Gold Nugget 139 - Fall of a Great Nation
Ruin does not often come on states at once, even when God has determined on it. There re many steps in the fall of a great nation. …
When the intervals between one great man and another lengthen; when wise men, capable of giving the state good counsel, grow rare; when mediocrity everywhere prevails, and no one steps forth conspicuous by marked superiority to his fellows; - then it may at once be proclaimed that decline has set in, and that the nation is verging towards its fall.
The great and the wise are the salt which preserve society from corruption. Without them all goes wrong; the pulse of the national life slackens, energy disappears, foreign aggression is weakly resisted, a general debilitation becomes apparent in every part and function of the of the body politic. No state can long resist the insidious malady, which, like atrophy or anaemia, steals gradually over the entire frame, exhausting it and bring about its dissolution. …
When the great and the wise fail, government necessarily falls into the hands of the incompetent. If not “children” in age, they will be “babes” in respect of policy and statecraft. … A childish desire seizes them to attract attention, and conquest, or imprudent and unsuitable alliances … The state is brought into difficulties and entanglements, and the wisdom is wanting that should have seen a way out of them. One embarrassment follows another. Unexpected circumstances arise, and it is not perceived how they should be met. The unwisdom of the good is perhaps as fatal as the folly of the wicked … Meanwhile other causes are at work, which advance the general confusion and accelerate the final catastrophe.
The Pulpit Commentary, Isaiah p.54-55, Isaiah 3:1-7, (G. Rawlinson)
Gold Nugget 139
Fall of a Great Nation
