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great mercies of God; and will needs be guilty of those great miseries and calamities, that are coming upon them; for they shall be robbed, and spoiled, and fettered in dungeons, and be exposed to an utter vastation.

XLIII. 1 I have called thee by thy name; thou art mine.

I have taken special notice of thee, above all other nations; and have entered into terms of more near and dear respects unto thee.

XLIII. 3 I gave Egypt for thy ransom, Ethiopia and Seba for thee. When Sennacherib did so furiously besiege thee, I fetched him off, and diverted his wars to Egypt and Ethiopia, and so made them to be thy ransom and rescue. So also verse 4.

XLIII. 5 Fear not : for I am with thee: I will bring thy seed from the east, and gather thee from the west;

I will bring all the true seed of Israel out of their spiritual capti vity, from all the corners of the world, even from the east and west; XLIII. 6 I will say to the north, Give up; and to the south, Keep not back: bring my sons from far, and my daughters from the ends of the earth.

As also from the north and south; so as all, that belong to mine election, shall in Christ be gathered unto me. So also verse 7.

XLIII. 8 Bring forth the blind people that have eyes, and the deaf that have ears.

Bring forth those people, that were once blind, but now I have given them eyes,; and those, who were once deaf, but now I have given them ears.

XLIII. 14 For your sake I have sent to Babylon, and have brought down all their nobles, and the Chaldeans, whose cry is in the ships.

It is for your sakes, to contrive the return of you my people from your captivity, that I will send Cyrus against Babylon, where you are detained; and will give him victory against those princes and nobles of the Chaldeans, whom ye are subject unto, who shall be glad to make use of their ships for their flight and escape.

XLIII. 19 I will make a way in the wilderness, and rivers in the desert.

As I will address and accommodate all things for the return of my people from their captivity, so as no convenience shall be wanting thereunto; so also, will I give all gracious helps to all my chosen ones from the utmost coasts of heaven, for their conversion to my true Church.

XLIII. 20 The beast of the field shall honour me, the dragons and the owls because I give waters in the wilderness, and rivers in the desert.

Those, that are the most bestial and savage among all the people of the world, shall wonder at the great favours which I shew to my people, and shall give glory unto me, both of power and mercy.

XLIII 23 Thou hast not brought me the small cattle of thy burnt offerings; neither hast thou honoured me with thy sacrifices. I

have not caused thee to serve with an offering, nor wearied thee with incense.

Those oblations, which thou hast formally made unto me, have not been such, as I cared to receive from thee: I have not been beholden to thee, for a true devout consecration of thyself and thy services unto me: all these have been only outward and fashionable. So also verse 24.

XLIII. 24 For thou hast made me to serve with thy sins, thou hast wearied me with thine iniquities.

Thou hast cast heavy and intolerable burdens upon me by thy sins; as if my mercy served for nothing but to humour thy wickedness: yea thou hast pressed me so far, as that I am now weary of enduring thy provocations.

XLIII. 26 Put me in remembrance : let us plead together: declare thou, that thou mayest be justified.

If thou hast any thing to say for thyself, speak it out freely: I give thee full scope to plead thy own cause with me; and, if thou canst, do thou either justify or excuse thyself.

XLIII. 28 Therefore I have profaned the princes of the sanctuary, and have given Jacob to the curse, and Israel to reproaches. Therefore I have determined to disregard and expose to contempt the chief priests and rulers of my sanctuary, and to give up Jacob to destruction, and Israel to the reproach of all nations.

XLIV. 6 I am the first, and I am the last; and beside me there is no God.

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I am the only true, eternal God, without all possibility of alteration; and therefore will be ever approved most constant to my own decrees and purposes.

XLIV. 7 And who, as I, shall call, and shall declare it, and set it in order for me?

Since I decreed, before ever any of your idol-gods were extant in the world, to select a people to myself from the rest of the earth, which of your false gods could or can order their vocation and government, as I have done?

XLIV. 12 Yea, he is hungry, and his strength faileth: he drinketh no water, and is faint.

Weak and foolish man will be making a god to himself; and finds himself hungry, and thirsty, and faint, with the very work, while he makes it; yet, so eager is he in that business, as that he forbears his own necessary sustenance, in his zeal to finish it.

XLIV. 18 They have not known nor understood: for he hath shut their eyes, that they cannot see; and their hearts, that they cannot understand.

God hath, in his just judgment, given them up to a strange besottedness, and hath suffered their idol to bereave them of their wits and senses; so as, though they have both hearts and eyes, yet they neither see nor understand.

XLIV. 20 He feedeth of ashes: a deceived heart hath turned

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turned him aside, that he cannot deliver his soul, nor say, Is there not a lie in my right hand?

That, which should be his comfort, is his affliction and misery: he trusteth to his idol, and that shall no more help him, than ashes can feed and nourish him: he hath given way to these idolatrous fopperies; and now they have utterly infatuated him, so as he hath not the grace to bethink himself of his fond and wicked courses. XLIV. 28 That saith of Cyrus, He is my shepherd, and shall perform all my pleasure: even saying to Jerusalem, Thou shalt be built; and to the temple, Thy foundation shall be laid.

That saith of Cyrus, that Persian Monarch who shall after many years be born, he is the man, that shall favour and restore my people, and perform my pleasure concerning their return from the Babylonish captivity; who shall also give order for the re-edi, fying of the walls of Jerusalem and the Temple,

XLV. 1 Thus saith the LORD to his anointed, to Cyrus, whose right hand I have holden, to subdue nations before him; and I will loose the loins of kings, to open before him the two leaved gates; and the gates shall not be shut.

Thus saith the Lord, concerning Cyrus, who is yet unborn, whom I have ordained to be the king of Persia; whom I have decreed to prosper in all his designs, and to make him victorious over all nations, and to subdue mighty kings, so as they shall be glad to open unto him their most defenced cities.

XLV. 3 And I will give thee the treasures of darkness, and hidden riches of secret places.

I will give thee those treasures, which have been long laid up in the secret storehouses of kings.

XLV. 5 I girded thee, though thou hast not known me.

I have girded thee with honour and power, though thou hast not considered whence these favours have come; neither hast thou, O Cyrus, so well known me, as to abdicate thine idolatry, and to worship me aright,

XLV. 8 Drop down, ye heavens, from above, and let the skies pour down righteousness: let the earth open, and let them bring forth salvation, and let righteousness spring up together; I the LORD have created it.

Let all my creatures, saith the Lord, conspire together to the furtherance of the restored happiness of my people: let the heavens, and the clouds, and the earth contribute all the blessings, which are committed unto them, to their enlargement and prosperity; and convey unto them the just performance of all the merciful promises, they have had from me.

XLV. 9 Or thy work, He hath no hands?

Shall the work rise up and controul the workman, and say, hath no skill?

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XLV. 13 I have raised him up in righteousness, and I will di rect all his ways: he shall build my city, and he shall let go my captives, not for price nor reward, saith the LORD of hosts.

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I, who am the faithful Guardian of my Church, have raised Cyrus; who, in future times, shall come, and prosper in his great enterprizes; and he shall build up the walls of Jerusalem; and shall send back the captive Jews into their country, not being hired thereto by any price or reward, but by my immediate instigation. See Ezra, chap. i.

XLV. 14 Thus saith the LORD, The labour of Egypt, and merchandise of Ethiopia and of the Sabeans, men of stature, shall come over unto thee, and they shall be thine: they shall come after thee; in chains they shall come over, &c.

The Egyptians, and the Ethiopians, and Sabeans shall be tributary to Cyrus; and the benefit of their labour and merchandise shall by him be improved to the building of Jerusalem: so as the great enemies of God's Church shall voluntarily submit themselves thereunto, and shall acknowledge that God's presence is in her, and his power for her,

XLV. 15 Verily thou art a God that hidest thyself, O God of Israel, the Saviour.

All this shall be done for thy people; but, in the mean time, they shall have need of patience: for thou wilt, for a long while, seem to hide thy face from them, thou God and Saviour of Israel, and wilt give them up into grievous affliction.

XLVI. 1 Bel boweth down, Nebo stoopeth, their idols were upon the beasts, and upon the cattle: your carriages were heavy loaden; they are a burden to the weary beast.

The great idols of the Chaldees, in whom they so vainly trusted, shall now be pulled down, and carried away in carts, as the spoils of the Persian Conqueror: the beasts shall drag them away, and complain of their weight.

XLIV. 8 Remember this, and shew yourselves men: bring it again to mind, O ye transgressors.

Remember this, and shew yourselves to be not more brutish than beasts, to worship those things which yourselves have made ; but men, endued with reason, which alone is able to teach you to abhor this gross idolatry.

XLVI. 10 Declaring the end from the beginning, and from ancient times the things that are not yet done, saying, My counsel shall stand, and I will do all my pleasure:

Who, from the beginning of times, and ever since, have still foretold you what would come to pass; both till this present, and in the times yet to come; which I have so infallibly performed, that you may hereby well know the immutable certainty of all my decrees:

XLVI. 11 Calling a ravenous bird from the east, the man that executeth my counsel from a far country.

Calling Cyrus from the east to execute my decree; who shall come swiftly upon the wings of speed, to do what I have determined, and shall devour the kingdoms of the earth before him.

XLVI. 13 I bring near my righteousness; it shall not be far

off, and my salvation shall not tarry: and I will place salvation in Zion for Israel my glory.

Howsoever ye have deserved to set me off from you, yet will I not suffer your incredulity to frustrate those gracious promises, which I have made for the deliverance of my people; but will, in my just time, perform them, and will bring salvation unto Zion, and there settle it, for the happiness of my people Israel.

XLVII. 1 Come down, and sit in the dust, O virgin daughter of Babylon, sit on the ground: there is no throne, O daughter of the Chaldeans: for thou shalt no more be called tender and delicate. O thou glorious city of Babylon, which braggest of thine impregnableness and might, come down, for so thou shalt, and sit in the dust; for thither shalt thou be humbled: thou shalt no more rule over nations, but shalt be subject to another's power; neither shall there be any more place for thy wanton delicacy, but thou shalt be harshly and roughly intreated of thy conqueror.

XLVII. 2 Take the millstones, and grind meal: uncover thy locks, make bare the leg, uncover the thigh, pass over the rivers. Make account, to undergo the cruellest bondage, wherein thou shalt be put to grind in mills, and be whipped to all servile and base works: and your coy dames and proud wantons shall go now carelessly, with their locks uncovered and neglected; and shall be forced to walk barefooted to their captivity, through the stony ways and unknown rivers.

XLVII. 3 I will take vengeance, and I will not meet thee as a man. I will not deal with thee in any gentle or moderate manner, but in all extremity the revenge of men may be prevented or mitigated; mine shall not.

XLVIII. 7 They are created now, and not from the beginning; even before the day when thou heardest them not; lest thou shouldest say, Behold, I knew them.

They, even those hidden things, are unexpectedly brought about, and were not revealed to thee before hand; lest thou shouldest say, I foreknew them well enough.

XLVIII. 8 And wast called a transgressor from the womb. Thou wast a stubborn and rebellious people, even from my first dealings with thee; ever since I sequestered thee for my peculiar. XLVIII. 10 Behold, I have refined thee, but not with silver; I have chosen thee in the furnace of affliction.

I have taken courses with thee, for thine amendment, not for thy destruction: I have tried thee with the fire of affliction, but not with so extreme a fire, as wherewith silver is tried; that would have burnt thee up, and not have refined thee: I have testified my choice and allowance of thee, upon this fiery trial.

XLVIII. 20 Go ye forth of Babylon, flee ye from the Chaldeans, with a voice of singing declare ye, tell this, utter it even to the end of the earth.

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