Lord, be gracious unto us, and save us. Amen.

Isaiah 1, 2-6. Hear, O heavens; and give ear, O earth; for the Lord hath spoken: I have nourished and brought up children, and they have rebelled against me: The ox knoweth his owner, and the ass his master’s crib: but Israel doth not know, my people doth not consider. Ah sinful nation, a people laden with iniquity, a seed of evildoers, children that are corrupters! they have forsaken the Lord, they have provoked the Holy One of Israel unto anger, they are gone away backward. Why should ye be stricken any more? ye will revolt more and more. The whole head is sick, and the whole heart faint. From the sole of the foot even unto the head there is no soundness in it; but wounds, and bruises, and putrifying sores: they have not been closed, neither bound up, neither mollified with ointment.

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The heavens and earth and all things therein bear witness against the impenitent, and accuse them on account of their obstinacy. The whole creation was, to be sure, corrupted by our fall, but not in the same manner as we, who have departed from the divine laws. The other creatures are not in the same measure refractory; and do not, as we do, consciously and of their own free will close their eyes and heart to the Lord. Man is most highly endowed, and man is most deeply corrupted; man should know God most clearly, and obey him most willingly; but no other creature is become in the same degree a stranger to God, and none other resists him with as much obstinacy.

“Hear, O heavens, and give ear, O earth; for the Lord hath spoken: I have nourished and brought up children, and they have rebelled against me!” Stirring and impressive though these words be, men remain deaf to them. They were spoken to the Jews; they are spoken to us. They applied to them; they apply to us. Alas, they apply with almost as much force to our case as to that of the Jews! But heaven and earth hear them, and yet we hear them not! — Read slowly and with deliberation that which the Lord further says: “Ah sinful nation, a people laden with iniquity, a seed of evildoers, children that are corrupters; they have forsaken the Lord, they have provoked the Holy One of Israel unto anger, they are gone away backward!” These are words to stir us to our innermost depths; and yet the many disdain them now, as did the Jews of old. How have we profited by the Lord’s many words and deeds of love and correction? He has shown us the goodness of a father a thousand times over; and now he follows it up with discipline. Some few repent, and are “as a cottage in a vineyard,” or as fruit remaining after the harvest. In the case of the many all correction also is in vain. “Why should ye be stricken any more? Ye will revolt more and more.” How terrible a thing it is that even the chastisement but increases the evil! — God thereupon describes to us our true condition, holding up to our view our deep, gaping, and foul wounds, for the humiliation of the individual and the people: “The whole head is sick, and the whole heart faint. From the sole of the foot even unto the head there is no soundness in it; but wounds, and bruises, and putrifying sores; they have not been closed, neither bound up, neither mollified with ointment.” Behold yourself, my reader, and behold your people as in a glass! As the word of God and faith are rejected, the people become more diseased, and the judg­ment is more near. But, alas, this is not understood! “The ox knoweth his owner, and the ass his master’s crib; but Israel doth not know, my people doth not consider.”

Turn thou us unto thee, O Lord, and we shall be turned; renew our days as of old. Hast thou utterly rejected us? Art thou very wroth against us? Give us repentance, most merciful God, and save us for Jesus’ sake. Amen.

Hasten, sinners, to return,
Stay not for the morrow’s sun,
Lest thy lamp should fail to burn,
Ere salvation’s work is done.

Hasten, sinners, to be blessed,
Stay not for the morrow’s sun,
Lest per­dition thee arrest
Ere the morrow is begun.