[161-466]

1817 Nov. 29

Not Paul

II. Doctrine

Ch.

§.3. Practice

Irr

Prophets

Isaiah

1. Isaiah i. 9. 10.

In Isaiah—in the first of the two passages of his book in which the allusion to the fate of the two cities occurrs, the way /manner/ in which mention is made of them seems extraordinary enough, and to look at it may naturally enough be expected to have occasioned no small perplexity to, and imposed no small quantity of labour on /upon/ the Commentators.

In the first mention made of them, they are alluded to in the usual character of places affording an example in proof of the existence of the particular providence by which the people in question were brought to consider themselves as all along governed. After speaking of the country as having suffered desolation by fire as well as other means at the hands of a foreign enemy (v. 7) it goes on to observe that (v. 9) ‘Except the Lord of hosts had left unto us a very small remnant, we should have been as Sodom, and we should have been like unto Gomorrah.’ Thus far the character in which the two cities are brought to view is that of so many places of which at a period of high antiquity the compleat destruction had been effected.

Isaiah i. 7. 8. 9.