[161-467]

1817 Nov. 29

Not Paul

II. Doctrine

Ch. In Jesus

§.3. Practice

Irr

Isaiah

1. Isaiah i. 9. 10.

Comes the next verse, and now the discourse is addressed to them one after another, as if they were so many cities either revived or still in being: and then comes a torrent of invective /foreboding and exhortation/ and evil foreboding which from this verse (v. 10) lasts even to the end of the Chapter, which is at the 31 st verse.

By one supposition alone can the strangeness of this appearance be removed, and it presents itself as a satisfactory one. The city to which this lesson of invective was meant to be understood as addressed was the capital of the kingdom to which he belonged even Jerusalem the capital of Judæa: and it is by a figure of speech /rhetoric/ that the city in question is addressed by those two celebrated /so universally notorious/ and opprobrious names.

In no other character than that of subjects of supernatural destruction are the two inseparable cities spoken of: to the particular propensity in question no allusion is here to be found: examples of wickedness in general not of wickedness in that particular mode /shape/ this is the character in which they are here brought to view.