I need not name. These things are too public and notorious for me to enlarge upon them. Alas! who is ignorant of them? though but few lay them properly to heart.

The great inquiry I would now employ your time and thoughts about, is, What is the best remedy in this melancholy case? This, I think, we may clearly discover in the verses I have read to you.

At the time to which this prophecy seems principally to refer, namely—at the destruction of the Jews by the Babylonians, their iniquities were come to the full. It was inconsistent with the maxims of the divine government to delay their punishment any longer. Therefore the Babylonians were commissioned as the executioners of divine vengeance to ravage their land, destroy their city and temple, and carry away the inhabitants by three successive captivities, until the land was left uninhabited, untitled, and desolate for seventy years.

In this time was fulfilled the prophecy in my text: "Upon the land of my people shall come up thorns and briers; yes, in all the houses of joy in the joyous city." The epithet joyous is added with design to aggravate the calamity. "The houses of joy" are turned into heaps of rubbish.

"The joyous city" is made a melancholy waste, overrun with briers and thorns. The men of sensuality and luxury, who were accustomed to riot in these houses of joy, and to spend their time in pleasure, are now stripped of all their possessions, and feel the reverse of their usual delights in a servile, dismal captivity; and to such, the calamities of war, poverty, and thraldom, are peculiarly painful and mortifying. These effeminate souls were never inured to hardships and self-denial, and therefore must sink the lower under their weight.

I leave you, my friends, to judge, whether the calamities which we fear, should they fall upon us, would not fall the heavier upon multitudes of our countrymen on this account, who have been accustomed to live in luxury and pleasure, and are by these means enervated and unmanned.

The epithet 'joyous' may also intimate, that the extravagant luxury and love of pleasure that prevailed among the Jews, was one cause of the destruction of their country and nation. Their houses are laid in ruins—because they have been houses of guilty joy. Their city is made desolate—because it had been unseasonably and excessively a joyous city. So the words may be rendered; "Upon the land of my people shall come up briers and thorns—because of the houses of joy in the joyous city."

These houses of joy brought destruction upon the inhabitants. Their luxury and pleasure had a natural tendency to destroy them, according to the course of things. They produced thoughtless security and presumption. They turned the attention of the people from the concerns of their country—to sensual gratifications and amusements. They softened and unmanned the populace, and rendered them impatient of the dangers and hardships of soldiers in the field. They tempted them to lay out that substance indiversions and extravagant pleasures which should have been expended in the defence of their country; and luxury and pleasure provoked the God of heaven, who holds the scale of empires in his hand, and lets it rise or fall according to his pleasure.

The unseasonable joy of this people at a time when the tokens of the Almighty's anger were upon them; their taste for mirth and pleasure, when he called them to repentance, brought his heavy vengeance upon them, and he determined to destroy a people that would not be amended by chastisement.

Here also I leave you to judge, whether we and our nation are not in danger from the same quarter! Has not a deluge of luxuryand pleasure almost overwhelmed all ranks, from the highest to the lowest? To eat and drink sumptuously; to feast, and dance, and riot; to pamper cocks or horses—to observe the anxious, important, interesting event—which of two horses can run fastest; or which of two cocks can flutter and spur most dexterously—-these are the grand affairs that almost engross the attention of some of our great men! And little, poor sinners imitate them to the utmost of their power. The low-born sinner can leave a needy family to starve at home—to add one more person to the rabble at a horse-race or a cock-fight. He can get drunk and turn himself into a beast with the cheapest, as well as the richest with more delicate liquors.

On this account, I am afraid this fruitful year, with which a gracious God has blessed our guilty country, will prove a curse to many, who add to their guilt by ungratefully abusing the additional mercies of God towards them.

How unseasonable is this taste for pleasure and diversions, at such a time as this! At a time when, "The Lord, the LORD Almighty, called you to weep and mourn. He told you to shave your heads in sorrow for your sins and to wear clothes of sackcloth to show your remorse!" That is, to all the solemn and public evidences of repentance.

But, alas! instead of these, "You dance and play; you slaughter sacrificial animals, feast on meat, and drink wine!" that is, all the activities of luxury and festivity—as if they acted upon the epicurean maxim, "Let us eat and drink—for tomorrow we die!" And I wish the secret revealed to the prophet with regard to such, may not be equally applicable to our age and country: "The LORD Almighty has revealed to me that this sin will never be forgiven you until the day you die. That is the judgement of the Lord, the LORD Almighty!" Isaiah 22:12-14.

The prophet goes on to describe the desolation of Judea and Jerusalem, and to assign the reason why the land should be overrun with briers and thorns during the captivity; namely, "Because the palaces shall be forsaken, the multitude of the city shall be left, and the noise of it shall cease; the forts of the towers shall be for dens forever!" These places of strength and beauty shall be "a joy of wild donkeys, a pasture for flocks;" where they shall graze to the full, and lie down unmolested.

When the prophet has thus described the utter desolation of the Holy Land, he fixes the time of its continuance, or informs the Jews how long it would last; and that is, "Until the Spirit is poured upon us from on high."

The Holy Spirit of God is represented in the Scriptures as the original fountain of all the real goodness and virtue which is to be found in our degenerate world; the only author of reformation, conversion, sanctification, and every grace included in the character of a saint, or a godly man. The pouring out of the Spirit is a Scripture phrase, which signifies a plentiful communication of his influence to effect a thorough reformation. It is not a distilling, or falling in gentle drops, like the dew; but a copious effusion, or pouring out, like a mighty shower, or torrent that carries all before it.

Now, as the communication of the Spirit is necessary to produce a reformation, so a large communication, or outpouring of the Spirit, is necessary to produce a public, general reformation; such as may save a country on the brink of ruin, or recover one already laid desolate.

Without this remedy, all other applications will be ineffectual; and the distempered nation will languish more and more, until it is at length dissolved. Until this outpouring of the Spirit, says the prophet, "briers and thorns shall come upon the land; and the houses of joy, the palaces, and towers—shall be heaps of ruins, dens for wild beasts, and pastures for flocks!" Until that blessed time comes—no means can effectually repair a broken state, or re-people a desolate country.

But when that blessed time does come—then what a glorious revolution—what a happy alteration follows! Then says the prophet, "The wilderness shall be a fruitful field, and the fruitful field be counted for a forest. Then judgement shall dwell in the wilderness, and righteousness remain in the fruitful field: and the work of righteousness shall be peace, and the effect of righteousness, quietness and assurance forever; and my people shall dwell in a peaceable habitation, and in sure dwellings, and in quiet resting-places." These are the blessed peaceful effects of the outpouring of the Spirit; and these effectually cure all the ravages of war, and ensure a lasting peace, with all its blessings.

(The word here rendered poured generally signifies to be made naked, that is— to be revealed in full power. This may be illustrated by that expression in Isaiah "The Lord has made bare his holy arm in the eyes of all the nations;" that is, has given an illustrious display of his Power. The sense is the same, however we render it; namely, a full exertion of the power of the Spirit to produce a reformation.)

"The wilderness shall be a fruitful field;" that is, the country that had been reduced into a mere wilderness by the ravages of war, and the captivity of the inhabitants, shall again be tilled and improved, and become as a fruitful field, or a Carmel. (Carmel, was the proper name of a very fertile mountain in Judea; and hence it is here used appellatively, to signify a country fruitful like the proper Carmel—As if it had been said, "The whole country of Canaan shall be one entire Carmel.")

"And the fruitful field shall be counted for a forest." That is, upon this happy turn of affairs, the country of the enemy, which had been a fruitful field, a Carmel, shall be laid waste in its turn, and made a mere forest—a wild uninhabited forest. It shall suffer itself—what it had inflicted, and be made a wilderness, as it had made other countries so. This was remarkably accomplished uponBabylon, which had spread desolation through the country of the Jews, according to the prediction of Jeremiah: "When seventy years are accomplished, (in the captivity of the Jews) I will punish the king of Babylon, and that nation, says the Lord, for their iniquity, and the land of the Chaldeans, and will make it perpetual desolations."

And this is the usual procedure of divine Providence, to make use of one guilty nation to execute his judgements upon another—and then to execute the executioner. From hence we may prognosticate the future fall of France, though she should now be usedas a rod in the Divine hand to chastise rebellious Britons.

"Then judgement shall dwell in the wilderness, and righteousness remain in the fruitful field." Judgement sometimes signifiespunishment from the hand of God, and sometimes the same with justice or righteousness. If we take it to signify punishment from the Divine hand, then the meaning is "The heavy judgements of God shall dwell (that is, long remain) upon the country of the enemy, which, though once a fruitful Carmel, is now turned into a wilderness." In this sense, the prophecy has been literally accomplished upon Babylon, which remains a wilderness unto this day.

If by judgement we understand righteousness, then the meaning is, "Righteousness shall dwell in the land of Judea, which was once made a wilderness—but is now improved into a fruitful field, since the pouring out of the Spirit." And so it designs the same with the following sentence: "Righteousness shall remain in the fruitful field." That is, "Righteousness, which in the Scripture sense often signifies all goodness, or the whole of true religion, or a proper disposition and conduct towards God and man; righteousness, in this extensive sense, shall remain in the fruitful field—it shall possess the hearts and govern the practices of the inhabitants; and this shall turn their country into a Carmel, a paradise, a fruitful field."

"And the work of righteousness shall be peace, and the effect of righteousness, quietness, and assurance forever." Whenrighteousness thus becomes the universal principle and rule of action—it will produce peace, quietness, and assurance, or security from danger." And in consequence of this, "my people shall dwell in a peaceable habitation," etc. They shall remain undisturbed in their possessions, and enjoy the blessings of peace, free from factions at home, and invasions from abroad. In this unmolested and happy situation, shall they continue, even "when it shall hail, coming down upon the forest;" or when storms of public calamities break upon other countries, and lay them waste.

You may now have a full view of the regular gradation from truth to truth in my text:

Desolation overspreads the country—until the Spirit is poured out;

the Spirit poured out produces righteousness, or true religion;

righteousness produces peace, quietness, and assurance;

and under its influence the inhabitants live in a peaceable habitation, and in sure dwellings, and in quiet resting-places, even when storms and tempest toss and desolate other nations.

Thus, you see, the outpouring of the Holy Spirit is the great and only remedy for a ruined country! This is the only effectual preventive of national calamities and desolations, and the only sure cause of a lasting and well-established peace. This is the truth I now intend chiefly to illustrate.

And this is the more necessary to be illustrated and inculcated—as it is but very little regarded. We all complain that our country cannot be defended, nor an advantageous peace obtained without better regulations; without timely and vigorous measures, unanimity, courage, and public spirit among all ranks.

There are some also who complain, that our country cannot be safe or prosperous without a general reformation; that it cannot be expected that the undertakings of a guilty, impenitent people, ripe for the judgements of God, can succeed, until their repentanceis in some measure as signal and public as their sin. Thus far we look; but, unless we look farther, we do not go to the bottom of things. As all our measures are not likely to be successful without a reformation; so we may despair of ever seeing a thorough, general reformation, unless The Spirit is poured upon us from on high.

I may illustrate this by the piece of history to which my text refers, and in which it had its accomplishment. The Jews were a numerous and powerful people: their cities were all fortified, especially Jerusalem, their capital; and yet their impenitent sinning, without reformation, rendered them an easy prey to their enemies. But why did they continue impenitent? Why were they not reformed? Was it because they did not enjoy proper means? No! they had the law of Moses; they had the ministry of theprophets, who loudly called them to repentance through a succession of ages, and in the most explicit manner denounced the judgements of God against them, if they should continue impenitent; they enjoyed all the advantages of an extraordinary immediate providence; in short, they had better helps and excitements for reformation than all mankind besides—except such as we, who have the happiness of living under the more complete and glorious dispensation of the gospel.

And yet they sinned on still, impenitent and unreformed: no general reformation was carried on by all these means; and even under the hardships of captivity, they still continued to be the same incorrigible sinners. Hence God complains of them, "But whenever they were scattered among the nations, they brought dishonour to my holy name," as they had done before in their own land. Ezekiel 36:20. And what was lacking all this time for their effectual reformation? Why, the Spirit was not yet poured upon them from on high; and while he was absent, they continued unreformed, and their country desolate.

But when the time for their restoration came—then the Spirit was poured out. Thus their restoration and the effusion of the Spiritare connected in the divine promise: "I will take you from among the heathen, and gather you out of all countries, and will bring you into your own land. Then will I sprinkle clean water upon you, (the usual emblem of Divine influences, John 7:38, 39,) and you shall be, clean; and I will put my Spirit within you." Ezekiel 36:24-27. And when this promise was fulfilled, what was the consequence? Why a glorious public reformation followed, of which you see an account in the books of Ezra and Nehemiah. They returned to their own land as weeping penitents, according to Jeremiah's prediction, which seems to have had its primary accomplishment in this event. "The children of Israel shall come, they and the children of Judah together, going and weeping: (this is a description of the march of the captives in their return to their own country,) they shall go and seek the Lord their God: they shall ask the way to Zion, (Zion, the place where the house of God once stood, which they are eager to rebuild) with their faces thither ward, saying, Come, let us join ourselves to the Lord in a perpetual covenant that shall not be forgotten." Jeremiah 50:4, 5. And when they were thus brought to repentance, what a happy revolution followed! The scattered captives were collected; they restored their ruined church and state, and again became a free and flourishing people. And what happened to them will also happen to us, and all nations of the earth in all ages, in like circumstances.

In illustrating the subject I have principally in view, I intend only to offer a few arguments to prove the absolute necessity of a general outpouring of the Spirit, to effect a general reformation.

The arguments for this truth, with which the holy Scriptures furnish us, are so many, that I can only select a few; and they shall be chiefly such as refer to nations—and not to individuals, or private people; asserting the Holy Spirit to be the only author of public national reformation, as well as of the conversion of particular people.

The temporal prosperity of the Jews, who were under a Theocracy, or an immediate Providence, depended in a special manner upon their continued obedience. And their restoration depended upon their return to obedience, or their reformation. Hence, among the many promises of prosperity and restoration which Moses makes to them in the name of God, this is one:

"The Lord your God will circumcise your heart, and the heart of your seed, to love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, that you may live;" that is, that you may be a prosperous people. "And the Lord will put all these curses upon your enemies; and he will make you plenteous in every work of your hand, in the fruit of your body, and in the fruit of your cattle, and in the fruit of your land for good." Deuteronomy 30:6-9.

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