It
was his most zealous endeavour to hold king and people aloof from
every patriotic movement; to him the true religious attitude was
one of quietness and sitting still, non-intervention in political
affairs, concentration on the problems of internal government. But
he was compelled to leave over for the coming Messiah (xi. 1 seq.)
that reformation in legal and social matters which seemed to him so
necessary; all that he could bring the secular rulers of his
country to undertake was a reform in worship. This was the most
easily solved of the problems alluded to above, and it was also
that which most closely corresponded to the character of the
kingdom of Judah. Thus it came about that the reform of the
theocracy which had been contemplated by Isaiah led to its
transformation into an ecclesiastical state. No less influential
in effecting a radical change in the old popular religion was
Isaiah's doctrine which identified the true Israel with the
holy remnant which alone should emerge from the crisis unconsumed.
For that remnant was more than a mere object of hope; it actually
stood before him in the persons of that little group of pious
individuals gathered around him.
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