Ezekiel 1:1-3 The heavens were opened, and I saw visions of God.God’ s care of His Church 1. God is not tied to places. He can in a dungeon, in a prison, in a Babylon, let down His Spirit into the heart of any servant of His, and raise him to a prophetical height. 2. No place is so wicked but God can raise up instruments to do Him and the Church service there. 3. See here a door open for the enlargement of the Church, a type of God’ s goodness toward the Gentiles. 4. The godly are wrapped up in the same calamity with the wicked. Ezekiel is among the captives. 5. The godly are mingled in this world with the wicked and profane. 6. God hath a special care of His Church and people, when they are in the lowest and worst condition. They shall have a prophet, though in Babylon. 7. Take heed of judging the condition of men by their outward afflictions. Those that are in great affliction may be greatly beloved, when those who are in great prosperity may be greatly hated. 8. The wicked fare the better for the godly. (W. Green Hill, M. A.) Visions of God Observe the nature of the prophet’ s preparation for his work. It was not an outward call; it was not a visible stamp of authority or office given to him that men might see--he had that as priest before he was called to be a prophet; but it was that secret vision of God, it was that unseen speech of his soul with the Spirit of his God and of the Spirit of God with his soul that he could never demonstrate or prove to other men. That for them might be a dream of dreams, a visionary record of what never happened; but for Him from that hour it was the most real of all realities--a living voice through all his life, that shaped and coloured it long after, and that drove him forth amongst his fellow men, now to speak to them, as he tells us, in the bitterness of his spirit, and now under the burden of the Lord to sit down astonished and silent with them in their sorrow; but that made him a new, a different man for the rest of his life--from the moment that he saw and heard those visions of God and the voice of God within them. This was the secret preparation of the prophet for the prophet’ s work, and this is just that hidden preparation for God’ s work amongst men which our Church distinctly recognises the necessity of in all those who seek her ministry, while she as distinctly recognises the need for the outward and visible call. The outward call does not do away with the need of the inward voice and calling, nor does the inward voice and preparation supersede the need of the outward call and mission. It was not so in Ezekiel’ s case. The one joined itself on to and grew out of the other. When Ezekiel the priest was called by this hidden and overmastering voice of God, when he was called to do a special prophet’ s work, it was not an unknown God whose glory he was bid to see; it was the God of his fathers, the God who had formed and organised the Jewish Church and the Jewish priesthood of which Ezekiel was a member. And the voice which bid him go was not to him an unknown voice; it was a voice that had led his ancestors through the wilderness, that had spoken to them God’ s law from Sinai, and the very visions of glory that he beheld weaved themselves out of and grew, as it were, out of the priest’ s memory of the worship of the temple. The inward call sprang out of, joined itself to, rose naturally, and all the more forcibly out of the outward position and the outward calling of the man. And so is it in all settled and orderly churches. Yes; this is the true preparation and the true mission of him who would be a prophet, a speaker for God amongst the sons of men. He must be, if he is to be a successful prophet for God, a man who has seen God for himself; he must be a man who has had that vision of God that none can see but each man for himself. There are visions of God that all men may have, and may have in common together. There are visions, for instance, which we may speak of as the reflective visions of God--visions of God in the glories of Nature; visions of God in the marvels of history and of Providence; visions of God in the revelation of His Word; visions of God in the worship and sacraments of the sanctuary; but there is one vision more, one hour of vision which should come to each man, if it were but once in his life, and woe to him who claims to be a prophet for God who has not seen that vision and passed through that hour when, the man lifting himself or lifted up above the low, and mean, and poor surroundings of the daily world in which he lives, with its strife, with its sorrows, with its cares, with its business, with its seductions, and rising high above these to the very heavens where the Lord dwells, sees God for himself, hears God’ s voice speaking to him as His, and claiming him for His, and gives himself in answering offer, and gives himself to God and says, “ O Lord, here am I; send me to do Thy work amongst men: make of me Thine instrument and Thy servant, and give me the great glory of serving Thee, and telling Thy words in the ears of Thy people.” The mission of the national Church is not first and before all things to be popular. It is first and before all things to be faithful to speak the living Word of the living God, as she learned it in her visions of God. Men seem to forget this great truth nowadays, and men seem with a faithless and an anxious timidity only eager to make the Church popular, and to make her popular with the masses, and many are the counsellors and various the advice that the Church is enjoying at this moment as to how she shall make herself popular and successful. Again, there are those who would have us trust to the attractiveness of our sanctuaries and the beauty of our worship, and who tell us we shall win the masses and the people back to our deserted churches, if only we will have bright and hearty services and beautiful aesthetic churches, and all that is charming and attractive to win the senses of the multitude. You are beginning at the wrong end when you strive to win the masses to God with attractive services. Make men feel their need of the services; make men understand that when they come to the house of God they come there that they may see visions of God, see the glory of the Lord, hear His voice, learn His will, offer Him their homage and their respect; make men thus feel their need of the worship of the sanctuary, and they will come whether the sanctuary be beautiful or not, and if they come for the beauty of the sanctuary, they are degrading it by an unreal worship, unless they come for the glory of Him whom they should seek to meet there. What the Church needs for her work now is what she has always needed--men whose hearts are filled with visions of the living God, and with a firm faith in this--that He has given them a work to do, a message to speak amongst their fellow men, and the thought of that burns as a very fire in their bones, and they cannot keep back from speaking God’ s message and God’ s word of life amongst their suffering fellow citizens and fellow countrymen. Their hearts are moved by the thought that they have to go out amongst “ them of their captivity,” though they feel it to be a rebellious house. They have to go out to people tied and bound in the chains of their sins, as they lie without the limits of the kingdom of Christ. (Archbishop Magee.) Visions of God 1. Thoughts of heaven must receive their character from views of God. If we could see into heaven and did not see signs of God there, we should remain in spiritual darkness. We must pass into the house to perceive the householder. All beliefs of our interest in the heavens will be blighted unless they are steps on our way to know we have a living, almighty, perfect Friend. 2. All true views of God are given by God. He alone opens the inward eyes and presents the aspects He wants to reveal. He may open them through some outward impulse, or by action on the heart, but in either case the ripple of sensational life is hushed by the flow of a grander life, and the reasoning faculty stands still, waiting to know what it shall receive. Then, as the light air comes to a hanging leaf and stirs it, as a father’ s love and wisdom come to an erring child and prompt to confession, so the subject of visions of God knows that God has affected him--that God alone could accomplish that which has happened to him. 3. Visions of God require a conscious apprehension by men. Men can look upwards or downwards, outward or inward; but they may shut their eyes, So they decide whether they will see the things of God or not--whether they will accept the fuller manifestations of God or not. 4. Various aspects of God are presented. Wonderful in number and variety are the views which God has provided for willing hearts. “ They are new every morning.” (D. G. Watt, M. A.) Visions of God Seasons of illumination are granted to men; moments of intellectual or spiritual insight in which they obtain deeper knowledge of the mysteries of life, than in years of laboured activities. Life is conditioned by depth more than by length of days. The current of history may be changed in a day, the geography of a continent is determined by the achievements of one day. “ God works in moments,” and when the heavens are opened and visions of God are granted to men, the day becomes a creative epoch, from which they date their redemption. The momentum of that day will not be exhausted for generations. That one day of spiritual illumination has lighted up the dark passages of centuries, and the glory of the vision has dispersed forever the gloom of the captivity. The vision by Chebar is not the solitary experience of Ezekiel. God makes Midian the training ground of Israel’ s emancipator, and the hills of Bethlehem for Israel’ s greatest king, and Jesus lived in Nazareth. The minimum of opportunity yields the maximum of results. Men have visions of God in coal mines as well as in cathedrals. The prophet in exile makes the disadvantages of his position tributary to his highest successes. “ The heavens were opened, and I saw visions of God.” Visions of God are only possible when the heavens are opened. Heaven is the source of all illumination, more revelations are given to this world than discoveries made in it. Stars and suns are set aside, that the prophet may see God. It is a moment never to be forgotten when God appears in unveiled splendour. It becomes imperative at times that our faith be established by visions of God. Crises in our personal history have called for special revelations. Such was the captivity to Israel. We need the vision in captivity more than in our native land, with its temples and its priests. Israel thought that God had forsaken them; the vision proved that they had forsaken God. The way of communication between heaven and earth was still open. The hope of the race lies in the unbroken connection between heaven and earth, and the opening heavens in times of great peril proclaim that God lives and loves. Chebar has become a river of life, and the exile the gate of heaven. (G. T. Newton.) Visions of God To impart to man some degree of religious sensibility, it seems only necessary to lead him to a consideration of himself. Teach him to examine his own nature, to look a little into the wonderful mechanism which is going on in his own breast, and there will be found one of the most effectual means of awakening him to a real sense of the true character of his existence, and of the high and exalted relations which that existence sustains. Next, from the consideration of himself, let him turn to the consideration of the wonderful works existing out of himself. Let him look around on the green earth, with all its diversities of hill and dale, and wood and water, and sunshine and shade; and then from the plains below, let him look up to the canopy above, bright with stars and burning with suns,--and there will be seen visions of God, visions of power, wisdom, and goodness transcending his utmost powers to measure and fathom. By consciousness and observation we know how different a being a man generally is from what, considering his nature and destiny, we might reasonably expect him to be. Look at him, pursuing with passionate interest today what tomorrow will have passed into utter oblivion; now entering into contests where victory will bring no honour, and then striving after possessions whose acquirement will confer no happiness. View man in this situation and under these circumstances, and then remember that this is a being whose days upon earth are rapidly coming to an end; that he is born for eternity, for which he is here to prepare himself; and that that preparation, though embracing the interests of futurity, is also most conducive to the best enjoyment of the present,--and nothing can account for the course of conduct which he so often pursues, but that moral insensibility and stupor into which his connection with the world imperceptibly betrays him. In the first and early period of our existence, it is our nature to be governed chiefly by sensible impressions. Our thoughts, our wishes, our enjoyments, all lie within a narrow boundary. As we advance in years, our views extend, our hopes are expanded, our expectations are enlarged. We think more of what shall be and of what may be. Our happiness is more bound up with internal feelings, apprehensions, hopes, and anticipations. Hence arises one of the great advantages attending the good, that in their minds the thoughts and feelings connected with the future must necessarily be of a far brighter and happier description than those which are experienced by persons of an opposite character. It is, however, scarcely possible at the present moment for the best of our race to regard the course of human affairs without observing much to trouble and perplex them. Often will the spirit of the thoughtful and humane faint within him at the recollection of the magnitude and extent of the distresses and afflictions that have their residence on earth. For a moment he may feel as if his faith and piety were giving way; but deeper reflection comes to his aid, and restores him to confidence and hope. Visions of God rise up before his mind, and in those visions he sees the hand of Omnipotence stretched out over the angry and tempestuous waves of mortality, and bidding them into stillness and peace. In spite, then, of the difficulties by which we are surrounded, and notwithstanding the distressing occurrences that present themselves from day to day, the Christian believer will not let go his conviction that all is under the benignant care of a wise and merciful Providence, and will eventually be made to terminate in the establishment of truth and righteousness. He pretends not to dive into the depths of the Divine counsels. Knowing how absurd it would be to expect that he, who is but of yesterday, should be able to interpret the plans and proceedings of Him whose goings forth have been from of old, even from everlasting to everlasting, he submits in reverential silence to what appears most inscrutable and mysterious, believing and trusting that, as the government of human affairs is in the hands of the same Being who first made man a living soul and breathed into him the breath of life, it cannot but tend to a blessed and happy consummation. The more he reflects on all this, the more satisfied does he feel that the Author of his existence cannot be indifferent to the workmanship of His own hands, to the offspring of His own benevolence, and that whatever appearances there are which seem to imply the contrary, are only appearances, and melt away at the touchstone of examination, like midnight vapours at the approach of day. In the midst of our labours and duties, harassed perhaps by care, wearied with trouble, trembling with apprehension, our safety, our strength, our consolation will be best sought and obtained in those retirements of the soul when the veil is removed, and our eyes are opened to see visions of God. (T. Madge.) Visions of God I. Thy seer of the visions.1. A priest. Of all men, they who minister to others in spiritual things need first to have their own visions of God. A spiritually-blind priest can only give dead, formal, perfunctory service. 2. A prophet. The prophet must first be a seer. No one can speak for God who has not first heard the voice of God or seen the glory of His truth. II. The time of the visions. Early maturity--thirty years old.1. After years of preparation.2. Before a life of work. III. The circumstances of the visions.1. Ezekiel was among the captives. (1) Banished from his native land; but not from God. (2) Surrounded by sorrowful men among the captives. Atmosphere depressing. Yet light of heaven broke through it. (3) Himself a captive. Trouble revealed the need of God, and invited His gracious help. 2. Ezekiel was by the river Chebar. In a quiet scene of nature. God is in the broad earth as surely as in any temple. IV. The source of the visions.1. From heaven. Then the prophet must look up. There is a spiritual astronomy which claims our study as much as the facts of man and earth. 2. Through the opening of heaven. God must reveal Himself. Revelation is the rolling back of the curtain, opening the gates of the unseen. V. The nature of the visions. Seeing some rays of the Divine glory, some fringe of the robe of the Almighty. This is the highest of all visions. We can see it in the human countenance of Jesus. (W. F. Adeney, M. A.) Vision and duty (with Isaiah 6:1 and Acts 26:19):--These three incidents to which our texts refer have some significant characteristics. In the case of each man, this vision of God was his call to the prophetic or apostolic office, not to a short season of special service. Moreover, each is related with the purpose of justifying the speaker’ s conduct. The position of this vision in Isaiah’ s book is very significant. He has begun to prophesy and had spoken many things in the hearing of the people. They would not heed him but bade him be silent. He tells the story of his call, and says to them and to himself, “ I must speak. I am not my own master. I have seen the Lord of hosts, and He said, ‘ Go.’ I cannot get behind or away from that vision.” Very similar are the circumstances under which the prophet Ezekiel tells his story. It is quite obvious, from the opening chapters of his book, that he shrank from the task of preaching to the exiles. But he could not help himself. Whether they hear or whether they forbear, speak he must, for he too has been told by God to go. So he relates what he saw when God appeared to him, and that must silence every qualm and query. Paul, too, is on his defence. Worldly people who recognise his genius, but pity his apparent sacrifice, and enemies who are conscience-stricken by his words are trying to silence that eloquent tongue. But he meets all their threats and entreaties with the unanswerable argument, “ The risen Lord appeared to me. I had a vision, and I dare not be disobedient to that.” I. The imperative constraint of a vision of God. We are all familiar with the fact that every life of successful achievement must be the result of concentration. The natural tendency is for the elements of our life to fly off at a tangent, and there must be some centripetal force which will keep them circling round the centre if any work is going to be done. We need to come under the unifying influence of a dominant purpose which shall weld the elements into a homogeneous whole; otherwise there will be discord and dissension. No man can build up a colossal business, or become a successful artist, or secure lasting fame in literature, who does not feel the spell of this purpose and walk under its constraint. Now, the most powerful constraint which can fall upon any man is that due to a vision of God. By that I do not mean just a belief in the existence of a Divine Being. A man may believe so far and be practically unaffected by his belief. It was something very far removed from a mere intellectual assent which transformed the lives of Isaiah, Ezekiel, and Paul. The attempts to describe what each saw vary immensely, and show wide differences of literary ability. No one would put Isaiah’ s majestic chapter and Ezekiel’ s rather involved and labouring effort upon the same plane of literary merit. But Isaiah and Ezekiel and Paul are all attempting to describe a very real vision. Each knew that God had come into his life. For note the similarity of the immediate effects. Isaiah felt the whole building to tremble and the air seemed filled with the hissing steam which is emitted when fire and water mingle. He could only cry out in terror, “ Woe is me.” Ezekiel fell upon his face before the appearance of the glory of the Lord, and then went away and sat amongst the captives for seven days dazed and astonished. Paul was stunned, blinded, smitten to the ground, and was led helpless into Damascus. And the ultimate consequences were similar also. And each man explains his conduct by declaring that he is under the imperative constraint of the vision of God. He dare not be disobedient to that. Nothing but death can break its spell. The vision of God will constrain us very powerfully! It will brook no disobedience. It will be more imperious than the dictates of prudence and of propriety. It will explain all our enthusiasm which the man who has never seen God cannot understand. There is no other influence which is powerful enough to oppose the disintegrating force of self-love and self-will within us, and to unite our hearts in the service of a true religion. Mere intellectual assent to dogmas about a divinity will not constrain us to forsake sin. Ceremonials and forms of worship cannot redeem us from callousness in worship and in conduct. The forces within us smite such barriers aside or leap over them at once. How noteworthy it is that in these three cases the ritual of the Jewish religion in which they had been trained is forgotten! There is no priest in the temple in which Isaiah stands, and no sacrifice is offered. Ezekiel the priest sees the glory of God as he sits in the plains by Babylon’ s river. Saul, the punctilious and phylacteried Pharisee, meets Jesus face to face on the lonely road near Damascus. For years each man had been familiar with the most suggestive ritual which the world ever possessed, and it had only touched the surface: it had only succeeded in making them moral. It was the vision of God which revolutionised their life, making their nature reel to its foundations and turning the river of their energy into another channel. All devoted lives have been inspired by a vision of God, and not by the sight of a temple; by appropriation of the sacrificial offering, and not by kneeling before an altar. We shall only be blacklegs or hangers on, men called in to fill an emergency, if we depend for our inspiration upon anything less than a vivid personal experience of God. But is it possible for us to have a vision of God? According to the teaching of Jesus Christ, it is. “ Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.” “ He that hath seen Me, hath seen the Father.” It is possible for us to have an encounter with the Divine Person; to feel the contact between His Spirit and ours; to stand amidst a busy world and to be oblivious to all, whilst we gaze with entranced souls upon the flashing glory of God. But this is not to be a solitary experience casting a spell over succeeding years. Verily the time when the Lord of Glory first came to our side will be the epoch from which we reckon time. But if we see God in the face of Jesus Christ, He is with us always, even unto the end. Am I wrong in interpreting the emotions which sometimes surge in our hearts as a kind of envy of those men who received such a call to the ministry as came to these three servants of God? We urge ourselves on with a whip into which the cords of duty, of necessity, of reward, are lashed; but it is painful progress. We wish that our rapt eyes might see the Lord upon a throne high and lifted up, or a flaming glory borne by wheels full of eyes, or that some blinding light from heaven might enfold us in its passionate embrace. Is it not blessedly possible for us to have such a vision of God as never gladdened the eyes of Isaiah or Ezekiel? There is one significant difference between the apology of Paul and that of the earlier prophets. They are seeking partly to satisfy their own hearts and quiet the storm within; they fell back upon their vision as the justification to themselves. Paul has no misgivings within to hush! Why not? Because the vision of God is for him constant. It cannot fade as did that given to Isaiah! The Christian man lives in the Divine presence. There is no necessity for us to travel back along the road to some sacred spot marked by its altar. The place where we are standing now may be the place of vision. And we have to practise the presence of God! II. The contents of our vision of God determine the limitation of our work. Isaiah sees God exalted upon a throne, with sweeping robes filling the temple, before whom the cherubim veil their faces and the choirs of heaven chant “ Holy,” and the smitten prophet cries, “ I am unclean.” This is a vision of God as exalted in righteousness. It is the moral supremacy of Jehovah over against the sin of Israel which fills the vision of Isaiah. It is different with the vision granted to Ezekiel. He gazes upon a blazing glory, which is supported by the cherubim, and which moves throughout the world with the swiftness of lightning upon the wheels full of eyes. Obviously this is God as sovereign in nature and history; this is God as omnipresent and omnipotent, governing the councils of the nations and ruling over all. I do not mean that Isaiah and Ezekiel saw only this. Isaiah knew of God’ s omnipotence, for “ the whole earth is full of His glory.” Ezekiel understood God’ s moral supremacy; but the over, powering conception of God of the two visions is different. Now see what a connection there is between the dominant idea of God in the vision, and the work which each man has to do. Isaiah is sent to a people living securely in Jerusalem, but sunk into great sin. He has to exalt the Holy One of Israel over against the impurity of the nation’ s life. Ezekiel is a prophet sent to a later generation, a mere handful of exiles who have been led away from despoiled Jerusalem by the armies of the mighty king of Babylon. Sitting by the river Chebar, the harps hung on the willows in a strange land, it seems as if Jehovah is not able to help them. Then Ezekiel comes to exalt the Omnipotent King in place of the boasting, hustling strength of Nebuchadnezzar. Now turn to the vision given to Paul, and consider its meaning and contents in the light of his writings and work. He saw God revealed in Jesus Christ. That meant the God whom Isaiah saw, a God exalted in righteousness, whose holiness convicted the self-righteous Pharisee as the chief of sinners, and made him preach, “ All have sinned and come short of the glory of God.” That meant also the God whom Ezekiel saw, a God who is supreme above all the machinations of men and the swift vicissitudes of human experience, so that it is a part of his work to tell men that “ all things work together for good to them that love God,” and therefore to “ rejoice in the Lord alway.” But it meant also another aspect of God of which Isaiah and Ezekiel had only faint knowledge, namely, as the Father of men, who so loved the world as to send His Son to be the propitiation for all sin, and was calling all men everywhere to enjoy His salvation and to be reconciled to Him in Jesus Christ. And therefore Paul can be sent not to the few people of one nation to meet their special needs, but to all nations, to preach a Gospel which satisfied the universal and unchanging needs of the whole human race. So do the contents of our vision of God set the limits to our work. Our service in the world is determined by our knowledge of God. That is abundantly illustrated on the wide field of history. Any monk in mediaeval England could repeat a paternoster, but it needed a man whose heart was illumined by personal intercourse with the Father to translate the Bible for the people. The last century was satisfied with a most rigid and mechanical conception of God; and it was marked by a national life as meagre in its religious attainments as it was poverty-stricken in its religious ideals. It was only when men like Wesley and Carey, who had brooded over the Word of God and had become filled with His Spirit, delivered their message, that the Church was roused from its lethargy and began to save men at home and abroad. Herbert Spencer can write learnedly about the first principles of philosophical study; but he has no message to the sinful, because God is to him the unknowable, and that vision of God makes him powerless to serve. Matthew Arnold may compose clever essays which render a service within certain narrow limits, but he cannot preach to the mass of men, because his vision of God as only a power not ourselves which makes for righteousness is too dim to touch the heart of man. Huxley and Mill can tell people a great deal about the life history of a lobster or the laws of logic, but ask them to come to the bedside of a dying man or to comfort a sorrowing heart, and they are dumb, and must give place to the humble saint who has looked into the eyes of the Risen Christ. And so in all our work, its limitations are determined by the contents of our vision of God. A man who has never seen a holy God will not care much about holiness. Why is a man content to amass a fortune by a policy of greed and grab, though he leave the world worse than he found it? Because he has never been into a holy place and seen God giving up in love! And the other part of the truth is that the Christian’ s vision of God is the only satisfying one. It is no disparagement of the work of Isaiah and Ezekiel to point out that it was limited. This was the necessary result of the imperfection of all pre-Christian knowledge of God. The jewel has many facets; and one man gazed upon one flashing surface, and another in different circumstances upon a second. But Paul saw God in Christ, who is the express image of His person; and we all may see the glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father. This does not lift the veil from the secret nature of God. Nothing is more magnificent in these visions than their reverent reticence. No one can see God; only the appearance of His glory. But we see all that glory in Jesus Christ. Failure to interpret God through Jesus Christ only has always spelled disaster. The vision of God in Jesus Christ crucified and risen again is the only vision which can satisfy all the needs of our own heart and fit us to render permanent service to men in all circumstances. And this is the vision of God upon which we may gaze today. We shall not stand in any smoke-filled temple and gaze upon a throne high and lifted up. We shall not watch the whirling wheels full of eyes which carry the burning glory. But we may see Jesus. He is no dim, fading figure upon time’ s canvas. He stands before us a living Person, clear cut against the horizon of eternity. We know the life He lived, the death He died, and that He rose from the dead. The supreme business of every man in this life is to see God in Jesus Christ himself, and then to help others to have the vision. Deep down in the heart of every man is the longing which cries with the badgered patriarch, “ Oh that I knew where I might find Him, that I might come even to His seat!” “ I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life. No man cometh unto the Father but by Me!” “ It is the voice of Jesus that I hear.” Jesus brings us to our Father, and puts our hand in His strong grasp. (J. E. Roberts, M. A.) The added sense “ I had visions of God.” So said Ezekiel. He was selected from a crowd that he might have them, and he had them. There is something that is arbitrary in God’ s selection of a prophet; so that the man is, as Paul said, apprehended, and cannot choose but hear. There are also qualities in the man that cause him to be chosen. He will be a man of sense. He will be a man of intellectual power, for a prophet must not be a fool; and of moral power, one in whose heart are certain abiding convictions. But chiefly he will have the spiritual sense, the seeing eye. The soul has senses as the body has, and the pure in heart shall see God. It is quite conceivable that when our Lord chose His disciples He may have done so at first sight, for He knew what was in men. Perhaps it is more easily conceived that He had known, watched, studied them for months, and had said within Himself that when the time came for beginning these were the men who should be His chosen ones. Either way, they were chosen because they were fit to be, a preliminary fitness being implied. When we are told that a certain man had visions of God, it implies that beside the God who gives it there is the man who can receive it; and when He speaks there is a man who, being aware of it, stands in a listening attitude. The added sense which certain prophets have had is not a mere human faculty invested for the time with keener powers, but is a distinct and particular thing. The poet’ s eye sees visions not shown to others; and what were the world if it were robbed of the poet’ s dreams? The practical man has his uses--he who knows that two and two are four, utilitarian to his core; who never had a waking dream in his life. But where should we be without the man who sees the heavenly glories and calls things by their truest names? He has visions, this man, and so perhaps the astronomer may have, and the historian and the biographer, but they are not the visions given to him of the added sense, the pure in heart, and the prophet by the river, nor are they worth as much. Take away the seers, the mystics, the dreamers, and we are bankrupt. These men find the gold, mint it, and scatter it abroad for commoner men to find. Someone has expressed his pity for the blind man for this reason among others, that he has “ knowledge at one entrance quite shut out.” For it is perfectly true that he who adds a sense to us adds in effect a world. If you can unstop the ears of a deaf man, and so give him the sense of hearing, you give him immediate entrance to the world of sound, the sweet world of the breeze, the bird, and the speaking friend. This explains why it is that the great realities of the spiritual world are myths, names, and dreams to so many people, and why there are so many people to whom one cannot speak of his deepest experiences. Words are only symbols to convey impressions and when there is no appreciation or reception of the impression, what is the use of words? When you talk to these people about the markets and the price of corn and coal, or when you go to a higher level and speak of pictures, poetry, and music, you speak intelligible words; but when you speak of grace in any of its thousand terms, you treat of things they do not know. The expressed mission of Christ was to open the eyes of the blind. It was His condemnation of the wilfully blind around Him that they had eyes but could not perceive. It was then, and still is, the emphatic cry of the Christian, “ I see,” the meaning, the shore, the eternal Face. It is an interesting conception that one has when he thinks it might have pleased God to have made our mortal nature differently, and to have endowed it with four senses instead of five. Suppose it had been thought sufficient that we should be able to see and to hear, to feel and taste, but were denied the sense of smell; and yet God, denying us this, had filled the world with odorous buds and fragrant trees as now. Then the meadow-sweet were vain, the perfume of the violet unreal, and all sweet scents non-existent, But God had presently, let it be imagined, repented, and had given to one solitary and selected man the sense of smell; and this man, forgetting the deprivation of the rest of us, came to us with his question, Can you tell me why there should be so great a difference between the fragrance of the violet and the rose?” “ My dear sir,” we should reply, “ we do not understand you; the shape of the flowers and their size and colour we can speak of, but what this fragrance is we are unable to understand.” And should he go on to speak such words as smell, odour, and scent, we could only insist on our denial. The lack of sense makes it so. And it is precisely in the same way that visions of God are impossible to some men, and so frequent with others. A man is not necessarily beside himself because he sees what the rest say is not there, or hears a voice when all the world declares there was no sound. For then suppose the cure were worked on us, and we should walk through the gardens with a new sense added. With what wonder we should become aware of their odours, and go from flower to flower to try them all The more the world grows sordid, and, as it terms it, practical, the more it needs the added sense. When a man is wholly given to trade, and a woman to frivolity, the day of seeing visions of God is gone. What is needed is the added sense; for then the Church sees something more than organisations, and the nation more than colonies; and even the common man sees the encircling hills run back and life grow wide with astonishing speed. There is a prayer which, if answered, would meet the necessities of the case: “ Open the young man’ s eyes, that he may see.” “ Lord, that I may receive my sight.” (A. J. Southouse.) Spiritual ministries Some men never had any religious experience even of the lowest type; some men never prayed: are we to go and ask such men what they think of prophets, inspired souls, minds that burn with enthusiasm? We shall go to them for religious judgment when we go to the blind for an opinion of colour, and to the deaf for an opinion of sound. There are some men whose opinion we do not take upon any subject. On the other hand, when a man says he has seen heaven opened, and has seen a Divine vision, and has felt in his heart the calm of infinite peace, we are entitled to question him, to study his spirit, to estimate his quality of strength and tenderness, and to subject his testimony to practical trial. If the man himself is true, he will be better than his certificate; and if the man himself is false, no certificate can save him from exposure and destruction. Let us attend to this man awhile. He comes amongst us with unique pretensions. He says he was “ among the captives by the river of Chebar.” Then was Ezekiel a captive? The historical answer is, Yes; the religious answer is, No. He was a prisoner, and yet he was enjoying the liberty granted to him by enlarging heavens and descending visions. Have we not had experience of this kind? May we not so far claim the companionship of the prophet? You do not live in the prison. Plato said that when Socrates was taken to prison the prison ceased; it was the prison that gave way. A right mind can never be in prison. What did Ezekiel see?--“ visions of God.” By this term we are not to understand simply great visions. Ezekiel saw God, hints of God, gleams of the Divine presence, indications and proofs of God’ s nearness; verily, they were sights of God. “ The word of the Lord,” he continues, “ came expressly” unto him. By “ expressly” understand directly, certainly, without mistake. The voice of God cannot be mistaken: it startles men; then it soothes men; then it creates in them an attentive disposition; then it inspires men; and then it says, Evermore, till the work is done, shall this music resound in your souls. Then there is a “ word of the Lord,” actually a “ word.” There is some word the Lord has chosen, taken up, selected, held up, stamped with His image? Yes. Where is it? Every man knows where it is. The word of God is nigh thee, in thee, is in a sense thyself. To want God is to have Him; to demand the word of the living God is to know it. What may come of expansion, enlargement, higher and higher illumination, only eternity can disclose; but the beginning is in the very cry that expresses necessity or desire. Then comes the vision itself. Who may enter upon it? Personally, I simply accept it. We are not all poets, prophets. Some of us have but one set of eyes; the best thing for us to do is to listen, and wonder, and believe. We are rebuked by these revelations. We think we see everything when we see nothing. What have we seen? Trees? No: only the wood in which trees grow. Flowers? Not one; but things that want to be flowers, aspirations, struggles towards beauteous expression and fragrance. We have not yet seen one another. We have seen nothing as it really is. When a man, therefore, has seen aught of God or spirituality, we should listen to him with entranced attention. The talk is to us lunacy, the words are madness, until we are touched with a kindred spirit, sublimed by a kindred faith; then all things are known to be possible with God. The need of every age is a spiritual ministry. Spirituality and superstition are not the same thing. We want men who will give us ideal visions of life, high conceptions of morality, sublime forecasts of destiny, and a deepening sense of the sinfulness of sin. We need men who can create, not moral commandments and stipulations, but a moral atmosphere, which a bad man cannot breathe. It is better to pray than to doubt; it is mentally stronger to believe than to deny. “ The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God” ; the prophet hath said in his faith, “ The heavens were opened, and I saw visions of God.” I would rather listen to the second man than to the first. The probabilities, at least, are on his side. Already there are intimations that the universe is larger than any fool has discovered it to be. Let us hear the prophet. (J. Parker, D. D.) Ezekiel 1:4A whirlwind came out of the north.Divine revelations in seasons of trial and perplexity The history of the Jews was a succession of startling paradoxes. Their worst disasters ushered in their proudest successes. At three several crises in their career--in youth, in middle life, in old age--they came into collision with three giant empires of the ancient world--Egypt, Babylon, Rome. Each time they were crushed, almost annihilated, by the conflict. Yet each time they started up into a fresh and more vigorous life. Their unmaking was in each case a making anew. As a paradox, the Babylonian captivity was the most striking of the three. Blow follows upon blow, until the tale of their misery is full. The last company of exiles is deported; the last scion of royalty is a prisoner; the last breach in the fortress is stormed. The city is laid waste; the temple is a heap of stones. All is over. The sweet minstrelsies of the sanctuary jar cruelly on their ears now. The very name of Sion is a bitterness to them. And meanwhile, in this their helpless, hopeless misery, they are confronted with the most gigantic, awe-inspiring power which the world had hitherto seen. If at that crisis any calm and impartial bystander had been asked whether of the two--Babylon or Israel, the master or the slave--held in his grasp the future destinies of mankind, would he for a moment have hesitated what answer he should give? And yet out of the very abyss of despair the prophet’ s hope takes wing and soars aloft. It is not that he sees only the bright features of the prospect. No words can be fiercer or less compromising than the invective in which he denounces the sins of the nation. It would seem as if in his imagery he could not find colours dark enough to blacken the Israel of God. The Israel of God? Why, thy father was an Amorite and thy mother a Hittite--vile, polluted, God-forsaken heathens both; and after the foul deeds of thy parentage thou thyself hast done. The Israel of God? Why, thine elder sister is Samaria--Samaria, the profane and the profligate; and thy younger sister is Sodom--Sodom, whose very name is a byword for all that is most loathsome, most abominable in human wickedness, and whose vengeance--the sulphurous fire from heaven--flare out as a beacon of warning against sin and impurity to all time. “ And thou art far worse than thy sisters.” Restore thee from thy captivity? Ay, then when Samaria is restored, then when Sodom is restored--then, and not till then--unless thou repent. And yet, as the prophet’ s eye ranges beyond the immediate present, what does he see? The Spirit carries him into the wilderness and sets him down there. It is the scene apparently of some murderous conflict between the wild tribes of the desert or of some catastrophe which has befallen a caravan of travellers. The ground is strewn with the bones of the dead--fleshless, sinewless, picked clean by the vultures and bleached by long exposure, tossed here and there by the rage of the elements or the reckless hand of man. Is it possible that these bones, so bare and so dry, shall unite, shall be clothed, shall live and move again? God only can say. A moment more, and the answer is given. There is a rustling, a clatter, a uniting of joint and socket, a meeting of vertebra and vertebra. Sinews stretch from bone to bone flesh and skin spread over them. At God’ s bidding breath is breathed into them. They start up on their feet an exceeding great army. But the range of vision is not bounded here. Beyond the wilderness lies the pleasant land. Beyond the valley of dry bones is the hill of Sion, the city of the living God. After the revival of Israel comes the spread of the truth, the expansion of the Church. The exceeding great army is there; but the battle is still unfought, the victory has still to be won. So the prophet is carried again by the Spirit, and set down in the holy city. He is there once again within the sacred precinct’ s, where of old he had ministered as a priest. The scene is the same, and yet not the same. The hill of the temple has grown into “ a very high mountain.” Everything is on a grander scale--a larger sanctuary, a more faithful priesthood, richer and more abundant offerings. His eye is arrested by the little spring of pure water which issued from the temple rock and found its way in a trickling stream to the valley beneath--fit symbol of the Church of God. As he watches, it rises and swells, ankle-deep, knee-deep, overhead. Silently, steadily, it expands and gathers volume, pouring down the main valley and filling all the lateral gorges, advancing onward and onward, till it washes the bases of the far-off hills of Moab and sweetens the salt, waters of the very Sea of Death--teeming with life, watering towns and fertilising deserts, throughout its beneficent course--a stream so puny and obscure at its sources, so broad and full and bountiful in its issues--this mighty river of God. Indeed it was no earthly pile of masonry, no building made by hands--this magnified temple, which rose before the prophet’ s eyes. So it has always been. God’ s chief revelations have ever flashed out in seasons of trial and perplexity. As in Ezekiel’ s vision, there has been first the whirlwind--then the cloud--then the flame, the light, the glory, glowing with ever-increasing brightness from the very heart and blackness of the cloud. There is first the wild, impetuous force, unseen yet irresistible, rooting up old institutions, scattering old ideas, perplexing, deafening, blinding; sweeping all things human and Divine into its eddies. Then the dark cloud of despair--the despair of materialism or the despair of agnosticism--settles down, with its numbing chill. Then at length emerges the vision of the Throne, the Chariot of God, blinding the eyes with its dazzling splendour; and after this the vision of the dry and bleaching hones starting up into new life; and after this the vision of a larger sanctuary and a purer worship. It was so at the epoch of the Babylonian captivity; it was so at the downfall of the Roman empire; it was so at, the outbreak of the Reformation. And shall it not be so once again? We are warned by the experience of the past not to overrate either the perplexities or the hopes of the present. Nearness of view unduly magnifies the proportions of event’ s. Yet it is surely no exaggeration to say that the Church of our day is passing through one of those momentous crises which only occur at intervals of two or three centuries. It is the concurrence of so many and various disturbing elements which forms the characteristic feature of our age. Here is the vast accumulation of scientific facts, the rapid progress of scientific ideas; there is the enlarged knowledge of ancient and widespread religions arising from the increased facilities of travel. Here is the sharpening of the critical faculty to a keenness of edge unstrained in any previous age; there is the accumulation of new materials for its exercise from divers sources, the recovery of many a lost chapter in the history of the human race, whether from ancient manuscripts, or from the deciphered hieroglyphs of Egypt and the disentombed palaces of Assyria, or even from the reliques of a more remote past, the flint implements and the bone caverns of prehistoric man. These are some of the intellectual factors with which the Church in our age has to reckon. And the social and political forces are not less disturbing. What, then, must be our attitude as members of Christ’ s Church at such a season? The experience of the past will inspire hope for the future. “ In quietness and confidence, shall be your strength.” We shall not rush hastily to cut the political knot, because it will take us some time and much patience to untie it. We shall keep our eyes and our minds open to each fresh accession of knowledge, stubbornly rejecting no truth when it is attested, rashly accepting no inference because it is novel and attractive. As disciples of the Word incarnate, the same eternal Word who is, and has been from the beginning, in science as in history, in nature as in revelation, we shall rest assured that He has much yet to teach us; that a larger display of His manifold operations, however confusing now, must in the end carry with it a clearer knowledge of Himself; that for the Church of the future a far more glorious destiny is in store than ever attended the Church of the past. There is the whirlwind now, sweeping down from the rude tempestuous north; there is the gathering cloud now, dark and boding; but even now the keen eye of the faithful watcher detects the first rift in the gloom, the earliest darting ray which shall broaden and intensify, till it reveals the chariot throne of the Eternal Word framed in transcendent light.1. The idea of mobility is the foremost which the image involves. The vision of Ezekiel provokes a comparison with the vision of Isaiah. Isaiah saw the Lord enthroned on high, there above the mercy seat, there between the cherubim, there in the same local sanctuary, where for centuries He had received the adoration of an elect and special people. The awe of the vision is enhanced by its localisation. But with Ezekiel this is changed. The vision is in a heathen land. The throne is a chariot now. It is placed on wheels arranged transversely, so that it can move easily to all the four quarters of the heavens. Its motion is direct, immediate, rapid, darting like the lightning flash, whithersoever it is sped. Not, indeed, that the element of fixity is lost. Though a chariot, it remains still a throne. It is supported by the four living creatures whose wings as they beat fill the air with their whirring, but whose feet are planted straight and firm. They have four faces looking four ways, but these are immovable. “ They turned not when they went.” However we may interpret them, they are the firm supports of the chariot, moving rapidly, yet never turning, unchangeable in themselves, yet capable of infinite adaptation in their processes. 2. The counterpart to the mobility in the larger dispensation of the future thus implied in the vision is its spirituality. It is mobile just because it is spiritual. The letter is fixed; the form is rigid and motionless as death. The spirit only is instinct with life. “ Whither the spirit was to go they went.” Everywhere the presence of the Spirit is emphasised; and this emphatic reiteration is the more remarkable because it is found in the midst of accurate dates, precise measurements, topographical descriptions, minute external details of all kinds. 3. But lastly, if spirituality characterises the motive power, if mobility is the leading feature in the intermediate energies and processes, universality is the final result. The chariot of God moves freely to all the four quarters of the heavens. The prophet sees it first in the plains of Babylonia. He is then carried in his vision to the Temple at Jerusalem. There he beholds the glory filling the holy place, the throne of God supported on the cherubim: and there, too--an unwonted surprise--are the four faces, the wings, the hands, the wheels full of eyes, just the same forms and the same motions which he had seen in the land of his exile. Ay, he understands it now. The living creatures of Babylonia are none other than the sacred cherubim of the sanctuary. Three times, as if he would assure himself or convince others by reiteration, he repeats the words, “ The same which I saw by the river Chebar.” So, then, God works with power, God is enthroned in glory, not less in that far-off heathen land than in His own cherished sanctuary among His own elect people. The vision of Ezekiel is not a dead or dying story, which has served its turn and now may pass out of mind. It lives still as the very charter of the Church of the future. If in this nineteenth century we Englishmen would do any work for Christ’ s Church, which shall be real, shall be solid, shall be lasting, we must follow in the lines here marked out for us. Mobility, spirituality, universality, these three ideas must inspire our efforts. Other methods may seem more efficacious for the moment, but this only will resist the stress of time. Not to cling obstinately to the decayed anachronisms of the past, not to linger wistfully over the death-stricken forms of the past, not to narrow our intellectual horizon, not to stunt our moral sympathies; but to adapt and to enlarge, to absorb new truths, to gather new ideas, to develop new institutions, to follow always the teaching of the Spirit--the Spirit, which will not be bound and imprisoned--the Spirit, which is like the breath of wind, and whose very name speaks of elasticity and expansion, passing through every crevice, filling every interstice, conforming itself to every modification of size and shape; this is our duty as Christians, as Churchmen, as Anglicans, remembering meanwhile that there is one fixed centre from which all our thoughts must radiate, and to which all our hopes must converge--Jesus Christ, the same yesterday and today and forever. (Bishop Lightfoot.) Ezekiel 1:5 The likeness of four living creatures.Angelic ministries 1. God employs not ignorant, silly ones in His service, but those that are intelligent, angels that are wise and very knowing. 2. The angels are in all quarters of the world, taking notice of men’ s words, works, and ways. 3. Men should be ashamed to be ignorant, seeing angels are likened unto them for knowledge and understanding. 4. God doth interest angels and use their service in the government of the world. (1) To inform us of God’ s will, and God of our ways.(2) In opposing the great enemies of Christ and His Church, whereupon they intermeddle with kings and kingdoms, and the great affairs thereof.(3) To execute the judgments of God upon wicked men.(4) To defend the godly, to save and deliver them from harms.(5) To guide and lead the godly in good and safe ways.(6) To comfort.(7) To look unto the souls of men, that they fall not into the hands of devils at their death.(8) They are God’ s reapers at the end of the world.(9) To declare kingdoms, cities, people cursed. (10) The angels have work and power in the Church of God. (W. Greenhill, M. A.) The likeness of a man. The likeness of a man I. There are human features in heaven.1. There is a resemblance between spirits in heavenly regions and men.2. There is a human likeness in God. Christ is its manifestation.3. The human Christ is in heaven.4. There are men in heaven. II. There are human features in revelation.1. Revelation comes to us through human channels. The thought of heaven is translated into the language of earth. 2. Revelation makes known to us the true glory of humanity. 3. In all religion it is important not to lose sight of human nature. We have to see-- (1) God’ s sympathy with man. (2) Man’ s living, earthly experience of God.(3) Man’ s duty to his fellow men. (W. F. Adeney, M. A.) Ezekiel 1:8-9 The hands of a man under their wings. Suppression of self We are to do God’ s works without noise or notice of ourselves. Angels, that are agents for God, have their hands under their wings; their actions are seen, but not their hands. When Manoah catechised the angel, and asked him, “ What is thy name?” the angel would not tell him, but said, “ Why askest thou thus after my name, seeing it is secret?” And you shall not find the names of above two angels in Scripture, Gabriel and Michael. Angels are jealous of God’ s glory, and had rather conceal their hands and names than God should lose the least degree of His glory; for Manoah would therefore have known his name, that he might have honoured the angel afterward: and we are very apt to look at the instrument, and neglect the principal. It is wisdom to muffle up ourselves and to hold forth God as much as may be: Matthew 5:16, “ Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works,” etc.; He doth not say, that they may see you, but see your good works, and glorify your Father, not you. (W. Greenhill, M. A.) The hand under the wing I. As a symbol of the ideal life of man. Perfect blending of serving and soaring. Man is a child of the skies as well as of the soft. II. As a symbol of superhuman energy and force in connection with the human instrumentality. Human skill, tact, and eloquence are powerless unless winged by superhuman might. III. The right place for the hand of service is under the wing of faith. “ Whether ye eat or drink,” etc. IV. In the noblest service there is need for swiftness and grace. If there were more delight in service there would be no need to repeat appeals and resort to contrivances and schemes to get work done. V. The hand of service partly hidden by that which gives it speed. Often those whose days are filled with business find time for Christian labour of most varied kinds. (H. Starmer.) And they went everyone straight forward.--The straightforward direction If you look at a map of Russia, you will find that the railroad between the cities of Moscow and St. Petersburg is a straight line. It happened in this way. When the engineers were about to survey for making the railway, they asked the Czar which way he wished the line to take. He asked for a map, and, without a moment’ s hesitation, he took a ruler and drew a straight line between the two cities, and said, “ That is the way I wish the line to be made.” And has not God in the same manner drawn a straight line from the soul to Himself, its true goal, and is not Conscience the bright and shining light that signals the way clear between earth and heaven? (Sunday Circle.) Going straight toward the goal The man who says, “ I am going straight for glory, and if anybody is in my way, so much the worse for him,” for I am bound to take the right road; such a man will find a pretty clear track. Mr. Moody would say, “ Make a bee line for heaven.” A bee knows the nearest way, and keeps to it with all its force. Let me hear each one of you say, “ I am not going to take any corners, or twists, or windabouts; but straight away, what God bids me to do I am going to do; what He bids me believe I am going to believe, and if there is anything to be suffered for it, all right.” (C. H. Spurgeon.) Ezekiel 1:12 Whither the Spirit was to go, they went.Led by the Spirit By spirit, we are to understand, neither the will of angels, nor winds, nor the soul of man (for spirit in Scripture doth signify all these), but the essential and eternal Spirit of God. This is evident by Ezekiel 1:20.1. Angels, although exceeding wise, full of knowledge, active, and able to do great service, yet are not at their own disposal, they move not at their own pleasure, they went not where they listed. Let the abilities of the creature be never so excellent, they must be under the power of a superior, they must be ordered and directed by a higher cause. 2. It is the Spirit of God who is the great agent that sets angels to work; they perform nothing by their own virtue and strength, but at the command and impulse of the Spirit they act, they set out, proceed, finish, and return. As in a ship at sea, there are the winds without to drive it, and the pilot within to guide it to what place he pleaseth; so here is the command of the Spirit ab extra, externally, and the impetus intra, the inward influence, to carry out and order these. The great things angels have done, have been done by the Spirit of God: if they suggest good thoughts; if an angel strengthen Christ in His agony; if they reveal mysteries and things to come to Daniel and others; if they contend against princes, and agitate the great affairs of the kingdom, it is by virtue of the Spirit of God, that works efficaciously in them, and in good men, that are employed for the glory of God and the public good of Church or State. 3. Angels are led and easily led by the Spirit. “ They went” --without dispute or delay--“ whither the Spirit would have them go.” Offer up yourselves, freely and fully, to the conduct of the Spirit, and that will lead you into all truth and into the land of uprightness. (W. Greenhill, M. A.) Spiritual activity The poets tell us of a firefly in southern climates, said to be the most brilliant of all fireflies, which has this peculiarity, that it never shines at all except when going rapidly upon the wing, and then its brilliancy, can be seen afar. So it is with our immortal souls. When we are upon the wing, active and advancing, going forward in the Christian race toward God and toward heaven, our light shines out and all men see it; but when we stand still, it dies. (Christian Age.) Ezekiel 1:15-16 One wheel upon the earth by the living creatures.No stability in the world The four living creatures denoted the four parts of the world, and their agencies in them and by them: now are presented the wheels; every living creature had a wheel by it: and this strongly implies that there are wheelings, turnings, and changes in all parts; yea, the very same that are in one part are at one time or other in another part. The wheels are alike. Are wars, plagues, famine in one country? they are, or will be, in another. Do men die here? so in all parts. Are men unfaithful now? so they were of old. Are there unseasonable times here? such are abroad. Are things carried by violence, oppression, injustice here? so they are elsewhere. Are there designs, plots upon our kingdom and Church? so there are upon others. Whatever befalls one state, befalls another, internally and externally. The wheels are the same, and move alike, though sometimes backward in one part of the world and forward in another; there is no stability anywhere, but all things are changing. In vain, then, do men travel the world to find certainty and content in it; in vain do we go up and down, here and there, thinking to find settledness, and something satisfactory. The world is like itself everywhere; go east or west, and there is nothing but a wheel, and a wheel running. We must not look for stability, content, certainty, among the wheels, but above them: now it is not time to look about and abroad, but to look above the world and the wheels of it. If we have tribulation in the world, we may have peace in Christ. (W. Greenhill, M. A.) Symbols of Divine Providence The sum of this celestial vision is that the Divine Providence doth rule in the world, and is exercised in all parts thereof, and not only in heaven, or in the temple, or in Jewry, as the Jews then thought. As for the changes in the world, which are here compared to wheels, they befall not by haphazard, but are effected by God, though all things may seem to run upon wheels, and to fall out as it fortuneth. At the day of judgment, at utmost, men shall see a harmony in this discord of things, and Providence shall then he unriddled. Meanwhile, God oft wrappeth Himself in a cloud, and will not he seen till afterwards. All God’ s dealings be sure will appear beautiful in their season, though for the present we see not the contiguity and linking together of one thing with another. (J. Trapp.) Ezekiel 1:16A wheel in the middle of a wheel.God in human activity By a wheel within a wheel God governs and makes all things work together for good to those who love Him: all pleasant and all painful things; all that is mean, contemptible, slanderous, all that vexes and annoys. So we may put on gladness, knowing that He overrules each event of life, and while we work, He worketh in us according to His pleasure.1. The Scriptures affirm this truth. They are as full of evidences of it as the daily press is full of the records of man’ s workings in individual and national life. Eyes see clearer, washed with tears. Paul could glory in his infirmities, for he saw even in them that the power of Christ was made glorious. In all the pains and penalties, the joys and griefs, the thoughts and imaginations of life, God is busy, out of evil still educing good. 2. History proves this. Never did men meet behind closed doors without God seeing them. Every plot and conspiracy is known to Him. The Jews were persecuted and peeled, they were ever an easy prey to the spoiler, now they are the bankers and traders of the world; many hold seats of power among the nations. The thing you intend to accomplish carries with it a score of things you did not intend to do. Luther and Columbus accomplished more than they ever dreamed of doing, because God was in their movements. 3. The laws of nature illustrate this. The thunderstorm is His scavenger, driving off malaria and noxious vapour. The earthquake is a safety valve by which imprisoned gases are set free. Weeds, thistles, insects, are made to work out some good. Conclusion--1. We cannot get along without God. If we choose to rebel against His working, He will curb and overthrow us. If we lead selfish, prayerless, cruel lives, He will thwart and destroy. 2. Nothing happens which does not help him who loves God. Losses, crosses, abuse, and injury lead to the growth of patience, watchfulness, and the silent bearing of sorrow. Burn your own smoke and go on. Trials help to build up character. 3. The love of God is emphasised by the truth before us. He reigns--not sin. (H. M. Gallaher, D. D.) The symbol of Providence I. Your troubles, difficulties, losses, whatever they may be and whatever may be the instruments of them, are all from God. Your times are in His hands. Your ways are ordered by Him. Your breath depends upon His will. All your sorrows and all your joys are parts of His one great plan of education for you to make you meet to be His own forever. II. Succeeding events explain the providence and purposes of God. We learn what He intended to do, by what He has done. If we study the Lord’ s providence, remembering that all its events come from God, and that God alone can teach us what is their meaning and design; if we wait upon God with patient faith in His Divine teaching, to see what He means to do with us, all the flames will unfold themselves in due time. The whirlwind will pass by. The clouds will scatter, and light alone, the purest light, will remain to shine around us, “ clear as amber.” III. All the providences of God have a fixed purpose, and are wisely arranged in their operation. There is no blind chance in the government of God or in the affairs of men. When one asked Dr. Payson if he could discern any reason for his great personal sufferings, he answered, “ No; but I am as well satisfied as if I saw ten thousand reasons. The will of God is the perfection of all reason.” The ways and thoughts of God are not like ours. He does not give to us a previous account of His plans and purposes. But He knows the thoughts which He thinks concerning us. And He makes us to see and acknowledge at last how wire and how perfect they all were. Thus every providence appears to us with the face of a man, open, intelligent, and clear, having a manifest design, and perfectly adapted to accomplish it. It has also the eye of an eagle, which seeth afar off. It is watchful over the least of the affairs which it includes. The very hairs of our head, the stones in our path, the moments of our unconscious sleep, are all the subjects of its provision and control. These providences are also perfectly steady and uniform in their operation. The Lord is of one mind, and changeth not; the same yesterday, today, and forever. IV. The same providences are often designed to produce separate and sometimes apparently opposite results. These various results of Providence, and the instruments by which they are completed, are not generally wonderful or strange things. They are perfectly natural and common things, but brought about by ways which we had not anticipated. They are things which occur just as naturally as a wheel revolves, or as wings support in flight. But they come and go in their particular occurrence as God directs, and they bring to pass the designs which God has formed. V. In this gracious and wonderful scheme all providences have a secret purpose of blessing for those who love God. This is a very precious lesson. The plans of Divine providence are always subservient to the plans of Divine grace. They are designed as blessings for the chosen people of God. Whom He loves, He protects and prospers. There can be no one to harm those who are followers after that which is good. However God may try His people on the way, and however dark, unintelligible, and hard to bear these trials may appear, the triumphant and happy result is always the same, perfectly sure, and entirely compensating. He refines His chosen ones like gold and silver, and they glorify Him in the fires. VI. All the providences of God are under the control of the great Redeemer and Saviour of the people of God, the Lord Jesus Christ. The government of the world is on His shoulder, and He upholdeth all things by the word of His power. (S. H. Tyng, D. D.) The whole universe is ruled by God 1. He rules in the world of physical nature. The “ whirlwind” which the prophet saw was under the throne. All forces of nature, however strange and irresistible they may appear, are subject to God. What science reveals as laws, are no more than means and methods of Divine operation. God was seen in Jacob’ s dream above the ladder; so above all secondary causes is the great First Cause who originated them, and who still inspires them with energy and guides their courses. 2. He rules in the world of spirit. The cherubim which the prophet saw, with their mysterious forms and motions, were also under the throne. Freedom appears inseparable from spirit, but all creaturely freedom moves and acts within the will of God. “ He doth according to His will in the army of heaven” (Daniel 4:35). Holy beings ever obey lovingly. His will is not only their law, but the ground and means of their blessedness. Devils are compelled to obey. This is the cause of their constant rage and misery. Inspired by hatred to God and goodness, they are obliged to see that not only are their plots defeated, but they are eventually made to promote the very ends they sought to destroy. It is so also with men in this way: the renewed are “ workers together with God” ; the unrenewed, though unwilling and rebellious, must subserve Divine purposes (Romans 9:17). 3. He rules in the order of history. The wheels the prophet saw symbolised the government of the world in its entirety. There was an appearance “ as of a wheel within a wheel” --the multiform agencies and complications employed by Providence. The wheels “ went straight on” --the direct course of Providence, which never halts, and is never turned aside from its purposes. The “ rings were high and dreadful” --the vastness of the Divine purposes, awful in their sweep and grandeur. The “ rings were full of eyes” --the omniscience of God, so appalling to the wicked, so comforting to saints. The “ noise” of the moving wheels and of the accompanying cherubim was as “ the voice of the Almighty” --all nature, and life, and the course of history, a revelation of the living, omnipotent Deity. (Christian Age.) The mysteries of Providence I. God carries on all things by a secret and an invisible virtue, that though you see the hand without, yet you see not the spring within. II. Men’ s spirits are many times raised unto an extraordinary pitch beyond the spirits of men. Drawn out to higher resolutions, they pitch upon higher thoughts and purposes than ever the times require: why now, mark, here is a mystery in this, that at one time a man should rise higher than at another time, and their resolutions and courages rise higher, and they should dare to encounter with those difficulties that even formerly they did tremble to think of. What is the reason of it? Oh, here is the mystery of Providence (Zechariah 12:8). III. God puts impressions and apprehensions upon men many times, that they run to their own ruins.1. Sometimes impressions of discouragement (Judges 7:13-14).2. Sometimes impressions of encouragements (2 Kings 3:22-23). IV. God many times raiseth up instruments, and He qualifies them for His work. Girding up their loins and strengthening their hands, that they shall go through that at one time that you would have thought ten thousand instruments could not have done it at another (Isaiah 45:1-2). God lays the same instrument aside again at another time. Many times the Lord will make a combination, and there shall be a conjunction of instruments, and afterwards the Lord will make use of these, even to destroy one another. Abimelech and the men of Shechem. V. God many times destroys men by those means by which in all human judgment they think they shall be preserved. The people of Israel, when they were in any necessity, then by and by unto King Jareb, which some expound to be a helping king: sometimes in the way of Assyria, sometimes in the way of Egypt; yet, notwithstanding, they were destroyed by those that they brought in to their help. They bound Paul that he should not preach: “ My bonds tend to the furtherance of the Gospel.” They banished the Church out of Jerusalem, on purpose that so they might have destroyed it: but that is the Church’ s preservation, when Jerusalem is destroyed. These are the strange actings of Providence. VI. When things are brought to the lowest ebb, the means weakest, and the confidence of the enemy and their expectations highest, then many times God is pleased to destroy the power of the mighty. When Gideon hath but three hundred men, he is fit to fight God’ s battles; yea, Sisera must fall by the hand of a woman. Uses-- 1. In all actings of Providence subscribe to His wisdom.2. In all actings of Providence submit to His will. (W. Strong.) Ezekiel 1:17 And they turned not when they went. Concentrated lives It is a grand thing to see a man thoroughly possessed with one master passion. Such a man is sure to be strong, and if the master principle be excellent, he is sure to be excellent too. The man of one object is a man indeed. Lives with many aims are like water trickling through innumerable streams, none of which is wide enough or deep enough to float the merest cockleshell of a boat; but a life with one object is like a mighty river flowing between its banks, bearing to the ocean a multitude of ships, and spreading fertility on either side. Give me a man not only with a great object in his soul, but thoroughly possessed by it, his powers all concentrated, and himself on fire with vehement zeal for his supreme object, and you have put before me one of the greatest sources of power which the world can produce. Give me a man engrossed with holy love as to his heart, and filled with some masterly celestial thought as to his brain, and such a man will be known wherever his lot may be cast, and I will venture to prophesy that his name will be remembered long after the place of his sepulchre shall be forgotten. (C. H. Spurgeon.) Ezekiel 1:20 Whithersoever the Spirit was to go, they went. The nobility of a devout soul under the Spirit’ s influence Oh for conquering grace to crush down self. I would be as a grain of dust blown in the summer gale without power to change my course, carried by the irresistible breath of God; forever made willingly unwilling to will anything but the will of my Lord. I would be as a tiny straw borne along by the Gulf Stream, carried wherever the warm love of God shall bear me, self delighting to lie low and see the Lord alone exalted. (C. H. Spurgeon.) For the spirit of the living creatures was in the wheels. The unity of Providence The bosom of Providence is the great moral crucible in which things work, in which they work together. They assimilate, repel, interpenetrate, change each other; and then leave as resultant one grand influence in the main for each character, for each man. “ All things work together,” not in an aimless and capricious manner, for this end and for that, now in one way and now in another, as though a stream should one day flow seaward, and the next back toward its fountain among the hills, but in one volume, along one channel, in one direction, toward one end. (A. Raleigh, D. D.) Ezekiel 1:26-28 As the appearance of a man. Conceptions of God Ezekiel’ s conception of Jehovah appears in the” visions of God” which he describes (chaps. 1; 8; 10; 43.). These visions were all alike, and they reveal his general impression of that which Jehovah is: the fourfold nature of the cherubim, of their faces and wings and of the wheels, all forming a chariot moving in every direction alike, and with the velocity suggested by the wings and wheels, symbolises the omnipresence of Jehovah, while the eyes of which the whole are full are a token of His omniscience. The throne above the firmament on which He sat indicates that He is King in heaven, God over all, omnipotence. The Divine Being Himself appeared as of human form, while His nature was light, of such brightness that fire fitly represented Him only from the loins downwards; from the loins upwards the effulgence was something purer and more dazzling, and He was surrounded by a brightness like that of the rainbow in the day of ram. This glory, which contains Himself within it (Ezekiel 10:4; Ezekiel 01:18; Ezekiel 43:5; Ezekiel 34:6), is that which is manifested to men. (A. B. Davidson, D. D.) Man a type of the supernatural All the analogies of human thought are in themselves analogies of nature; and in proportion as they are built up or are perceived by mind in its higher attributes and work, they are part and parcel of natural truth. Man--he whom the Greeks call Anthropos, because, as it has been supposed, he is the only being whose look is upward--man is a part of nature, and no artificial definitions can separate him from it. And yet in another sense it is true that man is above nature--outside of it; and in this aspect he is the very type and image of the “ supernatural.” (Duke of Argyll.) As the appearance of the bow that is in the cloud in the day of rain. The significance of the rainbow Ezekiel was reminded that he had to present God before the people as clothed with fire--a symbol, probably, of His coming indignation on the last of Jerusalem’ s inhabitants. But, not to disturb the righteous, or to give them the least idea for supposing that, in the final desolation of Jerusalem, God’ s covenant should cease, the vision went on (verse 28) to reveal a rainbow overarching this fiery throne, the mild lustre of which outshone its blazing glare. Could anything be more gracious? From that time, both the prophet and His faithful people might well rest assured that they were safe. God would not, and could not, forsake them. The bow of the covenant was above them, far beyond the reach of those changing providences which were represented as going forward so rapidly and incessantly below them. And even thus, amidst the changes and troubles of this mortal life, the true Israel, the believers in Christ, are safe under God’ s covenant mercy and grace. (J. H. Titcomb.) Ezekiel 1:28I fell upon my face. Man’ s incapacity for seeing God If we knew and could feel as much concerning God and Christ and heaven as we sometimes desire, probably it would make us insane. We have seen horticulturists pull down the awnings in their greenhouses. Plants may sometimes have too much sun: and so may we. (N. Adams.) Humbled by a sight of glory 1. See what mischief sin hath done unto us: it hath disabled us from partaking of our greatest good. The sight of glory is the happiness of the creature. 2. The sight of glory is an humbling thing. “ The glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it” (Isaiah 40:5); and then follows, “ All flesh is grass.” Glory will convince us that we are but grass. It is not hearing will do it--at least, not so effectually; seeing, and seeing of glory, doth humble mightily. Seeing of misery causeth grief, “ Mine eye affecteth mine heart” ; but seeing of glory causeth godly sorrow (Job 42:5-6; Isaiah 6:5). Those that are thoroughly humbled with the sense of their own vileness and weakness are fittest to hear Divine truths and to receive Divine mysteries. Ezekiel falls on his face, and then hears a voice; so was it with Daniel. Flesh and blood is apt to be lifted up, to trust in something of its own; men look at, and like their own parts, their graces; some confidence or other we are apt to catch hold of; but we must let all go, be low in our own eyes, if we will be fit auditors of Christ; we must fall down at the feet of His throne, if we will hear Him speak from His throne. He giveth grace to the humble, they find the choicest favours at His hands (James 4:6). (W. Greenhill, M. A.) . Ezekiel 2:1-2 Son of man, stand upon thy feet, and I will speak unto thee.The full stature of a man Men often speak, and more frequently act, as if the religion of Christ paralysed manhood and cut the sinews of life. This is the reason, I believe, why so many give a reluctant ear to the religion of Christ. Now I concede the premise that determines this attitude to Christ; the premise that a man is entitled to the rounded fulfilment and the highest reach of the nature which God has given him. Our nature is a parchment on which God has written His will concerning us. The difficulty is that the original writing of God is so blotted and interlined with the writing of the devil that men misread their nature, and take it at the devil’ s interpretation instead of God’ s interpretation. In the measurement of ourself, any value below the highest is a mistake. It defeats God’ s intention regarding us. It flings us at once on an inferior plane of life. It produces a manhood mutilated at the top, impoverished in its deepest centres of power and joy. Now let us glance at the religion of Christ. It is to feed these centres of power and joy in our nature, to enlarge them, to quicken them to their keenest energy, that that religion comes to us with its claim and appeal. So far from paralysing manhood and cutting the sinews of life, it is something which God has put on this earth to nourish the essential traits of manhood and thrust life upward to its highest levels of force and happiness. Christ Himself is the only true measure of His religion. We must take it in its original features and accents, with the large, grand truths which He revealed as its lines of structure, and the institutions which He founded to shelter those truths and bring them into living touch with men. What did He tell us of His religion? Nay, what did He tell us of Himself?--for Christ is Christianity. He said: “ The Son of Man is not come to destroy men’ s lives, but to save them.” “ I have come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly.” “ I am the Light of the world. He that followeth Me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life.” These are crucial words. They sweep the whole horizon of Christ’ s truth and work. The purpose of His religion is not to impoverish and mutilate life, but to show us the values of life as they stand in the light of God; and, in the downward pull of our nature and the sharp stress of the world, to help us to realise the highest values. Thus it comes to us. Thus it addresses us. It says, as God said to the prophet: “ Son of man, stand upon thy feet, and I will speak unto thee.” You must meet it, as a man meets a friend, standing on your feet, looking into his eyes, grasping his hand. And more than this; as its spirit enters into you, it will set you upon your feet. It comes to uplift your nature, enrich your life, to give it reach and vision, to keep you on your feet in your fight with sin. But it makes demands, you say. Yes, but all its demands are needful for the training of our manhood to its highest fruition; and it helps us to meet its demands. For instance, it demands faith. But do you expect to go through life without faith? Then you will miss the best and richest things of life. It is like a man drawing the curtains of his windows when the sunshine is making holiday on the earth. Again, it demands worship. But surely no thoughtful man would give much for a life that had not the element of worship in it. It is when faith in unseen things is faint, and worship dies out of life, that men ask, “ Is life worth living?” An empty heaven overarches an empty heart. Lastly, it demands the curbing of the lower forces of our nature. This, after all, is the demand that excites the most angry and determined revolt. But life itself, outside of Christ, if it be carried to any high issue, makes the same demand. Even to be the shadow of a man, even to be respectable and keep our place in the world, we must chain the brute within us. It is a difficult task, and men who essay it without the aid of God ofttimes find that the wild beast has escaped his cage, and is devouring the beauty and dignify of their life. Christ, it is true, goes beyond the demands of the world. He asks us to sacrifice, if the need come, natural appetite and innocent joy in the behoof of our soul. Life itself finds its meaning only by the soul working out with pain and battle its supremacy. To accomplish this, the world has its methods; but Christ’ s method, after all, is the easiest method, the only effective method. Starve the evil in your nature by feeding the good that is in it. Conquer the strong man that has taken possession of your house by bringing in a stronger than he. The Church of Christ, with its revealed truth, its sacraments and its worships, is the Divine porch which God has built in the world, through which we may come to Him, and draw into our life, for help in our struggle and the healing of our wounds, the forces of His Divine life. (W. W. Battershall, D. D.) Self-possession The man who is great by gift, office, or opportunity, and at the same time of unfeigned goodness, will shrink back from the idea of incapacitating by oblique terrorism those who come within the field of his influence. He will wish them to employ their powers for the common weal to the best possible advantage, and will therefore seek to put them at their case, to encourage them to intellectual self-command, to build them up and not to cast them down. God’ s dealings with His servants of all ages correspond to our conception of His gentle and gracious character. The vision of His presence and power is not meant to permanently depress, overawe, and incapacitate. His glory is overwhelming, but it is not His will to annihilate reason and all that constitutes personality by the manifestations of His majesty. I. Self-possession is necessary for the highest forms of intercourse with God. A man cannot be a recipient of the Divine revelations till he has made some little progress in the art of collecting and commanding his own faculties. Now and again God makes Himself known in vivid and stupendous ways which smite mortals with fear and trembling. For the time being, He strips them of their manliness. The characteristic attributes of the human personality are numbed, stifled, half-destroyed, and the man who is the subject of these manifestations might well think himself in the throes of a process intended to dissolve the elements which make up the unity of his being, and merge him irrecoverably into the terrible Infinite. Now this paralysing sense of the supernatural, which appears to threaten the obliteration of the individual, is only temporary. God does not wish to subtract anything from the personality, or to make us less than that which He created us to be. But, after all, the only thing God wants to drive out of the personality is the taint of selfishness, affinity for wrong, soft complaisance towards transgression. Indeed, it is the sin latent in us which produces collapse before His presence, and when that is gone serene self-possession is recovered. He does not wish to blight, or repress and destroy a single element in the constituent sum of a man’ s identity.1. This lack of quiet self-possession is sometimes the reason why stricken, conquered, storm-tossed souls cannot enter into the quiet of saving faith. A temptation to keep back the obedient response to God’ s solicitation of human confidence may come in two opposite ways. Many a man persuades himself that his heart is not so profoundly stirred that he can exercise the faith that will save him. The psychological atmosphere, he is tempted to think, is far too normal and commonplace. And, on the other hand, those most profoundly wrought upon by a sense of their guilt, and the vision of the Divine holiness, exercised to the point of distraction by some force which has seized upon their emotions, find it difficult to collect their minds into an intelligent and purposeful act of faith. Their natures are almost stupefied by the mighty supernatural arrest that has come to them. The power of thought and emotion is for the moment frozen up or has almost passed away. They cannot collect themselves for the transaction which is required at their hands. Saul, the blinded persecutor, must have been in some such condition, as he lay prone at the gate of Damascus, for he could not there and then put forth the faith by which he was healed, built up, sanctified. The nature prostrate and helpless through a cataclysm of overwhelming conviction must be brought out of its paralysing amazement. Faith is an act which demands collectedness of mind, a rational and reflective attitude, modest self-possession. True it is that faith is God’ s gift, but the hand that receives is not the hand clutched with terror or folded in sleep, but the hand which is heedfully and unfalteringly held out. 2. Whilst reverence in God’ s presence is a duty from which there can be no release, that sacred emotion of the soul is not meant to dumfound and transfix us, however mighty the revelations to which it is a tribute. Indeed, the reverence that is allied to helplessness and maimed perception is manifestly a sentiment of inferior quality. The man who wishes to dazzle the supporters he is rallying to his side brings some kind of reproach upon himself. He who seeks to lull his admirers into dreaminess or to fascinate them into stupor, and so disarm their judgments, confesses thereby the meagreness of his own power to captivate by reason and by love. If, as God comes forth to conquer us, His revelations put the larger part of our mental life to sleep or obscure a single faculty or perception, that would be practically a confession of weakness on His part. It would imply He had not adequate moral and spiritual reserve forces wherewith to subdue our souls into adoration of His attributes and homage to His great behests. When God sees fit to disclose His majesty and abase our pride, He does not intend to permanently weaken, discourage, paralyse. That would be to surround Himself with worshippers of meaner capacity and servants of inferior fitness for His tasks. He desires to call forth, train, and perfect the undivided powers of those whom He seals and sends. 3. The largest and the loftiest service of God is that which is rational in the best sense of the word. Those disclosures of His being, character, and operation which God will make both in this life and in that which is to come, are intended to stimulate and not to depress that group of faculties of which the brain is the symbol. He has created us all that which we find ourselves, so that we may be better able to comprehend Him than beings less richly endowed, and we cannot think that this special capacity will be overborne and destroyed as soon as the goal comes into view. Every mental power must be healthy, well-mastered, on the alert, so that we lose nothing from His many-sided revelations. We cannot apprehend God and assimilate His truth and life in states of feeling which are not far removed from trance conditions. The highest intercourse with God attainable by a human soul is that in which the soul is perfectly at ease, competent to command its own powers and apply its own discernments. 4. Men may pass into mental states in which we describe them as possessed--possessed either by the Spirit of God for good, or by an unclean spirit for evil. But possession represents only a half-way stage towards a final goat of holiness or sin. In possession, both for evil and good, the personality becomes more or less veiled, overborne, suppressed. Manifestations of the Divine glory that confound and disable through their momentary intenseness, unfit for the truest and most comprehensive communion with God. In our own, as well as in earlier times, Christianity has fallen under the spell of Oriental philosophies which assume that the basis of human personality is evil, and its duration therefore fleeting; and that reabsorption into the infinite and universal life is the goal of all aspiration and progress. The unexpressed idea seems to be that the infinite cannot tolerate the finite, that it is always thirsting to draw every attribute of manhood out of us, and that it will leave at last the mere husk and shell of an effete personality behind, bleaching into final invisibility, or perhaps not even so much as that. Such a view credits God with predatory instincts rather than pays Him the glory due to His absolute and eternal love. God wishes to take out of our personalities nothing but what is hateful--selfishness, folly, moral blemish and defect. In Christ’ s high-priestly prayer we find the charter which pledges the permanence of all those elements which constitute personality. His own relation to the Father, which presupposed the essentials of personality, was to be the standard looked to in the perfecting of the disciples. “ As Thou, Father, art in Me and I in Thee, that they also may be one in us.” The branch which is grafted into the stock of a tree still produces its own specific flowers, in spite of its union with the tree, and produces them more nobly because of the reinforcement of life it receives from the tree. Our Lord’ s union with the Father accentuated rather than obscured the properties of His personality. The Father was ever dwelling in the Son, but the personality of the Father was not lost in the mystery of intercommunion; and the Son was ever dwelling in the Father, but He remained a perfectly conscious and clearly defined Son, and His personality was neither volatilised nor swallowed up by the mystic relation. The union which entirely abstracts and absorbs makes communion a fixed impossibility. And His own age-long fellowship with the Father, Jesus Christ presents as the type and consummation of all human excellence and blessedness. Ages await, us in which the revelations of God will transcend the grandest disclosures of the past; but even then these, revelations will be attempered to our capacity to receive and assimilate, Man’ s intellectual grasp, far from being overtaxed and palsied by the strange secrets of the future, will only be stimulated and enlarged. We are not children of the mist, freaks of cloudscape, broken shadows, iridescent vat, ours, whose destiny it is to confront the sunlight and be irretrievably dissolved. In the maturity of an all-round, unshrinking, indefectible personality, we shall be summoned into the presence of His glory to receive, without error or distraction, the nobler teaching of the hereafter. He will ask us then to be self-possessed, and He is teaching us the alphabet of that duty now. “ Son of man, stand upon thy feet, and I will speak unto thee.” II. A serene and undisturbed temper is necessary not only for the man who is an elect recipient of Divine revelations, but for the man also who is to be a messenger of these revelations to others. Courage before men is a characteristic of the genuine prophet; a timid, blushing, disconcerted herald from God’ s throne is an incongruous compound. The first apostles did much to prove their place in the holy succession by the firmness with which they spake under circumstances which would have abashed men with a less convincing religious history behind them. In the chapters to which the vision of Ezekiel is a prelude, the prophetic office is illustrated by the duty laid upon the sentinel or watchman. For such work the power of calm, unerring discernment is indispensable. He must be master of himself, able to see with his own eyes, to trust the correctness of his own judgments, to hold his own in the world. Unless a man has self-command, or can at least acquire it by discipline, he is unfit to be God’ s watchman. The nervous prophet, the self-deprecating herald, the apostle who allows himself to be overborne by the clamour of the world, stultifies his own mission and does not a little to discredit his message.1. Self-possession is often a secret of success in common things. In not a few pursuits the cool head and uniform self-command are essential to life itself. A man must have confidence in the art he has assumed, and in his own aptitude for applying the principles of his art, and above all in the truths to the promulgation of which his art is contributory. He who has a modest faith in his own resources, be they natural or spiritual, will inspire some degree of that same faith into others. The man who cannot command his own faculties at the moment, never inspires confidence, however vast the stores of knowledge and power with which popular rumour may credit him. It is the working capital in actual view which assures the onlookers rather than the unrealisable assets. We cannot persuade others till we are so absorbed by the subject matter of that persuasion that all the powers of the mind rise up to emphasise it. The duty of self-command implies very much more than subjecting our bad passions to the control of the will; and if we do not learn self-command in the widest possible sense of the term, we inevitably weaken our effectiveness for good. By fluttered moods and weak, indeterminate accents, the wisest man is just as much disqualified from swaying others as the ignorant or the imbecile. Nervous embarrassment, inability to bring our best gifts into use at the call of a providential opportunity, palpitations, strikings of spirit, hesitancies, seem to turn our message into farce and dumb show. One faculty which we can quietly use at will for practical ends is better than a brilliant host of faculties which are not under perfect control. 2. Self-possession is a sign of the quietness of faith. When attained by spiritual processes it becomes a Voucher for that trust in God which, once learned in His immediate presence, extends to the daily fulfilment of the tasks He has fixed. Without this tranquillity which grows from faith we can have no power. There can be no confusion or embarrassment where this fixed persuasion exists. The man who is bold at God’ s command is bold because authority is behind him, and authority means the mighty grace which will not suffer its obedient instruments to be confounded or brought to shame. A true faith should enable us to wield our finest powers for God and His service. Respect for the opinions of others should never lead us to cancel ourselves and the contents of our own consciences. The strength and boldness we need in speaking for God must, in many cases, be built up from their very foundations on religious principles and experiences. The man whom nature does not help, and who through superhuman influence alone grows bold and at ease, will far surpass the other in effectual service for God. It may sometimes happen that in the physical life there is a barrier to their self-possession which is a prime condition of usefulness, and in one case out of a hundred the barrier may be insurmountable. Excellent and high-principled men and women assume too readily that they are the victims of nervous disorder, weak circulation, faintness. Let God’ s imperative “ Stand upon thy feet” help us. It is a Divine voice which calls us to mental collectedness, to the quiet use and control of all our hidden gifts. He would fain rescue us from our frailties, from proneness to mental confusion, from undue awe of the face of our fellows, from that nervous paralysis which so often has its roots in a morbid or a defective religious life. It is not His will to have servants who lack the note of courage, competence, effectuality. By contact with God we shall gain steadiness, confidence of touch, impressive self-mastery for our work. “ Now when they beheld the boldness of Peter and John . . . they took knowledge of them that they had been with Jesus.” If we learn presence of mind before God we shall find little difficulty in maintaining it before men. “ Wait on the Lord, be of good courage, and He shall strengthen thine heart; wait, I say, on the Lord.” (T. G. Selby.) The prophet’ s commission I. The attitude of the prophet in the presence of God. Jonathan Edwards, who has been called the Isaiah of the Christian Dispensation; was often carried in the chariot of his imagination into the very highest heaven of ecstasy to behold the greatness and the glory of the Lord. And during those seasons of seraphic communion he realised his utter weakness, and his very body seemed to faint and fail. Pascal, too, had no less exalted experience when he was visited with the presence and power of God, and saw visions so unutterable that he could only fall on his face and weep tears of joy. But God does not mean that His servants should be overmastered with the majesty of its glory. God is not like an Eastern sovereign who wishes his subjects to be impressed with his distant greatness, and would extinguish the sense of noble manhood within their breast. The relation which God sustains to His people is that of a father to his children, who would impress them with the conviction of his absolute authority, and yet, at the same time, would endeavour to awaken within them the sense of their nobility and dignity as his children. II. The attitude of the prophet in the presence of man. We may bend our knees in the presence of God, but we must stand upon our feet in the presence of man. It is in this attitude that we receive strength. Bunyan’ s picture of the prophet is the ideal for all time. “ He had eyes lifted up to heaven, the best of books was in his hand, the law of truth was written upon his lips, the world was behind his back. He stood as if he pleaded with men; and a crown of glory did hang over his head.”1. The first quality or attribute of the true prophet is that of conviction. The prophets of science have emerged out of their caves of prejudice, of tradition, of authority, and have gazed at nature with the clear eye of truth, and under the open canopy of heaven. And so it must be with the prophets of Scripture; they must be prepared to dismiss all the idols of prejudice and passion, and study the Bible in the light of open day, and thus arrive at a firm, immovable conviction of its truth. We have no business to preach our doubts; it is the grand realities that we are to proclaim in the presence of an unbelieving world. A lady once, examining Turner’ s pictures, said, “ But, Mr. Turner, I don’ t see these things in nature.” “ Madam,” replied the artist, with pardonable pride, “ don’ t you wish you could?” Thus the true prophet must be a seer, and being a seer, the whole breadth of nature and Scripture will be open to him, and he will see things that others wot not of. 2. The second quality which distinguishes the true prophet is that of courage. The apostles after the day of Pentecost were full of courage. The fear of man was completely taken away, so that they testified with boldness the truths of the Gospel concerning the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ. So it was with Luther, with Knox, with Savonarola, and all the great prophets of old; they were bold and uncompromising in their utterance of the truth. 3. The third quality of the faithful prophet is character. The staff of the prophet must be in the hands of a pure and upright man. Gehazi was a bad man; and hence, although he had the wand of Elisha in his hand, it failed to work enchantment. He passed the staff over the face of the dead child, the son of the Shunamite woman, but there was no voice, nor any that answered. But when Elisha took the staff in his hand, then the boy was raised to life again. Thus will it always be. (J. C. Shanks.) Human progress a preparation for the fuller knowledge of God I. The will of God is the uplifting of man. Ezekiel thought that he honoured God by falling prostrate on the ground. Be learnt that God was rather honoured by his standing on his feet. Salvation is the uplifting of man. It must be so because God is love. His aim is to lift the objects of His love into free fellowship with Himself. His glory and their exaltation are one. And the liker to Himself they are, the greater His joy. And this is true with reference to all man’ s powers. To stand upright is the outward sign of self-possession and of power in full development and exercise--first of all, the highest powers of faith and aspiration and conscience, but then all the powers which go together to make the man. Every human faculty has its place in the kingdom of God, and is sought out by the redemption of Christ Jesus. II. The text makes this uplifting not only compatible with, but necessary to, the reception of Divine truth. “ Stand upon thy feet, and I will speak unto thee.” Character can only be understood by corresponding character. If the lesser is to have fellowship with the greater, it must always be because the lesser grows until an answering faculty apprehends the greater. Take away the faculty in the receiver, and you destroy the power of the revealer to reveal himself. If the musician is to utter his soul, his instrument must sufficiently combine melodiousness, harmony, and delicacy to express his conception and to call forth all his skill. Had Mendelssohn known only the tom-tom of an African savage, we could never have had the Elijah and the Songs without Words. So we could never have had the dialogues of Plato had the philosopher had in view no audience more intellectual than a Sunday school class. And this is no mere human limitation. God can only reveal Himself to man and in man as human nature becomes lofty and deep and broad enough to apprehend and to express His mind. Further, each new power developed in man is a new point of contact with God. The world is so full of God that it is impossible to establish any new connection with it without its becoming a way of approach to some part of the mind of God, which is waiting to be revealed, when the means of receiving it are found. III. We have in the text a special message from God to the men of our times. From every side the call is being heard--“ Stand upon thy feet.” Orders have been called to political and economical influence, which never exerted it before. Men are pressing forward to claim their share in the higher life of science, literature, and art, who but a generation ago were not sufficiently awakened even mournfully to say, “ Such joys are not for us.” What is the true prophet to say to this many-sided movement? Is he to ban it as secular and worldly? Nay, rather, he must proclaim that so long as moral earnestness is behind it, it is the inspiration of God bidding men stand upon their feet, that He may speak to them. (J. S. Lidgett, M. A.) Optimism and pessimism; or, the true dignity of man (with Psalms 8:4-5):--It is most important that man should recognise his high origin, the nobility of his powers, and the glorious destiny that is possible to him, and that invites his noblest efforts and ambition. The first attitude of the soul toward God must always be that of profound reverence and deep humility. Still God will not allow His chosen ones to crouch at His feet. First, the lowly penitent pleading for mercy; after that, the servant, obeying the commandments of God because he must obey or lose his place; but then, the son and friend, standing up beside his God, listening with rapturous delight to the voice of the loving Father. God is ever ready to draw near to those who love Him, and to speak with them as friend speaketh with friend. “ Son of man, stand upon thy feet, and I will speak to thee.” I think we may learn from these words that it is possible for us to miss the voice of God, and to lose much of the comfort of His presence, by failing to claim the privilege of coming to God at all times, in the fullest confidence of love and friendship. Man must recognise his true dignity, and maintain his self-respect, before he can receive the highest revelation of God. It is worthy of note that God put dignity and honour upon man by creating him in His own image. He also showed His great regard for man by giving His Son to redeem him, and lift him up from the low condition into which he had been brought by sin and transgression. And especially does He assert the dignity and worth of man, regenerated and purified, by making his body the temple of His Holy Spirit, and by providing for him a glorious, happy home, where no sin, nor sorrow, nor suffering can ever enter. There are pessimists in our day who boldly proclaim that human life is a failure--that the world is going from bad to Worse--that there is nothing in human life to be thankful for, but much to be deplored. The explanation of pessimism is found in the fact that men are living Without God and without hope in the world. There are, I think, three different views of human life. First, the superficial view of life, indulged in by the young and inexperienced. Life is not looked at in all its sober reality. Its responsibilities and trials are not duly weighed. The brightness on the surface is all that is seen. This is the optimist view. Then comes the second view of life, held, perhaps, by disappointed, unsuccessful men. Life is a burden and a toil; and yet the desire to live is strong in them; and they are puzzled and perplexed beyond measure. This is the view of the pessimist. Then there is the third view of life, deeper, truer, and more hopeful--bright with a more sober and abiding light than that of the optimist--and happy with a calm confidence in God, that cannot be shaken. This is the Christian view of life. The pessimist and the optimist are both in error. The pessimist opens the windows of the soul outward, and lets out upon the world the darkness of his own morbid, melancholy, and darkens the brightness of the world with his own darkness. That is bad--an evil that ought to be carefully avoided. The optimist opens the windows of the soul inward, letting in the world’ s bright sunlight, so that he sees only the brightness, and thinks nothing of the misery and wretchedness that are around; and hence he puts forth no effort to make the world brighter and better. But the true Christian philosopher opens the windows of the soul upward, and lets the light of heaven stream in. He sees everything in the light of God’ s providence and God’ s purposes, and has his mind enlightened by God’ s Spirit. (S. Macnaughton, M. A.) The assertion of manhood Ezekiel was overwhelmed by the vastness of the universe and the great range of God’ s sovereignty. He could no longer--like the earlier prophets--limit his thoughts of Divine providence to the fatherly care and protection of a handful of Jews. It was something much vaster. In the government of the world there was wheel within wheel, there were forces at work that seemed to take little heed of individual or even national interests; there was the terrible impartiality of a universal Power dispensing equal laws to all peoples of the earth. To himself he suddenly appeared of no account in this universe of law and force, and in utter abasement he grovelled on the ground. But he was not permitted long to abase himself. God had a work for him to do, a message to deliver. And before the work could be done or the message revealed, the prophet must rise from his grovelling attitude, and reassert his manhood and recover his self-respect. He must recover his belief in the true position of man; he must assert his liberty of action; he must believe in the possibility of leading a holy, a Divine life, and when he had thus shown his sense of the true dignity of man and his respect of self, he could be made a prophet and servant of the Most High.1. The first element in the self-abasement and prostration, the sense of insignificance in presence of the great forces of nature, and of the vastness of the universe, is finely described in the 8th Psalm: “ When I consider Thy heavens,” etc. However we explain it, there is a failure to realise the true dignity of man, to value aright the purpose of life, to understand the issues that depend upon our thoughts, and words, and actions. We get into the way of looking on ourselves simply as atoms, inconsiderable parts of a world which contains much that is more worthy of securing God and man’ s attention than a human soul; and we are content, with the lowest level for our character and conduct. But if we are tempted to feel in this way, the voice of God says to us: “ Son of man, stand upon thy feet, and I will speak unto thee.” It tells us how the Creator, after He had framed the earth and designed the heavens, made man in His own image, endowed him with reason, that he might know and judge himself; with conscience, that he might discern between right and wrong; and imagination, that he might purify his affections; with a principle of life, that he might live forever. It commands us to measure the superiority thus conferred upon us as children of the living God. 2. The second element in Ezekiel’ s abasement was a sense of helplessness. If his vision were a first glimpse of the reign of law, his fear may have contained the first shadow of a feeling that has shed its deepest gloom, on the paths of so many in these later days. The question, What is man? is answered by a large number of the thoughtful and the unthinking alike in the language of sheer fatalism. In effect, they say: “ I am what I am, and need not be expected to change; God and man must take me as they find me. Another, with different parentage, and brought up in different circumstances from mine, may be a better, a more amiable man than I am. But he need not plume himself upon that. Had our places been reversed, so would our characters, and I for my part must be content to remain as I am.” The same feeling is shown in reference to our mission in the world. The same man who blames fate for what he is, denies, in practice, if not in words, the possibility of his doing any work for good. He reasons for ethers as he reasons for himself--they are, and will be, what the struggle for existence, the advantages or disadvantages of their lot have made them; and as circumstances have neither fitted him to do anything for them, nor brought him into contact with them, he must leave them alone. He and they are fixed alike in this great wheel of fate, and although they all move, it is by no conscious effort on their part. All alike are poor, helpless creatures, whirled round in the great machine. I cannot doubt that this feeling was in the mind of Ezekiel as it was in the mind of his contemporary Jeremiah. Nor can I doubt that it was to rouse him out of his helplessness that God told him to stand upon his feet. And neither can I doubt that God calls upon us all to assert our dignity as men by claiming our liberty. 3. The third element in the abasement of Ezekiel must have been a sense of sinfulness. We need not try to analyse this feeling or show how it acted upon him. The emotions that flooded the soul of the prophet can hardly be dissected and tabulated. The knowledge that he had himself sinned, had been guilty of transgressing, or, at least, of failing to carry out with anything like perfection those laws whose power had just been revealed to him, was the last drop in his cup of humiliation. It would have been strange if it had been otherwise. If we ever obtain a glimpse of the majesty of the law and of the Lawgiver, we can hardly fail to be humiliated by the recollection of our own past lives. We have known the right and the good, and we have not chosen them; we have seen the path of safety for health of body, health of mind, health of soul; and we have wilfully forsaken it. We are not the men we might have been, we have not done the good we ought to have done; our prospects for time and eternity are overclouded, and the splendour which ought to have shone around them has become dim. And when we see the appearance in the likeness of a man on the sapphire throne--should I not say on the cross?--we will not fail to fall prone and abase ourselves if we have retained any of the better feelings God gave us at our birth. But our text reminds us that it is not good to remain too long in this abject state. We are not forever to be confessing that we are miserable sinners. The voice calls to us even when we are abased under a sense of sin: “ Son of man, stand upon thy feet.” Escape at once from the humiliation and the sin that has caused it. Look up to the bright heaven of a new ideal. Set your affection on things that are above. Prepare to move in the service that hitherto has been neglected, and God will teach you by higher training for a nobler life. (J. Millar, B. D.) The importance of self-respect Ezekiel was to be the bearer of a Divine message for the correction and moral rousing of his countrymen, and in order that Heaven may impart to him its secret, and inspire and instruct him for the work to which he has been chosen, he is called to rise and stand upon his feet. Here, then, in the very Book in which we are always meeting with injunctions to bend and bow, if we would be Divinely visited, are instances of men summoned to get up from the dust of conscious littleness and unworthiness, that they might be Divinely spoken with--of men, prone upon their faces in the presence of God, who were required to place themselves upon their feet before He could say anything to them, or make any use of them. Yet we may be quite sure, at the same time, that their prior prostration was equally indispensable. When Jehovah would charge Moses with the task of delivering Israel, the word to him was not, “ Stand upon thy feet, that thou mayest hear and be invested from above,” but, “ Fall upon thy face.” When, however, he had been deeply awed and humbled, to begin with, then he was bidden to uplift his head and believe in himself. It was needful, that as Saul and Daniel and Ezekiel were, he should first be deeply awed and humbled; but like them also, he needed to become erect after depression for the Heavens to be intimate with him, and to make him their mouthpiece and organ. And for healthy living, for beautiful action and endurance in our place, whatever it may be, we all require to have these two united in us--awe and assurance--prostration and erectness--the recognition of our insignificance--our dependence--and the recognition of our worth and dignity. We need to be both lying down in felt emptiness and helplessness, and rising up in brave self-sufficiency; and while it may be the fact that Heaven will reveal nothing to those who are not humble and lowly, it is equally the fact that Heaven never has anything to reveal to those who are not duly reverencing, and manfully leaning upon themselves. Coming to the New Testament, we meet continually in its pages with the same recognition of the importance of self-respect. Jesus Christ was always saying something in aid of it--something to encourage and support it. When He would strengthen His apostles for cleaving to their convictions against the opposition of the world, for brave and fearless prosecution of the work to which they were called, He talked to them of their worth in the eyes of the Almighty Father, telling them that the hairs of their head were all numbered, and that they were of more value than many sparrows. When Simon Peter, overwhelmed for a moment with the feeling of his manifold imperfections, fell down at the Master’ s feet, crying, “ Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord,” how was he treated? The Master dropped at once a hint of the great capacity which He saw latent in him, and waiting to be developed, of the great use which he was destined to be in the service of the kingdom--“ Fear not, Simon; from henceforth thou shalt catch men.” When, again, Christ mingled with the degraded outcasts of Judea, of what did He speak to them? of their worth, of how Heaven missed them and wanted them. They heard from His blessed lips of the shepherd’ s concern for the lost sheep, of the housewife’ s eager search for the lost piece of silver. There is nothing more conducive to healthy self-reverence against the influence of felt poor quality and low desert, than the assurance that we are dear to someone who is superior--that someone who is superior cares for us, and clings to us, and considers us capable of much better and greater things. And this was the strength which Christ brought to the weak--the Gospel with which He raised the self-despairing. You are the child of a God who thinks on you, and yearns over you, and to whom, in your worst vileness, you are a prince in bondage, worthy of being sought after and redeemed. Then look at the Epistles--the Pauline epistles especially: in them, how constantly are the readers reminded of their high estate, or of the great things that were imputed to them, of the great things that were assumed with regard to them; of the lofty idea of their condition and character, which His perfect manhood involved, whose members and brethren they were. “ Ye are bought with a price” - “ Ye are all children of the light, and of the day” --“ Know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost?” --“ Reckon ye yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God, through Jesus Christ our Lord.” But you will say, “ When are we not self-respecting?” Well, he is not, for one, who craves and courts the approbation of others, and sets himself to gain it--who wants it, wants it to comfort and uphold him--who can be strong and happy enough while others are praising or smiling on him, but when they are not, waxes feeble and melancholy. Again, he is wanting in self-reverence who gives himself at all to imitate another, who, in any work which may be laid upon him, tries to repeat the greatness of another, to copy his distinctions rather than to evoke and cultivate his own, to strain after his dimensions, rather than to be as perfect as he can within his own. Then, again, he is not self-respecting who hesitates at all to go with his convictions, who fears to trust and follow the light within him, when the many are moving in the opposite direction; who, when careful and honest inquiry seems to be carrying him to conclusions that will separate him from the multitude, and perchance from those who are deemed great and wise, becomes afraid--afraid to abide with what commends itself to him as good and true. Beware of losing self-respect through living dramatically--with a daily appearance put on, which is not true to the reality--with the frequent assumption before spectators of that which does not belong to you. Beware of losing it through leading an idle, aimless, useless life, a life without any high or worthy purpose. Beware of losing it, especially, through forever failing to obey your higher promptings, and forever regretting and bemoaning the failure, while never seriously endeavouring to improve. (S. A. Tipple.) Standing before God For all true and worthy service of God--which simply means all true and worthy living of the lives God hath here given us--this word reminds us that there is a necessity--a falling and a rising before God. For this man whom God bids to rise and stand upon his feet had been down, down low and in the dust. Ah! there is too little of this prostration before God--too little vision of the glory and majesty of Him with whom we have to do. Yet this must precede and be the source of all powerful rising and service. We must get down before we can get up. And the humiliation that is blessed is the humiliation that comes from realising God. Our Lord Himself spent memorable hours of His life bowed in communion before God. He found there the secret of power and strength to fulfil His Father’ s will. Much more must we. There is, then, first of all the lowly abasement. But there follows also, as surely, the rising again. And this is the second condition under which God will speak to us and use us--“ Stand upon thy feet.” I. God calls us to a true dignity when He calls us to His service. It is a very false view of religion which holds that it tends to make a man poor spirited and lachrymose. The true self-respect, the self-respect that springs from humility before God, and not from pride before man, has its roots in religion. And there is no man who will carry himself with truer dignity through the world than the man who believes in God, who has the fear of God before his eyes, and has heard the voice of God in his own soul. And, if we think of it, there are many men who are laid low whom God would rather have to stand up; and many, on the contrary, who stand up whom God would rather see abased. The despairing and the doubting, for example, are often on their faces on the earth. They wander in the grounds of Giant Despair, and he punishes them sorely and without pity. Now, God would rather that they arose, that they made effort to stand upon their feet, and to set them on the rock that is higher than they. On the other hand, there are some who stand whom God would rather see abased. We have many types of them in the Scriptures. The self-reliant is one. Peter points many a moral, but none more surely than this--“ Let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall.” Again, the Pharisee of Christ’ s parable is another type. The rich fool of the parable, too, was a man who stood up very proudly, planting his foot confidently on his sure income, his fine houses, and stores. “ Thou fool!” What an awful irony is here. “ Thou fool, this night” thy soul, thy soul shall be required of thee. Very far, then, is the dignity and self-respect of a deeply religious man from such foolish pride and vain self-confidence as this. He stands as Christ stood (and never was there dignity more regal than His), rooted in humility, yet conscious of the Divinest relations, that, like golden chains, bind him to his God. II. When God says, “ Son of man, stand upon thy feet,” it also means that He requires courage in the souls that would serve Him. Ezekiel needed it. “ Be not afraid of them,” etc. And it is needed as much by us as by others who have borne witness before us. The temptations that try our courage, though neither briers nor scorpions, are very real and powerful, and many a quaking there is before them. We need courage to do the right thing in spite of looks of enmity and glances of scorn, in spite of the alienation and misunderstanding of men. God knows we may find that our enemies are they of our own house, and much courage and standing on the feet is needed then. I read lately the story of the lives of two brothers. The one was a soldier who had won great distinction abroad. In a moment of crisis, in the heat of battle, at the peril of his own life, he dashed forward and saved a fallen comrade from the death that surrounded him. It was bravely and well done. He was decorated and gazetted, feted and lionised. But at home was a father, a drunkard, an old man whose life was a disgrace to himself and a burden to his friends. It did not suit the gallant soldier to know this father much, or to live in his neighbourhood. He preferred to enjoy his honours at a distance, away where the breath of this loathsome scandal would not reach him or mar his pleasures. But by this father stood the other son. He was a highly educated, sensitive man, whose life was dedicated to noble work, and who was already gaining for himself the first sweet distinctions of his profession. His father’ s life was a keen and bitter shame to him. He could easier have borne the knife plunged into his flesh. Yet, at the call of duty--the highest and most sacred duty, in his eyes--he bowed his neck to this shame and sorrow, gave up his bright prospects, lived alone, apart, with this wretched maniac of drink, did the work of a menial, and bore more than a meniars share of cruel blows and insulting words. The one gained the laurels of men, because, under the impulse of the moment, in the heat and excitement of battle, he did a courageous thing; yet in the moral trial, brave soldier as he was, he proved cowardly and ignoble, and left to the shoulders of one, whom he counted a fool for his pains, the cross that should at least have been shared by both. The other got no laurels--was nowhere noticed or spoken of with any distinction; but who can read the story of his self-sacrifice, of his humility, of his patience, without feeling that here, in the sight of God, was the true hero--here the true courage that faced worse than the bullet or the steel, and that endured longer than the swift, exciting hour? III. The call to stand upon the feet indicates also the uprightness that God would have in all His servants. It is vain to think we can serve God, or be witnesses to Him in the world, if we are still harbouring the sins that tend to keep us low. Never was there greater need than today for the people of God to stand in uprightness and integrity. Christ has suffered too much and too long in the open unworthiness of many lives. There are things--habits of life, practices of trade, indulgences of temper and passion and lust, both open and secret--that, if we are to serve Him truly, must be over and ended, past and gone forever. Let us examine ourselves, and let each see what are the things he must cast from him, and must struggle to leave behind--those dead, crucified selves, on which alone we can rise to higher things. IV. When God calls us to stand, He means He would have in us a readiness to act. Ah! God would oftener speak to us, brethren, but He sees we are not very ready to do anything. Why should He speak? We are indolent. We are too comfortable in our chairs of ease, or too much engrossed with other things. Oh, the hesitancy and reluctance of our obedience! How we need to be persuaded and pled with! Oh, shake yourself from this fatal spirit of indifference and indolence, for many are suffering from it, and losing their lives in it. Stand upon your feet. Offer yourself to God, as if you meant it. And “ I will speak to you,” saith the Lord. “ I will direct your path, and open for you the way of a blessed life.” (R. D. Shaw, B. D.) Ezekiel 2:2 And the Spirit entered into me.God helping His ministers Mark the course of a river like the Thames; how it winds and twists according to its own sweet will. Yet there is a reason for every bend and curve; the geologist, studying the soil and marking the conformation of the rock, sees a reason why the river’ s bed diverges to the right or to the left; and so, though the Spirit of God blesses one preacher more than another, and the reason cannot be such that any man could congratulate himself upon his own goodness, yet there are certain things about Christian ministers which God blesses, and certain other things which hinder success. (C. H. Spurgeon.) The power behind the preacher The Rev. F.B. Meyer has a firewood factory in connection with his church, where employment is provided for men and boys. A circular saw is used for cutting through beams of solid timber. Until recently, this saw was worked by a crank, turned by twelve or fifteen men. But it was slow, hard, and expensive work. At last, says Mr. Meyer, we were driven to something more expeditious, and bought a gas engine. And now, the saw, driven by this engine, does in two or three hours as much work as it did formerly in a day, and at less than a tenth of the cost. It is the same saw; but the difference lies in the power that drives it. It used to be driven by hand power, now it is driven by an equivalent for steam, and the only thing we need to do is to keep the connecting band tight. “ It is not a question,” continues Mr. Meyer, “ as to our abilities or qualifications, but of the power behind us. If that is nothing more than human, it is not surprising that the results are miserably poor. But if we link ourselves to the eternal power of God, nothing will be impossible to us. ‘ All things are possible to him that believeth.’” Ezekiel 2:3-5I send thee to the children of Israel.The commission of Ezekiel I. The commission. Is it not an act of infinite condescension, that God should take any notice of us? For what are we? Poor finite creatures; of limited capacities, with tendencies to evil, tendencies to the very thing that God Almighty hates, detests, and abhors. Not only with tendencies to these things; but in the actual perpetration of sin; committing crime upon crime. And yet God sends His message to us. Why? Because He knows the original dignity of the soul of man; He knows what it was before he fell; He knows what it was capable of then; and He knows what the soul of man can yet be made through the blood of the Cross and through the power of the Holy Ghost: and, therefore, God sends messages to man. “ I do send” ; “ thou shalt say.” We have no business to go and preach unless God send the outward call of the Church and the inward call of the Spirit. And hence our own Church asks all its candidates for holy orders--the bishop puts the question--“ Dost thou believe that thou art inwardly moved by the Holy Ghost to take upon thee this office?” Oh, solemn question! But what shall they speak? They shall speak, “ Thus saith the Lord.” The authority for the message is “ I do send” ; the nature of the message is what the Lord hath said. II. The way in which this message, which the prophet had been commissioned to deliver, is treated. A twofold way: some receive it; others reject it. Concerning the apostolical ministry, concerning the word preached by the apostles, some believed the thing spoken, and some believed not. III. They who receive this message, and they who reject it, shall both know at last that it came from the Lord. They who receive it, knew it long before. The indwelling Spirit of the living God testifies with your spirits that these things are true. But take the case of those who reject the Gospel. Oh, they find out also that it was all true. I appeal from the present to the future. You know there is a story in history of a poor woman who considered herself aggrieved, and applied to Philip, King of Macedon. She found him in a state of intoxication: I appeal, said she, “ from Philip, under the influence of wine, to Philip, sober and able to judge.” And so I say, if the world, with its allurements, enchant and ensnare you now, and intoxicate your spirit. I appeal from that state to the hour when you shall turn your pale face to the waft, when friends and kindred and medical men shall whisper, “ It will soon be all over” : then you shall find, as true as that there is a God, that the Bible is a Divine revelation, that the things which we said to you, concerning which you thought us too much in earnest, are all perfectly true. (T. Mortimer, B. D.) Proximity not identification. He was a prophet though the house was rebellious. Can the Lord find no better place for His prophets? Can He not make them a second garden? He made one: can He not make two? Can He not cause His prophet to stand in some high tower where he will be untainted by the pollution of place and time, and whence he can thunder out the Divine word? Has the prophet to mingle with the people, to live with them, to touch their corruptness, to feel the contagion of their evil manners? Might he not have a pedestal to himself? No. The Son of Man when He comes will go on eating and drinking, a social reformer, a brother, a fellow guest at tables; He will take the cup after we have partaken of it, and we may cut Him what morsel of bread He may eat, or He will hand them to us; He will be one of His fellowcreatures. And yet Ezekiel was a prophet. So is the Son of Man. Nothing could mingle Ezekiel with the rebellious house, so as to be unable to distinguish between the one and the other. Proximity is not identification. We may sit close to a murderer, and be quite distinct from him as to all our proclivities, and desires, and aspirations. We need not be corrupt because we live in a corrupt age; we need not go down because the neighbourhood is bad. It is poor pleading, it is irreligious and inexcusable defence, which says it could not resist atmospheric pressure, the subtle influence of social custom and habitude. It is the business of a prophet to stand right up from them, apart from them, and yet to be so near as to be able to teach them, exhort them, rebuke them, and comfort them, when they turn their face but a point towards the throne, the Cross, and the promised heaven. (J. Parker, D. D.) Commission given to ministers 1. To declare God’ s will;2. To assert His authority;3. To seek, notwithstanding all our discouragements, the salvation of their souls. Learn hence--1. The importance of the ministry;2. The duty of those who are ministered unto. (G. Simeon, M. A.) Sin a treason How does any man know but the very oath he is swearing, the lewdness he is committing, may be scored up by God as one item for a new rebellion? We may be rebels, and yet neither vote in Parliament, sit in committees, or fight in armies. Every sin is virtually a treason, and we may be guilty of murder by breaking other commandments besides the sixth. (R South.) Rebellion against God “ There is as much felony in coming pence as shillings and pounds” (Manton). The principle is the same, whatever the value of the coin may be: the prerogative of the Crown is trenched upon by the counterfeiter, even if he only imitates and utters the smallest coin of the realm. He has set the royal sign to his base metal, and the small money value of his coinage is no excuse for his offence. Anyone sin wilfully indulged and persevered in is quite sufficient to prove a man to be a traitor to his God. The spirit of rebellion is the same whatever be the manner of displaying it. A giant may look out through a very small window, and so may great obstinacy of rebellion manifest itself in a little act of wilfulness. (C. H. Spurgeon.) The preacher’ s duty Like as the fountain, though no man draw of it, doth still send forth his springs; or as a river, though no man drink of it, yet doth it keep his course, and flow nevertheless; even so it behoveth him that preacheth the word of God, to do what lieth in his power, though no man give any attentiveness, or have any care to follow the same. (J. Spencer.) Impudent children and stiff-hearted. Impudence and stiff-heartedness 1. Progress in sin makes impudent. It is an exceeding evil to be past shame, to be impudent in sinning. If ever God show mercy to such sinners, they must be ashamed. 2. Where there is an impudent face there is a hard, stiff heart. And this is one of the greatest evils. 3. God sends His prophets and ministers about hard services, such as are full of discouragements when looked upon with a carnal eye. 4. Ministers should not so much look at the persons they are sent to, or the event of their ministry, as at their call. God’ s will and command must content us, support us. What if we be scoffed at, reviled, made the offscouring and filth of the world; yet here is the comfort of a true prophet, of a true minister, Christ sent him; and He that set him to work will pay him his wages, whether they hear or hear not to whom he is sent. 5. Those who are sent of God must deliver, not their own, but God’ s message. (W. Greenhill, M. A.) A ministry to the unresponsive “ We may preach and preach,” said a great bishop once to his ordinands, “ and our words will seem to fall upon a stone, and not upon a man’ s heart.” Under any such trials of patience and hopefulness, Ezekiel’ s experience will prove helpful. How awful is the reason assigned! They “ will not hearken unto thee, for they will not hearken unto Me.” As our Lord said long afterwards (John 15:18), the servant could not expect to be welcomed when the Lord had been in effect rejected, The exiles’ hearts were not right with God; therefore, of course, they could not appreciate God’ s envoy. What they said, as he reports it, exhibits human perversity in some very advanced forms, which are by no means obsolete; it is only too easy to translate their objections into language which is anything but dead. Hear some of them complain that the fathers have eaten sour grapes, and the children’ s teeth are set on edge. “ We are punished because our fathers sinned; is that fair? Can the way of the Lord be called straight: It is not straight, but twisted, contorted, and our sense of justice is shocked” : as many nowadays declare that the inequalities of human condition, or other natural facts which “ cannot be smoothed over or explained away,” have made them incapable of believing that the world is governed by a righteous Providence. Or there are these who openly say, “ We will be as the heathen” : it is the cry of that wild impatience which would fain get rid of the responsibilities avowedly involved in the profession of religion. Or if the mood is not so distinctly rebellious, it is that of a sullen despair which masks itself under an apparent acknowledgment of sin: “ Our hope is lost, we are cut off, we pine away in our transgressions,--how then should we live?” The gloom, we see, is faithless, even if it does not reach the point of revolt. Again, there are others who reject, as we might say, on the grounds of “ common sense and common experience,” the supernatural character of prophecy; “ every vision faileth” predictions are disproved, or, to quote a modern dictum, “ miracles do not happen.” Ezekiel is, in effect, bluntly told that “ facts are against him.” Or even, say others, “ if there is something in his prophecies, the vision is of times far off” : things will last our time we need not disturb ourselves--as a comfortable selfishness has often persuaded itself before some great “ Day of the Son of Man,” e.g., in the years that ushered in the French Revolution. Or others have their own prophets, much better worth hearing than Ezekiel, who tell them what is pleasant to think of, with no austere requirements, no rigid prohibitions, no croaking “ bodements” of a dismal, intolerable future; the result of which is, that “ the hands of the wicked are strengthened to go on in their evil way” by “ visions of a peace that is no peace.” Or the style and contents of Ezekiel’ s preaching are cavilled at: the misgivings which it secretly awakens are silenced by critical remarks on its obscurity: “ They say of me. Doth he not speak parables?” Practical men, they assume, may web dispense with attending to a voice that cannot put plain meaning into plain words. Or there are others, probably among the younger sort, who at first sight seem more promising; they listen to the prophet with real enjoyment, as they might to one who can sing pleasantly and “ play well” ; only it is a mere aesthetic pleasure, a gratification of the sense of beauty for its own sake, with no moral movement of the will: “ they hear thy words, but they do them not.” Or, lastly, there are men grave and “ highly respectable,” who come with all appearance of seriousness to sit before Ezekiel as pupils, and inquire, through him of the Lord; but he is bidden to repel them as self-deceivers who have set up, and retain, “ their idols in their hearts” : favourite sins with them prove stumbling blocks to bar all progress upward; therefore on them shall come the doom of being “ answered according to their idols.” Ezekiel’ s ministry was, as we thus see, preeminently a ministry of penetration into character. Its leading feature is a close, severe, persistent dealing with conscience; he has been truly called “ the prophet of personal responsibility.” He shows that if, to some extent, heredity involves very real disadvantage, if children suffer because parents or ancestors have sinned, yet in the last resort no one soul will be spiritually rejected from the mercies and blessings of the Divine covenant simply on account of the sins of other persons, which he has not personally shared in or made his own. So does Ezekiel prepare the way for that Saviour who, while He built up His Church as a spiritual home for all believers, conferred a new dignity, sacredness, preciousness, on each individual soul for whom He died. What a thought it is, the interest that the Most High God takes in each one of us singly! That fact has a twofold bearing: it imposes on us the obligation of walking in the fear of the Lord, of standing in awe and striving not to sin, of recognising that the revelation of a true God, as culminating in the incarnation of a Son of God who gave Himself up for us all, must needs have a stern side. But the other aspect of our personal relation to God is that in which the Gospel mainly presents Him--that which was illuminated by the Cross and summarised in St. John’ s assertion that He is Love. (Canon Bright.) Shall know that there hath been a prophet among them.--Wicked men left without excuse God will leave wicked men without excuse. It is God’ s intention; they shall never be able to challenge Me, nor to justify themselves. God’ s primary intentions, where He sends prophets and means of grace, are the good of His elect, their comfort, sanctification, and salvation; but His secondary intentions are the iuexeusableness of the wicked, and their just damnation. When God sends His word to any place, it shall and must prosper in the thing whereunto He sends it (Isaiah 55:11); be it to win and draw, or to harden and make inexcusable. See Isaiah 6:9-10. (W. Greenhill, M. A.) Prophets are witnesses for or against their hearers “ They shall know there hath been a prophet amongst them” ; his person, his pains, his truths, his life, his sufferings, his death, will all come in for witnesses one day. Every prophet, every preacher that Christ sends, is a witness, as well as an officer or a minister; I have made “ thee a minister and a witness” (Acts 26:16). All faithfnl ministers are Christ’ s witnesses (Acts 1:8). They bear witness of Christ and His doctrine; and if we receive not Him and His doctrine, they will be Christ’ s witnesses against us. As for Me and My prophets, My ministers, you despised, or only gave the hearing, and that was all: and My charge is not false; here are My witnesses. What say you to it? Speak, you ministers of such a city, and such a place. What, did you not preach many a sermon, shed many a tear, sweat many a drop, make many a prayer for them? did ye not early and late watch for the good of their souls? etc. Yea, Lord, but they would not receive us, they would not believe our report we made of Thee, they would not take Thy yoke upon them, etc.; we shook off the dust of our feet against them. This will be dreadful, when such witness of the prophets comes in against hearers. (W. Greenhill, M. A.) The preacher a correcter of consciences The verification of the compass is a matter of serious importance in navigation.” The vessel is moored, and by means of warps to certain government buoys, she is placed with her head toward the various points of the compass, one after another. The bearing of her compass on board, influenced as that is by the attraction of the iron she carries, is taken accurately by one observer in the vessel, and the true bearing is signalled to him by another observer on shore, who has a compass out of reach of the local attraction of the ship. The error in each position is thus ascertained, and the necessary corrections are made. Now in the Church your people are like that observer on board ship. Their consciences have been all the week affected by the influence of things immediately around them, so that they are in danger of making serious mistakes even in their reading of the Book of God. But in the pulpit, you are like the observer on shore. You are away from the magnetic agencies--mostly metallic--which so seriously affect them; therefore you can signalise to them their ‘ true bearings,’ and thus prepare them for the voyage of the week which is to follow.” (W. M. Taylor.) Ezekiel 2:6 Be not afraid of them. Endurance of the world’ s censure What is here implied, as the trial of the prophet Ezekiel, was fulfilled more or less in the case of all the prophets. They were not teachers merely, but confessors. This world is a scene of conflict between good and evil. The evil not only avoids, but persecutes the good; the good cannot conquer, except by suffering. When was it that this conflict, and this character and issue of it, have not been fulfilled? Cain, for instance, was envious of his brother Abel, and slew him. Ishmael mocked at Isaac; Esau was full of wrath with Jacob, and resolved to kill him. Joseph’ s brethren were filled with bitter hatred of him, debated about killing him, cast him into a pit, and at last sold him into Egypt. Saul persecuted David; and Ahab and Jezebel, Elijah; and the priests and the prophets the prophet Jeremiah. Lastly, not to dwell on other instances, the chief priests and the Pharisees, full of envy, rose up against our Lord Jesus Christ, and delivered Him to the heathen governor Pontius Pilate, to be crucified. So the apostles, after Him, and especially St. Paul, were persecuted by their fierce and revengeful countrymen. The case seems to be this:--those who do not serve God with a single heart, know they ought to do so, and they do not like to be reminded that they ought. And when they fall in with anyone who does live to God, he serves to remind them of it, and that is unpleasant to them, and that is the first reason why they are angry with a religious man; the sight of him disturbs them and makes them uneasy. And, in the next place, they feel in their hearts that he is in much better case than they are. They cannot help wishing, though they are hardly conscious of their own wish, they cannot help wishing that they were like him; yet they have no intention of imitating him, and this makes men jealous and envious. Instead of being angry with themselves, they are angry with him. These are their first feelings: what follows? Next they are very much tempted to deny that he is religious. They wish to get the thought of him out of their minds. Nothing would so relieve their minds as to find that there were no religious persons in the world, none better than themselves. Accordingly, they do all they can to believe that he is making a pretence of religion; they do their utmost to find out what looks like inconsistency in him. They call him a hypocrite and other names. And all this, if the truth must be spoken, because they hate the things of God and therefore they hate His servants. Accordingly, as far as they have power to do it, they persecute him, either, as the text implies, with cruel, untrue words, or with cold, or fierce, or jealous looks, or in some worse ways. A good man is an offence to a bad man. The sight of him is a sort of insult; and he is irritated at him, and does him what harm he can. Thus Christians, in former times, were put to death by the heathen. Even now, no one can give his mind to God, and show by his actions that he fears God, but he will incur the dislike and opposition of the world; and it is important he should be aware of this, and be prepared for it. He must not mind it, he must bear it, and in time (if God so will) he will overcome it. There are a number of lesser ways in which careless, ungodly persons may annoy and inconvenience those who desire to do their duty humbly and fully. Such, especially, are those, which seem intended in the text, unkind censure, carping, slander, ridicule, cold looks, rude language, insult, and, in some cases, oppression and tyranny. Whoever, therefore, sets about a religious life, must be prepared for these--must be thankful if they do not befall him; but must not be put out, must not think it a strange thing, if they do. For instance, persons may press you to do something which you know to be wrong--to tell an untruth, or to do what is not quite honest, or to go to companies whither you should not go; and they may show that they are vexed at the notion of your not complying. Still you must not comply. You must not do what you feel to be wrong, though you should thereby displease even those whom you would most wish to please. Again: you must not be surprised, should you find that you are called a hypocrite, and other hard names; you must not mind it. Again: you may be jeered at and mocked by your acquaintance, for being strict and religious, for carefully coming to church, keeping from bad language, and the like: you must not care for it. Again, you may, perhaps, discover, to your great vexation, that untruths are told of you by careless persons behind your backs, that what you do has been misrepresented, and that in consequence a number of evil things are believed about you by the world at large. Hard though it be, you must not care for it; remembering that more untruths were told of our Saviour and His apostles than can possibly be told of you. Again, you may find that not only the common run of men believe what is said against you, but even those with whom you wish to stand well. But if this happens through your conscientiousness, you must not mind it, but must be cheerful, leaving your case in the hand of God, and knowing that He will bring it out into the light one day or another, in His own good time. Again: persons may try to threaten or frighten you into doing something wrong, but you must not mind that; you must be firm. In conclusion, I will call your attention to two points--First, do not be too eager to suppose you are ill-treated for your religion’ s sake. Make as light of matters as you can. And beware of being severe on those who lead careless lives, or whom you think or know to be ill-treating you. Be kind and gentle to those who are perverse, and you will very often, please God, gain them over. Pray for those who lead careless lives, and especially if they are unkind to you. Secondly, recollect you cannot do any one thing of all the duties I have been speaking of without God’ s help. When brought into temptation of any kind, we Should lift up our hearts to God. We should say to Him, “ Good Lord deliver us.” Reasons against the fear of men 1. Fears are prejudicial: they take away our liberty; they put halters about our necks, and strangle our comforts; they multiply and prolong our miseries; they wound and disable us. 2. They are to be men of courage who are in public place. 3. God is with His, those He calls and employs in public service. This should put life into us. 4. Those who are in public place are in God’ s place, and they must be like unto God, fearless of men, but dreadful unto men. 5. They that are godly, true Christians, their godliness, their cause, suffer by their fearfulness. 6. There is not that in wicked men that should make us to fear them, if we consider they are briers, thorns, scorpions, contemptible things, rather to be despised than feared. 7. God will dismay and confound us if we fear men (Jeremiah 1:17). (W. Greenhill, M. A.) Helps against the fear of men 1. Let your fear be exercised about God; He is an object fit to be feared. When the dictator ruled at Rome, then all other officers ceased; and when this fear of God rules, all other fears will be hushed. And that is not all; if God be sanctified by us, he will be a sanctuary unto us. 2. Set faith to work. Men in public places should have their hands at work on earth, and their faith in heaven. The just live by faith, and will not die by fear. 3. Labour for purity and holiness. The most holy men are the least fearing men. 4. Value not life too much. Be willing to spend and be spent for God. (W. Greenhill, M. A.) A burdensome ministry We are not to suppose that a faithful ministry is an easy task. No man can continually rebuke his age, and yet be living a luxurious life, unless indeed he be the victim of hypocrisy, or the tool of some vicious hallucination. The prophets of the Lord have always been opposed to the age in which they lived. Whenever the ministry has fallen into accord with the age, it is not the age that has gone up, it is the ministry that has gone down. A reproachful, corrective, stimulating voice should always be characteristic of a spiritual ministry. No evil shall be able to live in its presence, and no custom, how fashionable or popular soever, should be able to lift up its head without condemnation in the presence of a man who is filled with the burden or doctrine of the Lord. We should have persecution revive were we to revive the highest type of godliness. Sin has not altered, but righteousness may have modified its terms; the earth remains as it was from the beginning, but they who represent the kingdom of heaven may have committed themselves to an unworthy and degrading compromise. Evermore shall the wicked hate the godly, unless the godly take down their banners and are contented to live in dumbness and in traitorous suppression of the truth. (J. Parker, D. D.) Boldness in preaching The Rev. Styleman Herring of Clerkenwell, London, could say that there was not a street or court in the whole of his parish in which he had not preached. When he first commenced this work, some of his parishioners threatened what they would do if he came to preach in their streets. But he persevered until he was not only allowed to preach in peace, but was invited to do so by some of the inhabitants of the worst streets. A fearless preacher It is said that when a Roundhead in St. Andrew’ s, Holborn, levelled a musket at the breast of the venerable prelate Hacker, and bade him desist from preaching, he never hesitated for one moment, but simply said, “ Soldier, do your duty; I shall continue to do mine.” (W. Denton.) Fearless speaking During the Chartist agitation many of Kingsley’ s friends and relations tried to withdraw him from the people’ s cause, fearful lest his prospects in life might be seriously prejudiced; but to all of them he turned a deaf ear, and in writing to his wife on the subject, he says: “ I will not be a liar. I will speak in season and out of season. I will not shun to declare the whole counsel of God. My path is clear, and I will follow in it.” (A. Bell, B. A.) Fearfulness in the preacher We were sitting under the shade of an oak tree comparing notes and conferring one with another as to the best methods of service, especially in reference to effective preaching. “ I always write my sermons,” said my friend, “ and then carefully revise them, so that if anything is written calculated to offend any of my hearers, I may at once erase it.” This was said by a young clergyman who was evidently anxious to make his mark as a preacher. Desirous to know that I heard correctly, I replied, “ Do you mean that forcible statements, either of your own writing or from Scripture, concerning sin, and the terrors of the judgment to come, are either toned down or avoided?” “ Yes,” was the reply; “ if I think they will offend anyone, I do so.” I fear this candid testimony, indicates the reason why so many ministers are powerless amongst their fellows. “ The fear of man bringeth a snare indeed.” (Henry Varley.) Ezekiel 2:7 Thou shalt speak My words unto them.The ministerial commission I. The parties concerned in this commission. These are, first, the Eternal God, our King and Creator and Judge, who issued this commission; secondly, the preachers of the Gospel who are appointed to execute it; thirdly, the hearers of the word, or, more generally, all who are within the sound of the Gospel, for whose behoof the commission was issued. We stand before you as the commissioned servant of the God with whom you have to do, invested with the office of conveying instrumentally His proclamation to your ears, telling you what He requires you to be and to do, and pointing out to you, and pressing upon your attention, His general mind and will regarding you. Do not mistake the messenger for a mediator. We stand to speak to you of God, and commissioned by Him, as we trust, but it is simply in the former of these capacities, and not at all in the latter. We stand, as it were, between the living and the dead; but it is as the golden channel through which spiritual life is conveyed from the one to the other. II. The nature of the commission which is intrusted to us. “ Thou shalt speak My words unto them.” What we are to declare unto you is the counsel of God, not of man; but of this whole counsel we are to be careful to keep nothing back. He has given us a written record of His mind and will, and we are to look for no further revelation. Our message is of a twofold character. To a certain extent it is such a message as a natural man, endowed with a conscience, and conscious of guilt, might have expected to issue from the holy sanctuary above. It speaks to him of the holiness and justice and omnipotence of Jehovah, and of his own guilt and depravity, and the fearful doom impending over him, as his own conscience speaks, but in language much more clear and explicit, and a thousandfold more loud and appalling. All this the foreboding and sin-laden spirit of man might have anticipated in a communication from heaven. But could it ever have entered into the heart of man or angel to conceive that this communication should also exhibit the amazing spectacle of a holy and offended God beseeching hell-deserving sinners to be reconciled, offering to the very guiltiest among them a full and free salvation, a salvation purchased by the blood of His own beloved Son? III. The way in which this message is to be delivered and this commission to be executed. “ Thou shalt speak My words unto them, whether they will hear, or whether they will forbear.” Is the ambassador of an earthly potentate at liberty to decline the duty which he has deliberately undertaken, and with which he has been intrusted, on account of obloquy or even danger attending the faithful performance of it? or is he at liberty to alter or modify the terms of his instructions in order to shield himself from reproach or from peril? Assuredly not. And shall the ambassadors of the King of kings venture to tamper with and distort the message which they were commissioned to deliver? Shall they presumptuously attempt to amend the terms on which the Lord of heaven and earth declares that He will treat with His rebellious subjects? or shall they leave out of the proclamation whatever it may be unpleasant to these subjects to hear? But then, again, thanks be to God, we are to preach the Gospel, the good news, among you; and the same obligation rests upon us to preach it faithfully and fully. After denouncing, as we are bound to do, every refuge of lies, we are eagerly to point you to the refuge set before you in the Gospel. And we must faithfully tell you, though we can but speak of it faintly, of the glory, and the excellence, and the suitableness of the salvation of the Gospel, of all that it is in itself, and of all that it brings along with it, of the grace here and the glory hereafter which it confers, and of its perfect accommodation to the case of every sinner among you, whether pardoned or unpardoned, whether born again or yet dead in trespasses and sins. IV. The duty of those for whose behoof this commission has been issued. It will profit you nothing to attend upon a Gospel ministry, even though the word should there be spoken as never man spake it, if you do not receive that word with faith and love, lay it up in your hearts, and practise it in your lives. But oh! when you consider what is the nature of the message which we bear, can you help seeing that it is a glorious and blessed privilege, as well as a bounden duty, to attend to it? Do you not see that God commands nothing but what it will promote your own best interests to perform? and is not this a mighty additional motive for yielding obedience? (P. Hope, B. D.) A prophet’ s Commission I. The minister of God receives his commission from the Lord. II. The duty of the minister of God is to speak God’ s words to the people.1. First by study to understand, and then to proclaim the truths of the Bible.2. This duty is-- (1) Imperative.(2) Often painful (Ezekiel 2:10). Learn--1. To honour God’ s ministers.2. To listen to their message as from God.3. To beware of rebellion. (Homiletic Magazine.) Ezekiel 2:8-10 Be not thou rebellious. Ministers exposed to corruption by their people This was the same as to say, “ I know the degeneracy of the times. I know the corruption and obstinacy of the people. I know they will stop their ears and harden their hearts against Divine truth. And I know that for this purpose they will use every method, by words and looks, to corrupt your heart, poison your sentiments, and destroy your influence. But I warn you to beware of men; and never suffer yourself to be corrupted by those whom you are sent to reprove and reform.” I. Ministers are exposed to be corrupted by the people.1. Ministers have been corrupted by the people. This was the unhappy case of Aaron. The same thing happened to the sons and successors of Aaron; for we find that they were always corrupt, when the people were corrupt. God Himself complains of the people for being always disposed to corrupt their teachers (Amos 2:10-12). They meant to corrupt the friends of virtue, and the ministers of religion, on purpose to destroy the influence of their example, and the force of their instructions and admonitions; and they very rarely failed of accomplishing their malignant purpose. 2. The bare example of the people, in a day of declension, has a natural tendency to corrupt ministers. The prevailing spirit and practice of the times naturally tend to cool their zeal, weaken their virtue, and injure both the matter and manner of their preaching. 3. They are in much greater danger of being corrupted, by the positive endeavours and exertions of the people to draw them into sin. A corrupt people feel themselves obliged to take this course, in order to resist the energy of plain and faithful preaching. II. It is their indispensable duty to guard against it.1. God has expressly commanded ministers to guard against the attempts of those who would corrupt their hearts, and draw them aside from the path of duty. 2. They will forfeit the Divine presence and protection, if they suffer themselves to be corrupted. 3. If ministers suffer themselves to be corrupted by the people, it destroys their usefulness. Time-serving ministers generally have but few hearers. All men, whether good or bad, inwardly despise loose and unprincipled ministers, let their talents be what they may. And the same degree of criminality, which would be scarcely observable in other men, is sufficient to destroy the character and usefulness of those who sustain the sacred office of the ministry. 4. If ministers suffer themselves to be carried down the stream of corruption, they become destructive to the people. Corrupt ministers are always corrupters. Though they have lost the power of doing good, yet they retain the power of doing evil. They can do more than other men, to pull down the kingdom of Christ, and build up the kingdom of Satan. And as they are more capable, so they are more disposed, than other men, to stifle the spirit of religion, oppose the doctrines of the Gospel, and strengthen the hearts and hands of the wicked. Reflections--1. It is now a very dangerous day to ministers. The people have fallen into a great and general declension, As they have increased, so they have sinned. How many ministers neither preach nor practise according to their own sentiments, through fear of offending, and through desire of pleasing, the people! This conduct weakens the hands of faithful ministers, and strengthens the hands of those who wish to corrupt them. 2. Ministers need, at this day, to be well qualified for their office. Though religion has decayed, yet knowledge has increased. The people in general are much more capable now, than they were formerly, of judging of the talents and qualifications of ministers. And as they are more critical in discerning, so they are more severe in censuring, every ministerial defect or imperfection. But prudence, as well as knowledge, is a necessary qualification for a minister. He needs this to enable him to exhibit Divine truth in the most profitable manner, and to escape those snares which the enemies of truth will always endeavour to lay for him. But ministers of the Gospel, at this day of declension, need large measures of grace, as well as of knowledge and prudence. They need to be crucified to the world, and the world to them, by the Cross of Christ. 3. It is the duty of all good men, at this day especially, to aid and assist the ministers of the Gospel in the discharge of their office. If Christian professors would unite with Christian ministers, in the common cause of Christianity, we might reasonably hope that religion would gain ground, and vice and infidelity would everywhere fall before it. (N. Emmons, D. D.) The God-made minister (with Revelation 10:8):--In the case of Ezekiel we for the first time see in a most impressive and instructive symbol that Divine way of choosing, and calling, and inwardly and increasingly preparing and maturing a prophet, that same way which is repeated in the case of the Apostle John; that same way, moreover, which is still taken with every true New Testament preacher. Now, first, we see in that fine symbolical scene God’ s own immediate way of making a minister. A book plays a great part in the salvation of man; a book is brought down from heaven to earth. A book written in heaven lies open in the hand of a heavenly minister. And the salvation of many peoples, and nations, and tongues, and kings lies wrapped up in that heavenly book. “ Take the Book and eat it,” said the angel of the Lord. You will observe that the angel did not say, “ Take the Book and read it.” Clearly, then, this is not an ordinary Book. Clearly this Book is like no other book. Our ordinary language about books all falls short and breaks down before this Book. “ Eat it,” said the angel, holding the Book up to the exhausted mouth--“ eat it till it is both sweet in thy mouth and bitter in thy belly.” A most extraordinary thing to say to any man about any book! Yes, about any book but this Book; but this is the usual, nay, the universal, and, indeed, the necessary, thing to say always about God’ s Book. Show me the minister to whom, pulpit preparation apart, God’ s Word is his first thought every new morning, and he shall be all but God’ s absolute prophet to me. He shall always pray for me when God’ s wrath is kindled against me; for him, God has said, He will accept, as he will always be accepted, both for himself and for other men, who can, like Job, before God, say: “ Neither have I gone back from the commandment of His lips; I have esteemed the word of His mouth more than my necessary food.” Eat, then, the same heavenly meat; and eat it for your first food every morning. It will do for you what no earthly food, the best and most necessary, can do. See that all its strength and all its sweetness fill your heart before you eat any other meat, and before you read any other writing. Read God’ s Book, and keep it next your heart to defend you against the evil one. “ Enough of that; bring me my Bible!” one of my old elders used to say, as they read to him all morning and down into the forenoon the newspapers. The Word of God was more to that saint of God than his necessary food. But what does this mean? “ It was in my mouth sweet as honey; but as soon as I had eaten it my belly was bitter.” The best way, the only way, to find out what all that means is to eat the same roll ourselves, and then to observe what comes to pass within ourselves. Religion is an experimental science. Just you eat the Book now before you as Ezekiel and John ate it, and then tell me what takes place within you. I will tell you what will take place. The Word of God will in your mouth also be sweet as honey. The grace and the mercy of God that are in His blessed Word are always passing sweet to a genuine sinner, as is the truth, and the power, and the holiness, and the heavenly beauty of God’ s Word to all His saints. All that is the daily and sweet experience of all those who make the Word of God their earliest and most necessary food. But afterwards, when this sweet Book descends into their “ inward parts,” when the holy and the just and the good Word of God enters their guilty consciences and their corrupt hearts--ah, then, what bitterness is that! For a “ sense of sin,” as we so lightly speak, is then awakened in the soul, and with that new sense comes a new bitterness, compared with which the waters of Marah are milk and honey, and aloes are a child’ s sweetmeat. Yes, angel, clothed with a cloud, you may well say that it will make “ our bellies bitter” ; for our belly will be bitter, first with our own sin, and then with the sin of all other men. God’ s Word taken long enough and deep enough every day, as his necessary food, at last made Job from a sheep farmer into a sacrificing priest. Now, you all know what a priest is, a priest is a sinner who has not only all his own sin on his hands and on his heart, but the sins of all other men in addition. A priest sees sin in everything and everybody. His belly is always bitter with a bitterness such that all the honey and all the spices of Lebanon will not sweeten it. There was written thereon lamentations and mourning and woe. At the same time, the true priest has a secret and compensating sweetness in his office all his own; and every true minister has it deep down within him. Every true minister of God’ s Word has a sensibility to sin and to grace; a palate and a heart both for the sweetness of God’ s Word, and for its bitterness; a sensibility that makes him who has it the true successor of prophets and psalmists and apostles, like Ezekiel, David, Job, and John. “ Son of man, eat that thou findest,” said Jehovah in a vision to Ezekiel. “ Take it, and eat it up,” said the angel, in like manner, to John. Observe, that neither the prophet nor the apostle was asked nor allowed to pick and choose, as we say. They were not to be let eat the sweet and spit out the bitter. They were not to keep rolling the sweet morsels under their tongue, and to keep their inward parts a stranger to this bitter share in the Divine Book. Now this Scripture will not be sweet to all that hear it. But, even if it is at first bitter, it must not on that account be spat out. We must submit ourselves to read and to preach and to hear the whole Word of God. The book of the Bible, the preacher, the circle of doctrines that we like best may not be best for us. It is a fine study to take up the Old Testament and to trace all through it how prophet follows prophet, and psalmist psalmist; each several prophet and psalmist taking home to himself all that the prophets and psalmists have said and sung before him. And then, having made the book their own by reading it and praying over it and singing it in their own souls, then when the call came they stood up and prophesied prophecies and sang psalms new and present, as the people’ s need was new and present; never contenting themselves with just repeating what any former psalmist had sung, however great and however good that former prophet and psalmist might have been. And then, as providence after providence arises in the history of Israel, inspiration and experience keep pace with providence, the exodus, the wilderness, the conquest, the captivity, the restoration, and so on, so prophet after prophet and psalmist after psalmist--Moses, and Gad, and David, and Solomon, and Isaiah, and Daniel, and Zechariah--arise, till we have in our Old Testament the accumulated faith and repentance, attainment and experience of that whole Church of God. And this same docile reception, personal appropriation and personal possession of God’ s Word has always given an unshaking assurance, a masterful authority to all true prophets and preachers--Moses before Pharaoh, Nathan before David, Elijah before Ahab and Jezebel, Daniel before Nebuchadnezzar and Belshazzar, Peter and John before the rulers of Israel, Luther before the Legate, and Knox before Mary. And then with what passion that prophet will preach, and with what pathos that psalmist will sing, who has taken home to his own mind and to his own heart, to his own conscience and to his own imagination, the whole word of Almighty God, both in its awful terrors and in its surpassing mercies! (A. Whyte, D. D.) There was written therein lamentations. The Bible: a record of human sorrows I. Sorrow is mightily present in our world. Here is a book--1. The product of many lands and ages, expressing in manifold forms the sorrows of those lands and ages. 2. Intended for all lands and times, speaking in the tones of sorrow constantly, and yet expecting to be understood, anticipating that to none will sorrow be a foreign language. This reflection should--1. Stir our thought. Sorrow is meant to startle, to arouse, to prompt the questions, “ How? Why? What?” 2. Cultivate our soberness, “ Rejoice with trembling.” 3. Quicken our sympathies. We cannot, if we rightly know this book, be self-contained. II. Sorrow is present in the world because of size.1. Sorrow is here as the result of sin. 2. Sorrow is the penalty for sin. This rises in individual cases, to the clearness of a demonstration. 3. Sorrow is one means of purification from sin. (U. R. Thomas.) . Ezekiel 3:1-3 He caused me to eat that roll.The mystic mind 1. There are few writers in the Bible who have imprinted the characteristics of their own mind on their writings more than the prophet Ezekiel, and this is so remarkably the case that we can hardly rise from the perusal of his book without being more forcibly than ever convinced that inspiration is not in such Sense literal as robe independent of the medium through which it passes. In fact we may almost feel that it is more than probable that God selects the peculiar dispositions and characteristics of men for the media of His revealed truths on account of some similarity between their tendencies and the subject matter of the truth revealed. Important practical results flow from these considerations, especially under the three following heads. First, that this being the case, many superficial difficulties are cleared away from the surface of Scripture from the consideration of the various dispositions and modes of expression of the writers. Secondly, very considerable encouragement and comfort may be derived from the circumstance that persons with similar dispositions to our own have written portions of the Word of God. And thirdly, it leads us to see that from this analogy of His providence we may expect certain similar results in the conduct of the Church and the world in our own day. 2. With this view the study of Ezekiel’ s prophecy is remarkable. It reflects a very distinct order of disposition. He delights in mystery, allegory, and the awful; he is far less beautiful and sublime than Isaiah, but far more terrible and alarming. He has scarcely any common ground with Jeremiah, for while the latter constantly appeals to the deeper feelings of our nature, he lacked, to a great degree, the energy of character to make him their martyr; while, on the other hand, Ezekiel seems to have despised an appeal to them, and without hesitation or complaint showed his mastery over them. With Daniel Ezekiel stands in strong contrast; he lacks his refinement, his reserve, and the high sculpture of his character. He seems to have been a man of great power of self-command and of the suppression, for the sake of religion, of the tenderer emotions of nature. God told him that his wife should die in order that her death and his mode of bearing it might be an allegory to the people. The event took place, and he yielded to no human sensation on account of it. 3. But my more immediate object is, first to show that in all these respects he is one of a large class of individuals, and secondly, that that class have a direct office in the Church of God. His was the mind suited and suiting itself to mystery and allegory, which, after all, are handmaids to each other. The allegory is the expressed mystery. The allegoriser is the poet of the mystery. Thus the minds which can appreciate the mystery and express themselves in the allegory are cognate the one to the other. In the same way the disposition which inclines towards the comprehension of mystery is one which sees with a firm and unwavering eye the great truths that lie beyond the present state. There is another property and virtue of the man of mystical mind which is an important one; he is one who will consent to bow the ordinary understanding in homage to the superior spiritual perceptions, and the exercise of the reason to the moral sense. Thirdly, the mystical mind is one that is able to comprehend the sacramental nature of God’ s world. We are in danger nowadays, from a dread of mysticism, of accepting nothing as true but that which can be both suggested and finally proved by human reason. 4. But while what I have called the mystical mind is one so suited to peculiar crises of the history of man, it is, nevertheless, subject to its own infirmities and faults. Inasmuch as it is able to transcend the ordinary perceptions of religion it will be inclined to pass by with contempt those who are unable to expand its limits, and from a professed dread of narrowness of mind in things to do with religion and faith, will itself become narrowed by the most rigid limits of superstition and conventionalism. Again the allegoriser will sometimes become hazy, indefinite, and uncertain in his descriptions, and tend at last as much to mislead those who follow him, as those who refuse to take a bold step in the guidance of their fellow creatures induce them to stop short of the fulness of spiritual truth. 5. But I proceed to elucidate the rules that I have laid down with regard to the character which Ezekiel represents by some illustrations borrowed from those occasions in which their influence is felt, and their operation called into action. It is very apparent how important a witness minds of this description have to bear in a day like our own, when upon all sides of us we see the inclination to discredit old received opinions, and to cast a dimness over that clear light which had shone to the eyes of our ancestors from the far-off days of antiquity. He, then, who is able to discern in connection with the Church, the sacramental force of religion, has nowadays a great mission to fulfil. It is not merely the power to perceive and to appreciate the mysteries of our faith, but to discern under the external surface of things a deep sacramental meaning. 5. But independently of the mind that can conceive or the poetic power that can find the fitting term of expression, this kind of character must enforce thought and word by example. Acts are great allegories, and the parables of men’ s lives are most efficient in their sufferings. The actions of Ezekiel told more on the Jewish people than either his genius or his parables. His loathsome food and the tearless tomb of his wife preached the most effective lesson to the captive Jews. His was the peculiar character which could do great acts of daring and suffer manfully; and the mind which I have been describing above under the title of the allegorical, is the one capable of those powerful and speaking deeds which so affect a generation. (E. Monro.) Experience of the truth The symbol showed that Ezekiel accepted his call. He humbly gave in to God, hard as the task was. Spiritual submission is the first lesson of religion. He opened his mouth in faith. If we trust God, we can trust even His judgments. The bitter of His procuring is as sweet as honey. The symbol also expressed the prophet’ s mandate. God’ s will can be known, and is known. The prophet bad waited till it was burned in on him that his was a distinct call, a distinct work. He ate the roll. He was able to expound the book. The great temptation is to talk without the book, to enter the pulpit whether the roll has been eaten or not. We have to learn the contents of our Christian faith. Personal submission, experimental knowledge, testimony. Obedience is the one law of life, and the one secret of peace. (Christian Commonwealth.) Realisation of the truth Sweeter than honey is the Word of God in the mouth. What is comparable to the taste of a Divine communication? To know that God is, that is much. One tells how he “ danced with delight” when he realised that there was a God. To know past all doubting that God has spoken, that is far more. To see the darkness which we had thought impenetrable impaled and stabbed through by a living light, is there any ecstasy comparable with that? To those who have exhausted themselves in question and conjecture, how sweetly comes the Voice that speaks with authority and from behind the veil! Ezekiel 3:5-6 Thou art not sent to a people of a strange speech.The danger of abused privileges If you consider ministers simply as the labourers of God, you will perceive that he whose scene of cultivation is an English parish, has not necessarily an advantage over him who is appointed to a Hottentot settlement. We do not undervalue the sufferings of the missionary or the merchant; but if the merchant abroad grows richer than the merchant at home, his superior wealth is regarded as a counterpoise to his toil; and in like manner if the minister of the Hottentot settlement win more souls than the minister in an English parish, his greater success must be considered as balancing his greater privations. Hence with all our admiration of that moral chivalry which leads a man to abandon home, and give himself to the work of a missionary, we are far enough from allowing that he deserves more of our sympathy, than another who is devoting his strength to the work of the ministry in the land of his birth. There is many a district in this country which offers more resistance to spiritual cultivation, than the wilds of absolute paganism; and he whose lot is cast in one of such districts, and who wrestles apparently uselessly from year to year, would make an exchange incalculably in his favour if he were transferred to a village in some far distant land where Christianity is humanising the savage, where the truths of the Bible are preached in their simplicity, and faithful men are overthrowing the superstitions and exterminating the vices of a long-degraded tribe. I. The first thing that we consider is the truth that the foreign field would have been more productive than the home; in other words, to make the case completely our own, that ministerial success in an English parish may be far less than in the missionary settlement. We now wish to press upon your notice, as worthy of the closest attention, that the likelihood of men giving ear to the Gospel must diminish in proportion to the frequency of its repetition. It is with spiritual things as with natural; you may live within the sound of the roar of the cannon till you become insensible to the sound, and sleep without being disturbed by it; yes, and you may grow deaf to the thunders of the Word, and listen so often as not to be startled by them! Can it, then, be said on any principle of human calculation, that a man who has stood for many years the formal hearer of the Gospel till the preaching of it has deafened him, is a more promising subject for ministerial attack than the rude dweller in the desert, who never yet has been told of immortality, and never been offered salvation? In the one case we are opposed by ignorance, barbarism, and superstition; and these are formidable adversaries: in the other, we are opposed with enlightened heads and untouched hearts; and this is the combination which, of all others, presents an effectual resistance. It is this tendency of Christianity, to harden where it does not soften, which renders our home parishes so unpromising as fields of ministration. So that whatever the advantage of the home minister, there is so vast a counterpoise in the increased resistance to spiritual impression, which is the produce of a disregarded Gospel, that encouragement drawn from the words--“ thou art not sent to a people of a strange speech, and of a hard language,” is quite overborne by the melancholy statement, “ surely had I sent thee to them, they would have hearkened unto thee.” II. If the foreign field of labour would be more productive than the home--if the heathen would repent though the house of Israel be obdurate;--why was Ezekiel not sent to men of a strange speech and a hard language? There is a mystery which is wholly impenetrable, why God should send the Gospel to one nation, and withhold it from another. We have no sufficient means of determining the election of nations; it appears well-nigh as inexplicable as the election of individuals,--at least we can only resolve both to the sovereign will of the Almighty, and say in the words of the Saviour, “ Even so, Father, for so it seemed good in Thy sight.” The heathen are as much redeemed men by the blood-shedding of Jesus, as those who are blessed with all the privileges of the Gospel; and in what degree the energies of the atonement may extend themselves to procure the acceptance of those who act up to the light of the dispensation in which they live, we pretend not to determine; neither will we have the hardihood to say, that those who are excluded from all privileges, must be necessarily excluded from all benefit. The heathen will be judged by the laws of the dispensation beneath which he lived. We are assured by infallible authority, that it shall be more tolerable in the judgment for the heathen who never heard of the Gospel, than for those who have heard and rejected it. Though strictly we can only infer from this, that there shall be a graduated scale of punishment; is it not a fair induction that everyone may be tried according to his opportunities? and if this be admitted, then, where the opportunities are small, so also is the responsibility; and we the less marvel that God should have given only little, seeing only little will be demanded in return. (H. Melvill, B. D.) Ezekiel 3:7 But the house of Israel will not hearken unto thee; for they will not hearken unto me.The distinction between predestination and foreknowledge God gives Ezekiel an express command to speak his words to the house of Israel (verse 4), and, at the same time, distinctly informs him that the house of Israel will not hearken or attend. The prophet is commanded to speak, and told, at the same time, that the preaching would be useless in regard of the working contrition and amendment in his hearers. Now we are well assured that God honours the ordinance of preaching, seeing that it is His chief engine for rousing those who are dead in trespasses and sins. But though this be the main use of preaching, it is clear from our text that it is not the only use. We shall not meddle with the mysterious things of God’ s predestination, though there may be much in our text which is associated with this inscrutable doctrine. We have only to remark that God’ s foreknowledge must be carefully distinguished from God’ s predestination. They are often confounded, but never without injury to all that is fundamental in Christian theology. It is essential to the correctness of our every notion of God that we consider Him unconfined, whether by space or by time; and as, therefore, having possessed throughout the eternity already passed, an acquaintance with every event which shall occur in the eternity to come God foreknows, with unvarying accuracy, whether or not an individual, who is privileged to hear the Gospel, will so listen to the Word as to be benefited by its delivery. But this is a widely different thing from saying that God predestines the reception which shall be given to the message; and thus fixes, by a positive decree, that such or such hearers shall put from them the proffers of forgiveness. But, because known, must you pronounce it decreed? Will you say that God cannot be certain of a thing unless He Himself have determined that thing, and made arrangements for its occurrence? What! not foresee the shipwreck, unless He take the helm, and steer the vessel to the quicksand? But the chief question still remains to be examined--why God should enjoin the preaching of the Gospel in cases where He is assured, by His foreknowledge, that this preaching will be wholly ineffectual? We think the answer is to be found in the demands of the high moral government which God, undoubtedly, exercises over the creatures of this earth. There is no more common, and at the same time, no more palpable mistake, than that of considering the Almighty’ s dealings with our race as referring wholly to man, and not at all to his Maker. I cannot understand how there could be equity in the sentences which shall be finally passed on Christians, unless there be now what we shall dare to call moral honesty in the offer of pardon which the Gospel makes to all men. We are apt to regard the preaching of the Gospel merely as an engine for the conversion of sinners, and lose sight of other ends which it may undoubtedly subserve, even when it fail of accomplishment. But we are to blame in confining our thoughts to an end in which we have an immediate concern, in place of extending them to those in which God Himself may be personally interested. We forget that God has to make provision for the thorough vindication of all His attributes when He shall bring the human race to judgment, and allot to each individual a portion in eternity. We forget that in all His dealings it must be His own honour to which He has the closest respect; and that this honour may require the appointment and contrivance of the means of grace, even when those means, in place of effecting conversion, are sure to do nothing but increase condemnation. We will hope that God had other ends in view than that of making His minister the savour of death unto death in bringing you up to His courts this day. We have no foreknowledge of the reception that you will give to the message; we can therefore deal with you all as with beings of whom we have hopes. Yes, indeed, hopes!--strong, earnest, scriptural hopes! We could pursue each one of you to the very verge of the grave, and still say we had hopes. We should not be hopeless, though the life were just ebbing, and the soul departing, and the Saviour not embraced. We should still feel--feel even in that moment of terrible extremity--that nothing was too hard for the Lord; and it would be in hope-a faint hope it would be--but still in hope, that we sat down by your bedside, and said to the fainting and almost lost man, “ Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved.” (H. Melvill, B. D.) Attention in listening In the act of listening we are not only distinctly conscious of sounds so faint that they would not excite our notice but for the volitional direction of the attention, but we can single out these from the midst of others by a determined and sustained effort, which may even make us quite unconscious of the rest so long as that effort is kept up. Thus a person with a practised “ musical ear” (as it is commonly but erroneously termed, it being not the ear, but the brain, which exerts this power), whilst listening to a piece of music played by a large orchestra, can single out any one part in the harmony and follow it through all its mazes; or can distinguish the sound of the weakest instrument in the whole band and follow its strain through the whole performance. And an experienced conductor will not only distinguish when some instrumentalist is playing out of tune, but will at once single out the offender from the midst of a numerous band. (Carpenter, “Mental Physiology.”) Truth unheeded All this and more than this you have been told, and told again, even till you are weary of hearing it, and till you could make the lighter of it, because you had so often heard it; like the smith’ s dog, that is brought by custom to sleep under the noise of the hammers, and when the sparks do fly about his ears. (R. Baxter.) The wilfulness of the impenitent “ A man’ s will is his hell,” saith Bernard. “ And it is easier,” saith another. “ to deal with twenty men’ s reasons than with one man’ s will.” What hope is there of those that will not fear; or if they do, yet have made their conclusion afore-hand, and will stir no more than a stake in the midst of a stream? (J. Trapp.) Responsiveness not easily evoked Tyndall, in 1857, took a tube, a resonant jar, and a flame. By raising his voice to a certain pitch he made the silent flame to sing. The song was hushed. Then again the proper note was sounded, and the response was at once given by the flame. If the position varies, there is a tremor, but no song. Again it stretches out its little tongue and begins its song. When the finger stopped the tube the flame was silent. Standing at the extremity of the room one may command the fiery singer. Immediately sonorous pulses call out the song. What greater skill is needed to evoke the melody of a reluctant, shrinking soul! The adjustments of the human heart are more delicate. The laws of excitation and persuasion therefore need attract as careful study as those of heat and sound. (E. P. Thwing.) The hardening of the heart On a winter evening, when the frost is setting in with growing intensity, and when the sun is now far past the meridian, and gradually sinking in the Western sky, there is a double reason why the ground grows every moment harder and more impenetrable to the plough. On the one hand, the frost of evening, with ever-increasing intensity, is indurating the stiffening clods. On the other hand, the genial rays, which alone can soften them, are every moment withdrawing and losing their enlivening power. Take heed that it be not so with you. As long as you are unconverted, you are under a double process of hardening. The frosts of an eternal night are settling down upon your souls; and the Sun of Righteousness with westering wheel, is hastening to set upon you for evermore. If, then, the plough of grace cannot force its way into your ice-bound heart today, what likelihood is there that it will enter tomorrow? (R. McCheyne.) Ministerial obligation not dependent on success “ I am thankful for success,” says Mr. Spurgeon, “ but I feel in my heart a deeper gratitude to God for permission to work for Him. It seems to me to be one of the highest gifts of His grace to be permitted to take any share whatever in His grand enterprise for the salvation of the sons of men.” It is even so; and they are blessed who realise it, for never are they allowed to labour in vain. Indeed, not unfrequently, when all is seeming failure and sore discouragement, great success is near. The Lord has often first to humble before He can greatly use. It is told of an eminent man that when at one period of his ministry he became, through discouragement, sorely tempted to abandon both sphere and work, he had a singular dream. He thought he was working with a pickaxe on the top of a basaltic rock. His muscular arm brought down stroke after stroke for hours, but the rock was hardly indented. He said to himself at last, “ It is useless; I will pick no more.” Suddenly a stranger stood by his side, and said to him, “ Are you to do no more work?” “ No.” “ But were you not set to do this task?” “ Yes.” “ Why then abandon it?” “ My work is vain; I make no impression on the rock.” The stranger replied solemnly, “ What is that to you? Your duty is to pick whether the rock yields or not. Your work is in your own hands--the result is not; work on.” He resumed his task. The first blow was given with almost superhuman force, and the rock flew into a thousand pieces. This was only a dream, but it so impressed him that, through grace, he was able to turn it to good account; for when he awoke he returned to his work with fresh interest and hope, and with greater tokens of his Master’ s presence and power than ever before. Unsuccessful ministry In a newspaper we met with the following:--“ There was an old turnpike man, on a quiet country road, whose habit was to shut his gate at night and take his nap. One dark, wet midnight I knocked at his door, calling, ‘ Gate, gate!’ ‘ Coming,’ said the voice of the old man. Then I knocked again and once more the voice replied, ‘ Coming.’ This went on for some time, till at length I grew quite angry, and jumping off my horse, opened the door and demanded why he cried ‘ Coming’ for twenty minutes, and never came. ‘ Who is there?’ said the old man, in a quiet, sleepy voice, rubbing his eyes. ‘ What d’ ye want, sir?’ Then awakening, ‘ Bless yer, sir, and ax yer pardon, I was asleep; I gets so used to hearing ‘ em knock, that I answer “ Coming” in my sleep, and take no more notice about it.’” Thus may the ministry accomplish nothing because the habitual hearer remains in a deep sleep, out of which the Spirit of God alone can awaken him. When the secret influence from heaven ceases to speak to the heart, the best speaking to the ear avails little. (C. H. Spurgeon.) Ezekiel 3:9 As an adamant harder than flint have I made thy forehead.The adamant (Zechariah 7:12):--A great and good man who served and suffered for Christ in North Africa seventeen centuries ago won for himself a noble name by which he is still known, Origen the Adamantine. There isn’ t a boy nor, in her own quiet way, a girl who does not feel some glow of heart or flush of face at the magic of this name, “ the Unsubduable,” “ the Invincible.” But he was not the first who bore the name. It was given long before by God Himself to His captive prophet in Babylon, whose forehead, as he faced the people, whose hearts were cold and hard as stones, might well be firm as adamant, since, in his very name, Ezekiel, he carried the great power of God. Now, what is adamant? Look at a lady’ s finger ring, and find among the precious stones set in its golden circle one that is quite clear and lustrous, and that throws off from every facet whatever rays of light are falling upon it. We call this sparkling gem, as you know, a diamond. But that is just another form of the word adamant, which we owe to the old Greeks, who naturally called the precious stone which could not be broken, adamas or “ the unsubduable.”1. The diamond now flashing on your mother’ s finger was not always the hardest of stones. It was once a bit of soft, vegetable matter. For the diamond is not really different from the coal which makes our winter fires, and which, long, long ages ago, was a thick, steaming forest. Hence it is quite true that “ the sunbeams are driving our railway trains.” And the exiles in Babylon, who had grown so adamantine in evil that the sword of the Spirit which is the Word of God made no more impression on their hearts than your penknife on the angles of a diamond, were once boys and girls playing in the streets of Jerusalem, singing the songs of Zion, and dreaming their day dreams of ministering to the Lord like Samuel, or fighting with Goliaths like David, or leading the dance of triumph like Miriam. This terrible process of heart petrifying, or turning to stone, comes about by the action of the wise and good, though solemn and awful, law of habit. “ The oftener, the easier.” How woeful to reach at last the state when, as regards all that is highest and best, one is “ past feeling,” as though the conscience had been burned with a hot iron, or the heart made as hard as an adamant stone! From which may the good Lord deliver us! 2. We may find a promise of better things even in Zechariah’ s awful image of disobedience. The exquisite diamonds, or carbon crystals, are combustible, and, if subjected to a sufficient degree of heat, will pass off in carbonic acid gas. Fine ladies need not be so proud of their diamonds, since they may all be dissipated by fire; and poorer folks need not so greatly covet their possession, since they are breathing out diamond essence with every exhalation! And if we were so foolishly greedy as to want our diamond breaths back again, they would poison us. However this may be, it is certain that hearts as hard as an adamant stone are every day being softened, melted, transformed, by the fire of God’ s holy love, which saves the sinner by consuming his sins. 3. But “ the broken heart,” though it may seem strange to say so, is the stoutest and bravest of hearts. The true hero has always a tender conscience. He who fears God has no other fear. If Christ is your Master, and you are learning in His school, you may well appropriate the sturdy words over the gate of Marischal College, Aberdeen: “ They say: what say they? let them say.” God has His diamonds as well as the devil. Against the whole “ House of Disobedience” stood up the son of Buzi, the prophet of the exile, in the strength of God. If the people were hard as flint in their own evil ways, he was firm as the adamant, which is harder than flint in the service of God. They did well to call Origen, the Adamantine, the Invincible, for when, at the age of sixteen, his father was thrown into prison for his confession of Christ, he wanted to go and suffer with him; and when it was shown him that this was not his duty, he wrote to his father not to falter in his faith for their sakes, for he would undertake the support of his mother and his six younger brothers. And nobly did he fulfil his promise, selling his books, working early and late as a teacher in Alexandria, and inspiring his pupils with such devotion that they called his college “ a school for martyrs.” (A. N. Mackray, M. A.) Weakness made strong What is more unstable than water, yet, when frozen, what is more immovable? It becomes hard as a rock when God touches it. What He does in nature tie also does in grace. Peter was weak as water, but the Lord changed his nature as well as his name, and “ Simon, son of Jonas,” became “ Peter, son of Jehovah.” The Lord did the same for Ezekiel. “ Behold, I have made thy face strong against their faces, and thy forehead strong against their foreheads. As an adamant harder than flint have I made thy forehead: fear them not, neither be dismayed at their looks, though they be a rebellious house” (Ezekiel 3:9). The world’ s hardening is death: God’ s hardening is strength; the yielding became unyielding, and those rippled with every breath became immovable. Yes, it is wonderful what God can enable us to bear! (Footsteps of Truth.) Hardened for endurance Loose-braced, easy souls, that lie open to all the pleasurable influences of ordinary life, are no more fit for God’ s weapons than a reed for a lance, or a bit of flexible lead for a spear point. The wood must be tough and compact, the metal hard and close-grained, out of which God makes His shafts. The brand that is to guide men through the darkness to their Father’ s home must glow with a pallor of consuming flame that purges its whole substance into light. (A. Maclaren.) Ezekiel 3:10 All My words . . . receive in thine heart.The heart the treasury of truth What is in the head may soon be lost, but what is in the heart abides. Books locked up in the closet are safe, and truths laid up in the heart are secure (James 1:21). They must first put out of their hearts filthiness, malice, wrath, whatever had possession of the heart, and kept out the Word, and open their hearts to entertain the Word. The heart is the ground this seed will grow in. David knew this, and therefore hid the Word of God in his heart (Psalms 119:11): and why there? “ that I might not sin against thee.” This corn will not let the weeds grow: when the Word is in the heart, it keeps under all corruptions, it makes them languish and come to nothing. (W. Greenhill, M. A.) Ezekiel 3:12-13 Then the Spirit took me up.The light of God reconciles the disorders of life In the light of God the presence of moral disorder can be reconciled with His superintending goodness and mercy. And as we are lifted up in spirit into that light we see that there is an explanation of these terrible perplexities, a solution of these baffling problems, an unfolding of an occult and inscrutable plan. Birks, in his Four Prophetic Empires, says, “ The storms which rocked the cradle of Rome, and nursed it into greatness--the wars of Carthage, the victories of Hannibal, the proud triumphs of Scipio and Paulus, of Marius and Sylla, of Pompey and Caesar--the fall of Greece, and Syria, and Egypt, of Spain, and Gaul, and Britain, with all the fierce conculsions of intestine strife, and the imperial line of Caesar--were all planned out and clearly foreseen in the counsels of the Most High. Where a worldly mind sees nothing but a wild sea of human passions, or the dark workings of subtle policy and ambition, God’ s Word reveals a mightier presence standing in the midst of those proud statesmen and warriors, though they know Him not. A flood of heaven’ s light streams down upon the darkest page of Roman ambition and crime. Amid those gloomy scenes of triumphant injustice, foul idolatry or superstitious pride, almighty power was there to control, onmiscient wisdom to foresee and ordain, and love and holiness were overruling the mighty drama of strife and violence, to accomplish their own hidden counsel of grace and redemption to a fallen world.” (A. W. Welch.) Ezekiel 3:14-15 So the Spirit lifted me up.In the uplifted life we are fitted to do the Lord’ s work Ezekiel was now strengthened to do a very difficult work. He was to go and speak to a people who had no sympathy with him,--who would not listen to him, as the old classic prophetess Cassandra was doomed forever to speak the truth and never to be believed. If he had been commissioned to break up new ground amongst people whose language he did not understand, he would have deserved some pity. But the actual case was worse than such a hypothetical one. Jeremiah had preached in Jerusalem for thirty-five years without success, and now Ezekiel was assured that his own prophesying in Babylon would fail of its immediate purpose. To expect defeat is one of the surest ways of incurring it. On the contrary, to have an unswerving confidence in the prosperous issue of any cause is most likely to ensure it. To have, as the only visible result of your efforts, your words flung back in your face, like shot rebounding from the adamant, must result in depressing your energies and paralysing your power. Ezekiel is now called to this terrible kind of service; and if he is not to falter and slacken in the strenuousness of his effort, he must have special preparation for it. The Spirit lifts him up, and then the hand of the Lord is strong upon him; and thus his natural weakness and timidity are reinforced. A Mr. Davis has written of the beneficial effects of high altitudes in certain kinds of diseases, more particularly in pulmonary troubles, and has summarised those advantages as, “ dryness of air and comparative freedom from microorganisms and atmospheric dust; profusion of sunlight; lowness of temperature, the heat of the sun being easily borne, while the violet rays of the spectrum act chemically on the blood, increasing the haemoglobin; diminished barometric pressure, facilitating chemical action in the blood and tissues, and favouring vaporisation of moist secretions in the lungs, while it aids pulmonary circulation and expansion; and the general stimulus of high levels, producing exhilaration and an increase of nutrition.” Who would wish to live on low levels after reading that! Those who live in any low-lying places, such as the poor Swiss of the Valals, are languid and enfeebled. They can never be robust while they breathe the damp air, the miasma, the foggy, misty atmosphere. There are correspondences in the spiritual sphere to these literal facts. When Christians dwell in the marshy, malarial lowlands of doubt and unbelief, selfishness and worldliness, they are unequal to holy enterprise. To serve the Lord requires strength and vigour, and these qualities they lack. We can also see that by means of this lifting up Ezekiel was brought into sympathy with men. “ Then I came to them of the captivity at Tel-abib, that dwelt by the river of Chebar, and I sat where they sat, and remained there astonished among them seven days.” Many have complained of such a method of expressing interest, and ridiculed it as strange friendship. But the action is full of true, deep sympathy. Job “ sat down among the ashes,” a loathsome sufferer. Yet his friends sat with him, sharing in silence his sorrow and humiliation. Similarly Ezekiel does not appear to have spoken. Silence is often golden. Words would sometimes only bewilder or irritate or wound. It is in the uplifted life that we learn how to come near to people in their misery and degradation,--how to join ourselves in the truest sympathy with the masses in their sad weariness, their pain-stricken anxiety, their tempted, struggling, sinning condition. Observe that by being lifted up Ezekiel was brought into sympathy with God. “ So the Spirit lifted me up, and took me away, and I went in bitterness, in the heat of my spirit.” As you read these words you at first think they denote the very reverse of an advance towards the mind of God. What can bitterness of spirit signify? what but a spirit of rebellion against the will of God? But that is not the meaning. The prophet was now brought into deeper sympathy with the Divine will. He was, like Jeremiah, “ filled with the indignation of the Lord.” In Bible parlance, the Lord was angry with the people, and so now was he. The roll which was spread before him was written with “ lamentations and mourning and woe.” He was bidden to eat it. Surely a very bitter portion for him! But he says, “ It was in my mouth as honey for sweetness” (chap. 3, verse 3). Why did the bitter become sweet? Because he was already in perfect accord with the will of God. The will of God should, we know, be the law of a Christian’ s life. Henry Martyn remarked just before he reached Madras, “ I am going upon a work exactly according to the mind of Christ.” At the height of 200 feet above the earth, to the listener on tower or crag, the varying sounds from below, harmonies and discords alike, are blent into one musical note--F natural--pure, sweet, distinct. So when we are lifted up to the Mount of the Lord the dissonant, discordant, jarring notes of our self-will are brought into unison with the will of God; our imperfect, inharmonious natures are reduced into full and complete accord with the Divine purpose. (A. W. Welch.) Ezekiel 3:16-17I have made thee a watchman.The Christian watchman I. The office of the christian watchman is to warn his people of the danger to which, according to the word of God, all men are naturally exposed. From the “ specular mount” on which the Lord hath placed him, he looks abroad upon the mighty plain where the busy generations of the world are engaged in a thousand different forms of labour, and pursuing a thousand different objects of delight, all alike undisturbed by the thought of the invasion of wrath which, ere long, is to “ lay the land desolate, and to destroy the sinners out of it.” Yet he can discern what they do not,--the ministers of vengeance ambushed in the very midst of them, and ready at a word to spring on their defenceless victims. And, perceiving all this, shall he keep silence? I am aware that the principle of ministerial duty which I have now stated has been objected to on various grounds. We are often told, for example, that to dwell much on such frightful and uncomfortable topics is in bad taste. But this is no question of taste; it is a matter of life or death,--of life or death eternal. Away, then, with such puerilities. Again, we are told that such a mode of dealing with sinners is ineffective,--that the true way in which men are generally brought to Christianity is through its soft and winning attractions, and that few comparatively are frightened into it by the force of threatenings and terror. But this maxim, we apprehend, is contradicted by experience. Conviction ordinarily precedes conversion. But it is a case that need not be thus argued to and fro; for hear what Jehovah hath denounced against those who, speaking in His name, keep back the message of His wrath against the sinner:--“ Mine hand shall be upon the prophets that see vanity,” etc. II. The christian minister’ s object should be not merely to awaken sinners to a sense of peril, but to excite them to flee for refuge from that peril. Now, this defenced and consecrated city--the New Jerusalem, the Church of the Living God, has been erected as a city of refuge to the guilty. To it, therefore, the watchman of souls must point the sinner whom he has awakened with the alarm of danger, and, while he shouts, “ Flee from the wrath to come,” must add, “ Turn ye to the stronghold, ye prisoners of hope.” He must hold it forth as the all-sufficient refuge “ founded upon a rock,” so that “ the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.” The great object, then, of the faithful minister in pointing out to men the way of salvation, is, first, To exhibit Christ as the source and foundation of the sinner’ s hope, and then, secondly, To do what he may to lead men into this faith and this reliance, by displaying God’ s testimony in the Gospel as it is in truth,--“ a faithful saying and worthy of all acceptation.” (J. B. Patterson, M. A.) The watchman I. His requisite character and qualifications.1. He must be a man of good repute. A man of loose habits, a disorderly, quarrelsome, dissolute, idle, dishonest man, is the most unlikely person in the world to be a watchman: hence wise men always appoint to that office persons of steady, honest, and industrious habits. And such must be the Lord’ s watchman. 2. He must produce proofs of his past fidelity and good management. 3. He should have discernment, ingenuity, and courage. 4. A watchman should be healthy and strong, able to bear exposure and fatigue; a soft and delicate person is a most unlikely subject to be a watchman. 5. He must be properly appointed. 6. He must have a proper dress and light. And by these marks ought the Lord’ s watchman to be identified: he should be clothed with humility as with a garment, and adorned with the graces of the Holy Spirit. He should also have much Divine light. He must walk and commune with, and imitate Christ. II. The watchman’ s office.1. One part of his duty is to tell the hour. Time flies! your life is a shadow! you spend your years as a tale that is told! your days are swifter than a weaver’ s shuttle! your life is a dream! your time as a stream glides swiftly away! every beating pulse you tell leaves but the number less! your life is vanity! you are but dust--what is your life? it is but a vapour. 2. Another part of the duty of a watchman is to protect the persons and property of the inhabitants from villains, accidents, and offences. In like manner ought the Church to be protected by the Lord’ s watchmen. All that are sick, poor, destitute, or afflicted, and those who are but young disciples and weak in their faith, they ought to make the objects of their peculiar attention. 3. It is another part of a watchman’ s duty to give an alarm when any doors are left open, or places unprotected, or when any danger is near. The spiritual watchman must do likewise. 4. The watchman has to give an account to the governors or magistrates of anything important that has occurred, and of the present state of the city. And the Lord’ s watchman has to lay before Him any conversions, improvements, declensions, goods or evils, that have transpired in the Church, and to present them before the Throne of Grace. (B. Bailey.) The office and duty of a conscientious pastor I. God, in unsearchable wisdom, and grace Divine, as well for our necessity as His own glory, appointed Two distinct orders of men, who might continually attend upon sacred things: under the Mosaic law, these were the Priest and the Prophet. The former was necessary on account of His ineffable greatness, for the honour of His majesty, and our deep misery. With regard to the other, that of the prophetic office, not only did our guilt require the atoning priest, but our natural darkness, our native ignorance of God and Divine mysteries, called aloud for a teacher sent from God. There appears to be this difference between the priest and the prophet under the Mosaic law: the former was a minister of state, admitted to the presence of the King; one who ministered continually before Him at His holy altar; the other, as an extraordinary ambassador, who not only represented the Divine person of Messiah the Prince, but was charged with special embassies to Israel, and the neighbouring kingdoms. This is most obviously illustrated in Moses, Ezekiel, Daniel, and all the eminent prophets. The office of the prophet, therefore, was to reveal future and interesting events to mankind; to bless and pray for the people. These two characters of such dignity and respectability are united in Jesus, who is a Priest upon His throne, and that Prophet before whom all the prophets are but as twilight stars to the meridian sun. From the triumphant death and glorious resurrection of our Divine Redeemer, we are to look for a new order of men, and a new mode of instruction. II. The connection between the Jewish prophet and the Gospel minister.1. The principal and most essential qualification of a prophet was, undisguised holiness, and sublime piety. There cannot be a greater solecism in the moral world than an immoral teacher: one whose office it is to investigate the concerns of eternity, to show the importance of regeneration, to press upon others the necessity of a new birth, while he himself is a stranger to the work of the Spirit upon his own heart. Piety in a man’ s own breast makes him faithful; he bids fairest for success whose heart is holy; he watches as one that must give an account. 2. The mind of the prophet must be in a proper disposition and frame to receive the Divine afflatus or prophetic spirit; that is, say the Jewish doctors, it must not be oppressed with grief, or clouded with passions of any kind. This is a most necessary quality in a Gospel minister. His mind should be free from the thorny cares of time, and undisturbed with swelling passions. A dogmatical spirit, and magisterial airs, in befit a disciple, a minister of the meek and lowly Redeemer. 3. A true prophet was made and called to his office by God Himself. III. What the true prophet, the servant of jesus christ, hath to watch over.1. The doctrines of the Gospel. These are sometimes expressed by the truth (3 John 1:8); sometimes by the faith (Jude 1:3). 2. Our interest is in the universal Church of Christ: but, in a peculiar manner, we must watch over that flock with which we stand connected in a pastoral relation (Acts 20:28). 3. We ought to keep a jealous eye over our own hearts. Ministers of the Gospel must not forget that they are deeply engaged in the Christian warfare; and that Satan will employ every engine to storm them. Ministers have their peculiar infirmities, as well as private Christians. ‘ Tis hard to keep the helm up against so many cross winds as we meet with on this sea of fire and glass. Lessons--1. The importance of a Gospel ministry, and the charge of souls. 2. What an honourable post Gospel ministers fill. They approach the presence of the Almighty King, and receive from the Lord what they deliver unto His people. 3. From the subject, learn the infinite love of God to mankind. (J. Johnston.) The sentinel “ When a sentinel is set upon the watch, he must not come off without the commander’ s leave, and till he is discharged by authority. God hath set us in a watch, and we must not leave our ground till we have done all that is enjoined upon us, and receive a fair discharge.” The instance of the sentinel in Pompeii, whose skeleton was found erect at the city gate, when all but he had fled, need not be repeated in words; but it should be copied by each one of us in his life. If the earth should reel, it is ours to keep our place. If set to preach the Gospel, let us maintain the truth, though philosophy should thin the number of our comrades till we remain alone. Imagine what the universe would be if the stars forsook their marches, and the sun forbore to shine; yet this would only be among inanimate objects an imitation of the conduct of men who quit their posts, and leave their work undone. This is the spirit out of which fiends are made: first neglect, then omission, then treachery and rebellion. A sentinel must not leave his post even to gather pearls or diamonds; nor must we forsake our duty in order to acquire the highest honours. It matters nothing how well we have done other things if we neglect the thing. God bids us do this, and if we fail it will be no excuse to be able to say--we have done that. If the watcher forsakes his post it will not avail that he climbed a mountain, or swam a river: he was not where he was ordered to be. (C. H. Spurgeon.) The watchman’ s duties Often on the ocean I have gone to the prow of the vessel and looked out into the darkness of the night. I have found the watchman not one moment from his post, his eye gazing far over the sea, where he might discern at the greatest distance and at the earliest moment any cause of possible danger. The lives of the crew and passengers were in his hands. The mist might come down heavily, the wind might blow furiously, the storm rage incessantly; but still on and ever the watchman looks out in the one direction. The whales may sport in multitudes around the vessel, the whole sea behind him be in a phosphorescent glow. His own great object is not to care for these things, but to look ahead! So you are watchmen. You are on the ship. The vessel may be running towards shore; there may be breakers ahead. You are to sound the alarm. (Bishop Simpson.) Hear the word at My mouth. The message from the Lord’ s mouth Christ’ s battles are not such as require strength of muscle and bone, nor do they need great mental capacity. Even the appointed watchman is set only to warn the people: he has not to charm them with eloquence, nor to electrify them with novelties of oratory: he is simply to warn them, and the plainest language may suffice for that. I. If we would be found really useful and serviceable for our Lord and Master, the ear is to be disciplined. “ Hear the word at My mouth.” What does this mean?1. I take it, first, that if we wish to be useful our ear must be disciplined to hear only God’ s word. Believe Him, for He cannot lie. We come to tell you of what we ourselves have received upon Divine authority, and we claim that you do receive our testimony, not because it is ours, but because it is supported by Divine authority, and is in fact the echo of the Divine word. Only by this mode of utterance can we hope to succeed. On any other footing we court failure and deserve it. 2. Secondly, if we would have our ear educated, it must be not only to receive the word as of Divine authority, but to know what God’ s word is. Let us study the Bible with diligence. Go to that fountain of truth, I pray you, and never be satisfied with a second-hand version of it. Go you to the fountain head and drink there or ever the streams have been mudded by human blundering. 3. The great thing, I believe, with a successful winner of souls is to hear God’ s truth from God’ s own mouth. Do you want to know Christ’ s way of making men useful? Turn to Mark 3:13-15. Do you see the order? He calls them to Him,--you must not dream of winning souls till you first come to Christ yourself. Next we read, “ That they might be with Him,” --you cannot go and teach Christ, or bring others to Him, unless you have first been with Him. Communion with Jesus is training for service. After the fellowship comes the work--“ That He might send them forth to preach, and to have power.” 4. To have our ear well tutored we must feel the force of the truth that we deliver. Sin,--are you going to talk about the evil of it? Do you know the evil of it for yourself? Get back to the place of repentance where you once wet the earth with your tears, and talk to children or grown-up people about sin in that spirit. Pardon,--are you going to speak about that? Do you know the sweetness of it? Go to the place where first you saw the flowing of the ever-precious blood, and feel again your load of guilt removed, and you will speak of it most sweetly. The power of the Holy Spirit,--are you going to speak about that? Have you felt His quickening, enlightening, comforting, and sanctifying influence? II. The tongue is to be educated. That is indeed the aim of the discipline of the ear. And to what end is the tongue educated?1. To be able to deliver an unpleasant message. You and I cannot be useful if we want to be sweet as honey in the mouths of men. God will never bless us if we wish to please men, that they may think well of us. Are you willing to tell them what will break your own heart in the telling and break theirs in the hearing? If not, you are not fit to serve the Lord. 2. Next, you want your tongue tutored to speak the truth as having yourself heard it. The man should be full of emotion, not moved by anger, but by a sacred passion which arouses him and makes the people feel that he is in awful earnest, carried out of himself, not delivering set phrases and words from his mouth outwards, but speaking from his inmost heart. Now, if we were to meet with our Lord Jesus Himself, and were then to speak of Him in the state of mind in which His presence left us, what a style of speech that would be. 3. The tongue needs to be trained in the case of each one of us to deliver the message as from God. You may not all be called to the work of prophesying as ministers are, but you are all called by some means to warn men of the wrath to come and lead them to Christ, and I want you to feel that God is at the back of you when you warn sinners. God will own His truth, therefore never be ashamed of it. III. I finish by endeavouring to practise the lesson of the text. I desire to speak to those who are unconverted, and to speak as if I had just come from an interview with my Lord and Master, as I trust I have. I have to say to you now present, that whatever may be your natural excellence of character, and whatever the religiousness of your training, yet you must all of you be born again. The Master would lay a strong tender emphasis upon the “ must.” “ Ye must be born again.” Jesus would not demand of us more than is absolutely necessary, nor say a syllable that would tend to shut a soul out of heaven. If He says, “ Ye must,” why then we must. I want you to own that necessity. Next I desire to introduce you to Jesus sitting at the well with the woman of Samaria. You can see the smile upon His countenance as He instructs her. I want you now to hear Him say these words: “ God is a Spirit: and they that worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth.” You must have a spiritual mind and a spiritual nature through being born again: and then you must worship God in a spiritual way, for mere outward religion is nothing in His sight. Oh, ask that the Spirit of God would teach you how to worship in spirit and in truth. Now listen to my Master again. “ Ye search the Scriptures; for in them ye think ye have eternal life: and they are they which testify of Me. And ye will not come to Me, that ye might have life.” Do you think you will get salvation by Bible reading? Alas, you are in error. You must go further than that; you must go to Christ Jesus Himself. Listen to my Master once again: “ If ye believe not that I am He, ye shall die in your sins.” I know you will say that I speak hard things. Perhaps I do, but not with a hard heart. Now, my Lord is always tender, never man spake like this man, and never man wept as He did when He had a hard thing to say; hear ye then His declaration, “ Except ye believe that I am He, ye shall die in your sins.” The last thing that was ever seen of my Lord and Master upon earth was this. “ Go ye into all the world, and preach the Gospel to every creature.” They stood with their ears and eves open to know how He would have them put the Gospel, and He said, “ He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; he that believeth not shall be damned.” (C. H. Spurgeon.) Ezekiel 3:18-19 His blood will I require at thine hand.Blood guiltiness Public sentiment in New York has been aroused against a poor brakeman on the New York Central railroad because he failed to give the danger signal to the St. Louis express. He was sent with a red lantern to wave down the approaching train, but, instead of doing so, he went into a depot and sat down by the fire. As the express thundered by he asked, “ What’ s that?” and, when told, he disappeared in the darkness and has not yet been found by the police. The express dashed into the train on the track and killed twelve persons. Everybody feels that such neglect was criminal, and yet how about us who believe that our friends are going headlong to ruin and we have not warned them of their danger? Ezekiel 3:22 Arise, go forth into the plain, and I will there talk with thee.Retirement I. The duty enjoined--“ Arise, and go forth into the plain.” Premise two things--1. The place is indifferent. It matters not whether it be a private room, or the open field. The thing required is to be alone. 2. It is not a state of absolute retirement that God enjoins, Man was made for society, as well as solitude: and so is the Christian. But what our subject demands is, comparative and occasional secession for moral and spiritual purposes. Says He not this by express commands? “ Stand in awe, and sin not: commune with your own heart upon your bed, and be still. Enter into thy closet; and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret, and thy Father which is in secret shall reward thee openly.” And says He not this by example? Daniel retired three times a day. Of our Saviour, whose life has the force of a law, it is said: “ In the morning, rising up a great while before day, He went out, and departed into a solitary place, and there prayed. Says e not this by he institution of the Sabbath? The return of every Saturday evening cries, “ Tomorrow is the rest of the holy Sabbath unto the Lord.” “ Go forth into the plain, and there will I talk with thee.” And says He not this by the dispensations of His providence? Affliction often at once disinclines us to social circles, and disqualifies us for them. Sickness separates a man from the crowd, and confines him on the bed of languishing, there to ask, “ Where is God my Maker, who giveth songs in the night?” Says He not this by the influence of His grace? This agency always produces in its subjects certain sentiments and dispositions, which urge them to retirement. I will mention four of these. 1. The first is a devotional temper. Whoever delights in prayer will delight in retirement; because it is so favourable to the frequency and freedom of the exercise. 2. The second is a desire to rise above the world. How often does the Christian lament that his conversation is so little in heaven, and that he is so much governed, by things that are seen and temporal! But where is the world conquered? In a crowd? No: but--alone. 3. The third is a wish to obtain self-knowledge. It is only alone that he can examine his state; that he can explore his defects; and set a watch against future temptation. 4. The fourth is love to God. When we are supremely attached to a person, his presence is all we want; how desirable then to meet him alone, where he seems wholly ours, and we can yield and receive undivided attention! II. The privilege promised--“ And I will there talk with thee.”1. The condescension of the Speaker. It is the Creator talking with the creature. Annexed to our meanness are our unworthiness, and our guilt. Here is, therefore, the condescension not only of goodness, but of mercy and grace. 2. Observe the happiness of the believer. By what scale can we judge of blessedness so rightly as the degree of nearness to God, the supreme good, the fountain of life? In His presence there is fulness of joy, and at His right hand there are pleasures for evermore. How blessed, then, is the man whom God chooses, and causes to approach unto Him now! 3. What is the subject of communication? It is variously expressed in the Scripture. It is called, His secret, and His covenant: “ The secret of the Lord is with them that fear Him, and He will show them His covenant.” It is called judgment, and His way: “ The meek will He guide in judgment, and the meek will He teach His way. It is peace: “ He will speak peace unto His people.” It regards everything that is important to their welfare, or interesting to their feelings and hopes. 4. What is the mode of address? He does not talk with us in a preternatural manner, as he did sometimes of old with His people. But He opens our eyes to see wondrous things out of His law. He leads us into all truth. He applies the doctrines and promises of His word by His Spirit; and, by enabling us to realise our own interest in them, He says to our souls, I am thy salvation. 5. What is the evidence of the fact? How shall we know that He does talk with us? Remember the two disciples going to Emmaus. Determine the Divine converse with you in the same way. Judge of it by its influences and effects.1. It will produce a deep and solemn sense of our vanity and vileness. 2. It will draw forth unquenchable desires after additional indulgence. 3. It will produce likeness. “ He that walketh with wise men shall be wise.” (W. Jay.) Seasons of devout solitude I. Seasons of devout solitude are necessary in order to free us from the corrupting influence of society.1. Society has a tendency to stir and strengthen the impulses of our animal nature. 2. Society has a tendency to produce habits of superficial thought. The spicy anecdote, the volatile language, the feathery and the flippant--these are the popular wares. 3. Society has a tendency to destroy the sense of individual responsibleness. 4. Society has a tendency to promote a forgetfulness of God. The lamp of piety will soon flicker and expire in the gusts of social influences, unless we retire to devout solitude for fresh oil to feed its waning fires. II. Seasons of devout solitude are necessary in order personally to appropriate the good there is in society. The conversations of the noblest circles, the most renovating principles of the most Christ-like discourses, will all prove worse than useless if their good effect is allowed to terminate with their first impressions. First impressions, of a holy kind, if they are not cultured by devout reflection, will not only pass away as the early dew goes off in the sun, but will carry off with them something of the freshness and the sensibility of the heart--something that will render the spirit less susceptible to other good impressions. In devout solitude, and nowhere else, can the faculty of discrimination rightly do its work. Here, the mind has its “ senses exercised to discern good and evil.” The two opposite elements, alas! are so mixed together here, so compounded, that a rigid and searching discrimination is required to separate the chaff from the wheat--the dross from the gold. In the presence of God, evil and good dissolve their connection, and appear in their own distinct essences. The night is divided from the day. Now without this discrimination there can be no true appropriation. In devout solitude, therefore, I can turn the universe to my service; aye, even make enemies serve my purpose. III. Seasons of devout solitude are necessary in order to qualify us to benefit society. Nature and the Bible teach that our bounden duty is to “ serve our generation” --to endeavour to improve the condition of the race. Three things seem indispensable, and these are dependent upon devout solitude.1. Self-formed conviction of Gospel truth. Alone with God you can search the Gospel to its foundation, and feel the congruity of its doctrines with your reason, its claims with your conscience, its provisions with your wants. 2. Unconquerable love for Gospel truth. The man only who loves truth more than popularity, fortune, or even life, can so use it as really and lastingly to benefit mankind. In devout solitude you can cultivate this invincible attachment to truth, and be made to feel with Paul, who said--“ I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ.” 3. A living expression of Gospel truth. We must be “ living epistles.” Our conduct must confirm and illumine the doctrines which our lips declare. It is said of Moses “ that the skin of his face shone while he talked with God.” But in seasons of devout solitude, our whole nature may grow luminous, and every phase of our character coruscate with “ the deep things of the spirit.” (Homilist.) Solitude, not loneliness God speaks as surely in the city as in the desert. By unexpected events, by labour and strife, by the various fortunes of vice, and the amazing struggles of virtue, God speaks to men with distinctness and solemnity. The point is that busy men may hear God in solitude, and solitary men may hear Him in the city. Change of mere position may have moral advantages. I. The speciality of God’ s appointments. He appoints places, times, methods, He appoints, in this case, the plain. “ Where two or three are gathered together,” etc.; “ Wheresoever My name is recorded,” etc. Where the appointment is special, the obedience should be instantaneous, cordial, punctual. II. The personality of God’ s communications. “ I will talk with thee.” We should know more of God if we held closer intercourse with Him. We may go to God directly. Every devout meditation brings us into the Divine presence. Expect this; believe it; realise it. In the sanctuary we are not hearing the voice of man, but of God. In nature we hear the Divine voice. God talks with man in the garden in the cool of the day. III. The familiarity of God’ s condescension. “ I will talk with thee.” It is a friend’ s appointment. It is not, “ I will lighten and thunder,” or, “ I will overpower thee with My strength,” but, “ I will talk with thee,” as a father might talk to his only son. Though the prophet was at first thrown down, yet the Spirit entered into him, and set him upon his feet. Application--1. God has ever something to say to man. Must have-- (1) as a Ruler;(2) as a Father. His word is ever new. 2. In seeking solitude, man should seek God. Solitude without God leads to madness. Solitude with God leads to strength and peace. Undevout solitude is the wilderness where the devil wins his battles. 3. Man himself should often propose to commune with God, In this case God proposed; in other cases man may “ seek the Lord.” Communion with God shows-- (1) the capacity of our spiritual nature;(2) the infinite superiority of the spiritual as compared with the material. When Moses talked with God, his face shone; when we commune with Him, our life will be full of brightness. Divine fellowship may be kept silent, but it cannot be kept secret. Jesus Christ Himself went away from men to commune with God. If the Master required solitude, can the servant safely do without it? (J. Parker D. D.) Quiet communion with God If asked to mention the most prominent characteristic of the present day, I should point the requirer without hesitation to the immense speed at which everything is going, to the never: ceasing and ever-increasing activity of men; to the multiplied and still multiplying engagements which occupy all the day; to the vast amount of work done in the conduct of the affairs of the world. As a direct consequence of this, those things in these busy days of ours, which can be looked at and apprehended by a swift glance of the ever-active eye, and grasped and measured and weighed by a quick application of the ever-ready hand, occupy, in the case of the vast majority of men, the mind as well as the time, to the exclusion of those things which are not seen but which are quite as real and important. In the bustle and noise of the activities of every day, the whisperings of the Divine voice, ever appealing to our hearts, are unheard and unheeded, even as would be the strains of the songbird amid the din and clash of armed men in mortal combat. In the swift race for worldly prosperity or distinction or honour, the messages of Divine love, straight from the Father’ s heart to ours, fall and pass away without leaving any impression, even as the silvery moonbeams leave no impress upon the granite rock. It is, then, for our souls’ health and strength that God frequently uses with us rather stringent measures, and, by His dealings with us, forces us to think of what is not seen, both within us and beyond us. Thus we now and again hear the Divine mandate: “ Arise, go forth into the plain, and I will there talk with thee.” Everything whose function is activity or growth demands, as a necessity for its healthy being, recurring periods of rest and seclusion. This principle pervades external nature. After the earth has been glowing with the beauties of summer and the richness of autumn; after the trees have been robed with their garment of green, and the flowers have put forth their many-hued blossoms, and basked in all their brilliance under the warm rays of the genial sun, the blossoms begin to wither and fade, and the leaves to fall, and the sap to return slowly downward to the root or the bulb underground, there in darkness, and seclusion, and quiet, to gain fresh strength for another recurring period of activity, and growth, and beauty. If you have an eye strained or weary or sore by much writing, or by protracted reading, or by ceaseless watching, you give it, when you can, rest and seclusion, that its delicate mechanism may get readjusted and serve you well for the time to come. If your brain has become hot and tired and next to useless for the moment by much study or by intense application at the desk or over a book, you instinctively incline to give it that which it naturally and imperatively demands--the cessation of the tax upon its mental powers. If your man of business, with perhaps vast responsibilities resting upon him, suddenly awakens to the fact that he has, in regard both to body and to mind, considerably overdone it, and feels jaded and wearied, and is only too conscious of the swift-coming retribution in the form of a break down, both bodily and mental, which so often follows such a sin committed against both body and mind, he will, the first moment that he possibly can, go forth from the bustle and excitement and hurry and conflict of the mart or the exchange to the plain--to the rest and solitude of the country where God’ s own hills are swept by the pure and invigorating air of heaven, or to the seashore, where the untainted breezes from the deep may be his, and thus be fitted for further activity and usefulness in life. The illustrations which I have afforded speak to us of an all-pervading, a God-implanted principle in nature and in man; that even darkness and solitude are sometimes absolutely necessary for fit preparation for true and good work; and that, carrying the principle to its highest application, occasional retirement from the bustle and heady contest of life and restful meditation are requisite ere we can distinctly hear God’ s voice, and have the heart and the life attuned to the Divine message, and thus be fully fitted to do God’ s will. We must from time to time arise and go forth into the plain, and there our Father shall talk with us. You need not say that God could have talked to Ezekiel quite as well, and with as much effect, amid the bustle and turmoil of the everyday life in which he was as in the quiet retirement of the plain. If He could have done so He unquestionably would have done so. He never, in any of His dealings, either in nature or with man, makes use of superfluous means to any end. Ezekiel was surrounded and pestered by sinful, selfish, unbelieving men, to whom he was heaven’ s appointed minister; and it was not, certainly in the sight or in the presence of such, or in their noisy company, that he could distinctly hear the Divine message which was to guide him in his ministrations to them. It stands to reason he had to be secluded from all such that he might receive ever-refreshing manifestations of the Divine glory to inspirit him for his trying work--seclusion and retirement being especially needed by those who have to discharge the duties of a commission from God to men. Thus, and thus only, are they set by the Spirit upon their feet. It is when apart from the bustling and rushing scenes of everyday life, and when separate from the noise and the dash and the heady excitement of society, that His tenderest messages come to the heart, and the most encouraging tones of His voice fall upon the ear; His highest, most strengthening, most comforting, most lasting communications, come to us when we are alone with Him. (W. M. Arthur, M. A.) The doctrine of the desert I. The desert, or solitude, is a necessary means of grace. The true Israel of God now, as ever, confess that they are “ strangers and pilgrims on the earth.” And all who say not this “ make it manifest that they are ‘ not’ seeking after a country of their own” --a better country, that is a heavenly. Life must be a wilderness, a desert, or Canaan when we reach it won’ t be heaven. But turn now upon this doctrine the light of individual experiences recorded in God’ s Word for our instruction and encouragement. When was it that Jacob drew nearest to God and realised that God had drawn nearest to him? First of all when, a fugitive by reason of sin, he pillowed his head upon a stone in the awesome loneliness of Luz. The years roll by, and once again is Jacob “ left alone.” The God of Bethel meets him by the Jabbok’ s tortuous stream, to change the man this time with the place, to effect a far more radical transformation scene, to transfigure character as well as circumstance. “ Jabbok” becomes “ Peniel,” it is true; but not before “ Jacob” has become “ Israel” --i.e., “ he who striveth successfully with God.” It was in the wilderness that Moses learnt the sacredness of solitude, and received from Jehovah his stupendous commission. The case of Ezekiel, recorded in this chapter, was, in all essential features, a parallel experience. We come to the New Testament and turn over its pages and find this same doctrine--the doctrine of the desert--illustrated and enforced in many ways. Of the forerunner of Jesus we are told--and the last-mentioned fact, no doubt, had its influence on his spirituality--“ And the child grew, and waxed strong in spirit, and was in the deserts till the day of his showing unto Israel.” From the earliest days of childhood the key of nature’ s solitudes was hanging at his girdle. But, passing from the servant to the Master, the doctrine of the desert finds its best illustration, highest possible sanction, and strongest emphasis in the precept and example of Christ Jesus. When He wished to draw very near to God, and wanted that God should draw very near to Him, it was His invariable custom to retire to some solitary place. II. If the desert is essential to our spiritual well-being, it is better that we should seek it than it us. What the enterprising builder has done with open spaces, those solitudes in which God used to speak to our fathers, that money-making engine that was formerly called “ man” has done with vacant days, hours, moments, seconds--those solitudes of time in which the godly of the past were wont to hold sweet converse with their God. The number of place-spaces and time-spaces has rapidly decreased, and is still rapidly decreasing. The result is a lamentable falling off all round, an alarming lowering of spiritual temperature from which none is exempt, and of which even the most godly are painfully conscious. These would fain live the life of the saints of long ago, but they find themselves caught in the current of the age, and are powerless to do more than hold their own in this universal craze of competition. But though the opportunities of solitude are fewer, the necessity for solitude remains undiminished. Our religious life must perish if we do not obtain it. Now the question that confronts us here is this, “ How does the child of God obtain this needful solitude?” The answer is twofold, and runs thus: “ If wise, he will go to it; if foolish, God will send it to him.”1. The wise child of God has more roads to the desert where he meets with Him than one. The first is that of private devotion--compliance with the mandate of the Master, “ enter into thine inner chamber, and having shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret.” The second is the weighing of his thoughts, words, and actions in the sacred scale of God’ s Word. A third is the transfusion of “ other worldliness” into the concerns of his so-called worldly life. 2. The foolish child of God will not go to the desert, therefore, the Father sends the desert to him. It comes upon the wings of sickness, sorrow, and bereavement, is borne along of trouble and disaster. Its blessing is wrapt up in all the trappings of a curse--so wrapped up that he cannot at first recognise it through his tears. Must God lay us low that He may parley with us? Must He fill our heart with tears ere we will look into His face? III. Jesus has altered the “ go” of the command into a “ come” of invitation. Yes, Jesus has peopled all the solitudes of life with His presence, and cries to us from each, “ Come unto Me.” He meets us in the Desert of Temptation, and nerves us for the fight with His example. He meets us in the Desert of Uncomprehended Worth, and says to us, “ A servant is not greater than his lord.” He meets us in the Desert of Solitary Suffering, and, showing us His cross, makes us forget our own. (P. Morrison.) Contemplation We here in England, like the old Greeks and Romans, dwellers in the busy mart of civilised life, have got to regard mere bustle as so integral a part of human life, that we consider a love of solitude a mark of eccentricity, and if we meet anyone who loves to be alone, are afraid that he must needs be going mad: and that with too great solitude comes the danger of too great self-consciousness, and even at last of insanity, none can doubt. But, still, we must remember, on the other hand, that without solitude, without contemplation, without habitual collection and recollection of ourselves from time to time, no great purpose is carried out, and no great work can be done; and that it is the bustle and hurry of our modern life which causes shallow thought, unstable purpose and wasted energy, in too many who would be better and wiser, stronger and happier if they would devote more time to silence and meditation; if they would commune with their own heart and in their chamber, and be still. Even in art and in mechanical science, those who have done great work upon the earth have been men given to solitary meditation. When Brindley, the engineer, had a difficult problem to solve, he used to go to bed, and stay there till he had worked it out. And if this silent labour, this steadfast thought, are required for outward arts and sciences, how much more for the highest of all arts, the deepest of all sciences, that which involves the questions--Who are we? and Where are we? Who is God? and What are we to God, and He to us?--namely, the science of being good,--which deals not with time merely, but with eternity. No retirement, no loneliness, no period of earnest and solemn meditation, can be misspent which helps us towards that goal. (Charles Kingsley.) Ezekiel 3:25 They shall put bands upon thee.Restraints in serving the Lord I. They are often experienced. Every true life for Christ, at one step or another, verifies the expression of Paul, “ Without are fightings, within are fears.”1. The restraints may be in the servants. They may be ready to spread the Gospel, but are forbidden to enter the door which is apparently opened, or are afflicted with disease and unable to enter, or are prostrated in their energies by some domestic event and unfit to enter. 2. The restraints may be from those for whom the service is required. (1) They may become violent against the persons who stand up for the rights of God. (2) Or the people may be rebellious in heart. II. The restraints are under the direction of the Lord. He concerns Himself with every matter relating to His kingdom amongst men. The enforced silence and disablement of the prophet and the “ gross” heart of the people are controlled for His righteous and good ends.1. Traces of His working are perceptible. Restraints are felt teaching His suffering servants to be patient, vigilant for Him, and so qualifing for future action and future reward. “ If we suffer with Him we are glorified together.” 2. Hopes of His working may be entertained. When men make void His law, that is a time to ask God to do special work. III. Restraints may be associated with communion between the Lord and His servants. This fact is brought to pass--1. By a fresh consciousness of God in His service. He seems to come nearer to them, and they say, “ Thou holdest me by my right hand.” 2. By a deepened conviction that He who has led them is the same forever. 3. By the power of the Holy Spirit. He takes the things that are Christ’ s and shows them to us. He teaches to profit, and we receive power, love, and a sound mind. The efficacy of all true ministry depends on His energy. (D. G. Watt, M. A.) God’ s servants are told what to expect 1. Christ deals fairly, not fraudulently with His; He tells them at first what they must expect; not gold and silver, but bands and chains “ They shall bind thee.” He told Jeremiah, they shall fight against him (Jeremiah 1:19). So Paul no sooner is called to preaching, but he hears of suffering (Acts 9:16). Christ tells all the apostles that they must be afflicted, hated, killed (John 16:2). 2. No excellency exempts a prophet from the malice of men’ s tongues and hands. 3. The generality of people are enemies to their own good, and active to their own ruin. The house of Israel, they are against the prophet; they fetter and chain him up, and think they have done well, to make him secure from coming amongst them. And alas, what have they done! thrust away the physician that should cure them; shut out mercy by shutting up a prophet; put out the light. Christ the great Prophet, the people, after all His precious sermons and glorious miracles, cry (Luke 23:18; Luke 23:21). 4. Wicked ones deal severely, cruelly with the prophets when they fall into their hands. 5. Afflictive conditions seldom better men’ s spirits. In the case of the Jews here, their wronging of the prophets was the cause of their suffering, and yet all their sufferings did not subdue their spirits, and work them to entertain the truth. The plough breaks the earth in many places, but doth not better it, but leaves it as it was; nothing is put in by the plough. 6. It is no new thing for prophets and ministers to be roughly entreated, and laid by as useless things (1 Peter 5:9). (W. Greenhill, M. A.) Liberty compatible with bodily restraint When Bishop Hall was, with nine of his episcopal brethren, committed to the Tower on a charge of high treason, in the early days of the Long Parliament, besides preaching, as he had opportunity, on the Sundays, “ he wrote a treatise, under the title: “ Free Prisoner; or, The Comfort of the Saint,” joyously contrasting the bondage which he endured with that of lust and sinful desires. Madame Guyon took the same happy view of her imprisonment in the Bastille, in which she reckoned herself one of God’ s singing birds, whom He had caged there to have pleasure in her music. Ezekiel 3:26-27 That thou shalt be dumb.The silent system After so many years of uninterrupted activity, to be imprisoned, to be silenced, and almost incapable of writing or reading, is mere wearisome than even the pain that often accompanies it; and yet, hence the following instruction may be gathered:--1. How much activity belongs to some natures, and that this nature is often mistaken for grace. 2. How much we are called to suffer, as well as to do, the will of God. When I have bid one of my children to sit down quietly, and remain silent during my pleasure, I enjoin him a more difficult task than the most active service; and yet I expected it to be done, because I ordered it. How is it that I have not yet learned to sit still, when I am told? (R. Cecil.) He that heareth let him hear.--The Word of God not to be altered “ The prescriptions of a physician must not be altered, either by the apothecary or the patient; so we, the preachers, must not alter God’ s prescriptions, neither must you, the hearers. We must not shun to declare, nor you to receive, ‘ The whole counsel of God.’” . Ezekiel 4:1-8 Take thee a tile. The ministry of symbolism In this chapter there begins a series of symbols utterly impossible of modern interpretation. This ministry of symbolism has still a place in all progressive civilisation. Every age, of course, necessitates its own emblems and types, its own apocalypse of wonders and signs, but the meaning of the whole is that God has yet something to be revealed which cannot at the moment be expressed in plain language. If we could see into the inner meaning of many of the controversies in which we are engaged, we should see there many a divinely drawn symbol, curious outlines of thought, parables not yet ripe enough for words. How manifold is human life! How innumerable are the workers who are toiling at the evolution of the Divine purpose in things! One man can understand nothing but what he calls bare facts and hard realities; he has only a hand to handle, he has not the interior touch that can feel things ere yet they have taken shape. Another is always on the outlook for what pleases the eye; he delights in form and colour and symmetry, and glows almost with thankfulness as he beholds the shapeliness of things, and traces in them a subtle geometry. Another man gets behind all this, and hears voices, and sees sights excluded from the natural senses; he looks upon symbolism, upon the ministry of suggestion and dream and vision; he sees best in the darkness; the night is his day; in the great cloud he sees the ever-working God, and in the infinite stillness of religious solitude he hears, rather in echoes than in words, what he is called upon to tell the age in which he lives. Here again his difficulty increases, for although he can see with perfect plainness men, and can understand quite intelligibly all the mysteries which pass before his imagination and before his spiritual eyes, yet he has to find words that will fit the new and exciting occasion; and there are no fit words, so sometimes he is driven to make a language of his own, and hence we come upon strangeness of expression, eccentricity of thought, weirdness in quest and sympathy,--a most marvellous and tumultuous life; a great struggle after rhythm and rest, and fullest disclosure of inner realities, often ending in bitter disappointment, so that the prophet’ s eloquence dissolves in tears, and the man who thought he had a glorious message to deliver is broken down in humiliation when he hears the poor thunder of his own inadequate articulation. He has his “ tile” and his iron pan; he lays upon his left side, and upon his right side; he takes unto him wheat and barley, beans, and lentils; he weighs out his bread, and measures out his water, and bakes “ barley cakes” by a curious manufacture; and yet when it is all over he cannot tell to others in delicate enough language, or with sufficiency of illustration, what he knows to be a Divine and eternal word. (J. Parker, D. D.) Symbolisms not necessarily acted Even if one hundred and ninety days be the true reading, it is most improbable that the prophet should have been on his side immovable for half a year, and it appears impossible when other actions had to be done simultaneously. The hypothesis of Klostermann hardly deserves mention. This writer supposes that the prophet lay on his side because he was a cataleptic and temporarily paralysed, that he prophesied against Jerusalem with outstretched arm, because his arm could not be withdrawn, being convulsively rigid, and that he was dumb because struck with morbid “ alalia.” It is surprising that some reputable scholars should seem half inclined to accept this explanation. They perhaps have the feeling that such an interpretation is more reverent to Scripture. But we need to remind ourselves, as Job reminded his friends, that superstition is not religion (Job 13:7-12; Job 21:22). The book itself appears to teach us how to interpret the most of the symbolical actions. In Ezekiel 24:3 the symbol of setting the caldron on the fire is called uttering a parable. The act of graving a hand at the parting of the ways (Ezekiel 21:19) must certainly be interpreted in the same way, and, though there may be room for hesitation in regard to some of them, probably the actions as a whole. They were imagined merely. They passed through the prophet’ s mind. He lived in this ideal sphere; he went through the actions in his phantasy, and they appeared to him to carry the same effects as if they had been performed. (A. B. Davidson, D. D.) Pertray upon it the city, even Jerusalem.--The end foretold With the fourth chapter we enter on the exposition of the first great division of Ezekiel’ s prophecies. The prophecies may be classified roughly under three heads. In the first class are those which exhibit the judgment itself in ways fitted to impress the prophet and his hearers with a conviction of its certainty; a second class is intended to demolish the illusions and false ideals which possessed the minds of the Israelites and made the announcement of disaster incredible; and a third and very important class expounds the moral principles which were illustrated by the judgment, and which show it to be a Divine necessity. In the passage before us the bare fact and certainty of the judgment are set forth in word and symbol and with a minimum of commentary, although even here the conception which Ezekiel had formed of the moral situation is clearly discernible. That the destruction of Jerusalem should occupy the first place in the prophet’ s picture of national calamity requires no explanation. Jerusalem was the heart and brain of the nation, the centre of its life and its religion, and in the eyes of the prophets the fountainhead of its sin. The strength of her natural situation, the patriotic and religious associations which had gathered round her, and the smallness of her subject province gave to Jerusalem a unique position among the mother cities of antiquity. And Ezekiel’ s hearers knew what he meant when he employed the picture of a beleaguered city to set forth the judgment that was to overtake them. That crowning horror of ancient warfare, the siege of a fortified town, meant in this case something more appalling to the imagination than the ravages of pestilence and famine and sword. The fate of Jerusalem represented the disappearance of everything that had constituted the glory and excellence of Israel’ s national existence. The manner in which the prophet seeks to impress this fact on his countrymen illustrates a peculiar vein of realism which runs through all his thinking (verses 1-3). He is commanded to take a brick and portray upon it a walled city, surrounded by the towers, mounds, and battering rams which marked the usual operations of a besieging army. Then he is to erect a plate of iron between him and the city, and from behind this, with menacing gestures, he is as it were to press on the siege. The meaning of the symbols is obvious. As the engines of destruction appear on Ezekiel’ s diagram, at the bidding of Jehovah, so in due time the Chaldaean army will be seen from the walls of Jerusalem, led by the same unseen Power which now controls the acts of the prophet. In the last act Ezekiel exhibits the attitude of Jehovah Himself, cut off from His people by the iron wall of an inexorable purpose which no prayer could penetrate. Thus far the prophet’ s actions, however strange they may appear to us, have been simple and intelligible. But at this point a second sign is as it were superimposed on the first, in order to symbolise an entirely different set of facts--the hardship and duration of the Exile (verses 4-8). While still engaged in prosecuting the siege of the city, the prophet is supposed to become at the same time the representative of the guilty people and the victim of the Divine judgment. He is to “ bear their iniquity” --that is, the punishment due to their sin. This is represented by his lying bound on his left side for a number of days equal to the years of Ephraim’ s banishment, and then on his right side for a time proportionate to the captivity of Judah. (John Skinner, M. A.) Ezekiel 4:9-17 Even thus shall the children of Israel eat their defiled bread.Conformity of punishment to sin They had sinned in excess, and God would take away their plenty. Hosea 13:6, “ According to their pasture, so were they filled” ; they had full pastures, fed largely, exalted their hearts, and thought they should never want; they forgot God in their fulness, and He made them to remember Him in a famine. Fulness of bread was the sin of Sodom, and the sin of Jerusalem also. God brake the staff of bread. They sinned in defiling themselves with idols, and offered meal and oil, honey and flour, for a sweet savour to their idols (Ezekiel 16:1-63), and now they must eat polluted bread among the Gentiles. (W. Greenhill, M. A.) . Ezekiel 5:1-4 Take thee a sharp knife. God’ s judgments upon the wicked 1. Wicked men are of little worth; take a whole city of them, they are of no more account with God than a little hair of the head or beard. 2. It is the privilege of Christ to appoint whom and what instruments He pleases to execute His pleasure upon sinners. 3. When God hath been long provoked by a people, He comes with sharp and sweeping judgments amongst them. 4. There is no standing out against God; whatever our number or strength is, His judgments are irresistible. 5. The judgments and proceedings of God with sinners are not rash, but most carefully weighed. 6. There is no escaping of God’ s judgments for hard-hearted sinners. 7. In great judgments and general destructions, God of His infinite mercy spares some few. Ezekiel must take a few and bind up in his skirts, all must not be destroyed; the fire and sword devoureth many, but the dispersion preserved some, and some few are left in Judah. God is just, and yet when He is in the way of His judgments, he forgets not mercy: a little of the hair shall be preserved, when the rest goes to the fire, sword, and wind. 8. The paucity preserved in common calamities are not all precious, truly godly. Reprobates for the present escape as well as elect vessels; some choice ones may be cut off, and some vile ones may be kept. In a storm cedars and oaks are smitten, when bushes and briers are spared; and yet after they are cut up and cast into the fire. Sinners may escape present wrath, but there is wrath to come (Luke 3:7). 9. God may take occasion, from the sin of some, to bring in judgment upon all. He must take of the remnant preserved, and throw into the fire, and out of that fire went forth fire into all the house of Israel. (W. Greenhill, M. A.) Ezekiel 5:5 This is Jerusalem: I have set it in the midst of the nations. Jerusalem in the midst of the nations Jerusalem was designed to have a good influence upon the nations and countries round about, and was set in the midst of them as a candle upon a candlestick to spread the light of Divine revelation, which she was blessed with, to all the dark corners of the neighbouring nations, that from them it might diffuse itself further, even to the ends of the earth. Jerusalem was set in the midst of the nations, to be as the heart in the body, to invigorate this dead world with a Divine life, to be an example of everything that is good. (M. Henry.) Ezekiel 5:11 As I live, saith the Lord God.The Divine oath I. The form of the Divine oath. When men swear, they do it “ by the greater” (Hebrews 6:16). God cannot do this. So He swears by Himself. II. The use of the Divine oath. God utters His word clearly and plainly, calling on men to believe it. When they will not, He tries a new expedient, backing it up with an oath. Was ever grace more conspicuous, and forbearance more extraordinary? III. Examples of the Divine oath.1. The oath used in connection with the Priesthood of Christ (Psalms 110:4, as interpreted in Hebrews 7:1-28). 2. The oath used in connection with the believer’ s safety (Hebrews 7:17-18). Blessed safeguard! 3. The oath used in connection with the sincerity of the Gospel call (Ezekiel 33:11). Must not God be terribly in earnest? 4. The oath used in connection with the ultimate triumph of the Christian cause (Isaiah 45:23). Can such a purpose be defeated? Encouraged by this, let the Church go forward. 5. The oath used in connection with the doom of the unbelieving (Psalms 95:11). Then, “ Acquaint now thyself,” etc. (Job 22:21). “ Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ,” etc. (Acts 16:31). (John Burnett, B. D.) Ezekiel 5:13 Thus shall Mine anger be accomplished.God’ s anger against sinners 1. God goes on by degrees in His wrath against a people. He had in times past corrected them like a father, He would now execute them like a judge; the drops of His wrath had done no good, now they should have the full vials. 2. Wrath let out against a sinful people, ofttimes lies long upon them. “ I will cause My fury to rest upon them.” They were seventy years under God’ s displeasure in Babylon. 3. God takes pleasure in executing judgment, in accomplishing His wrath, and causing His fury to rest upon impenitent and incurable sinners, He will be comforted in it (Proverbs 1:26). 4. The Word of God may be preached among a people, and they, through ignorance and malice, not know it, nor entertain it. 5. Wicked men shall be convinced, and left without excuse. “ They shall know that I the Lord have spoken” ; they eyed men and not Me, they deemed it man’ s voice, not Heaven’ s; but they shall find that it was the voice of God amongst them. 6. God will justify His servants in their zealous labours for Him. “ They shall know that I have spoken it in My zeal.” It is God speaks in the prophets; it is His zeal they express. Let men be zealous against sin, the iniquities of the times, they are counted mad, fiery fellows, troublers of Israel, seditious, factious, etc. 7. The Lord is intense, and will not recall His indignation, when He deals with unfaithful, covenant-breaking persons. As in God’ s zeal there is intense love towards His Church (when God promises mercy to His people, it is sealed with this, “ The zeal of the Lord of hosts shall do it,” 2 Kings 19:31), so here is intense hatred, wrath against His enemies. (W. Greenhill, M. A.) . Ezekiel 6:1-3I, even I, will bring a sword upon you.The character of God Taking chapters 6 and 7 as revealing the character of God, in how awful a light is the Divine Being made to appear! How infinite, for example, are His resources of judgment and penalty! He attributes to Himself the exercise of every possible action of vengeance and humiliation: “ I will bring a sword” ; “ I will destroy your high places” ; “ I will cast down your slain men” ; “ I will lay the dead carcasses” ; “ I will scatter your bones” ; “ I will break the whorish heart” ; “ He that is afar off shall die of the pestilence” ; “ He that is near shall fall by the sword; the man who remained was to die by famine; and thus, and thus, in every way, God said, “ I will accomplish My fury.” He said He would stretch out His hand upon the idol-cursed hills and mountains, and green tree and thick oak, and He would make the fair land desolate, yea, more desolate than the wilderness toward Diblath. These are the judgments of the living God! Think of every disease that can afflict the human body; think of every force of nature that can strike human edifices and habitations; think of every trouble that can assail the sanity of the mind; think of every spectre and image that can come along the highway of the darkness and fill night and sleep with mortal fear; think of every appeal that can be addressed to the imagination; think of all possible terror, and loss, and shame, and ruin; multiply all these realities and possibilities by an unrestrained imagination, and even then we have hardly begun to touch the resources of God when He arises to shake terribly the earth and to inflict upon the nations the judgments which they have deserved and defied. Wonderful is the striking frankness of all these declarations on the part of the Most High God. There is mercy even in the terribleness of the revelation. An opportunity for repentance was created by the very awfulness of the method of revelation. Threatenings are meant to lead to promises. The thunderstorm is sent to avert us from a way that is wrong and to drive us to consideration on account of sin. God does not fulminate merely for the sake of showing His greatness; when He makes us afraid it is that He may bring us to final peace. Nothing is more evident than that underneath all these denunciations, and in explanation of them, there is a sublime moral reason. These judgments are not exhibitions of omnipotence; they are expressions of a moral emotion on the part of God. The people had departed from Him--they had done everything in their power to insult His majesty and to call into question His holiness and His justice; they had worshipped false gods; they had been faithful to forbidden altars; they had made a study of profanity and blasphemy; they had defied heaven in all their abominations; and not until the cup of their iniquity was full did the last beam of light vanish from the skies, and the whole heaven become darkened with thunderclouds. When judgment begins at the house of God, it burns with infinite indignation; there are no mitigating circumstances, there are no palliations whatsoever; the judgment is inflicted upon men who knew the right and yet pursued the wrong, who were intrusted with the custody of the truth, and yet threw it down and went with eagerness to the altar of falsehood that they might worship and obey a lie. How terrible, then, must be our judgment when God comes to visit us! What have we not known? With what treasures have we not been intrusted? (J. Parker, D. D.) Ezekiel 6:6 That your altars may be laid waste.False worship 1. Where idols and false worship are got into a church or state, they are not easily got out again. Their cities must be destroyed, that their altars and idols may be broken and cease. 2. See what it is that ruins cities; altars, idols, false worship, mixtures of man’ s inventions with the Lord’ s pure ordinances. These are great cannon, that batter cities; these are gunpowder, that blow them up; these bring the Lord of hosts to war against them. 3. Idolatry and false worship do so provoke God, that He will destroy cities, kingdoms, churches, but He will have them out. 4. Men love to have somewhat of their own in worship; they are not content with what the infinitely wise God commends unto them, but will be adding. 5. God is not pleased with anything in worship which is not His own; He must prescribe whet way and wherewith He will be worshipped. 6. Judgments cause idolaters to know the true God from the false. (W. Greenhill, M. A.) False religion and its doom Man says he wants sincerity and earnestness. What God asks is truth, the one religion which He has revealed. I. False religion: there is such a thing; it may be earnest and zealous, yet false. II. Its uselessness: it profits nobody, either here or hereafter; is not acceptable to God. III. Its hatefulness: God abhors it; it is outward, untrue, against His revelation; dishonouring, self-exalting. IV. Its doom: its condemnation is--1. Certain.2. Utter.3. Visible.4. Expressive.5. Contemptuous.6. Everlasting. Apply--(1) See that your religion is true.(2) Your worship real. (H. Bonar, D. D.) Ezekiel 6:7 Ye shall know that I am the Lord. The knowledge of Jehovah The phrase “ Ye shall know that I am Jehovah” may mean Ye shall know that I who now speak am truly Jehovah, the God of Israel. There is, of course, no doubt that Ezekiel conceived Jehovah as endowed with the plenitude of deity, or that in his view the name expressed all that we mean by the word God. Nevertheless, historically the name Jehovah is a proper name, denoting the God who is the God of Israel. Renan has ventured on the assertion that a deity with a proper name is necessarily a false God. The statement perhaps measures the difference between the God of revealed religion and the god who is an abstraction, an expression of the order of the universe, who exists only in the mind of the man who names him. The God of revelation is a living person with a character and will of His own capable of being known by man. It is the distinction of revelation that it dares to regard God as an individual with an inner life and nature of His own, independent of the conception men may form of Him. Applied to such a Being, a personal name may be as true and significant as the name which expresses the character and individuality of a man. Only thus can we understand the historical process by which the God who was first manifested as the deity of a particular nation preserves His personal identity with the God who in Christ is at last revealed as the God of the spirits of all flesh. The knowledge of Jehovah of which Ezekiel speaks is therefore at once a knowledge of the character of the God whom Israel professed to serve, and a knowledge of that which constitutes true and essential divinity. (John Skinner, M. A.) Ezekiel 6:9 And ye shall know that I am the Lord that smiteth.God’ s hand in judgment You look at second causes, and think it is Nebuchadnezzar that smites you, but you shall be made to know he is but the staff; it is the hand of the Lord that smiteth you, and who knows the weight of His hand? (M. Henry.) Ezekiel 7:10 The rod hath blossomed, pride hath budded.Sin in blossom I. Beauty may be associated with evil. Well would it be for men to remember they may be thus connected in fact as well as figure. For there may be beauty of countenance and form that covers and quickens the corrupt, for “ in all Israel there were none to be so much praised as Absalom for beauty.” And is not the genius of poetry often the brilliance of the fires of passion: and eloquence the engine of error, and art the bribe of superstition? Do not magnificent mansions and picturesque acres often stand chiefly as the symbols of the careful selfishness, the cold self-containedness of their owners? Yes, other evils than pride seem to have the blossoms that make the world exclaim beautiful, splendid, great! Such is the love of display, that there is many a man who “ for the spangles wears the funeral pall.” II. Success is no test of moral right or wrong. Pride blossoms, so does envy, so does selfishness, so sometimes does every bough on the upas tree of sin. Lowliness often seems sterile, so does love, so does prayer, so, indeed, often in the winter of our soul seems every branch on the tree of life. The Babylonians besieged Jerusalem, and had success. Judas betrayed Jesus, and had success. What then? We dare not test our life work and the work of others by the standard of success or failure. III. The forces of retribution are ever at work. Just as the circulation of the sap through all the vessels of the tree, the influences of sunlight and air, and all the forces working out the mystery of growth are gradually and silently (though probably not silently, if our ears were keener) preparing for the hour of bud and blossom, all actions are ever setting at work retributive results. These results gradually, and sometimes silently, but ever surely, are tending to the crises that are days of judgment, and to the great crisis that “ is the day of judgment.” (U. R. Thomas.) Ezekiel 7:13 For the vision is touching the whole multitude thereof, which shall not return.Jewish nationality dissolved forever Now the Jews recovered from all their former captivities; but from this one they never can recover. Where is their tribal register now? My object, therefore, will be to set before you a fourfold contrast between the covenant that is passed away and the covenant that shall not pass away.1. The first contrast I notice is the passing away of the Jewish land, and the sure continuation of a better land in its place. In the second verse of this same chapter where our text is it saith, “ An end, the end” ;--that is a remarkable form of speech--“ An end, the end,” --the ultimate end, as it means, the final end--“ is come upon the four corners of the land.” Let us then see what we have to put in the place thereof, after just observing that that land was to pass away by violence, by war, famine, and pestilence, and everything that was awful. Now we go to the 60th of Isaiah, and we get something to put in the place thereof. There is a land of which it is written, “ Violence shall no more be heard in thee,” etc. And what land is this? Why, the land spoken of in the 1st chapter of the First Epistle of Peter,--“ an inheritance incorruptible, undefiled, and that fadeth not away.” Here, then, by Jesus Christ, we have a land into which no violence can come. No sin can defile the Saviour, and no sin can defile the people as they stand in Christ, and no sin can defile that heavenly land into which He hath entered. There is therefore no violence. “ Violence shall no more be heard in thee.” Jesus is not crucified there, but glorified; the people are not persecuted and hated there, but universally loved. The people have no pain, no sorrow, no sigh, no tear there. And this blessedness, in place of the old land, is by faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. And now mark,--“ Thou shalt call thy walls salvation” ; that is, “ salvation will God appoint for walls and bulwarks” ; so that God will take care of you as a citizen by salvation; He is round about you by the perfect work of Jesus Christ. Can you think of a position so lovely as this? 2. The second contrast I give is that in verse 11--“ Violence is risen up into a rod of wickedness; none of them shall remain,” etc. Here is a positive declaration. Now go to the Saviour’ s day, and see how literally this is fulfilled. Was not the government of the Pharisees, as described in the 23rd of Matthew, a sceptre or rod of wickedness? They must be taken away, and taken away forever. Now let us look at the contrast to this. Let us come to the new covenant, and hear what is said there. In the new covenant the Lord speaketh thus:--“ For as the new heavens” --meaning the Christian economy of eternal salvation “ and the new earth” --meaning in substance the same thing--“ which I will make” --and which were made when Christ was on the earth, for when Christ was on the earth He made, as it were, a new earth; that is, He established a new life, a new inheritance, a new kingdom, a new heaven, old things passed away, all things become new;--“ As the new heavens and the new earth, which I will make, shall remain before Me, saith the Lord, so shall your seed and your name remain.” All now is spiritual. “ The time is come when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth, for the Father seeketh such to worship Him.” 3. The third contrast I notice is, I think, a very strong one. “ The seller shall not return to that which is sold.” Now, this seems a simple declaration, but it means a great deal more than may at first sight appear. Under the Old Testament dispensation when a man waxed poor, he sold his inheritance, but he sold it only up to the day of jubilee. Then, when the jubilee came, that man without money, without price, by virtue of the order of things that God had established, returned to his inheritance. Now, this chapter says “ The seller,” alluding to that same circumstance, “ shall not return to that which is sold.” The meaning of it, therefore, is,--there shall never be another jubilee, and there has not been from that day to this, and there never will be down to the end of time. Where shall I now find the true jubilee? Why, in Christ. He has paid the mighty debt we owed; He has set the prisoners free; He brings His brethren into the inheritance. 4. Is there from the first chapter of Matthew to the last of Revelation a single hint about the restoration of the old Jerusalem? The Saviour says, “ Your house is left unto you desolate.” Does He say it shall some day be restored? Does He say, “ Your house is left unto you desolate till ye shall say, Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord” ? No, He says no such thing. He says, “ Ye shall not see Me henceforth, till ye shall say, Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord.” If I should get an invitation to preach in some Jewish synagogue, where they wanted to hear the Gospel, what would that be but their saying, “ Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord” ? that is, in the name of Jesus Christ. And if God were to open their eyes, and they should see Jesus, what would they say then? Ah, they would say, let the shadow go; let us have the substance. Let the ceremonial go; let us have the vital, the living, the eternal. They would turn their backs upon the temporal, and look at those things which are eternal. (James Wells.) Ezekiel 7:23 Make a chain. The chain of influences At school and in college, in announcing the mechanical powers, we glorified the lever, the pulley, the inclined plane, the screw, the axle and the wheel, but my text calls us to study the philosophy of the chain. These links of metal, one with another, attracted the old Bible authors, and we hear the chain rattle, and see its coil all the way through from Genesis to Revelation, flashing as an adornment, or restraining as in captivity, or holding in conjunction as in case of machinery. What I wish to impress upon you is the strength, in right and wrong directions, of consecutive forces, the superior power of a chain of influences above one influence, the great advantage of a congeries of links above one link. “ Make a chain!” That which contains the greatest importance, that which encloses the most tremendous opportunities, that which of earthly things is most watched by other worlds, that which has beating against its two sides all the eternities, is the cradle. The grave is nothing in importance compared with it, for that is only a gully that we step across in a second, but the cradle has within it a new eternity, just born and never to cease. Now, what shall be done with this new life recently launched? Let it be constant instruction, constant prayer, constant application of good influences, a long line of consecutive impressions, reaching from his first year to his fifth, and from his fifth year to his tenth, and from his tenth year to his twentieth. “ Make a chain!” Spasmodic education, paroxysmal discipline, occasional fidelity, amount to nothing. You can as easily hold an anchor by one link as hold a child to the right by isolated and intermittent faithfulness. The example must connect with the instruction. The conversation must combine with the actions. There is such a thing as impressing children so powerfully with good, that sixty years will have no more power to efface it than sixty minutes. What a rough time that young man has in doing wrong, carefully nurtured as he was! His father and mother have been dead for years, or over in Scotland, or England, or Ireland; but they have stood in the doorway of every dram shop that he entered, and under the chandelier of every house of dissipation, saying, “ My son, this is no place for you. Have you forgotten the old folks? By the God to whom we consecrated you, by the cradle in which we rocked you, by the grass-worn graves in the old country churchyard, by the heaven where we hope yet to meet you, Go home!” And some Sunday you will be surprised to find that young man suddenly asking for the prayers of the church. Oh, the almighty pull of the long chain of early gracious influences! But all people between thirty and forty years of age, yes, between forty and fifty--aye, between fifty and sixty years--and all septuagenarians as well, need a surrounding conjunction of good influences. In all the great prisons are men and women who went wrong in mid-life and old age. We need around us a cordon of good influences. We forget to apply the well-known rule that a chain is no stronger than at its weakest link. If the chain be made up of a thousand links, and nine hundred and ninety-nine are strong, but one is weak, the chain will be in danger of breaking at that one weak link. We may be strong in a thousand excellences, and yet have one weakness which endangers us. That is the reason that we sometimes see men distinguished for a whole round of virtues collapse and go down. The weak link in the otherwise stout chain gave way under the pressure. A musician cannot afford to dwell among discords, nor can a writer afford to peruse books of inferior style, nor an architect walk out among disproportioned structures. And no man or woman was ever so good as to be able to afford to choose evil associations. Therefore, I said, have it a rule of your life to go among those better than yourselves. Cannot find them? Then, what a pink of perfection you must be! When was your character completed? What a misfortune for the saintly and angelic ones of heaven that they are not enjoying the improving influence of your society! Ah, if you cannot find those better than yourself, it is because you are ignorant of yourself. (T. De Witt Talmage.) Ezekiel 7:25 Destruction cometh; and they shall seek peace, and there shall be none.Destruction instead of peace I remember hearing Dr. James Spurgeon, in the course of a sermon preached at the Metropolitan Tabernacle, say that on one occasion when he was returning from New York, and the vessel had not been long out at sea, he noticed a number of small birds in the rigging of the vessel. “ Ah, poor things,” said the captain, “ they will be dead by tomorrow; they think they are going landward, while they are going out into the sea.” And the captain was right, for on the morrow their little stiffened bodies were scattered about the deck. And just so is it with impenitent men who, in their false security, pursue what they fondly dream to be a safe way, but it is the way of certain ruin. “ Destruction cometh, and they shall seek peace, and there shall he none.” (Charles Deal.) Ezekiel 7:26 Mischief shall come upon mischief.A succession of evils 1. When a people is under Divine displeasure there is a succession of evils for them, mischief after mischief; they may not expect a few, but many. 2. God proceeds by degrees and steps to severity of judgments. God pours not out all His wrath at once. First, some drops of a vial, then some little streams, after that the strength. 3. Wicked men in great straits will sue to them for help whom before they hated. They could seek for a vision from the prophet now they were in extremities, and they run from prophet to prophet to get some counsel and comfort. 4. They that will not hear God’ s servants when they are at ease, shall not have help from them in time of their distress. 5. It is a dreadful evil when God takes away the signs of His presence. 6. Truths are not confined to any sort of men, not to prophets, priests, or ministers, in these or any days; the prophets should be without vision, the law should perish from the priests, and counsel from the elders. 7. God gives vision, law, counsel, and takes them away at His pleasure; He creates light and darkness. They shall seek vision of the prophets, and there shall be none. 8. Those who will not do what they know, shall not know what to do. (W. Greenhill, M. A.) . Ezekiel 8:1-4 And, behold, the glory of the God of Israel. God’ s presence a reproof to His idolatrous people Two chief thoughts appear expressed by the symbolism; first, by making the “ glory” of Jehovah appear in Jerusalem, the prophet points the contrast between the glorious God whom the people had abandoned and the debased forms of worship to which they had addicted themselves, and also implies that this worship was done in the face of Jehovah, to provoke the eyes of His glory (Isaiah 3:8): and secondly, when Jehovah Himself shows the idolatrous practices of the people, we see, what is characteristic of the prophet, the effort to throw himself into the consciousness, so to speck, of Jehovah, and look out at things from His mind, He being who He is. (A. B. Davidson, D. D.) Ezekiel 8:11 And in the midst of them stood Jaazaniah.Evil secrets revealed 1. Persons may sometimes be found where we would little expect them to be. It may happen that the irreligious shall appear among the godly, seem to be actuated by the same spirit, and to the surprise of all who knew them, contribute to the advancement of a good cause: “ Is Saul also among the prophets?” But how frequently is the case reversed, and those who make a good profession, of whom we thought well, and even hoped the things that accompany salvation, to our great surprise, are found in situations very inconsistent with what they professed, perhaps totally foreign to all that we had thought and hoped about them. The saint, on revisiting a place from which, like the prophet, he may have been absent for a time, may behold with grief some with whom he had formerly walked in sweet fellowship, gone off from their profession, and no longer the steady ornamental friends of the cause they had once solemnly espoused. But supposing the profession retained, how often may those who are engaged in it be found in situations, in places and occupations, in which their friends and religious acquaintances would little have expected to find them! 2. Persons may even go great lengths, and take a very active part in those things which were little to be expected from their former character or present reputation in the church. Jaazaniah was one of the ancients or elders of Israel. His former character at least appears to have been good, somewhat worthy of his name, which signifies one attentive to God, or whom God will hear,--a name probably given him by his religious parents as a son of their vows. By his station he was to preside over the administration of the law, and even to take care of the worship of God, as a member of the great council to which the Jews ever looked up with veneration. But, alas! how vain is it to trust in man! “ In the midst, of them stood Jaazaniah.” He seems to have occupied some prominent place that struck at once the eye of the prophet; he was at any rate actively engaged, and had gone every length with his companions in sin; he stood in the midst of them, while “ every man had his censer in his hand, and a thick cloud of incense went up.” Who knows, when once he has deviated from the right path, how far he may go? how far he may be left to go? nay, supposing his heart not imbued with grace, how totally, if not finally, he may be given up to apostasy, and all manner of vice? 3. Godly parentage and the advantages of a religious education Neatly aggravate the criminality of such conduct. The parentage of this man is particularly noticed, and, considering the person from whom he was descended, we may well believe he had the advantage of a religious education. His very parentage and religious education greatly aggravated his crime. How seldom do ungodly or apostate children reflect upon this! They despise the religion of their fathers; they forsake, without compunction, the law of their mother. The children of such parents will have to answer, not only for the obedience they would have owed to God, even in a heathen country, and of whomsoever descended, but for all these peculiar advantages; for the contempt too, or violation, of the most sacred obligations, strengthened by the influence which natural affection ought to have had; not merely for disrespect to parental authority, for dishonouring their parents, but for dishonouring them in the most beneficial discharge of their duty, and in the best character they can sustain. 4. The idea of secrecy is a great inducement and strong temptation to engage in unworthy, inconsistent, and wicked practices. The mysteries of Pagan superstition, and the scheme of an interior doctrine in the heathen philosophy, are both well known. The former, particularly, may he traced to very ancient times, when the priests began to secrete what they accounted the essentials of religion, the foundations of even civil order, and of all morality, and to impart them only to a few;--a grand device of the devil, for not only promoting idolatry, but every species of wickedness, without fear of detection. How often do persons persuade themselves that all is well, provided only they can be concealed while indulging themselves! Such conduct, however, must indicate a want of cordial regard to truth and righteousness for their own sake, a secret contempt for the laws of the church, and even of moral decorum; it must shew that the regularity otherwise displayed is only compelled by the fear of men. 5. Notwithstanding their apprehended secrecy, such persons are still under the eye of God. (Hebrews 4:13, in connection with Psalms 139:1-12.) 6. God can easily detect and expose them to others, to their shame and confusion. Various are the ways of detection that God hath employed. Sometimes the habit of irregularity in profession, or of intemperance and profligacy in manners, fostered for a time by secrecy, at length gains the ascendency and breaks out, so that the person stands revealed in his true colours. Sometimes, though only associates be present, their very transactions, their riot and excess, shall make the discovery, and become the subject of talk. Sometimes these associates, not to be trusted, shall divulge the matter, particularly if they have to tell that a Jaazaniah, a son of Shaphan, was among them; and the deluded man finds himself betrayed and made a sport of by those whom he attempted to gratify. (Christian Magazine.) Ezekiel 8:12 Every man in the chambers of his imagery.Chambers of imagery Though we are not told that this was a human vision, or in any sense what we understand as an incarnation, yet there are terms in the description of it which might lead to that conclusion. Always it is made evident that a struggle is proceeding in Biblical history towards the miracle of incarnation. The angel would be as a man; cherubim and seraphim come before us in human outlines; yea, God Himself is not afraid to reveal His glory to us under human forms and symbols. Nothing of mere fancy is found in the interpretation that all these initial intimations, struggles, visions, point to One whose name was to be Emmanuel--God with us. In the fulness of time God sent forth His Son. In Christ Jesus we see the meaning of all these premonitions, hints, dim yet exciting suggestions. When Ezekiel is taken, in the third verse, by a lock of his hair and lifted up between the earth and the heaven, we are, of course, to understand that this was done, not literally, but in vision. Here is what we have often seen as the power of being absent, yet present; in an immediate locality, yet far away beyond the horizon; in Jerusalem, and yet at the ends of the earth; in the midst of the sea, and yet beyond the stars. Here is a counterpart of the action which has just been described. Whilst spirits are continually struggling to assume human shape, men are continually aspiring towards some new condition of being and service. There is a continual process of descent and ascent in the whole economy of God. Such double action is full of moral suggestion, and should certainly ennoble us with a feeling that as yet we know little or nothing of the possibilities of our own nature, but that a great revelation of God’ s purpose in our existence is yet to be made. In the same verse there is a singular expression--“ where was the seat of the image of jealousy, which provoketh to jealousy.” It has been supposed that at this time heathen idols had actually found a place in the holy temple, and this is supposed to present the most vivid and appalling proof of the corruption into which the priests and the people had fallen. Is the meaning of the fourth verso that for the last time there was an evident struggle as between the image of jealousy and the glory of the God of Israel? It has been suggested that we are not to understand by this “ glory” the glory of the Lord which once filled the temple, but the particular glory which was seen in the vision shown to Ezekiel in the plain, a vision within a vision, a dim light in a far-off horizon, not the old glory which burned with infinite brightness, but another glory as of one preparing to vanish in judgment from the temple and the city. It is interesting to notice that we have in all these descriptions, not the view which Ezekiel took of the condition of Israel,--we have the condition of Israel as it revealed itself to the Divine eyes. It is essential to all true and lasting ministry that it should proceed upon God’ s own estimate of human nature. We are not left to form our own fancies regarding human origin, or human apostasy, or human capability: in this as in all other things we nave to trust to a revelation which has been made to us, a revelation which would be the less valuable if it were not confirmed at every point by our own painful experience. We should not forget the sacred and gracious fact that, notwithstanding the rebelliousness of the house of Israel, one of their own number was sent to pronounce Divine judgment and to reveal Divine purpose. In what contrast did Ezekiel stand to his own countrymen! God has never left Himself without an Elijah, or an Ezekiel, or some other prophet, or suppliant, that has proved the continuity of Divine providence and the continuity of Divine grace. Ezekiel was to be astounded by revelations which he never could have discovered by himself. The mighty being under whose conduct he was placed brought him to the door of the court, and when he looked he beheld a hole in the wall. This hole or window was too small for entrance, hence Ezekiel was directed to enlarge it so that he might enter in--“ Son of man, dig now in the wall: and when I had digged in the wall, behold a door.” All this is indicative of extreme secrecy, as if the men would have hidden themselves from the very God of heaven, as if they would have had a hole all their own, unpenetrated by Divine inspection. There was an open and public idolatry in Jerusalem at this very time, but such is the downward tendency of all evil that it was not sufficient to have a public and an almost established idolatry, but something further should be done in darkness and concealment. Stolen waters are sweet. When wickedness can be enjoyed in public it ceases to be an enjoyment. It would appear as if the darkness were necessary to bring out the full savour of a bad man’ s delight. By “ chambers of imagery” understand chambers painted throughout with images such as Ezekiel saw. We are not to understand that this was a solitary instance; we are to accept it rather as indicative of the general condition and worship of the idolatrous people. Conscience had been driven away from the rule of human life. The people who were once the very elect of God said in their wickedness, “ The Lord seeth us not” : we have found a refuge from His eye, and here we may do what we please in the gratification of our worst desires. Is this merely a historical instance? Is there no desire now to plunge into an impenetrable concealment? Is it not true now that in many enjoyments the whole delight is to be found in the secrecy of their participation? A man can hide himself from his fellow man in this matter, and can in the very act of prayer place himself within chambers of imagery, and delight himself with visions which no eye but his own can see. The painful part of all this revelation consists in the fact that the idolatry was perpetrated within the sacred enclosure of the temple. This was not something done at a distance, in some far-away grove, in some spot which but few had ever penetrated; it was actually done in the temple, in the sacred building, on the consecrated floor, and the altar itself was dragged into the unholy and disastrous service. How are the high places made low! How are the mighty fallen! A decay of veneration is a decay of the whole character. Once let us feel that all places are equally common, and the level of our whole life will go down with that conclusion. (J. Parker, D. D.) Chambers of imagery Though this was merely a vision, through which it was intended to present the corrupted state of Judah, we may suppose that the imagery was drawn from customs that then prevailed. These secret midnight incantations were not unusual in heathen worship. An ancient historian relates, that round the room in African Thebes where the body of one of their kings was supposed to be buried, a multitude of chambers were built, which had beautiful paintings of all the beasts held sacred in Egypt. But we need not regard this as merely a visionary representation of the state of Judah. The mind of man is a chamber of imagery in whose darkness go on works hidden from the world, and sometimes, we may fancy, hidden even from the eye of God. A hall of imagery! No phrase could better describe the mind of man,--and Memory the painter. In colours bright or dark, in the very lineaments of joy or shame or grief, she paints every deed, every struggle of the soul; our very wishes and purposes, though unacted, all are there. The world may be ignorant of what is there, but we cannot forget. Come, then, and by that door to which all have the key let us enter these halls of imagery within the human soul. Light up the torches and raise them aloft, that we may see what is upon the wall. These halls are as various as are the lives of men. We have all read of the Catacombs that lie under one of the great European capitals. They stretch under whole quarters of the city. In terrible order, arranged in innumerable galleries, are deposited the remains of more than ten generations,--a world of silence below, while heave and swell in endless confusion the surges of life above. You enter these gloomy abodes with torches, and on every side are seen the mementos of death and decay. More gloomy than this, sometimes, is the human mind. Portrayed on its walls are scenes of decay and death. Here the innocence of childhood--a fair, frail creature of the light--is slowly dying. There, on an altar whence once arose holy aspirations to heaven, the fire is gone out. Virtues once fresh and blooming sink and expire under the assaults of the world. Here is seen one, trembling and yet resolved, bartering away to the Evil One his honesty for gain; and there another surrendering his conscience for pleasure. In another space, the demolished temple, the trampled cross, are but symbols of a dead faith, And the angels weep over another scene, not because sickness and death of the body are there, but because in the soul the affections have withered into selfishness and died. And the man, as he passes through this awful gallery, recognises his own life. There are chambers of imagery in which we might gladly linger. It is said that in the Old World is a gallery of paintings in which are collected none but pictures of the Holy Family. The Virgin Mother and the infant Jesus, images of innocence and faith and heaven, smile on every side from the canvas. Some pure souls there may be who when they enter their chambers of imagery may behold such scenes alone as these;--a virtuous youth, a devout age, a Divine faith triumphing over the powers of the world. But at the best, the gallery of the mind can often present only a mingled series of pictures. We call ourselves Christians, and all unite in one form of outward homage to the same Almighty Power the Lord of heaven and earth. But each man has his chamber of imagery, and, could we enter in, how often should we find there the unhallowed rites of another worship. Enter silently this dark and concealed chamber. These are not the symbols of Jehovah’ s presence that we see. Here is an altar, and the god that is reared over it is Mammon. And here Power looks down from his throne; and there Pleasure stretches out her arms. The walls are covered with emblems of the world and the passions. And the man in the secret chamber of his imagery swings his censer, and bows down in adoration before the gods of his idolatry. Here, in this secret chamber, are those wishes uttered which are his real prayers, and here that bowing down of the soul which is the only true worship. We are apt to feel as if what was done in these halls of imagery was unmarked. So thought the faithless ancients of the house of Judah. Darkness and thick walls gave concealment to their midnight conclave. Yet even there the angels, to whose spiritual vision these walls were transparent, were looking in; and to the Prophet, his eyes touched with spiritual light, all became visible. Silent, unseen, and mourning spectators they stood of these rites of sin and darkness. And when we enter our chambers of imagery, may there not be other witnesses than we think? Surely it is not a vain nor unreasonable thought, that around us are spiritual beings, to whose spiritual eyes the mind lies open, even as the scenes of the visible world lie open to the bodily eye. Happy is he who suffers to abide in his mind only those thoughts and purposes which these spiritual beings may gladly look upon. But if there be no other, there is one eye that looks through all the veils of time and sense,--from whom nothing is hid while doing, and by whom nothing is forgotten when done,--before whom all things lie open. We are apt to regard as of no importance what merely transpires in the mind. Yet, in the sight of God, in the mind is the seat and source of all good and ill. In these chambers of imagery is the real life of man. Here, where are the secret counsels and plans and resolves, where the passions conquer or are subdued, where are the principles that we obey and the will that resolves,--here is the life of the man. All else is but outward show and manifestation. It is here that He looks who requires that all true worshippers shall worship Him in spirit and in truth. It is described as one of the marks of the folly and impiety of the ancients of Judah that, when met in their chambers of imagery for their unhallowed rites, they said, “ The Lord seeth us not; the Lord hath forsaken the earth.” Ah no! Shut ourselves up in the chambers of the soul, and all lies exposed to Him. The imaginations that we indulge take form and shape before Him; and the hopes that we cherish are audible prayers to the object of our worship; and the thought is as the word, and the purpose as the deed. We enter now these halls of imagery at our choice, to review the past for correction and improvement. The time comes when we must enter them for judgment. In that dread hour the memory must take a conspicuous part. It is memory and conscience that shall affirm the righteous judgments of God. For that day, in which the strong shall bow and the most devout tremble, may God in His mercy aid us to be prepared! There is yet one other view of the subject. Our life must be very much in the present and the past. We have hopes, plans, speculations for the future; yet even these, so far as they are reasonable, depend on foundations laid in the past. The future is uncertain, but the past is fixed. It exerts a steady influence. Leaving out of view the effects of its discipline on the character, who can tell its power over our present happiness? It is our very dwelling and home which we build up around us day by day. We may leave our dwellings of wood and stone; may pull them down, repair them, remove from them; but not so this spiritual dwelling, this presence and audience chamber of the memory. We build it once for all; it stands forever, and is, according to what we have made it, our home or our prison. This is the soul’ s hall of imagery. Let us give heed to the significance of the words. We think it desirable that the apartments in which we dwell should not be deformed or unsightly; if in our power, we would have them ornamented with pictures and works of art and taste. What, then, to us is the soul’ s chamber of imagery! It is crowded with pictures; each deed and thought, by a daguerreotype that asks no light of the sun or chemist’ s skill, is at once and silently transferred, and takes its place immovably on the wall. Like the chamber of the ancients of Judah, it may be covered with every form of creeping things and beasts worshipped as idols, which are but the symbols of our earthly passions and appetites; or on it may be portrayed Divine pictures of hope and faith. But once there, there they remain, a perpetual presence before the memory and conscience. Each new scene we picture on the walls must remain there forever, to frown or smile upon us. Hang up in your halls of imagery what you will hereafter rejoice to see there. Suffer not to be there scenes which shall affright and sting the soul. God has granted to man the boon and the opportunity of repentance, and in His mercy granted to repentance the promise of forgiveness. If the picture of the prodigal’ s departure is painted, there may be added the prodigal’ s return and the father’ s enduring love. If there be the picture of one forgiven much, let there be added to it that of one who loves much. By the side of the wrong we have done, may be set our efforts to repair the wrong. Over the scenes of guilt and repentance, as over the retreating waves of the deluge, there may be arched the rainbow of the Divine mercy. Repentance may not face the past. The rays of the setting sun do not disperse the clouds that gather along the western horizon, but they fill the clouds with light, and make them luminous with hues of beauty. So repentance, though it cannot efface the past, transfigures it; and while it leaves enough of the dark cloud to make us humble, it pours over it and around it a light from heaven that fills the soul with serene hope. (E. Peabody, D. D.) Chambers of imagery Although we do not bow down before graven images, and our women weep not for Adonis, yet we may be as really idolaters as ever were the Egyptians, the Phoenicians, or these apostate Jews. We may be doing practical homage to the Baal of power,--canonising brute force, or adoring mere success. We may be “ causing our children to pass through the fire to Moloch,” --sacrificing their happiness and their spiritual growth at the altar of society, or fashion, or worldly prudence. We may be practical worshippers of the Astarte of licentiousness,--sacrificing health, fortune, friendship, nobleness at the shrine of lust. We may be devotees of Mammon,--ever toiling, with selfish aims, to lay up stores of wealth; or we may be devotees of fame,--labouring with all our might to secure the breath of human applause. I. These “ chambers of imagery” may be taken as the type of a blind materialism. If we cease to exercise faith in the God whom we see not, all our boasted civilisation will not prevent us from beginning to worship, practically, the things which we see. This century has a materialism of its own--more refined, but perhaps just as dangerous as that of the ancient Egyptians.1. Some of our men of science seem practically to have lost God. They may not be so unphilosophical as to assert that there is no God; but they tell us that they have abandoned “ the conception of creative acts,” and that “ matter is the universal mother who brings forth all things as the fruit of her own womb.” They tell us that “ all we see around us and all we feel within us--the phenomena of physical nature, as well as those of the human mind--have their unsearchable roots in a cosmical life.” They say that, “ if the human mind will turn to the mystery from which it has emerged, seeking so to fashion it as to give unity to thought and faith,” then this is a field for what, in contrast with the knowing faculties, may be called the creative faculties of man. And then they bid us take note that “ there is no very rank materialism here.” But is it not the simple fact that these men have practically ceased to believe in a personal God? With them nature--“ the universal mother” --takes the place of “ our Father in heaven.” Swinging their censers in their halls of science, they burn their incense to “ matter,” as having in itself “ the promise and potency of every form and quality of life.” 2. The secularist follows in the same key,--addressing himself, however, to the working man, rather than to the student. “ God,” he says, “ may or may not be a dream; but man is a reality. A future life may or may not be a dream; but the present life is palpable and real. Let us therefore confine ourselves to what we see and know. Let us cherish faith in political economy and social science. Let us believe that good budgets will do vastly more for the people than the old, worn out Bible!” 3. It is reserved, however, for the “ positive” philosopher to assert that the very idea of a personal God belongs to the infantile age of humanity, and that the notion of a personal immortality is nothing but a childish fancy. Auguste Comte, the founder of this philosophy, had his peculiar “ chamber of imagery” ; for, although a materialist, he discovered that he must have something to worship. And accordingly he employed his “ creative faculty” to fashion what he calls the “ Religion of Humanity,” which he believed was destined to supplant all other religions of the world. By the great being “ Humanity” is to be understood the aggregate of good human beings--past, present, and future; including, however, such of the lower animals as have been and are most serviceable to mankind! Is not this, indeed, coming back again to the “ chambers of imagery” --to the “ four-footed beasts,” as well as to the images of human form? 4. Only one thing can save us from the grasp of materialism. Not civilisation, not poetry, not art, not philosophy; but simply the exercise of the faculty of faith. “ If the light that is in thee be darkness, how dark must the darkness be!” If we will not use the inner eye which beholds the unseen and spiritual, that eye will become blind, and we shall begin to worship “ in the dark,” and in some form or other the created instead of the Creator. II. These “ chambers of imagery” may be taken as the symbol of a secret ungodliness.1. Men present themselves in the sanctuary; they seem to join in the praises and prayers which are offered to the Creator; perhaps they even come to the table of the Lord, and take into their hands the memorials of His death; but where all the while are their hearts? What is the real state of their souls? Whom are they actually serving in their daily life? What are they in their business and in their homes? 2. Sometimes the iniquity which men are carrying on “ in the dark” comes suddenly and strangely to light; “ some hole in the wall” betrays the secret! Here is a man who has had the reputation of being thoroughly upright and honourable, and whom his friends would have trusted to the utmost; but the hidden “ door” is at length discovered, and it turns out that he has been engaged in some fraudulent transaction--cheating his creditors, or tampering with his employer’ s books. Here is a woman, seemingly religious, outwardly decorous, spoken of by her friends and acquaintances as worthy of all respect and affection; but it turns out that, in secret, she is allowing the habit of drunkenness to creep over her, and that her servants could tell the tale of her occasional debasement. Here, again, is a man, respectable, amiable, seemingly devout, of whom everybody speaks well: when, all of a sudden, the hidden door is revealed, and it turns out that he has been living an unchaste and brutish life. 3. Resolve to be, at least, real and genuine. Let not your worship be a sham. Be impatient of every approach to insincerity. Give your very heart to God. Be Christ’ s, not in name only, but in deed and in truth. III. These “ chambers of imagery” may be taken as the emblem of an impure imagination. Whether a man’ s imagination be pure or impure will depend, partly on his past conduct, partly on his present character, partly also, it must be acknowledged, on his circumstances. A man may accidentally see something which he wishes he had never seen, but which, being once seen, lodges itself in the memory, and is apt thenceforth to be reproduced in the imagination. Still, the mind has a certain power of self-direction, and can deliberately turn away its gaze from the picture thus presented. The same may be said of scenes of impurity, through which a man may have passed, only too willingly, in former days. As such scenes are reproduced occasionally in the chambers of imagery,--the man, if he be altered in character, will turn away from them with revulsion. But, alas! there are many who deliberately carry the lamp of memory into this secret chamber of the soul, and cast its full light on these loathsome pictures. Oh, beware of retiring into the chamber of an impure imagination, to revel in the pictures which it presents to you. This is the surest way of shutting your eye to the vision of the Eternal; for it is “ the pure in heart” who “ see God.” Beware, too, of everything that tends to defile the imagination,--impure actions, impure companionship, impure literature. Guard your imagination. Watch your reveries. Seek to carry a pure mind and heart after your evening prayer, even into the land of dreams. Cherish a love of what is truly beautiful and good. Live purely; and you will people your imagination with scenes of purity. Above all, cherish a sense of the presence of the Holy One. Say not, with the worshippers in the dark chamber, “ The Lord seeth us not” ; but say rather, “ Thou God seest me.” (T. C. Finlayson.) Chambers of imagery Look at that dark painted chamber that we have all of us got in our hearts; at the idolatries that go on there, and at the flashing of a sudden light of a God who marks, into the midst of the idolatry. I. Think of some dark and painted chamber which we all of us carry in our hearts.1. Every man is a mystery to himself as to his fellows. The most silvery lake that lies sleeping amidst beauty, itself the very fairest spot of all, when drained off shows ugly ooze and filthy mud, and all manner of creeping abominations in the slime. I wonder what we should see if our hearts were, so to speak, drained off, and the very bottom layer of everything brought into the light? Do you think you could stand it? Well, then, go to God and ask Him to keep you from the unconscious sins. Go to Him and ask Him to root out of you the mischiefs that you do not know are there, and live humbly and self-distrustfully, and feel that your only strength is: “ Hold Thou me up, and I shall be saved.” 2. The walls of that chamber were all painted with animal forms, to which these men were bowing down. You and I, by our memory, by that marvellous faculty that people call the imagination, by our desires, are forever painting the walls of the inmost chambers of our hearts with such pictures. It is an awful faculty that we possess of, so to speak, surrounding ourselves with the pictures of the things that we love, and have yielded ourselves in devotion and desire unto. Just as today, thousands of years after the artists have been gathered to the dust, we may go into Egyptian temples and see the figures on their walls, in all the freshness of their first colouring, as if the painter had but laid down his pencil a moment ago; so, on your hearts, youthful evils, the sins of your boyhood, the pruriences of your earliest days, may live ugly shapes, that no tears and no repentance will ever wipe out. Nothing can do away with “ the marks of that which once hath been.” II. Look at the idolatries of the dark chamber. A man’ s true worship is not the worship that he performs in the public temple, but that which he offers down in that little private chapel where nobody goes but himself. Worship is the attribution of supreme excellence to, and the entire dependence of the heart upon, a certain person. And the people or the things to which a man attributes excellence, and on which he hangs his happiness and his well-being, these be his gods, no matter what his outward profession is. You can find out what these are for yourself, if you will honestly ask yourself one or two questions. What is it that I want most? What is it which makes my ideal happiness? What is it which I feel that I should be desperate without? What do I think about most naturally and spontaneously, when the spring is taken off and my thoughts are allowed to go as they will? And if the answer to none of these questions is “ God!” then I do not know why you should call yourself a worshipper of God. Honour, wealth, literary or other distinction, the sweet sanctities of human love dishonoured and profaned by being exalted to the place which Divine love should hold, ease, family, animal appetites, lust, drink--these are the gods of some of us. And do not forget that all such diversion of supreme love and dependence from God alone is like the sin of these men in our text, that it is sacrilege. They had taken a chamber in the very Temple, and turned that into a temple of the false gods. Who is your heart made to shrine? We were made for God, and whensoever we turn the hopes, the desires, the affections, the obedience, and that which is the root of them all, the confidence that ought to fix and fasten upon Him, to other creatures, we are guilty not only of idolatry but of sacrilege. III. Look at the sudden crashing in upon the cowering worshippers of the revealing light. Apparently the picture of my text suggests that these elders knew not the eyes that were looking upon them. They were hugging themselves in the conceit, “ The Lord seeth not; the Lord hath forsaken the earth.” And all the while, all unknown, God and His prophet stand in the doorway and see it all. Not a finger lifted, not a sign to the foolish worshippers of His presence and inspection, but in stern silence He records and remembers. And does that need much bending to make it an impressive form of putting a solemn truth? There are plenty of us--alas! alas! that it should be so--to whom it is the least welcome of all thoughts that there in the doorway stand God and His Word. Why should it be that the properly blessed thought of a Divine eye resting upon you should be to you like the thought of a policeman’ s bull’ s eye to a thief? Why should it not be rather the sweetest and the most calming and strength giving and companioning of all convictions? “ Thou God seest me.” One day a light will flash in upon all the dark cells. We must all be manifest before the judgment seat of Christ. Do you like that thought? Can you stand it? Are you ready for it? My friend! let Jesus Christ come to you with His light. Let Him come into your hearts by your lowly penitence, by your humble faith, and all these vile shapes that you have painted on its walls will, like phosphorescent pictures in the daytime, pale and disappear when the Sun of Righteousness, with healing on His beams, floods your soul, making no part dark, and turning all into a Temple of the living God. (A. Maclaren, D. D.) Secret sins I. The forms they take.1. Inward infidelities. Mistrustings, scepticisms, neglects of inward admonitions, etc.2. Inward idolatries. HEART clinging to wealth, heart pride in children, heart satisfaction in learning, worship of self.3. Inward sensualities. II. The outward circumstances that foster them.1. Neglect of religious duties gives the heart space for evil.2. The tone of society is often sceptical and frivolous.3. Danger of sensational and questionable moral literature.4. Character of associations in daily life and friendships.5. The humorous is too often playful with evil, and defiling. III. The intellectual conceptions which encourage them.1. That sin is not really sin until expressed in overt acts (Matthew 5:21-28).2. That the Lord doth not see.3. That the Lord is merciful. Yes, but see Psalms 62:12. (R. Tuck, B. A.) The imagination The simplest form of imagination is dreaming. In dreaming we are dependent on past experience. We cannot dream about men and women and children, about earth and sky, about sea and land; about words and music and laughter, unless we have seen and heard things like them. Dreams are like life, and yet how unlike. All we have ever done and suffered, seen and heard, learned and experienced, may be in our dreams, but all altered into phantasmagoria--combining and dissolving, and succeeding one another with great rapidity. It is very difficult to understand under what impulse or impulses the imagination acts in dreaming. Another form of imagination is day dreaming, or reverie. We say the children see faces in the fire, and young people build castles in the air, but in point of fact these exercises are indulged in by all ages. In our leisure, and especially perhaps in the hours of the nights when we lie awake, forms and scenes flit of their own accord out of the dark background of memory. If you could find out what a man is thinking of when he is lying awake, you would have an invaluable index to his character; and by the same test, find out, if you like, what is your own character. It is common to warn the young against reverie; but it seems to me that this advice can only be given with qualifications. What we really need to be warned of in respect of reverie is the subjects of our daydreams. If our day dreams are concerning foul and forbidden subjects, this habit will waste the mind utterly. These thoughts must be caught at the threshold and kept resolutely out of the mind, or a man will soon become within a leper from head to foot. The office of the imagination is to improve on reality. It creates beside the actual world another world, finer, fairer, and more perfect. You see that in childhood; and I am often astonished in noticing the strength of the imagination in children. Give them two or three bits of wood, roughly carved and rudely painted, a few cuttings of cloth, a few bricks, a little mud or sand, and out of these things they will create a world with kings and queens, the tinker and tailor, soldier and sailor; and these figures will go through all the movements and activities of grown people, as far as these can be observed by the minds of children. And why is it that children, and children of a larger growth, are so fond of stories? It is because in a story the life is grander and fiercer than in actual life. It is an ideal, undimmed and undiminished by the obstacles and qualifications of reality. Now this explains, as you will all see, the delight afforded to us by works of art, which of course are works of imagination. Why does a song or a piece of music delight us? It is because in it there are gathered together sounds sweeter than the ordinary sounds which life gives us to hear; and in a picture there is distilled the beauty of a hundred scenes. And especially this explains the delight we have in imaginative literature. In the real world movement is slow, and the colours are grey, but in this world a year can be compressed into an hour; the colours are bright, the crisis is exciting, the end is satisfying. In the epic, one great movement succeeds another; in the drama, some great principle is fully illustrated; in a novel, love is triumphant and justice is vindicated. But is it good to live in such an unreal world? Well, that depends. No doubt this kind of reading may be carried to excess. If it is made, instead of an occasional treat, the daily bread of the mind, it will undoubtedly debilitate the mind. Fiction may give us altogether false ideas of life, making us suppose that success is to depend not upon effort and endeavour, which must be the only road to success with the majority, but on some lucky fall of fortune, or some effort of genius not accessible to one in a million. Yet imaginative literature has a real service to perform. There is poetry which shows us the mystery the world is full of, and helps us to believe in a secret, deep and interesting, in every heart by which we are approached. Now that is the right kind; that is the healthy kind. The wisdom of life very largely consists in being able to appreciate the romance of ordinary existence, and the poetry of common things. I said a little while ago that the function of the imagination is to improve on reality. Keep a grip of that. The imagination is the torch by which humanity is conducted along the path of progress. Then ordinary life cannot go on for a day without the imagination. When a workman is engaged on some piece of work, has not he in his mind an image of the perfect article, which directs every stroke he gives to the rough material? And although what he makes never comes up entirely, perhaps, to the object of his imagination, the perfection of the image in his imagination determines the perfection of the work of his hand. It was because Columbus had more imagination than the rest of Europe that he believed in a new world to be found on the other side of the globe, and it was for a similar reason that David Livingstone could not settle down among the other missionaries in South Africa, but was haunted by a vision of something beyond the desert, and through his imperative desire to go and see he was made the greatest discoverer of modern times. There are thousands of visions of an improved world that are never anything more than visions, but the world is never improved, even in the smallest particular, without there being first a vision of the improvement in someone’ s imagination. Youth is full of visions, and thousands of them never come to anything; but woe to that young man who has no visions--no vision of his own future, no vision of the future of the world. Professor Drummond used sometimes to say that in our day young men are saved, not by the conviction of sin, but by the conviction of righteousness. That has an air of paradox, but is a great truth. What he meant was that in our day many a man was saved, not by thinking of the horrible pit into which he was in danger of dropping, but of something above him, which he knows Christ would help him to grasp; although I should be inclined to add that the sense of such an ideal which you cannot reach above you is just the very thing to give you a horror of your actual self, and an intense desire to be delivered from the besetting past. Nowhere does imagination do so much for us as when it gives us a vision of our own possibilities, of what we ought to be, and what we may be by the grace of God; or rather, let me put it in this way, the best the imagination ever can do for a man is when it supplies him with an image of Jesus Christ, so enchanting and attractive that he follows Him by an irresistible impulse, and his whole subsequent life becomes one unceasing prayer and effort to be like Him. (James Stalker, D. D.) Imagination It is pleasant to remember those happy incidents of departed hours, those ever fresh and verdant spots in the desert of life, on which the eye always loves to linger, that it may be for a time refreshed. It is pleasant to recall the features, the tones, the acts of some cherished companions of our earlier days, whose voice shall no more be heard on earth. What a dreary blank were life without it! Many, however, are content with this, and are fully satisfied if they succeed in reproducing the past exactly as in the past it was. Others, however, desire to soar far beyond the mere power of recollecting, and aim at such a rearrangement of the treasures of experience as to produce results far more beautiful than eye has ever seen on earth. They let a fertile and gorgeous imagination so brood over the waters of memory as to call forth a grandeur incomparably greater than the materials from which it has been produced. We might have been so made by our Creator as to have had no such faculty, and thus have been compelled to think the past without alteration of any kind. In His abounding love, however, He has endowed us with the power of using the world of nature merely as materials with which to build another world, with even brighter tints and lovelier forms than those around us. He has enriched us with a creative fancy that can burnish, as with brightest gold, the gloomiest scenes of life; people the hovel with kingly guests, and bring to the martyr’ s side such celestial visitants as shall transform his dungeon gloom into more than palatial splendour. The religious importance of the imagination is evidenced by the fact that the one Book from which our religious knowledge is obtained is from first to last saturated, as it were, with the most daring flights of fancy, and the boldest figures of imagery. On its every page there lie profusely scattered the fable, the parable, the allegory, the apostrophe, the metaphor. It has laid all nature under tribute, and borrowed pictures from the glittering dew drop, the graceful lily, and the blushing rose. “ It weaves garlands for the bleeding brow of Immanuel, the flowers of which have been culled from the gardens of an universe.” The instant you divorce religion from imagination you reduce the former to a series of abstract propositions which might enlighten the minds of a few, but would warm the hearts of fewer still. Could the affirmations of a rigid logic ever enable us to grasp Him that is invisible, fling the burdens of our lives on His sympathy, or take us to His side with our every sorrow? We may describe Deity as the Almighty, the Omnipotent, the Absolute, the Infinite, the Unconditioned; and the cultured understanding would assent to the truth of our description. But to the mass of men the words would be utterly unintelligible, and awake no emotion within their breasts. When, however, definition gives place to imagery, and He is pictured to us in familiar forms, all is changed; we now fondly cling to that from which previously we shrank. As we read of Him speaking in loving or, in warning tones, listening to every cry of need, pitying us as a father pitieth his children, holding our soul in life, we go boldly to the throne of grace; bowing, not before a vague product of speculative thought, but before a Father whom we can love and know. Christ, Himself, knowing well how little the majority of men care to use their reason, when the use will not yield them profitable return in terms of bodily comfort,--knowing that to the best even, when we do unfold her pinions and attempt an upward flight, we soon weary with the effort, and find ourselves unable, by her aid alone, to soar beyond the cool zone of thought, passes reason by, and, when appealing to our feelings, speaks of Himself as “ The Bread of Life,” “ The Light of the world,” “ The True Vine,” “ The Door into the one true fold.” All this presents ideas to the stricken heart that are equally beautiful and equally powerful on young and old, rich and poor, learned and unlearned. Thus He takes the feeblest by the hand and leads them to heights that philosophy and logic never could have climbed. But as the richest soil grows the rankest weeds, so the noblest powers, when perverted and corrupted, work the direst mischief. Of none is this more true than of the imagination. When we darken the chambers of our imagery, and, drawing the curtain of night before the pictures of the Lord, make it the home of idols, saying, “ The Lord seeth us not; the Lord hath forsaken the earth,” imagination aids most effectually the conspiracy against the truth, and bolsters the soul amid its cherished lies. It is no mere baseless fancy this vision of Ezekiel, it is a sadly real fact. Who has not some idols in the heart’ s chamber, and who views them in their actual deformity and folly? If it were possible to tear from the idols of the world every vestige of those spurious attributes with which a vicious imagination has invested them, that they may look like gods, and thus show them as they are in all their real distorted ugliness, the votaries would surely shrink from them in horror and detestation. But there are other evils wrought by this fallen angel within the chamber of our imagery. We know that according to the prevailing habit of our mind, so will be the pictures mostly drawn by us. The voluptuary is ever picturing to himself fresh indulgences, which again in their turn urge him on to their gratification. Thus, therefore, vice vitiates the imagination, and vitiated imagination plunges into deeper vice. That which was given to lighten the chamber of the heart, being thus abused, darkens it into deeper vice. That which was given to lighten the chamber of the heart, being thus abused, darkens it into deeper night. But this faculty further shows its dangerous power in the production of startlingly vivid, but perilously false, pictures of God Himself. How sad is the fact that so many are basing their eternities on a figment of their own fancy, on a creature of their own wild imagination, on a deity not found either in reason or in revelation. May the Light of the world brighten the chambers of their imagery before it be too late forever! But although it may not play thus falsely with the soul, but depict scenes that are faithful to the fact, still evil sometimes flows from this very circumstance. The scenes thus realised may be so full of love, or beauty, or of pathos, that the soul dwelling fondly on the incident may flow into a sort of harmony with it, come to delight in the contemplation, and if the incidents be religious, rest contented with a religion that consists in imagination only. Such, as they read the story of the Cross, will feel as though it were being enacted before their eyes; and they will love to stand and gaze tearfully at the Christ as He raises His head to pray for pardon on His enemies; or they will flash with anger as they see the heartless soldier strike His crown of thorns; and while they gaze with pity, and sigh for suffering so undeserved, will readily persuade themselves that they are disciples of the Master. Does not all this show they are religious? Does it not prove that their sympathies are with Christ and heaven? Does it not demonstrate their interest in the things that concern their salvation? No. It manifests nothing more than this, that they are sensitive to the sublimity of moral heroism, the pleasures of unending joy, the beauties of harmonious sounds. It is right to image our Saviour on the Cross as distinctly as possible, but only that we may rise from the contemplation with firmer resolve to tread in His footsteps. It is not by graceful genuflexions before the cross, aesthetic musings on its thrilling pathos, or sentimental tenderness over its wondrous self-sacrifice, but by talking it up on our own shoulders and following the crucified One that we can become His disciples. If imagination, consequently, no matter how high, or pure, or true, be made an end, it must hinder, even if it does not stop us in our Christian course, for God gave it only as a means to an end beyond itself. A means whereby we may more keenly become impressed with our own defects and sin and guilt; more profoundly view our own hopeless plight; and then, that the hopeless may become the hopeful, more thrillingly behold our Father’ s character and love, our Christ’ s great atonement, and the Holy Spirit’ s eager rushing to our rescue. Imagination--a means to an end. So it is. But although the means be such as God alone could devise or bestow, still, after all, how poor is it compared with the end for which it exists! Eye, ear, and heart may do much, when trained by the Spirit of God, to construct our future home, but “ eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love Him.” (J. M’Cann, D. D.) Secret service One of the gravest charges brought by Ezekiel against his people was that they had covered the walls of the mind with polluted imaginations, and had set the activities of the inward world to base uses. They were condemned for what they did “ in the dark” and in their “ chambers of imagery.” And there are more things done in the dark than in the light, in the inward chamber than in the open street. What is done “ in the dark” adds up by its constancy to a great total.1. Of these toilers in the dark the first perhaps is thought; for it belongs to man to think, and he cannot help thinking if he tries. When the mind has once grasped an idea, as Hugo says, you can no more hinder its return to it than you can the return of the tide to a shore. Try not to think for five minutes, and you are bound to think. When we sleep we think; and when we are chloroformed and every nerve is deadened to physical sensation, we still think. 2. Thought works in the dark, as memory does. Memory is that strange power which recalls the past and helps us to relive it. 3. These faculties are joined by imagination, a gift which some have in great measure and most have in some degree, so that a few are poets and painters and musicians, and most can paint some picture in the mind, and hear or make some music there. The little child sails his paper boat in a pail, and says, “ This is Europe and that is America, and here is Columbus going over.” And Olive Schreiner says she would rather be a little child and know her way up the staircase of dreams than be the wisest philosopher in the world. These are the faculties that do their ceaseless services in the dark--thought, memory, and imagination. It was the folly and the sin of these men of Israel that what they did in the dark would not bear the scrutiny of the light, and that they made their faculties the instruments of unprofitableness. It is one of the reiterated ideas of Paul that the members of the body are intended to be instruments of righteousness, and the Scriptures abound with directions for them. They are all legislated for in turn, the eye and the hand, the foot and the ear. “ Keep thy tongue from evil, and thy lips from speaking guile.” When the members of the body obey such legislation, the open street is full of upright deeds and noble words; and when the senses of the soul do it, the secret chamber becomes a palace of light. Toward the right use of the imagination and kindred qualities the Bible has many appeals. Some of these are direct; but one of them consists in the fact that the Bible itself is sprinkled through with fruits of divinely controlled imagination which make an appeal of their own, just as the books of history and the many pages of counsel and advice appeal by their very presence in the Bible to those practical concerns of which life is full. Let the intensely practical man reflect on the fictions of the Bible. It seems as full of these as life does. This book does not disdain,--it welcomes and immortalises, rather, the fanciful, the poetic, and the imaginative. There are a hundred reasons why the imagination should be used, and the main reason of its misuse is plain enough. It would seem impossible for it to be uncontrolled so long as God remains a reality, and while a recognition of deity and eternity are among the facts of life. “ The Lord,” said these men of old, “ seeth us not; the Lord hath forsaken the earth.” He did not see their outward acts; and even were He near He was not such a God as could look through the flesh into the chambers of the mind--and these things being so, restraint was gone. Life presents this sight over and over again. When some little lad at school is aware of the master’ s eye, there comes to him an incentive to diligence; and if the master disappears, though you cannot say the work will cease, yet you are sure that a temptation for it to stop will surely come, “ For,” says the lad, “ the master sees me not.” Or suppose you have always at your side some noble, upright friend, clean to the core, clean to the finger-tips! Then, with his presence or the very thought of it there comes a tremendous check to all unworthiness of act or dream, and a certain stimulus to all that is fair without and within. A day, a house, a book, a hymn--will help to people the inward streets with happy troops of white-robed fancies and desires. It is forgetfulness of God’ s presence that induces sins of secrecy, and takes away the restraints that hinder them; and while outward sins are black enough, who shall say that these are less so? There are open iniquities, done in the sight of men--and a grim brotherhood they are; but there are sins of desire, and a wish may be a transgression and a feeling an iniquity. “ Thou shalt not kill,” said Moses. Thou shalt not be angry, said Christ. You may think, and sink with every thought you think till you reach the unnameable slums of the intellectual world; and you may choose to remember the unheavenliest things you ever saw or said or did; and you may get pictures painted on the walls of the soul by the painter. Imagination, who has mixed his colours all in hell. Some of the most passionate prayers for pardon have been the outcome of no outward sins, but have been made on account of follies done “ in the dark.” What any man does “ in the dark” is the truest test of his character. It is true that words are an index of the mind, and in some degree reveal the man; but any speaker may so choose his words as to disguise himself, and though it is also certain that a tree is known by its fruits, yet deeds alone are not a perfect test of the man who does them, for we seldom wholly translate into actions our thoughts or schemes, and it is impossible for a painter to put on the canvas all the glory of his original dream. We are no better than our secrets, and these are the last test of us. You cannot judge a man by his public actions; for to many a man the crowd is either a stimulus or a restraint, and in the presence of the multitude he hides himself and wears a mask. But when the day’ s work is over, follow him to his home, and see how he conducts himself in the semi-secrecy of domestic life; discover his manners in that seclusion; notice how he bears the scrutiny of constant love, and what he does when the alternations of joys and griefs and astonishments of life occur. But even then you do not know him altogether; and you must further ask what his thoughts are, and on what memories he most dwells, and what his actions are when there are none to see. The world is full of short-sighted judgments, and must needs be. It is God alone who judges rightly, who judges by the heart, knowing what is in man. Upon what is done “ in the dark” depend our chances of service, and the inward conditions are the fountains of all fruitfulness. Ruskin’ s doctrine was that no truly great picture ever came or could ever possibly come from the painter with an unclean spirit. He would unconsciously express himself in his picture; the portrait would be his own, and its colours the colours of his soul. What is done in the inward place glorifies or abases all endeavours, and the dominant influences that live there give shape and colour to all our deeds. If that place be the haunt of evil things, it will be strange if some of them do not escape; and if of good, it is certain they will find expression in many a kindly word and gladly finished duty. The secret of serviceableness and the very chance of it lies hidden from all sight like a tree’ s root. What, then, is the atonement, and what does redemption do? What does it not do? It does not fasten the thief’ s hand behind his back, or snatch the murderer’ s knife away, or fetter the wandering feet; for it is God’ s last reply to a most ancient prayer: “ Create in me a clean heart, and renew a right spirit within me.” The ministry of Jesus is to the soul. (A. J. Southouse.) The chamber of imagery I. Man has a wonderful power of vision beyond that of the senses. Man’ s power of mental vision is seen not only in the creation of dreams and the production of poetry, but also in the sorrows of the apprehensive, the joys of the hopeful, the wealth of the avaricious, and power of the ambitious, which live only in the imagination. “ The dullest plodder,” says Dr. Thomas Brown, “ over the obscurest desk, who sums up in the evening his daily tables of profit and loss, and who rises in the morning with the sole object of adding a few ciphers to that book of pounds and pence which contains the whole annual history of his life,--even he, while he half lays down his quill to think of future prices or future demands or future possibilities of loss, has his visions and inspiration like the sublimest poet; visions of a very different kind, indeed, from those to which poets are accustomed, but involving as truly the inspiration of fancy!”1. Through this power God frequently reveals the greatest truths. All sciences start from hypotheses. The poet catches by intuition that which philosophers organise into systems. This material universe is but spirit in costume,--“ a vesture” ; its myriads of objects are but eternal thoughts run into palpable forms. Imagination with her keen eyes looks through the garb, sees the Divine ideas, moulds them into shapes of her own, and clothes them in an airy fabric of her own weaving. 2. Through this power man will derive much of his happiness or misery forever. One of our bards has sung in lofty and touching strains of “ The Pleasures of the Imagination.” Blessed power this! By it the sightless bard of England made for himself a sunny paradise, amidst whose enchanted scenes he struck from his lyre those supernatural strains that shall thrill the ages yet to come. The greatest misery, too, comes out of this. Let the imagination become the creature of a guilty conscience, and it shall create a hell as dark and deep as that which Dante made. II. The degenerating tendency in the most advanced people has ever been strong. This tendency is sufficient--1. To repudiate the atheistic notion that the original state of man was that of savagism; and to confirm the Biblical doctrine that “ God made man upright, but that he sought out many inventions.” 2. To show that it behoves the most advanced people to be humble. III. The greatest sins of humanity are generally the hidden ones. Could we open the door of England’ s soul, as the prophet opened the door of “ the chamber of imagery,” our opinion of its character, I presume, would be greatly modified if not reversed. We should see selfishness in the benevolent, blood guiltiness in the humane, despotism in the outwardly liberal, lasciviousness in the chaste, arrogance in the humble, infidelity in the pious, idolatry in temples built for God. It is not the hand, nor the tongue, nor any member of the body that performs the act;--the volition is the act.1. Man has the power to conceal sins. 2. Man as a sinner has the strongest temptations to concealment. The more wicked a man is, the more temptation he has to be a hypocrite. The depraved tradesman, lawyer, physician, and statesman must build a thick wall around their “ chamber of imagery,” or they could not live. IV. An insight of the hidden iniquity of a population is a necessary qualification for a true reformer.1. It serves to impress him with the justice of human suffering.2. It serves to impress him with the greatness of God’ s love in redemption.3. It serves to impress him with the sublime mission of Christianity. It is to go into its most secret chambers, tear down every idol god, carry in the ark, and enthrone the Shekinah, and consecrate the soul a Temple for the Holy Ghost to dwell in. V. The most hidden sins are destined to be exposed.1. There are certain ways in which hidden sins are exposed, even now. (1) There is temptation. The virtue of some men is but vice sleeping, for the want of something to call it out. (2) There is affliction. One man is thought a model of patience, his temper is never ruffled, there is always a beautiful equanimity about him; but his circumstances change, trials thicken upon him. And now what a change, how restless--how impatient! Another is very benevolent; in comparative poverty he gives his mite readily, and often says if he had so much property how delighted he would be to lay it out in the cause of benevolence: Providence places him in this position,--and the man is a miser. (3) There is moral conviction. When this seizes the soul, all the concealing walls are broken down, and the moral character leaps into light. Job, David, Zaccheus, Peter, the Publican, are examples. 2. There are two kinds of exposure-- (1) Unconscious. There are some men, perhaps, around you who have had an insight to your hearts, who, from outer acts, have had a glimpse of your “ chamber of imagery” ; and have pronounced their judgment, but you know it not. There are angels to whom your spirits are bare: and certain it is that God sees you. (2) Conscious. The eye of a man has a wonderful influence upon the doer of wrong. In the prosecution of his crime let him feel the glance of another upon him, and how will it affect him! In the judgment day we shall feel all eyes upon us. VI. A practical disregard of the constant presence and inspection of God is an explanation of all sin.1. Because the realising of God’ s presence implies supreme love to Him. The being we love supremely we keep close to our hearts. Friends separated by continents, oceans, and even death, love brings near. It is not logic, but love that makes us feel the Infinite near. 2. If they love Him supremely they will have no room in their hearts for idols. Supreme love is a soul-filling power. Where God is loved there is no room for other deities. When the sun is on the eye the stars are not. (Homilist.) The secret chambers of the heart “ In the secret chambers” of our own hearts unknown to anyone but oneself, how often we paint before us “ the imagery” of unholy thoughts--we allow ourselves to play with the fire brands of evil suggestions; to carry out in imagination those wicked longings of the sinful heart, which God has perhaps, through His great mercy, not allowed us to carry out in fact and act. Thus, alas, many a precious moment of time is wasted. We dream of seeing our enemies cast down, we plan and plot and meditate on schemes of pride or covetousness or selfish enjoyment, and set up “ every man” in the chambers of the heart the imagery of guilty desires and foolish vanities. It has been well said, if we had a door in our hearts which let our thoughts be visible, who would dare to look his neighbour in the face? But are there not defences against these devices of the enemy in the armoury of the Great Captain? Yes! they are three in number--Prayer, Watchfulness, and Activity. (W. Hardman, LL. D.) The chambers of imagery What you love, what you desire, what you think about, you are photographing, printing on the walls of your immortal nature. What are you painting on the chambers of imagery on your hearts? Is that mystic shrine within you painted with such figures as in some chambers of Pompeii, where the excavators had to cover up the pictures because they were so foul? Or is it like the cells in the convent of San Marco at Florence, where Fra Angelico’ s holy and sweet genius painted on the bare walls--to be looked at, as he fancied, only by one devout brother in each cell--angel imaginings, and noble, pure, celestial faces that calm and hallow those who gaze upon them? What are you doing in the dark, in the chambers of your imagery? (A. Maclaren, D. D.) Pictures on the wall When a bookcase standing long in one place was removed there was the exact image left on the wall of the whole, and many of its portions. But, in the midst of this picture was another the precise outline of a map, which had hung on the wall before the bookcase was placed there. We had all forgotten everything about the map until we saw its photograph on the wall. Thus, Some day or another, we may remember a sin which has been covered up, when this lower universe is pulled away from before the wall of infinity, where the wrong-doing stands self-recorded. (Oliver Wendell Holmes.) Ezekiel 8:15-18 Turn thee yet again and thou shalt see greater abominations than these.Of sin in its aggravations I. What is understood by the heinousness of sin.1. That it is offensive to God, displeasing to Him, and grieving to His Spirit (Jeremiah 44:4). It is an abominable thing before the Lord; hence it is called filthiness, uncleanness, vomit, etc., all which provoke loathing; so Revelation 3:16. It is contrary to His nature and will, and gives Him displeasure and offence; and, if it were possible it would disturb His repose, as smoke doth to the eyes (Isaiah 65:5). 2. It is greatly offensive to God (Habakkuk 1:13). There is no sin that God is indifferent about, none that He can pass without a mark of His indignation on it (Exodus 34:7). (1) All sin is heinous in the sight of God, namely, greatly offensive (Habakkuk 1:13). (2) There are degrees of heinousness. Though the sin which the blinded soul accounts but a mote is a mountain in the eyes of God and of an enlightened conscience, yet all are not alike for all that; but as some mountains, so some sins are greater than others. II. In what respects some sins are more heinous than others.1. Some sins are in themselves, and in their own nature, more heinous than others. Murder (Genesis 4:10); oppression (Habakkuk 2:1 l); blasphemy and contempt, of God (Exodus 5:2); idolatry (Ezekiel 8:1-18); unbelief, rejecting of Christ, and disobeying the Gospel (Matthew 22:1-46; John 3:19; 2 Thessalonians 1:8). But of all sins the most heinous is the sin against the Holy Ghost (Matthew 12:31). 2. Some sins are more heinous than others by their aggravations; and the greater and more numerous the aggravating circumstances be that attend any sin, it is the more heinous. (1) From the persons offending: the more notable they are, the more heinous are their sins; as the greater the fire is, the more mischief will it do, if it go out of its place; the greater the tree is, the more mischief will it do by its fall. (2) From the parties offended. Let men consider whom their sins strike against, if they would see how heinous they are. For as a thrust in a leg or arm is not so much grievous as one at the heart, so is it in this case. Sins immediately against God, His Son, and His Spirit are more heinous than such sins against man, any man whatsoever (1 Samuel 2:25). Sins against superiors in the church, state, and family are more heinous than the same sins are if done against persons of their own rank and condition. Sins against those whom we are under special engagements and obligations to are more heinous than such sins against others we have no such concern in. Sins against the saints and people of God are more heinous than against others, because of their relation to God, as being those in all the world dearest to Him (Matthew 18:6). Sins against the common good of all, or of many; for the wider the effects of one sin go, it is still the worse (Joshua 22:20). (3) From the quality of the offence. A sin may be vested with such qualities as will make it much more heinous than when divested of them. These evil qualities are many; I will reduce them to two heads. Intrinsic qualities. Thus sins against the letter of the law are more heinous than others; mother sins, which are big and bring forth many others, besides simple ones; sins consummated by action, as well as while merely in the heart (James 1:15); sins that are scandalous, as well as others not so; sins the injury in which to men admits of no reparation, more than that of others in which it does. Extrinsic qualities; which again are of two sorts. (i) Being done against means whereby one might be withheld from sin (Matthew 11:21-22). (ii) Being done against bonds one has taken on him against the sin, when men sin against purposes and resolutions of amendment, against their covenants and engagements to the Lord, whereby they are bound to stand off from such courses (Ezekiel 17:19).(4) From the manner of committing it. Who can imagine but sin done deliberately and wilfully and presumptuously is more heinous than sin committed through inadvertency and weakness? (5) From the time of it, as in the case of Gehazi (2 Kings 5:26). Thus sins committed on the Lord’ s day, immediately before or after Divine worship, are more heinous than at other times. And so is sinning just after reproofs, warnings, engagements; or in a time when the anger of the Lord is going out against the land, family, or person, as Ahaz in his distress. (6) From the place of it. Thus in a place where the Gospel is preached, sin is more heinous than elsewhere (Isaiah 26:10). Sins done in public before others are more heinous than those in secret; for in the former many may be defiled. Inferences-- 1. Never think light of sin, nor slightly of Christ, and your need of Him, since all sin is heinous in God’ s sight, and exposes the sinner to His just vengeance. 2. There will be degrees of torment in hell, though the least degree will be dreadful (Matthew 11:21). (T. Boston, D. D.) Hidden abominations exposed Apply this passage-- I. To the world.1. The abominations that are visible to all are exceeding great.2. But the more we know of the world, the more wicked will it appear. II. The church.1. The outward court worshippers are, for the most part, exceedingly corrupt.2. Would to God we could except from this censure the worshippers of the inner court. III. The heart.1. This, the Prophet tells us, is superlatively deceitful.2. It is also, as the same Prophet informs us, unsearchably wicked. Behold here, then--(1) The folly of man(2) The forbearance of God. (3) The wonders of Redeeming Love. (C. Simeon, M. A.) They worshipped the sun toward the east. The spiritual discarded, the material adored I. Strange aversion.1. To what they were averse. “ The temple of the Lord.” This does not mean the material building. These men were too material for that. They would never cease to glory in its architectural splendour, and there was little fear of their ceasing to regard the gold and silver by which it was enriched and with which it was adorned. They were, as myriads are today, well content to lay claim to and enjoy the material gifts of God, while they utterly disregarded the more spiritual of His mercies. In the temple God dwelt, for there was in the mysterious Shekinah light which brooded over the Ark, the symbol of His invisible, yet awful presence-to Him they were averse. They would fain have vetoed or expelled Him from His own house, for they desired not His presence. This is strange aversion. Why should they turn their backs upon God? They owed their all to Him. He beheld their fathers once as a company of oppressed slaves, crying day and night unto Him for deliverance, and with a high hand and with an outstretched arm He did deliver them. They possessed promises which were to make their future still more illustrious. Yet upon Him who had been such a Father and Friend they turned their backs. And of the law of God they might justly have been proud. It was an expression of the Infinite mind, and well worthy of its origin. This law Christ came not to abrogate, but to expound, enforce, and fulfil. And the Ark. Surely there was nothing in this to which they could reasonably be averse. It enshrined many precious memories. What shall we say of the myriads who in England today repeat these sins? The guilt of such is even worse than that of these “ five and twenty men.” What wrong has God done them that they are thus averse to Him and to His house? What base ingratitude on the part of men to daily enjoy the precious legacy of privileges the Gospel has won, and yet turn their backs upon this their best friend. 2. By whom was this aversion expressed? Evidently by those who were considered to be the very pick and flower of the nation. (1) These men were in the line of a godly ancestry. Not only were they children of faithful Abraham, but of the tribe of Levi. These men had received careful training, special instruction, and were in possession of a choice legacy of privileges. That upon which they turned their backs had been most dear to and most revered by their parents. This made their sin all the greater. Yet this is just the position of many who today turn their backs upon God. (2) These men were among the most intelligent in Israel. From early life they had been educated and trained with a view of preparing them for the sacred functions they would afterwards be called upon to fulfil. Alas, it is much the same today. Many of the most educated, intelligent, and affluent in our land are utterly averse to Divine things. (3) The position of these men aggravated their sin. They were “ between the porch and the altar,” and were thus surrounded by every inducement to reverence Jehovah in their worship, and to lead lives conspicuous for purity. Their modern imitators have also similar environments. The claims of God, the blessings of the Gospel are brought right home to them. The word is nigh them, even in their mouths and in their hearts. 3. Can we account for this aversion? (1) On the part of many the secret is in a reluctance to think. These twenty-five men turned their backs upon the temple of the Lord. In like manner men turn away from the claims of religion, upon the reason, upon the soul, and upon the life. They will not solemnly investigate the subject, preferring darkness to light. (2) Others are reason proud. In their own estimation they are so wise, so scientific, so learned, that they think themselves independent of a revelation from God. Yet how often, even in their own scientific sphere, do such men mistake fancy for fact, and substance for shadow. (3) The secret and substantial cause of this repugnance on the part of many to Divine things lies also in the condition into which sin has brought human nature. The Gospel gives a humiliating estimate of man’ s condition, as being radically corrupt; and its doctrine of redemption from that condition by the merit and sufferings of Christ, also the moral purity of heart and life upon which it insists, if we are ever to know a higher station, these truths are repugnant to the sinful nature of man, and hence he despises them. II. Stupid fascination. “ They worshipped the sun toward the east.” The sun is an object of surpassing glory. It is the most sublime material emblem of God. “ The Lord God is a sun” --as He, the sun, is an object of resistless splendour; it is the source of life, of order, of beauty, of fruitfulness, the bright-eyed monarch of the world, the great wonder worker, seer of all the skies. But it is material and must perish. Adoration of the material and neglect of the spiritual is far too common a practice in our day; but to follow a multitude in evil-doing does not make our sin any the less great. Science and philosophy are all very good when kept in their place. But what will it avail men if they are able to define nature’ s laws, if they know not nature’ s God? What avail if they are familiar with all rocks, yet have never known Him who is “ as the shadow of a great rock in a weary land” ? The laws of nature are “ like so many windows in the dark opaque walls of this world, through which we can have a transient glance at God and eternity . . . But over these windows infidelity draws down the blinds and shuts God out.” In Athens of old the human intellect obtained its most subtle skill, attuned itself to the most perfect music of human expression, and with what result? Did philosophy, art, or science lift the Athenians nearer God? Nay, “ the whole city was given up to idolatry.” Men deified their own works, and corrupted themselves by their worship. The city became like the cesspool of the world, and has tainted the morals of successive centuries. Are nature and art destitute of moral power, then? No; yet they did not make the Athenians holy, gave them no victory over themselves, brought them no nearer to God. No objects which address themselves merely to the intellect or fancy of man can do this. Man’ s first wants are deeper than these can touch; he has a spirit, a soul, and only as he comes in contact with God’ s Spirit can he rise; no lever but the Gospel can effectually lift up humanity. Let us first give our hearts to God, and then by Nature, as well as by Scripture, He will give us much instruction concerning Himself. He will “ speak to us in every primrose and daisy, and whisper to us in every breath of morning air.” Demosthenes may have his inferior orations; Shakespeare his inferior histories, comedies, or tragedies; and Milton may fail in his Paradise Regained to equal his Paradise Lost; but God can have no inferior productions: Nature is as perfect as Scripture. Yet God in Christ is alone to be the object of our soul’ s worship, and the great Sacrifice of Calvary the ground of our soul’ s hope. (W. Williams.) To provoke Me to anger.--Greatness of sin 1. The greatness or littleness of sin is to be measured, not by man’ s, but God’ s account of it. “ Is it a light thing to the house of Judah?” They think it so, but it is otherwise. The interrogation sets out the greatness of it. Is it so? no, it is not light, but grievous. 2. To sin where God manifests His presence, and vouchsafes the means of grace and choice mercies, is a great aggravation of sin, and grievous provocation of Divine majesty. 3. Violence is a spreading sin. 4. Injustice is abomination unto God, and the more it spreads, the greater abomination it is. 5. State oppression and church corruption go together. If there be violence in a land, there will be corruptions, pollutions, abominations in the sanctuary. 6. Men’ s intentions to please God oft prove provocations of God. They intended not to provoke God, but returned in their apprehensions to worship God in the temple, and to please Him; not their purpose, but the event was the provocation. So in verse 6, their abominations drave God far from the sanctuary. They did not purpose and intend to drive God away, but that was the event and issue of their actions, with which they thought they pleased God. (W. Greenhill, M. A.) . Ezekiel 9:1-2 One man among them was clothed with linen.Christ the Commander of the angels 1. Elect Jews under the law were saved by the mediatorial work of Christ incarnate, as we are under the Gospel. Christ frequently appeared as man, intimating thereby His future incarnation, and that that nature must concur to the making up of His mediatorship: He did not mediate for them as God, for us as man; but He mediated then as man promised, now He mediates as man manifested. 2. The Lord Christ is the chief commander of all angelical and human forces. He was in the midst of these six military angels that were to bring in the Chaldean forces at the several gates of the city; He was their General. 3. When judgments are abroad, and the godly are in danger, Christ mediates and intercedes for them. 4. Christ hath a special care of His in times of trouble; He appears with an inkhorn to write down what is said and done against them, to make known the mind of God to them, to seal and discriminate them from others. 5. Those who are upon great and public designs should begin with God, and consult with Him. These seven here go in and stand by the altar, inquire of God what His pleasure is. So have the worthies of God done (Ezra 8:21). 6. Those who are employed by the Lord must be careful that they countenance no corruptions in worship. Neither Christ nor the angels would come at the false altar, which Ahaz had caused to be set up; but they go to God’ s altar, the brazen altar; by this they stood, not the other. 7. In times of judgment, as God discountenances false worship, so He discovers and countenances His own way of worship. (W. Greenhill, M. A.) With a writer’ s inkhorn.--The man with the inkhorn (to young men):--This man with the inkhorn may stand for a class--the whole class of writers and literary men. I would start from the position that the powers of literature belong of right to Jesus Christ, and that literature is included among those things of which Paul said to the Christian man: “ All are yours, for ye are Christ’ s, and Christ is God’ s.” I. The close relation that exists between Christianity and literature.1. One fact that meets us on the very threshold is this, that, humanly speaking, the Bible itself is a literary product. Had there been no such thing as literature there never could have been a Bible; for no one would have been able either to write or to read. As our Lord Jesus glorified the human body by His inhabitation of it in the Incarnation, so we may say literature is transfigured and glorified by this special inhabitation of the Divine Spirit in the books of the Old and New Testaments. 2. But, passing beyond the pages of the Bible, we see again how Christ-loving men have used the powers of literature for the advancement of God’ s kingdom in the world. In the early days of the Church, Christianity owed very much to the literary gifts of men like Origen and Chrysostom, Tertullian and Augustine. And when we see the great days of the Reformation dawning upon Europe, there is no doubt that we must associate that marvellous spiritual revival with the previous Revival of Letters. Luther was indebted for his knowledge of Greek to those Greek scholars who, after the Fall of Constantinople, came flocking to the West, and who spread abroad that interest in the Greek language and literature which by and by sent men back once more to the neglected pages of the Greek New Testament. And so we see Luther sitting all alone through the midnight hours in his high tower of the Wartburg Castle, in the very heart of the great Thuringian Forest. Before him lies his open Bible, and from the closest study of its pages he is seeking to apprehend the very mind of his Lord. When I was in the Wartburg some years ago I was shown the place on the wall which was struck by the famous inkhorn that Luther flung at the Devil. Luther did discomfit the devil with an inkhorn; but it was by that translation of the Bible which came from his pen, and which is still one of the masterpieces of German literature, and by those other writings which shook the hearts of men like a mighty trumpet blast, and destroyed, in most European lauds, the awful domination of Rome. 3. But, when we speak of literature, we have to go beyond the Bible, and beyond all purely religious writings. We have to think of that great world of books which includes history and science, philosophy, poetry, and fiction. And may we not say that the best books in those various departments, whether written by Christian men or not, are all of them full of facts and principles that really illustrate and corroborate the teaching of the Bible? II. Some friendly counsels which are suggested by this subject.1. First, let me put the old apostolic injunction which Paul addressed to a young friend, “ Give attendance to reading.” All around us there is a great and growing devotion to athletic interests, which threatens in many cases to swallow up all interests of a higher kind. Now, bodily exercise is profitable, without doubt; but it cannot be profitable to exercise the body until we have no time or strength left for the cultivation of the mind. You must read diligently, eagerly, carefully, if you would enlarge and enrich and strengthen your mind. And let me exhort you here to begin to form a little library of your own as early as possible. Do not be content with borrowing books, but have your favourite authors around you in your own room. “ A young man,” says one, “ may lodge in a very small room. But what do you mean by a small room? When I go into a young man’ s room, and see on the wall a shelf of books; when I take down Shakespeare, or Dante, or Tennyson, or Carlyle, I do not know the size of that room. The walls are nothing, for that man holds the ends of the earth. For every taste like literature, or art, or science, or philosophy, is a window in the smallest room, and through the windows a man can see anything, right on to the throne of God.” 2. Next, I would say, take heed what you read. The world is full of bad books, as well as of good books, for the man with the inkhorn, in not a few cases, has sold himself to the service of the Devil. Beware of bad books! If a book fills your mind with evil thoughts, or leaves a bad taste in your mouth, cast it from you at once. Why should a man feed his soul on filth and garbage, when he is free to walk through the garden of the Lord, plucking all manner of pleasant fruits? And, apart from what is positively bad, do not spend too much time on what is scrappy or ephemeral. There are diversities of gifts, and diversities of taste. Provided you confine yourself to what is wholesome, whatever interests you most will be likely to profit you most. But do not forget that the Bible must come first. 3. Let me remind you that, as Christian young men, you should consecrate to Christ all the knowledge that you gain, and should use it as far as possible for the benefit of others. Remember, after all, that life is more than literature, and that Christianity is greater even than the Bible. Mohammedanism is the religion of a book, for above Mohammed himself stands the Koran. But Christianity is not the religion of a book: it is the religion of a life. Jesus Christ Himself is the Alpha and Omega of it, and it is love to Jesus, loyalty to Jesus, the service of Jesus, that are the true marks of a Christian. (J. G. Lambert, B. D.) The writer’ s inkhorn No one ever had such Divine dreams as Ezekiel. In a vision this prophet had seen wrathful angels, destroying angels, each with a sword, but in my text he sees a merciful angel with an inkhorn. The receptacle for the ink in olden time was made out of the horn of a cow, or a ram, or a roebuck, as now it is made out of metal or glass, and therefore was called the inkhorn, as now we say inkstand. We have all spoken of the power of the sword, of the power of wealth, of the power of office, of the power of social influence, but today I speak of the power for good or evil in the inkstand. It is a fortress, an armoury, a gateway, a ransom, or a demolition. “ You mistake,” says someone, “ it is the pen that has the power.” No, my friend; what is the influence of a dry pen? Pass it up and down a sheet of paper, and it leaves no mark. It expresses no opinion. It gives no warning. It spreads no intelligence. It is the liquid which the pen dips out of the inkstand that does the work. Here and there a celebrated pen, with which a Magna Charta or a Declaration of Independence, or a treaty was signed, has been kept in literary museum or national archives, but for the most part the pens have disappeared, while the liquid which the pens took from the inkstand remains in scrolls which, if put together, would be large enough to enwrap the round world.1. First, I mention that which is purely domestic. The inkstand is in every household. It awaits the opportunity to express affection or condolence or advice. Father uses it; mother uses it; the sons and daughters use it. It tells the home news; it announces the marriage, the birth, the departure, the accident, the last sickness, the death. That home inkstand, what a mission it has already executed, and what other missions will it yet fulfil! May it stand off from all insincerity and all querulousness. Oh, ye who have with recent years set up homes of your own! out of the new home inkstand write often to the old folks, if they be still living. A letter means more to them than to us, who are amid the activities of life, and to whom postal correspondence is more than we can manage. As the merciful angel of my text appeared before the brazen altar with the inkhorn at his side in Ezekiel’ s vision, so let the angel of filial kindness appear at the altars of the old homestead. 2. Furthermore, the inkstand of the business man has its mission. Between now and the hour of your demise, O commercial man, O professional man, there will not be a day when you cannot dip from the inkhorn a message that will influence temporal and eternal destiny. There is a rash young man running into wild speculation, and with as much ink as you can put on the pen at one time you may save him from the Niagara rapids of a ruined life. On the next street there is a young man started in business, who through lack of patronage, or mistake in purchase of goods, or want of adaptation, is on the brink of collapse. One line of ink from your pen will save him from being an underling all his life, and start him on a career that will win him a fortune which will enable him to become an endower of libraries, an opener of art galleries, and builder of churches. 3. Furthermore, great are the responsibilities of the author’ s inkhorn. When a bad book is printed you do well to blame the publisher, but most of all blame the author. The malaria rose from his inkstand. The poison that caused the moral or spiritual death dropped in the fluid from the tip of his pen. But blessed be God for the author’ s inkhorn in ten thousand studies which are dedicated to pure intelligence, highest inspiration, and grandest purpose. They are the inkstands out of which will be dipped the redemption of the world. The destroying angels with their swords seen in Ezekiel’ s vision will be finally overcome by the merciful angel with the writer’ s inkhorn. Among the most important are the editorial and reportorial inkstands. You have all seen what is called indelible ink, which is a weak solution of silver nitrate, and that ink you cannot rub out or wash out. Put it there, and it stays. Well, the liquid of the editorial and reportorial inkstands is an indelible ink. It puts upon the souls of the passing generations characters of light or darkness that time cannot wash out and eternity cannot efface. Be careful how you use it. While you recognise the distinguished ones who have dipped into the inkstand of the world’ s evangelisation, do not forget that there are hundreds of thousands of unknown men and women who are engaged in inconspicuous ways doing the same thing! How many anxious mothers writing to the boys in town! How many sisters writing encouragement to brothers far away! How many bruised and disappointed and wronged souls of earth would be glad to get a letter from you! Stir up that consolatory inkhorn. All Christendom has been waiting for great revivals of religion to start from the pulpits and prayer meetings. I now suggest that the greatest revival of all time may start from a concerted and organised movement through the inkhorns of all Christendom, each writer dipping from the inkhorn nearest him a letter of Gospel invitation, Gospel hope, Gospel warning, Gospel instruction. The other angels spoken of in my text were destroying angels, and each had what the Bible calls a “ slaughter weapon” in his hand. It was a lance, or a battle axe, or a sword. God hasten the time when the last lance shall be shivered, and the last battle axe dulled, and the last sword sheathed, never again to leave the scabbard, and the angel of the text, who Matthew Henry says was the Lord Jesus Christ, shall from the full inkhorn of His mercy give a saving call to all nations. That day may be far off, but it is hopeful to think of its coming. Is it not time that the boasted invention of new and more explosive and more widely devastating weapons of death be stopped forever, and the Gospel have a chance, and the question be not asked, How many shots can be fired in a minute? but how many souls may be ransomed in a day? Hail, Thou Mighty Rider of the white horse in the final triumph! Sweep down and sweep by, Thou Angel of the New Covenant, with the inkhorn of the world’ s evangelisation! (T. De Witt Talmage.) Ezekiel 9:3-6 Set a mark upon the foreheads of the men that sigh.The protected people I. God has a people of His own in a world of sinners, who feel for His honour, and desire to sustain His authority. These are the salt of the earth; the preservation of men. Set apart by the Lord, for Himself; made by the Holy Spirit, new creatures in Christ Jesus; standing with His robe of righteousness, complete in Him; instant in prayer; fruitful in holiness; and preferring the reproach of Christ to the treasures of the world; they are at once the ornament and the defence of mankind. And it imports an amazing amount of corruption and guilt in a land, when it is proclaimed that such men can but deliver their own souls, and shall be no longer the instruments to convey Divine blessings to others. These people of God have not sighed in listless idleness, or wept tears of fearful indolence, without an effort to stop the progress of man’ s iniquity. No. They are those who have first done all in active effort which they could do to restrain the wickedness of others; and who now, while they are mourning for their sins, are bearing their testimony with fidelity against them. Jealous for the honour of God, happy in the acceptance of a Saviour, knowing the comforts of the Holy Ghost, believing the revealed responsibility and destiny of sinful men, they long to the end of life for the salvation of the ungodly; and sigh and cry unto God, while they live, over a destruction in which they have no participation, and which men bring wholly upon themselves. II. This people are entirely protected in the destruction which God brings upon the ungodly. Amidst surrounding ungodliness, the secret of the Lord is with them that fear Him, and He will hide them in His tabernacle, until the danger be overpast. They are marked by His infallible determination, and are sealed by His Spirit unto the day of redemption. Known by the mark of grace--grace which loved them, bought them, found them, brought them back, kept them, and crowned them--they stand before God, sanctified and secured. Happy in their eternal enjoyments. Happy in all their earthly sorrows. Happy, peculiarly in this, that they sighed and cried for the abominations of men, in their zeal for the honour of the Lord of hosts. III. While the people of God are thus distinguished and protected, the destruction of the ungodly will be entire. Long has God endeavoured to lead them to repentance; long has the Saviour stood waiting to receive them; long has the Divine Spirit exerted Himself to bring them back to Christ. And while all this was passing, they might have found a refuge in the Gospel, and have gained eternal life. But now the dispensation of mercy has been closed, and they are left, as they have chosen to be left, to the unbending operation of law. They die without mercy. They perish without redemption. They are destroyed forever. This destruction will begin with those who are most highly favoured with religious privileges. “ Begin at My sanctuary,” says the Lord to the angels of destruction. “ Judgment must begin at the house of God,” says the apostle Peter, as if in reference to this very passage of our text. Neither the pulpit nor the sanctuary; neither profession nor self-complacency shall afford protection to the sinner’ s soul. There is no respect of persons before the tribunal of the living God. The hypocrite shall be unveiled; the false professor shall be exhibited as he is; the self-righteous man shall be held up to view in his own deformities and unrepented sin shall everywhere see the destroying weapon, with an irreversible energy, coming upon itself. (S. H. Tyng, D. D.) The mark of life The mark in this case was, as the Hebrew verb indicates, to be the letter Tau, the oldest form of which, as in Phoenician and earlier Hebrew alphabets, was that of a cross. Such a mark had been in use from the time of the Book of Job, as the equivalent of a signature (Job 31:35); or, as in later Arab use, was branded on sheep and cattle as a sign of ownership. To assume that there was any reference in it to the significance which was to attach to the sign of the cross in Christian symbolism would be, perhaps, too bold a hypothesis; but the fact that such a symbol appeared in the crux ansata (the cross with a handle to it) of Egyptian monuments, as the sign of life, may possibly have determined its selection in this instance, when it was used to indicate those who, as the people of Jehovah, bearing His stamp upon them, were to escape the doom of death passed upon the guilty. (Dean Plumptre.) Safety in time of destruction I. The description here given of those persons whom the man with the writer’ s inkhorn was commanded in the day of wrath to mark upon the forehead. Idolatry, infidelity, mockery of God, appear to have been the principal part--the head and front of Israel’ s offending, and for this the destroyer was sent forth, and the hand of unrelenting, unsparing vengeance commanded to do its work. Are we individually and unfeignedly sighing and crying for England’ s abominations? Are we confessing our sins, and feeling the weight of personal transgressions, and acknowledging the power and faithfulness of God in pardoning and removing them? Are our hearts and hands uplifted for the land we dwell in? Are our voices as loud in prayer to God for mercy towards the guilty as they are to our fellow creatures in reprobation of them? II. What is the nature of that mark to which the prophet in the text refers? We find similar language used by St. John in the Apocalypse (Revelation 7:3-4). Of whatever nature, then, the mark may be, it is expressive of, and a security for preservation. The allusion may be to the ancient custom of branding slaves upon the forehead, by which it was known whose property they were, or probably to that signalising mark of blood seen upon the door post of Israel, in Egypt, which secured them in the hour that the destroying angel smote the first-born of her oppressors. Both ideas may be involved, and from both we shall compound our idea of the mark.1. There will be the blood, the mark of the blood, which blood, sprinkled upon the heart, disarms just vengeance, and secures it against the wrath of God. Is the blood upon your heart?--in plain terms, do you know its character, estimate its worth; rest upon its merits, and consider it as the mark of distinguishing grace and the security for certain preservation? 2. There is the mark of servitude. III. God’ s command to the destroyers. First the man with the inkhorn goes forth to secure God’ s chosen, and then goes forth the command unto the men with the slaughter weapons. “ Begin at My sanctuary,” slay, spare not. Christendom, generally, is His professed house, and England, in peculiar, is His sanctuary. The other nations have tasted a little of these judgments, and war and pestilence and forebodings of fresh evil are now among the bitter ingredients of the Continental cup of vengeance. But the time is come when judgment in her severest form must begin at the house of God--begin with us, and shake with its most appalling force, not merely those institutions which papal and schismatical revenge are bent on destroying, but the imposing fabric of evangelical profession. This sanctuary needs cleansing. This amalgamation of wheat and tares under the common aspect of wholesome grain needs sifting. (H. J. Owen.) The distinguishing signs of the righteous I. The characters described.1. The characters are those who inwardly feel and lament on account of the abominations of men. They thus feel-- (1) From a remembrance of their own former condition.(2) From a sincere concern for the glory of God.(3) From a deep compassion and love to souls. 2. The evidence of this inward feeling for souls. (1) The cry of a godly example.(2) The cry of earnest entreaty and admonition.(3) The cry of fervent prayer for their salvation. II. The mark appointed.1. A mark of distinction.2. A Divine mark.3. This mark is prominent. “ In the forehead.” Grace, in its essence, is secret, but always visible in its effects.4. This mark is essential. III. The deliverance secured.1. From destruction.2. Personal.3. Certain. Application--1. The subject furnishes a test of Christian character. Do we sigh and cry, etc.2. It should be a stimulus to increased exertion.3. Urge upon the exposed sinner the necessity of immediately obtaining the mark. (J. Burns, D. D.) The mark of deliverance When God visits the world, or any part of it, with His desolating judgments, He usually sets a mark of deliverance on such as are suitably affected with the sins of their fellow creatures. I. What is implied in being suitably affected with the sins of our fellow creatures? That we are naturally disposed to be little or not at all affected with the sins of others, unless they tend, either directly or indirectly, to injure ourselves, it is almost needless to remark. If our fellow creatures infringe none of our real or supposed rights, and abstain from such gross vices as evidently disturb the peace of society, we usually feel little concern respecting their sins against God; but can see them following the broad road to destruction with great coolness and indifference, and without making any exertion, or feeling much desire to turn their feet into a safer path. This being the case, it is evident that a very great and radical change must take place in our views and feelings before we can be suitably affected with the sins of our fellow creatures, if the conduct of the persons mentioned in our text is the standard of what is suitable.1. If we fear sin more than the punishment of sin; if we mourn rather for the iniquities than for the calamities which we witness; if we are more grieved to see God dishonoured, His Son neglected, and immortal souls ruined, than we are to see our commerce interrupted, our fellow citizens divided, and our country invaded it is one proof that we resemble the characters mentioned in our text. 2. Being suitably affected with the sins of our fellow creatures implies the diligent exertion, by every means in our power, to reform them. This attempt must be made-- (1) By our example. Men are imitative beings; the force of example is almost inconceivably great, and there is, perhaps, no man so poor or insignificant as not to have some friend or dependant who may be influenced by his example. (2) By our exertions. We must endeavour ourselves, and exert all our influence to induce others, to banish from among us intemperance, profanity, violations of the Sabbath, neglect of religious institutions, and other prevailing sins of the age and country in which we live. (3) By our prayers. Exertion without prayer, and prayer without exertion, are alike presumptuous, and can be considered as only tempting God--and if we neglect either, we have no claim to be numbered among the characters described in our text. 3. Those who are suitably affected with the sins of their fellow creatures will certainly be much more deeply affected with their own. While they smart under the rod of national calamities, they will cordially acknowledge the justice of God, and feel that their own sins have assisted in forming the mighty mass of national guilt. II. On such as are thus affected, God will set a mark of deliverance, when those around them are destroyed by His desolating judgments. This may be inferred--1. From the justice of God. As they have separated themselves from others by their conduct, it requires that a mark of separation and deliverance should be set upon them by the hand of a righteous God. Hence the plea of Abraham with regard to Sodom, a plea of which God tacitly allowed the force. Witness the preservation of guilty Zoar for the sake of Lot, and the declaration of the destroying angel, I cannot do anything till thou be come thither. 2. From God’ s holiness. As a holy God He cannot but love holiness; He cannot but love His own image; He cannot but love those who love Him. But the characters of whom we are speaking evince by their conduct that they do love God. His cause, His interest, His honour, they consider as their own. A holy God, therefore, will, nay, He must, display His approbation of holiness by placing upon them a mark of distinction. 3. From His faithfulness. God has said, Them that honour Me I will honour. (E. Payson, D. D.) The character of Zion’ s mourners In the text we have two things.1. A party distinguishing themselves from others in a sinning time. And this they do by their exercise, not by any particular name of sect or party, but by their practice. (1) The heavy exercise they have on their spirits at such a time. It is expressed by two words, both passive, importing that there is a load and a weight of grief and sorrow on them: which makes them sigh when others laugh; oppresses their spirits while others go lightly: and makes them cry. The word rather signifies to groan, as a deadly wounded man, who is hardly able to cry (Jeremiah 51:52). (2) The ground of this their heavy exercise, the abominations done in the midst thereof. 2. Here is God’ s distinguishing that party from others in a suffering time, seeing to their safety when the men with the slaughter weapons were to go through. (1) Who gives the orders concerning them: The Lord said. (2) Who gets the orders about them: He that was clothed with linen, having a writer’ s inkhorn by his side. This is Jesus Christ, the Angel of the covenant. He appears here in all His offices: He is among the destroying angels as a king; He is clothed in linen as a priest; He has a writer’ s inkhorn by His side as a prophet. (3) The charge given concerning them. (i) To go through the midst of Jerusalem, the high streets. The mourners would be found there, by their carriage among others, testifying their dislike of the God-provoking abominations abounding among them. (ii) To set a mark upon them. This is to be done before the destroying angels get the word to fall on, to show the special care that God has of His own in the time of the greatest confusion. (iii) To set it in their foreheads. In the Egyptian destruction the mark was set on their door posts, because their whole families were to be saved; but here it was to be set on their foreheads, because it was only designed for particular persons. I. Times of abounding sin are heavy times, times of sighing and groaning to the serious godly, Zion’ s mourners. I am to give the import of this exercise, and therein the character of Zion’ s mourners, to whom times of abounding sin are heavy times, times of sighing and groaning.1. Zion’ s mourners are godly persons, who in respect of their state have come out from the world lying in wickedness, and joined themselves to Jesus Christ (1 John 5:19). 2. Waking godly persons, not sleeping with the foolish virgins. 3. Mourners for their own sins (Ezekiel 7:16). 4. Public spirited persons, who are concerned to know how matters go in the generation wherein they live: how the interest of the Gospel thrives, what regard is had to the law and honour of God, what case religion is in,--whether Satan’ s kingdom is gaining or losing ground. 5. Tender persons, careful to keep their own garments clean in a defiling time, and dare not go along with the course of the times (Revelation 3:4). 6. Zealous persons, opposing themselves to the current of abominations, as they have access (Psalms 69:9). 7. Persons affected at the heart for the sins of the generation, to the making of them sigh and groan on that account before the Lord, when no eye sees but the all-seeing One (Jeremiah 13:17). (1) The abominations done lie cross to the grain and disposition of their souls: otherwise they would not make them sigh and groan. (2) They are a burden to their spirits, as vile and filthy things are to the senses. (3) They are wounds to their hearts, they groan like wounded men (Jeremiah 15:18). (4) Their grief vents itself in sighs and groans, as native indications of the affections of their hearts (2 Corinthians 5:4). II. Why such times are heavy times, times of sighing and groaning to Zion’ s mourners.1. Because of the dishonour they see done to God by these abominations (Psalms 69:9). 2. Because of the wounds they see given to religion and the interest of Christ by these abominations, and the advantage they see accruing to the interest of the devil and his kingdom thereby (Romans 2:24). (1) An arrow of grief for the loss on Christ’ s side.(2) An arrow of grief for the gain on the devil’ s side. 3. Because of the fearful risk they see the sinners themselves run by these their abominations (Psalms 119:53). 4. Because of the contagion to others they see ready to spread from these abominations (Matthew 18:7; Ecclesiastes 9:1-18). 5. Because of the judgments of God which they see may be brought upon those yet unborn, by reason of these abominations. Hence says the prophet (Hosea 9:13-14). 6. Because of the Lord’ s displeasure with the generation for these abominations (Jeremiah 15:1). 7. Because of the common calamity in which they see these abounding abominations may involve themselves and the whole land. (T. Boston, D. D.) Mourning for other men’ s sins I. It is a duty. If we are by the prescript of God to bewail in confession the sins of our forefathers, committed before our being in the world, certainly much more are we to lament the sins of the age wherein we live, as well as our own (Leviticus 26:40).1. This was the practice of believers in all ages. Seth called the name of his son, which was born at the time of the profaning the name of God in worship, Enos, which signifies sorrowful or miserable, that he might in the sight of his son have a constant monitor to excite him to an holy grief for the profaneness and idolatry that entered into the worship of God (Genesis 4:26). The rational and most precious part of Lot was vexed with the unlawful deeds of the generation of Sodom, among whom he lived (2 Peter 2:7-8). The meekest man upon earth, with grief and indignation breaks the tables of the law when he sees the holiness of it broken by the Israelites, and expresseth more his regret for that, than his honour for the material stones, wherein God had with His own finger engraven the orders of His will. David; a man of the greatest goodness upon record, had a deluge of tears, because they kept not God’ s law (Psalms 119:136). Besides his grief, which was not a small one, horror seized upon him upon the same account (Psalms 119:53). How doth poor Isaiah bewail himself, and the people among whom he lived (Isaiah 6:5). Perhaps such as could hardly speak a word without an oath, or by hypocritical lip service, mocked God in the very temple. 2. It was our Saviour’ s practice. He sighed in His spirit for the incredulity of that generation, when they asked a sign, after so many had been presented to their eyes (Mark 8:12). The hardness of their hearts at another time raised His grief as well as His indignation (Mark 3:5). He was sensible of the least dishonour to His Father (Psalms 69:9). He wept at Jerusalem’ s obstinacy, as well as for her misery, and that in the time of His triumph. The loud hosannas could not silence His grief, and stop the expressions of it (Luke 19:41). 3. Angels, as far as they are capable, have their grief for the sins of men. They can scarce rejoice at men’ s repentance without having a contrary affection for men’ s profaneness. How can they be instruments of God’ s justice if they are without anger against the deservers of it? II. It is an acceptable duty to God.1. It is a fulfilling the whole law, which consists of love to God and love to our neighbours. (1) It is a high testimony of love to God. The nature of true love is to wish all good to them we love, to rejoice when any good we wish doth arrive unto them, to mourn when any evil afflicts them, and that with a respect to the beloved object. (2) Nothing can evidence our love to man more than a sorrowful reflection upon that wickedness which is the ruin of his soul, the disturbance of human society, and unlocks the treasures of God’ s judgments to fall upon mankind. 2. It is an imitating return for God’ s affection. The pinching of His people doth most pierce His heart; a stab to His honour, in gratitude, should most pierce theirs. 3. This temper justifies God’ s law and His justice. It justifies the holiness of the law in prohibiting sin, the righteousness of the law in condemning sin; it owns the sovereignty of God in commanding, and the justice of God in punishing. 4. It is a sign of such a temper God hath evidenced Himself in Scripture much affected with. A sign of a contrite heart, the best sacrifice that can smoke upon His altar, next to that of His Son. III. It is a means of preservation from public judgments.1. Sincerity always escapes best in common judgments, and this temper of mourning for public sins is the greatest note of it. 2. This frame clears us from the guilt of common sins. To mourn for them, and pray against them, is a sign we would have prevented them if it had lain in our power; and where we have contributed to them, we, by those acts, revoke the crime. 3. A grief for common sins is an endeavour to repair the honour God has lost. When we concern ourselves for God’ s honour, God will concern Himself for our protection. God never was, or ever will be, behind-hand with His creature in affection. 4. The mourners in Sion are humble, and humility is preventive of judgments. God revives the spirit of the humble (Isaiah 57:15). They that share in the griefs of the Spirit shall not want the comforts of the Spirit. 5. Such keep covenant with God. The contract runs on God’ s part to be an enemy to His people’ s enemies (Exodus 23:22). It must run on our parts to love that which God loves, hate that which God hates, grieve for that which grieves and dishonours Him; who can do this by an unconcernedness? 6. Such also fear God’ s judgments, and fear is a good means to prevent them. The advice of the angel upon the approach of judgments is to fear God, and give glory to Him (Revelation 14:7). IV. The use.1. Reproof for us. Where is the man that hangs his harp upon the willows at the time the temple of God is profaned? It reproves, then-- (1) Those that make a mock and sport of sin, so far they are from mourning for it. (2) Those that make others’ sins the matter of invectives, rather than of lamentations, and bespatter the man without bewailing the sin. (3) Those who are imitators of common sins, instead of being mourners for them; as though others did not pilfer God’ s right fast enough, and were too slow in pulling Him from His throne; as if they grieved that others had got the start of them in wickedness. (4) Those that fret against God, instead of fretting against their own foolishness (Proverbs 19:3). (5) Those who are more transported against others’ sins, as they are, or may be, occasions of hurt to them, than as they are injuries to God. (6) Those who are so far from mourning for common sins that they never truly mourned for their own; who have yet the treasures of wickedness, after the rod of God hath been upon them (Micah 6:9-10). 2. Of comfort to such as mourn for common sins. All the carnal world hath not such a writ of protection to show in the whole strength of nature, as the meanest mourner in Sion hath in his sighs and tears. Christ’ s mark is above all the shields of the earth; and those that are stamped with it have His wisdom to guard them against folly, His power against weakness, the everlasting Father against man, whose breath is in his nostrils. 3. Mourn for the sins of the time and place where you live. It is the least dislike we can show to them. A flood of grief becomes us in a flood of sin. (1) This is a means to have great tokens of the love of God. (2) It is a means to prevent judgments. Tears cleansed by the blood of Christ are a good means to quench that justice which is a consuming fire. (S. Charnock, B. D.) Christian humiliation I. Some of the grounds we have for humiliation before God, for sighing and crying, because of iniquity. God is entitled to the love and service which He receives from us. He made us, and in requiring that we should devote those powers and faculties with which He has endowed us, to Himself and to His service, He only requires that property which is His own, and which should be employed in a way that is agreeable to the great Author and Owner of that property. Jehovah is also infinitely worthy of the supreme love and devoted obedience of His people. He is possessed of every possible perfection--He is distinguished by every moral excellence in a degree that is infinite. God has also been exceedingly kind to us. He has heaped upon us unnumbered benefits. He supplies our daily, our hourly, wants, and He has not only made provision for us in time, but at the expense of His own Son’ s life; He has provided also for our eternal happiness. Besides all this, the service to which God calls us is not only obedience to which He has a right, but it is also obedience of a kind that is calculated to confer upon those who render it the highest degree of satisfaction. This, then, being the case, this the relation in which we stand to God, these the benefits we have received at His hand, this the nature and character of the service He demands from us, how utterly inexcusable on our part any kind, any degree, of transgression! One transgression is directly opposed to the nature of His kingdom. Thus, then, have we ample grounds of humiliation were we this day chargeable in the sight of God, with having only once deviated from the moral path of God. But, oh! how often have we wandered from it! Never once have we given to God the holy sense of love He is entitled to receive at our hands. Every moment of our conscious or waking existence we have been guilty of coming short of what it was our imperious duty to have rendered. But besides these shortcomings which have been thus innumerous, oh! how numerous, and also how aggravated our actual positive transgressions! Seek, oh! seek the contrition, the humiliation of soul, which a sense of sin ought to inspire. But besides iniquities within, do not iniquities also prevail around us, of a very heinous and aggravated character; iniquities in a high degree insulting to the name of God; iniquities in a high degree calculated, if we would have the Lord’ s indignation averted, and if we would be distinguished by the state of mind with which such prevailing iniquities should be contemplated by us all, to lead us to sigh and cry because of them? II. A mark is still stamped upon every child of God. They have the impress of God’ s own image upon their character,--they have those moral lineaments of character stamped upon them by which God Himself is distinguished; they are thus marked as Jehovah’ s property, as in a very peculiar and special manner His own; and, regarding all such, it may unhesitatingly be affirmed, that because of prevailing abominations they sigh and cry. Oh! how desirous that we should seek to have the spirit that is here adverted to by the Lord! Is calamity at any great distance from us? Are there no threatening clouds lowering above us? (J. Marshall, M. A.) The care of Christ over His mourners I. God at all times narrowly inspects the state of His Church. “ Go through the midst of the city,” etc. His eyes are in every place, but especially upon the Church, His pleasant land, from the one end of the year to the other. He distinguishes with an accuracy peculiar to Himself, her true members from hypocrites. He knows her enemies, and restrains or destroys them. He knows when her members are in right exercise, and when they are in the wrong. How should this inspire fear and reverence, faith and hope, simplicity and godly sincerity in all her members! II. Christ’ s principal work is in the Church. Christ is head over all things, for His Church, which is His body, the fulness of Him that filleth all in all. He worketh as God in all places, but the particular sphere of His work is in His Church. He executes all His offices in her, and nowhere else, and He has appointed ordinances as tokens of His gracious presence with His people. III. Christ’ s errands to His Church are generally in mercy. “ Set a mark upon the foreheads,” etc. There are indeed exceptions to this rule. Sometimes He comes to unhinge her constitution, to remove His ordinances, to bid a farewell to her, and to execute His judgments upon her, as in the case of the Jewish Church afterwards, and of the seven Churches of Asia. His design, notwithstanding these and other instances, is to save and deliver, when He cometh to His Church. He is the Saviour of His body, the Church, and all He doth for her is for her eternal advantage. IV. In times of great and general defection God has a mourning remnant. He had so at Jerusalem at the time specified, wicked as it was. These were few in number, and unknown to the prophet, perhaps unknown to the angels, and to one another; but they were known to Christ. He found them out, and it was His delightful work to signalise His mercy, and the mercy of His Father, in setting a mark upon their foreheads. He is infinite in wisdom, and cannot commit a mistake; He is infinite in power, and nothing can obstruct His design of mercy towards His own elect. These mourners may be few in number, but they are reckoned by Christ as equal, and superior to a generation of other men. They are sometimes a third part, sometimes a tenth, and at other times as a few berries on the top of the uppermost branches; but still these few are mourners. V. Sin is always hateful to a holy soul. He sighs and cries for it. Every good man, like Hannibal against the Romans, has sworn eternal war against sin. It is bitter to him, because contrary to the nature, the will, and the law of that God whom he supremely esteems and loves; because it killed the Lord Jesus, and grieves the Holy Spirit of God. It is bitter in his heart, in his closet, in his family, in all places and circumstances. VI. Saints not only hate sin, but sigh and cry for it. The first refers to the affection of mind, and the last to the expressions of it in tears and other signs of grief. Grief for sin made the saints in Scripture water their couch with tears, to eat no pleasant bread, to keep them waking, to make them roll in dust, because God was dishonoured, and sin was committed by themselves and others. Alas! how few are now found in such exercise! VII. Good men mourn, not only for their own sins, but for all the abominations done in the midst of the land. They grieve, first for their own sins, and then for the sins of others. It were rank hypocrisy to invert this order; to do so is insufferable in the eyes of God and man. They who live in sin, who never grieve for their own sins, and yet pretend to bewail public crimes, are most detestable characters. As far as the knowledge of sin extends, good men loathe and grieve for it. When robberies, murders, and other crimes which tend to dissolve society are committed, when the sword of the magistrate is stretched forth in vain, then it is time for God to work, and for saints to be dreadfully afraid of His judgments. VIII. In times of judgments for sin, God generally sets a mark upon his mourning remnant. He did so here, and in other instances innumerable. He is the guardian of the Church, the protector of the poor. He issues out a writ of protection in their favour, as in the 91st Psalm. He invites them to flee from danger, as in Isaiah 26:1-21. He delivers the island of the innocent, He saves His righteous Lots in the destruction of the wicked. His Calebs and Joshuas live still. His fruit-bearing trees are spared, while the barren trees are struck with His lightning. (Christian Magazine.) Godly sorrow for abounding iniquity I. When, or upon what occasions, the exercise of godly sorrow for sin is in a peculiar manner seasonable.1. When transgressors are very numerous; when the body of a people is corrupted. 2. The call becomes still more pressing when transgressors are not only numerous, but likewise bold and impudent; sinning, as Absalom did, “ before all Israel, and in the sight of the sun.” This is fatal presage of approaching vengeance; for God will not always tolerate such insolent contempt of His authority. 3. Especially when sinners are not only numerous and impudent, but likewise guilty of those grossest abominations which in former ages have been followed with the most tremendous judgments. If you read the Scriptures you will find that profane swearing, perjury, contempt of the Sabbath, theft, murder, and adultery are all of this kind. 4. When the persons that commit them are resolute and incorrigible. When the wicked are forewarned of their sin and danger; when, by the preaching of the Word, their duty is plainly and faithfully set before them; when they are exhorted by others and rebuked by their own consciences; when they are smitten with such rods as bear the most legible signature of their crimes; or when, in a milder way, they are admonished and warned by the punishments inflicted upon others for the same crimes; when, after all or any of these means employed to reclaim them, they still hold fast their iniquities, and will not let them go: then should the godly lament and mourn, and pray with redoubled earnestness for those miserable creatures who have neither the ingenuity nor the wisdom to pray for themselves. II. A few obvious remarks relative to the time and place in which our lot is cast. It is too apparent to be denied, that the vices I mentioned under the former head, intemperance, lewdness, the most insolent abuse of the Christian Sabbath, lying, cursing, and even perjury itself, are more or less practised in every corner of the land. However, as they cannot be strictly accounted the peculiar reproach of the present age, I shall remind you of some other instances of departure from God which, with greater and more evident propriety, may be termed the distinguishing characteristics of the times in which we live.1. I begin with Infidelity, which of late hath spread itself through all orders of men, the lowest not excepted. 2. Again, is there not a visible contempt of the authority of God? 3. Further, we seem, in a great measure, to have lost any proper sense of our dependence upon God. “ When His hand is lifted up we do not see.” We forget Him in prosperity; and in adversity we look no higher than the creature. 4. To all these I must add the luxury and sensuality which have now spread their roots and branches so wide that they may truly be said to fill the whole land. Pleasure is at length become a laborious study; and with many, I am afraid, it is their only study: for it leaves them no room to pursue any other. While the poor are striving, while many who are willing to labour can find no employment, and not a few have abandoned their native country to seek that sustenance in foreign parts which they could not earn at home; still is pleasure pursued with increasing ardour, and no price is deemed extravagant that can purchase an addition to it. III. A few of the genuine symptoms and proper effects of the gracious temper I mean to recommend.1. We can never be assured that our grief for the sins of others is pure, and of the right kind, unless our hearts be duly affected with grief and sorrow for our own transgressions. Godly sorrow is just and impartial; it always begins at home, and makes few visits abroad, till domestic sins are first bewailed. 2. Our grief is of the right kind when it leads us to pray for transgressors: and when it hath not this effect, we have not only cause to suspect, but may conclude, without hesitation, that it is spurious and counterfeit. 3. Our grief for the sins of others, if pure and genuine, will be accompanied with proper endeavours to reclaim them. Every true mourner will consider himself as “ his brother’ s keeper,” and will leave no means unattempted to prevent his ruin. He will set his guilt and danger before him in the most prudent and affecting manner he can; and though he meet with many repulses, nay, though his labour of love should be requited with scorn and hatred, yet he will repeat his application again and again, and take hold of every favourable opportunity that presents itself. 4. If we are in truth possessed of this gracious temper, if our grief for abounding iniquity flows from the pure fountain of love to God, and zeal for His glory, we shall own His cause in the most perilous times, and reckon nothing too dear to be hazarded in His service. We must be doing in a humble dependence upon His grace; and then we may both ask, and hope to obtain, His blessing upon our endeavours. But if we pray, and sit still; if we lie howling upon our beds, when we should be abroad at our labour, we offend God instead of pleasing Him, and can look for no other answer but this, “ Who hath required these things at your hand?” (R. Walker.) Mourning over the sins of the city I. The persons mentioned. Those that sigh and cry, etc. From whence we may observe, that such persons there are that do so, and it is their duty so to do, even to sigh and cry for the abominations, all of them, that are done in the midst of the city.1. Out of their inward hatred and antipathy, even to sin itself. 2. Out of love to God, and a tenderness of His honour and glory. 3. Out of respect to themselves, and their own advantage. The more sin there is abroad, the more are all men concerned in it; not only evil men but good, who are from hence in so much the greater danger; and that in a twofold respect, both as to matter of defilement and of punishment. They are more in danger from hence to be polluted, and they are more in danger from hence to be afflicted; and this makes them to be so much troubled at it. 4. The servants of God have herein also a respect to others, even sometimes to wicked men themselves, whom considered as men they lament for, while they are guilty of such and such miscarriages. Those that cannot mourn for themselves, through the obstinacy of themselves; yet they have in those cases others better than themselves to mourn for them. (1) Here are the expressions of sorrow, and they are two, “ sighing” and “ crying.” The first signifies such a mourning as is more secret, and retired in itself. The second signifies such a mourning as is more open, and exposed to observation. Both of them such as are agreeable to the occasion and business here in hand. Those that are the servants of God, they do both of them upon these occasions; they do both inwardly conceive grief and also they do outwardly express it. The second is the occasion of these expressions, and that is the abominations that are committed. That which is abominable should especially be abominated by us. The third thing is the extent of the commission, both in the word of universality, all; and of place, in the midst of the city. This shows how far these abominations had spread, and what footing they had got amongst them as matter of just bewailing and lamentation to them. II. A special care or regard which is had of them. Go and set a mark upon the foreheads of them that, etc.1. It is a mark of honour and observation; such persons as these are, they are highly esteemed and accounted of by God Himself. 2. It is a mark of preservation likewise, and that especially; it is such a mark as whereby God does distinguish them from other persons in the execution of His judgments, which He does graciously exempt them from. Now, the reason of God’ s indulgence to such persons as are thus affected is especially upon this account-- (1) Because they are such as do more especially honour God, and glorify Him, both in His attributes and providence; and those that honour Him He will honour, and He will also protect. (2) Such as these, they do close, and comply with Him in the way of His judgment; therefore He will be more gracious to them. They come off to Him in those ends which He propounds to Himself in His visitations, and so prevent Him, and save Him a labour. And God loves not at all to afflict more than needs must. III. There are divers sorts of persons in the world, which come short of this duty.1. Those that practise the abominations are far enough from mourning for them, and so consequently far enough from this privilege here mentioned in the text, of having a mark set upon them. 2. Such that do encourage others in wickedness, and not only not restrain them, but rather countenance them, and further them in it. 3. Which is a lower degree of it, which do not lay the sins and abominations to their heart, which are not humbled for them, when it concerns them, and becomes them to be. As we desire that God should not judge us, it concerns us to judge ourselves. (T. Herren, D. D.) The safety mark in troublous times I. The search.1. It is no surface search which God institutes. Were it so, who would not have “ the mark” ? how few would there be on whom “ the slaughter weapon” shall do its work. 2. It is a house search whereby we must be proved. Look well to what goes on within thy habitation, if thou wouldst have “ the slaughter weapon” pass and touch thee not. Hath God His altar in thy house, so that thy family cannot be classed amongst those “ that call not on His name” ? Is the Word of God read within thy walls, and is that Word made the court of decision from which there is no appeal? It is a heart search. God “ trieth the reins and the heart.” It was the sad confession of one, at an hour, too, when he needed every stay, “ that though he had kept up the profession of religion in his house, he had never had the reality of it in his heart.” Let not this conviction be yours. “ Keep thy heart with all diligence.” II. The sigh and the cry. “ Set a mark on the foreheads of the men that sigh and cry for all the abominations that be done,” etc. Men account those as poor and pitiful that, looking for the signs of the times, are solemnised at heart, because of “ the things that are coming on the earth” ; but grant me, O Lord! the contrite heart, “ the sigh and the cry” for the evil that is in the world. This attracts the eye of God.1. This disposition of mind includes an insight into sin, some perception of the mystery of iniquity; such see that with all the fair surface sin presents, it is hateful in God’ s sight, ruinous to the soul in which it dwells, that it is of hell, and leads to hell. 2. Love of God, and hence desire for His glory, is the mainspring of that grief of heart spoken of in our text. 3. Know we this blessed sorrow, this “ sigh and cry” of our text? Loud are the calls for it; do they find an answer within us? III. The safety mark. “ Set a mark.”1. This is the protecting mark which men should seek in troublous times. The world hath its places of safety, its towers of strength, its carnal weapons, its wise plans, but “ like a dream when one awaketh,” so do these disappear, and fail them in the hour of need. 2. This mark is indelible, it cannot be taken away. Kings have their marks, their orders of merit, their distinctions and titles to distribute, but a breath of popular outbreak may sweep them all away. Death certainly removes them, breaks the staff of office, “ man being in honour abideth not” ; but this safety mark of which our text speaks, who shall deprive us of? 3. It shall be recognised and acknowledged at the last day. Woes may come on the earth, but they cannot injure you; death shall come, but it shall prove life to you; the judgment day shall but gather you to glory. (F. Storr, M. A.) God’ s care of His people in time of peril 1. The Lord looks upon the world with a discriminating eye; some He looks upon to be marked, and some to be left unmarked. His eye distinguisheth between the precious and the vile (Psalms 34:15-16). 2. When the Lord proceeds to judgment of cities, churches, people, kingdoms, He doth it judiciously, considerately. He doth not pour out wrath from heaven at all adventures, let it light where and upon whom it will; but He makes inquiry who are fit to be punished, and who are to be spared. 3. In the worst times God hath some who are faithful, and serve Him. God had His Huss, Jerome of Prague, and Luther, in times bad enough. 4. The number of men to be saved in Jerusalem is few. 5. The Lord hath a special care of His saints when dreadful and destroying judgments are coming upon others. (1) From the person employed to do it, and that is the Lord Christ, who was the man with the inkhorn by His side. When God shall employ not a prophet, not an angel, but His own dear Son, to do this work, to mark the godly, it is argument of tender care towards them. (2) He must “ go through the midst of the city,” and look into every place, make an exact search, and find them out wherever they were hid; God would not have Him neglect any place, lest He should pass by any saint. (3) He must surely mark them. You shall sign them with a sign, that is, certainly sign them; the doubling of the word in the original notes God’ s intention and care to have it done. (4) From the persons sealed-- (i) Men. It is put indefinitely, not confined to noble, wise, rich, learned, but any condition of men that were godly; any poor man, any servant, any child, any little one, let their grace be never so mean, if they had any grace at all, they should have the seal as well as the best. (ii) Mourners.6. It is the Lord Christ who is the marker of the saints. 7. God and Christ are not ashamed of theirs in the worst times and greatest dangers. 8. The faithful are so far from complying with the wickedness of the times, that they sigh and cry for the abominations thereof. (W. Greenhill, M. A.) Christians a living protest against sin I. God’ s people described.1. They are sighing ones, sorrowing.2. They are crying ones, protesting. II. Their peculiar mark, a mark of--1. Separation.2. Service.3. A visible mark.4. A mark of safety. (W. W. Whythe.) Let not your eye spare, neither have ye pity. Retribution I. The chief distinction between men is moral. Upon what principle were these two divisions (verses 4, 5) made?1. Not unreasoning caprice.2. Not any material characteristics. 3. Not any mental qualities.4. Simply the moral character. The “ great gulf fixed” is the spiritual difference between the impenitent and the devout, the selfish and the loving, the Christly and the Christless. II. The results of this distinction are tremendous. To be on the wrong side of this dividing line meant to be doomed to the six slayers, and means ever destruction. Lust is a fare, love of money is a cancer, intemperance is a flood, self-love is a petrifaction; and these are ever burning or eating out or drowning or hardening the manhood of sinners. And there is, moreover, “ the second death.” Goodness is safety now, and forever. III. The Divine superintendence of human destiny is perfect. Every detail of this judgment was given by God. Through Him the angel knew whom to seal, and the others knew whom to slay. So is it ever; the arrangements for man’ s retributive future are securely safe, because--1. The moral character and condition now are conspicuous. The seal is on the forehead. 2. The arrangement is Divine. There can be no mistake or injustice. (Urijah R. Thomas.) Ezekiel 9:8I was left.Spared I. A pathetic reflection, which seems to invite us to take a solemn retrospect - “ I was left.” You remember, many of you, times of sickness. You walked among the graves, but you did not stumble into them. Fierce and fatal maladies lurked in your path, but they were not allowed to devour you. The bullets of death whistled by your ears, and yet you stood alive, for his bullet had no billet for your heart. “ I was left” --preserved, great God, when many others perished; sustained, Standing on the rock of life when the waves of death dashed about me, the spray fell heavy upon me, and my body was saturated with disease and pain, yet am I still alive--permitted still to mingle with the busy tribes of men. Now, then, what does such a retrospect as this suggest? Ought we not each one of us to ask the question, What was I spared for? Why was I left? Was it that mercy might yet visit you--that grace might yet renew your soul? Have you found it so? Say, sinner, in looking back upon the times when you have been left, were you spared in order that you might be saved with a great salvation? Let us change the retrospect and look upon the sparing mercy of God in another light. “ I was left.” You were born of ungodly parents; the earliest words you can recollect were base and blasphemous, too bad to repeat. You grew up, you and your brothers and your sisters, side by side; you filled the home with sin, you went on together in your youthful crimes, and encouraged each other in evil habits. You recollect how one and another of your old comrades died; you followed them to their graves, and your merriment was checked a little while, but it soon broke out again. Then a sister died, steeped to the mouth in infidelity; after that a brother was taken,--he had no hope in his death, all was darkness and despair before him. And so, sinner, thou hast outlived all thy comrades. And now thou art left, sinner; and, blessed be God, it may be you can say, “ Yes, and I am not only left, but I am here in the house of prayer; and if I know my own heart, there is nothing I should hate so much as to live my old life over again.” As you have served the devil through thick and thin, until you came to serve him alone, and your company had all departed, so by Divine grace may you be pledged to Christ--to follow Him, though all the world should despise Him, and to hold on to the end, until, g every professor should be an apostate, it might yet be said of you at the last, “ He was left; he stood alone in sin while his comrades died; and then he stood alone in Christ when his companions deserted him. Thus of you it should ever be said, ‘ He was left.’” This suggests also one more form of the same retrospect. What a special providence has watched over some of us, and guarded our feeble frames! Why are you spared? are you an unconverted man? an unconverted woman? To what end are you spared? Is it that you may at the eleventh hour be saved? God grant it may be so. But art thou a Christian? Then it is not hard for thee to answer the question, Why art thou spared? Tell it out, tell it out, thou aged man; tell the story of that preserving grace which has kept thee up till now. Tell to thy children and to thy children’ s children what a God He is whom thou hast trusted. II. A prospect. “ And I was left.” You and I shall soon pass out of this world into another. This life is, as it were, but the ferry boat; we are being carried across, and we shall soon come to the true shore, the real terra firma, for here there is nothing that is substantial. Great God, shall I stand there wrapped in His righteousness alone, the righteousness of Him who sits my Judge erect upon the judgment seat?--shall I, when the wicked shall cry, “ Rocks hide us, mountains on us fall,” shall this eye look up, shall this face dare to turn itself to the face of Him that sits upon the throne? Shall I stand calm and unmoved amidst universal terror and dismay? shall I be numbered with the goodly company who, clothed with the white linen which is the righteousness of the saints, shall await the shock, shall see the wicked hurled to destruction, and feel and know themselves secure? Shall it be so, or shall I be bound up in a bundle to burn, and swept away forever by the breath of God’ s nostrils, like the chaff driven before the wind? It must be one or the other; which shall it be? III. A terrible contrast. There will be some who will not be left in the sense we have been speaking of, and yet who will be left after another and more dreadful manner. They will be left by mercy, forsaken by hope, given up by friends, and become a prey to the implacable fury, to the sudden, infinite, and unmitigated severity and justice of an angry God. But they will not be left or exempted from judgment, for the sword shall find them out, the vials of Jehovah shall reach even to their heart. (C. H. Spurgeon.) Wilt Thou destroy all the residue of Israel?--Zeal and pity The prophet passes from one state of feeling to another. Sometimes he is in sympathy with the Divine resentment, and is himself full of fury against the sinful people (Ezekiel 3:14), and of scorn that rejoices at their coming chastisements (Ezekiel 6:11), but when the judgments of God are abroad before his eyes he is appalled at their severity, and his pity for men overcomes his religious zeal. (A. B. Davidson, D. D.) Ezekiel 9:9 The iniquity of the house of Israel and Judah is exceeding great.The evil and its remedy (with 1 John 1:7):--We can learn nothing of the Gospel except by feeling its truths,--no one truth of the Gospel is ever truly known and really learned until we have tested and tried and proved it, and its power has been exercised upon us. No man can know the greatness of sin till he has felt it, for there is no measuring rod for sin except its condemnation in our own conscience, when the law of God speaks to us with a terror that may be felt. And as for the richness of the blood of Christ and its ability to wash us, of that also we can know nothing till we have ourselves been washed, and have ourselves proved that the blood of Jesus Christ the Son of God hath cleansed us from all sin.1. I shall begin, then, with the first doctrine--“ The iniquity of the house of Israel and Judah is exceeding great.” Some imagine that the Gospel was devised, in some way or other, to soften down the harshness of God towards sin. Ah! how mistaken the idea! There is no more harsh condemnation of sin anywhere than in the Gospel. Nor does the Gospel in any way whatever give man a hope that the claims of the law will be in any way loosened. Christ hath not put out the furnace; He rather seemeth to heat it seven times hotter. Before Christ came sin seemed unto me to be but little; but when He came sin became exceeding sinful, and all its dread heinousness started out before the light. But, says one, surely the Gospel does in some degree remove the greatness of our sin. Does it not soften the punishment of sin? Ah, no! Stand at the feet of Jesus when He tells you of the punishment of sin, and the effect of iniquity, and you may tremble there far more than you would have done if Moses had been the preacher, and if Sinai had been in the background to conclude the sermon. And now let us endeavour to deal with hearts and consciences a moment. There are some here who have never felt this truth. But come, let me reason with you for a moment. Your sin is great, although you think it small. Follow me in these few thoughts, and perhaps thou wilt better understand it. How great a thing is one sin when, according to the Word of God, one sin could suffice to damn the soul. One sin, remember, destroyed the whole human race. Again, what an imprudent and impertinent thing sin is. Behold! there is one God who filleth all in all, and He is the Infinite Creator. He makes me, and I am nothing more in His sight than an animated grain of dust; and I, that animated grain of dust, with a mere ephemeral existence, have the impertinence and imprudence to set up my will against His will! I dare to proclaim war against the Infinite Majesty of heaven. Again, how great does your sin and mine seem, if we will but think of the ingratitude which has marked it. Oh, if we set our secret sins in the light of His mercy, if our transgressions are set side by side with His favours, we must each of us say, our sins, indeed, are exceeding great! And again, I repeat it, this is a doctrine that no man can rightly know and receive until he has felt it. Hast thou ever felt this doctrine to be true--“ my sin is exceeding great” ? 2. “ Well,” cries one, turning on his heel, “ there is very little comfort in that. It is enough to drive one to despair, if not to madness itself.” Ah, friend! such is the very design of this text. We turn therefore from that terrible text to the second one” The blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanseth us from all sin.” There lies the blackness; here stands the Lord Jesus Christ. What will He do with it? Will He go and speak to it, and say, “ This is no great evil, this blackness is but a little spot?” Oh, no; He looks at it, and He says, “ This is terrible blackness, darkness that may be felt; this is an exceeding great evil.” Will He cover it up, then? Will He weave a mantle of excuse, and then wrap it round about the iniquity? Ah, no; whatever covering there may have been He lifts it off, and He declares that when the Spirit of truth is come He will convince the world of sin, and lay the sinner’ s conscience bare, and probe the wound to the bottom. What then will He do? He will do a far better thing than make an excuse or than to pretend in any way to speak lightly of it. He will cleanse it all away, remove it entirely by the power and meritorious virtue of His own blood, which is able to save unto the uttermost. “ The blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanseth us from all sin.” Dwell on the word “ all” for a moment. Great as are thy sins, the blood of Christ is greater still. Thy sins are like great mountains, but the blood of Christ is like Noah’ s flood; twenty cubits upwards shall this blood prevail, and the top of the mountains of thy sin shall be covered. Just take the word “ all” in another sense, not only as taking in all sorts of sin, but as comprehending the great aggregate mass of sin. Couldst thou bear to read thine own diary if thou hadst written there all thy acts? No; for though thou be the purest of mankind, thy thoughts, if they could have been recorded, would now, if thou couldst read them, make thee startle and wonder that thou art demon enough to have had such imaginations within thy soul. But put them all here, and all these sins the blood of Christ can wash away. Nay, more than that. Come hither, ye thousands who are gathered together to listen to the Word of God; what is the aggregate of your guilt? Could ye put it so that mortal observation could comprehend the whole within its ken, it were as a mountain with a base, broad as eternity, and a summit lofty almost as the throne of the great archangel. But, remember, the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanseth from all sin. Yet, once more, in the praise of this blood we must notice one further feature. There be some of you here who are saying, “ Ah! that shall be my hope when I come to die, that in the last hour of my extremity the blood of Christ will take my sins away; it is now my comfort to think that the blood of Christ shall wash, and purge, and purify the transgressions of life.” But, mark! my text saith not so; it does not say the blood of Christ shall cleanse--that were a truth--but it says something greater than that--it says, “ The blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanseth” --cleanseth now. Come, soul, this moment come to Him that hung upon the Cross of Calvary! come now and be washed. But what meanest thou by coming? I mean this, come thou and put thy trust in Christ, and thou shalt be saved. (C. H. Spurgeon.) The land is full of blood.--Crime I. The utter want of moral training in thousands of homes is one cause of the prevalence of crime. What cares the fashionable mother or the father deeply immersed in business for the moral culture of their children? Hence they grow up in ignorance of all those moral and virtuous principles which are the great safeguards against crime. Then, in thousands of homes the overworked mother has no heart for the duties which she owes to her poor neglected children. II. The almost universal desecration of the holy Sabbath is another fruitful source of crime. This is God’ s day, and man has no right to appropriate it to pleasure or to business. III. Intemperance is constantly adding to the long list of criminals. It is itself a crime, and the prolific source of every form of iniquity. IV. The laxity with which the laws are enforced invites to their violation. V. Another source of crime is the low, vicious literature. VI. With shame we utter the truth, that many of the crimes of this age may be traced to the pulpit. It is too tender of crime. It is afraid or ashamed to denounce sin. (R. H. Rivers, D. D.) And the city full of perverseness.--Temptations peculiar to Christians in great cities As this is a state of moral probation, it is the design of God to allow us to be surrounded by temptations while we live in this world. Sometimes these come from our intercourse with our fellow men, sometimes from our own corrupted hearts within us, and sometimes from the wiles of the great tempter. There are also certain periods or situations in life when we are exposed to particular kinds of temptations. Those which beset the young man, those which beset the middle-aged man, and those which beset the old man, may be unlike, and yet each is adapted to the particular period of life. There are also particular places in which temptations are heavier than in others. I. Christians in great cities are peculiarly tempted to overlook the guilt of sin. We all know that familiarity with anything has a wonderful effect upon our feelings; and that it is a principle in human nature, that what is in itself revolting will, by familiarity, cease to disgust. The first time the medical student enters the dissecting room he has a feeling excited very nearly allied to that of shuddering. The mangled dead are strewn around, and those who hold the dissecting knife are there, silent as the dead, as if that were no place for cheerfulness. The images which he sees haunt him after leaving the room. But in a few years this same man can shut himself up there for days, and have scarcely a feeling of revolt, or an unpleasant image remain upon his mind. The young soldier, who first joins his company, has never voluntarily inflicted a wound upon any human being. He has never seen human blood flow, and has never beheld distress created by design. The first oath of his comrade startles him. At the beat of the drum, which, for the first time, calls him to face the enemy, he turns pale. But he need be in the army but a very few years, and he can witness the falling of men around him--see the mangled remains of his fellow--hear the groans of death, and see all the cruelties of the battlefield, and even close with the enemy, bayonet to bayonet, and slay his foes man by man, and yet, at the close of the day, take his meal, and lie down to sleep with as much indifference as if he had been engaged in reaping the harvest of wheat. This is almost literally getting hardened to misery and woe, and is a clear illustration of the principle. Now, in great cities it is nearly impossible not to have the mind in almost constant contact with sin and crime. There the Sabbath is trampled upon, fearlessly, constantly, and shamelessly, by the high and the low. And do you need proof that this familiarity with Sabbath breaking destroys something of the sacredness of that day? In great cities, too, the temptation to feel no responsibility to God how money is spent is very great and very distressing. Familiarity with sin, too, begins early in large cities; and if God, in His providence, should take off the veil which covers all, we should be astonished at the crimes which the children of Christian parents practise in early life, and at what practices are allowed, with hardly a trembling for the consequences. II. Christians in large cities are peculiarly tempted to engage in worldly amusements. By worldly amusements I mean such as are the greatest delight of people who profess to live only for this world. If I specify cards, balls, and theatres I shall be sufficiently definite to be understood. Now, when the doors are wide open--when the world around--the great mass of mankind--say there is no harm in those exciting amusements, though they know that they are most thronged by those who live farthest from God; when they are so fashionable that you can hardly mingle with genteel society, unless you fall in with them; when they are precisely adapted to our natural and strong desire for excitement, is there anything strange that the Christian should feel it hard that his Bible warns, “ touch not, taste not, handle not” ? Is it wonderful that some think it is a little sin--a sin, to be sure, but so small that God will not notice it--that many feel that they may pluck the fruit this once; that many think they are not known to do it, and think it is all buried from the eye of their fellow Christians? III. Christians in great cities are peculiarly tempted to neglect the religion of the heart. It requires much more labour to roll a stone up a steep hill than up a hill whose angle of ascent is less; and if the stone be a very smooth one, and the ground very slippery, the labour is still more increased. Who that has lived in the great city only a few years need be reminded that all good impressions fade away almost as soon as made? Perhaps the very habits of business, so essential to your prosperity in the city, have an unhappy influence upon the religion of the heart. You rise at a stated time in the morning; open your store at a given moment; know to a moment when the mail arrives and closes; must meet your accounts at a given moment; and thus you are in the habit of being punctual and exact. When the moment arrives for you to do this or that, you do it, and then throw it off the mind. And is there not a temptation to treat the duties of the closet in the same way? And thus we may have the name of religion and the form of religion, while the heart is a stranger to its power; and when we place religion on the cold level with business, we may be sure that it will have too slight hold of us either to subdue the soul or console it. It is to my purpose here to remark, how very seldom personal, experimental religion is made the subject of conversation between Christians. The fact will not be questioned. How can it be accounted for? Is it because there are so many other topics floating, that we are never at a loss to hear or tell some new thing? But why is not religious experience one of the first topics of conversation? Or, if not among the first, why is it wholly banished? Do we need it less here than elsewhere? Or is it because we are very prone to neglect the heart, and find it more agreeable to tread upon the surface, than to go as deep as the heart? Then as to reading, how much stronger is the temptation to lay the hand on the fresh morning paper, and spend some time over that, than over the Book of God! To keep along with the tide of human events, and yet not have eternal things weigh upon us! The temptation to neglect the heart, too, from the fact that our time is so completely absorbed, is very great. This makes superficial Christians--Christians who cannot stand against temptation; and who, when temptations come, inquire not what God will now have them do, and how He would have them meet them, but how they can shift off responsibility, and make everything turn to their own advantage. IV. Christians in great cities are peculiarly tempted to be uncharitable towards one another. Character, strained, and in full action, is ever before you, and you see all its defects. The joints of the harness are constantly opening, and any man can throw in an arrow, though he draw the bow at venture. Character is the easiest thing in the world to talk about. We know, and we must know each other most fully, situated as we are in large cities; but this, instead of making us uncharitable, censorious, and severe towards each other, ought to lead us to remember that every man lives in a glass house, and that therefore we ought to be very watchful and very careful. V. Christians in great cities are peculiarly tempted to be jealous of one another. No Christian is sanctified but in part; and very few are so sanctified that they can bear to be overlooked or unnoticed. Hence, when they see that one of their number is, by any means, attracting attention--is considerably noticed, and they are left behind, the feeling of jealousy is very likely to be awakened. Does such a one give more liberally than others--does he pray or speak more acceptably in public--does he, on any account, receive more notice than others--does he exercise any acquired influence--the feeling of jealousy is awakened, and, almost unconsciously to himself, the complaining Christian takes the sharpest of all weapons by which to remove the envied one, and that weapon is the tongue. (John Todd, D. D.) Duties peculiar to Christians in great cities I. Christians, in the large city, should constantly bear in mind that they are continually surrounded by great temptations. Some may prefer to remain in ignorance of their dangers, because responsibility and duty come with knowledge. But is this wise or safe? A father sends a son to a distant city on business. When the young man reaches it he finds the plague is there. It is all around him, and daily, in every street, death is doing his work. What is safe for this young man? to remain in ignorance of his danger, or to know it all, and, by care, abstinence, and medicine, do all in his power to preserve his life and health? A valuable ship, freighted with a rich cargo, is just passing through a winding channel, amid rocks and shoals, islands and reefs. Would you have her captain sleep in his berth, or would you have him, though accompanied with painful anxieties, on the watch, eyeing and shunning these dangers? In all such cases, the answer is plain enough. If God has made it the duty of a man to live in a large city, He will shield him and protect him, if faithful to his God. But even the Son of God must not tempt His Father, by throwing Himself down from the pinnacle of the temple, and then claiming the promise that He would give His angels charge over Him. The mercy of God may follow a man who throws himself in the way of danger, and may pluck him out; but no man has a right to rely upon this. And what shall we do, say you--and how shall we be safe? Ah! it would be comparatively easy to answer this question, could I first make you sensible of the fact that the temptations of the crowded city are great in number, and powerful to resist. Oh! could you see the spots where Christians have fallen, all marked with blood, you would be almost afraid to walk the streets. II. Christians in great cities should feel that they are peculiarly bound to act from principle, and not from impulse, fashion, or popularity. That man only has a correct standard of action and of life who makes the revealed will of God his standard. In all places and circumstances, all other standards will vary, and especially is this the case in the large city. Here new things are constantly coming up, and what is in vogue and popular today may be the very reverse tomorrow. What comes in on the flood tide today may be left on the sand when the tide comes to ebb, and nobody will think it worth picking up. It is painfully amusing to notice how things, men, and measures, which are popular beyond description today, and of which it seems as if we could never tire, will, in a few days, have passed away and be forgotten. The reason is, that which decides a thing to be good or bad, desirable or otherwise, is public opinion; and that is as variable as the wind. Men, and communities of men, are governed, moved, and guided by it, and even the Christian is in great danger of allowing himself to be guided by it too. To do this or that, because public sentiment says so, and make this a rule of action, will save much reflection, much thought, and much prayer for direction. But this is not that standard which God has revealed, and which never varies. How much easier, too, to act from impulse, and to go forward in a certain course as long as the impulse sets us that way, and then to go backward if a counteracting impulse sets us the other way, than to do right, and go right at all times, without waiting for impulses, and without being driven out of our proper orbit by them!1. Be familiar with the Bible. The book of God is so full of biography--it places men in such a variety of situations, and all under the strong light of inspiration, that it is almost, if not literally, impossible to find a situation in which a man can be placed where all his relations to God and to man are to be drawn out, for which a parallel may not be found in the Word of God. 2. Habituate yourself to read sound and thorough works in practical theology, and by this means strengthen the mind and heart, and the purposes of the soul, in what is correct and right. 3. Make every decision of moral conduct the subject of individual and fervent prayer. A conscience intuitively knowing what is right and what is wrong is what God gives only in answer to prayer. III. It is peculiarly the duty of Christians in large cities to set their faces against extravagance. But do not such and such families, who profess to be Christian, do so and so? Yes; but do they show that the Gospel of Christ, and the glory of God, is the ruling passion of their lives? If not, are they safe models for us? But my neighbour does thus and thus. Very likely; and your neighbour may be better able than you are, or he may be doing what he ought not to do, and what he cannot do long. But, say you, can you draw the limits, and go into the particulars, and say whether this and that is wrong? No; nor have I any wish to do it. But am I not safe in saying, that so long as Christians are so extravagant that they are not known from the world--so long as, in consequence of extravagance, they fail in business as often as the world, in proportion to their numbers, there must be something wrong in their slavery to fashion? IV. Christians in great cities are peculiarly bound to become attached to the cause of Christ. The soul, without any doubt, was formed for strong attachments. We love those who are bound to us by the ties of relationship; and the last ties which the hand of death shall sever are those which bind us to the beings whom we love. But this is not all. In most situations we become attached to inanimate objects. The man who spent his childhood in the country loves his native hills--he loves the fields which lie in sight of his father’ s door. Every tree and shrub is connected with some pleasant recollection of childhood. Now, in a great city there are no such attachments. You live in a street, or in a particular house, for years, and you leave it without regret and without sorrow. You go into another without reluctance, and without emotion. The unceasing hurry and perpetual pressure for time prevent our forming those deep attachments which we do in country life. Our attachments, so to speak, are to things in general--to the general excitement which surrounds us. The waves roll too rapidly to allow us to love anyone very strongly. And the danger is, that these same feelings and associations be applied to the cause of Christ; that the habits of mind and of situation lead us to place the cause of God just where we do everything else; and that we feel an attachment to that no stronger than we do to other things. Now we reach the point at which I am aiming, and I say that though you are so situated in Providence that you form no very strong attachment to your dwelling, to your street, to your business, to the family pew in the church, to the changing mass of human beings around you, yet it ought to be a matter of deep interest, of study, and of great effort, to have one set of attachments that are strong, permanent, and which make a part of your very existence--and these should be your attachments to the cause of Jesus Christ. You will ask how you can thus become attached to the cause of Christ, and exercise towards that a set of feelings so entirely different from what you do towards other things? My reply is, Be in the habit of doing something for the cause of Christ every day, and you will soon find that you love that cause above all other things. What makes you love the flower that stands in your parlour, meekly curling its graceful form towards the window, to drink in the beams of light? Not because it is helpless or beautiful. The china vase may be all that; but because you every day do something for it. You give it water--you remove it, when it requires more heat or more air--you watch its budding--you study its nature and its wants. What makes the stranger, who takes the helpless infant to her home, so soon attached to it? Because she is every hour doing something for it; and God has made it impossible for us not to love anything which we aid--an unanswerable argument for the benevolence of Him who formed the human heart! Let the Christian be in the daily habit of making sacrifices, in order to be punctual in his closet--to be daily growing in a knowledge of his Bible--to be prompt and faithful in attending the meetings for prayer, keeping his heart warm and solemn--to give of his property to build up the cause of Christ cheerfully; let him aim to do something that shall be a self-denial, every day, in order to aid the cause of Christ, and he will love that cause; and, while mingling in the tide of men that is passing away, and where everything is changing, he will have his heart and hopes bound to the throne of God, and his soul will have an anchor that is sure and steadfast. Perhaps the very fact that his attachments to other things are loose may render these the stronger. V. It is peculiarly the duty of Christians, in great cities, to feel a high responsibility. By the talents which Christ puts into the hands of His servants we understand all the opportunities which we have of doing good to ourselves, or to others; and if, at the great day, our responsibilities are to be commensurate with our opportunities, in those respects, they will be great indeed. (John Todd, D. D.) Dangers peculiar to worldly men engaged in business in great cities I. Success in business in the great city requires close attention, severe application, and engrossing watchfulness; and this tends to shut eternal things from the mind and to endanger the soul. But perhaps you will say, this very devotedness of heart and mind is necessary in order to success in business here, and any diversion of the attention will endanger success; and therefore, if a man have his attention so diverted and engrossed that he becomes a religious man, he will be less likely to succeed in business. I reply, that does not follow; for if he did, God could not assure us that godliness is profitable for the life that now is, as well as for the life to come. It does not follow, also for three very plain reasons; namely--1. If you become really a religious man, your weary spirit will be periodically bathed, cooled, and refreshed, by turning off your thoughts, and having them come in contact with the Bible, with the Sabbath, and with God’ s Spirit. 2. The community will have confidence in a conscientious, holy man, and will do much to aid, to sustain, and to encourage him. 3. The blessing of God will more surely attend him; and His blessing can make rich. II. The object for which the worldly man comes to a great city, and for which he stays there, is to acquire property--and this tends to lead him to shut God away from his thoughts. Suppose a man were to go into some distant part of the world, for the express purpose of making money; and if he found that spot very unfavourable to meditation, to prayer, to finding eternal life, what would he say? Would he not be apt to say, I cannot here attend to religion--it is a poor place for that; but I will give my whole time and attention and soul and mind to the business which brought me here, and as soon as possible I will return to my home, where I shall have time and opportunity and everything favourable to my finding eternal life. I will therefore give it no thought at present. And is not the man of the world, in the great city, tempted to do this very thing? Is he not in danger of feeling that the great, the absorbing object for which he is here is to acquire property; and till this end is gained he has no time, no heart, to give to his soul? In all that he does he wishes to keep that plan uppermost--to be sure that every sun that shines, and every breeze that blows, has something to do in promoting that great plan--that one plan. III. The sympathies of all around him tend to carry his feelings in the channels of earth--and these endanger the soul of the worldly man in the great city. You speak with perhaps fifty men during the day, and five hundred during the week, and among them all you hear not a word about the interests of the soul. And you will say, we must not only he men of business, but we must talk and think about business, about commerce and politics, the light and the grave news of the day, to show that we are men of business. All this may be true, and I mention it because it is true, and because the great impression which this great crowd of immortal beings makes upon each other is adverse to their finding eternal life. Oh! if you lived in a world where everything, from the fresh daily paper that you find in the morning on your table, to the late partings at evening, tended to remind you of God, and to call forth your sympathies towards Him, it would be very different. But the living mass around you, so alive, and so awake to everything relating to this world--so eager for something new--so delighted with anything that can excite--so anxious to live in the swollen tide of human sympathies, seek to turn all this tide in a channel that leads from God. IV. Dangers attend the man of the world, in his business, before and after the question of his success is settled. Is it not so, that a man in the full tide of business--while straining every nerve to reach the point of certain success and entire safety, so chases the world all the week--so courts it, in all possible ways, that when the Sabbath arrives he is so exhausted that he has no energy of body, no energy of soul, no elasticity of spirit, to meet the duties of that holy day? Is it not so, that he can hardly rise on the Sabbath morning in season to find the house of God; and when he does go there, does he not too often come much like an exhausted machine, and has no power to gird up his mind to sober thought, to deep reflection, to manly discussion, or to close and thorough reasoning? But suppose he has passed the point alluded to, and is sure to succeed in business, and to become an independent man. The dangers to his soul may now be increased tenfold. There may now be some relaxation to that keen, intense, anxious pursuit of business; hut his very relaxations become dangerous, inasmuch as they tend to animalism. How often do we see a man, as soon as it is decided that he will be successful in business, commence a course of stimulating his system, till it becomes overburdened, and is destroyed by its own fulness. What creates that riot in the blood, which cuts off such men at a stroke, and with a suddenness that would be painfully surprising were it not so common? All this animalism, which leads the man to yield to good eating and good drinking continually, is certain to drive God from the heart, while it destroys the powers of the body; and experience will testify that, as a general thing, such men are the very last that are brought into the kingdom of God. Then there is that loftiness and pride of feeling which is almost inseparable from success in business, and which makes us look down upon those beneath us with feelings allied to scorn, and upon ourselves as great and wise, or we could not have succeeded. How few who are successful in business are willing to ascribe it all to God’ s good providence which favoured them! V. The man of the world, in the great city, is in fearful danger of having his soul ruined by the money spirit of this age. Wherever you turn you will see proofs of the universal presence of this spirit. You have heard it in the murmurs of the street--you have seen it written on the golden splendours of those who have not fallen--you have seen it upon the tarnished glories of the fallen and falling--in the blasted hopes of thousands--and you will read it on the anxious brow of your acquaintance. You have heard the proof of it sighed from the massy prison; it is read in the glance of the fugitive from justice;--it is summed up in startling numbers at the bottom of the daily expense book. Now, what have been the inevitable consequences of this race in the fashions of earth? One very plain one is, that everybody must be in debt! It is the order of the age that all must make as much show as possible; and money is desired only for this end. Of course, every man will calculate to live up, fully up, to his income. Then others, and many, too, will go beyond their income--beyond what they can earn. The next result is, that those who are honest cannot get all their honest income, because all by which a dishonest man exceeds his income must come out of the honest: And as very few calculate to live under their supposed income, and as many will live over theirs, the consequence must be that everybody runs in debt. This must be the result to all who do not live as much within their income as will make up for what others exceed theirs. Now, the very spirit of the age tempts the man of business to graduate his expenses, not by what he has in his hand, but by what he ought to have. A man in business this year makes sales, the profits of which are some five thousand dollars. He sells to some fifty different people, and at the end of the year he is to receive the profits. Now, what is the temptation? Is it not to consider the five thousand dollars as already his own, to graduate his expenses accordingly, and to forget that he has virtually been insuring on the honesty and success of the fifty men to whom he has made sales? And when at length he finds that he is disappointed--that instead of obtaining profits, he has lost fully to that amount--what does he do, or rather what is he tempted to do? To contract and curtail expenses? Or is he now tempted to become reckless, and to plunge headlong into almost any speculation which promises relief? Hence we have an evil arising from the spirit of the age worse than any and all yet mentioned; and that is, men are tempted to use dishonest means and reckless measures to obtain money to keep up in the race which all around them are running. VI. The man of the world, in the great city, is tempted to undervalue truth. The buyer pretends that he is quite indifferent whether he purchases or not; and the seller is quite indifferent whether he sells or not; and so these two indifferent men will contrive to meet every few hours, and throw out baits to each other, and yet both professing not to desire the trade! The purchaser decries the goods--he has seen better, has had cheaper offered him--can do better elsewhere; and yet, when he cannot cheapen them any further, to oblige the seller, he takes them! “ It is naught, it is naught,” saith the buyer, “ and straightway goeth away and boasteth.” It is not for us to say how much news is manufactured for particular purposes--how many letters are conveniently forgotten to be delivered, till too late to take advantage of the news--how many letters are received which were never written; but it is for us to say that the man of business, in the great city, is awfully tempted to exaggerate good qualities, to point them out where they do not exist, to conceal defects, and to gloss over imperfections, without recollecting that the eye of God is upon him. If he says it is difficult to get along without doing so, I reply, that this very difficulty constitutes his danger--that it will be more difficult to bear the indignation of God forever; that “ lying lips are an abomination to the Lord” ; and that no apology will be accepted by Him. (John Todd, D. D.) Ezekiel 9:11 Reported the matter, saying, I have done as Thou hast commanded me.The completion of the work of mercy We do not find that those who were commissioned to destroy reported what destruction they had made, but he who was appointed to protect reported his matter, for it would be more pleasing both to God and to the prophet to hear of those who were saved than of those that perished. Or this report was made now because the thing was finished, whereas the destroying world would be a work of time, and when it was brought to an end then the report should be made. See how faithful Christ is to the trust reposed in Him. Is He commanded to secure eternal life to the chosen remnant? He has done as was commanded Him. Of all that Thou hast given Me I have lost none. (M. Henry.) . Ezekiel 10:2 Fill thy hand with coals of fire from between the cherubims and scatter them over the city.Divine forces and human agents is retribution I. There are in the economy of God, terrific forces for the destruction of evil. The whirling globe of fire was but a symbol of the manifold elements that, through processes of pain, and it may be throes of agony, have punished and will punish sin. And very often those elements are just those that have been guiltily used by man. It was true of these Jews “ that they had abused fire to maintain their gluttony, for fulness of bread was one of their sins; they burned incense to idols, and abused the altar fire which had been the greatest refreshing to their souls, and now even this fire kindled upon them.” Thus, indeed, is it clearly taught in the prediction of Christ, “ They that take the sword shall perish by the sword,” that the implements of our evil become the engines of our punishment. And such engines have terrific force.1. To avoid sin ourselves.2. To believe in the final victory of goodness. II. The great forces provided against evil will often be used by the instrumentality of man. A man’ s hand was to scatter these coals of retribution. Thus it commonly is. As man is the tempter, so is man frequently the punisher of man. Chaldean armies are instruments of Divine righteousness. Human judges are often the swords of God: human revolutionists the vindicators of liberty against despots. It is for this hand sometimes to scatter the fires of retribution; but ever to scatter the fires of purification. The consuming of the sin--sin in thought, sin in feeling, sin in habit, rather than retribution, on the sinner, may perhaps be the higher and better teaching of this vision for all of us. (Urijah R. Thomas.) Ezekiel 10:8 And there appeared in the cherubims the form of a man’ s hand under their wings.The hand and the wing There are two proofs of our religious life. The first is our great thoughts of God; the second is our great deeds for God. On the first we soar up to Him as on a wing; with the second we labour for Him as with a hand. The Bible, the whole structure of our sacred faith, appeals to the two aspects of life--divine and human. It has the wing and the hand; it reaches out to heights we cannot attain; it is suffused in splendours and in mysteries beyond our endurance. The Trinity and the Godhead, eternal duration, the origin of things, the eternal love of God to man, His electing and atoning grace--how far off these things seem. On the other hand, how it sinks down to sympathy, to fellowship, to suffering, arching them over by visible and invisible majesty. Thus, while man mourns over his lot, that “ his strength is labour and sorrow,” he finds, as Ruskin has finely said, that “ labour and sorrow are his strength” ; and God makes him fit for soaring by sorrowing or by sympathetic doing. I. See what a Divine work creation is. Here, in this human hand beneath the angel’ s wing, do we see the procedure of the Divine work. All God’ s most beautiful things are related to use. God does not unfold from His mind beauty alone. Infinite thought, ah! but infinite manipulation too; this hand, the hand of the Infinite Artist, tinted every flower and variegated every leaf into loveliness; this hand, the hand of the Infinite Mechanician--I do not like the word, but let it go--gave respiration and lustre arid plumage to the wing of every bird; this hand, the hand of the Infinite Architect, poised every planet in space, and adapted its measure of force to every grain of sand. I would not preach a gospel of cold utilitarianism--that word usually represents the hand without the wing; it is the depravity of logic which it represents, not the Divine reason and fitness. On the contrary, many know nothing of use. Oh, what wasted lives we lead! Alas! alas! our most beautiful things are as perishable foam bells, born and expiring on a wave. Not so God. II. Then you see what Divine providence is. Man is the one manifold. In the multiplicity of Divine operations we see the human hand beneath the angel’ s wing. “ A little lower than the angels,” God carries on His great operations. What is this humanity which everywhere meets us alike, in things above and beneath? “ Angels desiring to look” into the things of men, and all nature striving upward into manhood. By men surely God carries on some of the greatest affairs of His providence. From His exalted concealment, God is constantly energising by the human hand. This in all ages has been. And is not our redemption a hand, the human hand beneath the Divine wing, a hand stretched out, “ the likeness of a man’ s hand beneath the cherubim.” What is the humanity of Jesus but the human hand beneath the Divine wing? If all things on earth whisper man, and point to man, and reflect man, and prophesy the reign and the ultimate Christian perfectibility of man, oh, what a consolation is this! Thus, also, this thought, this idea, rebukes the many false modern notions of God. See in this God’ s own picture of His providence; and never be it ours to divorce that human from the Divine in God’ s being. III. See, in the human hand beneath the wing of the angel, the relation of a life of action to a life of contemplation. The great Gregory says, “ The rule of the Christian life is first to be joined to an active life in productiveness, and after, to a contemplative mind in rest.” Thus, when the mind seeks rest in contemplation, it sees more, but it is less productive in fruit to God; when it betakes itself to working, it sees less but bears more largely. Hence, then, by the wings of the creatures we may behold the contemplations of the saints, by which they soar aloft, and, quitting earthly scenes, poise themselves in the regions of heaven; as it is written, “ They shall mount up as on wings.” And by the hands understand deeds, they administer even by bodily administration; but the hands under the wings show how they surpass the deeds of their action by the excellence of contemplation. IV. Religion is the human hand beneath the angel’ s wing. It is both. So I may say to you: Has your religion a hand in it? Has your religion a wing in it? Has it a hand? It is practical, human, sympathetic. Has it a wing? It is lofty, unselfish, inclusive, divine. Has it a hand? How does it prove itself? By embracing, and this hand laying hold upon--by works. Has it a wing? How does it prove itself? By prayer, by faith, by heaven. I do not know if you have read and are acquainted with the essay of that eminent man, Richard Owen, “ On the Nature of Limbs” ; if so, you did not fail to meditate on that frontispiece, in which the science of anatomy rises into more than the play of poetry; where that great, perhaps greatest of all anatomists, does not hesitate to show to us by a diagram, the human skeleton hand, clothed upon, preening, developing into the wing of an angel. But faith sees more than science: faith does, indeed, behold the hand rising into the wing; indeed, sees in the hand only the undeveloped wing. Without a doubt it shall be so; we are preparing for the hour when our wings shall burst from their prison and spring into the light. (E. P. Hood.) The hidden hands of Christlike ministry Oberlin, the French philanthropist, was once travelling in the depth of winter amongst the mountains of Alsace. The cold was intense, the snow lay thickly upon the ground, and ere the half of his journey was over he felt himself yielding to fatigue and sleep. He knew if he gave way to sleep he would wake no more; but in spite of this knowledge, desire for sleep overcame him, and he lost consciousness. When he came to again, a waggoner in blue blouse was standing over him, urging him to take wine and food. By and by his strength revived, he was able to walk to the waggon, and was soon driven to the nearest village. His rescuer refused money, saying it was his duty to assist one in distress. Oberlin begged to know his name, that he might remember him in his prayers. “ I see,” replied the waggoner, “ you are a preacher. Tell me the name of the Good Samaritan.” “ I cannot,” answered Oberlin, “ for it is not recorded.” “ Ah, well,” said the waggoner, “ when you can tell me his name, I will then tell you mine.” And so he went away. (The Signal.) Ezekiel 10:9 The four wheels by the cherubims. The Divine government I. This vision represents the absolute and universal government of God.1. That God does possess and wield such a government is indicated by the reference to the throne--an object which is in itself the symbol of supreme power. It is indicated also by a reference to the influences emanating from the throne, and regulating the movement of the cherubim and of the wheels--the cherubim signifying angelic beings, and the wheels signifying the procedure and course of mundane affairs, all subordinated to Him and regulated by Him, the possessor of infinite majesty. While we acknowledge its immensity, let us endeavour habitually and most profoundly to feel that we ourselves are subject to the government of God. 2. The peculiar connection in which this government is exhibited. The prophetic descriptions speak of a human form as being associated with the manifestation of the Divine glory. Now, from the analogous statements of inspiration we cannot do otherwise than consider this part of the vision as introducing to us the Son of God--Him who became incarnate in the fulness of time, as Mediator uniting in Himself the human and the Divine nature, and in that complex state effecting the great work of human redemption. What is pourtrayed can suit none but Him; and to Him, as “ Emmanuel, God with us,” “ God manifest in the flesh,” it does emphatically and beautifully answer. II. This vision represents the characteristics which the procedure of the Divine government includes and exemplifies.1. There is a representation of its intricacy. This is conveyed in the structure of the cherubim; it is conveyed in the relation between the cherubim and the wheels; and it is conveyed in what is stated as to the wheels themselves. We live truly in the midst of mysteries; and as those mysteries pass, in their dark and shadowy forms, there ever resounds to us the challenge, “ Lo, these are parts of His ways,” etc. 2. There is the characteristic of intelligence. It is stated, with regard to the agencies which are now introduced for our attention, that “ their whole body and their backs and their hands and their wings and the wheels were full of eyes round about, even the wheels that they four had” ; the eyes, according to the interpretation of Scripture symbols, being known as the signs and emblems of intelligence. Here, we conceive, we have the fact brought before us, that the system according to which the course of our world proceeds is not that of blind mechanism or fate--a dogma which modern infidelity, imitating its predecessors, has revived and promulgated, but that it proceeds under the direction of mind, the highest operation by which events can by possibility be regulated. The infinite mind of Jehovah is constantly occupied in directorial functions. That infinite mind formed the plan of government, and that infinite mind, as the course of His government proceeds, is ever active, diffusing itself to the furthest range, and penetrating to the most minute recesses, lighting up all as with the radiance of its own emissions, and by knowing all, prompting and ordering all. 3. There is the characteristic of immense and ever active energy. We read, for example, of the cherubim and of their movements, that “ as for the likeness of the living creatures, their appearance was like burning coals of fire, and like the appearance of lamps: it went up and down,” etc. “ And the living creatures ran and returned as the appearance of a flash of lightning.” And as to the wheels it is said, “ when they went, they went upon their four sides; they turned not as they went, but to the place whither the head looked they followed it; they turned not as they went.” The agencies which are set in motion by God never cease and never tire, but pass steadily and uniformly onward, in order to accomplish the purpose of Him who “ worketh all things according to the counsel of His own will” --their energy being constantly supplied and fed by the resources of His energy, which is inexhaustible, as the God who is almighty, the Lord God Omnipotent. 4. There is the characteristic of harmony. We read that the wheels have one likeness; and we read also that the wheels and the cherubim act and proceed in entire and in perfect concert. “ I looked,” says the prophet, “ and behold the four wheels” --“ the spirit of the living creature was in them.” We learn from this that the agencies employed under the Divine administration are never disjointed from each other, never contravene or oppose each other, but blend all their movements and operations as though they were actually, notwithstanding their multifariousness and variety, one. We may observe that the procedure of these agencies is also in perfect harmony with the original plan of the Divine mind, never for a moment deviating from it, but always answering to that which is designed to be accomplished. We may also observe that the procedure of these agencies thus harmonising will finally appear so before the whole intelligent creation, that they may admire, and that God may receive His highest glory. III. This vision represents the tribute which the government of God, so characterised, demands.1. The government of God, thus characterised, demands our adoration. It is truly the development of what is great and ineffably majestic; and the proper tribute for the development of its greatness and majesty is that of humble and awful reverence. 2. The government of God, so characterised, demands our study. Intelligent beings were formed with the view that they should become the students of the government of God. It is made known to them that they might meditate upon it, so as to apprehend it; and only thus can they offer the other departments of the tribute which are required from them. The Divine procedure and government is the noblest theme which can possibly engage our immortal mind. There is nothing but what is comprehended here. It includes all history, all the inventions of art, all the discoveries of science--science, whether confined to matter or mind, whether referring to our own world or to the most distant tribes that are discoverable in the vast universal of space: all things that can engage our imagination or reason are comprehended in the government of God. 3. The government of God, as thus characterised, demands our submission. “ Nay, but, O man, who art thou that repliest against God? Be still and know that I am God.” 4. The government of God, thus characterised, demands our confidence. If for our eternal welfare we are reposing upon the testimony which He has given us concerning His Son, let us exercise the same confidence with regard to the interests of nations, and with regard to the wellbeing of the Church; and let us not doubt that all things now transpiring around us, in the passions of communities, in the convulsions of nations, and in the events disastrous or Otherwise, which affect the interests of the Church, are under the management of the same perfect principle, and are gradually intended to evolve the same grand and delightful results. And then let us trust also in our anticipations of the future. (J. Parsons.) Ezekiel 10:12 Full of eyes round about. Divine vigilance God has been called “ All eye.” This is the terrible pain of living, that there is no privacy, no solitude, no possibility of a man getting absolutely with himself and by himself. Wherever we are we are in public. We can, indeed, exclude the vulgar public, the common herd, the thoughtless multitude; a plain deal door can shut out that kind of world: but what can shut out the beings who do the will of Heaven, and who are full of eyes, their very chariot wheels being luminous with eyes, everything round about them looking at us critically, penetratingly, judicially? We live unwisely when we suppose that we are not being superintended, observed, criticised, and judged. “ Thou God seest me” ; “ The eyes of the Lord run to and fro throughout the whole earth.” We need not regard this aspect of Divine providence as alarming. The aspect will be to us what we are to it. Faithful servants are encouraged by the remembrance of the fact that the taskmaster’ s eye is upon them; unfaithful servants will regard the action of that eye as a judgment. Thus God is to us what we are to God. If we are humble, He is gracious; if we are froward, He is haughty; if we are sinful, He is angry; if we are prayerful, He is condescending and sympathetic. Let the wicked man tremble when he hears that the whole horizon is starred with gleaming eyes that are looking him through and through; but let the good man rejoice that all heaven is one eye looking upon him with complacency, watching all his action that it may come to joy, reward, rest, and higher power of service in the generations yet to dawn. (J. Parker, D. D.) The eyes of Providence “ Full of eyes round about.” Here is a difference from that in Ezekiel 1:18. It is said there the rings were full of eyes; here, that all, even wheels and cherubims, were full of eyes, and He that sat on the throne, even the Lord, He is full of eyes.1. The motions of causes and creatures here below are not casual or disorderly. The wheels and cherubims are full of eyes, they see and know their way, the work they have to do, the place they are to go unto; the eye of Providence is in every creature and every motion. When things fall out contrary, or beside our expectations, you say they are mischances; but you are mistaken: in sea or land affairs, in martial, magisterial, or ministerial, yea domestic affairs, whatever falls out is an act of Providence; surprising or sinking of ships, disappointment of counsels, defeating of armies, escape of prisoners, interception of letters, firing of towns, drownings, self-murderings, divisions of brethren, clandestine marriages, abortions, divorces, the eyes of Providence are in them all, and heaven’ s intentions are accomplished in them. 2. There is much glory and beauty in the works of Divine providence. All the wheels and cherubims are full of eyes; the wheels have eyes round about, not in one place, but in every place; the cherubims, their bodies, backs, hands, and wings are full of eyes; and (Revelation 4:8) they are full of eyes within, they are inwardly and outwardly glorious, beautiful. Man’ s eyes add not so much beauty and glory to his face, as these eyes do to the works of God in the world. The peacock’ s train, which is full of eyes, how beautiful and glorious is it! yet far short of the beauty and glory which is in God’ s government of the world. When the queen of Sheba saw so much wisdom in a man, so much glory and beauty in the order of his house, she admired, and had no spirit left in her (1 Kings 10:4-5). And could we see the wisdom which is in God, the glory and beauty which is in His ordering the wheels, we would be so far from complaining of any wheel’ s motion that we would admire every wheel, the order and motion of it; but oh, how blind are we, who hardly have an eye to see any of these eyes! When a man is on a high hill, there are many hedges, ditches, and separations of one piece of land from another; there are low shrubs and higher trees, here a hill and there a river; yet all contribute something to make a beautiful and glorious prospect to the eye: and so it is in the works of providence. If we were lifted up by the Spirit to view the wheels and their motions, we should find that all these things that seem grievous to us, our wars, divisions, taxes, burdens, and such like, do contribute much towards a glorious prospect. (W. Greenhill, M. A.) Ezekiel 10:13O wheel. The wheel of providence I take this figure to refer to Divine providence--the actual dealings of the Creator with His creatures; so various, so complicated, and yet so harmonious after all. I. The changes in God’ s providence. The chariot that we see here is not of the old rude type, not a mere sledge drawn roughly and heavily along the ground; but something more ingenious and more elaborate. It has its wheels--that beautiful kind of mechanism, which none of the most recent improvements in locomotion have been able to supersede; the wheel, with its many spokes and perfect circle, ever revolving and revolving. Many of us can recollect the time when, as children, our minds first caught the idea of the motion of a wheel; the higher part becoming the lower, the spokes that were upward becoming reversed and pointing downward, whilst from beneath other spokes were ever rising to the top; and so, nothing continuing at one stage--nothing to be seen but change, change, perpetual change. And now, no longer children, we see it all in providence; and, seeing it, look up and cry, “ O wheel!”1. We see it in social life. (1) Look into the house. “ One generation is passing away, and another generation coming.” “ Instead of the fathers are the children.” (2) Look on the Exchange. Old long-established houses are sinking, are disappearing, and younger firms are taking their place. (3) Look into the Churches. Where are the old preachers that used to move all hearts? and who are these younger men that have risen to so much influence? 2. We see it in national experience. See what our Father is doing in the earth, what changes--what mighty changes--He is working on every hand. This is no new aspect of His dealings. There was a time when on the spokes of the wheel were written the names of Babylon and Persia, of Greece and Rome. And then the wheel turned round: and each in succession rose to the summit--and was humbled to the dust. Has it not been the same story ever since? and is it not the same story now? It matters not what political opinions you may hold. As you watch the rise and fall of nations, parties, and opinions on the wheel of Divine providence, you are constrained to cry, “ O wheel!” 3. We see it in the history of the professing Church. Ephesus, Smyrna, Pergamos, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia, Laodicea--these are the names of seven famous Churches: Churches to which Christ Himself dictated sacred letters, and which stood high and conspicuous in the religious history of the world. Where are they now? The wheel has turned! They are sunk down into the mire, and lie buried there! So too with the Churches to which Paul wrote. Where are Corinth, Galatia, Philippi, Colosse, Thessalonica? The mosque rises where once stood the Christian sanctuary, and the Crescent has displaced the Cross. But you say, The Church of Rome still stands. It does! But is this the Church to which Paul wrote? So you may go through the professing Churches of every name--at home and abroad--near or far, and you will find nothing uniform or stationary: only change upon change--increase and decrease--advance and decline until you stand amazed and bewildered, and can only cry, “ O wheel!” II. Progress in the midst of all these changes. The wheel the prophet saw was not like the wheel we may see in fireworks,--one which revolves round the axle, leaving the axle motionless; it was the wheel of a chariot--one which carries the axle with it, and bears the chariot on with each revolution. And there is something in this view very cheering in the truth it suggests: that in the midst of so many changes of God’ s providence a real progress is taking place. Bear in mind--the progress of the chariot is independent of the position of the separate spokes. Some of them may be rising, some falling; but each moment the chariot goes on. Nay, some of them may be actually moving backwards--but still the chariot goes forwards. Just so, all the changes in God’ s providence--even those that look like changes in the wrong direction--are helping on the progress after all.1. In what sense is this to be understood? In what forward movement are these changes bearing a part? I answer, in the accomplishment of the purposes of God. The world is to be converted to God. “ All the ends of the earth shall remember,” “ I, if I be lifted up,” etc. The Church is to be complete in members, purity, and bliss. We read of “ a multitude that none can number, of all nations and kindreds and people and tongues.” We read of saints “ without spot or blemish,” and these are “ presented faultless,” etc. The Redeemer is to have a large and abundant reward. “ He shall see of the travail,” etc. 2. In what way can this progress come to pass? How can changes so disastrous help forward the accomplishment of purposes so delightful? We have to do with One who is “ wonderful in counsel and excellent in working.” There may be lions in the path--but He slays the lions, “ and out of the eater comes forth meat, and out of the strong, sweetness.” There may be passions in man’ s heart worse than beasts of prey,--but He so controls their working that in the end “ the wrath of man shall praise Him.” “ Is there anything too hard for the Lord?” (F. Tucker, B. A.) The mysteries of providence I. The extent and universality of its operations. The wide reach of God’ s providential government comprehends what is easy to be understood as well as what is mysterious. The light and the darkness are often placed together, though in reality they are both alike to Him. With God there is nothing incomprehensible:--the terms great and little, easy and difficult, with Him are words of the same meaning. When we read the account of these wheels, of their rings and their motions, and the living creatures that accompanied them, we are confounded. Yet it is easy to conceive of the Son of Man governing the celestial inhabitants according to the will of His Father, regulating their movements by the agency of His Spirit, and employing them as instruments in accomplishing His gracious purposes. II. The complexity of its movements.1. Is it not intended to mortify our pride? There is no religion without humility. 2. Does it not serve to exercise our faith and patience? 3. Is it not designed to check in us a lawless spirit of curiosity? III. The perpetuity of its revolutions. The changes that are taking place in the history of nations, churches, families, and individuals are all tending to the completion of His designs. Are they not intended to teach us how uncertain and unsatisfactory are all created things? IV. The harmony of their concurrence.1. They are all directed to one object. 2. They are all acting upon one plan. Here there is nothing casual or fortuitous. The past has made way for the present, and the present is preparing for the future. 3. They are all animated by one influence. V. It is unimpeded in its progress. We mean not to say that there are no hindrances in the way of the Divine purposes being accomplished; for ignorance, prejudice, and sin present most formidable barriers; but as the wheels in the vision are described as going forward, impelled by a Divine influence, it certainly teaches us that God’ s will is irresistible, and intimates the certain triumph of truth in the world. (Essex Remembrancer.) Ezekiel’ s vision of the wheel The cry, “ O wheel,” the articulated cry of the universal human spirit, meant, “ O Divine mystery! the intellect cannot comprehend thee, yet the heart’ s aspiration is towards thee.”1. This exclamation indicates our proper attitude in presence of these mysteries as one of awe, and not of definition. Modern scientific investigation tends to reveal to us, more and more humiliatingly, the narrowness and impotence of our faculty. The very growth of knowledge makes manifest the limitations and the illusiveness of knowledge. And the danger is that of a universal scepticism; that men should say, “ I cannot know anything as it is, and therefore I will believe nothing, obey nothing, but the instincts of my own nature.” It is only the spirit of reverence that can save us. Let us not spend our intellectual energies and dissipate our spiritual forces in the pursuit of that which ever eludes us. Let our language be, “ Though we cannot comprehend, we will adore.” And so let our reverence teach us obedience and love, and our piety be of the life and not of the intellect. Let us not divorce religion from life, and make it a series of dead abstractions instead of a living spirit. It is the pursuit of a good that is known, and not speculation, however dogmatic, upon that which is unknowable, that constitutes practical religion. It is “ in loving our brother whom we have seen” that we attain to the love of God, “ whom we have not seen.” 2. In all this imagery the prophet is describing a vision of God, and by the emblem of the wheels he describes so much as is understood of the Divine nature. There is breath in the wheels. It is a living deity. There are eyes around the peripheries. This points to infinite knowledge and intelligence as overruling the world. The wheels are four-faced; the faces representing the different orders of creation, showing the relation of the Divine Spirit to all the various kingdoms of life. The movements are swift and in all directions, there being a double motion of the wheels, which are inserted in pairs at right angles to each other. This suggests the idea of omnipresence. The mischief is, that so many minds stay in the symbol and suffer it to block out the spiritual idea, instead of serving as a stepping stone to it The wheel becomes the deity instead of the symbol of deity; the object of idolatry, instead of simply a spiritual hieroglypbic to aid our conceptions of the Divine. 3. The wheel which the prophet saw in his vision stands not only for a representation of the Divine nature, as he conceived it, but also as an illustration of the Divine method in the universe. (1) It is curious, in the light of the prophet’ s representation, that the scientific theory of the origin of the universe which at present holds the field is the doctrine of “ vortices,” which teaches that the atoms of the impalpable ether first became compacted into solid matter through a spinning motion in some way imparted to them, or generated amongst themselves. All the planets were originally whirling rings of molten or meteoric matter thrown off from their central sun, such as may still be seen in the rings of the planet Saturn. The mightiest forces of nature with which we are acquainted on our earth travel in circles more or less perfect: the cyclone, the whirlwind, the whirlpool, the ocean currents. There is perpetual circulation, or, to use the prophet’ s term, “ wheeling” or “ whirling” everywhere. It is in the body, in the course traversed by the blood. It is in the cells of minutest plants, where the protoplasmic fluid travels in circles or circuits with a movement that is called for this reason “ cyclosis.” It is in the meteorological conditions of the earth. The fierce heat of the sun in equatorial regions causes the water of the ocean to evaporate in vast bodies of invisible vapour, which, rising to the upper regions of the air, are drawn into currents which bear them to the colder northern regions of our planet, where they distil in snow and rains upon the mountains; form rivulets and rivers which flow back into the sea, and are borne once more by the trend of the pelagic currents to the regions whence they arose. The movements of the tides imply a constant circulation. This portion of the globe on which we dwell has experienced remarkable rotations of climate. It has known, for long ages together, both tropical heat and arctic cold; and it is supposed that the slow oscillations of the earth’ s polar axis may bring round similar changes again. And so, in the movements of History, the same law prevails--the whirling wheel is still the type. The very words we use to describe the course of providential occurrences is a proof of this. We talk of cycles--of revolutions--of evolution. In all these words the central idea is that of circular motion. There is everywhere revolution and return. There are cycles of thought which complete themselves, and then the human mind seems to revert to its starting point. Old exploded errors are continually cropping up again, and the world’ s teachers have to be perpetually doing their work anew. We all know how fashions recur: not only fashions in dress but fashions in thinking. We laugh at witchcraft and toy with spiritualism. The pages of history are filled with the stories of the rise and fall and decay of nations that emerged from comparative barbarism to a splendid civilisation and universal conquest, and then fell back into a condition of comparative barbarism once more. (2) In the prophet’ s vision there were “ wheels within wheels.” This points to another law of the universe, the complex relations of forces. You have seen an orrery, a most complicated piece of mechanism, whereby the orbits of the heavenly bodies are illustrated. It is just a system of “ wheels within wheels.” Nothing can be explained by itself. The ancients used to divide off the various sciences as though each were a self-contained and independent department of study. But now the sciences are so interlaced and mutually dependent that you cannot effectively study any of them alone. “ To understand botany aright you must also possess a knowledge of chemistry. You cannot understand zoology apart from geology. Psychology, the science of mind, is rapidly becoming a department of physiology. The same force which we call electricity is, according to varying conditions, at one time heat, at another time motion, at another time light, at another time latent energy,--“ wheels within wheels.” We talk about simple thoughts. There is no thought that is not the product of, and that does not ramify into, a thousand other thoughts. We talk of the “ simple Gospel,” but what wheels within wheels of mystery, what a vast range of insoluble questions does it suggest! It is a simple Gospel only to the unthinking. 4. I find further suggested by this emblem, the Divine law of progress. The revolution of the wheels results in transition over space. There is the motion, not only upon their own several axes, but through the air and over the ground, according to the will of the informing spirit. They are the type, not only of motion, but of locomotion, Winter after winter the leaves fall, and vegetation dies down, and everywhere is apparent decay and death. But nature is only recovering herself for another effort, and in the spring every tree shoots forth into a more vigorous growth. Nature dies to live again. Out of the decomposition of last year’ s foliage what new and beauteous forms of floral life have sprung! And their decay in turn will nourish other forms of life. “ Every atom of the soil is in the universal wheel of things.” Shall this be true of nature alone? Shall not man rise through seeming dissolution to his true completion? As one of our modern mystics says, “ We call autumn the fall of the year, and winter the dead past of the year, but they are as really included in the circuit of the year as spring and summer. Let us learn to contemplate the fall and the death of man, together with his new birth and resurrection, his ascension and glorification, as comprehended in the wheel of God.” 5. The prophet is careful to tell us that, complex as were the wheels, they were not mere dead mechanism. “ The spirit of life was in the wheels.” The immanency of the Divine life in all things was to him a noble and a helpful conception. And the latest teachings of science and philosophy, God’ s modern priests and prophets, are that all this mighty universe, all the things that we see and hear and perceive, are the phenomena, the manifestations, of a hidden but all-pervading life that, through our sensations, is thus in direct, constant, and vital contact with our consciousness. There is no such thing as dead matter. It is we who are dead, not to perceive the life that is in all. 6. Think of Ezekiel’ s monsters and griffins, and his impossible machinery careering through the air, as embodying the thought of God; and then contrast these representations with those of Him who said, “ He that hath seen Me hath seen the Father” ; who translated Divine abstractions into living and loving deeds; who healed the sick, and said, “ That is God” ; who taught the ignorant, and said, “ That is God” ; who forgave injuries, and said, “ That is God” ; who laid down His life, and said, “ That is God” ; who pointed to no grotesque symbols and spoke in no mystical jargon, but of the ever-serving, the ever-sacrificing, the ever-present, the ever-loving Father--God. (J. Halsey.) Wheels I. The wheel, as a rule, moves round one central bar of wood or iron, which we call an axis or axle. It teaches us a lesson in this respect. Our lives should have one strong principle, about which they should move just as the wheel does round its axle, and never turn aside in the least.2. The wheel often bears the burdens of others, and thus hellos the world to go on. This is true of many kinds of wheels; but I will only speak now of those which you see every day under all kinds of conveyances on railways and in our streets. How patiently they turn round and round, often along dirty roads, in order to carry the heavy burdens laid upon them! I want you children to be like the wheels, always ready to render a kind service to others: “ Bear ye one another’ s burdens, and thus fulfil the law of Christ.” 3. There is many a wheel that is satisfied with working out of sight. For instance, the wheels of the clock or watch go on doing their work although most attention is paid to the hands which they turn rather than to themselves. There are many in the world who could learn a great deal from wheels that work patiently out of sight. They are willing to be flywheels, which everybody can see and admire; but not to be little wheels, which do their work unnoticed by anyone--except by the Great Engineer, who knows them well, and what important work they are doing. There are others who are satisfied with the thought that this Divine Engineer is pleased with them because they do just the work He wishes them to do; and know that He is “ no respecter of persons.” 4. The wheel only asks of us a little oil to encourage it to go on. The other day I heard the wheels of a perambulator crying piteously for just two drops of oil; but the nursemaid was as deaf as a pest, and did not hear them, and the poor wheels went on squeaking. There are some good, kind people who will do all they can for the sake of others; but occasionally they want a little oil by way of encouragement; a kind word or smile, that is all. (D. Davies.) The vision of the wheels None of all the prophets have set out the providence of God in His wisdom, power, sovereignty, and superintendency more than this prophet Ezekiel, nor by more elegant emblems. In the whole verse you have four parts. I. The crier. Which though not expressed, yet is necessarily to be understood. “ It was cried” ; by whom? By Him that sat upon the throne (verse 1), that is the Lord. II. You have the cry itself. “ O wheel!” III. The object of the cry. To whom it was made; it was to the wheels. “ As for the wheels, it was cried to them.” IV. Here is the witness in whose presence the cry was uttered, and that was the prophet. “ It was cried in my hearing.” In speaking of these wheels, it will be necessary to look into the whole vision. In which vision you may see an excellent subordination of causes one to another, and all to the supreme cause, in the carrying on the government in the providential kingdom of Christ.1. You have the supreme cause set out by the appearance of a man upon a throne above the firmament (Ezekiel 1:26). Above the firmament was the likeness of a throne, and upon the throne was the likeness of a man above upon it. The likeness of a man. Who is this but the Lord Christ in the Person of the Mediator? But Christ was not as yet come in the flesh, why then is He here represented in the likeness of a man? (1) It was to prefigure His incarnation. (2) It was to show that the government of the world was put into His hand as Mediator, and that He possessed the throne of the world not as God only, but according to His human nature. By Him all things consist (Colossians 1:17). And hence it is that God the Father calls Him, My King (Psalms 2:6). 2. Though Christ rules absolutely, yet He doth not rule immediately; He governs the world by the agency of the Eternal Spirit. As Christ rules for God, so the Spirit rules for Christ. He is the great Administrator of the government throughout the mediatory kingdom. He sets all a-going (Ezekiel 1:12). Whither the Spirit was to go, they went; and again (verse 20), whithersoever the Spirit was to go, they went; thither was their Spirit to go. All the angels of God are under the command of the Spirit. And so it is with the wheels, they all move as the Spirit of God moves them. What great things did the judges in Israel of old! Why, all was by the Spirit of God. So it is said of Othniel, the Spirit of the Lord came upon him, and he went out to war, and the Lord delivered his enemies into his hand (Judges 3:10). So it is said (Judges 11:29), The Spirit of the Lord came upon Jephthah, and he fought against the children of Ammon; and the Lord delivered them into his hands. So it is said of Samson: The Spirit of the Lord moved him (Judges 13:25). Princes, armies, navies are all nothing without the Spirit of God act them. If God dispirits, the men of might cannot find their hands. The sound of a shaken leaf shall chase them (Leviticus 26:36). And if God spirits men, one shall chase a thousand, and two put ten thousand to flight (Deuteronomy 32:30). The wheels go which way soever the Spirit goes. If you see the wheel go over kingdoms, and break down thrones and sceptres, marvel not at the matter, for the Spirit of God is in the wheels. 3. Here is another subordination of causes; and that is the living creatures. In chap. 1:5 you read of four living creatures, every one of which had four faces (Ezekiel 1:6). He doth not say who or what these living creatures are in that vision; but in this tenth chapter he tells you they are the angels (Ezekiel 1:20). The living creatures that I saw, under the God of Israel, I knew that they were the cherubims; everyone had four faces apiece (Ezekiel 1:21). The former vision was at Chebar, this was in the temple. God discovers Himself more in the temple than at Chebar (Psalms 29:9). And if you look into chap. 1:10, there is a description of their faces. As for the likeness of their faces, they four had the face of a man, and the face of a lion, and the face of an ox, and the face of an eagle. The very same faces with the four beasts mentioned (Revelation 4:7). These four faces show four excellent endowments. Wisdom and prudence, typed out by the face of a man. Courage and boldness, by the face of a lion. Diligence and industry, by the face of an ox. Expedition and dispatch, by the face of an eagle. These were the likeness of the four faces of each cherubim, all which is to instruct us in the wise forecast by which the Providence of God doth dispose of all these lower events that come to pass in the world. The angels are the great ministers of Christ in the government of the world, called four here (chap. 1:5), four living creatures; not because Christ uses that number, and no more, but the number relates to the object, namely, the world, which is constantly divided into four parts, east, west, north, and south; and these are called the four quarters of the earth (Revelation 20:8). And the four quarters of heaven (Jeremiah 49:36). As there are four parts of the world, so the angels are said to be four; to show that they have a care of the whole earth (Revelation 7:1). But otherwise God doth not use only four angels in the conducting the affairs of the world, but many, yea multitudes (2 Kings 6:17). Christ hath His angels in all quarters; as the devil and his angels compass the whole world for evil, so Christ hath His angels who compass it for good. They are in every corner and company; especially in every church and assembly. The inward part of the temple was to be adorned with cherubims, to note the special attendance of the angels in the assemblies of the saints (1 Corinthians 11:10). If Satan and fallen angels have a power to influence the affairs of the world for evil, then surely good angels have as much power as they to influence them for good, otherwise devils should gain by their fall more than ever they had by their standing. Great is the influence of angels in the governments of the world; therefore the wheels are said to follow the motions of the cherubims (Ezekiel 10:16). 4. Here is a further subordination; and that is of the affairs of the world to the angels. Christ, who rules all, sends His Spirit, the Spirit acts the angels, the angels rule the world, and therefore you have in the next place a vision of wheels. By these wheels the world is resembled, and all the affairs of it (Ezekiel 1:19). When the living creatures went, the wheels went by them; and when the living creatures were lifted up from the earth, the wheels were lifted up. And ver. 2. When those went, these went; and when those stood, these stood. Now they which are called here the living creatures are in Ezekiel 10:16 called the cherubims, and the reason of all is in the next words, for the Spirit of the living creature is in them, i.e. in the wheels, as it is twice mentioned (Ezekiel 1:20-21). So that here you have a short view of the whole subordination of causes one to another, and of all to the supreme cause, in ordering all the affairs of this lower world. God the Father puts the government of all into the hands of Christ. Christ substitutes the Spirit to be His Prorex, and sends Him into the world to manage all things. The Spirit acts the angels, and they all minister to Him. The angels act the wheels, and they all are governed by them. I must open this part of the vision a little more distinctly concerning the wheels-- 1. As to the nature of them.2. As to what is ascribed to them. 1. As for the nature of these wheels, they are visional, and presented by way of emblem. The prophet tells you (chap. 1:1) the heavens were opened, and I saw visions of God. These wheels were a part of those visions, and therefore not material wheels, but yet as really represented to the eye of the prophet in similitude, and as strongly impressed upon his mind in the image of them as if they had been material. By the wheels we are to understand this visible world, because of the turnings and changes of all things in it. It is usual with the Spirit of God to resemble the world to things that are in their nature most mutable. (1) The wheel is a thing fitted for motion. From its figure it is apt to turn and move any way; that spoke that is now lowermost is anon highest, and that which is got to the top soon comes to the bottom again; here is no such matter as a permanent state of things. What are the kingdoms and empires of the world, but so many wheels turning up and down? Those four great monarchies, the Babylonian, the Persian, the Grecian, and the Roman, where are they? What is become of them? how did they wheel from one to another, and at last wheeled out of being? So it is with cities,--what is become of Sodom, and the cities of the plain? Nay, what is become of Jerusalem? She that was once the beauty of the whole earth, and yet now laid waste, and not one stone left upon another. Nay, the Church, which hath a firmer foundation than heaven and earth, yet she is a wheel too: hurried here and there, never long in any condition; sometimes prosperous, sometimes persecuted. Now she enjoys rest and peace; anon, O thou afflicted, and tossed with tempest! One while she is in Egypt, another while in the wilderness; sometimes in Canaan, and sometimes in Babylon. The lot of the Church under the Gospel is the same. It is the same with particular persons and families; how doth the wheel turn there? Solomon tells you, one generation passes away, and another comes, but he tells you of none that stays. Man’ s exit is so near to his entrance, that what comes between is inconsiderable. His birth is a change, his death is a change, and so is his whole life: there are changes in his health; well today, sick tomorrow. Changes in his height and honour; now on the top of the wheel, anon at the bottom. You have an instance of this in Haman. (2) Wheels make a great noise, their motion is obstreperous; so the prophet describes them (Nahum 3:2). The noise of the rattling of the wheels, and of the jumping chariots. So it is in the motions of the world. Great wars make a great noise; therefore you read of the noise of the trumpet, and the noise of war (Exodus 32:17). Every battle of the warrior is with confused noise (Isaiah 9:5). Great sorrows and great rejoicings make a great noise (Ezra 3:13). You read of the noise of joy, and the noise of weeping. Great changes in government make a great noise (Jeremiah 49:21). The earth is moved at the noise of their fall. (3) The wheel is an instrument of great variety of services; it is many ways useful. The chariot is drawn upon wheels; great burdens are carried upon the wheel. Now, from these things it will not be difficult for you to apprehend what is meant by the wheels in this vision; namely, all created beings in this lower world; and all instruments which God makes use of in the government of it; all the elements, fire, water, earth, and air: they are so many wheels. But we are to understand them chiefly of rational agents: kings and princes, magistrates and ministers, armies and navies, rich and poor, learned and unlearned. Thus much for the nature of the wheels, which is the first thing to be opened. 2. As to what is ascribed to them. Now, concerning these wheels, there are several things ascribed to them that are of very great moment. (1) It is said the wheels are full of eyes (Ezekiel 10:12). “ The wheels were full of eyes round about.” This implieth the Omniscience of Christ, and His exact notice of all matters in the world; though many things may be hid from us, yet there is nothing hid from Him. If we could suppose anything done by man that is unknown to God, why then, in that particular thing the knowledge of man would be superior to God; he would know something more than God knows, which is impossible; for the eyes of the Lord are in every place, beholding the evil and the good (Proverbs 15:3). There are secrets of government, secrets of state, secrets of the heart, secret contrivances, secret aims and intentions; but none of them are secrets to God. Known unto God are all His works from the beginning of the world. Thus the wheels are full of eyes. (2) This sets out the care of Christ: the things of the world are not carried on by a blind force; all events are wisely disposed of by the governing care of Providence, which hath a special influence in the managing of all. Things may seem to us to run upon wheels, to go at random, or to fail out by chance, but there is no such thing as chance to that God that foresees and orders all events. He worketh all things according to the counsel of His own will. Those motions and commotions in the world that to us seem most irregular and confused are all ordered by God. (3) These wheels are said to go upon their four sides (Ezekiel 10:11 of this 10th chap.). I told you before that the four wheels answer to the four parts of the world; and when it is said they went on the four sides, the meaning is that, look what quarter of the world was appointed to them, thither they went and there they moved. And then it shows their motion was constant and settled, answering to the immutable purpose of Him with whom there is no shadow of change. God is not as man, who is fickle and doth not know his own mind, turning from one side to another; today for pulling down what yesterday he set up. There is no altering the course of Providence; no art, no power, no policy can turn Him out of the way, His Providence is settled in its motion. (4) There is no going back (Ezekiel 10:11). They turned not as they went, but to the place whither the head looked they followed it; they turned not as they went. We may be sure there are no retrograde motions in the course of Providence. How can there, seeing the wheels are full of eyes round about? He to whom all future events are in present view can see no cause to repent. There can be no blots in the copy of Providence, because it is written by the straight line of His unerring counsel. If God go forth against a person, or against a nation or people, none can stand in His way to turn Him back (Isaiah 43:13). If God will pull down, who can support? If God will take away (be it honours, or crowns, or kingdoms, or life itself), who can hinder Him? Can policy turn Him back? No. Take counsel together, and it shall come to nought (Isaiah 8:10). (5) The wheels are said to he lifted up from the earth, and to be high and dreadful (Ezekiel 1:18-19). This is to teach us that God’ s wisdom is infinite and unsearchable, and His Providences full of mystery. Sometimes they move in an ordinary way, then the wheels move upon the earth. Sometimes God goes out of the usual road, and acts in extraordinary ways, that reason can’ t reach, then the wheels are said to be “ high, and lifted up from the earth.” How little could Joseph see what God was doing when he was in the pit at Dothan, less in the dungeon in Egypt, when he is laid in chains for a reward of his chastity? Oh, how high are the wheels above the earth! nay, sometimes they are so high that they are dreadful (Ezekiel 10:18). They were so to Jeremiah (Ezekiel 12:1). Wherefore doth the way of the wicked prosper? wherefore are all they happy that deal very treacherously? They were so to Job (chap. 19:7). Behold I cry out of wrong, but am not heard; I cry aloud, but there is no judgment. He hath kindled His wrath against me, and He counts me as one of His enemies (verse 11). When the Church is in trouble, and all the earth sits still, and is at, rest. When you see Christians kingdoms broken with wars and tumults, and heathen nations in peace and quiet. His providences are ever righteous, but sometimes very mysterious. (6) There is a wheel in the midst of a wheel (Ezekiel 1:16, and Ezekiel 1:10 of this chap.). Their appearance and their work was, as it were, a wheel in the middle of a wheel. This implies a transverse motion, like the circles in a globe, that cut and cross each other. It is to show us how cross and contrary the motions of Providence are to our apprehensions and designs. He brings about His purposes by contrary means. Haman lays a plot against the Jews, to cut off all the people of God in one day; and the king himself was in the plot too; letters were written, the thing agreed on. The wheel seems to run very smoothly; but mark the next words, it was turned to the contrary; and in the day that the enemy thought to have power over the Jews, that the Jews had power over them that hated them. Here’ s a wheel in the midst of a wheel. Who can understand the intricacies of Providence? The working of this inward wheel is seen many ways. When God shall make such impressions upon the spirits of men as shall have their effect in their utter ruin, is not this from the wheel within? (7) The wheels are sometimes at a stop, they stand stiff. So you read (verse 18 of this 10th chap.). When the cherubims stood, the wheels stood. This sometimes is really so. God suspends the ordinary operation of the creatures. The lions’ mouths are shut so long as Daniel is in the den. The fire hath no power upon the three martyrs. God can stop the motions of all second causes as He pleases. The sun stands still upon Gibeon, and the moon in the valley of Ajalon, if God will have it so. The sea divides, and the waters stand as a wall to fence out a passage for Israel. God can put a stand to the greatest wheels. Israel in Egypt cries for deliverance, God promises the thing, and sends Moses to effect it; but instead of being delivered, their bondage is increased, and their task doubled. The wheels seem to stand. (8) The wheels are said to have all one likeness (Ezekiel 1:16; Ezekiel 10:10). They four had one likeness. Likeness in colour and appearance. Their appearance was like the colour of a beryl (Ezekiel 1:16). Likeness in situation, none higher than other: likeness in dimension, none greater or lesser than other. This teacheth us that there are the same dispensations of Providence in all times and all places, alike changes and vicissitudes everywhere (Ecclesiastes 9:2). All times have their turns, and all places their changes, as well one as another. That which befalls one nation befalls another; in all parts of the world the wheels are the same, all move to accomplish the purposes of God; alike in end, all move to promote the glory of God. (9) The wheels are upon the earth (Ezekiel 1:15). “ As I beheld the living creatures, behold one wheel upon the earth by the living creatures.” He mentions but one wheel, because he that saw one saw all, by reason of their likeness. But how could the wheel be seen on the earth, when the prophet saw the vision in heaven? As the wheels were not material wheels, but visional; so this earth was not the material earth, but earth in a vision; and so it was not the earth beneath, but an earth above. The wheels are said to be seen on the earth, and not in heaven, to intimate to us the difference between this state and that. This is a state of changes, but that state is unchangeable; the wheels are on earth, there are none in heaven. As there are no changes in God, I am the Lord, I change not (Malachi 3:6); so there are no changes in the glory that results from His presence. All things in that state are durable and permanent. In heaven, where all graces are perfect, there all our comforts are constant. But here, where all our duties are mixed with infirmities, no wonder if all our comforts have their alloys. It is the wisdom of God to proportion our outward condition to our inward disposition, which is mixed and chequered. The wheels are seen upon the earth. (10) The wheels are acted by the living creatures (Ezekiel 1:19; Ezekiel 10:16; Ezekiel 01:17). The living creatures in the first chapter are the cherubims in this, and they are the angels that are intended by both. And that which is the design of the Holy Ghost in these expressions is to confirm this truth, that all inferior causes are acted and governed by causes superior. No creature moves below without a guide above. When the cherubims went, the wheels went. The angels have a great hand in the government of the world. And therefore if we will have any more distinct account of the motions of the wheels, we must then observe the motions of the angels. And concerning them, here are three things to be remarked-- 1. Their going.2. Their being lifted up.3. Their returning. 1. Their going. It is said they went; and this going of theirs hath two circumstances not to be passed by. (1) They went straight forward.(2) They ran. (1) They went straight forward. “ They went” ; there was no cessation. “ They went forward” ; there was no interruption. “ They went straight forward,” without diversion. Had they looked back, that had denoted unwillingness. Had they turned aside, that had spoken out frowardness. Had they given over before they had completed their course, that had argued weariness. And this carriage of the angels is instructive in three duties. To be diligent in the Lord’ s work. It is the rule God gives us (Ecclesiastes 9:10). You have motives to this both from without and within; both from below and from above. From without. How industrious are wicked men in the service of sin, making provision for the flesh to fulfil the lusts thereof. And shall they take more pains to damn their souls than we do to save ours? You have motives from within. How active is indwelling sin in the heart; what vigorous efforts doth it make to set up its dominion within, to gratify every lust, to spoil every duty, to root out the habits of grace, to quench all the motions of the spirit. You have motives from beneath. How restless are the infernal spirits against your souls; and should not this awaken us out of our sinful slumbers, and quicken us to duty? the apostle proposes it for that end (1 Peter 5:8). You have motives from above. The good angels of God, oh, how active are they in all their ministrations; therefore called flames of fire (Psalms 104:4), because of their agility and fervency in fulfilling the commands of God. (2) Another duty this carriage of the angels teaches us is to mind our way and have our eye to the mark. “ They turned not when they went.” They looked not this way or that, but straight forward, to accomplish that which was their appointed work. As the apostle said (Philippians 3:14), I press toward the mark. Of all things be sure to mind this, to have an eye to special duty; this is going straight forward. This carriage of the angels instructs us to persevere in the ways of God, without being weary. The cherubims went straight forward, and turned not when they went; and shall not the wheels do so too? Shall we begin in the spirit and end in the flesh? (Galatians 5:7). (3) There is another circumstance in their motion, and that is the speed of it; they ran (Ezekiel 1:14). The living creatures ran . . . as the appearance of a flash of lightning, which notes their great speed and swiftness in doing the will of God; and therefore they are described with wings (Ezekiel 1:6). Every one had four wings. In Daniel 9:21 it is said, Gabriel came flying to him swiftly. And this shows us what our duty is, namely, To labour that the will of God may be done on earth by us, as it is done in heaven by angels. So was David (Psalms 119:60). Hasty purposes are usually clogged with show performances. So the Apostle Paul. Immediately I conferred not with flesh and blood. A ready obedience is a good proof of the power and virtue of grace in the heart, and renders the duty highly acceptable to God. 2. They are lifted up. The living creatures were lifted up from the earth (Ezekiel 1:19; Ezekiel 10:17). The expression may be taken either in an active or a passive sense. Take it actively, the living creatures lift up themselves from the earth, and the wheels lifted up themselves also, and then it imports their looking up to heaven for direction and assistance. So do the angels, and so do the wheels, to teach us that there is no moving right in the work of God, without direction and assistance from God; therefore says David, To Thee, O Lord, do I lift up my soul (Psalms 25:1). Wisdom to guide the undertaking, help to perfect the performance, and success to crown the service. If the expression be taken in a passive sense, then this lifting up imports a Divine power influencing the creatures in a more than ordinary manner, to fit them for some eminent service. It is said of Jehoshaphat, that his heart was lifted up in the ways of the Lord (2 Chronicles 17:6), i.e. he was carried above all discouragements and difficulties; and made strong and valiant for God and His work. This teaches us that God doth sometimes spirit second causes in an unwonted manner, and elevates them above themselves. So it was with David’ s worthies; of one of whom it is said, he lifted up his spear against eight hundred whom he slew at one time (2 Samuel 23:8). There is a notable promise referring to this in Zechariah 11:8. He that is feeble among them shall be as David, and the house of David as the angel of the Lord. Let the Spirit of the Lord but lift up some Zerubbabel to set on foot temple work, and nothing shall hinder; what though there be a Samaritan faction at home, and that backed with a foreign confederacy with the Persian court? What great things did the apostles do in the infancy of the Gospel! Lord, even the devils are subject to us through Thy name (Luke 10:17). 3. There is the return of the living creatures. So it is said (Ezekiel 1:14). The living creatures ran and returned; but this seems to contradict the ninth and twelfth verses, for there it is said, They turned not when they went. But this receives an easy solution. They turned not from going and doing the work appointed them; but when that work was done, then they returned. They turned not from executing their commission, but then they returned to receive new instructions. And hence they are called watchers (Daniel 4:13). Behold a watcher, and an holy one, and (verse 17), This matter is by the decree of the watchers. They watch for God’ s orders to execute them for the Church’ s good; and this teaches us two things. (1) That God will have an account of all the work He hath given us to do. As the angels return, so do the wheels. Every one of us must give an account of himself to God (Romans 14:12). There are none of us but have somewhat or other to account to God for. (2) We are taught hereby never to be weary of the work God sets us to do: one duty should fit us for another (Galatians 6:9). Thus by the wheels being acted by the cherubims we learn what a perfect harmony there is among all second causes in their dependence upon and subjection to the wise and holy God. 4. Here is another thing ascribed to these wheels, and that is, the influencing virtue of the same spirit which acted the living creatures (Ezekiel 1:20). The spirit of the living creature was in the wheels. By the spirit here is meant the Divine Spirit, the eternal Spirit of God: the same Spirit that acts the living creatures, acts the wheels also; which in chap. 10:17 is called the Spirit of Life; and this is that Spirit which guided all their motions; therefore it is said (Ezekiel 1:12), Whither the Spirit was to go, they went. There is not an angel in heaven, nor a wheel upon earth, but are all acted and governed by the same Spirit. As the Spirit was concerned in the framing of the wheels; so He is in the motions of them: as He was in the creating of all things; so He is in all their operations. Lastly, these wheels are under the direction of a voice: as there are eyes round about them to guide them in their way, so there is a voice above them to command their motions. As for the wheels, it was cried to them, O wheel! This cry is the voice of Him that sits upon the throne (verse 1). And though it be particularly directed to Jerusalem, yet in a more general sense it is intended to the whole world, to all kingdoms, cities, churches, to all people. But why is the cry made to one wheel, when here is mention of more? It was cried to the wheels, O wheel! It is to show us that all inferior causes, and instruments, are but as one in the hand of the Lord. But though all creatures are included in these wheels, yet rational agents are principally intended; and if so, then to you is this word cried; and perhaps it is therefore made in the singular number, that everyone may look on it as his duty to hearken to the voice of God in the cry. As in giving out the decalogue, it is so directed that everyone may think himself concerned. Great desires, great joys, great grief, and great love are frequently thus expressed; and so this “ O!” is a servant to the affections. 1. It is an “ O” of discipline, by which we are instructed to admire and adore the wonders of Providence. The voice is from the throne, but it is to direct us at the footstool; therefore it is said, It was cried in my hearing, O wheel! (Romans 11:33). 2. It is an “ O” of rebuke; and it is to every particular wheel, of what degree soever. Are magistrates wheels? this O wheel is cried to them. Why do ye stand still? Why have you acted no more for God? ye are heirs of restraint (Judges 18:7). Are ministers wheels? the cry from the throne is to you. O wheel! why do you not take heed to your ministry to fulfil it? Why do ye not move with more zeal for God, like the living creatures, that ran as the appearance of a flash of lightning? Why do ye not cry aloud against the sins of the times? Are parents and masters wheels? then I hear a cry to you; why do ye not mind the duty of your places? why move ye not more exemplarily in your families? Finally, every man is a “ wheel” that is to be in constant motion for God; according to the place wherein God hath set him; and therefore the cry from the throne is to all of all sorts, rich and poor, young and old, high and low, male and female; to all, without exception of any. “ O wheel!” why move ye not! why seek ye not after God? 3. It is an “ O” of threatening. And this follows the former where no repentance intervenes to prevent it. Counsel goes first, but if that be slighted, reproof comes; and if that makes no impression, threatening takes place, then it is O wheel! O church! O city! O kingdom! Judgment is near at hand, wrath is coming upon thee. And this seems to be the sense of it here. Jerusalem had highly provoked the Lord, not only in setting at nought His counsels. 4. It is an “ O” of lamentation, a language full of sorrow and compassion, and so shows the pity of Christ to a self-undoing world and people. “ O wheel!” What hath sin brought upon thee? O people, O notion, how deplorable is your case become! 5. It is an “ O” of calling, and carries a command in it, which is to be understood, though not expressed. O wheel! repent and turn yourselves from your idols, and turn away your faces from all your abominations (Ezekiel 14:6). 1. Doth He that sits in the throne govern the “ wheels” ? is it He that cries to them and commands them? then let us not fear the Church’ s enemies, how many or how great soever they may be. One God is more than all opposers. (1) He is more in number (2 Chronicles 32:7-8).(2) He is more in power (Job 9:13). 2. If He who sits above upon the throne doth command and govern the “ wheels,” then our duty is to commend them to His care. Therefore, in all our addresses to God, let us make conscience of praying for the “ wheels.” (1) For the great “ wheels” of the nation. Pray for our royal sovereign the king, whom. God hath made to be the father of our country. (2) Pray for the two houses, the great council of the nation, those upper and lower “ wheels” ; that they may be full of eyes round about, to know the things which belong to our peace. The highest “ wheels” will go wrong if God hides understanding from them. (3) Pray for the lesser “ wheels,” namely, inferior magistrates, that they may all in their places act for God, suppress wickedness, encourage virtue, countenance religion, and so move right on, and not bear the sword in vain. (4) Pray for the spiritual wheels, the ministers of the Gospel, that they may be zealous for the truth, bold for God in a time when sin is daring. And seeing that every person, every individual is a “ wheel” in the vision, therefore we ought to pray for all the Wheels, that they may not stand still, but move right on, following the guidance of Him that sits above upon the throne. This would make the “ wheels” move wisely, like the “ wheels;” that are full of eyes. The Spirit of God is a Spirit of wisdom, and wisdom is profitable to direct. This would make them move right on, and not turn as they go. The righteous shall hold on his way (Job 17:9). Lastly, it would make them move swiftly, and be in the ways of God, like the chariots of Aminadab. 3. Doth He that sits above upon the throne govern the “ wheels” ? Then let not us do anything to hinder Him in His work. 4. If He that sits above upon the throne guides the “ wheels,” then commit all into His hands; subscribe to His wisdom, and be resigned to His will; for He doth all things well and wisely: He is wonderful in counsel, and excellent in working. Many pretend to bow to His commanding will, who yet cannot subscribe to His effecting will. Suppose things do not go in the world as you would have them, yet they go as God orders them: the wheels go right on, God doth not need to set His sun by your dial. Trust Him with the government of the world, for He is head over all things to the Church. (Matthew Mead.) Ezekiel 10:14 Every one had four faces; the first face was the face of a cherub.The Christian ministry The text seems to have a decided reference to the angelic hosts,--those ministers of God who do His pleasure. To resemble these should be the great desire of every Christian, that God’ s will may be done on earth even as it is done in heaven. But especially should this be the case with the Christian minister: his office greatly resembles that of the holy intelligences above; he is a messenger of God to mankind, an angel of the Church, and therefore well does it become him to study the character and emulate the holiness of cherubim and seraphim in heaven. I. The first face was that of a cherub. The symbol--1. Of exalted dignity. Dwelling around the throne of Deity. His especial ambassadors, etc. No office can be more exalted than that of the Christian ministry. It is that to which Jehovah appointed His own Son. One writer quaintly remarks, “ God had only one Son, and He made a preacher of Him.” “ Workers together with God,” etc. 2. Of elevated devotion. They are represented as holding great intimacy and close fellowship with God. How indispensable that the ministers of Christ live near to the Lord, hold close communion with the skies. 3. Of distinguished holiness. Ye that bear the vessels of the Lord, etc., as the priests of old. Not only partakers of the ordinary graces of the Spirit, but adorned with the mature fruits of holiness to the glory of God. II. The second symbol is that of a man. With the sanctity of the cherub is to be united the sympathy of sanctified humanity. As men, Christian ministers are--1. To be influenced by their relationship to Jesus as Head of the Church. They should have His meekness, humility, lowliness, desire to labour, readiness to suffer, etc. 2. To feel for their fellow sinners peculiar compassion. They are their brethren, of one blood, spirit, and destiny. 3. To know their own insufficiency and entire dependence on God’ s blessing. This treasure in earthen vessels, etc. Paul planteth, etc. III. The third emblem was the face of a lion. By this we are to understand the strength and magnanimity which are necessary to the ministerial office. The Christian minister must be strong in the grace which is in Christ Jesus. He must be strong to resist evil, to stand firm in the conflict, and to conduct himself as a man of God. IV. The fourth symbol is that of the eagle. By this--1. The true character of the minister’ s work is portrayed. He has to do with spiritual things. He teaches not philosophy, science, economy, legislation, but the truths of the kingdom of God, the knowledge of the way of salvation. 2. The symbol of the eagle may be designed also to be expressive of their ardour and zeal The minister of Jesus is to be instant, earnest, energetic, zealously affected in every good thing. 3. His soul is to yearn with intense anxiety over perishing sinners. Application-- 1. Let the solemn character of the office ever be cherished, and a lively sense of its importance be maintained from day to day. 2. Let the glorious results of faithfulness in the Saviour’ s service animate to constancy and perseverance. (J. Burns, D. D.) The combination of faculties in spiritual life In the power of this life it does not matter where we are, or under what conditions we are found, we find a sufficiency of grace. Mr. Ruskin, in his Love’s Meinie, describes the Phalerope, a strange bird living out of the way of human beings, in the Polar regions of Greenland, Norway and Lapland, which he calls “ The Arctic Fairy.” It is a central type of all bird power, but with elf gifts added: it flies like a lark, trips on water lily leaves like a fairy, swims like a duck, and roves like a seagull, having been seen sixty miles from land; and finally, though living chiefly in Lapland and Iceland, it has been seen serenely swimming and catching flies in the hot water of the geysers, in which a man could not bear his hand. As the above bird has a combination of faculties, so the gift of Eternal Life as personified in Christ bestows faculties of grace which enable us to stand in the clear light of God’ s holy throne, which empower us to bear trial’ s fiery ordeal, which equip us for conflict with the great adversary, which endow us with endurance in treading life’ s rough way, which energise with strength in the work of the Gospel, which environ us with peace and joy in time of persecution, and which ennoble our whole being, for we are lifted into the realm of God’ s dear Son. (Footsteps of Truth.) Ezekiel 10:17 When they stood, these stood; and when they were lifted up, these lifted up themselves also.Feet and wings Flying creatures have wings for the air and feet for the ground. This touch of nature is put on God’ s cherubim. The prophet intends no special religious lesson here, but the fact he cites may be used to convey such. I. The subject of Christian experience, what it is and how to be maintained. We have faculties of locomotion, feeding, sense, perception, etc., by which we act our parts on foot, as it were. We have attributes of faith perception, love appropriation, spiritual imagination, in which we become aerial creatures, resting suspensively in things above the world. This uplifting produces the transcendent mystery of experience in Christian conversion. We rise by trust in God--admitting the full revelation of His truth and friendship. Can the soul thus lifted stay in that serene element? It has gravitations which pull it all the while downward, and settle it on its feet, as the flying creatures fold their wings when they settle. Let us trace some of the instances and ways in which it ceases to live by faith. When a man of enterprise thinks of independence, how easily, how insensibly he ceases to hang on Providence as he did. His prayers lose their fervour. God is far less dear and less consciously present; and how long will he have the consciousness of His presence at all? The moment any disciple touches ground with but the tip of his foot, and begins to rest on earthly props, a mortal weakness takes him, and he goes down. Only a calm and loving return to his trust will recover him, and God is faithful enough to be trusted at all times. Let there be this rest by faith, and he will carry himself more steadily in studies, toils, or engagements. Sometimes obscurations may occur, but he has only to believe the more strongly and wait till they be cleared. II. Many persons miss ever going above a service on foot, by not conceiving at all the more ethereal range of experience into which true faith would lift them. Sometimes they become reformers or philanthropists. They mean business in their religion, caring little for the fervours that are not fervours of work, The combining and roiling up of great masses of opinion are the means by which they expect to carry their projects. Censure and storm and fiery denunciation are close at hand. They, many times, do not conceive that they are disciples because of their repentances, or their prayers, or sensing of God by their faith, or any other grace that separates them from the world. They have much to say of love, but they visibly hate more strongly than they love. They never go above to descend upon the reform by inspirations there kindled; they keep on their feet, and war with the evils on the same level with them. Sometimes they attempt self-culture in the name of religion. They could mend defects, chasten faults, put themselves in the charities they have learned from Christ, perhaps, to admire; but the work is a far more hopeless one than they imagine, if there is no uplifting help from gracious inspirations. Oh, if they would go up to Christ, or to God in a true faith culture, faults would fall off, as blasted flowers from a tree, by the life principle therein. Sometimes they suppose they are religious because of a certain patronage they give to the Church and the Word. Not being in the gift of spiritual discernment, their tastes will be the better; and as there are always a great many reasons why a thing should not be done to any single reason why it should, they assume to be specially qualified critics. They contribute these critical powers, while others, less gifted, may contribute their prayers! Such negatives do not belong to the range of the Spirit, but to the nether world of fashion or opinion or custom. The critics have feet, but no wings. If they could give themselves over in trust to the Saviour, instead of giving their opinions and tastes, their contributions would be of worthier significance. (H. Bushnell, D. D.) Ezekiel 10:18-19 Then the glory of the Lord departed.Departing glory 1. How unwilling the Lord is to depart, and leave that people He hath dwelt amongst, and been engaged unto! 2. There is no visible church but may fall, and cease to be. God is not tied to any place, to any people; but if they corrupt His worship He may withdraw: He did depart from Jerusalem, from the temple, and they were unchurched. 3. When the Lord goes from a people, then the protection and benefits they have by the angels go away. When the sun is gone from us, we have short days and long nights, little light but much darkness; and when God departs, you have much night and little day left, your comforts fade suddenly, and miseries come upon you swiftly. When God and His angels go from a church, the dragon and his angels get in; when men’ s inventions prevail, they are subject to all woes and miseries (Hosea 9:12). 4. God would have men the notice of His departure. The cherubims stood at the door of the east gate, and there the glory stood over them; that gate was so seated in Mount Zion that they might see the entrance by it from most parts of the city, and here the glory now stood; it was come forth from the temple, and now exposed to public view, that they might inquire what was the matter, use all means to recover the glory which was going. (W. Greenhill, M. A.) God’ s gradual withdrawal Observe with how many steps and pauses God departs, as loth to go, as if to see if there be any that will intercede with Him to return. None of the priests in the inner court between the temple and the altar would court His stay; therefore He leaves their court and stands at the east gate, which led into the court of the people, to see if any of them would yet at length stand in the gap. God removes by degrees from a provoking people; and, when He is ready to depart in displeasure, would return to them in mercy if they were but a repenting, praying people. (M. Henry.) Ezekiel 10:21 The likeness of the hands of a man was under their wings. Wing and hand In two places in Ezekiel we are told there were hands under the wings: human hands; hands like ours. If this world is ever brought to God, it will be by appreciation of the fact that supernatural and human agencies are to go together; that which soars, and that which practically works; that which ascends the heavens, and that which reaches forth to earth: the joining of the terrestrial and the celestial, “ the hand and the wing.”1. We see this union in the construction of the Bible. The wing of inspiration is in every chapter. What realms of the ransomed earth did Isaiah fly over! Over what battlefields for righteousness; what coronations; what dominations of gladness; what rainbows around the throne did St. John hover! But in every book of the Bible you just as certainly see the human hand that wrote it. Moses, the lawyer, showing the hand in the Ten Commandments, the foundation of all good legislation; Amos, the herdsman, showing the hand in similes drawn from fields and flocks: the fishermen Apostles, showing the hand when writing about Gospel nets; Luke, the physician, showing the hand by giving especial attention to diseases cured; Paul showing the scholarly hand by quoting from heathen poets, and making arguments about the Resurrection that stand as firmly as on the day he wrote them; and St. John shows the hand by taking his imagery from the appearance of the bright waters spread round the island of Patmos at the hour of sunset, when he speaks of the sea of glass mingled with fire; scores of hands writing the parables, the miracles, the promises, the hosannas, the raptures, the consolations, the woes of ages. 2. Behold this combination of my text in all successful Christian work. We stand or kneel offering prayer. Now, if anything has wings, it is prayer. Prayer flies not only across continents, but across centuries. If prayer had only feet, it might run here and there and do wonders. But it has wings, and they are as radiant of plume, and as swift to rise, or swoop, or dart, or circle, as the cherubim’ s wings which swept through Ezekiel’ s visions. But, oh, the prayer must have the hand under the wing, or it may amount to nothing. Stop singing, “ Fly abroad, thou mighty Gospel,” unless you are willing to give something of your own means to make it fly. Have you been praying for the salvation of a young man’ s soul? That is right; but also extend the hand of invitation to come to a religious meeting. From the very structure of the hand we might make up our mind as to some of the things it was made for: to hold fast, to lift, to push, to pull, to help, and to rescue. And endowed with two hands, we might take the broad hint that for others as well as for ourselves we were to hold fast, to lift, to push, to pull, to help, to rescue. 3. This idea is combined in Christ. When He rose from Mount Olivet He took wing. All up and down His life you see the uplifting Divinity. But He was also very human. It was the hand under the wing that touched the woes of the world, and took hold of the sympathies of the centuries. 4. There is a kind of religion in our day that my text rebukes. There are men and women spending their time in delectation over their saved state, going about from prayer meeting to prayer meeting, and from church to church, telling how happy they are. But show them a subscription paper, or ask them to go and visit the sick, or tell them to reclaim a wanderer, or speak out for some unpopular Christian enterprise, and they have bronchitis, or stitch in the side, or sudden attack of grippe. Their religion is all wing and no hand. They can fly heavenward, but they cannot reach out earthward. There was much sense in that which the robust boatman said when three were in a boat off the coast in a sudden storm that threatened to sink the boat, and one suggested that they all kneel down in the boat to pray, and the robust man took hold of the oar and began to pull, saying: “ Let you, the strong, stout fellow, lay hold of the other oar, and let the weak one who banner pull give himself up to prayer.” Pray by all means; but at the same time pull with all your might for the world’ s rescue. 5. There is also in my subject the suggestion of rewarded work for God and righteousness. When the wing went the hand went. When the wing ascended the hand ascended; and for every useful and Christian hand there will be elevation celestial and eternal. Expect no human gratitude, for it will not come. That was a wise thing Fenelon wrote to his friend: “ I am very glad, my dear, good friend, that you are pleased with one of my letters which has been shown to you. You are right in saying and believing that I ask little of men in general. I try to do much for them and to expect nothing in return. I find a decided advantage in these terms. On these terms I defy them to disappoint me.” But the day cometh when your work, which perhaps no one has noticed, or rewarded, or honoured, will rise to heavenly recognition. While I have been telling you that the hand was under the wing of the cherubim, I want you to realise that the wing was over the hand. Perhaps reward may not come to you at once. But I promise you victory further on and higher up; if not in this world, then in the next. Roll on that everlasting rest for all the toiling and misunderstood and suffering and weary children of God, and know right well that to join your hand, at last emancipated from the struggle, will be the soft hand, the gentle hand, the triumphant hand of Him who wipeth away all tears from all faces. That will be the Palace of the King of which the poet sang in somewhat Scotch dialect:-- “ It’ s a bonnie, bonnie warl’ that we’ re livin’ in the noo, And sunny is the lan’ we often traivel thro’ ; But in vain we look for something to which oor hearts can cling, For its beauty is as naething to the Palace o’ the King. We see oor friends await us ower yonder at His gate: Then let us a’ be ready, for ye ken it’ s gettin’ late; Let oor lamps be brichtly burnin’ ; let’ s raise our voice an’ sing: Soon we’ ll meet, to part nae mair, i’ the Palace o’ the King.” (T. De Witt Talmage.) . Ezekiel 11:1-12 Prophesy against them. Evil in high places The spirit told Ezekiel that the princes were the men that devised mischief and gave wicked counsels to the city. How often have we seen this prostitution of great mental power and great official authority through the service of evil! Imagine the picture of five-and-twenty men, the princes of Israel, all given over to the conception of evil policies and the execution of selfish designs! We shall miss the whole purpose of Divine revelation if we suppose that evil is local, or that it is confined to the ignorant and the poor. Evil is universal: it is in the thrones of the nations, as well as in the hovels and huts of poverty; the king has wandered as far from the standard of righteousness as has the meanest subject of his crown. Education when not sanctified is simply an instrument of evil. Great social station, when it is divorced from the action of a healthy conscience, only gives a man leverage, by the working of which he can do infinite social mischief. Moral security, therefore, is not in circumstances, but in character. When princes are right and just, wise and patriotic, it does not follow that the people will follow their example, or reproduce their excellences; but when the princes are of a contrary mind it is easy to imagine how their great influence may contribute vastly to the spread of wrong thinking and mischievous action. Religious apostasy means social anarchy. When the princes ceased to pray they ceased to regard human nature as of any value: slaughter became a pastime; heaps of slain men were passed by as mere commonplaces, and the whole city became as but a cauldron in which the flesh of men might be boiled. But God Himself says He will make this use of the city; He will make it a cauldron, and they who supposed it was a place of security shall find what uses providence can make of human arrangements. The Lord says that He is proceeding on account of the sins of the people, saying, “ I know the things that come into your mind, every one of them.” The empire of the mind is supposed to be the exclusive property of the individual: what brother can take out of his brother’ s heart all the thoughts that live there? What man can read the mind of his dearest friend, and be as familiar with that friend’ s motives as he is with that friend’ s conduct? The mind can shut out the closest observer, yet the one observer that it cannot exclude is the living God. The things that come into the mind determine the real character of the mind of man, Conduct is but a short measure by which to estimate a man’ s character. (J. Parker, D. D.) A vision of priesthoods I. The destruction of a corrupt priesthood. The evil of the priesthood of that city and day is seen in this vision to consist in--1. Their unhallowed designs and influence. The inventions of the genius of evil are, as they were then, often manifold and deep. 2. Their contempt of sacred things. They actually play about “ the cauldron” that Jeremiah had seen in a vision of retribution. Familiarity with sacred things is perilous to men who lose true sacredness of living, for they are tempted to use their wit to cover their shallowness, with regard to themes wherein they should “ stand in awe and sin not.” 3. Their false security. Their assertion about the Chaldean invasion, “ It is not near,” illustrates the presumptuousness that ever marks mere professors of piety. 4. Their conformity to evil associations. Whereas the one consecrating cry of all true priesthoods is, “ Be ye separate,” the histories of all corrupt priesthoods reveal a conformity to the world with which they have to do, that may well be charged against them in the words heard in the vision, “ Ye have done after the manner of the heathen.” 5. Their liability to terrible retribution. The death of Pelatiah, at the very time when Ezekiel was pronouncing the doom of this priesthood, is an emblem of retribution history records, and prophecy predicts on all the false. II. The indications of a man belonging to the true priesthood.1. Open to Divine illumination. As Ezekiel was “ lifted up” by the Spirit, and afterwards had that Spirit “ fall upon him” --indicating, surely, special contact with the Divine; so there is the promise to every regenerate man “ that he shall see heavens opened.” 2. Sensitive to impressions from human life. To be Divinely enlightened does not indicate that there will be any functionalism, any stoicism in the man. 3. A wide conscious brotherliness. The cry to the exile, “ thy brethren, thy brethren,” indicated that not alone in the twenty-five who had fallen, but in the scattered throngs that would be gathered again, he recognised a brotherhood. So our Master has taught us, “ all ye are brethren.” 4. Commissioned to proclaim inspiring promises. The priestly prophet was to utter as surely as was Isaiah, and every God-sent messenger, a “ comfort ye.” III. The formation of a true priesthood. I. Divinely collected. God knew where the scattered were, and would gather them again. The eye of God resting alike on all classes and castes, churches and countries, discovers the genuine men. He has been a “ sanctuary for a little time” to them in the midst of uncongenial pursuits, hostile circumstances, adverse experiences; but from every such Babylon of evil He will gather them for His sacred work.2. Divinely regenerated. No words could more forcibly express a complete moral and spiritual reformation than “ the words in which the eternal Spirit of Goodness declares, “ I will put a new spirit within you, and I will take the stony heart out of their flesh, and will give them a heart of flesh.” 3. Divinely adopted. “ They shall be My people,” etc. (Urijah R. Thomas.) Ezekiel 11:5I know the things that come into your mind, every one of them.God’ s knowledge of human thought The union of omniscience with sympathy, Of active cognisance of human thoughts with infinite mercy, is expressed in Hebrews 4:12-16. There are no reflections more interesting than those connected with the Divine knowledge of man. Our duty is to ponder all this fact includes. The instinct of the Divine love must be the very strongest feeling in us all; because it never occurs to anyone that God’ s knowledge of our thoughts can prevent the outflow of His love, or the reality of His fellowship. Yet if anyone else were acquainted with us, with everything that comes into our minds, we should certainly incur his hate and contempt. I believe, therefore, that the instinct of God’ s love towards us is like that of parental love, a great original attribute of humanity which sin has grievously obscured, so that in the minds of thousands it has been utterly subverted, and God has appeared as a vindictive tyrant, requiring to be appeased with human blood. But the purpose of the Gospel is to assure us that “ God is love” ; and the inclination to make Him the depository of every secret is grounded on that instinct, Which the fall has not been able to extinguish--that He who knows us best, loves us most. What a strong interest He must feel in people, to take active cognisance of everything that comes into their minds! God takes the deepest interest in the thoughts of the weakest the commonest, and the most selfish, when their thoughts must be repulsive, hateful, and abominable to Him; He searches into them, and sends messengers to assure us that He is not indifferent to the thoughts of His creatures. The mind of man is the greatest and most wonderful product of the Almighty. It is the nearest approach to the Divine--it is the Divine image. This is His chief work. We are warranted in concluding that, next to God our Saviour, the greatest thing in the universe is a man’ s mind, and that this is the reason why the Maker looks narrowly at everything that comes into it. The mind is the sphere of the Divine government, where the sovereign Ruler displays His great wisdom, holiness, and truth. Because man can obey and love, can feel responsibility, sense of duty, sense of sin, therefore he is the subject of rule. It is in ruling men that the highest qualities are always displayed. Here righteousness, the highest of all things, can be expressed. We cannot conceive of God showing His righteousness unless He had subjects like ourselves to govern. For it is through opposition, ignorance, injustice, selfishness, want, that righteousness in a ruler comes to be felt and admired. Where there is no wrong, how could we see the right? Mind in opposition to God shows us His holy mind. The mind is the sphere of Divine rule, and it is the seat of rebellion. And the righteous government of heaven is exercised to restore this chief of God’ s works to loyalty. In man, the metropolis of the universe is in revolt. This is the reason why He who is our Lord and God would have us assured that He “ knows the things that come into our mind, every one of them.” To give the history of His knowledge and purpose to conciliate the mind of His subject is to give the history of the Bible. The great crowning act of His righteous rule is She mission of His Son. This shows His purpose--to reconcile; not to vanquish, destroy, condemn, but to persuade; to carry our convictions--to constrain our minds. In sending His Son, I think we have a right to conclude that the business of reconstituting the spirit of man is the first and greatest thought of God, in which His wisdom and power are most of all put forth. Here is “ the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God!” Then let us learn to look on the operations of our minds with the aid of these truths. Nothing can be insignificant that comes into your mind, if God takes knowledge of it. Passing thoughts that come and go--love and hate--passion and regret--reverence and hope--conviction and prayer--the thought of God--the thought of your child--if they are watched and scanned by Him, can we be indifferent to them? (B. Kent, M. A.) Ezekiel 11:12 But have done after the manners of the heathen that are round about you.Yielding to one’ s surroundings Surely there is nothing walks the earth more contemptible, as well as more certainly evil, than a man who lets himself be made by whatever force may happen to be strongest near him, and fastening up his helm, and unshipping his oars, is content to be blown about by every vagrant wind, and rolled in the trough of each curling wave. (A. Maclaren.) Do not leg the world mould you I beseech you all, and especially you young people, not to let the world take and mould you, like a bit of soft clay put into a brick-mould, but to lay a masterful hand upon it, and compel it to help you, by God’ s grace, to be nobler, and truer, and purer. (A. Maclaren.) Ezekiel 11:16 Yet will I be to them as a little sanctuary in the countries where they shall come.God the sanctuary of the afflicted Philosophers have frequently remarked what may be called the doctrine of compensation: by which they mean, the tendency there is in nature and providence to keep things in a kind of equality; so that, while, on the one hand, there are defects to counterbalance advantages, there are, on the other hand, advantages to counterbalance defects. In what condition can we be found that possesses no advantages? These a grateful mind will always look after; and, however severe the affliction, endeavour to say, “ It might have been worse. I have lost much; but I am not deprived of all. He has chastened me sore; but He has not given me over unto death. The stroke is painful: but it will be profitable. ‘ Tribulation worketh patience; and patience, experience; and experience, hope; and hope maketh not ashamed; because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us.’” I. The calamity: “ I have cast them far off,” etc.1. The event serves to display the agency of God. He therefore, in the words before us, claims the work as His own. In the dispersion of the Jews He employed instrumentality, and wicked instrumentality; but neither of these detracts from His agency. What does God, without the intervention of any cause between Him and the effect? He blesses us by means; He warms us by the sun; He refreshes us by sleep; He sustains us by food; and He even requires us to prepare, for our use, the supplies He gives us. In a similar way He inflicts evil. And hence an irreligious mind is detained from God by the persons or the events that injure him. He thinks only of the flood, or the fire; of the heedless servant, the uncertain friend, the cruel enemy. 2. The event displays the truth of God. It had been clearly foretold, it had been threatened, as early as the days of Moses. Every successive prophet in the name of God renewed the threatening. In consequence of these denunciations the calamity was identified with the Divine veracity, and became surer than heaven and earth. The Jews imagined that they had nothing to fear: they thought that such a mighty judgment was improbable, if not impossible; and presumptuously cried, “ The temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord are we.” But “ the Lord is not a man, that He should lie,” etc. 3. The event displays the holiness of God. His conduct towards this people seems severe; and it was severe. But the provocation was peculiar. Much was given, and much was required. Their offences were aggravated by their privileges. Sin is not to be judged of by its grossness, but by its guilt; and guilt arises from knowledge possessed, from obligations violated, from advantages abused. 4. The event displays the wisdom of God. By their dispersion the Scriptures were diffused, and the Desire of all nations was announced and expected. 5. The event displays His goodness. In the midst of judgment He remembered mercy. Though He punished them, it was not to destroy, but to correct and reform. II. The alleviation. “ Thus saith the Lord God: Although I have cast them far off,” etc. God is never at a loss to serve His people; and that He will compensate them for the want of those very things that seem essential to their welfare. Consider two cases in which this truth may be exemplified.1. In the loss of outward comforts. God does not require us to be indifferent to our substance, to our health, to our friends and relations: yea, under the removal of them, He allows us to feel. But it is the duty and privilege of a Christian to be able to say, with the Church, “ Although the fig tree shall not blossom,” etc. The believer may well display a superiority over those events that keep others constantly alarmed or distressed, since God is his portion; and in His unchangeableness and all-sufficiency he has a stock of happiness independent of the body and its diseases; time, and its vicissitudes; the world and its dissolution. The design of affliction is to wean us from creatures, and to bring us more entirely to make use of God. A good man, who had endured the wreck of fortune, being asked how he bore the change in his condition so cheerfully, replied, “ When I had these good things I enjoyed God in all; and now I am deprived of them, I enjoy all in God.” 2. In the want of gracious ordinances. God will never countenance the neglect of the means of grace; but He will make up for the want of them. And those should remember this remark who, by accident or sickness, or the care of young children, or the duties of servitude, are wholly or partially denied the privileges of the sanctuary. When we cannot follow Him, He can follow us. (W. Jay.) The little sanctuary Sanctuaries--i.e., houses of God, churches and abbeys, and ecclesiastical houses--have always been places of shelter for criminals, for vanquished enemies, for persons in debt. The Jews had cities of refuge; and we may say, in general, that by the ecclesiastical laws of Christendom, through many ages, provision was made by means of church, or abbey, or consecrated ground, to receive criminal and distressed persons into shelter and safety. It is curious, and not without some tender interest, to hear of some places still left in our own land, such as the Sanctuary of Holyrood, in Edinburgh, which retain something of the old virtue, and open a refuge where honourable debtors and distressed persons may live in peace. I. The idea of asylum and protection. “ I will be as a little sanctuary” --I will be the shield and protector and sure refuge of trusting souls. Asylum! Is not this what every awakened soul needs and seeks? Some safe, sure refuge, from all that threatens, afflicts, alarms; from the thunders, loud or deep, of broken law; from the accusations of conscience, from the troubles of life, from the terrors of death--asylum from them all? When one has been living, or dreaming, in sin, and then awakes, and sees things as they are, and knows himself, and looks with rapid, startled glance at what is coming, and may be near, he feels at first just like one in an enemy’ s country. Look which way he will, there is no shelter or safety for him; none that he can see. He must flee; he must escape for his life. But whither? In what direction does safety lie? In this great strait God reveals Himself as “ a little sanctuary” --a place of protection and safety; and says, “ Flee, you have need to flee. Life is full of harms, and death broods in the air. In a scene that might have been all friendly to you, you have made yourself many enemies. Flee, but flee to Me: I am the refuge. I am the last asylum of your soul. Those thunders are Mine, but if you pass through them to Myself they will soften and roll away, and leave you in coolness and safety. Turn your face but Godwards, and let your steps be as your face is, and nothing can then surprise or hurt you. Not a hair of your head shall perish.” II. But a sanctuary means something more than a refuge and place of safety. It means, at least in the nomenclature of the Scriptures, a place of purification, where we may wash and be clean: and may so avail ourselves of the helps to goodness which are provided, that “ the rest of our time may be pure and holy.” Our very words tell us this. “ Sanctity,” “ sanctification,” --a sanctuary is not equal to its name if it does not promote these. The whole hunger and thirst of the renewed creature is for righteousness--a righteousness always loved and striven for, yet never perfectly attained--a righteousness no sooner attained in measure, than, in some mysterious manner, it seems to waver, and fail, and begin to pass away; as the snow-white garment quickly loses its purity in a dusty or smoky air; or as the living branch when it is not freshly growing, soon loses the brightness of its green. The heart is deceitful, and the world is defiling, and no enterprise of human life were half so hopeless as the endeavour to be wholly pure and holy, if means of purification were not provided, and brought so closely to hand as to be within the reach of our daily and deepest needs. Would a man be considered very kind and hospitable who, knowing that some travellers were coming to his house, along rocky paths and across burning sands, should send a message to them while yet they are miles off, to say--“ Do not come any nearer until you have washed and made you clean. Come: by all means come: I am not inhospitable: but be sure you come with ointment on your head, all fragrant with myrrh and spice, and clad in rich evening dress, ready for the banquet.” What would the pilgrims think on receiving such a message? They would say in a moment--“ He doesn’ t want us. We must seek some other gates than his.” The case is even so as between us and God. He does not send a mocking message to frail, disabled men in this dusty, defiling, wilderness world, sinful although they be, by the offer of salvation to them under utterly impossible conditions. He does not say, “ Come to Me for salvation, but be more than half-saved before you come.” He comes to us with a whole salvation, with healing, cleansing, vivifying grace, which will grow in us, and develop us into perfectness. III. The idea of nourishment. A hospice for the entertainment of strangers, or any hospitable house, is never without bread. Washing is before eating. Dressing is for the banquet. Every living thing must have something to live upon. Even in the “ far country” where men degrade themselves, and spend their substance, there is something to eat--“ husks,” if nothing better--sapless roots dug out of the sand--some-thing that will dull if not satiate the craving of appetite. And will not God feed His refugees? Will He be a little sanctuary in which they may die? Is there no bread on His table? Yes, bread enough, and to spare. Is there no wine in His cups? Yes, the sweet wine of love and strength and consolation. (A. Raleigh, D. D.) A little sanctuary The text begins with “ therefore.” There was a reason for God’ s speaking in this way. Upon reading the connection, we observe that those who had been carried captive were insulted by those who tarried at Jerusalem. The Lord hears the unkind speeches of the prosperous when they speak bitterly of those who are plunged in adversity. Many a time the cruel word of man has been the cause of a tender word from God. Because of the unkindness of these people, therefore God, in loving kindness, addressed in words of tender grace those whom they despised. Let us take all sharp speeches and cutting criticisms to God. It may be that He will hear what the enemy has said, and that He will be very pitiful to us. Because of the bitterness of the oppressor, He will bring home to our heart by the Spirit, with greater tenderness and power, some sweet word of His which has lain hidden from us in His Book. I. Where God’ s people may be.1. They may be under chastisement. We may be in great spiritual darkness, and may be compelled to confess that our own sins have procured this unto ourselves. And yet, for all that, the Lord may have sent the chastisement in love, and in nothing else but love; and He may intend by it, not our destruction, but the destruction of the flesh; not our rejection, but our refining; not our curse, but our cleansing. 2. But wherever they are, whether they are under chastisement or not, they are where the Lord has put them. “ Although I have cast them far off,” etc. It is well to look beyond all second causes and instrumentalities. Do not get angry with those who are the nearer agents, but look to the First Cause. Though your trials be peculiar, and your way be hedged up, yet the hand of the Lord is still in everything; and it behoves you to recognise it for your strengthening and consolation. 3. The people of Cod may dwell in places of great discomfort. The Jews were not in those days like the English, who colonise and find a home in the Far West, or even dwell at ease beneath sultry skies. An ancient Hebrew out of his own country was a fish out of water: out of his proper element. It must have been a great discomfort to God’ s people to dwell among idolaters, and to be forced to witness obscene rites and revolting practices. God’ s own favoured ones in these days may be living where they are as much out of place as lambs among wolves, or doves among hawks. 4. The beloved of God may yet be in a place of great barrenness as to all spiritual good. Our education for eternity may necessitate spiritual tribulation, and bereavement from visible comforts. To be weaned from all reliance on outward means may be for our good, that we may be driven in upon the Lord, and made to know that He is all in all. 5. Worse still, the Lord’ s chosen may be under oppression through surrounding ungodliness and sin. Is it not still true of us, as well as of our Saviour, “ Out of Egypt have I called My Son” ? II. What God will be to his people when they get into these circumstances. “ Yet will I be to them as a little sanctuary in the countries where they shall come.” In using the word “ little” the gracious God would seem to say, “ I will condescend to them, and I will be as they are. I will bow down to their littleness, and I will be to each little one of them a little sanctuary.”1. A sanctuary was a place of refuge. In past ages, churches and abbeys and altars have been used as places of sanctuary to which men have fled when in danger of their lives. Now, beloved fellow believer, wherever you are, wherever you dwell, God will be to you a constant place of refuge. You shall flee from sin to God in Christ Jesus. You shall flee from an accusing conscience to His pardoning love. You shall flee from daily cares to Him who careth for you. You shall flee from the accusations of Satan to the advocacy of Jesus. You shall flee even from yourselves to your Lord, and He will be to you in all senses a place of refuge. This is the happy harbour of all saints in all weathers. 2. A sanctuary signifies also a place of worship. It is a place where the Divine presence is peculiarly manifested--a holy place. The Lord Jesus Christ Himself is the true place of worship for saved souls. 3. Now, go a little further. Our God is to us a place of stillness. What was the sanctuary: of old? The sanctuary was the most holy place, the third court, the innermost of all within the veil. It was the stillest place that ever was on earth: a closet of absolute silence. Once in the year the high priest went in, and filled it full of the smoke of incense as he waved his censer in the mystic presence; but otherwise it was a chamber in which there was no footfall of living thing, or voice of mortal man. The stillness within the Holy of Holies of the temple must have reached the intensity of awe. What repose one might enjoy who could dwell in the secret place of the Most High! If you can baptize your spirit into the great deeps of Godhead, if you can take a plunge into the fathomless love of the covenant, if you can rise to commune with God, and speak with Him as a man speaketh with His friend, then will He be unto you as a little sanctuary, and you shall enjoy that solemn silence of the soul which hath music in it like the eternal harmonies. The presence of the Lord will be as a calm hand for that fevered brow, and a pillow for that burdened head. Use your God in this way, for so He presents Himself to you. 4. The sanctuary was a place of mercy. When men have no mercy on you, go to God. When you have no mercy on yourself--and sometimes you have not--run away to God. 5. The sanctuary was the house of mercy, and hence a place of condescension - “ a little sanctuary.” To suit our needs the blessings of grace must be given in little forms. When the Lord communes with the greatest of men, He must become little to speak with him. 6. That sanctuary was a place of great holiness. “ Holiness becometh Thy house.” This applied to the whole temple, but the inner shrine was called “ sanctum sanctorum” --the Holy of Holies, for so the Hebrews make a superlative. It was the holiest place that could be. What bliss to enter into the Holy of Holies! Now, you cannot do that by getting into a ceil, or by shutting yourselves up in your room; but you can enter the most holy place by communion with God. Here is the promise; the text means this--“ I will be to them as a little sanctuary--a little Holy of Holies. I will put them into Myself as into the most holy place, and there will I hide them. In the secret of My tabernacle will I hide them. I will set them up upon a rock.” 7. We may regard the Sanctuary as a place of cleansing. That may be gathered, from the other rendering of my text: “ I will be unto them a little sanctification.” We want not only the great blood washing, but also the lesser washing of the feet with water; and the Lord Himself wilt give us this blessing. Did not Jesus take a towel, and gird Himself for this very purpose? 8. God will be to us a place of communion and of revelation. In the Holy of Holies God spoke with man, on that one day in the year, in a wondrous manner; and he that had been there, and came forth alive, came out to bless the congregation. Every day of the year the teaching of the sanctuary was that in God there was everything His people wanted. The joys of this life are like the ice palace of Montreal, which is fair to look upon while the winter lasts, but it all dissolves as the spring comes on. All things round about us here are myths and dreams. This is the land of fancies and of shadows. Pray God to get you out of them, and that you may find in Him your sanctuary, and indeed all that you want. (C. H. Spurgeon.) God a sanctuary I. To those who are deprived of the means of grace. Sufferers in sick rooms, travellers in lonely and distant places, missionaries amongst the heathen. How often to such comes the vision of the country church, when the summer air stole into the open window, bringing the breath of flowers; or of the great city church, with the well-known voice of a beloved minister. They long for these again. But God will be all and more. II. To those who cannot derive benefit from the services they attend. The clergyman is broad in his views, and unsympathetic with the deeper moods of the spirit. Still, it may be your duty to attend for example’ s sake; but whilst waiting before the Lord, He will draw near and become your sanctuary. III. To those who are exposed to danger and persecution. In the olden time the sanctuary was a place of refuge. All who fled thither were in safeguard. So let the driven soul haste to the folds of the Tabernacle of God’ s presence, None can pursue it into that secret place. No weapon shall smite; and even envying voices shall die into subdued murmurs. (F. B. Meyer, B. A.) Ezekiel 11:19-20I will give them one heart, and I will put a new spirit within you.The nature of genuine religion I. God appropriates this work to Himself. Real religion is of a Divine original: it never would have had an existence in the world without the revelation of God; and it will never have an existence in the soul without the operation of God.1. The doctrine has been much abused. It has often been so managed as to make the sinner, while in his natural state, to appear unfortunate rather than criminal, and to render the use of means and exertions needless. 2. If “ all things are of God,” is religion to be excluded, and to form the only exception? “ Does the river of the water of life” spring from a source on this side “ the throne of God and of the Lamb” ? 3. To know things in their causes has been deemed the highest kind of knowledge: to know salvation in its source is indispensable. (1) It is necessary, to guide and to encourage the concern of awakened sinners, who are asking, “ Men and brethren, what shall we do?” Seeing so many difficulties and dangers before them, and feeling their corruption and weakness, after a few unsuccessful struggles, they will sink down in hopeless despair; unless, with a sense of their own inability, you exhibit that grace which is sufficient for them, and meet them in their conviction with the promise, “ Ask, and it shall be given you” ; etc. (2) It is necessary to call forth the acknowledgments, and to regulate the praises of those who are sanctified by Divine grace. II. The disposition which it produces.1. He promises to give them one heart; and this shows the sameness of religion, as to the leading views, sentiments, and pursuits of its possessors. 2. “ I will put a new spirit within you” --not only different from that which still animates others, but distinguished from that which once influenced them. In this manner the Lord qualifies His people for their situation and engagements: and thus they are at home in them: there is a suitableness productive of ease and enjoyment. 3. He gives “ them an heart of flesh.” It was a heart of “ stone” before. Take a stone--feel it--how cold! Strike it--it resists the blow. Lay upon it a burden--it feels no pressure. Apply to it a seal--it receives no impression. Such were your hearts once. What a mercy to have this curse removed,--to be able to feel; to feel spiritually; to be alive to “ the powers of the world to come!” to be no longer insensible to Divine and heavenly things, when they come in contact with us! III. The practice which religion demands--“ That they may walk in My statutes,” etc.1. Observe the order in which these things are arranged. Principle precedes practice, and prepares for it. Behold a man hungry--he needs no argument to induce him to eat. See that mother--she needs no motive to determine her to cherish her darling babe--nature impels. The obedience of the Christian is natural, and hence it is pleasant and invariable: “ he runs and is not weary, he walks and is not faint.” 2. It is equally true that practice must follow principle. The one is the necessary consequence of the other, This influence will operate: if it be fire, it will burn; if it be leaven, it will pervade and assimilate; if it be in us “ a well of water,” it will “ spring up into everlasting life.” The one is the proper evidence of the other. The cause is ascertained by the effect. IV. The blessed privilege of the righteous.1. It is more than if He said, I will be thy friend, thy helper, thy benefactor; for these are relations derived from creatures, and therefore notions of limited significancy. 2. He is really yours. In nothing else have you such a propriety. Your time is not your own; your riches are not your own; your children are not your own; your bodies, and your spirits, are not your own; but God is yours by absolute promise and donation. 3. Consider the final issue of the connection. The relation is intended to display the immensity of His benevolence, and of His munificence, towards His people. It does much for them here. But they “ shall see greater things than these.” They have now only “ the first fruits of the Spirit, the earnest of their inheritance.” Their alliance with God is often concealed from others, and from themselves; and the advantages it produces are circumscribed by the world in which we live, and the body of this death. It has not room in which to operate, or time in which to expand. Behold, then, an eternity succeeding time: a new system prepared to receive them: an happiness in reserve, of which they can now form no adequate conception! (W. Jay.) Opposites to oneness of heart They are these--First Unresolvedness, which is when a man wavereth in his mind, being not yet resolved which way to take, or what choice to make. Secondly, oneness is opposed to hypocrisy and double dealing, to shows and appearances, to an heart and an heart. Thirdly, it is opposed to inconstancy and variableness (Galatians 3:20). Lastly, it is opposed to division and contention (as Acts 4:32). So then, by all that hath been said, you may plainly see what a one heart is. It is--1. A resolved heart. 2. A plain heart, a single heart; when the inside and outside agree, such an heart as is no other in intentions than it is in pretences. 3. A constant, fixed heart. 4. Lastly, it is a quiet and peaceable heart. Such a man as hath peace with God, and agreeth with himself, so as he goes all one way in God’ s worship, this man may be truly said to have one heart. Many motives we might use to persuade you hereunto. There is but one God, one Christ, one Spirit, one truth, one gospel, one heaven: besides, thou art but one man, and one heart is enough for one man; get it, therefore. It is comfortable; for it is an evidence of our uprightness. And it is profitable, for it unites a man to himself in all God’ s services; it delivers him from many temptations, from many distractions, etc. But how shall I know my heart to be one? I. Three plain notes of a heart that is one.(1) Integrity. When the heart is become one, a man goeth all one way; he is what he seems, he appears what indeed he is. He aims at God’ s whole will, to fulfil the same. (2) A second note is constancy; when a man is at all times like himself, one and the same, take him when and which way you will. (3) And a third is sincerity: when a man goes upon one motive, he strains out all by-respects, all selfishness, and looks to the common, to a public good, his main aim is the glory of God in his own salvation. (R. Harris, B. D.) Oneness of heart Oneness of heart is a great blessing; it is the fruit of the covenant of grace. It is the first blessing here mentioned; it is joined with other great blessings. I will show you the good of it in some particulars.1. One-heartedness in Christians rejoiceth the Spirit of Christ, which is a Spirit of love, peace, union, and is grieved with what is opposite to them. 2. It greatly sweetens and contents the heart of man, when the will, affections, judgment, and conscience are friendly and united the right way. It is heaven in the soul (Romans 14:17; Luke 17:21). 3. It makes the communion one with another delightful and acceptable (Psalms 133:1). 4. It prevents all the evil which comes by divisions and contentions, which are great and many. 5. It invites others unto that way where it is found. It is a pleasant and comely thing to see brethren dwell in unity; men are affected with it, there is much beauty and mirth in the harmony of hearts. 6. It improves grace, and makes Christians thrive much; whereas jars, divisions, vain disputes, and wranglings, prejudice the lustre and growth of grace, if not the life. 7. It furthers their prayers; when men are all of one heart, there is much sweetness and strength in their prayers (Acts 4:24-31; Matthew 5:23-24). 8. It is an honour to the Lord Christ, that Christians do agree; they are members of His body, and it is a disparagement to the Head to have the members fall out, rend and tear one another: this makes strangers speak and think evil of the way of Christ (John 13:35; l John 3:10). 9. Sympathy with each other. If there be one-heartedness among men, what is the burden and comfort of the one is the burden and comfort of the rest. 10. What evidence of being in the covenant of grace, if there be not union of the heart within itself, union of it to God and others? what satisfaction can a man have of his being in covenant with God? Here this one-heartedness is prefixed as the first thing we should look at; and so in Jeremiah 32:39. 11. It makes willing to do one for another. Things difficult become easy where love exists; and the ground of it is, The heart is where it loves, not where it lives. I. Helps to unite our hearts.1. Consider many things are darkly laid down in the Scriptures, and the scope of God and Christ therein is not to cause contention, difference, and censuring, but to unite us more strongly in those things which are clear, and to cause a forbearance of one another in things which are dark and doubtful (Philippians 3:15-16). 2. Divine Providence hath ordered it so, that there should be difference and inequality in the naturals and spirituals of Christians, that so they may have a greater tendency and fitness for union. As in a ship, or house, all pieces of timber must not be of the same length, height, and breadth, but differing; that so they may fit their several places, and conduce to make up a more goodly fabric: so among men, some have great natural and spiritual abilities, some lower degrees of both, some lesser than they; and this is the will and wisdom of Divine Providence, so to dispense and dispose that all may fitly fall in together, and make the more glorious structures for heaven. 3. Seek the good one of another, and that indifferently. Selfishness and partiality undo and divide, they have private ends, ways, means, and move upon sinister respects; whereas if we had more self-denying, impartial, and public spirits, to mind the welfare of others, we should quickly attain to some good degree of this oneness of heart (1 Corinthians 10:24). 4. Lay aside the wisdom of the flesh, and exalt the wisdom of the Spirit. 5. Humility; where that is it draws the heart of God to it (Isaiah 57:15), God dwells with the humble spirit; and surely it will gain the hearts of men to it. Proverbs 29:23, “ A man’ s pride shall bring him low! “ it will make God and man against him;” but honour shall uphold the humble in spirit,!’ both God and man will support, speak well of, do good to and close with him. 6. Consider we are brethren, called and pressed unto peace and mutual agreement in the Gospel. II. Preservatives of one-heartedness.1. Look much at the gifts, graces, and excellencies which are in others, not at their weaknesses and imperfections; let the bright side of the cloud be in your eyes, not the black side; and this will keep your hearts united. 2. Lay aside all provoking, dividing names, terms, and speeches. If we would have our hearts kept in firm union, we must use soft tongues and gentle words (Proverbs 15:1; Proverbs 12:25). 3. Ever make the best construction of men’ s words and actions; that will preserve peace and oneness of heart. 4. Get much love and exercise it; that makes hearts one, and preserves them being one. Christ measures men by their love; and no marvel, love is the fulfilling of the law (Galatians 5:14); and if we serve one another by love and fulfil the law, where can the breach be made, how can the offence come in? 5. Be willing to learn one of another; that will endear our hearts each to other, and keep them in oneness. 6. See God’ s presence and nearness to us; that is a means to preserve us in a one-hearted condition. When the Master is present the servants are quiet, and keep so. III. Inducements to one-heartedness. I. That great apostle Paul saith to the Ephesians (Ephesians 4:3-6), “ Endeavour to keep the unity of the Spirit” : and why? “ There is one body, one Spirit, one hope, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all.”2. Christ hath taken our nature upon Him; and as to unite man and God together, so to unite man and man together in Himself: hence, Galatians 3:28, “ Ye are all one in Christ Jesus” ; and Romans 8:17, “ Joint heirs with Christ” ; and Ephesians 2:6, said to “ sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus.” This should move us to live and love as those who have such high privileges by Christ. 3. If you love them who are of your own opinion only, and love you, what do you more than others, than Pharisees, than publicans? (Matthew 5:46). Why can you not love men who have the same graces with you, as well as those who have the same opinions with you? 4. It is the fulfilling of a prophecy (Isaiah 11:6-9). 5. Consider what oneness of spirit is amongst the enemies of God. (W. Greenhill, M. A.) I will give them one heart All that is valuable in Christian experience, or that is desirable in this world and the next, is in this precious promise. It is the one thing needful, the good part that shall never be taken away from its happy possessor. I. What is implied in this blessing.1. When God promises to give His people one heart, it supposes that their heart was previously divided among other objects, and neither devoted to Himself nor united to one another. 2. Or if there he any sort of affection for what is good, yet the heart of a sinner is still divided, and so shall it be found faulty (Hosea 10:2). It is divided between God and Mammon, sin and holiness; between the trifles and vanities of this world, and the blessedness of the next. Hence the lives of sinners are full of inconsistencies and contradictions, running into opposite extremes, and becoming every thing by turns. II. The import of the promise itself.1. They are of one mind as to the Object of their supreme affections, and the way of acceptance with Him. 2. They are of one heart as to their relation and union to one another. Their outward circumstances and inward dispositions, their mental abilities and spiritual acquirements may be very different; some rich and some poor, some weak and ignorant, others wise and intelligent, some babes in Christ, and others young men and fathers; yet they are of one heart and one soul as to the great objects of the Christian faith. 3. This oneness is the fruit of Christ’ s death; for He died that He might gather in one the children of God that are scattered abroad. It also arises from His intercession; I pray, says He, that they all may be one, as Thou Father art in Me and I in Thee, that they also may be one in us; that the world may believe that Thou hast sent Me. It is likewise the proper and distinguishing badge of discipleship! By this shall all men know that ye are My disciples, says Jesus, if ye love one another. 4. The oneness of heart promised in the text may further be distinguished-- (1) From a double or divided heart. Some men’ s affections and desires are scattered amongst a multitude of different objects; but the heart of a Christian is in this respect undivided. All the powers and faculties of his soul go one may, tending towards one object. This one thing I do, says Paul. (2) This oneness of heart may be opposed to every species of guile and hypocrisy. (3) It is opposed to a doubtful and undecided state of mind. (4) It stands opposed to a fickle and inconstant heart. A man of a gracious disposition will appear for God when he himself is neglected and forgotten; and for religion, when it is most derided and opposed. He has lift up his hand to God, and he will not go back. III. The origin of this blessing.1. This blessing is everywhere ascribed to God in the Scriptures, not only incidentally and by implication, but in plain and direct terms (1 Chronicles 29:19; Psalms 51:10; Ezekiel 36:26). 2. It appears from the nature of the change itself. It is called a creation, a resurrection; and requires an exertion of the same almighty power as was manifested in the former of these events, and such as will be displayed in the latter. 3. The former state and character of those on whom the blessing is bestowed. They were careless and inattentive; they neither saw their need of it, nor were inclined to seek after it. They were weak and impotent; sin had robbed them of their innocence, and also of their strength. They were stubborn and obstinate; so far from being co-workers with God, they resisted His operations, and were utterly averse to His gracious designs. They were not only estranged, but alienated from the life of God, through the ignorance that was in them, by reason of the hardness of their hearts. (B. Beddome, M. A.) And I will put a new spirit within you. Regeneration and conversion 1. Regeneration is internal, conversion external. The one is hidden except as manifested in the other. Each is a change. The one applies to character, the other to conduct; one applies to the heart, the other to the manner of life. There may not be the same room for a change in the outer life of one as in the outer life of another. A young lady, raised under the refining influences of an elegant home, does not need conversion so much as the notoriously wicked man; still, she must be born from above, else she can never enter or see the kingdom of God. 2. Regeneration is a change wrought of God in man’ s heart; conversion is a change wrought by the man himself in his own life. Hence the man is turned, and turns himself; the engine is reversed, and reverses itself. These two great truths, rather two sides of one truth, should be held distinct and in their proper relation. In nature are things whose workmanship surpasses the workmanship of the highest human genius. Nature everywhere surpasses art. Surely among the masterpieces which come from God’ s hand is His work wherein a man becomes a new creature in Christ Jesus. “ We are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto God’ s works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them.” 3. Regeneration is the only sure basis of a genuine conversion. Reformation, without regeneration, is possible. Reformation is not religion; a moral life is not necessarily a religious life. A religious life is something additional to the highest moral life--beautifies, adorns, glorifies it; does infinitely more, gives it a surer basis on which to rest. A godly life, a spiritual-mindedness, a joy and delight in God’ s service, must have back of it a change of heart. A religious life, without regeneration, is perhaps the heaviest and most galling yoke ever worn by man. Regeneration and conversion stand to each other as cause and effect, and we must not reverse the order. We need heart back of life; regeneration back of conversion. “ If you have not known yourself a sinner, you cannot know Christ as a Saviour. Some are preaching up nowadays a dry-eyed faith, and men seem to jump into assurance as if there were no new birth, no conviction for sin, no repentance.” There is great need for the fundamentals in religious experience and conviction and life. 4. Regeneration and conversion together characterise a people who are God’ s people. “ They shall be My people, and I will be their God.” God’ s people here; and God is their God now. This interior life springs from union with Him, and finds expression and correspondence in their outer life. Good in the heart and in the life: regenerated and converted; spiritual and religious; walking in God’ s statutes, keeping God’ s ordinances and doing them, because of what God has done within; working out, because God is working within. Such are God’ s people, each a coin bearing this double superscription. These are God’ s people now, but infinitely and gloriously hereafter. (J. M. Frost.) Power and efficacy of the Holy Spirit I. Before treating of a change of heart, it is very natural and proper that inquiry should be made whether the heart and affections of men are so wrong, and in such disorder, as to be susceptible of being amended. For if the point were established, that the motives of the heart were as pure as possible, and the internal, real, moral character of men absolutely faultless, there would evidently be no room for improvement; and all further inquiry into the reality of a change of heart would be precluded. II. Our next inquiry is, supposing this most desirable change to be amply provided for, under the blessed government of God, whether it may be expected to be instantaneous and entire. Reason and analogy, then, are decidedly against such an expectation. So far as we know, all ameliorating processes are, of necessity, gradual and slow. And there is nothing in Scripture or in experience to show that the moral benefits of Christianity, either in the case of nations or individuals, are dispensed by any other law. In looking for a changed man, then, we must not be looking for a faultless and perfect man; and in seeking for evidence that there is a reality in the moral change sometimes wrought by the influence of the Bible, we are not to look for a change which leaves no room for further amendment. III. What then? it may be asked--is this change superficial, apparent, external only? A change from being notoriously vicious and bad, to being outwardly strict and exemplary; from living in the indulgence of personal and social vices, to a most pure and blameless moral deportment? This question is easily answered by another: does a change of outward deportment necessarily involve a change of the inward feelings and motives of the heart? IV. This brings us to a nearer inspection of the real nature of a change of heart. And, to make the point more abundantly clear and convincing, some of the disorders of our moral natures will be recounted, both as it regards ourselves, our fellow creatures, and our moral Governor, and then the inquiry will be, whether the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ contains the moral power of correcting these disorders; or, in other words, of changing our hearts in these several respects.1. I am persuaded that it is but too apparent to every one of you, that your impatience, irritability, pride, and passion miserably impair and prevent your own happiness. In other words, that every man is his own worst enemy--far the worst. 2. Are the inward feelings of our hearts towards our neighbours any better or more under control, than those which have respect to our own immediate personal happiness? Are there, amongst us, no unholy strifes and emulations; no envious or slanderous thoughts; no coverings and hatreds; no feelings of malice or revenge? 3. But the true secret of all the other faults and disorders of our moral natures evidently lies in our not having right feelings toward God, our most holy and rightful moral Governor. Here, therefore, it is that the inconceivable force of the Bible motives is brought to bear. This is the mountainous difficulty which Jesus Christ came to remedy and remove. Here it is that God places His healing touch; or rather, manifests His new creating power. The heart has new and right feelings implanted in it towards God, and towards His Son Jesus Christ, through faith in His name, and by the power of the Holy Ghost. V. The only point which remains to be discussed is, whether there is remarkable fitness in Bible considerations to produce these great and most desirable changes. That there is might have been inferred from the benevolent design of the Gospel, and from considering who is its Author; it being self-evident that our Moral Governor would not have provided a religion for a race of beings alienated from Him, without infusing into it a power to restore them to His service and His favour. And the same result comes to us abundantly attested by observation: exceedingly bad men have been made radically better by the Gospel, but never by any other religion; never by any other moral influence. (H. B. Smith, D. D.) Of newness of heart 1. The thing promised, “ I will put a new spirit within you.” That you may the better understand the terms, you may distinguish either of spirit or of its adjunct newness. First, Spirit is taken in a diverse sense in Holy Scripture. Sometimes it is taken for the soul, as it is opposed to the body, as in that, place. The body returns to the earth, and the spirit to God that gave it. Sometimes, again, it is put for the faculties of the soul, as, I will sing with my spirit, that is, with my understanding (1 Corinthians 14:1-40.). So, I serve God with my Spirit (Romans 1:9), that is, with my will. Sometimes, again, it is taken for the gifts and graces of the spirit, as in that of our Saviour (John 3:1-36), That which is born of the spirit is spirit. Again, you must distinguish here of new. A thing is said to be new-- 1. In regard of the matter of it, when it hath new materials; as when a man builds an house new out of the ground.2. In regard of the inward form and species of it; as when I turn my gown into a coat.3. In regard of the outward form and fashion of it; as when a man breaks an old bowl, and casts it into a new fashion, there is the same substance as before, but there is a new figure, a new face set upon it. And so it is to be taken here. God will renew the spirit of His people, by putting new qualities into their souls. Secondly, the Author of this change is God,--“ I will put a new spirit,” etc. That is, I will bestow upon you new graces, new qualities, that whereas you are naturally void of all goodness, hating Me, and being hated of Me, etc., I will put such a new frame of soul into you that you shall love Me, and one another spiritually. And how will He do this for them? not by extracting good qualities out of them, as if they were seminally and potentially there before, but He will infuse and pour the same into them anew. The words thus explained, we pass on to the point: that whosoever will be soundly assured that he belongs to the new Covenant, he must have a new heart, a new spirit; he must be a new man.1. Necessary it is, first, in a double respect. (1) In regard of precept; Make you a new heart and a new spirit (Ezekiel 18:31). And again, Be you transformed by the renewing of your minds (Romans 12:2); put off, concerning the former conversation, the old man which is corrupt, etc. (Ephesians 4:22). And be renewed in the spirit of y our minds (Colossians 3:10). In all these places He lays this upon us as a charge. (2) It is necessary, as will appear if you consider it as a means conducing to our main end. To be renewed is the way to the new Jerusalem. You see how God hath smitten a new covenant with you, put you under a new governor, given you right into a new city, to the which He hath set this new way, so that whosoever treads the way thither, he must be a new creature (John 3:5). Secondly, it is possible too. True it is that man cannot make himself a new heart; but it is true also, that although he concur not as a cause or agent in this work, yet must he concur as a subject capable of being renewed; for whosoever is capable of reason, the same is also capable of grace (for what is grace but reason perfected and elevated); and though man be unable to renew himself, yet dealeth he with One that both is able and hath also undertaken to do it for him. He that could make man at first, can with the same ease remake him again; He that could call light out of darkness, can shine in man’ s heart to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. For as there are no bounds set to God’ s essence, so neither to His power. And as He is able to do this for His people, so is He no less willing to do it; for He hath said it, He hath sworn it, He hath sealed it (as you have heard), and therefore, sure He will not eat His word, go from His seal, be forsworn. So that it is possible. Thirdly, it is commodious too; for it brings along with it-- 1. Honour.2. Comfort. For the first, it is the glory of the creature to be renewed and sanctified; then the creature comes first to be glorious, when it is made new. There is nothing in the world (saith that Greek father) so beautiful as the new creature. Man by nature is deformed, ugly, the image of God being utterly defaced in him.2. As it is honourable, so it is comfortable to be a new man indeed, what can comfort us if we be not so? There be some things that deceive the world, under the name of a new spirit. These are, first, Civility. A new nature is another thing than civil honesty. Secondly, Formality is another counterfeit of this new spirit. Formality is but a picture of true goodness, it reforms only the outward man; but this new nature, the inward. It is a liveless thing.1. A new spirit is universal, it goes through the whole man, leavens the whole lump; but in the hypocrite, that which he hath is private and particular to certain faculties of his soul; as conviction is restrained to his understanding, illumination to his judgment, restraint to his will, etc. But now this new grace is common to all the powers of the soul; it is not like a little spring, that takes beginning in some piece of ground, and ends in the same; but like the great ocean that compasseth about the whole world, and receiveth divers names according to the several places that it washes and salutes. As it dwelleth in the head, it is called wisdom; as in the memory, faithfulness; as in the conscience, tenderness; as in the will, subjection; as in the affections, it is termed order; as in the outward man, new obedience: so it receives divers appellations according to the diverse parts and powers that it affecteth. And as it is universal for the subject, so for the object too; for it is set against all sin, and resolves upon the doing of all duty according to its light. 2. As it is universal, so it is alterative too; it amends not the outside only, but seeks into the inward man, and alters that. 3. It is humbling. It makes a man thankful to God, merciful to men, and more basely to think of himself than of any other. 4. It is diffusive and spreading. A new man would have all the world new, and go to heaven as well as himself. On the other side, an old man may have much light in his head, but little love in his heart. This new spirit works in a man a new conversation, a new life, new projects, new ends, new endeavours, etc. Now examine whether you are new or not? What if we be? and what if we be not? If you be not, then labour to get a new heart; old things we are all ashamed of. An old scull, an old rotten coat, we are ashamed to be seen in it; oh, we are not an old inside, an old corrupt heart, this is worse than all the rest. We naturally all affect novelties, and by our good wills we would have new houses, new diet, new fashions, new everything. And shall we then content ourselves with an old rotten heart? (R. Harris, B. D.) The renovation of the heart I. This is not effected by revealed truth. No amount of knowledge of the things of God, either here or hereafter, will be sufficient to renew the heart. Men of most thorough acquaintance with the Scriptures die without reconciliation to God. The apostate angels have full knowledge of the character, law, and government of God; yet their hearts are not renewed. II. Nor is it effected by the heart itself. “ That which is born of the flesh is flesh.” “ They that are after the flesh, do mind the things of the flesh.” “ To be carnally minded is death.” But it may still be said, that our affections may be changed and renewed by our volitions or determinations. But is it not true, that the volitions have no direct control over the affections? that the affections control the volitions? Of what use, then, are determinations and purposes to control and renovate the heart? III. The renovation of the heart is effected by the immediate power of God. This is manifest from the declarations of the Scriptures. Our regeneration is not of blood, “ nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.” Christ said, “ No man can come unto Me, except the Father which hath sent Me draw him.” “ It is written in the prophets, And they shall be all taught of God. Every man, therefore, that hath heard and hath learned of the Father, cometh unto Me.” What, then, is it for God to draw an individual, according to this passage? It must relate to an operation which infallibly brings every subject of it to Christ; and wherein can this drawing differ from the others except by the immediate action of the Holy Spirit in renovating the heart? This meaning will manifestly accord with the passage in the prophet from which it is taken. In speaking of the prosperity of Zion, he says: “ And all thy children shall be taught of the Lord, and great shall be the peace of thy children.” “ In righteousness shalt thou be established.” The drawing here mentioned is something entirely beyond the instruction of the Scriptures, or the convincing operation of the Holy Spirit; and brings all its subjects to Christ. What can this be but an immediate exercise of Divine power?1. Those who undergo this change are said to be born again. As being born constitutes an individual a member of the family of man, by nature; so to be born again is requisite to constitute him a member of the spiritual family of Christ. An effect is produced in him, creating him anew unto good works; but of the manner in which this effect is produced, he knows no more than of the chambers from which the winds issue, or the abodes in which they lodge. 2. Those who undergo this change are described as “ created in Christ Jesus unto good works.” The child of God is said to be a “ new man, which, after God, is created in righteousness and true holiness.” 3. The renovation of the heart is illustrated by the resurrection of the dead. (J. Foot, D. D.) Regeneration a change of inward principle Regeneration is a change of principle. The principle of a natural man in his religious actions is artificial; he is wound up to such a peg, like the spring of an engine, by some outward respects which please him, but as the motion of an engine ceases when the spring is down, so a natural man’ s motion holds no longer than the delight those motions give him which first engaged him in it. But the principle in a good man is spirit, an eternal principle; and the first motion of this principle is towards God, to act from God and to act for God. (S. Charnock.) The law of life “ The Law of the Spirit of Life made me free from the law,” etc. This is a familiar process in the world around us. The law of life in a bird, energising the wonderful machinery of flight, makes it free from the downward pull of the law of gravitation acting on the weight of its body. The law of life in the human body, energising in the heart and propelling the oxygenated blood to the extremities of our frame, makes us free from the peril to health which would otherwise ensue from the accumulation of the waste products of our tissues. Throughout the universe law modifies or cancels the operation of law, as a sound may destroy a sound. We all know how the law of the antiseptic eucalyptus makes us free from the law of the influenza epidemic. So, if we live in the Spirit and walk in the Spirit, He will antagonise the evils of our own heart, and make us so free from them that we shall not do as otherwise we would (Galatians 5:16-17 R.V.). Our one aim should be not to grieve the Holy Spirit of God, because the ungrieved Spirit is more than a match for every besetment of innate depravity or virulent temptation. (F. B. Meyer, B. A.) God’ s law put into the heart by His Spirit As sometimes you will find in an old monkish library the fair vellum that once bore lascivious stories of ancient heathens and pagan deities turned into the manuscript in which a saint has penned his contemplations, an Augustine his Confessions, or a Jerome his translations, so our souls may become palimpsests. The old wicked, heathen characters that we have traced there may be blotted out, and covered over by the writing of that Divine Spirit who has said, “ I will put My laws into their minds and write them in their hearts.” (A. Maclaren.) And I will take the stony heart out of their flesh.-- A hard heart described I. What is meant by heart in this text? Indeed, heart is taken sometimes particularly for the will of man, namely, when it goes joined with some other word of like signification, as mind, soul, etc.; sometimes, again, it is taken for the whole inside of a man, and so here in the text. All the powers and faculties of the soul are hardened, are perverted, dead and dull in respect of any spiritual goodness; his understanding is darkened, his will froward, his conscience brawny, etc., all is stony that is within him. II. What is meant by a stony heist? This implieth two things--1. A quality, hardness. That is hard (in a natural sense) that yields not to any impression or natural agent, that will not yield under your hand, but makes head and resistance. In a spiritual sense, the heart is said to be hard when it yields not to the persuasion of a moral agent, that refuseth to be wrought upon when God deals with it either by Himself or by an instrument. 2. The degree of this hardness; it is hard even unto stoniness, which implieth two things--First, a non-yieldance to goodness. Secondly, a stiff resistance; as in hard wood, that, when a man comes to cleave it, will not yield to the stroke, but returns the edge of your tool upon yourself. So when one beats upon a hard stone, upon a flint or adamant, there is no yieldance, but the weapon recoils upon a man with a great deal of indignation, as it were. So, then, you see what is meant by hard, and what by stony. A heart of stone, then, is nothing else but an untractable heart, an untamed heart, a heart disposed to resist, not disposed to yield. III. For the kinds of it. There is first a natural hardness, common to all the sons and daughters of Adam. This we bring into the world with us; for we are all born with a stone in our hearts, it is our natural temper to be hard. Secondly, a contracted hardness; contracted, I say, by much practice and in long time, and do obstinate themselves by continuance in sin. IV. The signs of this hardness are of two sorts--First, negative; secondly, positive. The negative signs are--First, unteachableness; secondly, unsensibleness; thirdly, inflexibleness. For the first, man is naturally untractable to any spiritual good thing. Secondly, as he is unteachable, so he is insensible, and that argues a deal of hardness, as is to be seen in a stone, smite it while you will, beat it as long as you can stand over it, it complains not; lay a mountain upon it, it never groans or cries, and grind it to powder, out of the pressure: and so it is with an unregenerate man, let a mountain of sin, let a world of guilt lie upon his soul, he feels it not, he groans not under it; sin is in him, as an element in its own place, and so weighs not with him,--he sleeps, he eats, he drinks, he laughs and enjoys himself, as if the matter were nothing; so he goes merrily to execution, and dreads no danger, no more than if he were as much reconciled to God as any man living. A third sign of a stony heart is inflexibleness. A stone cannot bend; break it you may, bend it you cannot; and so it fares with him that is of a stony heart, he will not bend or bow to God. Let God say or do whatever He can that is fit to be done to a reasonable creature, he is no whit moved therewith. These now are the negative notes of a stony heart. The positive follow, and they are these--First, stiffness and wilfulness in opinion. A stone will continue still like itself, talk while you will to it; and so those that have a stone in their hearts will needs hold fast their own conclusions. Secondly, obstinacy and settledness in evil practices, when men shall be of their humour, who answered the prophet peremptorily: The word that thou speakest unto us in the name of the Lord, we will not do it. Thirdly, a gainsaying and contradicting spirit; such as was in the Pharisees. (R. Harris, B. D.) And will give them an heart of flesh.--Of softness of heart And, to begin with natural softness of heart, it is in its sphere and in its own way a thing commendable in a sort; but not as we are to speak of softness in this place; for it ariseth oftentimes from some weakness in the body, and not from strength of the soul. An instance hereof you have in Rehoboam, king of Judah (2 Chronicles 13:7). My father Rehoboam, saith he, was young and tender hearted, etc.; of a tender disposition, and a softly man, he was naturally so. Now, the differences between this softness natural, and that which we call spiritual, are two. First, natural softness comes upon us without our endeavour, it costs us no labour; for why? we are born so;--but spiritual softness costs a man a great deal of pains; he that gets it shall know how he comes by it, it will cost him many a sermon, many a chapter, many a prayer, many a tear, etc.2. Natural softness is usually uniform, that is, it ordinarily worketh after one manner, is easily wrought to one thing as well as another. Bring him to a sermon, if it be well set on, and delivered with power, he will seem greatly affected therewith, even to the shedding of tears sometimes; take him at another time to a play, let him see a tragedy well acted, and he will be as ready to weep there too, as he was before at God’ s house. In short, you may draw him any way, though usually he is more inclinable to that which is evil than to that which is good, as we see in the said Rehoboam. On the other side, spiritual softness makes a man tractable and malleable only in that that’ s good. Bring an argument to move him to any goodness, it sways him straight: but in case a motion be set on foot to that which is evil, you shall find him most stiff against it, most resolute and peremptory. In a word, no man is so easily wrought upon by a good motion as he that is soft-hearted; no man is so hard to yield to sin, to be drawn to wickedness, as he. The second sort of softness is that we call moral, and this is somewhat more than natural softness. In some people, breeding and education doth very much to the mollifying of their dispositions; conversement with the heathen sages, and much reading of their moral writings, may somewhat alter a man, and make him better. It civiliseth a man, and makes him tame and tractable. First, moral softness seldom pierceth to the heart, it goes not deep enough; it oils the face, and smoothes the outside only, it barbs and shaves over sin, but doth not pluck it up by the roots, and make an utter riddance of it. This civil softness is like a ripe plum, smooth and soft on the outside, but open it and you shall find a stone within, etc. Second, this moral softness hath respect to man principally; indeed, it goes no higher lightly than man, being wondrous stiff to motions that come from heaven: it stands more upon compliments and civilities toward men than it doth on duties to God. The third kind of softness we call a legal softness; this is somewhat more than the two former: and it is when the apprehension of God’ s dreadful judgments threatened or executed doth break the spirit of a man, melts him with an inward fire, fills him with fears and terrors, etc. The difference of this from spiritual softness is this--First, legal softness is involuntary; he suffers, indeed, he is smitten and wounded, but it is against his will, he doth not wound himself: he hath some kind of fears in his heart, and legal terrors, but he would fain cast them off if he knew how. In a word, he is merely passive in his softness. Contrarily, he that is spiritually softened is an agent in the work; he reacheth after softness, he labours it all he can, he prays for it, he is glad and thankful if he can any way come by it and obtain it, yea, though it cost him some crosses and losses in his outward estate. Secondly, legal terrors break the heart indeed, but do not soften it; the hardness remains still, nevertheless, as it doth in a stone that is broken all to shivers, and yet the hardness is not taken off, but dispersed rather into the several parcels of it. 1. What this evangelical softness is.2. What’ s the seat of it.3. What are the causes of it. For the first of these: softness, as it here stands in opposition to an hard and stony heart, is nothing else but a gracious frame of man’ s heart, whereby it is easily wrought upon by God, and is apt to work that which is good. So that by this description of softness it appears to be double--(1) Passive, when the heart is apt to be wrought upon to any good motion.(2) Active, when it puts forth itself freely, and is apt to set itself a work on that which is good. Next, the seat of this softness is the whole man; it is true, if we speak of the chief throne of this grace, it sits eminently in the will, but not only, the whole man is the seat of spiritual softness; the understanding is made apt thereby to conceive of that that’ s good: the will is ready to sit down by it, and rest in it; the conscience, being checked for the neglect or abuse of it, will check us for the same; the affections will easily turn and stop, and the outward members will concur obediently, as men speak. Now for the causes of this softness: the efficient, you see, is God Himself. “ I will take the stony heart out of their flesh, and give them an heart of flesh,” it is His work alone. He undertakes it here in our text, and the same you may read, chap. 36. And He performs it too in the conversion of His children; see it in a few instances. Manasseh had sanguined and flesht himself in blood. And yet even this man, thus far gone in sin, the Lord softens him by sending him captive into a far country, casting him into cold irons, etc.; so that he humbled himself greatly before the God of his fathers, who made him of a lion to become a lamb, as profitable now, as before he was mischievous. The like you may see in Paul. Such a change doth the Lord make in His people when He takes in hand to convert them. Neither doth He thus soften them only at the first, but when they stand in need of a second conversion upon some particular out-let and out-stray,--as you may see in David, who grew miserably hardened upon his fall into adultery, dissimulation, and murder, but God so wrought him afterwards that he became more soft and tender-hearted then ever he had been before. You have seen who is the efficient cause of this spiritual softness, God alone. Now for the matter of it; it is habitual grace infused into a man’ s soul from above. Saint James calls it the wisdom from above (chap. 3:17); and tells us further, that it is first pure, then peaceable, gentle and easy to be entreated, full of mercy and good fruits, etc. In a word, God infuseth into the hearts of His people such grace as maketh them gentle, pliable, and malleable every way. For the formal cause or manner how the Lord softens His people, it is thus--1. He takes the stone out of their flesh, and then bestows on them an heart of flesh. 2. He not only gives them reasons to persuade them from their natural and habitual hardness, but mightily works softness in their hearts: the power of God is exercised in this business, He puts to His hand as well as His mouth for the effecting of it. Lastly, for the final cause or end, wherefore the Lord thus softens the hearts of His people, it is laid down in the 20th verse of this chapter, that they may walk in His statutes, and keep Thy ordinances and do them; that they may comply with Him, and so they may be His people, and He may be their God; He hereby brings His people home to Himself, takes off the devil’ s brand, and claps on His own, even that Image of His consisting in holiness and righteousness, and so conforms them to His Son Christ that He may be the first-born among many brethren. This is the general end why God softens His people, as hath been said in their first conversion. In particular, the ends are--1. To make them capable of the good He intends them to do, which till then they are not. To what end should a man sow good seed, if the ground be not softened first, if it be not torn up by the plough, and so made fit to receive it? or to what purpose should one go about to set a stamp on wax that is not softened and tempered that it may take impression? So here, man’ s heart must be first ploughed, thawed, melted, made soft before the seed of God’ s grace be cast into it: for till then the Word cannot have any sound or settled impression thereupon. Secondly, God softens the hearts of His people, to make them thereby active in that which is good when man’ s heart is once grown hard and crusted over, as it were, it is quickly off from all holy performances, as every Christian knows by daily experience. This serves first for examination. Is this the estate of everyone that hath right to the new covenant, that he hath a soft and tender heart? then let every man reflect upon himself, and make trial of his own heart, whether it be a hard heart or a soft heart, whether it be made of a rock or of flesh? For if a man’ s heart be hard in extremity, so as that he is yet under the power of hard, ness, it is certain that Satan hath set his mark upon that man for his own, for he writes all his marks and sets all his names in stone, and makes those whom he hath in possession of a rocky disposition. (R. Harris, B. D.) Ezekiel 11:20 That they may walk in My statutes. Properties of obedience First, it must be hearty: the heart must be delivered up to the Word, as the apostle saith, to be framed and fashioned thereby; and then from an inward principle, obedience must be yielded to the will of God. Secondly, it must be sincere, for the end of it, whilst we walk worthy of the Lord in all well pleasing, as he saith to the Colossians, God must be our chief aim, and all that we do this way must once be done to Him, and for Him. Thirdly, it must be regular, for the form and manner of it, squared out by the Word, which must be a rule unto us, both in point of faith and in matter of practice. The law itself in this respect is not abrogated, but still continues in force, as a rule to live by. And this we should do for these motives--1. From God.2. From ourselves. For God, first it is that that doth wonderfully honour Him, when we can be content to deny ourselves, and as it were to dispossess ourselves of ourselves, that we may put Him into whole possession of our hearts. Secondly, this He expects of us as a Father, as a Master, as a Teacher, as a King, as a Creator and Maker of us. Thirdly, this He commends in His people when they observe to do His commandments, as when He compares His Church to the horses in Pharaoh’ s chariot, implying that His people were such as could be content to be turned and wound any way by Him. Fourthly, this is accepted of God above all sacrifices, as the prophet tells Saul; to obey is better then sacrifice (1 Samuel 15:22). As in respect of God, so in respect of ourselves, we should show ourselves obedient. First, because it is possible to obey God in such a measure, at least, as shall be accepted. If we are in the covenant, God hath undertaken to enable us to observe His statutes, and we may attain to grace whereby to serve God acceptably, as the apostle saith. Secondly, as it is possible, so it is profitable too; for every man shall be rewarded according to his works, and as the apostle saith, not the hearers of the law, but the doers shall be justified, so it is not our hearing of the Word, our profession of religion, our know, ledge that will carry it, but as St. James saith, you shall be blessed in the deed, Thirdly, it is comfortable, as well as profitable, to obey God; it is even our life. If the philosopher could say that our life stands in doing things virtuous and praiseworthy amongst men, how much rather may we use the same speech of doing the will of God from the heart. This, indeed, is to live, and nothing else but this, This is the man whiles he byes, and this he leaves behind him when he dies. For then, it is not how great anyone hath been upon earth, or how rich, beautiful, politic, valorous, etc. these respects sway nothing with God; but so much goodness as any man hath had, so much comfort he carries with him, and so much honour, respect, and love he leaves behind him when he goes hence. Now then, if you bear any respect to God, if you would grace the Gospel, glad your teachers, silence your enemies, encourage your brethren, bring comfort to your own souls; the thing you are to perform and look to is practice. This is it that must justify your knowledge, for hereby we are sure that we know Him if we keep His commandments (Job 2:3-4). This is that the Lord aims at in all His ordinances, How shall we come to this obedience? Be sure you be in Christ, settle that, for from the old Adam you can suck nothing else but treason and rebellion: it is by the second Adam that anyone is made fit to obey. This being presupposed, then, that you are in Christ--First, you must get a treasure on the inside, make the tree good, and the fruit will be good also; according to the goodness of the sap, will the fruit be. Secondly, you must act those graces that you have, be doing still, up and be doing; and the Lord shall be with you. Never stand objecting, I cannot do such a duty, master such a corruption, resist such a temptation, bear such a cross, part with such a child, etc.; but put you yourselves upon the work, and say, God bids me do thus and thus, and I will do it, at least endeavour it. I am able to do all things through Christ that strengthens me, saith Paul (Philippians 4:13). But especially, make use of the covenant. He hath promised here, you see, to give blessings without and grace within; even one heart, a new heart, a soft heart, and all to this end, that we may walk in His statutes, and observe His commandments, and do them, etc. Improve this covenant, make your best of it, and say as the prophet, Lord, give Thy strength to Thy servant, that I may keep Thy Word; I am Thy servant, Lord, there is a relation between us, I am in covenant with Thee, and I come for that strength which Thou hast promised in the covenant, And I will be their God, and they shall be My people. This is now the last clause of the new covenant, and the upshot of all the rest. And I will be, etc.; wherein we have these two things to consider oral. For their part, they must behave themselves as His people.2. And for His part, He will be their God. That the Lord is very ready (so soon as He hath made His people) to smite a covenant with them, and to marry them to Himself. First, He fits them, and then He contracts them. Thus He dealt with Abraham, the Father of the Church: God calls him out of his own country, bestows His grace upon him, calls for the exercise of it: Walk before Me, and be upright, and then smites a covenant with him (Genesis 17:1-2). And so He dealt afterwards with His people Israel. He calls them out of idolatrous Egypt, humbles and tries them in the wilderness, gives them summons in Mount Sinai, prepares them beforehand, by thunderings and lightnings, and the noise of the trumpet, and the smoking of the mountain, etc.; and having thus subdued them to His fear, He makes a covenant with them (Exodus 19:1-25). Thus He dealt with Israel, and thus also with the Gentiles, as you may read, Hosea 2:1-23, which the apostle also makes use of (Romans 9:1-33). I will say to them that were not My people, Thou art My people; and they shall say, Thou art my God. And so the apostle applies it to some particular Gentiles (2 Corinthians 6:1-18). Come out from among them My people, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and not touch the unclean thing, and I will receive you. And I will be a Father unto you, and ye shall be My sons and My daughters, saith the Lord Almighty. Thus, you see, God is wondrous ready to smite a covenant with His people. The ground of this covenant is Jesus Christ, the angel of the covenant; He was God for the business with God, and man for the business with man; He partaketh of both God and man, that they may both meet in one in Him; and whereas there was a difference between them, He reconciles and makes them one again. To this end God-- 1. Deputes Christ to the office of a Mediator, and sends to His people this angel of the covenant. 2. They accept of Him for their Mediator, and say as the people of Israel did of Moses, If we should hear the voice of the Lord our God, speaking out of the fire, we should die; go thou near and hear all that the Lord our God shall say, and speak thou unto us all that the Lord our God shall speak unto thee, and we will hear it and do it. In like sort, the people of God stand affected toward Christ, and say; if God will please to look upon them in Christ; and deal with them in His mediation, they will be content to put themselves upon Him, and to obey Him in all things. This is the ground of the covenant. Next for the motive that stirs Him up thus to make a league with His people; it is merely His own grace and goodness, it is because He hath set His love upon them, as He tells the Israelites (Deuteronomy 7:7). Thirdly, if you inquire into the order, it is thus--First, a covenant of grace is made with Christ; and next, in Christ it is made with all Christian men and women. The first capitulation and condition is with Christ, as He is head of the Church: God gives unto His Son Christ a People from all eternity, that He should redeem them and bring them back again. Next, the Lord having first covenanted with Christ, He covenants also with us; He fits us in Christ for Himself, and then brings us home to Himself. Lastly, the end of all this that God doth for His people is-- 1. In respect of Himself, that He may set forth His own grace and goodness to the sons of men. 2. In respect of us, that He may secure us of our salvation in all the parts and degrees thereof. Is God thus ready to make a league with His people? take notice, then, in the first place, of the wonderful grace and goodness of God, that He should descend so far below Himself as to enter into covenant with such silly worms as we. This goodness of His appears especially if you consider how--1. He seeks it.2. Seals it.3. Performs it. For the first, it had been grace wonderful in Him, if He would have but accepted at our hands terms of peace upon our suit and submission, but behold His goodness in that He is pleased to sue to us for reconciliation. It had been our part, questionless, to have sued to Him rather, as being underlings, and far inferior to Him; besides, we had done the wrong, and we were in His danger, not He in ours. Secondly, He shows His love to us, as in seeking, so in smiting this covenant with us, which is a wonderful grace in Him, if you consider--1. The matter that this covenant contains; or,2. The manner of confirming it. For the first, this covenant contains all good things desirable--(1) Freedom from all evil that may any way prove hurtful to us. (2) The enjoyment of all good things; for God promiseth to give two worlds, yea, He will bestow Himself upon us, which is more than all the world besides. Secondly, for the manner His mercy appears in, that He confirms this covenant in the Son of His love. Consider, in the next place, how He seals this covenant with us; we break with Him continually, and prove false in the covenant. He never fails towards us, and yet He is ready upon all opportunities to confirm it unto us: He gives us all possible satisfaction for the present, and for the future; He is ready from time to time, as we fail on our part, and so are ready to question any part of the covenant, to seal again unto us, this year, and that year, this quarter, and that quarter, this month, and that month; whensoever we fail or doubt, if we but come unto Him in His ordinances and desire satisfaction, He is ready to set to a new seal for our confirmation, And now that you have seen what this covenant of grace is, what need more words to persuade you to embrace it; and yet there want not many motives hereunto. 1. It is greatly for our advantage to make this covenant with God. For-- (1) What an honour is it to us, that God should vouchsafe to enter into bond, as it were, for our security? (2) What a benefit? “ I will be your God!” etc. Princes may covenant with their subjects for peace, for living, for liberty, but none besides God can make a covenant of life with any: it is He alone that can say unto us, Live and never die, as in that place of Ezekiel forecited, I said unto her, live, namely, the life of grace here, and the life of glory hereafter. 2. Next, see how free a covenant it is God makes with us, even a covenant of grace: there is nothing required of us more than this, to disclaim ourselves, and to make Christ alone our Teacher, our Head, our all-sufficient Saviour, for in Him we shall be beloved. 3. Consider how full a covenant this is; He undertakes with us not for ourselves only, but for our seed after us: for, “ I am thy God, and the God of thy seed.” 4. As it is a full, so ‘ tis also a firm covenant, even such as shall stand unalterable to all perpetuity; heaven and earth shall pass, but not one tittle thereof shall fall to the ground; ‘ tis an everlasting covenant. Lastly, see how desirous the Lord is to enter into this covenant with you, for He sent His Son into the world on purpose to make this covenant, and now still He sends abroad His ambassadors in His name, to entreat you to accept of condition of peace, and to be content to be reconciled unto Him. Now therefore, as Joshua sometimes spake to the children of Israel, when he renewed the covenant between them and God: Fear the Lord, saith he, and serve Him in sincerity and truth, etc. And if it seem evil to you this day to serve the Lord, choose you this day whom you will serve, etc. And that’ s the second thing we propounded to be done by every one of you, keep covenant with your God; we have the advantage of it, we shall be sure to have the comfort, the safety, the happiness: in doing of this, there is great reward; for God cannot lie, He cannot deny Himself, He cannot but make good unto us, whatever He hath undertaken to do for us, therefore hold Him to it. Lastly, be you all exhorted to improve this covenant for all good intents and purposes, but especially for the confirmation and strengthening of your faith: Say, I have God’ s hand, Gold’ s seal, God’ s oath, that He will be my God; why should I not then take heart and comfort? If I could do my part of the covenant, I should not doubt that God would do His. It is a covenant of grace that we are entered into, and God hath undertaken for us as well as for Himself. Only be sure you be in the covenant, and then God will be a God to you; than the which, what can be said more to your comfort, though we should speak unto you this twelvemonth? How shall I know that God is in covenant with me? He hath indeed smitten with me an outward covenant in the sacrament of baptism, but how may I come to know that God is in special covenant with me, and that He is my God? For your satisfaction herein, see first, how this covenant works upon you, and affects you. Doth it drive you from sin, and make you diligent in duty? Again, see whether you have the counterpane of God’ s covenant within you or no: for He hath promised in this new covenant to put His fear in our hearts, and write His laws in our inward parts, etc. these are as a pair of indentures, whereof He keeps the one, and gives us the other. Lastly, see what you do in the covenant: do you endeavour to keep touch with God and to please Him in all things? and when you fail and come short of that you should do, have you no rest in your souls, till you have been with God, and there shamed yourselves in His presence, and made your peace? well and good then, for this you may trust to. (R. Harris, B. D.) And they shall be My people, and I will be their God.-- The happiness of him that hath God for his God Lo, this crowns all the rest, and is the top of man’ s felicity, when God takes him into covenant, For proof of this point, we have a double testimony--1. From God’ s self (and that should be sufficient). 2. From the people of God. God, when He had spoken much by way of promise to His Church, as that He would give them rain in the due season, etc., so that they should eat of the old store, and bring forth the old because of the new; yea, that He would set His tabernacle among them, etc., at length He concludes all with this (verse 12), I will walk among you, I will even neighbour with you, as it were, and I will be your God, and ye shall be My people. So 2 Corinthians 6:17-18. As on the other side, when He would show Himself most of all displeased with a people, and seal up greatest wrath against them, He calls them, Loammi: Ye are not My people, and I will not be your God (Hosea 1:9). And if with this testimony of God, you join the testimony of the Church, the point will be yet more plainly proved; Happy is that people that is in such a ease.; yea, happy is that people whose God is the Lord (Psalms 144:15). Blessed is that nation whose God is the Lord: and the people whom He hath chosen for His own inheritance (Psalms 33:12). The honour and happiness of a nation and people lies in this, that they have God for their God. And the same is true also of particular persons: Blessed is the man whom Thou choosest, etc. (Psalms 65:4). Thence that exclamation of Moses: Happy art thou, O Israel: who is like unto thee, O people, saved by the Lord, the shield of thy help, and who is the sword of thine excellency, etc. (Deuteronomy 33:29); wherein stood the happiness of Israel above other nations, but in this, that God was so near them? This you will more easily believe, if you consider the reasons. And first, when a man hath God, he hath all; for God is blessedness itself, and all blessedness in the world is but derived from Him. God is, as essentially in Himself, so causally the root and fountain of all happiness in the creature, and everything is so far forth happy, as it partakes of God. For it is God alone that can free man from that that makes him miserable, sin and the curse; and it is God only that can bestow upon him that will make him truly blessed, grace and glory. So that man’ s happiness lies in God. Again, when God comes into the heart, all other comforts come along with Him. If God once be your God, then Christ also is your Saviour, the Holy Ghost is your Comforter; the Word is yours, the sacraments yours; angels, saints, and all creatures are yours (1 Corinthians 3:22-23). Add hereunto, the immunities and privileges of those that have God for their God. We have spoken of many of these heretofore. The prophet speaks all in short: The Lord God is a sun, and a shield; the Lord will give grace and glory: and no good thing will He withhold from them that walk uprightly (Psalms 84:11). (R. Harris, B. D.) Ezekiel 11:23 The glory of the Lord went up from the midst of the city. Departure of God from His temple I. How averse God is to forsake His people. Look we to His declarations; look we to examples. II. What are the different steps by which His departure may be discovered? He withholds-- 1. The manifestations of His love.2. The influences of His grace.3. The warnings of His Spirit. III. The dreadful state of those who are forsaken by Him.1. They are delivered up into the hands of their spiritual enemies;2. They live only to increase their guilt and misery. Apply-- (1) How are we to reconcile this doctrine with other parts of Scripture?(2) How are we to avert this awful calamity? (C. Simeon, M. A.) Stood upon the mountain. Climbing the mountain When the summer sun is hot, and the mountain snow melts; when days are long and skies are clear; when strong men rejoice to climb exceeding high mountains--and they rejoice in climbing higher and higher every year--Snowdon and Skiddaw, Ben Nevis and Ben Lomond, Mont Blanc and the great Matterhorn, and many other “ high hills,” are surveyed, and then scaled by skilful and fearless men. It is well. We need examples of calm courage and indomitable perseverance. We need to see what effort, training, strength, health, and brave endurance can accomplish. But I would speak of the holy mountains and spiritual heights. I would point to lofty peaks in religious life, and glorious ascents into spheres of thought and joy beyond--far beyond--the common level of Christian experience. I. The mountain of Scripture. More study of the Bible, and more meditation on God mean more lofty views of His providence and grace--a mental life of crystalline clearness and purer air; of richer joys than are common to men. Climb, then, for the glory of the Lord is upon the mountain, not down in the valley, and blessed is the man who climbs until he sees it, and is encircled with its beauty and its light. Oh that we may see the glory of God, this day, “ in the face of Jesus Christ” ! II. The mountain of prayer. We are satisfied, for a time, with the lispings of a babe, but we expect it to learn a fuller and more comprehensive tongue. So we must not be always as “ babes in Christ” in our prayers. There should be new prayers; there should be holier prayers; there should be prevailing prayers. A few more struggles, a few more upward flights, and your soul shall be in the centre of the bright cloud where God dwells, and you shall sun yourselves in His great glory. Climb, then, the mountain of prayer, and you shall be crowned with grace, mercy, and truth. III. The mountain of usefulness. Are all the hungry fed, all the children taught, all the drunkards reformed, all the sinners converted? No, no! Our mission is not fulfilled, nor is our work done. Christian usefulness; this is the highest form and sweetest flower of life. Leave the monotony of your work far behind you, and do some new thing for the Lord. Behold His glory is upon the mountain summit, and He is waiting for your fruits and sheaves and noble deeds. Rise; gird up your loins; work for the Lord, as Nelson fought for victory, and as Paul sought to “ save some,” and God, even our God, will bless you with fruitfulness of life. IV. The mountain of salvation. A sinner--what a name is that! An unsaved sinner--that is worse. An unsaved, unhappy sinner--that is worst of all. Is that your name? Come and climb the mountain of salvation, and get for yourself a new name. Lo! here on a shining throne is Jesus Himself, and as we enter His presence He benignly says, “ I will give you rest.” And here, in the mountain of salvation, He does give us rest. He gives full pardon, perfect peace, joyful hope, holy strength, loving confidence, glorious righteousness, and everlasting life. Come, then, far up into the secure heights of this mountain; come, now, to where Jesus and the glory of God are waiting for you. V. The mountain of heavenly vision. Faith, prayer, zeal, work, and love are so many steps leading us to the lofty peaks of the mountain of Celestial vision, whence, even on stormy days, we may see afar the Promised Land. With heaven in sight, toil and tears will be easier to bear, and death be welcome whenever and wherever it may come. Fear not death, nor Jordan’ s rolling waves. Let the mountain of salvation lead to the mountain of vision, and it will be then only one step into heaven itself. (G. W. M’Cree.) Ezekiel 11:25 Then I spake unto them of the captivity all the things that the Lord had shewed me.Babylon with God better than Jerusalem without Him He told them of the great wickedness he had seen at Jerusalem, and the ruin that was hastening towards that city, that they might not repent of surrendering themselves to the King of Babylon as Jeremiah advised them, and blame themselves for it, nor envy those that stayed behind, and laughed at them for going when they did, nor wish themselves there again, but be content in their captivity. Who would covet to be in a city so full of sin and so near to ruin? It is better to be in Babylon under the favour of God, than in Jerusalem under His wrath and curse. (M. Henry.) In the uplifted life we are led to the sphere of our duty I. We are led where needed. Ezekiel was now directed to the place where he was required, because the captives needed comfort, warning, exhortation (verse 25). In the New Testament there is a somewhat parallel illustration of the fact just stated, Philip was enjoying a full tide of success among the Samaritans when he was called to leave this flourishing work, and go down into a desert way, lonely and trackless. Such a change must have seemed strange to the evangelist; but yet God was leading him by His Spirit. Out in this waste district he was brought into touch with a seeker. These two cases of Ezekiel and Philip may assure us that the Lord will lead us if we are in a suitable condition of heart to be led. We may be and are often led by strength of impression or of reasoned conviction, growing clear to our apprehension, without any miraculous interposition. II. We are led into God’ s larger purpose. Sometimes we are so led against our own prejudices and inclinations. Perhaps Ezekiel would have preferred ministering to those of his fellow countrymen who were yet in Jerusalem; but these in Chaldea were more promising than those in Jerusalem, although they seemed most unpromising. How strangely and wonderfully God by His Spirit led Peter to Cornelius, the Roman, the centurion of Caesarea. Peter was slow to respond to the Spirit’ s leading. The uncircumcised Gentile was completely ostracised. Now, those rooted prejudices of ages had to be overcome and broken down. Jewish Christians had to be taught to rise superior to the trammels of exclusive Judaism. They had to learn that the Gospel is not a national prerogative, but a worldwide privilege,--not a lamp for Jerusalem, but the sun in the sky, shining for all. How slow man’ s heart was to accept the thought of the fraternity of men and the solidarity of the human race! And, to revert to a spiritual parallelism, “ thoughts have been expressed, judgments have been formed, systems have been made, books have been written, which never would have found a place on God’ s earth if the authors had stood upon a higher platform, and beheld with wider and with clearer vision the ways of men and of God.” III. We are led into God’ s wider plan. In the uplifted life we are given a larger sphere of usefulness--a greater opportunity for service. How pertinent to this thought is it, that whilst Paul was praying in the temple, probably that his Lord would use him to evangelise his fellow countrymen, he fell into a trance, in which he held communion with his Master, and He made known to him His purpose to send him “ far hence to the Gentiles” ! We are reminded age, in in connection with St. Paul, of the apostle’ s anticipated visit into the province of Asia, to evangelise the large cities--Pergamos, Smryna, and Ephesus--when the Spirit suffered him not. His plans to visit Bithynia were completely thwarted. He must not turn to the left or to the right, but must pass on through the territory of Mysia, his way being surely directed, until he reached Troas on the coast, by that “ narrow but renowned sea strait which separates the east from the west.” Many great warriors had stood upon that very shore. Julius Caesar, Alexander of Macedon, and Xerxes; but no braver soul had reached that famed region than this warrior of the Cross. It was at this place that the first famous war between Greece and Asia was fought out; but the engagement in which the apostle entered, resolving upon the conquest of Europe, was fraught with more important and far-reaching results even than that. Paul gazed across the AEgean sea and saw the mountains of Europe. Dean Farter says, in his Life of St. Paul, “ He had thrown many a wistful glance towards the hills of Imbros and Samothrace; and perhaps when on some clear evening the colossal peak of Athens was visible, it seemed like some vast angel who beckoned him to carry the good tidings to the west.” His day thoughts perhaps fashioned his night dreams, and in a vision he saw a man of Macedonia standing and praying, saying, “ Come over into Macedonia and help us!” The man was speaking for the whole modern world. Having seen the vision, the apostle resolves to cross that “ fated frontier,” that possible rubicon, and to exchange familiar Asia for unknown Europe, with its perishing millions. It was a celebrated voyage which the Argonauts took under the command of Jason, when they set sail from the coast of Thessaly, and (B.C. 1280) entered the Hellespont. Those daring Greeks were utterly ignorant of navigation, but were anxious to explore an extent of sea that was altogether unknown to them. That was a more celebrated voyage which was undertaken by the apostle in the vessel bound for Samothracia, as he crossed the surging AEgean with the purpose of carrying into unknown regions--the civilised countries of Europe and perhaps to heathen Britain--the Gospel of the grace of God. Under the Holy Spirit’ s guidance and teaching, he saw God’ s wider plan. William Carey, when Sydney Smith sneered at him as the pious shoemaker, had such a view. Dr, Clifford, speaking of those days (a century ago), says, “ True, in some quarters the breath of the evangelical revival was blowing healthily. Methodism was passionately seeking the lost Englishman, Raikes was creating a school for the Englishman’ s child, and Howard was opening the door of the European prisons for England’ s dawning philanthropy. But the great missionary idea, which is the soul of the Christianity of Christ Jesus, was so completely lost, that practically it was inoperative, or so obscured that it was only present to a few solitary souls.” But the Spirit took Carey up, as He had taken up Ezekiel, and he not only saw the many peoples and wide-reaching lands that still “ sat in darkness and the shadow of death” --the warlike Kaffir, the cannibal islander, the savage Fuegian, the Brahmin, the Moslem, the negro, but he also saw that God’ s great plan of salvation was for all kindreds and peoples and tribes and tongues. Now, this uplifted life is for us all. Let us be Christians of the hills, and not of the plain! We want, as one has said, to “ realise the sense of vastness.” (A. W. Welch.) . Ezekiel 12:2 Son of man, thou dwellest in the midst of a rebellious house, which have eyes to see and see not.The disuse of spiritual faculties Eyes and ears are for many reasons the most important and valuable organs of the human body, the chief “ gates” --to use the language of Bunyan--to the famous town of Mansoul. The one brings us into contact with form, the other with sound; the one has relation to space, the other to time. No part in the human frame is so wonderful in their execution as these. “ The eye,” says one, “ by its admirable combination of coats and humours and lenses, produces on the retina, or expansion of nerve at the back of the socket or bony cavity, in which it is so securely lodged, a distinct picture of the minutest or largest object; so that, on a space that is less than an inch in diameter, a landscape of miles in extent, with all its variety of scenery, is depicted with perfect exactness of relative proportion in all its parts.” Nor is the ear less wonderful. “ It is a complicated mechanism lying wholly within the body, showing only the wide outer porch through which the sound enters. It conveys the sound through various chambers to the inmost extremities of those nerves which bear the messages to the brain. So delicate is this organ, that it catches the softest whispers, and conveys them to the soul, and so strong that it hears the roll of the loudest thunder in the chamber of its mistress.” Now, the text--as well as other parts of Scripture--teaches that man’ s spiritual nature has organs answering to those organs of the body. The text calls us to notice the spiritual disuse of these faculties. I. It involves the greatest deprivation.1. The disuse shuts out the grandest realities of existence. What are the immutable principles of rectitude, what is the great spiritual universe, what is God Himself, to the man who is morally blind and deaf? 2. The disuse shuts out the sublimest joys of existence. What are the charms of physical to moral beauty, the beauty of holiness and God? What are the charms of physical harmony to those of that great moral anthem that fills the spiritual universe with rapture and delights the ear of God Himself? How great then the deprivation of the spiritually blind and deaf! God is with them, His pure, happy heavens lie about them, and they know it not. 3. The disuse deteriorates the faculties themselves. Unused organs often die out. II. It involves the greatest wickedness.1. It is an abuse of talent. All the powers we possess, we possess as trustees, not as proprietors; they are entrusted to us for a specific purpose. 2. It is an abuse of the greatest talents. These spiritual faculties are the highest we have--higher than bodily power, higher than intellectual ability, higher than natural genius. Conclusion--1. The sad condition of the unregenerate world.2. The deeply needed mission of Christ. (Homilist.) Rebelliousness means loss of faculty You cannot commit sin and be as clear-minded as you were before you committed it. The obscurity of mind may not be immediately evident; but let a man allow one bad thought to pass through his brain, and the brain has lost quality, a tremendous injury has been inflicted on that sensitive organ; by and by, after a succession of such passages, there will be no brain to injure. Sin tears down whatever it touches. Your habit is bringing you to imbecility, if it is a bad habit. You must name it; preachers may not speak distinctly and definitely, but they create a standard by which men may judge themselves, and by which preachers may also judge their own aspirations and purposes. You are losing your eyesight by your sin; you are becoming deaf because you are becoming worse in thought and desire and purpose; you are not the business man you were a quarter of a century ago, when you were a disciplinarian, a Spartan, a self-critic, when you held yourself in a leash, and would not allow yourself to go an inch faster than your judgment approved; since then you have loosened the reins, you have allowed the steeds to go at their own will, and the consequence is that you miss one-half of what is spoken to you, and you fail to see God’ s morning and God’ s sunset; they are but commonplaces to you, mayhap but broad vulgarities. Men should be good if they wish to keep their genius. The bad man goes down. His descent may not be palpable today or tomorrow, but the process is not the less certain and tremendous because it is sometimes imperceptible. (J. Parker, D. D.) Ezekiel 12:3-7 Prepare thee stuff for removing.A drama of exile I. The vision in its historical fulfilment. II. The vision in its practical lessons for the present.1. The consequence of sin is moral exile. All evil, not only in act, but in thought and in wish, involves in greater or less degree a going away from the holy--is a self-exileship, not perhaps, as in the vision, from a holy place, but from the holy God. 2. This moral exile is awfully sad. (1) This exile is burdensome. The man goes with the baggage of an emigrant. He carries as much as he can. And he who goes away from God into any sin goes burdened. Responsibility, an accusing conscience, a growing fear; these, as with Cain, load guilty souls. (2) The exile was severed from social ties. With what solitariness of soul, as though he were utterly alone and in the dark, does each man have to say, “ I have sinned” ! (3) The exile went out into wild uncertainties. Whither he should hurry when once beyond the city walls he could not tell. And into what unexplored regions of wrong-doing, or what abysses of consequent remorse a sinner may wander, who can tell? 3. This moral exile is stealthy. Not through a gate, but by a hole dug through the wall; not at noon, but at night, the exile gets away from the holy city. So with the beginnings of all sin. The excuses, the concealments, the artifices of the selfish, the impure, the mean, breathe the stealthy spirit of the father of lies. Evil chooses the dark first, and then gets blinded. 4. This moral exile is shameful. The exile, ashamed to look on the ground, is a true type of those who, first with blush of shame, and whitened lip, and trembling voice or hand, do wrong; and who at last “ will wake to shame and everlasting contempt.” (Urijah R. Thomas.) It may be they will consider.--The Divine expectation I. The subject to which this expectation refers.1. Men do not consider that they are sinful creatures.2. Nor that they are dying creatures.3. Nor that they are immortal creatures. II. The means employed for bringing about the expectation which is here expressed.1. The Divine forbearance.2. The afflictive dispensations of Divine Providence.3. The ministry of the Gospel. (J. C. Gray.) Ezekiel 12:6I have set thee for a sign unto the house of Israel.Men and ministers Ideas may be communicated quite as effectively through the eye as through the ear, by visible signs as by audible words. Thus our cemeteries display a profusion of emblems which eloquently, though silently, express the sentiments both of grief and of hope. Thus our sacraments of baptism and the Lord’ s Supper express the fundamental ideas of purification, brotherhood, and life through Christ, by symbols, or signs, as a visible Gospel. In like manner, a truth may be embodied, as it were in a person, who stands before his fellow men as the representative sign of an idea. This is the function of the Christian ministry today. The words applied to Ezekiel may be applied to every individual member of the Christian ministry: “ I have set thee for a sign unto the house of Israel.” I. A sign of what? To answer, we must analyse the convictions generally entertained as to the duties of the Christian ministry. These convictions, so far as reasonable, are the judgment of the conscience of the community in concurrence with the teaching of the Scriptures.1. In purity, he must be the man above suspicion, pure even to the verge of being puritanical, forbidding himself some things in which his fellow Church members indulge themselves without rebuke. 2. In unselfishness, he must be the man who never spares himself in doing good, never discriminating between rich and poor in an all-serving helpfulness; patient under provocation, conciliating in speech and in temper, the first to deny himself, a liberal giver, a prompt, unstinting paymaster, owing no man anything but unlimited love. 3. In truth, he must be the mirror of sincerity, both in private study and in public speech and action, aiming ever at the reality of things, not the paid advocate of a creed, not the hired mouthpiece of a church or denomination, not the echo of other men’ s voices, not a professionalist in any way, but transparently representing the real and conscientiously formed convictions which he cherishes in his own heart and mind. 4. In courage, he must be no time server, or flatterer, never failing to ask, Is it right? before asking, Is it safe?--as bold for an unpopular truth as for a popular one, as plain spoken to rich sinners as to poor ones, willing, if need be, to lose a place by doing a duty, just as ready to be counted in a minority as in a majority, if only on the side of truth and right. 5. In piety is required the Christian minister’ s central and vital characteristic. Together with every other required quality, men will insist on that peculiar quality in a Christian minister which is called “ spirituality,” and which I may call other-worldliness--an unaffected recognition of interests that lie beyond the grave, and of the Being in whom we must trust for the hereafter. II. But why does the general conscience require this purity, unselfishness, truth, courage, piety, in the Christian minister? Certainly not by reason of any contract between him and his brethren. He has simply contracted to be their teacher. He has not contracted to furnish a model of all the virtues at so much a year. Neither is it by virtue of any profession he has made as a Christian man. The profession that every Christian man makes is a profession of a purpose and endeavour--rather than of an actual attainment--and whatever any man professes or does not profess in the way of good endeavour, to that good endeavour he is bound whether professing it or not. Why, then, this demand of the public conscience upon the Christian minister, except that, simply as a man teaching men, he in his position must be what every man in any position should be; must stand as a sign of the character that God requires of all? I ask you, then, my friends, to exalt your requirements of character in Christian ministers to the very highest, insisting only on those real excellences, which are displayed in that one only pattern of a perfect human life which God has given us in Jesus Christ. When you have done it, and formed a true and high ideal of the character that the Christian ministry should possess, then you have simply figured to yourself what a true man should be among men, independently of any contract, or profession, or endeavour after consistency. And the minister whom you expect to live up to that ideal is set to be God’ s sign to you for your own living. Whatever would spot his skirts in God’ s sight, will spot yours. Whatever you would be sorry to see him do, you should be sorry to see yourself do. III. Further suggestions.1. The danger of the clerical profession to society. What this danger is, may be illustrated by the answer which I dare say many a person would give, if asked why a Christian minister should pray, “ Why, it is his business to.” The subtle fallacy in that word, “ his business,” is no small drawback to a minister’ s influence for good, and the only way he can offset it is by that high personal character which the most unspiritual men must admit to be everybody’ s business. 2. The Divine end in the institution of the Christian ministry is the formation of right character. What we need most is to take our grand and beautiful and vital truths out of showcases, and put them on as everyday clothing. Let us insist that those shall do this whose privilege it is to make these truths their especial study, and to exhibit them to others. But remember, that in so doing they are but a sign of that which is required of all. 3. The alleged decline of the influence of the Christian ministry is a real gain be its influence on character. A fallacy has gone out and a truth has come in. When the Christian minister has been brought down from his former fictitious elevation to his proper level of a man among men, then the spiritual rule by which he is judged is brought down to be the rule for all. This is a solid gain for the power of conscience, when the high expectations which the congregation press upon their minister are perceived to declare the obligations which press equally upon every one of them as the servant of God. (J. M. Whiten, Ph. D.) Sign making lost among modern prophets He was to be performing a very singular act, and to be so constantly doing it that people would say, What is he doing now? He is moving things: what is the madman after today? Watch him:--he brings forth his stuff in their sight; he goes forth at even in their sight; he digs through the wall in their sight; in their sight he bears the burden upon his shoulders and carries it forth in the twilight (i.e. in the dark) ; he covers his face that he may not see the ground. The Lord makes this use of the man that by an act singular, absurd, irrational, unaccountable, he may attract attention, so that the people may say, What is it? It is thus the preachers would do if they dare. The preacher has lost his power of sign making, and he has taken now to sentence making. The preacher should always be doing something that attracts the religious attention of mankind. He should be praying so unexpectedly and vehemently as to cause people to say, What is this? But he dare not. Quietness has been patented, and indifference has been gazetted respectable. They are right who beat drums, sound trumpets, fly flags, tramp the streets like soldiers taking a fortress, so that people shall say, looking out of high windows and round the street corners, What is this? what are these men doing now? “ It may be,” saith the Lord,--“ it may be they will consider.” But they can only be brought to consideration by sign and token, by madness on the part of the Church. Trust the Church for going mad today! The Church now locks up its premises six days out of seven, and blesses the man who occupies it as little as possible on the seventh day. Rebelliousness overfloods the fading energy and zeal of the Church. (J. Parker.) Ezekiel 12:22-25 The days are prolonged, and every vision faileth. Prophecy a living force Right in the midst of the history of Israel, when Divine purposes of the highest moral and spiritual importance were being wrought out in her, in the very centre of one of her grandest outbursts of revealing thought upon the principles and power of religion, this sceptical proverb took its rise and possessed a certain plausibility, and had its seeming justification in the circumstances of the time: “ The days are prolonged, and every vision faileth.” I. The proverb and its meaning. The saying may be held to express relief or disappointment. There were doubtless many Israelites who were glad to escape from the consciousness of the ceaseless vigilance of the Keeper of Israel. There are always some minds to whom the thought that “ Thou God seest me” is an oppression and a nightmare. Others, however, were bitterly disappointed at what seemed to them the neglect and failure of Jehovah to redeem His promises to His people (Lamentations 3:1-66). But our proverb is more probably the outcome of a shallow materialism than of either relief or disappointment. The materialist belongs to all ages and peoples, and is always ready to say that visions have nothing in them. Indeed, there had been, as Ezekiel tells us in verse 24, “ vain visions” and “ flattering divinations within the house of Israel.” And because the true visions had been contingent, conditional on their effect upon the character of the people, they had very often seemed to fail. The desert can never rejoice and blossom as the rose, except for a people who have learnt the joy of unselfish sacrifice and long adorned themselves with the beauty of holiness. Moreover, many of the truest visions never will and never can be realised in such a world as this, because they have in them an element of idealism. Now, the man who lives in a world governed entirely by material standards of value, cannot stand this kind of thing at all. He calls upon his gods--upon actuality, upon reality and common sense--to deliver him out of it; just as many of the exiled Israelites were, at this very time, thinking of abjuring their nation and religion, and becoming the servants of the gods of Babylon. Babylon, at any rate, was no vision. Babylon commanded the big battalions, the scarlet-coated legions which had never known defeat, the mighty engines of war, the inexhaustible resources of the valley of the Euphrates; she had the mastery of all the rich trade routes between East and West; and possessed, in her own queenly magnificence, her towers, her palaces and temples, her wharves and markets, her civilisation and unrivalled power, the assurances of what seemed eternal prosperity. What folly to set up the visions of prophets over against the great heathen power which dominated the world! It is not wonderful if today also there are those who feel orphaned, desolate, forlorn, as though God had left us. “ No voices and no visions now! no direct Divine message! no obvious Divine interposition!” --this is the thought that lies behind very much of our public action and private conduct--this is the thought most to be dreaded; for its influence tends in national politics to a hard, cynical selfishness in place of any lofty enthusiasm for liberty and philanthropy. It is equally fatal in private life; for if God is really silent to us, if He has left us to our own devices, the times are indeed dull and joyless, and there is nothing for it but for each of us to do the best he can for himself, and, according to the wicked old worldly proverb, let the devil take the hindmost. II. But no! Prophecy is a living force. The Babylon of today is materialism--the materialistic view of the world and of life, in the laboratory of the chemist, the counting house of the merchant, and the abodes of society. Where are the prophets and where the spiritual influences which we can set over against this mighty tyranny? Some people talk of this as a materialistic or prosaic century--feel it to be so--because they themselves lead prosaic and materialistic lives. Yet our age has been blessed with a bright succession of true prophets, or at least prophetic souls--great teachers of the essential spirituality of the universe--men who have spoken, not only words of wisdom, but of wisdom weighted with the power of deep and passionate conviction. It is a question whether the Church of God has ever been blessed with a grander succession of true preachers than in our own day; whilst the authority of the great names outside the Church--of the Carlyles, Ruskins, Tennysons--has been essentially a moral and spiritual authority. Materialism only represents one tendency, one phase, of the life of the age; whilst great fields of life and influence have been occupied by men who have been seekers after God in the temper and spirit of old Hebrew piety, which ever cried, “ Oh that I knew where I might find Him, that I might even come into His presence!” Such men have wrought in many minds an increased seriousness of thought, a deepened power of feeling, a wider sympathy, a truer spiritual insight. Then, again, the great influences which come from science are now being recognised as not necessarily materialistic. The eternal power and Godhead are more clearly, not less clearly, seen today than ever, in the majestic order of creation as revealed by the telescope and the microscope. The God of the infinitely great and infinitely little, the God who presides over the slow development of human society, from whom come the influences which form character and which move the world forward age by age, from whom comes the unconquerable tendency in things which makes for righteousness, never was, to the seeing heart and eye, more manifestly present than in the thought and life of our time. The silent, ceaseless activities of a Deity whose being is everywhere, who crowds the waters of a stagnant pool with myriads upon myriads of tiny inhabitants, and fills the vast spaces of the heavens above us with stars, suns, systems innumerable, are being recognised as still more impressive than the ancient manifestations; whilst, as our science begins to hear in many directions the “ Thus far shalt thou go and no further” which limits discovery, a sense of awe in presence of the encompassing mysteries of our lot gathers about us; and signs are not wanting--the very nature of some of the more recent discoveries warrants the impression--that science herself will come to be our teacher of reverence, and her text books, which conduct us to the limits of the known, will become more and more suggestive of awe and wonder in presence of the unknown. The great Master of the unseen, the eternal, now, as ever, is Christ. Who can doubt that He has ruled the thought of the nineteenth century as of the first, or that His majestic figure will dominate the twentieth? As to the Babylon of our day, He is but waiting to smite it down. For us, at ally rate, to know Him, and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings, that surely is enough to banish materialism out of our life forever, to save us utterly from the dull and joyless inability to see life’ s greater meanings. (W. Burkitt Dalby.) Ungodly proverbs Jeremiah has been talking about this upbreaking of the kingdom, and Ezekiel is talking about it; and when the prophecies were delivered to Zedekiah he said they did not sufficiently coincide to confirm one another; for he looked for those literal coincidences which bewilder so many people and which can only satisfy pedantry; he did not see that coincidence is in the purpose, in the substance of the message. So there came up a proverb in Israel, “ The days are prolonged,” then came a laugh suggestive; and “ Every vision faileth,” then the laugh was prolonged. We have fallen into the mockery of proverb making. In English we say, “ Words are but wind.” How foolishly we have lived to believe that: whereas words are the only real life. In the beginning the Word was with God, and the Word was God, and the word is the man, the soul if he be other than a profane person. We ourselves say in English, “ In space comes grace” : God does not mean to kill us, or He would not have given us such space for what is called repentance and amendment. We ourselves say, “ Every man for himself, and God for us all” : a singular mixture of mammon and spirituality, of selfishness and pseudo-religion. Let us not be victimised by our own wit. See to it that we do not slip into hell through the trapdoor of an epigram. There is only one word about this business that is true, namely, “ Now is the accepted time, now is the day of salvation.” The Lord says His patience will give way, His long-suffering will come to an end,--“ There shall be no more any vain vision nor flattering divination within the house of Israel. For I am the Lord: I will speak, and the word that I shall speak shall come to pass; it shall be no more prolonged: for in your days, O rebellious house, will I say the word, and will perform it, saith the Lord God.” Better believe this. All the ages have testified to it; all philosophies point in this direction. “ He that being often reproved hardeneth his neck, shall suddenly be destroyed, and that without remedy.” (J. C. Parker.) The days are at hand.--Death and eternity at hand I. The tidings here announced to the Jews. Similar tidings to you, but you have disregarded them as the Jews of old; set the days are at hand. II. The sign by which they were confirmed. Apply--1. It may be that some of you will consider;2. But the great mass of you will not. (C. Simeon, M. A.) Ezekiel 12:24-25 It shall be no more prolonged: for in your days, O rebellious house, will I say the word, and will perform it, saith the Lord God.Critical moments Do not enter a fool’ s paradise; do not enter upon vain imaginations, saying, As it was yesterday, so it will be tomorrow,--for there is a moment which changes all things. Study the action of time, and you will see how many critical moments there are. It is only a moment that separates the night from the day, the day from the not-day, the positive from the negative--an almost incalculable line, so minute, so infinitesimal. God can work wonders in a moment. He may take eternity for some works, but in many a moment He strikes men blind, and turns men into perdition. There is but a step between thee and death. Thy breath is in thy nostrils: a puncture in the right place, and life is gone. One touch, and the balance is lost, and he who was strong an hour since will be buried next week. Seizing these realities, grasping them with the whole mind and heart, the Church ought not to be other than in dead earnest. (J. Parker, D. D.) God’ s warnings to be heeded “ You see that buoy, sir, moored in the bay?” said the captain of the steamship in which we visited the Orlmeys. “ Yes,” I replied, after carefully picking out in the twilight the well-known danger signal. “ Well, there is a reef of rocks, that, starting from the shore, runs to a point within ten yards of the buoy. The worst tiring about it is that there is no indication of the reef; even at low water it is covered with water, and woe be to the ship that should strike on that dangerous reef. In the dark nights that buoy is an object of deep interest to me. Anxiously do I look out for it, and we steer with care until it is found.” The reef was never seen by the captain, but marked on his chart. He believed his chart to be true. So must we, as believers and Christians, trust in the testimony of the Word of God, and heed its warnings. (J. Ellis.) God’ s reckonings sometimes long delayed An ungodly farmer one day met his Christian neighbour, also a farmer, and began to taunt him. “ Why, my corn grows as well as yours. What difference does it make, all your prayers and talking about God’ s blessing? I don’ t see any good you’ ll get by it.” The Christian neighbour looked the man full in the face, and replied, “ Friend, God does not pay every week, but He does pay in the end.” Ezekiel 12:27 The vision that he seeth is for many days to come, and he prophesieth of the times that are far off.Now (a sermon for young men and young women):--One would have thought that if the glorious Lord condescended to send His servants to speak to men of the way of salvation, all mankind would delight to hear the message. But, alas! it has not been so. Man’ s opposition to God is too deep, too stubborn for that. Men display great ingenuity in making excuses for rejecting the message of God’ s love. The evil argument which is mentioned in the text has been used from Ezekiel’ s day right down to the present moment, and it has served Satan’ s turn in ten thousand cases. The sons of men, when they hear of the great atonement made upon the cross by the Lord Jesus, and are bidden to lay hold upon eternal life in Him, still say concerning the Gospel, “ The vision that he seeth is for many days to come, and he prophesieth of times that are far off.” That is to say, they pretend that the matters whereof we speak are not of immediate importance, and may safely be postponed. They meet our pressing invitation, “ All things are now ready, come ye to the supper,” with the reply, “ Religion is meant to prepare us for eternity, but we are far off from it as yet, and are still in the hey-day of our being; there is plenty of time for those dreary preparations for death.” They put off the day of conversion, as if it were a day of tempest and terror, and not, as it really is, a day most calm, most bright, the bridal of the soul with heaven. I. Granted for a moment that the message ww bring to you has most to do with the future state, yet even then the day is not far off, neither is there so great a distance between now and then, that you can afford to wait. You, perhaps, think seventy years a long period, but those who are seventy, in looking back, will tell you that their age is an hand’ s breadth. Man is short-lived compared with his surroundings; he comes into the world and goes out of it, as a meteor flashes through yonder skies which have remained the same for ages. Look at yonder venerable oak, which has for five hundred years battled with the winds, and what an infant one seems when reclining beneath its shade! Stand by some giant rock, which has confronted the tempests of the ages, and you feel like the insect of an hour. Therefore do not say, “ These things are for a far-off time” ; for even if we could guarantee to you the whole length of human existence, it is but a span. But there comes upon the heels of this a reflection never to be forgotten--that not one man among us can promise himself, with anything like certainty, that he shall ever see threescore years and ten. Nay more, we cannot promise that we shall see half that length of time. Let me check myself! What am I talking of? You cannot be certain that you will see this year out, and hear the bells ring in a new year. Ay, and this very night, when you close your eyes and rest your head upon your pillow, reckon not too surely that you shall ever again look on that familiar chamber, or go forth from it to the pursuits of life. It is clear, then, that the things which make for your peace are not matters for a far-off time, the frailty of life makes them necessities of this very hour. II. Our message really deals with the present. For observe, first, we are sent to plead with you, young men and young women, and tenderly to remind you that you are at this hour acting unjustly and unkindly towards your God. He made you, and you do not serve Him; He has kept you alive, and you are not obedient to Him, “ Will a man rob God?” You would not rob your employer. You would not like to be thought unfaithful or dishonest towards man; and yet your God, your God, your God--is He to be treated so basely, notwithstanding all His goodness? Again, our message has to do with the present, for we would affectionately remind you that you are now at enmity with your best friend--the Friend to whose love you owe everything. I have to remind you, however, of much more than this, namely, that you are this night in danger. Are you content to abide for a single hour in peril of eternal punishment? Many other reasons tend to make this weighty matter exceedingly pressing; and among them is this, that there is a disease in your heart, the disease of sin, and it needs immediate cure. Surely a sick mar can never be cured too soon? The gospel which we preach to you will also bring you present blessings. In addition to present pardon and present justification, it will give you present regeneration, present adoption, present sanctification, present access to God, present peace through believing, and present help in time of trouble, and it will make you even for this life doubly happy. It will be wisdom for your way, strength for your conflict, and comfort for your sorrow. III. I shall not deny, but I shall glory rather in admitting, that the Gospel has to do with the future. The Gospel of Jesus Christ has to do with the whole of a young man’ s life. Dear young friends, if you are saved while yet you are young, you will find religion to be a great preventive of sin. What a blessing it is not to have been daubed with the slime of Sodom, never to have had our bones broken by actual vice. Prevention is better than cure, and grace gives both. Grace will also act as a preservative as well as a preventive. The good thing which God will put in you will keep you. Whosoever believeth in Him has passed from death unto life; he shall not live in sin, but he shall be preserved in holiness even to the end. (C. H. Spurgeon.) The far-off looks insignificant “ Look at the stars, those vast globes of light, by reason of the distance between us and them, do seem but as so many spangles; so we have but a weak sight of things which are set at a great distance, and their operation upon us is usually but small.” --Manton. A far-off hell is the dread of no man, and a far-off heaven is scarce desired by anyone. God Himself, while thought of as far away, is not feared or reverenced as He should be. If we did but use our thoughts upon the matter, we should soon see that a mere span of time divides us from the eternal world, while the Lord our God is nearer to us than our souls are to our bodies. Strange that the brief time which intervenes between us and eternity should appear to be so important, while eternity itself they regard as a trifling matter. Men use the microscope to magnify the small concerns of time. Oh, that they would use the telescope upon the vast matters of eternity! (C. H. Spurgeon.) A common mistake and lame excuse I. The saying of my text, in the application which I now want to make of it, is a truth, but it is only half a truth. The neglect of God’ s solemn message by a great many people is based, more or less consciously, upon the notion that the message of Christianity--or, if you like to call it so, of the Gospel; or, if you like to call it more vaguely, religion--has to do mainly with blessings and woes beyond the grave. So there is plenty of time to attend to it when we get near the end. Now, is it true that “ he prophesies of times that are far off” ? Yes! and No! Yes! it is true, and it is the great glory of Christianity, that it shifts the centre of gravity, so to speak, from this poor, transient, contemptible present, and sets it away out yonder in an august and infinite future. But is that all that you have to say about Christianity? I want you to remember that all that prophesying of times that are far off has the closest bearing upon this transient, throbbing moment, because, for one thing, the characteristic of the Christian revelation about the future is that my eternity and yours is the child of time; and that just as the child is father of the man, so the man here is the progenitor and determiner of all the infinite spaces that lie beyond the grave. Therefore, when Christian truth prophesies of times that are afar off, it is prophesying of present time, between which and the most distant eternity there is an iron nexus: a band which cannot be broken. Igor is that all. Not only is the truth in my text but a half truth, if it is supposed that the main business of the Gospel is to talk to us about heaven and hell, and not about the earth by which we secure and procure the one or the other, but also it is a half truth, because, large and transcendent, eternal in their duration, and blessed beyond all thought in their sweetness as are the possibilities, the certainties that are opened by the risen and ascended Christ, and tremendous beyond all words that men can speak as are the alternative possibilities, yet these are not all the contents of the Gospel message; but those blessings and penalties, joys and miseries, exaltations and degradations, which attend upon righteousness and sin, godliness and irreligion today are a large part of its theme and of its effects. II. So, then, my text gives a very good reason for prizing and attending to the prophecy. People do not usually kick over their telescopes and neglect to look through them, because they are so powerful that they show them the craters in the moon and turn faint specks into blazing suns. People do not usually neglect a word of warning or guidance in reference to the ordering of their earthly lives, because it is so comprehensive, and covers so large a ground, and is so certain and absolutely true. Surely there can be no greater sign of Divine loving kindness, of a Saviour’ s tenderness and care for us, than that He should come to each of us, as He does come, and say to each of us, “ Thou art to live forever; and if thou wilt take Me for thy light thou shalt live forever, blessed, calm, and pure.” And we listen, and say, “ He prophesies of times that are far off.” Oh! is that not rather a reason for coming very close to, and for grappling to our hearts, and living always by the power of, that great revelation? Surely to announce the consequences of evil, and to announce them so long beforehand that there is plenty of time to avoid them, and to falsify the prediction, is the token of love. III. It is a very common and a very bad reason for neglecting. It does operate as a reason for giving little heed to the prophet, as I have been saying. In the old men-of-war, when an engagement was impending, they used to bring up the hammocks from the bunks and stick them into the nettings at the side of the ship, to defend it from boarders and bullets. And then, after these had served the purpose of repelling, they were taken down again and the crew went to sleep upon them. That is exactly what some of my friends do with that misconception of the genius of Christianity, that it is concerned mainly with another world. They put it up as a screen between them and God, between them and what you know to be their duty--namely, the acceptance of Christ as their Saviour. It is your hammock that you put between the bullets and yourself; and many a good sleep you get upon it! Now, that strange capacity that men have of ignoring a certain future is seen at work all round about us in every region of life. The peasants on the slopes of Vesuvius live very merry lives, and they have their little vineyards and their olives. Yes, and every morning, when they come out, they can look up and see the thin wreath of smoke going up in the dazzling blue, and they know that some time or other there will he a roar and a rush, and down will come the lava. But “ a short life and a merry one” is the creed of a good many of us, though we do not like to confess it. Some of you will remember the strange way in which ordinary habits survived in prisons in the dreadful times of the French Revolution, and how ladies and gentlemen, who were going to have their heads chopped off next morning, danced and flirted, and sat at entertainments, just as if there was no such thing in the world as the public prosecutor and the tumbril, and the gaoler going about with a bit of chalk to mark each door where the condemned were for next day. The same strange power of ignoring a known future, which works so widely and so disastrously round about us, is especially manifested in regard to religion. Surely it is not wise for a man to ignore a future that is certain simply because it is distant. So long as it is certain, what, in the name of common sense, has the time when it begins to be a present to do with our wisdom in regard to it? Surely it is not wise to ignore a future which is so incomparably greater than this present, and which also is so connected with this present as that life here is only intelligible as the vestibule and preparation for that great world beyond? Surely it is not wise to ignore a future because you fancy it is far away, when it may burst upon you at any time? What would you think of the crew and passengers of some ship lying in harbour, waiting for its sailing orders, who had got leave on shore, and did not know but that at any moment the blue peter might be flying at the fore--the signal to weigh anchor--if they behaved themselves in the port as if they were never going to embark, and made no preparations for the voyage? Let me beseech you to rid yourselves of that most unreasonable of all reasons for neglecting the Gospel, that its most solemn revelations refer to the eternity beyond the grave. (A. Maclaren, D. D.) God’ s predictions will be fulfilled Those who receive intelligence from the almanac that the tide is to turn at a given moment, never think of doubting the prediction. Those who read in the kindling page of night that an eclipse will occur at a particular moment are as sure of it as if it had already taken place. “ On 9th August 1869,” says one, “ at four o’ clock in the afternoon, I stood at the door, smoked glass in hand, waiting. When a boy, I had read of this very eclipse, and of the moment when it should begin; it did begin at the precise second predicted forty years ago.” What we read in God’ s own handwriting makes the student able to determine the path of the star, the point of an eclipse, to the fraction of a second; and is His word to be less trusted in the sphere of grace than in the sphere of nature’ s operations? (R. Venting.) . Ezekiel 13:1-3 Them that prophesy out of their own hearts.The false prophet To be a false prophet seems to us, indeed, an enormity. To have the great gift and trust of prophecy, and then to misuse it; to be admitted, if we may so speak, of God’ s council, and then to sink that heavenly teaching in earthly and sensual thoughts,--this seems so high a measure of guilt, that we wonder not at the “ woe” pronounced against it. Nay, as we read, we set our “ amen” to it, little thinking that in so doing we may be, in truth, sealing our own condemnation. We see not that this very sin is that which doth most constantly beset us also; that many a ministry which seems to man’ s eye without reproach is indeed stained with the self-same guilt as that wherewith these prophets were defiled; that, in spite of its fair outline, the “ woe” of the Almighty is gone forth against it. If we examine the testimonies against these false prophets which abound throughout the Books of Jeremiah and Ezekiel, we shall find that God does not charge them with altering His message wilfully and of set purpose to deceive. The charges are rather, that they are themselves deceived (Jeremiah 5:13; Jeremiah 10:9; Jeremiah 14:14; Jeremiah 23:16; Lamentations 2:14; Ezekiel 13:3; Ezekiel 13:7; Ezekiel 13:9). It was not, apparently, that the false prophet knowingly altered the message he had received, but that for some cause or other there was this peril incident to his office, that he might be deceived and become a deceiver in some sense unconsciously; and then, if we look closer, we shall see that various causes are given for the fearful fall of the false prophet, and that they are all of one complexion--that they are what we call moral causes. Uncleanness of life, covetousness, softness of spirit, luxury, fondness for the pleasures of this life, these and many such like moral faults are expressly mentioned as the causes of this spirit of error and lies which filled these men and brought on them God’ s fearful “ woe.” The prophets prophesied lies, because they “ followed their own spirit, and had seen nothing.” And now, if from the case of false prophets we turn to that of those who were faithful, we shall be brought to the same conclusion: we shall see, that is, that the distinction between them and the prophets of lies consisted not in their exclusive possession of those supernatural illapses of knowledge, to which we are apt to look, as making all the difference between one and another, but in the use which, from their spiritual and moral condition, they were able to make of these gifts. Look at the prophet who never “ prophesied good” of the wicked king, but always “ evil” ; and see whether it was not in that noble gift of venturing all for the truth of God, wherein in very deed he differed from the earthly-minded sycophants, who made horns of iron, and prophesied, that as with them the Syrians should be pushed unto entire destruction. Or take, as a sufficient proof, the case of the prophet Jeremiah. To him was opened, by a special revelation, the speedy coming of God’ s judgments upon Judah, which nothing but the absolute submission of Jerusalem to the King of Babylon could turn aside. So far he learned by revelation; but having learned thus much, mark his after history; see the constantly recurring moral temptation to tamper with this truth, to which he was subjected: the violence of the princes--the rage of the people--the feebleness of the king--their private interviews--the bribes offered to buy off his faithfulness--the miry dungeon of Malchiah; each of these was a temptation to lower down his message; to utter it less boldly, less frequently; less simply--to suppress it, to alter it. But against them all he stood firm, and why? Because a deep and abiding sense of God’ s greatness and truth and awfulness lay beneath all other things, as the very foundation of his mind; and this kept him ever firm and constant. In an utterly unfaithful age and nation, remaining faithful when well-nigh everyone around him failed, he preserved untainted, amidst the crowd of lying seers, the truth of God’ s anointed prophet. So that here we are brought to the same point: the blindness of the false prophet was the fruit of failing in his moral probation; the ghostly insight of the true prophet was kept quick and piercing, by his faithful cleaving to God amidst the ordinary temptations of life. And if this be so, surely this is exactly our condition, as far as concerns the ministry of the Word; and these woes against deceived prophets stand written on high, in their characters of fire, to warn us upon our ordinary way. For we also have our message: that which was given to the old prophets by special revelation we have plainly written for us in the page of Holy Scripture. Nor can we doubt that, if this message be delivered faithfully and wisely, it will produce an evident result in awakening sinners and building up the saints. We may see, moreover, that in our case the cause of failure is, in fact, the same as in the prophets of old. First, our own perceptions become obscured. For it is only by the teaching of the Holy Spirit that we can really enter into the deep mysteries of redemption. Impurity cannot lay hold upon purity. There are many doors of holy teaching, which open only to the key of love; and there is in love a marvellous power of understanding, a wonderful forecasting of the future; for love is a great reader of secrets. Even in earthly things, which are but a shadow of the true, we may see this. What an interpreter of hidden meanings is a loving spirit! how quick and piercing is it in reaching to the inner wishes, feeling, and intentions of another! And so doubtless it is where the love of God dwells in an earthly heart. The man is free, as it were, of the counsels of God. He reaches on to great things at unawares. In doing common duties, as they seem to him, he is sowing good seed for a distant day; he is reaching out far beyond the present, anticipating God’ s future doings. Nor, secondly, can our own views of God’ s truth become thus obscured without their impairing in an equal degree our power of conveying the message to others. First, this state of heart must destroy the reality of our teaching. We shall prophesy a lie; for we shall prophesy of truth itself as if it were a lie. There is nothing that our people feel more readily than this unreal declaration of God’ s message. There is no close work with the heart or the life; but all is exhausted in mere form, or else in general appeals to the feelings, or in yet more fruitless addresses to the understanding, as the case may be. What., then, is this but to prophesy a lie? And this is not all. There can be little of a true loving earnestness in such ministry. There may be an apparent zeal as to forms, or as to preaching, and its other more external parts; but there can be little true sympathy with the wants and sufferings of man’ s heart, because there is little knowledge of them. There can be little of that deep earnest casting forth of the inmost spirit to meet another’ s wants, which oftentimes makes silent sympathy in one man far more expressive than a multitude of words in another; and which, as by some heavenly influence, soothes and opens and wins the sufferer’ s heart. I may not detain you to trace out all the characters of that earnest seeking after God’ s truth to which we are bound; its faintest sketch may supply us with much ground for profitable thought. First, then, if we would attain to it, we must live in the habitual and devotional study of God’ s Word. The great importance of this habit is not so much that we may understand obscure passages, still less that we may be discoverers of new truths, as that our whole tone of thinking and feeling may be attuned to things Divine. But then, to this we must add an humble use of every means that God has given us for understanding His Word rightly. By the ordinances of the Church; the testimony of succeeding generations; the judgment of humble and holy men; the witness borne to various truths by all the saints, living and departed, reformers, fathers, and antiquity; by each of these in their place, we humbly hope that God may teach us better how to understand His Word. Secondly, we must watch earnestly for the leading of the Spirit of the Lord. We must believe that this gift is in the Church, and seek to use it lawfully; we must remember how the Spirit of God does teach us, not by conveying to our minds direct propositions, but by clearing off those moral clouds which would dim all our perceptions of truth; by teaching our hearts, by giving us reality, earnestness, love, and a bold humility,--those mighty masters of the secret things of God. We shall therefore cooperate with Him by watching diligently our own hearts; by guarding them against the beginnings of worldliness; by seeking after a deeper humility of spirit; knowing that pride above all things breaks and distorts the images of heavenly truth which are cast forth upon our minds; that pride in the heart of the learner makes all teaching vain; that humility can learn great lessons from any teacher. And lastly, as the bond which is to hold together all these various elements, we must, if we would be faithful prophets, seek after eminent holiness of life. This will give us an insight into God’ s truth in its reality; this will open to us our own hearts, and so the hearts of our brethren; this will set us in the way of those blessed breathings of the Holy Spirit which fall ever upon the still waters of holiness, and waft on most noiselessly those who always haunt them into the secrets of the Lord. This will enable us to live ever with Him even in this world of shadows. (Bishop S. Wilberforce.) False prophesying 1. What is the specific charge made against false prophets? That they speak out of their own hearts, and that they follow their own spirit. How prone are all men to do this! 2. Every man now prophesies out of himself. Let us beware how we degrade a right into a perversion of liberty and a mischievous use of independence. There is a right of private judgment, there is an individuality of conscience: but no judgment is complete that does not measure itself with other judgments, and no conscience is complete that is not in touch with other consciences; for the last conscience is the result and expression of spiritual chemistry, combination, intermixture, divinely conducted. There may come a time when personal testimony must be delivered with burning emphasis, and when a man is compelled to enclose himself within a solitary altar; all these concessions do not interfere with the central and dominant truth that no prophecy is of private interpretation, and that all secret prayer needs to be brought out into the open air of the Church, that there it may bloom in its completest beauty. 3. False prophets excite false hopes: what other could they do? “ They have made others to hope that they would confirm the Word.” A liar is very careful to maintain some foothold upon the confidence of society. He who is all false himself can only live upon the trustfulness of others. So, then, the false prophet is the creator of false hopes; and if there be counterfeit coin makers in our neighbourhood, it would not be an unwise thing to put out our coin upon the table and look at it very carefully; and as there are false prophets who have excited false hopes, it would not be unwise to take our hopes one by one, and conduct upon each of them an unsparing analysis, saying, What is it? what is its reason? what is its purpose? what is its value? what is its origin? how is it supported by evidence? how is it ennobled by sacrifice? Any hope that will not accept the test of sacrifice is a false hope. 4. False prophets had, however, some little ground to work upon: they mistook the imaginary for the real: “ Have ye not seen a vain vision?” That is the difficulty. If there was absolutely nothing, we should have a clear course; but we have lying definitions, we have occasional dreams, and peculiar impressions; and people who resent the idea of accepting a theology made by the Church adopt an astrology or a theology of their own, founded upon cobwebs, built upon mist, and pointing to nothing. Let us pray God to cleanse our vision, lest, seeing men as trees walking, or trees as men walking, we confound the reality of things; and above all, let us say to one another, Brother, help me, and I will help some weaker man, Let us have our strength common. 5. What course does the Lord pursue against such falsity? “ I am against you, saith the Lord God.” We know, then, exactly what strength we have to encounter. It is only omnipotence. We have sometimes wondered how it is we do not succeed. There need not be any wonder about it; for our failure arises from one of two causes: either, first, that God is against us, in the sense of judging us to be false; or God is trying us to develop our strength. Let us adopt the second conclusion where we can, for it will cheer us and help us on many a weary day. 6. What further course will the Lord take against these false prophets? He will destroy them. They build a wall; He sends hail down upon it, and brings the wall all to pieces. We need not go to the Prophet Ezekiel to know if this is true. What walls we have built! What strength we were going to have! We had already drawn out a hundred programmes, every one of which ended in pounds, shillings, and pence; and a hundred more, ending in honour, fame, influence; and another hundred, ending in herds and flocks, and abundance of family connections and great peace, and long days: and whilst we were filling our mouth with the wind the Lord touched us, and we fell down as dead men. If the Lord, then, is so set against falsehood, what will He do for us? He will speak the truth, He will send angels of truth, messengers of mercy and love. Beware lest we have all our truth on paper, in propositions, innumerable and well detailed dogmas: we must first have it in our souls, hearts, lives; we must be prepared to live for it and to die for it, and then it will grow, accumulate, multiply; and we shall begin to see, with the ever excellent because ever modest philosopher, Sir Isaac Newton, that we have only gathered a few shells on the shore, while the great ocean of truth lies all undiscovered before us. Such modesty well becomes men who were born yesterday and may be forgotten tomorrow. (J. Parker, D. D.) Ezekiel 13:4 Thy prophets are like the foxes in the desert.False prophets like foxes 1. These creatures are lovers of grapes, as we know by a common proverb; and consequently they did much damage in such countries as Judea, which abounded with vineyards, as is noted in Son 2:15, not only by devouring the grapes but also by making holes in the walls and fences, whereby they laid open the vineyards to other ravenous beasts as well as to themselves. Just so did the false prophets to the cities of Judah: they did not only beguile people of their substance, by the character which they assumed, and the figure which they made among them; but by their false doctrines and subversions of the genuine will and Word of God they broke down the walls and fences from about them; I mean that blessing and protection of the Almighty which was annexed to the obedience of His own laws. 2. In another respect did these prophets resemble the foxes in the deserts, that they could make breaches, but had not the faculty of stopping them up again. They did not call the people to repentance; or if they did, it was but such a superficial fast as we read of (Jeremiah 36:1-32), at which they read his prophecy, and then cut it in pieces and threw it into the fire. Their making up of their breaches this way was but like the labour of unfaithful builders; one laid the stones in the wall, and others daubed it with untempered mortar. 3. These false prophets resembled foxes in their fraudulent practices. By crafty speeches and cunningly devised fables they misled the hearts of the simple. They studied how to suit their discourses to the various tempers of the people whom they conversed with; to prophesy smooth things to the stout-hearted, and terrible things to the timorous, that they might keep them all in the way which they would have them to walk in. 4. These false prophets had another property of foxes, which was a prowling ravenous appetite. When they came out of their colleges into the vineyard, they resolved that the making of their fortune, the arriving at a plentiful condition, a goodly heritage, should be the first and greatest of all their cares. So little were they concerned for the welfare of the people over whom they pretended to be guardians and spiritual watchmen, that they would sell their souls, as God complains here, for handfuls of barley and morsels of bread. 5. As foxes are of the number of unclean beasts, so these prophets were men of corrupt minds and loose morals. How prone they were to prevaricate with God, and seduce the people, to counterfeit a Divine mission, to run when they were not sent, to prophesy out of their own heart without a revelation, to proclaim their visions of peace when there was no peace, is abundantly set forth in this chapter. (W. Reading, M. A.) False prophets like foxes The prophets are like foxes: ruins are congenial to them; a condition of decay is their proper sphere; there they can burrow as their instincts prompt them. The main idea, however, is that their operations only increase the devastation, and Undermine and bring down anything that may yet be standing. In a declining and disastrous time the minds of men are excited and feed on the wildest schemes; and, feeling themselves helpless, they readily turn to those who pretend to speak to them in God’ s name. And it only adds to their ruin when those to whom they turn have no higher wisdom than themselves. (A. B. Davidson, D. D.) Ezekiel 13:10-12 One built up a wall, and lo, others daubed it with untempered mortar.The wall daubed with untempered mortar I. The text speaks of a wall. Men look about them to discover some sort of wall or other behind which to shelter from conscience and Divine threatening. I suppose this is because conscience is not quite dead in any man. In some men it has been so drugged and chloroformed that it never seems to act with anything like vigour, and when it speaks it is only with a still small voice, and not at all with the thunder which its voice ought to have to the mind of men; yet that little relic of conscience, which with a microscope you can detect in all men, needs to be pacified, and men are glad if by any lie, however barefaced, they can create an excuse by which they may go on quietly in their sins.1. Perhaps the greatest wall behind which men shelter themselves is that of utter indifference to anything like Divine truth. Some silly dancer at the opera, some new invention, some novel trick of legerdemain, some fresh anything or nothing, and the world is all agog; but as to things which will outlast sun and moon, and stand fast when yon blue heaven, like a scroll, has been rolled up and put away--these all-important things our wiseacres think but trifles, and they continue trampling God’ s eternal truth beneath their feet, as swine do trample pearls, and rushing madly after the bubbles of this world, as though they were all that men were made to hunt after. 2. Numbers, however, are not quite so stupid, so besotted, so blind, so brutalised as to put up with this. Like a crying child, their conscience will be heard. Like a horse leech, it ever cries “ Give, give,” and will not be content. Who comes next? Who is the anointed one of Satan to quiet this spirit? Who will yield a quietus to a mind alarmed? See the wall of ceremonies behind which many rest so contentedly. 3. You may be building another wall, namely, that of self-righteousness. How many have been piling up their wall, and gathering their wood, their hay, their stubble, with which to erect a defence to screen themselves from God by their own doings? II. Whenever a man tries to build a wall behind which to shelter, he always finds a volunteer band of ready assistants.1. For instance, a man who is easy in his pleasures, how many will help him to continue at his ease! “ He is right,” says one; “ You are a good fellow,” says another; and they both try to keep him in countenance by their company. 2. Another company of scoffers will loudly boast themselves, and cry, “ Yes, you are all right in continuing in neglect of God and of Divine truth, because the saints are no better than they should be. I remember what So-and-so did once--he was a deacon; and I know the inconsistencies of Mr. Zealous, and he is one of the parsons.” 3. A numerous body of daubers gather at the sign of the “ Sneerer,” in Atheist Street; and with their doubts, or their supposed doubts, of inspiration and biblical authenticity, are ready to daub and plaster any amount of wall an inch thick. 4. If the wall be built of ceremonies, how many are busy daubing that! What multitudes of books are streaming from the press, books of ability, too, all going to show that salvation is infallibly connected with a mechanical process, conducted by specified officials, and not a spiritual work independent of all outward performances! III. The Word of God declares that this wall will not stand. The wall to which Ezekiel alludes is one of the cob walls in the East, daubed with bad mortar, which had not been well tempered, that is to say, not well mixed with the straw which they use in place of the hair which we use in England; when the rain comes, it softens the whole structure of such a wall, melts it, and washes it quite away. Such a deluge as that is coming ere long to try and test every human hope.1. It comes to some men when they enter upon times of spiritual trial. 2. But if the test come not thus it will usually come at death. 3. And if death does not do it--for some men die like lambs, and like sheep are they laid in the grave; but the worm shall feed upon them--if death does not do it, the judgment shall. IV. If we shall be found lost at the last, it will be an everlasting reproach to us that we once accepted the false helps of our friends. “ Where is the daubing wherewith ye have daubed it?” That voice may proceed from many lips.1. It may come from the lips of Jesus. “ I said unto you, ‘ Come unto Me and live,’ but you would not come; you refused the refuge which I presented to you, and you chose your own works, and rested in ceremonies of your own devising, and now where is the daubing wherewith ye have daubed it?” 2. I could imagine such a voice as that coming from a faithful minister, or other Christian labourer, who may have honestly pointed out to you the one and only way of salvation. 3. And there shall come another voice, with quite another tone-a hoarse and horrible voice--a voice full of malice and grim laughter, which shall say, “ Where is the daubing wherewith ye have daubed it?” You shall understand it to be the voice of him who once deceived you--the fallen spirit, the devil. 4. There shall be heard amidst that thick darkness and horrid gloom, that never shall be broken by a ray of light, another voice which once you knew. Perhaps the husband shall hear the voice of the wife, who shall say, “ Ah! where is the daubing wherewith ye have daubed it? You would not let me go to the house of God; you laughed me out of my religion. I was once a young woman unmarried, who cared for the things of God in some respects; you courted me and enticed me away from my father’ s God, and then you laughed me out of my prayers and Sabbath worship; you have laughed me into hell, but you cannot laugh me out of it again.” 5. And then, last of all, your own conscience, from which you never can escape, which is, perhaps, the worm that never dies, and the flame which kindles the fire of remorse that never shall be quenched, your conscience will say to you, “ Where is the daubing wherewith you have daubed it?” (C. H. Spurgeon.) Prophets feeble and yielding The figure incisively describes the futile projects of the people and the feeble flattery and approval of the prophets. When a weak man cannot originate anything himself, he acquires a certain credit (at least in his own eyes) by strong approval of the schemes of others, saying, “ Right! I give it my cordial approval, and, indeed, would have suggested it.” What made the prophets whitewash the wall which the people built was partly the feeling that from the place they occupied they must do something, and maintain their credit as leaders even when being led; and partly, perhaps, that, having no higher wisdom than the mass, they quite honestly approved their policy. Being sharers with them in the spirit of the time, they readily acquiesced in their enterprises. (A. B. Davidson, D. D.) False hopes I. What are the foundations of this fabric?1. It is built upon falsehood. Observe, it is here imputed to these false prophets that they led the people to suppose that their state by nature was not one of enmity with God,--that, in fact, they were at peace with Him. Now, this falsehood is manifest. We are not at peace by nature. We all know that God has a strife with man, a righteous ground of controversy with every man born into the world. Our first conscious thoughts are those of disaffection and dislike to holiness; and our first voluntary actions are to take up arms against God. We, then, are not at peace, but at enmity with God. How was this breach to be made up? Usually, a vanquished foe expects to buy peace at a large price; but we had nothing to pay. It remained, therefore, that the benignant Being with whom we had been carrying on this fruitless and ungrateful warfare should Himself originate a scheme of reconciliation. We know that Christ is our peace, and our only peace. He brings peace, He preaches peace, He bestows peace. “ To as many as received Him, gave He power to become the sons of God.” “ Being justified by faith, we have peace with God.” This is the foundation, and other can no man lay. He who shall dare to build on any other shall see the fabric perish before the overflowing shower, and the stormy wind shall rend it. 2. It is not laid deeply enough. In the fourteenth verse it is said, with regard to this foundation, “ The foundation thereof shall be discovered,” laid bare, open to the sight of the beholder. The image is commonly used in Scripture to denote that which is superficial and unsound. Everything that is to be firm strikes deeply into the ground. Job speaks of having “ the root of the matter” in himself; and the stony ground, hearer, fell, we are told, because there was in him no depth of earth. What is the kind of foundation here spoken of? Doubtless, we must take it as applying here to a religion which rests upon slight convictions of sin,--little sense of its heinousness and guilt. The Spirit convinces of sin, to lead to Him that shall take all sin away. The Spirit of God opens no wounds, except with a view the more effectually and kindly to bind them up. 3. Another element of this unstable foundation is presumption, an unwarrantable appropriation of the promises; as if the benefit of an amnesty could be extended to those who were still in an attitude of rebellion; as if the promises of salvation could still be held out to those who continued in unrepented sin. This is strongly marked in the latter part of the twenty-second verse. It may be a grievous error in a teacher, according to the first part of that verse, to make the hearts of the righteous sad, whom God hath not made sad; but surely it is a much more grievous error to hold out the promise of life to those to whom, as yet, God has not given peace. Our Lord must be our example here. II. What are the walls of this fabric? In other words, by what supports and excuses do men keep this unsound and unscriptural hope together? “ One built up a wall, and others daubed it with untempered mortar.” The meaning of the prophet’ s allusion will be best explained by a reference to Jewish domestic architecture. Although hewn stones were employed for the purpose of very large buildings, for small houses a tile was commonly used, formed of white clay and baked in the sun. These tiles were cemented together by mortar, which, as among ourselves, was made to acquire a certain adhesive property by means of straw and chaff. Travellers tell us that whole villages are formed of houses built with this white clay or tile, and they tell us, further, that after rain the filth occasioned by the dissolving of the cement will make the ways in front of the houses perfectly impassable; whilst, if the mortar which has been used has been very badly tempered, that is, very imperfectly mixed with the straw or the chaff, it is no uncommon thing to see the house fall down entirely, under the violence or dissolving action of the rain, the very effect which we see alluded to in the text. What a picture have we here of the refuges which worldly men make for themselves against that day, when judgment shall be laid to the line and righteousness to the plummet! Oh, how many of these slight walls are people running up every day! There is the wall of evil example, by which a man fortifies himself in his low standard of personal and practical godliness by what he sees in someone around him. There is the wall of pretended necessity; the urgent claims of daily life making it, as he alleges, impossible for him to attend to the cares of his family and the interests of his soul. There is the wall of constitutional impediment, the pretence that something in our peculiar temperament and constitution or circumstances makes it so difficult for us to attend to the things of our salvation. There is the wall of perverted doctrine, where men, waiting for some impulse from above, knowing that Divine grace must begin the work, say, they can do nothing themselves, they must wait till God by His Spirit changes their hearts. And then there is the wall of good intentions, the purpose of serving God, but not now, the miserable promise that we will give to God the remnant of our days, that He shall have the reversion of our “ convenient season.” Oh, how many of these flimsy fabrics will fall, and do fall daily, before the first breath of the Divine displeasure. But observe, further, it is said that when one built the wall, another daubed it with untempered mortar. This seems to intimate to us that foolish and unconverted men are in the habit of encouraging each other in their foolish hopes: justifying one another in their vain excuses; each confirming the reasonableness of the other’ s pretences, and then going away confirmed and strengthened in his own. III. These false hopes shall be thrown down. This false builder shall wake and see the crumbling of his own wretched wall; this mere dauber shall see the melting and dissolving of his own untempered mortar, that God alone may be exalted in that day, and that every unscriptural and unauthorised, unsanctioned hope may perish. And oh, will not the weakness and instability of this wall appear before this hurricane of Divine indignation comes upon us? When the silver cord is loosed, and the golden bowl is broken; when the pitcher is broken at the fountain, shall we not then perceive that we have been building upon a treacherous foundation? But then, if we feel it in that day, what shall we feel in that remoter time, when the storm of the Divine indignation shall come upon the whole world? (D. Moore, M. A.) The false prophet The false prophets are much in evidence up to the point of the fall of Jerusalem. Ezekiel accuses them of the crime of the hireling shepherd: they used the flock to make wages, and so became the type for all time of those who make “ The symbols of atoning grace An office key.” The false prophet gained favour with the military party in the nation, by his telling advocacy of a vast and well-prepared army and of brilliant foreign alliances, he won favour with the clerical party by not demanding too much virtue, either from the individual or from the State. As a class they had a ready apology for every shifting policy. True, the apology, although always ready, was only an apology--or, to use the prophet’ s own figure, it was only a daubing of the ill-built wall with untempered mortar (Ezekiel 13:8-16)--“ that is to say, when any project or scheme of policy is being promoted, they stand by glozing it over with fine words, flattering its promoters, and uttering profuse assurances of its success.” The daub, in hiding the infamy, hurries the disaster. “ Ye, O great hailstones, shall fall; and a stormy wind shall rend it.” When the scheme has failed, when God has suddenly intercepted a people’ s mad pride, the false prophet may be--may be--called to account: “ Lo, when the wall is fallen, shall it not be said unto you, Where is the daubing wherewith ye have daubed it?” But it may happen, in a nation’ s downfall and the daze of its calamity, that the moral collapse is so complete that the man who daubed the wall escapes unblamed--but not the man who was honest enough to say plainly from the first that it was a mere daub! But, blamed or not of the men he has misled, the false prophet shall not go unpunished. “ I the Lord will answer him by Myself.” Above all things, may God’ s mercy save us from having, under such conditions, to bear God’ s answer, by Himself! (H. E. Lewis.) Ezekiel 13:16 Which see visions of peace for her, and there is no peace.Peace, and there is no peace I. They “ see visions of peace” who preach and speak what is pleasing rather than what is of truth and of God. A people’ s folly will find exponents. But truth perverted will be avenged. False doctrine is but untempered mortar. II. They “ see visions of peace,” and “ there is no peace.” Who neglect duty and still hope for reward. Foolish dreamers are they who look for fortune, or learning, or piety without careful attention and unremitting diligence. III. They “ see visions of peace” when “ there is no peace” who live in sin and worldliness, and hope for everlasting salvation. (Homiletic Magazine.) Ezekiel 13:18 Woe to the women that sew pillows to all armholes. Pillows for all elbows There is often something very quaint and forcible about the imagery of the old prophets. It lays hold upon you and impresses you much more effectually than if they had delivered their message in plain though powerful language. The image of the text is easily understood. Ezekiel has been commissioned to lift up his voice against the many false prophets who both in Jerusalem and among the exiles are misleading the people by announcing salvation without repentance, and grace without judgment. He is so indignant at their feebleness and effeminacy, that he describes as women, and pronounces his woe upon the persistency of their endeavours to accommodate themselves and their teaching to the wishes and desires of the community. A true peace, real security, genuine tranquillity, could be obtained only by fearlessly and bravely laying bare the truth, however stern and uncomfortable it might be, and not by covering it up with devices calculated to hide its hideousness and soften its painfulness. Now, this old trade of sewing pillows, of making cushions for all elbows that feel the hardness and uncomfortableness of unwelcome facts, is not yet extinct. In truth, it is specially prosperous at the present time. Let me, however, not be misunderstood. Discomfort has no merit in itself. You come across people occasionally who evidently think it has--irritating, troublesome people, with certainly nothing in them of the spirit of Ezekiel’ s false prophets. They glory in making you uncomfortable. Every painful incident or troublesome piece of news that comes to their knowledge is seized upon with avidity, eagerly communicated, and secretly gloated over. Your distress and anxiety is meat and drink to them. The only excuse for the infliction of pain, whether of body or mind, is the sincere desire to bring about thereby a more thorough and lasting immunity from it; the earnest wish to show a man that the position he is occupying may for the time be pleasant, but, being deceptive, it can end at last only in trouble more serious than that which you unwillingly bring upon him. Our times, I have said, are effeminate. We dislike everything that disturbs our peace of mind, or ruffles the serenity of our conscience. We are adepts at hiding unwelcome facts, and toning down unpleasant truths. Let me just indicate one or two directions in which we are specially ingenious and industrious in sewing pillows for our elbows. We are so, I think, in regard to the doctrines of our Christian faith. The Christianity taught and professed nowadays is, it seems to me, often of a very emasculated character. I very much doubt if the great mass of professing Christians have any other creed than a vague trust in the mercy of God, which they hope will save them from all ill in the world to come, but which allows them to go on with comparative comfort, satisfying their desires in the world that now is. If Christ had anything to do with their salvation, they do not see clearly what it is; they may believe He was a good man, more than a man, perhaps, whose words they gladly accept, so far as they are agreeable and comforting, and whose example they cannot but admire, though they make no serious effort to imitate it. Just let a man live a fairly decent and respectable life, outraging in no gross manner the properties and standards of civilised society, and they believe all will be well with him; God will not be hard on him. They know little or nothing of a complete surrender of the soul to God as their Father, to Christ as their Saviour, to the Holy Ghost as their Sanctifier; of the necessity of that new birth which gives an entire change to the bias of the will, and which makes life henceforth one long endeavour, even amid failure and weakness, to conform to the pattern of the perfect Christ; they do not apprehend the bearing upon human life and destiny of the momentous facts of our Lord’ s incarnation, death, resurrection, and ascension. Life would scarcely be one whir poorer to them if these events had never taken place, This being so, they have none of the Lord’ s anxiety, nor the anxiety of His apostles, to bring the world into the kingdom of God. There is another direction in which our love of ease and comfort continually shows itself--the manner in which we persistently hide from ourselves the misery of the world around us. Everywhere pain is racking fair human bodies; secret anguish is tormenting human souls; sin in its hydra-headed forms, through drunkenness and lust and anger and godlessness, is working ruin incalculable. At our very doors it is so; in every city of the empire it is so; in distant lands it is so. The cry of perpetual torment rises to heaven; the wail of woe ascends day and night from the trampled and despairing, from the suffering and the dying, from the sinning and sinking of our kind, our brethren and sisters for whom Christ died. You know this; secretly you know it; but you do not want to know it, so you lock up the knowledge of it, like the gaunt skeleton it is, in the inmost chamber of your mind, and act as if you were aware of no such hateful presence. It is marvellous what power we have of putting out of sight, and even out of mind for a time, what is disagreeable to us, of shutting our ears to what we do not wish to hear, of persuading ourselves that, after all, things are not so bad as some would have us believe, of settling down comfortably on our cushions, and taking our ease. But the skeleton will not always remain in its inner chamber; it will stalk abroad in due season, whatever we do, and overwhelm us with fear and shame. And there is one other direction in which we are in constant danger of weakly sewing pillows for our elbows, of concealing from ourselves painful facts--that is, as regards our present condition and future prospects in the sight of God. We quieten ourselves by saying, “ Let not your heart be troubled, all is right; sin cannot be the dreadful thing it is made out to be; do as well as you can; God is merciful.” As for the inevitable and dreaded future, we shut it off from view. Nothing is to be gained by concealment but temporary peace of the most delusive kind. If we were so hopelessly sunk in sin that there was no rescue from it, if death were for us the end of all things, if at the last judgment we had no Advocate with the Father, then there might be some reason for seeking to bury out of sight facts so hateful and irremediable; but with the blessed Gospel of our Lord proclaiming salvation from sin, with the great fact of the resurrection of Christ from the dead attesting that death is but the gate into a higher and nobler life, with the promise of His perpetual intercession at the right hand of the Eternal Judge, why should we hesitate to know the worst that can be known? It is not incurable. The quicker and the better we know it, the more curable it will be, and the sooner will come our true peace. (James Thomson, M. A.) Pillows for armholes The people of the East are generally indolent and voluptuous. The art which they most study is the art of making themselves comfortable. Enter an Eastern divan, or the saloon of the more aristocratic mansions, and you will be struck with the ingenuity and expense with which provision is made for bodily ease and sensual enjoyment. Odours and perfumes of sweetest fragrance are diffused through the room; fountains or vases of coldest water help to cool the heated air of the tropics. The sides and corners of the room are cushioned all round, whilst movable cushions of every form and size, richly embroidered and ornamented, are spread on the couches and chairs, and even on the carpet. When this love of ease and luxury was carried to excess, cushions were provided not only for the head and shoulders and back, but for the arms and for every joint, that every part of the body might lie softly and feel comfortable. The words of our text might be rendered “ pillows for all arm joints” --including the armholes, the elbows, and wrists. And their use is significant of the greatest ease and luxury. Some suppose that Ezekiel refers to the abandoned women whose vile and detestable ways are graphically described in the Book of Proverbs (chaps. 6, 7). These interpret the words of the prophet almost literally; they regard these “ pillows and kerchiefs” as literal pillows and kerchiefs with which they furnished their chambers and decked their persons to allure souls into their snares, and ruin them. They represent these women as of the class who, for a pittance of remuneration, sell themselves to the lowest vice. But whilst, no doubt, some were of this dissolute character, I do not think that the passage is to be interpreted literally; I believe it is best interpreted figuratively. The meaning is almost identical with the “ wall of untempered mortar.” The prophets predicted safety when there was none. The prophetesses predicted ease, prosperity, and luxury when there should be none. They did, as it were, sew beautifully soft pillows and cushions, to put under every limb and joint of the sleepers, to make their repose more undisturbed and their sleep more profound; and, singing their lullaby o’ er the lethargic people, they said,--“ Peace, peace, when there was no peace.” Therefore, saith God,--“ Woe to the women who sew pillows to all armholes.” We may vary the figure a little, to adapt it to modem times and this Western region. Activity and motion characterise our times and country. Let us, then, change the figure, and adapt it to our customs. We do not lounge in luxurious divans and voluptuous saloons: we are in the hurry of business, bustling hither and thither. A large proportion of the people are always on the roads and thoroughfares of the land. And what an accommodation to us are these ever-multiplying railways, linking together not only the larger towns, but even the populous villages, into a network of iron roads. And what a comfort, to those who can afford it, are our first-class carriages, with their softly cushioned seats, their resting plates for the arms, and “ pillows for all armholes.” One could almost sleep there as in his own bed, and travel hundreds of miles without seeing the inside of a house. Now, all this is very well, when one can afford it, and the place of destination is such as you desire. But supposing you were allured and enticed into such a conveyance by fair speeches and flattering promises; supposing it were made so comfortable on purpose to allay your fears and deceive you as to the probable end of your journey,--would all this comfort satisfy you, were you apprised by some kind angel that you were in that easy, smooth fashion to be conveyed to a lunatic asylum or a prison, to end your days amongst madmen or felons, or to be launched headlong over a steep precipice to sudden destruction? I trow not. No; you would one and all start up, and indignantly seek to be set down, if possible; feeling that for such an end, the ease of the conveyance and the smoothness of the path were no compensation whatever. “ Ah yes,” I think I hear someone say,--“ yes, I see; you mean the rich sinners, who fare sumptuously every day,--who never know what it is to want a luxury or a comfort,--who have little work and much pay,--who spend on an article of fancy more than would keep a poor family for twelve months,--who can commit great and many sins, and cover them over with gold and silver, so that they shall never be mentioned,--who pacify conscience with wine or alms, and appease society by their high social standing.” No! I rather mean you than them. Those you have mentioned may be included in the list; but so, in all probability, are you. Of course you may be startled, you may be offended when I say so,--mean you. The rich sinner may have his pillow,--you have yours. There is no more common pillow for sinful and fatal lethargy than the one you are sleeping on, which has this inscription: “ It is not I.” “ I am not the person meant; it is the rich man; it is the hypocrite; it is my neighbour; anybody but me.” In other words, thousands are continuing in their sins and vicious career, because they never apply the warnings and descriptions of God’ s Word and servants to themselves. Tell them, “ Except ye repent and be converted, ye shall all perish,” they say, “ It does not mean me; I have nothing to repent of, or if ever I had, I have long ago repented; it must be some other sinner.” You will now see what I mean by the use of pillows, after a figurative sense. I mean the various devices and delusions by which sinning is rendered easy, and the way to perdition made smooth. So common are these pillows, that it is rare indeed for any person to be without one of some kind, and many have more than one. I have already described one. A second is a misappropriation of heavenly material to earthly and wicked purposes. It is made from a perversion of the eternal decrees of God, and mistaken notions of Divine sovereignty. This is a pillow on which many a sinner has slept soundly and fatally. The cushion has two sides: on the one side is Election, and on the other is Reprobation. And nosy they lie on one side, and now on the other, and all your preaching and warning cannot rouse them. Where shall we look for a third pillow? There is the pillow of Procrastination. I speak of this in general; no pillow is more frequently used, more comfortable to lie upon, and sin upon, than this: “ I admit the Bible is true, the minister is right; I am a sinner; Christ is a Saviour; I am a dying man; I must stand before the judgment seat of God; I must go to heaven or hell, according to my faith and character here. But then, the trump is not yet to be sounded; I am not expecting to die at present; I hope to live a good while longer; I should like to enjoy the pleasures of life as long as possible, and at some more convenient season I will repent; I will seek Jesus as my Saviour, and I hope through Him to die happily, and ultimately reach heaven.” But what if your sleep become heavier and deeper every day, so that the voice of warning or mercy no longer can reach your heart, and you perish in your sins? A fourth pillow is the hope of escaping detection. “ No eye saw me; it will never be known.” This is a most wretched, yet common delusion, Sin will out. You cannot long tamper with the intoxicating cup, and not give evidence of intemperance. You cannot long prove unfaithful to your marriage vows, and not be looked down upon as a base and abandoned man. You cannot long embezzle the money entrusted to your care and rob your master, but soon suspicion will be excited, and proof sufficient to convict you transpire. You cannot long live inconsistently with your Christian profession as a member of Christ’ s Church and keep up the semblance of godliness, but soon some act of dishonesty or immorality will declare that you are but a whited sepulchre and a vile hypocrite. Or if you do escape the detection and chastisement of your fellowmen, you cannot escape from the omniscience of God, who will judge everyone according to the deeds done in the body. (R. Bruce, M. A.) Judgments denied none the less sure The Chaldeans were to capture Jerusalem. God said so. False prophetesses denied it, and to quell the anxieties of the people employed a significant symbol by sewing little pillows under the arms, as much as to say: “ Whenever you feel these soft pads at the arm sleeve, bethink yourselves all shall be easy and well.” But alas for the delusion: Notwithstanding all the smoothness of the prophecy, Jerusalem went down in darkness and fire and blood. It is not more certain that you are here this morning, not more certain that that is a window, not more certain that that is a ceiling, not more certain that that is a chair, not more certain that that is a carpet, than it is certain that God has declared destruction to the finally impenitent. Universalism comes out and tries to quell this fear, and wants to sew two pillows under my arm sleeves, and wants to sew two pillows under your arm sleeves. (T. De Witt Talmage.) Ezekiel 13:22 Because with lies ye have made the heart of the righteous sad.The baleful influence of infidelity I. Infidelity exerts a baleful influence upon the righteous. Note the charge, “ Because,” etc.1. It casts a shadow upon his pathway. It is the shadow of midnight. Leaves him to grope his way in darkness. Ignoring God’ s Word, it points to “ the light of nature,” and says, “ This is sufficient, walk here!” But these are questions that the voice of the winds, the hills, the stars do not answer, “ Can sins be forgiven? If so, how?” In the hour of trial nature’ s light grows dim. The mariner may follow the stars till the storm at midnight; then the lighthouse. 2. It is a blight to his sweetest joys. “ Because with lies ye have made the heart of the righteous sad, whom I have not made sad.” God makes the righteous glad, not sad. True religion is as the oil of joy to the heart. The righteous have “ songs in the night.” But as frost is to the flower, so is unbelief to the better impulses of the heart. What ray of hope, what ground for rejoicing does infidelity afford? Ah! it is the ruthless hand that snatches away the staff upon which the struggling soul rests. 3. It seeks to undermine his hopes--strikes at the very foundation of them (Psalms 11:3). Ah! he may sit down in sadness and heave an unending sigh. He may hang his “ harp upon the willows.” II. Infidelity exerts a baleful influence upon the wicked.1. It encourages him to follow his own inclinations as his guide. The false prophets are described as those “ that follow their own spirit, and have seen nothing.” So they taught all to do. And so is the spirit of infidelity in all ages of the world. The depraved heart is its criterion. 2. It encourages him to continue in sin--“ That he should not return from his wicked way.” It advocates no such return. Nothing to turn from--nothing to turn to. Nay, it rather “ strengthens his hands.” 3. It encourages him to dismiss from his mind all thought of the future. It cries to the sin-stricken soul, “ Peace, peace. Think not of the hereafter; there may be none, no heaven to gain, no hell to shun. Be at peace!” It is opposed to God, good men, and bad men. It must be destroyed--Wall of bulrushes must fall--“ There shall be an overflowing shower.” “ And ye shall know that I am the Lord.” (M. L. Bibb.) Making the righteous sad That is a severe indictment. It was brought by God, and was addressed to the false prophets, and especially to the lying prophetess, who exercised their evil ministry in the days of Ezekiel. In holy wrath, the Lord hurls this flaming impeachment upon these cruel and deceitful ministrants, “ Ye have grieved the heart of the righteous: whom I have not made sad.” (Revised Version.) We are here introduced to sad people. They were righteous--God declares them such. But they were full of grief. Grief and righteousness are often associated. But the sadness of these grieved ones was not imposed by God. He recognises the sorrow, but disavows it. “ I have not made” them “ sad” is His express word of repudiation. Sometimes sadness is from God. He doth not willingly grieve the children of men. Especially reluctant is He to grieve those who are covenanted unto Him. But anon He does it. Sadness is one of God’ s methods of education for His righteous ones. “ Thou didst it,” the saddened righteous can confidently and resignedly say in certain of life’ s calamitous hours. Let all the sad inquire whence cometh their sadness. From what fountain does the dark and turbid stream arise? It may spring from yourself. Has some strong besetting sin wrecked your gladness? Sadness often originates in temperament. Do not blame God if you are melancholic; blame your yielding to your temperament. Grace can enable a man to rise above his temperament. If self makes a man presumptuous, it full as often makes him despondent. The worry of these worrying days frequently issues in sadness. O righteous one! Thy sadness is not the frown of thy God. Thou art cumbered with much serving. The pace of life is exhausting thee. God has not made you sad. Nerve and body and brain are overwrought. Sadness is wrought, all too often, by our fellow men. Why are you sad? “ An enemy hath done this.” An ingrate friend is responsible. A prodigal child. A remorseless creditor. A thankless debtor. Oh, the inhumanity of humanity! Charge not God foolishly because of sadness. Asperse not the kind Lord. Satan often seeks to ruin us by sadness. Quite as often as by pleasure he seeks to spoil us by grief. Sadness is one of the fiercest of his “ fiery darts.” Beware of Giant Despair, O pilgrim. I am sure we far too often charge God with our sadness. It is well we should weigh this ancient disclaimer of His: “ Whom I have not made sad.” Trace your sadness to its true source. It may be that God has done it. But it may be He is in no wise responsible. Some impose sadness upon the righteous in God’ s name. That is exactly what these false prophetesses did. The Almighty charges them with the high crime. He says, “ Ye have made the heart of the righteous sad.” They had spoken in Jehovah’ s name. They professed to be His forthtellers, but they lied. They spake “ out of their own hearts.” What awful things have been done in God’ s name! Men have stolen the livery of heaven to serve the devil in. In the name of God mankind has accomplished its worst infamies. Men have lied and persecuted and slain, claiming the while that they thereby fulfilled the counsel of God. Let us see if this wrong-doing is not perpetrated even in our time. Do not some confound religion and sadness? Assuredly they do. But, thank God, they are not synonymous. Religion and seriousness are essentially allied, but not so religion and sadness. “ Say ye to the righteous, It shall be well with him.” The work of righteousness is not sadness, but peace and assurance. Do not measure the depth of a man’ s piety by the length of his face. Sadness is far oftener the consequence of a disordered liver than of a righteous heart. Beware, above all things, of prophet or prophetess representing righteousness as essential sadness! Here is a great test of a ministry. Is it generally saddening to the righteous? Then it is undivine. They are no true prophets who make the heart of the righteous sad. Sadden the evil-doer by all means. Make him to pierce himself through with many sorrows. But do not sadden the righteous. Dr. A.B. Davidson renders my text, “ Ye have discouraged the righteous.” So they showed how essentially ungodlike was their ministry. God never discourages the righteous. He is “ the God of all encouragement.” He ministers every form of legitimate encouragement. God is the supreme encourager. Fellow servant of God, is yours a saddening ministry to the saint? Then there is surely a grave wrongness in it. Let all whose ideal and endeavour it is to be righteous be of good cheer. Refuse to be loaded with sadness in God’ s name. “ Be glad in the Lord, ye righteous, and shout for joy, all ye that are upright in heart.” How had these godless prophetesses accomplished their beglooming ministry? The Lord supplies the answer, and in no measured terms: “ With lies ye have made the heart of the righteous sad.” They had uttered false predictions of calamities which were to descend upon the godly. False teaching usually has a saddening effect upon the righteous. Truth sometimes makes God’ s people sad, but it is not intended to do so. But “ lies” palmed off as religious truth make the heart of the righteous sad. They often encourage and delight the evil-doer. They give him warrant to take his licence. Today, as in days past, we can readily see false teaching working upon the righteous its unkindly work. This is true of teaching which is intrinsically false. Inveracious theologies sadden the righteous. What evil presentations we sometimes hear and read! He is represented now as a despot, and now as morally indifferent. A false theology makes the heart of the righteous sad. Has not erroneous teaching concerning the Bible the same effect? If its inspiration were the dubious thing it is sometimes declared to be, it would indeed be a miserable estate in which the righteous are found. When the Word of God is described as a farago of myths and legends and forgeries, is not the heart of the righteous sad? False teaching regarding the atonement works kindred sorrow. Paul said, “ We joy in God, by whom we have received the atonement.” Destroy that cardinal truth, and you make the heart of the righteous sad. Resolve the death of Christ into a martyrdom, an ethical example, the supreme historic instance of altruism, and you dry up the freshest spring of gladness which humanity knows. Preach the doleful tidings that our moral chains must weight us long as we live beneath. And by such erroneous teaching the heart of the righteous is fatally saddened. Proclaim that there is no privilege of assurance for God’ s children. And again you plunge the righteous in nocturnal gloom. But this sadness is evoked not alone by indoctrination which is inherently false, but by that which is such relatively. When true teaching is perverted in its application, it has the value of false teaching. This was the fallacy of which Job’ s comforters were guilty. They were capable theologians. Their theology was true in its essence, but false in its application. Thereby they made Job’ s heart sad with sore sadness. We must study the relativity of truth. Truth misapplied is as untruth. Assurance is a glorious truth, and a radiant possibility for all, but preach it as essential to salvation, and you must make the heart of the righteous sad. There is a Divine retribution for such as give sadness to the righteous. In the two verses which precede the text, the particular punishment of these false prophetesses is described. And the verse of my text adds that it is “ because with lies ye have made the heart of the righteous sad.” In the verse which follows the threat of God is repeated. All who effect this saddening of the saints shall suffer for their deed. This principle has worldwide application. Let ministers and teachers of religion beware lest God judge them for this disservice to His people. Oh, the delicacy of our office who speak God’ s messages! Masters and mistresses need to watch their ways in this regard. Take heed lest inadvertently you make the heart of a righteous servant sad. Friends and acquaintances should be alert to prevent this evil. A thoughtless word may arouse the anger of God by creating sadness in His righteous ones. Restrain unkind speech. Parents may grieve right-doing children. Oh, pray that the judgment of God may never light on us because we have made the heart of the righteous sad! We do a godly deed when we cheer the righteous. Is not that plainly implied in this word of Jehovah which we are studying? We are never more clearly “ God’ s fellow workers” than when we hearten God’ s people. Be sure you are a true minister of Christ if you encourage the righteous. They greatly need good cheer in these strenuous days. They have grievous burdens to bear. Covet to be an encourager! Strive to uplift the heart of God’ s people. Do you ask how you can accomplish this grateful ministry? Speak cheering words. We can hearten the righteous by kindly acts. Eloquent deeds have a sonority which no eloquent speech can attain. A timely gift may fill a sad heart with melody sweeter than an angel’ s song. Our very deportment may accomplish the service of God upon sad souls. There is a Gospel in some men’ s smile. Faces may be benedictions. Righteousness is the ultimate cure of sadness. Does not this text proclaim that gospel? Character is the final secret of gladness. They who hate evil and do righteousness are anointed with gladness above their fellows. The righteous have a right of gladness. This is especially true in the Christian dispensation. Christian righteousness is realised by faith in the crucified and risen Lord. Such as believe rejoice in the Lord, and this joy none can take from them. (D. T. Young.) . Ezekiel 14:1-11 These men have set up their idols in their heart.Heart idols The Lord is now going to search the heart, to turn out the corners of the inmost recesses of the mind, the idol and favourite sin. He will proceed to do a spiritual work; He will lay aside His hammer with which He has broken the wall, and no more will He tear and rend the garments which cover falsehood: He will enter the heart, He will name the idols one by one which occupy that secret sanctuary; He will name them, He will bring them forth to judgment, and He will conduct that most penetrating of all criticism, the judgment of the thought and motive and purpose of man. “ Then came certain of the elders of Israel unto me,” --came to be looked through, weighed, measured, and adjudged. No office can save men from Divine criticism. How comforting is this thought, though terrible in some aspects! It were well that our judges should be judged, else who can tell to what extremes of folly they might go, hounded on by ambition, or stung to further issues by envy and malice? The higher the office, the greater the responsibility; the larger the privileges, the greater the sin if they are outraged; the more brilliant the genius, the more infamous the mischief if that genius be perverted. The able man, the man of faculty and education, can do more sin in one moment than a poor uneducated soul can do in a lifetime. Elevation aggravates sin. The place of the disease indicates its fatal character--“ in their heart.” This is heart disease. Men almost whisper when they indicate that some friend is suffering from disease of the heart; there is hopelessness in the tone: great allowance should be made, they say, for a man who is suffering from heart disease; be must not be startled, or excited, or suddenly pounced upon; his wishes must be gratified, they must as far as possible even be anticipated; and any little impatience he may show must be looked at charitably. The talk is humane, the considerateness is full of affection, the conditions imposed are suggested by reason. Is there not a higher disease of the heart? What is the meaning of this disease of the heart, this idolatry in the inmost soul? When a moral disease is of the heart it means that the disease is liked, enjoyed; it is wine drunk behind the door, it is a feast of fat things eaten in secrecy; every mouthful so sweet, so good, so rich. When a disease is of the heart in a moral and spiritual sense it means that it is consented to; it is voluntary, it is personal, it is desired; there would be a sense of loss without it. Disease of this kind, too, is most difficult of eradication. It is not in the skin, or it might be cut out; it is not in the limb, or it might be amputated, and the knife might anticipate mortification: the evil is in the heart; no knife can touch it, no persuasion can get at it; nothing can be done with it but one thing--only a miracle of the Holy Ghost can overcome that difficulty and turn that disease into health. “ Marvel not that I said unto thee, Ye must be born again.” Are we chargeable with heart idolatry? We have no idols of a visible kind, it may be, yet we may be the veriest pagans in our hearts. We say, How distressing that poor human nature should fall down before stock and stone and worship it! and we, inflated pagans, worship a golden calf, a tinsel crown, a sounding name, a crafty policy. Are we chargeable with heart idolatry? Certainly we are. No man can escape this accusation. It is subtle, far reaching, all but ineradicable. If we do not face such difficulties our piety is a stucco that will peel off in the wet weather, and leave the ghastly moral ugliness exposed to public scorn. Doubt may be an idol used to diminish responsibility. Others, again, may have in the heart an idol called Ignorance, kept there for the purpose of diminishing service: we will not go into the dark places of the city, then we need not attend to the cries which are said to be arising there from overborne and hopeless humanity; we will keep on the broad thoroughfare, where the gaslight is plentiful; we shall see the surface and outer shape of things, and then retire to rest, saying that, say what fanatics may, there is really a good deal of solid happiness in the city. Have we not an idol in the heart we call Orthodoxy, which We keep there in order to enlarge moral licence? Is there not an intellectual orthodoxy and a spiritual heterodoxy often united in the same man? “ Therefore say unto the house of Israel, Thus Saith the Lord God: Repent.” When did the Lord ever conclude a discourse without some evangelical tone in it? The Bible is terrific in denunciation, awful beyond all other books in its denunciation of sin and its threatening of perdition; yet through it, and through it again, and ruling it, is a spirit of clemency and pity and mercy and hope, yea, across hell’ s burning mouth there lies the shadow of the Cross. (J. Parker, D. D.) Mental idolatry The father of modern philosophy and science has shown us that there are in the mind of man, as man, natural idols which act as impediments to his acquisition of knowledge and his search after truth. Till these idols are overthrown and broken in pieces and taken away it is simply useless for man to pursue knowledge. His efforts will be neutralised and their results vitiated. Now, if this is so in the matter of human science, it is none the less worthy of our regard in the matter of Divine truth and of the knowledge of God. We cannot know God, whom to know is eternal life, as long as these natural obstacles are not taken out of the way. We cannot serve Him acceptably as long as, instead of being dethroned, they are still set up in our hearts. What, then, is the practical bearing of this truth? First, there must be a single eye to the knowledge of God. If we have not determined with ourselves that God, and the knowledge of God, and the fear of God, is more to be desired, and if we personally do not desire it more than wealth, or ease, or success, or the applause of men, or position in life, or influence, or comfort, or anything else, then we may be never so punctual in our religious duties, never so zealous for the outward honour of God, never so eager for the triumph of particular principles, or a particular party, or a particular cause, but for all that there is still enshrined in some inner recess, some secret corner of our hearts, an idol which disputes with the Most High God the possession and sovereignty of them. Again, not only must there be a clear and undimmed perception of God as the one sole object of our services, but there must also be a readiness to sacrifice anything in order to know and to serve Him. How many there are in the present day, not, thank God, who cannot afford to be religious--for that brings with it no slur in our times, but rather the reverse--but how many there are who dare not follow Truth whithersoever she may lead, who cannot afford to obey their own convictions, and therefore stifle them with the excuses of propriety or usage or convenience. This is a hard thing, and it is so because the claims of truth and the idol in the heart cannot both be acknowledged. And there is no condition of life where this does not apply. It is hard for the man of science, whose name has been identified with certain theories and principles, to sacrifice his name and fair renown to the growing conviction of counter theories and principles which will make the past a blank, or show it to have been a mistake. It is hard for the religious partisan, whose life has been east in a particular mould, and whose sympathies are linked to one form of opinion and practice, to yield to the force of truth when it comes with the authority of conviction to the mind and compels the acknowledgment of previous error and misunderstanding. But more than this, it is hard not to approach the consideration of religious truth with a distinct bias; but it is certain that the existence of any such bias must damage our appreciation of the truth. Unless we can see all round a thing, we can have no true apprehension of the thing. We may view it partially, but shall have no conception of it as a whole. The idol in possession of the mind will prevent the entrance of the true idea. But if this is true, and in proportion as it is, there are certain general principles to which it behoves us all to give heed when we come to the worship of God. First of all, we must empty ourselves of ourselves. We must come as though our present knowledge of God were as nothing, and as if God were still to be known and learnt. The whole of what we have must be sacrificed for the sake of what we are to have and to gain. As long as sin, in one of its innumerable forms, lurks in the heart or on the conscience, the service of God will be a vain thing, because the pursuit of truth is a lie. It is that practised dishonesty, it is that cherished lust, it is that pampered self-love, it is that incurable indolence, it is that willingly defiled imagination, it is that malice and envy which vitiates all your worship and renders all your religion a lie. There is One who searches the heart, and who cleanses it because He searches it. There is One whose blood cleanses us from all sin, if we are willing to walk in the light, as He is in the light. It is in direct personal communion with this heart-searcher, with this sin-bearer, but only so, that we become sinless. But if anything is suffered to interfere with that direct personal intercourse and communion, no matter what it is, even though it should be some sacred word or ordinance of His own, that is an idol which interferes with our worship and service of Him, and therefore an idol which must be broken down. (S. Leathes, D. D.) Idolaters inquiring of God I. What is meant by the setting up of idols?1. It is oppressive to men in their natural state to think of the spiritual, omnipresent, heart-searching God. Accordingly they have brought down their conception of God to something that can be apprehended by sense. They have thus tried to satisfy the religious instinct within them, while at the same time pleasing themselves. It is much easier to have an object of worship that we can see, or touch, or taste. An idol, too, is not so exacting as the incorruptible and sin-hating God. Being material, it cannot require heart worship. 2. We are in no danger of worshipping idols of wood and stone. But the tendency of human nature is always the same, and where there is not renewing grace there is something creaturely that is idolised--it may be some place of power, or wealth, or some sensual pleasure, or child, or creation of the mind. (1) There is this idolatry when we are intent upon a sin or a course of sinning. (2) There is this idolatry when we set up particular ideas in our heart from which we do not mean to turn. II. The inquiring. These Israelites did not mean by setting up their idols utterly to east off Jehovah. They meant still to connect Him with their past history as their national deity. And so we can understand their going to inquire of one of the Lord’ s prophets. There were cross-currents in their life. There was the idolatrous current which led them to do what was forbidden by God, and yet there was the old current which led them to inquire of God. We may find an analogy to this still.1. There is this inquiring when we ask for light and help in prayer, while at the same time we are determined to follow what pleases ourselves. 2. There is this inquiry when we search the Bible while yet we are resolved to see in it only certain things. III. The divine treatment.1. Why it must be futile to inquire of God while bent on our own way. (1) God requires submission.(2) God requires sincerity. 2. How God shows the futility of inquiring of Him while we are bent on our own way. “ I the Lord will answer him.” (1) He allows our dispositions to work out some terrible result to bring us to shame. We are ruined in our estate, or in our health. Some child whom we idolise may prove a grief to us. (2) He allows us to get into despondency and despair. No one who puts an idol in the place of God is above being unhinged. Especially is the devotee who has his darling sin the likely victim of despondency. (3) Or He allows us to be hardened so as to be unable to see the difference between right and wrong. (R. Einlayson, B. A.) Idols in the heart I. The principle laid down. As a magnet attracts out of rubbish only the bits of iron for which it has an affinity, so the idol-idea in a man’ s mind will make him fix on whatever will minister to it, and neglect everything else. The very Word of God will be but a mirror in which he sees reflected the thought which possesses his soul. II. The working of this principle.1. The apostles, like the rest of the Jews, had a settled conviction that the Messiah would be a great temporal Prince. 2. Another instance is found in those who seek a system of Church government in the New Testament. 3. The controversy as to the ultimate doom of the unbelieving. Restorationist, annihilist, and believer in endless torment--all appeal to same Word, and often to same texts. III. Practical use. Three common idols--1. The thought that to repent of sin and turn to Jesus at last hour will be enough. 2. The thought that good works are not essential to salvation. 3. The thought that the new life of faith must be ushered in with some great and overwhelming spasm of feeling. (J. Ogle.) The idols in the heart a barrier to the truth I. The idols that are in the heart and the stumbling blocks that are before the face, are the sins with which God’ s people are sometimes chargeable. II. Men professing to inquire after God while their idols are in their hearts, and their stumbling blocks before their faces; or, the gross inconsistency of seeking to mingle the service of God with the pursuit of sin.1. Men may pray from the influence of custom.2. From the promptings of conscience.3. From the desire to stand, well with their fellow men.4. From a yam desire to set themselves right with God. III. God taking notice of the idols that are in men’ s hearts, and the stumbling-blocks that are before their faces, or the faithful warnings which God addresses to those who follow sin while they profess to serve Him.1. He intimates that He is perfectly acquainted with us. 2. He tells us that He cannot answer the requests of those who indulge in sin. 3. He shows us how unreasonable it is to expect that He will be inquired of by us. (Evangelical Preacher.) Heart disease the worst disease Manton says, “ What would we think of a man who complained of the toothache, or of a cut finger, when all the while he was wounded at the heart? Would it not seem very strange?” Yet men will lament anything sooner than the depravity of their hearts. Many will confess their wandering thoughts in prayer, but will not acknowledge the estrangement of their hearts from God. They will be sorry for having spoken angrily, but not for having a passionate heart. They will own to Sabbath breaking, but never lament their want of love to Jesus, which is a heart matter. The evil of their hearts seems nothing to them: their tongues, hands, feet, are all that they notice. What! will they cry over a cut finger, and feel no fear when they have a dagger thrust into their bowels? Oh, madness of sinners, that they trifle most with that disease which is the most dangerous, and lies at the bottom of all other ills. God’ s great complaint of men is that they set up in their hearts idols which they themselves think nothing of. Certain in our day are so far gone that they even deny that the human heart is diseased. What then? It does but prove the intimate connection between the heart and the eyes. A perverted heart soon creates a blinded eye. Of course, a depraved heart does not see its own depravity. Oh that we could lead men to think and feel aright about their hearts; but this is the last point to which we can bring them! They beat about the bush, and mourn over any and every evil except the source and fountain of it all. Lord, teach me to look within. May I attend even more to myself than to my acts. Purge Thou the spring, that the stream may no longer be defiled. I would begin where Thou dost begin, and beseech Thee to give me a new heart. Thou sayest, “ My son, give Me thine heart.” Lord, I do give it to Thee, but at the same time I pray, “ Lord, give me a new heart” ; for without this my heart is not worth Thy having. (C. H. Spurgeon.) Idolatry in the heart Travellers tell us that there is a tribe in Africa so given to superstition that they fill their huts and hovels with so many idols that they do not even leave room for their families. How many men there are who fill their hearts with the idols of sin, so that there is no room for the Living God, or for any of His holy principles! (John Bate.) Ezekiel 14:4I the Lord will answer him that cometh according to the multitude of his idols. Answered according to their idols With them, as froward, the All-seeing will, in the psalmist’ s terribly bold phrase, “ show Himself froward” ; they will incur that penalty which Scripture describes as a blinding of their eyes and a hardening of their heart, and which essentially consists in their being left to themselves without the light which they do not sincerely seek for--left, in fact, to take their own way, and see what will come of it. This line of Biblical language has caused difficulties which cannot be passed over; the more so, because one passage in which it is found (Isaiah 6:10) is of all passages in the Old Testament the one most frequently cited in the New Testament; and St. John, with a startling distinctness, attributes the “ blinding” and “ hardening” to the Lord. The explanation must be found in that law of ethical life whereby persistency in self-will--the process, as Shakespeare, in an awfully vivid passage, calls it, of “ growing hard in viciousness” --does inevitably produce moral insensibility. All serious moralists, whatever be their theological standpoint, will admit this to be a fact; and all who believe in a God will see in it a revelation of His character, so that when it works He is, in fact, allowing it to take its course. And it is the method of Scripture writers to impress the fact on men’ s minds with a concrete vividness, by representing such action on God’ s part as a literal penal infliction. There, anyhow, stands the fact, and we have to reckon with it. Let us’ also fear, and be on our guard, lest, for lack of the single-eyed purpose which our Lord insists upon in His great sermon, we too should be left in the great darkness which waits like a shadow on hardness of heart. (Canon Bright.) The blight of the idol A man’ s vision determines what kind of revelation he will accept. It will guide him in the choice of his prophet: “ Son of man, these men have set up their idols in their heart, and put the stumbling block of their iniquity before their face: should I be inquired of at all by them?” (Ezekiel 14:3). When an inquirer comes with his idol in his heart, he is not an inquirer, but a claimant; he has brought with him the only answer which he is prepared to entertain: he falls over the stumbling block of his iniquity, and misses the light of the bright and morning star. How that “ according to” reverberates through the prophet’ s messages! Here it declares that every idol carries with it a lie that will be believed for truth. There is an atmosphere in which the true prophet cannot draw his breath and speak distinctly; the false prophet can and that is the disaster. “ Mischief shall come upon mischief, and rumour shall be upon rumour; then shall they seek a vision of the prophet; but the law shall perish from the priest, and counsel from the ancients” (Ezekiel 7:26). when idols flourish, ideals perish. (H. E. Lewis.) Ezekiel 14:5-6 They are all estranged from Me through their idols.Alienation from God We read here, in God’ s own words, His rule of dealing with persons who come to Him in a certain disposition of mind.1. The word “ estranged” implies a former condition of close relationship and affection, from which they have since fallen. You would not apply the term to foreigners. You would not say of a Frenchman that he was estranged from this country, simply because he never belonged to it; but if an Englishman resided so long in Paris as to lose his patriotism and interest in our affairs, you would say that he was estranged. So, again, you would not say of a mere acquaintance, if you ceased to see him, that he was estranged from you; but if the love of an old friend grow cold, if a child become indifferent to his home, or a husband fail in his devotion to his wife, you describe such a falling off as estrangement. In this temper certain elders of Israel presented themselves before the prophet of God. They came to inquire His will and seek His aid. What self-delusion, then, is this! what blindness of heart! Men coming to God to inquire of Him, and not knowing that there is that within them which will forbid God’ s hearing them! Who has persuaded them to come this way at all? No voice but that of their own heart! And yet do you say that it is their heart which bars the way of God against them? “ Estranged from Me through their idols!” Oh, to us, who may be as these elders of Israel, how hard does this rule of God press upon us! Like them, only far more favoured in all spiritual blessings, with everything to turn our feet towards God, the very currents of society swaying us in this direction, the breeze of fashion gently impelling us hither, the hand of custom with its constant but almost unfelt pressure laid upon the helm of our daily life to guide us within the haven of the Church. We learn to say our prayers, and prayer becomes a trick of words. Bibles are cheap, and in every man’ s hand. And yet, even now, there may be amongst us some who do not remember, that with idols in our heart we are estranged from God, and that He will not be inquired of by us at all! 2. But this is not the worst. The question God puts expects the answer “ No” ; and yet it is not the answer which He gives it. His answer admits us to a nearer view of His mysterious dealings with man. We see Him work by a rule that we know nothing of, a rule of mystery, marvellous and inscrutable, but one which example and experience teach us He applies with unerring force. When men thus estranged and alienated from Him in heart present themselves in person before Him, He does not refuse them an audience. They pray--He hears--their prayer is answered: but how fatal is the gift which He grants! “ I the Lord will answer him that cometh according to the multitude of his idols.” What illustrations of the Divine conduct does Scripture offer both in the Old Testament and the New! The Jews clamoured for a king, and God gave them one, but in this wise,--“ I gave thee a king in Mine anger, and took him away in My wrath.” They cried in the wilderness for flesh,--“ So they did eat, and were well filled, for He gave them their own desire; they were not disappointed of their lust. But while the meat was yet in their mouths,” etc., “ and smote down the chosen men that were in Israel.” Balaam received the king’ s messengers a second time, and though God had once answered him, he professed to inquire of Him again. He came with idols in his heart, his affection estranged from God: and what was the result? Did God forbid his praying? Oh that He had done so! Did He refuse his prayer? Alas! He granted it, saying, “ Rise up and go with them.” And Balaam, too happy to get the permission, went. But God’ s anger was kindled because he went: and the end was that he fell from sin to sin, selling himself to do the tempter’ s work; and he died among God’ s enemies, his own pious prayers and blessings ringing the curse of the hypocrite in his ears. There is yet another example nearer the person of the blessed Lord Himself; and therefore the warning is more terrible. Jesus chose but twelve to help Him in His work; and even on one of these He looked--a man with idols in his heart--and said of him, “ Have not I chosen you twelve, and one of you is a devil?” This man came near to Christ, as the eleven: he passed as one of them. He was with them almost up to the very last; he just wanted a little time to go away and finally arrange the plot, and that time he had. God gave him the opportunity,--say not gave, but permitted him. Jesus looked at him and said, “ What thou doest, do quickly.” Was ever prayer heard like that? was ever man on earth answered after the multitude of his idols like that? 3. God’ s purpose in answering the evil desires of hearts alienated from His love. Their heart is to become their snare, the net in which they shall be caught, the pitfall in which they shall be entrapped. Your talents and tastes and affections and ruling desires,--the gifts with which nature’ s hand has made you rich, the inheritance with which you started in life,--your physical strength, your youth, your beauty, your wit, your attractiveness, your amiable temper, your power of sympathy, your grace of manner, your aptitude for business, your strong will, your influence over others--with these you made your casts early in life: they have brought you in glittering spoils and stores of comfort, and have enriched your home with pleasures and with wealth. But these very instruments of gain, what else have you done with them? Have they entangled you too much in the world? impeded you on your way to God? implicated you dangerously with others? Have you ensnared others, and made inextricable confusion in their projects of a peaceful, holy, happy life? And now, as you grow older, are you so involved in this world’ s business that you cannot escape its toils? When Christ, the rightful Master of your heart, calls to you from the quiet shore, and bids you leave your nets, and become, if not expressly “ fishers of men,” yet at least servants in His work, is your heart free to follow Him? is your heart His at all? nay, is your heart your own to give? Have you not given it away already to idols, to false gods, to the world? or it may be, you have lost your heart in sin! (Archdeacon Furse.) Things that estrange the heart from God It was a true and beautiful remark made by the mother of Wm. Allan, the Quaker chemist, when she was seeking to win her son to give more attention to religion, and to devote less time to the prosecution of his studies in his favourite and fascinating science: “ Remember, my boy, that Christ cast even the doves out of the temple.” The lesson thus gently taught was effectually taken to heart. Young Allan learned, with lasting profit, that the most innocent and lawful of earthly objects of interest may not occupy that central place in our affections which our Saviour claims for Himself; but in the souls of the redeemed all other desires will, without painful effort, arrange themselves at due distances from this centre. Repent, and turn yourselves from your idols.--Repentance 1. Repentance is a turning from sin to God. It is not any turning, but a turning of the judgment, so that men judge otherwise of God, of His laws and ways, of sin, of themselves, than before; a turning of the will and affections, so that they are carried wholly and fully unto God (Joe 2:12). 2. Repentance is a continued act. It is a grace, and must have its daily operation, as well as other graces. Where a spring breaks forth it is always flowing. 3. Sinners should stir up themselves, and do the utmost which lies in their power to further their turning unto God. “ Turn yourselves from your idols” ; use all arguments you can to cause your hearts to turn from idols, and from other sinful ways. Consider-- (1) That they are separated from the Lord (Isaiah 59:2). (2) That man’ s life is short, and the pleasures of sin but for a season. (3) The daily treasuring up of wrath, and danger of final impenitency (Romans 2:5). It is a seal of condemnation. (4) The condemnations of a man’ s own heart and conscience (Isaiah 57:20-21). (5) Absolute necessity of repenting and turning unto God (Luke 13:3). “ Except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish.” 4. True repentance and turning to the Lord doth manifest itself in the effects and fruits of it: it hath meet fruit (Matthew 3:8), worthy fruit (Luke 3:8). Now, here are three effects thereof in these words: (1) When the soul is truly turned to God it seeks to turn others; it is not content that itself is come to God, but would have many come to Him. (2) It dispenses with no sin; it saith not, Lord, be merciful to me in this, but turns from “ all abominations,” from every idol, the most daring sin shall then go to it (Hosea 14:8). (3) It avoids the occasions of sin and appearances of evil. (W. Greenhill, M. A.) Sin not tolerated When his people at Wittenberg showed him their licences to sin, Luther’ s answer was, “ Unless you repent you will all perish.” . . . “ Please God, I’ ll make a hole in his drum,” he said, when he first heard of Tetzel selling these indulgences. (Anecdotes of Luther.) Ezekiel 14:7 Which separateth himself from Me.Point of contact disturbed by sin Dr. Cortland Meyers says that one of the electric bells in his home recently refused to ring. He failed to discover the cause. An electrician was sent for. After some time spent over it he found that right up under the bell, so insignificant as to be almost imperceptible, was a place where the point of contact was lost. It is often so with the Church. “ Battery all right, machinery and wires all right, but the point of contact is defective” --disobedience, pride, covetousness have estranged the heart from God. (R. Venting.) Sin’ s power to separate man from God A man never gets to the end of the distance that separates between him and the Father, if his face is turned away from God. Every moment the separation is increasing. Two lines start from each other at the acutest angle, are farther apart from each other the farther they are produced, until at last the one may be away up by the side of God’ s throne, and the other away down in the deepest depths of hell. (A. Maclaren.) Ezekiel 14:11 That the house of Israel may go no more astray from Me. Chastisement of God’ s people Manton says, “ There is more squaring and hewing and hacking used about a stone that is to be set in a stately palace than that which is placed in an ordinary building; and the vine is pruned when the bramble is not looked after, but let alone to grow to its full length.” This should reconcile believers to their chastisements. Brambles certainly have a fine time of it, and grow after their own pleasure. We have seen their long shoots reaching far and wide, and no knife has threatened them as they luxuriated upon the commons and waste lands. The poor vine is eat down so closely that little remains of it but bare stems. Yet, when clearing time comes, and the brambles are heaped for their burning, who would not rather be the vine? (C. H. Spurgeon.) Ezekiel 14:12-14 Though these three men, Noah, Daniel, and Job, were in it, they should deliver but their own souls.The limit of influence The solemnity of this assurance is increased by the fact that it forms quite an exception to the general tenor of the Divine government. Again and again God has saved the earth because of the righteous men who were in it: He would have spared the cities of the plain if Abraham could have found ten praying souls in the whole of their corrupt population; He blessed the house of Potiphar for Joseph’ s sake; He allowed the intercession of Moses to shield Israel from judgment well deserved; for Paul’ s sake He, saved the ship in the storm. In the text we come upon a sharp variation of the general method: no longer is Noah or Daniel or Job to count for more than one; the day of prevailing intercession is to close; character is to be individualised, and the diffusion of collateral benefit is to pass away forever. Terrible as it may seem on first reading, yet there is quite a deep well of comfort in all this wilderness of desolation. It will be observed that though the darkness brought down upon the earth by sin is very great, yet through all the gloom the figures of Noah, Daniel, and Job are seen in all their vividness and pathetic suggestiveness, showing that the eyes of the Lord are upon the righteous, and that their memory is precious to Him. It is clear, however, that the text is meant to be a warning rather than a comfort, and it is in this spirit that we must approach its interpretation. It is a warning to individual men. They cannot tell how soon they will be called upon to cease their intercessory ministry. Specially, however, is this a warning to households. How terrible is this tragedy, that a man should no longer be the priest of his own family! The son shall be separated from the father, and the daughter from the mother, and shall realise in an awful individualism of position how true it is that every soul must give an account of itself to God. The Lord will not spare the children when they have gone astray, having broken every holy vow and shattered every commandment issued from heaven. “ I will also send wild beasts among you,” etc. This is a threatening which may operate in either of two ways; either because the children have forfeited Divine confidence, or because the parents have abandoned the right way, and can only be brought home again by processes of affliction and desolation. This is a warning also to nations. The nation is saved because of the living Church that is within it. Prophets must not cease to pray for the land in which they live. Amid political tumult and uproar the voice of their prayer may seem to be but a feeble sound, yet they are called upon by the very genius of their faith to keep the way clear between heaven and earth for large and profitable intercourse. Into the mystery of intercession we cannot enter, but we find that it is at the very heart of things, a rule and a law, a judgment and a blessing, an opportunity large in its possibilities, but always hastening to a solemn conclusion. The great principle of mediation is, of course, most vividly and gloriously represented by the ministry of our Lord Jesus Christ; but even in His case the priesthood is to cease, the long and loving prayer for others is to come to a perpetual close: “ Then cometh the end,” etc. We live in a great intercessory period; the Spirit itself maketh intercession for us with groanings that cannot be uttered; we need not fear because our prayer halts and stumbles as to the mere eloquence of its expression; the eloquence of prayer is in its sincerity; to the man who is of a broken and a contrite heart will God look, and on him will He set signs of approval. A wondrous gift is it to have the gift of intercession, the power of putting into heavenly words the wants of other men, and the power of pleading with God on behalf of those who never plead for themselves. Some suppliants can but pray for themselves; others can only pray concerning great events and great subjects; others, more Christ-like, seem to carry the world in their hearts, and to plead for continents and empires in great intercessions. Let us get a clear view of the system of spiritual government under which we live. We are to conclude all our prayers, and indeed begin them and continue them, with the sentiment, “ For Christ’ s sake.” We cannot understand the mystery of this ground, and yet we feel how solid it is, and how impossible it would be for us to pray without it. It is in Christ that we find God. It is through Christ that we find access to the throne of the heavenly grace. We do not plead Christ as if we were pleading with an arbitrary deity, who would not do anything for us ourselves, but would only do it through the mediation of His Son, or because of His partiality for one whom He calls His Only-Begotten. Though our prayers are to be heard for Christ’ s sake, yet Christ Himself was given for our sake! Herein is love, that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us! God sent His Son to seek and to save that which was lost. (J. Parker, D. D.) A delusion dispelled I. The righteousness of the most godly cannot avail for the ungodly.1. We prove this, first, by referring you to our text, and asking you to read it for yourselves. Mark ye how the anger of the Lord kindles, and how the words are launched forth like hot thunderbolts from the lips of the Most High. 2. Next, I ask you to inspect more narrowly the portraits of these men of God, who are presumed to have stood counsel for the defendants, and to have occasioned so much astonishment, because with all their special pleadings they signally lost their case. The Lord declares that if the whole three were put together they should not save son or daughter. 3. This truth may be further substantiated by observing the course of Providence as regards the things of this life. Could the merits of friends and parents secure the salvation of their relatives or children, we must expect to see “ the son or the daughter” of a righteous man screened from the full punishment of his own misdeeds; but we have evidence that such is not the case. 4. Painful though it be, I must carry the assertion a stage further. The righteousness of good men has not availed to save their relatives from the terrors of the world to come. Cain, where are you tonight? Are you sitting here; and do you dream that your brother Abel now with God can by any means bless you? That must not be. Dispel the delusion. II. The prayers of the greatest intercessors cannot avail if men persist in their unbelief.1. Remember that all the prayers of godly men cannot alter the nature of sin, and if they cannot alter the nature of sin, then they that continue in it must perish. 2. Moreover, the prayers of good men cannot alter the conditions of the eternal future, so long as the present abides the same. There is no law more immutable than that “ to be good is to be happy,” and to be bad is sooner or later to be wretched. It must be so. Trust not, therefore, to the prayers of others, but come to Christ for yourselves, that you may be cleansed from sin and made meet for heaven. 3. Perhaps you say, “ Sir, I did not think prayer would suffice to effect a change in my circumstances without a corresponding change in myself; but I thought that somehow by prayer I should be compelled to believe and to repent.” Compelled to believe and to repent? Well, man, what sort of repentance and faith must that be which comes of compulsion? (C. H. Spurgeon.) Good men: their power and their weakness I. God recognises the existence of good men. Many ages had passed away since two of the men mentioned here, Noah and Job, had left the world. Yet they were not forgotten by God. Their histories were fresh to Him. Good men are ever before the mind of God. They are “ had in everlasting remembrance.”2. God appreciates the services of good men. The language implies that Noah, Daniel, and Job could do much for the world. God hath been pleased to endow men with power for great achievements, and when this power is rightly used He grants the smile of His approval. III. God limits the influence of good men. These men could do much, had done much; but there was much they could not do. When righteous retribution overtakes us, the services of the best men that ever lived will be of no avail. IV. God secures the salvation of good men. Their righteousness ensures their salvation. A righteous man--a man right in his relation towards God, standing fully acquitted before his Maker, and right in the principles and purposes of his own soul, is safe everywhere--safe amidst the most terrible judgments of heaven. (D. Thomas, D. D.) Noah, Daniel, and Job If we look at the history of the three holy men mentioned in the text we shall find that they did save their souls or their lives by their righteousness. And it is manifestly in accordance with our own deepest sense of right and justice that this should be so; the notion that good deeds will bring a reward, and that evil deeds will bring punishment, is too deep to be rooted out. You perceive how thoroughly it was assumed as a principle by Abraham (Genesis 18:25), as it must be by anyone who has a sense of the goodness of God, and who believes that the feelings of right and justice which he finds in his own soul are but the reflexion of God’ s image there,--assumed as a principle, I say, that God would make a difference between the evil and the good, and would allow a righteous man to live by his righteousness. Precisely the same kind of doctrine may be found in the New Testament. For let us turn to that solemn description which our blessed Lord has Himself left to us of the final judgment; I mean the description which is contained in St. Matthew 25:1-46. Who shall say, with this description of the judgment before him, that the last judgment will not be a judgment according to works, that righteousness will not save souls alive? The description is only a sketch, it is not intended to be complete; but this feature is there, you cannot get rid of it, it is that which gives to the whole judgment its tone and its complexion. And why should we desire to get rid of it, when the principle upon which it is based is so thoroughly in accordance with all our sense of right, and in accordance too with those other words of Christ in which He declares that those who have done good shall rise to the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil to the resurrection of condemnation? And why also, with such words of our Lord before us, should we hesitate to give to the words of St. James their full and undiminished force when He says, “ Ye see, then, how by works a man is justified and not by faith only” ? (Bishop Harvey Goodwin.) Ezekiel 14:19-20 Or if I send a pestilence.Public calamity a call to private humiliation Depend upon it, we have need, and as the years roll away we shall have more and more need, to remind ourselves of the unseen Hand which sends us our blessings or withdraws them from us. New appliances of mechanical skill have a tendency to keep God out of our sight. The simple machinery which depended on the wind or the stream for motion did not suffer men so easily to forget their immediate dependence on God. His agency is half obscured when they become independent of the breath of heaven, and of the moisture which cometh down from above. And so there is a constant danger of our lapsing into practical atheism, if we allow ourselves, in the mere contemplation of a natural law apart from its Divine Author; or attend to its results, without adverting to the revealed cause of its operation. It is no disparagement to natural science to declare that, pursued in any but a godly spirit, it sometimes has a tendency to obscure the vision of God: to interpose hard names and technical phrases between Him and ourselves; and practically to keep Him out of our sight. Nay, the very progress of civilisation, the increase of wealth and refinement and luxury--all have the same tendency. The table daily spread without our care helps to keep God out of sight. And the special value of Scripture is seen in the unconditional and most unceremonious way in which it brushes aside this web of words; puts God, the Giver, prominently forward; and vindicates His absolute Sovereignty in creation. When Christ says, “ He maketh His sun to rise,” --His language is altogether unscientific, to be sure; but He declares a truth which to the devout soul is of paramount importance; namely, that the heavenly bodies are all His creatures; and that, in reality, the phenomena which attend them are but the visible expression of His will. While thoughtful men are investigating the natural history of a calamity which, unless it be stayed, will inevitably press with terrible severity on the poor;--which, if it spreads, may bring contagion to all our doors,--occasion death within our homes and darken every domestic hearth;--“ a more excellent way” is revealed to us in Holy Scripture; a method which is within the reach of us all. I allude, of course, to individual acts of repentance,--personal efforts after holiness,--the heartfelt use of private prayer. The special mention of three of God’ s chiefest saints “ Noah, Daniel, and Job,” reminds us that we must as individuals seek to turn away God’ s anger from this Church and nation. What, above all, shall be said of our unconcern for the spiritual wants of the benighted heathen,--of our own countrymen in foreign parts, of our fellow citizens here at home? (Dean Burgon.) Ezekiel 14:23 Ye shall know that I have not done without cause all that I have done in it, saith the Lord God. Waiting for God’ s vindication I. The truths doubted. In all ages, as in our own, men have doubted the goodness and justice of God, and have murmured at His acts. They reject consolation, and charge Jehovah with cruelty. Speak of the sufferings of Jesus for us, and the agnostic declares that is simply another example of injustice. II. Causes of scepticism. Ask for a reason of doubt, and the rationalist asserts that pain contradicts either the goodness or the power of the Divine Being. But reasons given are not always causes. Grief is selfish, and tears blind us. Most people in trouble are like a ship directed by a careless captain, and left with full canvas when the tempest bursts upon it. We sink because we are not prepared for gales. Men indulge false hopes, refuse all warnings, expect all things but death, and when the end comes they cry out that they have been wronged. Custom makes them regard a loan as a possession, and they call restoration robbery. III. The futility of doubt. Of what use is doubt of the fundamental truths of Christianity? How does it work? A sinner suffering penalty is hardened by doubt of God’ s justice, and discouraged from repentance by question of His mercy. A saint in agony and near to death is plunged in deeper darkness by doubt of all that remains to her. Doubt confirms a transgressor, and robs the holy of consolation. To whom, then, is it good? IV. Comfort in God’ s truth. If we could look at sin in its hideous deformity, its deep guilt, its inhuman effects, with sound vision, we mould be slow to complain. If God did not punish moral evil we could not respect Him, and if He permitted wrong to go uncorrected the holy could not hope. Haste and impatience hide truth from us. If we could see the results of suffering in character we might be consoled. History is an account of the martyrdom of man. But martyrs have not complained. They have preferred truth, beauty, goodness to the alternatives, and have not regretted the price. Can we confide in God and wait? And while you wait, be not idle. There are works meet for repentance. God’ s winds are hard to face as “ head winds,” but wondrously helpful to those who will sail with them. The Divine purpose works toward correction of evil and edification of good. Build with God, and you will have naught to tear down. (C. R. Henderson, D. D.) . Ezekiel 15:1-8 What is the vine tree more than any tree.The worthless vine doomed for the fire Founding on old similitudes, the prophet assumes that Israel is the vine, and compares it as a tree or as wood with the other trees of the forest. It is as wood that it is put in comparison with the trees. He is studiously silent in regard to the fruit of the vine. This which gave the vine its preeminence (Judges 9:13), cannot be touched upon, for it does not exist. It is the wood of the vine only that can be compared with the other trees of the forest, the feeble, Creeping plant with the lofty trees around it. Judah never had any pretensions to be a powerful state, or to enter into competition in wealth or military resources with the kingdoms round about. As a tree among the trees, a state among the states, what was it good for? And especially now, what is it good for, when it has already been in the fire, its ends consumed and its heart charred? What is it fit for, or need it expect, but to be flung again into the fire and wholly consumed? (A. B. Davidson, D. D.) Fit only for the fire These fallen branches form the fuel which the woodman gathers for his fire. They are at once fit for the burning, for there is no sap, no resisting element of life in them; the burning fitly consummates the process of oxidation long ago begun and carried on in them. In a similar way there are in the True Vine dry and withered branches, having no share in His vitality--whose connection with Him is a purely mechanical one. They are deformities upon Him. The dispensations of God’ s Providence that help to develop the growth and fruitfulness of Christ’ s true disciples only wither them into greater deadness, and blanch them into greater deformity, and cause to grow upon them the noxious parasitic growths of worldly lusts. The flame of Tophet is the fit consummation of the spiritual oxidation and decay that has been going on for years. (Hugh Macmillan, D. D.) Sin makes men worthless Professors of religion, if they do not live up to their profession, but contradict it, if they degenerate and depart from it, are the most unprofitable creatures in the world, like the salt that has lost its savour, and is thenceforth good for nothing. Other nations were famed for valour or politics, some for war, others for trade, and retained their credit; but the Jewish nation, being famous as a holy people, when they lost their holiness and became wicked, were thenceforth good for nothing; with that they lost all their credit and usefulness, and became the most base and despicable people under the sun. Daniel and ether pious Jews were of great use in their generation; but the idolatrous Jews then, and the unbelieving Jews now, since the preaching of the Gospel, have been, and are, of no common service, not fit for any work. (M. Henry.) Fruitful and useless The single idea of this brief chapter is that if the vine should fail in grapes it fails altogether. There is a whole philosophy of life in that single and simple fact. The great and solemn doctrine is this, that everything is to be judged by the purpose for which it was created. Here is a school: what ideas do we associate with the word school? Reading, study, letters, arts, instruction, mental illumination, intellectual development and progress: these ideas are right, they are cognate, they are just. Does this school produce that result? No. What then? Then it is not a school: it is a place of darkness, or an asylum of ignorance; it is a corner of imprisonment, or a place of mental degradation. What do you think of this painting? It is a likeness of your dearest friend. Having given you this introduction to the painting, what will be your standard of judgment? You will at once seek your friend in it; it will not do for you to say that the drapery is beautifully painted, the foreground is excellent, and the background is superb, and everything about it of the nature of technique would please an artist of the highest degree: you are not looking in that direction, because in that direction you have no vision; the gate of that outlook is locked against you: but you know your friend, and your friend is not there. Will you purchase that picture? No. If it had been a picture only you might have bought it; but it professed to be a friend. It lies. That which, introduced to me as a work of art, might have charmed me, shocks me when it comes under false pretences. So, then, you have the same law of the fifteenth chapter of Ezekiel operating through and through your life; you keep your shop upon it, you conduct your whole business upon it: why do you shrink from applying it to yourself, your character, the result of your training? Oh that men were wise, that they were fearless enough to apply their own commonsense to their own moral condition! This standard of judgment will keep us right in estimating everything. Do you seek grapes on thorns? You are operating in the wrong direction. Do you seek figs on thistles? You will never find them. You must judge everything by its purpose, and according as a thing serves its purpose is it really good and really valuable. That standard would keep us right in all judgment if we would abide by it. Judge prayer by the same standard. What is the object of prayer? Submission to the Divine will. It is no part of my business to pray conclusively, and without leaving God any alternative, that the child’ s life may be spared. The child is not mine. No man or woman has a child; the child is God’ s: “ All souls are Mine.” I will therefore say, Lord, I love this little child, and without it I feel as if I could not live: may I have it a while longer? No. Thy will, my God, be done. The same judgment ought to be applied to the Bible. For what should a man go to the Bible? For God. Will he find God there? On every page. You are now in the right direction, you have gone upon the proper quest; you will receive answers along that line, and doors will fly back along the whole circle of the horizon to admit you into larger liberty. In all things judge by the purpose. The Bible is a vine that grows, so to say, revelations of God. And judge men by the same standard. What is the great purpose of man? To represent God. When he fulfils that purpose he fulfils his election and calling; when he fails of that purpose, no matter what he is, he has failed to bring forth fruit unto God. How all things would be harmonised and adjusted righteously if we could receive this rule! One star differeth from another star in glory: judge each star by its weight, distance, magnitude, and relation to the whole solar system as known to us. (J. Parker, D. D.) A parabolic picture of Israel I. God has placed some sections of the human race under special culture. 1. This was the case with the Jews (Deuteronomy 32:32; Isaiah 1:1-31; Psalms 80:1-19; Jeremiah 2:21). 2. This is the case with Christendom. 3. This is especially the case with Great Britain. II. Those sections of the race under special culture are, whether fruitful or unfruitful, widely distinguished from all others.1. If fruitful they are distinguished by valuableness. What on earth is of higher value than a godly life? 2. If unfruitful, they are distinguished by worthlessness. Unless the “ vine” produce grapes it is more worthless than most other trees of the forest. You cannot manufacture furniture out of it, construct ships, or build houses; unless it grows grapes it is fit for nothing but the fire. III. The distinction between those under special culture and those who are not is recognised and retributed by God (Matthew 7:26-27). (Homilist.) Man’ s power dependent upon knowledge of God All history has shown this parable to be true. It was the moral and religious power of the Jewish nation which was their strength. When they abandoned that, they failed. Other nations exceeded them in material resources, other minds surpassed them in philosophical acuteness and power of expression, other people are identified more surely in history with pictures of great wealth and Eastern magnificence; but through all ancient literature that wonderful people are ever appearing as the holders of a strange and powerful religion, which in some way had an influence out of all proportion to the power of the people who propagated it, which gained an influence over men of all nations and ages, and held captive, time and time again, the very conquerors of the land. The vine as a vine did a work which as a tree, as mere wood, it could not accomplish; its clusters did for the glory of God and the blessing of man what its branches never could accomplish. I. This parable and its fulfilment lay down the principle, that what God offers is the only thing that is good for us, and that comparative failure awaits us in any other paths than those of His opening. God’ s offers in this light are commands. We are free to accept them as far as our will goes, but we are bound to accept them as far as our nature goes. God, in offering, always has a tone of freest invitation; but all the time, from our own lives, if we would only hear it, there is constantly arising the loudest command to us to accept His offers. Leave out moral power, and leave out the desire of man to go upward, and what is he but the weakest and most dissatisfied creature on earth? What is this vine tree, then, more than any tree? Will men take a pin of it to hang any vessel thereon? Is it meet for any work? Understand the position of the Bible about man, and see how true it is. “ What is man,” says the Psalmist, “ that Thou art mindful of him? and the son of man, that Thou visitest him?” David said this when he considered the heavens and the moons and the stars; and surely we men, who, with all our wisdom, have never yet moved one heavenly body out of its course, and are still looking up into the heavens like little children gazing out of the window at twilight, and who feel so proud if, like those children, we can only say, “ I think I see another star,” surely we are not yet ready to wipe out the record of the insignificance of man. Be proud of anything but your own power to know God, and to reach out after Him, and to aspire to be like Him in moral character, and you are wasting your life. Be humble, see how the riches of the world dwarf any fortune you may succeed in making, how the power and beauty of the inanimate or animal creation throw into the shade anything that you may accomplish, and at once you will begin to seek the true riches which God alone can give, and which man alone, of ell God’ s creatures, can possess. Humility is the gate of entrance into power always. Go and sit down in the lowest seat at the world’ s feast, see how other things surpass you, and then soon you will hear the voice of the master of the feast saying, Friend, go up higher. “ Then shalt thou have worship in the presence of them that sit at meat with thee” ; then shalt thou learn thy superiority, as God’ s child, over all other things in the world; then will all things be yours. For then you will begin to be God’ s vine; you will develop just those things in which the vine excels,--dependence, life, and fruit. II. We have seen that man’ s strength as man, compared with the rest of creation, is in knowing God. Now let us see that it is likewise the strength of the individual man as compared with his fellow man, to know God. It is a difference in moral power that will determine for each one his place in life. That one who has high ideas, noble ambitions, lofty pictures, will succeed in life. It is not what is around us, but what is in us, that brings out our power. Every man ought to assert himself. Men and women have no right to be like so many bricks in the social structure,--all cast in one mould, all of one hue and shape. If out of our faces and in our actions there appeared the power of God’ s love working upon us, if each of us appreciated the privilege of being a child in God’ s family, surely it would not be so. The hope of the individual man lies in the knowledge of Christ. If you would know your own place in life, and fill it, and cease to be one of a crowd of men, get the knowledge of the Saviour, who can alone teach you of God; depend upon Him, draw your life from Him, produce your fruit for Him. Let Him deepen your moral life. Seek not the things of this life, which, if you succeed in obtaining, will only place your name a little higher or lower in a list of others who are very much like you; but strive for that knowledge of God which shall write your individual name in the Lamb’ s book of life, never to be blotted out, the name of a child of God. III. Let me make one more application of the prophet’ s parable; that is, to the Christian life. Mankind is God’ s great vine, and every man is a vine; but above all, those whom God has chosen constitute the great vine, the peculiar people like Israel of old, whom He has chosen to bear fruit for Himself. The object of Christianity is to do that, and it should never be used for anything else. Christian services are not to be used to please our aesthetic tastes; Christian truth is not to be a mere weak substance for us to be sentimental over; Christian churches and the attendance on them are not to be used as the stamp of social standing, or as a badge of good intentions; Christian profession is not to be a formality with which to satisfy our consciences; Christian doctrine is not to be a mere subject of discussion. Christianity is to make us better men and women; it is to make us God’ s servants in all that we do; it is to make us know that He is our God, because He has sent Christ to be our Saviour; it is to raise our standard of life, and make us know that we are sinners; it is to tell us that our sins are forgiven, and to make us firm, by the love of God in us, to turn from those sins, and walk in newness of life. Let that be the way we hold our Christianity out to men, in word and in deed, as we use it thus ourselves. Such a power men need; such a power Christ alone can supply. (Arthur Brooks.) The fruitless vine I. A lesson of humility for all who have “ tasted that the Lord is gracious.” “ What is the vine tree more than any tree,” etc. In looking upon all the various trees we observe that the vine is distinguished amongst them--so that, in the old parable of Jotham, the trees waited upon the vine tree, and said unto it, “ Come thou and reign over us.” But merely looking at the vine, without regard to its fruitfulness, we should not see any kingship in it over other trees. In size, form, beauty, or utility it has not the slightest advantage. We can do nothing with the wood of the vine. It is a useless plant apart from its fruitfulness. Now, beloved, this is for the humbling of God’ s people. They are called God’ s vine; but what are they by nature more than others? Others are as good as they; yea, some others are even greater and better than they. They, by God’ s goodness, have become fruitful, having been planted in a good sell; the Lord hath trained them upon the walls of the sanctuary, and they bring forth fruit to His glory. But what are they without their God? What are they without the continual influence of the Spirit, begetting fruitfulness in them? Are they not the least among the sons of men, and the most to be despised of those that have been brought forth of women? Look upon this, believer. Dost thou exalt thyself? Oh! strange mystery, that thou, who hast borrowed everything, shouldst exalt thyself; that thou, who hast nothing of thine own, but hast still to draw upon grace, shouldst be proud; a poor dependent pensioner upon the bounty of thy Saviour, and yet proud; one who bath a life which can only live by fresh streams of life from Jesus, and yet proud! II. A lesson of search. As the vine without its fruit is useless and worthless; so, too, the professor, without fruit, is useless and worthless; yea, he is the most useless thing in the wide world.1. A fruitless professor. (1) Where are we to find fruitless professors? Everywhere--down here, up there, everywhere; in pulpits and in pews. (2) Now, shall I tell you who is a fruitless professor? The man who neglects private prayer, and does not walk with his God in public; that man whose carriage and conversation before God are hypocritical; who cheats in trade and robs in business, yet wraps it up, and comes out with a fair face, like the hypocrite with a widow’ s house sticking in his throat, and says, “ Lord, I thank thee I am not as other men are!” There is a man for you, who brings forth no fruit to perfection. Another one is he who lives right morally and excellently, and depends upon his works, and hopes to be saved by his righteousness: who comes before God, and asks for pardon, with a lie in his right hand, for he has brought his own self-righteousness with him. Such a man is a fruitless professor: he has brought forth no fruit. That man, again, is a fruitless professor who talks big words about high doctrine, and likes sound truth, but he does not like sound living: his pretensions are high, but not his practice. 2. Why is it that these men are fruitless, and must be cast away? The reason is, because they have no roots. Many jump into godliness as they would into a bath; but they are very glad to jump out of it again, when they find the world pays them better. And many there are who will just come and say they are the Lord’ s, and they think they are, but there is no root in them, and therefore by and by their impressions pass away. 3. What is God’ s estimation of a fruitless professor? It is this that he is the most useless thing in the world. 4. What is to become of this fruitless tree? When an old vine is pulled off the wall, after having brought forth no fruit, what becomes of it? You know, there is a lot of weeds raked up in a corner of the garden, and the gardener, without taking any notice of it, just throws the vine on the heap of weeds, and it is burned up. If it were any other kind of tree he would at least reserve it for chopping up to make a fire within the master’ s house; but this is such an ignominious thing, he throws it away in the corner, and burns it up with the weeds. If it were a stout old oak, it might have the funeral of the yule log, with honour in its burning, and brightness in its flame; but the fruitless vine is treated with contempt, and left to smoulder with the weeds, the refuse, and the rubbish. It is a miserable thing. Just so with professors; all men that love not God must perish. But those who profess to love Him, and do not, shall perish with singular ignominy. (C. H. Spurgeon.) The end of man’ s existence I. The end of man’ s existence is to love and serve God.1. He has all the natural powers that are requisite to serve this end.2. He is placed in circumstances that are favourable to the working out of this end. II. This is the exclusive end of man’ s existence.1. Not wealth.2. Not pleasure.3. Not power.4. Not fame.5. Not learning.6. Not domestic comfort. III. Man, if he does not serve this end, is fit only to be destroyed.1. By his destruction he will be a warning to others.2. By his destruction he will be a monument of the Divine justice. (G. Brooks.) The end of man’ s existence I. Man is naturally capable of yielding a most precious fruit: this fruit consists in living to God.1. He is possessed of all the natural powers which are requisite for that purpose. He is endowed with reason and understanding, enabling him to perceive the proofs of the being of God, and to entertain just, though inadequate, conceptions of the principal attributes of His nature. 2. As we are possessed of natural powers, fitting us for the service of God, so He has bestowed upon us much care and culture, with an express view to this end. II. This is the only end for which mankind are formed and preserved; this is the proper fruit of human nature, which admits of nothing being substituted in its room.1. A mere selfish, voluptuous life cannot be supposed to be the proper fruit of human nature. 2. A life of social benevolence, in which the public good is preserved, without a supreme regard to God, cannot be this fruit. (1) To do good to our fellow creatures, without regard to God, is to forget the principal relation in which we stand, and, consequently, to neglect the principal duty. (2) The end of man’ s existence cannot, with any propriety, be considered as confined to this world; but the proper end accomplished by mere social virtues is entirely confined to the present state. (3) No collective number of men can be independent of God, more than a single individual; therefore no such collective body has a right to consult their common interest, to the neglect of God, any more than a Tingle individual to pursue his individual interest. III. He who answers not the end of his existence is fit only to be destroyed. The barren vine may be useful as fuel, and to this purpose it is much applied in eastern countries. Thus wicked men may be useful with a subordinate kind of usefulness, by their destruction.1. They may thereby become edifying examples of the just vengeance of God, in order to deter others. 2. They will serve to manifest those attributes of the Great Supreme which their conduct disowned, and which it seemed virtually to call in question. (1) What blindness attaches to those who live in the total neglect of God and religion! (2) What little room is there for that confidence which many place in correctness of deportment towards their fellow creatures, while religion is not even pretended to be the governing principle of their lives! (3) What need have we all to examine ourselves, and seriously to inquire, whether we are yielding that fruit unto God, on which we have been insisting! (4) How ought those to be alarmed, when the result of such examination is, that they have been hitherto utterly without fruit! (R. Hall, M. A.) Fruit God’ s primary intention The fruit of the vine was God’ s primary intention: for its wood was of no practical use: “ Shall wood be taken thereof to do any work? or will men make a pin of it to hang any vessel thereon?” God divides His gifts among trees, as among men and nations. The vine is not blamed for not being a cedar--for not yielding timber for the furniture of the temple; but simply and only for not bearing its own refreshing cluster of grapes. And so with nations: so with Israel, so with England. It is not enough for our own nation to apologise for its worldliness by proving it is no worse than some other nation. God has given us as a nation our national task; by that, and that alone, are we to be judged. “ We are not worse than others,” Israel said; and fell. The air has laxly been full of these selfish and self-deceiving pleas: and they are our worst danger. They are the moth and rust of conscience; they both work our decay and conceal it. “ Behold, when it was whole, it was meet for no work” --that elegant, delicate vine; “ how much less shall it be meet yet for any work when the fire hath devoured it, and it is burned?” A nation is prosperous, not by the appearance it makes, but by the Divine purpose it follows. Without that, growing, it decays; decayed, it is cast into the fire. Let the individual also ask--For what does God want me? He wants you not to do another’ s work, but your own. Your fruit is wanted in lolls vineyard. This is too wonderful for you to know why: it is enough that He knows. If I fail to give Him what is mine to give, He cannot take anything else from me. Had He made me a thorn, I would have to blossom to His honour, white and fragrant: He would understand. But seeing He has made me a vine, I must produce vine fruit for His feast of charity. The strength of the cedar He may have given to another: He knew why. I must not trouble about cedar, or oak, or fir: I must look after the fruit He expects from me. (H. E. Lewis.) They shall go out from one fire, and another fire shall devour them.--A man sins physically, and because the punishment comes in a subtle deterioration of the mind, he imagines he has outrun heaven’ s “ red lightning.” Or he sins socially, and because the fraud is not discovered, or else it is winked at, he thinks himself safe: and all the time the poison is deadening all that is fairest within him. Rather, let a man pray--even in his sin, if he can pray--that he may keep the sense of sin’ s penalty. The torture of sin is better than its intoxication. (H. E. Lewis.) . Ezekiel 16:1-2 Son of man, cause Jerusalem to know her abominations.Vile ingratitude I. Let us consider our iniquities--I mean those committed since conversion, those committed yesterday, and the day before, and today--and let us see their sinfulness in the light of what we were when the Lord first looked upon us.1. Hath the Lord loved us, though there was nothing in our birth or parentage to invite regard or merit esteem? Then surely every sin that we commit now is aggravated by that sovereign choice, that infinite compassion that doted upon us, though our birth was vile and our origin base. 2. There was everything in our condition that would tend to destruction, but nothing in us that would tend upwards towards God. There we were, dying, nay dead, rotten, corrupted, so abominable that it might well be said, “ Bury this dead one out of my sight,” when Jehovah passed by and He said unto us, “ Live.” The recollection of our youthful iniquity crushes us to the very earth. Yet though sovereign mercy has put all these sins away; though Jove has covered all these iniquities, and though everlasting kindness has washed away all this filth, we have gone on to sin. If some of us who are rejoicing in covenant love and mercy could have a clear view of all the sins we have committed since conversion, of all the sins we shall commit till we land in heaven, I question whether our senses might not reel under the terrible discovery of what base things we are. 3. One thing else appears designed to represent our sins as blacker still. “ Thou wast cast out in the open field to the loathing of thy person in the day that thou wast born.” Great God! how couldst Thou love that which we ourselves hated? Oh! ‘ tis grace, ‘ tis grace, ‘ tis grace indeed! And yet--O ye heavens, be astonished--yet we have sinned against Him since then, we have forgotten Him, we have doubted Him, we have grown cold towards Him; we have loved self at times better than we have loved our Redeemer, and have sacrificed to our own idols and made gods of our own flesh and self-conceit, instead of giving Him all the glory and the honour forever and forever. II. The time when He began to manifest His love to us personally and individually.1. He washed us with the water of regeneration, yea, and truly washed away the stain of our natural sanguinity. Oh, that day, that day of days, as the days of heaven upon earth, when our eyes looked to Christ and were lightened, when the burden rolled from off our back! That day we never can forget, for it always rises to our recollection the moment we begin to speak about pardon--the day of our own pardon, of our own forgiveness. The galley slave may forget the time when he escaped from the accursed slave holder’ s grasp, and became a freeman. The culprit who lay shivering beneath the headsman’ s axe may forget the hour when suddenly his pardon was granted and his life was spared. But if all these should consign to oblivion their surprising joys, the pardoned soul can never, never, never forget. Unless reason should lose her seat, the quickened soul can never cease to remember the time when Jesus said to it, “ Live.” Oh! and has Jesus pardoned all our sins and have we sinned still? Has He washed me, and have I defiled myself again? 2. When He had washed us, according to the ninth verse, He anointed us with oil. Yes, and that has been repeated many and many a time. “ Thou hast anointed my head with oil.” He gave us the oil of His grace; our faces were like priests, and we went up to His tabernacle rejoicing. Shall the body that is the temple of the Holy Ghost be desecrated? Yet that has been the case with us We have had God within us, and yet we have sinned. O Lord, have mercy upon Thy people !Now we see our abomination in this clear light, we beseech Thee pardon it, for Jesus sake! 3. He not only washed us, He not only anointed us with oil, but He clothed us, and clothed us sumptuously. “ Jesus spent His life to work my robe of righteousness.” His sufferings were so many stitches when He made the broidered work of my righteousness. What would you think of a king with a crown on his head going to break the laws of his kingdom? What would you think if a monarch should invest us with all the insignia of nobility, and we should afterwards violate the high orders conferred upon us while adorned with the robes of state? This is just what you and I have done. 4. We have not only received clothing, but ornaments. We cannot be more glorious; Christ has given the Church so much, she could not have more. He could not bestow upon her that which is more beautiful, more precious, or more costly. She has all she can receive. Nevertheless, in the face of all these, we have sinned against Him. III. What our sins really have been. The germs, the vileness, the essence of our own sin, has lain in this--that we have given to sin and to idols things that belong unto God. When you pray at a prayer meeting, the devil insinuates the thought, and you entertain it, “ What a fine fellow I am!” You may detect yourself when you are talking to a friend of some good things God has done, or when you go home and tell your wife lovingly the tale of your labour, there is a little demon of pride at the bottom of your heart. You like to take credit to yourself for the good things you have done. Sometimes a man has another god besides pride. That god may be his sloth. Have you never detected yourself, when inclined to be dilatory in spiritual things, leaning on the oar of the covenant, instead of pulling at it, and saying, “ Well, these things are true, but there is no great need for me to stir myself.” Sometimes it is even worse. God gives to His people riches, and they offer them before the shrine of their covetousness. He gives them talent, and they prostitute it to the service of their ambition. He gives them judgment, and they pander to their own advancement, and seek not the interest of His kingdom. He gives them influence; that influence they use for their own aggrandisement, and not for His honour. What is this but parallel to taking His gold and His jewels, and hanging them upon the neck of Ashtaroth? (C. H. Spurgeon.) A charge to city ministers I. Ezekiel had a commission to a corrupt city; So have you. Superstition, sensuality, formality, worldliness, were rampant in Jerusalem. But were her sins greater than those of Manchester, Glasgow, London? II. Ezekiel’ s commission was to reveal the corrupt city to itself; this is yours.1. Because the moral corruptions of a city expose the population to terrible calamities. (1) Calamities in this life--diseases, pauperism, lunacy, etc. (2) Calamities in the life to come. A terrible retribution awaits the wicked. 2. Because the city itself is ignorant of its moral corruptions. “ They know not what they do.” Poor, miserable, blind, naked, etc. Go and tell them. Take the torch of the Gospel into their midst, and let it flame down upon their consciences. 3. Because a revelation of it to itself may lead it now to moral reformation. 4. Because unless you make this revelation to it no one else can be expected to do it. Who else will or can do it? Not scientists, legislators, merchants, soldiers. The work is given to you. (Homilist.) Fearless preaching It is related of John Wesley that, preaching to an audience of courtiers and noblemen, he used the “ generation of vipers” text, and flung denunciation right and left. “ That sermon should have been preached at Newgate,” said a displeased courtier to Wesley on passing out. “ No,” said the fearless apostle; “ my text there would have been, ‘ Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world!’” Uncomfortable sermons “ I remember one of my parishioners at Halesworth telling me,” says Whately, “ that he thought a person should not go to church to be made uncomfortable: I replied that I thought so too; but whether it should be the sermon or the man’ s life that should be altered so as to avoid the discomfort must depend on whether the doctrine was right or wrong.” Conviction of sin--the preacher’ s aim It is plain dealing that men need. A toyish, flashy sermon is not the proper medicine for a lethargic, miserable soul, nor fit to break a stony heart. Heaven and hell should not be talked of in a canting, jingling, and pedantic strain. A Seneca can tell you that it is a physician that is skilful, and not one that is eloquent, that we need. If he have also fine and neat expressions, we do not despise them, nor over much value them. It is a cure that we need, and the means are best, be they never so sharp, that will accomplish it. If a hardened heart is to be broken, it is not stroking, but striking that must do it. It is not the sounding brass, the tinkling cymbal, the carnal mind puffed up with superficial knowledge that is the instrument fitted to the renewing of men’ s souls. It is the illuminating beams of sacred truth communicated from a mind that by faith hath seen the glory of God, and by experience found that He is good, and living in the love of God; such an one is fitted to assist you first in the knowledge of yourselves, and then in the knowledge of God in Christ. (R. Baxter.) Ezekiel 16:3 Thy father was an Amorite and thy mother an Hittite.Hieroglyphics of truth I. Man is essentially religious. Religion in the heart of man is something that pertains to the land of Canaan. It has not been invented by man, or created in his soul by human science or culture: it is not a product of education or civilisation. It is part of man’ s nature more truly than the raindrop is part of the cloud from which it falls, or than the river is part of the sea from which it flows and to which it returns. It is in the soul as fire is in the flint; as the oak is in the acorn, or as the day is in the dawn. Religion belongs to the soul, as hunger and thirst belong to the body. Hunger and thirst may not create bread, any more than the organ of vision can create light, or the organ of hearing sound; but bread and water, light and sound, would be useless without these organs. Were it not that man is essentially religious, all our preaching of the Gospel, and all our missionary labours at home and abroad, would be vain. Go with me in thought, and view the ruins of the temple of Heliopolis on the borders of Arabia, or the gigantic ruins of Luxor and Thebes on the banks of the Nile, or those of Baalbeck in the valley between the Lebanons. Whence the origin and purpose of these ancient temples? These temples, it may be said, were largely the outcome or expressions of man’ s religious beliefs--superstitious beliefs, if you will. But whence the origin of these superstitious beliefs? What was their root cause? Their root cause was man’ s religious nature. The word superstition means a resting upon, yes, resting upon man’ s natural religious convictions. II. May by nature is morally corrupt. “ Thy father was an Amorite and thy mother an Hittite.” The Amorites and Hittites, though born in the land of Canaan, were aliens to the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers to the covenants with promise; they were without God and without hope in the world. This doctrine of human depravity or moral corruption applies to all races and to men of all ranks. Sin in the soul is not the result of evil habits, as some suppose, nor the issue of a false education and corrupting companionship and circumstances. It is not a thing like cold, which a man may or may not take in certain circumstances, and which, if taken, may develop into consumption or some other disease. No. We are all horn with it. It is a constitutional malady. Apart from the doctrine of sin--original sin in the soul; I know not the doctrine of salvation, even in theory. Apart from the doctrine of man’ s natural alienation from God, I know not the meaning of Christ’ s mission to the world. What would be the meaning of physicians were there no human ailments? or of drugs were there no human diseases? or of bread and water were there no such things as hunger and thirst? Without sin in the soul, the Gospel could have no meaning, and the Cross could have no power. III. Christianity is God’ s remedy for man’ s malady. He who at the beginning said, “ Let there be light, and there was light,” now says to all men “ Live.” The description given in the context of man’ s state by nature, speaks of death, moral and spiritual of orphanage and great feebleness. There is a great amount of life in the world, and man is not without life. It is called natural life; but natural life is somewhat as the river Jordan, that ends its flow in the Dead Sea. Human life, at the best, is as the grass, and its glory as the flower. It does not last, and its duration is a contradiction of our supreme desires. Death is not natural to man. Man was not made to die, as some men seem to suppose, but to live; hence the fear of death makes men subject to bondage. The keynote of Christianity is life, life that cannot die. “ I am come, said Jesus, that ye might have life, and that ye might have it more abundantly.” To all who hear and believe the Gospel, God says “ Live.” Is there any other religion in all the world that can be compared with the Christian religion in this respect? Christianity, as a system of truth, is in harmony with the soundest deductions of enlightened reason; Christianity, as exhibited in the Person and work of Jesus Christ, is the complement of the deepest cravings, the strongest desires, and the universal wants of humanity. It makes man great with the “ hopes which cheer the just.” It lifts him as from “ the dunghill, and sets him among princes.” While it fosters the conviction that heaven is needed to complete his life on earth, it opens the way, and gives him health and power to reach it. It makes him hopeful, useful, and great. (J. K. Campbell, D. D.) Ezekiel 16:5-6 None eye pitied thee, to do any of these unto thee, to have compassion upon thee.--Ezekiel’ s deserted infant I. A survey of the misery of man’ s estate. The verse presents to us an infant exposed to die. All the common offices that were necessary for its life and health have been forgotten.1. At the very first glance, we remark, here is an early ruin. It is an infant. A thousand sorrows that one so young should be so deeply taught in misery’ s school! It is an infant; it has not yet tasted joy, but yet it knoweth pain and sorrow to the full. How early art thou blasted, O sweet flower! From the very birth we go astray, speaking lies, and in the very birth we lie under the condemnation of the law of God. 2. The next very apparent teaching of the text is utter inability. It is an infant--what can it do for itself? Not even clay on the potter’ s wheel is more helpless than this infant as it now lies cast out in the open field. Such is human nature; it can by no means help towards its own restoration. But, mark you, and this is a thought that may crush our boastings and make us hang our head like a bulrush evermore--this inability is our own sin. 3. Apparent, too, is yet a third misfortune--we are utterly friendless. “ None eye pitied thee, to do any of these things unto thee.” We have no friend in heaven or in earth that can do aught for us, unless God shall interpose. Weep and lament your kinsfolk may for you, but no lamentation can make an atonement for your sins, no human tears can cleanse your filthiness, no Christian zeal can clothe you with righteousness, no yearning love can sanctify your nature. 4. Furthermore, our text very clearly reveals to us that we are by nature in a sad state of exposure. Cast out into the open field, left in a wilderness where it is not likely that any should pass by, thrown where the cold can smite by night and the heat can blast by day, left where the wild beast goeth about, seeking whom he may devour--such is the estate of human nature: unclothed, unarmed, helpless, exposed to all manner of ravenous destroyers. O Lord God, Thou alone knowest the awful dangers which prowl around an unregenerate man; what mischiefs waylay him; what crimes beset him; what follies haunt him. 5. It seems that this child, besides being in this exposed state, was loathsome. “ Thou wast cast out to the loathing of thy person.” It was in such a condition that the sight of it was disgusting, and its person was so destitute of all comeliness that it was absolutely loathed. Such is man by nature. 6. We close this fearful description by observing the certain ruin to which this infant was exposed, as setting forth the sure destruction of every man if grace prevent not. II. We are now to search for motives for God’ s grace, and we have a very difficult search before us when we look to this infant which is cast out, because its loathsomeness and its being covered with its own blood, forbid us at once to hope that there can be anything in it which can merit the esteem of the merciful One. Let us think of some of the motives which may urge men to assist the undeserving.1. One of the first would be, necessity. Not a few are placed in such a position that they could not well refuse to give their help when it is asked of them. But no necessity can ever affect the Most High. The first of all causes must be absolutely independent of every other cause. Who dictateth counsel to the Most High? Who sits at His bar, and giveth Him advice and warning, and maketh Him do according to his pleasure? Nor had God any necessity in order to make Himself happy or to increase His glory. 2. In this case there was nothing in the birth of this child, in its original parentage, that could move the passer-by. You were conceived in sin, and stained in your very birth, and there is, therefore, nothing here that could move the heart of Deity. 3. Nor was there anything in this child’ s beauty, for it was loathsome. What can there be in a worm to gratify the Almighty? 4. Furthermore, as we have found no motive yet, either in necessity or the child’ s birth or beauty, so we find none in any entreaties that were uttered by this child. It doth not seem that it pleaded with the passer-by to save it, for it could not as yet speak. So, though sinners do pray, yet when a sinner prays, it is because God has begun to save him. 5. Yet, further, it does not appear that the pity of the passer-by was shown upon this child because of any future service which was expected of it. This child, it seems, was nourished, clothed, luxuriously decorated; and yet, after all that, if you read the chapter through, you will find it went astray from Him who had set His heart upon it. The Lord foresaw this, and yet” loved that child notwithstanding. III. But now consider the mandate of his mercy. “ I said unto thee, Live.” I. This fiat of God is majestic. He looks, and there lies an infant, loathsome in its blood; He stops, and He pronounces the word, the royal word “ Live.” There speaks a God. Who but He could venture thus to deal with life and dispense it with a single syllable? ‘ Tis majestic, ‘ tis Divine!2. This fiat is manifold. (1) Here is judicial life.(2) It is, moreover, spiritual life. 3. It is an irresistible voice. When God says to a sinner, “ Live,” all the devils in hell cannot keep him in the grave. 4. It is all-sufficient. “ Live,” dost Thou say, great God? Why, the man is dead! There is life--not in him, but in the voice that bids him live. “ Live,” dost Thou say? “ By this time he stinketh, for he hath been dead four days!” There is power--not in his corruption, but in the voice that crieth, “ Come forth!” 5. It was a mandate of free grace. I want to lay that down again, and again, and again, that there was nothing in this infant, nothing but loathsomeness, nothing therefore to merit esteem; nothing in the infant, but inability, nothing therefore by which it could help itself; nothing in it but infancy, nothing therefore by which it could plead for itself, and yet grace said, “ Live” --freely, without any bribe, without any entreaty, said, “ Live.” And so when sinners are saved, it is only and solely because God will do it, to magnify His free, unpurchased, unsought grace. (C. H. Spurgeon.) The allegory of the foundling child Though marked by a breadth which offends against modern taste, the allegory of the foundling child which became the faithless wife is powerful, and, when the details are forgotten and only the general idea kept in mind, even beautiful, as well as true. An outcast infant, exposed in the open field and weltering in her blood, was seen by the pitying eye of a passer-by. Rescued and nourished, she grew up to the fairest womanhood, and became the wife of her benefactor, who heaped on her every gift that could please or elevate. But the ways into which he led her were too lofty to be understood, and the atmosphere around too pure for her to breathe; the old inborn nature (her father was an Amorite and her mother a Hittite) was still there beneath all the refinements for which it had no taste, and at last it asserted itself in shameless depravity and insatiable lewdness. (A. B. Davidson, D. D.) The first step for man’ s salvation taken by God I know some think that the sinner takes the first step, but, we know better. If he did, it were like the old Romish miracle of St. Dennis, where we are told that after his head was off, he picked it up and walked two thousand miles with it in his hand. Whereupon, some wit observed that he did not see any wonder in the man’ s walking two thousand miles, for all the difficulty lay in the first step. Just so, I see no difficulty in a man’ s getting all the way to heaven if he can but take the first step; for all the miracle lies in that first step--the making the dead soul live, the melting the adamantine heart, the thawing of the northern ice, the bringing down of the proud look--this is the work, this is the difficulty; and if man can do that himself, verily he can do the whole. But when God looketh upon men to save them, it is not because they cry to Him, for they never do and never will cry until the work of salvation is begun. (C. H. Spurgeon.) I said unto thee,. . .Live. Spiritual life I. The miracle of grace performed. As everything in the Bible is a parable to an unregenerate man, so everything in Christian experience is a miracle wrought by the hand of God. What! is it not a miracle, to vanquish Satan and take the prey out of his hands--to “ take the prey from the mighty and the captive from the terrible” ? Is it not a miracle to unstop deaf ears? Is it not a miracle to raise the dead, and give them another, a new and deathless life and existence? Jehovah not only speaks into life at first--speaks it into pre-existence, if I may so express it--animating, quickening,--and then causing to grow, “ that they may have life, and have it more abundantly” ; but it is His also to speak life to the soul in the most exalted sense, consummating it in the life of glory. “ Live!” I think, strictly speaking, in the literal sense of the word we can hardly be said to live till we get to the world of glory. And what some people call dying, I think is just Jehovah saying to the souls of His people, Live. We have hardly begun to live yet; here we have much to do with the old Adam nature, much to do with corruption, much to do with the things that mar our enjoyment and our life, so that we live at a “ poor dying rate” ; but, oh! the blessedness of that moment, when all that is earthly, all that pertains to time, shall be shaken off, and by one sweet sovereign command--one gracious, kind, paternal word--Jehovah shall say, Live; and we shall pass from our deathy clay hut to the world of spirits, and live everlastingly with Himself. II. An epitome of spiritual experience. You may have a religion of education--and yet none of God; you may have a religion of natural feeling, natural passions--and yet none of God; you may have a religion of alarm, and be terribly frightened about going to hell--but none of God; you may have a religion of supposed joy, natural passions moved and somewhat inflamed, which perhaps may be exhibited in the style of the book you read or the eloquence you listen to--and yet none of God. All these will leave you deficient. Nothing will do but a spiritual existence. The man of the world has a natural existence, a mental existence, a rational existence, which makes him differ from the brute creation; but a real Christian has, in addition to this, spiritual existence, a heavenly life--the persons and perfections of Deity dwelling in His soul--a new creation--another, a holy, a sinless principle--the life of God--called the participation of the Divine nature. A worldling may appear like a Christian among Christians; but let him loose, and his whole heart is in the world immediately. A Christian may have to mix with the men of the world in worldly business; but let him loose, and you see in a moment that his soul has a spiritual being. This spiritual existence is the epitome of godliness. It is communicated by a word from the throne--by a touch of Jehovah’ s hand, by the voice of Christ, by the whisper of the Spirit. Moreover, it is immortal. I pass on, just to notice that this spiritual existence is known by the spiritual negotiations it keeps up. If I have nothing to do for God, the devil will be sure to find me something to do for him. The very nature of life is to be active. If it be animal life, it must try to move and walk and run; if it be mental life, it must find some object to pursue, something to hear or read, something to call it forth. So with spiritual life; it must have its activity called forth into exercise. III. The testimony of Divine prerogative. Jehovah says, “ Live.” I hear nothing in this of “ I will if he will” ; I see nothing of proposal, nothing of overture, nothing of an offer, nothing of a condition in all this. I know there are not a few who would have us deal with mankind, treat with sinners, as if they had a power--as if they had a capacity for spiritual things--as if they had a spiritual work to perform. I confess I have little heart--I have no heart at all for this, because I never saw an instance of its success. Find me one instance in which a sinner ever began to inquire after Christ, or knew anything about a spiritual emotion, until God had said, “ Live.” I will yield the point. The Son of God took this prerogative upon Himself, when, tabernacling in the likeness of sinful flesh, He went up to the widow’ s son as they carried him out of the city of Nain, touched the bier, and called the young man to life again; to the no small comfort of his mother. He pursued the same course, and assumed the same prerogative, when Lazarus had lain four days in the grave. And to this hour the same prerogative is exercised by the Son of God, as well as by the Father. Moreover, of the Holy Ghost it is said, “ It is the Spirit that quickeneth.” So that Father, Son, and Holy Ghost are concerned in the resurrection of the sinner, as well as (as we showed the other morning) in the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ. One thing more I just invite your attention to: while our covenant God exercises His sovereignty in calling sinners out of darkness into light and the dead into life, what a revenue of praise belongs to His holy name! (J. Irons.) The life of souls the ordinance of God How manifold, how great, are the works of our God! How curious, various, and vast are the forms of dead matter! Think of earths, stones, metals, waters, clouds, and all the same matter combined, modified in endless variety. Ascend one step higher, and think of the organised matter which constitutes the living verdure of our world. Ascend another step, and survey for a moment the countless tribes of beings animate. Who can number the birds that fill the air, to say nothing of insects? Think of the cattle of our home fields, the game of our woods, and the wild beasts of far-off deserts and forests, to say nothing of reptiles. Think too of the vaster seas and of the innumerable fishes, from the whale to animalcule. We lift our eyes to the heavens, and our earth, huge as it is, and much as it contains, is but as a particle of dust, or as a drop filling a bucket. Shoals of planets greater than ours are over our heads, and even suns stand crowded there as thick as forest leaves. What a universe! What a God is ours! But how instructive is the relation between man and the all things of God! Man has an eye to look abroad upon all, and to read all, and he has a spirit to conceive and adore the God who is over all. Indeed, the all things of our God are only the ladder which aids man to climb to the feet of God. When I think that man is not only elevated to bow with the ranks of prostrate angels at the feet of their God, but that he is the immediate minister of the high and lofty One, that the God of eternity is literally achieving His grandest purposes by the agency of man, I am struck dumb with amazement! I. What, then, is our office? Interesting, most animating, as it would be to be the instrumental cause of awakening nature into new life and beauty, it is less animating than our real work. Sublime as it would be to go forth awakening the dead, it is less sublime than the actual ministry committed to us. But our work is so old that we forget its grandeur. So the grandeur of the universe is slighted because suns and moons and stars are stale things, and, as stale things, are sure to be deserted for the sake of a few fireworks. The greatest change in nature--that from mid-winter to mid-summer, is but a physical change, a change in the mode of matter. Matter is therefore the agent which effects this; sun, rain, and dew are the servants of God in this work. And to call forth the bodies of men from their graves is a work very inferior to that of awakening souls to the life of God. “ The former work has no glory by reason of the glory which excelleth.” If our office is an office in relation to souls, then we have to do with the highest of all forms of existence. The souls of our world are desolate and dead as winter: it is the will of God that a springtime should be brought out in their history, that they should become verdant and flourishing as the garden of the Lord. Piety is ever-living verdure, and the graces of piety are never-withering flowers. Instrumentally to call forth these from human souls is the ministry committed to our hands. In a word, our ministry is a ministry of life to the dead--not to dead matter, nor to dead bodies, but to souls dead in sin. II. There are souls dead!1. Men are ignorant of the nature of their souls. Truly they know not what souls are, or they would perceive at once that there is no adaptation between money and souls, between sensual pleasures and souls and they would be at least uneasy that there is nothing in the wide world suited to enrich and bless the soul. Then, if souls know not their own nature, it is not too strong a figure to speak of them as dead. 2. The souls of men are not fulfilling the end of their being. Their affections are not excited; their powers are not developed; their energies are not devoted to truth, to excellence; their thoughts do not soar away in contemplation of the infinite and the eternal; their affections do not embrace the God of love; eternity is before them, but they are making no preparation; they are laying no foundation for the time to come. 3. The souls of men are strangers to the peculiar joys of their being. Every distinct order of creatures has its peculiar pleasures: insects have their pleasures, birds have their pleasures, the cattle of the field have their pleasures, and souls have their pleasures; but of all these creatures the souls of men only are alienated from, and indifferent to, their own peculiar delights. The difference between the joys of angelic minds and those of human minds consists in this, that angels are in the full and constant fruition of the proper bliss of souls; but human souls are cut off from it, if dead to this bliss; so that, without inconsistency or exaggeration, we may speak of the state of human souls under the figure of death, and of their conversion to God as a passing from death unto life. And the peculiar characteristic of the Gospel is, that it is a ministration of life to souls, immortal souls dead in sin. III. As the servants of the Gospel, the cry of our ministry is, live! O souls! as servants of our God and your God, our business is with you. If you carry on no commerce with your Maker, if your thoughts and affections rise not to contemplate and embrace things hidden and Divine, you are strangers to the high and joyous life of souls. In your bodies there may be life, but in your souls there is death, which will become eternal death unless it be soon plucked out of your spirits. By the will of God the ministry of life is now in exercise in your presence, the design of which is to abolish death, to exterminate death’ s empire without you, and to plant in its room the principles of life and immortality. But how are we to exercise this ministry? Our text cries, Live! Are we then to reiterate the cry, Live! Live! to the dying souls who may be within the sound of our voice? No; but we are to employ those means which God has instituted for the very purpose of awakening within you a life unto God. This is our ministry. We are charged by God to call upon you to repent, to sue for mercy, and solemnly declare to you that not to repent is to perish. We are to tell you that He who knew no sin died for your sins, and that, therefore, life, eternal life, is offered to you through His death. (J. Pulsford, D. D.) Ezekiel 16:8 Yea, I sware unto thee, and entered into a covenant with thee, saith the Lord God, and thou becamest Mine.Two immutable, things Biographies are generally interesting, if they are biographies; that is to say, if the events of the person’ s life are truly told; but the most interesting biography to any man is his own life. Turn over the pages of the book of memory, and think of those first times when you sought and found the Saviour, when you repented, when you believed, when you yielded yourself up to Jesus, when He took you to be His, and you took Him to be yours. I am sure that this exercise will awaken many happy thoughts, and I feel equally certain that it will suggest many regrets; but the happiness will be good for you if it excites your gratitude, and the regrets will be good for you if they deepen your penitence. Beloved, tim time of our conversion, the time when we joyously realised that we were saved, was a covenanting time. It is a somewhat singular thing that, in this chapter, God does not say anything about Israel’ s part of the covenant; He seems to pass that over as though it were never worth mentioning. So, at this time, I shall not say much about the covenant that you made with God; do not forget it, and do not forget that you have often forgotten it. I. It was a covenant freely made.1. It was a covenant which He made at His own suggestion, out of the greatness of His own love; for the nation of Israel, of which He speaks, had nothing in its pedigree to suggest it. There are some who do not believe in the depravity of human nature. I must believe in it if I am myself a fair specimen of human nature; and every man who has watched his own heart,, and has any idea of the sin which dwells within him, will know that his origin is tainted, that from the very first there is a tendency to evil, and only evil; and, therefore, that there is nothing in him as to his birth that can command or deserve the favour of God. 2. There was nothing in our condition to commend it. This poor child had never been washed or clothed--it was left in all its filthiness to die; there was nothing about it to commend it to the attention of the passer-by. And what were we by nature? 3. It was also a covenant freely made because there was nothing in our beauty to warrant it. Whatever there was there, was undeveloped and, worse still, unclean. And in that day when Jesus took us to Himself, and we took Him to be our Saviour, there was nothing as yet apparent of that which His grace has now wrought in us; it was totally absent then. II. It was a covenant entirely of love.1. Taking our text in its connection, we learn that this covenant was a marriage covenant. 2. That it was a covenant which was meant to be entirely of love is proved by the way in which it was carried out (Ezekiel 16:9-13). This is a covenant all of love, for these are all love-tokens, love-gifts to the beloved one. Now, will you go back in thought, and recollect when you used to receive those gifts from the Lord? 3. It must be a covenant all of love which God has made with such creatures as we are, because it could bring the Lord no profit. III. It was a most sure covenant: “ I sware unto thee, and entered into a covenant with thee.”1. The covenant which God makes with believers is intended to remain forever. It is not something which may be broken in a few hours, like a child’ s toys; it is an everlasting covenant (Ezekiel 16:60). 2. In proof that He intended it to remain, He ratified it by an oath. 3. To make a covenant even surer than by an oath, men were accustomed to seal it by a sacrifice. Now, beloved, you who believe have the precious blood of the Lord Jesus Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot, to confirm the covenant of grace. 4. I would have you notice, in our text, that the covenant is remembered by God. It is He who Says, “ I sware unto thee, and entered into a covenant with thee.” 5. Yet once more, this covenant will be remembered by Him forever (Ezekiel 16:60; Ezekiel 16:62). IV. This covenant involves very gracious consequences. “ Thou becamest Mine.”1. If God has entered into covenant with us, we have become the Lord’ s. Whose were you before? The world’ s? Your own? The devil’ s? Well, we will not dispute with the many claimants; but now you can say, “ O Lord our God, other lords beside Thee have had dominion over us: but by Thee only will we make mention of Thy name.” 2. Now, we ought to be the Lord’ s more and more. 3. If that be our feeling, it will lead us practically to renew the bond of the covenant. 4. And you who have never done so, may you come to Jesus this very moment! Your only hope lies in Him. (C. H. Spurgeon.) God’ s covenant with the reclaimed soul In Canada they build palaces of ice in the winter time, and very beautiful things they are; but then, when spring comes where are those palaces? And in summer, the very foundation upon which they were built has melted back into the St. Lawrence. God does not make with His believing people covenants like those ice palaces; His covenant stands secure, though earth’ s old columns bow. If God has promised to save thee,--as He has done if thou believest in Jesus,--He will save thee in the teeth of death and hell. Rest thou sure of this, and say with David, “ He hath made with me an everlasting covenant, ordered in all things and sure.” Here is something to rest upon: “ I sware unto thee, and entered into a covenant with thee.” He intended it to remain. (C. H. Spurgeon.) The moment of being possessed by Christ “ Thou becamest Mine.” Do you recollect the spot--perhaps it was your own little room--where, as a youth, you sat after having long prayed and wept? And at last you felt that Jesus was yours; and you sat still, and you said to yourself “ Yes, I am His, every bit of me. He has bought me with His blood, I am His.” Do you remember those first few days in which you felt half afraid to do anything lest you should grieve that dear Lover of your soul? Then you wanted to do everything that you might please Him whose servant you had become. I remember a verse of Scripture which, as a young believer, I used often to repeat; for it was very dear to me. I daresay you love it too; it is this: “ Bind the sacrifice with cords, even unto the horns of the altar.” We did feel then that we were wholly Christ’ s; do we feel it as much now? “ Thou becamest Mine.” To come back to the marriage covenant of which the Lord speaks,--when the husband put the ring upon his bride’ s finger, he said to her, “ Thou hast become mine.” Do you remember when you felt upon your finger the ring of infinite, everlasting, covenant love that Christ put there. “ Thou becamest Mine.” Oh, it was a joyful day, a blessed day! Happy day, happy day, when His choice was known to me, and fixed my choice on Him! (C. H. Spurgeon.) Owned by God It is a great privilege not to be one’ s own. A vessel is drifting on the Atlantic hither and thither, and its end no man knoweth. It is derelict, deserted by all its crew; it is the property of no man; it is the prey of every storm and the sport of every wind; rocks, quicksands, and shoals wait to destroy it; the ocean yearns to engulf it. It drifts onward to no man’ s land, and no man will mourn its shipwreck. But mark well yonder bark of the Thames, which its owner surveys with pleasure. In its attempt to reach the sea it may run ashore, or come into collision with other vessels, or in a thousand ways suffer damage; but there is no fear, it will pass through the floating forest of “ the Pool” ; it will thread the winding channel and reach the Nore, because the owner will secure it pilotage, skilful and apt. How thankful you and I should be that we are not derelict today! We are not our own, not left on the wild “ waste of chance to be tossed to and fro by fortuitous circumstances, but there is a Hand upon the helm; we have on board a Pilot who owns us, and will surely steer us into the Fair Heavens of eternal rest. (C. H. Spurgeon.) The adornments of Christ’ s Church It was observed of Queen Elizabeth (as of her father before her), that she loved to go very richly arrayed. Her sister Queen Mary had, at her coronation, her head so laden with:jewels that she could hardly hold it up. King Richard II had one coat of gold and stone valued at 30,000 marks. This was much, but nothing to the Church’ s beauty and bravery, which yet was all but borrowed, as is said in the next verse. (J. Trapp.) How to obtain Christ’ s beauty God’ s beauty which He puts upon His people is His own moral loveliness. This attribute of Divine goodness, while enshrined in the teaching of the Word of God, is most effectively seen in the person of the Lord Jesus. It is from Him we catch it, if at all. As the sun imprints the image upon the sensitive plate in the camera when it is exposed to it, so Christ’ s beauty is put upon us if we are exposed to Him by a life of communion. We do not, however, own Christ’ s beauty merely passively, there must be a constant deliberate imitation of His holy example. “ I must go home and deepen the colouring of my infant Hercules,” exclaimed Sir Joshua Reynolds after gazing on the beautiful sunburnt face of a peasant boy. Frequent communings with Christ make one dissatisfied with his poor copying of so beautiful a character. “ I must be more Christlike” must be the great resolve as we go forth from His presence if we would own Christ’ s beauty. (Charles Deal.) The transformation grace works John Ruskin was one day walking along the streets of London. The weather had been very wet, and the mud was plentiful and most sticky. The thought occurred to him that he would have the mud analysed to find out exactly the inorganic elements in it. This was accordingly done, and the London mud was found to consist of sand, clay, soot, and water. Musing upon that fact, it struck him that these are the very substances from which our precious jewels and gems are formed. From the sand or silica come the onyx, chrysolite, agate, beryl, cornelian, chalcedony, jasper, sardine, amethyst; from the clay come the sapphire, ruby, emerald, topaz; and from the soot is formed the diamond. London mud composed of priceless jewels! Man cannot transform the mud into those glittering points of light, but God transforms and recreates the mud of depraved humanity into the glory of redeemed and beautiful souls. (John Robertson.) Ezekiel 16:10-14I clothed thee also with broidered work. The clothing of God’ s people See with what matchless generosity the Lord provides for His people’ s apparel.1. They are so arrayed that the Divine skill is seen producing an unrivalled broidered work, in which every attribute takes its part and every Divine beauty is revealed. No art like the art displayed in our salvation, no cunning workmanship like that beheld in the righteousness of the saints. Justification has engrossed learned pens in all ages of the Church, and will be the theme of admiration in eternity. God has indeed “ curiously wrought it.” 2. With all this elaboration there is mingled utility and durability, comparable to our being shod with badgers’ skins. The animal here meant is unknown, but its skin covered the tabernacle, and formed one of the finest and strongest leathers known. The righteousness which is of God by faith endureth forever, and he who is shod with this Divine preparation will tread the desert safely, and may even set his foot upon the lion and the adder. 3. Purity and dignity of our holy vesture are brought out in the fine linen. When the Lord sanctifies His people, they are clad as priests in pure white; not the snow itself excels them; they are in the eyes of men and angels fair to look upon, and even in the Lord’ s eves they are without spot. 4. Meanwhile the royal apparel is delicate and rich as silk! No expense is spared, no beauty withheld, no daintiness denied. 5. Surely there is gratitude to be felt and joy to be expressed. Come, my heart, refuse not thy evening hallelujah! Tune thy pipes! Touch thy chords! (C. H. Spurgeon.) Ezekiel 16:17-22 Thou hast also taken thy fair Jewels of My gold.The degrading nature of sin Manton says, “ If you saw a man labouring in filthy ditches, and soiling himself as poor men do, would you believe that he was heir-apparent to a crown, called to inherit a kingdom? Who will believe in your heavenly calling when you stick in the mud of worldly pleasures, and are carried away with carking care for secular interests?” Princes should behave as princes. Their haunts should be in palaces, and not amid dung heaps. How, then, is it that some who profess and call themselves Christians are found raking in questionable amusements to discover pleasure, and many others groping amid sordid avarice to find satisfaction in wealth? What are they at to be thus disgracing the blood royal? How dare they drag the name of the “ Blessed and only Potentate” through the mire? A prince of the blood acting as a beggar would dishonour not only himself but all the royal house. Nobility has obligations. Grace, which is the eminent nobility of saints, lays them under heavy bonds to act as the true aristocracy of the universe. (C. H. Spurgeon.) God ill requited for all His love I remember William Huntingdon says in his autobiography that one of the sharpest sensations of pain that he felt after he had been quickened by Divine grace was this, “ He felt such pity for God.” I do not know that I ever met with the expression elsewhere, but it is a very expressive one; although I might prefer to say sympathy with God, and grief that He should be so ill-treated. Many a man has been slandered and abused, but never was man abused as God has been. (C. H. Spurgeon.) Ezekiel 16:27I have stretched out My hand over thee, and have diminished thine ordinary food, and delivered thee unto the will of them that hate thee. The tyranny of Satan To be “ delivered unto the will of them that hate us” --this seems given as amongst the most oppressive of calamities--the judgment which God, after having long striven with the unrighteousness of a nation, selects from the stores of His retributive appointments. Suppose one person knew another to be his rancorous enemy, bent on doing him every kind of injury, and causing him every kind of pain; it may be that this enemy had left the kingdom and gone to foreign parts, so that it did not seem likely that he would again cross the path of the object of his bitter dislike. But the individual himself may be called to quit his home, and navigate distant seas; and he himself, falling amongst pirates, may find that, though life is spared, liberty is gone, and that he is to be sold as a slave on reaching the land. Who can tell the anguish of his soul? The endearing recollections of his native shores crowd thickly upon him; and he thinks that not only shall he never again meet the friends of his youth, but that he shall drag out the remainder of his days in subjection to some tyrant whose delight will be to torment. Yet perhaps not so! It is a galling thing that he--a freeborn man--should stand in the slave market, exposed for sale like a mere beast of burden; but it may be that, through this degradation, he shall recover all that he has lost. He therefore waits with trembling eagerness to know who his purchaser shall be. On a sudden his eye rests on his ancient enemy; he cannot be mistaken. He knows that form; it will not allow him to doubt. Oh! that he might hide himself! But in vain! His foe has purchased him; he has paid down the demanded price. Tell me! did the man till this moment feel himself utterly wretched? Now, the case would be much the same with a community or nation as with the individual. If a nation must yield to a foreign power, it would desire that it might not be to a power by which it had always been held in dislike, and with which it had often been at war. The galling thing would be, not merely that we were subdued, but that we were subdued by those to whom we knew ourselves to be objects of inveterate hatred, and who cherished against us deep-rooted antipathy. Now, whilst these may be thoroughly accurate illustrations of our text, they are not those which cause the passage to be surveyed under its most instructive aspects. The text, when separated from its local and temporary application, may justly be considered as describing the state to which the human race was reduced when, by the first rebellion against God, it severed the links which had heretofore associated the Creator and the creature. We all admit that through the apostasy of Adam, Satan acquired a dominion over the globe which he never could have held had our first parents remained firm in their allegiance, He became, in the language of St. Paul, “ The God of this world.” If it were to be said of the Jews that God “ delivered them unto the will of them that hated them,” it is easy to be said of man in general that God surrendered him to the hands of the devil. Though never let it be for a moment forgotten that whilst He thus allowed judgment to fall on sin, and caused the disobedient to “ eat of the fruit of their own ways,” He was providing for the emancipation of our race--arranging that His blessed Son should be “ manifested” for the express purpose of “ destroying the works of the devil.” And you are yet to be told the worst feature in this our natural condition. Not only are we slaves, but they that “ hate” us are they that rule over us. There can be nothing darker, if we may judge from the scattered touches of Scripture, than the character of apostate angels. Fallen from the very summit of created glory, their debasement seems to bear proportion with their original eminence; and they move to and fro burning with the fiercest animosity against God, and eager for nothing but to drag down others to share their sufferings and their shame. It may have been that it was hatred to man which first moved Satan to attempt his destruction. That haughty spirit, chafed by his defeat, and furious at his own exile from happiness, could not endure to look on the purities and felicities of Paradise. Man was innocent, and that made him hateful; man was happy, and he was therefore instinctively detested. And if we may speak of man as an object of hatred to Satan whilst he held fast his allegiance, what may we suppose him now--now that, seduced into apostasy, he hath been rescued by the interference of “ God manifest in the flesh” ? Was the lofty angel to be passed by and this inferior being taken note of? And was it to be the result of Satan’ s machinations against the inmates of Paradise that a richer than that rich garden was to open to them all its loveliness, and a deeper than the happiness they then enjoyed be placed within reach as their everlasting portion? This surely were sufficient to account for a hatred the most intense and inveterate on the part of the devil toward man! Again, Satan must hate man, so that whosoever is the servant of this chief of fallen angels is accurately in the condition described in our text; and every one of you is that servant, on whom there has not passed the great moral change of conversion. Oh! that we could bring all that imagery which was furnished by the slave market, or the horrors of an invasion, and force those who are yet indifferent to religion to recognise in it a delineation of themselves! He who really feels that the devil is both his master and his enemy is not far from embracing Christ as his Redeemer and his friend. But it in no degree alters the fact of your being ruled by one who hates you that you are blind to your condition, and not even conscious of being ruled at all: it does but make that condition all the worse. Why, suppose that when the inveterate enemy has entered the slave market, and possessed himself of the wretched being who actually quails before his look;--suppose he should speak soothingly to his victim, easing his chains as he leads him away, promising him abundance and enjoyment, and all because he knows a generous friend of the poor captive is waiting on the road, and will be attracted by a cry of disquietude or a shriek of distress;--suppose this, and you suppose precisely the policy of Satan, who, if he can only prevent a man from feeling that uneasiness which would prompt an appeal to the Saviour, is quite content to defer the season for giving swing to all his malice and wreaking all his vengeance. But that season will come. It is little, it is nothing to say that imagination is utterly incompetent to the giving to such season its due measure of horror. We pretend not to lift the veil which shrouds from human gaze the future, with its direful retribution. But we may venture to say that in the brief description of our text is condensed whatever tongue can express, or thought compass, of the wretchedness which must be the portion of the lost. We do not attempt to carry the description further; we have adventured thus far only in hopes that the terrors of the future may scare some of those who, if they were this instant to die, must have these terrors for their own. Why shrink ye from our picture of the man sold to be a slave--a slave to his bitter enemy, who has long sought opportunity of indulging all the vengeance of a fierce and implacable nature? Wherefore are ye moved by this imagined wretchedness? Wherefore is the cheek pale, and wherefore the blood cold, as you fancy that you hear the clanking chain and the stifled cry, and behold the oppressor grinding down the captive? Wherefore is it? Because there is a consciousness which you cannot repress, of being in the power of one who hates you. This is supreme misery in itself, and such a finishing stroke to all others as leaves nothing for imagination to add. It is, indeed, to one who hates you that you are making yourselves slaves in following the course which the God of this world prescribes to the children of disobedience. That the devil hates you witness what he has already done to make mankind wretched. Witness a devastated earth; witness every grave; witness every tear. He was a murderer from the beginning; and to his foul machinations we owe all our woe. Oh! shall it then be that you will so live that, when you come to die, there will remain nothing but that you go down to the prison house of woe, to experience all the terribleness of the saying--a saying from which the most hardened amongst you instinctivley recoils when it is exhibited as brought to pass on earth;--the saying that when God has a vast vengeance to inflict, and a vast retribution to exact, He appoints for the guilty--what:--that they be “ delivered unto the evil of them that hate them?” (H. Melvill, B. D.) Ezekiel 16:30 How weak is thine heart, saith the Lord God, seeing thou doest all these things.The weak place Three great errors of the day will stand corrected if due attention be paid to our text. I. That a man’ s life may be irregular and yet the man’ s heart be good. Here is a man who has little or no sense of practical honesty. He thinks the very least of getting into debt without the slightest probability of ever being able to discharge his liabilities. He lives in a superior house, lives in luxury, his family dress well, give entertainments, etc. But they never trouble about paying anybody; they will fail and begin over again, that they may do the same trick. Now, people will say of such an one: “ Yes, he is sadly wanting in prudence, in discretion, in management; but really, he is as generous, good-hearted a fellow as ever lived.” But, in fact, he is nothing of the sort. Content to feed on the fruits of others’ industry, he is essentially false and cruel. Another of these good-hearted fellows is the man who won’ t work. People say of him, “ What a pity! He has a fine disposition, he ought to have been born a gentleman.” The fact is, he has made a blackguard of himself, whatever he was born; he has not a fine disposition, but, a base disposition; he lacks all that independence, self-reliance, courage which are the very essence of noble character. Another of these deceivers is the specious fellow, wanting in social purity and honour. People will speak regretfully of the escapades, the gallantries, the scandals, of what are termed the gay Lotharios; but these scoundrels are chided as if their infidelities and libertinism were simply on the surface, and, despite their licence, they are reckoned as honest, kind men of the world. Not so. Such men are profoundly selfish, cowardly, bloodguilty. Or take many intemperate men. People say: “ Fine fellow; only, his own enemy.” But that will not do. Breaking the heart of his friends, killing his wife, reducing his family to shame and wretchedness, he is altogether destitute of the qualities of honourable men. Evil conduct may assume the aspect of innocence, gaiety, greatness, but analyse it and it shall be seen to be mean, base, low, cowardly, ignoble. How weak, corrupt, vile is thine heart, seeing thou doest all these things. II. That a man’ s life may be irregular and yet the man’ s heart be strong. This is the second error to be corrected by our text. There is really weakness in all sin, most pitiful weakness no matter how cunningly it may simulate strength. Take a passionate man. He feels strong, he looks strong, his language is strong; but in truth he is weakness itself. No matter how in his wrath he affects the god, he is the mere sport of the wind. The very word “ passion” signifies the passivity of the man--not that he is the actor, but that he is being acted upon. The calm, patient man is the strong man. Take the ambitious man. He seems strong-natured, strong-willed, but real strength is wanting. A man like Napoleon seems a very incarnation of strength, but the fretfulness displayed by him on the rock of exile betrayed his essential weakness. Take a discontented man. People are ready to think that the complainings of such are signs of a large, powerful genius which frets at narrow conditions; but it is not so. Emerson says: “ Discontent is the infirmity of the will.” And this view is fully borne out by Paul: “ I have learned, in whatsoever state I am, therewith to be content . . . I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me.” Contentment is a question of strength. Take a selfish man. He is restless, daring, aggressive, assertive, grasping, and may easily be accounted a man of superior force; but one of the greatest preachers of our age has just shown us that the mightiest of all energies is the energy of unselfishness. Take a man of great animal appetites and indulgences. He thinks himself a bold, strong man, and many are disposed to think this type manly; but that is not the view of the prophet: “ How effeminate is thine heart, seeing thou doest all these things.” Carlyle says truly: “ Crabbedness, pride, obstinacy, affectation are at bottom want of strength.” The revelation of divinest strength lies in overcoming wickedness, and he who is overcome by wickedness is in soul dyspeptic, paralysed, crippled, impotent. III. That a man’ s life may be irregular and yet the man’ s heart be neutral. The third error corrected by the text. Without saying, perhaps, that a man who leads a bad life has a noble heart, or a strong one, many are prepared today to say that the man’ s heart has nothing to do with his conduct whatever. The fault is not in the thoughts, affections, will, at all. The source of man’ s conduct is boldly affirmed to be his organisation; the man has an inborn character from which he cannot escape, his general constitution determines his personal conduct. And the circumstances of the man complete the ring of necessity in which he moves. Now, in opposition to this, the text declares the heart to be originative, the prime source of mischief. The conduct of Israel in entering into alliances with Egypt and Babylon and Nineveh is not condoned on the ground of Israel occupying a peculiar geographical situation, which rendered such alliances politic and necessary in the view of worldly wisdom; nothing is said of the peculiar geographical position, but the conduct of Israel is referred at once to their lack of true faith, of noble will, of inward loyalty to their covenant-keeping God. So today God does not excuse our bad conduct on the grounds of the nature we inherit, or the events which influence us, but He attributes to the individual a full, solemn responsibility. It is false; we are not waifs and strays, the sport of winds and currents: we are ocean steamers throbbing with a mysterious independent energy; we can set winds and waves at defiance, we know in which direction lies our path, we can turn the helm whithersoever we list, and if we make shipwreck we are not blameless, as an empty bottle driven on this shore or that, but we are found guilty and condemned by God and man as men at the wheel are found disobedient, as captains are found asleep, as pilots are found drunk or presumptuous. The great need then is the renewal of the human heart. Society needs regeneration before it will permit any considerable reconstruction. Seek in the Church to strengthen the conscience, to purify the life--that is our first grand work. And as to the individual, the defects of our life must be cured in the defects of our spirit. (W. L. Watkinson.) Half-hearted men A half-and-half man, a half-and-half creed, will never meet with violent opposition or enmity from the world. Even what might be called a three-quarters man will escape without very much harm. It is the out-and-out Christian, and the out-and-out creed that the world hates. Making compromises is an old trade of Satan’ s. It is one at which he shows consummate skill; he is wilting to be large and liberal; he will concede far more than at first sight anyone would suppose; in fact, he will go so far as to say, You may be nine-tenths Christ’ s if only as regards the remaining tenth you will agree to be mine. The man of God must nail his colours to the mast, and not listen even for a moment to any terms upon which those colours are to be struck. (P. B. Power.) Ezekiel 16:48-50 Pride, fulness of head, and abundance of idleness.The conflict in a luxurious age 1. We must be on our guard against the suggestions of pride and self-complacency, by endeavouring to form as humble an estimate as possible of our own powers and works. We cannot better the world but by bettering ourselves. We cannot put down the pride of the generation in which we live, but we can mortify our own. 2. In regard of that danger which arises to the soul from living in plenty and abundance, we can regulate ourselves in our use of meats and drinks and personal indulgence, practising at certain times a holy moderation and abstinence, that we be not overcome of such delights. And as a safeguard to ourselves in this matter, let us remember the poor. It may be said that in our nation no sooner is a case of real suffering made public than contributions flow in on all sides; and yet do our public prints reveal, almost daily, abuses of the very law by which we provide for poor and indigent persons, which ought to bring to our remembrance more keenly than it does that cumulative sin of Sodom and her daughters, “ Neither did she strengthen the hands of the poor and needy.” 3. In regard of the disposition to abundance of idleness, which is increasing, I believe, daily, to which all the incidents of our national prosperity minister, and which must in the end issue in the disturbance of our tranquillity, it is not that you here can do anything to stem that torrent of self-indulgence which is flowing in upon us, especially in the lowest orders, whose tastes are the coarsest, and whose wills through ignorance are the most perverse; but you can resist the tendency to it in yourselves; you can endure this hardness at least, of girding up your loins to do the work which God has appointed for you in the world, as men who believe that it is their duty, required of them by the laws of true religion and sound morality. (T. L. Claughton, M. A.) The bread of idleness demoralising Honest work is the best employment for fallen man; and the bread of idleness breeds trouble in those that eat it. This is often illustrated in the luxuriant affluence of tropical vegetation. “ Mr. Dilke believes that the banana plant is one of the greatest curses of tropical countries, because it will support life with no labour. It grows as a weed, and hangs down its bunches of ripe tempting fruit into your lap as you lie in its cool shade. The terrible results of the plentiful possession of this tree are seen in Ceylon, at Panama, in the coast lands of Mexico, and at Auckland in New Zealand. At Pitcairn’ s island the plantain grove has beaten the missionary from the field; there is much lip Christianity, but no practice to be got from a people who possess the fatal plant. The much-abused cocoanut cannot come near it as a devil’ s agent.” Such are the results of eating the bread of idleness. (R. A. Bertram.) Idle and aimless living Some time ago I read in a paper of a gentleman being brought up before the magistrate. What was the charge against him? “ Nothing very serious,” you will say. He was found wandering in the fields. He was asked where he was going, and he said he was not going anywhere. He was asked where he came from, and he said he did not know. They asked him where his home was, and he said he had none. They brought him up for wandering as what? a dangerous lunatic. The man who has no aim or object in life, but just wanders about anywhere or nowhere, acts like a dangerous lunatic, and assuredly he is not morally sane. What! Am I aiming at nothing? Have I all this machinery of life, making up a vessel more wonderful than the finest steamboat, and am I going nowhere? My heart throbs are the pulsing of a divinely arranged machinery: do they beat for nothing? Do I get up every morning, and go about this world, and work hard, and all for nothing which will last? As a being created of God for noblest purposes, am I spending my existence in a purposeless manner? How foolish! (C. H. Spurgeon.) Prosperity tests character The soundness of a vessel is not seen when it is empty, but when it is filled with water, then we shall see whether it will leak or no. (Manton.) It is in our prosperity that we are tested. Men are not fully discovered to themselves till they are tried by fulness of success. Praise finds out the leak of pride, wealth reveals the flaw of selfishness, and learning discovers the leak of unbelief. David’ s besetting sin was little seen in the tracks of the wild goats, but it became conspicuous upon the terraces of his palace. Success is the crucible of character. Hence the prosperity which some welcome as an unmixed favour may far more rightly be regarded as an intense form of test illustrations and meditations. (C. H. Spurgeon.) The folly and danger of pride I. The sinfulness and danger of pride.1. Pride is, as far as we know, the first sin that ever was committed. It seems to have been the leading transgression in the defection of fallen angels. 2. Pride renders persons, in a special manner, hateful and abominable in the sight of God (Proverbs 8:13; James 4:6; 1 Peter 5:5). 3. Pride is productive of other sins. Hence springs covetousness (Habakkuk 2:5), persecution (Psalms 10:2), strifes and quarrels (Proverbs 13:10). 4. Pride is a destructive sin. It is a presage of the ruin of those in whom it reigns (Proverbs 16:18). It produces shame (Proverbs 11:2). Sodom (Genesis 19:24-25). Haughty Pharaoh and his hosts (Exodus 14:27-28). Haman (Esther 7:10). Nebuchadnezzar (Daniel 4:32-33). Herod (Acts 12:23). II. Some remedies against it.1. Endeavour to acquire the knowledge of your own meanness and sinfulness, and of the holiness and majesty of God; for by comparing yourselves with Him you will sink into nothing in your own esteem. 2. Be persuaded of the excellency of humility, the grace opposite to pride, and “ be clothed with it” (1 Peter 5:5). 3. Consider well the examples of humility set before you in the sacred Scriptures. Abraham, Jacob, David, Agur, Paul, and many others; yea, the holy angels fall down before the throne in lowest adoration; but, above all, the example of Jesus Christ (Philippians 2:5). 4. Understand that all your natural and acquired abilities are the gifts of God. Talents intrusted to your care and management (1 Corinthians 4:7). (Pulpit Assistant.) Idlers I. Idlers are generally careless. It is said that a stitch in time saves nine. But the idler seldom takes the stitch in time. He is careless in his habits, careless over his soul, and careless about everything. An idle man thinks any way of doing a thing will do if it gets done. He has not sufficient interest to take pains with his work. Whatever you do for Christ, do it well; because God sees your work. He not only looks on the work of stupendous magnitude which is being done by an angel; but He also sees you at your post of deacon and helper and teacher and visitor. II. Idlers are often sinful. Experience proves this. An English proverb tells us that, “ An idle brain is the devil’ s workshop,” --and it is confirmed by an old Latin proverb, which says, “ Evil thoughts intrude in an unemployed mind as naturally as worms generate in a stagnant pond.” Let me show how idle Christians become sinful. You join a church, but that is all you do for Christ; you never speak a word to the perishing, never visit the sick. Your soul is an empty spiritual house, which the devil uses as a purified workshop where he invents sinful thoughts and wicked actions. III. Idlers are always miserable. Another old English proverb tells us that, “ The used key is always bright.” But the key which hangs on the nail soon becomes rusted. And your soul will soon rust unless you employ it in good work. Do not allow yourself to be even for only half an hour without finding something useful to do. IV. Idlers soon tire of work. Some people only pray when they are compelled by misfortune. They soon tire of what is to them the task of prayer. An idle prayer gets nothing; it is like a rusted sword. V. Idlers always mean well. VI. Idlers are often of a kindly disposition. They are too lazy to be angry. But they are always ready to do a good turn, if it does not last too long. Christians belong to a life-saving institution. What would you think of the lifeboat men if they sat smoking their pipes the shore when there was a wreck crowded with human beings at the entrance of the harbour? Christians, there are human wrecks about! Come to the rescue! (W. Birch.) Idleness Of the various evils to which mankind are subject, few steal upon the soul with such fatal security, and deprive us at once of dignity, of happiness, and virtue, as Idleness. To active crimes that annoy the peace of others, even the most hardened sinner is forced to be awake; but against the still, corroding vices of the heart, that chiefly affect ourselves, we are seldom guarded, except by the voluntary exercise of our own reason, or the friendly admonitions of others.1. If we look up to the great Creator, as to the source of all perfections, and contemplate His wisdom and His goodness in His works, we shall find that no living example of Idleness or inactivity is ordained by His Providence. All seem “ working together,” and gradually fulfilling some wise and beneficent purpose, which He has appointed. While the face of nature presents us with this general scene of action, shall man remain, in contradiction to the will of heaven, in the rest and sloth of Idleness? Nothing could degrade him more in that scale of being in which he was intended to hold so distinguished a rank. There are active duties allotted to every human being; and the fulfilling of them with cheerfulness and diligence should form no inconsiderable portion of our happiness. While some are assiduously providing for their own household, by following their respective avocations, others may be engaged in laudable attempts to extend the boundaries of science, and to increase the comforts of social life;--while many are anxiously employed in protecting the helplessness of infancy, and in forming the manners of childhood, a few, whom fortune has placed above these humble duties, might fill the offices of state with advantage; and, by their industry, their virtues, and their wisdom, greatly contribute to the general welfare. 2. In a state of indolence are engendered many evils and many sorrows. Among the lower classes of the community Idleness is productive of misery and guilt in every varied form. The ties of every duty, indeed, will be but slightly felt by him who gives himself up to Idleness. His predominant vice gradually undermines his principles, and spreads licentiousness through his character. If a man of this description have a family, all bred up under the contagious influence of his vices, it is impossible to tell how far and wide the stream of corruption will spread. So much is Idleness to be dreaded in its consequences when it infects the poor. If we consider those of middle life, who might be said to possess the object of Agur’ s prayer, and to have “ neither poverty nor riches,” we shall perceive the same vice diffusing its miseries. Under the pleasing delusion of comfort and of ease we may observe some quitting the active scenes of life, which habit had rendered familiar, and almost natural, in pursuit of happiness in retirement. But it is not every mind that is formed or prepared for the enjoyment of solitude. A languid discontent and a peevish neglect of ordinary comforts soon lead to sensuality and excess of every kind. Self-indulgence is the last idol of the heart; and the short remnant of life is often divided between the feebleness or pain of disease and the stupors of intoxication. To those who may not be in danger of gross and sensual vices, Idleness still brings with it distresses that ought to be dreaded. If temptation from the body should be resisted, it seldom fails to fasten on the mind. The human frame is so constituted as to require frequent alternations of action and of rest. The animal functions cannot be properly performed without them; and how these affect the mind is well known. It may be remarked, however, that even excess of labour is not so injurious as excess of ease. Idleness, indeed, completely disqualifies us for every rational enjoyment. One chief pleasure in human life is the blessing of repose after fatigue; or the relaxation of amusements, either solitary or social, after labour. But these, to the idle, are like food to one whose appetite is already cloyed. 3. Let me earnestly exhort you, therefore, to guard against a vice, whose pernicious influence is so extensive, and whose consequences ought to be so much dreaded. Whatever be your situation, reason and religion will point out to you some scheme of duties appropriated to it, which it should be at once your interest and pleasure to fulfil. Life abounds also with such frequent opportunities of doing good, or improving time, that no part of the small portion which remains should be squandered away in trifles; for, next to the vice of Idleness, is that of employing time amiss. It is fortunate, indeed, for the generality, that many of the active duties are forced on them by necessity: for those who have it in their power to do what they please, always do the least; and soon find the ardour of voluntary pursuits gradually subside, till it is wholly lost in a passion for pleasure, or the love of ease. (J. Hewlett, B. D.) Ezekiel 16:51-52 Neither hath Samaria committed half thy sins.Sinners compared The sins of one people may be greater than the sins of another; all sins are not equal, nor all sinners equally guilty. Jerusalem’ s sins exceeded Samaria’ s and Sodom’ s; they were not half so great sinners as she was. The more mercies any people enjoy, the greater are their sins if they answer not those mercies. Christians’ sins will be found the scarlet and unparallelable sins.2. Comparing of sins and sinners together, makes great sins seem little and great sinners seem righteous. Great things when they are exceeded by greater in view, they seem little; a great house is nothing to a great rock, a great mountain or city; a great river is nothing to the ocean; so a great heap of sins is as nothing to a greater; what is a cartful of dung to a great dunghill? And as it is in quantities, so in qualities: some poisons are so poisonous, so strong, that they kill immediately; others, though more in quantity, yet are longer in producing such an effect, and in comparison they are no poisons; so some sins and sinners compared with others, are as none. Luke 18:14, the publican went down to his house justified rather than the Pharisee: this Pharisee compared himself with the publican, and thought himself righteous; but the publican in comparison of him was righteous. Take heed therefore of comparing yourselves with others who are worse and greater sinners than you, and from thence of framing a righteousness to yourselves notwithstanding. Sodom and Samaria were less sinners, more righteous than Jerusalem, yet you know how God dealt with them, and destruction will be the end of all those who trust to such righteousness. 3. Great sinners see not, or forget their own sins, and are apt to censure, judge, and condemn others who are less sinful than themselves, and especially when they are under the hand of God. 4. It is a shame for those who are guilty of the same or greater sins to judge others. 5. Sin brings shame. What a shame was it to Jerusalem that she was a greater sinner than Samaria, than Sodom; that she did such things as made the daughters of the Philistines ashamed of her (verse 27). Shame is the lackey that waits upon sin, and causeth the conscience to blush as well as the face (Proverbs 14:34): sin is a reproach to nations. 6. Shame in itself, or as it accompanies the judgments of God upon sinners, is a burdensome thing. “ Bear thine own shame,” reproach, disgrace. 7. Sinners must bear the judgments of God, and the shame that is due unto them, whoever they be. “ Thou also,” even thou Jerusalem, “ bear thine own shame.” (W. Greenhill, M. A.) Degrees of sin He that will not be persuaded to leap down from an high chamber at once, cometh willingly down by the stairs; and yet the declining degrees of his winding descent make it not less downward to him, but less perceived of him. His leap might have brought him down sooner; it could not have brought him down lower. As I am then fearful to act great sins, so I will be careful to avoid small sins. He that contemns a small fault commits a great one. I see many drops make a shower; and what difference is it whether I be wet either in the rain or in the river, if both be to the skin? There is small benefit in the choice whether we go down to hell by degrees or at once. (A. Warwick.) Shame ever attendant on sin Manton says: “ The conscience of a sinner is like a clock, dull, calm, and at rest, when the weights are down; but when wound up, it is full of motion.” Sometimes God winds up conscience in this life, and then it works vigorously, and strikes the time of day in the sinner’ s ears. Shame attends his sin, and he trembles in secret, A dreadful sound is in his ears, and like the troubled sea he cannot rest. This is far better than a dead calm. Alas, in many cases the clock runs down, conscience is again still, and the man returns to his false peace. Of all states this is most dangerous. (C. H. Spurgeon.) Ezekiel 16:53-54 That thou mayest . . . be confounded in all that thou hast done.The humiliation of success The argument of this passage is very original. The prophet reaches past all limitations to the universal grace of God, and not so much by way of revelation as of inference. He has spoken of Israel’ s past--how like a newborn child it was thrown out, the prey of any passer-by. God’ s mercy found it, and reared it to strength--filling all the years with His goodness, but the nation answered with disloyalty, wanton and flagrant. In spite of chastisement and in spite of grace she sought the lowest; and in Ezekiel’ s day, stripped of wealth and power and land, a disgraced and abandoned people, Israel seemed to have come back to where she was in the beginning when God found her. Is the story to be repeated without alteration? Ezekiel looks at the nations around, kindred in blood and language and custom, partners also in sin, and he sees that either all must perish together or all must come in together. And as he knows that God cannot cast off His people, his instincts of justice assure him that in bringing Israel back God must bring Sodom back, the most sunken and the most execrable of the race, and yet not so sunken as Israel. Sodom and Samaria, and such as they, must be pardoned for the sake of a city worse than themselves. It is substitution upside down. If there is room found in God’ s mercy for Jerusalem, there must be for Sodom, and Sodom may come covered by the blackness of Jerusalem’ s guilt. Our text is one point in the conclusion; it is the humiliation of success. Jerusalem brings in her train the evil cities in a day of jubilation--a day of the growth of the kingdom of God; but she herself is humbled, because everything reminds her of her sin. I wish to speak of the sobering and humbling quality of even the smallest success, which makes it a means of grace to those who enjoy it aright.1. From the greatness of the work itself. Whatever view we may take of human nature, it must seem to us a great work to bring a man to God--to establish in him a new kingdom of desire and hope, so that he whose heart was narrow now regards the world with Christ’ s eyes. That is a great work. It is the beginning of hope, the beginning of usefulness, and it is the end of sin. And constantly this great work is done by men: an impulse is given, a word spoken, a truth pressed. The more personal in this sense the impulse is, the deeper is the humiliation of the originator of it. He feels how little he has done, how feebly he has spoken; he has only flung words at One radiant idea of which he caught sight, and which he has not expressed. His work, he knows, has been so erring, so partial, so spasmodic, and God has sent this reward. On the one side, you feel how simple and how near such results are, that but for your indolence and inexpectancy they might have been more than they are; on the other, you know that, simple as they are, they are by the diameter of worlds out of your reach. It is not I that live, but Christ who lives in me; it is not I who work, but God. But whilst we cast upon God the burden, we must not miss the purifying efficacy of success. Of course, it is God who works; but it is also you or I. It is your idiosyncrasy, your peculiarity of temper, your happy knack which accounts for the immediate result. And it is just as you do set all you have against this result that you see the want of measure between them, and you are ashamed because of all you have done, in that you are a comfort to men. 2. Seeing self in another. We wish for men that they might see themselves as others see them, which is one inference of self-deceiving. We do not know how our qualities look, for custom and self-love blind us. We scarcely suspect how much alike we are until we think a man speaking in a certain way is describing us, whilst probably he is describing himself. The story is told of a ruffled baronet who complained to George Meredith of having been put into his “ Egoist” as the egoistic hero. “ I had no thought of you; I thought of myself--of us all,” is the answer reported. And as we do not know our likeness to men we turn from, we do not know our own ugliness. In this very chapter Ezekiel exhibits a thought of this kind. The Jews pointed with loathing at Sodom; the name of it had become proverbial, because God had blotted it out. It at least is worse than we; we may fairly shrink from that as a lower depth of which we know nothing, to which we have no proclivity. And the prophet says, What was the sin of Sodom? (verse 49). Behold this was its iniquity--pride, fulness of head, and prosperous ease, and she did not strengthen the hand of the poor and needy. There is nothing exceptional in it, nothing in Sodom which is not in you, he says. You meet with an ignorance, wilful and self-complacent; you struggle in another against that spiritual stupidity to which every worldly advantage is apparent, and to which none but a worldly advantage can be demonstrated. You find your efforts for some man thwarted by his intense sensuality, or by his doubleness and suspicion. You cannot advance, you cannot outwit his cunning or convince him of your sincerity. That stagnant and slumberous humour you cannot awake. To that pure animalism it is hopeless to speak of the glory of Christ. It is painful, disappointing, wearisome; but you come to know in striving with them what these things mean--sensuality, sloth, anger, envy: to many of us they are the too severe names of pleasant vices. But when for some man’ s good you set yourself to free him from them, you realise the ugliness, the tenacious and wasting energy of them. And at the same time you see yourself. It is myself I am fighting in that man: these are my faults. It is in that real dealing with men that we come to understand the humour of a saint who could say of an abandoned criminal, There, but for the grace of God, am I. 3. It is a discovery of the meaning of the grace shown to us. When habit has made a certain level of conduct easy, or when our past shows no heights or depths, we may easily imagine, that the work of grace was not very great in us. We were almost born Christians, born and baptized and bred in Christian homes, with ample knowledge and wise restraint and sedulous training. Not far from the kingdom of God at any time, we were lightly and easily brought within it. In strong contrast is another life, gone far astray, full of heat and passion, in which the lights burn sullenly: a man lost to decency, to hope, to God--what have you to say to him whose life has run in so orderly and honourable a course? Out of the depths he looks with some faint gleam of hope to you as you talk of Christ. What can you say to him? I never was very bad, and God has mercifully pardoned the little wrong there was: is that all you know? The occasion widens your heart. You want to help him, and that eager desire sends your thoughts back into God’ s dealing with you. For the first time you know your sin; it was very great--the Pharisee’ s sin an isolating, loveless self-complacency--and God came to me. Then you can say in answer, Your sin is not mine wholly; our lots have been different, and our temptations, and our falls; but God abundantly pardoned me, and He will pardon you. (W. M’Macgregor, M. A.) In that thou art a comfort unto theme--How saints may help the devil I. The acts of many of Christ’ s followers have been the cause of justifying and comforting sinners in their evil ways.1. The daily inconsistencies of the people of God have much to do in this matter. (1) The covetousness of too many Christians has had this effect. “ Look,” says the worldling, “ this man professes that his inheritance is above, and that his affection is set not on things on earth, but on the things of heaven; but look at him: he is just as earnest as I am about the things of this world; he can drive the screw home as tightly with his debtor as I can; he can scrape and cut with those that deal with him quite as keenly as ever I have done.” (2) Another point in which the sinner often excuses himself is the manifest worldliness of many Christians. You say yon are crucified to the world, and the world to you: it is a very merry sort of crucifixion. (3) Look, too, at the manifest pride of many professors of religion. What., then, do worldlings say? “ You accuse us of pride; you are as proud as we are. You the humble followers of Jesus, who washed His saints’ feet? Not you; no, you would have no objection, we doubt not, to be washed by others, but we do not think it likely that you would ever wash ours. You the disciples of the fishermen of Galilee? Not you; you are too fine and great for that. Accuse us not of pride; why, you are as stiff-necked a generation as we ourselves are.” (4) I might mention another sad fact with regard to the Church which often stings us sorely,--the various enmities and strifes and divisions that arise. 2. Now, it is my mournful duty to go a step further. It is not merely these inconsistencies, but the glaring crimes of some professed disciples, that have greatly assisted sinners in sheltering themselves from the attacks of the Word of God. Every now and then the cedar falls in the midst of the forest. 3. How often do the people of God comfort sinners in their sins by their murmurings and complaints. 4. Perhaps the greatest evil has been done by the cold-heartedness and indifference of religious professors. II. The consequences of this evil.1. How often have you and I helped to keep sinners easy in their sin, by our inconsistency! 2. Do you not think that very often, when a sinner’ s conscience has been roused, you and I have helped to give it a soporific draught by our coldness of heart? 3. Is it not possible that often sinners have been strengthened in their sin by you? They were but beginning in iniquity, and had you rebuked with honesty and sincerity, by your own holy life, they might have been led to see their folly, and might have ceased from sin; but you have strengthened their hands. “ So-and-so is not more scrupulous than I,” says such an one; “ I may do what he does.” 4. Nay, is it not possible that some of you Christians have helped to confirm men in their sins, and to destroy their souls? It is a masterpiece of the devil, when he can use Christ’ s own soldiers against Christ. But this he has often done. III. Bring out the great battering ram, to bear against this vain excuse of the wicked.1. What hast thou to do with the inconsistencies of another? “ To his own master he shall stand or fall.” Thou wilt be punished for thine own offences, remember, not for the offences of another. Man! I conjure thee, look this in the face. How can this help to assuage thy misery? How can this help to make thee happier in hell, because thou sayest there are so many hypocrites in this world? 2. But besides, thou knowest well enough that the Church is not so bad as thou sayest it is. Thou seest some that are inconsistent; but are there not many that are holy? There would be no hypocrites if there were not some true men. It is the quantity of true men that helps to pass off the hypocrite in the crowd. 3. Then again, I say, when thou comest before the bar of God, dost thou think that this will serve thee as an excuse, to begin to find fault with God’ s own children? The rather this shall be an addition to thy sin, and thou shalt perish the more fearfully. 4. But come, man, once again: I would entreat of thee with all my might. What! canst thou be so foolish as to imagine, that because another man is destroying his own soul by hypocrisy, that this is a reason why thou shouldst destroy thine by indifference? (C. H. Spurgeon.) Comfort to Sodom What is the meaning of this text? Jerusalem is said to have been a comfort to Sodom and Samaria; and this is mentioned as if it were a fault. Are we not bidden to love even our enemies, and to do good even to them that hate us; and can it then be wrong to be a comfort even to the worst of mankind,--even to Samaria and Sodom? Yes, in such a case as this it is wrong to be a comfort to a bad man or a bad city; because in such a case it is the very reverse of a kind turn to be a comfort to them. It is doing harm to them, and not doing good to them, to be a comfort in this particular way. For Jerusalem had been a comfort to Sodom and Samaria, in such a manner as had encouraged them in their sins. Now, I am sure you will all readily see that there is a great and important principle suggested to us by the text. You know, every Christian is solemnly bound to do all he can to make other men Christians. The knowledge of the Gospel is not a thing which a man may have, and without blame keep to himself. And just as blessed and happy a thing as it is to bring another soul to the belief of the Gospel,--so wretched and wicked and fearful a thing is it when a man who bears the Christian name lives in such a way as positively encourages those around him to contemn and disbelieve Christianity.1. There is one obvious way in which professing Christians may do this, which we mention only to pass it by, in the hope that none of us who bear even the Christian name are so sorely and shamefully guilty. This is the way in which we understand from the prophet that Jerusalem was a comfort to Sodom; and that was, by being actually as bad as Sodom itself. Would not every swearer and drunkard and liar in the parish quiet his conscience, with the reflection that he was no worse than that wicked professor of religion? Would not such a man be a comfort to all the Sodoms and Samarias in the district? It is easy to say, and it is true to say, that religion is a thing that must be judged of on the ground of its own merits, and quite apart from the conduct of those who profess to believe in it; yet, illogical as it may be, foolish and wrong as it may be, the mass of mankind will always encourage themselves in sinfulness when they find professing Christians going on in sin. 2. If any sincere Christian is present in a company where what is sinful is said or done, and if he permits it to pass without remark, or even appears tacitly to approve it, I do not see how he can clear himself from the charge of having been “ a comfort to Sodom.” The apparent approval of one true and earnest Christian--even the very humblest in worldly rank--will have more influence to comfort the wicked man,--to keep his mind easy, and his conscience asleep,--than the loudest declarations of his own wicked associates that he is a fine fellow and has done nothing wrong. And I am not forgetting the restraints which the usages of civilised society impose upon our telling a man to his face what is our opinion of his conduct. The Christian is not called upon to go up to a man and tell him that he is a bad man, merely because he thinks he is one. There is a silent, unobtrusive disapproval, by which the humblest may be a check upon the highest; there is a silent, unobtrusive disapproval, expressed without words or demonstration of manner, one can hardly tell how, which even the most hardened sinner will find it very hard, very uncomfortable, to bear. 3. Another way in which a Christian may so act as to encourage and comfort an irreligious man in his godless ways is by seeking his society and acquaintance; showing him that you think him a congenial spirit, and that you feel it pleasant to be with him. How can he think,” the unbeliever will judge,--“ How can he think that I am going to hell! Is it possible that he should like to be the companion of my walks,--to interchange thought and feeling with me,--to discuss great questions with me,--perhaps often to jest and laugh with me;--and all the while believe and know that, as sure as there is a God above us, I am going down to hell!” Don’ t you see now what eternal damage you who are Christians may do an unbelieving neighbour? Let them feel that you dare not make those too dear, from whom the grave must part you forever! See that you be not a “ comfort” to them! 4. I go on to mention, as a way in which Christians may encourage and countenance ungodly men in their doings,--the cherishing a worldly spirit,--being as eager for worldly advantage, and as unscrupulous as to the means by which it may be attained, as men who make no Christian profession. And, alas! my friends, how much of this them is among professing Christians! Do not many who bear the Christian name show that they are far more eager to get on in life than to prepare for immortality? Is there not as much vanity and pride and grasping at gain and self-seeking and contemptible worshipping of rank and wealth,--even when completely dissociated from worth and goodness,--among many professing Christians and Christian ministers, as in any class of men? The sharp bargain made by the communicant may do worse than levy an unfair tax upon his neighbour’ s pocket: it may damage his neighbour’ s soul! It may set him up to “ go and do likewise!” It may lead him to think that there is no difference between the Christian and the worldly man at all! 5. I shall mention just one way more, in which a Christian may incur the condemnation pronounced in the text: this is, by never in any way warning his neighbour that he fears or knows he is not a Christian. I daresay some of you have some idea that it would be intruding into the priestly office were you to set yourselves to the work of bringing souls to Christ. But if you saw a friend manifestly stricken by fever or consumption, would it not be your duty to warn him, although you are not a physician? If you saw a friend drowning, would it not be your duty to try to save him, although you are not a member of the Humane Society? If a man be really in earnest about religion he will never bear the sight of a human being whom he daily sees and talks with going to eternal ruin, without a word of warning or advice! It is possible enough he may not like to listen to your warning words; it is possible enough you may make yourself an annoyance and a discomfort to him: he may think you are his “ enemy, because you tell him the truth” ; but oh! better, better that than to be a comfort to one to whom comfort is the anodyne that will drug to death, to whom comfort is the stream that will bear on to perdition! I have heard of one who on his deathbed said that if, as he humbly trusted, he had been led to yield himself to his Saviour, and so to find hope in death, it was by the simple and solemn warning of one in whom simple earnestness and heartfelt piety gave force to the words of early youth, unsophisticated and sincere. (A. K. H. Boyd, D. D.) Ezekiel 16:62-63I will establish My covenant with thee. God’ s pardoning mercy I. The way in which God reveals His pardoning mercy. “ I will establish My covenant with thee.” The covenant of grace is the grand repository of the redemption of man. It comprehends all the items, all the particulars of Christ Jesus our Lord, in His person, His name, and all the characters and offices He has fulfilled in the work of man’ s redemption--which holds up all the effects of that work, all the fruits of that love, all the blessings of that redemption, and withal tracing it in all its refined ramifications to the covenant of grace. II. The character in which He thus reveals it. “ Thou shalt know that I am the Lord.” Thus to know the Lord is to know Him as a covenant God--to know Him as a God in Jesus Christ. God out of Christ is a consuming fire--I dare not approach Him but in Christ. I find Him to be a God of sympathy and compassion, because I find God in my nature is the very High Priest who intercedeth for sinners. God in my nature can be touched with the feeling of my infirmities, and knows how to sympathise with me. It is in this character as God in Christ that He reveals the blessings of His salvation. III. The effect that is produced on the heart by this pardoning mercy. “ That thou mayest remember, and be confounded,” etc. If there is not a more pure or a more exalted motive to obedience than the love of God, there is not a more powerful motive to walking in the ways of God, than the assurance of His pardoning love and mercy. How quickly does it excite the attention of a poor trembling sinner to hear the sound of mercy, when he knows that that sound comes from God who can pardon! (J. Holloway.) The lasting covenant I. What this covenant is, as revealed to a people among the Jews in the youthful period of that nation. Now, then, “ nevertheless,” notwithstanding all this heathenism, “ I will remember My covenant with thee in the days of thy youth.” The covenant was made with a people among the Jews in the youthful time of that nation. First, in the 3rd verse of the 12th of Genesis, the Lord said to Abraham--and that was the infancy, the commencement of the nation,--“ In thee shall all families of the earth be blessed” ; which is afterwards explained to mean that in Jesus Christ shall all families of the earth be blessed. That is God’ s covenant. Now, just look at the suitability of this. It is in Christ Jesus. What is it that we need? Why, the very first thing that every man needs is a Saviour. We are by sin lost. And so, in the very first chapter of Matthew, “ Thou shalt call His name Jesus, for He shall save His people from their sins.” Here, then, this covenant is nothing else but a positive engagement on the Lord’ s part to bring about eternal salvation. He has done that. And how suited this is! suited not only in itself, but in its manner--that “ whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved” ; that is, brought to see what Jesus Christ is as the Mediator of this covenant. Let your confidence be in His person, in His righteousness, in His atonement, and in the promises that are by Him; and if you can do nothing else but go on from time to time with “ Lord, save me; Lord, have mercy upon me; Lord, look upon me; Lord, teach me; Lord, direct me” ;--if you have these desires, together with an acquaintance with the Lord Jesus Christ, in whom the blessings are, then thou wilt not be lost, for “ whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.” II. How this covenant is an everlasting covenant. The covenant the Lord made with the Jews, that He was to be their God, and that they were to have the land of Canaan, and the great advantages of national distinction, as described in the Word of God--Leviticus, Deuteronomy, and many other places--they were to continue to enjoy all these on the ground of their conformity to that covenant; they were to continue in the purity of it. But instead of this they forsook God’ s covenant, threw down His altars, the altar of sacrifice and the altar of incense; and the next thing, of course, was to slay those prophets and ministers that preached even this national covenant. There was no righteousness belonging to that temporal covenant that was eternal, and that could therefore perpetuate the covenant. There was no sacrifice in that covenant that could take away sin, and that could consequently perpetuate that covenant. If the people apostatised, or gave way, then everything was gone. But here the Lord says, “ I will establish unto thee an everlasting covenant.” Here is a testamentary will wherein God has willed everything by Christ Jesus. Now, Jesus Christ has brought in everlasting righteousness, for His righteousness is everlasting, and this perpetuates the covenant. This covenant and the promises cannot fail while Christ’ s righteousness remains what it is; and as His atonement is perfect, and He has perfected forever all them that are sanctified, here it is the covenant is perpetuated. It must remain. III. The note of time. Now, when you are brought to receive this covenant, there is a certain temper of mind. “ Then thou shalt remember thy ways, and be ashamed.” Saul of Tarsus, before he was brought to this covenant, remembered his ways and was delighted. (J. Walls.) That thou mayest remember, and be confounded, and never open thy mouth any more, because of thy shame. The heart full and the mouth closed I. Review the blessed condition into which every believer in the Lord Jesus Christ has been brought by the sovereign act of God’ s mercy. The Hebrew word which here sets forth forgiveness and pardon properly signifies to cover a thing with that which adheres and sticks to the thing covered; not with dry dust or leaves, which could be easily removed, but with glue or pitch, so that the thing hidden cannot easily be brought to sight again. O believer, God is pacified towards you, for your sin is covered; it is put away, all of it, and altogether. Since you have believed in Jesus Christ your sin has not become dimly visible, neither by searching may it be seen as a shadow in the distance, but God seeth it no more forever. God is pacified towards His people, for all that they have done, altogether pacified, for their sins have ceased to be. And this is not occasionally true, but always true, not only so in happier moments, when we enjoy a sense of it, but always, whether we have a sense of it or not. At all times, in the dark as well as in the light, in down castings as well as in upliftings, the Lord is pacified towards His people. I would to God that the Lord’ s people grasped this more fully, and lived in the power of it more completely. May God grant we may! There is peace, there is nothing but peace, between my soul and God. Oh, what a joyous thought this is! Grasp it, Christian, and let your spirit exult in it. And all this, remember, is written in our text concerning a people who had plunged into wondrous sins. The greatness of the sin reveals the greatness of the redeeming sacrifice, and the direful nature of the disease declares the infinity of that Physician’ s skill who is able to put it all away. II. What we have learned in the process of reaching this peaceful standing.1. First, we have learned salvation by a covenant. The thought is charming, for we were lost by a covenant. Here, then, was the way to restore us again. As we sinned representatively, it was possible for us to satisfy the law by a representative. Here was the opening for the way of salvation. By a second covenant head man may be redeemed, and therefore Jesus Christ comes, the second Adam, and God makes a covenant with Him, which covenant runs thus--“ If He will bear the penalty of sin--if He will keep the law, then, all that are in Him shall be delivered from every sin, and the righteousness of the second Adam shall be imputed to them, and they shall be loved and blessed as if they were righteous.” Oh, matchless mystery of love! 2. The next thing we have learned while reaching our happy condition of peace with God is the lesson that Jehovah is indeed God. “ Thou shalt know that I am the Lord.” To be saved in a way that makes us know that God is God is to be taught aright. That God is God is easy to say but hard to know. (1) I have learned His justice, and if ever I hear men talking about the injustice of everlasting punishment for sin, I have found no echo in my conscience to that observation, because, if I could be lifted up into God’ s place, I feel that the very first thing I should have to do would be to eternally condemn such a guilty thing as I myself have been and am. I feel it. (2) I have also been made to learn His sovereignty. This I know, that He is God, and doeth as He pleases with His grace. (3) And oh, how we have to learn His power. “ Who but Thyself could have chained my imperious passions and broken the iron yoke from off my neck?” (4) Above all, we learn that precious word, “ God is love” ; but there is no understanding it until you are actually broken down under a sense of sin, and are led to see that your sin deserves the hottest hell. 3. We have learned ourselves. To remember and to be confounded--that is not comfortable. Who likes to remember and be confounded? Once you could have found twenty excuses, and had your choice out of them; but now that the Lord has forgiven you, you cannot find one, and as you turn them all up--those old excuses of yours--those fig leaves of yours, with which you once hoped to cover your nakedness, you despise them, and think you never saw such flimsy things. III. The silence which is forever induced. “ Thou shalt never open thy mouth any more because of thy shame.” If any man who believes himself to have been moral and sinless will only begin to look at the reasons why he has been so innocent, and search himself, he will often discover that inside all that purity of his there has been a mass of pride, self-conceit, self-seeking, indifference to God, and every detestable thing. When the Lord shows the man all this, and casts him down into the ditch till he abhors himself, and then cleanses him in the precious blood till he is pacified towards Him, he will never open his mouth about that matter any more. Neither will a man who has been cleansed in this way open his mouth any more against Divine sovereignty. He is the man above all others who loves to hear of God as absolute. He knows how gracious, how strong, how truly good He is. So, also, this way of salvation shuts a man’ s mouth as to all murmuring and complaining against God upon any score whatever; for, saith he, “ If the Lord has pardoned me, let Him do what He wills with me.” (C. H. Spurgeon.) Humiliation and reconciliation I. The first doctrine in our text is that of humiliation. It is no small mercy for us that we are allowed to distinguish between the voice of God’ s law and the voice of God’ s gospel. Hence the Apostle Paul saith, “ We know that what things soever the law saith, it saith to them who are under the law; that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God.” Now, the humility here that clothes us with confusion of face and with shame in our own estimation, this humility is a real internal grace of the Holy Spirit, and not a mere put-on thing. It is not a mere humility of manner, though that is very good and useful in its place; but it is a vital, real humility, arising from what is felt within. Now, the law of God is spiritual, always spiritual. Are you? The Christian cannot, he dare not, say that he is always spiritual; but thank God he is not under the law, but under grace, where the spirituality of One who is perfect is set to his account. But to the natural man we say, The law is always spiritual, you are always carnal; the law is always holy, you are always unholy; the law is always good, you are always evil; the law is always just, you are always unjust; the law is always upright, and you are always as deceitful as the devil. Your heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked. When thou seest the law to be thus spiritual, thou wilt remember thy foolish ways, how thou hast sinned against the Lord. You have not one reason to assign why the Lord should show mercy to you, or show you any favour whatever. Now, can you say this is the case? II. The reconciliation. Now, “ what the law saith it saith to them that are under the law.” Satan is our enemy; sin is our enemy; take both these in one. Without sin being put away by Jesus Christ, and Satan conquered by Jesus Christ--without this everything is against us; but when this is done, things then are made to take that wonderful turn that everything is in our favour by faith. Those of us that know thus our condition, we do most solemnly, most firmly and understandingly, and we can say lovingly, sincerely, and decisively, believe in what Jesus Christ hath done. We see by what He hath done all the sins of which we are the subjects put away, and we are delivered from them all. We are no longer reckoned sinners, but saints; no longer reckoned enemies, but friends--“ Abraham My friend” ;--and so the Lord’ s people are the seed of Abraham, and are God’ s friends by faith in what Jesus Christ has done. And so great is the change He has wrought that now the Lord doth not behold iniquity in Jacob, nor see perverseness in Israel. (J. Wells.) The effect of God’ s mercy on, the renewed soul I. The extent of man’ s wickedness. I. Give a brief summary of the chapter; mark how this image was applicable to Judah and Jerusalem; to us also it may be applied. II. The exceeding riches of God’ s grace; vile as the Jews had been, He promised to restore them to favour. This promise is no doubt to be extended to us. II. The effect of this grace upon every soul of man. It is thought by some calculated to puff up pride and conceit in all who receive it. But this is--1. Contrary to reason;2. Contrary to fact. Remember-- (1) Your covenant mercies;(2) Your covenant engagements. (C. Simeon, M. A.) The silence of penitents This is plainly a prophecy of the way in which the remnant of Judah shall be saved in the last days after the fulness of the Gentiles has come in. Some believe it to mean that in the awful times of Antichrist the Christian Jews shall be the heroes of the faith and the bulwark of the Church. Others have seen in the chapter the reunion of Christendom. However interesting these interpretations may be, we cannot overlook the extraordinary language of the last verse, which points out the frame of mind appropriate to the redeemed Jew, or whosoever shall stand for the figurative Jerusalem in those final days of this world. It is being confounded, and never cloning the mouth, because of shame. There can be no doubt that we are all too much disposed to underrate the exceeding shamefulness of wilful transgression against the light. There are those, indeed, who would eliminate the exercises of penance altogether from the Christian system. They hold that to expect a man to do penance for his sins after they have been forgiven him by our Lord is to take away from the perfection of His atonement, to limit the possibilities of His grace. But there is also to be considered the temporal punishment due for sin that justice may be satisfied and the world governed righteously. What right-minded soul does not yearn to make up in such wise as it can for past acts of coldness and disobedience? Suppose a son that has been estranged from his mother for years, has neglected her, thought hardly of her, perhaps spoken against her. And then after a long season he is brought back to her again, to find her poor and old and wellnigh helpless, going down to the grave uncared for and unloved save by strangers. The old love of early life comes back to him. Now he counts nothing too hard to do for her: he watches her day by day to find out in what small ways he may lighten her heavy burden and brighten her few remaining years. He knows this does not make up for the past,--only her dear pardon so generously given can do that; but it is all the reparation he can make, and he strives with his whole nature to make it. In like manner the true penitent knows that he cannot give back to God the love and obedience withheld so many years as one might pay back the money he had stolen; but at least he can show that he truly grieves for those years of sin, and has the heart to undo them had he but the power. When, therefore, we consider the relation of love in which we stand to Almighty God, and the duty of obedience which we know so well, we must acknowledge that only ignorance or thoughtlessness can make the penitent all full of joy without intermingling of pain. There is also another aspect of the matter. This consciousness of one’ s own shame, which belongs to the life of true penitence, must materially affect our judgments of our fellows. If when we are most earnest and stern voiced in rebuking our fellows we could be suddenly brought face to face with the words of this text, do you think we should not be silenced by them? What are we that we should sit in judgment upon our fellow men? Have we not sinned as grievously as any of them; or if not outwardly, when our greater light and opportunities of grace are taken into account, is there much in our favour? This is by no means to say that we ought not to denounce sin, and to stand out for the very highest type of Christian living. We are to be absolutely inflexible in maintaining in all points the doctrine of Christ our Lord. But when it comes to passing judgment upon individual sinners, let us not lose sight of the solemn words put by God in the mouth of the prophet concerning penitent Jerusalem. How can the Christian who has any vivid consciousness of his own past speak uncharitably of his neighbours and sharply condemn their failings, not making allowance for their circumstances and temptations; ay, often not even considering his own probable ignorance of some of the facts about which he so sternly speaks? What if our Master had judged us as we judge and had not pardoned us instead? Even when we have learned in some measure to control our tongues and lips, how often do we find rising up in our souls the self-righteousness of the Pharisee. What a hateful thing it is! How unlike the spirit of our gracious Master? Is there no way in which it may be conquered, and banished from our souls? I think there is a way. It is that of daily calling to mind, and that not perfunctorily but very thoroughly, the many evil things in our past lives of which we have repented and for which we have received God’ s pardon. (Arthur Ritchie.) . Ezekiel 17:1-10 Son of man, put forth a riddle, and speak a parable unto the house of Israel.Prophecy in parable The word “ riddle” may in this connection mean parable, picture, symbol; whatever will excite and interest the imagination. If the zephyr has not voice enough to arrest us, God will employ the thunder; if the little silvery streamlet, hurrying through its green banks, has nothing to say to us, the great floods shall lift up their voices and compel us to attend. Who will say there is only one way of preaching, teaching, educating young men? There are a thousand ways: what we want is that a young man shall say when his way is not being adopted. This will suit a good many: God bless the teacher in this effort; he is not now speaking to me, but to persons who can understand that way alone; let heaven’ s grace make hearts tender as he unravels his parable, as he takes up his harp and discourses upon its sweet, mysterious music. When a preacher is setting forth riddle and parable, the man who falsely thinks himself a logician--for there can only be a logician once in a generation--should pray that the parable may be blessed. When the preacher or teacher is seeking by hard, strong argument to force home a truth, those who live on wings should carry themselves as high as possible that they may bring down a larger, riper blessing upon the teacher and his method. This is God’ s administration: this is the many-coloured robe of providence with which He would clothe our naked shoulders. What has come to us--a riddle, a parable, a dream, a process of logic, a historical induction? Take God’ s gift, and through it find the Giver. (J. Parker, D. D.) Truth taught through the imagination The imagination is the grand organ whereby truth can make successful approaches to the mind. Some preachers deal much with the passions: they attack the hopes and fears of men; but this is a very different thing from the right use of the imagination, as the medium of impressing truth. Jesus Christ has left perfect patterns of this way of managing men; but it is a distinct talent, and a talent committed to very few. It is an easy thing to move the passions: a rude, blunt, illiterate attack may do this; but to form one new figure for the conveyance of truth to the mind is a difficult thing. The world is under no small obligation to the man who forms such a figure . . . The figure of Jesus Christ (the Parables) sink into the mind, and leave there the indelible impress of the truth which they convey. (Cecil’s Remains.) Illustrating the truth The subject matter of Christian teaching preeminently requires illustration. The barrister has, in a new case, that which stimulates attention, while the preacher has an oft-told tale to set before his people. (Andrew Fuller.) Ezekiel 17:22-24I will also take of the highest branch of the high cedar.Divine sovereignty These verses have been accepted by Jewish commentators and by Christian commentators alike as referring to the Messiah, to be read and pondered and grasped as to their inner meaning and effect. God winds up the whole parable and its application by some marvellous words; He says, “ And all the trees of the field shall know that I the Lord have brought down the high tree,” etc. Then what mistakes we have to correct! What a revelation there will be at last, what a different view, what a correction of our misinterpretations of Providence: Everything has been of God. Is the high tree down? God felled it. Is the low tree exalted? God lifted it upwards to the blue heavens. Is the green tree dry, withered, utterly desiccated? God hath sucked its juice, and left it a barren, blighted thing in the meadow. Is the dry tree flourishing? Is the tree that men thought dead beginning to show signs of vitality? Are there spring buds upon it? Are the birds looking at it curiously, as if by and by, mayhap, they may build even there? The Lord hath made the dry tree to flourish. This is Divine sovereignty. The God of the riddle and the God who works His will among the trees must be regarded as the same God. What is true in this verse is true to all human life. Is one man successful? God made him so, in the degree in which his success was legitimate, healthy, righteous. Is a man vainly, viciously successful? The green tree shall be dried up. Is a man humbled, laid low in the dust? God may have done that for the man’ s salvation; after a day or two who can tell what may happen, if the overthrow has been accepted in the right spirit, and if, instead of being turned in the direction of despair, it has been turned in the direction of self-examination and self-accusation and penitence and broken-heartedness? Is the nation suffering from singular visitation? Is trade going away? God is looking on, and He will know when to send the ships back to the ports, and when to revive commerce, and when to make the desert blossom as the rose. Is an enemy hard upon me? It is not the enemy, it is God: I have been doing wrong; when I have opposition to encounter I must ask myself serious questions; as for any man that can assail me, who is he? what faculty has he? what can he do? Have no fear of enemies, but interpret their enmity aright. If a man’ s ways please the Lord He will make even his enemies to be at peace with him; if a man shall try to be right and good, virtuous, generous, and to live a Divine life, no weapon that is formed against him shall prosper; it shall be forged, it shall be whetted, it shall be lifted up, but it shall never come down upon the head of him for whom it was intended. How joyous would be our life if we could live in this strong conviction! (J. Parker, D. D.) God’ s overrule among the kingdoms of the earth The attempts of the king of Babylon to set up a kingdom in Israel miscarried; He who set up the kingdom took it away. The shoot planted by him was smitten by the east wind, and withered. But Jehovah Himself will plant a shoot of the high cedar, the Davidic house, on a high mountain, that all nations may see it (Isaiah 2:2; Isaiah 11:10), even on the height of the mountain land of Israel, and it shall become a great cedar, so that all the fowls of heaven shall lodge in the branches of it. This kingdom shall be imposing and universal, and all peoples shall find protection under it. (A. B. Davidson, D. D.) The reign of the Son of God I. The beautiful and appropriate symbol by which the Son of God is here represented. “ The highest branch of the high cedar.”1. Because it was the remotest from the root. 2. Because the loftiest of all. He was at once the mightiest and the meanest: rooted in the earth, yet elevated to the skies. II. The place where this was to be planted. “ In the mountain of the height of Israel will I plant it.”1. The truth of the promises God had made. 2. A striking evidence of the almighty power of God. This is the triumph of wisdom over folly--of holiness over sin--of the goodness of God over the malice of men. Its being planted at Jerusalem may be regarded-- 3. As the last expression of unrequited kindness and love. 4. As an evident demonstration of the truth and power of the Gospel. III. The rapid growth of this plant. There are few things more delightful and instructive than to observe the commencement of that which has risen to eminence. As the traveller in America steps over a stream which he may almost dry up with his foot, he is struck with astonishment to know that it is the same fountain, fed by tributary streams, which becomes a mighty river and rolls on to empty itself into the sea. Here is the planting of the tree that is to fill the world. Though Christ is now enthroned in glory, filling heaven with a splendour surpassing that of ten thousand suns, He was once a babe in Bethlehem’ s manger. Tertullian could say, within a short time after the introduction of Christianity, “ Your towns, your cities, your camps, your palaces, your courts, your army, your senate, your forum--all swarm with Christians.” IV. The productiveness of this tree. It was to “ bring forth boughs, and to bear fruit.”1. This fruit is varied in its character, etc. Are you ignorant? Here are truths to instruct, wisdom that makes wise unto salvation. Are you guilty? Hero is pardon full, free, and everlasting. Are you forlorn? Are you dying, and recoiling from the prospect of futurity? Behold, “ the gift of God is everlasting life through Jesus Christ our Lord.” 2. It is satisfying in its enjoyment. As Christ united the glories of the Godhead with humanity, in the sacrifice He made, it must prove all-sufficient to supply the wants of the soul for which He made it. His grace can reach and heal all the maladies of the soul, and save it forever. 3. It is free in its gift. V. The ultimate blessings which this tree is designed to diffuse through the world. “ It shall be a goodly cedar: and under it shall dwell,” etc. Have we not numerous indications of this in our day? Never since that sun, which is now setting, began its course--never since he first lightened this earth--have there been such proofs of the increase of the glory of the Gospel as in the day in which we live. (T. Adkins.) The goodly cedar and the birds of every wing A glorious prophecy of the Messiah concludes this chapter! Recurring to the cedar of Lebanon, as the type of the people of God, in its noble growth and far-extending shade, Ezekiel foretells how God would take a stem or branch from that tall cedar, which should be “ the root of David,” that, planted by the Divine Hand, it should grow up a goodly cedar tree, and under its boughs the birds “ of every wing should dwell.” So was the Saviour, as to His lineage, of the ancient people, and a branch taken from the noble cedar tree, which typified the Hebrew race. He was born in humility, and cradled in the rude manger of Bethlehem, but from this lowly origin He becomes like the mighty cedar tree of the prophecy, the very perfection of our humanity, in righteousness and nobility of character! Then, as He invited weary souls to come unto Him, we read how they drew nigh and found peace, and “ dwelt under His shadow.” The words of this prophecy also apply to the Church, which is the visible representative of Jesus upon earth! It, like a little plant or cutting, began in weakness. The number of the names, it is written, was but one hundred and twenty. But soon, under the influence of the Holy Ghost, the microscopic organisation developed and grew into the mighty cedar, under which dwelt the “ fowl of every wing,” and found refuge under “ the shadows of its branches.” That the cedar was to be planted “ on the mountain of Israel” foretold that the later, the Christian Church, should grow out of, and be a development from, the older dispensation! But how remarkable to find that the prophet anticipates the admission of the Gentiles. “ The fowl of every wing” are to find a shelter under the boughs of the Gospel cedar. Now, that which was prophecy is being fulfilled. The birds of brightest plumage, the feathered songsters of sweetest voices, the noblest intellects, the most melodious souls that earth has produced, have found in the religion of Jesus peace and satisfaction, and have dwelt restfully under its shadow! The Church must take up her missionary work. Whether it be the ease of our own countrymen, “ for whose souls no man cares,” or the heathen, who abide where overhead flutters the flag of England--the duty lies at our door! (J. W. Hardman, LL. D.) Refuge for all in Christ Christ is the cedar, and all kinds of people seek rest in Him, as birds of every wing. Young and old, rich and poor; men high-soaring as the eagle, fierce as the raven, gentle as the dove. The young, just learning to try their wings; the old, weary, and lonely; those who have kept all the commandments from their youth, and those who have broken them all. It does not matter with what wing we come to Jesus, so long as we come. The practised eye can easily recognise the birds by their flight; each bird has its own wing; so every soul has its own disposition and temperament--one feverish, the other languid and lethargic; one impetuous, the other dilatory; one affectionate and warm, the other cool and shy. But the Lord Jesus knows our frame, and understands us afar off. He does not chide the dove because it cannot breast the storm and face the sun like the eagle. He does not expect the sustained flight of the seagull from the sparrow; or the song of the nightingale from the chaffinch. Do not imitate another: be yourself. Do not go about the world counting that you are useless and a failure, because you cannot do what is done by others. Learn how to be abased, and how to abound. Only rest in Christ. Out of the windy storm and tempest, make for your roosting place under the shelter of His wing. (F. B. Meyer, B. A.) Ezekiel 17:24 And all the trees of the field shall know that I the Lord have brought down the high tree, have exalted the low tree.The trees of the field and their appointed destiny “ The field” seems to set forth the visible Church of God; and “ the trees of the field” seem to set forth all the professors of Divine truth, whether they are possessors or not. All these “ trees of the field” shall know a certain truth. Now, what is tiffs certain truth? That the Lord will do a certain work in characters, which He Himself has delineated; and that it shall be visible to the Church of God what He does to those characters.1. The first character of which the Lord speaks is “ the high tree” ; which “ high tree” is to be “ brought down.” That expression--“ a high tree” --seems to bear two significations. (1) There is the “ high tree” --that is, a nominal professor who is destitute of the fear of God, who has nothing of the grace of God in His soul, but stands in the visible Church of Christ in a profession of godliness whilst he is inwardly devoid of its power. In this wood of trees the first object that catches the eye is “ the high tree,” that soars above them all. You will find this nominal professor in the Church of Christ always ready to come forward; he never hangs back through a sense of his weakness and ignorance; he is never plagued with doubts and fears as to his state before God; he never puts his mouth in the dust from a deep sense of his vileness and baseness before Hint; but let him be present in any company, or on any occasion, he is ready to speak, to exalt himself, and to tower high above the family of God, who are mourning and sighing over the burden of sin, guilt, and corruption, and are suing after the Lord’ s manifestations of favour to their souls. Now the Lord says, “ All the trees of the field shall know that I the Lord have brought down the high tree.” Then this “ high tree” must he “ brought down” ; and not merely brought down, but visibly brought down,--brought down in the sight of the trees of the field, laid low in the sight of all who have eyes to see, who have ears to hear, who have minds to understand what God’ s dealings are. (2) But the expression “ high tree” bears another signification. Whence comes the presumption of self-confident professors? Does it not spring from an internal principle of pride in them? And are not all, without exception, possessed of the same “ deceitful and desperately wicked” heart? Then, if the towering confidence of a presumptuous professor springs from innate pride, is there not the Same principle at work in the heart of a living child? But the Lord will never suffer His children to walk in vain confidence; He will never allow them, for a long season together, to stand in false liberty; and therefore He will “ bring them down.” He has but to look upon us with one frown, and He will bruise into nothingness all our presumptuous liberty. He has but to take the veil for a moment off our hearts, and discover to us what we are and discover to us what He is, and we shall fall down before Him, as Isaiah fell when he saw the glory of the Lord in the temple. 2. And now we come to the “ exalting the low tree.” Here we have a striking contrast. “ The low tree is one who has always the lowest, meanest thoughts concerning himself; who can find in his heart nothing spiritually good; who is continually afraid of presumption; who starts back from every appearance of being more than he really is. Now, “ this low tree” the Lord has promised to exalt. But He will never “ exalt the low tree” in self. The wise man shall not “ glory in his wisdom, the strong man shall not glory in his strength” ; but “ he that glorieth” shall “ glory in this, that he knoweth the Lord.” “ In the Lord shall all the seed of Israel be justified, and shall glory.” “ He that glorieth, let him glory in the Lord.” When “ the low tree,” therefore, is “ exalted,” it is by some sweet manifestation of the blood and love of Jesus to his soul; it is by lifting him up out of the mire, and out of the dunghill, and “ setting him among princes,” and making him “ inherit the throne of glory” ; it is by Jesus sweetly coming into his heart and conscience, sprinkling it with His atoning blood, bedewing it with the drops of His favour, discovering His glorious righteousness, and binding up every bleeding wound. 3. But consider another tree of which the Lord speaks, and another work which the Lord here promises to do. “ I the Lord have brought down the high tree, have exalted the low tree, have dried up the green tree.” Now, just in the same way as “ the high tree” seems to shadow forth two characters (that is, the presumptuous professor, and a child of God drawn aside by Satan’ s subtlety into presumption), so “ the green tree” seems to set forth both a professor of religion and also a child of God in the warmth of youthful zeal. 4. Oh! what a state it is in which to stand before God--a “ dry tree” ! To feel as though there was not a single particle of spiritual sap or heavenly moisture in us; to feel as though we had no religion worth the name; to feel as though we had no real work of the Spirit upon our soul, and no real grace in our heart given by God Himself! Now, to this “ dry tree” the Lord has given a promise. He says this dry tree shall be “ made to flourish.” How He frustrates and disappoints all the expectations of nature! What! to “ dry up a green tree,” and to “ make a dry tree to flourish” ! Would not nature say, “ Oh! the ‘ green tree,’ make it greener still: oh! the ‘ dry tree,’ cut it down, and cast it into the fire!” But the Lord’ s “ ways are not our ways,” neither are the Lord’ s “ thoughts our thoughts” ; but “ as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are His ways higher than our ways, and His thoughts than our thoughts.” Cut it down! No; “ make it to flourish” ! Then the Lord’ s work is made manifest, as much in “ drying up the green tree” as in “ making the dry tree to flourish.” And how does He “ make the dry tree to flourish” ? Why, by dropping in His own blessed dew into it; by shedding his own Divine favour into the barren and parched heart; by dropping in some testimony from His own blessed and gracious lips, so as to cause the soul to “ revive as the vine,” and to flourish as the herb; by causing “ showers of blessing” to fall upon the wilderness, and turn it into a standing pool, and so make the rose of Sharon sweetly and blessedly to blossom and flourish therein. (J. C. Philpot.) To the rescue Methinks I see a great forest which reaches for many a league. The trees are of divers growths, and of various ages. Some are very lofty. Here a towering cedar, and yonder the storks have made their nests among the tall fir trees. Stout oaks there are that laugh at storms, and elms that will not be twisted with the tempest. See how they rival each other! And there are lowlier trees; some bearing fruit, though scarcely seen, others, like the vine, creeping upon the ground--so obscure they can hardly be observed. I. “ Thus saith the Lord, the trees of the field shall know that I the Lord have brought down the high tree.” Look over history, and you will see that everything gigantic in stature and colossal in dimensions; whatsoever has been great to human apprehension, grasping at earthly fame, has become an Object for God’ s penetrating arrows, and a subject for His withering blight. The Lord of hosts always cuts down the high tree, humiliates the creature that exalts itself, and suffers no flesh to glory in His presence. That is the Law of His government. The question arises, How does it concern us? Doubtless it opens a sad prospect to those who are lifted up with pride, or inflated with self-opinion. Among the seven abominations your order ranks highest. No liar or murderer can claim a preeminence over you in vice so long as the Proverbs stand. Ere long the heel of the Almighty shall be lifted higher than thy haughty head. He will cast thee down, be thy look never so proud; for the Lord hath purposed it to stain the pride of all glory, to bring into contempt all the excellency of the earth. There is, again, an arrogance of mind, of judgment, of opinion, just as ignorant--if not quite so grotesque--as his who dreams that his birth is of higher caste and his blood of richer hue than other men. Humanity in the bulk is the idol of some people; and yonder I see the man who quotes himself as an illustrious specimen. He does not believe in the total depravity of human nature. The Lord will abase thee, whosoever thou mayest be; He will shame thee: the axe is ready to be laid at thy root even now. Thy goodness is not God’ s goodness, and thy righteousness is not Christ’ s righteousness; therefore shall the moth consume it, and it shall be eaten away. Or shall it fare better with another class? There is our friend who says, “ Well, well, I do not believe in forms and ceremonies; but, mark you, I always judge and weigh everything.” He estimates himself as all independent thinker; he is bound by no precedents, fettered by no creeds, and considers that he is amenable to no judgment but his own. Strong in his self-assertion, he makes light of the Word of God, and the will of God, while he holds prophets and apostles in little esteem. Ah, well, brother! God is against you, He will make a fool of you one of these days, if you are so wise as to exalt yourself above His revelation. The world shall see your folly. I tell thee, captious questioner, that the Lord will bring thee down. II. Furthermore the Lord says, “ I will exalt the low tree.” Here is a word of comfort to some who specially need it. The low trees are those poor in spirit who think others better than they are themselves; who, instead of carving their names high, are willing to have them written low, because they feel they have nothing whereof to glory, nought wherein to boast. The low trees are the penitents, those who take their stand afar off with the publican, and say, “ God be merciful to me, a sinner” ; you that feel your own weakness to do anything aright. You that feel your ignorance, and are willing to be instructed; you that are modest as children, and ready to sit at the feet of Jesus; you that have been broken in pieces till you feel that a crumb of mercy would be more than you deserve, and are willing to take any dole He is pleased to give--you are the low trees. And you that are despised, who walk in darkness and see no light; slandered for Christ’ s sake, reproached with crimes you never committed; you of whom the world is not worthy, though the world accounts you to be unworthy of its esteem--you are the low trees, and God shall exalt you. III. The Lord has also declared that He will dry up the green tree. Whether that green tree be high or low it does not matter; if it be green in itself, He will cut it down. Mark you, a man may be as high as heaven; if it is God that makes him high, he will stand; but if he be high in creature strength, and creature merits, and creature glory, he shall be brought down; and a man may be low without merit, if he is merely mean and meagre, paltry and pitiable, not worth a straw. That is not the spirit of lowliness that God blesses. In like manner a man may be green because he is planted by the rivers of God’ s living waters, that is healthy enough; but those that are like the green bay tree of the Psalmist, trees growing in their own soil, never transplanted by grace, green in the verdure of worldly prosperity, and taking all their delight in earthly things--those are the trees God will dry up. IV. Lastly, the Lord makes the dry tree to flourish. How many of God’ s people may be fitly compared to a dry tree! They have little joy; they have not got to full assurance. They are afraid to say, “ My beloved is mine, and I am His.” They think they are of no use to the Church; they are half inclined to suspect it was a mistake for them to be baptized, and they were to blame for uniting themselves with the people of God. They come to the assembly of believers, and though they do sing with their lips, the heart cannot sing as it would. There are times, too, when walking home they say, “ I go where others go, but I get no comfort; if I were really the Lord’ s, should I be thus; if I did trust Christ, should I ever be so languid?” If it is of your own bringing about that you are thus dry, I do not offer you any comfort; but if the Holy Spirit has led you to see your weakness, your nothingness, your deadness, then I am glad you have been brought to this pass, for God will cause the dry tree to flourish. When we are weak, then are we strong. (C. H. Spurgeon.) The advantage of the kingdom of Christ I. In the carrying on the interest of Christ and the Gospel, God will work wonderful providential alterations. There are three principal seasons of the Lord’ s eminent appearance to carry on the kingdom of Christ and the Gospel, and all attended with dreadful providential alterations; and unto one of these heads may all particular actings be reduced.1. The first is, the promulgation of the Gospel among the Jews by the Lord Christ Himself and His apostles: what this was attended withal is graphically described (Matthew 24:6-7). 2. The second is, in the further carrying on of the Gospel, after the destruction of Jerusalem, throughout the world of the Gentiles, subject then in a great proportion to the Roman Empire. 3. The most signal is, the coming of the Lord Christ to recover His people from antichristian idolatry and oppression; which of all others is and shall be attended with the most astonishing alterations and desolations, pulling down of high trees, and exalting them that are low: thence is that war, described Revelation 17:14, and that mighty vengeance poured out by the Lord Christ on the nations, their kings and captains, chap. 19:11 to the end. Now the reasons of this are-- (1) Because amongst all men, where the kingdom of Christ is to be set up, there is something or other possessed, that He alone must and will have; and therefore the Lord giving Jesus Christ but His own inheritance, it must needs be attended with great alterations. (2) The works that God hath to do in such a season require it: God hath three great works to do in the day of His carrying on the interest of Christ and the Gospel-- (i) He hath great revenges to take. (ii) He hath great deliverances to work. (iii) He hath great discoveries to make.1. Of His own, that they may be purged.2. Of hypocrites, that they may be discovered. Use 1. To discover where dwells that spirit that actuates all the great alterations that have been in these nations. Use 2.--To magnify the goodness of God, who unto us hath sweetened and seasoned all His dreadful dispensations, and all the alterations in those nations, with this His gracious design running through them all; this is that which puts all their beauty and lustre on them, being outwardly dreadful and horrible. II. The actings of God’ s providence, in carrying on the interest of Christ, are and shall be exceedingly unsuited to the reasonings and expectations of the most of men. Some reasons of this may be given; and--1. The first is taken from the corruptions of the hearts of men squaring the works of God to their fleshly reasonings, corrupt interests, and principles. They are bold with the wisdom of God, and conclude, thus and thus things ought to be, ordering their thoughts for the most part according to their corrupt and carnal advantages. 2. God chooseth thus to do things above and besides the expectations of men, that His presence, and the presence of the Lord Christ, may be the more conspicuous in the world. 3. God will do it for the hardening of many false empty professors, and others in the world, that the judgments appointed may come upon them to the uttermost. Use.--It serves, then, to discover the vanity of those men who, because the works of God have not been carried on in ways suitable to their reasonings and expectations, do utterly reject them, disown them, and oppose Him in them. Can these men give any one instance, of any one eminent work of God, that He hath brought about by such ways and means as men would rationally allot thereunto, especially in things that are in immediate subserviency to the kingdom of the Lord Christ? (J. Owen, D. D.) The proud abased and the lowly exalted Consider the text as exemplified-- I. In the history of God’ s providence.1. The Antediluvians and Noah. They were the high and green trees,--Noah and family, the low and the dry.2. Pharaoh and the Israelites.3. Goliath and David.4. Haman and Mordecai. II. In the history of the Lord Jesus Christ. The Jews expected the high green tree,--earthly magnificence, worldly power and authority. But Christ fulfilled the sayings of the prophets (Isaiah 53:1, etc.) In all things He was the opposite of their desires, etc. Hence they killed Him. Yet Christ, the low tree, etc., did God exalt, etc. He hath made Him to flourish, etc. His name shall endure as long as the sun, etc. III. In the triumphs of the apostolic labours. Look at the persons of the apostles,--plain, illiterate, poor men. Not the high green tree. Not learned, affluent, or influential. Hearken to their message. What is it? Christ crucified. Not a religion of metaphysical subtleties. Not elaborate doctrines or profound dogmas of philosophy. Not a splendid system of pompous ceremony. But the lowly doctrines of the cross. Humility, self-denial, spirituality, etc. And what is the result? The high tree of paganism is brought down. The green tree of Judaism is dried up. The low tree of Christianity is exalted and flourishes, and blesses every known civilised land, etc. (1 Corinthians 1:21-29). IV. In the experience of the haughty, and of the penitential sinner. The man of proud heart, exalted self-esteem, etc. “ God, I thank thee,” etc. The poor publican self-convicted, self-abhorred. He is the dry tree, nothing to trust in, or to plead. “ God be merciful,” etc. Mark the result. God rejects the high tree; He despises his work,--He brings him low. He beholds with approbation the low tree, etc. He goes down to his house justified. V. In the lives of the high-minded and of the lowly Christian. Pride and self-sufficiency are the great temptations of the human heart. To be something. To do something. To he thought something. To exalt ourselves. How prone we are to this. Well, what, is the result? God knows it will ruin us if not eradicated. We must be brought low in mercy or judgment. He blights the worldly prospects. He reverses the dazzling scene. He sends repeated disappointments. Troops of crosses and troubles. Perhaps keen bereavements. And thus brings down the high tree, dries up the green tree, etc. But behold the low tree, the dry tree. The lowly Christian says, “ I am nothing.” He lives by faith on the Son of God, etc. He abases Himself, etc. He glories in the cross, etc. He makes mention of Christ’ s righteousness, etc. He dwells in the dust. God exalts, blesses, makes fruitful, etc., lifts them up forever. Application--1. Learn the evil of self-exaltation. Avoid it. Watch against it. Pray against it.2. Be clothed with humility. What peace, safety, and honour are here.3. God must have all the glory. See the text; also Daniel 6:34. (Anon.) Ezekiel 18:1-3 What mean ye, that ye use this proverb concerning the land of Israel, saying, The fathers have eaten sour grapes, and the children’ s teeth are set on edge? Sins of fathers visited on their children only in this world “ The fathers have eaten sour grapes, and the children’ s teeth are set on edge.” The declaration of God, in the second commandment, that He would visit the sins of the fathers upon the children, for three or four generations, had been translated into this quaint proverb. Manasseh and they which were seduced by him to wickedness, greater than that of the Amorites, have been long dead; why, they still argued, why should we be punished for their sins? Surely the ways of God are unequal in this thing, that the children’ s teeth should be set on edge by the sour grapes which not they, but their fathers have eaten; and that a man’ s sins should be visited upon his innocent posterity. Ezekiel’ s answer is two fold.1. “ What mean ye to use this proverb?” Ye, who have been at no pains to reform yourselves, and by such reformation avert the woes and the captivity denounced against your country for the sins of Manasseh, and those of his people; ye can with no reason complain, who are no better than they. What mean ye, saith the prophet, “ that ye use this proverb? For have not ye, and your fathers, yes, both your fathers and ye also, have rebelled against the Lord?” 2. However, he tells them that they shall not have occasion to use this proverb any more in Israel. Concerning the meaning of this declaration there is some diversity of opinion. The most probable opinion is, that Ezekiel speaks of the times that were coming, when the doctrine of a future state should be generally entertained, and of the punishments which will be awarded in that state, to every individual, for his own sins and no other, according to their proper malignity. “ The soul that sinneth, it shall die,” it only shall perish everlastingly. The prophet might also mean, that the great cause of men’ s sins being visited upon their posterity, so far as that punishment was the consequence of a special providence, was shortly to cease from among his people. That sin was the sin of idolatry. Of so many of the children of the captivity as were incapable of being reclaimed by the punishments all of them now suffered, the end would be, that they should die, by the sword, the plague, or famine, or, at all events, die in captivity, while those of the better sort, who were weaned from the practice of this great offence, should see their native land again, build again the wails of their city, and, whatever their other offences might be, should offend God no more by idolatry. 3. But the declaration of the text, that there should be no more occasion to use this proverb, may mean, that the times were coming, the times of the Messiah, when the old system of laws and ordinances should be superseded, the temporal sanctions of the law of Moses be forgotten and lost, in the thought of the everlasting rewards and punishments of a future state; concerning which punishments, if Ezekiel is, as we believe, speaking of them, he declares that the son shall not bear the iniquity of the father. Each man, in that state, shall suffer only for his own sins. “ The soul that sinneth, it shall die.” It is not natural death that is meant. Both the bad and the good suffer that. It is what is called in Revelation, “ the second death,” eternal misery after death, of which it is declared, that the carnally minded shall suffer it, and the righteous and the good never taste it. 4. Undoubtedly, there is a sense in which it will never cease to be true, that the son shall suffer for the sins of the father. The effects of every man’ s sins, as regards this world, are felt by his family, both while he fives and often long after. Lessons--1. The evidence, brought daily before our eyes, how severely the misconduct of parents is wont to be felt by their children, should reconcile us to the declarations of Scripture upon the subject. 2. The knowledge of this should be an availing consideration to deter us from evil courses, and show us the exceeding sinfulness, the madness also, and folly of sin; that by giving way to it we not only become enemies to our own souls, but cruel enemies to those whom we most love. 3. If we are ourselves suffering through the misconduct of those who have gone before us, let us by no means tread in their steps; let them be a warning to us, and not an example, and let us be very careful that we do not, by imitating their bad example, lose our own souls, which can only be through our own fault. (A. Gibson, M. A.) The entail of suffering I. The fact is indisputable. Men are liable to an entail of suffering. The Divine law asserts it (Exodus 20:5). Compare with this the awful malediction of Christ (Matthew 23:35). The teachings of sacred Scripture harmonise entirely with those of experience on this point. Not so surely will a father’ s inheritance descend to his sons as his physical characteristics. Hence hereditary diseases. How many of these were originally the result of violations of the Divine laws, natural or moral, needs not to be shown. And so mysterious are the relations which bind together succeeding generations that, in many cases, both the mental and moral characteristics are seen to be transmitted. The evil tempers we have indulged reappear in our offspring to torture them; and when they are evil, it may be said, “ The fathers have eaten sour grapes,” etc. II. The procedure may be vindicated. We may confidently assert that this procedure cannot be shown to be unjust. Man is a sinner. “ We are a seed of evil-doers; children that are corrupters.” We are therefore liable to punishment. The only question which, as sinners, we have a right to entertain respects the degree of our punishment. Does our punishment, in the entailed evils of which we have spoken, surpass our guilt? If not, we have no right to complain. But this procedure may be vindicated, moreover, by a reference to its adaptation to the great end of God’ s moral government of mankind. That end may be simply stated to be the repression of moral evil. To secure this end, he appeals to us in every possible form, and by every conceivable motive. What more likely to deter a man from vicious indulgence than the thought that it may taint the blood, paralyse the limbs, and cloud the skies, of those who ought to inherit the reward and perpetuate the blessing of his own virtues? And what more humiliating to a parent than to see the very faults which have disgraced and plagued himself reproduced in the children of his fondest love? III. The use of the proverb shall cease; not that Jehovah shall ever repeal this law, but that the consistency of it with moral perfection being perceived, men shall cease to urge that which shall afford them neither excuse nor ground of complaint.1. An acquaintance with the rules which guide the Divine judgment of transgressors shall prevent men from using this proverb. 2. The common relation which all men sustain to Him may well prevent us from attributing iniquity to Him. “ Behold, all souls are Mine,” etc. 3. The true spirit of penitence which a knowledge of His equity and His love excites shall, in a similar manner, acquit Him. A deep sense of sin, and true contrition on account of it, will not suffer men to cavil against God: then they meekly “ accept the punishment of their iniquity.” 4. If any darkness yet seem to hover around these truths, the dawn of the last day shall assuredly dispel it; and friends and foes shall then unite--the former joyfully, the latter inevitably--in the confession that “ The ways of the Lord are equal.” (Homilist.) Heredity and responsibility It is a well ascertained fact that not merely are the physical features of parents reproduced often in their offspring, but likewise their moral and intellectual characteristics. Genius runs in families. The son is frequently renowned for the same accomplishment for which his father, and perhaps his grandfather, were renowned before him. The same thing is true of moral defect. The vice to which the parent was the slave is the vice for which, in a multitude of cases, the child shows the most marked propensity. This reproduction of parental characteristics in the children may, indeed, be attributed to another cause than the principle of heredity; it may be attributed, and not without reason, to the effect of example. Children are great imitators. But much as example may have to do in the way of creating a likeness between parent and child, the fact that such likeness exists where example has had no opportunity of working--as in the case of the parent dying during the child’ s infancy--proves that the likeness cannot be the result of example alone. It is related in the life of the famous French philosopher and mathematician, Pascal, that his father, also a great mathematician, being desirous of educating his son for the Church, studiously kept out of his reach all books bearing upon his own favourite study, and took other precautions to prevent his son forming a taste for mathematics. But all his precautions were vain. Young Pascal engaged in the study in secret, without any of the usual aids, and as a result, reproduced and solved most of the propositions in the first book of Euclid, without, it is alleged, having ever had a copy of Euclid in his hands. The particular bent of the father’ s genius here descended to the son, and found expression for itself in spite of all the efforts made to prevent such a result. I. The reference is plainly to the sufferings which children have sometimes to endure in consequence of the evil-doings of their parents. We may not perhaps be very deeply affected, although we ought to be, by the thought that our wrong-doing causes suffering to others in whom we have comparatively little interest. But when we consider that we not only harm, by setting them an evil example, those whom we most deeply love, the children whose presence now brightens our home, but may also harm, may be preparing great suffering for children unborn, who may yet call us by the endearing name of parent, we cannot help feeling what need, what great need there is, apart altogether from the demands of morality as such, to live, for the sake of those whom we love most, and from whom we would ward off every pain, upright and pure lives--careful alike of our moral and spiritual health. Only in acting thus may we hope that, in as far as it rests with us, our children shall not enter upon the conflict of life crippled, handicapped, and thus have their prospect of victory immensely lessened. That good is perpetuated under this law of heredity as well as evil ought to be remembered, or we might otherwise think it a cruel law. II. What bearing has the law upon our individual responsibility? Does it diminish or do away with it? The Jews, at the time Ezekiel wrote, were in a very miserable state. The nation was hastening to its doom. They were on the eve of that great catastrophe often predicted--the destruction of Jerusalem--their pride and glory, and the captivity. With this dismal prospect in view, and with present troubles pressing painfully upon them, they would not see in their own behaviour any reason for their suffering. They tried to make out that they were innocent children suffering solely for their fathers’ sins: “ Our fathers have eaten the sour grapes of idolatrous pleasures, and we are suffering the consequences.” But although within certain limits it might be true they were suffering for their fathers’ sins, it was also true that their own evil doings, their sins against light and knowledge, were the main source of their sufferings. They could not divest themselves of individual responsibility. All souls are God’ s; as the soul of the father, so also the soul of the son. The soul that sinneth, it shall die. He that hath withdrawn his hand from iniquity, he is just, he shall surely live. It is further pointed out in the context that a righteous son is not condemned for his father’ s profligacy, any more than a profligate son is saved by his father’ s righteousness. “ The son shall not bear the iniquity of the father, neither shall the father bear the iniquity of the son; the righteousness of the righteous shall be upon him, and the wickedness of the wicked shall be upon him.” The teaching here is clearly to the effect that it is our own acts, and not the acts of another, that shall either justify or condemn us. And that is the teaching also of our Lord: “ By thy words shalt thou be justified, and by thy words shalt thou be condemned.” Again, in the not uncommon fact that a bad father may have a good son, and a good father a bad son, we have a conclusive proof that the law of heredity does not act in such a way that its operation cannot be resisted. It can be resisted, and on the fact that it can be resisted, and successfully resisted, rests our moral responsibility. It may be a hard struggle, in some cases it will be an exceedingly hard struggle, but with God’ s help it will not be a vain one. Numberless instances are on record of men who have developed a beautiful character under the most adverse circumstances, and this should encourage everyone, however hard his lot, and however heavily handicapped he may be by tendency or circumstance, to undertake the struggle and persevere therein. Stronger is He that is for us than all they that are against us. Let us but trust Him--let us but look to Jesus--and so fight. The victory will be sure. (N. M. Macfie, B. D.) Heredity Through the whole realm of living things there runs the great law of inheritance. All that lives tends to repeat itself in the life of its offspring. The ant, for example, begins life not only with the form and structure of its ancestry, but in full possession of all those marvellous industrial instincts which today have passed into a proverb. The marvellous sagacity of the sheep dog, which no amount of training would ever confer upon a poodle or a fox terrier, comes to it by way of inheritance as part of its birthright. In similar fashion old habits and curious antitheses tend to repeat themselves in like fashion, even where the originating circumstances no longer remain. For example, we are told, by those who know, that in menageries straw that has served as litter in the lion’ s or the tiger’ s cage is useless for horses; the smell of it terrifies them, although countless equine generations must have passed since their ancestors had any cause to fear attack from feline foes. You must often have noticed a dog turning itself round three or four times before it settles in front of the fire, but it is probably only doing what some savage and remote ancestry did many generations ago when it trundled down the long grass of the forest to make a lair for itself for the night. Everyone knows how the peculiar cast of features that we term Jewish tends to reappear in generation after generation. The vagabondism of the gipsy, again, is in his blood, and he cannot help it. It is said that on one occasion the Austrian Government started a regiment of gipsies, but on the first encounter they ran away, A hundred mental and physical characteristics run in families, and so we have the aquiline nose of the Bourbons, the insolent pride of the Guises, the musical genius of the Bachs, and the scientific genius of the Darwins. Along the lines of his being, physical, mental, and moral, man derives from the past. As an American writer very happily and sagaciously puts it: “ This body in which we journey across the isthmus from one ocean to another is not a private carriage, but an omnibus,” and, be it said, it is our ancestors who are fellow passengers. Yesterday is at work in today; today will live again in tomorrow, and the deeds of the fathers, be they good or be they ill, are visited upon the children unto the third and fourth generation. Now, this doctrine of heredity, as it is termed, is, to use a popular phrase, at the present moment very much in the air. The novelist, the dramatist, the journalist, the educationalist, the moralist, the theologian, and the social reformer have all made it their own, and are all of them ready with this or that application of it to some aspect of our daily life. Now, it is impossible to ignore the fact that the doctrine of heredity, as it is held and taught by some today, practically robs life of all moral significance. It is not merely that it conflicts with this or that conclusion of morality; it cuts away the ground under the foot of all morality, and makes the word itself to be meaningless. It is not merely that it takes this or that doctrine of the Scriptures; it makes null and void the truths which the Scriptures, as it were, assume as the base and groundwork of all. Taking for granted the facts of heredity as I have illustrated them, how do these facts affect our ideas of moral responsibility? I think the answer may be put in three-fold form: heredity may increase, heredity may diminish, heredity can never destroy man’ s responsibility. Heredity may increase a man’ s responsibility, for if it be true that we inherit evil from the past, it is not less true that we inherit good; and if he is to be pitied and dealt tenderly with who, through no fault of his own, enters upon a grievous heritage of woe, is not he to be visited with stern condemnation who, reaping a rich harvest which other hands have sown, squanders his inheritance in riotous living? But it may also diminish, for there are certain hereditary vices, like drunkenness, for example, which are sometimes not only vices, but also diseases; and just in so far as they are diseases as well as vices, so far do they call for our pity rather than for our condemnation,--a fact, perhaps, that has not always had due weight given to it by some of our sterner moralists. God asks not only where does a man reach, but where does a man start. He counts not only the victories that men win, but the odds in the face of which men fight, the moral effort that is needed; and many a time when our poor blind eyes can only see the shame and disaster of seeming defeat, His eyes have marked the ceaseless, if often thwarted, struggle to cast off the yoke and bondage of evil. Heredity may increase, heredity may diminish, heredity ban never destroy man’ s responsibility, and it is just there that we join issue with so much that is being said and so much more that is being implied at the present day. This idea of heredity has so completely fascinated the minds of some, that to them man is nothing more than a bundle of transmitted tendencies, the resultant of antecedent forces, a projectile shot forth from the past, whose path he could calculate with mathematical accuracy, did he but know the precise character and amount of the hereditary forces that are at work in him. The unquestioned facts of heredity are emphasised to the exclusion of all other facts as though in this, and this alone, were the key to the whole mystery of the life of man. The prophet meets the complaints of the people with two words from the mouth of God, “ Behold, all souls are Mine,” --that is to say, every individual soul is related to God. We are related to the past; that is the fact upon which those to whom Ezekiel spoke laid all the emphasis, but we are also related to God. We derive from the past, but that which we derive from the past is not the whole of us,--we derive also from God. “ As the soul of the father is Mine, so also the soul of the son is Mine.” Weighted as we may be with sins which are not our own, we have each of us a moral life that is our own, received direct from God. If upon the one side of me--if I may put it in that awkward fashion--I am linked to a sinful human ancestry, and so rooted in Nature; on the other side of me I stand in a Divine lineage, I am rooted in God. The second word of the prophet follows from it as a natural corollary, “ All souls are Mine; therefore, the soul that sinneth, it shall die.” That is the charter of the individual soul. What does it mean? That it is never our past that condemns us, that a man’ s past can be a man’ s ruin only in so far as he allies himself with it, and makes it his own. I repeat, we are related to the past, therefore the facts of heredity cannot be denied, and must not be overlooked; but that which we derive from the past is not the whole of us. We are also related to God, and through that relationship the strength of the grace of God can come to us. And it is that two-fold fact concerning every man that makes man a responsible being. He can choose, he can take sides; and it is only when a man takes evil to be his good, when, barking the struggle altogether, he leaves evil in undisputed possession of the field, that he stands condemned before God. Turning aside from the prophet for one closing moment, I want you, looking beyond the prophet’ s teaching, to gather confirmation of his message. Look at the Bible. There is no book to make allowance for us all like this Book; no place where earth’ s failings have such kindly judgment given. “ Our wills are ours, we know not how.” We cannot sound the mysteries of our frame, but “ Our wills are ours to make them Thine.” The peace that follows righteousness, remorse after wrong-doings, the honour that everywhere men pay to self-sacrifice, the kindling indignation with which we listen to some story of base cunning and cruel wrong, the passionate thrill that passes through the whole nation to its very centre when a deed is done for freedom or a blow is struck for truth,--these things, which are among the most sacred and splendid of human experience, and which, as Dr. Dale used to say, are as real as the movements of the planets and as the ebb and flow of the tides--these things are only to be explained if it be true that man is free to choose betwixt truth and falsehood, for the good or evil side. So, in fact, with this. If a man is living in conscious rebellion against God, the poor and paltry plea of the father’ s sins will not avail. Oh yes, we may talk as we will about sour grapes, and I know not what else besides, but when conscience has a man by the throat he follows humbly in the footsteps of the Psalmist--“ The guilt is mine, the sin is mine before God.” If God’ s angel has us by the hand and is drawing us away from our bad evil selves, let us hear and answer to His call, and it may be that even yet by His grace we shall be crowned. (G. Jackson, M. A.) Individuality There is scarcely a thing in the world which is well attested which can bring forward more strong or more indisputable evidence than this truth which is incorporated in the proverb. Every land, every race, every age, has seen its truth. The fathers are always eating sour grapes, and the children’ s teeth alas, are always being set on edge. Look, I would ask, at your own life and your own experience. Here are men placed in divergent circumstances in life. We often look round and see how true it is that a man is weighted in the race of life by folly, by the extravagance of his father. A man, on the other hand, toils on industriously, accumulates possessions for his children, and in doing so gives them the advantage of the position which he has established. Or, take that other thing we often speak of--that which we cannot help--the inheritance of our name. How true it is that a man inheriting a good name is often carried away to a position far in advance of what we may call his native worth, because the great flowing wave of his father’ s success carries him high up the beach of life; and how true, on the other hand--painfully true it is, that, when a child inherits a disgraced name, he finds himself at once in the midst of a world that is ready to close its doors upon him. Or, take that which is a stronger illustration still--this law of hereditary descent which operates throughout the whole world. What strange power is it that makes a man vacillate? How is it he cannot hold on to the straight and true way of life? Or again, why is it this man is unable to cope with the strain of life? Watch him, and see what hesitancies there are about his nature. See how he starts; what strange apprehensions visit him that do not visit healthier organisations. There you have in that strange nervous organisation the story of that which has been the perilous fault of his ancestry: the overstrained life, the long hours, the eager toil, the care, the anxiety, the worry that has worn into the father’ s frame are reproduced here. And that which is true with regard to personal history is true, also, with regard to national history. Are we not bearing the weight of our fathers’ sins? Look on the difficulties which surround our own administration. See how hard it is for men exactly to poise their legislation between leniency and justice. And understand that when we have to deal with the wild, tumultuous dispositions of those people who entirely disbelieve in our good intentions towards them we are, as it were, enduring the pain of our teeth being set on edge because of the follies and the sins of past generations. Now, what is the reason, then, that the prophet should take upon himself to denounce what is so obviously true? A little reflection will show that it is not so strange as it at first sight appears. He denounces its use because it is used in an untrue sense and for an unlawful purpose. It is certainly true that when the fathers had eaten sour grapes the children’ s teeth were set on edge. All the past history of Israel showed it. These men to whom the prophet wrote were themselves illustrations of it; they were exiles, and their exile and their national disintegration was the result of their fathers’ sin. But it was quoted in a wrong sense, it was quoted in the sense of trying to make people cast a shadow upon the loving kindness of God; therefore the prophet takes up his parable against them. He argues and expostulates, he shows that the sense in which it is used is an unfair and an unjust sense; he says, “ Look upon life; watch the man whose career has been good--one who has been pure, who has been just, who has been generous--observe him. He is under the care and protection of God. If his son,” he argues, “ becomes a man of violence, a man of impurity, a man who is full of the debaucheries and injustices of life, then, indeed, upon that man will fall the shadow of his own sin; but if his son rises up, and gazing upon the life of his grandfather, and gazing upon the life of his father, turns aside from his own false ways, then upon such a man will dawn the brightness of God’ s favour.” “ The soul that sinneth shall die.” The son shall not bear in that sense the iniquity of the father. It is true he must inherit the disadvantages which are handed down to him from father to son; that the great and fatal law of life will operate, and that he cannot expect to ca, use, as it were, the shadow to go back upon the sundial of life, and to claim the position which would have been his had his father not sinned at all; but, as far as the love of God is concerned, as far as the capacity of rising up and doing some fit and noble work in life is concerned, as far as purification of his own spirit is concerned, as far as the ennobling of his own character is concerned, as far as his capacity to do something great and worthy is concerned, he is not at a disadvantage at all. “ The soul that sinneth shall die.” The sons, in that sense, shall not bear the iniquity of their fathers. It was used, then, in an untrue sense, and it was used (and this is more important still) for a false and unworthy purpose. “ Our fathers,” said they, “ had national life; they had grand energy; they had the concentration and the spirit of a nation; they had that great spirit of unity and all the glorious associations which created patriotic hearts;, they had the everlasting hills; the snowy Lebanon was theirs; the rich and swift-flowing Jordan was theirs; the fields instinct with the memories of a thousand victories were theirs: but we are condemned to exile, condemned to dwell here by the barrier set by these waters of Babylon. There is no hope for us: no future for us; our fathers eat sour grapes, and our teeth are set on edge.” No wonder that when the prophet saw they were quoting the proverb to bolster up their own indolence, and to make it the shameful apology of their own disregard of their highest and noblest duties, that, with all the indignation and sacred fire of his spirit, he rose up to denounce such an unworthy use of a truth. “ As I live, saith the Lord God, ye shall not have occasion any more to use this proverb in Israel. All souls are Mine--the soul of every individual, be he on the banks of Babylon or not, is Mine; all nations are Mine, whether they be in the plenitude of their power, or whether they be in a poverty-stricken existence.” For every soul, for every nation, there is a glorious destiny; and for men to shelter themselves from their duty by declaring that a hard fate has bound them about with its fetters of iron, and that there is no escape for them; that their whole life is shipwrecked and ruined; that they are the miserable inheritors of the fatality of their own organisation, of the tyranny of their national position, is forever to declare themselves unworthy of the name of men, that they have lost faith in the power of God--it is to take a solemn truth, and wrest it to their own destruction; it is to forge the weapons of their own imprisonment out of the very thing which should be their highest stimulus to exertion. The greatest of truths may be perverted to a false use. Truth is like a beam of light, which indeed falls straight from its parent sun, but it is possible for us to divert and alter the beauty of its hue by putting the prism of our own fancy and conceit between it and the object on which we cast it; in like manner we may misuse truths as well as use them; and if we misuse them, it is to our own detriment and shame. Oh, fatal way in which extremes meet--that the pessimist should say that he is under the fatal law of organisation, and it is useless to do anything; and that the optimist should say he is under the fatal and sweet law of organisation, and that it is needless for him to do anything. Midway between these truths which we meet in men’ s lives, and which often become the fatal sources of the apology of their indulgence--midway between them lies the real truth; these are but the opposite poles of truth, the great world upon which we live revolves upon its axis between these two. It is not your part to live forever in the north pole of life, and declare that it is all bitterness and a blasted fate; it is not your duty to live in the sunny pole of the south, and to declare that your life is all sweetness and sunshine; your lot and mine is cast in these moderate poles, where we know that law rules, and love rules above our heads, sweet love beneath our feet, sweet law, both strong, both sweet, both the offspring of God, both the sweet heralds of encouragement, to lift up our energies, to exert ourselves in the toil of life, and to be men, for do you not say that it is precisely in the counterpoising truths of law which is inexorable, and love which is never inexorable, that the power of life, and heroism of life, is found? (Bp. Boyd Carpenter.) The two-fold heredity It seems, then, that there is nothing new under the sun, and that in the days of Ezekiel men had anticipated, in some respects at least, Darwin and Ibsen and the problem novel; they were dealing with some, at least, of the difficulties which perplex us, upon whom the ends of the world have come. Science has made plain the part played by the law of heredity, the transmission of tendencies and characteristics from parents to offspring, in the development of life upon the globe. Criminologists have carried the idea over into the moral and judicial sphere, producing specimens of “ pedigree criminals,” families in which the criminal taint has descended from parents to children for generation after generation, Novelists and dramatists have found in the subject a fertile source of plots and tragedies. Social reformers find heredity a fact to be reckoned with. And now, as in Ezekiel’ s day, sinning souls are often inclined to lay the blame of their own failures on those whose blood runs in their veins. The first step to be taken in approaching this theme from the Christian standpoint is to notice how frequently it is dealt with in the Bible, the book which by some gracious miracle anticipates all other books and reveals to us the antiquity of our most modern problems. Our Lord Himself said, “ Can men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles?” There is such a thing in the moral world as pedigree, propagation of species, lines along which certain qualities and tendencies are transmitted, and you do not expect out of one stock that which, by its moral qualities, is properly the fruit of another. Paul’ s close observation of the organism of human society, as reflected specially in the Epistle to the Romans, is also a contribution to the subject; he sees that the human race is one in sin, that the taint is transmitted from generation to generation, that human history in one aspect of it gathers itself round a kind of pedigree of degeneration, so that by the disobedience of one many are made sinners. But though there is something in the knew Testament on the theme, there is more in the Old. In the New Testament it is specially the individual who comes to his rights; in the Old Testament more attention is given to the family, the nation, the generations which succeed each other and yet are part of each other--at once inheritors and transmitters of the blessing or the curse. It works for good: “ the mercy of the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting upon them that fear Him, and His righteousness unto children’ s children.” It works also for evil--“ visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation.” And both in Jeremiah and in Ezekiel we meet this idea, which had evidently become proverbial in Israel--“ The fathers have eaten sour grapes, and the children’ s teeth are set on edge.” The people were making too much of that; the prophets were eager to show them that there was another side to the truth. But that their proverb has some truth in it, who can deny? I. And first, the fact. Here it is as a theologian (Dr. Denney, Studies in Theology) states it: “ We are born with a history in us.” Here it is as a novelist (Oliver Wendell Holmes, Elsie Venner) states it: “ Each one of us is only the footing up of a double column of figures that goes back to the first pair. Every unit tells, and some of them are plus and some minus We are mainly nothing but the answer to a long sum in addition and subtraction.” If you prefer scientific witnesses, their name is legion; this doctrine is one of the cornerstones of scientific thought. One of the quaintest and most delightful studies of the subject it is hardly profound enough to be called a study, and yet it is exceedingly suggestive--is in Robert Louis Stevenson’ s Memories and Portraits. You may remember the passage in which he describes his grim old minister-grandfather, and wonders what he has inherited from him: “ Try as I please, I cannot join myself on with the reverend doctor; and all the while, no doubt he moves in my blood and whispers words to me, and sits efficient in the very knot and centre of my being.” And not he alone, but a broadening line of ancestors, stretching back into the cloudy past, the toilers and fighters and adventurers of earlier generations, “ Picts who rallied round Macbeth,” . . . “ star-gazers on Chaldean plateaus.” . . .” And furthest of all, what sleeper in green tree tops, what muncher of nuts, concludes my pedigree? Probably arboreal in his habits.” It all amounts to this, that each human being is a thousand rolled into one; the roots of our lives go deep down into history, drawing from many different strata some of the elements that make us what we are. It is the darker side of this fact that is reflected in the text. “ The fathers have eaten sour grapes,” --in other words, they have sinned, perhaps they have suffered for their sins, the grapes have been sour even in the act of eating; but their children after them have suffered also, perhaps in nothing more than in this, that in them the ancestral tendencies to evil have been perpetuated and reproduced. It means this, that if a man has had ancestors who have been, say, drunkards or loose livers or men of ungovernable temper, very likely something of their besetting tendency is transmitted into his very blood, and the battle is all the harder for him because of their sin. And if he in his turn yields himself a servant to sins like these, very likely his children and his children’ s children will be enslaved by the same bondage. This is a reality so tremendous that it has made some men curse the day they were born. Here is a relationship which is not in the smallest degree in a man’ s own control; he was not consulted as to the family into which he should be born. Yet that relationship affects not only his physical but his moral and spiritual life; it follows him into the race of life and into the fight of faith; it may prove a continual burden and snare. Thank God if those who have gone before us have been His servants, living sweet, strong, clean lives. We do not know how much easier that has made the battle for us. It is a personal matter, a care and conscience so to live that no one in whose veins your blood may run may have reason to hate your memory for what you have been or have handed on to them. And it is a social matter, the mightiest of arguments for every form of moral and religious effort that can be brought to bear on the life of today. Today is the parent of tomorrow. And anything of health and purity and love and God that is sown like seed in the soil of the present generation does not end its fruitfulness there; it is a gift and a blessing to the future--“ and the people which shall be created shall praise the Lord.” II. I notice that, though heredity is a fact, and sometimes a terrible influence, it is an influence which has its limits. This needs to be emphasised, because when men’ s hearts are in revolt against this tyranny of the dead past, they are apt to forget that the evil transmitted is not unlimited or unmixed. Even taking the bright and dark sides of hereditary influence together, it does not cover all the facts of life. Professor Drummond is right when he says that for half of life, at least, we have no “ inherited storage” of habit or tendency. And if we take the darker side alone, still more is that a limited influence. It is limited in duration: those words “ unto the third and fourth generation” have a meaning. So far and no further extends what Jeremy Taylor calls “ the entail of curses” ; there is a beneficent law which limits the time through which any evil habit in a given family can continue its self-propagating power; if it had not been for that, the world would be an infinitely worse place today. And it is limited in extent also in the individual life; it is limited by the very fact that a brighter side of hereditary influence exists; nobler instincts and finer tendencies can also be transmitted; there is a kind of entail in the blessing as surely as in the curse, and the entail of the blessing lasts the longer. These limitations imply that individuality has its own rights and possibilities. They imply that free will is not destroyed, even though hereditary influence gives a strong bias towards evil. They imply that each life may be a fresh starting point for the nobler possibilities of humanity. They imply that though a man’ s ancestors may be among his most subtle and powerful tempters, not all their power can forge upon him the fetters of an absolute fate. The truth seems to be this, that there is enough reality in this fact of heredity to constitute an important element in each man’ s trial and conflict, in some lives perhaps quite the most important element. But there is not enough in it to abolish the trial and the conflict, to make it an inevitable certainty that any man will fail in the trial or go under in the conflict. Over against the fact of corporate unity Ezekiel sets the equally real facts of personal responsibility; if men die, it is for their own sins, not for the sins of their fathers. They could turn; heavily weighted and sadly biassed though it is, human nature still swings upon its pivot, and all things are possible. Grant that they cannot rid themselves of sin, they have still a mighty defence against fate in this, that they can turn from sin towards God--the God who waits to be a refuge and a deliverer. III. That brings me to the last thought, the counteractive. For it is too mild a statement of the case to say that the influence of heredity is limited: it is attacked, it is opposed, its overthrow is planned and dared from the strongholds of eternity. Mr. Rendel Harris speaks the truth when he says: “ If we have not a Gospel against heredity it is very doubtful whether we have any Gospel at all.” At any rate, many souls are painfully conscious that if there is no Gospel against heredity, there is no Gospel at all for them. But there is an older heredity than that which is commonly meant by the word, older, deeper, more essentially related to our true selves, reaching back even to the great deep from which we came. Listen to a fragment of a human genealogy. “ Which was the son of Enos, which was the son of Seth, which was the son of Adam, which was the son of God.” The Evangelist is very daring. David the adulterer is in that genealogical tree, and Jacob the supplanter, and many others, all more or less diseased, dwarfed, defiled with sin. Can this, indeed, be allowed to stand as the ultimate origin of their being, the oldest source from which they drew their life, “ which was the son of God” ? That honourable lineage is allowed even to them, and indeed the genealogical tree of every one of us ends there, “ which was the son of God.” Has not this God created us? Are not all our souls His, and is not His image stamped upon us all? Older than any link which binds us to the past generations, deeper than any resemblance to human ancestors which may appear in our faces or actions or characters,--so old and so deep is the relationship which connects us with the living God. Nay, it is a direct and immediate relationship; that is the chief burden of the prophet’ s message here, in answer to the morbid melancholy of the people’ s mood. “ As I live, saith the Lord God, all souls are Mine.” Each soul has still its own link with God, its own responsibility to Him, and its own inheritance in Him. We may have done our best to break this connection, to blot out this likeness. But He does not disown the relationship. Now, this more wonderful heredity, so central and essential in man’ s true nature, has been sadly overlaid and overborne by other influences, such as those I have spoken of today. And God has taken special means to restore it to its true place and influence, to create the family that should realise the Divine intention, and bring the race of man to its true and glorious destiny. Think of the wonder of that interposition! The man Christ Jesus, bone of our bone, flesh of our flesh, descendant on His human side of a stock that was no more exempt than we are from the universal disease. Yet He was without sin, without one stain or taint of sin. The law of human heredity was laid aside for once in Him, that the older, deeper, diviner heredity might fully express itself, the answer to the world’ s despair! And this second Adam became the head and founder of a new family, reproducing Himself in those who believed on Him, filling them with His grace, training and enabling them to follow in His steps, “ that He might be the first-born among many brethren.” Can men gather grapes of thorns or figs of thistles? Of course not; but many a sorry branch of the human tree, barren and almost ready for the burning, has begun to bear wondrous fruit when it has been grafted into the true Vine. Jesus gives power to become the sons of God; He starts them on the life in which the true end of their being is to be fulfilled. Let us believe in this. Let us pray to have it realised in us and ours. So we have a Gospel against heredity, and surely it is a Gospel indeed. (J. M. E. Ross, M. A.) Heredity and grace The context also makes it clear that the captives in Chaldea used the words as a querulous reproach against the Almighty. Their forefathers had sinned; they, the descendants, were reaping the fruit. Not for their own misdeeds were they now suffering such dire calamity, They were simply involved as by the operation of a remorseless fate in the sins of their predecessors, and they were unable to shake themselves free from the crushing incubus. Now, these Jewish exiles voice very much of contemporary English thought at the beginning of the twentieth Christian century. Men do not attempt to deny the fact of moral evil. It is no longer pretended that this is the best of all possible worlds; that the advance of education, refinement, and civilisation is steadily driving sin out of the universe; and that under the evolutionary process we may confidently anticipate the speedy advent of the new heavens and the new earth. No! that shallow optimism of English Deism is scouted by modern philosophy, whose keynote is heredity. The idea that the offence of the ancestor involves the race in disability is no longer confined to the theology of the dark ages. Scientists, social reformers, journalists, and novelists have claimed it as their own. Darwin corroborates Paul. When the preachers of a century ago talked of original sin they were grievously reproached for their dark, gloomy views of human nature. It was a monstrous notion that men should be handicapped in all their after destiny by the sin of one primitive man from whom they chanced to be the descendants. That doctrine was only the invention of diseased consciences, the fiction of priests, and impossible of acceptance by any but the least enlightened of mankind. But modern philosophy has changed all that, and now proclaims in its own way every principle of the old creed. So widespread and dominant has this teaching become that in the words of a discriminating critic, “ one would think that the problem of heredity constituted the sum and substance of life, and that a man is nothing but a sum of tendencies transmitted from his ancestors.” Nor can we be blind to the substantial truth of the modern doctrine. There is no theory which could marshal a greater or more appalling array of evidence in its favour than the theory incorporated in this Jewish proverb. The Bible itself assures us that the sins of the fathers are visited upon the children to the third and fourth generation. We see all around us men who inherit physical capacities, physical qualities, physical aptitudes which make it not only difficult for them to enter into life with the same advantage as their fellows, but which furnish them with a terrible bias the wrong way. And let us thankfully acknowledge that science has, at least, rendered this great service to the Christian faith. It has shown that we do not stand alone. We are not isolated units. We are parts of a great social organism bound to each other by close and indissoluble ties. “ No man liveth unto himself,” we are all members one of another. And yet the startling fact remains that Ezekiel only quotes this proverb, expressive of so much truth, in order to repudiate it. He declares that it is unworthy of those who bear the name of Israel. “ What mean ye that ye use this proverb in the land of Israel?” --the land which acknowledges Jehovah, and which is His peculiar possession? It is only fit for heathen, and ought to be swept forever from the records of Israel. He repudiates the proverb because it was used in an untrue sense, and was bound up with absolutely false inferences. The captives said they were suffering because of their fathers’ sin. That was true. Their present misery was the result of the idolatry of their fathers. What then? Shall men make the ugly inheritance from the past a bolster for indolence today, and an apology for disregarding the duties of the hour? It was this mistake which the exiles were making. Their eyes were so fixed upon their fathers’ sin that they could see none in themselves. They were the victims of dire misfortune--men to be pitied and excused. A spirit of fatalism and despair had settled down upon them, and they moaned that a hard fate had bound them in fetters of iron, from which there was no escape. “ If our transgressions and our sins be upon us, and we pine away in them, how, then, should we live?” There is a similar spirit around us today. It is felt in much of our literature. Sin is regarded as a man’ s misfortune rather than his fault. The drunkard, the impure, the idler, and ne’ er-do-well can no more help themselves for these evil things than they can interfere with the size of their stature or the colour of their hair. I am not exaggerating the trend of popular opinion. One of our best-known writers, in a little book which has become a household word, tells us that at the end of the twentieth century men will “ look backward,” and then, for the first time, seeing things as they really are, will always speak of crime as “ atavism.” This means, in plain language, that what has been bred in the bone must sooner or later come out in the flesh. The murderer is therefore what he has been made; he acts by necessity of nature, and cannot be otherwise than he is. Of course, we see at once where such teaching lands us. It means the denial of all moral responsibility, and the paralysis of all aspiration. It is the doctrine of despair. It is here that the Bible parts company with modern philosophy. It does not deny the facts of heredity. It admits that men do not start equally in the race of life. It shirks none of the hideous facts which are plain to every observer of human life. It declares that to whom little is given of him little shall be required. It speaks of One who watches above--“ With larger other eyes than ours to make allowance for us all.” But it refuses to regard any man as absolutely determined by the influences he has received from the past. Our consciences tell us that the Bible is right. How otherwise can we explain our feelings of personal responsibility, our sense of shame and remorse? No man ever yet morally felt accountable because he was of diminutive height. The sense of accountability for our actions, however, is always with us. The very men who deny it cannot write a page without using language which contradicts their denial. And there is no explanation whatever for this persistency of conscience, and its lofty refusal to be gagged and silenced, when we plead our flimsy excuses at its bar, if a man is so hopelessly bound by his past that it is impossible for him to be free. You never yet succeeded in justifying yourself by shuffling the blame on to the shoulders of those who have gone before you. No! the attempt to evade responsibility is essentially dishonest. It is a futile make-believe. The man who attempts it hardly cheats himself, for in his deepest heart he knows that, however hampered he may be in his fight with sin, he is not justified in the resignation of despair. The prophet supplies the ground on which this verdict of conscience is justified. Ezekiel sets over against the proverbial half truth of the exiles another which counterbalances it. “ Ye shall no more use this proverb in Israel, for all souls are Mine.” Man does not belong only to the family, the tribe, the nation. He belongs to God. He possesses not only what he has derived from a tainted ancestry, but that which he has received straight from God. The deeds of my forefathers are not the only factor in the case. God must be taken into account. God lives and works, and I belong to Him. The reply of the prophet is carried further in the Christian Gospel. It tells me of a Saviour who is able to save unto the uttermost. It opposes to these natural forces which incline to sin the power of almighty grace. Every man here stands in direct personal relations with Jesus Christ, and may come into personal saving contact with the strong Son of God. Here is our hope. Christianity is a Gospel, because it points me to a Redeemer who makes all things new. And so the work of the second Adam comes in to restore the balance of moral forces disturbed in the fall of the first. The sin of the natural head of the race is more than outweighed by the righteousness of Jesus Christ. The new pulses of life from Him are mightier than the tide of tainted life that comes to me out of the past. The transfusion of grace prevails over that of corruption.” Where sin abounded, grace has much more abounded. We are not under the tyranny of natural law. We are under grace. If, therefore, anyone says, “ It is useless for me to hope to be better, greater, truer than I am. You do not know by what circumstances I am environed; you do not know what terrible physical organisation I inherit. You do not know the temper, the passion, the lust that are in me. I am the victim of this terrible law which makes it impossible for me to rise and shake off its tyranny.” I answer, “ It is not so. You are not so weighted in the race that you must fall and perish. There is help for every man, the eternal and undying energy of Divine grace.” I tell you of Jesus, the servant of Jehovah who is anointed to give deliverance to the captives. “ He breaks the power of cancelled sin, He sets the prisoners free.” Jesus told the man with the withered hand to stretch it forth. That is just what he had tried to do again and again without success. But faith in Jesus, who gave the command, induced him to make the effort to obey, and in the effort he received power. Jesus speaks to us all in His Gospel, and He speaks to the weak and sinful side of our nature. He calls us to a life of self-conquest, of purity, of holy service and high endeavour. And when we set forth the insuperable obstacles in our way, our surroundings in business, our inherited tendencies, our strong passions, our weak wills, and say “ We cannot” ; He replies: “ Stretch forth thy hand.” Make this venture of faith. You see all the forces arrayed against you. You do not see the living Saviour who can make you more than conqueror. But act as if He were on your side, and you shall find new life and new power. The will to be saved is the beginning of salvation. (W. E. Bloomfield.) The doctrine of heredity perverted How do men pervert this doctrine of the fathers having eaten sour grapes, and the children’ s teeth being set on edge? They seek to ride off from responsibility on the ground that they are suffering vicariously, and perhaps innocently; they cannot help doing evil: the thirsty throat was born within them, and water cannot quench it, so they must drink fire and brimstone; they say they are fated to do evil; the thief is in their muscles, and they must steal; their father was a felon, and they must keep up the family line. In a pensive tone, with a melancholy that is supposed to express a degree of resignation, philosophical, although self-reproachful, they speak now about law, heredity, development: and thus they walk down to darkness on the stilts of polysyllables. The fathers have eaten sour grapes, say they, and our innocent teeth are set on edge: this is the outworking of the mystery, the occult law of heredity. The Lord will not have that any longer; He says, This proverb shall cease; these people are being ruined by their own epigrams, they do not see the full sweep and scope and bent of things. Then He lays down the grand, all-inclusive, all-involving doctrine to which we shall presently turn. But is there not a law of succession, of heredity; is there not a mystery of paternity, following the little boy all the time? Yes, there is. Take care what use you make of that fact. Let it fall under the great all-governing law, and then it will come into right perspective. How does society, that humanity which is next to God, treat this law of heredity? Very directly, summarily, and justly. The culprit, being not only a felon but a philosopher, says to the magistrate, I was born as you find me; I am not the thief, it is my father who is guilty of felony; pity me as the victim of heredity. And his worship, being also a philosopher, without being a felon, says, The argument is good, it is based in reason; you are discharged. Is it so in society? Is it not accounted just in society that the soul that sinneth, it shall be punished? Instead, therefore, of having a theology that does not coincide with our own highest instincts and noblest practices, we had better see what adjustment can be created as between our theology and our habits, laws, and practices. In society we ignore heredity: what if in the Church it has been pushed as a doctrine to evil because of irrational uses? What is the great principle, then, that is to supersede small proverbs and local sayings and misapplied epigrams? “ As I live, saith the Lord” --solemn word: when it is uttered I feel as if the gates of eternity had been thrown back, that the King might come out in person and address His people the universe--“ As I live, saith the Lord God,. . .behold, all souls are Mine” ; and the law of punishment is, “ The soul that sinneth, it shall die.” The universe replies, That is just, that is good. That is not arbitrary; that is necessary, that is reason working itself out, a great stern law operating beneficently, when judged by sufficient breadth of time. The Lord is not a tyrant with a rod of iron in His hand, smiting men because they do wrong; He is the Sovereign of a universe so constituted that no man can tell a lie without loss--loss of quality, loss of standing, loss of dignity, loss of confidence. That is God’ s universe--sensitive to truth, sensitive to all that is exact, honourable, noble, pure, right. It is good to live in such a universe so long as we are in harmony with its spirit, but when we lose touch with its moral music it crushes us, not tyrannically and arbitrarily, not in a spirit of petty resentment, which begets resentment, but in a spirit of justice, reason, righteousness. See how good the Lord is. The just man shall live, saith the Lord. If the just man have a son that is a robber, the robber shall not be saved because the father was a just man. If a bad man have a good son, that good son shall live, though his father be wallowing in hell. The question is, not what was your father, but what you are. Shall we say, Lord, my father was a bad man, and therefore I cannot help being bad myself? The Lord will not allow that reasoning. The Lord gives every man a chance in life, an opportunity; allots to every man a measure of faith, or grace, or reason; attaches to every man something on which he can found a Divine judgment. Shall we say, My father was so good that I have not felt the need of being good myself; I want to be saved with the family? The Lord will not admit such reasoning. We are not saved in families, we are saved one by one; so the Lord will have it that His way is equal. The great law of punishment therefore stands. (J. Parker, D. D.) Heredity and environment Various themes are afoot in our days, and have been in generations past, to relieve us from the pressure of personal responsibility for the character of our own life. We want to get some scientific ground to excuse ourselves whenever the ideal in our souls condemns the real in our action. The theory abroad in our day, clad in a robe of scientific weaving, and therefore counted respectable, has these two feet--one called heredity, the other environment. It is assumed by many that a man can stand firmly, and hold up his head bravely, if only he alternates these two ideas. If one gives out and will not account for things, he can put the other forward. The consequence is that many people are fatalists. I am what I am, because my father and mother and grandfather and grandmother were what they were. This fatalism is paralyzing to the higher moralities and charities of life. While on the one side it condemns, on the other side it discourages. Let us not say (it would be foolish to do it) that the influences of heredity do not descend. The Old Testament people knew they did. The idea was expressed very strongly in the words that, not in their guilt but in their natural consequences, the sins of the fathers should be visited on the children to the third and fourth generations. That is about the longest period of life (in the human family) an evil has; but goodnesses and virtues keep on to thousands of generations. In that is our hope of the final complete triumph of good over evil. “ Visiting the iniquities of the fathers upon the children to the third and fourth generation, and showing mercy unto thousands (of generations) of them that love Me and keep My commandments.” Heredity justifies itself. It is beneficent in its purpose and working. Notwithstanding that evil tendencies are started, notwithstanding that a next generation may be handicapped, yet the question whether more evil than good ever descends is one which we cannot now stay to discuss. Personally, I cannot but believe that life is always a blessing given, and that along the line of the most unfortunate heredity that thin stream of Divine life flows which can never be extinguished till God withdraws Himself. And that is, to my mind, proved by the experiences we have of the regenerating force of a purified environment. The cases are legion for numbers in which some of the most useful lives now being lived have carried in them an heredity of the very worst. People were thinking in Ezekiel’ s time as we are thinking in our time. They were misrepresenting God and His providence. They were talking of one another as if each were simply the exact sum of a row of figures; as if they were animals of certain sorts or families. The lion is not responsible for being a lion, nor the leopard for his spots, nor the tiger for his bloodthirstiness, nor man for his characteristics. That was the kind of speech heard from lip to lip. Into the midst of it all the prophet came with his message from God, “ The soul that sinneth, it shall die. The son shall not bear the iniquity, etc. This language recognises that each of us is something more than a section in the stream of heredity, and something more than a silver-plated mirror receiving the impression of the life round about us, whether we will to receive it or not. A man is not accountable for his heredity, and only partly for his environment, but he has a self which is related to both, but which is more than both. He can say “ I.” He can say “ I will.” Around those two words all his responsibility gathers. What fathers and mothers have given us, that is between them and God. But there is something they have not given us. Within all the forces of life, vital and mechanical, there is a Divine movement. Out of theft Divine Spirit has come the soul which is the self, which sits at the centre of things, receiving and rejecting, approving and disapproving--the Ego--the I--the self. This is the mystery--the wonder of life. No theories, no philosophies, no systems can deny it or undo it or scatter it, or give it to someone else, or make someone else responsible for it. Individuality is as real as society itself. This entry is longer than a Bible module can hold. The rest is at https://www.sermonindex.net/commentary/bi/ Ezekiel 18:4 Behold, all souls are Mine; as the soul of the father, so also the soul of the son is Mine: the soul that sinneth, it shall die.The gospel of the exile incarnate in Ezekiel (with Ezekiel 36:25-26; Ezekiel 37:14):--Every living “ word” must be made flesh, and dwell among us; live in a human and personal life, breathe our warm breath, grasp us with sympathetic and friendly hands, carry our sins and bear our sorrows, if it is to gain admission at “ lowly doors” ; stir the “ spirit’ s inner deeps” ; compel and inspire to an ampler life the reluctant souls of men. The maximum of power is never gained by ideas till they possess and sway the “ body prepared for them,” and clothe themselves with the subtle and mysterious influences of a vital and impressive personality. The notion of rescuing the waifs and strays of town and village life was in the air of the last century for a long time, and occasionally passed out of its formlessness into print and speech; but it did not grapple with evil, and become the power of God unto the salvation of young England, until it was incarnate in Robert Raikes, of Gloucester, and through him became, as the Sunday School, “ the pillar of a people’ s hope, the centre of a world’ s desire.” The brutal hardness and ferocious cruelty of the prisons of Europe had arrested the fickle attention again and again, but no blow was struck to abate the prodigious mischiefs of criminal life, and elevate punishment into a minister of justice, till John Howard was fired and possessed with the passion of prison reform, and dedicated his will to its advancement with the glorious abandon and success-compelling energy of the prophet. The same is true of the war for personal liberty, of the battles against superstition, and so on ad infinitum. Now, our Bible is a book of ideas--ideas the most simple and sublime, central and essential to all human welfare; but these ideas do not appear as ghosts of a strange and distant world, but clothed in our own humanity, our veritable flesh and blood, speaking “ our own tongue wherein we were born,” and moving in the midst of the experiences of sin and sorrow, temptation and suffering, and painful progress common to us all. The biblical evangels are all in men. Each one comes with the momentum of a human personality. The Gospel of all the Gospels, the pearl of greatest price, is in the Man Christ Jesus; and in accordance with this Divine principle, the Gospel of the Exile was incarnate in the prophets, and notably in Ezekiel. His very name was a Divine promise, “ God shall strengthen” ; and his life an enforcement of the beautiful saying, “ They that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength,” etc. The signs and proofs of imperfection notwithstanding, it is palpable that Ezekiel, moved by the Holy Ghost, is a man of invincible newness of spirit, works by methods of evangelical thoroughness, and inspires and impels by motives of a decisively Christian quality. I. Ezekiel breathes the spirit of the new evangel from the beginning to the close of his ministry, the spirit of unbending courage, iron consistency, uncompromising faithfulness, heroic self-abnegation, and living faith in God. The breath of Jehovah lifts him on to his feet. The ineffable thrill of the Divine life fills him with a manly daring, makes his “ forehead as an adamant, harder than flint,” so that he faces and accepts in his inmost being the unspeakable bitterness of the communications he has to deliver, and bears without repining the pressure of an overwhelmingly sorrowful work for the disobedient and obdurate house of Israel. The conscious possession of a gospel for men is the true inspiration to fearlessness, defiance of wrong and falsehood and hypocrisy, calm and inflexible zeal in work. The real prophet of his age reckons with calumny, misrepresentation, neglect, and poverty. Livingstone carries in his New Testament the food on which martyrs are nourished. Savonarola is fortified for death by the vision of the future of Florence which grows out of the good tidings he preaches. Paul and Barnabas can readily hazard their lives as missionaries because they know they are conveying the unsearchable riches of Christ. II. The Gospel of the exile is incarnate in Ezekiel as to its method, as well as in its new and conquering spirit. There is a penetrating thoroughness characteristic of the life of the time, and of the particular experience through which Israel is passing; a going to the root of individual and national mischief; a searching of heart, an arousal of conscience, an insistence on the doctrine of individual responsibility; a forcing of men face to face with eternal and irresistible Divine laws--all essential to the successful proclamation of a true evangel for sinning men.1. The prophet’ s first word anticipates that of John the Baptist and of our Lord, “ Repent ye, repent ye. God is at hand. His rule is real, though invisible. His kingdom is coming, though you do not see it. Repent, and repent at once.” With an energy of language, and a vigour of epithet, and a vehemence of spirit, that could neither be mistaken nor resisted, he rebuked the sins of this house of disobedience, exposed its hollow sophistries and self-delusions, and bade it cast away its transgressions, and make itself a new heart and a new spirit. 2. Nor does he rest till he has dug up the very roots of their false and fatal wrong-doing, and laid bare to the glare of the light of day the real cause of all their sin. They are fatalists. Ezekiel met this fixed iron fatalism of the people with the all-encompassing and indefeasible doctrine of the personal responsibility of each man for his own sin; as distinct from the distorted notion of inherited and transmitted guilt and suffering, they were proclaiming. “ God says,” he told him, “ behold, all souls are Mine” ; each is of equal and independent value; as the soul of the father, so is the soul of the son; the soul that sinneth, it shall die--it, and not another for it; it alone, and only for its own conscious and inward wrong. God’ s ways are all equal, and righteousness is the glory of His administration. Heredity is a fact; but it neither accounts for the sum of human suffering, nor for the presence of individual sin. The grape theory may fill a proverb, but it will not explain the Exile. III. Ezekiel could not have adopted so rigorous and searching a method unless he had been bathed and inspired by the great evangelical motive. The motive to Ezekiel’ s ministry is the loving, omnipotent, and regenerating God.1. As the idea of sin bulges more and more in the thought of the Jews, and burns with increased fierceness in their consciences, fed by the sufferings of their nation, so with unprecedented sharpness of outline appears “ the wiping out” of guilt by the free, sovereign, and love-prompted grace of God. 2. It is in the inspiration of hope in the almighty power of God that Ezekiel soars to the highest ranges, and beholds his most memorable and gladdening vision. Carried in thought to his “ Mount of Transfiguration,” Tel-Abib, he sees covering the vast area of the far-stretching plain the wreck as of an immense army, of dry, bleached, and withering bones. He muses, and the fire of thought burns, and the voice of God sounds in the lonely chambers of his soul. The omnipotence of God is the certain resurrection of the soul of man. He cannot be holden of death. This last enemy shall be destroyed. Power belongeth unto God, and He uses it to save prostrate, despondent, and despairing souls, convicted of guilt, oppressed with the consciousness of death! His delight is in renewal as well as in mercy! 3. Nor is this a fitful and passing access of power, standing out in life like a mountain peak in a plain, a sad memorial of a delightful past, and prophecy of an impossible future; a record of privilege never again to be enjoyed. No; for “ I will,” says God, “ take away the hard, insensitive, unsympathetic, and selfish heart of stone, and will give you a heart of flesh, tender, responsive to the touch of all that surrounds it, open to the Divine emotion of reverence and pity, love and aspiration; and I will put My spirit within you, and write My laws on your heart, enrich you with personal communion, and nourish you by a true obedience.” O blessed Gospel! O cheering Pentecost of the Exile! How the hearts of the lowly and penitent in Israel leapt to hail thy coming, rejoiced in the fulness of the blessing of faith, hope, and fellowship, with the Eternal! and prepared for the world-saving mission to which God had called them. Who, then, will hesitate to preach God’ s last, perfect, and universal Gospel to his fellow man? Who will not seek for the strength which comes (1) from a new and full life, a heart quick in sympathy and strong in the Spirit; (2) from the conviction that we are living in a world of persons spiritually related to the Father, and immediately responsible to His judgment; and (3) from the assurance that the love of God is a real gospel for each human soul--so that he may proclaim the faithful saying, that God is the Saviour of all men, specially of those that believe? (J. Clifford, D. D.) All souls for God There is a difference between the utterance of a man of science and the utterance of a prophet. When knowledge or science speaks, we demand that it shall prove its assertions; but when the prophet speaks, he speaks that which demands and needs no reason, because he speaks to that within us which can approve its utterance. Again, when the man of science speaks, what he conveys may be interesting, but it does not necessarily convey any requisite action on our part; but wherever prophecy speaks, it commands responsible action on our part; it is the obligation of obedience. Now, Ezekiel was a prophet, differing, no doubt, from other prophets; but, nevertheless, he was one of those who gave utterance to those pregnant sentences or statements which, having been once spoken, are spoken forever. You have an illustration of it in the text. “ Behold,” says the prophet, and he speaks not for his own time, but for all time--“ Behold,” speaking in the name of God, “ all souls are Mine.” It is to the principle which underlies those words--and to the exhaustless range of its application to various departments of human life, that I ask your attention. It is indispensable to our conception of God that all souls should be His. Imagine for one moment that it could be shown that there were souls which did not belong to God; we should immediately say that the whole conception which we had formed of God, the very fundamental idea which we attach to the word, had been entirely destroyed, and He would cease to be God to us if He were not God of all! But if it is true, then, as belonging to the indispensable conception of the Divine Being that all souls should be His, the power of the principle lies in this; a principle lies behind, I venture to think, nearly all our opinions. It was so in the prophet’ s day. Here strong opinions prevailed. The opinion which was strongest amongst the people of his day, was an opinion concerning what would be called in modern language, heredity--“ The fathers had eaten sour grapes, and the children’ s teeth were set on edge.” A truth! An unquestionable truth when viewed from some standpoints. But how did he deal with it? By bringing out the force of the old principle, the unquestionable principle, “ All souls are Mine.” Whatever may have happened in the progress of generation after generation, whatever dark shadow may have descended from father to son, however much the father’ s sin may have been visited upon the children, that is not a token that they have ceased to be God’ s, rather is it a token that the surrounding and the providential hand of God is upon them still. And no act of one man can sever God from the rights which He has over another man. And as no man can redeem his brother, so no man can drag his brother out of the hand of the Almighty. For He lays down this principle of sovereignty, All souls are Mine; and as God is crowned King of heaven, so does He declare that His are inalienable rights, and no wrong and no darkness and no sin can rob Him of those rights. That is the declaration of the principle--“ All souls are Mine.” It is a statement of a right to property, “ It is He that hath made us and not we ourselves, and behold! our souls are His!” But are you satisfied that that shall be the only significance of it? It is the declaration of Divine right, arising out of creation if you please, but remember, it is ever true that the enunciation of Divine rights is the enunciation of Divine character. We must never for a moment imagine that we can dissociate the idea of God’ s rights from the idea of a Divine character. It is the declaration not only of His claim over men by right of His creation of them, but of His nearness to them and His care for them; that they have a claim to His care arising out of His creation of them. That is what the prophet is earnestly urging. For if you look for a moment you will see it is no mere naked assertion of the right to property over men. What he is anxious for is to blot out the darkness which their false and tyrannising opinion has brought over the souls of his brethren. They are in exile, cowering down beneath the weight of circumstances Which seemed inevitable and inexorable. He stands as before these men and says, “ Behold, you are liberated; God is near you. No one has a right to declare that you do not belong to Him. I speak for your souls which are now trodden down by the idea that somehow or another the dark shadow of the past has put them out of the care of God, and out of the thought of God. This never has been, and never can be, the case, for whatever a man be, with his soul falling into wickedness and evil, or rising into goodness, all, all, no matter of what sort, are under His care and keeping.” It is an attack upon the idea that anything can take a man out of the care, out of the love, out of the tenderness of God. And was he net right in his interpretation? The ages go by; I turn to another book, and behold! the message of the book is the message which runs precisely on those lines. Property, in the Divine idea, means the obligation of property. What did your Master and mine say? He said, “ Here are men in the world: who are the men which show the carelessness of responsibility? The hireling flieth, because he is an hireling, but the Good Shepherd lays down His life for the sheep, because the sheep are His own, and the right of property gives responsibility.” Those who are His by the claim of possession have also a claim upon His care. If this be the principle, do you not see how wide it is? And yet, surely often and often this principle has been lost sight of, and opinions again have risen up to tyrannise over us and to limit “ its” thought and its power. How often we are told, “ Yes, they are God’ s, if--” There is always an “if”--“if a certain experience has been gone through; if a certain ceremony has been performed; if a certain belief has been acknowledged; if a certain life has been lived, then they are God’ s, not otherwise!” You will not suppose for a moment that I would undervalue an experience, nor an ordinance, nor a faith, nor a life. But surely we must never confuse the manifestation of a principle with the original principle itself. When the soul wakens up to the consciousness of God, it is the awakening of the soul to the thought that God had claimed it before. When the child is taken and admitted into the Christian Church, you had not baptized it unless you had believed beforehand that the redeeming hand of Christ had been stretched athwart the world. The faith that you teach the humblest of your disciples will give him the first thought that he belongs to God, for you will teach him, “ I believe in God my Father.” And the life that he has to live can only be the outcome of this, that he is possessed by the power of a spirit which is declaring, to him that he is not his own, but he is bought with a price. Nay, does not the apostle round his argument precisely in that order? All the experiences, the joyous experiences of Christian life, are the outcome of the realisation of that which was true beforehand, that the soul belongs to any lesser or any lower, but simply to God. Because ye are His, God has sent forth the spirit of His Son into your hearts, crying Abba, Father. Such is the range of the principle as an expression of Divine love, which is also the charter of human rights. Yes, it stands forever written here, that the world may remember “ All souls are Mine.” We know what the history of the past was--contempt for this or that race. Can there be contempt any longer, seeing that the Divine fiat has gone forth, “ All souls are Mine” ? It stands as the perpetual witness against the selfish contempt of race against race. It is the declaration then, so far, of rights. It is an individual one, for, believe me, no philosophy can ever take the place of religion. It is absolutely impossible that altruism can be a fitting substitute for self-sacrificing Christian love. The best intentions in the world will not secure the objects of those good intentions. As long as you and I live we shall find that the charter of human rights lies not in any declaration from earth, but in a declaration from heaven. Just as the city, the ideal city when it comes, will not spring from the earth, but will come down from heaven, so, also, that which is the declaration of the citizenship of that great city must descend from heaven, and the rights of men be conceived there and not upon earth. For, unfortunately, it is only too true that civilisation weaves within her bosom many strange passions and prejudices and opinions which become an organised cruelty against the rights and the pities of men. There are cruelties of philosophy, and cruelties of science, and cruelties of commerce, and cruelties of diplomacy. Cruelties of philosophy--one man teaches us that it is impossible to raise out of their savage and sad condition certain races of the world. Cruelties of science, when we are told that it is a pity to disturb the picturesque surroundings of some of the lower African tribes, because the scientific man loses the opportunity of a museum-like study when these races become Christianised. Cruelties of commerce, when men are ready to condone the wicked, and cruelly slaughter thousands, if they may secure a half per cent more dividend upon their capital. Your answer is, “ Here is a Divine principle; have faith in this principle and behold the cruelty shall disappear.” It has been so. The answer which has been given out of the exercise of faith in this principle is an unanswerable reply to the objectors of all kinds. Everywhere where there has been energy, everywhere where there has been this faith, it has been faith in the one living principle that God’ s hand is over the whole race, and that all souls belong to Him. That is the answer to those who would seek to make the charter of men less, and Jesus Christ coming to us says, “ Behold, it is even truer,” for over the whole world His love goes forth, and the armies of His Cross spread East and West, and all are brought within His embrace, seeing that He tasted death for every man. And as we contemplate, behold what happens! We see immediately all these various races with their several conditions, with their degraded state, or what we are pleased to call their uncivilised state, all of them are united in one thing: they have a common origin; they have a common call; there is a common hope for them; there is a common hand of love stretched out to them, and as you contemplate this fundamental bond of union all the other idiosyncrasies and differences sink into insignificance compared with this, that they are made of the same blood as ourselves, that their souls are called by the same God as ourselves, and all these souls are His, and the less we speak of these minor differences the better is the realisation of the profound love of God which has become the charter of human rights. It is a statute, finally of obligation, of service--“ All souls are Mine.” If all souls are God’ s, then, humbly be it spoken, we too are His, and His claim over us is the very same as the claim which we are seeking to extend the whole wide world over, and His claim over us is the claim that we, being His, shall, in some sort, resemble Him. In the constancy of His service who works ceaselessly, in the self-sacrifice of that love which loved us and gave itself for us, the obligation which springs out of that conception “ All souls are Mine “ is the obligation that your whole life, your whole soul, all that you are, shall be consecrated and dedicated to His service. And that is the rationale of Christian missions. (Bp. Boyd Carpenter.) The wealth of God and the obligation of man I. The wealth of God. He owns souls--intelligent, free, influential, deathless souls.1. His wealth is immense. Think of the value of one soul. Think of the inexhaustible powers, of the wonderful things that one soul is capable of producing, of the interminable influence for good or bad that one soul originates; and it may be well said, that one soul is of more value than the whole world. 2. His wealth is righteous. He has the most absolute, the most unquestionable right to them. He made them: He is the only Creator, and He has the only right. They are His, with all their faculties and powers. 3. His wealth is inalienable. They cannot become their own, nor can they become the property of another. They are his, absolutely, righteously, and forever. 4. His wealth is ever-augmenting. The mountains are old, and the sea is old, and the river is old, and even the youngest plants and animals that appear are but old materials entered into new combinations, nothing more. But souls are new in the entireness of their nature. Fresh emanations from the Eternal Father are they all. Thus His wealth of souls increases. II. The obligation of man.1. We should act according to His will. It is His will that we should not “ live to ourselves” --not seek our own. It is His will that we should centre our affections on Him, love Him with all our hearts, etc. It is His will that we should avail ourselves of the provisions of mercy in Christ Jesus. 2. We should confide implicitly in His protection. We are His, and if we use ourselves according to His direction, He will take care of us, be our shield in the battle, and our refuge in the storm. 3. We should be jealous for His rights. (1) We should zealously maintain His rights in ourselves. We should allow no one to extort service or homage from us that belongs to God. (2) We should practically recognise His right in our fellow men. We should battle against priestcraft, oppression, and slavery, on the ground of loyalty to heaven. (Homilist.) All souls are God’ s When we look at the world from any other point of view than the Christian we are led to despise or to undervalue the mass of men. The man of culture looks down on them as incapable of mental improvement; the man of righteousness sees them hopelessly immersed in vice and crime; the reformer turns away discouraged, seeing how they cling to old abuses. Everything discourages us but Christianity. That enables us to take off all these coverings, and find beneath the indestructible elements and capacities of the soul itself. We see standing before us a muffled figure: it has been long dug out of the ground, and is covered with a mass of earth. The man of taste looks at it, and finds nothing attractive: he sees only the wretched covering. The moralist looks at it, and finds it hopelessly stained with the earth and the soil in which it has so long lain. The reformer is discouraged, finding that it is in fragments,--whole limbs wanting; and considers its restoration hopeless. But another comes, inspired by a pro-founder hope; and he sees beneath the stains the Divine lineaments; in the broken fragments the wonderful proportions. Carefully he removes the coverings; tenderly he cleanses it from its stains; patiently he readjusts the broken parts, and supplies those which are wanting: and so at last it stands, in a royal museum or pontifical palace, an Apollo or a Venus, the very type of manly grace or feminine beauty,--a statue which enchants the world.1. All souls belong to God and to goodness by creation. Compared with the capacities and powers which are common to all, how small are the differences of genius or talent between man and man! Now, suppose that we should see in the midst of our city a building just erected with care and cost. Its foundations are deeply laid; its walls are of solid stone; its various apartments are arranged with skill for domestic and social objects; but it is unoccupied and unused. We do not believe that its owner intends it to remain so: we believe that the day will come in which these rooms shall become a home; in which these vacant chambers shall resound with the glad shouts of children and the happy laughter of youth; where one room shall be devoted to earnest study, another to serious conversation, another to safe repose, and the whole be sanctified by prayer. Such a building has God erected in every human soul. One chamber of the mind is fitted for thought, another for affection, another for earnest work, another for imagination, and the whole to be the temple of God. It stands now vacant; its rooms unswept, unfurnished, wakened by no happy echoes: but shall it be so always? Will God allow this soul, which belongs to Him, so carefully provided with infinite faculties, to go wholly to waste? 2. No; God, having made the soul for goodness, is also educating it for goodness. The soul, which belongs to God by creation, will also belong to Him by education and culture. The earth is God’ s school, where men are sent for seventy years, more or less, to be educated for the world beyond. All souls are sent to this school; all enjoy its opportunities. The poor, who cannot go to our schools; the wretched and the forlorn, who, we think, are without means of culture,--are perhaps better taught than we are in God’ s great university. The principal teachers in this school are three,--nature, events, and labour. Nature receives the newborn child, shows him her picture book, and teaches him his alphabet with simple sights and sounds. Happy are the children who can go the most to Mother Nature, and learn the most in her dame school. The little prince was wise who threw aside his fine playthings, and wished to go out and play in the beautiful mud. The next teacher in God’ s school is labour. That which men call the primal curse is, in fact, one of our greatest blessings. Those who are called the fortunate classes, because they are exempt from the necessity of toil, are, for that very reason, the most unfortunate. Work gives health of body and health of mind, and is the great means of developing character. Nature is the teacher of the intellect, but labour forms the character. Nature makes us acquainted with facts and laws; but labour teaches tenacity of purpose, perseverance in action, decision, resolution, and self-respect. Then comes the third teacher,--these events of life which come to all,--joy and sorrow, success and disappointment, happy love, disappointed affection, bereavement, poverty, sickness and recovery, youth, manhood, and old age. Through this series of events all are taken by the great teacher,--life: these diversify the most monotonous career with a wonderful interest. They are sent to deepen the nature, to educate the sensibilities. Thus nature teaches the intellect, labour strengthens the will, and the experiences of life teach the heart, For all souls God has provided this costly education. What shall we infer from it? If we see a man providing an elaborate education for his child, hardening his body by exercise and exposure, strengthening his mind by severe study, what do we infer from this? We naturally infer that he intends him for a grand career. 3. Again, all souls belong to God by redemption. The work of Christ is for all: He died for all, the just and the unjust, that He might bring them to God. The value of a single soul in the eyes of God has been illustrated by the coming of Jesus as in no other way. The recognition of this value is a feature peculiar to Christianity. To be the means of converting a single soul, to put a single soul in the right way, has been considered a sufficient reward for the labours of the most devoted genius and the ripest culture; to rescue those who have sunk the lowest in sin and shame has been the especial work of the Christian philanthropist; to preach the loftiest truths of the Gospel to the most debased and savage tribes in the far Pacific has been the chosen work of the Christian missionary. In this they have caught the spirit of the Gospel. God said, “ I will send My Son.” He chose the loftiest being for the lowliest work, and thus taught us how He values the redemption of that soul which is the heritage of all. Now, if a man, apparently very humble and far gone in disease, should be picked up in the street, and sent to the almshouse to die, and then, if immediately there should arrive some eminent person--say, the governor or president--to visit him, bringing from a distance the first medical assistance, regardless of cost, we should say, “ This man’ s life must be very precious: something very important must depend upon it.” But now, this is what God has done, only infinitely more for all souls. He must therefore see in them something of priceless value. 4. Lastly, in the future life all souls will belong to God. The differences of life disappear at the grave, and all become equal again there. Then the outward clothing of rank, of earthly position, high or low, is laid aside, and each enters the presence of God, alone, as an immortal soul. Then we go to judgment and to retribution. But the judgments and retributions of eternity are for the same object as the education of time: they are to complete the work left unfinished here. In God’ s house above are many mansions, suited to everyone’ s condition. Each will find the place where he belongs; each will find the discipline which he needs. Judas went to his place, the place which he needed, where it was best for him to go; and the apostle Paul went to his place, the place best suited for him. When we pass into the other world, those who are ready, and have on the wedding garment, will go in to the supper. They will find themselves in a more exalted state of being, where the faculties of the body are exalted and spiritualised, and the powers of the soul are heightened; where a higher truth, a nobler beauty, a larger love, feed the immortal faculties with a Divine nourishment; where our imperfect knowledge will be swallowed up in larger insight; and communion with great souls, in an atmosphere of love, shall quicken us for endless progress. Then faith, hope, and love will abide--faith leading to sight, hope urging to progress, and love enabling us to work with Christ for the redemption of the race. (James Freeman Clarke.) All souls The Christian Church has celebrated for more than a thousand years an annual festival in honour of all its saints. It thus extended to a large number of persons a memorial that was at first confined to its distinguished champions, its confessors and historic names. There was something beautiful--may we not say generous?--in such an observance. It thus embraces the whole congregation of those who have been severed from this world’ s joy, and rest from its labours. It recognises no distinction of rank or belief or fortune in those who dwell no longer in the flesh, but have passed to their account. It considers only the sympathies of a common nature and the fellowship of death. This is called the day of the dead; and with a pathetic specialty each one is expected to bear upon his heart the recollection of his own dead. Care is taken that no one of the lost shall be forgotten, though separated by distance of time and become dim to the memory, and whatever changes of relationship and transfers of affection may have come between. This anniversary suggests something better than the revival of former sorrows, however affectionate or sacred. It does not lead us in the train of any sad procession, but rather lifts up the heart to worship the universal Father of spirits. “ Behold, all souls are Mine, saith the Lord God.” They are His, whether confined in the flesh or delivered from its burden; for whether one or the other, “ all live unto Him.” They are His, with whatever degrees of capacity He has endowed them, small and great, weak and strong, to whatever trials of condition He has appointed them, the happy and the afflicted; in whatever degree they have acknowledged, or refused to acknowledge, that Divine ownership. It is not true, that the empire of the Omnipotent is divided, and a portion of its moral subjects cut off from its regard; whether by the power of an adversary or the change of death. He has not given away His possession, or any part of it, to another. “ Behold, all souls are Mine, saith the Lord.” And it is not true that the Gospel sets itself forth for only a partial redemption; that for a few elect ones only its wonders were wrought, and its angels appeared, and its spirit was poured out, and its testimony spread everywhere abroad. It was to reconcile the world to God that its great Witness suffered and rose. While on earth, He chose the despised for His companions; He called the sinful to His offered grace. The faith that He bequeathed when He ascended shows a like condescension, carries on the same benignant design. It deals kindly with the afflicted, the humble,--with those who are most in need of such treatment, and those who are least accustomed to it. It repels none. It despairs of none. It opens one faith, one hope. It instructs the living in its truth, that knows no distinction among them, and it gathers the dead under the protection of its unfailing promises. If, therefore, we would commemorate this day of All-Souls, what has been said may serve to give those thoughts their proper direction. Let us first remember the souls of such as were once in our company, but “ were not suffered to continue by reason of death” ; or of such as we never personally knew, but who have yet always had a life in our revering minds. We may salute them anew in their far-off state, and be the better for doing so. We do not know what that state is, and need not know. We may trust them to the care of Him who has said, “ All souls are Mine.” Let us repent ourselves afresh of any neglect or injustice that we may have committed in regard to them. Let us revive in our hearts the sense of all that endeared them to us. Let us prove more ready and less fearful for the end, as we treasure up the admonitions which their loss occasioned. Let us find that dim future not so void as it was, since they have gone before to inhabit it. And after we have performed this duty, another that is more important remains. It is as amiable as that, and has a broader practical reach than that. Let us remember the souls of those who are walking with us a similar course of probation and mortality, surrounded like ourselves with difficulties, exposures, infirmities, fears, and sorrows; equally, perhaps, though differently beset. Let us call to view our common frailties, our mutual obligations. Let us forgive if we have aught against any. (N. L. Frothingham.) The claim of God upon the soul I. Every living soul is, in a sense, the subject, the sharer, of the privileges, the attributes of God.1. There is, without contradiction, the privilege of life. Life! what is life? Ah! who can answer, and yet who can fail to understand? “ What am I? says a father of the Church; “ what I was has vanished; what tomorrow I shall be is dark.” “ We do not know ourselves; we do not understand our own nature,” echoes the scarcely Christian philosopher: the further we go by natural reason, the deeper the darkness, the greater the difficulty; and yet the corn that waves in the autumn wind, the flower that opens in the spring morning, the bird that sings in the leafy thicket, nay, in a sense, the very wave that ripples on the beach, much more the heaving swell of human multitudes that throng the city streets, all conspire to sing the song, the solemn song of life; and the pulses of the young heart vibrate to the music,--growth, movement, reality; the past is dim, the future inscrutable, but here at least is a great possession, the mystery, the thrilling mystery, of individual life. Better than silent stone, or sounding waves, or moving worlds, is one who holds the eternal spark of life. Whatever comes, we feel, we know it, it is something to have lived. This is what it means. It is to have been single, separate, self-determining. Yes; man feels his own life; he is an object of his own consciousness; he is, and he can never change in such sense as to be another self. 2. Another privilege of this lofty place in the scale of being is immortality. Man’ s ordinary moods may suit a finite life. But these--this lofty aspiration, keen remorse, unsatisfied desire, these infinite unspoken yearnings, these passionate affections--whence come they? There is one answer, only one. From the depth of a conscious being, whose life, whose personality, is not bounded by the grave. Man is immortal. So dimly dreamed the ancients. Alas, too often it was but a dream. Cicero was busied in “ Platonic disquisitions,” as it has been said, “ on the immortality of the soul” ; but when his darling Tullia died, he and his friend could only fancy that “ if” she were conscious she would desire comfort for her agonised father. Still, there was the dream of immortality. Seneca spoke of it as a dream. “ I was pleasantly engaged,” he wrote to his friend, “ inquiring about immortality; I was surrendering myself to the great hope; I was despising the fragments of a broken life. Your letter came, the dream vanished.” Was it only a dream? At least it was “ a great hope.” A dream, but destined to become a waking vision! A hope, one day to be a clear reality! Christ came--came in His sweet simplicity, came in His deep humility, came with His great revelation. Christ came; came and placed it in evidence, by His Divine teaching, by the indisputable need of a future life for the fulfilment of His lofty principles, and last by that stupendous fact of which the apostles, testing it by their senses, testing it by all varieties of available evidence, knew and affirmed the truth--the miracle, the unique, the crowning miracle, of the resurrection. 3. I instance one further privilege of the soul--The intuition of moral truth, and with this the sense of moral obligation. An image emerges in the Gospel, unique, beautiful; a picture suited for all situations, unchangingly powerful amid all changes of inner and outer life. The German rationalist is perplexed by His perfection; the French infidel is startled by His beauty; the modern Arian is constrained to admire, while he inconsistently denies the assertion of Godhead, which, if falsely made, would shatter that image of perfect beauty. Yes, the old saying--Tertullian’ s saying--is true, “ O soul, thou art by nature Christian” ; as He only sanctions thy yearnings for immortality, so Jesus only satisfies thy sense of moral beauty. He does more. The soul, approving, desires to love; but love requires an object--what object like Thee, O uncreated beauty! II. If the soul is so endowed by God, it follows necessarily that God has a claim upon the soul. It is on success in realising, remembering, acting upon this truth of our relationship to God, that so much of our true happiness and, I may add, our true dignity depends. Of what character is this claim?1. God has a rightful claim upon our conscious dependence. And you must render Him this service, oh! you must carefully render it, for many reasons--Clearly, because to do so is to do that which all sensible men should strive to do, to recognise and reverence facts. You do depend on God. Never imagine that, like an intrusive caller, you can bow God politely and contemptuously out of His creation; in spite of your puny insolence He is there. 2. Such recognition is only a just outcome of gratitude. Count up your blessings; perhaps they are so familiar to you, so strongly secured to your possession by what seem, from habit, indissoluble bonds, that you have forgotten that they are blessings. Better at once awake from that dream. The keeping alive the sense of conscious dependence upon God exercises upon our character a great moral influence. We never rise to the dignity of nature but by being natural. This dependence is one of those pure facts of nature which has imbibed none of the poison of the fall. Two powers accrue to the soul from cultivating the sense of it--resignation and strength. The Christian learns that the hand that gives, and gives so lavishly, may rightly be trusted to take away. All of us,--we may settle it in our minds, with no morbid fearfulness, but with quiet certainty,--all of us most sooner or later suffer--ay, and sharply. Let us pray so to know Him who made us, so to depend upon Him now, that when it pleases Him to try our constancy, we may, with a real resignation, “ suffer and be strong.” Seek your strength where alone it will be found available in a moment of crisis; cherish and stand upon the great thought of God. III. God’ s preserving and so richly endowing the soul gives Him a claim that in its plans and activities He should have the first place. “ Religion is that strong passion, that powerful virtue, which gives the true colour to all else.” Give Him you first thoughts in the morning; try to act as in His presence, for His glory; let the thought of Him restrain a sinful pleasure, gladden an innocent delight; love Him through all He gives you, and all He gives love in Him. Young men, young women, remember it--“ Them that honour Me I will honour.” He depends on you for a portion of His glory. Angels do their part in song, in work, in worship; yours they cannot do. One work He called you to do. You entered the world, at a fixed time, to do just that work. When death comes, will it find you working in that spirit? IV. God makes this claim upon you, that you despise no soul. This is difficult. We live in an age when, more than ever, judgment goes by appearances--an age of rush, of competition. The lad whom the schoolmaster ignored as stupid may turn out a Newton. The little newspaper boy you pass as so much lumber in the street may prove a Faraday; even intellectually, we may be mistaken. But a soul, as a soul, demands respect. Despise no soul, however debased and grimed and soiled. These souls are God’ s. The corruption of the morals of the poor pains you? It is true--lamentable how imposture dries the springs of charity and makes a cynic of the Christian. Never mind, life is full of sadness; but keep the heart fresh. In spite of all, there are beautiful souls about the world; and for all souls Jesus died. Despise no soul. At least, O Christian, pray for them. V. Some serious lessons.1. The first is individual responsibility. Philosophers have fancied that each movement of thought displaces some molecule of the brain, so that every airy fancy registers itself in material fact. Anyhow, this is true: every free choice of the creature between good and evil has an eternal import, and it may be, it will be if you will have it so, a splendid destiny. “ What shall I do, my father?” asked the barbarian conqueror, as he stood awe-stricken before the aged Benedict. Calmly the saint replied in this fashion, “ My son, thou shalt enter Rome.” “ And then?” “ Then thou shalt cross the sea, shalt sweep and conquer Sicily.” “ And then? Then thou shalt reign nine years; and then,” said the father, “ then thou shalt die, and then thou shalt be judged.” We may hope, in part at least we may believe, the lesson was not lost on Totila. My brothers, have we learnt that lesson? The grave prerogative of the soul is this: life’ s struggle over, then it “ shall be judged.” 2. The soul’ s true beatitude is to know God. “ Acquaint thyself with God, and be at peace.” Duty and communion make up life, the life that is worthy of a soul. Is it yours? Remember, O soul, thy princely rank; aspire to God by a true, a loving life. (Canon Knox Little.) God’ s ownership of souls God’ s right of property in these souls is not derived, as man’ s is, but original; His, not by conveyance from another, but by right of creation. As the Creator of the soul, and the Upholder of the soul, God can do what He will with the soul. There are no codes of law to guide Him, no interlacings of other rights with His right to fetter or restrain His will. On the contrary, His will is His own law, and hence it is said, “ He doeth according to His will in the army of heaven and among the inhabitants of the earth.” “ All souls.” What a compass does this give to His spiritual proprietorship! All human souls are His. Every being who ever lived on this earth in whom God breathed the breath of an immortal spirit belongs to God. The souls of all fallen angels are His. They are His, despite their rebellion; His despite their sin; nor can they ever flee themselves from the absolute right of God to do what He will with His own. The souls of the dwellers in heaven belong to God, Each and every order of spiritual existences, from the lowest who waits before the throne, to the tallest archangel in the hierarchy of heaven, belongs to God. What a mighty proprietorship is this! to be able to stand on this world, and say of each generation of its hundreds of millions of beings, as they pass in a procession sixty centuries long, “ Behold, all these souls are Mine.” To stand like Uriel in the sun, and say of the thronging myriads which inhabit the planets of this solar system, as they sweep their swift orbits around the central light, “ Behold all these souls are Mine.” Oh, surely, He who can say this must be the great and glorious God! The question now arises, For what purpose did God make these souls? Let God Himself answer. “ I have created him for My glory, I have formed him; yea, I have made him” ; and again, He says, “ This people have I formed for Myself; they shall show forth My praise.”1. The first inference is, That man holds his soul in trust from God for the use of God. He has, indeed, implanted in you a will; but with that will He has also given two laws,--the law of conscience, and the moral law of Sinai; and that will must guide all its volitions according to these laws, and any breach of either is known to, and punishable, by God. The terms of trusteeship inscribed on each soul are--“ Occupy till I come.” Occupy the powers, the affections, the sensibilities, the will of this soul for Me. Occupy as My steward, for My glory; and whenever these souls are used for any purposes contrary to God’ s will, then is there in you great breach of moral trust, and that is sin. But not only is there a breach of trust in thus misusing the soul with which you are placed in trust, there is also involved in such conduct absolute treason and rebellion. God says your soul is His, consequently He has a right to rule over it, and receive, its fealty as its governor and, king; but you cast aside His rule, and give your fealty and obedience to God’ s enemy. Is not this treason, rebellion? But we have not yet done with this inference that you hold your souls in trust for God; for your conduct in withholding your souls from Him is not only a breach of trust, not only treason, not only rebellion, but it is absolute robbery of God. I speak to you who are men of probity and honour, who would eat the crust of poverty sooner than betray a human trust--feel you no sense of shame in betraying the Divine trust which God has placed in your charge? I speak to you men of patriotism, who would shed your blood sooner than join the enemies of your country or foment rebellion against the government which protects you-feel you no compunctious smiting of conscience, no goadings of remorse, at your treason in adhering to the enemy of all righteousness, in being a child and follower and servant of him who plotted rebellion in heaven, who plotted rebellion on earth, and who is ever waging war with God? 2. This brings us to the second inference, which is--that all misuse of this trust is sin. God requires us to love Him with all our soul; this, He says, is the first and great commandment. Each want of conformity to this law is sin, for the apostle distinctly states, “ Sin is a transgression of (or want of conformity to) the law.” Each soul, then, which withholds itself from God does, by that act, break the first and great commandment, and consequently commits sin. And now, what does God in the text say of such sinning soul? “ The soul that sinneth, it shall die.” What a fearful doom is this! The two great elements of this death of the soul are--lst, The absence of all that constitutes everlasting life; 2nd, The presence of every thing that constitutes everlasting despair. There is forever present to the soul the consciousness of this its two-fold misery. (Bp. Stevens.) Mankind the Divine possession I. God’ s claim to our service. “ All souls are Mine.”1. Being itself, notwithstanding its characteristic individuality, is of Divine origin. Need we go back to the remote ages of antiquity to search the register of creation for our pedigree? Are there not records nearer home that will answer that purpose? Look into that world of consciousness. There, in the depths of your being, you will find the record. The intellect which grasps knowledge, the moral sense which fights for the right, the affection which rises above every creature to a Divine level, and the will which arbitrarily determines our course of action, these are the entries in creation’ s register which prove that God is our Father. 2. The properties of life teach us the same truth. An unseen hand makes ample provision for our wants. We are sheltered by the mantle of His power: and the presence of the Almighty is our dwelling place. That presence is a wall of fire around us, to ward off destruction and death. Although our journey is through a waste-howling wilderness, the cloud by day and fiery pillar by night lead the way. His way is in the sea; His path in the great waters; and His footsteps are not known. A thousand voices herald His coming every morning; a thousand mercies witness to His goodness during the day. Out of the fruit of the earth, the light and the darkness, the sustenance and preservation of life; out of every part of nature, and every turn of providence, the voice calls, “ All souls are Mine.” 3. We will further take the more emphatic testimony of redemption. The hand of inspiration on the human mind, from the earliest ages, was a Divine claim on our thoughts. But we will pass by the long series of testimony under the patriarchal and Mosaic dispensations, in order to come to the mission of the Son of God. The substance of that mission is contained in the statement, “ Our Father which art in heaven.” By discourses and actions, the declaration was made to the world with an emphasis which impressed the truth indelibly on the mind of the race. II. This high and holy relationship imposes its own conditions.1. Love to the being of God. Reconciliation by Jesus Christ leads to the conception that “ God is love.” “ Pardon him,” said the sergeant to the colonel of the regiment. The offending soldier had been punished many times, fill he hated every one of his comrades, and even virtue. He was pardoned. The effect was striking--he became a loving man. Jesus said of the sinner, “ Pardon him,” and for the first time he saw that “ God is love.” 2. Trustfulness in God’ s dealings. We are under an administration of law and order which we do not quite understand. The inclination of the child is often opposed to the father’ s wish. These two, ignorance on the one hand and perverseness on the other, must be subordinated to the will of God. This is the hard lesson of life. 3. Usefulness in God’ s vineyard. Life in earnest is the highest condition of life. The life of the tree touches its highest point when it throws off fruit in abundance. In conclusion, let us take a glance at the profitable life which blossoms for immortality. Its activities are sanctified by the Holy Spirit. Of the holy thoughts which revolve in the breast, the heavenly aspirations which rise in the heart, the gracious words which are uttered by the lips, and the kind deeds which are wrought in faith, of these God says, “ They are Mine.” (T. Davies, M. A.) God’ s proprietorship of souls There are hero two great facts presupposed, both of them impugned and challenged by some of the fleeting false philosophies of the moment. The one is the existence of God. The other is the existence of the soul. We believe in the two great realities--God and the soul; and we know that the one want of humanity, and therefore the one object and one office of religion, is the bringing of these two realities together. The soul is a fugitive and runaway from Him who is its owner. God in Christ is come to seek and to save. How very magnificent is the Divine attribute thus opened! The comprehension, the very conception of one soul, is beyond the reach of the reason, or even the imagination. How unsearchable are the ways of one heart even to that one! Multiply that one being by the ten and by the hundred surrounding, all within the four walls of one church; what a word of awe and astonishment is here, “ The souls here present are Mine!” What must He be who claims that proprietorship! No sovereignty of islands and continents, no dominion of stars or planets, no empire of systems and universes can compete or compare with it for a moment. No earthly potentate, no tyrant of history or of fable ever claimed the sovereignty of a soul. The chain was never forged that could bind it; the instrument was never invented that could even profess to transfer it. “ One soul is mine.” No, it never entered the heart of man to say that. But now, if God speaks and makes this His attribute, “ All souls are Mine,” the next thought must be, What is this thing of which it belongs to God alone to have possession? Two characteristics of it will occur at once to everyone, of which the first and most obvious is the sanctity. There is that in us which cannot be seen or handled. That invisible, intangible thing belongs to God. It would be an advance for many of us in the spiritual life if we could read the saying in the singular number, if we could recognise and remember the single ownership, “ My soul is God’ s,” not my own, to treat thus or thus, to use thus or thus, to manage thus or thus at my pleasure; not mine to starve or to pamper; not mine to honour or dishonour, to indulge or to defy; not mine that I should give it this colour or that colour, at the bidding of vanity, of indolence, of caprice, of lust; not mine that I should say to it, Become this, or become that, as I please to direct thy employments, thy relaxations, thy opinions, thy affections, regardless of what the Lord thy God hath spoken concerning each one of us. On the contrary, to feel the revelation “ All souls are Mine,” and to draw from it this inference: If all, then each; and if each, then the one--what seriousness would it give, what dignity, and what elevation to this life of time, making each day and each night take with it the impress also of that other revelation: “ And the spirit must return to God who gave it!” If all souls, then each soul, and if each soul, then, further, the soul of that other, for a moment or for a lifetime so near thine own; brother, sister, friend, kinsman, wife, or child, it too has an owner, not itself, and not thou, and nothing can befall it for joy or grief, for weal or woe, for remorse or wrong, but the eye of the Omniscient observes, and the hand of the Omnipotent writes it down. Sanctity, then, is one thought; preciousness is the other. This is an inference not to be gainsaid, seeing the proprietorship claimed in the text; and is it not, when we ponder it, the very basis and groundwork of all hope, whether for ourselves or for the world? If my soul is God’ s, can there be presumption, ought there to be hesitation in the appeal to Him to keep and to save His own? Can either long neglect, or distant wandering, or obstinate sinning, have rendered the case desperate so long as there remains the possible petition: “ I am Thine--oh, save me” ? And as for the individual, so also for the race. It seems to me that the thought of the Divine ownership, with its obvious corollary, the preciousness of the soul, has in it a direct and a sufficient answer to all the cavillings and all the doubtings which beset our faith in the incarnation, the atonement, and the new birth. “ All souls are Mine.” Then, shall He lightly abandon who has thought it worth while to possess? We could not, indeed, know without revelation what processes would be necessary or what would suffice to redeem a soul. But what we say is this, that the Divine ownership implies the preciousness of souls, and that the preciousness accounts for any processes, however intricate or however costly, by which Infinite Wisdom may have wrought out their rescue and salvation. What those methods should be, God alone could determine. He might never have told us of them. It is nowhere explained; but “ all souls are Mine” prepares us for His adopting those methods, whatever they might be, and leaves nothing improbable, whatever else it may leave mysterious, in the bare fact that at any price and at any sacrifice God should have interposed to redeem. (Dean Vaughan.) God and the soul 1. The immediate occasion of this word of the Lord by the prophet was a powerful objection made against the moral government of God. Punishment was not dealt out to the transgressor, and to him only; but his children were made to suffer too. 2. This misbelief of the people was very alarming; all the more so that an element of truth was at the base of it. Doubt is never more serious than when it questions the righteousness of God; and it is often easy to offer some show of reason for such a suggestion. Ezekiel had to do with a kind of misbelief which is not so very uncommon in our own time. 3. He met it, as such belief must always, I think, be met, not by denying the half-truth on which the objection rests; but by affirming the complementary truths of man’ s individual responsibility and God’ s absolute fairness. We do belong to the race, and we do inherit the consequences of other men’ s actions; but, none the less, each of us is a unit, dwelling in “ the awful solitude of his own personality” ; each of us is responsible for his own conduct, and must give his own account to God. 4. This rests on the fundamental truth that “ all souls are God’ s.” Men have a relation to God as well as to one another; and this is true not only of some men, but of all. We all live in God. What we inherit from our ancestors is not more important than what we receive, and may receive, from God,--it is vastly less important. The supreme fact in every human life is, not heredity, but God. 5. “ All souls are God’ s.” Every man lives in God, is sustained and preserved by God, is dealt with by God in his own individual personality; and that, not only in reference to material things, but in reference to the moral and spiritual aspects of life. As the all-embracing air is around each, so is the presence of God, and that is the guarantee for the government of each with perfect fair play, in mercy and righteousness and love. 6. The truth before us, then, is that every human soul is an object of God’ s care. In every man God has a personal interest. He deals with us, not in the mass, but one by one; not simply through the operation of unbending, universal law, or as a blind, impersonal force, but by a direct and vital contact. 7. I know that many among us find it almost impossible to share this belief, and it may be confessed freely that many things which we see around us are hard to reconcile with a strong faith in the truth which I am seeking to establish--the truth that God has a personal and individual care for every man--dealing with “ all souls” in perfect wisdom, righteousness, and love. We find life full of glaring inequalities--surfeit and starvation side by side; Dives feasting luxuriously, and Lazarus longing for the wasted crumbs; bounding health that counts mere life a joy, and lingering sickness that prays for death as gain; happiness that scarcely knows an unsatisfied desire, and exquisite misery that hardly remembers a day’ s unbroken peace. We find the same inequality extending to spiritual privileges. Here men live in the full light of the Christian revelation, in a land of churches and Bibles, where helps to holy living are abundant. Yonder men dwell in pagan darkness, ignorant of Christian truth, destitute of Christian influence, surrounded by all that tends to degrade and deprave. 8. What, then, is our proper course in the presence of these difficulties? What can it be but to follow the example of Ezekiel in strongly affirming the fact? Let the fact of God’ s personal, individual, universal care be firmly grasped, and the difficulties will fall into their right place of comparative unimportance. 9. If you have any momentary difficulty in accepting this as true, reflect, I beseech you, what a horrible theory would be involved in its denial--the theory that for some of His children God has no kind thought, no tender feeling, no purpose of mercy and love; that for some men He does not care at all. He gave them life, and preserves them in being; but He does not love them. They have the same powers and capacities as ourselves, are made capable of trusting, loving, obeying, rejoicing in Him; but He has no merciful regard for them, He withholds the enlightening truth, the saving grace, the redeeming message; He shuts up His heart of compassions, and leaves them, as orphans in the wild, to perish miserably for lack of ministers of love. But this is infidelity of the very worst kind, the grossest and most mischievous. 10. Moreover, we may question if the sure signs of God’ s gracious care are absent from any life. They do not lie on the surface, and we may miss them at the first glance; but they are there, and larger knowledge would correct the thought that anyone has been neglected. For any right understanding of this matter we must get beyond the superficial reading of life which sees signs of Divine love in what is pleasant, and signs of anger in the unpleasant. The pruning of the tree shows the gardener’ s care, just as much as the supply of its obvious wants; and we should remember that in the education of life and character, the best results are sometimes secured by the most painful processes. It is with apparently neglected lives as it is with apparently neglected races and nations: a fuller acquaintance with them proves that they also have been objects of the Divine care. This entry is longer than a Bible module can hold. The rest is at https://www.sermonindex.net/commentary/bi/ Ezekiel 18:23 Have I any pleasure at all that the wicked should die?A summons to repentance If we spare not our sins, but slay them with the sword of the Spirit, God will spare us. The words are uttered by a figurative interrogation, in which there is more evidence and efficacy, more life and convincing force. For it is as if He had said, Know ye not that I have no such desire? or think ye that I have any desire? or dare it enter into your thoughts that I take any pleasure at all in the death of a sinner? When the interrogation is figurative the rule is, that if the question be affirmative, the answer to it must be negative; but if the question be negative, the answer must be affirmative. For example: Who is like unto the Lord? the meaning is, none is like unto the Lord. Whom have I in heaven but Thee? that is, I have none in heaven but Thee. On the other side, when the question is negative, the answer must be affirmative; as: Are not the angels ministering spirits? that is, the angels are ministering spirits; and, Shall the Son of man find faith? that is, the Son of man shall not find faith. Here, then, apply the rule, and shape a negative answer to the first member being affirmative, thus: I have no desire that a sinner should die; and an affirmative answer to the negative member, thus: I have a desire that the wicked should return and five; and ye have the true meaning and natural exposition of this verse. But here some cast a dark mist, which hath caused many to lose their way. How (say they) do we maintain that God desireth not the death of a sinner, who before all time decreed death for sin, and sin for death? This mist in part is dispelled by distinguishing of three sorts of God’ s decrees--1. There is an absolute decree and resolute purpose of God, for those things which He determineth shall be. 2. There is a decree of mandate, or at least a warrant for those things which He desireth should be. 3. There is a decree of permission for such things, as if He powerfully stop them not, will be. Of the first kind of decree or will of God, we are to understand those words of the Psalmist (Psalms 135:6), and of our Saviour (John 17:24). To the second we are to refer those words of the apostle (Romans 9:19; Ephesians 1:5; 1 Timothy 2:4; 2 Peter 3:9; 1 Thessalonians 4:3; Romans 12:2). If ye rightly apply these distinctions, ye may without great difficulty loosen the knots above tied: the first whereof was, whether God decreed sin original or actual. Ye may answer according to the former distinctions, that He decreed effectually all the good that is joined with it, or may come by it, or it may occasion; but He decreed permissively only the obliquity or malignity thereof: He neither doth it, nor approveth of it when it is done, but only permitteth it and taketh advantage of it for the manifestation of His justice. To the second question, which toucheth the apple of the eye of this text, whether God decreeth the death of any? ye may answer briefly, that He doth not decree it any way for itself, as it is the destruction of His creature, or a temporal or eternal torment thereof; but as it is a manifestation of His justice.1. Doth God take no pleasure in the death of the wicked that daily transgresseth His law, ungraciously abuse His mercy, and slightly regard His judgments? Doth He use all good means to reclaim them, and save them from wrath to come? Is the life of every man so precious in His eyes? Doth He esteem of it as a rich jewel engraven with His own image? How careful, then, and chary ought we to be, who are put in trust with it (locked up in the casket of our body), that we lose it not. 2. If judges, and all those who sit upon life and death, did enter into a serious consideration thereof, they would not so easily (as sometimes they do) cast away a thing that is so precious, much less receive the price of blood. 3. If a malefactor arraigned at the bar of justice should perceive by any speech, gesture, sign, or token, an inclination in the judge to mercy, how would he work upon this advantage?--what suit? what means would he make for his life? how would he importune all his friends to entreat for him? how would he fall down upon his knees and beseech the judge for the mercies of God to be good unto him? Ho, all ye that have guilty consciences, and are privy to yourselves of many capital crimes, though peradventure no other can appeach you! behold, the Judge of all flesh makes an overture of mercy, He bewrayeth more than a propension or inclination, He discovereth a desire to save you! Why do ye not make means unto Him? Why do ye not appeal from the bar of His justice to His throne of grace? Why do ye not fly from Him, as He is a terrible Judge? to Him, as He is a merciful Father? (D. Featly, D. D.) God and the soul One of the masters of Old Testament theology, a student of singular nobility of mind and penetration of judgment, Dr. A.B. Davidson, has said of this and of the kindred 33rd chapter: “ Perhaps there are hardly any more important passages in the Old Testament than those two chapters of Ezekiel.” And why? Because, as he says, “ there we may say that we see the birth of the individual mind taking place before our eyes.” It was the first, or one of the first, assertions of the truth that man is more than the circumstances of which he is a part; that in God’ s sight he stands single and free. We can best understand the force of this particular chapter if we remember the historical circumstances out of which it came. Nebuchadnezzar, the ruthless conqueror, had laid waste Jerusalem. “ He carried away all Jerusalem, and all the princes, and all the mighty men of valour, and all the craftsmen, and none remained save the poorest of the people of the land.” That band of exiles, among whom was the young Ezekiel, was carried to Babylon, and there the best of them lay astonished at the crushing blow which God had dealt to them. Jerusalem, the inviolable hill of Jehovah, spoiled and degraded, within eleven years laid waste and desolate, abandoned of God. It seemed to them that they were involved in the punishment of the sins of their fathers. There could be no escape, no penitence in the land of their exile could disentangle their souls from the ruin in which the sins of their forefathers had engulfed them. It was natural that their thoughts should run in such a channel. Hebrew religion tended to merge, the individual in the state or family. The covenant of God was made not with the individual so much as with the State. The dealings and punishments of God with His people embraced not only the person, but his whole family, to the third and fourth generation; and so it seemed to them that they could not, for all their anguish, escape the consequences of their fathers’ sins. It was the object of Ezekiel to lift the burden of despair from his fellow exiles. He discerned in the very breaking up of the national life a call to the individual to become deeper and more personal in his obedience and faith. He sought to disentangle the person from the nation and the family, to make him realise his own freedom and separate responsibility in the sight of God. God is sovereign over the dispensations of His own laws. He treats every man, at every moment, precisely as that man is by virtue of his own separate and solitary responsibility. Man is free morally, whatever the chain that may bind him to his ancestors. God is free morally, and judges every man by virtue of that freedom. But the prophet carried the truth a stage further. Among these exiles there were doubtless individual men and women who felt that the chain that bound them, bound them to an irreversible destiny, was not the chain of their fathers’ sins, but of the sins they themselves had committed. They remembered the law of Jehovah which they had despised, the worship of their fathers in the temple, which they had ignored or polluted by their idolatry. It seemed to them that their cup was full; they could not escape the punishment of the sins of the past. They were shut up to the impotence of unavailing remorse. To them the prophet’ s message was like that which he gave to his community. He reminded each of them that still, in spite of their sins and shortcomings, there was within a separate life, a freedom which could arise from the past impenitence and return, and that matching that freedom there was also the sovereign grace of Almighty God. That was the prophet’ s message to his own day. I wonder if any of you have discerned with what singular force it applies to our own? The place which was taken when Ezekiel wrote, by the customary habits and traditions and principles of Hebrew religion, is taken today by the characteristic teaching of modern science. The old words of the covenant of God’ s punishment of men to the third and fourth generation have given place to the new words of “ heredity” and “ environment.” But the principle is the same. Science has been teaching us wonderfully, beautifully, terribly, with what a subtlety and closeness of tie we are bound through our brains and bodies to the ancestors from whom we sprang, the circumstances under which we live, the progeny which we leave behind us; we know that our character is the product of a thousand influences of climate, of scenery, of sights and sounds, of food, of tendencies in the blood, of faculties and perversions of the brain, and we accept the truth. It gives a very wonderful and real, as well as a very solemn, aspect to this universe of which we are part. We build upon it. It is the truth that is the main-spring of all our zeal for education, of all our efforts for social reform; to that truth we turn when we wish to measure the fulness of our social responsibility. But is it the last and only word? Is man nothing but the product of these circumstances, the creature of invisible laws? If it be so, then before long we may come to that feeling of despair which lay upon the breast of these exiles of Jerusalem. We must balance that truth with the other which Ezekiel recovered for his contemporaries--the truth that man’ s nature, though it is inwoven by the influences of blood and surroundings, yet has within it a personal life higher than, and apart from, that nature. It is free--it is capable, when aroused, of moulding that nature to its own will. God Himself is something more than an union of irreversible and irresistible laws. He is, He remains, a sovereign moral Personality, caring as a Father for the children that He has made, knowing them as individuals, dealing with them man by man in the separateness of their own single freedom and responsibility. I ask you to consider the basis which Ezekiel is teaching us in its reference to our lives as members of a community and as personal beings.1. First of all, there is a message to us as members of a community. Sometimes the Hebrew took joy from the thought that he was bound with his fathers and children in the bonds of the covenant of the will of God. And sometimes we take joy in the thought that we are bound together by those subtle and intricate ties to the nature which surrounds us, and to our fellow beings in long distances of the past and future. But when the Hebrew realised God’ s punishment in the waste of Jerusalem, he was filled with the chill of despair. No doubt, for a time, the thought that man is the product of his circumstances fills us with the energy of reform. It makes us, perhaps, with even greater zest, turn to every effort to improve the condition of the environment of the people. But when we try, how long the task seems, how thick and obstinate the difficulties, how impossible it seems to compass it within the short generation in which the necessities of life permit us to labour. And meanwhile, what have we to say to the individual men, women, and children who are living under these conditions? Think for a moment of those atoms of social waste whom we call the unemployable. You see them as they pass before your eyes, the product, indeed, of circumstances--the sins of their fathers written in the marks of disease, the sins of their own youth written in the furtive glance of the eyes and the shambling gait, the sins, it may be, of the community which has failed to find a place for them, in the hopelessness and futility of every effect that they may make. And yet, what are we to say to them? Are we to say to them with the mere teaching of determinist science: “ Your transgressions and your sins are upon you, and you pine away in them, why should you live?” Yet apart from some vast, at present as it seems, inconceivable change of our industrial conditions, are they not hopeless? If science says the last word, surely they are. Yet when you find yourself placed face to face with an individual man of these multitudes, can you use that language? Can you turn to them and say: “ You are the doomed product of a bad environment; there is no hope for you. You must stay as you are” ? Nay! rather you make it your one object to disentangle the man from the mesh in which he is placed. You seek to find out somewhere the springs of the real man within him. You desire to create some emotion, some motive, some interest, by which that self of his, that manhood of his, may be aroused, re-created, and go forth and be strong. And you can venture upon that effort because you believe, with an instinct that is stronger than a one-sided theory, that somewhere or other in that poor, broken life there remains dormant and hidden the germ of a freedom of his own that he can arouse and use, if only there is sufficient strength and motive power given to him. You try to reach and touch and find the man within him; and that instinct of yours restores the balance of the truth. Science is true. There is this product of the environment. We must work and labour with unremitting toil to change and improve it. But the one inevitable, indispensable factor of social reform is the individual freedom and responsibility of the man. Even when you change his circumstances, this alone will be powerless unless you have changed the whole man’ s will so that he cooperates with the change in his circumstances; and therefore every scheme of charity which neglects this truth, which belittles this factor of the man’ s own individual freedom and power and responsibility, is a real danger. 2. Secondly, the prophet’ s message is to the personal life. There were men to whom Ezekiel spoke who felt the burthen upon them, not of the load of their fathers’ sins, but of their own. It may be that among the men to whom I speak there are some who are conscious of the same impotence of remorse. The sins of your body have immeshed your body and mind in the bondage of evil habit. You can think of some mistake that you made, irreversible now, which has spoilt your life. You are tied up in the doom of your destiny. Or, perhaps, there are others, who have not gone so far, but when there comes to them the prompting of some better impulse they meet it with such replies, expressed or unexpressed, as this: “ It is no good, it is too late; my nature is made, I cannot change. These heights are for others, I cannot attain unto them. Like Sir Lancelot, the quest is not for me. I am what my life has made me, and it is too late to change.” And so when these better impulses come they are avoided, they are refused. Possibly they gradually die out, and the prison gates begin to close. Now, in this there is a truth which cannot be gainsaid. We cannot escape, not even God Himself can enable us to escape, from the actual consequences of our sins. That is true; we cannot quarrel with the teaching both of science and conscience. But it is not the whole truth. There remains that hidden self, that inner man, and it is free. It has always the power of rising from its past and going forth to a new future. You say it is impossible. With man perhaps it is impossible. But with God all things are possible. For that freedom of mine, however feeble and broken, is not alone; there is another free and sovereign power waiting for it, acknowledging it as His own image, welcoming it, coming down upon it, with His own strength and power. When I use my freedom I meet and touch the freedom of the sovereign grace of God Himself. If only we act upon that impulse which is the sign of the persistence of our better self, we find somehow that that strength comes down upon us. It may be a miracle. Our Lord asks the unanswerable question whether it is easier to say to the sick of the palsy, “ Arise and walk,” or to say, “ Thy sins be forgiven thee.” I know not what mystery may be behind that truth, but truth it is if only we will act upon it; if only that will, broken and feeble as it may be, will emerge from the ruins of its past, and act for itself in the spirit of return. Then it will find that the freedom of God’ s grace is at its hand, and will come to it and strengthen it. We must, it is true, continue to bear our sins, but there is all the difference in the world between that and being borne by them. When we bear them, our recovered spirit is master of them. Even remorse can be a continual reminder of the long-suffering of God. The weakness, baffling and humiliating to the end, can be the occasion for the triumph of the strength of God. You have seen sometimes the coast when the tide is far out. It looks a mere barren tract of sand and stone, but somewhere far out in the deep a movement takes place. The tide turns, and soon the water covers the waste land. So my life, when I look back upon it, may be the barren tract of sand, the grave of lost opportunities, strewn with stones of stumbling and rocks of offence. But if only in the great deep, where the Spirit of God touches the spirit of man, my free self can go out to Him, then there is the turning of the tide, and sooner or later that full tide of God’ s refreshing and restoring grace will cover the waste places. I am--in my own personal self; God is--in His own sovereign Personality; and on these two truths we can all base the perpetual hope of a new beginning. (Bishop Lang.) Sin slays the sinner Manton says: “ The life of sin and the life of a sinner are like two buckets in a well--if the one goeth up, the other must come down. If sin liveth, the sinner must die.” It is only when sin dies that a man begins truly to live. Yet we cannot persuade our neighbours that it is so, for their hearts are bound up in their sins, and they think themselves most alive when they can give fullest liberty to their desires. They raise up their sins, and so sink themselves. If they could be persuaded of the truth, they would send the bucket of sin to the very bottom that their better selves might rise into eternal salvation. (C. H. Spurgeon.) God’ s solemn inquiry of Gospel hearers I. The evidence in every Christian country of God’ s having no pleasure at all in the death of sinners.1. A true penitent is readily forgiven. Two striking illustrations suggested here: a rebellious father’ s repentant son (verse 14, etc.) , and a man once rebellious who amends (verses 21, 22). In each instance his soul is saved. None can fairly meditate on the promptness of such pardons without perceiving God’ s delight in mercy (Micah 7:18). 2. The reason why the righteous God can so promptly pardon (Titus 3:4-7; John 3:16; Romans 8:32). 3. God has appointed a class of men to urge on the unworthy His unspeakable gift (2 Corinthians 5:20). Did He wish the destruction of the Ninevites when He sent Jonah to them? He has as little pleasure in the death of the wicked now (Revelation 22:17). II. The one simple duty of hearers is to return (verse 32).1. With the turning of true repentance, which involves a thorough change of service. Note details of practical love in this chapter (verse 17), and see conduct of Thessalonians (1 Thessalonians 1:9). 2. With the turning of trust (in the appointed Mediator) for all the needed mercy and grace. (See the description in 1 Peter 2:24-25.) 3. With the turning quickened by the Holy Spirit (John 16:8), which should be fostered by prayer (Psalms 80:18-19). 4. With the turning which issues in life; the life of the acquitted and holy (Romans 5:1-21 :l, 2), which is a sure earnest of life everlasting (John 6:40). (D. D. Stewart, M. A.) And not that he should return from his ways, and live?--The best return St. Austin, lying on his death bed, caused divers verses of the penitential psalms to be written on the walls of his chamber, on which he still cast his eyes, and commented upon them with the fluent rhetoric of his tears. But I could wish of all texts of Scripture that this of the prophet Ezekiel were still before all their eyes who mourn for their sins in private. For nothing can raise the dejected soul but the lifting-up of God’ s countenance upon her; nothing can bring peace to an affrighted and troubled conscience but a free pardon of all sins, whereby she hath incurred the sentence of death, which the prophet tendereth in the words of the text. I will endeavour to open two springs in my text--the one a higher, the other a lower; the one ariseth from God and His joy, the other from ourselves and our salvation. That the conversion of a sinner is a joy and delight to God, I need not to produce arguments to prove, or similes to illustrate; He that spake as never man spake, hath represented it unto us by many exquisite emblems (Luke 15:4; Luke 15:8; Luke 15:10; Luke 15:32). Scipio (as Livy writeth) never looked so fresh, nor seemed so beautiful in the eyes of his soldiers, as after his recovery from a dangerous sickness which he took in the camp; neither doth the soul ever seem more beautiful than when she is restored to health after some dangerous malady. The Palladium was in highest esteem both with the Trojans and Romans, not so much for the matter or workmanship, as because it was catched out of the fire when Troy was burnt. And certainly no soul is more precious in the eyes of God and His angels than that which is snatched out of the fire of hell and jaws of death. I have opened the first spring, and we have tasted the waters thereof; I am now to open the second, which is this, That as our repentance is joy unto God and His angels, so it is grace and salvation to ourselves. As repentance is called repentance from dead works, so also repentance unto life. For God pawns His life for the life of the penitent: “ As I live, saith the Lord, I desire not the death of a sinner, but rather that he should return and live.” Pliny writeth of a fountain in Africa, in which torches that are blown out being dipped are kindled again: such is the fountain of tears in the eyes of a penitent sinner; if the light of his faith be extinguished to his sense and all outward appearance, yet dipped in this fountain it is kindled again, and burns more brightly than ever before. The Scripture furnisheth us not with many examples in this kind, lest any should presume; yet some we find that none might despair. To comfort those that are wounded in conscience, the good Samaritan cured him that was wounded between Jerusalem and Jericho, and left half-dead; to comfort them that are sick in soul, He recovered Peter’ s wife’ s mother lying sick in her bed; to comfort them that have newly, as it were, given up the ghost, He raised Jairus’ s daughter; to comfort them that have been sometimes dead in sins and transgressions, He raised the widow’ s son; to comfort them that have been so long dead in sins that they begin to putrify, He raised up Lazarus stinking in His grave. Therefore, if we have grievously provoked God’ s justice by presumption, let us not more wrong His mercy by despair; but hope even above hope in Him whose mercy is over all His works. Against the number and weight of all our sins, let us lay the infiniteness of God’ s mercy, and Christ’ s merits, and the certainty of His promise confirmed by oath: “ As I live, I desire not the death of a sinner; if he return, he shall live.” It is a most sovereign water which will fetch a sinner again to the life of grace, though never so far gone. It is not well water springing out of the bowels of the earth, nor rain poured out of the clouds of passion, but rather like a dew falling from heaven, which softeneth and moisteneth the heart, and is dried up by the beams of the Sun of Righteousness. “ Turn and live.” Should a prisoner led to execution hear the judge or sheriff call to him, and say, Turn back, put in sureties for thy good behaviour hereafter, and live--would he not suddenly leap out of his fetters, embrace the condition, and thank the judge or sheriff upon his knees? And what think ye if God should send a prophet to preach a sermon of repentance to the devils and damned ghosts in hell, and say, Knock off your bolts, shake off your fetters, and turn to the Lord and live? Would not hell be emptied and rid before the prophet should have made an end of his exhortation? This sermon the prophet Ezekiel now maketh unto us all. (D. Featly, D. D.) Ezekiel 18:24 When the righteous turneth away from his righteousness.The evil of apostasy 1. There is a righteousness which men may turn from. There is an opinionative righteousness (Luke 18:9; Matthew 23:28); many think themselves righteous, and appear so to others: there is also a duty, a moral, or legal righteousness, such as Paul had (Philippians 3:6); and from these righteousnesses men may and do turn daily. Many attain to a duty righteousness under the Gospel, but yet fall off again (Matthew 13:20-22; 1 Timothy 5:15; John 6:66; 2 Peter 2:2; 1 Timothy 4:1). Take heed, therefore, of trusting in or to any righteousness of your own. 2. It is not sufficient to begin well unless we proceed: fair beginnings without progress come to nothing. Consider the arguments which lie here in the text, to keep you from falling off, and encourage you to persevere in God. (1) If you do turn back you will fall into iniquity; you will commit iniquity, the frame, bent, and set of the heart will be that way; the thoughts, studies, counsels, motions, endeavours will be towards and in iniquity, you will be an evil-doer, a worker of iniquity. (2) He lies obvious to all manner of sin; what will not the man do that turns from his holy profession? (3) Whatever good he hath formerly done shall be all forgotten: if he have done much good to his family or friends, it shall be all laid aside, buried in the dark, and not once be mentioned unto him. (4) He shall die, and that eternally, in his apostasy, and the guilt, not of one sin, but all his sins, shall be upon him. (W. Greenhill, M. A.) The danger of relapse Presumption and desperation are two dangerous maladies, not more opposite one to the other, than to the health of the soul; presumption overprizeth God’ s mercy, and undervalueth our sins; and on the contrary, desperation overprizeth our sins, and undervalueth God’ s mercy. Both are most injurious to God; the one derogateth from His mercy, the other from His justice, both band against hearty and speedy repentance; the one opposing it as needless, the other as bootless Presumption saith, thou mayest repent at leisure, gather the buds of sinful pleasures before they wither, repentance is not yet seasonable; desperation saith, the root of faith is withered, it is now too late to repent. The life of a Christian is not unfitly compared to a long and dangerous sea voyage; the sea is this present world, the barques are our bodies, the sailors our souls, the pilot our faith, the card God’ s Word, the rudder constancy, the anchor hope, the mainmast the cross of Christ, the strong cables our violent affections, the sails our desires, and the Holy Spirit the good wind which filleth the sails and driveth the barque and mariners to the fair haven which is heaven. Now, in our way which lieth through many temptations and tribulations, there are two dangerous rocks, the one on the right hand, the other on the left; the rock on the right hand to be avoided is presumption, the rock on the left threatening shipwreck is despair; between which we are to steer our ship by fear on the one side and hope on the other. To hold us in a solicitous fear that we touch not upon presumption, let us have always in the eye of our mind--1. The glorious and most omnipotent majesty of God.2. His all-seeing providence.3. His impartial justice.4. His severe threatenings against sin.5. The dreadful punishments He inflicteth upon sinners.6. The heinousness of the sin of presumption, which turneth God’ s grace into wantonness.7. The difficulty of recovery after relapses.8. The uncertainty of God’ s offer of grace after the frequent refusal thereof. To keep us in hope, that we dash not upon the rock of despair on the contrary side, let us set before our troubled and affrighted consciences these grounds of comfort--1. The infiniteness of God’ s mercy.2. The price and value of Christ’ s blood.3. The efficacy of His intercession.4. The virtue of the Sacraments.5. The universality and certainty of God’ s promises to the penitent.6. The joy of God and angels for the conversion of a sinner.7. The communion of saints, who all pray for the comfort of afflicted consciences, and the ease of all that are heavy laden with their sins.8. The examples of mercy showed to most grievous sinners. But to confine my meditations to the letter of my text. The words divide themselves into (first) a supposition, when, or, if the righteous forsake; secondly, an inference, his former righteousness shall not be remembered, etc. The supposition is dangerous, the inference is pernicious.1. Of the supposition, when the righteous turneth away from his righteousness. No man ever made question but that a truly regenerate man may depart from his actual righteousness, and commit iniquity, and do according to all the abominations that the wicked doth; and that if he should die without repentance, that his former righteousness should stand him in no stead, but that he should suffer the pain of eternal death, which is all that the letter of this text enforceth our assent unto. Our motions to God-ward, and proceedings in a sanctified course of life, are like the rowing of a small boat against a strong wind and tide (the blasts of the evil spirit, and the propension of our corrupt nature), much labour and sweat is required, and very little is done with much ado; and if we slack our hands, and miss but one stroke, we are carried down with the stream, and cast farther back than we can fetch again with many strokes. What a foul and shameful thing is it with the dog to return to your vomit of luxury, and with the swine to your wallowing in the mire of sensual pleasures. As in the diseases of the body, so also much more of the soul, all relapses are dangerous, and in some diseases altogether incurable; the reason whereof alleged by some learned physicians is this, that when we first take our bed the malignity of the disease worketh upon corrupt humours in the body, which when they are purged, and we restored to health, if after by any distemper we fall into the same malady, the malignity of the disease worketh upon our vital spirits; in like manner the malignity of sin before our conversion worketh but upon our corrupt nature, but after upon the graces of God’ s Spirit. We find in Scripture many desperately sick, yet cured the first time by our Saviour; but where do we read in all the Gospel of any blind man’ s eyes twice enlightened? of any deaf ears twice opened? of any tied tongue twice loosened? of any possessed with devils twice dispossessed? of any dead twice raised? No doubt Christ could have done it, but we read not that ever He did it, that we should be most careful to avoid relapses into our former sins, the recovery whereof is always most difficult, and in some cases (as the Apostle teacheth us) impossible (Hebrews 6:4-8). (D. Featly, D. D.) Ezekiel 18:25 Yet ye say, The way of the Lord is not equal.Hear now, O house of Israel; Is not My way equal? Are not your ways unequal? On the unequal distribution of happiness and misery Let us suppose an attentive observer to take a general view of the situation in which mankind is placed. The first thing that would strike him would probably be the variety of conveniences and comforts distributed around him, which are neither earned by his own merit nor produced by his own care. This would lead him to a second observation, that many, and the most essential, of these conveniences and comforts are bestowed promiscuously, and without exception, on the whole race of mankind: the sun rises on the evil and on the good, and the rain descends on the just and on the unjust. What other conclusion could he draw from these two observations than that the Power above us is friendly to mankind? From this pleasing prospect the observer might turn his attention to the evils and miseries which attend on human life. What are we to infer from hence? Is it that God is a capricious Being, or that He has pleasure in the misery, as well as in the happiness, of His creatures? To solve this question, we may observe a remarkable difference between the two cases: the benefits, which are common to all mankind, are numerous and important, and are enjoyed, without intermission, every day and every hour. On the contrary, the evils common to all mankind, if any there be, are much fewer than is usually supposed, and only occur on particular emergencies. How far even death, which is the only universal lot, is really in itself an evil, distinct from the pain which is supposed to attend it, has never yet been ascertained; and the pains of death are by no means common to the whole human race: many die instantaneously without any pain, and many in lingering diseases without a pang or a groan. It is not certain, therefore, that there is any one evil existing which affects, necessarily and inevitably, the whole race of mankind. I might add, in this place, that the evils complained of serve to answer many wise purposes of discipline and probation. Hitherto we have considered those benefits and those evils which arise from God’ s own appointment, without any merit or demerit of our own. Let us next consider those which are the consequences of our own conduct. In this view the first thing that would strike an attentive observer would probably be that many vicious actions are attended with regular and constant effects, and carry a sort of punishment along with them. It would next be observed, that there are virtues also which bring their own benefits along with them: temperance and regularity lead to health and long life; industry and diligence to affluence and plenty; good faith and sincerity promote esteem and regard; and patience, equanimity, and command of temper lay the foundation for happiness, and form a constituent part of it. Yet still an observer might take notice, that the good effects of virtue are not in any degree so certain or constant as the ill effects of vice. This fact is remarkable, and deserves to be seriously considered. It seems to prove, that the distribution of good and evil, of happiness and misery, which arises from our own actions, our own virtues and vices, is regulated by a different and even opposite law, from that distribution of happiness and misery which comes immediately and gratuitously, from the hand of God. In the latter, the benefits and favours which we receive from God are more numerous, as we have seen, are more extensive, more constant, and more certain than the evils which we suffer. In the former, where our own actions, our virtues and vices are concerned, the evils and punishments of vice are more numerous, more constant, and more certain than the benefits or rewards of virtue. Shall we say, then, in this case, that God is inconsistent, or that He is less a friend to virtue than an enemy to vice? Not so, says the text.1. In the first place, you will readily allow it to be highly conducive to our piety and devotion that the dispensations of Almighty God Himself, which are unconnected with any human virtues or vices, should be, as becomes him, everywhere distinguished by marks of kindness, beneficence, and bounty. 2. In the next place, it is highly conducive to our religious and moral improvement, that virtue should not, in this life, be attended with its distinct and immediate reward. The magnificent idea held forth by Christianity, of the value in which virtue ought to be held, would be totally done away; it would be to appreciate that which is beyond all price; to demand prematurely a momentary reward here, for that which, in the sight of God, and through faith in the merits of Christ, no earthly enjoyment and immortal happiness alone can repay. 3. In the last place, it is highly conducive to our moral improvement that vice, on the contrary, should in many cases be attended with immediate punishment. It is evident that this is not an instance of God’ s severity, but rather of His clemency and mercy. It restrains the sinner, in kindness, before it is too late, from “ treasuring up wrath,” etc. It tends to check no one virtue which we have, and is the school in which we are best taught the virtues which we have not. (W. Pearce, D. D.) The inequalities of life I. If we had to find an immediate and direct answer to this question, “ Is not My way equal?” we should be disposed to say, “ Decidedly not.” From the beginning to the end of life there seems to be inequality, not equality. Consider, first of all, how men are born. Birth is something so entirely removed from the region of personal responsibility that no one of us is to be held accountable for anything belonging to it. Yet how much depends on being well born! Some thinking men have said that half the battle of life is won or lost according as an individual is well or ill born. Now, when we examine into the facts of life, how very many people seem to be anything but well born! God’ s ways do not seem equal in this respect. Certainly not on the surface. There are thousands of children born from vicious parents. Very little chance do these seem to have to be good men and women. Compare their heredity with that which belongs to some of our friends here present, in whose ancestry has been no known criminal of any kind, no unvirtuous man, no impious woman. When we make such comparison, it does not seem as if God’ s ways are equal. Take a step forward, and again ask the question when nurture begins to tell. The word “ education” covers a very much larger area of life than we ordinarily assign it. The home in which we live, the company we keep, the books we read for fun and not as tasks, all are contributory to education. The word “ environment” comes in here. In regard to that, God’ s ways do not seem equal. The opportunities of a pure and wise education which come to some, contrasted with the vicious ignorance and coarse immoralities by which others are surrounded, do not enable us easily to find an affirmative answer to this question, “ Are not My ways equal? saith the Lord.” Once more, the child is born and schooled; educated, as we say, by all through which he has passed in these impressionable years of youth. And now the time comes for sailing out on the ocean of enterprise. One young man finds his boat ready built and ready manned and abundantly victualled, and he has only to step aboard and sail off. A second casts about hither and thither, applying to one and another to take him aboard, and let him scrub decks or do anything, and almost loses heart before he can get any kind of start in life. Things do not seem equal here, any more than in the other stages of life. II. Yet the more carefully we look into these facts, and the longer we dwell upon them, the more copiously will they supply us with something suggestive of the necessity of caution in dealing with them. We begin to think in this way: “ Let me not be too rash in lay affirmatives. This is not God’ s perfect world. This is very far from an ideal condition of society. It is a society disturbed by sin. I cannot judge of the kingdom of God from what I see in society, every member of which is under condemnation as belonging to a sinful race. So I must be careful in forming my judgments. There are modifications and compensations discernible even now.” First of all, it does not do to assume that happiness and unhappiness are in the ratio of external possession or non-possession. The man who has enough for all the legitimate uses of life is not at a disadvantage. He has no real wants. The artificial wants of society have nothing to do with the physical and mental necessities of life. Health, intelligence, aspiration, all that is wholesome and good, do not depend upon anything artificial. The disposition in our day, even among Christianised people, to make too much of externals needs to be studiously guarded against when we are speaking of equality and inequality. Has it not come to be one of the commonplaces of existence that poverty is not always a curse, and wealth is not always a blessing? When a child is born into the midst of the surroundings supplied by a luxurious home, he is at a considerable disadvantage in seam ways. You say he need not trouble about his future, so far as it consists in the providing for the necessaries and the comforts of life. Now, if some of these comfortable conditions are not as favourable to the putting forth of energy or the developing of strength of character as are the other less coveted conditions, immediately the question of equality becomes a little harder to answer. I say the more we investigate the facts of life the less disposed are we to say that all inequalities are of the nature of injustice. Often and often the rich man’ s son becomes indolent and ineffective, a mere lazy loafer on life’ s highway, through want of that stimulus which comes naturally to the son of the poor man. It would be interesting to investigate that region more thoroughly. We must leave it for another remark bearing upon the answer we shall give to the question, “ Are not My ways equal? saith the Lord.” The idea of responsibility comes in here. It becomes us ever to remember the words, “ To whom much is given, of him much will be required” ; and, “ To whom they commit much, of him will they ask the more.” The Gospel of Jesus Christ is a gospel for all, but it is especially a gospel for the weary and heavy-laden, for the man who has been badly born, for the man who has been handicapped in the race of life, for the man whose chance has been of the poorest. There is a future, and it is not far off. There Lazarus gets his chance, and Dives learns the lesson he refused to learn here and now. (R. Thomas, D. D.) The way of God and the ways of man There is no foundation for an intelligent faith without the admission that God’ s attributes are unchangeable and His will as inscrutable as His being; that “ He is and was and is to come,” “ the same yesterday and today and forever.” It is not man’ s mission to vindicate the way of God to understandings which will not receive the impressions of faith and the reasoning of love. He who undertakes by what he may call wise arguments to prove to the discontented heart that God is love will lose his labour, and may perhaps be himself made captive by the unbelief he rashly attacks. The same power which is to convince the world of sin must also convince it of righteousness. The answer to every cavil is the offer of eternal life, without money and without price, to all. They complain of their lost inheritance, and a nobler inheritance is offered in exchange; they resent the imputation of their fathers’ guilt, and they are called upon to turn from their own, and then for their punishment they shall receive a double reward in the life of their soul, which he who loses shall gain nothing if he gain the whole world, and he who gains may well afford to lose home and lands and all earthly possessions and advantages if it be God’ s will to deprive him of them. It is in the simplicity and universal application of this invitation of mercy that the Lord is content to risk the vindication of His goodness. His purpose has been single and its scope universal, and its means undeviatingly the same, for “ there is none other name under heaven given among men whereby we must be saved.” Away then with that delusion which holds that law has succeeded law, covenant superseded covenant, in such a sense that at one time salvation was by works, at another time by faith; once by the work of man, now by the work of Christ. He was the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world. The law was and is a schoolmaster to bring us to Christ; the law and the prophets testified of Him. Men may find fault with the ways of God, because He does not by large miracles pour out the flood of His Spirit upon the heathen; but the Lord replies, What have My people done to spread the knowledge I have given them? It is of the nature of light to expand its rays, and nothing but wilful obstructions can hinder it; why has the Church hidden her light? why have Christian nations neglected their mission? why have labourers been wanting when the field was ready for harvest? How shall they believe in Him of whom they have not heard? how shall they hear except the Word be sent unto them? That complaint which, if not loudest heard, is most widely spread and most deeply rankles in the heart of man, arises out of the inequalities of fortune, the manifold chances and changes of this mortal life, whereby the wicked prosper while the righteous struggle, fools are set in high places while pious wisdom dies in obscurity, rich men are clothed in purple and fine linen while Lazaruses are laid at their gate full of sores; indifference has peace while sensitive hearts yearning for holiness and rest are left melancholy and disconsolate, despairing of the peace that is theirs, and making themselves labour out of their earnest search for rest. Heed not the prosperity of the unrighteous; load not your souls with the burthen of envy, and murmur not at comparisons which a moment of God’ s wrath may show to be vain; though you be poor and of sad spirit, lonely and uncheerful, afflicted with the ills of life and partaker of few of its blessings; though sin and its perplexities may harass you; though happiness be to you a thing of the past, wrapt up in fruitless memories and darkened by shadows from the grave; though trouble should come or has come upon you;--let not the petulance of sorrow charge its weariness upon the caprice of a Father, the faithfulness of whose mercy and the perfection of whose judgments and the consistency of whose way are in nothing more certainly manifested than in the troubles whereby out of the curse of sin He brings the grace of everlasting life. In conclusion; remember that the way of the Lord in His dealings with man is equal, impartial, consistent. The way of His providence is equal, for all things work together for good to them who love God; the way of His grace is equal, for it is and ever has been comprised in the person of Jesus Christ; His providence waits upon His grace, and the purpose of both is the salvation of our souls. (A. J. Macleane, M. A.) Ezekiel 18:27-28 When the wicked man turneth away from his wickedness that he hath committed.The conversion of a sinner I. The wicked ought to reform.1. Sin is contrary to reason. (1) A sinful action is discreditable to any person whatsoever.(2) It is grievous, painful, and intolerable to bear the effects of wicked and sinful actions, and to vary from right. 2. Being such, it cannot be justified. As the palsy-motion, which seems to be quicker than other; but it is not from strength but from weakness: no man can justify a sinful action; but to a bad conscience, or before an unrighteous judge; who is either ignorant or partial, or himself as bad, by undue principles, corrupt interest, or an abuse of power. 3. Every sinful action, however we may stand to it, or may be countenance here in the world, will be discountenanced sooner or later, whether we will or no. 4. If we do not repent of that which we have done sinfully, it will lie upon us as the blackest spot, as the heaviest judgment, and as the worst malady. 5. There is no expectation either of God’ s pardon, or of help from Him, but in the way of repentance. For who can promise himself anything out of the terms of the covenant of grace; namely, repentance from all dead works, resolution of obedience to God, and faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. 6. We are all under obligation to repent, though there would no good come to us by it. For we are God’ s creatures, and held of Him; from whence it follows, that we ought to serve Him, and to do His will, and to be at His command. II. Through the grace which God doth afford, we may repent of all evil done, and make application to God; and deprecate His displeasure, and leave off to sin, and return to our duty, and so obtain His pardon. Neither let any man say, that the text signifies no more than if one should say to an impotent man, remove this mountain, and thou shalt have such or such a reward; or to bid a man to comprehend the ocean in the hollow of his hand, and it shall so or so be done unto him. These ways of speaking must not be put upon God, nor in any ease attributed unto Him. When God saith to the sinner, repent and turn from your wickedness, and you shall save your soul alive, it doth suppose that either He is able or that He will make Him so. But here some may be ready to interpose, and say: surely God is not in good earnest, because He might if He would; for who can resist the Divine will? It doth not follow, that because God doth not enforce, that therefore He doth not enable. That God should force agrees neither with the nature of God, nor with the nature of man; but that God should enable, this is natural to the relation we stand in to God, who is original to our being. Wherefore be resolved in this matter, that God is with us, and that He is ready to afford His grace and assistance. Now, that you may not lose this great argument and principle of reformation, and true and solid ground of encouragement, to leave off to sin, and to return to God, because of His gracious aid and assistance, I will give you assurance further by these six particulars.1. It was never God’ s intention, when He made man at first, to put him into a state of absolute independency, or self-sufficiency. And therefore whosoever assumes it to himself doth assume that which never did belong to a creature-state. 2. Could man allege either necessity of evil, or impossibility of doing good, it would be a plea when God calls us to an account, and admits us to reason with Him. 3. Where there is excellency of nature there is always readiness to communicate, supply, and gratify. 4. We cannot say worse of God than that His calls and monitions to His creatures are not serious and in good earnest, and out of love and good mind. 5. To assert our impotency and disability, and that God is wanting in necessary assistance, is to expose us to an invincible temptation; and that in these three particulars. (1) To entertain hard thoughts of God, and such as are unworthy of Him. (2) To throw off the use of all means, and to take no care at all in this great affair. (3) To despair. And we wrong God more by desperation than by presumption. 6. God hath done so much on His part, that He hath given us all reason to believe, and think that He is well minded towards us; and that He is resolved in the matter of our recovery; upon terms that are made easy and possible. (1) Take into consideration the length of God’ s patience; for were God for our destruction, He would take us at the first advantage and opportunity, as enemies are wont to do. (2) The checks of our own consciences. (3) The abundant provision that God hath made for our recovery. There is expiation of sin; and the assistance of His grace and Spirit, for the recovering of us. (4) The nature and quality of the things that God, upon account of religion, does require of us, namely, those things whereof religion doth consist; and they are internal good dispositions and acts that are suitable, and do of their own accord follow. (5) The equal consideration that we meet with at the hands of God, in respect of our present weakness, shows that God is ready and willing to do us good. (6) Though God begin with less, He will go on with more. So that, let no man be discouraged though that which he now hath be not sufficient for to carry him through that which he hath before him; for as his work shall increase and grow greater, God will furnish him with that assistance that shall be suitable and sufficient for what He calls him unto. (7) God speaketh absolutely, positively, and without any reservation; that when a sinner turneth away from his wickedness he shall save his soul alive. (8) The repentance of a sinner, and his turning to God, is a thing so acceptable and well pleasing to God that He will greatly reward those that have any hand in it. (Daniel 12:3.) (B. Whichcote, D. D.) The conversion of a sinner I. The time when the wicked turneth away from his wickedness. It is indefinitely spoken, and doth not exclude late time, which may be an encouragement to everyone, be his case never so desperate. But then, this is not spoken to encourage men’ s delays and put-offs; for there are four great evils consequent upon that.1. It were to ill resent the goodness of God thus to requite His grace and favour, that we continue in sin because God is gracious. 2. It were to abuse ourselves, and do ourselves more and more harm. 3. It would make the work which is necessary to our happiness much more hard and difficult. For ill use doth contract bad habits; and bad habits contracted by long use and custom are with great difficulty left off. 4. Continuance in sin doth expose us to far greater danger. (1) Because of the great uncertainty of life, for who can promise himself another day, nay another moment? (2) Because of the devil’ s repeated and continued assaults, by which he will still get the more advantage upon us; and so it will become the more difficult to get him out of possession. (3) In respect of the insinuations of bad company, and converse. (4) All the while you stand out you are in a way of resistance of the Holy Spirit, and fight against the motions of God Almighty; which are necessary to bring you to good, and to qualify you for eternal life. II. The quality of the person. Scripture doth not denominate persons wicked, or sinners, or workers of iniquity, from weaknesses, failings, or from error of judgment, or from indisposition at times, from sudden passion or surprisal; nor from the irregularity of the first motion, that is so troublesome and grievous unto us all. But they are called sinners and wicked persons who voluntarily consent to known iniquity. III. When a man may be said to turn from his wickedness.1. The negatives are these. (1) A man is not said to turn away from his iniquities when his sin rather leaves him, than he leaves it; either through age and disability of body; or through weakness and infirmity; so that he cannot bear to do as he has formerly done. (2) Such men as are not at their own liberty; but under tutors and governors, whom they dare not disobey; who are as it were shut up, and not suffered to ramble abroad. (3) Nor when sin is made bitter to men, by suffering the had consequences that follow upon it. 2. But then affirmatively, in three particulars. (1) When we leave sin out of sense and judgment of its vileness and impurity. (2) When we leave sin out of respect to God, in obedience unto His laws, and love to Him. (3) A man cannot be said to return from his wickedness unless he doth conceive displeasure at it, and resolve never to have to do with it again. IV. An account of lawful and right. Here are two words for one and the same thing; and the one is explicatory of the other. Now this is that which we all ought to do; and there is no pretence of power and privilege to the contrary. And if everybody did confine himself to that which is right, just, and fit, we should have a new world; and there would be nothing of wrong or hard measure found among us: we should then be the better one for another. There is a rule of right in all cases, and it is the charge of all persons in the use of Power, to judge and determine according unto that rule.1. I will begin with the relation that is between parents and children, and show you what is right for parents to do with their children, and children to their parents. 2. I go to the relation of husbands and wives; there is the right of the case between them. 3. Then for masters and servants. Masters, render to your servants what is right, that which is equal, fair, and reasonable. Then for servants, there is the right of the case for them also, and that is to obey their masters in all things, and to be true and faithful to them. 4. Then in our common converse, we ought to use all humanity, courtesy, and affability, giving all respect, despising nobody. 5. To descend to the creatures below us, there is a right of the case here also. We must not abuse any. V. The happiness that follows upon renovation, repentance, and turning to God. He that doth so shall save his soul alive. From this we may understand of how great benefit the good use and improvement of our time is. How many are there that overlook the business, purpose, and intention of life! We are here to run a race, and so to run that we may obtain; and therefore we are to watch over ourselves, both as to the things of our mind and body; and so to keep under our bodies, and bring them into subjection, that we may not ruin and undo ourselves. Therefore I advise every man that is serious to ask himself these questions.1. Will this that I have done, or am doing, be accountable when God shall call me to a reckoning? 2. That which Abigail put to David (1 Samuel 25:1-44), “ This will be no grief of heart, nor offence, unto thee.” 3. What shall I think of this when I shall lie upon my death bed? 4. How remediless will the consequence of evil be, when I shall have the least relief by my reason, and be least capable of advice; and when I shall have the least assistance of God’ s grace and Spirit? (B. Whichcote, D. D.) Of the conversion of a sinner I. The nature of repentance; to turn away from wickedness, and to do that which is lawful and right.1. To turn from wickedness; this the negative part according to that, Let him eschew evil and do good. And that according to the very morality of the heathens, virtus est vitium fugere, etc. Not to be vicious is the rudiment of virtue, and ‘ tis the beginning of wisdom to leave off playing the fool. Now this turning from wickedness being a very hard work, nothing more difficult than to throw off habits once contracted. Let us therefore by a gradual deduction show the right way of proceeding, what course a new convert, that turns from his wickedness, usually takes. (1) To fortify the reason or understanding with all arguments against it: for conviction is supposed as the very bottom of this work of repentance. The arguments to convince a man’ s self are partly moral, partly civil and external; such as are the vileness of thy lusts, which make thee live a life not suitable to the excellency of thy nature, the ill consequence of it, in provoking God and making Him thy enemy, and in exposing thy soul to eternal ruin. Again, the discredit and disparagement; the damage and loss of time, health, estate, they run thee into; the trouble and vexation they procure thee, and the little satisfaction they give thee in lieu of all those inconveniences, of all those hazards and dangers they put thee upon. (2) To wean the affections; and this will not be very difficult, when the understanding is once convinced. But here’ s the fault (Hosea 4:6). Upon this conviction will naturally follow a loathing and detestation of thy sin. (3) Shunning all occasions. A man then will set a guard upon himself, stop all the avenues of sin, and resist the devil, who is likely most busy at men’ s conversion. He that is truly convinced will do so; else he but dissembles with God, and his own soul. (4) At least since he finds it so very hard to master his thoughts, and evil concupiscence is ever working and boiling up in unlawful desires; yet he will bridle himself from committing the gross act. For if after his conversion he come so far back, as to act the same wickedness over again, then he is to begin all his work anew, and his repentance itself is to be repented of, as having not been sound and sincere. 2. The other is positive, to do that which is lawful and right. (1) He doth by degrees inure himself to the contrary virtues. Habits are acquired by single acts frequently repeated, and though difficult at first, yet by use and custom are made easy and familiar, till at last they become natural. (2) As a Christian; he frequents those spiritual exercises wherein grace is promised and improved; prayer, meditation, reading, hearing, receiving, etc., whereof some are to instruct him in his rule, and to give him directions; others to fetch in help and assistance: and he that thus seeks God in His own ordinances and methods, will be sure to find Him. (3) To be sure he keeps himself employed, that his sin may not find him at leisure; that idleness may give the Evil One no advantage against him. II. The consequent of thus doing is, that he shall save his soul alive.1. By turning thus from his wickedness, and doing that which is right, he shall be so accepted of God, that his sins shall never prejudice him, as to his eternal estate, whoever the person be, whatever his former life hath been. 2. His thus doing prepares and disposes him for God’ s grace, whereby he may be enabled to do more, till he work out his salvation; and God’ s grace will perfect that good work which has been begun in him. 3. This reformation and amendment evidences a justifying and a saving faith, and shows a man to be, to the glory of God’ s grace, a truly pious man, and one who may fairly entertain very good assurances of happiness in the life to come. For though by Christ alone, as the meritorious cause, and by faith alone, as the instrumental cause, we are justified and saved; yet that faith itself will do us no good, no, nor Christ Himself stand us in any stead, unless it be accompanied with repentance from sin, and amendment of life. I might from hence draw several inferences of vulgar mistakes about this necessary work of repentance; let me but mention two.1. As to the first act, to turn from his wickedness that he hath committed. Some think it enough to turn from some sins, and indulge themselves in others, or at least to turn off one sin, and take up another in its stead. But such must know, that they are still in captivity; they do but alter their prison. 2. As to the second act, to do that which is lawful and right. There are those, who seem to resolve all religion into hearing; that they look on as the soul-saving ordinance; for by that comes faith. Be it so; but let not good works be thrown aside as unnecessary, as dangerous. For what says the apostle? Not the hearers, but the doers shall be justified. III. The possibility of the duty as to its performance: for else all were to no purpose.1. God has a kindness for all the souls of men. He is a faithful Creator; His mercy is over all His works, and He hates nothing that He hath made. 2. There’ s no bar then, as on God’ s part, against any soul’ s happiness. We say, unfortunate persons were born under an ill planet, but whatever force the stars may have upon men’ s estates and successes, they have none upon their minds and wills. Here ‘ tis thy own will that writes thy destiny; there’ s no fatality upon thee, but what thou bringest upon thyself. There’ s no irreversible decree in our way, to exclude us, if we do not exclude ourselves. Thy destruction is of thyself, O Israel. God made no man purposely to damn him. Death was one of man’ s own inventions, and will be the reward of his own evil actions. 3. God allows everyone such a sufficiency of means, as will at least render him inexcusable. In the parable of Talents, they had everyone more or less. Even where the means are denied or withdrawn, ‘ tis out of mercy upon foresight of the abuse. These are certain truths, that every man may do better than he does, and may have more grace to do better, if he seek it. If the advantages of the Gospel, the assistances of grace, the influences of the Spirit, the admonitions of conscience will not prevail with men, God will be justified when He judges, even in their condemnation. 4. God having thus furnished us with helps, and being ready further to enable us, expects and requires our own serious endeavours in the working out of our own salvation, nor can we look to be saved otherwise. This passeth for current doctrine in all worldly affairs, that men’ s industry and diligence are the only arguments to build their assurance of success upon. And this much more in spiritual and eternal concerns. A man is not to lie in a ditch, and think to get out only by crying, God help me. The carter in the fable, when he called for Hercules’ assistance, was bid to set his own shoulder first to the wheel. It is a proverb, that the world is made for the presumptuous; which Christ seems to have consecrated to pious encouragement, when He tells us, The kingdom of heaven suffers violence, and the violent take it by force. And thus much to evince as the obligation, so the possibility of this duty of repentance and conversion, that as it ought to be in the sinner’ s will, so ‘ tis partly in his power. We shall now show how far that power will lead him.1. A man may, if he will, forbear the gross act of sin. 2. A man may, if he will, shun the occasion of his sin, and get out of the devil’ s way, and keep guard at his weak place. A vessel may run foul in a dark night, and strike upon a secret, unseen rock; but if the pilot have any the least care, he will beware places of known danger. 3. A man may, if he will, by degrees draw off his affections, and estrange himself to his sin. 4. A man may, if he will, use his reason; and he doth not deserve the name of man, that will not do that. He may so fortify his understanding, and even natural conscience (for we are now within the compass of nature) that he may at length arrive at a full perfect resolution against his sin. Then as to do that which is lawful and right.1. He may, if he will, keep himself well employed, and so not be at leisure for his sin. Good exercise is an expedient for health of soul, as well as body. 2. He may, if he will, go to church, to his closet, read, hear, pray, meditate, and frequent those religious duties wherein God has promised to bestow grace, and pious persons are wont to improve it. 3. He may, if he will, inure himself by good acts as to the substance of them, to the contrary virtues. I still speak of moral actions performable by the strength of nature; so that yet we are not come within the sphere of grace’ s activity. Hitherto a man may go of himself, if he will; and certainly he is in a very hopeful condition that goes thus far. I shall not fear to tell you, that he is gone a good part of his way to heaven, and there’ s no going to heaven but this way. He has turned from his wickedness, and now does that which is lawful and right; therefore he shall save his soul alive. And how’ s that? That’ s on God’ s part; for though we must work out our salvation, yet by grace we are saved still: ‘ tis the gift of God, when all’ s done.1. God accepts such an one, as He did the devout centurion. 2. God further enables him; so as with His grace to prevent him and assist him, as again in Cornelius his case. 3. God justifies him (his sins that he had done shall be mentioned no more), and will finally reward him; his soul shall live. I shall conclude with two or three cautions, which may quicken us, that we do not put off this necessary work upon this presumption, that ‘ tis in our power to repent when we will.1. That the longer ‘ tis deferred, the more difficult it will be. Our sins will grow stronger, our powers and resolutions weaker, and the grace and favour of God less easy to be obtained, if we neglect the time when He may be found. 2. That though true repentance be never too late, yet late repentance is seldom true. ‘ Tis a shrewd sign of our insincerity, when we are unwilling to leave our lusts till they leave us. 3. That our intentions, though never so good, if we defer to put them in execution, when we have time to do it, will not find so gracious an acceptance at God’ s hands. 4. That everyone has a day of grace, and ‘ tis a thing of extreme danger to hazard the loss of that; to let the measure of our iniquities be filled up, and so to have the things of our peace at last hid from our eyes, and repentance itself put out of our power. (Adam Littleton, D. D.) Practical intention of the Gospel I. The first step to salvation is here described to be the relinquishment of former evil practices. That sin is to be forsaken by the seeker of God’ s favour, requires no proof. But how is it to be effected? There are many who think that prayer and good resolutions are sufficient. That both of these are indispensable, is most certain, and nothing can be done without them; but they are not always effectual. To them must be added the turning away from the besetting sin; the keeping out of the way of temptation. Probably the virtue and goodness of the best consist more in resisting temptation than is commonly believed by the looker-on. At the close of the day, what, we may ask, excites our grateful emotions to God? That we have had grace to resist this sin and the other; not that we have been positively good, but that we have not been positively bad. One main source of the obedience, then, for instance, of the man whose besetment is love of the world, consists in his keeping out of it, in his turning away from it, as much as he possibly can. And this direction is equally applicable to all other sins. You wish to give up sin; then studiously, self-denyingly, watchfully, prayerfully, turn away from the very atmosphere of the temptation that would lead you to sin; and dream not of safety upon any other terms. II. After this relinquishing known sin, the next step is, “ to do that which is lawful and right.” We know well the difficulty of reconciling the sovereign power of God with the agency of helpless man. But let us consider, for the practical view of the question, that the same God who made the body and its powers made also the soul and its powers. Now, we feel no hesitation in speaking about the freedom of motion of the limbs of the body; yet the whole power to move arm, or leg, or hand, is derived as directly from God as is the power of the mind to think. And notwithstanding this, we feel no hesitation in attributing to man a perfect mastery over all the motions of his own limbs, though it be true that “ in God he lives, and moves, and has his being.” When you tell a man to walk, in effect you only tell him to use the power of body which God has given him. He walks, not because he gave himself the power to do so, but because God gave it to him. Now we know the limits under which this can be applied to the soul. Sin has cast its chain, so to speak, about the legs and arms of the soul. If you wish to walk to a neighbouring place, we know of no impediment to your motions; but if you wish to walk to heaven, the case is different. But who gave you the unshackled limbs? God. And if He gives the like power to the soul, why may we not, in like manner, exhort you to make use of it, without being misconstrued? But what is the “ lawful and right,” the Christian obedience, required of you? Repentance, faith, holiness. But these imply a thousand particulars, without understanding many of which, it is but giving dark counsel. We spoke of repentance first; but how is a man to perform this “ lawful and right” act? How are you to feel sorrow for your sins? You cannot give this sorrow to yourselves; nor can any human being give it you. How then is it to be obtained? In the use, we reply, of God’ s appointed means. “ Do” them, for they are the “ lawful and right” means. Now, we think the appointed way of obtaining repentance is by looking closely at and to Jesus Christ, in connection with what you know of yourselves relative to the past and the present, and what you justly suspect of yourselves for the future. Not that we suppose that any view you can take of Jesus Christ, in connection with His dreadful sufferings for your sins, could move you to real sorrow; but our belief is, that this is the appointed effect of this particular means: if you once look at Christ in this light, He will at the same time regard you for the most merciful of all purposes. Is not every spiritual blessing to be traced up, instrumentally, to Jesus Christ? Repentance certainly is a spiritual blessing; and therefore the proper means are, to come to Him, in the hope that He, by His Spirit, will awaken it within you. If you wait until you are a penitent before you seek for the remedy of the Gospel, you are inverting the only safe order. Come to Jesus Christ in prayer for the gift of repentance: this, we say, is the appointed means. For we are only asking you to exert the power which is given you by God to use His own means, that you may obtain His own blessing. But we pass on to the second act spoken of as “ lawful and right” for the salvation of the soul--faith in Jesus Christ. And certainly if repentance is a necessary act of obedience, so is a reliance on the meritorious sacrifice of Jesus Christ. But then what can you do, you yourselves do, in the way of obedience to this injunction? You cannot give yourself faith in Christ, but you can pray for it. You can read the history of His sufferings and death for your sins, with a thoughtful mind; and in that same book in which they are recorded, you can read the only valuable and true history in the world of yourselves. If you desire to see the faithful representation of your countenance, you go to the looking glass; and if you want to see the only real picture of your soul’ s condition, read God’ s Word for this express purpose, for you will find it nowhere else. By thus using the plain means, so easy of access, for learning what you can of Jesus Christ, and what you can of yourself, you meet God, as it were, in the right road; you go as far as you can go. And as little do we expect that God will go out of His way to withhold His suns, and rains, and winds, for maturing the seed put into the ground with all care, in the use of His own appointed means, as we believe He will withhold the suns, and winds, and rains of His Holy Spirit to bring to ripeness the graces connected with “ saving the soul alive” in those who thus do their part towards obtaining them. (J. E. Golding.) Because he considereth, and turneth away from all his transgressions. Repentance I. He considereth. The blind, hardened man walks about thinking, speaking, acting, without considering how the Almighty God is regarding him, what are to be the consequences of all his thoughts, words, and ways, to what end he is to come. He considers not what he owes to his God, his Maker, his Redeemer, his Sanctifier, his great Benefactor. He considers not that he shall one day “ stand before the judgment seat of Christ, to receive the things done in the body,” to give account of the manner in which he has “ rendered unto God the things which are God’ s,” the honour, the faithful service, the adoring and grateful love which are due to Him from all His rational creatures. Oh what unspeakably great and glorious things are often poured about the ears of hardened people, without making the least impression on their hearts! Divine justice, creating, redeeming love, the death of Christ the Son of God, the coming of the Holy Ghost, the grand events of the judgment day, heaven, hell, eternity, such things as fully comprehended would fill the whole soul of man, and make him stand motionless with admiration and amazement. See an awakened man, a man “ whose heart God hath touched.” The terrible voice of the most just judgment of God has reached him. It has pierced his soul. It has roused him from his deadly lethargy. It has made him think. He exercises his thoughts upon his condition and his prospects. His life is brought before him. He sees how he has lived without God in the world. His sins now begin to appear to him in an awful light. He stands amazed at his dreadful situation. He considereth. How he is to escape the wrath to come. How he is to be restored to the favour of his offended God. How he is to master his sinful nature. How he is to acquire the faith and love, the “ holiness, without which no man shall see the Lord.” All his heart is now engaged in those great considerations; and so vast, so overwhelming they appear, that everything else seems a trifle compared with them. He considers that God is even yet his Maker, that He may still have a regard to the work of His hands; that He has indeed given His Son, that He might be merciful to him. Then he falls down with such feelings as he never before experienced before his God, and pours out of the fulness of his heart confessions of sin, cries for mercy, hopes of pardon, repetitions of God’ s promises, prayers for grace and a change of heart, and resolutions of amendment. II. He turneth away from all his transgressions that he hath committed. He forthwith begins “ in the strength of the Lord,” trusting that His grace will be with him, to leave off every kind of iniquity of language and conduct, to avoid all ungodly society, to check his bad tempers, to resist his vile passions, to devote himself to pious practices, to d course of real, earnest, heartfelt prayer, to diligent, thoughtful, and devout reading of the Scriptures, and to all the duties which he owes to his neighbour. He is not like so many, who “ return, but not the Most High;” who make some confessions, offer some prayers, leave off some sins, who are “ almost persuaded to be Christians,” who go a little way toward God, but will not go all the way to God, will not become His faithful, consistent, devoted servants. He that really returns to God, really devotes himself to the service of the Lord, considers that he is not his own master, to pick and choose what duty he will do, and what he will leave undone, when he will do his duty, and when he will leave it undone; he considers, that he is “ not his own, for he is bought with a price, and must glorify God,” by leaving off every sinful practice, and by the faithful, regular, and consistent discharge of every duty. (R. L. Cotton, M. A.) Ezekiel 18:29O house of Israel, are not My ways equal? Scripture appealing to the reason and conscience of man This is one among the many instances to be found in Scripture where the rational and moral nature of man is appealed to in justification of the Divine conduct. Christianity must be felt by us to be true before it can be felt by us to be binding on our consciences. And who is to be the judge of its truth or falsehood? Where and what is the tribunal before which its credentials are to be produced, examined, and decided on? What is it, or what can it be, but the reason of man,--Reason in her high seat of purity and power, lifted up above the tainted and corrupting atmosphere of worldly passions and prejudices, and calmly and serenely engaged in the consideration and contemplation of truth. This is one of the first and plainest rules to be adopted for our intellectual guidance. It is regarded as an axiom by all sober thinkers, that every proposition or statement which is found to be self-contradictory or irrational is at once to be regarded as incredible. This, of course, imposes upon man the heavy responsibility of using his reason fairly, of judging not according to the appearance, but of judging righteous judgment. With this condition it will be the surest and safest light to our feet and lamp to our path. There is another and a similar proposition to the one just mentioned, which I shall now proceed to enforce, having respect not so much to our intellectual as to our moral nature. In the Scriptures, appeal is not only made to our reason, our understanding, for the truth of their declarations, but to our moral feelings and convictions, And accordingly I would lay down this principle as akin to the one already touched upon, namely, that any representations of God, and of the character of God, which went to the subversion or destruction of those primary and essential distinctions of truth, justice and goodness, which have been established by the common consent of the wise and good of all ages,--any such representations, assuming what pretensions they may, are to be met with instant and utter rejection. When the Scriptures address our consciences, when they speak of the law written on the heart, when they ask us to judge of ourselves what is right, and when God appeals to us for the justice of His proceedings, saying, “ Are not My ways equal?” --they take for granted that we have that within us which is capable of forming sound moral judgments, and of coming to right moral conclusions. So again, when the Scriptures speak to us of the goodness and the loving kindness and the mercy of God, they do not begin with defining the sense in which they use these terms. They suppose that we have already a general and sufficiently accurate knowledge of them. They take for granted the existence of these qualities among men, as arising out of the very constitution of their moral nature, wherever the faculties of that nature have been suffered in any degree to develop and expand themselves. What is goodness in man is the same that we mean by goodness in God. And so with justice, faithfulness, and mercy. These qualities, which we ascribe to God, we have first gotten a knowledge of by our own feelings and experience as human beings. If the Divine mercy and benignity mean not something like this, if they have no resemblance to kindred qualities existing in our own bosoms, what are we to understand by them? They become mere sounds and nothing else, words to which there attaches no significance, and all our conceptions of the character of God are reduced to the greatest possible vagueness and obscurity. Once overrule and bid defiance to the clearest dictates of the understanding, once set at naught and despise the deepest and most universal of our moral sentiments, and the mind is fitted and prepared for the belief of any opinion, however absurd, for the reception of any sentiment, however cruel and revolting. Demand of me anything but the surrender of my intellectual and moral guides. Require of me to give heed to the evidence you may tender in favour of a proposition, however strange, however remote from my present views and apprehensions, and it may be my duty to attend, to ponder, and at length to believe. But require me to give audience to assertions and statements in behalf of self-evident contradictions and palpable moral incongruities, and I revolt from the rashness of the attempt. I feel it to be an affront to the nature which God has given me. If we have no faith in the fundamental principles of human reason, and in the primary and essential moral feelings of the human heart, the foundations of all rational conviction are destroyed, and we are let loose to be driven about by every wind of doctrine, to be the victims of the wretchedest fanaticism, or of the most deadening and depressing scepticism. I am aware that, in answer to these remarks, we shall be reminded of our profound ignorance of the nature of God, and of the utter inadequacy of the human intellect to take unto itself the measure of the Divine. Most true it is that there is much belonging to the nature of God of which, in this dim twilight of our being, we have scarcely more than a mere glimpse. This is especially the case with what are called the natural attributes of God. We know but little, and can know but little, of what Infinity is, and Omnipotence and Eternity. Our apprehension of them may not come up to the fulness and completeness that distinguish them; but still, as far as it goes, it seems to be clear, definite, and exact. While much obscurity, perhaps, attaches to what we may term our metaphysical notions of God, we have no resting place on which the mind can repose, but the moral conceptions of God. That resting place, therefore, let us never abandon. Rather let us cleave to it, and guard and protect it as the home of our affections and the sanctuary of our consolations. But it may be asked, Do you mean, then, to exalt reason and conscience above the Word of God? Do you mean that that Word should submit itself to our erring human judgments? What we contend for is simply this, that no doctrine deduced from Scripture by human interpretation, which is at war with the intellectual and moral nature of man, which is at variance with the first and plainest directions of the understanding and the conscience, can be the Word of God, and entitled to the authority thence arising. We have no ideas of God clearer than those belonging to our moral conceptions of Him. When we say, Lo, God is good, we have a distinct understanding of what we mean by it. And so we have when we say that He is just and kind and merciful. These are properties with which reason and Scripture agree to invest Him. Fortified by these authorities, we take into our minds, and cherish as our greatest treasure, corresponding moral views of the Divine character. There they are lodged firmly and abidingly. From them our thoughts and hopes should never be separated. If, therefore, I perceive anything in the Scriptures which at first sight appears to be discordant with these views of the character of God I endeavour, by wider inquiry and deeper search, to find out a more consistent sense; but if that cannot be found, I say not that God is not the benignant and merciful Being that I took Him to be, but that from some cause or other I understand not the passage before me. In this way it is that I would meet and object to the doctrines of Calvinism. They begin with setting aside the clearest deductions of reason, and then with sweeping away every notion of justice and goodness that had fixed its habitation in my soul. Why are the most impressive appeals made to us in the Scriptures in behalf of the loving kindness and tender mercy of our God, if neither the reason nor the conscience of man can understand and feel what, as respects the Divine Being, goodness and mercy are? In that case goodness and mercy may mean anything or nothing; and to draw from them any reasons for consolation and trust must be vain and useless. Our belief will be a belief in a God unknown, and our worship will be the worship of we know not what. Fear not, then, to use your reason, your understandings, on the subject of religion; but beware of using them for purposes of display, for the gratification of your vanity, and the exercise of your skill. Consider them as talents, for the faithful employment of which you will have to render an account at the bar of Almighty Justice. Feed the immortal lamp within you by meditation and prayer, and elevate your souls to heaven; and then reason, in union with the Word of God, will guide you into the ways of wisdom, and her ways are the ways of pleasantness, and her paths are the paths of peace. (T. Madge.) Ezekiel 18:30-32 Repent, and turn yourselves from all your transgressions; so iniquity shall not be your ruin.Preservative from ruin I. The assumption of an awful fact. Iniquity induces ruin. The term “ ruin” occurs but seldom in the sacred Scriptures. It is, however, one of awful import and aspect; a word ever used in an evil sense to describe the fearful disaster which has befallen him who was the subject of it. In the text the word is employed to describe the eternal misery of the soul.1. He who is ruined has lost something of which he was formerly in possession. When an individual meets with sudden reverses of a painful character in his circumstances, and is called to sustain an extensive deprivation of property, we are accustomed to say, that such an one is ruined. But of all the loss and forfeiture which men can sustain, none can possibly be compared with that which is experienced by him who is ruined by his iniquity. 2. We apply this term to the demolition or destruction of a fabric. In hell there is nothing witnessed but ruin. Some of the finest and most noble intelligences ever formed, are there irreparably and eternally ruined. “ Morning stars” which once sang for joy around the Almighty’ s throne are in a state of wretchedness and perdition. This ruin is: (1) Indescribably great. It is the ruin of man; a dignified, exalted, and intelligent being. (2) Incapable of reparation. Cities may be rebuilt, and the waste of ages redeemed; habitations and palaces may be renovated, and shine forth in pristine magnificence and glory; but the ruin adverted to in the text cannot be repaired. The Most High would have accomplished this for sinners while they were on “ this” world, and in a state of probation; but they “ set at nought all His counsel, and would none of His reproof” ; therefore: Proverbs 1:25-27. (3) Punitive and painful. The ruin of a building made with hands is the ruin of unconscious, inactive, and unfeeling matter, utterly insensible of the desolation that reigns around. When man is ruined, there are inflicted pain and destruction of the most fearful description. II. The efficacy of a divine admonition.1. Repentance implies the existence of that which is sinful and erroneous (Romans 3:10-12; Romans 3:23). 2. Repentance comprises a consciousness of having done wrong, a conviction of sinfulness. We are so accustomed to think of ourselves more highly than we ought to think, that we need pray earnestly to God to show us what we are, and to open our eyes to “ behold wondrous things out of His law” (Psalms 119:18). 3. Repentance includes also sorrow for sin; a “ godly sorrow” (2 Corinthians 7:10), a sorrow wrought in the heart by the Spirit of God. 4. Repentance is attended with confession of sin. This may be performed in a two-fold sense: first to God, and secondly to man. (R. Treffry.) Breaking the entail of sin I. The ruin which sin brings on the sinner.1. Great.2. Irreparable.3. Awfully painful.4. Inevitable. II. The means by which ruin may be prevented.1. Conviction of sin.2. Contrition for sin.3. Confession of sin.4. Departure from sin.5. An earnest desire, etc. (E. R. Derby.) God’ s vindication of Himself I. A serious exhortation.1. The grounds on which it proceeds. Judgment shall be given according to our ways. 2. The exhortation--to repentance. Turn away from what is useless, hurtful, loathsome. There must be no reserve. II. An earnest remonstrance. “ Why will ye die?”1. Is it because your sins are too great to be pardoned? 2. Is it because God commands you to make new hearts and you cannot do it? 3. No, the reason is, the love of sin. III. An encouraging declaration.1. “ So iniquity shall not be your ruin.” What a God of mercy is here! 2. “ I have no pleasure,” etc. Judgment is His “ strange act” ; He holds off from striking till vengeance can slumber no longer. (John D. Lane, M. A.) A call to the impenitent I. The characters that are addressed. Such as are still the subjects of an evil nature, and are still living in sin against God. II. The danger that is indicated. Iniquity is represented as inducing and exposing to ruin. We know what it is for a man to be ruined in his property--to be reduced from affluence to poverty--what it is for a man to be ruined as regards his health and constitution, and, consequently, in those enjoyments that are dependent on health. We know what it is for a man to be ruined in his character and credit, and everything that renders him respectable in society; but all the notions we can form of ruin, as referring to these external circumstances, will give us a very inadequate idea indeed of the ruin that sin induces--the ruin of the soul. The ruin of the soul implies exquisite, positive suffering, such as no language can describe--its final condemnation under the curse and wrath of God; a condemnation that cannot be repealed; a state of banishment from God’ s presence and the glory of His power; final and eternal banishment. It is worth while to turn our thoughts to this, and to consider how it is that iniquity induces ruin, at once so dreadful and so awful. In the first place, I would say it operates in this way, inasmuch as it naturally produces the effect I have noticed, in robbing the soul of all its excellence. Again, it induces ruin, inasmuch as it operates in separating the soul immediately from God, who is the source of felicity, the fountain of good. III. The only remedy accessible to sinners is repentance. Do not confound it, I would say, with the sorrow of the world. A man may be in grief, and may be the subject of great sorrow. This may not be repentance: sorrow it is; but, you know, there is the sorrow of the world as well as a sorrow of a godly sort. I would say, do not confound repentance with the mere fear of punishment. I would say, again, it is not a mere transitory impression of grief, on account of sin. True repentance, let me say, implies a knowledge of sin. It is the Holy Spirit alone that can give us right views on such a subject as this, and can make the Law a schoolmaster, to bring us to Christ--who can reveal to us the holiness of the law, the extent of its demands, as it applies not merely towards the actions, but to the thoughts and intents of the heart. And, in addition to this, repentance also implies the conviction of sin. The charge is fixed on his conscience, and he cannot throw it off. He feels that he is in this situation, and he cries, “ What must I do to be saved?” Let me say, too, that conviction will be followed, where it is genuine, by suitable impressions and emotions. (J. Hill.) Escape from ruin I. God will judge us, everyone according to his ways: not according to our plan of our ways, but according to His. All men will hereafter be judged according to the dispensation they have been under. Those who are under the law will be judged by the law; sin in them will be the transgression of their law. Those who are without the law--that is, without a written law--will be judged without a written law--by the law of nature written upon their hearts. But those who have been under the Gospel will be judged by the Gospel. II. If under this dispensation we are found impenitent sinners we shall be ruined. Ah! it is a touching thing to witness what we call ruin, even in this life; to see wringing of hands, and wringing of hearts, and hopeless grief; but ruin for eternity is infinitely worse than this; for the grave will soon end earthly sorrows, but the resurrection from the grave is only the beginning of eternal ruin. III. If we are found repentant we shall not be ruined. Repentance has a different character according to the different conditions of men; but it always implies a change of mind, issuing in change of conduct, which change of conduct must needs have respect to the dispensations of religion under which God has brought men. If the Jewish nation, in a matter that threatened national ruin, repented and turned to God, according to their law, they obtained deliverance from that ruin that otherwise was coming upon them. If Christians under the Gospel turn to the provisions under that Gospel, they turn to Christ, and they obtain eternal life through Him. Conviction of sin, and misery on account of sin, is not repentance. (T. Snow.) Ezekiel 18:31 Make you a new heart, and a new spirit.A new heart I. This is an exhortation which, in one form or another, every man needs to hear. Here is a man who has to cross a river. There is no difficulty in crossing--the bridge is there--it is plain and palpable; but he stops to speculate how the bridge could have been erected--how it could span the river--and he goes still deeper into subtleties, and speculates how it is possible that he has the power of crossing it, and all the while neglects the work before him in theories that amount to no practical value, if they ever could be decided. Now here is a simple, practical work set before a man--to make himself a new heart and a new spirit. So far as man’ s own immediate action is concerned, there is little reason why he should perplex himself with controversies or questionings about human ability and total depravity. I do not say that the truth or falsehood of these theories is not an important consideration. But I say no man need trouble himself long with theories, so far as his own immediate duty is concerned, in this demand for practical action. Another question may be disposed of, when we consider how practical this appeal is, and that is the question, Who makes a new heart? Do you make it, or does God make it? Now here, as almost everywhere else, we find two poles to one truth--one referring to God, and one to man--but the moment we come to act, they are reconciled. If one warms into earnest effort upon the idea of having a new heart and a new spirit, the two conditions of God’ s agency and man’ s agency will melt together. If he stand still in cold, barren speculation, he freezes to death. And it is a mistake to suppose that God is not glorified when we dwell upon the point of human action. When we say you can make a new heart and a new spirit, it is a great mistake to suppose that we take the glory from God. For whence come all good desires and all right actions? They proceed from God, and from Him alone. And so do all strength and all ability. A man does not get an education, any more than a new heart, of himself. Is it not Providence that furnishes the circumstances which may incite him to the pursuit of an education, and help him to get it? Is it not Providence that touches the mysterious processes of the mind by which education becomes possible? Now suppose we should say, “ This matter of getting a new heart is a process of self-education” ; it would be reduced to simple terms, and yet a great many would start from it and say, “ This won’ t do; it is too cold and naturalistic--too much of human agency to call getting religion a process of self-education.” And yet what is self-education but the inspiration and the life of the Divine? You do not strike God out when you put human agency in. The fact is just this: God stands ready with His conditions, which are necessary to all human effort and to all success, whenever man is ready to fall in with those conditions. When we set the sail, the wind will blow; when we sow the seed, the agencies that God Himself has prepared in the atmosphere and in the earth will perform their part; and when we set ourselves to work to make a new heart, God’ s Spirit will breathe upon us and help us to consummate the work. No man that knows what it is to strive to overcome evil affections within, and sore temptations without, to grow better and purer, will take anything to himself in working out that deliverance. If in any degree he shall attain that end, he will feel that he has had Divine help--that something higher than he has breathed into him and inspired him. The very process of his work will show where he touches God, and where God Almighty has helped him, and he will give all the glory to Him. So it is perfectly consistent with God’ s power and glory to speak to us in the words of the text, “ Make you a new heart and a new spirit.” It is a call to action. What are you waiting for? You will never be in a better condition than now to make yourself a new heart. The call is at once; it is now. The Divine agencies are ready; it is only for you to surrender yourself to the conception of the great purpose and the great aim, and God will answer, and the blessing will come flowing within. II. The peculiarity which this power and privilege of making a new heart exhibits in man. It is a wonderful thing that a man can make himself a new heart. How all little, shallow scepticisms go down before one grand moral fact! Superficial science affects to see in man nothing but a superior animal--a highly-developed ape; and judged solely by its standard, man is but little superior, and in some respects appears inferior, to the higher order of brutes. But when we seek to find the true standard of excellence, how distinct he stands from all the creatures around him! All sealed things he unloosens; all secrets he lays open; and as he marches on from point to point of civilisation, of glory, of intellectual attainment, of scientific achievement, by the inward power within him, the outward world is changed and assumes aspects that reflect his genius and thought. But there is more than this in man. There is the power of going into himself, and quarrying in the deep places of his own soul. There is a power of changing the tendency and plane of his own life. You never heard of that in the brutes. They all run in the same round, move forward in the same direction, revolve in the same orbit from age to age. But man has the power of stopping short, changing his direction, lifting up the level of his life, and becoming a new being. So it is the inward change that makes him the new being. It is the new spirit that comes into a man that produces the great and vital change. This is the new birth of which Christ spoke to Nicodemus. “ Make you a new heart and a new spirit,” and then you have the new man--then you have new life. Oh, how wonderfully religion adjusts itself to the great facts and needs of human nature! for is there anything that could be stated of such immediate and vital importance as this simple appeal, “ Make yourself a new heart” ? Out of this change come all other changes. No movement for the regeneration of society, no measure for the improvement of the world, can be radically effective but as it comes out of the reservoirs of individual hearts. It is a good world or a bad world, as men’ s hearts are good or bad. How vital, how radical, then, is the appeal made in the text! In all conditions of life, in all trims, in all misfortunes, this is what we want--a new heart--and then the aspect of things will be changed. Because we cannot always change things themselves. The man that is borne down by calamity cannot alter his calamity. But make yourself a new heart; fall into harmony with God’ s law in the matter; see your misfortune in a providential point of view, far up in the light of some higher and grander purpose which God has in store for you, and look if the thing will be changed. It will stand there as a calamity if you look at it in your old way; but if you look at it in the light of God’ s providence, it will be a new thing to you. “ Make you a new heart.” How vital this is! It goes below all things else. It goes to the centre of a man’ s personality, and out of it springs all real life. Not make yourself new brains. We do not want them so much as hearts. Not new conditions. We see men well endowed with conditions, but not with the will to use them. We want new hearts; not new intellectual powers. We cannot make new brains, but we can, every one of us, make a new heart. The great consideration is, Do we desire a new heart? What is the life within? Are we selfish? Are we gravitating simply to this world, living within our aims, vain cares, and uses? “ Make you a new heart and a new spirit.” (E. H. Chapin, D. D.) The sinner’ s duty to make himself a new heart This will appear-- I. From the nature of a new heart. It is a heart that loves, and fears, and serves God. It is called “ new,” as being entirely another and a different heart from that of the sinner. The sinful heart is a selfish heart--a heart fixed in its supreme affections on the world, and opposed to God. A new heart is a heart of benevolence or love. The sinful heart rejects the Saviour; a new heart believes in Him. A sinful heart loves sin; the new heart hates it. The sinful heart leads its possessor into sinful practices; the new heart prompts to a course of holy obedience to the will of God. II. From the nature of man. Man is an intelligent voluntary being. He is capable of knowing his duty, and of performing it. He has understanding; the power of knowing what is right and what is wrong. He has the capacity of feeling the motives to right and wrong action. He has a will or heart; the power of choosing and refusing, or of loving and hating. He not only possesses these powers and capacities, but he uses them. And the only question is, how ought he to use them? Ought he to use them right or wrong? With ample powers to love God or to love the world, he is required to love the one, and forbidden to love the other. Ought he not to comply? Ought not such a being to put away his old heart of enmity, and to make himself a new heart of love? III. God commands sinners to make themselves a new heart. The text is explicit. The command is, Amend, reform; make you a new heart. The same thing is implied in every other command of God given to sinners. There is not one which does not require a right heart--the exercise of those affections in which a new heart consists. Does God require sinners to love Him? It is with all the heart. Does He require them to believe? It is with the heart. Does He require them to pray? It is to seek Him with all the heart. And so of every other command. IV. The same thing is evident from facts. It has often been done; and this in two forms. Thus Adam was once holy--his heart was right with God. Now, in turning from holiness to sin, he changed his own heart--he made himself a new heart. And surely, if a man can turn from right to wrong, from holiness to sin, he can turn, and ought to turn, from sin to holiness, from wrong to right. But this is not all. Every Christian has, in fact, through grace, made himself a new heart. “ Ye have purified your souls in obeying the truth, through the Spirit” ; “ Ye have put off the old man, and put on the new man.” True, when the sinner does this, he does it through the Spirit. Still he does it. He purifies his soul. It is his act. It is an act of obedience. He obeys the truth. And what does God do, when by His Spirit He brings the sinner thus to act? He causes the sinner to love, to repent, to believe--to give his heart to God in the exercise of these affections. It is not God who repents, believes, and loves, but the sinner. V. If sinners are not bound to make themselves a new heart, then the law of God is not binding on men. There can be no sin in violating a law when there is no obligation to obey it. On the same principle, man has never broken the Divine law. Or, rather, there is no law of God; for a law which imposes no obligation is no law. If, therefore, the sinner has not always been, and is not now, under obligation to make himself a new heart, or, what is the same thing, to love God, he never has sinned at all--he commits no sin now. Can any believe this? VI. The same is evident from the nature of the Gospel. The Gospel is a system of grace from beginning to end. Its great atonement by blood--the awakening, renewing, and sanctifying influences of the Divine Spirit--is all grace. But, as we have seen, if man is not bound to make himself a new heart, he is not a sinner. Christ, then, has not died for sinners. He did not come to seek and save those who were lost--those who deserved eternal death; but those who were innocent. Again: if the sinner is not bound to make himself a new heart, there is no grace in the influences of the Holy Spirit. Grace is favour shown to sinners--to the ill-deserving. If, then, man is not bound to make himself a new heart, without the aids of the Divine Spirit, then he is not to blame, is not ill-deserving for not having such a heart, and of course there is no grace in giving him such a heart. VII. The character of God decides the truth of our doctrine. Here I present the simple question of reason and of equity. Ought the sinner to love the all-perfect God? God, his Maker, his Preserver, Benefactor, Saviour--God, the best friend he has in the universe--God, whose character is infinite excellence, combining all that is comprehensive in wisdom, vast in power, enrapturing in goodness and mercy--claims the sinner’ s heart--claims it of right--claims it under His own promise and oath to give all He can give to bless. In opposition is arrayed the world, which deceives, ensnares, corrupts, and destroys the soul forever. And can reason, can conscience, hesitate as to the reasonableness and the equity of these opposing claims? Remarks.1. They who deny the sinner’ s power as a moral agent to make himself a new heart, deny the scriptural doctrine of the Divine influence, or the work of the Holy Spirit. 2. This subject shows us that ministers are bound to exhort sinners to make themselves new hearts, and to do nothing, which implies that they are not to do this. 3. We see the absurdity of the sinner’ s plea, that he cannot change his own heart. 4. We see why the influences of the Holy Spirit are necessary to change the hearts of sinners. 5. The duty of the sinner to make himself a new heart is to be regarded by him as a practicable duty. (N. W. Taylor.) Duty of sinners to make a new heart I. What a new heart is. There is no ground to suppose that it means any new natural power or faculty of the soul, which is necessary to render sinners capable of understanding and doing their duty. They are as completely moral agents as saints, and as completely capable, in point of natural ability, of understanding and obeying the will of God. Nor can a new heart mean any new natural appetite, instinct, or passion. Whatever belongs to our mere animal nature, belongs to sinners as well as to saints. Nor can a new heart mean any dormant, inactive principle in the mind, which is often supposed to be the foundation of all virtuous or holy exercises. We may as easily conceive that all holy affections should spring from that piece of flesh which is literally called the heart, as to conceive that they should spring from any principle devoid of activity. This leads me to say positively, that a new heart consists in gracious exercises themselves; which are called new, because they never existed in the sinner before he became a new creature, or turned from sin to holiness. This will appear from various considerations. In the first place, the new heart must be something which is morally good, and directly opposite to the old heart, which is morally evil. But there is nothing belonging to the mind that is either morally good or morally evil which does not consist in free, voluntary exercises. This will further appear, if we consider, next, that the Divine law requires nothing but love, which is a free, voluntary exercise. And this, I would further observe, is agreeable to the experience of all who repent, and turn from their transgressions, and make them a new heart and a new spirit. The change which they experience is merely a moral change. II. What it is to make a new heart. When God says, Be sober--Be vigilant--Be humble--Be obedient--Be holy--Be perfect--He means that men should put forth truly pious and holy affections. And so far as these and other Divine precepts respect sinners, they require the exercise of the same affections, only with this peculiar circumstance, that they are “ new” or such as they never exercised before. III. It is the duty of sinners to make them a new heart.1. The mere light of nature teaches that every person ought to exercise universal benevolence. This duty results from the nature of things. And surely sinners under the Gospel are no less obliged, by the nature of things, to put away all their selfish affections. 2. God, who perfectly knows the state and characters of sinners, repeatedly commands them to make them a new heart. When God commands them to love Him with all their hearts, and their neighbour as themselves; or when He commands them to repent, to believe, to submit, to pray, to rejoice, or to do anything else; He implicitly commands them to make them a new heart, or to exercise holy instead of unholy affections. And for sinners to exercise holy affections, is to exercise the new affections in which a new heart consists.1. If the making of a new heart consists in the exercising of holy instead of unholy affections, then sinners are not passive, but active in regeneration. 2. If sinners are free and voluntary in making them a new heart, then regeneration is not a miraculous or supernatural work. 3. If it be a duty which God enjoins upon sinners, and which they are able to perform, to make them a new heart, then there is no more difficulty in preaching the Gospel to sinners than to saints. (N. Emmons, D. D.) Man’ s duty to remake himself I. Man morally has made himself what he is. The dominant disposition of some is love for sensual indulgence, of others love for money, of others love for show, of others love for power and fame. To suppose that Almighty Love and Holiness created intelligent beings to be inspired and ruled by such dispositions as these is to the last degree derogatory to the Divine character, and repugnant to all our moral intuition and a priori reasonings. The moral heart that God put within man at first had a disposition to love and serve Him supremely. II. Man morally is bound to remake himself,1. This is not an impossible work. (1) Reason would suggest its possibility.(2) The Bible implies its possibility.(3) The means appointed indicate its possibility. There are moral means supplied by God in the Gospel for the very purpose. What are they? In one word, demonstrations of His infinite love for sinners. The one grand demonstration is the delivering up of “ His only begotten Son” for the restoration of a guilty world.2. This is an urgently important work. “ Make you a new heart.” To make fame, power, money, these are childish trifles compared with the work of making a new heart. Your well-being here and yonder, now and forever, is involved in this work. (Homilist.) Soul reformation I. Soul reformation is an imperative work.1. It is practicable. 2. It is essential. (1) Man’ s present heart is his guilt and ruin. He has given himself the “ stony heart,” the heart that stands hard as granite against the Divine influences of love and truth. (2) All other reformations are worthless unless the heart be renewed. II. Soul reformation is self-work. No one can do this work for you. You may build houses, plant farms, educate your children by proxy, but this is work that you yourself must do, and no one else. But how is it to be done? What is the way? Concentrated thought upon the infinite loving tenderness of that God against whom we have sinned, as demonstrated in the biography of Christ.1. Such thought is adapted to the end. Ah! millions of stony hearts have been transformed into flesh as they have mused on Calvary. 2. Men have the power of giving this concentrated thought. All men are thinkers, and all men are thinking upon some subjects with more interest than on others. (Homilist.) The existence and renewal of a moral heart in man (with Ezekiel 36:26):-- I. The existence of a moral heart in man. Every man is under the all-controlling power of some one disposition, and this disposition, like the physical heart, beats its influence in every vein and fibre of the spiritual nature. All the activities of man are streams from this fountain, branches from this root, pulsations from this organ. II. The renewal of the moral heart in man.1. As a personal duty. (1) Man can alter his moral heart. Our moral dispositions are under the control of our thoughts, and our thoughts we can employ as we please. (2) Man has altered his moral heart. History abounds with instances of the churl becoming generous, the carnal spiritual, the profane reverent, the godless godly. Is it the duty of a dishonest man to become honest, of a false man to become true, a vicious man to become virtuous? Then it is the duty of a godless man to become godly. “ Make you a new heart.” This work done, all work is successful; this work neglected, all work is disastrous. 2. As a Divine gift. “ A new heart also will I give you.” There are two ways in which God bestows gifts on men. One way is irrespective of his choice and effort. Life itself and the necessary conditions of life are blessings that come to us without any effort on our part. But there are other blessings which He gives only on condition of human effort. He gives crops only to those who cultivate the fields and sow the grain, knowledge only to those who observe, investigate, and study. So He gives this new heart only to those who “ consider their ways,” repent, and believe the Gospel. (Homilist.) The harmony between Divine sovereignty and human agency (with Ezekiel 36:26 and Psalms 51:10):--That these texts are closely related to each other must be obvious even on the most cursory examination. The same expressions occur in each of them, and they all clearly point to one and the same subject of momentous interest. A further attention, however, will show, that while the subject is the same in all, it is presented in a different light in each. In all, the one unvaried topic of regeneration is placed before us; but in passing from one to another, the point of view from which we look upon it is changed. The first comes from God the Lawgiver; the second comes from God the Redeemer; the third comes from man the suppliant. The first is the loud and authoritative voice of Majesty; the second is the still small voice of Mercy; the third is the humble, earnest voice of Entreaty. I. The precept. What place does it hold in this arrangement? What is its office? What good practical purposes does it serve?1. This command has evidently made you conscious of your helplessness, and I call that a practical movement, a very practical movement--an invaluable result--and the indispensable prerequisite to all others. Would you ever have known how completely your senses are all sealed in spiritual sleep but for the authoritative voice of God? and even that, as you can testify, only like a dying echo, through your dream, crying, “ Awake, awake, thou that sleepest.” 2. It will not only lead you to think of your weakness and helplessness, but it will tend to show you how complete and thorough your impotency is, and to deepen the sense of this upon your soul. Go and try to make yourself a new heart. Labour to regenerate your own soul. “ Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might.” And then tell your success. Break off every old habit, if you can. Give up every outward act of sin. Mortify the deeds of the body. But have you changed your heart? Have you given it new dispositions, new desires, new delights? 3. Besides evoking the testimony of experience and consciousness, the precept has power to touch the springs of conscience; and without this it would indeed be utterly inefficient. You may have been “ alive without the precept once, but when the precept comes in spiritual power, sin revives, and you die” (Romans 7:9). You die to all pride, and peace, and hope. You learn two solemn truths, which, when taken together, gave you no rest till they mercifully shut you up to the only remedy. You know your helplessness; but you cannot sit down contented, for you know also your obligation and responsibility. You know your obligation but you do not become legalists, for you know also your helplessness. You feel that you cannot obey; but this does not set all at rest, because you feel that you must obey. You feel that you must obey; but neither does this settle all, for you also feel that you cannot. II. The promise.1. It is obvious that the wisdom of God is wonderfully exhibited in bringing in the promise at this precise point. If it had come sooner, the soul would not have been prepared to receive it. If it had come later, the soul would have been already given over to hopeless despair. 2. How is the grace of God adored by the fainting soul, when, after the conflict with the precept, the promise comes brightly into view. Like the same law given to Moses a second time, not amidst thunderings and lightnings, and darkness and tempest, but amidst light, and peace, and favour, all God’ s goodness passing by before His servant, sheltered now in the cleft of the rock; so here, the preceptive form, which caused the tempest and the terror in the soul, being all done away, the very same substance, in all its integrity, is restored, but now beaming in the light and lustre of a free and a gracious promise, “ A new heart will I give unto you, a new spirit will I put within you.” 3. But the grace of God is still more wonderfully glorified by the consideration, that, while this is the very thing which we need, and which God offers to bestow upon us, it is also the very thing which we are bound to render unto Him. Grace abounded when, sympathisingly, He gave me that new heart which I was unable to make; but grace much more abounded when, forgivingly, He gave me that new heart which I was bound to make, and guilty in my inability to make it. 4. And now the sovereignty of Divine grace can be obscured or concealed no longer. This also the believer is taught to feel and to acknowledge by reason of his previous discipline under the precept. In learning his obligation and responsibility, he at the same time necessarily learned the majesty and kingly authority of God. III. The prayer. It appropriately comes last, because it is grounded on, and takes its warrant from the promise, pleading the fulfilment of the promise that thereby the object of the precept may be gained. The prayer, when offered, grows out of the promise; the prayer, when answered, satisfies the precept. The precept teaches man that he is helpless; the promise tells him there is help; the prayer secures the help. The precept teaches man that he is responsible and guilty; the promise tells him there is forgiveness; the prayer obtains the pardon. The precept teaches man God’ s authority; the promise tells of God’ s grace; the prayer tries and tests God’ s sufficiency. The precept teaches man his dependence; the promise declares dependence in God well placed; the prayer puts dependence on God accordingly. The precept teaches man humility; the promise gives man hope; the prayer shows man’ s trust. The precept gives, scope for God’ s righteous justice; the promise gives scope for God’ s faithfulness; the prayer gives scope for man’ s faith. In all cases, the prayer is necessary to complete the cycle; and if the precept and the promise do but graciously exercise the soul, the prayer will and cannot but follow. To the prayerless, therefore, there is here very clear and simple ground for self-examination and self-condemnation. You have only to plead with God to do all the work to your hands. Will you cast away eternal joy and court eternal agony by refusing that? (H. Martin.) Precept, promise, and prayer The text connects itself closely with a topic much debated among theologians, namely, what man can do, or cannot do, in regard to overcoming the bias of a corrupt nature, and making himself meet for the kingdom of God. This meetness consists in a changed heart, a renewed mind and spirit; and I shall try to show you that, in this Book of Ezekiel, we have this great mystery brought down to the level of our human intelligence in a way which, whatever its aspects towards God, puts the fact of human duty and human accountableness on a foundation which nothing can disturb. There are three principal passages in Ezekiel bearing upon this subject, which must always be read and considered together. The first is in the text, where this inward change is made the subject of a precept: “ Make you a new heart and a new spirit.” The second is in the eleventh chapter, where the change spoken of is made the object of a promise: “ And I will put a new spirit within you; and I will take the stony heart out of their flesh.” The third is in the thirty-sixth chapter, where, in relation to this promise of a new heart and a new spirit, it is intimated that the subject is one for earnest prayer: “ Yet for this will I be inquired of by the house of Israel to do it for them.” I. The precept, “ Make you a new heart and a new spirit.” Now what place, in the Divine arrangements for our conversion, are precepts of this kind supposed to occupy? What do they mean? What do they assume? What practical effect have they, or ought they to have, upon our moral conduct and convictions? They are to awaken us to a conviction of our helplessness, they are to reveal to us our souls’ danger, they are to show to us the deep seatedness of our depravity, they are to break in upon the slumbers of the natural conscience--in a word, they are to set us upon making an effort. The effort may be feeble and imperfect and unpromising, but still an effort it is, and an effort such as, in the case of any worldly interest being endangered, we should assuredly make, however slight the chances of success. What man on seeing a huge crag just loosening over his head, or seeing flames issue from his neighbour’ s dwelling house, would omit to use such means as were within his reach, on the plea, “ What good would it do?” However apparently impracticable therefore, precepts of the kind contained in the text are useful, if only as showing that, as far as regards ourselves, they are impracticable. They naturally set us upon thinking how the need they have discovered may be supplied, and the disorders of our moral condition may be corrected, and the ruin and the death and the helplessness and the condemnation may be turned from us or taken away. When our Lord ordered the paralytic man to take up his bed and walk, or the blind man to look and say if he saw aright, He seemed to be telling them to do that which was impossible. And if they had thought so, and had made no effort, the evils they were suffering from would have remained untaken away. But, concurrently with the command went forth an impulse upon the souls of the men that the command was of God, and that anything enjoined by Him must be possible. And it is precisely under this aspect that we are to view the command, “ Make you a new heart and a new spirit.” You say you cannot make it. I say there is a sense in which you can make it, just as much as at the bidding of Christ a man was able to stretch forth a withered hand. A command from God, we must always remember, is, in its own nature, an appeal to human accountableness. It forecloses all excuses. It disallows any possible ground of exemption. It assumes that there is in every one of us a certain power of compliance, and therefore convicts of obstinacy and disobedience the man who does not turn that power to account. And the like principle applies to the text, and all others of kindred import. II. The precept viewed in the light of the promise. This same Ezekiel who is instructed to call to the house of Israel, “ Make you a new heart and a new spirit,” also has it in charge to deliver as God’ s kind assurance to the people, “ A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you.” Everything God does, whether in the material or moral world, is characterised by harmony, proportion, order, law. “ As our day, so our strength” ; as the command to run, so the grace to draw; as the exhortation “ Make you a new heart and a new spirit,” so the provision of all needful agencies by means of which this new creation is to be made. Here then we see how much of light is shed upon the Divine dealings with us, when we join the promise on to the precept; when we are brought to see that God never exhorts us to do a thing without putting the means of compliance within our own reach and power. This viewing the two things in juxtaposition will be found to rid us at once of a whole host of speculative difficulties and objections, which might have attached to the precept if it had stood alone. “ Make you a new heart” --change the hue of AEthiop’ s skin--turn back the whole current of your likes and dislikes, and bid the tide set with equal vehemence the contrary way--this is a hard saying, some will say, hard, and even something more--impossible. Admitted. “ With men this is impossible; but with God all things are possible.” That which is impossible to the precept is possible to the promise. We are never allowed to view these two great facts of the moral world apart. There are two great truths--their authority alike over the human conscience, and their claims alike to a rational belief. And these are: first, that the origin, as well as the effective agency, in the work of our salvation is to be traced to God only; and the other that, in connection with that work, and as morally furthering that work, much has to be done by the sinner himself. III. The precept and promise together considered in their relation to prayer. Ezekiel had been commissioned to give the injunction, “ Make you a new heart” ; and a little after he is told to add that word of consolation, “ A new heart also will I give you” : yet lest the promise should inspire presumption, or the precept should lead to despair, he adds, “ I will yet for this be inquired of by the house of Israel to do it for them, said the Lord God.” The precept speaks of death; the promise points to life; the prayer is the permitted signal for the resurrection when challenging the power of the Eternal Spirit to “ breathe upon dead souls that they may live.” The precept shows us that we have work to do; the promise evidences that we have not the power to do it; the prayer suggests the use of certain instituted means, in order that God may do it for us. The precept is the will of God commanding; the promise is the goodness of God encouraging; the prayer is helplessness pleading at His footstool with eyes fastened on the mercy seat, because afraid to look upon the throne. In a word, they form, in combination, a holy, blessed, and glorious Trinity. For the precept is the Sovereign Father of the universe enjoining obedience. The promise is the Son of His love entreating that the offender may be spared. The prayer is the indwelling Spirit within us waking up the heart to devotion, and showing us both how to wrestle and prevail with God. Wherefore, that ye may be able to keep the precept, pray; that ye may have part in the promise, pray; that ye may have the spirit of effectual fervent prayer, pray. Keep the end of all in view--“ A new heart and a new spirit,” a changed judgment and restored affections, a submitted will and a heavenly mind. (D. Moore, M. A.) The formation of a new heart I. it what is to be understood by the heart and spirit. We are conscious of the power of perception, reason, memory, and volition. These are essential properties of the soul. We are likewise sensible of the affections, or those free, voluntary, moral exercises, which are the powers, or properties, of the heart. When the Scriptures speak of the heart as being changed, or made new, they always mean the affections, or volitions, or free, moral exercises. To these they uniformly attach praise, or blame, because they are free and voluntary. II. What is to be understood by the new heart and new spirit. These are new and right exercises, or new and right affections. They are those free, moral exercises, which are in conformity to the revealed will of God, and sanctified by His Spirit. As the heart consists in voluntary exercises and affections, these in the impenitent sinner are wrong, and must be changed in order to be right. They must be withdrawn from improper objects, and directed in a right channel. They must be withheld from all undue attachment to this vain world, and placed on God, and heavenly things, as the supreme good. The general tenor of the life must likewise be in obedience to the Divine commands. When any sinner by true repentance returns to these good exercises, he has a new heart and a new spirit, and is become a new creature. His old, wrong affections are changed into new, right affections, and his good exercises in the obedience of his life prove him to be a new man. III. How sinners can make to themselves this new heart. The first steps are to cast away all transgression, to repent of every sin, to forsake every evil and false way, and then enter upon a life of new obedience. Sinners must first cease to do evil, and then learn to do well. Neither must they be content with external obedience. They must withdraw their love, or undue attachment, from this vain world and set their affections on things above. As the new heart consists in new, right affections, and in those free, moral exercises which are agreeable to the will of God; therefore to form this, every sinner must abandon those desires and voluntary exercises of the mind, heart, and life which are wrong and forbidden, and enter upon those that are right and commanded by God. If anyone do this with a sincere desire after new and constant obedience, he will by the blessing of God have a new heart and a right spirit, and enjoy the evidence of it in his own breast. Lessons--1. We infer the greatness, the urgency, and reasonableness of the work. (1) The greatness and urgency of it appear from God’ s requiring it at the hand of sinners on penalty of losing eternal life. (2) God requires it also as a reasonable service. For it is every way reasonable in itself, that rational beings should turn the free, moral exercises of their minds and hearts toward their heavenly Father and Benefactor,--set their affections on those objects most worthy of their love, and walk in obedience to those commands which were designed for their greatest good. 2. If the making of a new heart consist principally in casting away all transgressions by sincere repentance, and entering upon a new life, then resolutions this way are the first steps to become really good, and ought to be constant exercises in order to continue so. 3. If the heart consist in free, moral exercises, as the Scriptures view it, then every man must be active in his own conversion, or regeneration, or in obtaining a meetness for the enjoyment of God. 4. We see on this view of the subject a constant call for active exertion, watchfulness, and circumspection, and also a foundation for that spiritual warfare represented by Paul. 5. No one has more moral goodness, or holiness, than he has good, or holy, exercises. 6. The work of becoming and continuing good both in heart and life lies with every one of you to perform for yourselves under the assistance and grace of God. (Pitt Clarke.) Conversion a radical and entire change Manton says: “ A wolf may be scared from his prey, but yet he keepeth his preying and devouring nature.” He has not lost his taste for lambs, though he was obliged to drop the one which he had seized. So a sinner may forego his beloved lust, and yet remain as truly a sinner as before. He gives up the drink for fear of losing his situation, or dying of disease, but he would be at his liquor again if he dared. The fear of hell whips him off some favourite vice, and yet his heart pines for it, and in imagination he gloats over it. While this is the case, the man in the sight of God is as his heart is: the muzzled wolf is still a wolf, the silenced swearer is still profane in heart, the lewd thinker is still an adulterer. Something is done when a wolf is scared or a transgressor driven out of his evil ways, yet nothing is done which will effectually change the wolf or renew the ungodly heart. A frightened sinner is a sinner still. Like the frightened dog, he will return to his vomit; and like the sow that was washed, he will wallow in the mire again as soon as opportunity offers. “ Ye must be born again” :--this is the only effectual cure for sin. (C. H. Spurgeon.) Why will ye die, O house of Israel?--Expostulation with the impenitent I. Several important truths are here taken for granted.1. That all unrepenting sinners will assuredly die.2. That God is extremely reluctant to execute the fatal sentence.3. That sinners may yet, if they will, escape eternal death. II. Why will ye die?1. Is it because you seriously believe that the pleasures of sin, with death at the end of them, are better than holiness, with heaven for its reward? 2. Is it because you have satisfied yourself that the warnings of the Bible are without foundation? that there is, in reality, no death of the soul hereafter, no hell for the ungodly, no heaven for the righteous? 3. Is it because, while you profess to believe the Bible, you still inconsistently doubt whether sin will end in everlasting death? 4. Is it because there are in the world multitudes as careless, or as wicked, as yourself; and you think it impossible that so many should all be in the way to destruction? In answer to this reason, let us ask ourselves, What is all the world to us in this matter? God speaks to us individually. 5. Is it because death and judgment seem to be far off; and therefore, although you do not wish to perish, yet you suppose it is time enough yet to turn and repent? If so, I must plainly tell you that you are, to all intents and purposes, choosing eternal death. You have no real intention to turn to God at a future day: you do but deceive your own soul. (J. Jowett, M. A.) Why will ye die I. We are not settled in our religious faith. We do not know whether the Bible is true or not. We do not know whether Christ is God or not. Are you, in the passage of the years, getting any nearer a decision? Why do you not go into this subject, and go through it? If your child be sick, and you do not know whether it is just a common cold or the diphtheria, you pursue the doctor until you find out. Now, I do not blame you for not becoming Christians, but I do blame you for taking neither the one side nor the other. Through all these years you have been in a fog. You know the steamship Atlantic went on the rocks in a fog; you know that the Arctic and the Vesta struck in a fog; you know that only a little while ago the steamship Schiller went down with nearly all on board in a fog; and it is amid the same kind of circumstances that some of you are going to shipwreck. Did Darwin, or Tyndall, or Herbert Spencer ever help a man to die? When the surges of death rise mountain high, would you rather be in this staunch frigate of the Gospel--a frigate of ten thousand tons--or in the leaky yawl of scepticism? II. Another reason why men do not come into the kingdom of Christ is because they are of the opinion that the present is of more importance than the future. I have noticed that everything depends upon the standpoint you take when you look at everything. We stand so deep down in the “ now” that we cannot see into the great “ hereafter.” If we could stand between the two worlds, and look that way and this way, then we might make a more intelligent comparison as to the value of these two worlds--this and the next. In other words: the farthest on we can get in this life--yea, the very last point of our earthly existence--will be the best point in which to estimate the value of these two worlds. And so I call upon all the dying population of Christendom, I call upon all the thousands who are now departing this life and I ask them to give testimony in this matter. They say: “ My head on this wet pillow, I look one way and I look the other way. I see Time: I see Eternity. How brief the one: how long the other. I never saw it so before. Hand-breadths against leagues. Seconds against cycles. I put my wasted and trembling hand--my left hand--on the world that I am leaving, and I put my wasted and trembling hand--my right hand--on the world that I am entering, and for the first time I see how small is the one and how vast is the other.” III. Another reason why men do not accept the Lord Jesus Christ and become Christian, is because they are of the opinion that the matters of the soul are not urgent, pressing, and imminent. They have their reception day. They say: “ Let Business enter.” Business enters, is interviewed, passes out. They say: “ Let Pleasure enter.” Pleasure enters, is interviewed, passes out. They say: “ Let Worldly Knowledge enter.” Worldly Knowledge enters, is interviewed, passes out. After thirty or forty years, they say: “ Let Religion enter” And they look; but religion has got tired of waiting, and is gone. That queen of heaven, standing in the ante-chamber of the heart, ought to have been received first. Her first tap on the door ought to have brought the response, “ Come in--come in.” (T. De Witt Talmage.) The needlessness of man’ s ruin The question implies:1. That man is made to act from reason.2. That man is amenable to his Maker for the reasons that influence him.3. That notwithstanding man’ s rational and responsible nature, he is pursuing a course of self-destruction. I. The decrees of God do not render your ruin necessary. But does not Paul teach that God makes vessels for dishonour as well as vessels for honour? No. All that he avers is, that He could do so. And it is to the glory of God’ s benevolence to assert, that whilst He could make and organise creatures for misery, He has never done so. Let the naturalist search through all the endless species of animal life, let him take the microscope, and let him find one single creature amongst the smallest, and say, This little creature was evidently made to suffer, was organised for misery--is a vessel built for dishonour. No, God could, but He does not. II. Your sinful condition does not render your ruin necessary. Why is this? Because the Gospel makes provision for you in your present state. There lies a man on the bed of suffering. A malignant and painful disease has done its work on his constitution; in a few hours, unless some remedy come, he must breathe his last. A skilful physician enters the room; he has in his hand a little medicine, which if taken will inevitably restore him. It is offered to him, pressed on him, and he has yet power to take it. Need that man die? If he refuse the remedy he must die, but since the remedy is offered, and he has the power to take it, his death is needless. It is thus with the sinner, he is infected with the malady of sin, he is on the margin of death; but here is the remedy, the Great Physician of Souls is at his side, offering an infallible antidote. III. The external circumstances in which you are placed do not render your ruin necessary. Bad thoughts may be conveyed to your mind, bad impressions made on your hearts, but they need not harm you; you have a power to transmute them into spiritual nourishment. Remember that some of the most eminent saints that ever lived have been amongst most trying and tempting circumstances. Remember that the more trying your circumstances may be, the more corrupt the society in which you live, the more need there is for you to carry out noble principles. IV. The condition on which salvation is offered does not render your ruin necessary. “ He that believeth shall be saved,” --“ He that believeth hath everlasting life.” Now, belief as an act is one of the most simple. It is as natural to believe an evident truth as it is to see. Moreover, man has a strong propensity to believe. His credulity is his curse. It is this that has given to the world those monstrous systems of error under which it has been groaning for ages. But what must we believe in order to be saved? If it be responded, The facts of the Gospel, I ask, Are there any facts attested by clearer or more potent evidence? Or, if it be said, The principles of the Gospel, then we declare that those principles are moral axioms, and recommend themselves to the intuitions and felt necessities of the human soul. Or, should it be replied, It is faith in the Author of the Gospel--the living, loving, personal Christ--then we ask, What character is so adapted to enlist your faith and inspire your confidence? (Homilist.) Voluntary sin and self-destruction I. What death is here intended?1. It is not the dissolution of the body; that is not the death here referred to, for how manifest it is that it is not subject to the will of man! 2. It is the ruin of the soul, or the inheritance of everlasting woe. II. Impenitent men die this death.1. The Scriptures in the strongest manner assert that “ except a man be born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.” 2. The Scriptures go further, and represent impenitent men as determined upon this death. When the voice of Calvary speaks out in tenderness and love, when that voice comes forth from every wound and is heard in every groan of our dying Lord, calling on them, “ Turn ye, turn ye, why will ye die?” --if the sinner still travels onward, and turns not at the voice of mercy, is there no wilfulness in it? 3. They form a character for perdition, knowing that none other than a holy character can possibly fit them for heaven. III. Upon what principle do they act in thus conducting themselves?1. It is not because God delights in the death of a sinner. Do you think the father has any pleasure in the act by which he discards his incorrigible son; the son with whom he has reasoned, and wept, and prayed; the son before whom he has spread all the evils of his conduct, and the inevitable ruin to which it must bring him? 2. It is not because of any difficulty on the part of God. There was a difficulty, and there is a controversy now between you and God; but then that controversy may be settled; and through the blood of Jesus Christ the difficulty is removed out of the way to enable you to return. 3. It is not because there is any difficulty in the revelation of the salvation of God, or in the atonement for sin. The Bible is represented as a lamp to our feet; like the sun, it shines on our path, so that the guilty sinner may, from the Word of God, from the fulness and completeness of the revelation, see with perfect distinctness the way in which a sinner may again be brought from his wanderings and received into the favour of God. Nor is there any deficiency in the atonement. 4. It is not because sufficient pains have not been taken with man. Were there no pains taken on the part of God to save men from going down to perdition when He gave up His own Son to die for them? Again, has not the Son of God taken pains, in leaving the glory which He had with the Father, and coming down, down into the degradation of taking our nature upon Him? Did Jesus Christ take no pains for your salvation?--He who, when on earth, was a Man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. Then has the Holy Ghost taken no pains in inspiring holy men to write this wonderful Book, in striving with you, in following you up year after year, in meeting you in the house of God, in meeting you in the way that you go and in your business, in striking solemn thoughts upon your mind, and arresting your attention, and causing you to think of death, and of judgment, and of eternity? 5. If you die this death it will not be because God’ s commands are unreasonable. They are, Repent, believe in His Son, and live a holy life. Is it unreasonable that God should call on the sinner to stop in a single moment; that he should not take another step in the wrong way? 6. It is not because the will of the sinner is forced or constrained that he therefore dies. Did you ever do anything in your life against your will? Is it possible for you to do anything contrary to your own will? I do not ask you whether you have done anything contrary to your feelings, anything different from what you liked; but whether you have done what was contrary to your own will? If the sinner then is not constrained, if we act according to our own wishes, and make up our own minds, then how true is the position I have taken, that men die this death, because they will die it! What would you say of a man who should set out from London, saying he intended to go to Birmingham, and with a distinct knowledge of the geography of the country, should take his seat on a coach that was going to Dover? And what, if when he was told by the coachman again and again, “ This road leads to Dover, and every mile brings us nearer and nearer to Dover” --what would you think of him if he said, “ Well, I hope before I arrive there, somehow or other, to be brought to Birmingham” ? You would say that the man was not acting according to good sense, and you would say right. Well, what is the condition of the sinner? What is his conduct? He is travelling wilfully along a road which he knows will not lead him to heaven. And this is the language which God addresses to him, “ Why will ye die?” Why do you go the wrong road? (1) Is it brave? It may be foolhardy, but it is not brave.(2) Is it right to do so? You know in your conscience it is not.(3) Is it good to act thus? Is it good to throw away the soul that can live beyond the stars? Is it good to turn your back on all the means of grace and to throw heaven away? (J. Patten.) Why will ye die Imagine yourselves amidst Alpine scenery. Yonder is a broad road which leads to the edge of a precipice--the precipice overhangs a deep dark gulf. Out of the broad road there is a path--a narrow path winding about among the rocks--difficult of ascent, but terminating in a region of Eden-like beauty. A band of travellers, thoughtless and light-hearted, are pressing along the highway, and nearing the edge of the abyss. There are barriers set up--there are beacons raised--there are warnings given--there are guides close by earnestly advising them to turn aside, and climb up the narrow footpath. But while a few are persuaded to do so, the multitude, in spite of all which is done to prevent it, press onwards and reach the edge, and fall over, one by one, into the yawning depth--and even their ruin does not suffice to warn their followers. The rest rush to the awful margin, and sink into that enormous grave! You say this is unparalleled folly. No, not unparalleled. Folly equal--nay, greater--is commonly displayed by the children of men. I. The nature of your ruin.1. It is the death of pleasure--the end of all delight--the putting out of the last taper of enjoyment, so that nothing is left but deep, dense darkness--the quenching of all those vain joys (the only joys the ungodly can ever know of) which are likened in Scripture to the crackling of thorns under the pot. 2. It is the death of hope. Everlasting punishment! It cannot mean that after a while the soul, cleansed by penal fires, shall recover its purity. It cannot mean that out of the depths of hell it shall mount up to heaven. 3. It is the death of love. “ Hateful and hating one another,” are words which will apply more emphatically to the future than the present state of sinners--that is the most tremendous condition to which creatures can be reduced. To that depth of wretchedness unsaved sinners will be hereafter reduced. 4. It involves exclusion from heaven, from that world of which Scripture gives us such bright and attractive visions: from “ our Father’ s house” ; from “ the city of habitation” ; from “ the temple of God and the Lamb” ; from “ paradise” ; from “ the tree, and from the fountain of life” ; from those regions where “ there is no curse--neither shall there be any more pain.” 5. It involves exclusion from the society of the really great and good, God’ s true nobility, “ the innumerable company of angels” ; the great cloud of witnesses; “ the church of the first-born whose names are written in heaven” ; “ the spirits of the just made perfect” ; “ the glorious company, of the apostles, the goodly fellowship of the prophets, the noble army of martyrs.” 6. It involves exclusion from the Father of an infinite Majesty” ; “ from His holy, true, and everlasting Son” ; “ the King of glory” ; “ also the Holy Ghost the Comforter” ; “ Depart from Me.” II. The author of your ruin. The fact of the sinner’ s self-destruction is apparent from--1. The character of God. He is a God of truth and justice. Would this be true if the final destruction of the sinner depended not on himself, but was the result of an arbitrary and irresistible decree? if immortal souls were the helpless and hapless victims of an iron-handed destiny? But God is merciful as well as just. To suppose after this that any man’ s eternal destruction does not lie at his own door--but is the consequence of the Divine will arbitrarily exercised is monstrous. 2. The character of the Gospel. Look at the Babe of Bethlehem, and the Man of Sorrows--at Him who wept over Jerusalem--at the agonised Sufferer in the Garden--at the Crucified One. 3. The character of man. There is a conscience in man. Conscience would have no meaning if man were not free, if his actions were not free, his determinations free, his thoughts free. 4. The character of his future condition. That condition will be a condition of punishment. What does punishment imply? Guilt. The righteous may be oppressed, afflicted, persecuted, but they cannot be punished; only the guilty can be punished. That which God calls punishment, which the Bible calls punishment, must come as the fruit of sin, the offspring of guilt. Therefore, the sinner must incur it himself. III. The reason of your ruin. Most of you, in reply to the question of the text--Why will ye die?--would have to say, Because we love the pleasures of the world more than the joys of eternal life; because we desire the approbation of men more than the honour that cometh from God; because we covet the possession of earth more than the inheritance of heaven; because we are addicted to the ways of sin, and are not disposed to break off our evil habits; because we have been living in impenitence and unbelief, and have no mind to change our course. Thus you destroy yourselves for the sake of the world, for the sake of sin. The guilt, folly, shame, and ignominy of the suicide belong to you. To destroy oneself is considered so monstrous an act that the man who commits it is generally pronounced insane. When not insane, when the case is brought in felo de se, the miserable mortal is treated even in death as an outlaw, and his remains are cast forth with every circumstance of dishonour and disgrace, as no longer within the pale of humanity. In the great inquest of the Last Day, the finally impenitent will come under a verdict of wilful insanity; will be regarded as having acted the part of the madman, with all the culpability of the voluntary self-assassin, and will therefore be cast beyond the bounds of the holy city, flung into the pit of Gehenna, to mingle with the refuse of the universe. (John Stoughton.) Self-destruction I. The nature of eternal death.1. A state of conscious existence.2. A state of deprivation.3. A state of hideousness. II. The question proposed.1. There is no necessity for it in the nature of God.2. There is no necessity in the will of man.3. There is no necessity on account of our circumstances. (W. W. Whythe.) Why will ye die I. What is this word with which my text ends? for upon that the whole stress of the matter evidently depends: “ Why will ye die?” You have bent over the dying, or over the dead; you have watched that face, which used to speak to you with such meaning, gathering blankness and darkness; you have seen those eyes, which once sparkled upon you with intelligence, become glazed, and dead, and fixed. That is death. We all know what it is; but whose death is that? What are the first words they speak when it is all over--when the blankness and nothingness have succeeded to anxiety? “ He is gone!” Those are the words: “ He is gone!” Then it was not he that died! It was something belonging to him which underwent a change; but it was not the man that died. That affected the body; but it did not affect the person. We do not say that when a brute dies beneath our eyes; we do not attribute to a brute that sort of doubleness--that he should be in one place, and the carcass in another; and therefore, when this text says, “ Why will ye die?” it does not allude to the death of the body--it does not allude to that of which I have just been speaking; but I have been speaking of that that I might take it for an example--that I might take it for a guide to that more mysterious and less well-known thing to which the text does allude. We have already spoken of this person, this personality, this he, this I, this you, which does not die upon the bed of death, which is not crushed by the power of the accident, which remains and exists on. Now what is this? We never consider the brute creature, the poor dumb animal, as we express it, responsible; we do not consider that he, or it, rather, can give an account; we do not consider, in any proper sense of the word, that it can do right, or can do wrong. But the moment you get to a human body, whether that human body is man, woman, or child, if that human body is only in possession of reason and of sense, you cannot divest yourself of that idea of responsibility If he does right--I am not saying now whether he is right or wrong in this which follows, but--there is a certain sort of self-congratulation follows upon it, and he knows he has done right. If he does wrong, supposing him to be an ordinary man, and not absolutely, blinded by the power of habitual sin--if he does wrong in the common and broad acceptation of the word, his conscience in some measure accuses him. II. Now, this may lead us to know and to feel, as indeed all mankind of sound mind have known and have felt, that this personality of which we speak is a lasting and enduring thing, which shaft give an account. You cannot deny it. Well, then, let us go back, if you please, to this bed of death, of which we spoke just now. Let us carry onward that scene a little further. Let us pass--it is a remarkable sentence of the greatest, of English preachers--“ from the freshness and the fulness of the cheeks of childhood to the horror and loathsomeness of a three days burial.” And what do we see there? The body is broken up; it is become a seething mass of foul and degraded and loathsome life--a life not its own--a life which did not belong to its beautiful and harmonious construction. Its parts are gone, or are going, each to their way; the solid to the dust of the earth, the liquid to the mighty ocean. It is dispersed; it is passed away. “ It is sown a corruptible body.” It is sown in shame and in contempt. Though it was, perhaps, the dearest of things on earth to us a few days ago, we have put it out of our way; we have buried our dead out of our sight. And that is the death of the body. Now, is there not something very analogous to that--I mean very like it, something which follows the same rules--in the death of man’ s immortal spirit? This entry is longer than a Bible module can hold. The rest is at https://www.sermonindex.net/commentary/bi/ Ezekiel 18:32I have no pleasure in the death of him that dieth.The mercy of God I. The benevolence of God’ s own character. He who is love, and who delights therefore only in happiness, being at the same time a holy and just Governor, must no doubt punish sin, and punish it severely; but never can He punish for the sake merely of giving pain, nor can He ever find any pleasure in the death of him that dieth, viewed in itself and apart from the reasons why it takes place. II. The arrangements He made with man in his original state of innocence. The native immortality of man’ s first constitution, the high capacity of enjoyment with which he was endued, the inexhaustible sources of entertainment presented to him in a world every part of which was very good; and then the beautiful garden itself, still more rich and highly decorated than the smiling world around it, and placed under man’ s care, that in keeping and dressing it he might be the more happy; these, and other such arrangements, surely indicated anything but a disposition to take pleasure in the death of him that dieth. Or, look at the subsequent arrangements made with Adam, and in him with ourselves, who shall say that the agreement was a hard one? III. The utter detestation in which Jehovah holds sin, the cause of death. Properly, this is the one thing which He detests. Hence, it is described in His word as that abominable thing which He hates. And among the reasons why He so abhors sin, this is one of the first--that it is the enemy of all happiness, the source of all misery. IV. The method of recovering us from sin which God has adopted. You here find Him doing everything to preserve men from death. But what is still more remarkable, after they had disregarded all these precautions of Divine love, and fallen by their iniquity, you next find Jehovah making arrangements for their recovery from death. And then such arrangements! V. The various and suitable means employed to bring us to the acceptance of the Saviour thus provided for us. First of all, He puts the Gospel on record, by the instrumentality of men guided in doing so by His own Spirit. There we read of our degradation and ruin by sin, that we may know our disease; and of the eminent skill and qualifications of the Physician, that we may be induced to make application to Him for the remedy of His blood and grace. And then, lest all this should fail of taking our attention and impressing our conscience, we are warned, in the most impressive manner of our approaching destruction; and we are argued with--we are encouraged--we are invited--we are entreated--to flee for refuge, to lay hold on the hope set before us. VI. The work of rendering all these means effectual He puts into the hands of His own Spirit. Jehovah knew too well the obstinacy of the hearts He would have to deal with, to hope for the repentance of a single sinner without providing in this way for the regeneration of his soul by a Divine operation. Such a change manifestly requires an exertion of Divine power as truly as resurrection or creation can do in their more common signification. Great, however, as this work is, its accomplishment is every way secured by the appointment of the Holy Ghost to the office. (P. Hannay.) Divine sorrow over the impenitent I. It is painful to see such noble affections misplaced. The spirit that is in man was created capable of loving its Creator, with all the subjects of His kingdom, His law, His Gospel, and His service. Now, can any suppose that the blessed God has pleasure in seeing such noble affections misplaced? Is it not more in accordance with all we know of the Father of the Spirits to infer that He would rather fill capacities like these with His own immensity? and that He would delight in making happy souls so originally great and holy? II. Such great expectations disappointed. The sinner on whom we have fixed our eye was born, perhaps, a child of promise. Over his very cradle his parents planned his future course, and indulged the fondest hopes of his future distinction, usefulness, and piety. He was, it may be supposed, the child of many prayers and of high expectations. Oh, how dreadful to see such hopes withered, such reasonable expectations nipped and destroyed by the frost of the second death! How can there be in such an object anything that can fill the heart of God with pleasure? Were it the seat of malevolence instead of mercy, it could hardly fail to weep over such costly ruins. III. The fact will more clearly appear, when we see in the lost sinner such useful talents wasted and ruined. The theme is painful--and let us touch it tenderly. Think, then, of some great man now in torment. While on earth he could exhibit amazing enterprise. He could count the stars and measure the diameter and distance of every planet. He could conceive noble schemes, and trace, by the force of his intellect, every project to its final close. But like the infidels, Hume, Voltaire, Bolingbroke, Hobbes, and many others, he hated the Son of God. Ah! if these men had been as good as they were great, how useful they might have been. But their gigantic minds were their bane and curse. The greatness that might have made them happy has made them miserable. What a loss to all heaven! If any government should be under the necessity of imprisoning for life its loftiest geniuses, would not the loss be an injury to the nation? Would it not be felt and deplored by every loyal subject and true patriot? How then can we for a moment suppose that the God of love and mercy can have any pleasure in the death of him that dieth? Inferences--1. God will not consign any to perdition who do not oblige Him to do so. Judgment is His strange work. 2. We see hence why the blessed God bears so long with the disobedient and wicked. He abhors the work of destruction, and would not that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance. 3. There must be something very odious in sin, since even the Father of mercies will not spare from death the guilty, though He is loath to destroy. (D. A. Clark.) The death of sinners not pleasing to God I. What is here to be understood by men’ s dying. Scripture mentions three kinds of death: temporal death, spiritual death, and eternal death. Temporal death is the dissolution of the connection between the soul and body. Spiritual death is the total corruption or depravity of the heart. Eternal death is complete and endless misery in a future state. Temporal death is a common calamity, which none can escape. “ By one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned.” Spiritual death is as universal as temporal. By nature all men are dead in trespasses and sins, and under the entire dominion of an evil heart. But eternal death is peculiar to the finally impenitent. Neither temporal nor spiritual death is an adequate punishment for sin; but eternal death, or everlasting misery, is a just and proper reward for final impenitence and unbelief. And this is what God threatens. II. God is really unwilling that any of mankind should suffer eternal death. This appears--1. From the plain and positive declarations concerning the final state of impenitent sinners, which are everywhere to be found in His word. 2. By the pure, disinterested, and universal benevolence of His nature. III. God sincerely desires that all should be saved.1. If God be unwilling that any should die, then He must desire that all may live. He cannot be altogether indifferent about the happiness or misery of His rational add immortal creatures. 2. That God desires that all may escape misery and enjoy happiness in a future state, clearly appears from His providing a Saviour for all. 3. It appears from the invitations which God makes to sinners in the Gospel, that He desires all should be saved. These invitations are universal, and extend to all sinners of every age, character, and condition, who are capable of understanding them. 4. It further appears that God sincerely desires the salvation of all men, from His commanding all to embrace the Gospel and live. He never commands anything but what is agreeable to Him in its own nature. 5. The patience and forbearance of God towards sinners is a very clear and convincing evidence that He greatly desires that they should be saved rather than destroyed. Improvement--1. If God be so far from being willing that any of mankind should be lost that He sincerely desires that all should be saved, then He always did and always will feel as much benevolence towards those who are lost as towards those who are saved. 2. If God is so far from being willing that any of mankind should be lost that He sincerely desires that all should be saved, then it is easy to see how His love of benevolence towards them should be entirely consistent with His hatred of them. The more holy He is, the more He must hate sin. The more benevolent He is, the more He must hate selfishness. The more He loves the happiness of sinners, the more He must hate them for destroying it. The more He loves the good of their fellow men, the more He must hate them for opposing it. And the more He loves His own great and amiable character, the more He must hate His malignant and mortal enemies. 3. If God’ s benevolence to sinners is consistent with His hating them, then it is consistent with His punishing them forever. 4. If God is so far from being willing that any of mankind should be lost that He sincerely desires that all should be saved, then He will do as much to save all as He can do, consistently with His benevolence. And with respect to those whose future and eternal happiness the good of the universe does not require, but forbids, they themselves will be fully convinced that God did as much for them as He could consistently do, and that their own negligence and obstinacy were the only faulty causes of their own ruin. They will have to blame themselves, that when God put a price into their hands to get wisdom and obtain life, they had no heart to do it, but chose death rather than life. 5. If God acts from the same benevolent motives in loving and in punishing finally impenitent sinners, then saints will forever love and praise Him for all His conduct towards those guilty and miserable objects. 6. It appears from what has been said about God’ s willingness and desire that sinners might be saved, that they are extremely unwilling to be saved. They had rather die than live; they choose eternal death rather than eternal life. 7. We learn the astonishing grace of God in making any sinners willing to be saved. Renewing grace is, in the strictest sense, special, irresistible grace. It demonstrates that God is infinitely more willing to save sinners than they are to be saved. It is subduing their unwillingness, and making them willing in the day of His power to be saved. (N. Emmons, D. D.) Wherefore turn yourselves, and live ye. What must and can persons do towards their own conversion “ Turn yourselves!” We may ask, Is this the Christian doctrine of conversion? are we not taught to depend on a converting grace? Is not our helplessness in default of grace a commonplace of theologians and preachers? Well, is not that truth indicated by the Psalmist’ s language about “ the law of the Lord,” or the Lord Himself as “ restoring the soul,” or by Elijah’ s prayer on Carmel, “ Hear me, that this people may know that Thou hast turned their heart back again,” and yet more touchingly, perhaps, by the prayer which Jeremiah puts into Ephraim’ s mouth, “ Turn Thou me, and I shall be turned” ? When, in the light of such words, we read Ezekiel’ s exhortation, we understand that when a penitent turns himself to God, he is in fact responding to a movement from God, and using a power which that movement has supplied. So it is that two elements concur in conversion: a Saul replies duteously to the remonstrance, “ Why persecutest thou Me?” an Augustine, having “ taken up and read” the Pauline summary of a Christian’ s moral obligations, surrenders his will absolutely to the practical requirements of the creed which his mind had become ready to accept. We all of us may hear, if we do not wilfully shut our ears, the voice which would draw us to the Christ of apostles and all saints; if we listen, we shall receive strength to obey. (Canon Bright.) . Ezekiel 19:11-12 And she had strong rods for the sceptres of them that bare rule.The renewal of ruined nations 1. States and kingdoms broken to pieces, ruined in times of war and trouble, do flourish again in times of quiet and silence. Peace after war is like spring after a sharp winter, which revives, causeth growth and greenness; yet know that states ruined by tyranny of princes, by wars, do not suddenly recover themselves, or attain to their former greatness and splendour: though Jerusalem became a vine after the roaring and spoil of Jehoiakim, yet she was a “ vine of a low stature.” 2. It is through the mercy, goodness, and blessing of God that wasted kingdoms do become as vines, and flourish again. 3. When mercies are multiplied, men are apt to abuse them, and swell with the enjoyment of them. Prosperity is a dangerous thing, and hath hazarded many (Isaiah 47:5; Isaiah 47:7). After Hezekiah had received many mercies, “ his heart was lifted up” (2 Chronicles 32:23-25). Rehoboam, when he was strengthened in the kingdom, “ forsook the law of the Lord, and all Israel with him” ; here was a sad effect of prosperity (2 Chronicles 12:1). (W. Greenhill, M. A.) Ezekiel 19:12 Her strong rods were broken and withered.God’ s judgment in breaking the strong rods of a community I. What qualifications of those who are in public authority may properly give them the denomination of strong rods.1. Great ability for the management of public affairs. This is the case when they are men of largeness of understanding, especially when they have a natural genius for government. 2. Largeness of heart and a greatness and nobleness of disposition. It is peculiarly unbecoming them to be capable of little intrigues. 3. The spirit of government. They must have a peculiar aptitude for using their knowledge, and a spirit of resolution and activity. 4. Stability. A strong rod must be immovable in the execution of justice and judgment. 5. It contributes to the strength of a rod when he is in such circumstances as give him advantage for the exercise of his strength. II. When such strong rods are broken and withered by death, it is a judgment of God upon the people who are deprived of them.1. By reason of the many positive benefits and blessings to a people that such men are the instruments of (Psalms 82:5; Psalms 11:3). Their influence has a tendency to promote wealth and virtue (Ecclesiastes 10:17). Solomon was a remarkable illustration of this truth. (See 1 Kings 4:25; 1 Kings 10:27). 2. On account of the great calamities they are a defence from. Government is necessary to defend communities from miseries from within themselves; they are the heads of union without which nothing is to be expected but remediless and endless broils. We see the need of government in societies, by what is visible in families,--those lesser societies of which all public societies are constituted,--and as government is absolutely necessary, so there is a necessity of strong rods in order to it: the business being such as requires persons so qualified. 3. They are no less necessary to defend the community from foreign enemies. As they are like the pillars of a building, so they are like the bulwarks of a city; they are under God a people’ s main strength in time of war (Lamentations 4:20; Nehemiah 9:27). On these accounts, when a nation is strong, rods are broken; it is a judgment worthy of such lamentation as that which followed the death of King Josiah, who is one of those doubtless referred to in the text (2 Chronicles 35:24-25). (Jonathan Edwards.) . Ezekiel 20:1-4 Certain of the elders . . . sat before me.The elders before Ezekiel 1. True religion is emphatically a walking with God, not a mere occasional coming to Him. The precise manner in which the date is given may possibly be taken as conveying a reproof to those who, instead of making it their constant business to know God’ s will, were contented to let a year elapse between two successive visits to the prophet. 2. The need of leaving our sins behind us when we come to inquire of God. The severe answer which the elders received was due chiefly to the fact that they canto without first repenting and bringing forth fruits worthy of repentance 3. Prayer, or indeed coming to God in any way, must not be made a mere matter of convenience, but must be regarded as a matter of constant spiritual necessity. These elders came when they thought it would answer their purpose; they forgot God when all went well, they sought Him when they were at their wits’ end; they did not look upon communion with God as the one great spiritual need of their souls. Were they singular in this? The habitual lives of nine out of ten persons in this Christian country would rise up and contradict us if we said that they were. I am not now contemplating the case of notoriously evil men, but only that of easy-going worldly persons who live without church, prayer, Scriptures, passing a quiet animal kind of life, with no cares except those of getting daily bread. These persons will, many of them, cry to the Lord in trouble; put them upon a sickbed, and they will say their prayers for the most part vigorously enough, and the prayers so offered up may possibly be the beginning of a more Christian life, yet I do not at all the less maintain that this is no right use of prayer, but a most egregious and unchristian abuse. (Bp. Harvey Goodwin.) Cherished sin disqualifies for prayer Manton says, “ Empty the bucket before you go to the fountain.” Wise advice. If the pail be full of the best and cleanest water it is idle to carry it to the well, for its fulness disqualifies it for being a receiver. Those who think themselves full of grace are not likely to pray aright, for prayer is a beggar’ s trade, and supposes the existence of need. What does a full bucket want with the well? Let it stay where it is. Fitness for mercy is not found in self-sufficiency, but in emptiness and want. He can and will receive most of the Lord who has least of his own. If the bucket is full of foul water, it is wise to throw it away as we go to the crystal spring. We must not come to the Lord with our minds full of vanity, lust, covetousness, and pride. “ If I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear me.” He will not make His grace the medium of floating our unclean desires. (C. H. Spurgeon.) Ezekiel 20:6A land . . . which is the glory of all lands.The glory of all lands Palestine, as it appears to the modern traveller, is so totally different from the land as it is described in the Bible, that anticipations are disappointed on seeing it. One never sees the brooks, or the fountains, or the milk and honey. A more sterile--save for the plains along the seaboard--a more forbidding country it is scarcely possible to conceive. Is there anything that by any stretch of imagination could justify us in turning to the world with the Bible in our hands and saying, “ Here is the glory of all lands” ? Has its geographical position given it that prominence? A rugged strip of country, with a confused mass of rugged hills, many of them, especially towards the south, absolutely forbidding, so bare, so barren, so scarred are they that one would think some cancer had eaten into them. And this is the land, no bigger than Wales, half the size of Scotland, with a population not equal to a fourth-rate town in Scotland, that is said to be the glory of all lands. It is not its position, therefore, or anything we can see in its towns. What, then, is it? Its beauty? Why, no one would ever dream of going to the Holy Land for its scenery. No doubt the Lake of Galilee is a pleasant sheet of water, but anyone who has stood on the shores of Loch Lomond would never for a moment dream of comparing them. There is nothing in the scenery. No one who is a mere pleasure seeker, no artist, would ever dream of spending time and strength in such a land. Nor would the mere holiday seeker find anything to justify or anything to repay his visit. Travelling through the land is toilsome and perilous for lack of roads, and even where roads are, they are extremely dangerous. Suppose the scientist goes, there is no attraction for him. The botanist will add nothing particular to his store. Even the boasted Rose of Sharon is but a bastard poppy. A scientist has nothing to gain, nor an archaeologist, nor a student. There are no old libraries, there is no native literature, no great school. And those who go for gaiety have gone to the wrong place. There is no theatre, no music hall. No poet could weave romance round such a land as Palestine. What, then, is the attraction? It is the religious. The Crusaders left home, birth, everything, not to add to territory, not for the mere love of conquest. It was the Cross that was the emblem carried before them, and that accustomed them to all the hardships they endured and the triumphs that they won. So, too, with the modem traveller. There is but one Holy Land, and the one thing that makes it holy is that there the Word was made flesh. It is that that makes the land holy, that makes it the glory of all lands. They can take the obelisks of Egypt, and bring them to Paris and to London, and so in some measure transfer the glory of the past; but there is a glory upon that land that no power can take from it or transfer to another land. The Galilean has triumphed. And if He had not, where would have been the glory of the land? There is nothing to make it in one’ s mind conceivably associated with grand events; and yet see how they flock to it, how many hearts draw to it, how many hearts throb at the mere mention of it--all because Christ has made it the glory of all lands. (G. Davidson, B. Sc.) The Divine conditions of nationality I. A country was chosen and assigned to them, and this was the very first step in the process of preparation for the national existence. It is very evident that the repeated references to the land in connection with the prophecies and promises of a national existence and mission made the impression upon the mind of the patriarchs that the possession and enjoyment of the country was essentially a condition of nationality. Accordingly the occupation of Canaan became the object of their highest hopes and the goal of their aims in labour and patience (Genesis 50:24-26). And the land was adapted to furnish all the needful conditions of support and unification of the nation.1. It was described as a land flowing with milk and honey. It was able to afford not merely subsistence, but the means of wealth ample for the material and appliances of an advanced civilisation. 2. The means of communication were sufficient. For the land was not large, and although broken by ranges of hills, was permeated by valleys and torrent beds dry for a considerable portion of the year, and bordered by the sea, which was the highway of the ancient peoples. 3. The land was separated from the surrounding peoples by the sea and the deserts; passable for purposes of commerce, natural barriers in time of war. II. At the time of founding of the nation a code of laws was given and promulgated. The principles of government may be gathered by analysis of the statutes and synthesis of the results. There can be no doubt that there was an intention to provide for the greatest good and largest liberty of the individual compatible with association, at least in view of the state of the people in that early age, and in their rise from a servile condition. And in the first instance a popular form of government was contemplated rather than a monarchy. The latter was considered as dependent upon certain contingencies, and if it was foreseen as a necessity it was only because it was to be made a necessity by the people themselves. Provision was made for education and discipline in the knowledge of the law, and in habits of obedience. The first, the best, and the only really effective school of instruction and culture was secured and guarded, namely, the family. The infant child was marked with the sign and seal of his rights and duties in the commonwealth, and the household was ordained as a means of training and practice in obedience to righteous precepts. Besides this domestic education, provision was made for public teachers of the law. These were not merely instructors in specifically religious duties, but in social and civil duties also. It would be impossible to cite all the passages in the history which makes it manifest that the Lawgiver expected obedience to be secured through the moral judgment and sensibility. Indeed, the careful student of his teaching cannot fail to find abundant sources for the impression that he intended to secure his people a distinctively and intense ethical life. His aim was righteousness. The accomplishment of this was necessary in his view to the fulfilment of the mission of the nation in the earth. And, finally, to the moral motives to obedience he added the sanctions of religion. He taught that the law came from God Himself, that obedience to the law was loyalty to God, and disobedience was rebellion against God. III. Provision was made for the nurture of patriotism and for the strengthening of the national bond. The people were attached to the soil by the law of the permanence of the tenure of it in the families and tribes to whom it was assigned after the conquest. The title to each estate was perpetual. And ample provision was made that the life of toil might be lightened and graced by the enjoyments and ceremonies of domestic, social, and national festivals. The seasons of the year of labour were marked by the gathering of the families, and common participation in the fruits of the earth and the more joyful services of religion. Three times each year the heads of families were summoned to the metropolis and the common altar, and in their journeyings to and from the Holy City, and their fellowship within its walls, its dwellings, and its temple courts, they were knit together in personal friendships and united in the common bond of citizenship. IV. The national spirit was animated and nourished by the call to a mission for all the peoples on the earth. At the very beginning it was said to the father of the Hebrew people, “ In thee and in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed.” And this was repeated again and again in ampler form by lawgiver, and teacher, and king, and prophet, and it became the matter of the highest reaches of patriotic eloquence and the burden of the loftiest inspirations of national song. The Messianic hope was the very life of the nation in its greatest days, send the anchor of its faith in the darkest days of humiliation and suffering. And by it the fainting national life was revived and reinvigorated after the deliverance from captivity, and sustained in the conflicts of the Maccabean age and the struggle of the Grecian conquest, and the endurance of the Roman domination. (J. T. Duryea, D. D.) Ezekiel 20:9I wrought for My name’ s sake.The glory of God, His principle of action It is an admitted axiom of all enlightened legislation, that with man as a moral agent human lawmakers have nothing to do; that they must overlook many considerations of natural infirmity and educational bias, to which due weight will nevertheless be given in the merciful estimate of Heaven, confining their attention solely to what will most uphold the majesty of the law, and thus secure “ the greatest good of the greatest number.” Now with some difference in form, this is the very thing which takes place with the great rule of the Divine procedure. What the honour of the law is to earthly govermnents, the honour of His own great name is to Almighty God. Every decree that goes forth from the court of heaven is referred to this one rule. I. Some reasons for this rule of the Divine procedure. The steps of the reasoning, whereby a moral necessity (as it were) is imposed upon God, to consult first the glory of His own name, as distinguished from anything He should see in His creatures, appear to us to be both simple and conclusive. For what is a part of God must have more glory than that which comes from God, seeing that the glory of the one is original and the glory of the other is derived. Another reason to be offered for this rule of the Divine procedure is, that God designs to show to us, that in all the deliverances He has hitherto wrought, or any which He may be expected hereafter to work, He could be influenced by no considerations foreign to Himself: to show that He would put forth or withdraw His arm, according as He did or did not apprehend dishonour would be charged upon the rectitude of His government, or “ His name be polluted in the sight of the heathen, from whom He brought them forth.” We have yet another reason to urge why the glory of His own name should be chosen by God as the governing principle of His administration, in preference to seeking for that governing principle in anything that man does, or in anything that man is: that by so choosing He gives to men themselves the only security they can have, that the administration of heaven shall be free from all inconstancy, from all fluctuation, and from all change. It would not, however, we think, be sufficient that we should merely justify the principle laid down in our text, that in all which God hath done He hath “ wrought for His name’ s sake” ; the solemnity and frequency with which we see it repeated seem to require from us a distinct recognition, that it is designed to exert some direct influence on our faith and practice. And this influence we take to be, that in all our judgments of His ways, and in all our petitions for His help, we should have a uniform regard to that end, which He avows to be the ruling principle of the heavenly administration, namely, the glory of His own name. It is good to give back something of glory, for what hath been so largely bestowed of grace; and on all occasions of perplexity and of doubt which may arise, it will ever afford us comfort in the retrospect, to have known that we acted neither from ourselves, nor for ourselves, but that we “ wrought for His name’ s sake.” There is, however, another reason why we think God so frequently insists on the glory of His own name, as being the ruling principle of His government; and that is, because He would teach us that what is to Him the rule of action should be to us both a measure and a plea of prayer. II. A few observations in evidence of this.1. God had an eye to His glory in the works of creation. It is obvious, that had the necessities of man been the only motive to the Divine beneficence, Deity might have provided for man a less noble theatre for the exercise of his powers, and a less gorgeous home for the place of his rest. His design in creation is to lead us from the seen to the unseen; from the measured to the infinite; from the top of heights, which sense would apprehend and scale, to the loftier pinnacle of “ His own eternal power and Godhead.” 2. God has never lest sight of this great end in the various departments of His providence. It may be true--it must be true--that seeing as we do only a part of our Maker’ s ways, the mere fragments of the stupendous plan, the detached pieces of providence, we shall be prone to ask, Wherein is God’ s name exalted here? But ye must wait to see these pieces of providence put together; ye must wait to see all the wheels and springs of the great Timepiece adjusted and fitted in; and then shall ye find that the most inscrutable act of the Divine administration formed one of the letters of His own great Name. 3. It was with a view to the glory of His own great name that the Creator of all the ends of the earth devised, effectuated, and wrought out the plan of man’ s redemption. (D. Moore, M. A.) The Divine motive of action The conception that Jehovah acts only for His own name’ s sake, to sanctify His great name, is capable of being set in a repellent light. It seems to make the Divine Being egoistic, and His own sense of Himself the source of all His operations. The way too in which He brings the nations to know that He is Jehovah, through judgments mainly, invests the idea with additional harshness. The conception is not found in the earlier prophets, but is familiar in the age of Ezekiel. Perhaps two things, if considered, would help to explain the prophet’ s idea. One is his lofty conception of Jehovah, God alone and over all, and his profound reverence before Him. The “ child of man” cannot conceive the motive of Jehovah’ s operations to be found anywhere but in himself. But that name for whose sake he works is a “ great name” (Ezekiel 36:23) and a “ holy name” (Ezekiel 39:25), it is that of Him who is God. The prophet thinks of Jehovah as one of his predecessors did. “ For Jehovah your God is the God of gods, and Lord of lords, the great God, the mighty and the terrible, which regardeth not persons, nor taketh reward” (Deuteronomy 10:17). And the second thing is this: the conception arose out of the conflicts of the times. There were antagonisms within Israel, and more powerful antagonisms without, between Israel and the nations. The conflicts on the stage of history were but the visible forms taken by a conflict of principles, of religions of Jehovah God with the idolatries of which the nations of the earth were the embodiments. The prophet could not help drawing up this antagonism into his conception of God; and not unnaturally he inflicted his own feeling upon the mind of God, and conceived Him thinking of Himself as he thought of Him. If it was but half a truth, it was perhaps the half needed for the age. When the fulness of time was come, the centre of Divine motive was shifted. God so loved the world, etc. Coming from the bosom of the Father, and knowing Him, the Son’ s mind was altogether absorbed in the positive truth the stream of which was so broad and deep that all antagonisms were buried beneath it. (A. B. Davidson, D. D.) Ezekiel 20:12I gave them My Sabbaths. The practical duties of the Christian Sabbath Let two remarks be premised. We enforce not the duties of the Jewish but of the Christian Sabbath. Everything in the Christian Sabbath is tender and considerate on the one hand, everything is spiritual and elevated on the other; and is, in both views, adapted to the real state and exigencies of our nature, under the last and most perfect dispensation of religion. But then the determination of what is really spiritual, of what is really for the welfare of man, of what ale the real duties and employments of the day, must be taken from the Scriptures themselves, and not from the opinions, much less from the inclinations and fashions, of a corrupt world. I. Keep ever in view the great end of the institution--which is to be a visible sign of the covenant between God and us, and a principal means of that sanctification which it is one object of that covenant to produce. What an exalted end and design of the institution! Sanctification is the work of God’ s Holy Spirit by His secret but effectual influences upon the heart, separating man from the love and service of sin, and turning him to God and holiness. And how important is the thought, that the design of the Almighty in sanctifying and hallowing a day of Sabbath was that man, His moral and accountable creature, might be sanctified and dedicated by means of it--that the external consecration of the season ends in the internal consecration of the heart of man to his Creator and Redeemer! We awake to the true importance of the institution when we feel our fallen and sinful state, when we receive the covenant of grace as proposed in the Gospel, when we seek to be sanctified, body, soul, and spirit, to be the Lord’ s. A Divine life infused into the soul of man--a perception of the nature and excellency of spiritual things--a view of the glory and majesty of the great Redeemer--a reliance upon His death and resurrection--a dependence upon the influence of His Holy Spirit--these bring the Sabbath and the human heart together. II. The public and private duties of it.1. The public exercise; of God’ s worship, and the fellowship of Christians with each other in common acts of prayer and praise, are the leading business of this holy season. 2. The care of our families must not, however, be neglected, whilst we first discharge our public duties. 3. The private and personal duties must prepare for and succeed the public and domestic. 4. The duties of the Christian Sabbath extend to our dependents--to “ the stranger within our gates” --to all over whom we have any natural influence--and even to the irrational creatures who subserve our comfort, and whose repose is commanded both for their own sakes and to render more completely practical the duty of religious rest enjoined upon man, their lord. III. In order to keep holy the Lord’ s day, we must carry the true spirit of the Christian dispensation into these duties. We must not celebrate a Jewish but a Christian festival. We must imbibe that spirit of rest and delight in God, that sense of refreshment and repose, in His more immediate service, which the liberty of the Gospel breathes, and without some degree of which we can never discharge these duties aright. Can any picture be more inviting than that of a family, a neighbourhood, a parish, honouring the day of God with cheerful and grateful hearts--meditating on that sanctification which is the great design of the day of rest--filling up its hours with the various and important exercises of public and private devotion--and imbuing every act of duty with the Christian temper, with the filial spirit--the spirit not “ of bondage again to fear, but the spirit of adoption, crying, Abba, Father” ? IV. Especially glorify God for those mighty blessings which are appointed to be commemorated on the Lord’ s day--Creation, Redemption, Heaven. (D. Wilson, M. A.) The national observance of the Sabbath day; its deep importance and present peril I. Its bearing on the health and the enjoyment of the community. Man was not made, even in Paradise, to be idle; and if even there wholesome toil contributed to keep his happiness from stagnating and corrupting, how much more is toil a merciful provision for man in his fallen lot! There is perhaps as much mercy in the institution that “ six days we shall labour and do all that we have to do,” as in the institution that on the seventh day we shall “ do no manner of work.” But whilst labour in moderation is thus beneficial for man, incessant toil would infallibly tend at once to break the spirit, to degrade the mind, to ruin the health, and to curtail the life. It would at the same time have a fearful and melancholy influence on social enjoyment, on the domestic circle, on the mutual endearments and reciprocal kindly sentiments that constitute so much of the stream of earthly happiness. How gracious, therefore, and how merciful, in its bearing merely on the physical strength and health, and upon the general individual and social and domestic enjoyment of the mass of the people, is that provision of a gracious Father, who, in giving us all our time for our daily labour, yet reserved a seventh to be kept holy to Himself, in which we should rest from every toil, and the master and the servant, and the sovereign and the subject, and the brute beast of the field that serves man, should all together, unyoked and disburdened from labour and from care, exult and rejoice in the freedom and the liberty with which God hath blessed them! II. Its bearing upon the kindly feelings and the mutual charities of the nation in which it is observed. How much depends upon the internal magnetic attraction and influence of kindliness and benevolence and mutual good will! If you could take out from the community all that tends to soften mutual asperity and knit heart to heart, all that tends to make the poor man feel a sense of honest independence accompanied with unfeigned humility, and the rich man to feel that his external condition is as nothing in comparison with the moral distinction that differences one intelligent being from another--who can tell what would be the frightful result? But how beautifully does the Sabbath day prove the medium of the circulation of kindly and tender feelings! Much as the day is broken, and often as it is spent in savage and in sensual scenes, yet nevertheless it does wonderfully tend, with its balmy hebdomadal influence, to calm ruffled spirits, to allay feverish anxieties, and to soften petulant and foolish tempers. III. Its bearing upon the morality and the religion of the people. Take away that one purchase, on which rests all the spiritual and moral machinery in the land--let that be gone, and the whole moral and religious machinery in the land falls rapidly to pieces, because it has no fixed ground, no standing point on which to be placed. It cannot go on; it must suffer disturbance, disorganisation, and rapid destruction. Let there be no national Sabbath; where were our Sabbath ceremonies? Let there be no national Sabbath; in vain almost would our houses of prayer be thrown open, and the bell that used to sweetly tell the day of rest was come send out its notes, drowned amid the din and the uproar of the never-checked deluge of worldly anxiety, tumult, conflict and struggle, gathering fresh force and fury because the only barrier that at all checked their onward progress was withdrawn, and rushing headlong on without an obstacle to impede their current. IV. Its bearing on the favour of God towards a people. I look upon the Sabbath, in its national observance, as the most direct and plain and palpable index of a nation’ s relationship towards God. It is (if we may so speak) the standard of heaven waving from the battlements of our national Zion, and telling that this great people recognise God, and in testimony and tribute of their loyalty they pay Him that which is His own, and give Him the seventh of their time, secured to Him by whom their sovereign reigns and on whom all their blessings depend. And as the observance of the Sabbath by the nation is an outward and visible sign of their fealty and fidelity to God, so is it an outward and visible sign of God’ s gracious faithfulness and love towards them. While that broad seal, therefore, remains intact and unbroken, how confidently may the people rest upon God! V. The growing difficulties of maintaining the observance of the sabbath day and at the same time the growing importance of maintaining it in our land.1. We find in the spread of infidel sentiment and spirit in the land, a fearful source of difficulty to the maintenance of the due observance of the Sabbath day. 2. The latitudinarian and unhallowed speculation indulged in by many who bear the name of Christian, and sanctioned and smiled at by others, who ought to raise the voice of holy and wholesome reprobation. 3. The increasing excitements and the increasing facilities for the violation of the holy day. 4. The lamentable spiritual destitution of masses of our people, and the consequent spiritual ignorance, utter demoralisation, and absolute barbarism which exist throughout wildernesses of human beings in this baptized and nominally Christian country. VI. The growing importance of maintaining the observance of the sabbath day in our land. (H. Stowell, M. A.) The Sabbath day I. The Sabbath is of universal and perpetual obligation. II. It has its own peculiar employments: “ Hallow My Sabbaths.” They are to be days of rest from labour, and refreshment for the soul. Let them be sacred days; devote them to the praise and cause and glory of God. III. There was a most blessed design in its institution: “ Hallow My Sabbaths; and they shall be a sign,” etc.1. They were to be a sign between God and His people--a sign more frequently brought before them than the bow in the clouds. That told they should not be destroyed; but this tells of eternal life--is a type and symbol of the Sabbath of rest in His everlasting kingdom. 2. Another design mentioned is the edification and instruction of His people, “ that ye may know that I am the Lord.” (G. Phillips, M. A.) The Sabbath a sign between God and His people I. How properly the sabbath is a sign of the true God. II. The institution of it is of the greatest use and advantage to man, considered under what respect and circumstances soever. III. What is meant by “ hallowing the sabbath,” or in what manner we are to observe it, so as to answer the end of its institution, so as to reap the advantages which were proposed by it.1. To hallow the Sabbath is to set it apart to God’ s honour and service; and, of course, implies that we should abstain from all the ordinary employments of life, from all such things as would be apt to debase our minds, and hinder them from fixing upon heavenly objects. 2. We should, this day above all, make Him the constant subject of our thoughts and our desires, of our prayers and of our praises. We should meditate upon His nature and His attributes, His Word and His works; and particularly upon those two grand instances of the Divine power and goodness which the institution itself, more especially, directs us to commemorate--the creation of the world, and the redemption of mankind. IV. To neglect paying God so easy a tribute as one day out of seven must at least imply a forgetfulness of our obligations; as that must, necessarily, imply ingratitude. Shall we grudge the seventh day to His use, when He hath, so freely, allowed us the other six for our own? Shall we refuse so small a part of our time to Him, who had so just a right to the whole? (D. Lloyd.) The Sabbath needed by man Those who have served a battery upon the battlefield tell us that, at intervals, they are forced to pause, that the guns may cool, and that the smoke may lift to furnish accurate aim; yes, and because ammunition is exhausted. No Christian can fight the battle of the week without the quiet Sabbath to cool off his guns. He needs repose of soul. He wants heavenly breezes to lift the earth-lowering shadows. He must replenish his store from the secret place of prayer and meditation. (E. J. Haynes.) Ezekiel 20:25I gave them also statutes that were not good, and judgments whereby they should not live.The judgment of invincible ignorance These words have often formed the ground of infidel cavils, and therefore require perhaps to be explained; also they open up to us a very important subject, namely, that of our responsibility to God, not only for our actions, but for our opinions. There is a great tendency now to consider that moral guilt can hardly be incurred by a purely intellectual act. It is assumed by the majority that no alarm need he felt about the future life on the score of a man’ s principles. If he is mistaken in his ideas of right and wrong, truth and falsehood, his mistake, it is urged, will not injure him. Now we believe the tenour of Scripture to be opposed to this. It distinctly states that the thoughts of the heart and the words of the mouth shall be brought into judgment; and it speaks of false opinions on points of religion as strongly as of unrighteous actions. Ezekiel announces a very solemn judgment of God upon those who refuse truth. The chiefs of the nation are before the prophet, requiring to know how God might be propitiated, so as to bring them again to their country and their homes. “ Then,” it is written, “ came the word of the Lord to Ezekiel.” Suddenly, yet perceptibly to himself and them, the Eternal Spirit entered into him, so that the words he spake were no longer his own. Possessed by this awful Indweller, he recapitulates the history of the Jews from the beginning; their repeated sins, God’ s reiterated forgiveness; their falls, their chastisements, their restoration to favour. Amongst these mingled visitations of wrath and mercy is described that on which we propose now to dwell.1. It has been supposed by some that the statutes and judgments here alluded to were those of the Mosaic Law, and that in describing them as statutes not good, the Almighty designed to express their deficiency, as contrasted with the Gospel system, in future times to be made known. A short consideration, however, of the context will show that this theory is unsound, and at the same time explain the real meaning of the text. God having first promulgated to the Israelites laws of life, upon their indifference to these gave them laws of death; and the general principle here involved is, that the punishment of transgressing or refusing holy laws is to have unholy laws assigned us. If we will reject truth we shall be caused to take falsehood for our guide. If a man have truth proposed for his acceptance, and reject it; if he turn away through carelessness, or shut his heart through perverseness of will to the truth as it is in Jesus, what we should most fear for such an one is not famine, or pestilence, or sword. There is a more terrible vial still than these in the treasury of God. Of those who having ears hear not, the punishment would appear to be, that eventually the capacity of understanding shall be taken from them. We cannot, of course, in any particular case pronounce whether the curse of invincible ignorance has been poured out, and the veil drawn finally over the heart; but we urge it upon yea as strong ground for never playing with your convictions, or shutting your souls against the voice of instruction. 2. But now we can imagine that many and great objections present themselves to your minds in connection with the foregoing doctrine. Is this, you ask, agreeable to the goodness and justice of the Deity? Can it be reconciled with His attributes, that He should thus, at any period of human life, take away the power of belief, and Himself blind the soul and make dull the heart? Now let us pause for a moment upon the nature of God’ s punishment, so far as we may discover it. We may trace one grand principle pervading and colouring all the visitations of Divine vengeance; the principle is this, that the punishment should in its quality bear a resemblance to the sin. Adam and Eve, presuming to eat the fruit of the tree of good and evil, were debarred access to the tree of life. Jacob, deceiving his father Isaac, was in his turn deceived by his own sons. And it is not difficult to perceive why this should be. The punishment of sin is to preach against sin. How much more striking this preaching becomes when the penalty inflicted is of a sort to call to remembrance the precise iniquity of which it is the penalty. Now, if this be correct, the particular judgment spoken of in the text is just what we might expect would overtake those who will not when they may amend their opinions and embrace the truth. If the sin be to resist truth, what should the penalty be but the being incapacitated from embracing truth? (Bishop Woodford.) Ezekiel 20:32 We will be as the heathen. The paganism of the heart I. As an evil to which the godly are liable.1. The force of early habits. The spirit of self-indulgence and sensualism was the first spirit that animated us all. Its death requires time. Hence in unguarded moods it comes up again. 2. The force of social influence. In our industries, recreations, our literature and institutions, the spirit of Paganism breathes in all, and it tends to possess us of itself. 3. The force of satanic agency. The devil’ s great wish is that men should endeavour to get their “ bread” --their happiness--out of “ stones.” II. As an evil against which the godly should struggle.1. By the growth of heavenly sentiments.2. By closer fellowship with the Divine.3. By a moral conquest over spiritual foes.4. By a translation into the heavenly world. (Homilist.) A vain imagination The Jewish people had grown tired of Jehovah’ s service. Whatever its advantages and its righteousness, it was irksome, tedious, and severe. Other nations had not the same restrictions and the same punishments. “ Look,” they said, “ at the people who serve idols, they have no law to fetter their inclinations and limit their pleasures, while on every side we are hedged in and forbidden and punished heavily if we transgress. Let us give up Jehovah’ s service and be as other nations are, do as they do, and find the same freedom and enjoyment.” All this is very natural, and is constantly recurring. Many feel as the Jews felt. Religion’ s ways have become tiresome to them. They compare their lives with the lives of men of the world, and they seem to suffer from the comparison. We meet with the same thing in the realm of intellectual experience. Men give up religion, they tell us, to escape from the mental anxieties that have troubled them; to escape from the strife of sects, the clamour and conflict of opinions. The vanity of such a spirit and of such conduct is the subject of the text. “ It shall not be at all.” Utter disappointment is almost inevitable. Why? I. Because the thought of their minds is opposed to the principles of their nature and the facts of their history. The Jewish people spoke in denial and forgetfulness of their own condition. They assumed what was impossible, namely, that they could dismiss and annihilate all the past, and bow down before gods of wood and stone, and enter upon a course of unregulated enjoyment, with a satisfaction equal to theirs who had never known Jehovah and His holy law. It could not be. There is no river of forgetfulness in which men can bathe. We may think as they did, but “ it shall not be at all,” for--1. We have an enlightened conscience, and that will prevent it. What others call pleasure would be to us sin--sin against God. 2. We have the memory of better things, and that will prevent it. The heathen knew nothing better than his heathenism. The Jew could look back, was often compelled to look back, upon much that made his fallen position hateful. We turn from religion, but bitter memories remain to us. 3. We bring to it the knowledge of Divine truth, and that will prevent it. Truth once imparted and received cannot be wholly lost. It will live, and often present itself to trouble the soul. This applies specially to those who turn to superstitious courses. There is something significant in the expression “ to serve wood and stone.” It seems to intimate that to the Jew, with his knowledge, the gods of heathenism could never be anything better. A man who loses his sight by disease or accident can never equal in cheerfulness and in free unembarrassed movement a man who was born blind. No more can those who have known religious truth and religious experiences be equal with those who have never risen above the world, and whose lives throughout have been shadowed by error and falsehood. II. Because it is subject to the counteracting operations of the great God. There are two ways in which God defeats the thought of their minds.1. By His correcting providences. The afflictions, losses, bereavements, sorrows of life. 2. By His pursuing love. By His Spirit making memory a living picture of the better past. Learn--1. The weakness and littleness of fallen human nature. Men who have tested the heavenly manna can yet turn from it to the coarsest food. 2. The safeguards against such a spirit. Ponder the truth here asserted. Patient, earnest work; the cultivation of a cheerful, joyous frame; the glorious future. 3. The folly and evil of such conduct. And if it has been yours, come back to Christ at once. (William Perkins.) Men endeavouring to be like the heathen I. The illustration of the text on the history of the people. The Israelites had the most distinguished privileges. No other nation had a history like theirs. It was the history of Divine interpositions, manifestations, and revelations. No other nation had such statutes and laws. They had heard the blast of the trumpet which no earthly lips could have blown. No other nation had such songs; they were the odes in which they rehearsed in their homes and in the sanctuary God’ s wonderful dealings with their race, so that the history of the past was perpetuated. God had a local residence in their midst. He had His palace and His court. The symbol of the Divine presence dwelt between the outstretched wings of the cherubim, and as the worshipper bowed down he could almost see the veil of the temple wave, as if by the presence of Him who dwelt in the Holy of Holies. The God of Israel had His altars and sacrifices, His ministers and priests. Other nations had their gods, but they had never at any time heard their voice; there had been no manifestations of their power and glory. Others nations had their sacrifices, but no fire had ever come down from heaven on their altars. Idolatry was perpetuated by the heathen; they made no change in their gods. It mattered not how uncouth and grim the idol, it was not exchanged for another. It mattered not how revolting and debasing the superstition, it was perpetuated. The Israelites sought to extinguish the last ray of Divine light, to obliterate the last traces of the Divine law, to silence the faint echoes of the Divine voice which yet lingered around them. They sought to become as “ the heathen, and as the families of the countries, that worshipped wood and stone.” But God said, “ That which cometh unto your mind shall not be at all.” He interposed to prevent this fearful consummation. He visited them with chastisement upon chastisement. The Jews are the aristocracy of Scripture without their coronets. They are like a river running through the deep sea, but never mingling with its waters. They are yet separate and distinct, thus proving the truth of the text. II. The application of the great principle contained in the text to yourselves. Our privileges are greater than those of the Israelites, so that we may even say that the past “ had no glory by reason of the glory that excelleth.” There has been a manifestation of God; but it has been in the flesh. There has been a sacrifice for sin, of which all other sacrifices were but the prefiguration. There has been a diviner Pentecost; for the Holy Ghost rent the heavens and came down. There has been a more glorious Gospel; for we have a Gospel of facts. The truth is the highest and divinest power in the world, and has authority over men. All human laws and polities may change, the world may be burnt up to its last cinder, the heavens may pass away with a great noise; but the truth is eternal--it can never pass away. It is the light; it illumines or blinds: it is the fire; it softens or hardens: it is the power that saves or destroys; it is either “ life unto life or death unto death.” Men cannot believe the truth if they have never heard it; but we cannot justify our unbelief through our want of acquaintance with the truth. With what authority it comes to us! The truth overawes you, and, unconsciously it may be, you do partial homage to it, but you have no true affinity with it; your heart returns no response to its voice; you do not want to believe. There is an awful power in man by which lie comes into collision with God, by which he puts an affront on the truth, and refuses to believe or obey it. Men would change all things, they would change the true into the untrue. The truth is as though it were untrue to them. They would have no law with its majestic sanctions and awful penalties. They would have no everlasting distinction between right and wrong. They would have no Gospel with its Saviour and its Cross--with its blessed words of promise and of hope for guilty men. Man’ s unbelief is his protest against truth. It is the manifestation of the disloyalty of his whole nature to the truth. Men may let go their hold on the truth, but the truth does not let go its hold on them. If a man has stood on an exceeding high mountain, and has seen the grand panorama unfold itself to his view, can he ever forget it? If he has seen the sea when the tempest has passed over it and the floods have lifted up their hands, can he ever forget it? And can a man who has heard the truth ever forget it? It is graven on his memory as in characters of eternal fire--he can never divest himself of the associations and recollections of truth. God interposes to prevent the utter apostasy of nations and of men. “ And I will bring you into the wilderness of the people,” etc. We have been brought into the wilderness--into the scene of utter desolation--we have been stript of everything, and in fearful silence God has come to us and pleaded with us. And what has been the character of His pleadings? Has He upbraided us--has He threatened us with terrible punishment? We were silent, and we heard Him say, “ Come now, and let us reason together.” We had no excuses, no arguments, but to our utter amazement He said, “ Though your sins be as scarlet,” etc. Or we have been sent into captivity, a foe mightier than the Chaldean has led us away, and there in the deep degradation and fearful servitude of sin, our eyes have been opened to our folly and wickedness. We have thought of the past, and its remembrance has awakened the bitterest regrets. Our responsibilities are proportionate to our privileges. (H. J. Boris.) Religious obligations irrevocable It is taken for granted by many that persons are not under any obligation to act religiously if they do not profess to be religious. Some such thought as this came into the minds of the people to whom the text refers. They disliked the service of the God of Israel, and thought they should get free from it by laying aside the name and profession of Israelites, and by becoming like the heathen. What base ingratitude was this. The Lord had separated them, in order that they might be His own peculiar people; and as such He had wrought for them the greatest wonders, and enriched them with the highest privileges (Isaiah 5:1; Deuteronomy 4:32; Romans 9:4; Exodus 4:22). The thought was ungrateful, deeply ungrateful; but it was as foolish as it was ungrateful. It was utterly vain, for it could not be realised. They could not reduce themselves to the exact level of the heathen; they might become idolaters; but it was impossible for them to “ be as the” Gentiles in respect to their responsibilities. And should the like thought come into the mind of any Christian--should he wish to make no profession of religion, but to be on a level with a mere natural man, to have no higher calling, no greater duties, no mightier obligations; he must be taught the vanity of such a wish; he must be told that the thing cannot be. No, we are in covenant with Christ, bound by the terms of that covenant, and we cannot, if we would, free ourselves from them. We are members of His Church, and not mere natural men, left to the light of reason and the promptings of human passion; and therefore as members of His Church, and not as mere natural men, we shall be judged. And if such a thought on our part is as vain as it was on the part of the Jews, is it not on our part equally ungrateful? We can look back on a series of mercies, more wonderful than that which marked out the history of Israel. We have been redeemed at a more costly price than that which redeemed their lives from destruction in the land of Egypt; we have been baptized with a holier baptism than that which they received in the cloud and in the sea; more heavenly food has been offered for our support than the manna on which they fed in the wilderness; a richer stream follows us in our journey than that which flowed from the rock in Horeb; and a far more glorious inheritance awaits us than their promised land, which flowed with milk and honey. Is there nothing in all tiffs to bind us in willing subjection to our Master and only Saviour Jesus Christ? (G. Bellett.) The impossibility of becoming as the heathen There is, perhaps, no subject on which has been lavished so much of lofty thought and splendid expression as on the immortality of the soul, considered as an article of what is called natural theology. And yet we must feel that these endeavours to establish the immortality of the soul apart from the Bible are at best unsatisfactory: they rather leave its immortality as a splendid conjecture than place it as an established fact. The soul may be capable of an immortality, but God may not choose to allow it to be immortal. He formed it; He can annihilate it. Who can tell? how can reason inform us whether He will be pleased to extinguish the soul at or after death, or whether He will permit and appoint it to burn forever as a spark from Himself? It is here that we are in darkness without the Bible; it is here that natural theology must give place to revealed. Reason shows us that the soul may live forever; Scripture alone certifies us that the soul shall live forever, even as Scripture alone instructs us how the soul may be happy forever. For a moment, and as introductory to our text, we would comment on one species of argument which has been freely adduced in support of the immortality of the soul, but which, however it may dazzle the imagination, possesses, we suspect, but little real strength. It is often confidently said that the soul shrinks from annihilation as from that which it instinctively abhors--that it loudly lifts up its voice against the notion of perishing with the body, and, by the earnestness with which it craves immortality, attests in a measure that it is not to die. We altogether question this. So far from a natural shrinking from annihilation, we believe that as to the great mass of men we might rather assert the natural wish for annihilation. I do not know why all men should shrink from the supposition of the soul’ s perishing with the body; I see the strongest reasons why they should incline to the supposition, and wish even if they cannot prove it to be true. There are crowds of genuine Christians who virtually go far beyond the Israelites, whose wicked wish or purpose is recorded in our text. The Israelites longed to be “ as the heathen, as the families of the countries, to serve wood and stone.” The people, you see, had so sinned against God, and they held His service in such utter loathing, that they would have been glad to forget it altogether, and to diminish their responsibleness by lapsing into the ignorance of actual idolaters. But this it is which God assures them can never be. Having known the true God, it was impossible they could be dealt with as though they had never known any but the false god. Wilful ignorance can never put a man in the same position as unavoidable ignorance; and if you attend to the statements of Scripture you will see that we are to be reckoned with hereafter for every talent committed to our care. Whether we have misused it, or whether we have let it go idle, the mere fact that we had it is to constitute an important item in our future account. Born in a Christian country, baptized with Christian baptism, placed under a Christian ministry, we are all immeasurably removed from unavoidable ignorance. Take a number of colonists,--transfer them to some distant land, where there are no temples but those of false gods: the colony thus transplanted may learn the ways of the heathen, adopt their superstitions, and bow at their altars; but think ye that therefore the birth and the baptism and the Christian institutions retain no effect? The heathen may teach the colonists their vices, and even convert them to their superstitions, and men who left their own country with some sense of awe of the God of their fathers may utterly forget Him in the strange land to which they have wandered for a home, in place of endeavouring to make Him known to their new and ignorant associates; they may dishonour His name by even exceeding the heathen in licentiousness, teaching and being taught new forms and measures of iniquity; but this is the sum of the change which can be wrought; there is no possibility of the colony getting rid of that vast and portentous accountableness which has been fastened on itself by its adhesion to Christian privileges and Christian rites. Will you say there is nothing in this supposed case of a colony to touch your own case? You are never likely to desire or design, you may tell me, what has been imagined. Not so; for we would now observe that it is no uncommon hope, that of wilful ignorance passing for unavoidable ignorance, and no uncommon endeavour that of occupying the position of those who have fewer moral advantages than ourselves. Take a very common instance. How many keep away from the sacrament of the Lord’ s supper because secretly conscious that the receiving it pledges them to increased holiness of life, and certainly hoping that their sins will be more excusable whilst they do not partake of so solemn an ordinance! They neglect the holy communion, partly at least under the notion that the sins which they love and do not wish to abandon are less criminal and less dangerous in non-communicants than in those who obey Christ’ s dying command--“ This do in remembrance of Me.” But what is this, if not almost literally what was meditated by the Israelites in our text? Here is the hope, on the part of those who know of the sacrament, of being dealt with as those who never heard of the sacrament. Preposterous hope! It is the Israelite thinking that he may be as the heathen. He dies innocently who dies in actual want; he dies by suicide who starves himself with a meal within reach. “ That which cometh into your mind shall not be at all, that ye say, We will be as the heathen.” There is, we believe, a yet more common endeavour to the getting rid of the responsibility which results from the possession of opportunities and advantages. Think ye not that many a man avoids reading the Bible, and putting himself in the way of knowing the exact truth in regard of his spiritual condition, under the impression, perhaps hardly acknowledged even to himself, that he is safer in his ignorance--that he shall escape with a lighter judgment if he remain uninformed as to his precise danger and duty? What gains he, what can he gain, by his wilful, his premeditated ignorance? Does he think--can he be so infatuated as to think--that truth, to which he shuts his eyes, is the same thing, the same in its accusing power, the same in its condemning power, as truth which has never been revealed? Does he think, can he think, that by living in a darkened room--a room which he has shut up and darkened of his own will and by his own act--he will have no more to answer for than those to whom God has never vouchsafed the beauty and the magnificence of the sunshine? Vain thoughts! vain thoughts! Know all of you, that live you may as those who shall perish at death, but judged you must be as those who were told their immortality. Live you may as pagans--judged you must be as Christians. Never can you pass the broad line of separation between the wilful and the unavoidable. Since, then, we must be judged as Christians, shall we not strive that we may be accepted as Christians? If an unimproved privilege must be an everlasting burden, here is fresh motive to the endeavouring so to use it that it may prove an everlasting blessing. (H. Melvill, B. D.) Our obligation to serve God I. We cannot, if we would, escape from the service of God. We are now, as Israel of old, instructed in His will by His word. If we dislike what we there learn to be our duty, there is no help for it. It will continue to be our duty nevertheless; and we shall be made to answer for non-performance. We may, by carelessness, or obstinate rejection of the Word, very much confuse our recollection of what we already know, and shut ourselves out from the attainment of any further knowledge; but we shall never be able to make our minds quite like a sheet of blank paper, clear from any notion of religion. The behaviour and conversation of his neighbours, the very sight of the house of prayer, which he has studied God’ s commandments, he knows well enough that he has offended against them in many and glaring instances. He may keep them at bay when he is in high health and spirits, when his affairs prosper, and when he is surrounded by companions, ready to encourage him in his impiety. But what will he do when infirmity or sickness comes upon him? when misfortune has deprived him of all the worldly goods wherein he trusted; and when his friends have either deserted him, or been taken from him by some such visitation as shall make him tremble for his own safety? In times like these he will feel that. God is ruling over him with fury poured out. It will be well if he has grace to seek for refuge from that wrath where refuge may be found, through faith, attended by repentance and amendment of life. God’ s dispensations will all be good to those that use them rightly; they will all be evil to those that do not receive them as from His hand. His chastisements will become mercies to those who undergo them with a penitent and obedient heart; His gifts will be turned into curses to those that revel in them without acknowledging the Giver. II. All these evils are entirely brought upon men by their own hardness of heart. Will it be said that men ought to have had a choice whether they would have a revelation made to them or no; and that, not having been allowed such a choice beforehand, they ought now to be permitted to renounce religion if they please, and become unbelievers? That would be to pronounce the most precious gift that God has ever made to mankind, a gift purchased by the blood of His Son, to be of no value. The very desire of such liberty is a sin of the deepest dye. It is a refusal of the advice and admonition of God, and amounts to charging Him with folly and tyranny, as though He gave us commands not calculated for our benefit. For if we believe that His laws are for our good, how can we doubt that it is good for us to know them and to de them? And nobody does doubt it, but they whose hearts are enslaved to sin, and alienated from all that is holy and upright and godly. The wish, then, to be released from the obligation of God’ s laws is practical atheism. III. The impossibility of withdrawing from the obligations which our Christian covenant imposes on us need not alarm any truly pious mind. God will judge the heathen as well as us His chosen people; and though He will require more of us than He will of them, in just proportion to our greater advantages, yet the knowledge and power communicated to us more than compensate for the greater perfection and precision of the work expected from us. We have served a regular apprenticeship of Christian education; the designs and will of God, our employer, are fully made known to us; and we may seek for instruction from Him at any time in His Word, and for assistance from His Holy Spirit. It is no more than justice that much should be required of us, to whom so much has been given. (J. Randall, M. A.) Ezekiel 20:35I will bring you into the wilderness of the people, and there will I plead with you face to face.The spiritual wilderness Many awful threatenings and delightful promises are scattered up and down in the Word of God. Our text seems to be of a mixed nature: the threatening and the promise are blended together, to excite a holy fear of God and a humble trust in Him. I. “ I will bring you into the wilderness of the people?”1. God often brings His people into the wilderness gradually, by little and little. The terrors and dangers of the wilderness are concealed; slight convictions are at first impressed which afterwards grow stronger; small rumblings precede the loud claps of thunder; sometimes the clouds seem to break, and promise fair weather; then they grow thicker, and wear a more formidable aspect than ever. 2. The Lord brings them in with an high hand and an outstretched arm, as He did the children of Israel of old. However gently He may act, yet He acts powerfully, and the greatest mildness is attended with an irresistible energy. We may be fretful and impatient, unruly and unmanageable; but He who has taken the work in hand will not leave it unfinished. We may stifle our convictions, but God will revive them; may lull conscience asleep, but He will awaken it again. 3. God brings into the wilderness with a design to bring out of it again (Isaiah 57:16-18; Lamentations 3:32; Hosea 6:1-2). II. “ And there will I plead with you face to face.” He does not say that He would plead against them, nor yet that He would plead for them; but He would plead with them, and that face to face, so that they should both see and hear Him. And what would He plead with them about? Perhaps the sins they had committed, and the calamities thereby brought upon themselves. He will also plead the equity of His own proceedings, and the unreasonableness of their conduct. He also pleads with them on the futility of their attempts to help themselves, and the necessity of looking to another quarter for relief (Jeremiah 3:17; Jeremiah 3:31; Jeremiah 3:36; Jeremiah 8:22).1. He pleads powerfully. How forcible are right words, says Job. And such are the words of God: they are founded upon truth, plain and direct, and carry with them an irresistible energy. 2. He pleads convincingly. God will overcome when He judgeth. When He is opponent, no man can be respondent. 3. He pleads tenderly and in love; His appeals are made to the understanding and the heart, and an ingenuous mind must feel their force (Micah 6:3; Isaiah 1:18). What has been said condemns three sorts of persons-- (1) Those who have always been in the wilderness of sin, but not in that of sorrow; who are merry and jovial, saying, “ Tomorrow shall be as this day, and much more abundant.” (2) Those who think they are in the wilderness of godly sorrow, but who mistake every transient pang for real conviction, and every motion of the affections for the work of the Holy Spirit on the heart. (3) Those who are in the wilderness, and struggling to get out of it before the Lord’ s time. It is better to be in the wilderness than in Egypt; yea, it is better, unspeakably better, to be in the wilderness, though we continue there all our days, than to be in hell. (B. Beddome, M. A.) God’ s tireless pleading Manton says: “ As one that would gladly open a door, trieth key after key, till he hath tried every key, in the bunch, so doth God try one method after another to work upon man’ s heart.” His persevering grace will not be baffled. He frequently begins with the silver key of a mother’ s tearful prayers and a father’ s tender counsels. In turn He uses the church keys of His ordinances and His ministers, and these are often found to move the bolt; but if they fail He thrusts in the iron key of trouble and affliction, which has been known to succeed after all others have failed. He has, however, a golden master key, which excels all others: it is the operation of His own most gracious Spirit by which entrance is effected into hearts which seemed shut up forever. (C. H. Spurgeon.) Ezekiel 20:37I will bring you into the bond of the covenant.The bond of the covenant This striking utterance was given forth by Ezekiel when Israel, scattered in every country, had begun to forget their nationality. They judged it prudent to disguise their distinctive character, and become like the heathen. Now, God, who chose His people of old, would not have it so, and He interposed with this striking passage. It is a dreadful thing to profess to belong to the people of God: it is a matter of great privilege if it is true, but if it is a lie it is an awful thing, involving sevenfold judgment. God will cause His professing people to be distinguished from other men, and they that come in among them who are not truly of them shall be so dealt with that both the ears of him that heareth thereof shall tingle. Special severities will overtake apostate professors. I. The meaning of bringing men into the bond of the covenant.1. If we take the passage as referring to the work of grace, it signifies that they shall know under what covenant they stand. Oh, the blessedness of being under such a sure covenant! This is what is aimed at, that God may bring His own from under the law, and place them under the covenant of grace. Though as yet they care nothing about it, He will bring them to know and realise that they are standing in the covenant of grace, with Christ as their Covenant-Head. 2. They shall be led to see how this covenant binds them to God. O mighty grace, thou dost hold us with the cords of a man from which we never desire to escape. We are the Lord’ s people, and He is our God. He holds us, and we hold to Him. 3. To come under the bond of the covenant means also to come under the discipline of the covenant; for they that are in gracious covenant with God will find that He dealeth with them as with sons, and, inasmuch as He loves them, they shall know the truth of that word--“ As many as I love I rebuke and chasten.” 4. This coming under the bond of the covenant means surely that they yield to its restraint. Can grace ever be a fetter? Oh yes, it is the most blessed of all fetters, for it holds us fast, and yet never violates our liberty. It binds the very heart in willing captivity. This is the bond of the covenant. 5. It means also the security of the covenant. “ I will bring thee under the bond of the covenant,” must mean, I will bind thee to the Lord Jesus, thy Surety and Bondsman, and He shall secure thee forever. II. The experience of some in coming under the bond of the covenant. These Israelites had gone very far into sin, as Jar as ever they could go: they had been false to their promises, wicked in their lives, and rebellious in heart against their God. With many of this character the Lord deals with a singular severity of love. He strikes them with a sword, for so only can their sins be slain. Of those processes of grace we will speak now.1. First, He will cause them to come out from their present company. You shall find in your old sins such death and corruption that you shall turn from them as a man turns, from a rotting carcase. 2. Note next, that God said He would bring them into distress and loneliness--“ And I will bring you into the wilderness of the people.” This is, indeed, a terrible wilderness; for you walk in the midst of crowds and yet you are perfectly alone; you mingle with the great congregation, and yet feel that none can enter into your secret, Where now your mirth and giddiness? Where now your comrades in iniquity? The Lord can soon make the gay worldling into the desponding solitary. 3. What does He say next?--“ And there will I plead with you face to face.” When the Lord becomes so realised to the guilty conscience that there seems to be nothing anywhere except God and that poor sinner face to face with one another, then there is a time of fear and trembling indeed. 4. The Lord further declares He will plead with them as He pleaded with their fathers in the wilderness. How did He do that? Why, very terribly indeed. Is God pleading with you in that fashion? Does He bring judgment after judgment upon you? Do His threatenings follow each other like peals of thunder? Has He burned up all your comfort? Has He scorched and withered all your confidence? Are you brought unto the dust of death? 5. What more does God do? Well, it is said, “ And I will cause you to pass under the rod.” I have frequently seen sheep when the shepherd has required to count them: he makes them pass through a half-opened gate, and there he numbers them. They would all come rushing through, but the shepherd blocks the way, and as they come out one by one, he touches them with his staff, and so counts them. The Lord makes His chosen to pass through a narrow place, even a strait gate, where only one can come at a time, and there and then He counts them, and causes them to give an account of themselves individually. Then mark this: as the shepherd by counting his own sheep declares and exercises his right of possession, so the Lord, when He wakens up our minds to feel our personality, causes us to recognise that we are not our own, but are bought with a price. Moreover, we come under the rod of rulership; for a rod in the old time was the usual sceptre of kings. It means, also, the rod of chastisement. “ Happy is the man whom God correcteth.” III. The ultimate design of all this.1. The first design is to bind them to God. All the better crop comes in afterlife from having a deep ploughing before the seed is sown. 2. The next design of God is that He may entirely separate His people from the world. When God makes His servants bitterly to know the evil fruit of sin, then they no longer hunger for that forbidden fruit. 3. Furthermore, the Lord chastens His people, that thus He may bring them into their own land of promise, into the rest of His love. 4. The great end of all is that we may know the Lord. When a man has smarted because of his sin, and has been made to feel the burning coals of anguish in his own spirit; when the Lord has set him up as a target, and shot at him with arrows which drink up his life; and when afterwards he has been saved, and the splendour of infinite love has shone upon him, then he knows Jehovah. When God has brought the contrite man into the place of security, comfort, joy, and delight in Christ Jesus, then he knows the Lord. (C. H. Spurgeon.) Ezekiel 20:41I will accept you with your sweet savour.Acceptance with God I. What is implied in our being accepted with God.1. It supposes a drawing near to Him on our part. Acceptance on one part implies application on the other. Our whole life should be a continual coming unto God by Christ. Duties should closely follow one another, like the successive products of the field, and even our ordinary concerns in life should be so conducted as to bring us nearer and still nearer the Lord. 2. It implies approbation and delight on God’ s part. “ Him that cometh unto Me,” etc. 3. When God accepts, He not only approves, but grants some visible token of His favour. “ I will accept you with your sweet savour,” and you shall know it; yea, and the world shall know it. 4. Our persons must be accepted before our services can be so, and the latter are accepted for the sake of the former. II. What must accompany our being accepted of God: “ I will accept you with your sweet savour.”1. Our approaches to God must be accompanied with spiritual and holy dispositions, or they cannot be acceptable to Him. Duties without grace in exercise are like dead caresses, not fit to be presented before the Lord. 2. Though the exercise of grace in holy duties is pleasing to God, yet they are accepted only through the sacrifice of Christ. (1) How dreadful, then, is the state of the unregenerate! (2) How happy for the people of God to find grace in His sight, and what encouragement to abound in holy duties! (3) Let acceptance with God be the great object aimed at in all our religious duties, and let us rest in nothing short of it. (B. Beddome, M. A.) Sweet savour God does not cease to observe the sins of His people. Nay, if there be sins which are worse in God’ s estimation than others, they are the sins of His own elect. But, notwithstanding this severe strictness, and although God must have a much clearer view of the evil of sin than any of us can ever obtain, He freely pardons those whom He reserves. He afflicts, but He does not afflict from the heart; and when He turns in a way of grace to His people, then He seems to be flying on the wings of the wind, for He comes with all His soul, most heartily and richly to display His favour and His love toward the objects of His choice. I. The Lord accepts the persons of His people through the sweet savour of the Lord Jesus Christ. Whether we speak of the active or passive righteousness of Christ, there is alike an overpowering flagrance. Such was the merit of His active life by which He honoured the law of God, and exemplified every precept like a precious jewel in the pure setting of His own humanity. Such, too, the merit of His passive obedience, when He endured with unmurmuring submission hunger and thirst, cold and nakedness, and, with the ever-deepening stream of sorrow, at length yielded to that agony unknown when He sweat great drops of blood in Gethsemane, when He gave His back to the smiters, and His cheeks to them that plucked out the hair, stretched His hands to the nails, and was fastened to the cruel wood that He might suffer the wrath of God in our behalf. These two things are sweet before the Most High, and for the sake of His doing and His dying the Lord God of infinite justice accepts us with the sweet savour of Christ. Whenever the great God contemplates His own dear Son, He feels an intense delight in surveying His character, and in beholding His sufferings. You and I, so far as we have been taught of God, must find infinite and unspeakable delight in the person and work of Christ; but, alas! we are like common people who look upon a fine picture without a cultivated understanding in the art of painting, we cannot perceive the whole beauty, we do not know the richness of its colouring, and the wondrous skill of all its touches. Who but Jehovah understands holiness? Adhering to the metaphor of the text, the Lord our God is so holy and just and true that the coarser virtues of mankind, the best of all that we can bring, might disgust Him; but when He looks upon His dear Son, there is such a rarity of sweetness in the sacred confection of His blessed character that He takes delight in it, and the savour thereof is sweet unto Him. if I look at Peter, I admire his courage; I look at Paul, I wonder at his industry and devotedness to the cause of God; if I look at John, I see the loveliness and gentleness of his bearing; but when I look to the Saviour, I am not so much attracted by any one particular virtue as by the singular combination of the whole. There are all the spices--the stacte, and the onycha, and the galbanum, and the pure frankincense; the varied perfumes combine to make up one perfect confection. Still more remarkable is the perfect balance of the Saviour’ s character, as typified to us in the exact proportions of these spices. He is a man--a thorough man throughout--a God-like man--gentle as a woman, but yet stern as a warrior in the midst of the day of battle. The character is balanced; as much of one virtue as of another. As in Deity every attribute is full orbed; justice never eclipses mercy, nor mercy justice, nor justice faithfulness; so in the character of Christ you have all the excellent things, “ whatsoever things are lovely,” etc., you have them all; but not one of them casts a shadow on another; they shine each and all with undimmed splendour. Turning to the incense again, notice that all the ingredients of this incense were of the very finest kind: pure frankincense. And then again in the thirty-fifth verse, “ pure and holy.” And then the thirty-sixth verse “ most holy.” So all the virtues of Christ were the best forms of virtue. You will not fail also to observe that there is no stint as to quantity. The anointing oil had five hundred shekels’ worth of one principal spice, and two hundred and fifty shekels’ worth of another; but this is to be made without limit, as if to indicate that the merits of Jesus Christ know no bound whatsoever. Oh, when that sacred box of precious ointment was broke on the cross, who knows how far the merit of it extended? I would observe, that all through this incense is spoken of as being peculiarly holy, most holy unto God. The entire dedication of Christ’ s life and death to God is most remarkable. You can never see a divided aim about the Saviour’ s action. This incense, although little is said of it, was of course compounded when the ingredients were all brought together. It had to be compounded with great care, according to the art of the confectioner. Now, there certainly is great art, wondrous skill, in the composition of the Saviour’ s life. Why, there is wondrous skill about the record of it. What is not there in the record is as wonderful as what is there; the whole life is a compound of the confectioner. But it seems that when compounded it had to be all bruised and broken. “ Thou shalt beat some of it small,” says our version. Look at that “ some of it” ; how did it get there? “ Thou shalt beat of it” ; not “ some of it,” but “ all of it.” “ Thou shalt beat of it small, very fine.” Now, certainly the whole life of the Saviour was a process of bruising Him very fine. He begins with grief; He concludes with agony. Now for two or three practical words before I pass on. Do you feel your need of this sweet savour? How can you hope to be accepted before God in yourselves? Well, then, when you feel this, will you, in the next place, prize that sweet savour; speak of it in the highest and most eulogistic terms? II. It is certain from the connection that the text means that the Lord will accept the offerings of his people when He has accepted their persons. He will not only receive them into His love; all that they do for Him He will likewise receive. Many persons serve God sincerely, but from want of serving Him according to His ordained method their services cannot be accepted. God has given us a Statute Book, let us follow it. Let us not bring before God works of superstition or works of supererogation, but let us bring such as are commanded; for to obey is better than sacrifice, to hearken than the fat of rams. Let our lives be lives of obedience, not lives of fancy, superstition, and inventions of our own. Prayer, praise, consecration, almsgivings, holy living, these are all ordained. Let us be diligent in the mixing up of these sweet Savours. We must bring before God, if we would be accepted in our works, something of all virtues. It must not be all galbanum nor all stacte; not all intrepid courage without any subdued reverence, nor all the simplicity of affection without any of the sublimity of faith; it must not be all self-denial, though there must be some of it; gravity itself must be tempered with cheerfulness; there must be something of every form of virtue to make up the blessed compound. We must, above all, pay great attention to small things. If we would bring a holy life to Christ, we must mind our fireside duties as wall as the duties of the sanctuary. We must take care that this sweet incense of ours is not made for man nor used by man. May it be yours and mine to have a life which, both in its prayer and praise, its giving and its ordinary living, shall be redolent with the fulness of the Spirit of God--a perfume that may make our life like walking through garden, a fragrance that may make us like the king’ s storehouse, wherein all manner of precious fruits are laid up, and all manner of sweet frankincense stored away! You will say, “ But there will be so much imperfection notwithstanding.” Ah! that there will. “ There may be much defilement when we have done our best.” Ah! so it is. The best of men are still men at the best. But the word comes very sweetly--“ I will accept you with your sweet savour.” (C. H. Spurgeon.) Acceptance with God I. The meaning of acceptance with God. It doubtless expresses that God is well pleased with us, and our obedience. That He neither rejects nor overlooks us; but observes us, and that with an approving and gracious smile. II. The way of acceptance.1. None of the guilty, unworthy children of men, nor any of their works, can be accepted before a holy God, and honoured with His approval and good pleasure, except for the sake of Christ. 2. None are accepted through Christ but believers. Now, by this rule are excluded (1) Hypocrites and their works.(2) Formalists and their works.(3) Pharisees and their works. 3. Believers only perform such services, and are made by grace such persons, as God can approve. III. The blessedness of acceptance and of a hope, a sense of acceptance in the soul. IV. The crown and finish of acceptance. V. The use of acceptance with God. To put the life of hope into our obedience; to stimulate and cheer us amidst every duty, every struggle. (Essex Remembrancer.) Divine acceptance I. Some remarks upon the blessing promised. Acceptance stands opposed to condemnation, and is enjoyed through faith in Christ.1. This blessing is the grand discovery of the Gospel. It is the design and end of all God’ s communications with men “ God in Christ reconciling the world unto Himself.” 2. It is always the result of an experience of the work of grace upon the soul. It puts the life of hope into obedience. Our persons must be accepted before our works. 3. It secures the true and right enjoyment of all temporal blessings. To a man who has no sense of God’ s friendship, the best earthly enjoyments lose their charm; and to a man who has hope of pardon through Christ, all outward trims lose their sting. 4. It is essential to a victory over death and a joyful eternity. II. Some directions for the attainment and enjoyment of this blessing.1. Look carefully to the fact of your own acceptance of Christ, and to the sincerity of your hearts in their covenant closure with Christ. See that you take Him, with the happiness He has promised, for your All. 2. Cherish habitual and confiding thought of the freeness and riches of God’ s grace through a Redeemer. This will greatly kindle that love which brings its own evidence of its truth. This will make God appear more amiable in your eyes, and then you will love Him more abundantly; and as your conscious love to Him increases your doubts and apprehensions will give way. So much love, so much comfort. 3. Every day renew your apprehensions of the truth and value of the promised felicity. Consider the end of your faith, in order to see the vain and delusive character of things below. Let not heaven lose with you its attractive force through your forgetfulness or unbelief. 4. Guard against those snares and temptations which you know to be most hurtful to the life of religion in the soul. 5. Gather up and improve your own past experience of God’ s mercy towards you and others. What a wrong it is to God in your next trial to forget His last deliverance! Have not mercies come so unexpectedly, and in such a wonderful manner, that you have (as it were) the name of God written on them? (Judges 13:23). (S. Thodey.) Ezekiel 20:43-44 And there shall ye remember your ways, and all your doings, wherein ye have been defiled; and ye shall loathe yourselves in your own sight.God’ s method of mercy used or abused by man I. The method of mercy was very remarkable in the case of Israel. The loving kindness of God is infinite. Christ commanded “ that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in His name among all nations, beginning at Jerusalem.” Surely this single circumstance, viewed in connection with God’ s ancient dealings with Israel, as brought before us in this chapter, is a proof that Christianity is the religion of the same God, and that “ His mercy endureth forever.” And have not His dealings with the Christian Church been so similar as to show that He is still pursuing a method of mercy and of grace? He has not cut us off in our sins; He still follows us with invitations, He quite presses us with entreaties, to “ be reconciled to God.” Is not Christ able and willing “ to save to the uttermost,” any or all of us, “ who come unto God by Him” ? Have not some of us found already--and may not the rest find soon--that “ with the Lord there is mercy, and with Him there is plenteous redemption” ? II. But suppose it so found; then what will be the gracious effect on us? Is it carelessness, or indifference, or licentiousness of living? Not so; surely “ the goodness of God leadeth to repentance.” Then, when thus restored to the Divine favour--then, when this method of mercy shall have been successful--then “ shall ye remember your ways,” etc. Here is work for the mind and memory. Do ye not remember some of “ your ways” in former years--“ ways” which certainly were wrong, perverse, and corrupt? Have ye forgotten all those “ doings,” which certainly were not right? Do ye not remember the circumstances of your sins--how many things concurred to aggravate them in your cases? Therefore exercise your mind and memory, with prayer for the Holy Spirit, in recalling “ our was” and “ doings.” But if truly penitent, ye will also exercise the heart and soul on this subject; “ and ye shall loathe yourselves,” etc. And if you “ loathe yourselves” for having sinned, you will not return to sin. Men do not return willingly to look on a loathsome object. What they abhor they shun. (John Hambleton, M. A.) Conversion: in its commencement and progress I. In its commencement God accomplishes it in a variety of ways.1. By the dispensations of His providence.2. By the conversion of some pious friend.3. By the public ministry of the Word.4. By the secret operation of His Spirit upon the soul. II. In its progress.1. He reveals that covenant to us.2. He enables us to lay hold on it.3. He confers upon us all the blessings. Remarks--1. How sovereign God is in the dispensations of His mercy.2. How mysterious are His dealings with the children of men.3. How you may best answer all the purposes of His grace. (C. Simeon, M. A.) Awakened memory of past sins Manton says: “ Old bruises may trouble us long after, upon every change of weather, and new afflictions revive the sense of old sins.” We know one who broke his arm in his youth, and though it was well set, and soundly healed, yet before a rough season the bones cry out bitterly; and even so, though early vice may be forsaken, and heartily repented of, and the mind may be savingly renewed, yet the old habits will be a lifelong trouble and injury. The sins of our youth will give us many a twist fifty years after they have been forgiven. How happy, then, are those who are preserved from the ways of ungodliness, and brought to Jesus in the days of their youth, for they thus escape a thousand regrets. It is well to have a broken bone skilfully set, but far better never to have had it broken. The fall of Adam has battered and bruised us all most sadly; it is a superfluity of naughtiness that we should incur further damage by our own personal falls. The aches and pains of age are more than sufficient when every limb is sound, and recklessly to add the anguish of fractures and dislocations would be folly indeed. Young man, do not run up bills which your riper years will find it hard to pay; do not eat today forbidden morsels, which may breed you sorrow long after their sweetness has been forgotten. (C. H. Spurgeon.) And ye shall know that I am the Lord, when I have wrought with you for My name’ s sake. Moral Tower: its Divine source There is a force which fashions suns and impels the movements producing their huge stores of heat; a force which sustains the march of constellations through terms of time that mock our little earthly history, a force which drives the tides and sweeps through the tempests, a force which vivifies and upholds the restless and ever-extending mystery of life, a force which rules the rise and fall of empires and civilisation--and that force is infinite. But from the same spring there issues a less obtrusive force belonging to another order of operations--the force which detaches man from idols; the force which frees him from the legion evils that have trampled his greatness in the dust, which makes sympathies and antipathies strangely change places in his nature, so that he comes to hate what he loved, and to love what he once hated; the force which works out the new creation of the Gospel--and that force is no less infinite though it is dealing with persons rather than things. In the realms of thought, morals, human conduct, God’ s power is just as far-reaching as in the realm of physics. (T. G. Selby.) Ezekiel 20:45 All flesh shall see that I the Lord have kindled it.A vision of Divine judgment I. Divine judgment is a terrific fact. God has His ideas about conduct; has a care about His moral universe. His ideas, when uttered in what we solemnly call judgments, are appropriately uttered. The flood, the fire on the cities of the plain, the destruction of Jerusalem, the death of the Saviour, the ghastly mysteries of hell--all utter God’ s judgments on evil. II. Divine judgment wrought by human agency. Judges, and parliaments, and kings; the frown of friendship, the hiss of outraged conscience in the home, or the Church, or the State; the pursuit of the police detective, and the grip of the gaoler; the revolutions of nations, and the catastrophes of commerce, may all, however blindly, be human agents in Divine retribution. III. Divine judgments marked by naturalness. Let a man recall his life, break it up into the seven ages Shakespeare depicts, and he will find the resultant of the sins of each age in the retribution he has to suffer. The sinner finds, as has been strikingly said, that just as by abusing the body he brings a curse on it, so by abusing the soul. IV. Divine judgment is very comprehensive in its influence. It is in accordance with historic facts, philosophic theory, and moral rectitude, that man should bring blessing or evil upon his fellow man. This fact, first, illustrates the extent of human influence; second, suggests the accountability of man to man for his moral conduct. V. Divine judgment benevolent in its purposes.1. The revolutions of life are under Divine control.2. The result of these revolutions will be the victory of righteousness. All the processes of repentance and doubt, of spiritual and of mental struggle, are designed by God to lead not to perpetual anarchy and revolt, but the rest and peace of submission to Christ. (Urijah R. Thomas.) Ezekiel 20:49 Ah Lord God! they say of me, Doth he not speak parables.Mystery and dogma in religion There is a tone of remonstrance and expostulation in these words of the prophet. He is evidently conscious that because of something in the nature of his message, that message will be unpopular with his hearers. There is in that which God has given him to speak, something that for this reason he would fain have altered--something, not in the substance, but in the style and form of his address, which he fain would phrase otherwise. “ Ah Lord God, that which I have to say to these people comes to them in an unacceptable form; they say of me, Doth he not speak parables?” Whatever this stumbling block was, in the manner and form of the message, that lay in the way of its acceptance, he would fain remove it if possible. And so in his entreaty is implied a petition that he might be allowed and enabled to explain his parable. “ Ah Lord God, if it may be so, may I but utter plainer speech; they say of me, Doth he not speak parables.” Most natural was the objection of the hearers?; most natural was the desire of the teacher to accommodate himself and his message to that objection, and yet distinctly sinful was the desire on both parts, for these words that the prophet had to speak were not his words to alter as he pleased; they were God’ s words. What, then, was the demand of Israel, and what was the admission of the prophet? Was it not this, to doubt whether the form in which the Lord had cast His own message was the most perfect one, to doubt whether, in some way, He or they might not improve, or have it improved upon? And what was this but of the very essence of unbelief? The message of the Church to the world is like the message of the prophets of old, in part plain, in part mysterious, and as it were in parables. Very plain and very simple words has the Church of Christ, in the name of her Master, to speak to men when she tells us that “ in the midst of life we are in death” ; when she tells us that “ we have erred and strayed from the right way like lost sheep” ; when she bids us “ Wash and make clean, and put away the evil of our doings, and seek to do justice, relieve the oppressed, and plead the cause of the fatherless and widow.” But then, she has other words to speak that are not so plain, and not so easily intelligible, words that are full of mystery, words that sound like parables in the ears of those who listen to them. She has to speak of a Father who sent an incarnate Son into the world to die for men. She has to speak of the mystery of the Incarnation, and the Resurrection, and the Atonement, and the Ascension, and the descending of the Spirit, the eternal life of man and the eternal life to come. And as she speaks these mysteries, and as she speaks them dogmatically in the name of Him who has commissioned her by His authority to press them, on that authority, for the acceptance of man, she meets the answer from the world the prophet met of old, “ We will accept your plainer truths, but we revolt from your darker sayings; speak to us plainly, and in no proverb.” Is not that the difficulty that the Church encounters again and again? Is it not the difficulty which she encounters at this moment as she faces what is called “ the spirit of the age,” and the century in which she lives? How often do we hear and read in almost familiar forms of modern literature expressing the heart and thought of the age: “ Give us natural religion, but give us less of your dogma; we care not for your theology and its mysteries, give us religion only.” And the temptation of the Church is now, as of old, to yield to that cry, not for her own sake, but for the sake of her message, to soften down some of its difficulties, to explain away some of its strange sayings, in the hope that it may be more acceptable to men--in the vain and the utterly delusive hope that it will be so accepted. No, not so can we save our creed, and yet the temptation to do so is a sore one. Our duty is to say plainly to those who thus speak to us, “ The words that you will have us alter, and the very form of those words--and we dare not distinguish between the form and the essence, for we believe the form to be Divine--are not our words to change, even to win your faith and your assent; they are God’ s words. Mysterious they may be, but we are the stewards of the manifold mysteries of God, and we dare not for our own sakes, and we need not for yours, add to or diminish aught from the words of the message of our Lord.” But while the Church is thus sternly faithful to her mission; while she speaks and must ever speak the dogma or parables that our Lord has given her to speak; while she cannot give to men what they ask for from her, a religion without mystery,--she may at least strive to show to men the reasonableness of mystery and the necessity of dogma. We may not alter the parable we have to speak, but we may at least show them that there is some reasonableness in listening to that parable. Let us, for a moment or two, consider the attitude of the Church in the present day to those who denounce in her teaching its dogma and its mystery, and let us see if we can find something to help the difficulty of the objectors, and something at the same time to lead us ourselves to a deeper faith, and therefore to a real and bolder utterance of all the mysteries of our religion. And now, if we look at the objections that are commonly made on this ground in our popular literature or otherwise, to Christianity, we will find, I think, that they divide themselves under two heads. One is the objection to the mysteriousness and difficulty of Christian dogma, and another to what is described as the unreality of the language respecting Christian experience. Now a word or two upon each of these, and in the first we may just, in passing, remind the most scientific and logical of the objectors to dogma and mystery of this fact, that very much of the belief, the scientific belief, of mankind in their own teachings is, for the mass of those who receive it, nothing but dogmatism. Is it then altogether so inconceivable a thing, and so strange, that the all-wise and infinite intelligence of the Author of this world should deal with us, even the most learned and wisest of us, as the most learned and wise of us deal with inferior intelligences, and that He should give us in form of a dogmatic utterance that which we could never have discovered for ourselves? But passing on from this, let us ask next, is it possible for us to comply with this request that we should eliminate all dogma and all mystery from religion? Let us try to do it for one moment. Let us suppose that we have banished from Christianity, and from the word that Christianity has to speak to men, all those technical and mysterious terms about the Trinity and incarnation and atonement and regeneration, and that we have simplified our message. To what shall we reduce it? We may reduce it at least to two words, and beyond these it will not bear any reduction, if it is to be a religion at all. We must speak of God, and we must speak of man. For what is religion but the joining together of God and man? And when we name these two words--and these words must make part of all or any religion--have we got rid of mystery? Are there two words more fraught with mystery than these two? And for this reason, that God and man are not words, are not notions; they are facts. They are the facts of our life and of our being, and the difficulties that arise--the difficult thoughts of God and man--and the mysteries, parables, and dogmas that underlie these thoughts have vexed the hearts and souls of men before Christ was born, and they would vex them still if the name of Christ was forgotten. There are not merely difficulties and mysteries and parables in religion, but there are difficulties, mysteries, and parables in philosophy, and fact, and in human nature; you cannot escape them. The awful shadows of these mysteries wrap us round wherever we go; we cannot avoid them, we cannot escape them merely by bidding those who talk about them not to speak parables about them. Parables are in our hearts and souls and nature, and in the worm around us; in the very air, as it were, of our intellectual breath and thought, and we cannot cease to feel them without ceasing to exist, any more than we can live our natural life or cease to draw the vital air of the atmosphere without ceasing to live our natural life. We cannot, then, you see, escape from dogma, and parable, and we cannot escape from them in our speech or in our religion. It must and ought to be so. Can we escape from cant? What is the meaning of the word cant? Cant in its strictly etymological and historical meaning is this--the language of the initiated: a language known to those engaged in any business or occupation, the terms of which are terms of art, technical terms, and as such are only known and understood by those who practise the art. It means the technical language of any business, or art, or science. Religion is a science, and it is an art,--the science of the knowledge of God, and the art of holy living. And therefore it must necessarily have cant. But there is no more unreality in the cant of religion than there is unreality in the cant of medicine, or of law, or of trade, and the most offensive of all cant is the cant of irreligion and of scepticism. But although we have seen that Christianity must thus be mysterious in its doctrine at times, and must be peculiar at others, though we know that there is something apparently unreal and unmeaning in the words that describe its life, and although we must not shrink from dogma, nor shrink again from the accusation of religious cant, there is a warning for us Christians and us teachers of Christianity in this objection of the world and of the age that we do well to listen and give solemn heed to. It is quite true that men may be guilty of religious cant in a bad sense, and not in a good sense. And they are so whenever the words of their religious life--however true and important in themselves--are used by them without some corresponding emotion and experience in their own hearts; whenever the words that describe the Christian life become unreal upon our lips, that is to say, in other words, whenever our life falls below the level of our religious speech or our religious prayer. Then are we speaking cant, and cant that is mischievous and deadly to our own spiritual life. In the last place, we thank God for this--there is the power of bringing a better reality, a nobler life, into our speech by living our creed. Our creed becomes for us real. Men may so live that their prayers and their creeds are the living utterances of the new life that is day by day stealing into their very heart and life. And as the man becomes child-like, he is able to understand the meaning of the creed in which he expresses his belief in the Father. As the man becomes Christ-like, he can understand the meaning of the word Christ. As the man becomes spiritual, more and more does he understand the sentence in his creed which speaks of the giving of God’ s Holy Spirit to dwell amongst us; and prayer and repentance, and conversion and approach to God, and assurance and hope, and every other word of Christian experience, become for him new words, because they become for him new facts in his fife. As he dwells more and more in the heavenly land, he learns more and more of the heavenly speech, and so the creed fills the life with light, and the life reflects back that light upon the creed. We are not to be as children, simply listening to parables of our faith, as children listen to nursery stories. We are not merely “ children crying in the night,” we are not merely “ children crying for the light.” Rather we are to live as Christian men, rather as brave and strong men, with patient and quiet and trusting hearts--walking along the hard ways of life: ways that are chequered by shadow of the Cross, and lightened with the glory of the crowned Christ; and it may be that, bent and bowed beneath the weight of difficulty and trial, and the weariness of life, our eyes rest upon the path lust where our feet can stand, and see even there such pure light from our creed that it becomes a great revelation from the Father in heaven, who has given us our lot to walk and work in life. (Abp. Magee.) Infidel hearers I. The too prevalent disposition in hearers to make light of what they hear, to turn sermons into fiction, and to put such flexible and accommodating constructions upon the heavenly message as shall divest it of all its point and application and purpose. Prove the moral sincerity of your faith in God’ s Word, in the same way as you would prove your sincerity of your faith in any other word; in the word of a friend, for example, who had put some written instructions into your hands as to the path to be chosen and the dangers to be avoided, in some new expedition you were undertaking. If those instructions of your friend were scarcely looked at, or seldom read, or never studied, with a view to determine what you should do, or what you should not do, would any profession of trust in such guidance be entitled to the least credit? Would it not be evident that your course was shaped by other influences, and that you had no more respect for the instructions of your friend than for the counsels of one who had a love for the extravagant, and whose very truths were darkened by parables? Well, of this subtle and unacknowledged infidelity, it is to be feared very much will be found among us. Whenever they hear anything tending to disturb their settled opinions, it is always some extravagance or straining of metaphor, or licence of rhetoric, or trick of declamation to keep drowsy audience awake. II. Some of those doctrines and statements with regard to which there seems to be a strong conviction in the minds of many, either that the Bible deals in designedly poetic representations, or else that ministers of the Gospel overstate their case. Parable, in the sense of fiction, invented conceits, fond imagination, it is plain there must be somewhere. Teachers and hearers cannot interpret the same book so differently, and yet both be right. Which speaks in parables? For example, which speaks in the language of parable, as to the moral dangers of our probation, whether from temptations without or from a treacherous heart within? Has the preacher needlessly magnified these dangers, in exhorting you to incessant watchfulness, to a jealous vigilance over the first springs of thought, to a sacred custody of the heart’ s entrances and outgoings, as feeling that life and immortality were suspended on the issue? You demur perhaps to some of his descriptions of what that heart is, as the nursery of all evil, the fountain of all that is hateful and vile in human character, the ready slave to the purpose of Satan, whenever he has a design to accomplish against God and man; but strong as this language seems, is it stronger than saying, “ The heart of man is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked,” or “ Out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, blasphemies, and such like” ? Or perhaps he who speaks to you has given some dark sketches of an unseen and malignant foe, subtle in his plans, watchful for his opportunities, dreadful for the number of his emissaries, and fierce even unto the death. Doth not the Word that cannot lie declare of this enemy, that “ his name is Legion,” and that “ your adversary, the devil, as a roaring lion, goeth about seeking whom he may devour” ? Or, once more, the preacher has spoken disparagingly of the world. Dear as it is to you who have happy associations, happy friendships, happy thoughts, he has exhorted you to beware of it, to have as little to do with it as you can, to make it the servant of your necessities, and not the master of your hearts. But on this point do the law and the testimony speak a more guarded language? Far otherwise; they have affirmed that the whole world lieth in wickedness, and that he who will be a friend of the world must consent to be considered as an enemy of God. Another topic on which men must suppose we use an unnecessary strictness, or they could not live as they do, is with respect to the proper moral signs of their being in a state of reconciliation with God--of their being partakers of a genuine repentance and a saving faith. Surely on such subjects we ought to speak in very faithfulness, for neither to our own souls nor to yours could anything be more perilous than fiction--than an extravagance which should outdo itself. Oh, then, is it our fault if, on reading in the solemn commission given to us, that “ without holiness no man shall see the Lord,” we pronounce as banished from the everlasting presence the man who does not even desire that holiness,--whose habits are utterly at variance with the temper and spirit of holiness,--whose converse with God is restricted to the service of lip and knee,--who neither knows, nor cares to know, what is meant by the believer’ s struggles with sin, or conflicts with the law in his members, or aspirations, so broken and so feeble, after the purities of the heavenly state? There is yet one other topic on which, unless ministers of the Gospel be thought to speak in the most extravagant parables, the life of three-fourths of professing Christians is one continued mystery. I mean the retributions which await the Christless soul in another world. On this subject, to go in excess of the awful and thrilling description of the Word of God is not possible. No uninspired imagination could ever attain to such heights--the worm and the fire and the outer darkness and the separation ever widening between repentance and God, and hope. These, if they are parables, at least are not our parables, but the parables of One who must have chosen such a medium of illustration because the intense and overwhelming majesty of the subject could not be described in any other way. And yet, how are we to explain the fact--for fact you know it is--that if we were to collect all those revelations of Holy Writ together, and were to arrange them in such order that they who run might read, many would listen, would seem to be impressed, would profess entire belief in all that had been said, and yet afterwards they would neither love sin the less, nor fear God the more, nor examine their state more closely; but as they came so would they go away, unchanged, unresolved, unreconciled, unforgiven? Surely the fact admits of but one solution. Say what they will, they do not believe these things. Whatever the delusion be, certain it is that each one has sonic lulling process by which the penalties of the eternal world become stripped of their terribleness, insomuch that the words are all but uttered in regard to the man who preaches of them: “ What doth this babbler say?” “ Then said I, O Lord God! they say of me, Doth he not speak in parables?” (D. Moore, M. A.) The mysterious aspect of the Gospel to the men of the world 1. There are certain experiences of human life so oft repeated, and so familiar to all our recollections, that when we perceive, or think we perceive, an analogy between them and the matters of religion, then religion does not appear to us to be mysterious. There is not a more familiar exhibition in society than that of a servant who performs his allotted work, and who obtains his stipulated reward; and we are all servants, and one is our Master, even God. There is nothing more common than that a son should acquit himself to the satisfaction of his parents--and we are all the children of a universal Parent, whom it is our part to please in all things. Now, so long as the work of religious instruction can be upheld by such analogies as these,--so long as the relations of civil or of domestic society can be employed to illustrate the relation between God and the creatures whom He has formed,--a vein of perspicuity will appear to run through the clear and rational exposition of him who has put all the mists and all the technicals of an obscure theology away from him. All his lessons will run in an easy and direct train. Can anything be more evident than that there is a line of separation between the sensual and the temperate, between the selfish and the disinterested, between the sordid and the honourable; or, if we require a distinction more strictly religious, between the profane and the decent keeper of all the ordinances? Here then at once we witness the two grand divisions of human society, in a state of real and visible exemplification; and what more is necessary than just to employ the most direct and intelligible motives of conduct for persuading men to withdraw from one of these divisions, and pass over to the other of them? It is needless to say how much this process is reversed by many a teacher of Christianity. It is true that they hold out most prominently the need of some great transition; but it is a transition most mysteriously different from the act of crossing that line of separation to which we have just been adverting. They reduce the men of all casts, and of all characters, to the same footing of worthlessness in the sight of God; and speak of the evil of the human heart in such terms as will sound to many a mysterious exaggeration--and, like the hearers of Ezekiel, will these not be able to comprehend the argument of the preacher when he tells them, though in the very language of the Bible, that they are the heirs of wrath; that none of them is righteous, no, not one; that all flesh have corrupted their ways, and have fallen short of the glory of God; that the world at large is a lost and a fallen world, and that the natural inheritance of all who live in it is the inheritance of a temporal death and a ruined eternity. When the preacher goes on in this strain, those hearers whom the Spirit has not convinced of sin will be utterly at a loss to understand him; nor are we to wonder if he seem to speak to them in a parable when he speaks to the disease,--that all the darkness of a parable should still seem to hang over his demonstrations when, as a faithful expounder of the revealed will and counsel of God, he proceeds to tell them of the remedy. Now, it is when the preacher is unfolding this scheme of salvation,--it is when he is practically applying it to the conscience and the conduct of his hearers,--it is when the terms of grace and faith and sanctification are pressed into frequent employment for the work of these very peculiar explanations,--it is when, instead of illustrating his subject by those analogies of common life, which might have done for men of an untainted nature, but which will not do for the men of this corrupt world, he faithfully unfolds that economy of redemption which God hath actually set up for the recovery of our degenerate species,--it is then that, to a hearer still in darkness, the whole argument sounds as strangely and as obscurely as if it were conveyed to him in an unknown language,--it is then that the repulsion of his nature to the truth as it is in Jesus finds a willing excuse in the utter mysteriousness of its articles and its terms; and gladly does he put away from him the unwelcome message, with the remark that he who delivers it is a speaker of parables, and there is no comprehending him. 2. Now, if there be any hearers present who feel that we have spoken to them, when we spoke of the resistance which is held out against peculiar Christianity on the ground of that mysteriousness in which it appears to be concealed from all ordinary discernment, we should like to take our leave of them at present with two observations. We ask them, in the first place, if they have ever, to the satisfaction of their own minds, disproved the Bible?--and if not, we ask them how they can sit at ease, should all the mysteriousness which they charge upon evangelical truth, and by which they would attempt to justify their contempt for it, be found to attach to the very language and to the very doctrine of God’ s own communication? He actually does say that no man cometh unto the Father but by the Son--and that His is the only name given under heaven whereby men can be saved--and that He will be magnified only in the appointed Mediator--and that Christ is all and all--and that there is no other foundation on which man can lay--and that he who believeth on Him shall not be confounded. He further speaks of our personal preparation for heaven; and here, too, may His utterance sound mysteriously in your hearing, as He tells that without holiness no man can see God--and that we are without strength while we are without the Spirit to make us holy--and that unless a man be born again he shall not enter into the kingdom of God--and that he should wrestle in prayer for the washing of regeneration--and that he should watch for the Holy Ghost with all perseverance--and that he should aspire at being perfect through Christ strengthening him--and that be should, under the operation of those great provisions which are set up in the New Testament for creating us anew unto good works, conform himself unto that doctrine of grace by which he is brought to deny ungodliness and worldly lusts, and to live soberly, righteously, and godly in the present evil world. Secondly, let us assure the men who at this moment bid the stoutest defiance to the message of the Gospel, that the time may yet come when they shall render to this very gospel the most striking of all acknowledgments, even by sending to the door of its most faithful ministers, and humbly craving from them their explanations and their prayers. We never saw the expiring mortal who could look with an undaunted eye on God as his Lawgiver; but often has all its languor been lighted up with joy at the name of Christ as his Saviour. We never saw the dying acquaintance who, upon the retrospect of his virtues and of his doings, could prop the tranquillity of his spirit on the expectation of a legal reward. Oh no; this is not the element which sustains the tranquillity of deathbeds: it is the hope of forgiveness. It is a believing sense of the efficacy of the atonement. It is the prayer of faith, offered up in the name of Him who is the Captain of all our salvation. It is a dependence on that power which can alone impart a meetness for the inheritance of the saints, and present the spirit holy and unreprovable and unblamable in the sight of God. Now, what we have to urge is, that if these be the topics which, on the last half hour of your life, are the only ones that will possess, in your judgment, any value or substantial importance, why put them away from you now? (T. Chalmers, D. D.) Obscurities in revelation I. God may at times reveal His truth in a manner somewhat obscure. Much of His truth in nature is enigmatic and mystical In Providence the same. What confusion there seems to be in His moral government of mankind. In the Bible the same. I have no notion of telling people that the Bible is an exceedingly easy and simple book. II. The obscurity in which truth is sometimes revealed is often felt to be painful by the teacher. “ They say of me, Doth he not speak parables?” Preachers have to take great subjects, but how little they know of them; and they who know most of them are most conscious of their ignorance, and they speak with hesitation. III. Sceptically disposed minds use the obscurity of the revelation as an objection against the truth. “ It cannot be,” says the objector; “ if God did condescend to reveal truth, no one can suppose that He would reveal it thus. No one could imagine that He would communicate it in that way: the thing on the face of it bears its own condemnation.” “ They say of me, Doth he not speak parables?” “They,” who? All sceptically disposed men. IV. However common the objection to Christianity on account of its obscurity, the objection is by no means valid.1. Truth coming in this form is adapted to our condition in this state of probation and trial. 2. Truth coming in this form serves many useful purposes. It challenges inquiry and stimulates thought. (1) Preachers should learn that it is for them to preach the truth of God in whatever form it comes to them, regardless of the objections of their hearers. (2) Hearers should be cautious not to impose upon themselves by raising paltry objections to the truth. (3) All should learn that religious truth should be reached, not so much by a reasoning process, as by a moral state of the heart. It is to be understood rather by the heart than the head. Looked at through the eyes of moral sympathy, rather than through the eyes of reason or logic. (Thomas Binney.) Preachers I. The charge brought against the preachers of the gospel.1. That they preach what is unreal;2. What is unintelligible;3. What is allegorical. II. Some of the statements of preachers of the gospel on which this charge against them is founded.1. Those which relate to the natural condition of mankind.2. To the evidences of conversion.3. To the happiness of religion.4. To the future punishment of the finally impenitent. (G. Brooks.) . Ezekiel 21:2-3 Behold, I am against thee.A prophecy of judgment I. The prophet’ s compellation, or title--“ Son of man.” There are but two persons in Scripture which have eminently this name--the one is our Saviour, the other Ezekiel. For our Saviour, it was not without very good reason--namely, as hereby to discover the truth of His humanity to us--that amongst those many miracles which were wrought by Him, from whence He did appear to be God, He might have somewhat also fastened upon Him declaring Him likewise to be man. Besides, as suitable to His present state of humiliation and future passion, that He might be looked upon according to that view wherein He tendered Himself to the world, and that those which were about Him might be prepared for what should happen unto Him, He thought it fitting thus to be called; in the meantime, likewise, encouraging them, upon these terms, to close with Him, as who having taken their nature upon Him, was not now ashamed to call them brethren. As for Ezekiel, why this name should be put upon him, this is a thing further considerable--especially why upon him rather than upon any other of the prophets, Daniel only excepted, who but once is distinguished by this compellation (Daniel 8:17). It is the general sense of divines, that it was for this reason especially, namely, to humble him in the midst of those many divine visions and revelations which he was partaker of, that though in regard of his work and employment he was a companion of angels, yet, for his condition, he was numbered amongst men. And so, in that respect, had a double disparagement upon him, which served to abase him--both of mortality and sinfulness. But we may add also another reason here in this place for the giving of it; and that was, not only to breed in him an humble spirit, but likewise a pitiful and compassionate. The message which he was now sent about, it was a matter of judgment and terror; it was a threatening, and foretelling of God’ s wrath and indignation against His people. Now, this did require some bowels and tenderness in him, that he should do it; and therefore “ Son of man” was a very fit and proper compellation, that so, being a man himself, he might the more commiserate his brethren. II. The prophet’ s injunction, or command, which is laid upon him: and that is, how to carry himself in the denunciations of God’ s judgments against His people. This is laid forth in three clauses--First, to set his face toward Jerusalem. Secondly, to drop his word towards the holy places. Thirdly, to prophesy against the land of Israel. Where ye have a full enumeration of all kind of places, and conditions, and persons, as the objects of Divine wrath, which is threatened against them. First, the city, expressed in Jerusalem. Secondly, the Church, signified in the holy places. Thirdly, the country, or whole community, implied in the land of Israel. Here is God’ s judgments extended to all sorts and ranks of men--to the civil State, to the ecclesiastical, and to the popular. We will begin with the civil. “ The Lord’ s voice crieth to the city” (Micah 6:9).1. The place threatened is Jerusalem, the mother-city in the land of the princes and governors of the nation. This is that which God begins withal in the denunciation of His judgments against His people here in this place. This carries in it God’ s anger against great ones--the nobles and princes and judges and magistrates of the land; those which were of any eminency amongst them, whether for birth, or place, or power, or wealth; these sinning against the Lord were not without their correction--nay, God thinks fitting to take aim at them first of all: “ Set thy face against Jerusalem.” Now, there is a very good account which may be given of this dispensation. (1) Because such places as these are, do abound with greater mercies, and so opportunities of doing good; therefore they, rebelling against the Lord, and provoking Him, do become more obnoxious. (2) Because the sins of these are more exemplary and scandalous, The more eminent any are in place, the more notorious are their miscarriages--everyone looks upon them as so many patterns to all the rest. (3) They are populous places, and they are such places wherein the flower and glory of the whole land is gathered together. The strength and riches and state of any nation are in their chief cities. Now, therefore, when God has a mind to stain the pride of all glory, He does especially aim at these. 2. The prophet’ s gesture which he is required to use to it--and that is, to set his face towards it. “ Set thy face towards Jerusalem.” The setting of the face, in Scripture, does carry a different notion in it. (1) It is a note of attention. God would have him to set his face upon it, by way of serious consideration; to take notice of the manifold abominations which were in it. And thus now is it the concernment of ministers in like manner to do--not to shoot their arrows at random, rashly and unadvisedly, they care not how; but as being thoroughly appreciative of the guilt of the persons themselves they deal withal. (2) It is a note of compassion and commiseration. So we also find it sometimes in Scripture. As our Saviour (Luke 19:41). (3) It is a note of displeasure and indignation. So it is used sometimes (Jeremiah 21:10; Ezekiel 25:2; Ezekiel 28:21; Ezekiel 29:2). The second is in reference to the Church, or State Ecclesiastical. “ And drop thy word towards the holy places.”1. The place is the Church and house of God. Here is God’ s vengeance threatened against that, as to the destruction of it. This is worse than the former; by how much spirituals are better than temporals, and any prejudice to our souls worse than to our outward estates. (1) Here is a threatening of the place, the temple itself, which was afterwards verified and made good in the destruction and rendition of that: “ Not one stone left upon another.” God threatens to take away that visible token of His presence from amongst them, which was one step of this punishment. (2) Here is a threatening of the persons, the priests and ministers--there is an heavy judgment belonging to them; forasmuch as they had corrupted themselves, and others with them. (3) In reference to the performances--the ordinances and ministerial dispensations. God drops upon the sanctuary when He threatens to suspend these, as oftentimes He does when He sends a famine of His word (Amos 8:11) Especially when His ordinances are neglected, when there is no heed or regard unto them: in such cases as these does God remove them, and otherwise bestow them; neither is there anything here which shall stand in the way of His judgments. 2. The carriage and proceeding towards it, and that is expressed here by dropping. (1) A leisurable proceeding--one thing after another, in a succession. The judgments of God, they are not to be denounced all at once; that were enough to astonish men, and wholly overwhelm them. No, but by steps and degrees. They must first be acquainted with lesser judgments, and then afterwards with greater. (2) A gentle proceeding--not boisterously, with over-much rigour; but mildly, and with the spirit of meekness. (3) A constant proceeding. Dropping--it has frequency in it. So should it be with us here: “ Precept upon precept, and line upon line” (Isaiah 28:10). The third, and last, in reference to the community and whole nation in general. In these words: “ And prophesy against the land of Israel.”1. The place threatened--“ the land of Israel.” These words do carry two things in them, which might seem, at the first hearing, to plead for exemption from punishment. (1) Israel, God’ s own peculiar people. (2) The land of Israel, that is, a great number of them. Yet it will not do, or serve the turn neither. Though it be Israel, God’ s own people; though it be the land of Israel, all states and degrees amongst them; yet sinners, they must not shun judgment. 2. The carriage towards it, and that is prophesying. “ Prophesy against the land of Israel.” This was a very ill message, and very unwelcome, which Ezekiel was sent with; but yet he must carry it, for all that. He must prophesy against them--that is, declare God’ s punishments upon them for their sins and provocations of Him. (T. Herren, D. D.) Ezekiel 21:6-7 Wherefore sighest thou?. . .For the tidings. Sighing because of sorrowful tidings “ The tidings” were, in the first place, of dishonour done to God, and, in the second place, of ruin which the transgressors were bringing upon themselves; and we think to show you that the tidings were such as might well justify the prophet as he looked upon his nation in “ sighing with bitterness before their eyes.”1. If you know anything of the relationship subsisting between the Creator and the creature, you must know that we lie absolutely at the disposal of God, depending for every thing upon His bounty, and bound to live wholly to His glory. God’ s laws are binding without exception and without limitation; and if He only issue an announcement of His will, it should be received with the deepest reverence and obeyed with unhesitating compliance throughout every department of His unbounded empire. And if this obedience be withheld, who can fail to see that the very greatest insult is at once offered by the finite to the Infinite? Now, consider what effect this insult will have--or at least ought to have--upon a man who loves God, and whose prime effort it is to obey His every word. If a man of warm loyalty were living amongst traitors, it would wound him to the quick to hear the king whom he honoured continually reviled. If a man of warm friendship were with the enemies of his love, it would sorely grieve him to observe how his friend was hated and despised. And what are such feelings in comparison of those which should rise in the man of real piety, when he beholds on all sides dishonour done to his God? Oh! as such a man thinks on the unlimited right which God has to the services of His creatures, and yet more as he thinks how God draws those creatures to Himself by every motive of interest and attraction, supplying their wants, offering them happiness, bearing with their perverseness; and then, when there come to him tidings of the return which God receives--His authority defied, His promises despised, His threatenings laughed to scorn, so that it almost seems the universal object to expel Him from His own world, and set up some usurper in His stead--as the man, we say, of real piety observes all this, and meditates on all this, would there be any cause of wonder were he to exclaim, “ For the tidings! for the tidings when asked to explain a manifestation of grief which should be similar to that of the prophet--“ Sigh, therefore, thou son of man, with the breaking of thy loins, and with bitterness sigh before their eyes” ? 2. But let us go on to consider the ruin which transgressors are bringing on themselves; for here at least we shall find “ tidings” which, in the judgment of you all, might vindicate Ezekiel’ s mighty manifestation of anguish. It is not the moment of absolute shipwreck; but “ it cometh” --“ it cometh.” “ The tidings” make him as certain of the shipwreck of thousands as though already were the sea strewed with the fragments of the stranded navy. It is with him no matter of conjecture or speculation whether a life of wickedness will terminate in an eternity of misery; he so surely anticipates the future that he is as though he beheld the casting of the wicked into a lake of fire, and could not be more assured of their terrible doom if the last day were come, and the dead were raised, and “ the books were opened.” And who are these victims of Divine justice? Are they not his fellow men--his brethren after the flesh--those for whom he would bitterly sorrow, if he knew them exposed to some temporal calamity? Shall he--can he--be unmoved by their everlasting wretchedness? (H. Melvill, B. D.) Ezekiel 21:9-11 Should we then make mirth?Mirth unreasonable in the unconverted I. Because they are under condemnation. The sword is sharpened to make a sore slaughter; it is furbished that it may glitter. Should we then make mirth? It is unreasonable in a condemned malefactor to make mirth. Would it not greatly shock every feeling mind to see a company of men condemned to die, meeting and making merry, talking lightly and jestingly, as if the sword was not over them? II. Because God’ s instruments of destruction are all ready. Not only are Christless persons condemned already, but the instruments of their destruction are prepared and quite ready, The sword of vengeance is sharpened and also furbished. The, disease by which every unconverted man is to die is quite ready--it is perhaps in his veins at this very moment. The accident by which he is to drop into eternity is quite ready--all the parts and means of it are arranged. The arrow that is to strike him is on the string--perhaps it has left the string, and is even now flying towards him. III. Because the sword may come down at any one moment. Not only are Christless persons condemned already, and not only is the sword of vengeance quite ready, but the sword may come down at any one moment. It is not so with malefactors: their day is fixed and told them, so that they can count their time. If they have many days, they make merry today at least, and begin to be serious tomorrow. But not so Christless persons: their day is fixed, but it is not told them. It may be this very moment. Ah! should they then make mirth? IV. Because God has made no promise to Christless souls to stay His hand one moment. God has laid Himself under no manner of obligation to you. He has nowhere promised that you shall see tomorrow, or that you shall hear another sermon. There is a day near at hand when you shall not see tomorrow. V. It is a sore slaughter.1. Sore, because it will be on all who are Christless.2. Sore slaughter, because the sword is the sword of God. (R. M’Cheyne.) Untimely mirth Lightfoot says: “ I have heard it more than once and again, from the sheriffs who took all the gunpowder plotters and brought them up to London, that every night when they came to their lodging by the way, they had their music and dancing a good part of the night. One would think it strange that men in their case should be so merry.” More marvellous still is it that those between whom and death there is but a step should sport away their time as if they should live on for ages. Though the place of torment is within a short march of all unregenerate men, yet see how they make mirth, grinning and jesting between the jaws of hell! (C. H. Spurgeon.) Ezekiel 21:16 Go thee one way or other, either on the right hand or on the left, whithersoever thy face is set. Religious decision I. The nature of religious decision. In general terms, this may be said to be an inflexible regard for the will and honour of God--a firm adherence under all circumstances to that course of duty which He has commanded, and a personal dedication of the heart and soul to His service.1. Religious decision is founded on a special regard to the will of God. In this respect it differs from a native or innate decision of character, which is simply a following the bias of the mind. 2. Religious decision is exercised in regard to matters of real importance. In matters of trivial concern. Christian decision may be yielding. It is always candid. It shows due respect for the feelings and preferences of others. 3. True religious decision will never be anxious about consequences. In obeying the clear injunctions of conscience and of God, it is prepared to leave events in His hands who has required the sacrifice. 4. True Christian decision is uniform and unqualified. The man of decided principle will not admit the thought of a compromise with sin or with error. II. The importance of religious decision.1. It is important as a matter of Christian consistency. 2. Religious decision is a satisfactory test of Christian character. 3. Christian decision is important, as a means of securing the respect and confidence of mankind. Men may think you needlessly precise, they may even suspect the purity of your motives, but they will admire the conduct that agrees with the profession. 4. Our usefulness is greatly involved in religious decision. The Great Head of the Church does not select for the execution of His grandest plans the timid, the hesitating, the wavering. No. He employs those to whom “ He has not given the spirit of fear; but of power, of love, and of a sound mind.” (Anon.) To the waverer I. Thy nature of religious decision.1. It is founded on a special regard to the Word of God.2. It is exercised in matters that are religious.3. It spurns all considerations of consequences.4. It acts uniformly and undeviatingly. II. Its importance.1. As an index of Christian consistency.2. As a test of personal Christianity.3. As a passport to general confidence.4. As an element of usefulness. (G. Brooke.) Ezekiel 21:21 The parting of the ways. Which way When you have been wandering in the country you have sometimes come to where two roads branched away from the one you were on--like the two arms of the letter Y--and then you stood puzzled which to take; for the one would take you where you wanted to go, and the other would take you from it. That spot, then, where you stood uncertain was “ the parting of the way.” Now, it is much the same with your life. It is a journey; you are always going on and on, getting older, getting better, or getting worse, just as you have turned to the right or the left at the parting of the way. In America there is a house built on the very top of a great ridge of mountains, and when the rain falls it gathers for a little on the flat roof and then drips over the eaves. But what do you think? the raindrops that fall on the one side and those that fall on the other never meet again! The one trickles away to the Atlantic, and the other descends to the Pacific ocean; they take just opposite ways, and never meet any more. That house is the parting of the way. And there are circumstances which divide people from each other in much the same way--once they are parted they never come together again. How careful, then, we should be, and how prayerful we should be, at these times in choosing what we shall do! How thoughtful and watchful, too, we should be about guiding others when they are at the parting of the way! A little word can sometimes save them then. About forty years ago a little boy went into a shoe shop in Boston to have some repairs made. While he was waiting he said to the errand boy of the shop, “ Do you go to Sunday school?” “ No,” said he, “ I don’ t know nothing about it, and can’ t read.” “ Oh,” said the other, “ I go to Sunday school, and I have such a nice teacher! If you tell me where you live, I will call for you next Sunday and take you.” And he did; and the errand boy behaved very badly, saying naughty things, and sticking pins into his neighbours, altogether behaving so badly that the teacher threatened to turn him out of the school. Still, the teacher had patience and persevered--and who do you think that little wild scholar became? Mr. Daniel Moody, the great preacher, who along with Mr. Sankey has been the means of saving many, many people by bringing them to Jesus. And yet, it was a little boy who guided him right at the parting of the way! What a deal of good that little boy did that day! And you can do the same. Whenever you try to do good to others, or speak to them about Jesus, you are helping them more than you think to take the right way at the parting. When we come to the parting of the way there are two fashions of deciding which way we shall take. One way is by trusting to chance. That is the fashion the king the text speaks about decided which way to take. People do not use arrows nowadays, but sometimes they “ toss up,” and that is just the same thing. Is that the way we should decide? No! no! a blind man might as well “ toss up” whether an orange was black or white,--“ tossing up would never make it the one or the other. Never trust to chance; the book of Chance is Satan’ s Bible, and that is always meant to deceive. There is a surer way, namely--Go by the directions. I saw a picture once which has stuck to my memory for years and years. It was a picture of a dark, wild, stormy night, and a traveller was standing up in the stirrups of his horse at a parting of the way, trying to read the directions on the fingerpost. How eagerly he is looking! I can see him yet--holding the lighted match carefully in his hands, lest the wind should blow it out before he had read the directions! It was a good thing for him that there were directions, and it is a good thing we have them too. Where are our directions? They are--the Bible. That is God’ s word to us, telling us which road to take when we come to the parting of the way. (J. R. Howatt.) He made his arrows bright, he consulted with images. Is Christianity a delusion Two modes of divination by which the King of Babylon proposed to find out the will of God. He took a bundle of arrows, put them together, mixed them up, then pulled forth one, and by the inscription on it decided what city he should first assault. Then an animal was slain, and by the lighter or darker colour of the liver the brighter or darker prospect of success was inferred. Stupid delusion! And yet all the ages have been filled with delusions. It seems as if the world loves to be hoodwinked. In the latter part of the eighteenth century Johanna Southcote came forth pretending to have Divine power, made prophecies, had chapels built in her honour, and 100,000 disciples came forth to follow her. So late as the year 1829, a man arose in New York, pretending to be a Divine being, and played his part so well that wealthy merchants became his disciples, and threw their fortunes into his discipleship. And so in all ages there have been necromancies, incantations, witchcrafts, sorceries, magical arts, enchantments, divinations, and delusions. None of these delusions accomplished any good. They opened no hospitals, healed no wounds, wiped away no tears, emancipated no serfdom. But there are those who say that all these delusions combined are as nothing compared with the delusion now abroad in the world, the delusion of the Christian religion. That delusion has today two hundred million dupes. It has conquered England and the United States, for they are called Christian nations. This champion delusion, this hoax, this swindle of the ages, as it has been called, has gone forth to conquer the islands of the Pacific the Melanesia and Micronesia, and Malayan Polynesia have already surrendered to the delusion. Yea, it has conquered the Indian Archipelago, and Borneo, and Sumatra, and Celebes and Java have fallen under its wiles. What a delusion! This delusion of the Christian religion shows itself in the fact that it goes to those who are in trouble. Now, it is bad enough to cheat a man when he is prosperous; but this religion comes to a man when he is sick, and says: “ You will be well again after awhile; you’ re going into a land where there are no coughs, and no pleurisies, and no consumptions; take courage and bear up.” Yea, this awful chimera of the Gospel comes to the poor, and it says to them” “ You are on your way to vast estates and to dividends always declarable.” This delusion of Christianity comes to the bereft, and it talks of reunion before the throne, and of the cessation of all sorrow. And then, to show that this delusion will stop at absolutely nothing, it goes to the dying bed and fills the man with anticipations. How much better it would be to have him die without any more hope than swine and rats and snakes. Annihilation, vacancy, everlasting blank, obliteration! Why not present all that beautiful doctrine to the dying, instead of coming with this hoax, this swindle of the Christian religion, and filling the dying man with anticipations of another life until some in the last hour have clapped their hands, and some have shouted, and some have sung, and some had been so overwrought with joy that they could only look ecstatic. To show the immensity of this delusion, this awful swindle of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, I open a hospital, and I bring into that hospital the deathbeds of a great many Christian people, and I ask a few questions. “ Dying Stephen, what have you to say? Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.” “ Dying John Wesley, what have you to say? The best of all is, God is with us.” “ Dying Edward Payson, what have you to say?” “ I float in a sea of glory.” “ Dying John Bradford, what have yon to say?” “ If there be any way of going to heaven on horseback, or in a fiery chariot, it is this.” “ Dying Neander, what have you to say? I am going to sleep now--goodnight.” “ Dying Mrs. Florence Foster, what have you to say?” “ A pilgrim m the valley, but the mountain tops are all agleam from peak to peak.” “ Dying Alexander Mather, what have you to say?” “ The Lord who has taken care of me fifty years will not cast me off now; glory be to God and to the Lamb! Amen, amen, amen, amen!” “ Dying John Powson, after preaching the Gospel so many years, what have you to say? My deathbed is a bed of roses.” “ Dying Doctor Thomas Scott, what have you to say?” “ This is heaven begun.” “ Dying soldier in the last war, what have you to say?” “ This is heaven begun.” “ Dying soldier in the last war, what have you to say?” “ Boys, I am going to the front.” “ Dying telegraph operator on the battlefield of Virginia, what have you to say? The wires are all laid, and the poles are up from Stony Point to headquarters.” “ Dying Paul, what have you to say?” “ I am now ready to be offered, and the time of my departure is at hand. I have fought the good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith. Oh death, where is thy sting? Oh grave, where is thy victory? Thanks be unto God, who giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.” Oh my Lord, my God, what a delusion! what a glorious delusion! Submerge me with it; fill my eyes and ears with it; put it under my dying head for a pillow--this delusion; spread it over me for a canopy; put it underneath me for an outspread wing; roll it over me in ocean surges ten thousand fathoms deep. The overwhelming conclusion is that Christianity, producing such grand results, cannot be a delusion, an hallucination; cannot launch such a glory of the centuries. Your logic and your common sense convince you that a bad cause cannot produce an illustrious result. Some of you have read everything. You are scientific and you are scholarly, and yet if I should ask you, What is the most sensible thing you ever did? you would say, “ The most sensible thing I ever did was to give my heart to God.” But there may be others here who have not had early advantages, and if they were asked to give their experience they might rise and give such testimony as the man gave in a prayer meeting when he said: “ On my way here tonight, I met a man who asked me where I was going. I said, ‘ I am going to a prayer meeting.’ He said, ‘ There are a great many religions, and I think the most of them are delusions; as to the Christian religion, that is only a notion, that is a mere notion, the Christian religion.’ I said to him: ‘ Stranger, you see that tavern over there?’ ‘ Yes,’ he said, ‘ I see it.’ ‘ Do you see me?’ ‘ Yes, of course I see you.’ ‘ Now, the time was when, every body in this town knows, if I had a quarter of a dollar in my pocket I could not pass that tavern without going and getting a drink; all the people of Jefferson could not keep me out of that place; but God has changed my heart, and the Lord Jesus Christ has destroyed my thirst for strong drink, and there is my whole week’ s wages, and I have no temptation to go in there. And, stranger, if this is a notion, I want to tell you it is a mighty powerful notion; it is a notion that has put clothes on my children’ s backs, and it is a notion that has put good food on our table, and it is a notion that has filled my mouth with thanksgiving to God; and, stranger, you had better go along with me, you might get religion too; lots of people are getting religion now.’” Well, we will soon understand it all. We will soon come to the last bar of the music, to the last act of the tragedy, to the last page of the book--yea, to the last line and to the last word, and to you and to me it will either be midnoon or midnight. (T. De Witt Talmage.) Ezekiel 21:26-27 Thus saith the Lord God; Remove the diadem, and take off the crown. The Christian philosophy of revolution The true philosophical history of man is that which reveals to us the causes and progress, first, of his depravity and deterioration; and secondly, of his return towards that state of holiness and happiness which he is destined, in the purpose of God, and through the agency of the Gospel, again to attain. The progression which the history of the race exhibits has been in cycles, and not in straight lines. In accordance with the principle announced by the prophet of Jehovah to the profane and wicked Prince of Israel, it has been a process of revolution and not of development. It involves the law of declension and decay, as much as that of quickening and growth. In the first place, the origin of the human race was not from a state of barbarism, but one of absolute perfection; and the first change which passed upon human nature was that by which it fell into degeneracy, by reason of temptation from without. Social happiness was blighted, and perished in the bud. The very first offspring of the social state, instead of love, sympathy, and mutual support, were, first, envy, then hatred, and lastly murder. Alienation and division thus became at once the universal law of society. In the first place, the earliest ages of the world after the fall, when the light of revealed truth was dimmest, and the reign of grace most feeble, were marked by a rapid degeneration, physical, intellectual, and moral, in the nature, the character, and the condition of man. In the second place, when the power of sin was checked by larger gifts of gracious influence, the power of Divine truth became diffusive, and entered upon its aggressive work in the achievement of man’ s regeneration; and has continued to the present hour, progressive; and, judging from the history of the past, and the characteristics of the present, as well as the prophetic delineation of the future, it will continue steadily progressive, till its final and perfect consummation. In the third place, the great agent by which this progress has been carried forward is that of revolution, or that of overturning, overturning, overturning, till He shall come whose right it is to wear the crown of universal dominion, amidst the redeemed race of man. In any comprehensive survey of the subject, the central epoch of human history is the advent of the Son of God. Everything anterior to that event pointed to the incarnation as embracing the fulness of its significancy, and everything subsequent derives its vitality and power from the same source. To the eye of the Christian, and in the light of the Bible, those vast and sublime overturnings which reared and overthrew successively the gigantic empires of Egypt, Assyria, Persia, and Macedon, to say nothing of countless smaller states, which concentrated the intellect, the genius, and the cultivation of the world in the States of Greece, and finally enthroned Rome as sole mistress of the earth, these all appear as mighty and indispensable agencies, commissioned of God to produce that mental culture, that feeling of strong, unsatisfied religious want, and that state of universal peace, which were essential to prepare the world for the advent of the Son of God. And now in like manner we believe the peculiar dispensation of the age, and specifically of the race to which we belong, is to leaven the philosophy, the literature, the morality, and the civil and political institutions of the world with the religion of the Bible, and then carry their elevating, purifying influence throughout the earth. This is the last of the great dispensations of the world’ s progressive history. The true and final civilisation of the race, as statesmen and philosophers delight to call it, is just that which owes to Christianity both the life of its being and the law of its forms. It was designed for the whole family of man; and it will therefore embrace the whole. Changes are passing upon the internal policy and the outward face of nations, with a rapidity as much greater than those of the early ages of history as the modes of locomotion and the intercourse of the world have been improved by the agencies of steam and magnetic electricity. The progress of human events toward their ultimate goal, like some mighty mass acted upon by a constant mechanical force, is ever accelerating as it advances. This is preeminently true of the very point of time now passing. The plot thickens. Events crowd with ever-accumulating momentum toward the appointed end. The watchwords of the downtrodden classes of the Old World--Liberty, Equality, Fraternity--are not so far from the embodiment of the true and fundamental principles of that very civilisation which yet awaits the human race. But as to the sources whence these blessings are to come, they are, by the necessities of their previous condition, wholly in the dark. The “ liberty” which they are blindly struggling after, in the turbulent and bloody track of radicalism, is to be realised in the enfranchisement of the Gospel, and grounded on that personal liberty wherewith Christ makes His people free. The “ equality” to which their inward convictions assure them they are entitled is not an agrarian equality of social and material position, but an equality in human rights, founded on an equality of moral condition and desert in the sight of God; and the “ fraternity” emblazoned on their motto is the genuine, but it may be the perverted, heart utterance of the conscious right to membership in that common brotherhood of humanity which springs out of the common Fatherhood of God. The whole and every item of this ideal longing of humanity in its most degraded and dangerous forms, and which has been moulded into the war cry of modern revolution, is destined to fulfilment; but in a form and from a source widely different from that to which the ignorant and vicious and dangerous paupers and outcasts of the world are looking for succour. They shall yet enjoy all, and more than all, their brightest hopes, but only as a fruit of the Gospel of Christ. (M. B. Hope, D. D.) National revolutions Our day is one of unusual excitement; mind is everywhere agitated; the foundations are out of place; the earth reels like a drunken man; sceptres are broken; dynasties tremble; the diadem is removed and the crown taken off; thrones are burnt in the open streets; kings flee for their lives to foreign shores; men’ s hearts are failing them for fear, and for looking after those things that are coming on the earth, for the powers of heaven are shaken. I. National revolutions are symptomatic of moral disorder. They are the result of one or more causes of an evil, or a series of evils, which have been long accumulating and gathering force and strength, until the terrible crisis comes, when, like the central fires of the earth rushing to the volcano, an eruption takes place, and men are filled with astonishment and oppressed with awe. All the manifestations of injustice are evidences of the moral disorder to which I allude.1. Religious persecution.2. The withholding of political rights.3. Positive oppression. II. National revolutions are in harmony with individual experience and material phenomena. The individual is the type of the nation. The nation is but the individual on a broader scale. The body politic is congregated men. The mass is the man multiplied. We are firmly persuaded that the security of a nation is not in the form, but in the moral integrity of its government. “ Righteousness exalteth a nation.” We deprecate injustice, whether it emanate from a throne or a presidential chair; and tyranny, whether it come from a man or a mob; and slavery, whether it exist under a despotism or a republic. Again, as in the individual, so in the nation; if there be the conservative power of health, it will struggle for the mastery. The accumulated moral disease must destroy vitality, or be thrown to the surface by revolution. We find another analogy in material laws. The inequality of the earth’ s surface is conducive to the health of vegetables and animals. The roaring cataract stuns the beholder, but he inhales not there the poison of the stagnant pool. The sweeping wind makes the forest to groan, but it causes its roots to strike deeper in the earth, and the juices of vegetable life are increased. The thunders of heaven, with their herald-lightnings, appall and terrify us, but they are the physicians of the atmosphere, and drive pestilence from the land. III. National revolutions are the voice of God speaking to the world.1. They proclaim the vanity of all artificial greatness. “ The Lord is known by the judgment which He executeth.” “ He leadeth princes away spoiled, and overthroweth the mighty.” “ He poureth contempt upon princes, and causeth them to wander in the wilderness where there is no way.” 2. By these revolutions God utters His protest against tyranny. God is the God of justice, the Friend of the needy, the Avenger of the oppressed; and those that walk in pride He is able to abase. His voice, if despised in His word, is lifted up in the storm, the tempest, the plague, and the revolution; and it is the protest against injustice and oppression. 3. Another lesson read to the their victories worthless; their wars, sin; their pride, rebellion; their honours, transient; their wealth, evanescent; their glory, a fading flower; and their destiny, extinction from under these heavens. IV. These revolutions are forerunners of the Redeemer’ s righteous reign. The Redeemer will come again--not to be betrayed, mocked, and crucified; but to be glorified in His saints, and admired in all them that believe; to be hailed as the Prince of peace--the liberator of every bondman--the joy of every loyal heart--the desire of all nations; to be crowned, amid the hosannahs of an exulting world, while the smiling heavens are vocal with the intermingling hallelujahs of angels and men. (W. Leask.) Ezekiel 21:27I will overturn, overturn, overturn it: and it shall be no more, until He come whose right it is; and I will give it Him.War, a means of advancing the kingdom of Christ I. War. 1. War has its own work to accomplish. It is not a chance. It is of God (1 Chronicles 5:22). War, like pestilence or famine, is under His command, and warriors are the executioners of His will, though they know Him not. Jehovah hath a work to do, which war is the fittest instrument to accomplish. He saves by the Gospel; He “ overturns” by the sword. 2. The foundation of all true religion lies in obedience to the first commandment of the law (Exodus 20:2-3). But the heathen nations “ have gods many, and lords many” (1 Corinthians 8:5). Idolatry has been more prevalent than the worship of the true God in all ages and nations, since the time of the patriarchs. And idolaters outnumber the worshippers of the living God in the present day. This wide defection from truth is not to be attributed to ignorance, but to depravity (Romans 1:21; Romans 1:28). Ignorance is not the chief evil in our race, but sin,--“ all have sinned” (Romans 3:23,--so that “ every mouth must be stopped, and all the world become guilty before God” (Romans 3:19). 3. Now it is necessary that this matter be thoroughly understood, in order that we may vindicate the righteousness of God in permitting the nations of the earth to remain so long unsaved while He has visited them so often with His sore judgments, of which the sword has not been the least. Heart depravity gave birth to idolatry, and idolatry ministers to that depravity. When “ the light becomes darkness, how great is that darkness!” (Matthew 6:23). When God is rejected, the devil reigns. Crime is everywhere the religion of Paganism, and its universal fruits are envy, lust, rapine, misery, murder, death, hell. It is nothing that the Gospel of Jesus has; it hath everything the Gospel has not. It is directly antagonistic to Christ. And if the power of heathenism were not brought down by the sword, the whole of its institutions, laws, priesthood, and systems of government, combined with the sinfulness of the human heart, would present an impenetrable barrier to the admission of the truth. War must throw that barrier down. Christian churches are not to furnish the warriors; Christian missionaries are not to lead on a band of holy crusaders; but God will find the instruments, and by them He will do the work. “ I will overturn, overturn, overturn.” 4. Here let us pause, and survey the events of the present and preceding century in heathen lands, that “ we may declare the work of God, and wisely consider of His doing” (Psalms 64:9). II. Its issue.1. We know not what events may lie before us, nor how God may work by divers instrumentalities, both good and evil; but the ultimate result of the unsheathed sword, and of His overturning, He hath plainly declared. “ I will overturn, overturn, overturn it; and it shall be no more, ‘ until He come whose right it is.’” 2. This design of God cannot be frustrated; His purposes shall assuredly stand. Every war has been hitherto made subservient to the kingdom of His Son. 3. But in what way, some might inquire, can the war in which we are now unhappily engaged conduce to the coming of His kingdom, whose right it is to reign? It may not be easy to answer that question. How God will work we know not, nor do we wish to know; it is sufficient that our faith at present should rest upon His Word. Still, however, without venturing beyond our line in the way of predictions, we may argue on probabilities that present themselves to a reflecting mind. 4. It only remains that we notice, with commendation, those peculiar features of this war which demand our grateful acknowledgments to Almighty God. The first is, the extreme reluctance with which we entered upon it. Every method diplomacy could prevent to avoid conflict was exhausted. It was not always thus with nations. It was not always thus with England. We hail the change, even while we hear a proclamation of war, as indicating the approach of that blessed period when war shall be no more. Secondly, the humane manner of conducting the war is worthy of the highest praise. (W. J. Shrewsbury.) Social changes subservient to the kingdom of Christ There is a well-known phrase which has been applied by one and another to various things in the world, just as anything happened to be a favourite of prejudice or fancy, “ Esto perpetua.” But methinks a sober and enlightened looker on the world will not find very many things on which he can deliberately pronounce it. He certainly cannot begin with the state of his own mind, taken entire and as it is. And if he cast a rapid glance of survey over the world, his attention will soon be arrested by many things which he would not wish exempted from such a denunciation as that of the text. Perhaps we should not proceed without first protesting against the passion for mere change and commotion; a restless discontent that everything should continue as it is. Yet Providence may occasionally make use even of this for its great purposes; may let loose the wild violence, and direct its operation, on what is decreed to be demolished. However, a good man wants not to excite to activity any such spirit while he beholds the things he wishes overturned. What things? At different times you have been moved with regret and indignation and almost horror as the several grand evils that are oppressing and blasting the world have unfolded their deformity and malignant effects to your view. I. Perhaps the first that will occur to the mind is--false, pernicious religion. Religion! the light of the world! turned into error, delusion, and darkness! Religion! the sacred bond of the creature to the glorious Creator! rent and reformed into a bondage to all that is in opposition to Him! Religion! designed as the purifier and elevator of man,--transformed into the promoter, even the creator and the sanction, of his corruption and degradation! Religion, in short, the happiness of man on earth, and the preparation for eternal happiness, converted into a cause of misery here and hereafter! Then, “ overturn! overturn!” Imagine, in any country, a mighty fortress of a cruel tyrant, constituting the main strength of his occupancy,--even the most dreadful earthquake would be almost welcome to the people, if they saw that it was prostrating the massive walls, the impregnable towers of this fortress; their own humble abodes might be seen falling, but “ look yonder! something else is also falling!” II. Again, what ruinations there must be on earth before Christianity is set quite clear and pure from all the corruptions of worldly policy. “ Overturn!” will still be his prayer with respect to all systems and institutions, which, by their principle, put religion on any ground where it must be necessarily and primarily a secular affair; where the spiritual interests shall be made formally subsidiary and servile to the secular; where secular regards will necessarily have the ascendancy; where the leading considerations will naturally be those of emolument and ambition. III. The history of the world presents, almost over its whole vast breadth, one melancholy spectacle of mankind subjected to the uncontrolled will of a few individuals, assuming the station of deities, and very many of them the worst of their race, “ the basest of men!” Such a system resolutely maintained must come to a tremendous result. It will ultimately compel two vast orders of will and force into awful conflict; like that of the fire and water of the last day. For it cannot be that God has appointed the general human mind to subside in a quiet enslavement and stagnation. There will be mighty commotions; a “ shaking of the nations,” in all probability. But the omens are very dark as to any speedy results from them of a hind to satisfy a Christian and philanthropic spirit. The gloomy omens arise from this,--that God has His own controversy with all the nations. (John Foster.) Revolution and reformation I. What things do now stand in the way of Christ’ s glorious reign.1. Every species of tyranny.2. Idolatry, or the worship of false gods. 3. Infidelity.4. Heresy, or the disbelief of the great and fundamental doctrines of the Gospel. II. By what means we may suppose God will overturn or remove all these things which stand in the way of the glorious reign of Christ.1. By public calamities or desolating judgments. 2. We may suppose that God will employ human learning to enlighten the minds of ignorant, barbarous, tyrannical, and erroneous nations in respect to their civil and religious tyranny, and their absurd and vicious customs and manners. 3. We may be confident that God will employ the Gospel as the principal external instrument to overthrow and remove all obstacles in the way of Christ’ s final and most glorious reign upon earth. This is suited at once to enlighten the understandings, awaken the consciences, and subdue the hearts of all who are opposed to the kingdom of Christ. 4. God will pour out His Spirit as the efficient cause of making all the other means that have been mentioned effectual, “ to the pulling down of strongholds,” etc. III. Why may we confidently expect that God will accomplish His gracious design of giving the kingdom to His Son by the means that have been mentioned.1. Because these are the means which He has hitherto usually employed for accomplishing this purpose. 2. Because He can make the means which have been mentioned effectually answer his great purpose in view. 3. He has expressly promised to do it. Improvement--1. If the things which now stand in the way of the glorious reign of Christ must be removed in the manner that has been mentioned before His reign commences, we have no reason to think that His kingdom will soon come. 2. If God has done so much already, and will do a great deal more to prepare the way for the coming of Christ in His millennial glory, then we may justly expect that the world will be very happy under the reign of the Prince of Peace. 3. If God will remove the obstacles which still tie in the way of the latter-day glory of Christ in the manner that has been mentioned, then good men have a great deal to do to promote this great and good design. 4. It appears from what has been said, that Christians have great encouragement to exert themselves vigorously and wisely in preparing the way for the glorious reign of Christ. 5. This subject calls upon all to rejoice in what God has done and is doing, by the instrumentality of man, to fill the earth with His glory, under the reign of the Prince of Peace. (N. Emmons, D. D.) Human revolutions I. They have a sad successiveness. They do not run out and expend themselves; but one makes place for another. All mutations in schools, markets, churches, kingdoms, only pass away as waves on the shore, to be succeeded by other advancing billows. There is nothing settled. II. They transpire by Divine arrangement. There must be perpetual fermentation where evil is. How does God effect these changes?--1. By the revelation of right and truth to human consciousness.2. By the procedure of His providence. III. They will only be terminated by the advent of the rightful King. The world is Christ’ s. He has a right to rule. So truthful, benevolent, and just will be His sway that all opposition will be subdued. (Homilist.) The three-fold overthrow of sell I. The Lord repeats three times the expression, “ I will overturn it.” It may indeed be said with respect to this repetition of the words three times, that it may signify the positiveness and certainty of God’ s determination. But still I believe, if we come to look at it in a closer point of view, we shall find that it is literally true,--that the repetition of it three times does not merely intend to express the certainty of God’ s overthrow of self in the soul, but that there are three distinct occasions--three clear, positive, and direct overturnings of self, and bringing it into utter ruin, in order to the setting up of Christ in His glory and beauty upon the wreck and ruins of the creature.1. The first prominent feature of self is in some cases profane self; that is, many of God’ s elect, before they are called by the blessed Spirit, are living in open profanity, in drunkenness, swearing, and the barefaced practice of notorious sins. But whenever the Spirit of God begins to work in the heart, He overturns profane self, that is, He brings such solemn convictions into the conscience--He shoots such arrows from the bow of God into the soul, that self in its profane shape is overcome and overthrown thereby. 2. Here, then, is a soul which stands overturned before God; a wreck and ruin before “ the eyes of Him with whom we have to do.” But what will a man do when he is reduced to these circumstances? Why, he will begin to build, and will endeavour to set up a temple in which he believes God will take pleasure, of which He may approve, and which shall, in some measure, recommend him to Jehovah’ s favour. A second overturning, then, is necessary, an overthrow of righteous or holy self. And what is the Lord’ s lever to overturn this second temple, built out of the ruins of the first, but not “ the place of His rest,” as being still the work of men’ s hands? A spiritual discovery of the deep pollution of our hearts and natures before Him. Profanity is overturned by the application of the law with power to the conscience; but this false holiness, this mock spirituality, is overturned by the discovery to our consciences of the deep pollution that lurks in our carnal minds; this is more or less the breaking up of “ the fountains of the great deep,” and discovering with power to the conscience the truth of those words: “ The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked.” As we try, then, to be holy, sin rises up from the depths of our carnal mind, and overturns that fabric which we are seeking to erect. 3. Now let us trace a little what course self will steer. Why, this restless wretch now runs in another channel, which is to slight the solemn inward teachings of God, and to take hold of the doctrines of grace by the hand of nature, without waiting to have these heavenly truths applied, from time to time, by the mouth of God to our hearts. And as some sweetness has been felt in them there seems to be some warrant for so doing. But presumption creeps upon us in such imperceptible and subtle ways, that we scarcely know we are in thus delusive path before we find a precipice at the end of the road. And what has led us there? Our pride and ambition, which are not satisfied with being nothing, with occupying the place where God puts us, and being in that posture where He Himself sets us down. We must needs grasp at something beyond God’ s special teachings in the soul; we must needs exalt our stature beyond the height which God Himself has given us, adding a cubit to our dwarfish proportions. Here, then, is the third form of self which is to be overturned, as much as the two preceding forms, and that is presumptuous self. II. The setting up of the kingdom of God on the ruins of self. “ I will overturn, overturn, overturn it: and it shall be no more, until He come whose right it is; and I will give it Him.” There is one then to come “ whose right it is,” there is a King who has a right to the throne, and to the allegiance of His subjects; a right to all that they are and to all that they have. But whence has He gained this right? “ Until He come whose right it is.” It is His right, then, first, by original donation and gift, the Father having given to the Son all the elect. “ Here am I,” says Jesus, and the children that Thou hast given Me.” “ All that the Father giveth Me shall come to Me.” Then, so far as we are His, Jesus has a right to our persons; and in having a right to our persons, He has, by the same original donation of God the Father, a right to our hearts and affections. But He has another right, and that is by purchase and redemption, He having redeemed His people by His own blood--having laid down His life for them, and thus bought and purchased them, and so established a right to them by the full and complete price which He Himself paid down upon the cross for them. This two-fold right He exercises every time that He lays a solemn claim to any one of the people whom He has purchased. “ Until He come whose right it is.” Then there is a coming of Jesus into the souls of His people; not a coming into their judgments to inform their heads; not a coming into their minds merely to enable them to speak with their tongues concerning them, but there is a solemn coming of Christ, with power and glory and grace and majesty into the souls and consciences of His elect family, whereby He sets up His kingdom upon its basis, erects a temple for Himself, and builds up His own throne of mercy and truth upon the ruins of self. But this is not a work which is once done, and needs no more repetition. For we must bear in mind that this wreck and ruin of self is not a heap of dead stones. Self is a living principle; not a slaughtered and buried rebel, but a breathing antagonist to the Lord of life and glory. Self will ever work, then, against His supreme authority, and will ever rebel against His sovereign dominion. And therefore if we look into our hearts we shall find that day by day we need this overturning work to be done afresh, and again and again repeated in us. (J. C. Philpot.) Messiah’ s final triumph I. Jehovah has given universal empire to Jesus (Psalms 72:1-11; Psalms 2:8; Psalms 89:27; Daniel 7:14; Zechariah 9:10; Philippians 2:10; Acts 2:32, etc.) Christ’ s dominion is to embrace the whole world,--every empire, kingdom, continent, and island. II. It is Christ’ s right thus to reign. “ Whose right it is.”1. On His creative property in all things (Colossians 1:16). Satan is an usurper,--the world is alienated from its rightful Lord. But the right of Christ remains unaffected, and that right He will demand and obtain. 2. On His supreme authority as universal Lord. He is Lord of all, King of kings, etc. This authority is seen in controlling all events, in upholding all things, etc. In His infinite outgoings of benevolence and love. 3. He has a redeeming right. He became incarnate, He descended into the world, He brought the light of heaven into it, He gave His own life for it, He is the proprietor, etc. Here then is a right, ratified with His precious blood. He was willingly lifted up that He “ might draw all men unto Him.” III. God will overturn every obstacle until this be effected. “ I will overturn,” etc. Ignorance must give place to light, error to truth, sin to holiness. Satan must be driven from his strongholds, and thus Jesus will enlarge His empire and extend His domains. There are, however, four mighty impediments which must be overthrown, entirely overturned.1. Paganism, and all its multifarious rites.2. Mohammedanism in all its earthly gratifications.3. Judaism, with its obsolete rites.4. Antichristian Rome. Every thing that exalteth itself against God, or attempts the division of Christ’ s merits, must be consumed before the brightness of Messiah’ s countenance and the power of His truth. But you ask, How will God overturn, etc.? Doubtless His providence will subserve the purposes of His grace. He may cause science and commerce to open a passage for the message of truth. He may even overrule war, and may allow the military hero to pioneer the ambassador of peace. But he will do it by the power of the Gospel of truth. The doctrines of the cross are to effect it. “ We preach Christ crucified,” etc. “ Not by might, nor by power,” etc. (J. Burns, D. D.) . Ezekiel 22:16 Thou shalt take thine inheritance in thyself.Inheritance in thyself Man, as a moral being, cannot have happiness or misery independently of his inner life. Each man in some sense farms his own nature, and reaps the harvest planted by his own hands. Man is a wealthy proprietor. No lordly acres, no wide domain of forest land can ever equal the enclosure of his own heart. I. In a human sense we take our inheritance in ourselves. Most certainly we are inheritors of our past human delinquencies, or of the joy of duties fulfilled. All other inheritances drop off from us; like gathered flowers they fade! These are rooted in our hearts. Men may blame us and be wrong, or praise us and be wrong! But our conscience is a true rest, and happy the man whose smile is as bright, whose voice as cheery, and whose step is as elastic, whether the world crowns him with garlands or stones him with scorn! II. In a mental sense we take our inheritance in ourselves. Mind is a most productive soil. Tend it well, and do not hurry the crops, and there is nothing so wonderful in the universe of God. When you enter the British Museum, remember that from year to year every little and every large volume has to be received and registered there. What a registry it is, but it is nothing to the registry of the human brain! How easily it works, how quickly it shelves for future use the rarest thoughts, how wonderfully at call it brings the fact or the illustration, not by some stately messenger, but by the swift telegraphy of its own sensations. III. In a moral sense we take our inheritance in ourselves.1. How true it is of national life. Rome took her inheritance when, ceasing the virtues of simplicity, honour, and home life, she chose luxury, pleasure, and the pomp of war. Greece took her inheritance when, choosing philosophic disquisitions and sophistical debates, she darkened the moral sense by mere casuistry. Jerusalem took her inheritance when, forsaking the sublime simplicity and tender spirituality of her faith, she became rabbinical in her theology, inhuman in her neglect of the needy, and proud in the speciality of her privileges. In each ease the inheritance came: the military strength of the northern armies crushed the power of Rome; the enfeeblement of Epicureanism and refined libertinism seized upon the heart of Greece; and the pride, prejudice, and pernicious formalism of the Pharisees slew the soul of Hebrew piety. 2. We, too--each of us--take the inheritance in ourselves; the harvests of life are either tares or wheat, according to our past sowing. Nor does the Gospel of Jesus Christ interfere with this law. When we become Christians our past sins are forgiven us through the precious blood of Christ., but their influence on our after character and life growth is not hereby destroyed. Old habits, old pursuits, old readings, old companionships are not dead and forgotten in a day. They, too, still will be helping or hindering our progress in the Divine life, and elevating or depressing the spirituality of our minds. IV. In all these aspects of life we mark the Divine fitness of things. If men tell us that we have no business to occupy our thoughts with moral fitnesses, that God’ s yea is yea, and God’ s nay is nay, whatever we may judge, we answer that God is more considerate than such critics, for He has condescended to appeal to us, that we may judge between Him and His vineyard; He has permitted the record of those early cries--“ This be far from Thee, Lord, to destroy the righteous with the wicked.” “ Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?” And he has sanctioned St. Paul’ s appeal not to every man’ s blind obedience, but to every man’ s conscience in the sight of God. Thus we can rest our arguments upon the unimpeachable bases of Scripture and conscience. V. In the ministry of Christ we see this great fact recognised. The Divine Lord saw, as we never can, the hearts of men. He not only saw rich publicans and lowly Nazarenes, not only lordly Pharisees and impoverished Samaritans, but He saw the great heart burthens men were everywhere bearing.. Surely He was a Prophet, and more than a Prophet; for prophets came to warn and to condemn, to lift up the cry, “ Repent! repent!” But this face was not like one of the old prophets. No! There were touches of tenderness in it such as they had not, womanly almost, yet weak. Out, out, they went to Christ. Surely the voice was strange, for great souls fill words with love as well as thought, and what would not the Divine soul do? Yes! they heard Jesus. Never man spake as He spake. And what was His theme? Ah! it is well that we know it. Come, ye inheritors of shame and woe and ill-gotten wealth, and long-repented lives of sensual sin! Come! you cannot lose your memories of life, you cannot cut off their influence on mind and heart; but the bitter, bitter inheritance of shame and agony and woe and guilt--you, even you, may lose all these! Listen to me: “ I am the Good Shepherd; the Good Shepherd giveth His life for the sheep.” “ Come unto Me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” VI. In the future days the inheritance will work itself out. Yes! Thou shalt take it. As a pilgrim of eternity, you take the life burthen with you. He that soweth to the flesh, shall of the flesh reap corruption; and he that soweth to the spirit, shall of the spirit reap life everlasting. This is in exact harmony with moral law. (W. M. Statham.) Ezekiel 22:18 Son of man, the house of Israel is to me become dross.Sin’ s deteriorating power Stand in fancy in one of the fights of the old civil war. The Royalists are fighting desperately, and are winning apace; but I hear a cry from the other side that Cromwell’ s Ironsides are coming. Now we shall see some fighting. Oliver and his men are lions. But lo! I see that the fellows who come up hang fire, and are afraid to rush into the thick of the fight; surely these are not Cromwell’ s Ironsides, and yonder captain is not old Nell? I do not believe it; it cannot be. Why, if they were what they profess to be, they would have broken the ranks of those perfumed cavaliers long ago, and have made them fly before them like chaff before the wind. So when I hear men say, “ Here is a body of Christians.” What! those Christians? Those cowardly people, who hardly dare speak a word for Jesus! Those covetous people, who give a few cheese parings to His cause! Those inconsistent people, whom you would not know to be Christian professors if they did not label themselves! What! such beings followers of a crucified Saviour! The world sneers at such pretensions, and well it may. (C. H. Spurgeon.) Ezekiel 22:24 Thou art the land that is not cleansed, nor rained upon in the day of indignation.Practical uses of the state of the land of Judah We propose to speak concerning the special instruction which the prophet received to intimate her state. It was not communicated to him as a secret, or whispered in the ears of a few select friends. A commission is prefixed, by, which he was commanded to proclaim the state of the land in the public ear: “ Son of man, say unto her, Thou art the land that is not cleansed, nor rained on in the day of indignation.” On several considerations this solemn formality was necessary.1. It was necessary on account of the stiffness and haughtiness of the people. In the temper of every backsliding church pride is a reigning corruption; but among the peculiar people, it appears at that time to have risen to the highest elevation of vanity and guilt. Blown up by lying divinations, and full of extravagant notions of their own importance, they persuaded themselves that peculiar privileges could not be forfeited, nor an everlasting possession alienated and transferred. But the Lord, having declared by the mouth of Jeremiah that He would mar the pride of Judah, and the great pride of Jerusalem, sent fresh instructions unto Ezekiel in Babylon to carry on the approaches, and to invest and storm the stronghold of the national pride. 2. This solemn formality was necessary on account of the depravation of national manners, and the inefficacy of means which had been used to retrieve national honour. Kings, princes, and judges, priests, prophets, and people, despised exhortation and warning, and humbled not themselves under correction and chastisement. In this state of depravation and impurity the day of indignation found the land, and its filthiness increasing, and hardening under the heart, Ezekiel, a little after the delivery of the message sent him in the text, added Ezekiel 24:12-14. 3. This solemn formality was necessary to justify the violent measures that were to be adopted for removing the barrenness and filth of the land. Milder expedients to correct the depravity and recover the glory of the nation being used without effect, violent measures became necessary, and were actually pursued. Lamentations 2:6. Under church and state the spirit of judgment and the spirit of burning kindled and devoured together the thorns and the briars in both. These measures of justice and violence were communicated to Ezekiel, in a message which stands recorded before the text (Ezekiel 22:18-22). 4. The solemn formality of a special message concerning the state of the land in the day of indignation was necessary, to contrast the singularity of her mercies with the singularity of her sins. Terms and expressions very uncommon are used concerning their sufferings. Proverb, by-word, derision, scorn, reproach, taunt, hissing, laugh stock, astonishment, curse are bitter expressions which frequently occur, and have a dreadful reality in their history. Now, from the justice and equity of the Lord their God we may infer that people, whom in His wrath He made a derision to the world, had made themselves a scandal and abhorrence to the world by their crimes. 5. This solemn formality was necessary to stop the mouths of that murmuring and gainsaying people, and to cut off occasion of complaining as if they had been surprised or taken unawares. The corrupt and filthy state of the land, which was become a nuisance to the world, had been set forth in the plainest language, and as it resisted ordinary means of cleansing, an example was necessary for the honour of the God of the land, the God of the whole earth; but before He made the example, this instruction is sent to Ezekiel, “ Son of man, say unto her, Thou art the land that is not cleansed,” etc. Application-- 1. After hearing the state of the land of Judah described, are ye highly elevated? Believers, the glory of the Most High over all the earth, breaking forth in the execution of judgment upon the land of Judah in the day of His indignation, is the glory of our God. In His glory “ our God is a consuming fire” ; and in His glory our “ God is love” ! 2. After reading and hearing the state of the land of Judah in the day of indignation, are ye deeply humbled? Next to Gethsemane and Golgotha, where sin and wrath met upon the Son of God, stand the city of Jerusalem and the land of Judah, where iniquity set its throne, and wrath poured itself into the cup of fury full of mixture. About this humbling monument we will walk, and view it on every side, looking upon Him whom we have pierced, and whom “ God hath made to be sin or us, that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him.” 3. After reading and hearing the state of the land of Judah in the day of indignation, are ye rejoicing in hope? With Israelites, Gentiles are now fellow heirs, and of the same body, partakers of the promises of God in Christ by the Gospel, and drink the waters of the river whose streams made Jerusalem a rejoicing and her people a joy. The river of consolation flowing out of the promises of Messiah, the heat of indignation could not dry up. Flowing through the blood and fire and ashes of Jerusalem, it deepened and widened, and filled its course, till at last it run over the mountains of Jerusalem, spread itself into the valleys of the Gentiles, and in deserts and wildernesses poured into families and churches the water of life. 4. After reading and hearing the state of the land of Judah in the day of indignation, are we trembling with fear? To infidels and atheists, to sinners in Zion and hypocrites in heart, wrath is an object of fearful and certain apprehension. Against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who hold the truth in unrighteousness, it is revealed, and unless they hide themselves in the Saviour, even Jesus who delivered us from the wrath to come, it will fall, either in this or the other world, or in both, in a destroying storm. 5. After reading and hearing the state of the land of Judah in the day of indignation, are ye established in the faith of the providence of God? By the judgment which He executeth the Lord is known, and known not only to live but to reign. 6. After reading and hearing the state of the land of Judah in the day of indignation, are we prepared unto every good work? Exhortations to good works were disregarded by that gainsaying and perverse race of evil-doers. Show yourselves to be men of spirit and business, men full of faith and of good works. If a day of indignation be coming, where should we be found? Under the righteousness of Christ, and at our business. Do ye look for it? what manner of persons ought ye to be in holy conversation and godliness? (A. Shanks.) Applications from the state of the land of Judah to the present times Water is a natural mirror, and when men look into it face answereth to face. Scripture is a spiritual mirror, and when we look into it, church answereth to church, and one generation of evil-doers to another.1. Errors and heresies of the most pernicious quality are appearing amongst us, and perverting and corrupting multitudes from the simplicity that is in Christ. Fools who adore no Creator, believe no providence, and fear no Judge, walk on every side; and against God, in whom they live and move and have their being, utter many blasphemous words. By some who profess to know God, the revelation of His will in the holy Scriptures is rejected; and by others who acknowledge the inspiration of these holy writings, truths revealed in them are denied and misrepresented. 2. Truth, where it is believed and preached, appears to have purifying influence on very few. Where converting and healing doctrine is preached, few appear to be converted and healed; and Holy Scripture itself, which shows unto men the way of salvation, is either neglected by the greatest part who acknowledge its inspiration, or read without faith and love and profit to their souls. 3. Under the dispensations of providence, our principles and manners are not amended. In smiling and frowning dispensations the voice of the Lord is disregarded, and our conduct is becoming worse and worse every day. The goodness of Providence, the calling of the elect out of the world, and the charter of the Son of God to the uttermost parts of the earth, are not evidences that the Lord will not enter into judgment with us for our iniquities, and the iniquities of our fathers together. Britain, like Judah, may be wiped as a man wipeth a dish, wiping it, and turning it upside down. His jealousy for His glory is not extinguished. His indignation against sin is not cooled. The threatenings in His Word are not blotted out, nor is His power to execute these abated. When He shall ride out for bringing forth judgment unto truth, if degenerated churches and sinful kingdoms will not give way by repentance and reformation, they must be crushed under the wheels of His chariot. (A. Shanks.) Like priests, like people Manton says: “ O ye ministers of the Word, consider well that you are the first sheets from the King’ s press; others are printed after your copy. If the first sheet be well set, a thousand more are stamped with ease. See, then, that the power of religion prevail over your own hearts, lest you not only lose your own souls, but cause the ruin of others.” Correcting for the press is work which has to be done with great care, since thousands of copies will be faulty if the proof sheet be not as it should be. So should the minister of a congregation be seriously earnest to be right, because his people will imitate him. Like priest, like people; the sheep will follow the shepherd. What need there is that the pastor should order his steps aright, lest he lead a whole flock astray! If the town clock be wrong, half the watches in the place will be out of time. (C. H. Spurgeon.) Degeneration of the priests Someone asked Boniface the martyr whether it was lawful to give sacramental wine in a wooden cup. “ Time was,” said he, “ when there were wooden chalices and golden priests; but now there are golden chalice: and wooden priests.” No distinction made Joseph Cook tells that when he was in Halle, Professor Tholuck said to him, with the emphasis of tears in his deep, spiritual eyes, that he regretted nothing so much in the arrangements of the German State churches as that the distinction between the converted and unconverted, which Jonathan Edwards and Whitfield drew so deeply on the mind of New England, was almost unknown to the Church practice of Germany. “ We are all mixed pell-mell,” said he; “ there is no distinct on made between one who has made a solemn public profession to lead a religious life and one who has not.” (H. O. Mackay.) Dishonest gain Most men are sickened of the gaming table by their losses. He (Wilberforce) left it because on one particular night he won £600. The thought that men of straitened means or portionless younger sons might be crippled by his gains preyed upon his sensitive spirit, and he resolved to play no more, that he might be free from the blood-guiltiness of adding to the list of victims whom gambling had hurled from wealth to beggary, and from happiness to suicide. (W. M. Punshon, D. D.) . Ezekiel 23:1-49 Samaria is Aholah and Jerusalem Aholibah.Aholah and Aholibah I. Sin is self-polluting and therefore self-destroying. Constant contact with sin will pollute the conscience, and render it powerless to fulfil the end for which it has been implanted in the man. It will destroy the understanding in the sense that it renders it unable to see and know the things of God (Ephesians 4:18-19). Sin persisted in defiles the will, and makes it like a palsied limb which has no power to perform its functions. It pollutes the affections by bringing them in contact with debasing objects, until their power to love goodness is gone. And so the man, having destroyed all the forces of his being, stands before the universe with nothing left but his identity, which he cannot destroy. II. Those who depart from God shall be punished by the world for changing their master. (Verse 22.) The deserter who comes over from the enemy’ s camp is often regarded with suspicion and sometimes meets with contempt where he expected to find reward. His zeal in the service of his new master is looked upon as simply an effort to ingratiate himself for his own ends and he very often finds punishment instead of welcome. So the world to which the apostate from God returns becomes the instrument of his punishment. He must become a greater sinner than those to whom he joins himself in order to convince his new master that he is entirely with him. III. When sinners can serve no other purpose in the world, they may render a service by being a warning to others. We have shadows here of the truth that Hell has its use in the universe, and that men beyond reach of recovery may be of this use. Convicts have their sphere of usefulness, though it is of such a nature as to send a shudder through the mind of other men. The chained eagle is a warning to those whose wings are free. (A London Minister.) Ezekiel 23:13 Then I saw that she was defiled, that they took both one way.Infection easy Manton says: “ We easily catch an infectious disease from one another, but no man receiveth health from another’ s company.” Too true. Evil communications inevitably corrupt good manners; but good communications do not so necessarily improve evil manners. We more readily learn evil than good, and we are also more forcible in communicating sin than virtue. Both as to the giving out and the receiving, the aptness lies on the wrong side. What a proof of our natural depravity! What a change must grace work in us before we shall be fully like our Lord Jesus, who was incapable of being inoculated by sin, but abundantly able to communicate goodness; for healing virtue proceeded from Him. When shall we become disseminators of holiness by our very presence? (C. H. Spurgeon.) Ezekiel 23:23 Thou shalt drink of thy sister’ s cup.The cup of wrath I. the symbol suggested.1. The “ cup” is sometimes the emblem of joy and gladness (Psalms 23:5); but here of indignation and wrath, in allusion probably to a very ancient method of punishing criminals--a poisoned cup. 2. The cup is sometimes afflictive dispensations (Psalms 73:10); and though the Lord’ s people are made to drink deeply of it, yet the dregs only are reserved for the wicked (Psalms 75:8). 3. The cup is significant of future and eternal misery, hence called “ the cup of wrath” (Revelation 16:19). The wrath of God and of the Lamb is put into it; the cup has been filling for many years; it will never be emptied. It is also called “ the cup of fury,” as containing the inexpressible fierceness of Divine indignation (Jeremiah 25:15). II. The description afforded--“ Much.”1. It contains all the sins that we have ever committed, and these, if not now repented of, will fill us with ceaseless remorse. 2. It contains all the curses of that law which we have violated. 3. It is the everlasting vengeance of God. A lost estate, lost liberty, or lost friends may be regained; but the loss of the soul is irreparable. (Homilist.) . Ezekiel 24:1-14 Set on a pot. The boiling cauldron: the doings and doom of a wicked city I. The sins of any city are an offence to God.1. Seen by Him. The whole city in its greed for gain, its intemperance, its hollowness, its lust. 2. Seen by Him with anger. He is a Moral Governor, and has the moral nature that breaks into the sunlight of a smile on goodness, and gathers into the thunder cloud of a frown upon wickedness. II. The sins of any city will ensure its doom.1. History illustrates this. The cities of the plain, the dynasties of the old world. 2. Prophecy predicts this. 3. The law of causation involves this. The disease of sin naturally works the death of destruction. III. The sins of any city concern every individual inhabitant.1. They bring sorrow on all. 2. They give a mission to all. Hence learn-- (1) Seek to evangelise the entire city to save it.(2) Seek to convert individuals, that at least they may be saved. (Urijah R. Thomas.) The boiling cauldron 1. Those who profess a true religion and possess a bad character defile their creed by their character. The youth who belongs to an honourable family and lives a vicious life brings the very name of his family into ill-repute. The man who calls himself a Christian, and lives an un-Christlike life, defiles the name he bears. 2. The possession of a correct creed will not preserve a nation or an individual from moral degeneration unless it has its outcome in a life in accordance with it. The child who has a Bible given to it by his father may treasure the book carefully and boast of his possession. But the mere holding of the book will not save him from going down in the scale of morality. To do this he must translate the law of God into life, and thus create a new thing in the earth--a holy character which is all his own, and which he would not inherit from his parent. 3. There are higher claims than those springing from human relationships. The man who descends into the depths of a coal mine to rescue another who is perishing, while his wife stands at the pit’ s mouth, beseeching him not to venture his life, recognises this law. So does the citizen soldier who leaves his home and family to fight for the oppressed, and the doctor who from choice follows the army on campaign to relieve the sufferings of the wounded. (A London Minister.) Ezekiel 24:13 Thou shalt not be purged from thy filthiness.Obstinacy in sin 1. Obstinacy in sin provokes God to the destruction of sinners. “ Her scum shall be in the fire.” Jerusalem shall be burnt, and why? “ In thy filthiness is lewdness” ; thou art obstinate, hardened in thy wickedness. All sin offends, some sins provoke to judgments, obstinacy provokes to destruction (Jeremiah 44:15). 2. In Scripture language, that is said to be done which God or men endeavour to do, though it be not done. “ I have purged thee.” God using means, and endeavouring, by His prophets, mercies, threats, and judgments, to purge Jerusalem from her sin, is called purging, though Jerusalem were not purged. 3. A people may have the means, and not improve the same for their good. 4. People may so slip the time of repenting, and turning to God, as that it may be too late for them to go about the same; they may sin away the time of mercy. Time present is the acceptable time (2 Corinthians 6:2). 5. Those who have had means, and not profited thereby, God will deal most severely with--there is no mercy, but altogether judgment for them. The fig tree in the vineyard had stood there three years, and was not better at last than at first; the influences of heaven, and fatness of the earth, had done it no good; and behold the severity of the owner: “ Cut it down; why cumbereth it the ground?” (Luke 13:7). (W. Greenhill, M. A.) Ezekiel 24:15-27 So I spake unto the people in the morning: and at even my wife died; and I did in the morning as I was commanded.Sin the worst sorrow I. Other sorrows may have no evil, but even good in them; this is essentially and eternally evil. In a bereavement, in a national calamity, as also in bodily sufferings and many social griefs, it is manifest there may be no moral wrong. There may, indeed, be the highest moral good. But sin is, in its essence, in its indulgence, in its outcome, utterly evil, an object of nothing else than commiseration, loathing, and hatred. II. Other sorrows are remediable; this leads to destruction. III. Other sorrows may come direct from God; this is ever in direct antagonism to Him. IV. Other sorrows have to do with men in their relation to others; this with his own inner being and his relation to God. Conclusion--1. Rightly weigh your own sorrows. 2. Rightly deal with the world’ s sorrows. Pity their poverty, heal their sickness, but most of all grieve for and contend with their sin. 3. Rightly value the Saviour’ s mission. (Urijah R. Thomas.) Unwept bereavement: or, a great soul in a great sorrow Individual characteristics are as marked and distinctive in the new life of the soul as they are in the old life of sin. While the graft draws its sap from the parent stock, it yields its own kind of fruit. Thus in the Christian life--it is the same spirit working variously in and through the mental trend, temperament, and educational attainments of the agent. Ezekiel is manifestly the spiritual dramatist of the prophetic order. He speaks in action, and voices by signs the stern purposes of his God. He is a seer in symbols, The touching incidents recorded in the chapter before us is marked by dramatic representation of Divine truth. First the “ pot,” from which parable he utters the terrible “ Woe to the bloody city.” Here, in his suppressed and even crushed grief over his deceased wife, “ the desire of his eyes” taken away from him “ with a stroke,” is the picture in miniature of the unwept desolation of Jerusalem. In the painful experience of the prophet we have a great soul under a great trial. I. The woman--the wife. “ At eve my wife died.” To the pure and noble and thoughtful, no sorrow can be greater. Where the wife is what God intended she should be, the helpmeet of man, the loss here stated is without a parallel. “ At eve my wife died” : not my crops were blasted, or my cattle killed or taken away, but my wife, the best part of myself, the light of life’ s darkest hour; the one that buoys up the man when all others throw on heavier burdens to press him down. My wife! What dreadful significance! What fulness of meaning! Many a man has been lifted to the highest places, and has been transported into fullest conditions, by the wisdom, piety, and thoughtfulness of a good wife. Young men sinking into debt, danger, and degradation have lifted up their heads above every flood when they have taken the float of a good wife--thus proving that “ scanty fare for one will often make a royal feast for two.” There are thousands in the Church today, or in heaven, who would certainly have made shipwreck of faith but for the firmer trust and steadier piety of a devoted wife--when the strong man has been weakened by the hard struggle of life, the weak woman, strong by devotion and radiant hope, has held him up in her heaven-derived might, till the man has regained his strength. The prophet is here called to pass through a most painful experience, and the terms used are touching. His wife is spoken of as the “ desire of his eyes,” and the “ taking away” is to be done with a stroke. Not a gradual fading away of the life and love, with all the touching farewells and hopes of future meeting which characterise a death bed, but by one fell stroke the desire of the eye, the joy of the heart, the flower of the garden, the sun of the home, the star of earth’ s hope, shall be taken from him. The Lord frequently brings judgment near the heart, that He may plant His mercy in the heart. He kills for the purpose of making alive. The desire of the heart is often taken, that the heart may desire a Diviner portion. Note the time. At “ eve,” not in the morning ere work began, nor at night when the weaknesses of old age had rendered life a burden and death a release. But at “ eve,” after the toil but before the rest. Work accomplished, but not enjoyed. How like this now. Many a good wife who has toiled and struggled and denied her own needy appetite for the sake of husband and family, has lived just long enough to drag the household to the top of the hill; and when an easy plain way appeared in view, and a season of rest gilded the sky, she has fallen dead--not with the weight of years, so much as with the burden of hard work and heavy care. II. The man--the husband. The sublime self-possession, the equanimity of the prophet, the forgetfulness of a loss so great and a sorrow so deep, seem altogether beyond the range of common men, and can only be viewed in the light of a purpose as mysterious as it is beneficent. The Lord apprised him of his loss, but forbade the assumption of those signs of grief which characterise the obsequies of oriental countries. “ Forbear to cry.” Revised Version renders it--“ Sigh, but not loud.” The margin reads--“ Be silent.” Grief in the heart cannot be wholly quenched; it would be against nature to expect such a thing; but those extravagant signs of it were what the Lord corn, rounds the prophet against. This wonderful state of soul under an affliction so bitter may seem to some both unnatural and sinful. It win be a sufficient reply, perhaps, to say that exceptional circumstances defy ordinary modes of interpretation. We act wisely as we suspend judgment upon individual actions in the abstract, and consider them in the fight of surrounding circumstances and Divine purposes. We are now in the presence of a great soul whose vast proportions defy all the narrow measurements of popular conventionalism, and is a standing reproof to those mere appearances of grief and simulations of sorrow, and those extravagant habiliments of mourning, which are too often deeper than the grief they are supposed to represent. The full beauty and the whole worth of the Ezekiel conduct expresses itself in one word, “ Obedience.” To blame the prophet for what he did is to blame the Almighty who commanded it. It was at the bidding of the great God that he bare with such magnanimity so tremendous a loss. “ He that ruleth his own spirit is better than he that taketh a city” (Proverbs 16:32). The man who can hold in check, and keep in obedience to the high behests of heaven, all the powers, passions, and tender susceptibilities of the soul, has reached an altitude far beyond the level of common mortals. Look at this grand old prophet whose wild eye flings off the tear, and decks itself with the full blaze of the day of God. There he stands in the attitude of strength, dressed for action, and not muffled for lamentation. If, then, you can attribute the prophet’ s spirit and conduct to weakness or inhumanity, it must be because we view the same things from different standpoints. I confess that, personally, I am awed into littleness in presence of a soul so great. To my mind, the whole thing is explained, and, the mystery cleared up, in the doctrine of a future life. Deny this, and death is an unmitigated sorrow and an irretrievable loss, without a ray to relieve the darkness or a prospect to cheer the soul. (M. Brokenshire.) Ezekiel’ s wife not merely symbolic Reuss is hardly right in regarding Ezekiel’ s wife and her death as fictions: the language used implies that she was a real person, and that her death occurred as stated, though, as usual, the prophet employed the incident for didactic purposes, and some of the details may be creations of idealism; for it is characteristic of him that real events float before his eve in a moral atmosphere which magnifies them and gives them an outline which is ideal only. (A. B. Davidson, D. D.) Loneliness through bereavement relieved by service John Bright sat mourning in his sitting room; life was cold and drear to him, the body of his young wife lay dead in the room above. Richard Cobden, clear-sighted, enthusiastic, and withal practical, came to his friend, and said: “ You have your sorrow; there are more sorrows in the world than yours; your opportunity has come; people are hungering in this England of ours. Come with me, and we will never rest until the Corn Laws are repealed.” I am not making a political application of that utterance, but we do know that England was wretched and hungry, and that the lot of the poor was sadder than it is even today. That lion-hearted pair went out and fought in the midst of obloquy, misunderstanding, contempt, and persecution, until victory crowned their efforts, and in 1846 the tribune of the people and his friend rejoiced over their victory. (R. J. Campbell, M. A.) The prophet’ s discipline of sorrow Sorrow is here set before us not as personal chastisement, but as part of the prophet’ s training for his work. Duty is often incompatible with the indulgence of personal sorrow. Business arrangements, public obligations, engagements that must be fulfilled, often summon men from the house of death; sorrow must give way to necessity.1. The prophet’ s insight necessitates a discipline of peculiar sorrow. In some states of the body men’ s sensitiveness is acute even to suffering. They see too much, their hearing and sense of smell are too keen. In other states of the body the perception is too intense; the feeling of time and space and weight is enlarged till minutes prolong themselves, and vast abysses open out, and there is a sense of overwhelming pressure. Poets, philosophers, who see in all around them the moving of an eternal life, are not, light-hearted men. To the prophet, who sees not only life everywhere, but God; who recognises not order only, but moral purpose; who sees the infinite holiness and the unerring judgment: there is oppressiveness even in his joy. But he must see the largeness of God’ s designs and the certainty of His operation before he can proclaim them; the word of the Lord is to him a burden before it is a word. The prophet sees, moreover, not only God, but man; he has insight into the human heart, its self-will and wickedness. 2. The prophet’ s relation to men involves a peculiar discipline of sorrow. He utters his message, and it is disregarded. He is treated as a vain dreamer, a raver; then as an actor, whose skill brings together affecting images which may relieve the tedium of an idle hour. There is no distress so great as to have earnestness thus trifled with; to feel for men an apprehension which they will not share. Moreover, it exposes the prophet to severe strokes from God. God will arouse men; if the prophet’ s words cannot make them thoughtful, He seeks to touch them by the prophet’ s sufferings. The common saying that a man’ s life is more efficacious than his teaching, is of wide application. 3. His discipline of sorrow fits the prophet for speaking to men in another way: God had a remnant in Israel, a remnant who should be won. If you are to comfort mourners, you must have seen affliction; you must know the smart of the wounds you seek to heal You desire to strengthen the faith of the doubting; one way of doing this is to fight your own doubts and gather strength. You would appeal to the tempted; you must know what temptation means, must vanquish the lying spirit, the worldly spirit, the spirit of unrighteousness; in manic a battle, hard “ pressed and sorely won, must come the skill you seek. (A. Mackennal, D. D.) The departure of friends I. The departure of dear friends by death is under the direction of the great God. Death is not the result of accident, necessity, or any chemical or mechanical force, but of the will of God. This doctrine teaches three practical lessons.1. The grand aim of life should be to please God. 2. The grand aim in bereavement should be to acquiesce in the will of God. 3. Our grand impression at every deathbed should be that the Lord is at hand. II. The departure of dear friends by death is the source of great sorrow. Sorrow for the dead indicates--1. Something good in human nature. It always springs out of love, and love is Divine. 2. Something wrong in human nature. “ As by one man sin entered into the world,” etc. Man loves because he is human; man’ s love turns into agony because he is sinful. 3. Something wanted for human nature. (1) An assurance of a happy future life.(2) A hope of a happy future reunion. Whence comes this assurance? Not from human speculation, philosophy, or religion, but from the Gospel. III. The departure of dear friends by death should not interfere with moral duty.1. Because indulgence in sorrow confers no benefit on others; the fulfilment of duty does. 2. Because indulgence in sorrow injures self, and the fulfilment of duty does good to self. 3. Because indulgence in sorrow does not suspend the claims of duty. (Homilist.) Death of a wife The union of two hearts in wedded love is close, beautiful, and strong. But the tie, however strong, sooner or later is broken by a stroke, and death parts whom God had joined together. I. The primary cause of death is God. The secondary causes may be any of the thousand ills that flesh is heir to, but God says, “ I take away the desire of thine eyes with a stroke.” “ The Lord is at hand” in every death scene. II. The death of a wife is the cause of great sorrow. This world is called a “ vale of tears,” and rightly so; and if there is one place where tears flow faster than any other, it is where a loving wife and precious mother lies cold in death. Where there is most love there is keenest sorrow. III. The death of a wife should not interfere with the husband’ s duty. Though we may feel our hearts breaking, though all sunshine seems shut out, and the world can never be the same to us again, yet the full discharge of life’ s duties should be the most pressing thought. A sorrow that unmans us is evil. Duty-doing is grief-assuaging and God-honouring. (Homiletic Review.) The desire of the eyes taken away I. What is the desire of thine eyes?1. Some loved object of human relationship whom with “ the body you worship.” 2. Some dazzling dream of ambition that with the mind you grasp at; or, 3. Some ideal condition of spirituality that with the soul you aspire after. II. Why is the desire of thine eyes thus taken away at a stroke by a wise and just God?1. To wean you from setting your affections too much upon perishable, disappointing earthly objects. 2. To develop in you the passive virtues of patience, fortitude, etc., which men are so prone to sacrifice to the active virtues, such as courage, etc., which they are compelled to display in the battle of life. 3. To make you look to eternal love, to eternal grandeur, and to eternal happiness to be realised hereafter in the presence of God, as alone calculated to satisfy the aspirations of your own immortal spirits. III. In what spirit should you bear the loss when thus the desire of the eyes is taken away?1. Not in a spirit of passionate anger against the Creator for taking away what was His own to give or take away. 2. Not in a spirit of repining, tearful melancholy, weeping fruitlessly for “ the things that might have been.” 3. Not in a spirit of sullen and voiceless despair, sorrowing “ as one without hope.” 4. Not in a spirit of affected stoical indifference, gnawed as to the inward heart by the bitterest disappointment, and careful only to hide from the eyes of men all outward signs of sorrow or chagrin. 5. But in a spirit of gentle resignation to, and of full trust in, the providence of God, exclaiming with the patriarch of old, “ The Lord,” etc. (R. Young, M. A.) The stroke of death I. The force of the words.1. The conjugal relation is a very tender and sensible one. It is natural, it is right, it is commendable in a gracious husband to consider and regard his wife as the “ desire of his eyes” ; as the most valuable of earthly objects. 2. The stroke of death will assuredly part them. Whatever situation we are placed in, however prosperous our circumstances, however successful our pursuits, however harmonious and agreeable our tempers and dispositions, however weighty and numerous our cares, however advantageous our mutual counsels and assistances, and however reluctant we may be to a separation, the stroke will come, and will break in pieces this tenderest of all connections known on earth. 3. Such a stroke is peculiarly painful and calamitous to the surviving husband. It closes forever those dear eyes which have always been observant of what might contribute to his welfare; it gives a fatal dash to those capacities which have been united and exerted in a manner and to a degree scarcely possible in any other, to alleviate her partner’ s distresses, and advance his joys, as if those joys and distresses of her husband had been her own; it disconcerts their most pleasing schemes, though formed with the most perfect harmony of which mortals are capable, and though pursued with the most glowing ardour. It ought to silence all our murmurings, and excite a holy, humble resignation, to hear our merciful God and Father say, “ The stroke is from Me.” “ Is it not lawful for Him to do what He will with His own?” What He does, and why He does it, we are frequently ignorant now; but, so far as it will contribute to our happiness, or be necessary to justify His proceedings, “ we shall know hereafter.” It will probably constitute one part of the happiness of saints in heaven to review and admire the dispensations of a wise and gracious God towards them while upon earth. II. A few observations on the stroke of death, as it respects mankind in general and believers in particular.1. Respecting mankind in general. (1) The stroke of death separates the soul and body from each other, and lays the latter in the dust. (2) This stroke is the consequence of sin. (3) It is a stroke that makes no distinctions among men. Grandeur, power, and dignity have, in this case, no respect paid them. (4) The stroke of death removes those on whom it falls from all the pleasures gad enjoyments of time. (5) By this stroke we are deprived of all opportunities to prepare for heaven. (6) The stroke of death is a certain stroke, that calls us to the judgment seat of Christ; in consequence of which our eternal state is irrevocably determined. (7) The time of this stroke is very uncertain. God only knows when it will fall on me, or on any of you. It is sometimes very sudden; and it may be so to any of us. Happy, happy the man who is always prepared for it. 2. Let us consider this stroke as it respects the true believer in particular. (1) The stroke of death translates them from a world of darkness, ignorance, and confusion, to a world of light. (2) By the stroke of death the saints are removed from a world of perplexing controversy and contention, to a world of harmony and peace. (3) This world is continually a state of temptations and defilements; but the true believer is, at death, delivered from it and translated to a state of purity and holiness. (4) The stroke of death delivers the saints from a state of fear and anxiety, and removes them to a world where these shall be known no more. (5) In the present state the children of God are frequently beheld with scorn and contempt by vain, unthinking men of the world, as their Saviour also was in the days of His flesh, and as His most eminent followers and servants have been in all ages. But the stroke of death takes them away from the scorn and derision of men, and they are translated to a world where they shall be advanced to real honour and dignity. (6) This is a state of toil and labour, But when the stroke comes of which we are now speaking, the saints shall be called to eternal rest. (7) While the saints are “ at home in the body, they are absent from the Lord” ; and consequently deprived of much felicity which is reserved for them; for “ in His presence is fulness of joy,” etc. And when they are delivered from this corrupt and degenerate world, this joy and these pleasures shall be theirs. III. What practical instructions are deducible?1. Hence we learn what is the one thing needful, and the folly and danger of neglecting it. Nothing will answer every purpose in life, death, and eternity but the knowledge and enjoyment of Jesus Christ, and salvation by Him. 2. Let me assist your inquiries respecting the way to enjoy this great blessing, and so to be prepared for the stroke of death. 3. From this view of death I call you to praise a merciful God, who has given His dear Son to deliver us from the fear of it, and recommend the blessed Jesus to you all, as your only, all-sufficient support and deliverer in your last trying moments. 4. The pitiable state of those who are practically preferring anything else to an immediate preparation for death. 5. Let all true believers, from hence, lift up an eye of faith, and take a pleasing view of that blessed world where the stroke of death shall be known no more. 6. Be diligent in improving the present moments for God. Employ all the members of your bodies, exert all the capacities of your mind, and all the superfluities of your earthly possessions, to support and advance your Redeemer’ s interest. Adorn it by a holy conversation; and recommend it to others by every prudent method.” 7. Act as in continual expectation of death. 8. Is anything of equal consequence with dying safe? (D. Taylor.) The stroke of death under the direction of God I. Social connections are desirable enjoyments.1. They are various; being derived from different sources. (1) Consanguinity, or oneness of blood (Acts 7:26). (2) Affinity, or matrimonial alliance; such are the most endearing and indissoluble connections of Life (Matthew 19:5). (3) Friendship, or union of hearts, formed by mutual benevolence (1 Samuel 18:1). (4) Piety, or an affectionate concern to promote each other’ s salvation (Philippians 2:20). 2. They are justly desirable. They are so, because our present state is a state of-- (1) Ignorance, and society is favourable to the attainment of useful knowledge (Proverbs 11:14; Proverbs 15:22). (2) Weakness and danger, and society affords help--in bearing burdens--performing duties--and resisting enemies (Ecclesiastes 4:9-12). (3) Affliction, and society is productive of mutual comfort (1 Thessalonians 5:11; Psalms 133:1-3 :l). (4) Probation, and society promotes our eternal interests. This it does by rendering us capable of extensive usefulness (Galatians 6:10); by preserving us from apostasy (Hebrews 3:12-13), and by exciting us to holy diligence (Hebrews 10:25). Hence we should recollect our obligations to God for relative comforts. Our subject also teaches us the wisdom of employing our social influence for pious purposes. II. These enjoyments are subject to the stroke of death.1. The stroke of death should be expected by us all. However useful to society, beloved by mankind, dear to God--all must die (2 Samuel 14:14; Ecclesiastes 3:21; Hebrews 9:27). 2. We should seriously prepare for the stroke of death; because death is awfully important in its effects. 3. Our preparation for this stroke should be habitual. We should immediately seek this preparation, and very carefully retain it, because the time when this stroke will be laid on us is to us unknown (Matthew 24:44). 4. The saint’ s recovery from this stroke should be anticipated, by faith in God’ s promises (Hosea 13:14; Philippians 3:21), and hope of renewed communion with saints in heavenly glory (1 Thessalonians 5:8-10; 1 Thessalonians 4:16-17; Revelation 1:18). This reminds us-- III. The stroke of death is under the direction of God.1. The death of our pious friends is only a removal; it is not annihilation--they still live with God (1 Thessalonians 5:10), and to Him (Luke 20:38). They are taken away from toil, sorrow, and danger (Revelation 7:16), to complete rest, happiness, and security (Revelation 14:13). 2. They are taken away by God; by God heir proprietor, who had a right to dispose of them (Matthew 20:15); by God their rewarder, who has taken them to crown them (2 Timothy 4:7-8); by God our benefactor, who kindly indulged us with their society (1 Timothy 6:7) Hence His hand in their removal should be piously acknowledged, both with resignation and gratitude (Job 1:21). (Sketches of Four Hundred Sermons.) Funeral sermon I. Our near relatives, when they are what they ought to be, are deservedly the desire of our eyes. The ties of nature are strong and tender. Those who are related by blood are led by instinct to love one another fervently. But of all relations the conjugal is the nearest, and is the foundation of the strongest affection and delight. Where that relation is properly formed, and the parties unite on proper principles, the bond is the firmest, and the reciprocal affection the strongest; insomuch that it is mentioned as the emblem of the relation between Christ and His Church. II. A dissolution must take place, and we are to expect even the nearest and dearest friends soon to be taken from us. All the mutual offices of love and friendship must cease. All the pleasures and benefits arising from their society must be suspended. No longer can we take sweet counsel together, and go to the house of God in company; no longer unite in our prayers and praises at the family altar. III. The stroke which separates between friends and kindred is sometimes sudden and unexpected. Not a few even in early life, and to all appearance in the full possession of health and vigour, are in a moment struck by the arrows of death, though they themselves and their friends had presumed that they had years to come. It would be our wisdom and happiness often to think of this, not only to quicken us in preparing for our own dissolution, but to prepare us for the loss of our friends and kindred, and engage us to improve the opportunities we have for our mutual benefit while they are continued; and to prevent that immoderate attachment to them which would be the source of excessive grief and surprise on their sudden removal. IV. It is God who takes them away. “ Son of man, behold, I take away from thee the desire of thine eyes with a stroke.” In which words the Lord calls his attent on not only to the event, but to Himself as the agent. And He is equally the agent in the events which befall us and our friends, whatever be the instruments or second causes. That it is God who takes away our comforts as well as gives them is what none can doubt who have any just acquaintance with His holy word and believe what it teaches. We are there told, in general, that all things are of God, that a sparrow does not fall to the ground, and much less any human being, without our heavenly Father. “ Behold,” says Job, “ He takes away, and none can hinder Him.” Such a stroke ought to be felt, and it may be lamented as a heavy affliction. But when you consider the hand from whence it comes, you will see reason not only to submit, but to adore; and duty to Him requires that you should. V. Guard against immoderate grief. Were it not for the hope of the Gospel--the hope of a blessed immortality beyond the grave--death would indeed be a most formidable object. When our friends leave the world, if we believed that there was an utter end of them, and they sunk into an eternal sleep, the thought of parting with them would be terrible. But if, when our dear friends die, we are fully persuaded that they live to God--if, when they are taken from us, we are well assured that they are gone to be with Christ, which is far better--we can have no just cause to mourn on their account; and if we have a Gospel foundation of hope that we are following them to glory, and shall ere long meet them there, whatever reason we have to mourn our own present loss, our sorrows ought to be mingled with joy. Conclusion--1. Let us bless God for those dear friends and relatives who are deservedly the desire of our eyes. 2. Let us remember how precarious the continuance of them is, as well as of all earthly enjoyments, and be prepared for the loss of them. 3. Nor let us forget that this change is as likely to be effected by our removal as by that of our friends. 4. Under all the afflictions of this mortal life, and especially amidst our sorrows for our departed friends, let us bless God for the comforts of the Gospel; and let us never cast them from us, but by faith make application of them to ourselves. (S. Palmer.) Ezekiel 24:19 Wilt thou not tell us what these things are to us, that thou doest so?An ancient question modernised Just as Ezekiel, at his Lord’ s command, did many strange things entirely with a view to other people, we must remember that many things that we do have some relation to others. As long as we are here we can never so isolate ourselves as to become absolutely independent of our surroundings; and it is often well, when we note the behaviour of other people, to say to somebody, if not to them, as the people did to Ezekiel, “ Wilt thou not tell us what these things are to us?” I. This should be your question to the Lord Jesus. Very reverently, though, let us approach our Divine Master, and looking at Him in His wondrous passion, let us earnestly ask Him, “ Wilt Thou not tell us what these things are to us, that Thou doest so?” His answer is, “ Sin is an exceedingly bitter thing; and to remove it costs Me the agony of My soul.” But do you see through the trees the lanterns twinkling? Men are coming, evil men, with rough voices, with torches, and lanterns, and staves, to take the blessed pleading One. Dear Master, while the traitor’ s kiss is still wet upon Thee, and Thou art being led away bound to Caiaphas, tell me, I pray Thee, what meanest Thou by all this? What has this to do with us? He answers, “ I go willingly; I must be bound, for sin has bound you; sin has bound your hands, sin has hampered and crippled you, and made you prisoners. You are the bond slaves of Satan, and I must be bound to set you free.” But now they have taken Him before His judges. He stands before Annas, and Caiaphas, and Pilate. Blessed Sufferer, like a lamb in the midst of wolves, tell us, if Thou wilt speak a word, why this silence? And He whispers into the hearts of His beloved, “ I was silent, for there was nothing to say; willing to be your Advocate, what could I say? You had sinned, though I had not. I might have pleaded for Myself; but I stood there for you, in your room, and place, and stead; and what could I say, what excuse, what apology, what extenuation could I urge?” But now they are scourging Him, they are crowning Him with thorns, they are mocking Him, blindfolding Him, and then smiting Him with the palms of their hands. What scorn, what shame they poured on Him: Blessed One, blessed One, wilt Thou not tell us what these things are to us? But now, you see, they take Him out through the streets of Jerusalem; along the Via Dolorosa He pursues His weary walk, blood drops falling on the pavement, Himself staggering beneath the load of the Cross. Tell me, Jesus, why goest Thou out there, to the place of public execution, the Old Bailey, the Tyburn of Jerusalem? And He answers, “ I suffer without the gate because God will not tolerate sin in His city. Sin is an unclean thing; and I, though not Myself unclean, yet standing in the stead of the unclean, must die outside the city gates.” And He answers, “ That I may draw all men unto Me. Earth refuses Me, and heaven denies Me shelter. I hang here, the Just for the unjust, that I may bring men to God.” They take Him down from the Cross, for He is dead; but before they take Him down they pierce His heart, and even after death that heart for us its tribute pours. But they have buried Him, and He lies in His cell alone through the long, dark night of death; but the third morning sees Him rise. Or ever the sun is up, the Sun of Righteousness has arisen, with healing in His wings. Jesus has quitted the tomb, and I invite all sinners to say to the risen Redeemer, “ Wilt Thou not fell us what these things are to us, that Thou doest so?” This is what I understand that His Resurrection means to us, He is able to save to the uttermost them that come unto God by Him, seeing He ever liveth to make intercession for them. He not only rises from the dead; but He ascends to His Father. Ask Him what He means by that, and He will tell you that He has led captivity captive, and “ received gifts for men, yea, for the rebellious also.” II. This may be your question to the church. We are coming here, to keep Christ’ s death in remembrance. Every first day of the week, if you can, come to the table as a part of your Sabbath worship. This service is intended to be a memorial of Christ’ s death. The best memorial of any event is to associate with it the observance of some rite, or some ceremony frequently repeated; this will cause it to be a perpetual memorial. Now, as long as half a dozen Christians meet together for the breaking of bread, Christ’ s death can never be forgotten. We are not, however, coming to the table merely to look at the bread and the wine. We are coming there to eat and to drink, to show our personal benefit by Jesus Christ’ s death. We wish all who see us to know that we enjoy the result of Christ’ s death. We have a life that feeds upon His sacrifice; we have a hope that makes Christ to be its very meat and drink. But we not only come to the table to eat and to drink, but there is this point about the communion, that we come together to declare our unity in Jesus Christ. If I went home, and broke bread, and drank of the juice of the vine by myself alone, it would not be the observance of the Lord’ s Supper. It is a united participation. It is a festival. It is a token and display of brotherhood. Once more, when this communion is over, if we live, we shall meet again next Lord’ s day, and when that is over, if we are spared, we shall meet again the following Lord’ s day. We meet continually, to show our belief in Jesus Christ’ s coming again. Perhaps you still inquire, “ Wilt thou not tell us what these things are to us, that thou doest so?” Well, they are this to you, that, whether you remember Jesus Christ’ s coming or not, He is coming; He is coming quickly. Let Him come when He may, His coming will be full of love and joy to all who have trusted Him. III. This is our question to you, “ Wilt thou not tell us what these things are to us, that thou doest so?” First, there are some of you who are here who do not often go to a place of worship; I know you. By seldom coming to the Lord’ s house you teach us your utter indifference. Your carelessness seems to say to me, “ God is nobody, put Him in a corner. Get on in business; mind the main chance. Gospel? Salvation? Oh, they are trifles, not worth anybody’ s consideration!” There are others of you who are not indifferent; you come to the services, and you are attentive listeners; but just observe what you are going to do. The Lord’ s table is spread, Christ is to be remembered, fellowship is to be had with Him, and you are going home! I hear another say, “ I am not going home; I shall remain at the ordinance as a spectator.” I always like to see you look on. You are getting into a place of happy danger. Get where the shots fly, and one of them may make a target of you. Oh, that it might be so! But tonight you are going to be only a spectator. Will you tell me what that means--only a spectator? In Paris, during the siege, when it was straitly shut up, there were meals given at certain times in appointed places; but what would you have thought if you had been there, and had been allowed to come to the window and see the feeding, and yourself remain only a spectator? Do not be merely spectators; but if you mean to be so, then I say this to you, there will be no spectators in heaven. They will all partake of the feast above, or they will not be there. And, I grieve to add, there will be no spectators in hell. You will have to participate in the award of vengeance, or else in the gift of mercy. Therefore have done with being spectators. (C. H. Spurgeon.) . Ezekiel 25:1-7 Set thy face against the Ammonites.Prophecies against foreign nations At the outset it must be understood that prophecies of this kind form part of Jehovah’ s message to Israel. Although they are usually cast in the form of direct address to foreign peoples, this must not lead us to imagine that they were intended for actual publication in the countries to which they refer. A prophet’ s real audience always consisted of his own countrymen, whether his discourse was about themselves or about their neighbours. And it is easy to see that it was impossible to declare the purpose of God concerning Israel in words that came home to men’ s business and bosoms, without taking account of the state and the destiny of other nations. Just as it would not be possible nowadays to forecast the future of Egypt without alluding to the fate of the Ottoman Empire, so it was not possible then to describe the future of Israel in the concrete manner characteristic of the prophets without indicating the place reserved for those peoples with whom it had close intercourse. Besides this, a large part of the national consciousness of Israel was made up of interests, friendly or the reverse, in neighbouring states. We cannot read the utterances of the prophets with regard to any of these nationalities without seeing that they often appeal to perceptions deeply lodged in the popular mind, which could be utilised to convey the spiritual lessons which the prophets desired to teach. It must not be supposed, however, that such prophecies are in any degree the expression of national vanity or jealousy. What the prophets aim at is to elevate the thoughts of Israel to the sphere of eternal truths of the kingdom of God; and it is only in so far as these can be made to touch the conscience of the nation at this point that they appeal to what we may call its international sentiments. Now, the question we have to ask is, What spiritual purpose for Israel is served by the announcements of the destiny of the outlying heathen populations? Speaking generally, prophecies of this class had a moral value for two reasons. In the first place, they re-echo and confirm the sentence of judgment passed on Israel herself. They do this in two ways: they illustrate the principle on which Jehovah deals with His own people, and His character as the righteous judge of men. Wherever a “ sinful kingdom” was found, whether in Israel or elsewhere, that kingdom must be removed from its place among the nations. But again, not only was the principle of the judgment emphasised, but the manner in which it was to be carried out was more clearly exhibited. In all cases the pre-exilic prophets announce that the overthrow of the Hebrew states was to be effected either by the Assyrians or the Babylonians. These great world powers were in succession the instruments fashioned and used by Jehovah for the performance of His great work in the earth. Now it was manifest that if this anticipation was well founded, it involved the overthrow of all the nations in immediate contact with Israel. The people of Israel or Judah were thus taught to look on their fate as involved in a great scheme of Divine providence, overturning all the existing relations which gave them a place among the nations of the world, and preparing for a new development of the purpose of Jehovah in the future. When we turn to that ideal future we find a second and more suggestive aspect of these prophecies against the heathen. All the prophets teach that the destiny of Israel is inseparably bound up with the future of God’ s kingdom on earth. What men needed to be taught then, and what we need to remember still, is that each nation holds its position in subordination to the ends of God’ s government; that no power or wisdom or refinement will save a state from destruction when it ceases to serve the interests of His kingdom. The foreign peoples that come under the survey of the prophets are as yet strangers to the true God, and are therefore destitute of that which could secure them a place in the reconstruction of political relationships of which Israel is to be the religious centre. And whether any particular nation should survive to participate in the glories of that latter day depends on the view taken of its present condition and its fitness for incorporation in the universal empire of Jehovah soon to be established. We now know that this was not the form in which Jehovah’ s purpose of salvation was destined to be realised in the history of the world. Since the coming of Christ the people of Israel has lost its distinctive and central position as the bearer of the hopes and promises of the true religion. In its place we have a spiritual kingdom of men united by faith in Jesus Christ, and in the worship of one Father in spirit and in truth--a kingdom which from its very nature can have no local centre or political organisation. Hence the conversion of the heathen can no longer be conceived as national homage paid to the seat of Jehovah’ s sovereignty on Zion; nor is the unfolding of the Divine plan of universal salvation bound up with the extinction of the nationalities which once symbolised the hostility of the world to the kingdom of God. This fact has an important bearing on the question of the fulfilment of the foreign prophecies of the Old Testament. As concrete embodiments of the eternal principles exhibited in the rise and fall of nations, they have an abiding significance for the Church in all ages; but the actual working out of these principles in history could not, in the nature of things, be complete within the limits of the world known to the inhabitants of Judaea. If we are to look for their ideal fulfilment, we shall only find it in the progressive victory of Christianity over all forms of error and superstition, and in the dedication of all the resources of human civilisation--its wealth, its commercial enterprise, its political power--to the advancement of the kingdom of our God and His Christ. (John Skinner, M. A.) Ezekiel 25:2I shall be replenished, now she is laid waste.Designs of avarice defeated All their (the Tyrians) care was to get estates and enlarge their trade, and they looked upon Jerusalem not as an enemy, but as a rival. Tyre promised herself that the fall of Jerusalem would be an advantage to her in respect of trade and commerce, that now she shall have Jerusalem’ s customers. To be secretly pleased with the death or decay of others, when we are likely to get by it, with their fall when we may thrive upon it, is a sin that does most easily beset us. This comes from a want of that love to our neighbour as to ourselves which the law of God so expressly requires, and from that inordinate love of the world as our happiness which the love of God so expressly forbids. And it is just with God to blast the designs and projects of those who thus contrive to raise themselves upon the ruins of others; and we see they are often disappointed (M. Henry.) . Ezekiel 25:3I am against thee, O Tyrus.On the importance of having God for our friend That vengeance belongs unto God is emphatically declared in the book of God (Romans 12:19). And exemplary is the vengeance with which the Almighty has from time to time visited, not only those who had either arrayed themselves in hostility against Himself, His Word, or His servants; but those who had, without His sanction, either assailed or oppressed His people Nor individuals merely, but assemblages of men,--nay, cities,--and even nations, have often, in a sudden and calamitous overthrow, borne memorable testimony to the truth of these remarks. My text refers to an occasion of the kind. The Tyrians, so called from their chief city, Tyre, but also known by the name of Phoenicians, were at one time the most commercial, most opulent, and, at the same time, proudest people of the oriental world. Shipbuilding was prosecuted to a vast extent at this celebrated place. The carrying trade, too, of most of the mercantile world was in the hands of the Tyrians; besides which the city was the grand depot for the rarest and richest productions of distant nations. Gold, spices, and precious stones from Ethiopia, and the coast of Arabia;--emeralds, fine linen and embroidery work, coral, agate, and wool of delicate hue as well as texture, from Damascus and other parts of Syria;--chests of cedar for bestowing fragrancy on splendid apparel, and splendid apparel itself in ample quantity, from Mesopotamia and other bordering countries;--wheat, honey, oil, and balm, as well as wrought iron, steel, and aromatic gums, from various quarters of Palestine;--silver, iron, tin, and lead, from Tarshish, a place itself of considerable maritime trade;--brazen vessels, and, alas! slaves, from Ionia;--lambs, with other creatures used as provisions, from Arabia;--and ivory from sundry parts of the east:--all these commodities, useful, ornamental, costly, elegant, and various, brought in abundance into Tyre, were sold in her fairs and markets; whence they were exported, or otherwise dispersed, into different and distant countries, cities, and provinces. The consequence was, that Tyre spread itself till it was nearly twenty miles in circumference; containing, ‘ tis probable, nearly one million of souls. Further, such was the luxurious prodigality that sprung from the opulence which flowed in upon Tyre from her vast commerce, that not only were the people very generally clad in costly stuffs, dyed of the richest hues--among the rest the far-famed Tyrian purple--but even the very sails of their ships were “ of fine linen, with embroidered work from Egypt.” This minuteness in description has appeared scarcely less than necessary to a proper comprehension of the force of that declaration in the text: “ I (God) am against thee, O Tyrus.” Having learned from the detail how commercial, great, and splendid, how strong, opulent, and well-peopled a city Tyre was, we can easily deem how it was that the Tyrians, lifted up with pride, and full of self-confidence, had, in their hearts, set at nought the power of Almighty God, thinking that their mountain stood too strong for even His arm to shake. It was, in effect, we conclude, through such a spirit as this that they vaunted themselves over the Jewish people, and spoke scornfully of Jerusalem; though fully aware, at the same time, that the former were under the special patronage of God, and that the latter was the most favoured seat of His majesty and glory on earth. Such, then, as has been described, was the famous city of Tyre when the prophet Ezekiel was commanded to denounce it as marked out for particular judgment by the Most High. The reason is given in verse2. Jerusalem had been taken and sacked by Nebuchadnezzar; but this should have been far, very far from ministering to the Tyrians occasion of self-gratulation and triumph. Yet did the latter not confine themselves to the manifestation of a selfish and brutal joy at the misfortunes of their Jewish neighbours--to a mere rejoicing over the circumstance that the trade of Jerusalem would from that time flow in Tyrian channels. There is but too full evidence of the fact that they went further than this--that they became ready purchasers of all the spoil which could be wrung from the unhappy people; and, not content even with thus abetting the cruelty and rapacity of others, bought with avidity the wretched Jews themselves--bought them in great numbers, and either kept or transferred them as slaves. “ Therefore, thus saith the Lord God, Behold, I am against thee, O Tyrus.” On the particulars of the denunciation that follows, a very long and awful one, I need not dwell. My design next carries me to view the accomplishment of those predictions of vengeance which Ezekiel was thus commissioned to pour forth against the devoted city. “ Passing,” says a celebrated traveller, “ by Tyre, from curiosity only, I came to be a mournful witness of the truth of the prophecy that Tyre, the queen of nations (queen of the sea, too, was she styled); that Tyre, the queen of nations, should be a rock to fishers to dry their nets on: two wretched fishermen with miserable nets had just given over their occupations.” “ On the north side of Tyre,” says another traveller, Maundrell, “ there is an old Turkish ungarrisoned castle; besides which you see nothing here but a mere babel of broken walls, pillars, vaults, etc.; there not being so much as one entire house left. Its present inhabitants are only a few wretches harbouring themselves in the vaults, and subsisting themselves chiefly upon fishing; who seemed to be preserved in this place by Divine Providence, as a visible argument how God has fulfilled His word concerning Tyre.” Has not God then shown Himself indeed “ against Tyrus” ? Be it our endeavour, next, to inquire into the use which we should ourselves, with God’ s help, make of this interesting piece of Bible history. 1. First, then, we may the more clearly discern the force of that scripture that “ vengeance belongs to God” alone; to whom it must be left to repay evils or injuries done, derived, or wished against His people. The people of God are to repose their cause in the hands of God. And why are they so to act? Why, when the injuries which they receive are great and unquestionable, may they not themselves endeavour to take an adequate revenge? Because the truly religious temper, which only God can approve, is a temper that can have no affinity with a revengeful disposition. Neither is the retribution that God inflicts at all allied to revenge. It is the righteous chastisement of a lawgiver, whose statutes, holy, just, and good, have been inexcusably transgressed, and His authority set at nought, by those on whom the visitations fall. 2. We are taught from our subject that God will not fail to avenge, as far as shall be proper, His people, of their inveterate and irreclaimable adversaries. 3. We are taught by this scripture the severity of the Divine vengeance, when once the long-suffering of God has reached its limit, as well as the absolute impossibility of anyone’ s escaping or avoiding the terrible effects of the aroused anger of the Almighty Jehovah. Long may His patience be tried, ere that holy anger be excited, but when once kindled, how resistless and destructive is its power. Dreadful, truly, is their condition who, being still in their sins, have God “ against” them. Alarming would be the danger of that traveller who, unarmed, should discover a lion advancing towards him, in a path out of which he could not turn to escape the terrible beast; with which again, personal contest would be to all appearance hopeless. Yet would some possibility of escape in such a case exist. Aid, unknown to the stranger, might be at hand. To another object, a different kind of prey, the attention of the savage creature might be drawn off. Presence of mind, aiding the happy execution of some sudden thought, might render the jeoparded stranger victorious, or put him in unlocked for safety. Nay, the lion might, unstung by hunger, or with the magnanimity that some have been fond of ascribing to this animal, allow the other, unhurt, quietly to pass him. Such things have indeed happened. But no probabilities exist--no possibility exists, that he against whom God cometh as an avenging adversary, will be able to avoid encountering Him, and perishing in the encounter. None. His purposes change not; their execution nought can hinder. And as for God’ s not troubling Himself about the evil that He cannot but see--think what is His own character. First, is He not of an infinite wisdom, purity, and holiness? Then think what He has done for sinful man, when a believer, repentant, and reformed; not because of man’ s own merit in being such, but when he is such;--given to him, that is, everlasting life in happiness and glory. Think of these things, and then let common sense answer the question, whether this all-holy and all-beneficent Being will or will not take notice of--will or will not tremendously punish--the unbelieving, impenitent, and unholy? (W. M. Wade.) Ezekiel 26:7-14 Behold, I will bring upon Tyrus Nebuchadrezzar King of Babylon.The prophecy against Tyre I. What were the grounds of her judgment. She was judged for her sins.1. She abused the privilege of civilisation. Tyre was the most cultivated state of antiquity, invented letters, weights and measures, money, arithmetic, the art of keeping accounts. She made her painting and sculpture and architecture and music and letters, all her skill and learning and refinement, instruments of corruption. 2. Tyre abused also the privilege of commerce. The Tyrians were a nation of merchants. But there are two classes of merchants. There are those who aim to develop new countries, to introduce new crops and arts and industries, to elevate races, to make commerce the servant of God. There are others who make everything bend to gain. A prince or an entire people may thus abuse the privilege of commerce. So Tyre abused her privilege. 3. She abused the privilege of her intimate connection with the Jewish people. In the enjoyment of this distinction she stood alone. Tyre was a bulwark of Israel, covering Zion as the wing of the cherub covered the altar. In the unscrupulousness of her lust of empire and gain she broke the “ brotherly covenant,” and when Jerusalem fell she rejoiced in her overthrow. To her unscrupulousness nothing was too sacred to be turned to profit. II. The delay of the judgment. The method of God, sometimes, is swift retribution, as with Sodom and Gomorrah, sometimes slow, as with Tyre. She was long in filling her measure of guilt. Over two hundred years before the siege of Nebuchadnezzar, Joel prophesied against her. A few years later Amos took up the prophecy, then Isaiah in 712 B.C., Ezekiel in 590, Zechariah in 487. Yet the judgment delayed. She suffered calamities, but always rose above them. The prophecies were not literally fulfilled. The Christian era came in. Tyre still stood; Shalmaneser had besieged it; Nebuchadnezzar had invested it by sea and land for thirteen years, and conquered it; Alexander the Great, in 332 B.C., after a frightful siege of six months, had stormed, captured, and destroyed it, massacring thousands of its inhabitants, and selling thirty thousand into slavery. But after each disaster it had arisen anew, In the days of Jerome, in the fifth century, it was still standing, e city powerful and opulent. It was still flourishing eight hundred years later, in the times of the Crusades. It was the seat of a Christian bishopric. It had stood over twenty-five hundred years. The prophecies against it were nearly two thousand years old. Was the Bible, then, which had proved true in prophecies against Egypt and Nineveh, and Edom and Judah, to be found at fault here? III. The literal fulfilment of judgment. In the year 1291 the Sultan of Egypt laid siege to the strong city of Ptolemais or Acre. Terror spread through the crusaders’ kingdom. Tyre shared it. Capture meant massacre and slavery. Ptolemais fell on the very day on which the evil news reached Tyre. At vespers the people in mass forsook their city. In panic and haste they embarked upon their galleys, and went out never to return. The Mahometan came. He overthrew the city. He choked one of the matchless harbours with the ruins. He cast into the sea, statues and columns and the huge stones of warehouses and palaces. He set the last fire to her splendour. He scraped the rock. Standing amid the ruins we may see the dust and ashes of her conflagration, the broken marble columns beneath the sea and scattered upon the shore, the fishers’ nets spread upon the rock, and feel, with every traveller who thus stands, that the last prophecy concerning her must also prove true, “ That shalt be built no more.”1. The fate of Tyre is a warning to those engaged in traffic. Beware of the iniquity of traffic, of the pride, the luxury, the unscrupulousness, the atheism. 2. The fate of Tyre exalts the Word of God. If we look upon its ruins simply as a record of fulfilled prophecy, they force the conviction, This is the accomplishment of the Word of God, the one thing on earth amid the vast mutations of time, as passes unceasingly the glory of the world, which is unchangeable. (Sermons by Monday Club.) Ezekiel 26:12 And they shall make a spoil of thy riches. Spoliation of treasure is a moral gain Scholars and artists have mourned for ages over the almost universal destruction of the works of ancient genius. I suppose that many a second-rate city, in the time of Christ, possessed a collection of works of surpassing beauty, which could not be equalled by all the specimens now existing that have been discovered. The Alexandrian library is believed to have contained a greater treasure of intellectual riches than has ever since been hoarded in a single city. These, we know, have all vanished from the earth. The Apollo Belvidere and the Venus de Medicis stand in almost solitary grandeur to remind us of the perfection to which the plastic art of the ancients had attained. The Alexandrian library furnished fuel for years for the baths of illiterate Moslems. I used myself frequently to wonder why it had pleased God to blot out of existence these magnificent productions of ancient genres It seemed to me strange that the pail of oblivion should thus be thrown over all to which man, in the flower of his age, had given birth. But the solution of this mystery is found, I think, in the remains of Herculaneum and Pompeii. We discover that every work of man was so penetrated by corruption, every production of genius was so defiled with uncleanness, that God, in introducing a better dispensation, determined to cleanse the world from the pollution of preceding ages. As when all flesh had corrupted his way, He purified the world by the waters of the flood, so, when genius had covered the earth with images of sin, He overwhelmed the works of ancient civilisation with a deluge of barbarism. It was too bad to exist: and He swept it all away. (F. Wayland.) Ezekiel 26:13 And I will cause the noise of thy songs to cease.Sin silencing song The classics tell of a lake called Avernus, which means “ birdless.” A poisonous vapour arises from its foul waters. Birds attempting to fly across it fall stupefied into its bosom. The eagle’ s wing becomes powerless, and gradually the proud bird sinks down, until its lifeless body floats upon the dark waters. The nightingale loses by degrees her power of song, and at length the sweet singer falls trembling into the waves of death. This may be a fiction; it is nevertheless a picture of life. There is a lake of sinful pleasure lying along our path. Heedless of it, many spread their wings of strength and beauty upon its outer shore. They think to go a little beyond its margin, and then return. But the spell is on them. Before they are aware the wing has lost its strength and the voice its charm. The momentum gained bears them onward and down until they sink in the dark and fatal flood. Ezekiel 26:15 Shall not the isles shake at the sound of thy fall? Tyre’ s fall awakens alarm in others As when a great merchant breaks, all that he deals with are shocked by it, and begin to look about them. Or when they see one fail and become bankrupt, of a sudden, in debt a great deal more than he is worth, it makes them afraid for themselves, lest they should do so too. Thus the isles, which thought themselves safe in the embraces of the sea, when they see Tyrus fall, shall tremble and be troubled, saying, What will become of us?” And it is well, if they make this use of it, to take warning by it not to be secure, but to stand in awe of God and His judgments. (M. Henry.) Ezekiel 26:21I will make thee a terror, and thou shalt be no more.The humiliation of Tyre All prophecy is moral, is based on moral considerations. What the prophet aims his threats against is not the prosperity of Tyre, but its pride of heart, which was rebellion against Jehovah--God over all. The humiliation of Tyre was morally as good as its ruins, in so far as it showed that there were higher forces in the world than itself. (A. B. Davidson.) . Ezekiel 27:1-36 Take up a lamentation for Tyrus.A proud city The men of the world are wise, choosing the fittest places for their own advantage and interest. Let us learn so much of the men of the world, to be wise for our spiritual interest, and seat ourselves near the waters of the sanctuary, that so, trading with God and Christ, we may abound with spiritual treasure.2. Outward excellences lift up men’ s hearts, beget vain confidences, and cause them to boast. This is the great wickedness of cities enriched by God, that they forget Him, and glory in external excellences. 3. No situation, strength, or outward advantage can secure proud cities. 4. Artists will put forth themselves to the utmost to show their skill. “ Thy builders have perfected thy beauty” ; they concealed not their art; what skill soever they had in architecture, they strove to manifest the same. (W. Greenhill, M. A.) The sin of Tyre To Ezekiel, as to the prophets generally, Tyre is the representative of commercial greatness, and the truth which he here seeks to illustrate is that the abnormal development of the mercantile spirit had in her case destroyed the capacity of faith in that which is truly Divine. The real god of Tyre was not Baal nor Melkarth, but the king, or any other object that might serve as a symbol of her civic greatness. Her religion was one that embodied itself in no outward ritual; it was the enthusiasm which was kindled in the heart of every citizen of Tyre by the magnificence of the imperial city to which he belonged. The state of mind which Ezekiel regards as characteristic of Tyre was perhaps the inevitable outcome of a high civilisation informed by no loftier religious conceptions than those common to heathenism. It is the idea which afterwards found expression in the deification of the Roman emperors--the idea that the state is the only power higher than the individual to which he can look for the furtherance of his material and spiritual interests, the only: power, therefore, which rightly claims his homage and his reverence. None the less, it is a state of mind which is destructive of all that is essential to living religion; and Tyre in her proud self-sufficiency was perhaps further from a true knowledge of God than the barbarous tribes who in all sincerity worshipped the rude idols which represented the invisible power that ruled their destinies. And in exposing the irreligious spirit which lay at the heart of the Tyrian civilisation the prophet lays his finger on the spiritual danger which attends the successful pursuit of the finite interests of human life. The thought of God, the sense of an immediate relation of the spirit of man to the Eternal and the Infinite, are easily displaced from men’ s minds by undue admiration for the achievements of a culture based on material progress, and supplying every need of human nature except the very deepest, the need of God. The commercial spirit is indeed but one of the forms in which men devote themselves to the service of this present world; but in any community where it reigns supreme we may confidently look for the same signs of religious decay which Ezekiel detected in Tyre in his own day. At all events, his message is not superfluous in an age and country where energies are well-nigh exhausted in the accumulation of the means of living, and whose social problems all run up into the great question of the distribution of wealth. (John Skinner, M. A.) The fate of Tyre Why was Tyrus rebuked and stripped and humbled? Because it came to pass in the case of Tyrus, as it comes to pass in our case, that too much prosperity begets a spirit of sneering. And God will not have any sneering in His school. How did Tyrus sneer? She sneered religiously, which is the worst kind of sneering. “ Because that Tyrus hath said against Jerusalem, Aha.” That “ Aha” cost Tyrus her life. He who sneers at Jerusalem challenges God; he who mocks the humble poor defies high Heaven. Tyrus versus Jerusalem,--the case so limited, Jerusalem might go down; but so long as Jerusalem stands for godliness, the true worship, the right conception of things, he who offends Jerusalem has to fight Omnipotence. Can Tyrus fail? When Tyrus fails all the islands of the sea know of it: “ Then all the princes of the sea shall come down,” etc. Behold them all!--princes of Polynesia coming down from their thrones, stripping themselves, themselves folding up the garments and putting them away, and then replacing the garments embroidered and golden with garments of trembling. Why? Because famed Tyrus has fallen. Howl, fir tree; for the cedar is fallen. We should learn from ruins. O vain man, poor boaster, you shall beg tomorrow! You that steep your arms to the elbows in gold shall write a begging letter ere the year closes. Riches make to themselves wings and fly away, and the great Babylon which you have builded is but a bubble in the air. Lay not up for yourselves riches where moth and rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal: have riches in heaven; have riches in the word of God. See the uselessness of what is called environment. Tyrus had environment enough; her shipboards, trees of cedar; her masts made of the cedars of Lebanon; her oars of the oaks of Bashan; fine linen with broidered work from Egypt, blue and purple from the isles of Elishah; treasure upon treasure. So much for environment! We think if we had more pictures on the walls we should pray more; if we had a larger garden behind the house we should be more spiritually minded. It is not so. A man’ s heaven is in his heart; a man’ s hell is within. Moreover, what is environment? Who are we that we should define environment and say, Under such and such circumstances such and such moral issues would take place? Never! unless there be something more. Only the Spirit can make man right, and only Christ, according to the faith, to the Christianity which I solemnly accept, can get at the spirit with renewing and sanctifying energy. All other teachers are reformers. Christ is a Saviour. When Christ gets into a man’ s heart, all the rest follows--all the cleanliness comes the same day, and on the morrow comes music, and on the third day comes the dawn of heaven. (J. Parker, D. D.) The position of Tyre on land and sea Part of the city was on an island, and part on the mainland. Alexander, the conqueror, was much embarrassed when he found so much of the city was on an island, for he had no ships. But his military genius was not to be balked. Having marched his army to the beach, he ordered them to tear up the city on the mainland and throw it into the water, and build a causeway two hundred feet wide to the island. So they took that part of the city which was on the mainland, and with it built a causeway of timber and brick and stone, on which his army marched to the capture of that part of the city which was on the island, as though a hostile army should put Brooklyn into the East River, and over it march to the capture of New York. That Tyrian causeway of ruins which Alexander’ s army built is still there, and by alluvial deposits has permanently united the island to the mainland, so that it is no longer an island but a promontory. The sand, the greatest of all undertakers for burying cities, having covered up for the most part Baalbec and Palmyra and Thebes and Memphis and Carthage and Babylon and Luxor and Jericho, the sand, so small and yet so mighty, is now gradually giving rites of sepulture to what was left of Tyre. But, oh, what a magnificent city it once was! Mistress of the sea! Queen of international commerce! All nations casting their crowns at her feet! Where we have in our sailing vessels benches of wood, she had benches of ivory. Where we have for our masts of ships sails of coarse canvas, she had sails of richest embroidery. (T. De Witt Talmage.) Responsibility of city rulers Cities are not necessarily evils, as has sometimes been argued. They have been the birthplace of civilisation. In them popular liberty has lifted up its voice. Witness Genoa, Pisa, Venice. The entrance of the representatives of the cities in the legislatures of Europe was the deathblow to feudal kingdoms. Cities are the patronisers of art and literature. Cities hold the world’ s sceptre. Africa was Carthage, Greece was Athens, England is London, France is Paris, Italy is Rome. I. Commercial ethics are always affected by the moral or immoral character of those who have principal supremacy. Officials that wink at fraud, and that have neither censure nor arraignment for glittering dishonesties, always weaken the pulse of commercial honour. II. So also of the educational interests of a city. There are cities where educational affairs are settled in the low caucus in the abandoned parts of the cities, by men full of ignorance and rum. It ought not to be so; but in many cities it is so. I hear the tramp of the coming generations. What that great multitude of youth shall be for this world and the next will be affected very much by the character of our public schools. Instead of driving the Bible out, you had better drive the Bible further in. III. The character of officials in a city affects the domestic circle. In a city where grog shops have their own way, and gambling hells are not interfered with, and for fear of losing political influence officials close their eyes to festering abominations--in all those cities the home interests need to make imploration. The family circles of the city must inevitably be affected by the moral character or the immoral character of those who rule over them. IV. The religious interests of a city are thus affected. The Church today has to contend with evils that the civil law ought to smite; and while I would not have the civil government in anywise relax its energy in the arrest and punishment of crime, I would have a thousand-fold more energy put forth in the drying up of the fountains of iniquity. The Church of God asks no pecuniary aid from political power; but it does ask that, in addition to all the evils we must necessarily contend against, we shall not have to fight also municipal negligence. (T. De Witt Talmage.) God’ s observation of our business hours “ Thus said the Lord.” This account of the trade of Tyre intimates to us that God’ s eye is upon men, and that He takes cognisance of what they do when they are employed in their worldly business, not only when they are at church, praying and hearing, but when they are in their markets and fairs, and upon the exchange, buying and selling, which is a good reason why we should in all our dealings keep a conscience void of offence, and have our eye always upon Him whose eye is always upon us. (M. Henry.) Ezekiel 27:12-23 Tarshish was thy merchant by reason of the multitude of all kinds of riches.The fairs of Tyre Let us look in upon a world’ s fair at Tyre. Ezekiel leads us through one department, and it is a horse fair. Underfed and overdriven for ages, the horses of today give you no idea of the splendid animals which, rearing and plunging and snorting and neighing, were brought down over the planks of the ships, and led into the world’ s fair at Tyre, until Ezekiel, who was a minister of religion, and not supposed to know much about, horses, cried out in admiration, “ They of the house of Togarmah traded in thy fairs with horses.” Here in another department of that world’ s fair at Tyre, led on by Ezekiel the prophet, we find everything all ablaze with precious stones. Like petrified snow are the corals; like fragments of fallen sky are the sapphires; and here is a gate a-blush with all colours. What is that aroma we inhale? It is from the chests of cedar which we open, and find them filled with all kinds of fabric. But the aromatics increase as we pass down this lane of enchantment, and here are cassia and frankincense and balm. Led on by Ezekiel the prophet, we come to an agricultural fair, with a display of wheat from Minnith and Pannag, rich as that of our modern Dakota or Michigan. And here is a mineralogical fair, with specimens of iron and silver and tin and lead and gold. But, halt! for here is purple, Tyrian purple, all tints and shades, deep almost unto the black, and bright almost unto the blue; waiting for kings and queens to order it made into robes for coronation day; purple, not like that which is now made from the orchilla weed, but the extinct purple, the lost purple, which the ancients knew how to make out of the gastropod molluscs of the Mediterranean. Oh, look at those casks of wine from Helbon! See those snow banks of wool from the back of sheep that once pastured in Gilead! Oh, the bewildering riches and variety of that world’ s fair at Tyre! (T. De Witt Talmage.) Great fairs universal But the world has copied these Bible mentioned fairs in all succeeding ages, and it has had its Louis the Sixth fair at Dagobert, and Henry the First fair on St. Bartholomew’ s Day, and Hungarian fairs at Pesth, and Easter fairs at Leipsic, and the Scotch fairs at Perth (bright was the day when I was at one of them), and afterward came the London world’ s fair, and the New York world’ s fair, and the Vienna world’ s fair, and the Parisian world’ s fair, and it has been decided that, in commemoration of the discovery of America in 1492, there shall be held in this country in 1892 a world’ s fair that shall eclipse all preceding national expositions. (T. De Witt Talmage.) Damascus was thy merchant in the multitude of thy wares of thy making. Home industries to be encouraged It is the wisdom of a nation to encourage art and industry, and not to bear hard upon the handicraft-tradesman; for it contributes much to the wealth and honour of a nation to send abroad “ wares of their own making,” which may bring them in the “ multitude of riches.” (M. Henry,) Ezekiel 27:24 These were thy merchants in all sorts of things.Business troubles Many of our business men are suffering trials and temptations from small and limited capital in business. This temptation of limited capital has ruined men in two ways. Sometimes they have sunk down under the temptation. They have yielded the battle before the first shot was fired. They blanched at the financial peril. The gloom of their countenances overshadowed even their dry goods and groceries. Despondency, coming from limited capital, blasted them. Others have felt it in a different way. They have said: “ Here I have been trudging along. I have been trying to be honest, all these years. I find it is of no use. Now it is make or break.” The small craft that could have stood the stream is put out beyond the lighthouse, on the great sea of speculation. After a while the bubble bursts. Creditors rush in. The law clutches, but finds nothing in its grasp. The men who were swindled say: “ I don’ t know how I could ever have been deceived by that man” ; and the pictorials, in handsome woodcuts, set forth the hero who in ten years had genius enough to fail for 150,000 dollars!2. Many of our business men are tempted to over-anxiety and care. From January to December the struggle goes on. Even the Sabbath cannot dam back the tide of anxiety; for this wave of worldliness dashes clear over the churches, and leaves its foam on Bibles and prayer books. This excitement of the brain, this corroding care of the heart, this strain of effort that exhausts the spirit, sends a great many of our best men, in middle life, into the grave. Oh, I wish I could, today, rub out some of these lines of care; that I could lift some of the burdens from the heart; that I could give relaxation to some of these worn muscles! It is time for you to begin to take it a little easier. Do your best, and then trust God for the rest. 3. Many of our business men are tempted to neglect their home duties. It is often the case that the father is the mere treasurer of the family, a sort of agent to see that they have dry goods and groceries. The work of family government he does not touch. A man has more responsibilities than those which are discharged by putting competent instructors over his children, and giving them a drawing master and a music teacher. 4. Many of our business men are tempted to put the attainment of money above the value of the soul. There are men in all occupations who seem to act as though they thought that a pack of bonds and mortgages could be traded off for a title to heaven, and as though gold would be a lawful tender in that place where it is so common that they make pavements out of it. Salvation by Christ is the only salvation. Treasures in heaven are the only incorruptible treasures. (T. De Witt Talmage.) Ezekiel 27:26 Thy rowers have brought thee into great waters.“ Thy rowers have brought thee into great waters” I. This is truly applicable to sinners who are beginning to taste of the result of their sins--ungodly persons, who have chosen their own ways and followed their own devices, and now at last are finding that the way of transgressors is hard.1. Certain transgressors are beginning to feel the result of wrong-doing in their circumstances. They have brought themselves from wealth to poverty by drunkenness, dishonesty, or vice. 2. Others who have not yet been afflicted by any outward providence are beginning to feel the sting of sin upon their conscience. This will, I trust, be used for their good. 3. O soul, thou art come now where thy sins compass thee about, and shut thee in on every side. Listen to me, while I speak to thee words which may seem harsh, but they are all meant in love to thee. If the waters be great today, what will they be ere long? If now thou canst not bear the wages of sin, what wilt thou do when they are paid thee in full? “ What wilt thou do in the swelling of Jordan?” Learn, I pray thee, this piece of timely wisdom. Thy rowers have brought thee into no quiet waters; they have found thee no harbours of delight: shall they any longer be thy rowers? Do this one thing to thine own soul if thou hast any sense left, or any pity on thyself; cry out against those who are ruining thee. Oh, that the Spirit of the Lord may help thee to break the oars and cast the rowers into the sea! Remember, also, that they have rowed thee into the stormy waters, but they cannot row thee out of them. Thou canst find no rest by continuing in sin, neither canst thou save thyself from thy present forlorn condition. O man, cry mightily unto God. He will hear thee. II. I see another ship. It is not black with the grime of the world; it resembles the gilded barge of a mighty prince; but still, for all that, its rowers have brought it into great waters. This represents the self-righteous brought into distress. Many men are fondly persuaded that either they need no saving, or that they can save themselves. There is no end to the gallant show which self-righteousness can exhibit. No ship of Tyre can excel it. Yet to this glorious ship a trying voyage is appointed. Alas, my friend! thy rowers have brought thee into great waters. Think of the difficult journey which lies before you. The proposal is that you shall row yourself by your good works across yon sea of sin to the port of glory. Before you enter upon a matter it is well to count the cost. Do you not know that, if you are to be saved by obedience to the law of God, your obedience must be absolutely perfect? Look, sirs, you have been resting in your own righteousness; have you never sinned? Do you claim to have been absolutely perfect before your Maker from your childhood? Surely, you must have a brow of brass to make such a boast. “ If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.” Verily, my friend, “ thy rowers have brought thee into great waters.” If thou art to be saved by thy works, see where thou art! Any one day thou mayest slip and stumble, and then what becomes of all thy past life? If this be thy style of standing before God, it is a poor standing indeed. Canst thou ever be sure that thou wilt be safe in an hour’ s time? Come, my friend, canst thou be sure that thou hast done enough, and felt enough, and prayed enough, and given enough alms, and gone a sufficient number of times to the meeting house, or to the church? Canst thou be sure that it is well with thee even now? The religion of self-righteousness never proposes such a thing as security. It does not give the quiet of faith, much less the deep repose of full assurance. “ Thy rowers have brought thee into great waters.” Uncertainty follows uncertainty, and the wind of fear tosses the billows of doubt. III. There is a third case, the errorist in his difficulties. This is a very common sight in these wayward times. I might say to many a man who has ventured out to sea under the strong impulse of curiosity, trusting to his own proud intellect, “ Thy rowers have brought thee into great waters.” The only safe course for a thoughtful man is to trust in God, and to accept the Scriptures as infallible truth. There is our anchorage. But there are men who cannot abide this; and, first of all, I think that they begin to get into great waters when they resolve to be guided by their own judgment and their own intellect, without submitting to the teachings of Christ. O my wise and thoughtful friend, do you know what will soon happen to you? You will probably fall under the domination of another’ s intellect: you will become the shadow of some greater man. The man who will be guided by nobody is usually guided by someone more foolish or more knavish than himself. In the dogmas of modern thought there is not enough mental meat to bait a mousetrap: as to food for a soul, there is none of it; an ant would starve on such small gram. No atonement, no regeneration, no eternal love, no covenant: what is there worth thinking upon? “ They have taken away my Lord, and I know not where they have laid Him.” They have taken away the light, the life, the love, the liberty of free grace, and they have given us nothing in the stead thereof but pretty toys, which they themselves will break before many days are past. How many who only meant to go a little from the old ways of truth have gone too far aside even for themselves! Truly, my speculative friend, “ thy rowers have brought thee into great waters.” IV. Behold the backslider filled with his own ways. O wanderer from the Lord thy God, “ thy rowers have brought thee into great waters.” You know how it begins: first of all, that holy, joyful walk with God is lost. It did not seem much merely to lose rapturous enjoyment; but it was much in itself, and it meant more. Then there came a loss of relish for the means of grace. Secret prayer was neglected, and the Bible was unread. The forms of religion were kept up longer than the enjoyment of it; but there was no life, no power in them. After that there came a general fault-finding with brethren, a quarrelling with sisters, a constant cavilling at this and that. Then there came a distaste for Christian company: godly people were too common place and prosaic. The love of something “ brighter” called them away from solid conversation. Songs other than those of Zion began to be relished, and teachings not of the Bible were listened to. At last it went further: it came to actual and open sin, and ruin followed. O friend, “ thy rowers have brought thee into great waters.” Oh, that He would come who owns thy barque, who shed His blood for thee! Oh, that He would step into thy vessel, and take the helm and turn thee round tonight by a great stroke of His almighty grace, and turn thy head to the port of peace! (C. H. Spurgeon.) The east wind hath broken thee in the midst of the seas. Broken by the east wind In this splendid chapter the prophet describes Tyre under the image of one of her own merchant vessels. Looking at it simply as a piece of composition, what an extreme interest there is in this enumeration of the various races which were subject to this mighty city, and the lands from which she drew her supplies! We are reminded of the far-spreading colonies of the Anglo-Saxon race. We can almost hear the noise of her construction in the earlier verses, and see fine linen hoisted as her sail, whilst she is manned and piloted by her statesmen. Heavily laden with the choice merchandise of the East, she sails the seas, independent of the winds of heaven, because the galley slaves toil at treble banks of oars on either side. But their rowing brings her into great waters; she encounters the east wind, which breaks her in the heart of the sea; and in one day, pilots, rowers, men of war, and merchandise, are lost--all brought to silence in the midst of the sea. What a powerful conception of the great ship sinking in silence with all on board! One cry; the waves meet over her; and only a floating spar tells where she sank. So is it with many a life. The whole world is laid under contribution for its outfit. Bashan, Chittim, Egypt, bring their quota; and to all appearance, as it glides from its stocks upon the sea of life, a fair voyage awaits it, and large exchange of the wares of human industry and thought. But where Christ is not the Pilot, and His word not the chart, the rowers bring it into great waters, and it is broken by the east wind. O mariner! see to it that Christ is on board; for He only can still the tempest and speak peace, and guide thee out of the great waters. (F. B. Meyer, B. A.) . Ezekiel 28:1-10 Son of man, say unto the prince of Tyrus.The causes of national decadence Who has not sometimes, standing on Brooklyn Bridge, and looking off on the forests of masts, or upon the fleets sailing back and forth upon the river, or at the great warehouses upon one side and the homes beautiful and happy upon the other--who has not sometimes called up in his imagination the picture of Ephesus or Athens or Corinth, where great ships once rode at anchor, whose old-time harbour is now a great morass? Who has not wondered whether the time may not come in some far future age when men shall come and look on the ruins of this great bridge and the ruins of this great city and the harbour filled up with its own filth, and will regret it as we regret the forgotten splendours of Mexico or of Central America? Decay is on all men’ s institutions. Persia, Babylon, Greece, Rome, Venice, Spain, all lived out their life as we are living ours, and all fell into their decay, their senility, and their grave. Are we to follow them? I do not know. But this I know: that behind all these institutions, behind all these governments and laws, there is an eternal law manifested and revealed. I know not how long this republic shall endure; but I know this, that behind all kingdoms and republics, in them and by them, is manifested the eternal kingdom of God; nay, the very governments that set themselves against that kingdom to break down and destroy it are speaking, whether they will or they will not, the word that endureth forever. “ Tell me what lessons you have to teach us, O you nations of the past!” And Babylon lifts up her voice and says, “ I have to teach you this: that any nation that puts its foot on the neck of prostrate humanity seals its death warrant and hastens to its own doom.” And Greece says, “ I have this to tell you: that no art, no philosophy, no culture, can save from death the nation that is immoral.” And Rome says, “ I have this to tell you: that no power of law will make a nation safe and strong if there be corruption eating out the heart of it.” And Venice says, “ I have this to say to you: that no nation is rich, though its fleets sail all seas, if it be poor in manhood.” And Spain says, “ I have this to say to you: that pride, for the nation as for the individual, cometh before a fall!” And then I wonder, as I look upon my own dear native land, whether she will learn these lessons writ so large in all the history of the past. Whether we are to illustrate by our own stupendous and awful ruin that, though a nation have power and culture and wealth and law and pride, it perishes without a God; or whether we shall rather teach this: that a nation whose kings are uncrowned kings, and who beckons from far across the sea the ignorant, the unlearned, and the incompetent, is strong and enduring, because it has enshrined God in its heart and has founded itself on that judgment and that justice which are the foundations of His throne. What the history of the future shall have for our dear land, who can tell? But whether this nation is born to teach a lesson by its folly or its wisdom, by its fidelity or by its infidelity, back of all these transitory and decaying nations stands writ the truth of Him who in national life is speaking, and whose word endureth forever. (T. De Witt Talmage.) Pride and folly of accumulation of wealth H.W. Beecher strikingly compares the great heaps of wealth that some men pile up to the Pyramids of Egypt. There they stand, looking grand on the outside, but within they contain only the dust of kings. So with these fine appearing fortunes which have been heaped up in forgetfulness of God’ s service. They contain within only the dust of what might have been a kingly character. Tyre a sacred city This feeling of superhuman elevation in the King of Tyre was fostered by the fact that the island on which Tyre stood was called “ the holy island,” being sacred to Hercules; so much so that the colonies looked up to Tyre, as the mother city of their religion as well as of their political existence. (A. R. Fausset.) Ezekiel 28:13-14 Thou hast been in Eden, the garden of God.In the garden of God 1. History, it is clear, may be written as poetry; and that, too, without any evaporation of its facts. Ezekiel’ s figure gives us the essential spirit of a great age. We see its successes; we feel its pride; we thrill with its joys. “ Thou hast exploited life--thou hast had days of heaven upon the earth--thou hast been in the garden of God.” What testimony this is to God’ s long-suffering! Tyre did not want Him, though He wanted Tyre. There was no reciprocity; Tyre sang and revelled along its wealthy way, and would not so much as lift its eyes to Heaven, where God sorrowed. She revolted from the pure deep heavens, and vilely dug her gods out of, the hillsides. To have clipped her wings, to have pruned her glories down to life’ s bare necessities would have seemed the kindliest discipline. Instead, God gives ages of blandishments for ages of contempt. Till the hour of doom comes. 2. It is not impossible to write much modern history in the same brilliant, revelatory style. The Englishman is as the Tyrian. Life in the cities of our empire is full, splendid with colour, seething with joys. We have been, and are, in Eden. We have had our griefs, but he is a bold man who denies our delights. We have been born amid roses, reared amid songs, and there are hours when we are drunken with the rapture of living. “ Life is a golden cup; God filled it.” 3. He who saunters up through the leafy ways of the Sydenham Palace will come at length to a commanding terrace where, upon its lofty pedestal, rises the bold head of Sir Joseph Paxton. The fruit of Paxton’ s genius stretches around him. His ideal was captivating--a palace of light in a paradise of flowers. And now from his high place he looks out upon his gift to his fellows. He looks upon the rosaries, with their crimson and pink buds; upon lawns and bowers; upon fountains and statuary; upon spreading cedars and majestic oaks; upon sunny glades and shady ways, where the white petals of the syringa drop gently to the grass and the mavis sings from the thorn. With garlanded brow the worker stands in the midst of his work, the creator at the heart of his creation. God, the Bountiful One, has given us Eden; have we found a place for Him in the garden? What, then, is God’ s place in man’ s Eden? Beware lest thine heart be lifted up, and thou catch the trick of the Tyrians, and imagine thyself in the seat of God, It is true, “ thou art the anointed cherub.” In the eyes of inert thou shinest like a visitant from heaven. Thou dwellest amid stones of fire, amid stones that flame with rainbow lights. Thou hast made a robe for thyself of diamonds and gold. Burma and Brazil and Kimberley are upon thy gleaming arms and throat. Thou hast mastered the art of amazing by display. The highways of the earth are full of the stir and noise of those who travel to see thy splendours. There is dazzling of eyes and aching of heart when they behold thee. In good sooth, “ thou art the anointed cherub.” Well for thee if thou art content in thy cherubic beauty to lay thy heart low before the Giver of every good and perfect gift, for He hath “ set thee so.” “ Him that glorieth, let him glory in the Lord.” 4. Let us live up to our Eden. He who lives in the garden of God should have the paradise spirit. Hear St. Paul: “ Walk worthy of God, who hath called you to His Kingdom and glory.” A keen observer has told us of the splendid landscape gardening that encircles many a country mansion; he tells us how the lobelia and the verbena and the peony blow, how the thrushes whistle in the trees and feed upon the lawns, and how, from under a covert of blue and scarlet blossoms, the stoat will spring upon the birds. Savage beast and lovely flowers in one bed! This is a parable of human life. The goodness of God makes a paradise about us. Broad spaces are rich with bloom and beauty. And there, amid the flowers His love has planted, crouch human passions. How few are touched by the shocking antithesis. Rodway says that in Guiana he has often scared centipedes and tarantulas that were hiding in the thick of rare and gorgeous orchids. It is to be feared that the underworld in the garden of God is often far from attractive. God gives grace; we supply sin. The one thing needed to perfect our Eden is that Christ should cleanse our hearts and fill them with the light of His love. And if we would live up to our Eden, let us note and live by the true purpose of the paradise. God “ giveth us all things richly to enjoy.” The world’ s honest laughter does not bore nor offend Him. He reckons it among His pleasures; it goes with the ripple of the tide, the music of the spheres, and the angels’ song. He who makes Eden about us can hardly object to our delighting in it. Yet let us remember what we are Let us not discard our intelligence. Who does not know that joy is not for enjoyment’ s sake only? Enjoyment is for refreshing, and refreshing is for service. The hour you elect to live only for the pleasures of Eden, that hour the light of your paradise begins to fade. Lastly, let none but Christ enlarge your fair garden. The devil is forever seeking to draw you out to new ground. He is forever saying he will extend your Eden. Be careful that you annex nothing at his suggestion. Pick no flower he praises. He is a liar from the beginning. He covers his foul meaning with fair advertisements. His object is not delectation, but death. Scorn satanic paradises. Grant Allen says there are some flowers that smell like raw meat, that they may attract “ blue-bottles.” The devil’ s garden is prepared for flesh flies. Keep a critical eye on your gratifications. (James Dunk.) Ezekiel 28:14-16 Thou art the anointed cherub that covereth; and I have set thee so: thou wast upon the holy mountain of God.The religious claims of the British colonies Let Britain recognise, not merely the elements of her greatness in her commercial relations, but the type of her majesty in a state, planted like itself in the midst of the seas, enthroned queen of the nations whom she overshadowed with her powers. Let her look at the character of her own crimes, and consider the peril of corresponding visitations; let her look to her obligations and her responsibilities; and, as the chief of these, hearken to the claims of her colonies. I. The obligations arising from her position. “ Thou art the anointed cherub that covereth,” etc. If this glowing and magnificent description was true of Tyre, it can lose nothing in its application to Britain. In arts and in arms, in commerce and in agriculture, in facility of local position and fertility of soil--secure from invasion, prolific in produce, rich in cultivation, replenished with merchandise, powerful in political relations, redundant in population--above all, unrivalled in religious advantages; all these secured by a civil constitution peculiar to herself, balancing the national interests, and destroying the elements of internal discord and division: what more can be enjoyed to give national prosperity and preeminence? But whence flows the tide of greatness? and to whom is Britain indebted for her supremacy? It is not self-produced; it cannot be self-sustained: “ I have set thee so.” Not to know, not to feel, not to acknowledge this, is the source of national decay and ruin. We are exalted to sovereignty, and entrusted with dominion, that the parent state may be to her widely spread and numerous colonies “ the anointed cherub that covereth.” She owes them political protection, to gather them under her wings, like the eagle: but she owes them also religious instruction; she should engage in a holy traffic, infinitely advantageous to them, and, for the wealth which they pour into her bosom, repay them with durable riches and righteousness. II. The responsibility of her vast extent of territory. The statesman may contemplate this prodigious dependency upon the crown of his country with unmixed emotions of pride and exultation; I see in it, primarily, a corresponding magnitude of national responsibility. It were superfluous here to recount the names and localities of her dominions; but it is of importance to call to mind that the colonial territory of Britain has put under her responsibility not only so many more bodies, but so many more souls; that it is not over inert matter, but over spirit and life, that she rules; that a population vastly surpassing her own is of equal value with her own; that one immortal spirit of all these millions is of more worth than the material universe, and must remain indestructible, in happiness or misery, when the heavens are no more; and that the present all-fluctuating, transient, uncertain existence is the only period to fix its destiny irreversibly and forever. Her responsibility is heightened by the moral condition of that vast extent of territory over which she rules; and which, participating the depravity of fallen nature, common to all presents peculiarities of corruption or of destitution characteristic of the particular states in which they are respectively placed. III. The reparation due from oppressors. “ Iniquity was found in thee. By the multitude of thy merchandise they have filled the midst of thee with violence, and thou hast sinned.” Ambition has been charged, and justly charged, with trampling upon the rights and liberties of mankind, turning the fruitful land into barrenness, beating down with unsparing force and cruelty whatever withstood its advance, outraging every principle, if expediency required its sacrifice, wasting human life remorselessly in furtherance of its plans, and deluging the earth with blood. What has Commerce to say, in answer to the accusation, should every one of these imputations be alleged against her? Have her crimes been fewer? Have the injuries inflicted upon society been less aggravated, and has the love of money been less powerful than the love of fame? Has the lust of dominion been more persevering and reckless than the cupidity of accumulation? Let the colonies of Britain, even Christian Britain, stand forth and give their testimony, in vindication of the sentiment of the text. It is true, much is without remedy: the early victims of oppression are out of the reach of the oppressor; even a nation’ s repentance cannot recall a single departed spirit from its dreadful abode; but the children are in the place of the fathers. A debt of crime is incurred which the consecrated energies of the nation alone can repay; let the inheritors of the wrongs of their ancestors remove and redress all their grievances in the ample compensation which the parent state has it yet in her power to effect, in sending to them the glad tidings of salvation. The slave trade has been abolished in vain, and in vain are you now proclaiming liberty to the captive, if this great obligation be neglected. You have not given freedom to the slave thoroughly until you have given him the Gospel; heavier, invisible, infrangible chains remain when you have taken the yoke from his shoulders and struck the fetters from his limbs. IV. The sentence pronounced against national guilt. “ I will cast thee as profane out of the mountain of God,” etc. This judgment proceeds on two principles. The one is a personal degradation: “ I will cast thee as profane out of the mountain of God.” It is national irreligion. The privileges of the Gospel have been neglected or despised; they shall be removed; they shall be insulted no longer; the prosperity that made them of no account shall be withdrawn also. The other principle on which judgment proceeds is relative, commercial, colonial, bears expressly upon the point discussed. “ Thou hast defiled thy sanctuaries,” etc. Every part of this sentence is full of meaning. It is the soul that has been trifled with; it is the blood of souls that is required; it is the blood of the souls of “ poor innocents,” who knew not what they did, abandoned to ignorance, to negligence, to misery. The negligence is palpable, multiplied; the consequences deplorable; yet insensibility and security fortify the guilty city, even in the midst of impending retribution; and they justify themselves under the scrutiny of that eye from which nothing can be concealed. The judgment threatened is just. Again, as in a glass, the crimes, the danger, and the duty of the country are alike apparent, and the religious claims of her colonies depicted. Jerusalem is not, because of these oppressions, combined with this other neglect of the souls of those depending upon her; and shall we altogether escape? V. An irresistible appeal to her christian principles. “ Thou art the anointed cherub that covereth; and I have set thee so: thou wast upon the holy mountain of God.” This is the highest of all possible distinctions; the greatest of all possible blessings. And if it were but a presumptuous imagination in the heart of the king of Tyre, or a figure the strongest that could be imagined, of security and felicity, it is unquestionably a reality with us, a reality in respect to privilege; whether a reality in respect to principle, remains to be perceived, and will be determined by the hold which the appeal, So irresistible in its own nature, made to these principles in reference to these claims, shall have upon the conviction, the concurrence and the energies of the nation at large, and upon the hearts, consciences, and exertions of professors of religion in particular. For it is the work of the nation, and it is the work of the nation in her magnitude, and it has wherewithal to occupy all the labour and talent that can be brought to bear upon it. Here differences should be merged in the prominent object of general concernment, of universal utility, and faithful allegiance to our common Lord. Here, if ever, all envy and strife, all doubts and surmisings, all malice and evil speaking--at all times so unbecoming the Gospel of Christ, so unworthy Christian character, so hateful in themselves, so pernicious in their effects, so opposed to the spirit of our Master--should be laid aside; remembering, that during the time that is consumed in contention the work of God must stand still. Here there should be no emulation, but such as should call forth holy ardour and brotherly affections and stir up to love and to good works. (W. B. Collyer, D. D.) Ezekiel 28:18 By the iniquity of thy traffic.Corruption in commerce The tendency is to measure all things by a money standard. The business that cannot be ruled by Christianity is wrong. What this does for a land, if it grows unchecked, is to make men sell the best things. Phoenicia did, and the spirit of her people died. Her inhabitants became the ministers of vice in every Eastern city. And the man eaten up by love of gain is preparing for himself and all he influences a like fate. Men object that business is a sort of neutral world in which the maxims of New Testament morality cannot come into play. But if this is true, either Christianity cannot be a faith for the whole of a man’ s life, or the business that cannot be ruled by it is wrong. It is to rule my eating and drinking, my clothing and housing of myself and mine, my buying and selling, my work am! play. Whatsoever ye do, “ buying or booking,” do all in the name of the Lord Jesus. But men object today that the severity of the competition by which they are pressed makes some moral laxity in the conduct of business most difficult to avoid. They have to contend with others who are not hampered by scrupulosity in the methods by which they obtain orders or make profits. Some time ago, the Rev. Mr. Carter, the Secretary of the Christian Social Union, informs us, the Oxford branch of that society sent out a number of queries to practical men on the subject of commercial morality. In answer to the question: “ Do you find it difficult to apply the principles of Christian truth and justice to the conduct of business?” two employers write: “ Business is based on the gladiatorial theory of existence. If Christian truth and justice is not consistent with this, business is in a bad case.” A commercial traveller writes: “ Not only difficult, but impossible, for a man is not master of himself. If one would live, and avoid the bankruptcy court, one must do business on the same lines as others do, without troubling whether, the methods are in harmony with the principles of Christian truth and justice or not. A draper’ s assistant answers: “ Extremely so. The tendency to misrepresent, deceive, or take unfair advantage under circumstances that daily offer the opportunity of so doing is generally too strong to resist where self-interest is the motive power of action, the conventional morality the only check. To me they appear to be opposing principles--the first of self-sacrifice, the second of self-interest.” Another says: “ If it were possible to do away with competition, the excuse and justification for a large proportion of commercial immorality would be gone.” As it is, it is quite plain that honourable trade has to meet with and fight what is unjust. As Arthur Hugh Clough says in one of his poems “ Thou shalt not covet, but tradition Approves all forms of competition.” (G. T. Forbes, M. A.) . Ezekiel 29:14I Will bring again the Captivity of Egypt.God’ s dealings with heathen nations 1. The goodness and mercy of God extend to heathens. He hath a care of them in their captivity, and after they have suffered His appointed time He will show kindness to them. 2. The afflictions of nations and persons may be long, yet not without end; they may suffer seven and seven years, yea, twenty, thirty, forty years together, which is a long time, and then see an end of their sufferings. 3. God sometimes deals more favourably with heathens than with His own people. “ At the end of forty years will I gather the Egyptians,” but it was the end of seventy years before He gathered the Jews out of Babylon: His own people were thirty years, or near upon, longer under the Babylonish yoke than the Egyptians. There was just cause for this; God’ s people had sinned worse than the heathens, and so provoked Him above them. 4. Nothing is too hard for God, or can hinder the fulfilling of His will. The Egyptians were scattered among the nations, here a family and there a family, and that forty years together; so mingled with the people of other countries that they had well nigh forgotten Egypt, and had so drunk in the manners and customs of the places where they lived that they were neutralised thereunto; they were so rooted among the nations that it seemed impossible to pluck them up, and plant them in their own countries; yet notwithstanding these things, saith God, “ I will gather the Egyptians from the people whither they were scattered.” The Jews had lain longer n Babylon, and were like dry bones in the grave, without hope (Ezekiel 37:11); but God made good His word; He brought them out with a strong hand, breaking in pieces gates of brass, and cutting in sunder bars of iron. 5. It is the same hand, the same God, that drives men out of their countries and comforts, into deep and long afflictions abroad, and brings them back out of the same, to enjoy their countries and comforts. (W. Greenhill, M. A.) Ezekiel 29:17-20 Because they wrought for Me.Service done for God rewarded I. The disposal of states and nations is the work of Divine providence.1. Do we examine this dispensation in reference to the authority of God? It is unquestionably His prerogative: He has a right to do what He will with His own. 2. Do we consider it in connection with the Divine power? Nothing is too hard for the Lord; no difficulties lie in His way. 3. Do we survey the relation it has to the righteousness of God? He is the moral governor of the universe, “ who renders to every man according to their works.” Individuals can be rewarded or punished in another world; but communities are judged only in this. 4. Do we think of it in application to our own times? Unless we fix upon this principle we shall be in danger of debasing ourselves by joining in worldly parties and political rage; of feeling too much confidence in one class of men and too much fear of another; of prescribing the course of events, and suffering disappointment and mortification when our favourite measures are subverted. II. Men may serve God really when they do not serve Him by design. Nebuchadrezzar is called the servant of God, as well as the Apostle Paul--but observe the difference between them; and, as God will derive glory from all His creatures, inquire which of these characters you are resembling. The former serves God, only from the influence of an overruling Providence--the latter, from the operation of Divine grace. III. None can be losers by anything they do for God. Even services done for Him by worldly men obtain a temporal reward. The Egyptian females (Exodus 1:20-21). Jehu was a vain, ostentatious, wicked prince, but “ the Lord said unto Jehu,” etc. (2 Kings 10:30). So here, “ I have given Nebuchadrezzar the land of Egypt,” etc. This is indeed a poor recompense. It may appear splendid and important in the eye of the vain and the sensual, but the righteous are fax from envying it. Egypt was all the remuneration of Nebuchadrezzar--and what could it do for him? What is it to him now? Ye servants of the most high God, who know Him and love Him; He has provided some better thing for you. He who noticed the hardships endured by the poor soldiers before Tyre, when every head was bald and every shoulder peeled, will not suffer you to labour in vain: He sees your difficulties; considers the burdens under which you bend; He hears your groans, and your sighs--when without are fightings, and within are fears. Is it a vain thing to serve the Lord? You will find your reward in the very nature of your work; you will find it in the glow of pleasure which attends virtuous exertion; you will find it in the approving testimony of your own conscience; you will find it in the esteem of the wise and good; you will find it in the blessing of them that were ready to perish; you will find it in the applause of your Lord and Saviour--“ Well done,” etc. (W. Jay.) Service for God always rewarded 1. This passage affords us a striking view of and insight into some of the mysterious acts of God’ s Providence. We behold how He can maintain His throne in the midst of the commotions of the universe; that no earthquake, throe, or agony in the terrestrial world can shake the foundations of its pillars or remove it from its steadfastness; and as the Governor of the world, we are struck with the harmony of all His actions, and the power whereby He extracts the good from every ill! If the sins of nations or individuals were always immediately followed with the punishment they merit, this world would not be a state of probation; obedience would not be voluntary, but forced; we should walk, not by faith, but by sight; we should not honour God by our confidence in His perfections and in the dispensations of His Providence. To destroy is easy, and discovers little perfection; it is the perfection of a tyrant. But the wisdom of God appears in making even the wrath of man to praise, and engaging that the remainder of that wrath He will restrain. This, then, is the plan upon which He acts in the government of the world, and hence He is called a wise Governor. 2. Behold an instance of the goodness and severity of God! Long did He spare that rebellious nation, the Jews; often did He warn them, sending His prophets to call them to a sense of their duty towards Him. But they steeled their hearts against conviction, and would none of His advice. At last He complains of them, they were like bullocks unaccustomed to the yoke; He fed them at His own stall; He gave them His easy yoke of duties, which ought to have been delightful, coming from so kind a hand; but, alas! they would not draw it in by gentle treatment; He goaded them by corrections; they kicked against the pricks, and ran back upon His chastisements; they were like a backsliding heifer! But behold the severity of God! The cup of their iniquity was full; Manasseh had greatly contributed to it; he had expressed a great quantity of the roots of bitterness into their portion, and his successors after him, with the exception of Josiah, added to it; till Zedekiah completed the measure and drew down on them wrath to the very uttermost. 3. Service of any kind done for God never goes unrewarded. None can be losers by anything they do for Him: in one way or other He will surely recompense them. He is independent of the creature; the cause can never be dependent on its effect; He could act both in the natural and moral world without human agency; and doubtless He would have done so had it been as agreeable to His wisdom as it was easy to His power. But where would be the reward of the faithful steward? In the moral world the power which He manifested on the day of Pentecost might be again exerted. But what room, then, for the work of faith, the labour of love, and the patience of hope? (J. Summerfield, M. A.) . Ezekiel 31:1-18 The Assyrian was a cedar in Lebanon.The cedar in Lebanon I. The soul that will not grow down must be cut down. Trees that are to stand the storm must send their roots deep into the earth. A man that is to face successfully the storms of life must have a downward growth of humility and faith. “ He that humbleth himself shall be exalted." II. The true teacher of man is greater than a monarch whose position only gives him power. Pharaoh must go to school to Ezekiel. A man is more than a king. (A London Minister.) Ezekiel 31:17 They . . . that dwelt under His shadow in the midst of the heathen.Under God's shadow among the heathen Whatever may be the primary meaning of these words, they have a very blessed application to those who have gone forth from so many Christian families into heathen lands. For no choice of their own, and simply in obedience to their King's command, hundreds of our sons and daughters have gone forth to dwell in the midst of the heathen. They have taken up their home amid conditions which they would not have chosen had it not been for the constraining love of Christ, and the imperative need of dying men; and as fond relatives and friends regard their lot from a distance, they are often filled with anxious forebodings. May they not be involved in some sudden riot, and sacrificed to a frenzy of hate? May not the sanitary conditions and methods of life be seriously detrimental to their health or morals? "Oh, if only I could be there," you sigh. Hush! Christ is there; as near them as He is to you, casting over them the shadow of His presence, beckoning them to His secret place. He is the shadow of a great Rock in a weary land; or like the canopy of cloud that hovered over the camp of Israel by day, screening it from the torrid glare. Do not fear to trust your loved ones to the immortal Lover, who fainteth not, neither is weary. The hand that would harm is arrested and paralysed when it attempts to penetrate that safe enclosure. (F. B. Meyer, B. A.) . Ezekiel 32:27 Gone down to hell with their weapons of war.Teaching from ancient tombs I. The utter helplessness of mortality.1. What might is there that call withstand death! From armies, thrones, castles, courts, and empires, death hath plucked his prey. 2. The universality of death’ s empire. (1) We walk not an untrodden path; “ It is the way of all flesh.”(2) Though it is “ the way of all flesh,” yet we must each walk that path alone, and yet not alone (Psalms 23:4). 3. What a picture is here drawn of all enmity against God! Rebellion against God is madness (Psalms 2:1-12). 4. What a contrast the grave of the Saviour presents to these! Victorious death in that bright Easter morn was subdued and crushed. Ours is the triumph also. Though mortality be helpless, and must bow to the dust, yet humanity is triumphant, and shall rise again. II. The fond tenacity of memory. Memory surrounds the living with relics of the dead and mementoes of the past. Even the dead are surrounded with tokens of their circumstances, character, and career. Above the grave stands the grey tombstone, with the simple inscription, “ To the memory.” What memories are you preparing for your deathbed and the grave? Our moral actions, mental emotions, and impressions we cannot bury in everlasting oblivion. Our character is our true epitaph cut deeply into our tomb. (R. S. Latimer.) . Ezekiel 33:4-5 Whosoever heareth the sound of the trumpet.The trumpet call I. The analogy between the watchman on the walls of Zion and the preacher of the Gospel of the grace of God.1. The qualifications needed in a watchman: vigour, courage, intelligence, loyalty, fidelity. 2. The duties: vigilance, to watch; obedience, to warn. 3. The responsibilities: account of the service must be rendered to those who appointed him; safety of the city depended largely upon the faithful discharge of the watchman’ s duties. II. The analogy between the sound of the watchman’ s trumpet and the message of the Gospel preacher. Here we are reminded of the trumpet call of alarm on the approach of danger in time of peril. The call was to be definite, distinct, emphatic, rousing. “ Warning every man.” The Gospel trumpet is to arrest the attention of men, call them to repent, to surrender, lay down their weapons of rebellion; and then, armed with the whole armour of God, go forth manfully to fight His battles. The Gospel message is a trumpet call to advance, and “ no surrender” ; it is never the call to retreat, or the proclaimer of defeat. There must be “ no uncertain sound,” for all truth is dogmatic, and ought to be definitely proclaimed. III. The analogy between the responsibility of those who heard the watchman’ s trumpet and those who hear the sound of the Gospel. The watchman on the walls of Zion simply sounded the alarm; it was for the people to believe and obey. So the Gospel hearers of today are responsible for the effects produced upon their hearts and minds by the Gospel message. (Homilist.) He heard the sound of the trumpet, and took not warning; his blood shall be upon him. The warning neglected In all worldly things men are always enough awake to understand their own interests There is scarce a merchant who reads the paper who does not read it some way or other with a view to his own personal concerns. In politics, in everything, in fact, that concerns temporal affairs, personal interest usually leads the van. Men will always be looking out for themselves and personal home interests will generally engross the major part of their thoughts. But in religion it is otherwise. In religion men love far rather to believe abstract doctrines, and to talk of general truths, than the searching inquiries which examine their own personal interest in it. I. The warning was all that could be desired. When in time of war an army is attacked in the night, and cut off and destroyed whilst asleep, if it were possible for them to be aware of the attack, and if they had used all diligence in placing their sentinels, but nevertheless the foe were so wary as to destroy them, we should weep; we should attach no blame to anyone, but should deeply regret, and should give to that host our fullest pity. But if, on the other hand, they had posted their sentinels, and the sentinels were wide awake, and gave to the sleepy soldiers every warning that could be desired, but nevertheless the army were cut off, although we might from common humanity regret the loss thereof, yet at the same time we should be obliged to say, if they were foolish enough to sleep when the sentinels had warned them; if they folded their arms in presumptuous sloth, after they had had sufficient and timely notice of the progress of their bloodthirsty enemy, then in their dying we cannot pity them: their blood must rest upon their own heads. So it is with you.1. The warnings of the ministry have been to most of you warnings that have been heard--“ He heard the sound of the trumpet.” In far off lands the trumpet sound of warning is not heard. 2. The trumpet was not only heard, but more than that, its warning was understood. If ye be damned, I am innocent of your damnation; for I have told you plainly, that except ye repent ye must perish, and that except ye put your trust in the Lord Jesus Christ there is for you no hope of salvation. 3. Again, this sound was startling. Then, sirs, if ye have heard the cry of fire, if ye are burned in your beds, your charred ashes shall not accuse me. 4. In many of your eases the warning has been very frequent. A hundred times every year you have gone up to the house of God, and far oftener than that, and you have just added a hundred billets to the eternal pile. 5. This warning that you have had so often has come to you in time. You are not warned on a sick bed at the eleventh hour, when there is but a bare possibility of salvation, but you are warned in time, you are warned today, you have been warned for these many years that are now past. II. Men make excuses why they do not attend to the Gospel warning, but these excuses are all frivolous and wicked.1. Some say, “ Well, I did not attend to the warning, because I did not believe there was any necessity for it.” There was enough in reason to have taught you that there was an hereafter; the Book of God’ s revelation was plain enough to have taught it to you, and if you have rejected God’ s Book, and rejected the voice of reason and of conscience, your blood is on your own head. 2. “ But,” cries another, “ I did not like the trumpet. I did not like the Gospel that was preached.” Well, but God made the trumpet, God made the Gospel; and inasmuch as ye did not like what God made, it is an idle excuse. What was that to you what the trumpet was, so long as it warned you? 3. But another says, “ I did not like the man himself; I did not like the minister; I did not like the man that blew the trumpet; I could hear him preach very well, but I had a personal dislike to him, and so I did not take any notice of what the trumpet said.” Verily, God will say to thee at last, “ Thou fool, what hadst thou to do with that man? to his own master he stands or falls; thy business was with thyself.” 4. There are many other people who say, “ Ah, well, I did none of those things, but I had a notion that the trumpet sound ought to be blown to everybody else, but not to me.” Ah! that is a very common notion. “ All men think all men mortal but themselves,” said a “ good poet; and all men think all men need the Gospel, but not themselves. 5. Well, says another, “ But I was so busy; I had so much to do that I could not possibly attend to my soul’ s concerns.” What will you say of the man who had so much to do that he could not get out of the burning house, but was burnt to ashes. 6. “ Well,” says another, “ but I thought I had time enough; you do not want me, sir, to be religious in my youth, do you? I am a lad; and may I not have a little frolic, and sow my wild oats as well as anybody else?” Well--yes, yes; but at the same time the best place for frolic that I know of is where a Christian lives; the finest happiness in all the world is the happiness of a child of God. III. Then the last thought is, “His blood shall be on his own head.” Briefly thus--he shall perish; he shall perish certainly; he shall perish inexcusably.1. He shall perish. And what does that mean? There is no human mind however capacious, that can ever guess the thought of a soul eternally cast away from God. 2. But again, he that turneth not at the rebuke of the minister shall die, and he shall die certainly. This is not a matter of perhaps or chance. 3. Now, the last thing is, the sinner will perish--he will perish certainly, but last of all, he will perish without excuse,--his blood shall be on his own head. When a man is bankrupt, if he can say, “ It is not through reckless trading--it has been entirely through the dishonesty of one I trusted that I am what I am;” he takes some consolation, and he says, “ I cannot help it.” But oh, if you make bankrupts of your own souls, after you have been warned, then your own eternal bankruptcy shall lie at your own door. (C. H. Spurgeon.) Ezekiel 33:7-9I have set thee a watchman.The true watchman I. The true watchman’ s vision of his own work. He sees--1. It entails great responsibility on himself. Failure of duty here is nothing less than “ blood guiltiness.” 2. It involves the greatest results to his hearers. 3. It utters the emotions of God. 4. It proclaims both the hope and the method of men’ s improvement. The hope is in God; the method is from God. The hope is in His call and promise of love; the method is in penitence, “ pine” for sins; return; pardon, “ none of his sins shall be mentioned” ; rectitude, “ doing righteousness.” II. The true watchman’ s vision of the conduct of others. He is emphatically the seer. For he not only has to gaze steadily, reverently, intelligently at the truth of God he has to reveal to men, he has to look bravely, fixedly, tenderly at the condition and character of men. The old English watchman, to whom the care of our streets by night was formerly entrusted, often uttered in his hourly cry of “ All right” what was indeed a sorrowful satire. For under the pall of night what concealed felons, what secret assassins, were plotting their cruelty and wrong! No such misleading watchman must be ours. In his vision of the conduct of others the true watchman sees--1. The gross sins of many of them. 2. The hypocrisy of many more. The cloak of the hypocrite’ s profession, the words of flattery that trifle with himself, fail to mislead the true preacher. (Urijah R. Thomas.) Sermon to ministers We are called to be messengers, watchmen, stewards of the Lord. I. The Divine appointment. A faithful minister is a watchman appointed of God Himself. The vows of the Lord are upon us. How have we fulfilled them? What efforts have we made, with a single eye, to serve God for the promoting of His glory and the edifying of His people? II. The solemn duties.1. The first part of a watchman’ s duty is to watch for himself and over himself. The sentinel at his post is ever exposed to the watchful eye of the enemy; and so the Lord’ s watchman is, more than others, always exposed to the ever-watchful eye of Satan. He stands forth as a mark against which the fiery darts of the wicked one are ever being hurled. 2. The watchman has to watch over and for the souls committed to his charge. We are assailed with the changeable winds of doctrine in all their force; we have the same blight of formality resting on the outward church; the same seeds of error and discord sown now as in the days of old. Against all these we must watch as we love the souls of our flock; yea, we must lift up our voice, and spare not, warning them against all the evils of sin, Satan, and the world. I shall conclude with a word of exhortation and a word of warning.1. As to the warning; that we be not unfaithful. 2. But if the warning voice of Scripture speaks loudly to the unfaithful watchman, not less loudly and powerfully do the promises of the Scriptures speak, to exhort and encourage the faithful. True, our responsibility is very deep, our difficulties very great; but let us remember, we stand not alone; if truly called of God and man, we may take to ourselves the promise, “ Lo, I am with you.” (Evangelical Preacher.) God’ s ministers the watchmen of Israel I. The reason and propriety of this representation. The Christian Church may be considered as a large and extensive country, bordering upon the world, a country yet more large and extensive. The spiritual watchman is to view what passes in both, and to give his own countrymen, the true Israelites, information and warning (Isaiah 21:5-8; Habakkuk 2:1). Or, the Church of Christ is a city (Psalms 87:1; Isaiah 60:1-22; Isaiah 62:1-12; Hebrews 12:22; Philippians 3:20 --Gr.) under one Chief Magistrate, Christ; who has appointed the laws, customs, and language thereof. This city should be at unity with itself within, and surrounded, as by walls and bulwarks, with salvation by the Lord, and by the faith, prayers, and watchfulness of the citizens. And on these walls, elevated by their knowledge, God having shined into their hearts (2 Corinthians 4:6), and by their Divine appointment, and secured by the Divine protection (Revelation 2:1), the ministers of the Gospel are placed as “ watchmen.” This country of Christianity is liable to be invaded from without, and this city of the Church of God to be attacked by the world and its prince. It may be invaded and attacked in its doctrines, by error; in its duties, by sin; in its privileges, by unbelief, despondency, formality, lukewarmness, and sloth. The watchman gives notice and warning. This country or city is liable also to commotions and disorders from within. As to individuals, from the flesh and its lusts. They may become luxurious, wanton, covetous, ambitious, proud, self-willed, discontented, impatient, etc. Or, as to the whole community, by surmises, jealousies, envyings, enmities, evil-speakings, which things would destroy the peace and unity of its members, and produce strife, contention, parties, divisions. The “ watchman” must warn and reprove the citizens, and lay their conduct before their Prince. II. What is especially the office and duty of ministers under this character. They must regard no toil, labour, or suffering. They must be faithful to the Lord and the people (Luke 12:42). They must distrust themselves, and apply to and depend on the Lord for supernatural aid. The Chief Shepherd only can keep, feed, and rule the flock, and, in another view, that “ unless the Lord keep the city, the watchman waketh but in vain” (Isaiah 62:6-7). But, more particularly, their duty is set forth (Habakkuk 2:1-2). We are not at liberty to imagine or conjecture or suppose this or that as necessary or expedient to the people over whom we watch, or retail our own opinions or fancies to them, but must come to our hearers with “ Thus saith the Lord,” and that, with respect to doctrines to be believed, privileges to be enjoyed, precepts to be obeyed, promises to be expected, and threatenings to be revered. We must observe, all mankind are naturally wicked, all need repentance, all have encouragement to repent (Ezekiel 33:11; Ezekiel 33:14); that repentance implies not merely confession of sin, and a partial reformation, but a turning of the heart from sin to righteousness, followed by its proper fruits, and that without this there is no salvation (Luke 13:1). Nor is repentance sufficient without faith (John 3:18; Mark 16:16). Nor is faith sufficient without love; an ardent, admiring, grateful, complacent love to God, especially in consideration of His goodness to us, and an affectionate, disinterested, active love to all men, in imitation of God’ s love to them (Hebrews 12:14). And we must persevere (Ezekiel 33:12-13; Ezekiel 33:18; John 15:4; John 15:6; Romans 11:17-22; Hebrews 10:38). III. The consequence of neglecting, or fulfilling, their duty.1. “ If thou do not warn the wicked” --sincerely, earnestly, frequently, with repeated admonitions, as the word signifies, giving them light by thy instructions, and making the matter clear and evident to them. Thus the apostle warned all (Acts 20:31)--He “ shall die in his iniquity.” But is not this a hard case? No. For, though not particularly warned by any messenger of God, he had the Word of God in his hands, or, at least, he had the fight of nature, and knew more or less of what was required of him. 2. If the watchman fulfil his duty, he at least derivers his own soul (Ezekiel 33:9). The faithful watchman glorifies God. For it is much for the glory of all his attributes that sinners should be warned, whether they take the warning or not; e.g., His holiness, justice, mercy, love. He receives a reward in proportion to his labours (Isaiah 49:4-5; 1 Corinthians 3:8). The Lord always gives him some success (Matthew 7:16-20; John 10:2-5; 1 Timothy 4:15-16). (J. Benson.) Faithful dealing with men’ s souls The following incident occurred on his first visit to Waterbeach when Charles Spurgeon was a lad of seventeen. “ He was put up for the night at the house of Mr. Smith, and shared a bed with Mr. Smith’ s son, then a young boy. Charles Spurgeon, before retiring, went upon his knees, but his companion tumbled into bed without prayer, and lay down. No sooner had young Spurgeon finished his devotions than he inquired of his bedfellow if he were not afraid to go to bed without asking God for protection during the night: ‘ What a fearful thing would it be,’ he said, ‘ if you went to your last sleep without a prayer and a Saviour.’ For an hour or more the young preacher talked to the boy, and his earnestness was so evident that the boy was moved. Charles Spurgeon had him out of bed, and prayed with him, and that night the lad was converted. He is now an honoured deacon at Waterbeach.” (Christian Age.) Warning the impenitent If at an assize town at the time of any celebrated trial, and the prisoner had been found guilty, and sentenced to death, Whitefield would, at the close of his sermon, his eyes full of tears, pause for a moment, and then, after a tenable denunciation upon those who neglect so great salvation, exclaim, “ I am now going to put on my condemning cap; sinner, I must do it. I must pronounce sentence against you.” And then he would repeat the awful words of our Lord: Depart, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels.” (R. Winter.) Pastoral vigilance Latimer told the clergy in his time that, if they would not learn diligence and vigilance of the prophets and apostles, they should learn it of the devil, who goes up and down his diocese, and acts by an untired power, seeking whom he may destroy. When the wolves are abroad, the shepherd should not sleep, but watch, remembering that he were better have all the blood of all the men in the world upon him, than the blood of one soul upon him, by his negligence or otherwise. (T. Brooks.) O wicked man, thou shalt surely die. Office and responsibility of ministers I. What God saith to the wicked.1. The people addressed are all who do not unfeignedly turn from sin to God. 2. Death is here denounced as the judgment to be inflicted on all who turn not to their God; and to the same effect the inspired writers uniformly speak (Isaiah 3:11; Romans 6:23; James 1:14-15). 3. There is an implied assurance that the wicked, if they will repent, shall not die. And this is expressly stated in the following context: verse 14-16, so that, awful as this passage is, it is no less encouraging than it is awful; because it assures the contrite and believing sinner that he shall never perish. II. The necessity imposed on ministers to proclaim it. The consequences of neglect in any minister are declared in two respects:1. The person whom he neglects to warn will perish. If, through the sloth or treachery of the sentinels, a, camp be surprised at midnight, nothing but confusion and ruin can ensue. Thus if a person appointed to warn the wicked neglect to do so, the wicked will continue regardless of their impending doom, till it is too late to avert it. And it will be to no purpose to say, “ I was not aware of my danger; my minister has betrayed me.” No; the wicked have means of information within their oval reach, independent of their ministers; and they have secret intimations in their own consciences that they ought to repent: and therefore they must take the consequences of their own wickedness: “ they must die in their iniquity.” 2. He himself also will be dealt with as the author of that sinner’ s destruction. As a sentinel who, by neglecting to give notice of the enemy’ s approach, occasioned the overthrow of the army to which he belonged, would be chargeable with all the consequences of his neglect, so will the blood of all that perish through the minister’ s neglect “ be required at his hand.” (Skeletons of Sermons.) The important message I. The end in which the evil ways of the children of men terminate is an awful end. It is a way that terminates in death, and that not temporal death alone, but eternal death. Many are the terrific views which are given of the world of woe; but what view can be more terrific than that of dying forever, and yet to be never dead after all? It will be awful in its nature, and still more so in its duration. The misery will be inconceivable, and the misery will be interminable. Banishment from all blessedness forever! Blackness and darkness, weeping and wailing, forever! II. The realisation of this awful end is an object which the blessed God, far from desiring, deprecates and deplores. It is not your death that He desires, but your life.1. By way of confirming this encouraging truth, we would remind you, in the first place, of what God is in Himself. His nature is love--that is the endearing name by which He is revealed; and as His name is, so is He. Benevolence of the highest, noblest, purest kind constitutes the very essence of His all-perfect character. 2. In connection with what God is in His nature, we would advert to what He has done for our salvation. He has “ so loved the world that He gave,” etc. 3. His dealings with the children of men in all ages. How has He borne with them in the face of their innumerable provocations? III. It is the consequent duty of sinners to forsake their evil ways, the termination of which, if persisted in, will be so disastrous, and to turn at once to him who waiteth to be gracious. “ Turn ye, turn ye, from your evil ways; for why will ye die, O house of Israel?” Many strange things have been done or endured before now, which appeared unaccountable; and yet there have been substantial reasons to justify them. To see an individual in an unresisting posture, patient and resigned, while persons with their saws and knives were severing one of his limbs from his body, seems a strange sight; and yet there may be no difficulty in proving that such an operation was necessary and desirable, since the sacrifice of a man’ s limb has often been the means of saving a man’ s life. For multitudes to give their bodies to be burnt; to welcome cruel mockings and scourgings; to abandon their homes, and wander in deserts and mountains, in dens and caves of the earth: all this appears to be unaccountable. But there may be the strongest reasons adduced in justification of such severe sacrifices. Hence it is declared of the ancient: worthies, that they were tortured, not accepting deliverance; and why? That they might obtain a better resurrection. But for your course, poor sinner, no reason can be given. (Anon.) The certainty of death to the wicked I. Who are the wicked? Profane and gross sinners, who indulge themselves in notorious immoralities (1 Corinthians 6:9-10; Galatians 5:19-21; Colossians 3:5-6; Revelation 21:8). In this black list you not only find such gross vices as are scandalous in the common estimate of mankind, but also such as are secret, seated in the heart, and generally esteemed but lesser evils.2. All who knowingly and wilfully indulge themselves habitually in any one sin, whether it be the omission of a commanded duty or the practice of something forbidden (1 John 2:4; 1 John 3:8; 1 John 3:10; John 14:23-24). I grant that good men sin, and that they are far from perfection of holiness in this life. I grant also that some of them have fallen, perhaps once in their life, into some gross sin. But after all, I must insist that they do not indulge themselves in the wilful habitual practice of any known sin, or the wilful habitual neglect of any known duty. St. John expressly tells us (1 John 3:9), he cannot sin habitually; again, he cannot sin wilfully--that is, with full bent of soul. 3. All who are destitute of those graces and virtues which constitute the character of positive goodness. Wickedness is a moral privation, or the want of real goodness. The want of faith, the want of love, repentance, benevolence, and charity does as really constitute a wicked man, as drunkenness, blasphemy, or any notorious immorality. 4. All who still continue in their natural state; who have never been regenerated, or experienced a thorough change of their views and dispositions, towards God and divine things (John 3:6; Romans 8:8; Ephesians 2:3). II. What kind of death shall the wicked man die? It is true, natural death is the universal doom of all the sons of men (Ecclesiastes 2:16). The highest attainments in piety cannot secure an earthly immortality. But though there be no difference in this respect, there is a wide difference in another, and that is, the death of the wicked is quite another thing, or comes under quite a different notion, from the death of the righteous. The death of the wicked, like an officer from their offended sovereign, strikes off the fetters of flesh, that they may be carried away to a place of execution. Then, farewell, a long, and everlasting farewell, to the comforts of this life, and all its agreeable prospects: farewell to friends; farewell to hope and peace; farewell to all the means of grace; farewell, God, and Christ, and angels, and all the blessedness of heaven. Now nothing awaits them but wrath and fiery indignation. But even this, dreadful as it is, is not all--there is besides this, that dreadful something called the second death (Revelation 21:8; Revelation 2:11; Revelation 20:6; Revelation 02:14)--which thou, O wicked man, must die. The soul will be forever dead to God and holiness--dead to all the means of grace, and all the enjoyments of this life; dead to all happiness and all hope; dead to all the comfortable purposes of existence; dead to everything that deserves the name of life--in short, dead to everything but the torturing sensations of pain; to these the soul will be tremblingly alive all over, to eternity; but, alas! to be alive, in this sense, alive only to suffer pain, is worse than death, worse than annihilation. III. What you must do to be saved.1. Betake yourselves immediately to serious thoughtfulness.2. Break off from those things that hinder your conversion.3. Diligently use all means that may instruct you in the nature of true religion.4. Earnestly pray to God.5. Endeavour to receive and submit to the Lord Jesus as your only Saviour.6. Do not delay to follow these directions. (President Davies.) Ezekiel 33:11 As I live, saith the Lord God, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked; but that the wicked turn from his way and live.The sincerity of Divine expostulations 1. What a contrast are God’ s thoughts of man to man’ s thoughts of God! 2. How opposite are God’ s feelings towards man to man’ s feelings respecting God! 3. How different God’ s estimate of man from man’ s estimate of God! 4. How unlike God’ s purposes to man’ s! God says to man, “ Live” ; man says to God, Let Him die the death; crucify Him; this is the heir; come, let us kill Him. 5. How far asunder are God’ s ways from man’ s! I. The state of man’ s heart in reference to God.1. He murmurs against God for not giving him life. God proclaims His willingness to give it. I have no life. Is He not mocking me? Christ promises rest. I have none. Can He be sincere? 2. Nay, more, he casts the whole blame of his death on God. He says, I see that I must just die; there is no help for it; the blame is not mine, but God’ s. My fallen nature, my education, my circumstances, my temptations, these are my excuses. II. The state of God’ s heart in reference to man.1. He has no pleasure in their death. He did not kindle hell in order to gratify His revenge. He does not cast sinners headlong into its endless flames in order to get vent to His blind fury. He will finally condemn the unbelieving, but not because He delights to do so, but because He is the righteous Lord that loveth righteousness. 2. His desire is, that the wicked shall turn and live. It is to life--life everlasting--that He points your eye, sinner. It is of life that He desires to make you partaker. And surely it is life that you need. For what one word more fully or more terribly describes your present state than death? Dead, not like the withered leaf or the uprooted tree; that would at least be unconsciousness of loss, and ignorance of what might have been won. But you are dead to all that is worth living for, and yet alive to all that makes life a burden and a woe. Do you say, If God wants me to live, why does He not at once give me life? In other words, why does He not force life upon my acceptance, and burst through every barrier? I ask in return, Is God bound to take your way in giving life? I ask again, Do you really suppose that a person is not sincere in his kindness because he does not carry out that kindness by every means, lawful or unlawful? Is it not possible that there may be a limit to that kindness compatible with the most perfect sincerity? III. The expostulation, with which all this closes, is one of the most urgent importunity on the part of God, proving yet more Fully His real desire to bless. It is like one vehemently enforcing an invitation upon an unwilling listener,--making a last effort to save the heedless or resisting sinner. Is it within the remotest bounds of possibility or conceivability that He is insincere; that He does not really mean what He says? The ways from which He calls on them to turn are named by Him “ evil ways” ; and what He calls evil must be truly so,--hateful in His eyes, as well as ruinous to the soul. The end of these ways He pronounces to be death; so that sinners must either turn or die. (H. Bonar, D. D.) Pleading and encouragement (with Ezekiel 18:23; Ezekiel 18:32):--Notice, that in each of my texts the Lord declares that He has no pleasure in the death of the wicked; but in each following passage the statement is stronger. The Lord puts it first (Ezekiel 18:23) as a matter of question. As if surprised that such a thing should be laid to His door, He appeals to man’ s own reason, and asks, “ Have I any pleasure at all,” etc. In our second text (Ezekiel 18:32), God makes a positive assertion. Knowing the human heart, He foresaw that a question would not be enough to end this matter, for man would say, “ He only asked the question, but He did not give a plain and positive statement to the contrary.” He gives us that clear assurance in our second text: “ I have no pleasure,” etc. But still, as if to end forever the strange and ghastly supposition that God takes delight in human destruction, my third text seals the truth with the solemn oath of the Eternal. I. Notice, first, the assertion that God finds no pleasure in a sinner’ s death. Really I feel ashamed to have to answer the cruel libel which is here suggested; yet it is the English of many a man’ s doubts. I will only bring forward certain evidence by which you who are still under the deadly influence of the falsehood may be delivered1. Consider the great paucity of God’ s judgments among the sons of men. There are such things, but they are wonderfully rare in this life, considering the way in which the Lord is daily provoked by presumption and blasphemy. Does not the Lord Himself say that judgment is His strange work” ? 2. The length of God’ s long-suffering before the Day of Judgment itself comes proves how He wills not the death of men. 3. Furthermore, remember the perfection of the character of God as the moral Ruler of the universe. Aversion to punishment is necessary to justice in a judge. 4. If any further thoughts were necessary to correct your misbelief, I would mention the graciousness of His work in saving those who turn from their evil ways. As if God were indignant that such a charge should be laid against Him that He delighteth in the death of any, He preferred to die Himself upon the tree rather than let a world of sinners sink to hell. II. God finds no alternative but that men must turn from their wicked ways, or die. It is one or the other: turn or burn. God, with all His love to men, cannot discover any third course; men cannot keep their sins and yet be saved.1. Be it known to you, first, that when God proclaims mercy to men upon this condition, that they turn from their ways, this proclamation is issued out of pure grace. God saves you, not because of any merit in your turning, but because He will have mercy on whom He will have mercy, and He has decreed to save all who turn from the paths of evil. 2. If there be no repentance, men must be punished, for on any other theory there is an end of moral government. The worst thing that could happen to a world of men would be for God to say “ I retract My law; I will neither reward virtue, nor punish iniquity; do as you like.” Then the earth would be a hell indeed. 3. Sin must be punished; you must turn from it or die, because sin is its own punishment. Even the omnipotence of God cannot make an impenitent sinner happy. You cannot be married to Christ and heaven until you are divorced from sin and self. 4. I believe that every man’ s conscience bears witness to this if it he at all honest. III. God finds pleasure in men’ s turning from sin. Among the highest of the Divine joys is the pleasure of seeing a sinner turn from evil. When your heart is sick of sin, when you loathe all evil, and feel that though you cannot get away from it, yet you would if you could, then He looks down on you with pitying eye. When there is a new will springing up in your heart, by His good grace--a will to obey and believe, then also the Father smiles. When He hears within you a moaning and a sighing after the Father’ s house and the Father’ s bosom; you cannot see Him, but He is behind the wall listening to you. His hand is secretly putting your tears into His bottle, and His heart is feeling compassion for you. When at last you come to prayer, and begin to cry, “ God be merciful to me, a sinner,” God is well pleased; for here He sees clear signs that you are coming to yourself and to Him. His Spirit saith, “ Behold, he prayeth!” and He takes this as a token for good. When you unfeignedly forsake sin God sees you do it, and He is so glad that His holy angels spy out His joy. I will tell you what pleases Him most of all, and that is when you come to His dear Son, and say, “ Lord, something tells me that there is no hope for me, but I do not believe that voice. I read in Thy Word that Thou wilt cast out none that come unto Thee, and lo, I come! I am the biggest sinner that ever did come, but, Lord, I believe Thy promise; I am as unworthy as the devil himself, but, Lord, Thou dost not ask for worthiness, but only for childlike confidence. Cast me not away--I rest in Thee.” IV. God therefore exhorts to it and adds an argument. “ Turn ye, turn ye from your evil ways; for why will ye die, O house of Israel?” He perceives His poor creature standing with his back to Him, looking to idols, looking to sinful pleasures, looking towards the city of destruction, and what does God say to him? He says, “ Turn!” It is a very plain direction; is it not? “ Turn.” or “ Right about face!” That is all. “ Turn ye, turn ye.” See, the Lord puts it twice. He must mean your good by these repeated directions. Suppose my man servant was crossing yonder river, and I saw that he would soon be out of his depth, and so in great danger; suppose I cried out to him, “ Stop! stop! If you go another inch you will be drowned. Turn back! Turn back!” Will anybody dare to say, “ Mr. Spurgeon would feel pleasure if that man were drowned” ? It would be a cruel cut. What a liar the man must be who would hint such a thing when I am urging my servant to turn and save his life! Would God plead with us to escape unless He honestly desired that we should escape? I trow not. “ Turn ye, turn ye.” He pleads each time with more of emphasis. Will you not hear? Then He finishes up with asking men to find a reason why they should die. There ought to be a weighty reason to induce a man to die. “ Why will ye die?” This is an unanswerable question in reference to death eternal. Is there anything to be desired in eternal destruction from the presence of the Lord, and the glory of His power? (C. H. Spurgeon.) God has no pleasure in the sinner’ s death I. What the death spoken of is not.1. Manifestly this death cannot be merely the death of the body; for all will die this death, whether they turn to God or not, and whether they live a spiritual life or not. 2. The death spoken of cannot be spiritual, or a state of sinfulness; for God represents them as being already in this state. II. Positively the death spoken of must be the opposite of the life here referred to. This life cannot be natural life; for all, both saint and sinner, are conceived of as being alike in natural life. Of course, the life must be salvation--eternal life--that blessedness which saints enjoy in the favour and love of God, begun here, prolonged forever hereafter. Now, if such be the life alluded to, the death, being, in contrast with it, must be eternal death; the misery experienced by all God’ s enemies, III. Why has God no pleasure in the sinner’ s death?1. The death of saints in which God takes a special interest is only the death of the body; but the death of the wicked is the death of both soul and body together. Both together are involved in misery and ruin. 2. God has no pleasure in the sinner’ s death, because He is a moral being, and it is contrary to the nature of moral beings to delight in suffering for its own sake. 3. God cannot have pleasure in the sinner’ s death, because His character forbids it. God is not only by nature a moral agent, but He is in character a good moral agent--a being of infinite benevolence. God pities the self-ruined sinner; never rejoices in his dreadful doom, for its own sake. 4. It must be that God regards the death of the sinner, viewed in itself, as a great evil. No finite mind can begin to conceive how great and dreadful this evil is. It needs the sweep of an infinite mind to measure its length and breadth, its depth and its height. 5. God can have no pleasure in the death of sinners, because it is a state in which He can wisely show them no more favour. Mercy has had its day; simple justice must henceforth have unimpeded exercise. 6. Another reason still is that when sinners have out-lived their probation and are cut off in their sins, their depravity will be thenceforward restrained. How shocking it must be to the pure and holy God to see His creatures giving themselves up to utter and unrestrained depravity--to see them giving boundless scope to the most odious and horrible rebellion! IV. Why does not God prevent the death of the wicked? If He takes no pleasure in it, why should He suffer it to be?1. You are aware that men have often inferred from God’ s benevolence that He will not suffer the wicked to be lost. But who has any right to infer this? How does it appear that benevolence cannot inflict a lesser evil for the sake of preventing a greater? 2. God does not prevent the death of the wicked, for the good reason that He cannot wisely do it. For God to act otherwise than with wisdom must be wrong. 3. God could not have prevented their destruction by refusing to create them. He saw it would be wise to create moral agents who would sin, and some of whom would be lost; and how could He act other than wisely without forever condemning Himself for wrongdoing? 4. God could not wisely have done more than He has done for the sinner’ s salvation. It is plain that God could not wisely abridge the liberty of moral agents, nor indeed could He save them, even if He should, for the very idea of the salvation of a moral agent implies his own voluntary turning from sin. 5. God cannot save men without their concurrence; in the nature of the ease, they could not be holy without their own concurrence; how, then, could they be happy without it? 6. Another reason why God does not prevent the death of the wicked is that He regards it as a less evil than to interpose in any way possible to Himself, to save them. If they would turn under such influences as He can wisely use, He would rejoice; but He is already going to the utmost limit of His discretion, and how can He go further? 7. Yet another reason is that, although the evil of the sinner’ s death is great, yet He can make a good use of it. He can overrule it for important good to others and to various interests in His kingdom. V. The only possible way in which the sinner’ s death can be avoided, is for the sinner himself to turn from his evil ways and live. God’ s government being what it is, repentance and faith in Jesus Christ are natural and necessary means of the sinner’ s salvation. He might as well ask Jehovah to come down from His throne, as ask Him to do anything more or anything different from what He is doing to save sinners. Remarks--1. The goodness of God is really no encouragement to those who continue in sin. 2. The goodness of God is not the security of the impenitent sinner’ s salvation, but the guarantee of his damnation. 3. The death of the wicked is not inconsistent with God’ s happiness. 4. God will have the eternal consciousness of having laid Himself out to the utmost to save sinners. 5. The death of the wicked will not be inconsistent with the happiness of heaven. When saints reach heaven they will have more confidence in God than many people have now. With enlarged views they will see most clearly that God has done right, perfectly and infinitely right. (C. G. Finney.) The death of the wicked not pleasing to God I. The purposes of God. Before He exercised one act of creating power, He saw all the consequences of His creation, knowing then, as perfectly as now, and as perfectly as he ever will know, all the results of felicity and wretchedness that would ever be realised in heaven, earth, and hell, And with all these before Him, as the certain consequences of that constitution of things He was about to establish, and that creative energy He was about to exert, still He resolved, that under such a constitution, such a creation should rise. He spake and it was done.1. We have no right to conclude that the Almighty is the sole cause of the miseries of His creatures, from the fact that He is the Author of their existence, that He knew, before He created, all the consequences of His creating, and that none of His expectations and purposes are frustrated. Before we can apply the purposes of God to particular things--to our conduct, our destiny, or the pleasure of the Deity--we must know the method of application; we must know the particular character of the purposes; we must be able to understand how they affect the particulars. 2. If it is lawful for us to infer, from the purposes of God, that He has pleasure in the destruction of the wicked, then it is lawful for us, on the same principle, to infer that He has pleasure in that wickedness itself, which leads to destruction. We may conclude, therefore, on this principle of reasoning, that God is pleased with sin! This is the result of attempting to reason from the secret purposes of God. 3. The consideration which should correct this error is, the narrow limits of our understandings. We have not the least knowledge of the nature of the connection which exists between the purposes of Jehovah and the actions of His creatures. 4. But though we are incapable of unfolding the Divine purposes, and proving thereby, that the Deity has no pleasure in the destruction of the wicked, and that these purposes do not render sin and death unavoidable, yet we have other methods of showing this. He who alone knows perfectly those purposes and the dispositions of the wicked, has told us, and we have, therefore, the strongest of all possible evidence. (1) He has told us in the text if the purposes of God were of such a nature as to compel the wicked to his wickedness, and thus bring him to eternal death unavoidably, this declaration could not be true. (2) He has told us so in those explicit declarations which charge our destruction upon ourselves: “ Oh, Israel, thou hast destroyed thyself.” Now, if the Divine purposes forced men to sin, or placed insurmountable obstacles in the way of their salvation, I can conceive of no sense in which this declaration could be true. (3) He has told us so in those numerous passages which expressly declare that He is not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance. (4) He has told us so in those tender expostulations and earnest entreaties, which He employs to win sinners to Himself. (5) He has told us so in those lamentations which He utters over the doom of the wicked. (6) He has told us so when He calls us to contemplate those attributes with which He clothes Himself--attributes of mercy, forbearance, long-suffering, and tender compassion. II. The nature of religion. Those whose minds have surmounted one difficulty in religion often meet with another. When we have learnt that the purposes of the Deity do not infringe upon our liberty, and oblige us to be lost, the nature of religion comes up to lend to our mistake a lame apology. But let us hush the murmur with two reflections--the one humbling to our pride, the other complimentary to our nature. The first is, that the difficulties which beset us in our attempts after religion are mostly, if not altogether, placed there by ourselves, through our own wickedness and folly. The other is, that that very characteristic of our nature which renders us capable of religion, or of sensibility to its difficulties, is the very characteristic which distinguishes us from the lower order of creatures. Our Creator, in forming us such as we are, has given us an exaltation. And if we still complain that we have so much to do in the religion that God requires, let us remember that this activity is absolutely to the enjoyment of that felicity which religion proposes. We are moral beings, and religion treats us as such.1. Its mysteries perplex you. But what have you to do with its mysteries? Are you required to understand them? No, not at all--you have simply to believe what is recorded concerning them. Are you required to regulate your practices by them? Not any further than they are plainly revealed, and have thereby lost (so far) the character of mysteries. 2. I grant that the Bible contains some things hard to be understood, which they that are unlearned and unstable do wrest, as they do also the other Scriptures, unto their own destruction. But everything necessary for us to know is fully revealed, as far as it is necessary that we should know it. 3. Christian morality is extremely plain. All those things which concern our present and immediate conduct are not difficult to be understood. 4. There is self-denial in religion. Men often think it too severe. But whence does the necessity of this self-denial arise? It arises wholly and in every part of it from sin. It is benevolence, therefore, which imposes it. For what purpose? To preserve the whole man from hell. The necessity of it arises from corruption alone. Would you have a religion proposed to you which should leave you at liberty to sin? which should impose no restraint? which should plunge you into immorality and vice? which would multiply your crimes thick upon you, and promise to take you to heaven at last? You would reject such a religion. 5. Perhaps you are troubled with the humility of our religion. But why should this trouble you? Does the requiring of this prove to you that the Deity would confine you in sin, taking pleasure in your destruction? The very aim of this humility is to exalt us. 6. Men must repent; and this troubles you. What, then, is repentance? It is sorrow for sin--hatred, abhorrence of it, and forsaking of it. Very well: if you have sinned, erred, done wrong, should you not be sorry for it? 7. You are troubled because God requires you to trust in His mercy--to believe in Jesus Christ. But if you cannot trust in Jesus Christ for salvation, where can you trust? 8. Do not the motives of religion compel you to believe that God has no pleasure in your death? What can you soberly and really desire, that religion does not offer to you? III. The condition of man is called in as an excuse or plea for irreligion. This condition is alleged to be of such a nature that the individual cannot extricate himself from it, and attain salvation.1. The first characteristic of this apology for irreligion is, that it is altogether hasty. How does this irreligious man know that his depravity is invincible? What right has he to conclude that his condition is such, that he cannot accept religion, repent, and be saved? If he had tried--if he had made a full experiment in the matter, and, after doing all he could do (as sinners sometimes say they have), had found all his efforts unavailing, then there would be some ground for his conclusion. But he has not tried. (Men do err when they say so.) Some little, feeble, unfrequent attempts perhaps he may have had. But he has not done all he could. There are three proofs of his hasty conclusion gathered from the experiment itself which he affirms he has made. (1) It was an unwise one.(2) It was a feeble one.(3) It was a short one. 2. The second characteristic of this apology is its illegitimate application. Impotent as the unrenewed man may be for bearing the fruits of the Spirit, he is under no necessity, from that impotence, of running into those courses, or those vices and crimes, which so rapidly sear his conscience, and degrade his nature, or those vanities which take off his mind from everything good. He resembles a prisoner furnished with a key to unlock his prison, who, instead of using it, flings it away. He resembles a man in a gulf, from which he is unable to extricate himself, and who, instead of availing himself of the aid proffered for his deliverance, turns from the hand that would lift him out, and plunges still deeper down the chasm that stretches its unfathomable abysses beneath. 3. The third characteristic of this apology is its tendency to excuse from moral virtues. Because external conduct is not internal grace, because the moral virtues have not necessarily the nature of evangelical religion (though such religion invariably leads to them), sinful men often mistake the bearing of these virtues. The man who lives in the neglect of them (virtues of which by nature he is capable) is taking the most direct course to render himself insensible and inaccessible to the motives and means of an evangelical religion. Those who have learnt to be shameless before man, have taken one step toward being fearless before God. 4. The fourth characteristic of this apology is its direct irreligious tendency: it is taken as an excuse for the neglect of those religious duties which every irreligious man is capable of performing. The external duties of religion lie quite within the scope of his ability, and if these are neglected, what shall show that it would not be the same with all spiritual duties if they lay as much within the range of his power? And if he is unable, while not born of the Spirit, to render spiritual worship and service, surely there is the more urgent reason for coming as near to it as he can. 5. The fifth characteristic of this apology is the idleness attending it. Hope is an active principle. Despondency is an inactive one. Where has God told us that we can accomplish nothing in working out our salvation? Where has He told us to rest contented, or rest discouraged, till He converts us? Where has He said, that striving to enter in at the strait gate will be of no avail? Where is the Christian who ever became a Christian in his idleness? 6. The most strange perversion of all, is the argument from the depravity of nature, for not seeking the aids of grace--the saving efficiency of the Holy Spirit. Aside from the Holy Spirit, his case is just as hopeless as if judgment had already proceeded upon him. And this is the great reason why he should besiege the throne of grace, as standing upon the very borders of the pit, that God would save him from going down to eternal death! This he can do. His condition does not prohibit it. This he ought to do. His condition demands it. (L. S. Spencer, D. D.) God does not delight in the ruin of sinners I. This appears from the creation of man and the original constitution of his nature. God created man in His own image. This is the only law, so far as we know, according to which rational creatures can enjoy happiness. Only, he was created mutable--he had power to stand, but he was also liable to fall--he might obey and live, or he might transgress and die. II. This is evident from the plan of recovery he has formed. Although eternal death had passed on all who sinned; it would have been impossible to have affirmed that God delighted in the death of sinners. But in the redemption by Christ, the character of God comes forth in brighter glory,--a glory that shines without a cloud, a proof so overwhelming of the character of God, and of His designs of mercy to our family, that it requires only to be stated that its force may be felt. Where is the man who will affirm that God finds pleasure in the death of angels? and yet what has He done for them compared with what He has done for us? III. It is evident from the means God employs to carry this plan into effect.1. The means which is obviously of first importance is the incarnation, the obedience, and the death of His Son. Every sorrow of His humbled estate, every word He spake, and every action He performed on our world, is a proof of our text. 2. The ordinances of grace. Many of the blessings of God are so common, that we have ceased to prize them, and never think what our condition would be were they to be taken from us. The air we breathe, and the sun that shines on us, are instances of this in the natural world. The same may be said of the ordinances of grace. We have enjoyed them so long, in such abundance, and with so little effort of ours, that we are now insensible to the greatness of the blessing. And yet it is not easy to imagine in what condition we would have been today had we never enjoyed them, or in what condition we would be tomorrow were they to be taken from us. 3. The mercies of all kinds which God confers on men. We are surrounded by the love of God, not only in grace, but in nature, and in providence, and that love is designed to work on our hearts and lead us to repentance. 4. Afflictions and chastisements. These wound the body and often administer the cup of gall to the spirit, but their tendency is salutary, and therefore we conclude that their design is beneficent. It is mercy, when the sinner is in the way that leads to death, to beat him back although it should be with the rod of trouble,--to hedge up his path, although with the thorns of affliction. 5. The strivings of the Spirit. There are moments of fear, of trembling, of alarm, in the life of every sinner; he starts up, he looks around, and he would flee for safety if he only knew where he might be at rest. These are the strivings of the Spirit of God: to pluck him as a brand from the great burning, and, though they should never issue in his salvation, they are sufficient to show that God has no pleasure in his death. There are others who are “ begotten again to a lively hope” by the Word of God; into their hearts the Spirit enters, restores the palace which was lately in ruins, and makes it a glorious temple in which God may be worshipped, and in which the Spirit may dwell. This exhibits God not only as employing means to prevent the death of the sinner, but as actually averting his destruction, and, therefore, it is the highest possible evidence that He has no pleasure in the death of the wicked. (The Scottish Christian Herald.) The goodness and severity of God I. The goodness of God. He has no pleasure in the death of the wicked.1. The very commission which Christ gave to His apostles, and which has been handed down to their successors, proves this. “ Go ye into all the world,” etc. Tell the vilest, the very chief of sinners, without any reserve or any hesitation, that Christ died for him: that Christ hath redeemed him and all mankind. 2. And this is to be told to men who are living in sin, rebelling and sinning with a high hand against God. 3. Nay, such is the goodness of God, so little pleasure has He in the death of the wicked, that He commissions His ministers to entreat and beseech sinners to return to Him; to come and receive a full and free pardon. 4. We see His goodness yet further illustrated when these invitations are neglected and sinners perish in spite of mercy. 5. The strong and repeated expressions or delight when His warnings are heeded, and His invitations accepted, speak loudly the goodness of God. II. The severity of God. It is implied in the text. For though He has no pleasure in the death of the wicked, they will die notwithstanding. (R. W. Dibdin, M. A.) An appeal to the heart Life and death are words pregnant with the highest meaning. I. The terrible event. “ The death of the wicked.”1. The wicked is that person, whatever he may be as regards externals, whose will is not in unison with the will of God. 2. The wicked, far down in the dark abyss of destruction, will ever remain conscious of his loss, his wretchedness, and the intolerable anger of an offended God. His death will be his loss of God’ s favour, and his own personal happiness. 3. Why is the wicked doomed to die? (1) Because death is the inevitable tendency of the great principle that rules his soul. The wicked man is governed by selfishness--he is the slave and victim of sin. This principle is fatal to everything that is elevated, pure, and life-giving, in the spiritual world. It tends to destroy all peace of mind, to quench hope, to fetter the intellectual powers, to dissolve friendship, and to fit the soul for the gloomy regions of despair. (2) Because death is the desert of sin. (3) Because death is the effect of a Divine decree respecting disobedience. II. The cheering fact. Can there be anything more consolatory to a sinner than this Divine affirmation? God takes no pleasure in the misery of His creatures.1. It is contrary to His benevolent nature to do so. Nature, conscience, and scripture, testify that His delight is in making all beings happy. 2. The ruin of a soul gives no satisfaction to the Divine justice. 3. The design of God in all His dealings with sinners is to save them. All the powers of His infinite love, all the pathos of His infinite compassion, all the influences of His infinite Spirit, are employed to turn the wicked from his evil way, and to save his soul. It is not God’ s pleasure, brother, that you should die. Your destruction must be your own act. There may be written over the portals of hell, in large letters of fire, the inscription--self-destroyed. III. The stirring appeal.1. It is an appeal addressed to man’ s higher nature. Think--give a reason for such mad conduct. This is God’ s method of dealing with men’ s souls: He appeals to their reason. He wants to know the cause of our determination to reject the offers of redeeming love. “ Why will ye die?” There is nothing in the Divine purposes, nothing in the sacrifice of God’ s beloved Son, nothing in the agency of the Holy Spirit, yea, there is nothing in God’ s remedy for diseased souls, why any sinner should die. 2. It is an appeal which implies the necessity of immediate personal attention. (1) The duty is important: God is most urgent in His appeal. It is a matter of life or death to the soul. (2) The duty is personal--“ O house of Israel, why will ye die?” The appeals of the Gospel are pointed, they aim at the heart, they are applied to the individual conscience. (3) The duty requires immediate attention. We have no time to procrastinate. 3. It is an appeal which conveys the strongest motive for obedience. Have you any doubt about the reception of a penitent sinner? Think of the oath of God. Remember the encouraging words of Jesus, “ He that cometh unto Me, I will in no wise cast out.” (J. H. Hughes.) God calling the wicked to repentance I. The declaration.1. The import of the declaration. (1) He tells us, in what He hath not pleasure. “ I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked.” And yet the wicked dies. In full view of this awful fact, Jehovah asserts His benevolence. If a stranger, visiting this country, looked in on the homes made wretched by vice, some of which are not very far removed from the palace; or into the cells of our prisons, which are so prominent and so costly as government institutions, throughout our land; or on the sad scene of an execution at which agents of the crown were present;--would he be justified in coming to the conclusion that our sovereign was not benevolent--that such a state of things under her government was an evidence of our queen’ s lack of clemency? The mercy that winked at crime would produce more calamitous results than the sternest tyranny. Even goodness demands a restraint on crime, and punishment for the convicted criminal. And let it never be forgotten that the death we are now considering, in relation to the government and character of God, is “ the death of the wicked.” We must think of his having resisted the will, disowned the authority, dishonoured the name, hated the being, and defied the power of God. Can we think of God as infinite in His being, glory, and goodness, without being constrained to conclude that eternal death is the wages due to all who thus sin against Him? Could we worship a God who, in the full knowledge of what He was, would award a punishment less than this? The one pregnant difficulty is the existence of wickedness. While this fact must be assumed, it points to what must, to us, forever remain an insoluble mystery in its relation to the will of God. But it is due to God, because of His infinite love of righteousness, that His relation to the origin of sin should be regarded without any suspicion; and it is also due to Him, as Supreme Governor, that to His mind alone the perfect rectitude of this relation should appear. If the existence of sin forms a dark background before which the glory of Him who alone is immutable all the more brightly appears, let our thoughts regarding its relation to Jehovah’ s sovereign will, produce the calmness of adoring silence behind the awe which overwhelms us as we think of its moral hideousness and of its everlasting results. But there is more than this. Such is the character of God, as revealed in the Gospel, that it is impossible for Him to find pleasure in the death of the wicked. The fullest exhibition of His character, and the overwhelming proof of His having no pleasure in the death of the wicked, are given to us in the Cross of Jesus Christ. Whatever be His purpose, it is abundantly evident that “ God is love.” That is the character of Him to whom you are called to return. You are called to meet that love in the Son as Jesus the Christ, and to present yourself on His blood as a suppliant for all the blessings of the covenant of grace. What more can you desiderate? 2. He tells us in what He hath pleasure--“ that the wicked turn from his way and live.” The repentance of the wicked is an occasion of delight to God; for it is the first acknowledgment of His being “ the true God” ; the first tribute to His Godhead from the creature of His hand; the first movement of a lost one from “ the wrath to come” ; the first rupture between Him and that abominable thing which God hateth; the first act of homage to His Anointed, who is also His Son; the first fruit of the Spirit’ s work of grace--it is grace returning to the fountain whence it came, and bringing a “ wretched and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked” sinner back to be “ filled” with “ all the fulness of God.” As our greatest pains and pleasures reach our hearts through their love, the measure of love must indicate the capacity for joy. But who can conceive what must be the gladness resulting from the gratification of infinite love! And there is a three-fold love of God, through the gratification of which He receives pleasure from the penitence and life of the wicked. (1) His infinite love to His people. Oh, think of joy in heaven over one whose sins made the Son of God “ a Man of Sorrows” ! (2) His infinite love to His Anointed One. Each case of conversion is an instalment of reward to Hint for doing the will, and glorifying the name, of Him who sent Him. (3) His infinite love to Himself, and to righteousness. “ God is love.” He is so when contemplated in the unity of the eternal Godhead. Oh, infinitely holy sphere! Oh, sphere of infinite loving--the unapproachable sphere of the interrelations and fellowship of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost! And “ God is love” to righteousness in His relation to His moral government. And when He makes manifest that He is love to His people, He does so in such a way as to secure that in their salvation there shall appear to His view, to His infinite delight, all to which He is love,--as to afford an opportunity of expressing what He is as love to Himself, what the mutual love of the Trinity is, and how He loveth righteousness. 3. The declaration is in the form of an oath--As I live, saith the Lord. It is meet that such a declaration should have such a form, for thus only could earnestness, springing from infinite love, express itself fitly in words. Is this Divine earnestness to be met by indifference? Oh, yield not to the unbelief that would dare to prefer a charge of perjury against Him for whom it is impossible to lie! II. The call. From out of the midst of Divine glory, from off the Divine throne of grace, and intense with Divine earnestness, comes the call to the house of Israel--“ Turn ye, turn ye, from your evil ways.”1. Whence? “ From your evil ways.” Every way in which you depart from the fellowship and service of God is evil. Burdened and filled with sin, having no righteousness to cover your persons, and no excuse to hide your guilt, and while there is nothing in all your consciousness but sin, all over and all through,--with no ability yours but the fell power to transgress,--you are called to receive all the pardoning mercy and all the saving grace you need. 2. Whither? To Himself God calls you. To Himself as revealed in the declaration going before--to Himself as on His throne of grace--to Himself through Jesus Christ. 3. How? In willingness to accept the terms proposed by God, as terms of salvation and of service. Turning thus, you will verily be debtors to His grace for all you need. And you may be hoping debtors, for He raiseth the poor from the dust, He bringeth the fallen from out of the horrible pit, and He gathereth, as He calleth, outcasts from the very ends of the earth. (John Kennedy, D. D.) The salvation of sinners desired by God I. The state of mankind as sinners.1. A state of moral evil. The plural “ ways” is here employed to intimate that the courses pursued by sinners are various in their kinds. (1) There are ways of rebellion, or opposition to God’ s authority; they are open and avowed (1 Corinthians 6:9-10; Galatians 5:19-21); or they are secret and concealed (Mark 7:21-23). (2) There are ways of impenitence, or contempt of God’ s mercy: in which God is forgotten (Jeremiah 2:32); and not sought (Psalms 10:4; Psalms 107:10-11). (3) There are ways of self-deception, or vain delusive hope (Proverbs 14:12); such is the way of self-righteousness (Jeremiah 17:5-6; Isaiah 1:11); and such also is the way of antinomianism (Proverbs 30:12; Matthew 7:21; Hebrews 12:14). 2. A state of imminent danger;--a state in which they are certainly exposed to death, even eternal death (Romans 6:23). II. Their duty and privilege as sincere penitents.1. Their duty is to turn from their evil ways. (1) Turn from your ways of rebellion, by entire reformation (Isaiah 55:7; Ezekiel 18:27). (2) Turn from your ways of impenitence, by earnest prayer (Hosea 14:1-2; Luke 18:13). (3) Turn from your ways of self-deception, by coming to God, trusting in Christ’ s mediation (John 14:6); and by seeking a new creation (Galatians 6:15-16; Psalms 51:10). (4) Turn seasonably; without delay (Isaiah 55:6; Job 22:21). (5) Turn perpetually; without defection (Jeremiah 50:5). (6) Turn believingly; in confident expectation of salvation (Hebrews 10:19-22). 2. Their privilege is, to be saved from death, and enjoy life. (1) All genuine believers in our Lord Jesus Christ are saved from death by being delivered from the dominion of spiritual, and the sentence of eternal death (John 1:25-26). (2) The life enjoyed by them is comprehensive: including an interest in God’ s manifested favour (Psalms 30:5; Psalms 63:3); actual devotedness to God’ s service (Romans 6:13); and the eternal possession of heaven (Romans 2:6-7). 3. The attainment of this privilege is as certain as it is desirable. (1) From God’ s earnest command.(2) From God’ s solemn oath.(3) From God’ s gracious expostulation. 1. Why will ye die? By continuing in sin you choose death, the worst of all evils; and eternal death, the worst of all deaths. This is murder, self-murder of the blackest description. 2. Why will ye die? By what arguments can you justify your conduct at the bar of your own consciences? Is not God a better master than the devil? Is not holiness better employment than sin? Are not the treasures of grace and heaven better enjoyments than hell and damnation? 3. Why will ye die? Ye men! concerning whom there is still hope of salvation. Ye Britons! the peculiar favourites of heaven; who enjoy the clearest gospel light, the greatest religious liberty, and the highest advantages for piety, in the richest abundance (Psalms 147:20). Ye professing Christians! who are called by the name of Christ, and are encouraged in His word to seek Him (2 Chronicles 7:14); who are baptized in the name of Christ, and bound by the most solemn vows to serve Him alone (Ecclesiastes 5:4). 4. Why will ye die? Remember, if thou die eternally, it must be because ye will die; your death must be the result of your own deliberate choice; for God wills your salvation. (Sketches of Four Hundred Sermons.) The compassion of God for the unconverted The compassion of God for the unconverted shows us how miserable the condition of such an one is. The first trait--the root and origin of all your misery--is sin; you are miserable because you are sinners. “ Sin is the transgression of the law.” Transgression is not weakness, but it is revolting against order, it is the overthrowing of the law, which is order and rule; it is total irregularity and confusion. Such law, such transgression; such order, such disorder; he who transgresses any law offends against the order of the whole region over which that law extends its empire. He who offends against domestic law, offends against domestic order; he who transgresses the law of a nation, offends against the order of a nation; he who transgresses the law of this world, offends against the order of this world; and he who transgresses the law of the universe, offends against the order of the universe. But more remains. Sin is the transgression of the law of God: but of which law of God? for there are two laws of God: there is His material law, which regulates the visible world, to which the sea, the sun, the heavenly bodies belong; and there is His spiritual law, which governs the invisible world, to which the soul of man belongs. The law which sin transgresses is the second law, the spiritual law, which regulates the invisible world. Man sins, and the harmony of the invisible world is disturbed; but though man sins, the sea observes its limits, and the sun pursues his course, and the celestial bodies remain in their places. It is for this reason that the disorder of sin is less striking to us, carnal as we are and enslaved to visible things; but it is exactly for this reason that it ought to strike, amaze, and alarm us more. For, which is the grander and more glorious of these two worlds, the invisible or the visible world? Behold then the disorder which sin hath produced! And by a necessary consequence, since the seat of this disorder is in the sinner’ s heart, there is the sinner’ s misery and wretchedness; there is your wretchedness, your own individual wretchedness; and this is the reason why the God of all compassion is moved, conjures you, and says, “ As I live,” etc. Sin does not only throw you into disorder, it exposes you also to the chastisement of God; and if you can blind your heart so that it can reconcile itself to disorder, you cannot blind God to exempt you from punishment. Vain would be your hope of persuading yourselves that your sin deserves no punishment because you were born in sin, and that it is only in the first man it should be in justice sought for. Have you never done anything which you knew to be sinful, though you had power to avoid committing it? If this has been the case, have you not felt the reproaches of conscience? Well, then, when you have done what you knew to be wrong and what you had the power of not doing, you have committed on your part what Adam did on his, and you have spiritually shared in the fall of all your race; and when your conscience has reproved you for it, you have testified against yourself that you have deserved a punishment. And what is the punishment that God reserves for sin? (Galatians 3:10) A curse!--this single word has something in it which makes us tremble. Yet the malediction of any man might be unjust. If I have the approval of God and of my own heart, I could take refuge in the sanctuary of my conscience, out of the reach of man, and lift up my eyes in peace to heaven and say unto the Lord: “ Let them curse, but bless Thou.” And even if the malediction of man were merited, it is powerless of itself. But if God, all just, all good, almighty, should curse me, what would this malediction be, but all the Divine perfections arrayed against me; the justice of God overtaking me, His power overwhelming me, and, what is more terrible, His goodness aggravating the horror of His judgments, and of my remorse, and constituting my severest torture? Ye unconverted ones, be not emboldened by the consideration that you do not feel anything commensurate with such dreadful denunciations, and do not reason in this manner within yourselves: “ No, I do not feel myself accursed of God.” Whether you feel yourselves accursed or not, you are so, for God says it. If you feel it not, know that this insensibility is the sign of a hardened heart and the first-fruits of this very malediction. If you do not feel it now, know that you will one day feel it, when the visible things through which you are now able to disguise your condition from yourselves shall have perished. This malediction, under which you are resting, is eternal; insomuch that if you were to appear at the tribunal of Jesus Christ without having been converted, you would be condemned to endless punishment (Matthew 25:41-46). I shall assume that you are sincerely desirous of conversion, and that you are determined to do, as far as in you lies, all that you can and ought to do on your part towards it. It is beyond doubt that your conversion cannot be effected by your own will; that it can only be by the will of God; that it can only be a work of God, a gift of God, a grace of God; and that a converted soul has cause to acknowledge with humility that its entire change proceeds from God, and from the very first commencement. But it would be decidedly wrong for you to conclude, that, because your conversion is the work of God and not your own, its success is less certain; on the contrary, it is more so. If your conversion be the work of God, the success depends upon the power and the perseverance, the faithfulness and the wisdom of God; and have you not everything to gain by placing your trust in such firm and sure hands,--provided only you have the assurance that God favours your conversion? But I have something to ask you: hear me with singleness of heart. Do not ask me to explain to you how it is equally true from God’ s Word that no one attains conversion without the grace and election of God, and yet that you are answerable to God if you do not “ turn” to Him, He having done for each of you all that is necessary for your conversion. Both these truths are equally attested by Scripture: this sufficiently authorises me to preach both one and the other, and this ought to be enough also to lead you to receive both. Let us apply to the things which concern our salvation that spirit of simplicity and good sense that we exercise in the ordinary affairs of life. Suppose your house on fire: the flames extend, they spread and reach the apartment in which you are; a beam over your head takes fire, is rapidly consuming and momentarily threatens to fall upon you . . . a way of escape is presented to you;--will you say, in such a case, I cannot escape from the flames unless it is ordained by God that I should; otherwise I shall perish, do what I may; I can do nothing to save myself, therefore, I will remain where I am? No, but you will see in the way opened to you a sign that God willeth your deliverance, and you will hasten to escape, without perplexing yourself to inquire whether you are destined to escape from the fire or not,. Exercise the same prudence in whatever relates to the salvation of your soul. Flee only, and you will be one of the elect. Whatever may happen, nothing on the part of God raises an obstacle to your conversion; on the contrary, everything invites, favours, and ensures its success; God willeth your conversion. What has He refused you that is necessary for your conversion? Birth, baptism, instruction, communion, preaching, Scripture, example,--what is wanting? Look around on all sides, what do you see, what do you hear but the invitations of God, but His graces, His promises, His menaces, which warn, which summon you, I had almost said, which compel you to turn? Have you ever considered, in what manner the preaching of the Gospel has reached you? Perhaps you think that it has been brought hither as to all other places where it is now known. But no; it has been borne hither by a series of special, astonishing, and miraculous dispensations, and in which a fixed design clearly appears to cause the Gospel to reach you in this country, notwithstanding all obstacles. There is not perhaps any spot on the globe which the Spirit of darkness--under all the successive forms which he has devised and assumed--has contested so pertinaciously and fiercely with the Spirit of truth, as the land that we tread, this revered land--this land covered with the most vivid and glorious reminiscences of Church history; and truth banished for a time has invariably retaken hold of this country, where it has ultimately established itself without violence before your eyes and for your benefit. I now go farther, and feel emboldened to assure you that there is nothing on God’ s part to prevent you from turning to Him, nothing on His part to cause the delay of your conversion; nothing, absolutely nothing, to hinder your conversion this very day. If the work of conversion were your own, not only would it be impossible this day, but it could never take place; yet because it is the work of God it is as practicable this day as on any other. And God’ s desire is not that you should postpone it: even this day He invites you to turn to Him. “ Today if ye will hear His voice, harden not your hearts.” But an invitation to turn tomorrow, you will nowhere find in the Word of God: when conversion is the subject, Scripture does not know the word tomorrow, except to protest against all delay. Scripture presents many instances of persons turning as soon as they are called. Lydia hears Paul, and the Lord opens her heart. The jailor of Philippi hears the Gospel, and is converted the same night. The nobleman of Capernaum sees his servant healed by Jesus Christ, and believes with all his house. Zaccheus seeks Jesus, finds Him, receives Him, and performs works of faith--all in one day. The thief humbles himself, is converted, and receives the promise of life whilst he is on the cross. “ All things are now ready” for the conversion of souls. On the King’ s pare all is ready: “ the oxen and fatlings are killed,” the dinner is prepared, the tables are covered, the places are arranged, the doors are open, the servants are sent, the guests are invited, they have only to enter and sit down at the feast. All is ready since the world began, for anyone who is now desirous, has desired, or will desire to be converted. But if God desire your conversion, and desire it this day; if on His side all is encouragement, invitation, will, disposition; and if He does all that can be done, all that can be imagined--except compelling you--in order that you should turn; from whom then arise the obstacles which impede your conversion, or the delays which retard it? From whom, if not from yourselves? from yourselves, who wilt not enter when God opens His door to you, who will not open to Him when He knocks at yours, who, in short, will not turn to Him? What prevents you from taking up your Bible and reading it with attention, perseverance, prayer? from praying to God for His grace and His Spirit, for faith, and a new heart? from confessing your sins to the Lord, and beseeching Him to blot them out with His blood? from doing what God enjoins in His Word, and ceasing to do what He forbids? from seeking the encouragement and advice of experienced Christians who are within your reach? what, in fine, prevents you from hearing God who speaks to you, from following God who calls you, from opening to God who knocks, and from doing, in a word, all that is necessary to your conversion? (A. Monod.) Life by repentance unto life God is here; revealing the secret thoughts of many hearts on the subject of sin, and the hopelessness of deliverance from its dominion and the impossibility of coming to life or salvation, if that salvation is to consist in separation from sin in the inner and outer man. Salvation, or eternal life, by redemption from sin, and reconciliation with God in repentance, and its fruit, or fulfilment, regeneration, this is to be the message of every minister of the Gospel, which is not only to be proclaimed so plainly and loudly that it cannot be mistaken, but to be pressed on the conscience of his people with the intense earnestness of affection, and fervent longing for their soul’ s salvation, which will breathe the very spirit of the Divine love, to which the minister but gives expression.1. A false persuasion possesses the minds of innumerable members of the Christian Church as thoroughly as it pervaded the Jewish on the subject of sin, salvation, and the righteousness, as well as grace, of God’ s providence, or judgment, in His dealings with sinners. Do Christians in general, any more than Jews in Ezekiel’ s day, connect consciously in their own minds, as things inseparable, sin not repented of and death eternal, or damnation, sin repented of and life eternal, or salvation? Is the way of the Lord in their eyes equal, by a revelation which has commended itself to their consciences of a way of righteousness that is invariable in the case of every sinner, the saved and the lost equally, and as unchangeable as the life of the eternal God Himself, being one of the laws of the kingdom of heaven, indeed; the fundamental law on which the kingdom eternally rests? Is life, in their faith, separation inwardly and outwardly from sin? This entry is longer than a Bible module can hold. The rest is at https://www.sermonindex.net/commentary/bi/ Ezekiel 33:30-33 They hear Thy words, but they will not do them.The religion of a formalist I. The extent of a formal religion. There is unquestionably much about the characters here described worthy of respect and admiration. The pity is, so fair a form should conceal so vile a heart.1. They entertained a high respect for the truth, and the messenger whom God had commissioned to proclaim it. How many treat the message and the messenger with respect, who have no share in the Divine and saving power they are appointed to convey! They have caught a feeble ray of light; it has something of beauty and lustre about it; but it is the cold moonbeam reflected from the church, and not the healing and life-giving ray of the Sun of Righteousness. 2. To respect, may be added a compliance with religious ordinances and duties. Custom, or education, or pride, or respect for the preacher, or the desire to see, and be seen, brought them here. Even their demeanour in the very presence of the eternal God, is not free from hypocrisy. 3. Further, there may be an apparent love for religion, and the doctrines it inculcates; for “ with their mouth they show much love.” Religion is talked about and recommended. While it is the topic of conversation you observe an unusual glow of animation, a seeming zeal for its interests. Its doctrines and duties are defended against the cavils and objections of all opposers. 4. There may be the experience of deep and powerful emotions, under the preaching of the truth. The preacher is to them “ as a very lovely song,” etc. A thrill of indescribable pleasure vibrates on the chords of feeling as he proceeds; but it is only the excitement of passions which would have been aroused with equal intensity and delight by the harmonies of a concert, or the representations of the stage. Yet is it unusual to mistake these emotions for religious feeling? or, can any impression be more delusive? II. The deficiencies of a formal religion. The heart is the seat of the defect. It has never been the subject of Divine and regenerating grace; and, where this is the case, there may be every semblance of true religion, but reality there is none. See the objections which a heart-searching God prefers against the characters in consideration. They are these: “ they hear Thy words, but they will not do them.” Here the will is at fault. The prime and governing power of the heart does not yield a just submission to the authority of Divine law. A little further on is a second charge: “ their heart goeth after their covetousness.” The deficiency is here at once referred to the heart, whose affections have never been surrendered to Him who justly demands them. They remain fixed, with unchanging tenacity, to the creature, but the Creator is forgotten. Again, the first charge is reiterated, though in an altered form of expression: “ They hear Thy words, but they do them not.” Wherefore, but because there is no heart to them? The understanding and affections must be renewed; the will become subject; the whole man be created anew in Christ Jesus, until the old nature is trampled under foot, and the love of God alone holds supremacy. If religion is designed to correct the evils and perversities of our nature, to what point should its influence be directed rather than the heart, which is the seat of man’ s depravity, and out of which proceeds every thing that is capable of moral or religious impress? III. The danger of a formal religion. The publication of the Gospel, with its riches of promise, implies the sad alternative, which must overtake all who do not heartily receive and obey its doctrines. No one can seriously imagine a religion of hollow compliments and specious disguises to be acceptable in the sight of God: to offer it in the place of a loving heart is to superadd mockery to rebellion. (John Lyth.) The formalist and the Christian I. There is a resemblance between the formalist and the Christian in the spirit of hearing and in the respect which is felt for the temple and the minister of the temple. So marvellous has been the spread of Christianity; so thoroughly has it leavened society with its influence, that that which was formerly a badge of shame has become at once a talisman of safety, and a certificate of honour, and the cross, formerly dishonoured and reproachful, is now the sign beneath which armies march to battle. It glitters as the symbol of our faith on the domes of Christian temples, and is traced in baptismal beauty on the foreheads of kings. The sort of respect which conventionalism bears to Christianity affords indirect encouragement to its formal profession. If there yawned the dungeon before every confessor--if the sword flashed over the head of every saint, as over the head of Damocles at the banquet, there might, perhaps, be fewer professors of Christianity, but they would be braver and more sincere. Men would be chary of entering upon their vows, but constant in their adhesion to the faith of their espousal. But now that the earth has taken upon itself to help the woman--now that a prayerless family, or a churchless household has a kind of disgrace affixed to it, it is not at all an uncommon thing that there should be an attachment to the temple and an eager hearkening to its message, in hearts that are as impervious as granite to the reception of the truth, and as set against its vital and quickening power as the most flippant witling who sits in the seat of the scornful. II. The second point of resemblance between the formalist and the Christian is that the former complies with and has attachment to the ordinances of religion. “ And they come unto thee as the people cometh.” They come into the sanctuary with a religious feeling. There is devotion in their responses; there is for the time sincerity in their approach to God. They come and sit just as the people sit--equally decorous, equally interested, equally attentive, equally impressible, and “ with their mouth they show much love.” They pay homage to religion, to godliness, they regard it as the chief thing; they are not ashamed to talk about it as they pass down to the business of the day. They are fluent in its praise and in its advocacy. They talk glibly about a life of piety and the charms and hopes of religion, and the unparalleled attractiveness of the heaven to which it leads. They are ready-handed and open-hearted when distress pleads or benevolence prefers her claims. Oh, there are so many excellences about them that it wrings our hearts to think that they lack the one thing which alone can make those excellences of avail. III. The resemblance between the formalist and the Christian is that the former feels under the minister’ s discourse. They are neither heedless nor dissatisfied hearers. They hang upon the minister’ s lips, they feast upon his discourse in all the luxury of intellectual pleasure. They have a delight in listening to him as great as when they were enraptured by the tones of some enchantress of song, or as when they sat breathless while the organ swelled out some psalmist’ s inner soul. And I think when you consider the sort of ministry under which these people sat you will find there was a deeper emotion roused within them than ever mere elocutionary gratification produced. Ezekiel certainly was no carpet wizard, he was no dealer in literary millinery. He had a soul too brave and a purpose too strong to labour for tropes or to be content with platitudes. Under such a preacher there must have been the stirring of conscience, the convulsions of the heart, the agitation of the whole moral nature, as he brought home conviction of guilt, and launched against them the threatenings of doom. Yes, and so it is now. So it may be now. There may be, or there may not be, connected with the administration of the truth a refinement of intellectual pleasure. Paul may argue forcibly, or Barnabas tenderly win; Elijah may be imperial in his irony, and Ezekiel scorching in his rebuke, for there are diversities of gifts yet, and God hath given to everyone as it hath pleased Him. But there must be--it is inevitable--there must be wherever the Gospel is faithfully and evangelically preached--and I am bold to affirm that there has been faithful preaching, and preaching of the pure Gospel here--there must be impression and conviction--all the works of the accompanying Spirit. If you have felt the song to be sweet and the player to be skilful, you have felt the burning words, the power of the thoughts that have been expressed and impressed by the power of the Spirit upon your heart. IV. The difference is that in the formalist the heart is not right in the sight of God. They are conscious that while they listen, and that while they are impressed, there is within them a stubborn and a resisting soul which has not been renewed by the washing of regeneration, and by the renewing of the Holy Ghost. They are not only attentive to the Word, but they acknowledge its reality and its momentousness, and yet there is a stubborn will that refuses submission, and an imagination that revels in the unclean chambers of its guilt. And the man, alas, is only beautiful outwardly, like a fair damsel whose cheek rivals the peach bloom, but in whose heart the pale fires burn, or like a gothic sepulchre whose gorgeous architecture conceals the habitations of death. You may alter the pointers and touch the regulators of a watch without ceasing, but if the mainspring is broken you can have no accurate note of time. Every stone in an arch may be proportioned and in its place, but if the keystone is wanting you will never rear it in strength. Bone may come to his bone, and skin may cover them, and it may be fenced with sinew and covered with flesh as the skeleton, but unless the quick pulses are alive with the flowing blood there will be no lighted house of life. Religion is a thing of the heart; it is not a mere dogmatism of creed; it is not a mere timorous morality; it is not even a flatteringly faultless observance of devotion: it is a warm life welling up from a renewed heart; it is a new affection expelling or controlling the old; it is the embodiment of a passion which is neither sordid nor servile, but which in deep gratitude for its deliverance offers itself a living sacrifice, and in the generosity of its ungrudging service can never say, “ It is enough.” Do you see the point of difference now? How is it with yourselves? Have you turned to the Lord with full purpose of heart? (W. M. Punshon.) A false people and a true prophet; or, an old picture of modern life 1. Some people have true prophets. What is it that constitutes a true prophet? Is it superiority of native power? This we hold to be a necessary element. A man must have more brain and heart force than I before he can become my prophet. The man in the pulpit, whose mind is constitutionally inferior to his congregation, is not their true prophet. But although this is necessary, it is not all. There must be, in connection with this, a reigning sympathy with God’ s truth, character, and will. This is the inspiration of the true prophet. 2. Some true prophets have false people. People in all ages have wrongly treated the true prophets. Jewish history abounds with examples; and even now, I think, we shall find men treating God’ s ministers as Ezekiel was treated by his hearers. I. They conversed much concerning their prophet.1. This practice is very common now. To church-going people the minister is one of their most constant themes of conversation. (1) In some cases this habit implies ignorance. (2) In some cases it implies depreciation--to find fault with his reasoning, or impugn his motives. By doing so they blunt the edge of his appeal to their conscience. (3) In some cases it implies pride. Their minister, perhaps, has won some sort of fame. (4) In some cases it implies superstition. The minister’ s virtues and talents are exaggerated. There is no one like him. He has “ bewitched” them. 2. This practice is frequently very injurious. It tends to neutralise the power of the ministry. A minister of God is not an individual who is to appear before people merely to be looked at, admired, and talked about; or who is to utter opinions which are to be submitted to criticism, or become points of social converse and debate. But he is an ambassador from God; “ in Christ’ s stead” he is to beseech men to be reconciled to their Maker. II. They were interested in the ministry of their prophet They invited each other to his ministrations. “ Come, I pray you,” etc. Strangers, observing them pressing their way to the scenes of devotion, or sitting with solemn face and rapt attention in the assembly, or hearing them speak so lovingly and admiringly of the servant of God, might infer that they were saints of the first type. A deep interest in the ministry of a true and talented prophet is no proof of piety. There are many things in such a ministry to interest a man. It meets many of the native cravings of the soul. It meets the desire for excitement. It meets the desire for knowledge. A desire for information and intellectual exercise is common to us all. It meets the desire for happiness. “ Who will show us any good?” This is the most vehement cry of humanity, and it is the cry of an impulse that keeps the world in action. The ministry of Divine truth meets it. Its every aim is to reveal “ the way of life.” III. They were spiritually unreformed by the ministry of their prophet.1. Divine truth is preached, that it may be practised. Unless ideas lead to actions, they have no influence upon character; and unless our character is changed we can never reach happiness, nor obtain the approbation of God. 2. It will never be practised, if the heart go after covetousness. IV. They were destined to discover, when too late, their terrible mistake in relation to the ministry of their prophet. All attendants on a true ministry will one day feel this--feel that a true prophet had been amongst them. This will be felt by all, in one of three ways--1. in the reproaches of a guilty conscience.2. In the felicities of experimental religion.3. In the mysterious horrors of retribution. All true prophets will one day be valued; their words will burn in the experience of every soul to whom they have spoken. (Homilist.) The prophet and the people I. A beautiful picture. Man is saying to man, “ Come, let us hear the word of the Lord.” That is the only thing worth doing. All other things derive their value and importance from that central thought, that vital action. How charming, then, is the idea that man is saying to man, Come, and hear what God the Lord will say; come, and listen to the true music, the only music, and your hearts will be made glad. This invitation expresses the action of a very profound instinct in human nature; not only so, it expresses a need, an aching yearning need of the heart. The heart needs a voice other than human; the soul says, I have not seen all my relatives: I hear their voices, and I like them; some of the tones are good: but the tones are more suggestive than final: I hear the ocean in the shell. Where is that ocean? Where is that mighty roar? I am not content with the shell; I want to go and see the instrument out of which there comes such thunderous, solemn music. So give the soul fair play, let it talk itself right out in all its native frankness, under the inspiration of necessity, rather than under the force of merely mechanical instruction, and the soul cries out for the living God. When the soul is no longer conscious of an aching, a gnawing hunger, the man is dead: he may try to talk himself into a kind of spasmodic life, but in the secret of him he is dead; when the earth satisfies him, when time is enough, when the senses alone bring him all the contentment or all the joy he needs, he is a dead man. II. A distressing possibility (verse 31). The people come to hear the letter only, and there is no letter so disappointing as the letter of the Bible. If you stop at a certain point you miss everything; you are surrounded by mountains, but they are so high that you cannot see any sky beyond them, and therefore they become by their very hugeness prison walls. Ezekiel’ s hearers were formal, not vital. With their mouth they show much love, but their heart goeth after their covetousness. This is not ancient history, whatever else it may be. If Ezekiel could have lived upon “ loud cheers” he would have been living now; if he could have satisfied himself with popular applause, he would have reigned as a king: but he said, I do not want your mouth worship, I want to find you at the Cross. III. Misdirected admiration (verse 32). What is wanted in every congregation is earnestness. No man should come to church except to hear God’ s word, and so to hear it as to be compelled to do it. Many men who cannot understand Christian metaphysics can do Christian charities, can exemplify Christian tempers, and so can interpret concretely the subtlest, profoundest metaphysics of Divine thinking. The true metaphysician will by the degree of his truthfulness be compelled to be earnest as well as subtle, and the hero who knows nothing about spiritual metaphysics will see that in doing God’ s will he is becoming a great scholar in God’ s school. IV. A too late discovery (verse 33). Who has not heard men complain that they have neglected their educational advantages? They played truant when they were children; they did not attend to the instruction that was given to them; they had an opportunity of becoming really well informed and highly instructed, but they allowed the opportunity to pass by without improvement. Too late! the greatest realisation of loss is that a prophet has vanished, a prophet has been here and gone. Will he not return? Never. Foolish are they who stretch their necks to look over the horizon to see if the prophet is not coming. The prophet is never far away if you really want him. Your mother could be a prophetess to you if you wanted to pray; your father, who is probably not a great scholar in the literal sense, could speak things to you that would open your imagination to new universes if you really wanted to be guided in upward thinking and heavenly action. (J. Parker, D. D.) Ezekiel 33:32 Thou art unto them as a very lovely song.Ezekiel These words are spoken of the prophet Ezekiel; he is as the lovely song, as the pleasant voice, as the instrument of music, all this even to the worldly mind; yet we might have thought otherwise; so full is he of woe, of the wrath of God; and how dark and obscure are his visions! It might then at first sight appear inconsistent with tiffs that the prophet Ezekiel should in style be considered so engaging, that even to those to whom he was sent with heavy tidings he should be as one that had a “ pleasant voice” ; in like manner, that although the roll which is given him is “ written within and without,” “ with lamentations and mourning and woe,” yet it should be in the mouth of the prophet, that is, to the natural man, “ as honey for sweetness.” Yet this is in accordance with much we find in Scripture; for instance, what could be more sternly severe and full of reproof than St. Stephen’ s speech at his death? But on that occasion, “ looking steadfastly on him, they saw his face as it had been the face of an angel.” Thus God arrested their minds till His martyr should speak to them all his burden of sad admonition. Again, such types and figures have a life such as no mere words of themselves can have, they clothe themselves with form and spirit, and continue. Thus the images of Ezekiel not only speak of themselves in the place where they are found; but they come up again and are of frequent occurrence in the Apocalypse, as if still waiting for their fulfilment. Thus, indeed, much that is in Ezekiel is also in St. John; things which already have been in some sense fulfilled; but even now are fulfilling themselves, and yet to be more largely and worthily fulfilled. The vision of the four living creatures, for instance, in Ezekiel, is found again in St. John; it is still before us; still new; we know much of what it means, but we have much more yet to learn. The glory of the Lord coming from the East; His voice like the noise of many waters; the earth shining with His glory; these and many such things in Ezekiel are reproduced in St. John. In both the angels of judgment are represented as waiting till the children of God are sealed with His “ mark upon their forehead.” Gog and Magog with their armies are both, alike in Ezekiel and in St. John, as about to come forth in the times of the end. The assembling of the fowls to the great sacrifice is in both. And especially that subject of many chapters in Ezekiel, the measuring of the Temple and the vision of the Holy City, is marked in both as yet to be. Now, I have said that one effect of types and similitudes such as these is, that they may not die away and be forgotten; thus if we look to those subjects of Holy Writ which arrest at this day most attention in the world, we shall find it is such figurative prophecies. Such are some reasons for the symbolic language of Ezekiel; it is a language suited for all times and countries, that never grows out of date or loses its power. Add to which it may be naturally accounted for by the character and circumstances of the prophet, and the heavy tidings he had to bear. Strong feeling does always naturally express itself in figures and similitudes; it gives vent to itself in burning words that take form and are full of life. Thus as a plant which when crushed gives forth its sweetness, as from the grape trodden under foot is the Wine of God; and from the corn thrashed and ground is the Bread of Life: so was Ezekiel stricken of God that he might speak the more powerfully in the likeness of Christ. And oh, the blessedness of that suffering, the inestimable value of that affliction which gives us power to speak the words of God! And well did he need visions and words of power, for nothing else would reach the hearts of those to whom he was sent. For these reasons the prophecies of Ezekiel, like our Lord’ s own miracles and parables, present things more to the eye than to the ear; for thus they more powerfully reach the mind. Hence the whole style and character of Ezekiel; where another prophet persuades, Ezekiel sees a sign or symbol and leaves that to speak. He is set as a watchman to watch for the morning, and descries its light from afar, while fires as of Mount Sinai blend with the milder radiance of Pentecost. He is the Prophet of Christ’ s second coming no less than of His first. As in the Day of Judgment, amidst sights and signs the most sublime and terrible, will be manifested wonderful depths of God’ s wisdom, the reach of His Providences, and the scales of eternal justice; so throughout this prophet, amidst visions and imagery, great, striking, and awful, there occur full and clear enunciations of God’ s mercy and truth, the rising of His temple, the sublime and wonderful but most beautiful order of His ways on earth, bearing onward the throne of the Incarnate Son of God. St. Jerome says that he was used when young to go on the Lord’ s day into the caves at Rome where the Apostles and Martyrs were buried; and there, in silence and darkness amid the chambers of the dead, to meditate on the visions of Ezekiel; and that thus he learned to approach them with awe and reverence, not with idle curiosity, and so in some measure to understand them; seeing light, he says as in the dubious obscure, and exclaiming, “ I have found Him whom my soul loveth, I will hold Him fast and will not let Him go.” Thus, “ in the cloudy and dark day,” in the times of affliction, we may understand him better than now we do. One word more of caution; a holy bishop, who has written largely on Ezekiel, the great St. Gregory, has applied it to the examination and correction of our own heart, and building up the soul in righteousness. Thus we know that the temple of God of which so much is said in Ezekiel is in one sense our own soul. Happy he who mourns for all pollutions and abominations that have been there, who puts out from thence all idols, and makes it fit for the indwelling of God. Blessed is he who keeps his heart tender and low to understand His prophets, whether the plaintive voice amidst the ruins of Israel or the dark harp by the waters of Babylon. (Isaac Williams, B. D.) The songs our lives sing I. Our lives sing various songs.1. Some lives are set to wailing music, the lives that are far away from God, and separated by the great gulf of sin from all things good and holy. When the measure of such a song falls on our spiritual ears we are depressed and feel like weeping. 2. There are other life songs set to joyful music. They are sent to brighten up the earth, and, like the flowers, to make it more beautiful. These songs are the lives of those who love the beauties of the world, climb above its mists, and revel in the sunlight. They look on the bright side of life, feeling that it is better to laugh than to cry, to pluck the rose and leave untouched the thorn. 3. There are other songs given forth by lives that are fired with a sublime purpose to make the world better, and to lift it to a loftier plane of living. Such lives are set to stately music that broadens and deepens the hearts of those who hear. 4. But the sweetest song that ever fell on mortal ears is one that flowed out from Calvary two thousand years ago, and sounded down the ages to bless the fallen race, a song that rose to heaven, and angels climbed the everlasting hills to hear. Now and then a human life, a song from God, catches the metre of Jesus Christ, and when its music is heard hearts soften, nerves thrill, and teardrops fall. II. We hear, but often do not heed, these life songs. In the days when the heart song of Ezekiel sounded out there were many who heard, and yet they heeded not. When the heart song of Jesus Christ sounded out there were many sordid souls who heeded not the music. God says to all such today, as to those who heard Ezekiel, that if they hear and fail to be benefited their blood shall not be required at the hands of the singer, but shall be on their own heads. III. Inferences.1. Our life songs always seem feeble to ourselves. When we are nearest to Christ there is deeper music in the heart than can be uttered by the lips or the life. 2. We must first learn to sing life’ s songs here if we expect to sing them yonder. In the sight of God our lives upon this earth must be like the limping songs of childhood, but up yonder we shall be prima donnas and master singers in the choir of the skies. (Homiletic Review.) Ezekiel’ s popularity Ezekiel had by this time become a successful preacher. He had not always been such; on the contrary, he had been for a long time disbelieved and disliked. Now, however, he had come to be highly regarded, partly on account of the singularity of his preaching, partly on account of the striking and unexpected fulfilment of his prophecies. He was the great sensation of the day; men thought it the proper thing to go and hear him, to listen with rapt attention to the impetuous torrent of his words, and, when they went away, to discuss his message in the gates or on the housetops. Yet was the alteration but a sensible one, the reformation only superficial; and in the text the Lord exposes the hollowness of it all. I need not say how exactly this state of things is reproduced in the case of every popular preacher. Men whose lives are cruel or impure, whose hearts are covetous, whose thoughts are bitter, crowd to hear the preacher of the day, because his words are sweet, because his eloquence is full of melody, because they feel themselves for the moment fascinated, captivated, carried out of, lifted above, themselves. And then they talk about “ getting good,” not because they have the slightest practical intention to reform, but because they have had pleasurable emotions, and their religious feelings have been gently excited by the skilful touch of the preacher. In our own Church eloquence is so rarely heard that we are in little danger of such delusion. Ezekiel in his popularity is a type not only of all lesser preachers, but emphatically of Him who is the great Prophet and Preacher of the world, the Master of all ages, the Incarnate Word of God. A very lovely song it is which the Saviour sings; no poet, no prophet, no bard ever sung or ever dreamed, or even ever strove (and striving, failed) to express anything half so sweet, so full, so soul-subduing as the Gospel of the Grace of God. And He that sings it hath indeed a pleasant voice, for sweeter is the voice of Christ than the voice of any angel or archangel, or of any of the heavenly choirs--grander it is in itself, and sweeter far is it to us, because it is a Brother’ s voice, and we can feel the sympathy, we can understand the finest, softest shades of meaning which are woven through its melody. And so it is true of the people now, as of old, that they hear Him gladly; if anyone will speak feelingly, if anyone can speak eloquently of the love of Jesus for sinners, they will crowd to hear him, they will listen with satisfaction and go away pleased,--but they will not do His words. Men love to hear the Saviour’ s gracious invitation, “ Come unto Me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest,” but they will not come to Him in the practical ways which He has pointed out. They love, above all things, to listen to the melodies of that last holy and tender discourse with His own, recorded in the Gospel of St. John, but they will not follow His practical counsels to such as wish to be His own. There is nothing more gladly heard by the sick and dying than that passage which begins, “ Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid” ; there is nothing, alas! more persistently forgotten, even by the dying than the fact that these things were spoken only to those who had continued with Christ in His temptations, who had showed that they loved Him by keeping His commandments: they hear His words, then, eagerly, but they do them not. (R. Winterbotham, M. A.) On the slender influence of mere taste and sensibility in matters of religion You easily understand how a taste for music is one thing, and a real submission to the influence of religion is another--how the ear may be regaled by the melody of sound, and the heart may utterly refuse the proper impression of the sense that is conveyed by it. Have you ever heard any tell, and with complacency too, how powerfully his devotion was awakened by an act of attendance on the oratorio--how his heart, melted and subdued by the influence of harmony, did homage to all the religion of which it was the vehicle; how he was so moved and overborne as to shed the tears of contrition, and to be agitated by the terrors of judgment, and to receive an awe upon his spirit of the greatness and the majesty of God; and that, wrought up to the lofty pitch of eternity, he could look down upon the world, and by the glance of one commanding survey pronounce upon the littleness and the vanity of all its concerns? It is indeed very possible that all this might thrill upon the ears of the man, and circulate a succession of solemn and affecting images around his fancy--and yet that essential principle of his nature, upon which the practical influence of Christianity turns, might have met with no reaching and no subduing efficacy whatever to arouse it. Amid all that illusion which such momentary visitations of seriousness and of sentiment throw around the character of man, let us never lose sight of the test, that “ by their fruits ye shall know them.” The faithful application of this test would put to flight a host of delusions. It may be carried round amongst all those phenomena of human character where there is the exhibition of something associated with religion, but which is not religion itself. Religion has its accompaniments; and in these there may be a something to soothe and to fascinate, even in the absence of the appropriate influences of religion. The deep and tender impression of a family bereavement is not religion. The love of established decencies is not religion. The charm of all that sentimentalism which is associated with many of its solemn and affecting services is not religion. They may form the distinct folds of its accustomed drapery; but they do not, any or all of them put together, make up the substance of the thing itself. We call for fruit, and demand the permanency of a religious influence on the habits and the history. How many who take a flattering unction to their souls, when they think of their amiable feelings and their becoming observations, with whom this severe touchstone would, like the head of Medusa, put to flight all their complacency! The afflictive dispensation is forgotten--and he on whom it was laid is practically as indifferent to God and to eternity as before. The Sabbath services come to a close, and they are followed by the same routine of weekday worldliness as before. The instances may be multiplied without number. A man may have a taste for eloquence, and eloquence, the most touching or sublime, may lift her pleading voice on the side of religion. A man may love to have his understanding stimulated by the ingenuities or the resistless urgencies of an argument; and argument the most profound and the most overbearing may put forth all the might of a constraining vehemence in behalf of religion. A man may feel the rejoicings of a conscious elevation, when some ideal scene of magnificence is laid before him; and where are these scenes so readily to be met with as when led to expatiate in thought over the track of eternity, or to survey the wonders of creation, or to look to the magnitude of those great and universal interests which lie within the compass of religion? We will venture to say that as much delight may emanate from the pulpit on an arrested audience beneath it as ever emanated from the boards of a theatre--ay, and with as total a disjunction of mind too, in the one case as in the other, from the essence or the habit of religion. We recur to the test. We make our appeal to experience; and we put it to you all, whether your finding upon the subject do not agree with our saying about it, that a man may weep and admire, and have many of his faculties put upon the stretch of their most intense gratification--his judgment established, and his fancy enlivened, and his feelings overpowered, and his hearing charmed as by the accents of heavenly persuasion, and all within him feasted by the rich and varied luxuries of an intellectual banquet! We want you to see clearly the distinction between these two attributes of the human character. They are, in truth, as different the one from the other as a taste for the grand and the graceful in scenery differs from the appetite of hunger; and the one may both exist and have a most intense operation within the bosom of that very individual who entirely disowns and is entirely disgusted with the other. The mere majesty of God’ s power and greatness, when offered to your notice, lays hold of one of the faculties within you. The holiness of God, with His righteous claim of legislation, lays hold of another of these faculties. The difference between them is so great that the one may be engrossed and interested to the full, while the other remains untouched and in a state of entire dormancy. Now, it is no matter what it be that ministers delight to the former of these two faculties; if the latter be not arrested and put on its proper exercise, you are making no approximation whatever to the right habit and character of religion. The religion of taste is one thing. The religion of conscience is another. We recur to the test: What is the plain and practical doing which ought to issue from the whole of our argument? If one lesson come more clearly or more authoritatively out of it than another, it is the supremacy of the Bible. If fitted to impress one movement rather than another, it is that movement of docility, in virtue of which man, with the feeling that he has all to learn, places himself in the attitude of a little child, before the book of the unsearchable God, who has deigned to break His silence, and to transmit even to our age of the world a faithful record of His own communication. What progress, then, are you making in this movement? Are you, or are you not, like newborn babes, desiring the sincere milk of the word, that you may grow thereby? With the modesty of true science, which is here at one with the humblest and most penitentiary feeling which Christianity can awaken, are you bending an eye of earnestness on the Bible, and appropriating its informations, and moulding your every conviction to its doctrines and its testimonies? (T. Chalmers, D. D.) A very lovely song This is a very lovely verse, but a very solemn and awful sentiment is attached to it. I. A description of the Gospel message. The subject of our preaching is the Word of God. And oh, what a sweet, sweet song is that blessed word! Take--1. The history and stories of the Bible. Begin with the creation of the world. It is told in brief, all details are omitted, but the grand outline is perfect, and scientific investigation is only filling up the details; and when all the details are filled up, the grand old story will be found firm as a rock. 2. The life stories of Bible heroes, the romance of our early progenitors, the population of the world, the fall, the deluge, the touches of human nature, and the goodness and sins of man, all brought out in the vivid pictures of realism. 3. The story of our Saviour’ s birth, His early days, His mighty manhood, broken by the wail of agony at His cruel death. Then swell the notes to the sky, and a jubilant strain tells of victory over sin and death and the grave. The song goes on in recitative till comes the final crash of the concluding chorus. II. A description of the effect which this song produces.1. It is listened to. The most obdurate and hardened will gaze at a lovely landscape. Beauty hath a charm; it is the most powerful of all human influence. Is it any wonder, then, that the world is attracted by the beauty of the Gospel message? 2. It is criticised. The human mind will criticise everything great. Now, there is nothing so great as the Gospel, and nothing has provoked so much criticism and controversy. Its history, its poetry, its truths, its message, its plan of salvation have all been the objects of unnumbered attacks. 3. It is approved. Not indeed by everyone, but by the generality. Reason, common sense, sound judgment, intellectual attainments, all must concur in approving its excellence. The wants and necessities of our own minds, the cravings of our souls, bring the truths it proclaims into harmony with human nature. III. A description of the way in which it is generally received.1. It is a sweet song, and nothing more. “ They hear thy words and do them not.” How sad this picture of the world, and yet how true! Under the preaching of the Gospel you have often said, “ Almost thou persuadest me to be a Christian.” But what are you the better now? Nothing at all. The echoes of the song died away in the distance, you went to your daily toil, and the whole thing was forgotten. 2. The reason is plainly stated. You have heard, but you have not been doing. Salvation is a work just like any other work; it does not come of itself. Fancy a man who wanted to make a fortune listening to the life of Stevenson, and settling down to sleep. He would only die in the workhouse. Fancy a young man who desired to become a statesman, like Disraeli or Gladstone, spending his time in riot and dissipation; he would end where he began. And fancy an immortal soul, hearing the sound of the Gospel and the invitations of God, passing life in callousness and neglect. 3. A few words of inquiry as to why is this. (1) It is for want of understanding. At the performance of a grand oratorio there are very few who have sufficient musical knowledge to understand the details of the composer’ s work. So among the larger part of our congregations, the Gospel has no meaning beyond its pleasant sound. (2) It is because of the hardness of the heart. The sound of the music, the voice of persuasion, the earnestness of invitation, fall on hearts as dead and seared as the rocky mountains of the desert. Not a seed can enter, for there is no soil to receive it. (3) It is from love of the world. There are two forces which are ever acting on the soul--one would draw men to heaven, the other to earth. The generality of mankind are found between the two. Whichever predominates will determine the man’ s destiny. IV. A suggestion as to the remedy to be applied.1. Awakening. Remember that pleasant as the Gospel is to bear, it is something more than a song. It is a power; it is the voice of God; it is the destiny of your soul; it is your heaven or your hell. 2. Labour. Lay hold of eternal life; get rid of the deadly idea that religion is something merely to amuse or employ your time. (J. J. S. Bird.) . Ezekiel 34:1-10 Woe be to the shepherds of Israel that do feed themselves! should not the shepherds feed the flocks? The unfaithful shepherds I. Human rulers stand in the same relation to the people whom they rule as shepherds to their flocks. Therefore the qualifications required are similar.1. A special knowledge (Genesis 46:34). So to rule men successfully requires a knowledge of men. Christ is the preeminent Ruler of men, because He knows them--because He needs not that any should “ testify of any man” whom He is shepherding for eternity (John 2:25). 2. A willingness to endure hardship for those whom they shepherd (Genesis 31:40). Shepherds of men must likewise be willing to deny themselves for their flock, even as Christ was willing to spend His nights upon the mountains (Luke 6:12) and to be consumed with labour during the day, in order to be “ the Good Shepherd.” 3. Affection for the flock (1 Samuel 17:34). It cannot be dispensed with in ruling men. To love men is to understand them. To love them is to be willing to suffer for them, and must beget a correspondent feeling. The Great Shepherd had as much love for His flock as He had knowledge of them (John 10:11). II. The rulers of Israel had lacked these qualifications.1. Their self-indulgence had led them to neglect to feed the flock. 2. They had gone from neglect to positive acts of crime. They had taken the lives of their subjects in order to enjoy their possessions. Sins of omission lead to sins of commission. III. The effect of the negative and positive transgressions of Israel’ s rulers. “ My sheep were scattered.” They were so widely sundered as to be beyond the recall of any but the Omniscient One, who alone knew the mountains upon which they were wandering. IV. God Himself would raise up a Shepherd who would combine all the qualities needed to gather in the scattered flock.1. The name given to this divinely appointed shepherd--David. The Messiah is called by this name in Isaiah 55:3-4; Jeremiah 30:9; Hosea 3:5. 2. His two-fold office. His Father’ s servant and His people’ s king (verse 24). V. That which is intended to be a great blessing to ourselves and others, namely, power, may become the greatest curse to both. (A London Minister.) Gospel ministers shepherds I. Christian ministers as shepherds have devolving upon them the care of Christ’ s flock. Believers are exposed to many evils, surrounded by numerous enemies, liable to many wants and diseases. To promote their comfort and safety, God sends His servants to take the oversight, and care for them as shepherd for flock. II. Christian ministers as shepherds must feed their flocks.1. They must do this by leading them into green pastures, etc. (1) The pastures of the Divine word. Where there is an exhaustless fulness and variety of refreshing promises. (2) The pastures of Divine ordinances. 2. The shepherd is to render the word instructive and consolatory, and the ordinances refreshing and edifying. III. Christian ministers as shepherds are to watch over their flocks. To warn them against danger,--to admonish, to counsel, and to direct them into safe and plain paths. Their dangers are numerous. From the world, from Satan, from false professors, from their own weakness, etc. How necessary, then, is a spirit of holy energy, vigilance, etc. IV. Christian ministers as shepherds are to regard especially the weak and afflicted of the flock. “ Who can understand his errors?” How often is spiritual disease evident in the mind, in the heart, in the spirit, in the conversation, in the walk and conduct! Now it is for the shepherd to labour for the healing of these maladies. V. Christian ministers as shepherds must give an account of their flocks. They are responsible to God. Application--1. How truly solemn is the office of the Christian shepherd--the charge of souls. 2. How necessary for its right discharge are Divine qualifications and help. 3. Faithful shepherds should have the kind sympathy and aid of all the members of the Church. 4. How glorious the meeting when all the flock of God, with each shepherd, shall appear before Christ to receive His blessing, even life for evermore. (J. Burns.) Neither have ye healed that which was sick. Hospital Sunday The obligation of rulers and Christians generally to care for the sick poor. The government of a great empire embraces many responsibilities--the protection of property and of life, the encouragement of art and science and every form of learning and of commerce, the maintenance of justice, the punishment of crime. We are concerned now with only one aspect of the obligation of rulers--the obligation to consider and to care for the diseased and the bruised poor. Most of the poverty and distress, most of the diseased and broken frames which are to be found amongst us are the results of vice and sin. Intemperance and immorality are fertile soils, producing plentiful harvests of mangled and agonised and loathsome bodies. Hence the necessity for adopting a policy of prevention--for establishing such legislative measures as shall check and, if possible, effectually prevent, the ravages of intemperance and vice. Prevention is better than regulation when a nation’ s strength and a nation’ s morals and a nation’ s life are at stake. Much may be done, and much must be done, in this direction; but meanwhile, our rulers have to regard and to deal with existing miseries which have resulted, for the most part, from transgressions and sins. At this present moment there are in the great metropolis thousands upon thousands of wretched creatures, their bodies consumed by disease, or mangled and broken through accident or self-inflicted suffering. And they are poor and helpless! Unless someone aid them they must wrestle with their agony alone, they must languish and die. But the obligation to care for the sick lies not with the rulers alone. In a special manner does it rest upon the Christian Church generally. Ministers of religion should be the first to welcome a Hospital Sunday. Ah! giving for the sick, caring for the diseased and the bruised, brings its own sweet reward. To spare one pang, to bring one ray of light into a heart environed with darkness--this is worth living for. And now what we have to do is to enlarge our sympathies. Think of the multitudes of agonised mortals in the London hospitals today. Without money, those necessary institutions cannot be supported. Without money, the poor must pine away and perish. In our relation to the afflicted poor we must think of the example and precepts of our Lord. Jesus was not a philosophical theologian. He was a practical Saviour. The blind came to Him, and He gave them sight. The sick were brought to Him, and He healed them. We cannot heal the sick with a word as Christ did. But we can follow Christ in doing good ill the way open to us. What we want is the spirit of Christ--the thoughts of Christ--the purpose of Christ. In this lies the glory of Christianity. (A. G. Maitland.) Ezekiel 34:11-19I, even I, will both search My sheep, and seek them out. The flock sought and found Is the Great Shepherd to leave the stray sheep to wander and perish? or is He to pity and reclaim them? In the Crimean War there were two ways, very different from each other, in which heroic deed manifested itself. One was, by our soldiers’ indomitable courage in the field,--when brave men stood manfully to their guns, and poured the iron hail against fearful odds. That was the stern glory of carnage and destruction. The other unfolds a picture in strange and startling contrast with this. At midnight, in stiffed hospital wards, amid the light of dim lamps and moans of sufferers, a gentle form of pity flitted from couch to couch, with words and looks and deeds of mercy;--pale lips kissing the shadow on their pillows as it passed. On which of the two does the mind love most to dwell? On that field of stern desperate valour; or on these hushed corridors, away from the roar of battle, with the one hero-heart moving like a ministering angel amid the congregated crowd of wounded and dying? God’ s way regarding man (with reverence we say it) was the latter. We may look to this truth, first, in its simplest aspect. The soul, as we have already noted, is ever and anon manifesting some undefined longing after its lost portion in God. But it has in itself a hopeless moral inability to return. It cannot retrace its lost way. Alas! often there is rather the plunging deeper and deeper amid the pathless wilds of ruin, till, in addition to inability, there is added disinclination to be restored to the long lost fold. The sheep, rather than return to the Shepherd, will go roaming in search of other pastures--increasing its mournful distance from the fold, and bringing it only into more perilous vicinity to the lions’ dens and the mountains of the leopards. How, then, can the sinner be reclaimed? It is manifest that by no self-originated effort can he return. If saved, it must be by another. Himself he cannot,--himself he will not save. Omnipotence alone can bring it back. It is easy enough to take the tiara of priceless diamonds, or the necklace of gold, and plunge it down in mid ocean; but it is not so easy to descend through that untraversed barrier, that liquid rampart which rolls defiant between, and get them up again. The soul, the true casket of lost treasures, by reason of its own sad principle of moral gravitation, sinks easily downward. But it is He alone who “ taketh up the waters in the hollow of His hand” that cart rescue it from the depths of ruin and despair. Here, then, is the Gospel’ s glorious history of the restoration of the wanderers. Marvellous condescension--unspeakable grace! He speaks in one of the verses which precede this chapter as if it were something wondrous,--something well-nigh incredible: “ Behold I, even I.” The spot is still pointed out with pride, amid the rocky wilds of Dauphine, where nil eagle bore in its talons the infant which had been left smiling in fearless innocence in its cradle by the cottage door. One stalwart form after another tried to climb that giddy height for the rescue, but had to abandon it in despair. At last a fleet and nimble foot spurns all difficulties. Up she climbs, from crag to crag, until, reaching the dizzy eminence, she buries the yet living child in her bosom, saying, as a mother’ s tongue in such an hour alone could say, “ This my child was dead, and is alive again--was lost, and is found!” But that was a mother’ s speechless affection for her offspring. As she brought her “ loved and lost” back to her cottage home, and replaced it in the empty cradle, we would think it strange to hear her saying, “ Behold I, even I, have done this.” Who could have done it but she? But what does the Infinite Jehovah see in us?--What claim have these sheep on this Shepherd of the universe--these sinners on their God?--None! The natural heart is a den of pollution, a haunt of evil, the nurturing home of rebellion. Not only, however, are we called to note and admire God’ s grace and condescension; but to admire the sovereignty of that grace as shown in the selection of its objects. Mankind were not the only fallen family in the universe. Other sheep, not of the earthly fold, had also strayed from the Shepherd. Might we not have expected that, in resolving on the ransom and recovery of any lost ones, he would have made choice rather of a different race of wanderers? Fallen angels (the aborigines of heaven) were greater than man. Well may we pause and ponder this wondrous manifestation of sovereign grace in the salvation of sinners of the dust! Truly, indeed, this salvation of man is a story of grace. Turn the moral kaleidoscope as we may, the gleaming words still stand radiant before our eyes, “ By the grace of God we are what we are.” Once more. God’ s grace and compassion are further manifested in His untiring love and patience in the pursuit of the lost, till restoration and safety be ensured. In other words, we have to admire, not only His free grace and His sovereign grace, but what the old writers call His irresistible grace. “ Thus saith the Lord God, Behold I, even I, will both search My sheep and seek them out.” He will not only search for them, but He will search till He discover them. “ He goeth after that which was lost until He find it.” The Saviour’ s love is bounded by no distance, is cooled by no difficulties, is repulsed by no obstacles. One of the noblest records of true heroism in England’ s annals is of comparatively recent date; when a gallant vessel, manned with gallant hearts, vent forth amid the frowning icebergs of the Northern Seas, to search for a band of missing explorers. They sailed thither, buoyed with the faint, feeble hope that the object of their search might still be found, battling bravely with eternal winter. Alas! they went after the lost “ until they found them” ; but they found them with the stiffened snow and ice as their winding sheet! They brought not back the living, but only some sad mementoes and memorials of the dead. Not so is the journey, not so the pursuit, of the Great Shepherd of the sheep. His omniscient eye follows every wanderer. Those whom He has marked for His own He will, without fail, bring home. Not one can elude His pursuit, nor evade His loving scrutiny. (J. R. Macduff, D. D.) The Divine Shepherd I. The simile of Christ to a shepherd.1. His character: “ a shepherd” (John 10:14).2. His employment: “ seeketh out” (Ezekiel 34:11).3. The objects of His care: “ His flock” (Isaiah 40:11).4. Their condition: “ scattered” (John 11:52).5. Then the time of gathering: “ the day” (Zechariah 13:1).6. His situation: “ among them” (Psalms 132:13-14). II. The important declaration. “ I will seek out.”1. By the word written (2 Timothy 3:15).2. The word preached (1 Corinthians 1:23-24).3. But always by the Spirit (Zechariah 4:6). III. Why they are called “ His sheep.” IV. The deliverance of the sheep.1. This implies determination: “ I will” (Ezekiel 13:21).2. It denotes contest: “ deliver” (Isaiah 49:25).3. It signifies power: “ I will deliver them” (Isaiah 40:29). “ All places.” (1) From all parts of the world.(2) From all sinful practices.(3) From all opposing powers (Revelation 7:9). 4. It also denotes great wisdom in searching and distinguishing them; simply because-- (1) They are separated one from another.(2) They mingle with the wicked. (T. B. Baker.) In the cloudy and dark day. The Shepherd seeking the flock in the cloudy and dark day I. “The lost.” We may regard the figure as descriptive of those who (by imperceptible degrees) have erred and strayed from the Shepherd’ s fold and presence. Once their landscape was bathed in sunshine;--the mountain tops of God’ s faithfulness were clear;--the summits of the heavenly hills sparkled gloriously;--theirs were the green pastures and still waters,--the Shepherd’ s voice to cheer them, and the Shepherd’ s steps to guide them. But all is gloomy now;--the storm clouds have gathered in their once serene sky. It may arise from their own sluggish unconcern;--a drowsy, sleepy, callous frame,--the result of a gradual, but ever-deepening insensibility to Divine things;--a trifling with their spiritual interests;--languor in prayer--conformity with the world--tampering with sins of omission--venturing on forbidden or debatable ground. II. Those who are “driven away.” Some overt act has been the cause of their scattering. Look at David as an illustration. His own iniquities separated between him and his God. He never after was the joyous believer he once was. He was indeed restored, pardoned, loved;--but the memory of that sad day followed him to the grave, and mantled Iris whole moral landscape with clouds, even to the very entrance of the dark valley. And how many among the true flock of the Shepherd have to tell a similar mournful tale! Some one guilty deed has laid the foundation of weeks and months--ay, years, of spiritual alienation and distance from the fold. III. “The broken.” How numerous are these! Some are “ broken” by calamity;--penury scattering them in its cloudy and dark day. Some are “ broken” by bitter disappointment; an aching heart wound too sacred to be revealed has left them bleeding and desolate, refusing to be comforted. Some are “ broken” by bereavement. IV. The sick. We might take this in a figurative sense; as descriptive of those who are sick at heart,--sad and disconsolate with the trials and sins and sorrows of death, and with the corruptions of their own natures. But why not regard it literally, an applied to those laid on beds of sickness? Many among us who inadequately appreciate the talent of health are apt also to forget and overlook this large section in God’ s world;--the “ poor afflicted ones,” the maimed members of the flock. V. To one and all of these “ scattered ones” the Great Shepherd comes. He has a special word of comfort for each separate case.1. “ Lost!” He “ seeks” you. Though you have forgotten Him, He has not forgotten you. 2. Ye who have been “ driven away,” He will “ bring you again.” Ye who, like the Psalmist of Israel, have unwarily left the pastures of peace and security, and entangled yourselves in the midnight forest of danger and sin; the grace of Him who first brought you to the fold is able to bring you back again, and restore to you the joys of His salvation. 3. Broken ones! Ye who are crushed and mutilated by the thousand ills of suffering and sorrow: rejoice! That Shepherd came to “ bind up” breaking hearts; His name is “ The Healer of the broken hearted.” 4. “ Sick!” Ye pining sufferers in earth’ s great hospital! Ye bleating sheep, lying languid and helpless in the fold--He, the Great Shepherd, comes to “ strengthen you.” A sick bed--where the noisy world is shut out--where its cares and anxieties and aspirations and ambitions are no longer present to hamper and harass--what a blessed season for converse with the Infinite. VI. The gracious adaptation of Christ’ s dealings to the different wants and trials and necessities of His people.1. He “ seeks” the lost; and on finding them a look of love suffices to bring the conscience-stricken wanderers back. 2. He “ brings again” the driven away. Those cowering in terror at their own wilful blindness and apostasy, their deep ingratitude and heinous guilt, need help, encouragement, guidance;--they need being carried in the Shepherd’ s arms. 3. He “ binds up” the broken; He stanches the bleeding wound with the application of tender restoratives--the balm words of His own exceeding great and precious promises. He, the Brother born for adversity, teaches the wounded spirit, and He alone can, how to “ bear” in this “ dark and cloudy day” ; He turns the shadow of death into the morning. 4. He “ strengthens” the sick--those who for years on years have been laid on couches of languishing--secluded from the gladsome light of day, on whose ears the tones of the Sabbath bell fall only to tell of forfeited privileges. They can best bear attestation how a mysterious, sustaining strength, not their own, is imparted to them, which makes them wonders to themselves. Let us close with two practical reflections.1. The all-sufficiency of the Shepherd’ s power and love. There is no case He cannot meet. Lost ones, driven ones, broken ones, sick ones. It seems to exhaust the circle of human wants and necessities. He seems to anticipate every supposable case, so that none dare say “ that Shepherd-love does not include me.” 2. This precious passage, so full of tenderness and love to the erring, the backsliding, the suffering, ends with a brief but most solemn utterance of “ judgment” on the impenitent, the self-righteous, and unbelieving. “ He that has rest for disquieted saints,” says Matthew Henry, “ has terror to speak to presumptuous sinners.” (J. R. Macduff, D. D.) Shadows of religious life Night and morning are familiar types of human life in its alternation of shadow and sunshine, its chequered history of grief and joy. “ Weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning.” It is the law of nature and of humanity. Is it not also the law of the higher spiritual life? No doubt there are moments of rare enjoyment in the experience of a godly man; moments of special communion with the Unseen. But there are seasons, too, of a widely different complexion, when the firmament above him darkens into a hemisphere without a star, and the heart within him grows sick of the weary struggle, and he is sorely tempted, like Elijah, to fold his head in his mantle, and lie down in despair to die.1. These shadows of religious life sometimes originate in physical disease. Very wonderful is the sympathy between body and soul. Many a life might be comparatively blithesome, but that chronic dyspepsia fills it with morbid fears and feelings. Trifling with the delicate mechanism of the human frame has brought upon many excellent people a settled melancholy, an impression that they have committed some unpardonable sin, and are absolute outcasts from God’ s covenant of mercy. Let the organ be out of tune, and Handel himself could not bring good music out of it; and when the nervous organism is unstrung, it is not surprising if the secret harmonies of the soul be turned into jars and discord. Temperance, chastity, and godliness,--the “ mens sana in corpore sano,” --are a wellspring of perennial cheerfulness; but without them, the fountains of real pleasure are poisoned, life loses its zest and buoyancy, and becomes little better than a funeral march to death and judgment. 2. These shadows of religious life sometimes originate in personal wrong-doing. Misconduct is the ruin of tranquillity, and may cast a pall and blight over life’ s fairest prospects. He who can do a deliberate wrong without a pang of regret is more demon than man. Peter’ s backsliding cost him bitter tears. David’ s double crime made his children a scourge and his conscience an accusing hell. Saul’ s transgression caused “ an evil spirit” to enter into him, so that he sat in his palace, javelin in hand, silent, moody, and downcast. And the sin of God’ s people, in like manner, may still rob them of solid peace, and make them acquainted, otherwise than by book, with Bunyan’ s Slough of Despond, Doubting Castle, and Giant Despair. 3. These shadows of religious life sometimes originate in providential trials. Saint or sinner, if you are pricked you bleed; with this difference, that in the one case you possess a balm for the wound, in the other not. Insensibility would render Divine discipline a nullity. It is right to feel appropriately towards all things as they really are; nay more, such inflexion of feeling is a necessary condition of human amendment; Christianity is a nobler science of life than stoicism, for it teaches how sable and gold may both be woven into a robe of immortal radiance--how adversity, even more than prosperity, may come laden with the richest blessings. 4. These shadows of religious life sometimes originate in spiritual conflicts. No fortress on earth is so often beleaguered as the citadel of the human heart. No din of contending hosts is there--no anxious nations look on in breathless suspense--no change of temporal dynasty or statecraft or dominion is imminent; but the doom of an immortal soul is involved, and heaven and hell hang upon the final issue. The stake is tremendous, and all trifling is simply insane. The ground has to be won inch by inch, and, maybe, lost and won again. Shield of faith, helmet of salvation, breastplate of righteousness, girdle of truth, sword of the Spirit, greaves of love and peace, all bear marks of the severity of the strife. Protracted to the end of life, the battle is as arduous as it is honourable, and its wavering fortunes not unfrequently make one pensive, careworn, and disheartened. Thank God! “ though he fall, he shall rise again--he shall not be utterly cast down.” An invincible Captain leads us on. 5. These shadows of religious life sometimes originate in doctrinal perplexities. It has been said that “ the Bible has shallows in which a lamb may wade, and deeps in which an elephant may swim.” Unhappily, some who are not elephants venture to leave the terra firma of revealed truth, and to plunge into the bottomless sea of metaphysical divinity; and, as they cannot swim, they sink in deep waters, or flounder about like a log in a tempest, and the waves and billows go over them. Without putting a veto on legitimate inquiry, it is well to remember that “ secret things belong unto the Lord” --that His eternal wisdom and kindness will manage them without human meddling--that no prying curiosity of ours can ever modify them in the least degree; and that for us the only possible solution of them is the testimony of individual character and life. 6. These shadows of religious life sometimes originate in the enigmas of Divine government. God in history, subordinating everything to His supreme will, and accomplishing through secondary agencies or otherwise His own sovereign purposes, is the basis of a good man’ s creed, and the sole pledge of humanity’ s regeneration. But, to man’ s thinking, how often do the ways of God seem a mystery, an anomaly, or even a contradiction! Everywhere the old Titanic forces of good and evil wrestle with each other in mortal combat, and the wonder is how the strife will end. And, standing face to face with facts like these, after some six thousand years of credible history, and some nineteen centuries of Christian teaching, many a heart cries out in fearfulness and pain: “ How long, O Lord, how long? Why tarry the wheels of Thy chariot? Oh, when shall the wickedness of the wicked come to a perpetual end?” Pilgrims of the night! amid all this darkness, turmoil, and misery, “ rest in the Lord, and wait patiently for Him.” (L. B. Brown.) Ezekiel 34:16I will seek that which was lost, and bring again that which was driven away.The good shepherd In reading this verse hastily we are apt to overlook the new and very interesting idea introduced in each succeeding clause of it. Our feeling is that each clause is just meant to teach the idea of the former one in different terms. A little attention will satisfy us that this is far from doing justice to the verse. I. The first class suggested to our notice comprehends “the lost,” of whom it is said that the Saviour “ will seek them.” The language, every Gospel-hearer is familiar with, as descriptive, on the one hand, of man’ s natural state of spiritual stupidity and danger, and on the other, of the tender compassion of Christ, the great Shepherd, in redeeming and reclaiming him. II. “The driven away,” whom the Saviour tells us He “ will bring again.” It implies, no doubt, like the former, that the sheep is gone out of the fold, and cannot, therefore, for the present be in a situation of comfort or safety. But does it not imply that the sheep has left the fold reluctantly? It has not escaped of its own accord. It has been “ driven away” by some enemy; and, wandering now in want and fear, it longs to return to “ the green pastures” where it had hitherto fed in plenty and safety. What could be more descriptive than this of the case of the backsliding Christian? Was it not thus that, by the violence of temptation, David was for a time driven away into sin, so that he lost his previous consciousness of the saving care and countenance of his God? Was it not so, too, with Peter, whom the fear of man so far overcame in a moment of weakness that he denied his Lord, and so was for a season visibly separated from the fold of Christ? Even now, is not the voice of our great Shepherd lifted up amongst us, at once rebuking our wanderings and encouraging our return? III. “The broken,” whom He graciously promises to “ bind up.” Solemn pledges forgotten, broken through, trampled on,--mercies of every description slighted and abused,--the cause of Christ dishonoured,--perhaps, through their unaccountable folly, some neighbour, some companion, if not some relative or child, hardened against the Gospel, and led away to ruin! Oh! the very thought of such aggravated sin is heart rending, and the appalled backslider can only cry out in vexation and trembling, “ Mine iniquities have taken hold upon me, so that I am not able to look up; they are more than the hairs of my head, therefore my heart faileth me.” Or, in another way still, may the heart of a backsliding Christian be broken. Think of the deep wounds of adversity to which Jesus has found it necessary to subject him, as the means of putting an end to his wanderings. Now by these and similar measures Jesus may have checked the believer’ s wanderings, and won back his heart. He has recovered His straying sheep, and brought it home to His fold. But oh! is it not broken, suffering bitterly under the consequences of its wanderings, and therefore needing greatly the attention and sympathy of its Shepherd? Wounded and bleeding, it must now become the object of His tenderest care, and with skilful hand must He now apply the healing balm of His blood and grace. And He does so. IV. “I will strengthen that which was sick.” This description refers to those more secret, insidious diseases by which the shepherd’ s flock is liable to be infected, and which, if allowed to take their course, may prove as fatal as any of the seemingly more alarming casualties to which the wandering sheep may be subjected. The seat of this spiritual sickness is the heart; and it will be in operation there for months, perhaps, before the symptoms of it appear outwardly, or assume a serious aspect. It may receive a check at any stage of its progress, or it may be suffered to take its course, till at last it prostrates its victim before some gross temptation, so that his case becomes an astonishment to the world, and a grief to all who respect the honour of the Gospel. This is certain, it will receive a check, sooner or later, in the case of every true Christian. “ I will strengthen that which was sick.” True, it may often seem to our narrow view as if He delayed the communication of spiritual strength long after it has become every way needful. Such delay, however, undoubtedly accords with His own sovereign and, wise plan, though we cannot understand it; and so far from indicating a want of interest in the individual, or a want of power or of determination eventually “ to restore his soul,” it would be seen, if we rightly comprehended the case, to indicate the contrary; just as Lazarus’ s death, which could easily have been prevented, is allowed to take place, in order that the Saviour’ s power and love may be the more signally displayed in His resurrection. (P. Hannay.) Will strengthen that which was sick. Sickness a strengthener I. Sickness makes us contented to perform all the God-assigned tasks of life, severe as these tasks may be. When I hear people complaining of the burdens of life, and expressing a longing to die, I say to myself: They are only talking, and their words are empty words. A visitation of sickness would change their tone. A square look at death would make them satisfied to live, and to live right in the midst of the toils against which they speak. The ancients were fond of relating this tale which falls into the line of my thought. A discontented man heavily burdened was called to the task of carrying his burden to a town on the other side of a steep hill. Murmuringly he began the toil of ascent. The burden was heavy before, but it grew still heavier as he climbed. At last his discontent knew no bounds, and, disgusted and dissatisfied with his lot, he threw the burden from him and cast himself upon the ground, crying, “ O death, come and deliver me! O death, come and deliver me!” Death heard the cry of the man and responded, and came to take him at his word. In the dim distance the discontented man saw the awful form coming into sight. There was a great gaunt figure, a skeleton form, sweeping toward him with tremendous gigantic strides. Instantly he leaped to his feet and laid hold of his burden and endeavoured to shoulder it. With a sepulchral voice Death greeted him: “ I believe you called me; now here I am. What do you want of me?” With the look of the sweetest innocence the man replied: “ It was my voice that you heard, no doubt. My burden fell off my shoulder, and I was only calling for someone to come help me restore it to its place again.” The sight and voice were enough. They were an inspiration to the man. Of his own strength he lifted his old burden, and with a positive pleasure carried it to the town over the hill. That story, whether it be fact or fiction, is true to life. We leave the sickroom, where we have looked death in the face, willing to take up the toils of life, and we find the heaviest task within the compass of our abilities a delight. Willing workers, satisfied workers, enthusiastic workers, bright-faced workers, mastering and performing the duties of life, and carrying forward the great enterprises of the age--these are the product of the sickroom. These are what the world needs. They carry in them a spirit that is contagious, and that generates faithfulness to duty in all whom they touch. II. Sickness gives us a new appreciation of the Divine things in our lives. I knew a man who for years spent his Sabbaths in the machine shop, repairing engines, without a single desire toward the house of God. I begged him many a time to give up his irreligious life and worship with his family on the Sabbath; but to no purpose. The time came when he was imprisoned in the sickroom, and then his lament was that he had neglected the sanctuary. That man spent the first returning strength of convalescence in travelling three miles to my house, and for what purpose? That I might kneel with him at the Throne of Grace and offer prayer of thanksgiving for him. Not only is the Throne of Grace made appreciable by sickness; the Book of God also is made appreciable. The Bible of the invalid is a well-used book. It is thumb-marked--at the writings of Job; at the 23rd Psalm; at the 14th chapter of John; at the 15th chapter of 1 Corinthians; at the 21st and 22nd chapters of Revelation. These closing chapters of the Divine volume are studied until the geography of the heavenly land is as well known as that of the land in which we live. III. Sickness teaches us the value of health and the duty of looking after the condition of the body. IV. Sickness cuts up by the roots our conceit and pride and selfishness and develops in the places of these humility and sympathy. If this be true, then physical pains bring spiritual gains. Humility and sympathy help in the making of grand men. Humanity should be willing to pay a great price for the eradication of such evils as pride and selfishness, for they are social curses and social disorganisers. Humanity should count nothing too dear to pay as a purchase of humility and sympathy. Humility and sympathy were two of the virtues that made the Christ of history the Man who inaugurated the highest civilisation of the world. That which has the power of making men Christ-men is a most desirable factor in this world. It is easily seen why man is unsympathetic. The sense of power generates independence; the sense of independence closes the avenues of sympathy. Where there is no sympathy, where there is no recognition of the mutual dependence of man upon his brother man, man becomes selfish and proud and hard. The sense of dependence is the basis of sympathy. Sickness brings the sense of dependence. A man who has to be lifted and turned by his nurse, a man who has to be fed by a spoon in the hand of another, cannot look down and despise his fellow men. There, in the hour of weakness, he learns his indebtedness to man, and his duty to make a return for benefits received by willingly giving service and kindness and interest and care and his very life. These things he is constantly receiving from others, and these things make him what he is. These things it is his duty to pass on. At a railroad station a benevolent man found a schoolboy crying because he had not quite enough to pay his fare home. He remembered suddenly how years before he had been in the same plight, and had been helped by an unknown friend who enjoined upon him that some day he should pass that kindness on. Now he saw that the opportunity spoken of had come. He took the weeping boy aside, heard his story, and paid his fare, and asked him in turn to pass the kindness on. As the train moved off from the station the lad waved his hand to his benefactor and cried cheerily, “ I will pass it on, sir.” That act of thoughtful love is being passed on through our globe, nor will it stay until its ripples have belted the globe and met again. To every man who has received kindness and sympathy in the hour of his sickness and trial God is saying, “ Pass these on. Remember there are hearts to be bound like thine; there are tears to be dried like thine; there are lives to be illumined like thine. Light up the lives of others.” (D. Gregg, D. D.) Ezekiel 34:17-22I judge between cattle and cattle. Selfish scramble and Christian service It presents to us the scene, far too often enacted in human life, of a selfish scramble--a scramble for position, for money, for power, for enjoyment. We find this in business, in professions as well as in trade and commerce, in art, in politics, in pleasure, and, it must be admitted, sometimes in the sacred sphere of religion. Of this selfish scramble we may remark-- I. Its essential sinfulness.1. Self-elevation is right and good. To make the most of our powers and opportunities; to rise by honest, patient industry, and to walk along the high level of honourable usefulness--this is admirable. 2. Emulation is allowable and helpful. The boy who has no ambition to reach the top of his class, the manufacturer or tradesman who does not care to make or to sell the best possible goods, is not likely to accomplish much. But a selfish scramble, in which we only care to secure our own comfort or enlargement, and do not care at all who is stranded or last, in which we present such a picture in life as that given in the text of cattle in the field, is ugly and evil. And if it seems thus to us, how much more guilty must it appear to Him who is Love itself, who lives to love and bless--how hateful and offensive must it be in His pure sight! II. Its indurating influence. The struggling cattle in the field are no worse for their heedlessness, or even for their violence. They suffer no spiritual harm; they do not rise and fall, in a moral sense. But we do. He who is living the life of selfish scramble is losing all the finer and nobler elements of his nature, is sinking to that base condition in which his own wants and tastes are everything to him and all else is nothing. III. The contrast of Christian service. We look at the life of our Lord, and we find Him positively declining to use His power to turn the stone into bread, though He must have sorely needed food (Matthew 4:4); refusing to accept the opportunity of self-aggrandisement at the expense of the sacrificial mission on which He came (Matthew 4:9); compelling all things to give place in order that He might give food to the hungry, and healing to the sick, and hope to the abandoned, and rest to the weary. Let us use those powers which we have from God, that we may follow where Christ is leading. (W. Clarkson, B. A.) The Divine discrimination I. The objects of the Divine discrimination.1. He will judge between the Church of God and its enemies, the genuine professors of religion and its opposers. 2. He will distinguish between the hypocrite anti the sincere believer. Counterfeit graces will bear no comparison with sterling piety, when exhibited in the light of heaven, though for the present they may obtain a surreptitious currency. 3. A distinction will likewise be made between saints and saints; for the Lord shall call to the heavens from above, and to the earth, that He may judge His people. According to the talents they possess, the improvement they make of them, and their process in the Divine life; according to the strength or weakness of their graces, the honour or disgrace which their conduct reflects upon religion,--such will be their sentence from the supreme Judge, who will reward every man according to his works. II. The manner in which these various characters shall be distinguished.1. Judgment sometimes signifies the same as discernment. In this sense God judgeth all men; He knoweth their inward principles, as well as their outward conduct and behaviour. He is not influenced by prejudice, or liable to mistake. 2. It implies correction, or judging in a way of punishment. God is a light to Israel, but a consuming fire to their enemies. Or if He sees fit to correct the former, it shall be in measure; He will not punish them with severity, though He does not leave them altogether without chastisement. 3. Though the Lord often makes a wide distinction between the righteous and the wicked in the present life, yet He will do it more effectually and more awfully in the last great day. (B. Beddome, M. A.) Ezekiel 34:23 Even My servant David; he shall feed them. The Davidic ruler The meaning cannot be that David would in person revive and reappear. It is more doubtful whether the prophet means that the line or family of David would again occupy the throne or that a single person would be king. It is possible that this question was not strictly before his mind; it is the character of the ruler that he thinks of. The Oriental mind hardly distinguishes between an ancient personage and one who appears in his power and spirit; when it compares it identifies. The new prince over the people will be David, the servant of the Lord. Both the person and the reign of David were idealised. He was not in general terms but in truth the man after God’ s own heart. His rule was not merely extensive; it was universal. He gave the people victory and secured them peace--he was a leader and commander of the people. Such shall be the king of the restored community when Jehovah is indeed the God of Israel. (A. B. Davidson, D. D.) Ezekiel 34:25-26I will make with them a covenant of peace.God’ s covenant with His people, and their assured safety in the wilderness I. The King’ s charter. Observe, the text does not say, “ We will make a covenant with one another,” God and man; it says, “ I will make them a covenant” ; originating in the electing love of God. II. The exercise of the royal prerogative--“ I will cause the evil beasts to cease out of the land.” Satan cares not how many churches or chapels are built, provided the things of the King’ s charter are never talked of. But, says Jehovah, “ I will cause the evil beasts to cease out of the land.” Hell’ s powers are vanquished. Who is He that said, “ He spoiled principalities and powers, and made a show of them openly” ? Who is He that is said to have “ destroyed death, and him that bad the power of death, that is, the devil, and thereby delivered them, who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage” ? Who is he of whom it was predicted, that He should “ bruise the serpent’ s head” ? Even the second Person in the glorious Trinity, who in this covenant of peace became Himself the peace of the Church. III. The position, which this King’ s dominion occupies in His world in “ the wilderness.” What is “ the wilderness” ? A place haunted by every description of evil beast; a place uncultivated, trackless, and dangerous. If you can picture to yourselves, for a moment, what that wilderness was to the tribes of Israel literally, you may draw the inference, and a very fair one, that just such the world through which we pass is to a believer spiritually. It is a wilderness; but God has a Church in it, and that is the mercy. Of Christ it is said, that He was “ with His Church in the wilderness.” He had, then, His Church in the wilderness, His spiritual family; and so He has now,--a Church, a little flock, an encamped land, a chosen family, brought out of Egypt by miracles of grace, and travelling towards Canaan, the constant object of His love. Such is the portion of the Church--in the wilderness. IV. The precious promise of tranquillity. Though the Church may occupy a position so frightful, so fearful, so alarming as that I have described, the text says, “ they shall dwell safely.” What protection! And they shall “ sleep too” ; that is, they shall rest. Mark these two things1. In these woods, solemn as they are,--and really they are more affecting than any language can describe,--they are encompassed with Deity--with all the attributes of Deity--encompassed with angelic guardians--encompassed, as we read in the Psalms, by the Angel of the Lord. Jesus encircles His Church with His own perfections and attributes. He guarantees her security in the wilderness; and this accounts for her dwelling safely. 2. Mark one thing more; they were “ to see the salvation of God.” If you get a fair sight of it you will “ stand still.” Faith’ s telescope will not bear much shaking about; and if you have a fair view of the salvation of God you will “ stand still.” He works best when we do nothing; He displays His glory most when we most feel our need of it. He shines abroad, and even “ rides upon heaven for help” when we cannot crawl on earth to ask for it. (J. Irons.) Peace possible under all circumstances If you have Christ in your heart, then life is possible, peace is possible, joy is possible, under all circumstances and in all places. Everything which the soul can desire it possesses. You will be like men that live in a beleaguered castle, and in the courtyard a sparkling spring, fed from some source high up in the mountains, and finding its way in there by underground channels which no besiegers can ever touch. (A. Maclaren.) I will make them and the places round about My hill a blessing. God’ s gracious engagements with His Church I. The description given of God’ s Church. “ My hill.”1. The term denotes-- (1) Elevation. World is sunk, fallen, degraded. The Church is raised out of it, exalted, etc. (2) Firmness and stability. Not an erection upon sand, endangered by every storm, etc., but upon the towering hill that has withstood the blasts of centuries. (3) Visibility. It is a hill to be visible to all in every direction, its top pointing towards the skies. (4) Healthfulness and purity. The mountain air pure, balmy, bracing the system, etc. Here souls are matured for the healthy regions of the celestial paradise. 2. But this is described as God’ s hill. (1) The Lord founded it.(2) The place of His Divine residence.(3) The scene of His glories (Psalms 27:4).(4) The object of His especial love. II. The promises made to it. “ I will cause the shower to come down,” etc.1. The promise is general. Protection, provision, comfort, and prosperity, all included. 2. The promise includes abundance. “ Showers of blessings.” Bounty of God infinite (2 Kings 4:1; Malachi 3:10). 3. The blessings are to be seasonable. “ Shower in his season.” Not before necessary, not when it is too late; but at the crisis of need, etc. (Psalms 107:1-43.) 4. The blessings are to promote a happy influence on all around. The Church is to spread the savour of grace through the whole earth. Application--1. Do we dwell in the Lord’ s holy hill? (See Psalms 15:1-5.)2. Congratulate the children of Zion. Let them be joyful, etc.3. Invite sinners all around to come and join themselves to the people of the Lord, etc. (J. Burns, D. D.) The hill of Zion I. An interesting place. The most interesting in the whole universe, and connected with the most pleasing, delightful, affecting associations. Consider wherein the Church resembles Mount Zion.1. In point of elevation and grandeur. Believers are raised up together with Christ, and made to sit together with Him in heavenly places. They follow out sublime designs far above this world; and they are animated by lofty aspirations. 2. A mountain is an object of visibility and attraction. So is the Church; it stands not in a valley, but on a hill, visible, and calculated to excite attention. It is also an object of attraction. It occupies a conspicuous place, and millions have been attracted by it and drawn. It points upward to the skies. 3. A mountain is a place of strength and stability. So is the Church. It is not founded upon the sand. Century after century has passed away; empires have arisen and fallen in close succession; but this Hill of Zion remains in all its strength and glory. II. An encouraging promise.1. Its nature. “ A blessing.” In this everything is included. It is not nominal, but real, solid, and substantial. The blessing God gives is suitable, sweet, sufficient, free, and lasting. It includes protection from evil, enjoyment of good, peace, prosperity. 2. Its abundance. “ Showers of blessings.” This is like the Great Master. Ask as a sinner, He gives like God;--not a scanty portion, not drops, but showers (Deuteronomy 32:2; Psalms 72:6; Malachi 3:10; Romans 10:12). Think of the infinitude of God, and of the infinity of His love--and think of His power!--He is able to do exceedingly abundantly. 3. Its seasonableness. “ And I will cause the shower to come down in his season.” We do not know the time when deliverance will come;--often out in our judgment of things, and imagine that all things are against us. Providence is like a piece of machinery, the wheels of which are to our view perplexing, and which we cannot understand. 4. Its extent. “ I will make them,” etc. Oh! to be made a blessing! What an honour!--to be a blessing to the Church, to the cause of God, and to the generation in which we live. (E. Temple.) The Church of Christ I. Christ’ s Church is to be a blessing. The object of God, in choosing a people before all worlds, was not only to save that people, but through them to confer essential benefits upon the whole human race. The Gospel was sent that it might first bless those that embrace it, and then expand, so as to make them a blessing to the whole human race.1. Here is divinity. It is God the everlasting Jehovah speaking: He says, “ I will make them a blessing.” (1) God makes His people a blessing by helping them. What can we do without God’ s help? We want God’ s aid in every position; and once give us that assistance, and there is no telling with how little labour we may become a blessing. (2) But there is constraint here. “ I will make them a blessing.” I will give them to be a blessing; I will constrain them to be a blessing. 2. The personality of the blessing. “ I will make them a blessing.” “ I will make each member of the Church a blessing.” God never makes useless things; He has no superfluous workmanship. I care not what you are; you have somewhat to do. And oh! may God show you what it is, and then make you do it, by the wondrous compulsion of His providence and His grace. 3. The development of Gospel blessing. “ I will make them a blessing” ; but it does not end there. “ And the places round about My hill.” Religion is an expansive thing. When it begins in the heart, at first it is like a tiny grain of mustard seed, but it gradually increases, and becomes a great tree, so that the birds of the air lodge in the branches thereof. A man cannot be religious to himself. What are the places round about our hill? I think they are, first, our agencies; secondly, our neighbourhood; thirdly, the churches adjacent to us. II. God’ s people are not only to be a blessing, but they are to be blessed.1. Is it not sovereign, Divine mercy, for who can say “ I will give them showers” except God? 2. It is needed grace. What would the ground do without showers? You may break the clods, you may sow your seeds, but what can you do without the rain! Ah! you may prepare your barn, and sharpen your sickles; but your sickles will be rusted before you have any wheat, unless there are showers. They are needed. So is the Divine blessing. 3. It is plenteous grace. It does not say, “ I will send them drops,” but “ showers.” “ It seldom rains, but it pours.” So it is with grace. If God gives a blessing, He usually gives it in such a measure that there is not room enough to receive it. 4. It is seasonable grace. “ I will give them the shower in its season.” There is nothing like seasonable grace. There are fruits, you know, that are best in their season, and they are not good at any other time; and there are graces that are good in their season, but we do not always require them. A person vexes and irritates me; I want grace just at that time to be patient. I have not got it, and I get angry; ten minutes after I am ever so patient; but I have not had grace in its season. 5. Here is a varied blessing. “ I will give thee showers of blessing.” The word is in the plural. All kinds of blessings God will send. The rain is all of one kind when it comes; but grace is not all of one kind, or it does not produce the same effect. God sends showers of blessings. If He gives comforting grace, He will also give converting grace; if He makes the trumpet blow for the bankrupt sinner, He will also make it sound a shout of joy for the sinner that is pardoned and forgiven. (C. H. Spurgeon.) There shall be showers of blessing.-- Showers of blessing The word “ blessing” belongs strictly to the vocabulary of religion. In prayer there is no petition which a Christian man so naturally offers for himself as that God should bless him, and when he is thinking affectionately of others, he naturally asks God to bless them. Even as he takes his daily bread, he invokes on it a blessing. What does it mean? Take the simplest case of all--that to which I have just alluded. Why, when we are about to partake of food, do we ask a blessing on it? It is an acknowledgment that, in addition to the natural property of food to sustain the bodily strength, there is needed a certain superintendence and favour of heaven to maintain the health of the body, and that Divine wisdom and strength are necessary to make a good use of health when we have it. In the same way when, in the morning, we ask God to bless the work of our hands during the day, as in Scripture He often promises to do to those who ask Him, it is an acknowledgment that, along with our skilful planning, and our conscientious performance, there is necessary a something else which we cannot define but which we refer to God, to give us good success. Men of the world call it good luck, but men of God and the Word of God call it God’ s blessing. Even in temporal things there is a large element of unspeakable value for which there is no true and reverent name except the blessing of God. But it is in the spiritual domain that this word has its true scope. If in religion there is any reality at all, then it is the grandest of realities. It is not only an essence which can sweeten and enhance all the elements of life, but it is in itself so valuable that he who possesses it is rich though he be stripped of all the other possessions which are the accepted badges of happiness. It is the pearl of great price, which a man may well sell all he has to buy. It is the blessing of God, and we have only in silent and lowly awe to take it when it comes. I. The copiousness of God’ s blessing. “ There shall be showers of blessing.” If the blessing of God is so essential to human welfare, it may be asked why so few are possessors of a thing so precious? It is not because it is difficult to get at. If the will and love of God could have free course there would be showers of blessing. The obstacle which hinders is in ourselves. Have you never, when enjoying any of the simple pleasures of nature, reflected with surprise on how little they are taken advantage of? There is not in nature a sublimer sight than the rising of the sun. There is no other which can suffuse the mind with deeper peace, yet multitudes live and die without ever seeing this great sight once; and the average man does not see it a score of times in a lifetime. The blessing of God is like this. It is so near, and yet it is so far on account of our negligence. What a peace, for example, is bred, and what a cool, firm grasp on life is given by the practice of spending a short time with God in prayer, and in the study of His Word, before beginning the work of the day. Yet how few cultivate this source of blessing. We are not straitened in God: we are straitened in our own hearts. II. Its timeliness. “ I will cause the shower to come down in his season.” This refers to the well-known fact that in Palestine rain fell only at certain seasons of the year. It was of the utmost consequence that at these seasons it should not fail. If it did not come, the drought meant loss or even ruin to the husbandman; but if it came copiously, it caused the fields to rejoice with abundant crops and made glad the heart of the husbandman. No doubt our text refers, in the first place, to this temporal blessing, but it has also a wider scope; blessing of every kind may be said to come in its season. God is not, indeed, bound to times and seasons, and sometimes His blessings come when they are least expected, resembling, in this respect, the sudden showers of rain to which we are accustomed in our own variable climate. But, as a rule, the blessing comes in the time of need, when the hearts of men are sighing and crying for it. Are you expecting a blessing today? Is your heart longing for it? Then this is a promise for you: “ I will cause the shower to come down in his season.” You may be very near a great blessing which would change your spiritual existence from an invalid, backsliding condition into a life of joy, of power, and unfaltering progress. I once asked a friend why a mutual friend of ours, though a man of many accomplishments, did not succeed in the pulpit. “ Well,” said he, giving a slight crack of finger and thumb, “ he just wants that.” Yes, that was exactly it. It is this something extra, this little more, that makes everything exceptional and excellent. And many of us are just needing this to make us holy, happy, creditable Christians. Why should you not be baptized with power? III. The diffusiveness of God’ s blessing. “ I will make them and the places round about My hill a blessing.” The happiness of some people is rather to be pitied than envied, because they are made happy by such questionable things. But blessedness is derived from a pure as well as an inexhaustible source. Yet this is not the best result of the blessing of God--that those on whom it falls are themselves blessed. It is a far nobler thing which is promised in our text, “ I will make them a blessing” --they shall be the means of making others blessed. From of old this has been the noble prerogative of the people of God. In Christianity this element has come to the very front. What is it to be a Christian? Is it to be blessed? is it to be filled with the peace, the joy, the life, the power of God? No, it is to be so filled with these that the vessel runs over, and all that are round about get the benefit. This is a text to try our Christianity by. Has the sound of the Gospel not only reached us, but sounded out from us, as a testimony which has arrested and awakened others? It is a severe test. But some can stand it. There are Christian souls which move through the world surrounded with a halo of blessing. There are Christian homes which radiate happiness. There are Christian congregations which you cannot enter without feeling that the power of God is there, and streams of blessing flow out from them over the city, the country, and the world. (J. Stalker, D. D.) Showers of blessing I. This communication is needed by the world.1. Contemplate the vast portion of the world, which is still destitute of the presence and the power of true religion. 2. Contemplate the tardiness with which true religion is now advancing among men. II. This communication is promised by God.1. The promise of God defines the nature of this communication. It consists in the influences of the Holy Spirit, made to affect the hearts and the consciences of men by the truth, which the Gospel embodies and displays. 2. The promise of God has also defined its extent. There are to be “ showers” --impartations commensurate with the existing need, and designed absolutely and entirely to extinguish and terminate that need. 3. The purpose of God has also defined its results. “ There shall be showers of blessing.” III. This communication, which is needed by the world, and which is promised by God, must be sought by the Church.1. The Church must seek for this communication by the removal of worldly confortuity. 2. The Church must seek for this communication by the cultivation of union and fraternal love. 3. The Church must seek this communication by the employment of vigorous and zealous exertions, in the practical distribution of the truth, which has been affirmed to be the instrument, through which the Spirit of God is to descend in blessing upon the world. 4. The Church must seek for this communication by the offering of fervent and importunate prayer. (J. Parsons, M. A.) Showers of blessing, This blessed promise may be claimed by-- I. The believer.1. In the joy of the morning. “ Songs in the night,” but blessings for the morning. A blessing is added strength. 2. In the heat of the noonday. As a reminder of Providence, and a remembrancer of the God who promised that the “ sun shall not smite thee by day,” these cooling showers shall come. 3. In the weary evening. Do doubts assail, do fears annoy? Do sorrows gather, do tempests rise? There shall be showers of blessing, and “ dewy eve” will be a time of surcease from grief and labour, turmoil and care, and He will give “ His beloved sleep.” 4. In the desolate night. After all friends have gone, after even friendly twilight has withdrawn herself, in that “ dark and lonely hour,” they shall fall upon him to season his meditations or perchance to lull to repose his wearied and inflamed orbs. 5. Ever, there shall be showers of blessing for the believer. II. The backslider.1. In the hour of thoughtfulness. When he considers his relations to God, and how strained they are. 2. In the hour of remembrance. The blessed “ Remembrancer,” the good Spirit of Truth, will bring forsaken joys, discarded delights, and vanished experiences to his memory. 3. In the hour of penitence. Is it not recorded that “ God resisteth the proud but giveth grace to the humble” ? and humility is twin sister to penitence. 4. In the hour of return. When the prodigal son returned, the tears which bedewed the cheeks of reconciled father and repentant son were indeed showers of blessing. III. The sinner. Blessed showers will come when--1. He feels his need.2. Loathes himself.3. Cries to God.4. Trusts in the Saviour. (J. B. Esenwein.) Showers of blessing I. All temporal and spiritual blessings, like showers, descend from above.1. “ Showers” am abundant. The great Creator does not give the rain stingily, but opens the windows of heaven, and pears down His blessings upon the dry and thirsty land. So spiritual blessings come upon the thirsty and longing hearts of men. 2. “ Showers” are repeated and continued; for season after season descend the early and the latter rain, and by repeated showers the earth brings forth and buds, and gives seed to the sower and bread to the eater. So in the history of the Church, and of every individual believing soul, there has been given grace for grace, that there might be progress from strength to strength in the journey Zionward. 3. “ Showers” are gratuitous; they come down freely from the clouds, without money and without price. We could not purchase them, for the silver and the gold belong to God, as well as the cattle upon a thousand hills. So all spiritual blessings are free; indeed, they are priceless, as well as peerless. 4. “ Showers” are suitable; as they fall upon the earth they make it soft, and drop fatness into the soil, and become the occasion of beauty and bountifulness. So the blessings that crown our lives are suitable to our needs and adapted to minister to our well-being and joy. Especially is this true of spiritual blessings. 5. “ Showers” are gentle. How softly, as a rule, they fall, feeding the roots of the mightiest trees, and yet not wounding the leaves or blossoms of the tiniest flowers. How gently our temporal blessings come to us, how softly the light streams over the earth to gladden our eyes, and how gently the tide of health flows into our system, to make us strong and fit for our ever-recurring toils of life. And the blessings that refresh our spirits and revive our faith, they fall gently upon us while we pray and praise, and nestle upon our hearts while we engage in Christian work and worship. II. Temporal and spiritual blessings, like showers, require the cooperation of man; or the design with which they descend from above will be frustrated. We must cooperate with Providence in the temporal blessings sent us, or they will not answer the end designed. The human and the Divine must work hand in hand. This is equally true of the Church and of individual souls. God sends down “ showers of blessing,” but there must be preparation for them and cooperation with them; then the wilderness and solitary place shall be glad, and the desert shall rejoice and blossom as the rose. Showers come when the land is thirsty, and when the vapours from the earth have ascended and formed themselves into thick clouds; and “ showers of blessing” will come upon us when our hearts are thirsty, and cry out for the living God; when our prayer-like clouds of incense have ascended to Heaven for the downcoming of the Holy Ghost. (F. W. Brown.) Showers of blessing 1. Here is sovereign mercy--“ I will give them the shower in its season.” 2. Is it not sovereign, Divine mercy?--for who can say, “ I will give them showers,” except God? There is only one voice which can speak to the clouds, and bid them beget the rain. “ Who sendeth down the rain upon the earth? Do not I, the Lord?” So, grace is the gift of God, and is not to be created by man. 3. It is also needed grace. What would the ground do without showers? You may break the clods, you may sow your seeds, but what can you do without the rain? As absolutely needful is the Divine blessing. In vain you labour, until God the plenteous shower bestows, and sends salvation down. 4. Then it is plenteous grace. “ There shall be showers.” It does not say, “ I will send them drops,” but “ showers.” So it is with grace. If God gives a blessing, He usually gives it in such a measure that there is not room enough to receive it. Plenteous grace! Ah! we want plenteous grace to keep us humble, to make us prayerful, to make us holy; plenteous grace to make us zealous, to preserve us through this fife, and at last to land us in heaven. We cannot do without saturating showers of grace. 5. Again, it is seasonable grace. “ I will cause the shower to come down in his season.” What is thy season this morning? Is it the season of drought? Then that is the season for showers. Is it a season of great heaviness and black clouds? Then that is the season for showers. “ As thy days, so shall thy strength be.” 6. And here is a varied blessing. “ I will give thee showers of blessing.” The word is in the plural. All kinds of blessings God will send. All God’ s blessings go together, like links in a golden chain. If He gives converting grace, He will also give comforting grace. He will send “ showers of blessing.” Look up today, O parched plant, and open thy leaves and flowers for a heavenly watering! (C. H. Spurgeon.) Showers of blessing sent from God I. The blessings bestowed on the peculiar people of God are blessings of unspeakable value.1. Their origin, and the glory and the grace of their author (James 1:17; Ephesians 1:3). 2. The price paid for their purchase (1 Peter 1:18-19; 2 Corinthians 8:9). 3. Our indispensable need of them (Revelation 3:17). 4. The peculiar and transcendent happiness which the possession of them ensures (Revelation 3:18; Psalms 4:7; Philippians 4:7; 1 Corinthians 2:9). II. The precious blessings bestowed on the people of God are incalculably numerous.1. Can you calculate the number of showers that fall to refresh, to fructify, and to bless the earth, in the course of the revolving seasons? nay, I will ask further, can you calculate the number of drops of which each shower is composed? Then may you calculate the number of blessings bestowed on the people of God. 2. Can you tell how numerous, or, rather, innumerable, the wants of God’ s people are? III. The blessings peculiar to God’ s people are all most opportunely bestowed. “ I will cause the shower to come down in his season.” To the young, to the middle-aged, and to the old, they come just as their various and peculiar circumstances render necessary. To the poor, to the afflicted, to the tempted, and to the dying, how seasonable are the supplies of all those blessings especially requisite for them! The promise in each individual case is fully and happily realised (Deuteronomy 33:25). IV. The blessings bestowed on God’ s people are all the result of Divine agency.1. Who but the blessed God could have devised that wondrous plan of grace, by which the blessings of the everlasting covenant are secured to His people? (Romans 3:24-26; Romans 11:33.) 2. Who but a Divine person could have paid the price by which these blessings have been purchased? (Romans 8:3; Romans 8:34; John 1:1, compared with verse 14.) 3. The actual application of these blessings, too, is all of God (Philippians 2:13). Who gives the new heart? (Ezekiel 36:26.) Who gives pardon? (Isaiah 43:25.) Who sanctifies them? (Exodus 31:13; 1 Thessalonians 5:23.) Who completes the work of their redemption? (Philippians 1:6; Revelation 3:21.) Application--1. It is no presumption to expect great and manifold blessings from the great and manifold grace of God (Revelation 3:21). 2. What a happy people must the people of God be! (Deuteronomy 33:29.) 3. To God alone we should ascribe the glory and praise of all our blessings (Psalms 115:1). 4. We should be encouraged, from the receipt of common mercies, to expect special blessings from God. 5. The wickedest of men may yet be blessed of God (Isaiah 55:1-3). (A. Thomson, D. D.) Conditions necessary for showers An Irish gentleman remarked in my hearing that he had always noticed that when it rained there were clouds about, and so all the air was in right order for the descent of rain. We have noticed the same, and it so happens that the clouds and general constitution of the atmosphere have much to do with the value of moisture for the herbs. It is no good watering them in the sun, the circumstances do not benefit them. So with revivals. Certain things done under certain circumstances become abundantly useful, but if you have not similar circumstances, you may use the same machinery, but mischief instead of good will follow. Begin yourself with the Master, and then go outward to His service, but plans of action must be secondary. (C. H. Spurgeon.) Ezekiel 34:27-31 Shall know that I am the Lord, when I have broken the bands of their yoke.The yoke removed and the Lord revealed But do not all men know that God is the Lord? They should know it, for He is clearly to be seen in the works of nature. But man by wisdom knows not God. But do not all know God in this land--this land where there is so much Gospel teaching? Alas! no. You know the report of God which you have heard with the hearing of the ear; but that is a small matter unless it leads to something higher. Those who know the Lord know that He is still the I am that I am, unchangeable in all respects; and we know that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, is the same God who revealed himself at Paran, and came with sound of thunder at Sinai. It appears from the text that there is a process by which God’ s own people are brought to know the Lord. This process takes place when He breaks the bands of their yoke. Then they know that the Lord is God. It is clear, therefore, that He must, first of all permit His own chosen, for a wise purpose, to come into bondage. I do not commend the bondage; it is a thing to be deplored; but, as Augustine once cried out, “ Beata culpa!” “ Happy fault!” when he saw how sin had made space for the wonderful display of Divine grace, so I venture to say, “ Blessed bondage, which gives an opportunity for our God to come in and set His children free, and by thus breaking the bands of their yoke to teach them that He Himself is the Lord.” I. It is not difficult to show that the lord breaks the bands of the yoke of His people, for the yokes which they wear at different times are many, and, in the breaking of each one of these, they learn that He is the Lord.1. You cannot forget the first yoke of which you were conscious. It was a yoke of iron; but you had worn it for many years without feeling it. A spark of Divine life dropped into your bosom, and then you began to perceive that a yoke of sin, of guilt, of condemnation under the law, was firmly fixed upon your neck. Happy is the hour when the Lord breaks that yoke. He alone can remove it, but He does it most effectually, and then we know that He is Jehovah our God that brought us out of the house of bondage. To emancipate a soul from the thraldom of sin is a labour worthy of a God, and to His liberating hand be glory forever and ever. 2. Then the awakened soul begins to be conscious of a second yoke. More or less, according to temperament and circumstances, and so on, but still in each case somewhat, we feel the yoke of natural corruption and inbred sin. The moment we become Christians an inward battle begins. You may presume that sin is completely dead in you, but it laughs while you are boasting, and before long it will make you weep to think that you were so readily deceived. The Lord can break this yoke also, and tear away each one of its bands. Very joyful is the deliverance, and when it comes the text is abundantly fulfilled. 3. Another yoke which the Lord’ s people have too often borne is that of a perpetual tendency to unbelief. Many about whose interest in Christ nobody who knows them can have any doubt at all, whose Christian consistency is beyond all question, whose prayerfulness, whose love of the Word of God, whose simple, child-like trust in Jesus Christ is manifested to everybody except themselves, are nevertheless in heaviness through anxiety as to their state. May the Lord bring up such brothers and sisters out of their prison, and then shall they know that He is the Lord when He has broken the bands of their yoke. 4. Some Christians are also loaded with a yoke through great trouble. If we knew what they have to suffer in business, suffer in body, suffer in the domestic circle--if we knew the weight they have to carry, we should very often communicate to them words of comfort, whereas now, through our not knowing, they are left unheeded, and there is little or no Christian sympathy manifested. Ah, dear brother, it may be that you have been made to carry a very heavy yoke for years, but when the Lord shall break the bands of your yoke then shall you know that He is the Lord. 5. many yokes which God’ s people bear they cannot break themselves. The Lord often puts His people on purpose into positions where there is an end of the creature, where all carnal hope fails, where you look all around and not a single ray of light gladdens your weary eye till the star of Bethlehem breaks forth, and heralds the morning. But let us recollect that though yokes be very many, and some of them are such that we cannot possibly break them off, yet there is no yoke but what the Lord can readily enough take from His people. One of His saints of old recorded his experience in these words, “ Out of the depths have I cried unto Thee, O God, and Thou heardest me.” His experience is that of all the captives who trust in the Lord. 6. We may expect the Lord to break the bands of our yoke. Christian, He is bringing you low, He is stripping, you, He is casting you into the mire, He is beating you small as the dust of the streets, and all because by this means He will make you see your nothingness, and will cause you more fully to appreciate the splendour of His grace, and the all-sufficiency of His power. Knowing this, faith may help us to rejoice in tribulation at the moment it arrives, saying, “ Here is my Father’ s black horse come to my door to bring me a new token of love from Him.” II. When He does this then they know Him to be the Lord. Here we come to personal experience. Beloved, when we have great deliverances from bondage then we begin to see the Divine attributes displayed.1. You all believe God to be very powerful, for you have heard His voice in the thunder, and seen His might in the tempest; but when you have been brought into very deep distress, and God has brought you out of it with a high hand and an outstretched arm, then you have said, “ Now I see His power. No hand but His could have moved that burden, and He has done it.” 2. You must also have seen with wonderful vividness the attribute of wisdom. You have been all in a snarl. You have done your best, and you have made things worse. You have gone for advice, and the advice has perplexed you. You have looked in all directions, and the more you have looked the less hope you have seen; and then, on a sudden, God’ s finger has seemed to be put out, and all the knots have been untied, and His Word has been fulfilled,--“ I will make the crooked places straight and the rough places plain.” 3. The Lord’ s love also is clearly revealed in our deliverances. 4. When the bands of our yoke have been broken it is often in answer to prayer, and because that liberty has come in answer to prayer, we have exclaimed, “ Now I know the Lord.” 5. So, again, we know Him from another reason: the special hand of God is often seen in the breaking of the yoke of His people--the special hand. There was a very large sum of money to be paid for the building of the Orphanage, and I was up with certain friends at Regent’ s Park--dining at the house of one of our brethren. I there mentioned that I was short of some £2000 to meet an account which would very soon be due, but that I was sure that God would graciously give it, for it was His work and He would supply its needs in answer to prayer. We were discussing as to whether it was not rather bold to speak too positively about answers to a prayer of such a kind, and while we were still discoursing there came a telegram from the Tabernacle to me, saying, “ A person unknown has called and left £2000 in banknotes for the Orphanage.” I read the telegram to the friends assembled, and their gratitude and astonishment abounded. My dear old friend, Dr. Brock, who is now with God, said, “ Put down your knives and forks, and let us bless the name of the Lord” ; and he stood up and poured out his heart in a most wonderful manner in devout thankfulness to the Answerer of prayer. We all heartily joined in that act of devotion. The Lord was there; we felt His presence as much as if it had been a sacramental supper, for the Lord had drawn so near to us. If someone had said to us just then, “ Well, you know, this is a coincidence, a mere coincidence,” we should have laughed, and I for one should have said, “ It is a very blessed coincidence, and I hope it will go on coinciding; for truly it coincides with the promise and with my faith in God.” The devil does not give his followers such coincidences. (C. H. Spurgeon.) The elect produced on men by the displays of kindness from God I. The import of this exceeding great and precious promise.1. It ensures deliverance from the grievous oppression of cruel, inveterate, and powerful enemies. As it respects ourselves, we are to regard the promise as having a chief reference to the deliverance obtained, or to be obtained, for us from our spiritual foes. It is, accordingly, thus applied (Luke 1:74-75). All genuine saints have the happiness to enjoy “ the glorious liberty of the children of God” (John 8:36; 2 Timothy 2:26; Romans 6:14; 1 John 5:4). To spoil our enemies, to break the bands of their yoke, and thus to deriver us from their wretched dominion, was one grand design of the mission and mediation of the Son of God (Isaiah 61:1). It is the grand object He has still in view, by the preaching of the everlasting Gospel (Acts 26:17-18); and the blessing thus promised is of infinite importance. 2. It ensures abundant supplies for our support. Both the bodies and the souls of God’ s people have been bought with a price; and both, therefore, shall be supplied with abundance of nourishment. That single promise secures all (Isaiah 33:16). He who feeds the ravens when they cry, will not surely suffer His redeemed people to be in want of any kind (Psalms 34:9-10). 3. It ensured to the Israelites great happiness and continued security in their inheritance. Canaan was typical of heaven, which accordingly is, in reference to it, denominated “ another and a better country, even an heavenly.” Here, then, it is implicitly promised to all true Israelites, that they shall ultimately have heaven for their inheritance--that is the land in which they are to dwell; and how great is the glory of that land! Surely the people of God shall be safe when there (Revelation 21:4). How great, and boundless, and endless, the happiness of the inhabitants! (Revelation 7:14-17.) II. The religious improvement to be made and to which the accomplishment of the promise was to lead. “ They shall know that I am the Lord.”1. It would lead the Israelites to acknowledge the existence and the providence, the glory and the grace of Jehovah, Jacob’ s God. 2. It would lead them more and more to admire and love, to worship and obey, the Lord. Application--1. What think you of promises like these? What would you think of promises from some great man, ensuring temporal abundance, or temporal riches? But if you have any spiritual discernment, will you not much more value promises of infinitely better things, especially as coming from God? 2. To whom do you look for the supply of all your wants? 3. What improvement do you make of the kindness of God in the dispensations of His providence and grace? 4. The enemies of Israel, and of Israel’ s God, must perish forever. (A. Thomson, D. D.) Ezekiel 34:29I will raise up for them a Plant of renown.The eternal Plant The symbolism of the Bible forms one of its most interesting and conspicuous features. As children are oft-times taught the alphabet by the assistance of pictures, so ancient Israel, living amid the dim shadows of patriarchal and mosaic times, were instructed in the A B C and rudimental principles of religious worship and godly knowledge and obedience by the help of types, prefigurements, symbols. Ezekiel every now and then swells out in organ strains of grand poetic utterance, calling into use the wealth of nature’ s imagery to embody and symbol forth the wonderful creations of his inspired and sanctified genius. And strange, yet glorious to say, all this wealth of biblical imagery, either directly or indirectly, points to and finds its higher actualisation in “ the Christ,” who is the “ Alpha and Omega” of Scripture. We speak not here of Jesus the “ Rose” or Jesus the “ Lily” ; of Jesus the “ Star” or Jesus the “ Sun” ; of Jesus the “ King” or Jesus the “ Servant” ; of Jesus the “ Foundation” or of Jesus the “ Stone of Stumbling” ; of Jesus the “ Branch” or of Jesus the “ Tree of Life” ; but of Jesus the “ Plant” --the Eternal “ Plant,” the “ Plant of Renown” --of renown among men, angels, seraphs, God! In thought, memory, and love, let us gather around this “ Plant” to meditate, admire, adore. I. Jesus is an aromatic “ Plant.” He outbreathes an aroma which fills heaven with ecstasy, and saves earth with its teeming population from moral putrefaction and death. Christ is an eternal perfume. Angels and archangelic ones drink it in as flowers drink in the solar ray. And whenever on human soil He is scented for the first time, it creates an insatiable desire in the soul to daily and hourly drink at this fountain of sweetest odours.1. The Bible would have no fragrance were it not for Christ. It would be mouldy and mildewed, antiquated and repulsive, without the aroma of this Plant. 2. Preaching would have no refreshing and soul-saving odour without this Plant. It might have persuasive rhetoric, and convincing logic, and charming elocution, and faultless learning, and elegant diction--yea, all the graces and glories of finished composition; nevertheless, devoid of the aromatic odours of the “ Lamb of God” --the one Mediator for and only Saviour of a fallen world--it would be nothing more than “ a sounding brass and a tinkling cymbal,” or a message surcharged with the “ savour of death unto death” ! 3. Prayer, too, would have no effect without the perfume of this Plant. There might be fluency of utterance, beauty of sentence, multiplicity of words, glowing creations of thought, minute descriptions of want, and oratorical outbursts of desire and request; but unless fragrant with the incense of Jesu’ s blood, and death, and intercession, it will be but a bundle of “ vain repetitions,” or a jingle of unmeaning terms, unacceptable to God, and unbenefiting to us. 4. Heaven would have no fragrance but for Christ. Fie is the all of heaven! The music of its songs, the brightness of its skies, the health of its atmosphere, the splendour of its sceneries, the vitality, and glory, and wonder of its inhabitants--ay, the nectar of its unwithering flowers, the eternal perfume of its homage, worship, service, adoration! II. Christ is a medicinal Plant. His “ leaves are for the healing of the nations.” He is the “ balm of Gilead,” the “ balm for every wound,” the “ cordial for every fear.” A wonderful variety of medicinal virtues is characteristic of this unique Plant. While as a grand specific for the world’ s sin it is one; yet, for the Church’ s manifold ailments it is a repository of all that is needed, suited, effectual. If you suffer morally from had appetite and “ indigestion,” so that you do not relish the means of grace or the ordinances of the Church, and loathe the food with which God’ s servants try to feed you, through its not being dainty enough, or too much spiced, or not cooked to your taste--make application to Christ and He will speedily effect a cure. Or if you suffer from soul “ dyspepsia,” which makes you peevish, discontented, morose, and querulous in the church and in the family and in the business, so that you are an unwholesome sample to the world of our glorious Christianity--come to Christ and tell Him all and He will send you healthy and happy away. III. Jesus is an unwithering Plant. Not only evergreen, ever-verdant, ever-fresh, but eternally enduring. The frosts of time cannot nip it; the roll of centuries cannot fade it; the heat of a myriad persecution--suns cannot scorch it; the blasts of all storms, and the blights of all winters, and the changes of all seasons, and the sweep and swing of all eternities, cannot sear, shrivel, wither it! In two of its ingredients--qualities--it stands in sublime and unapproachable isolation, namely, immutability and eternity. It is immutable, because eternal from necessity, and eternal from necessity because uncaused and infinite. IV. Jesus Christ is a universal Plant. In other words, a Plant in every place, being omnipresent; and a Plant for every sinner’ s appropriation, being suitable and sufficient. None can monopolise it, any more than they can monopolise the sunlight, the rain, the dew. It is the property of all in general, but of everyone who believes in particular. He is “ the Saviour of the world.” He is for “ the healing of the nations.” “ All men are to be blessed in Him.” As the old sun shines on every shore, so this Plant shall cast its healing shadow over every land, and drop its “ sovereign balm” in every receptive heart, and be renowned by all languages and peoples. (J. O. Keen, D. D.) The plant of renown I. Its nature. There never was such another. The plant has two perfectly distinct natures. In the language of the Song of Solomon it is both “ white and ruddy.” Each of those two natures is complete in all its attributes. Christ was perfect God, and at the same time perfect man. II. Its beauty. Every believer will acknowledge this. Feeling how exactly suitable the Lord Jesus is to meet your every want, you admire all that concerns Him. III. Its fruitfulness. The Lord God, who in the beginning gave to man every tree for meat, has given us Christ for the same purpose. Other trees have only one species of fruit, but this produces twelve manners of fruits: fruits for every season: fruits for prosperity; fruits for adversity; fruits for every occasion that can possibly arise; fruits for newborn converts; fruits for those of riper experience; fruits for fathers and mothers in Israel; fruits suited to every individual whom the Holy Spirit leads to Christ. IV. Its permanency. Its branches will be ever stretching forth, the glory of Paradise. Its leaves will never lose their healing virtues. Its fruits will be as delicious ten thousand ages hence, as they will be in the very commencement of your future eternity. No one that takes shelter beneath its branches will ever be compelled to flee from under it. V. Its fragrancy. In whatever sanctuary He is preached, how fragrant is He there! In whatever book He is set forth, how fragrant is He there! The leaves of that book all smell of myrrh, aloes, cassia, and all manner of sweet spices. How fragrant, too, is any house which is the abode of even one of the Lord’ s redeemed people! How fragrant is any parish, any country, where believers are multiplied, walking in the fear of the Lord, and in the comfort of the Holy Ghost! VI. Its shadow. There will come seasons when you will find the hot winds of severe afflictions beating so vehemently upon your heads, that, without Christ’ s supporting grace, you will be brought to your wits’ end, and will be at the point to die. Oh, that you would see how sad is your condition compared with that of Christ’ s people in their trials and difficulties! VII. Its celebrity. In one respect this plant resembled others. In its origin it was tittle accounted of. In His incarnation, humiliation, and death, He was comparatively despised and rejected; but springing up, in His resurrection, ascension and heavenly glory, He has become greatly renowned, and is daily made more so by the spreading of His Gospel throughout all nations. I conclude by a two-fold admonition.1. Feed upon this plant yourselves.2. Make it known to others. (C. Clayton, M. A.) Christ the Plant of renown I. Some plants are renowned for their rareness. Anything that is rarely to be met with in this world is all the more valued, because it is uncommon. If it be really valuable in itself, it is prized not merely because of its intrinsic excellence, but doubly prized because it is rare. Now, in this respect, Christ may well be called the Plant of renown. He is the only-begotten and well-beloved Son of God. In every view Christ is rare and precious. To be convinced of this, think not merely of His original glory, nor of His mysterious person; but think also of what He is and has done for His people. Truly we must say, He is the unspeakable gift of God--a gift that stands out prominently from all the other gifts of our heavenly Father--a gift with which no other can be compared--yea, with whose infinite value the united value of all other gifts together is not to be put into the balance. As to His love, if we try to speak of it, we must close by saying, that it passeth knowledge. As to His sufferings, if we try to describe them, we must admit that they exceed all our conceptions, and that there never was any sorrow like unto His sorrow. As to His riches, if we try to reckon them, we must end with the confession that they are unsearchable riches. As to His excellence, both in Himself and as the Saviour of His people, if we try to speak of it, we must admit, after all illustrations and comparisons, that it is unparalleled and inconceivably great. II. Some plants are renowned for their beauty. Some for the gorgeous richness of their colour; others for the delicate paleness of their hue--some for the elegant, form and loveliness of their flower; others for the stately and majestic appearance of the plant itself. And most assuredly Christ may in this respect be called the Plant of renown. In Him we see every variety of colour and shade, which, combined, constitute the perfection of beauty. The most lovely sight which this world ever saw was the character of Jesus. Everything which pure and holy beings can admire, is to be seen in Jesus. View the graces separately, and you see each of them perfect in Christ--humility in His becoming a man--meekness in bearing insults--gentleness in administering reproofs--patience in enduring sufferings--devotedness to His Father’ s will, which made Him say, that in the doing of it He had meat to eat which the world knew not of--devotion, which wearied not of whole nights spent in prayer--benevolence, which knew no bounds in the bestowment of blessings--heavenly-mindedness, which made Him, though in the world, not of it. These graces shine each of them gloriously in the character of Jesus, and all of them combined constitute that perfect excellence which saints and angels shall admire forever. III. Some plants are renowned for their fragrance. Sweet smelling flowers and fragrant plants are felt even here to be most delightful and refreshing; but in the East, there are plants of such rich fragrance, as we can have no conception of at all in these northern climes. To pass a garden of aromatic herbs, when the gentle breeze causes the sweet spices to flow forth, is perfectly delightful to the weary traveller. And in this respect, too, Christ may be called the Plant of renown. What a sweet savour there is about all the graces and excellencies of Christ! You cannot come to the contemplation of His character without feeling that you are breathing a pure and holy atmosphere, grateful as the spicy breezes of the East to those who are faint and weary. The death of Christ is an offering and a sacrifice to God of a sweet smelling savour, and the Lord is well pleased for His righteousness’ sake, seeing He hath magnified the law and made it honourable. And anxious souls feel that it has a delightful fragrance, when their hearts are cheered, and revived, and comforted, as they behold the Lamb of God taking away the sins of the world. Never was weary traveller, when like to faint under the burning rays of an eastern sun, so revived and refreshed by the spicy breezes, as poor souls, ready to faint under a burden of sin, and amid the trials of the world, are refreshed and cheered by the sweet savour that there is in Christ. IV. Some plants are renowned for their healing virtue. It is a proof of the goodness and benevolence of God that, while this world, in consequence of the Fall, is filled with disease and pain, there are medicinal plants whose application has a healing efficacy. And in this respect, as well as those already mentioned, Christ may be called the Plant of renown. From the Saviour on the Cross there flows a healing virtue to cure all the diseases of our souls. The blood and grace of Jesus are the precious balm. It is balm extracted from the wounded Tree of Life--from the pierced side of Immanuel; and it is effectual in curing the envenomed bite of the old serpent, the devil in mortifying the wounds which the arrows of conviction have made in our souls, and in completely healing the loathsome disease of sin. V. Some plants are renowned for the shelter they afford from the scorching rays of the sun. Even in our own climate it is often most refreshing, when oppressed with heat, to recline under the shade of a spreading tree. And how much more delightful for an eastern traveller to come to a shady tree, under whose wide-spreading branches he may lie down upon the cool ground and rest himself! Flow delightful for the eastern shepherds, when they have conducted their flocks to the place of rest at noon, to lie down and rest themselves in the shade! But, oh, how infinitely more delightful for the poor sinner to sit down under the shadow of the Plant of renown! The branches of the trees of Paradise were no covering to guilty Adam, but under the shadow of the Tree of Life the awakened sinner may lie down and take quiet rest, assured that the wrath of God will never reach him any more. VI. Some plants are renowned for the excellent fruits which they bear. This is a quality for which the plant here spoken of is renowned; for the consequence of its being raised up to God’ s people is, that they shall no more be consumed with hunger in the land. If it be delightful to a weary traveller to lie down at noon under the cool shade of a spreading tree, it is especially so when the tree is laden with mellow and delicious fruit, which the traveller may pluck and eat for the quenching of his thirst. In this respect, every believer finds Christ to be the Plant of renown, and it is while he feeds upon Christ by faith that he is no more consumed with hunger in this batten land. (John Laird.) Christ as a Plant of renown .-- I. He is renowned in His stately beauty. He towers high above all the trees of the great forests of the world, and His branches, adorned with lovely foliage, spread out in all directions over all. Christ is the incarnation of the highest moral beauty; He is altogether lovely. II. He is renowned for His wonderful fruitfulness. He is the Tree of Life, His fruits are for the healing of the nations. His fruits are sufficient to feed and bless all hungry souls. Who of all the children of men ever accomplished one-thousandth part of the good that Christ has accomplished? III. He is renowned for His remedial virtues. He has a sovereign “ balm for every wound,” He “ binds up the broken-hearted,” He is the “ Great Physician.” He is a cure for guilt, for fear, for remorse, and for all the disorders of the mind. IV. He is renowned for His great durability. All human plants wither, decay, and pass away; but He continues unchanged through the centuries. (Homilist.) Jesus, a Plant of renown The Creator has implanted love for the beautiful in our hearts for very wise and beneficent purposes; not that we may be like the briar, creeping along the ground, nor like thorns or nettles, pricking and stinging those who are brave enough to touch us; nor like the poppy, very showy and vain, but very empty and weak; and certainly not like the thistle, full of ill-will to everybody that shall take hold upon us. I think God wanted to show us of His great love to us; for if He had not loved us, He would never have thrown, in their variety, fragrance, and beauty, such proofs of His love all around us. And further, He intended to teach us to imitate the flowers, to try and be beautiful and fragrant, kind and pleasing, and not to live so much for ourselves as to impart joy to others. To an attentive listener, the flowers and plants are quite eloquent as they preach to us the graces and virtues of religion. The flowers are ever speaking to us of Jesus. Isaiah prophesied of the coming of “ A root of Jesse” ; Solomon called the Lord Jesus “ The lily of the valley and the rose of Sharon.” So theft if when we next go into a garden we will only think, we shall meet with things to lift up our minds and affections to Jesus. I. Why Jesus is the “ Plant of renown.”1. His great beauty. It is impossible for us to say what Jesus was personally, that is, His physical appearance; nor can such a subject concern us much. Many who show little or no physical beauty reveal high intellectual and spiritual worth, and if we look at Jesus through this channel, we shall soon find that He was the most beautiful plant that eyes of man ever looked upon. No one ever said such beautiful things as Jesus. Whether He was on the sea or on a mountain apart, whether at a marriage feast or at a funeral, whether surrounded only by His beloved disciples or by the inquisitive eager multitudes, whether at home with His parents, in the house of Martha and Mary, on the Mount of Olives, or even hanging on the Cross, no one ever uttered such beautiful sayings as He. He was, for beauty, the “ Plant of renown,” if we look at the character Fie possessed. No passion marred it, no sin spotted it, no darkness eclipsed it, no sorrow dimmed it, nor did any combination of forces impair or weaken it,. Then His worthiness to be called the “ Plant of renown” is seen if we call to mind the beautiful deeds He accomplished. It was a beautiful thing for Jesus to leave His home and glory in heaven, and to come to suffer and bleed and die for us. And how full was that life of beautiful acts! Nazareth and Capernaum, Bethlehem and Jerusalem, Bethany and the Mount of Olives, all say His life was crowded with deeds most beautiful; and therefore Ezekiel was quite right when he said that Jesus was a “ Plant of renown.” 2. If we examine His marvellous strength we shall find another right, or title, to the figure. There are some things exceedingly beautiful, but they are so weak that we are afraid of damaging if we only touch them. Had not Jesus been as remarkable for His strength as for His beauty, He would have been destroyed by the rough elements that surged around, and wasted their strength upon Him. The world put forth its energy to destroy this Plant; its prejudice, its envy, its malice, its hate, its unbelief, its authority, and its allurements were all brought forward to destroy Jesus; but His strength was superior to all, and so He said, “ I have overcome the world.” Satan, he who overcame the first Adam, and who since the victory then won has weakened, broken, defaced, and destroyed many and many beautiful plants,--Satan brought his great power to bear upon Jesus, the “ Plant of renown” ; but here he was foiled and defeated. So strong was Jesus that he overcame the devil And what for strength this “ Plant of renown” was, it still remains. Not the roll of nineteen hundred years has at all impaired it; neither in root, nor leaf, nor flower has it suffered any decay. This Plant is a strength-giving Plant. Jesus has power to comfort the sorrowful, to help the helpless, to guide the perplexed, to release the prisoner, to make bold the diffident, and to cause the barren to be fruitful. Yes, “ He is mighty to save, and He travels in the greatness of His strength.” 3. His healing properties. I can’ t think there are many people who would refuse to have in their possession a plant which could cure all their maladies, or turn their maladies into blessings. Certain I am that if any gardener could exhibit such a plant for sale, he could have almost any price for it, and then be utterly unable to meet all demands. Now, Ezekiel’ s “ Plant of renown” is a plant of this character. And yet--oh, marvellous to relate!--men, women, and even young people, are seldom eager to possess it. 4. Jesus is the “ Plant of renown” because of the fruit He bears. Perhaps if you were to search very minutely and very long, you might meet with a boy who does not care for plants because of their beauty, or with a girl who thinks little of them because of any healing virtue they may have; but I don’ t think any searching would find boy or girl who would care nothing about any fruit you might mention as produced by plants. The possessors of this Plant have Christ formed in their hearts, and they bring forth fruit unto holiness,--“ they grow in grace,” and are “ pure in heart.” No plant, then, for beauty, strength, healing power, and fruit, can compare with Ezekiel’ s “ Plant of renown.” II. Where Jesus is this “ Plant of renown.” “ Everything in its place,” is a capital maxim. There are places where we might as well search for sunshine at midnight as for this “ Plant of renown.” I shall not ask you to look for this Plant in the writings of infidelity, for if it could be found there, it would only be that it might be insulted and, if possible, destroyed. I shall not ask you to search for it in the multitudinous volumes of light, fictitious literature with which we are almost deluged; such a soft has neither depth nor richness sufficient for this Plant.1. Jesus is a “ Plant of renown” in the Bible. I want to compare the Bible to a conservatory; and I think we shall find it the very best conservatory the world has ever seen. Let us go inside, for our fathers many years ago opened wide the door, and now we are quite welcome to enter. How beautifully it is fitted up, and what an assemblage of colour and fragrance, what unspeakably rare plants are here; and all preserved in excellent order. But now just listen; what can it be these plants are all saying? “ We have no root of ourselves, no beauty underived, no fragrance our own, no fruit naturally, no life independent; for all these things we are dependent, and dependent only, upon Ezekiel’ s ‘ Plant of renown.’“ 2. Jesus is a “ Plant of renown” in all the intercourse held between man and God.” Who has not heard of “ the missing link” ? Jesus is the only missing link of union between God and us. God’ s character is one of holiness, justice, truth, and love; man’ s character is one of sin, injustice, falsehood, and hate. Oh, what can bring the two together? Heaven and earth combined, proclaim, “ Jesus of Nazareth, the Plant of renown.” 3. Jesus is a “ Plant of renown” in the hearts of God’ s people. The moment Jesus enters the soul, all sickness and darkness, all parchedness and blight, entirely disappear, and, with the “ Plant of renown” right in the centre, the heart becomes like the garden of the Lord. 4. Jesus is a “ Plant of renown” in the history of the entire world. What a great deal that history will have to say about His coming into and His growth in our world; about the influence of Jesus in all cottages and palaces, in all courts and camps, and in all counsels, whether of Churches or of States. How that history will show, in characters of living light, His value as Redeemer, Saviour, Friend, and King. How it will ascribe to Him preeminence in all things--in virtue, truth, goodness, grace, sanctity, glory, and everything else that is lovely and of good report; ever presenting to Him the homage and love of a glorified and saved Church, out of all nations, and peoples, and tongues under heaven. 5. Jesus will be the “ Plant of renown” in heaven. Gabriel, Michael, the whole company of the angelic world, cherubim and seraphim, are all like so many plants of rare excellence; but no plant in heaven like Jesus. Think, too, of the plants that have gone from our garden plots here, from our homes, and from our hearts. All gone: we see them not, we hear them not: the Master hath called them. But whilst they were here they were “ plants of the Lord’ s right hand planting,” “ trees of righteousness.” Then what, after years of holy culture and constant growth, must such be in heaven? Who now shall estimate their beauty or worth? But high above and far beyond all others in heaven, will be the Lord Jesus, the “ Plant of renown.” (1) He will be renowned for having once left its glory, its society, and its song, in order that He might become a poor man, to suffer, bleed, and die. (2) He will be renowned for having thrown wide open to the sons of Adam its pearly gates, its everlasting privileges, and its undying glory; and for having by His attractiveness drawn into that holy place millions of the race of man; as the great and only Conqueror of death and sin, of hell and the devil. (J. Goodachre.) The Plant of renown I. The glory of the Saviour, as intimated by the metaphorical designation here given to Him--“ a Plant of renown.”1. The glory that surrounded Him, even amidst the greatest depth of His humiliation. 2. His triumphant resurrection from the grave, and His exaltation to honour and glory at His Father’ s right hand. 3. The triumphs of His Gospel, from the earliest period of its proclamation to the present day. 4. The Divine predictions of His millennial glory on earth, and His perpetual reign in heaven. II. The agency of God the Father in securing all this glory to the Saviour. Jehovah is the Speaker; and He says, “ I will raise up a Plant of renown” (verse 23).1. God the Father called the Saviour, and set Him apart to His work. 2. God the Father sent our Saviour into our world clothed in our nature. 3. God the Father qualified Him for His work, and assisted Him in it. 4. God the Father, as a proof of His love, and as the reward of His services, gave Him all that renown which He had acquired. III. The blessedness of Christ’ s people, in consequence of His elevation to glory, or renown for their sakes.1. In consequence of the work and exaltation of Him who is here denominated “ a Plant of renown,” His people shall be at once freed from want, and blessed with abundance. 2. In consequence of the work and exaltation of Christ, His people shall be at once freed from shame, and loaded with honour. Application--1. Give glory to God for raising up for you a Plant of renown. 2. Live constantly by the faith of Him who was once greatly humbled, but is now highly exalted for your sakes. 3. Days of darkness and distress will to believers be succeeded by days of joy and triumph. 4. Use the means of making the Redeemer more renowned. 5. All must be exposed to want and eternal ruin who have no connexion with Christ as the Plant of renown. (A. Thomson, D. D.) The Plant of renown I. Premise a few things concerning this blessed Plant.1. What is here ascribed to Christ, is not to be understood absolutely of Him as God, but officially--as He is Mediator and Redeemer. 2. This Plant is but small and little in the eyes of a blind world. 3. However contemptible this Plant of renown is in the eyes of a blind world, yet He is the tallest plant in all God’ s Lebanon. 4. This blessed Plant of renown was cut down in His death, and sprung up gloriously in His resurrection. 5. All the little plants in the garden are ingrafted in this Plant of renown. II. He is a renowned Plant. He is renowned in heaven, and He is renowned on earth, and will be so (Psalms 72:17).1. He is renowned for His antiquity. 2. He is renowned for His beauty. The glory of a God is in Him Is there any glory in His eternal Father? Why, that glory shines in our Immanuel in the very brightness of it (Hebrews 1:3). 3. He is renowned for His verdure, for His perpetual greenness. Other plants are fading. 4. He is renowned for His virtue. We read in Revelation 22:1-21, “ That the leaves of the tree of life were for the healing of the nations,” --that tree of life is the very same with this Plant of renown; the leaves of this Plant are for the healing of the nations; and we that are ministers are come this day to scatter the leaves of this tree of life, of this Plant of renown; try if you can get a leaf of it applied and set home upon your souls; depend upon it, there is virtue in every word of His. 5. He is renowned for His fertility: He is not a barren Plant; He would not be renowned if He were barren; He brings forth all manner of fruit every month; yea, I may add, every day, every moment. There is the fruit of His incarnation; there is the fruit of His death; there is the fruit of His resurrection; there is the fruit of His ascension; there is the fruit of His intercession, and sitting at the right hand of God; there is the fruit of His prophetic office; there is the fruit of His priestly office; there is the fruit of His kingly office; there is the fruit of His appearing within the vail; there is the fruit of what He did without the vail, and without the camp. Oh, what fruit is here! 6. He is renowned for His scent, and pleasant savour (Son 1:2). The believer finds a scent about Him, he draws a savour from Him. What is the design of us ministers but to cast abroad His scent; and it is by this we win souls. 7. He is renowned for His shadow (Son 2:3). Oh, sit down under His shadow, and you will find shelter there against all deadly; whatever blasts come, you will find safety there; would you be shadowed from the king of terrors, death is a terror to many. Oh, if you would be shadowed against the awful terrors of death and God’ s vengeance, get in under this shadow, and you are safe. 8. This Plant is renowned for His stature; He is a high Plant, He is a tall Plant. You see the heavens above you, but they are but creeping things in comparison of Him; but this glorious Plant, “ He is the high and lofty one that inhabits eternity,” you can never see His height. 9. This Plant is renowned for His extent, not only for His stature, but He is a broad Plant. He was planted in the first promise in Paradise, He spread through the Old Testament Church, He came the length of filling the land of Judaea, but at length this Plant has spread among us, and oh, that I could spread Him among you! III. The raising or upbringing of this Plant.1. He was raised up in the counsel of God’ s peace from eternity. 2. He was raised up in the first promise to Adam and Eve. 3. His actual manifestation in the flesh, when, in the fulness of time, He appeared. 4. This Plant was raised up, even in His death. 5. This Plant was raised up in His resurrection from the dead. For in His resurrection from the dead He was “ declared to be the Son of God with power, by the Spirit of holiness.” 6. This Plant of renown was raised up higher in His ascension into heaven, when He was set “ down on the right hand of the Majesty on high,” after He had, by Himself, purged our sins. 7. He is raised up likewise in the revelation of the everlasting Gospel. 8. This Plant of renown is raised up in the day of the Church’ s reformation. 9. This Plant of renown will be raised up at His second coming. 10. This Plant of renown will be raised up in the songs of the redeemed through endless eternity. IV. For whom is it that this Plant is raised up? He is raised up for mankind sinners, not for angel-kind sinners, and every mankind sinner that hears tell of Him should lay claim to Him (Isaiah 9:6). As the firmament is for you, if you will open your eyes, so the Sun of Righteousness is for you, if you will open your hearts to Him: for the Lord’ s sake do not refuse Him, or else it will not be telling you; you will rue it to eternity. V. Why is He raised up?1. He is raised up as a Redeemer to set the captives of the mighty at liberty. 2. He is raised up as a Mediator of the new covenant, to make peace between an offended God, and offending rebellious man, He “ makes reconciliation for iniquity” (Daniel 9:24). 3. He is raised up as a Surety, to pay the debt of a company of broken divers, and to bind Himself under a bond to satisfy justice for their crimes, and that He should reduce them to obedience to their offended Lord. Hence He is called (Hebrews 7:25). 4. He is raised up as a renowned Healer, a non-such Physician. He has opened up a medicinal well (Zechariah 13:1) that washes from sin and uncleanness, and, whatever be your malady, we invite you to come to this well, and wash and be clean. 5. He is raised up as a Witness to tell the truth, or as a Prophet to reveal it. 6. He is raised up as Leader unto the people, to show us the path of life, and to lead us into it, and, by His leading, He causes the wayfaring man to walk without erring,--“ I will bring the blind by a way they know not,” etc. 7. He is raised up as a Commander unto the people, as the Captain of salvation, to fight our battles for us, and to head the armies of God’ s Israel in their way to glory. And, by His skill and conduct, He makes them all conquerors, yea, more than conquerors, etc. VI. Application. Is it so that Christ is a Plant of renown, raised up by Jehovah? Then--1. See hence the iniquity and wickedness of these men who study to derogate from the glory of this renowned Plant. 2. See hence how to know a true and faithful minister of Christ. He will have a smell of the Plant of renown about him, whether he be in the pulpit or out of it. 3. See hence whence it is that believers flock to Gospel ordinances, where they can get them dispensed by those that bear Christ’ s commission to dispense them. It is the smell of the Plant of renown that draws them thither. 4. See hence why God the Father is called a Husbandman. He is so called with reference unto His raising up this Plant of renown (John 15:1). 5. See hence the regard that God hath for His Church upon earth, as His own garden. Why, He plants this Tree of Life in her, by which she became a new paradise: 6. See hence the excellency of Christ, in His Person, nature, offices, and appearances. 7. See what makes a land or a church pleasant, a Hephzibah or a Beulah unto the Lord. If the Plant of renown and His interest be thriving in a land or Church, it makes her “ beautiful for situation, the joy of the whole earth,” etc. 8. See when it is that a Church loses her beauty and glory, and makes defection. It is when Christ loses His Savour among her ministers and professors. 9. See hence how a person may know whether matters be right or wrong, whether he be thriving and prospering in grace, or if he be decaying and going backward. Is the Plant of renown rising or going back with you? If He be rising, then-- (1) He will be raised up in your esteem (Psalms 73:25; Philippians 3:8-9). (2) In your affection and love, “ Whom having not seen, we love,” etc. (3) In your meditation; every thought will be a captive to His obedience. (4) In your talk and walk, they will have a savour of the Plant of renown, and the chat and common talk of the world will be tasteless, like the white of an egg, to you. (5) In your religious worship, both public and private; when you go to prayer, when you go to hear the word, or when you go to a communion table, nothing will please but Christ Himself. (6) In your wishes and endeavours for the advancement of His kingdom and glory, in as far as your power can go. 10. If Christ be the Plant of renown, raised up by His eternal Father, may it not be for matter of lamentation that the Plant of renown is in so little request among us at this day, and that there is such a plucking away of the glory of this blessed Plant? 11. Is it so that Christ is a Plant of renown raised up by Jehovah? Then let all that bear the name of Chris, especially you who have been entertained at His table, and tasted of His special love and goodness, study to answer God’ s design, in raising up for us this Plant of renown. (1) Sit down, and rest your weary souls, under the shadow of this renowned Plant, after the example of the spouse (Son 2:1-17). (2) Come and behold the glory and beauty of the Plant of renown: “ O look unto Him, and be saved, all ye ends of the earth.” (3) Come and feed upon the fruit of this Plant of renown: “ For His flesh is meat indeed, and His blood is drink indeed.” (4) Whenever you find yourselves wounded by temptation, or corruption, or the world, come to the Plant of renown. (E. Erskine.) The Plant of renown Christ is frequently spoken of as a tree, a branch, a root, a stem, a rod, a lily, a rose. But the word plant has a signification somewhat different. What we plant we cultivate, sow the seed maybe, watch the growth, and tend in its maturity. And the plant here spoken of would refer to the human work and human nature of our Lord, arranged and developed by Divine wisdom. I. The seed was sown in the eternal counsels of God. We know that the purpose existed before the world was formed. There was the sowing of the plant. II. The growing. The plant started above the soil when man fell. Its green leaves showed themselves when the promise was given as to the seed of the woman which was to bruise the serpent’ s head. III. The developing. In teaching, symbol, ritual, prophecy, the light gradually dawned. IV. The blossoming. When Christ came visibly into the world, He “ blossomed like a rose.” His words were as fragrance. His acts of mercy and love beautified the earth, and filled all nations with their beauty. V. The fruit bearing. The plant flowered, and apparently withered when Christ was put to death. But out of that very fact we see the result of ripened seed--“ The flower abideth alone, except it die,” and Christ’ s death caused the seed to be scattered abroad, which should cause the whole world to bloom. The seed of life, joy, hope. VI. The honour giving eternal glory. “ A Plant of renown.” It is not a mere passing, fading, temporary, useless growth. It is renowned for its beauty--the essence of the Father’ s glory; for its usefulness--the covert and shelter of all people; for its continuance--it shall never fade; for its fruitfulness--it shall nourish all mankind. Happy is the man who finds shelter and rest in Him. (Homilist.) The Messianic conception in the prophets The attempt is sometimes made to trace a gradual development and enrichment of the Messianic idea in the hands of successive prophets. From that point of view Ezekiel’ s contribution to the doctrine of the Messiah must be felt to be disappointing. No one can imagine that his portrait of the coming King possesses anything like the suggestiveness and religious meaning conveyed by the ideal which stands out so clearly from the pages of Isaiah. And, indeed, no subsequent prophet excels or even equals Isaiah in the clearness and profundity of his directly Messianic conceptions. This fact shows us that the endeavour to find in the Old Testament a regular progress along one particular line proceeds on too narrow a view of the scope of prophecy. The truth is that the figure of the King is only one of the many types of the Christian dispensation which the religious institutions of Israel supplied to the prophets. It is the most perfect of all types, partly because it is personal, and partly because the idea of kingship is the most comprehensive of the offices which Christ executes as our Redeemer. But, after all, it expresses only one aspect of the glorious future of the kingdom of God towards which prophecy steadily points. We must remember also that the order in which these types emerge is determined not altogether by their intrinsic importance, but partly by their adaptation to the needs of the age in which the prophet lived. The main function of prophecy was to furnish present and practical direction to the people of God; and the form under which the ideal was presented to any particular generation was always that best fitted to help it onwards, one stage nearer to the great consummation. Thus while Isaiah idealises the figure of the king, Jeremiah grasps the conception of a new religion under the form of a covenant, the second Isaiah unfolds the idea of the prophetic servant of Jehovah, Zechariah and the writer of the 110th Psalm idealise the priesthood. All these are Messianic prophecies, if we take the word in its widest acceptation; but they are not all cast in one mould, and the attempt to arrange them in a single series is obviously misleading. So with regard to Ezekiel we may say that his chief Messianic ideal (still using the expression in a general sense) is the sanctuary, the symbol of Jehovah’ s presence in the midst of His people. At the end of chap. 37, the kingdom and the sanctuary are mentioned together as pledges of the glory of the latter days. But while the idea of the Messianic monarchy was a legacy inherited from his prophetic precursors, the Temple was an institution whose typical significance Ezekiel was the first to unfold. It was, moreover, the one that met the religious requirements of the age in which Ezekiel lived. Ultimately the hope of the personal Messiah loses the importance which it still has in the present section of the book; and the prophet’ s vision of the future concentrates itself on the sanctuary as the centre of the restored theocracy, and the source from which the regenerating influences of the Divine grace flow forth to Israel and the world. (John Skinnier, M. A.) No more consumed with hunger in the land. Education true and false What a tempting thing it is to try to put right some of the evils of the world by short and easy methods! To check some of the waste of natural wealth which keeps falling away. To take drastic measures for supplying the wants of the starving, and to cut, off occasion from those who misuse the privilege of plenty! To drain off vice into channels of virtue; to make the weary to lie down, the sufferer to rejoice, the ignorant to know, the oppressed to go free! We are tempted to think that it is, after all, only the involved complications of a novel, which a word of explanation and a mere handful of advice can rectify at once. And so, from time to time, people have descended, and do descend, into the arena of the world, whether sent by God directly, or by the prompting of their own heart. Reformers, statesmen, theorists, philanthropists, each with their schemes of regeneration, amelioration, or progress. But, alas! a great number in the end find that they must retire, baffled by the almost superhuman wrong-headedness of mankind; and perhaps feel that an interference, well meant, has only complicated a problem which was sufficiently difficult before. Now, one of the most imposing panaceas for regenerating society (and rightly so) is education. Education means, I suppose, a drawing forth of the human powers by instruction, by training, by discipline, by rewards, by punishments, by fostering care; education, says the popular voice of utilitarian England, means furnishing a child with useful knowledge. “ See the waste of material going on in the world, teach him how to use the advantages which come in his path; see the evils of intemperance and vice, show him the beauty of morality; see the political errors of former years, educate our masters in the thin principles of political history; see the squalor and penury and extravagance which is all around us, teach them thrift.” “ And what about religion?” Here we are told that there are so many hundred religious sects, and so much disputing, that it is a question which can be approached only with difficulty. It is one of the darkest blots in the religious world in England at the present day, that whereas the Church, the true mother yearning for all her children, is yet willing to give up the child to the mother that claims it, rather than that the child should be taught undenominationalism or no religion at all; there are found those who are not ashamed to betray their lack of true motherly feeling for the little ones of Christ’ s flock, by crying out in all the bitterness of sectarian partisanship, “ Let the child be neither mine nor thine, divide it.” Let it be taught no religion at all, let it be brought up on that desiccated, sterile, lifeless inanity known as undenominational religion--a supposed “ residuum” of Christianity left from the contentious controversies of the sects, “ to which no one has any particular objection,” except the few who are allowed a separate treatment of unusual favour, and the Roman Catholics who are far too wise to be taken in by the offer of a stone which has not even the appearance of bread. The blasts of sectarian controversy ought to be kept away from the education question altogether. In the first place, is it right, is it fair, either to secular or to religious education, practically to divorce them, and to allow the child to see and draw his own conclusions from the fact that the Tree of Life and the Tree of Knowledge are planted by different hands? The State ought not to be willing to part with religious teaching, and the Church ought not to be willing to part with secular teaching. They form one sacred responsibility. Again, is it fair that Sunday, the day of religious worship and real recreation, should be made a day of slavery to the child already overpowered by a burden of ever-increasing educational requirements? The question which we are being called upon to decide is really the question as between religious and irreligious education in the long run; between education and that which can only lay claim by sufferance to that name. It has its promise. It, too, says, “ I will raise up unto you a plant of renown.” A great future is in store for an instructed nation. “ Ye shall no more be consumed with hunger” ; material progress, intellectual progress, lie at the feet of an enlightened people; “ ye shall not bear the shame of the heathen any more” ; ye shall be emancipated from the swaddling bands of an effete superstition. Yes, but the response is inadequate; the uneducated passions rise up in rebellion against the educated reason. There are certain powers within which do not bow to reason. Vice in its rebellious fury, dishonesty, greed, idleness, these are not to be tied down with the two ropes of a mere intellectual education. God puts before the children in our schools a plant of renown--something higher than the example of a successful tradesman, or a provident saver, or a moral improver, or an example of self-help. God puts before each of our children--high and low, rich and poor--a plant of renown, a high and holy example of One who grew up before Him as a tender plant; who knew the sorrows and needs and joys of childhood, the trials and griefs of opening boyhood, the hardships and the triumphs of manhood, and the mystery of death Can you suppose for an instant the perfect man, Jesus Christ, dividing off His life into the sharp division of the religious and useful? His work was religious, and religion ran up into His work. It is an immense thing for children to have an enthusiasm, to read the lives of heroes, of inventors, of philanthropists, of self-elevated men. But of how far greater importance is it to have a life always put before them, in all its supernatural bearing, a life to which they may cling in prayer and praise, a life which shines through the pages of the Bible, as the sun through some painted window, mere lead and glass without it. There is a time when mere useful knowledge ceases to satisfy; there is a hunger for a comforter, for peace, for truth, for a Saviour, for a very present help in trouble. There is a hunger for God. Ah, how sad to think of our great philosopher, with his keen, magnificent intellect--no Atheist, as he himself has told us, because he had never been taught to believe in God, and therefore could not reject Him. With natural affections apparently stamped out of him, with a life written by his own hand, which has in it no mention of a mother’ s love; yet, strange to say, humanly speaking, sacrifices his life and health at the grave of one whom he loved with an affection which had satisfied his longing, only to leave the pang of a separation behind it, and leave him beating against the bars of death unillumined by a glimpse of eternity. Are we to send our children into the world where there is the famine of uncertainty and doubt and the shadow of death, with the hunger for peace and comfort and pardon unsatisfied; without showing them where alone the food can be found which will still the craving? If we part with our children, we are parting with the young blood of the Church. The Spartans were asked in a day of humiliation to hand over fifty children to be hostages to the enemy, and the answer was, We would rather give you a hundred of our best men. They may succeed where we have failed, they may conquer where we have been beaten, and live to retrieve our honour. So I would say, we would pinch and starve, if necessary, other things which seem almost necessary to the well-being of our parishes--our very beauty of worship itself,--but we will keep our children in our hands. When they are ours we know what to do with them. When we part with them, we part with them to that which is at the best a doubtful future, and then we are parting with the young blood of the Church. The teaching of the Church is something definite. Undenominational teaching, we fear, cannot grapple with the reproach, the famine, and the sin which leaps upon a fallen world. (Canon Newbolt.) Ezekiel 34:30 They, even the house of Israel, are My people. Israel’ s privileges I. The distinctive appellation here given to the persons addressed--“ the house of Israel.”1. They were a people closely connected with each other. They belonged to the same house, or family. As the descendants from the same progenitor, they were, in a peculiar sense, brethren. The same is the case, though in a different sense, with those to whom the promises in the text are now made, in regard to their spiritual import. These persons, as genuine believers, are of the same house, or what the Apostle calls--“ the household of faith.” They are brethren; and God Himself is their Father. 2. As “ the house of Israel,” the persons to whom the promises in the text were originally addressed were a people highly privileged. But the people of God, under the present dispensation, are more highly favoured still. They too have been chosen by Him to be His peculiar people. They have a fuller and a far more glorious revelation of His will, and, both as it respects their present position and their future prospects, they have indeed “ a goodly heritage” 3. As “ the house of Israel,” they were bound to the discharge of peculiar and very important duties. More still has been given to us; and therefore are our obligations to duty, if possible, more imperative. The Israelites were bound to love, to worship, and, in every other view, to serve the Lord; and so unquestionably are we. 4. Notwithstanding all this, “ the house of Israel” had, previously to the time here referred to, departed grievously from the Lord, and wrought great abominations. Alas! the parallel here in regard to ourselves holds in a way that may and ought to fill us with shame and confusion of face. But where sin abounded, grace is often made much more to abound. II. The import of these promises as made to the persons so characterised.1. There is here a promise of the continued presence of the Lord to be with them as their God. 2. It is here promised that the Lord will recognise the people addressed as being in reality His own people. The people of God are His peculiar property in consequence of the price paid for their purchase (1 Peter 1:18-19). They are further God’ s people, in consequence of being closely, vitally, and immutably united to the person of His Son (John 17:21). They are His people, besides, in consequence of having been subdued and won to Him by the powerful and gracious operations of His Holy Spirit (Psalms 110:3). But, on the other hand, they are characterised and treated as the people of God in consequence of their own voluntary choice and covenant engagement to be “ for Him, and not for another.” They are accordingly blessed with all needful blessings as the people of God (Ephesians 1:3). 3. It is here promised, that they shall have a pleasing conviction of their peculiar blessedness in enjoying the presence of the Lord, and being recognised by Him as His people. 4. The accomplishment of this promise, implying, as it does, such honour and blessedness, is as certain as the truth of God can make it. Application--1. Inquire to what description of people we belong. 2. Well may the saints of God “ be joyful in glory.” 3. All must be wretched and miserable who are not the people of God (Isaiah 57:20-21). 4. Those who are not now the people of God may yet have that honour (Hosea 1:10). (A. Thompson, D. D.) Ezekiel 34:31 And ye My flock, the flock of My pasture, are men, and I am your God.Man’ s destiny Every breath of the autumnal wind brings down hundreds of faded leaves: they lie thick under the fast baring trees in thousands. Perfect in form, wonderful in construction, beautiful in hue, they are crushed down in myriads under every passing foot of man or beast. And what is the fall of one leaf among so many? Yet we are told by those who have studied the vast distances and proportions of this marvellous universe,--the fall of our world from the sphere of creation would be but as the fall of a leaf in the midst of a great forest. And our text does not even concern itself with the earth in its entirety, but speaks only of the members of the race that inhabits it, creatures of a moment, dying fast as the leaves of the autumn wood, and swept like them to decay.1. “ The Lord God.” This holy name meant much to the devout Israelite in Ezekiel’ s time. The Jew had been taught to ascribe all around him--from the tiny herb on the wall to the cedars of Lebanon, from the raindrop against his easement to the blue waters of the Mediterranean that washed the shores of his beloved land, from the minute insect on the leaf to the lion roaring for his prey, from the lowest among the people to the majestic figure of a Moses or an Elijah--to the power and will of the Lord God. “ For Thy pleasure they are and were created” was a fundamental article of his faith. And he associated with the holy name the conception of the Lawgiver. Yet what was his knowledge of the power and majesty of the Lord God compared with that we now possess? The power, the wisdom, and the greatness of the Lord God as creator have been magnified a thousandfold by the scientific research of later days. And certainly the discoveries of science have tended to magnify the idea of Law. We meet it everywhere, inflexible, unbending, supreme. If, then, it is dominant in the physical universe, and certain to justify itself upon the disobedient, must not we, who acknowledge the God of the Israelites, feel what an argument we thus have for the fact that the moral law is equally stern and unyielding in its demands on our obedience? Thus are we prepared to understand our need of the Gospel, and to comprehend in some degree the absolute necessity, of the perfect obedience and of the great Atonement which is set forth in the life and death of Jesus Christ. The first duty required of man--the initial duty, if he is to receive blessing and acceptance, is that he should bow down in humility and adoration before the Lord his God. 2. He, then, the High and Holy One that inhabiteth eternity, is the speaker. And looking down upon this little globe, a mere speck in His vast universe, He says of its inhabitants, “ Ye My flock, the flock of My pasture, are men, and I am your God.” And what has science to tell us of man? It has been busy with his origin, with his capabilities and his destiny, and every step in its progress has tended to do away with any special dignity as connected with our humanity. We are asked to believe that by a gradual process man has been developed from the lowest scale of organism to his present state of physical and intellectual power; we are told that all the researches of science go to prove that the difference between his mental capabilities and those of the higher animals is one of degree, not of kind; we are confidently assured that as they die so he dies. Science can find no trace of the spirit of man that goeth upward, and it can only pronounce upon what it sees, and the lofty conceptions of man’ s immortality it dismisses to the region of dreams. 3. And has our experience a more flattering tale to tell of human capabilities and destinies? A few years of bright hope and vigour, a narrow span of time which is utterly insufficient to fulfil one half of man’ s aspirations and purposes, a training which is suddenly arrested, an education broken short, a sharp discipline of sorrow and pain--and then the darkness and decay of death. Man’ s very work outlives him. The labours of his brain and hands have a vitality beyond his own. If we look at man morally, have we greater reason for speaking of his dignity? There is much that we may call noble, but how much that is unutterably mean and degrading! There is a gradual advance in civilisation and outward refinement, but the thin veneered surface covers a depth of moral defilement and evil. 4. Yet it is of man, of whom science and experience have but a mournful tale to tell, that the Lord God says, “ Ye, the flock of My pasture, are men, and I am your God.” And this is surely the point to which we are brought. Talk as we may of the dignity and destiny of humanity, we search in vain for any real proof of it till we come to the Revelation of God’ s Word. The Bible, which throws the clearest light on man’ s weakness and sin, exalts him to a height above all we could hope or desire. It marks out man from the rest of creation by the fact that he is capable by grace of hearing God’ s voice, of following after and of loving Him. The Lord takes one of the tenderest relations of pastoral life when He says, “ Ye are My flock” ; and in the fulness of time we have the clear explanation of these words in those of Christ Jesus our Lord, “ I am the Good Shepherd: My sheep hear My voice and follow Me.” He who believes that this world has been trodden by the human steps of the Son of God, that His prayers have ascended from it, that He shed His blood to redeem it, that He shared our humanity even unto death, and lives again at God’ s right hand, can receive with joy unspeakable the marvellous promises of the destiny of those who are Christ’ s. The love of God becomes a reality, life earnest, restoration to holiness possible. (D. Reith, M. A.) God’ s care for men I. The Divine method in creation shows this. In so far as we know creation generally, and the earth in particular, this is the case. Scientific research has landed us near impassable gulfs between period and period, genus and genus, species and species; and a still wider gulf between matter and mind, which the Creator’ s hand alone can span. By the impetus of His will God has sent forth matter and life, travelling through immeasurable distances, and they exhausted their strength. Then another breath of inspiration from Him sent them still further; and from stage to stage they have come to our own day, which appears to be the consummation of all the former processes; we will not say that it is the last, because a new heaven and a new earth are in prospect. And why do we mention these things? Because that the highest steps yet taken by both matter and life known to us are seen in the constitution of man. Call it evolution, but it means development; call it discovery, but it is as old as Genesis. It is a grand truth that an unseen hand has guided the steps of matter and life through countless ages to find a resting place today in the being of man. II. The care of God for men is exhibited in the circumstances of life. We sometimes speak of the subordination of all things to the wants and wishes of mankind. When we do this we look through the spectacles of authority. When, however, we regard all these provisions and arrangements as the outcome of that supreme desire in the Divine heart to care for the flock, we have a higher and a clearer vision of the being of man. Man never appears so great and noble as when seen in the light of eternal love. Provision and preservation are the two handmaids which attend to his wants. A glance at man’ s creation satisfies us that he received a fitness to ascend, by degrees of discipline, into union with God. This fitness needed resources in order to expansion,--Yea, we say pasture for the flock. All things yield their fruit, and even themselves, for the service of mankind. “ The earth hath He given to the children of men.” No less clear is the hand of God seen in the preservation of His people. He is a wall of fire around them; their sun and shield. The guardianship is so complete that not a moment of time, or an inch of space, is devoid of its presence. III. The care of God for men appears more distinctly in the appointment of the Good Shepherd. The tender care of Jesus Christ was exclusively shown to mankind.1. That care arose from His heartfelt love to men. It was not mere pity excited by their wants, or commiseration engendered by their helplessness and misery, but affection for their very being. When the Saviour saw the sheep of the lost house of Israel without a Shepherd scattered over the mountains, torn of wild beasts, and no one caring for their life, His compassionate nature was necessarily moved. But there was below that a love which sprang from the old relationship--they were the children of the heavenly Father. 2. The extent of the care of Jesus for men appears in a life of effort, and a death of sacrifice on their behalf. He sought men. He went after them as the shepherd goes after his lost sheep. There were others who searched, some for riches, others for knowledge, others for power, and others for fame, but He sought out men--not the tatters of sin which covered their life, but themselves. He Unsealed the fountains of their being, and made streams of devotion flow God-ward. IV. Let us be imitators of him. Let those to whom God has given light flash it on their fellow creatures who live in gross darkness. Be ye leaders of men, to go before the sheep and show them the better pasture. Defend the helpless against oppression. Show charity to them for whom Christ died. To receive Christ into our heart is a glorious state, but to give that Christ to the world is a grade higher. (T. Davies, M. A.) A call to the Lord’ s own flock I. I shall notice first, what the text rather suggests than declares, namely, our profession towards God.1. That we avow Jehovah to be our God. The God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob is the God of believers to this day. We do not wish to have any other God, although in these days the carnally wise have set up another. This effeminate deity now occupies the place once given to Apollo or Venus, and he is as much a false god as they were. 2. That we are His people. Our song is, “ My Beloved is mine, and I am His.” To glorify God in our spirits and in our bodies, which are alike redeemed, is our reasonable service. In Jehovah is our trust, our joy, our glory. 3. Our joyful confidence in our Immanuel--God with us. Leave out the word am, which is in italics, and you get it, “ God with them.” What is this but “ God with us” ? Has there not been a Divine nearness between our souls and Christ since that first day when we touched His garment’ s hem and were made whole? II. Our proof from God. If God work among us, then shall even our adversaries say, “ Jehovah-Shammah,” the Lord is there. A tree is known by its fruit, and the rule applies even to God Himself.1. The first mark is the gathering in of the scattered (verse 11). Conversion is the sure sign of the immediate presence of the Lord. Glory be to His name, His hand is stretched out still for miracles of grace. 2. A second token of the Lord’ s presence is the feeding of the flock. The Holy Spirit seems to lay great stress upon that (verse 15). Have not your Sabbaths been times of holy festival? Has not the King Himself banqueted with us? At the communion table have we not been transported with such joys as can never be excelled until we behold the Chief Shepherd face to face? 3. Another token of the presence of the Good Shepherd is the healing of the sick; I mean the spiritually sick, for there is this promise given, “ I will seek that which was lost,” etc. It is a rare joy to restore such as have been overtaken in a fault. The God of our salvation hath devised means to bring home His banished, and therefore He is still in the midst of us. Glory be to His condescending love! 4. A further Drool of the presence of God in a church is when the Lord Jesus Christ is greatly honoured; for here it is written, “ I will set up one shepherd over them,” etc. If your faith rested anywhere but in the glorious person and finished work of the Son of God it were a worthless faith. If He be indeed the Lord of whom we are the loyal subjects, then the Lord our God is with us, and we are His people. 5. A further evidence of the Lord’ s presence with a people is found in their prevailing peace of mind. “ I will make with them a covenant of peace,” etc. Do not many of you realise that deep peace, the peace of God which passeth all understanding, so that you are free from all fear, and happy amid grievous poverty and trial? III. Our description by God.1. God calls His Church His flock. A flock is the shepherd’ s treasure, it is his living wealth; but it is also the shepherd’ s care, it is his constant anxiety. A true Church is therefore a very precious thing, it is not a mere human society banded together for certain objects, but it is a community which God Himself hath formed, and over which He doth watch with an unsleeping eye. 2. Observe that it is added, “ The flock of My pasture.” There is a different idea here. It shows that God’ s people are not only peculiar in other things, but they are peculiar in their feeding. You may know a child of God by that which his soul lives upon. God’ s people know their Lord, and they know the kind of food which He gives them. They know the truth from a lie. They will have nothing but clean provender, and the more evidently it comes from the great Shepherd’ s own hand the better it is to them. 3. It is a very singular thing, but it is added, “ Ye My flock, the flock of My pasture, are men.” “ Ye are men” : then God knows what kind of persons we are, whom He has loved with an everlasting love. We are Adams, not angels. God’ s people are but men; yet they are men and not brutes. There are in human form many who are hardly so good as brutes; but the saints are gentle, compassionate, and gracious. God’ s people are true men: when the Spirit of God is in them they quit themselves like men; they come to the front and bear the brunt of the battle. 4. But then He adds this blessed assurance, “ And I am your God.” God is not a man, that He should lie; nor the son of a man, that He should repent. I hear that poor soul seeking after God, say, “ Oh, but I am so unworthy.” Just so. The Lord knows it. He says you are men. But then He is not unworthy; he is worthy to receive honour and power Divine, for He is our God. (C. H. Spurgeon.) . Ezekiel 35:8-15 But ye . . . shall shoot forth your branches.The Divine benison When does God give short measure? When did He give otherwise than pressed down, heaped up, running over? This is the consolation of heaven; this is the measure of the Divine benison.1. That blessing is to be physical: “ Ye shall shoot forth your branches, and yield your fruit.” God is not ashamed to have His name connected with the daily loaf and with the daily goblet of water. When we go to the harvest field we should think we ace going to church; when we go to the well of springing water we should think we are going to a fountain rising in heaven. Your harvests are God’ s; your fields are the green ways leading up to His sanctuary. 2. Not only physical, but social: “ I will multiply men upon you . . . and the wastes shall be builded.” God would have all the earth inhabited. He would build men into organisations and brotherhoods; He would establish fraternities of souls. The Lord is never ashamed to associate Himself with social economy, social purity, social progress. 3. Not only physical and social, but municipal: “ And the cities shaft be inhabited.” Cities have not a good history; cities had a bad founder. The foundations of cities were laid by a murderer. But it hath pleased God to accept many human doings, and to purify them and ennoble them and turn them to purposes sanctified and most beneficial. The Lord never set king over anybody with His own real consent. He gave the people the desire of their hearts, and plagued them every day since they got the answer. So He accepts the city, and He will do what He can with the municipalities, to inhabit them, and direct them, and purify them. 4. The Lord never concludes simply within the letter. At, the last the invariably says something that opens up a distant and ever-receding because ever-enlarging horizon. He says in this instance, “ I will do better unto you than at your beginnings.” He is able, let us say again with rising thankfulness, to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think. The Church constantly exclaims, Thou hast kept the good wine until now! We never can get in advance of God. When we have reaped our most abundant harvest He says, This is only an earnest of the harvest you shall one day possess; I will do more for you and better unto you than at your beginnings. 5. Then let us grow in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. Let us he no longer thoughtless; let us no longer limit the Holy One of Israel, saying, The Lord hath made an end of His revelation, the Lord hath no more grace to give, no more love to show; He has given us the Cross. Paul says, If He has freely given us the Cross,--it is not an end, it is a beginning,--with the Cross He will also freely give us all things. The Lord cannot be exhausted. His providence is ascending, expanding, deepening. (J. Parker, D. D.) Ezekiel 35:10 Whereas the Lord was there.Jehovah-Shammah As Palestine was preserved from the enmity of Mount Seir by the presence of Jehovah, so the Church, and each separate member of it, is constantly kept by the power of a present God, despite the rage of adversaries. I. A despised people constantly triumphant because “ the Lord was there.” The people of God have always been, in every age, a hated and despised people. This may be seen if you will notice a few facts.1. The adversaries of God’ s Israel have often thought in their hearts that they would utterly destroy them. One of the Roman emperors set up a monument, “ In the memory of a destroyed superstition called Christianity.” But was our holy religion destroyed? Could the dragon prevail against the remnant which kept the commandment of God and the testimony of Jesus Christ? Behold the multitudes who this day bow the knees at the name of Jesus of Nazareth. The Lord being there, immortality, nay, eternity was in the Church. God is eternal, He is in the Church, and His Church is immortal too. 2. The enemies of the Church have frequently shown their scorn of her by the ridicule which they have cast upon her attacks. But as the cake of barley bread fell upon the tent of Midian and smote it that it lay along, even so the Church is more than conqueror. Sydney Smith said, when Carey talked of evangelising India, that a consecrated cobbler was going out to preach the Gospel to educated and enlightened Hindoos, but the consecrated cobbler took his post and digged in India a well of which thousands shall yet drink. That man of God has placed the battering-ram of the Gospel in such a position that ere long the hoary bastions of idolatry will tremble, and the world shall see that the weakness of God is stronger than man. 3. The world’ s estimation of the Church has frequently been seen in the way in which it will mock at all her teachings. The wise men of this world have always something far superior to anything that the Bible can reveal. Ah! we can well endure their boastings, for the doctrines of grace are the loftiest of all philosophy and the most intellectual of all teachings--because Jehovah-Shammah, the Lord is in them; and where God is, there is perfect wisdom; where God is, there is incomprehensible knowledge. 4. Do they not, also, very frequently cast in our teeth our trials? Nebuchadnezzar can cast in but three, he cannot, however, cast out the fourth; where the Church shall be, Christ shall walk the coals with His people, and they shall come out of their trials triumphant, for God is there. Where God is, there is everlasting love; where God abideth, there is immutable affection; and therefore let this be our comfort, God is with thee, Israel, passing through the fire. 5. The world shows its disesteem of us by the way in which it often treats the Christian. It sees him poor and naked and miserable, and therefore pushes him about as though he were a beggar and not one of the blood royal. Little do they know that, however poor the Christian may be, the Lord is there. The very honour and dignity and majesty of Deity itself guards every follower of the Saviour, however much he may be despised among men. II. The man opposed and yet a conqueror.1. The early convictions of a newborn soul are always the subject of Satanic attack. Satan hopes that with the laugh, the jeer, the jest and merriment he will destroy utterly all convictions of sin; little does he dream that “ the Lord is there,” and where God sends the arrow home, no devil can ever draw it out. 2. Then, as the fend has tried to destroy conviction, he will next shoot his arrows against our faith. Poor, feeble follower of Jesus, he will worry thee. But the faith which God gives to us overcometh the world--yea, and overcometh the old dragon too. 3. Have not you always found that not only your faith but all your good works are the subjects of Satan’ s attacks? I never yet had a virtue or possessed a grace but what it was sure to be the target for hellish bullets; whether it was hope bright and sparkling, or love warm and fervent, or patience all enduring, or real flaming like coals of fire, the old enemy of everything that is good has tried if he could destroy or mar it. And why is it that anything virtuous or lovely survives in you? There can be no reason given to this, but “ God is then.” 4. Note how sedulously Satan aims against the perseverance of God’ s people. They will never hold on their way, saith he. You and I have thought we never should. And yet you have not fallen from grace yet, not yet have you disgraced your character, not yet gone back to your old lusts. How is this? Why, God was in you, and if He had not been there, then indeed had you been a prey unto your adversaries. A Christian is something like an express train. On some of our railroads, you know, there are express trains which do not stop to take water, the water lies in a trench in the middle between the rails, and as the train runs it sucks up its own supply of cold water, and so continues its course without a pause. Our God in grace has forestalled our needs, He prepares supplies for His own people, so that without their stopping to seek the streams of creature confidence, sometimes without the use of means, He is pleased to speed them on their pathway towards heaven, fed by a Divine arrangement of grace. Oh, it is blessed to think that if God be there, everything a Christian can want for his final persevering, for his eternal life, is ready at hand. 5. I have no doubt, beloved, we shall find that when we come to die, our dying confidence will be the object of the enmity of all the powers of hell. Perhaps like John Knox you may have your blackest day at the last, but oh! thanks be unto God that giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ, we have no fear for our dying confidence, for “ God is there,” even there where the billows are the most tempestuous and the water is most chill; we shall feel the bottom and know that it is good, our feet shall stand upon the rock of ages even in our dying moments. III. A desolate soul not destroyed, because God is there. “ My purpose is,” says Satan, “ that be shall dwell forever with me, in misery extreme. I have laid hold upon him,” says he, “ and he hath made a league with hell. He is mine, he is mine forever.” But stop, stop, the Lord was there before the devil. Does the devil purpose? Ah, but God’ s purpose is older than the devil’ s purpose. Does the sinner make a covenant? Ay, but then, God’ s covenant was made before that sinner was born, and what is the devil’ s purpose compared with God’ s purpose? You see, God is there before him--“ Whereas the Lord was there.” “ Ah, but,” said Satan, “ he is mine, I will have him, I will go and take possession, he is mine” ; and so he is about to enter the vineyard, and take possession of the vines of sour grapes, when lo! someone meets him on the threshold, and says, “ What dost thou here?” “ I am come to take possession,” saith he. “ Take possession!” saith Christ; “ I have a claim upon this vineyard, I bought it and paid for it with drops of blood; what dost thou here? Thou sayest, ‘ I will possess this land,’ whereas the Lord was there” : and He shows the fiend the print of the nails, and points to His wounded side, and says, “ Whatever thy claim may be, Mine is a higher claim; I bought, I paid for, I have the acceptance from the Divine hand, and this vessel of mercy was Mine, Mine long before thou couldst have any claim upon it.” IV. The same, dear friends, is true with regard to the entire world. The world cannot be destroyed, because “ Jehovah is there.” This world once shone, like its sister stars, bright and fair, but a sad shadow of eclipse was thrown upon it--it became swathed in the mists of sin and though the glory of the Lord hath risen upon it, yet still much of the gloom and the thick darkness continues. Shall that darkness cover all the nation? Shall the light become dim forever? No, no; “ The whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now.” Shall its groans and travails end in nothing? No, no; the day cometh when “ The glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together, for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it.” (C. H. Spurgeon.) . Ezekiel 36:9 And ye shall be tilled and sown.A vision of the field I. Man’ s heart by nature is like a waste field.1. He brings forth no fruit unto God. Leave him alone and he will live unto himself. He will live and he will die a strange monstrosity in the world--a creature that has lived without his Creator. Methinks I see the great God coming to look at the man, even as a farmer might come to look upon his fallow field. He looks the whole field through. There is no thought for God, no consecration of time to God, no desire to honour God, no longing to produce in the world fresh glory to God, no effort to raise up to Him fresh voices that shall praise His name. He lives unto himself or to his fellow men, and having so lived, he so dies. 2. Worse than this; the field that has never been ploughed or sown does produce something. There is an activity about human nature that will not let us live without doing. “ No man liveth to himself.” Is there no wheat growing on that soil? no barley? no rye? Very well, then, there will be darnel, and cockle, and twitch, and all sorts of weed. So it is with the unrenewed heart. It is prolific of evil imaginations, wrong desires, and bitter envyings. As these ripen they bring forth ill words--idle, or, it may be, lascivious words, and perhaps atheistic, blasphemous words; and as these ripen they come to actions, had the man becomes an offender in his deeds, perhaps against man, certainly against God. The apples of Gomorrah hang plentifully upon him. II. There is no hope for this field, unless God turn to it in mercy. “ I am for you, and I will turn unto you.” Man never does of himself turn unto God, and that for obvious reasons. We are sure he never can, for he is dead in trespasses and sins. We are certain he never will, for by nature he hates anything like a new birth; and if he could make himself a new creature he would not, for Christ has expressly said, “ Ye will not come unto Me that ye might have life.” If you have turned, you know that the Lord has done it. Give unto Him the glory. If you have not been converted, God help you to cry unto Him instantly and earnestly, “ Turn us, and we shall be turned.” Look unto Him who is exalted on high to “ give repentance and remission of sins.” Seek ye unto Him, and ye shall live. III. When the field is to be put under cultivation it must be tilled. So when God turns to any man in His mercy there has to be an operation, a tillage, performed upon his heart. Common calling is addressed to every man, but effectual calling comes only to prepared men, to those whom God makes willing in the day of His power. Now, what is the plough wanted for? Why, it is wanted, first of all, to break up the soil and make it crumble. The more thoroughly pulverised the heart becomes, the better. The seed will never get into an unbroken heart. The plough is also wanted to destroy the weeds, for they must be killed. If the Lord save you, He must kill your drunkenness, He must kill your swearing, He must kill your whoredom, He must kill your lying, He must kill your dishonesty. These must all go; every single weed must be torn up; there is no hope for you while there is a weed living. The Lord make a clean sweep of the weeds, and burn them all! Well, now, mark you, in this tilling there are different soils. There is the light soil and the heavy soil; and so there are different sorts of constitutions. There are some men who are naturally tender and sensitive. Many, too, of our sisters are like Lydia: they soon receive the Word. There are others that are like the heavy clay soil; and you know the farmer does not plough both soils alike, or else he would make a sad mess of it. And so God does not deal with all men alike. Some have, as it were, first a little ploughing, and then the seed is put in, and all is done; but some have to be ploughed and cross ploughed; and then there is the scarifier and the clod crusher, and I know not what, which have to be rolled over them before they are good for anything; and perhaps, after all, they produce very little fruit. And, you know, the farmer has his time for ploughing. Some soils break up best after a shower of rain, and some do best when they are driest. So there are some hearts--ay, and I think almost all hearts--that are best ploughed after a shower of heavenly love has fallen upon them. They are in a grateful frame of mind for mercies received, and then the story of a dying Saviour comes to them as just that which will touch the springs of their hearts. IV. Unless God has tilled the heart, it cannot be sown with any hope of success. After ploughing there comes the sowing. When the heart is ready God sows it--sows it with the best of wheat. The wise farmer does not sow tail corn, but, as Isaiah says, he casts in “ the principal wheat.” The seed which God sows is living seed. It shall grow, for God has prepared the soil for it. (C. H. Spurgeon.) Ezekiel 36:11I will settle you after your old estates, and will do better unto you than at your beginnings.Hope for your future I. What is there, then, so good in our beginnings?1. One choice enjoyment was our vivid sense of pardon. Taken out of the bonds of iniquity, our hearts danced at the very sound of the redeeming name. 2. You had then a delicious enjoyment of the good things of the covenant of grace. You did not know a tenth of what you know now, but you intensely enjoyed what you did know. 3. And, at that time, we were like the children of Israel in a third matter, namely, that we had repeated victories. You marvelled to see how the adversary was subdued beneath the, foot of your faith. Those were good times, were they not--those beginnings? 4. In those days you had great delight in prayer. When alone with Christ, it was heaven below; and in the prayer meetings, when God’ s people were warm at heart, how you delighted to unite with them! 5. In those days we were full of living fruitfulness. What marvels we were going to do; ay, and we did many of them by God’ s good grace! 6. Then, if we had but little strength, yet we kept the Lord’ s Word. If we had but one talent, we made as much use of it, perhaps, as some do with ten. 7. Oh, how we loved the Saviour when first we discovered how He had loved us with an everlasting love! II. Can anything be better than this? Well, it would be a very great pity if there could not be, because I am sure we, when we were young beginners, were not much to boast of; and all the joy we had was, artier all, but little compared with what is revealed in the Word of God. In what respects, then, can our future be better than that which is behind?1. I answer very readily, faith may be stronger. At first it shoots up like the lily, very beautiful, but fragile; afterwards it is like the oak with great roots that grip the soil, and rugged branches that defy the winds. 2. God gives to His people, as they advance, much more knowledge. We learn the art of dissecting truth--taking it to pieces, and seeing the different veins of Divine thought that run through it; and then we see with delight blessing after blessing conveyed to us by the person and sacrifice of our exalted Lord. 3. Love to Christ gets to be more constant. It is a passion always, but with believers who grow in grace it comes to be a principle as well as a passion. If they are not always blazing with love, there is a good fire banked up within the soul. 4. As Christians grow in grace, prayer becomes more mighty. If the Lord builds you up into true spiritual manhood you will know how to wrestle. 5. So, I think, it is in usefulness. Growing Christians, and full-grown Christians, are more useful than beginners. Their fruit, if not quite so plentiful, is of better quality, and more mellow. 6. In fact, this one thing is clear of all believers who have grown in grace--that the work of grace in them is nearer completion. They are getting nearer heaven, and they are getting more fit for it. III. How can we secure that it will be better with us by and by than it is now?1. I answer, first, keep to the simplicity of your first faith. Never get an inch beyond the Cross; for, if you do, you will have to come back. That is your place till you die: you nothing, and Christ everything. 2. At the same time, practise great watchfulness. We ought to have the eyes of a lynx, and they ought never to be closed. We know not which way the next temptation will come. 3. The next advice is, grow in dependence upon God. You cannot keep yourself unless He keeps you. Remember that. 4. Determine, at the very beginning, to be thorough. Daily dread lest in anything you should omit to do your Lord’ s will, or should trespass against Him. In this way your joy shall be maintained, and you shall be settled after your old estates; and God will do better unto you than at your beginnings. 5. Seek for more instruction. Try to grow in the knowledge of God, that your joy may be full. (C. H. Spurgeon.) Better on before In some parts of the Western Highlands of Scotland the traveller’ s eye is delighted by the clear and sunlit waters of the lake, running far up into the hills. But as he climbs over the slopes and catches sight of the waters of the Atlantic, bathed in the glory of the setting sun, he almost forgets the beautiful vision which previously arrested him, for the latter scene is far superior. Thus do the growths of spiritual character unfold richer conceptions of Christ’ s infinite love and character. (R. Venting.) Ezekiel 36:16-17 Moreover, the word of the Lord came unto me, saying, son of man.The messenger Having scattered over an open field the bones of the human body, bring an anatomist to the scene. Observe how he fits bone to bone and part to part, till from those disjointed members he constructs a framework, which, apart from our horror at the eyeless sockets and fleshless form, appears perfectly, divinely beautiful. Now, as with these different parts of the human frame, so is it with the doctrines of the Gospel, in so far as they are intelligible to our limited understandings. There is a difference, which even childhood may discern, between the manner in which the doctrines and duties of the Gospel are set forth in the Word of God, and their more formal arrangement in our catechisms and confessions. They are scattered over the face of Scripture much as the plants of nature are distributed upon the surface of our globe. There, for example we meet with nothing that corresponds to the formal order, systematic classification, and rectangular beds of a botanical garden; on the contrary, the creations of the vegetable kingdom lie mingled in what, although beautiful, appears to be wild confusion. On the same moor, on the surface of the same meadow, the naturalist collects grasses of many forms, and finds both enamelled with flowers of every hue. And in those primeval forests which have been planted by the hand of God, and beneath whose silent and solemn shades man still walks in savage freedom, trees of every form and foliage stand side by side like brothers. Now, although over the whole surface of our globe plants of every form and family seem thrown at random, amid this apparent disorder the eye of science discovers a perfect system in the floral kingdom; and just as, though God has planted these forms over the face of nature without apparent arrangement, there is a botanical system, so there is as certainly a theological system, though its doctrines and duties are not classified in the Bible according to dogmatic rules. Does not this circumstance teach us that He intended His Word to be a subject of careful study as well as of devout faith, and that man should find in its saving pages a field for the exercise of his highest faculties? I. That this portion of scripture, extending onwards from the 16th verse, presents an epitome or outline of the Gospel. Its details, with their minute and varied beauties, are here, so to speak, in shade; but the grand truths of redemption stand boldly up, much as we have seen from sea the summits of a mountain range, or the lofty headlands of a dim and distant coast. In the 17th verse, we have man sinning--“ Son of man, when the house of Israel dwelt in their own land, they defiled it by their own way and by their doings.” In the 18th verse, we have man suffering--“ Wherefore, I poured My fury upon them.” In the 21st verse, man appears an object of mercy--“ But I had pity.” In the 22nd verse, man is an object of free mercy, mercy without merit--“ I do not this for your sakes, O house of Israel.” In the 24th verse, man’ s salvation is resolved on--“ I will bring you into your own land.” In the 25th verse, man is justified--“ Then will I sprinkle clean water upon you, and ye shall be clean.” In the 26th and 27th verses, man is renewed and sanctified--“ A new heart also will I give you,” etc. In the 28th verse, man is restored to the place and privileges, which he forfeited by his sins--“ Ye shall be My people, and I will be your God.” “ This land that was desolate, is become like the garden of Eden.” We have our security for these blessings in the assurance of the 36th verse--“ I the Lord have spoken it, and I will do it” ; and we are directed to the means of obtaining them in the 37th verse--“ I will yet for this be inquired of,” etc. Such is the wide and interesting field that lies before us. But before entering upon it, let us consider-- II. Who is commissioned to deliver God’ s message. Who and what is the chosen ambassador of heaven? An angel? No; but a man. “ Son of man,” says the Lord. By this title Ezekiel is so often addressed that it forces all our attention Lord remarkable fact, that God deals with man through the instrumentality of man, communicating by men His will to men. The rain, in its descent from heaven, falls upon the surface of our earth, percolates through the porous soil, and, flowing along rocky fissures or veins of sand, is conveyed below ground to the fountain whence it springs. Now, although rising out of the earth, that water is not of the earth, earthy. The world’ s deepest well owes its treasures to the skies. So was it with the revealed will of God. It flowed along human channels, yet its origin was more than celestial; it was Divine.1. The kindness of God to man. The God of salvation, the author and finisher of our faith, might have arranged it otherwise. Who shaft limit the Holy One of Israel? The field is the world. And as the husbandman ploughs his fields and sows his seed in spring by the same hands that bind the golden sheaves of autumn, God might have sent those angels to sow the Gospel, who shall descend at the judgment to reap the harvest. But though these blessed and benevolent spirits, who are sent forth to minister for them who shall be heirs of salvation, take a lively interest in the work; though watching from on high the progress of a Redeemer’ s cause, they rejoice in each new jewel that adds lustre to His crown, and in every new province that is won for His kingdom; and though there be more joy even in heaven than on earth when man is saved, a higher joy among these angels over one sinner that repenteth than over ninety and nine just persons, yet theirs is little more than the pleasure of spectators. To man, however, in salvation, it is given to share, not a spectator’ s but a Saviour’ s joy; with his lips at least he tastes the joys of that cup for which Jesus endured the Cross and despised the shame. If theft parent is happy who has snatched a beloved child from the flood or fire, and the child, saved, and thus twice given hind, becomes doubly dear, what happiness in purity or permanence to be compared with his, who is a; labourer with God in saving souls? 2. The honour conferred on man. Did Moses occupy a noble position when, taking advantage of some rock, he stood aloft amid the dying Israelites, and there, the central figure of the camp, on whom all eyes were turned, raised high that serpent, at which to look was life? Nobler his attitude, much holier his office, who with his foot on a dying world, lifts up the Cross--exalts Jesus Christ and Him crucified--that, whosoever looketh and believeth on Him might not perish, but have everlasting life. What dignity does this world offer, what glittering stars, what jewelled honours flash on her swelling breast, to be for one moment compared with those which they win on earth, and wear in heaven, who have turned souls from darkness to light, from the power of Satan to the living, loving God? Each converted soul a gem in their crown, they that be wise shall shine as the brightness of the firmament, and they that turn many to righteousness, as the stars, forever and ever. How has the hope of this touched, as with burning fire, the preacher’ s lips, sustained his sinking heart, and held up the weary hands of prayer! It has proved an ample recompense for the scanty rewards which God’ s servants have received at the hands of men, for the penury which has embittered their life, and the hardships which have pressed on their lot. You are “ a son of man” ; and as you bear the prophet’ s title, whatever otherwise you may be, let me call you to the prophet’ s office. The Master hath need, much need, daily need of you. Take a living, lively, loving interest in souls. Don’ t leave them to perish. You are your brother’ s keeper. Permanently and formally to instruct may be the duty of others, but to enlist is yours. “ This honour have all His saints.” 3. The wisdom of God. However highly gifted he may otherwise be, it is a valid objection to a preacher, that he does not feel what he says; that spoils more than his oratory. Once on a time an obscure man rose up to address the French Convention. At the close of his oration, Mirabeau, the giant genius of the Revolution, turned round to his neighbour, and eagerly asked, Who is that? The other, who had been in no way interested by the address, wondered at Mirabeau’ s curiosity. Whereupon the latter said, That man will yet act a great part; and added, on being asked for an explanation, He speaks as one who believes every word he says. Much of pulpit power under God defends on that; admits of that explanation, or of one allied to it. They make others feel who feel themselves. How can he plead for souls who neither knows nor feels the value of his own? How can he recommend a Saviour to others who himself despises and rejects Him? It is true that a man may impart light to others who does not himself see the light. It is true that, like a concave speculum cut from a block of ice, which, by its power of concentrating the rays of the sun, kindles touch wood or explodes gunpowder, a preacher may set others on fire, when his own heart is cold as frost. It is true that he may stand like a lifeless fingerpost, pointing the way on a road where he neither leads nor follows. It is true that God may thus in His sovereign mercy bless others by one who is himself unblessed. Yet commonly it happens that it is what comes from the heart of preachers that penetrates and affects the heart of hearers. Like a ball red hot from the cannon’ s mouth, he must burn himself who would set others on fire. We have read the story of a traveller who stood one day beside the cages of some birds, that tuned their plumage on the wires, struggling to be free. A wayworn and sun-browned man, like one returned from foreign lands, he looked wistfully and sadly on these captives, till tears started in his eye. Turning round on their owner, he asked the price of one, paid it in strange gold, and opening the cage set the prisoner free; thus he did with another and another, till every bird had flown away singing to the sides--soaring on the wings of liberty. The crowd stared and stood amazed. They thought him mad, till to the question of their curiosity he replied, I was once a captive; I know the sweets of liberty. And so they who have experience of guilt, who have felt the serpent’ s bite, the poison burning in their veins, who on the one hand have felt the sting of conscience, and on the other the peace of faith, the joys of hope, the love, the light, the liberty, the life that are found in Jesus, they, not excepting heaven’ s highest angels, are the fittest to preach a Saviour; to plead with man for God, and with God for man. During a heavy storm off the coast of Spain a dismasted merchantman was observed by a British frigate drifting before the gale. Every eye and glass were on her; and a canvas shelter on a deck almost level with the sea suggested the idea that even yet there might be life on board. With all their faults, no men are more alive to humanity than our rough and hardy mariners; so the order instantly sounds to put the ship about; and presently a boat is lowered, and starts with instructions to bear down upon the wreck. Away after that drifting hulk go these gallant men over the mountain swell and roaring sea. They reach it; they shout; and now a strange object rolls from that canvas screen against the lee shroud of a broken mast. It is hauled into the boat. It proves to be the trunk of a man, bent head and knees together, so dried up and shrivelled as to be hardly felt within the ample clothes--so light that a mere boy lifted it on board. It is conveyed to the ship and laid on the deck. In horror and pity the crew gather around it. These feelings suddenly change into astonishment. The miserable object shows signs of life. The seamen draw nearer; it moves; and then mutters--in a deep sepulchral voice mutters--There is another man. Rescued himself, the first use the saved one made of Speech was to try to save another. Oh! learn that blessed lesson. Be daily practising it. (T. Guthrie, D. D.) They defiled it.--The defiler When with slow and lingering steps Adam and Eve came forth weeping from Paradise, and the gate was locked behind them, that was the bitterest home leaving the world has ever seen. Adam belay; the federal head of his family, they come not alone. A longer sad sadder procession follows them than went weeping on the road to Babylon. They are attended by a world in tears. Death has passed upon all men, for that all have sinned. I. Let us look at man sinning. “ Ye have defiled the land.” Sin is presented here as a defilement. Pluck off that painted mask, and turn upon her face the lamp of God’ s Word. We start--it reveals a death’ s head. I stay not to quote texts descriptive of sin. It is a debt, a burden, a thief, a sickness, a leprosy, a plague, a poison, a serpent, a sting; everything that man hates it is; a load of curses and calamities beneath whose crushing, most intolerable pressure the whole creation groaneth. But leaving what is general let us fix our attention on that view of sin which the text presents. Here it is set forth as a defilement; and what else in the eye of God can deform, and does defile? Yet how strange it is, that some deformity of body shall prove the subject of more parental regrets and personal mortification than this most foul deformity of soul! Your manners may have acquired a courtly polish, your dress may, rival the winter’ s snow, unaccustomed to menial offices, and sparkling with Indian gems, your hands may bear no stain, yet they arm not clean; nay, beneath that graceful exterior may lie concealed more foul pollution than is covered by a beggar’ s rags. This son of toil, from whose very touch your delicacy shrinks, and who, till Sabbath stops the wheels of business, and with her kind hand wipes the sweat of labour from his brow, never knows the comfort of cleanly attire, may have a heart within, which, compared with yours, is purity itself. Beneath this soiled raiment he wears, all unseen by the world’ s dull eye, the “ raiment of needlework,” and the “ clean linen” of a Redeemer’ s righteousness. II. The nature of this defilement.1. It is internal. Like snowdrift, when it has levelled the churchyard mounds, and, glistening in the winter sun, lies so pure, and white, and fair, and beautiful, above the dead that fester and rot below, a plausible profession may wear the look of innocence, and conceal from human eyes the foulest heart corruption. The grass grows green on the mountain that hides a volcano in its bowels. Behind the rosy cheek and lustrous eye of beauty, how often does there lurk the deadliest of all diseases! Internal, but all the more dangerous that they are internal, such maladies are reluctantly believed in by their victims. They are the last to be suspected and the hardest to cure. To other than the physician’ s skill or a mother’ s anxious look, this youthful and graceful form never wears bloom of higher health, nor moves in more fascinating charms, nor wins more admiring eyes, than when fell consumption, like a miner working on in darkness, has penetrated the vital organs, and is quietly sapping the foundations of life. Like these maladies, sin has its seat within. It is a disease of the heart. It is the worst and deadliest of all heart complaints. Needing not food, but medicine, a new nature, a new heart, a new life, this is the prayer that best suits thy lips and meets thy case--Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me. 2. This defilement is universal. Our world is inhabited by various races; different specimens, not different species of mankind. The Mongolian, the Negro, the race early cradled among Caucasian mountains, and the Red Indians of the New World; these all differ from each other in the colour of the skin, in the contour of the skull, in the cast and character of their features. But although the hues of the skin differ, and the form of the skull and the features of the face are cast in different moulds, the features, colour, and character of the heart are the same in all men. Be he pale-faced or red, tawny or black, Jew, Greek, Scythian, bond or free, whether he be the lettered and civilised inhabitant of Europe, or roam a painted savage in American woods, or pant beneath the burning line, or wrapt in furs shiver amid Arctic snows, as in all classes of society, so in all these races of men, “ the heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked” ; “ the carnal mind is enmity against God.” The pendulum, farther removed from the centre, vibrates more slowly at the equator than at the poles; the farther north we push our way over thick-ribbed ice, the faster the clock goes; but parallels of latitude have no modifying influence on the motions of the heart. It beats the same in all men; nor, till repaired by grace, does it in any man beat true to God. How can it be otherwise? The tree is diseased, not at the top, but at the root; and therefore no one branch of the human family can possibly escape being affected by sin. Man is the child of unholy parents, and how can a clean thing come out of an unclean? 3. This evil is incurable. Hear the word of the Lord, Though thou wash thee with nitre, and take thee much soap, yet thine iniquity is marked before Me, saith the Lord. Again, Can the Ethiopian change his skin, or the leopard his spots? Then may ye also do good that are accustomed to do evil. Again, Why should ye be stricken any more, ye will revolt more and more? Of these solemn and humbling truths it were difficult to find a more remarkable illustration than that before us. What moral effect had God’ s judgments on His ancient people? Were they cured by their afflictions, by trials that extended over long years of suffering? Did these arrest the malady? Had they even the salutary effect of preventing their sinking deeper into sin? By no means. As always happens in incurable diseases, the patient grew worse instead of better. “ Seducers wax worse and worse.” As always happens when life is gone, the dead became more and more offensive. The brighter the sun shines, the more the skies rain, the thicker the dews of night, and the hotter the day, the faster the fallen tree rots; because those agents in nature which promote vegetation and develop the forms and beauty of life, the sounding shower, the silent dews, the summer heat, have no other effect on death than to hasten its putridity and decay. And even so--impressive lesson of the impotency of all means that are unaccompanied by the Divine blessing--was it with God’ s ancient people. Trust not., therefore, in any unsanctified afflictions. These cannot permanently and really change the condition of your heart. I have seen the characters of the writing remain on paper which the flames had turned into a film of buoyant coal; I have seen the thread that had been passed through the fire, retain, in its cold grey ashes, the twist which it had got in spinning; I have found every shivered splinter of the flint as hard as the unbroken stone: and let trials come, in providence, sharp as the fire and ponderous as the crushing hammer, unless a gracious God send along with these something else, bruised, broken, bleeding, as your heart may be, its nature remains the same. (T. Guthrie, D. D.) Man sinning Range the wide fields of nature, travel from the equator to the poles, rise from the worm that wriggles out of its hole to the eagle as she springs from the rock to cleave the clouds, and where shall you find anything that corresponds either to our scenes of suicidal dissipation or the blood-stained fields of war? Suppose that, on his return from Africa, some Park, or Bruce, or Campbell were to tell how he had seen the lions of the desert leave their natural prey, and, meeting face to face in marshalled bands, amid roars that drowned the thunder, engage in deadly battle. Would he find one man so credulous as to believe him? The world would laugh that traveller and his tale to scorn. But should anything so strange and monstrous occur, or, while the air shook with their bellowings, and the ground trembled beneath their hoofs, should we see the cattle rush from their distant pastures, to form two vast, black, solid, opposing columns, and, with heads levelled to the charge, should these herds dash forward to bury their horns in each other’ s bodies, we would proclaim a prodigy, asking what madness had seized creation. But is not sin the parent of more awful prodigies? Fiercer than the cannon’ s flash, flames of wrath shoot from brothers’ eyes. They draw; they brandish their swords, they sheathe them in each other’ s bowels; every stroke makes a widow, every ringing volley scatters a hundred orphans on a homeless world. Covering her eyes, humanity flies shrieking from the scene, and leaves it to rage, revenge, and agony. Sooner would I be an atheist and believe that there was no God at all, than that man appears in this scene as he came from the hand of a benignant Divinity. Man must have fallen. I. Apart from derived sinfulness we have personal sins to answer for. Come, let us reason together. Do you mean, on the one hand, to affirm that you have never been guilty of doing what you should not have done? or, on the other, that you were never guilty of not doing what you should have done? Could you be carried back to life’ s starting post, leant you again an infant against the cradle, stood you again a child at your mother’ s knee, sate you again a boy at the old school desk, with companions that are now changed, or scattered, or dead and gone, were you again a youth to begin the battle of life anew, would you run the self-same course; would you live over the self-same life? What! is there no speech that you would unsay? no act that you would undo? no Sabbath that you would spend better? are there none alive, or mouldering in the grave, none now blest in heaven, or with the damned in hell, to whom you would bear yourself otherwise than you have done? Have none gone to their account whose memory stings you, and whose possible fate, whose everlasting state fills you with the most painful anxiety? Did you never share in sins that may have proved their ruin, nor fail in faithfulness that might have saved their souls? II. The guilt of these actual sins is our own. There are strong pleas which the heathen may advance in extenuation of their guilt; there are excuses which they, Stepping forward with some confidence to the judgment, may urge upon a just and merciful as well as holy God. What value may be given to these pleas, what weight they may carry at a tribunal where much shall be exacted of those who have received much, and little asked where little has been given, it is not for us to say, or even attempt to determine. But this we know, that we have no such excuse to plead, nor any such plea to urge, in extenuation of our offences, of one of a thousand of our offences. Supposing, however, that the plea were accepted, more than enough remains to condemn us, and leave guilt no refuge out of Christ. We talk of a natural bias to sin; but who has not committed sins that he could have avoided, sins which he could have abstained from, and did abstain from, when it served some present purpose to do so? Some years ago, on a great public occasion, a distinguished statesman rose to address his countrymen, and, in reply to certain calumnious and dishonourable charges, held up his hands in the vast assembly, exclaiming, These hands are clean. Now, if you or I or any of our fallen race did entertain a hope that we could act over this scene before a God in judgment, then I could comprehend the calm, the unimpassioned indifference with which men sit in church on successive Sabbaths, idly gazing on the Cross of Calvary, and listening with drowsy ears to the overtures of mercy. But are these, I ask, matters with which you have nothing to do? Beware! Play with no fire; least of all, with fire unquenchable. Play with no edged sword; least of all, with that which Divine justice sheathed in a Saviour’ s bosom. Your everlasting destiny may turn upon this hour. Do you feel under condemnation? Are you really anxious to be saved? Be not turned from such a blessed purpose by the laughter of fools and the taunts of the ungodly. (T. Guthrie, D. D.) Ezekiel 36:18-19 Wherefore I poured My fury upon them.Man suffering I. God is slow to punish. He does punish; He shall punish; with reverent be it spoken, He must punish. Yet no hand of clock goes so slowly as His hand of vengeance. He does pour out His fury; but His indignation is the volcano that groans loud and long before it discharges the elements of destruction, and pours its fiery lavas on the vineyards at its feet. Where, when God’ s anger has burned hottest, was it ever known that judgment trod on the heels of sin? A period always intervenes; room is given for remonstrance on His part, and for repentance upon ours. The stroke of judgment is like the lightning flash, irresistible, fatal; it kills,--kills in the twinkling of an eye. But the clouds from which it leaps are slow to gather; they thicken by degrees: and he must be intensely engaged with the pleasures, or engrossed in the business of the world, whom the flash and peal surprise. The mustering clouds, the deepening gloom, the still and sultry air, the awful silence, the big pattering raindrops, these reveal his danger to the traveller; and warn him away from river, road, or hill to the nearest shelter. And, heeded or unheeded, many are the warnings you get from God. As these prove, He has no pleasure in the death of the wicked; He is not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance. Let us do the same justice to our Father in heaven that we would render to an earthly parent. Would it be doing a father justice to look at him only when the rod is raised in his hand, and, though the trembling lip and weeping eyes and choked utterance of his culprit boy, and a fond mother’ s intercession, all plead with him to spare, he refuses, firmly refuses? In this, how stern he looks! But before you can know that father, or judge his heart aright, you should know how often ere this the offence had been forgiven; you should have heard with what tender affection he had warned that child; above all, you should have stood at his closet door, and listened when he pleaded with God on behalf of an erring son. Justice to him also requires that you should have seen with what slow and lingering steps he went for the rod, the trembling of his trend, and how, with tears streaming from his eyes, he raised them to heaven and sought strength to inflict a punishment which, could it serve the purpose, he would a hundred times rather bear than inflict. II. How He punished His ancient people. These were the children of Abraham, beloved for the father’ s sake, the honoured custodiers of Divine truth; God’ s chosen people, through whose line and lineage His Son was to appear. How solemn, then, and how appropriate, the question, If they do these things in a green tree, what shall be done in the dry? Look at Judah sitting amid the ruins of Jerusalem, her temple without a worshipper, her silent streets choked with the dead: look at that bound, weeping, bleeding remnant of a nation toiling on its way to Babylon: look at these peeled and riven boughs; may I not warn you with the Apostle, If God spaced not the natural branches, take heed lest He also spare not thee. If we speak thus, it is for your good. We arm ourselves with these thunders only, in the words of Paul, “ to persuade you by the terrors of the Lord.” We have no faith in terror dissociated from tenderness. And as we trust more to drawing than to driving men to Jesus, we entreat you to observe that He who is the good is also a most tender Shepherd. Among the hills of our native land I have met a shepherd far from the flock and folds, driving home a lost sheep, one which had “ gone astray,” a creature panting for breath, amazed, alarmed, foot-sore; and when the rocks around rang loud to the baying of the dogs, I have seen them--whenever it offered to turn from the path, with open mouth dash fiercely at its sides, and so hound it home. How differently Jesus brings back His lost ones! The lost sheep sought and found, He lifts it up tenderly, lays it on His shoulder, and, retracing His steps, returns homeward with joy, and invites His neighbours to rejoice with Him. Catching grace from His lips, and kindness from His looks, I desire to address you as becomes the servant of such a gentle, lowly, loving Master. Yet, shall I conceal God’ s verity, and ruin men’ s souls to spare their feelings? If any are living without God and Christ and hope and prayer, I implore them to look here: turn to this dreadful pit. With what fire it burns! How it resounds with moaning wail and woeful groans 1 Now, while we stand together on its margin, or rather draw back with horror, ponder, I pray you, the solemn question, Who among us shall dwell with everlasting burnings? It is alleged by travellers that the ostrich, when hard pressed by the hunters, will thrust its head into a bush, and, without further attempt either at flight or resistance, quietly submit to the stroke of death. Men say that, having thus succeeded in shutting the pursuers out of its own sight, the bird is stupid enough to fancy that it has shut itself out of theirs, and that the danger which it has ceased to see has ceased to exist. We doubt that. This poor bird, which has thrust its head into the bush, and stands quietly to receive the shot, has been hunted to death. For hours the cry of staunch pursuers has rung in its startled ear; for hours their feet have been on its weary track; it has exhausted strength, and breath, and craft, and cunning, to escape; and even yet, give it time to breathe, grant it but another chance, and it is away with the wind; with wings outspread and rapid feet it spurns the burning sand. It is because escape is hopeless and death is certain that it has buried its head in that bush, and closed its eyes to a fate which it cannot avert. To man belongs the folly of closing his eyes to a fate which he can avert. He thrusts his head into the bush while escape is possible; and, because he can put death and judgment and eternity out of mind, lives as if time had no bed of death, and eternity no bar of judgment. Be wise. Be men. Look your danger in the face. Flee to Jesus now. Escape from the wrath to come. To come? In a sense wrath has already come. The fire has caught, it has seized your garments; delay, and you are wrapt in flames. Oh! haste away, and throw yourselves into the fountain which has power to quench these fires, and cleanse you from all your sins. (T. Guthrie, D. D.) God’ s punitive justice Does man ask, Why am I born with a bias to sin? why has another’ s hand been permitted to sow germs of evil in me? why should I, who was no party to the first covenant, be buried in its ruins? To these questions this is my reply: I shrink from sitting in judgment upon my judge. Clouds and darkness are round about Jehovah now; but I feel confident that, when the veil of this present economy shall be rent, and expiring Time, echoing the cry of the cross, exclaims, It is finished, it shall be seen that righteousness and judgment are the pillars of Jehovah’ s throne, that there is no unrighteousness with God. But although the permission of sin is a mystery, the fact of its punishment is no mystery at all; and, while every answer to the question, How did God allow sin? leaves us unsatisfied, to my mind nothing is plainer than this, that, whatever was His reason for permitting it to exist, He could not permit it to exist unpunished. I. The truth of God requires the punishment of sin. Some have fancied that they honour God most when, sinking all other attributes in mercy--indiscriminating mercy--they represent Him as embracing the whole world in His arms, and receiving to His bosom with equal affection the sinners that hate and the saints that love Him. They cannot claim originality for this idea. Its authorship belongs to the “ father of lies.” Satan said so before them. It is the identical doctrine that damned this world. The serpent said to the woman, Ye shall not surely die. Are your hopes of salvation resting on such a baseless fancy? If so, you cannot have considered in what aspect this theory presents that God for whose honour you profess such tender regard. We almost shrink from explaining it. You save the creature, but save him at a price more costly than was paid for sinners upon the Cross of Calvary. Your scheme exalts man; but far more than man is exalted, God is degraded. By it no man is lost; but there is a greater Joss. The truth of God is lost; and in that loss His crown is spoiled of its topmost jewel, His kingdom totters, and the throne of the universe is shaken to its deepest foundations. It is as manifest as daylight that God’ s truth and your scheme cannot stand together. “ Liar” stands against either God or you; and, in the words of the Apostle, you make God a liar. Nor is that all; my faith has lost the very rock on which it stood, as I flattered myself, steadfast and unmovable. For however awful the threatenings in His word may be, if God is not true to them, what security have I that He will prove true to its gracious promises? II. The love of God requires that sin should be punished. Let me at once prove and illustrate the point by a piece of plain analogy. This city, its neighbourhood, nay, the whole land, is shaken by the news of some most cruel, bloody, monstrous crime. Fear seizes the public mind; pale horror sits on all men’ s faces; doors are double barred; and justice lets loose the hounds of law on the track of the criminal. At length, to the relief and satisfaction of all honest citizens, he is caught. He is tried, condemned, laid in irons, and waits but the sentence to be signed. To save or slay, to hang or pardon, is now the question with him whose prerogative it is to do either. And the law is left to take its course. Now, by what motive is the sovereign impelled to shut up his bowels of mercy, and sign the warrant for execution? Is it want of pity? No; the fatal pen is taken with reluctance; it trembles in his hand; and tears of compassion for this guilty wretch drop upon the page. It is not so much abhorrence of the guilty, as love of the innocent, and regard for their lives, peace, purity, and honour, that dooms the man to death. If he were pardoned, and his crime allowed to go unpunished, neither man’ s life nor woman’ s virtue were safe. Unless this felon dies, the peace of a thousand happy families lies open to foul attack. Love for those who have the highest claim on a sovereign’ s protection requires that justice be satisfied, and the guilty die. There are scenes of domestic suffering which present another, no less convincing, and more touching analogy. It has happened that, from love and regard to the interests of his other children, to save them from a brother’ s contamination, a kind parent has felt constrained to pronounce sentence on his son, and banish him from his house. How sad to think that he may be lost! The dread of that goes like a knife to the heart; yet, bitter truth! painful conclusion! it is better that one child be lost than a whole family be lost. These lambs claim protection from the wolf; he must be driven forth from the fold. Love herself, while she weeps, demands this sacrifice; and, just because it is most lacerating, most excruciating, to a parent’ s heart, it is in such a case the highest and holiest exercise of parental love to bar the door against a child. There have been parents so weak and foolish as to peril the morals, the fortunes, the souls of all their other children, rather than punish one; and in consequence of this I have seen sin, like a plague, infect every member of the family, and vice ferment and spread till it had leavened the whole lump. Divine love, however, is no blind Divinity: and God, being as wise as He is tender, sinners may rest assured, that out of mere pity to them He will neither sacrifice the interest nor peril the happiness of His people. Bleeding, dying, redeeming Love shall bolt the gates of heaven with her own hand, and from its happy, holy precincts exclude all that could hurt or defile. III. Unless sin is to be awfully punished, the language of scripture appears extravagant. The sufferings and misery which await the impenitent and unbelieving have been painted by God in most appalling colours. They are such that, for our salvation, His Son descended from the heavens and expired upon a Cross. They are such that, when Paul thought of the lost, he wept like a woman. They are such that, though a dauntless man, who shook his chain in the face of kings, whose spirit no sufferings could subdue, and whose heart no dangers could appall, who stood as unmoved amid a thousand perils as ever sea rock amid the roaring billows, he could not contemplate the fate of the wicked without the deepest emotion. What horror did David feel at the sight and fate of sinners! With his face turned up to heaven, you see a blind man approach the edge of an awful precipice; every step brings him nearer, nearer still, to the brink, Now he reaches it; he stands on the grassy edge. Oh, for an arm to reach him, a voice to warn him, a blow to send him staggering back upon the ground. He has lifted his foot; it is projected beyond the brink; another moment, a breath of wind, the least change of balance, and he is whirling twenty fathoms down. You stop your ears; shut your eyes; turn away your head; horror takes hold of you. Such were David’ s feelings when he contemplated the fate of the wicked. The wrath of God is the key to the Psalmist’ s sorrow, to an Apostle’ s tears, to the bloody mysteries of the Cross. That was the necessity which drew the Saviour down. God certainly is not willing that you should perish; and by these terrors He would persuade you to accept salvation. Meditate on these words: pray over them--Woe unto him that striveth with his Maker! The wicked shall be turned into hell, and all the nations that forget God. Still, it is not terror which is the power, the mighty power of God. The Gospel, like most medicines for the body, is of a compound nature; but whatever else enters into its composition, its curative property is love. God, indeed, tells us of hell, but it is to persuade us to fly to heaven; and, as a skilful painter fills the background of his picture with his darker colours, God introduces the smoke of torment and the black thunder clouds of Sinai to give brighter prominence to the Cross, to Jesus, and His love to the chief of sinners. His voice of terror is like the scream of the mother bird when the hawk is in the sky. She alarms her brood that they may run and hide beneath her feathers; and as I believe that God had left that mother dumb unless He had given her wings to cover them, I am sure that He, who is very “ pitiful,” and has no pleasure in the meanest creature’ s pain, had never turned our eyes on the horrible gulf unless for the voice that cries, Deliver him from going down to the pit, for I have found a ransom. (T. Guthrie, D. D.) Ezekiel 36:20 They profaned My holy name. How God’ s name is profaned Men sanctify Jehovah when they recognise that which He is, or ascribe to Him His true nature. On the other hand, when the iniquities of His people constrain Him to act in such a way as to disguise any of His great attributes, such as His power, in the eyes of the nations, so that they misinterpret His being, His holy name is “ profaned,” as, on the contrary, He is “ sanctified” in the eyes of the nations by the restoration of His people, and their defence when restored and righteous. (A. B. Davidson, D. D.) The nations’ conceptions of Jehovah regulated by His people’ s conduct These disasters which the people of Jehovah brought on themselves led to the desecration of His name among the heathen. The nations judged Him weak, and unable to protect His people. In the eyes of the nations, the interests of the god and his people were one; if a people were subdued by another, it was because its god was too feeble to protect it. Naturally, the idea of a god exercising a moral rule over his own people would not yet occur to them. That Jehovah so rules is the lesson which the history of Israel, its dispersion and restoration, is intended to read to the nations of the earth. (A. B. Davidson, D. D.) Ezekiel 36:21-24I had pity for Mine holy name.God’ s motive in salvation There is a land lying beneath a burning sky where the fields are seldom screened by a cloud, and almost never refreshed by a shower; and yet Egypt--for it is of it I speak--is as remarkable for the fertile character of its soil as for the hoar antiquity of its history. At least, it was so in days of old, when hungry nations were fed by its harvests, and its fields were the granaries of ancient Rome. Powers so prolific Egypt owed to the Nile; a river whose associations carry us upward to the beginning of all human history; on whose banks, in the tombs of forgotten kings, stand the proudest monuments of human vanity; the very name of which recalls some of the grandest scenes that have been acted on the stage of time. From the earliest ages the source of the Nile was regarded with intensest interest. Whence it sprung and how its annual flood was swelled were the subjects of eager but ungratified curiosity. One traveller after another had attempted to reach its cradle, and had failed or fallen in the enterprise; and when--travelling along its banks, from the shore where, by many months, it disgorged its waters into the sea, till its ample volume had shrunk into the narrowness of a mountain stream--our hardy countryman, boldly facing many dangers and difficulties, at length stood beside the long-sought fountain, this achievement won him an immortal reputation. How he enjoyed his triumph, as he sat down by the cradle of a river which had fed the millions of successive generations, and in days of famine long gone by had saved the race which gave a Redeemer to the world! Now, what this river, which turns barren sand into the richest soil, is to Egypt, the Gospel of Jesus Christ is to the world. And if it be interesting to trace the Nile to its mountain source, how much more interesting to explore the stream of eternal life, and trace it upward till we have reached its fountain. Bruce discovered, or thought he had discovered, the springs of Egypt’ s river, among cloud-capped mountains, at an elevation of many thousand feet above the plains they watered. All great rivers, Unlike some great men who have been born in lowly circumstances, boast a lofty descent. It is after the traveller has left smiling valleys far beneath him, and toiling along rugged glens, and pressing through deep mountain gorges, at length reaches the chili shores of an icy sea, that he stands at the source of the Alpine river, which, cold as the snows that feed it, and a full-grown stream at its birth, rushes out from the caverns of the hollowed glacier. Yet such a river in the loftiness of its birth place is but an humble image of salvation. The stream of mercy flows from the throne of the Eternal; and here we seem to stand by its majestic and mysterious fountain; in contemplating the words of the text, we look upon its spring--“ I do this for Mine holy name’ s sake.” I. Attend to the expression, “ My name’ s sake.” The name of God, as employed by the sacred writers, has many and most important meanings. In the 20th Psalm, for instance, it embraces all the attributes of the Godhead. “ The name of the God of Jacob defend thee” ; that is, when paraphrased, may His arms be around; may His wisdom guide thee; may His power support thee; the bounty of God supply thy wants; the mercy of God forgive thy sins; may the shield of heaven cover, and its precious blessings crown thy head. Again, in Micah 4:5, where it is said, “ We will walk in the name of the Lord,” the expression assumes a new meaning, and indicates the laws, statutes, and commandments of God. Again in the blessed promise, “ In all places where I record My name I will come unto thee and I will bless thee,” the expression bears yet another meaning: it stands for religious ordinances and worship, and rears, by the hand of faith, a holy temple out of the rudest edifice, changing into heaven-consecrated churches those rocky fastnesses and lonely moors where our fathers found their God in the dark days of old. Contenting ourselves with these illustrations of the various meanings of this expression in Scripture, I now remark that here the “ name” of God comprehends everything that either directly or remotely affects the Divine honour and glory; whatever touches, to use the words of our Catechism, His titles, attributes, ordinances, word or works; or anything whereby God maketh Himself known. II. We are to understand that the motive which moved God to save man was regard to his own glory. This doctrine, that God saves men for His own glory, is a grand, a very precious truth; yet it may be stated in a way which seems as offensive as it is really unscriptural. Have you never observed how concave mirrors magnify the features nearest to them into undue and monstrous proportions, and how common mirrors, that are ill-cast and of uneven surface, turn the most beautiful face into deformity? Well, there are some good men whose minds appear to be of such a cast and character. Neither seeing nor exhibiting the truths of the Bible in their proper harmony and proportions, they represent our Lord in this matter of salvation as affected by no motive whatever but a regard to His Father’ s glory, and even God Himself as moved only by a regard to this end. Excluding from their view the pity and love of God, or reducing these into shrunken and small dimensions, they magnify one doctrine at the expense of another; and thereby weaken, if not annihilate, some of the most sacred and tender ties which bind the believer to His God. I know that we should approach so high a theme with the deepest reverence. It becomes us to speak on this subject, and on anything else that touches the secret movements of the Divine mind, with profound humility. Yet, reasoning from the form of the shadow to the nature of the object which projects it, from the image to that of which it is the reflection, from man to God, I venture to say, that it is with Him as with us, when we are moved to a single action by the influence of various motives. To borrow an example from the place I fill. The minister ascends the pulpit to preach; and, in preaching, if worthy of his office, he is affected by a variety of motives. Love to God, love to Jesus, love to sinners, love to saints, regard to God’ s glory, and also to man’ s good--these, like the air, the water, the light, the heat, the electricity, the gravity, which act together in the process of vegetation, may all combine to form and inspire one sermon. They are present, not as conflicting but as concurring motives in the preacher’ s breast. This difference, however, there is between us and a perfect God, that though--like the Rhone, which is formed of two rivers, the one turbid, the other pure as the blue sky above it--our motives are mixtures of good and evil, all the emotions of the Divine mind, and the influences that move God to action, are of the purest nature. Never, therefore, let us exalt this doctrine of the Divine glory at the expense of Divine love to sinners. His love to sinners is His mightiest, His heart-softening, as an old writer called it, His heart-breaking argument; and it were doing Him, His blessed Gospel and our own souls the greatest injustice if we should overlook the love that gives Divinity its name, which sent, in His Son, a Saviour from the Father’ s bosom, and was eulogised by an apostle as possessed of a height and depth and breadth and length which passeth knowledge. III. Observe that in saving man for His “ holy name’ s sake,” or for His own honour and glory, God exhibits the mercy, holiness, love, and other attributes of the Godhead. The truth is, that God saves man for much the same reasons as at first He created him. What moved God, then, to make man, or, when through the regions of empty space there was neither world rolling, nor sun shining, nor angel singing--when there was neither life nor death, nor birth nor burial, nor sight nor sound, no wave of ocean breaking, no wing of seraph moving--when God dwelt alone in silent, solemn, awful, but complacent solitude, what moved Him to make creatures at all, and with these bright worlds, suns, and systems, to garnish the vacant heavens, and people with its varied inhabitants a lonely universe? These are the deep things of God, and it becomes us with our finite and fallible minds to approach them modestly. Still, by turning the eye inward on ourselves, we may form some conception of the mind of God; even as a captive child, born and retained in a dark dungeon, may learn something of the sun from the beam that, streaming through a chink of the riven wall, travels the grey lonely floor; or even as, though I had never walked its pebbly shore, nor heard the voice of its thundering breakers, nor played in summer day with its swelling waves, I could form some feeble conception of the ocean from a lake, from a pool, or from this sparkling dew drop, which, born of the womb of night, and cradled in the bosom of a flower, lies waiting, like a soul under the Sun of Righteousness, to be exhaled to heaven. Look at man, then. Is he a poet or a philosopher, a man of mechanical genius or artistic skill, a statesman or a philanthropist, or, better than all, one in whose bosom glow the fires of piety? It matters not. We perceive that his happiness does not lie in indolence, but in the gratification of his tastes, the indulgence of his feelings, and the exercise of his faculties, whatever they be. Assume the same to be true of God, and the conception, while it exalts, endears our heavenly Father to us. Does it not present Him in this most winning and attractive aspect, that the very happiness of Godhead lies in the forthputting, along with other attributes, of His goodness, love, and mercy? The minnow plays in the shallow pool, and leviathan cleaves the depths of ocean; winged insects sport in the sunbeam, and winged angels sing before the throne; but whether we fix our attention on His least or greatest works, the whole fabric of creation seems to prove that Jehovah delights in the evolution of His powers, in the display of wisdom and love and goodness; and, just as it is to the delight which God enjoys in the exercise of these that we owe creation, with all its bounties, so is it to his delight in the exercise of pity, love, and mercy that we owe salvation, with all its blessings. Let us be both humble and thankful. Salvation is finished. Salvation is offered, freely offered. Shall it be rejected? Oh, take the good, and give God the glory. Say, He is the God of Salvation; and in His name we will set up our banners. (T. Guthrie, D. D.) Man an object of Divine mercy I. The doctrine that God is not moved to save man by any merit or worth in him is a truth of the highest importance to sinners. Like the rough and stern Baptist, it prepares the way for Christ. We must be emptied of self before we can be filled with grace; we must be stripped of our rags before we can be clothed with righteousness; we must be unclothed, that we may be clothed upon; wounded, that we may be healed; killed, that we may be made alive; buried in disgrace, that we may rise in holy glory.1. To tell man that he has no merit is no doubt a humbling statement. It lays the loftiest, self-sufficient sinner in the dust. Yes, this doctrine, like death, is the true leveller. It puts all men on the same platform before a holy God. It sets crowned kings as low as beggars, honest men with rogues and thieves, and the strictest virtue, virtue which the breath of suspicion never sullied, alongside of base and brazen-faced iniquity. God pronounces our righteousness--observe, not our wickednesses, but our devotions, our charities, our costliest sacrifices, our most applauded services--to be filthy rags. Trust not therefore to them. What man in his senses would think of going to court in rags, in rags to wait upon a king? Nor think that the righteousness of the Cross was wrought to patch up these; to supplement, as some say, what is either defective or altogether awanting in our personal merits. Nor fancy, like some who would embrace a Saviour and yet keep their sins, that you may wear these rags beneath His righteousness. God says of every sinner whom Faith has conducted to Jesus, Take away the filthy garments from him, “ Behold I have caused thine iniquity to pass from thee, and I will clothe thee with change of raiment.” 2. If this doctrine is humbling to human pride, it is full of encouragement to the lowly penitent. It lays me low in the dust, but it is to lift me up. It throws me on the ground, that, like Antaeus, the giant of fable, I may rise stronger than I fell. II. It is as important for the saint as for the sinner to remember that he is not saved through personal merit, or for his own sake. When age has gnarled its bark and stiffened every fibre, if, turning that to the right hand which had grown to the left, or raising a bough to the skies which had drooped to the ground, you bend a branch in a new direction, it long retains a tendency to resume its old position. Even so, when God has laid His gracious hand upon us, and given this earthly soul a heavenward bent, how prone it is to start back again! Of this sad truth, David and Peter are memorable and dreadful examples. And who that has attempted to keep his heart with diligence has not felt, and mourned over the old tendency to be working out a righteousness of his own, to be pleased with himself, and, by taking some satisfaction in his own merits, to undervalue those of Christ? So was it with that godly man who, on one occasion--most rare achievement!--offered up a prayer without one wandering thought; and afterwards described it as the worst which he had ever offered, because, as he said, the devil made him proud of it. So was it also with the minister who, upon being told by one, more ready to praise the preacher than profit by the sermon, that he had delivered an excellent discourse, replied, You need not tell me that; Satan told me so before I left the pulpit. Ah! it were well for the best of us that we could say with Paul, We are not ignorant of his devices. Oh, it is needful for the holiest to remember that man’ s best works are bad at the best; and that, to use the words of Paul, it is not by works of righteousness that we have done, but according to His mercy He hath saved us, through the washing of regeneration, and the renewing of the Holy Ghost. III. This doctrine, while it keeps the saint humble, will help to make him holy. Here no ornament to park or garden, stands a dwarfed, stunted, bark-bound tree. How am I to develop that stem into tall and graceful beauty, to clothe with blossoms these naked branches, and hang them, till they bend, with clustered fruit? You cannot make that tree grow upwards till you break the crust below, pulverise the hard subsoil, and give the roots room and way to strike deeper down; for the deeper the root, and the wider spread the fine filaments of its rootlets, the higher the tree lifts an umbrageous head to heaven, and throws out its hundred arms to catch, in dews, raindrops, and sunbeams, the blessings of the sky. The believer, in respect of character, a tree of righteousness of the Lord’ s planting; in respect of strength, a cedar of Lebanon; in respect of fruitfulness, an olive; in respect of position, a palm tree planted in the courts of God’ s house; in respect of full supplies of grace, a tree by the rivers of water, which yieldeth its fruit in its season, and whose leaf cloth not wither--offers this analogy between grace and nature, that as the tree grows best skyward that grows most downward, the lower the saint descends in humility the higher he rises in holiness. The soaring corresponds to the sinking. We have wondered at the lowliness of one who stood among his tallest compeers like Saul among the people; wondered to find him simple, gentle, generous, docile, humble as a little child, till we found that it was with great men as with great trees. What giant tree has not giant roots? When the tempest has blown over some monarch of the forest, and he lies in death stretched out at his full length upon the ground, on seeing the mighty roots that fed him, the strong cables that moored him to the soil, we cease to wonder at his noble stem, and the broad, leafy, lofty head he raised to heaven, defiant of storms. Even so, when death has struck down some distinguished saint, whose removal, like that of a great tree, leaves a vast gap below, and whom, brought down now, as it were, to our own level, we can measure better when he has fallen than when he stood, and when the funeral is over and his repositories are opened, and the secrets of his heart are unlocked and brought to light, ah! now, in the profound humility they reveal, in the spectacle of that honoured grey head laid so low in the dust before God, we see the great roots and strength of his lofty piety. (T. Guthrie, D. D.) The conversion of Israel 1. The first point to be noticed, and the one most characteristic of Ezekiel, is the Divine motive for the redemption of Israel--Jehovah’ s regard for His own name. The name of God is that by which He is known amongst men. It is more than His honour or reputation, although that is included in it, according to Hebrew idiom; it is the expression of His character or His personality. To act for His name’ s sake, therefore, is to act so that His true character may be more fully revealed, and so that men’ s thoughts of Him may more truly correspond to that which in Himself He is. What is meant to be excluded by the expression not for your sakes All that it necessarily implies is, not for any good that I find in you. It is a protest against the idea of Pharisaic self-righteousness that a man may have a legal claim upon God through his own merits. The truth here taught is, in theological language, the sovereignty of the Divine grace. A profound sense of human sinfulness will always throw the mind back on the idea of God as the one immovable ground of confidence in the ultimate redemption of the individual and the world. When the doctrine is pressed to the conclusion that God saves men in spite of themselves, and merely to display His power over them, it becomes false and pernicious, and, indeed, self-contradictory. But so long as we hold fast to the truth that God is love, and that the glory of God is the manifestation of His love, the doctrine of the Divine sovereignty only expresses the unchangeableness of that love and its final victory over the sin of the world. 2. The intellectual side of the conversion of Israel is the acceptance of that idea of God which to the prophet is summed up in the name of Jehovah. This is expressed in the standing formula which denotes the effect of all God’ s dealings with men--“ They shall know that I am Jehovah.” The prophet here regards conversion as a process wholly carried through by the operation of Jehovah on the mind of the people; and what we have next to consider is the steps by which this great end is accomplished. They are these two--forgiveness and regeneration. 3. The forgiveness of sins is denoted by the symbol of sprinkling with clean water. But it must not be supposed that this isolated figure is the only form in which the doctrine appears in Ezekiel’ s exposition of the process of salvation. On the contrary, forgiveness is the fundamental assumption of the whole argument, and is present in every promise of future blessedness to the people. For the Old Testament idea of forgiveness is extremely simple, resting as it does on the analogy of forgiveness in human life. The spiritual fact which constitutes the essence of forgiveness is the change in Jehovah’ s disposition towards His people, which is manifested by the renewal of those indispensable conditions of national well-being which in His anger He had taken away. The restoration of Israel to its own land is thus not simply a token of forgiveness, but the act of forgiveness itself, and the only form in which the fact could be realised in the experience of the nation. In this sense the whole of Ezekiel’ s predictions of the Messianic deliverance and the glories that follow it are one continuous promise of forgiveness, setting forth the truth that Jehovah’ s love to His people persists in spite of their sin, and works victoriously for their redemption and restoration to the full enjoyment of His favour. In urging individuals to prepare for the coming of the kingdom of God he makes repentance a necessary condition of entering it; but in describing the whole process of salvation as the work of God he makes contrition for sin the result of reflection on the goodness of Jehovah already experienced in the peaceful occupation of the land of Canaan. 4. The idea of regeneration is very prominent in Ezekiel’ s teaching. (1) The need for a radical change in the national character was impressed on him by the spectacle which he witnessed daily of evil tendencies and practices persisted in, in spite of the clearest demonstration that they were hateful to Jehovah and had been the cause of the nation’ s calamities. And he does not ascribe this state of things merely to the influence of tradition and public opinion and evil example, but traces it to its source in the hardness and corruption of the individual nature. In exhorting individuals to repentance, Ezekiel calls on them to make themselves a new heart and a new spirit, meaning that their repentance must be genuine, extending to the inner motives and springs of action, and not be confined to outward signs of mourning. But in other connections the new heart and spirit is represented as a gift, the result of the operation of the Divine grace. Closely connected with this, perhaps only the same truth in another form, is the promise of the outpouring of the Spirit of God. The general expectation of a new supernatural power infused into the national life in the latter days is common in the prophets (Hosea 14:5; Isaiah 32:15). But no earlier prophet presents the idea of the Spirit as a principle of regeneration with the precision and clearness which the doctrine assumes in the hands of Ezekiel. What in Hosea and Isaiah may be only a Divine influence, quickening and developing the flagging spiritual energies of the people, is here revealed as a creative power, the source of a new life, and the beginning of all that possesses moral or spiritual worth in the people of God. 5. Note the two-fold effect of these operations of Jehovah’ s grace in the religious and moral condition of the nation. (1) A new readiness and power of obedience to the Divine commandments. Like the apostle, they will not only “ consent unto the law that it is good” ; but in virtue of the new “ Spirit of life” given to them, they will be in a real sense “ free from the law,” because the inward impulse of their own regenerate nature will lead them to fulfil it perfectly. Shame and self-loathing on account of past transgressions. 6. This outline of the prophet’ s conception of salvation illustrates the truth of the remark that Ezekiel is the first dogmatic theologian. Although the final remedy for the sin of the world had not yet been revealed, the scheme of redemption disclosed to Ezekiel agrees with much of the teaching of the New Testament regarding the effects of the work of Christ on the individual. (John Skinner, M. A.) Ezekiel 36:23I will sanctify My great name. God glorified in redemption Passing over the special application of these words to the Jews, and looking at them in their prophetical connection with the scheme of redemption, I remark-- I. That God might have vindicated His honour and sanctified His name in our destruction. Two methods of glorifying His name are open to God. He is free to choose either; but by the one or the other way He will exact His full tale of glory from every man. In Egypt, for instance, He was glorified in the high-handed destruction of His enemies; and glorified also in the same land by the high-handed salvation of His people. In the one case He proved how strong His arm was to smite, and in the other how strong it was to save. In like manner God sanctified His name on the plains of Sodom, sanctifying it, on the one hand, in the destruction of His enemies, and on the other, in the preservation of Lot. Since there are two ways open to God, by either of which He may sanctify His great name, He might therefore, at the fall, have vindicated His justice by swift and unsparing vengeance, by destroying the whole human family. What unsparing vengeance did He execute on the fallen angels! Of these there was no wreck or remnant saved. Not one escaped. No ark floated on the waters to which, like Noah’ s dove, a flying angel, pursued by wrath, might turn his weary wing. Can it be doubted that the measure meted out to fallen angels, God might have meted out to fallen men?--sanctifying His great name in our ruin rather than in our redemption. Now, before I show how He sanctifies Himself in the redemption of His people, let me warn you, that what God might have done with all, He shall do with some; certainly do with all those who despise and reject, or even neglect salvation. This day I set before you life and death. Will you do His will in heaven, or suffer it in hell? II. God sanctifies His name and glorifies Himself in our redemption. It is easy to destroy, to inflict irreparable injury on character, virtue, life. Falling with murderous strokes on yonder noble tree, the woodman’ s axe demolishes in a few hours what it has required the springs and summers, the dews and showers and sunbeams of centuries to raise. It is both more difficult and more noble to repair than to destroy. In this material body man destroys what God only can make; but in this more precious and immortal soul, Satan destroys what God only can save. It needs but a devil to ruin a human spirit; it needs Divinity to redeem it. Excepting, of course, the preacher’ s--for with Paul we magnify our office--of all earthly employments it appears to me that the physician’ s is the noblest; and that of all arts the healing art is the highest, offering to genius and benevolence their noblest field. In the eye of reason, and of a humanity that weeps over a suffering world, his is surely the nobler vocation, and if not more honoured, the more honourable calling, who sheds blood not to kill, but cure; who wounds, not that the bleeding may die, but live; and whose genius ransacks earth and ocean in search of means to preserve life, to remove deformity, to repair decay, to invigorate failing powers, and restore the rose of health to pallid cheeks. His aim is not to inflict pain, but relieve it; not to destroy a father, but, boldly standing between him and death, to save an anxious wife from widowhood, and these little children from an orphan’ s lot. And if, although they be woven around no coronet, those are fairer and fresher laurels which are won by saving than by slaying, if it is a nobler thing to rescue life than destroy it, even when its destruction is an act of justice, then, on the same principle, God most glorified Himself when revealed in the flesh, and, speaking by His Son, He descended on a guilty world; His purpose this, I came not to judge the world, but to save it; and this His character, the Lord God, merciful and gracious, long-suffering, and abundant in goodness and truth. I. His power is glorified in the work of salvation. The path of redemption is marked, and its pages are crowded with stupendous miracles. At one time God stays the waves of the sea; at another He stops the wheels of the sun; and now, reversing the machinery of heaven to confirm His Word, He makes the shadow travel backwards on the dial of Ahaz. Heaven descends to earth, and its exalted inhabitants, mingling with men, walk the stage of redemption. But to glance at the change wrought by redemption on man himself, what amazing power does it display! What a glorious combination of benevolence and omnipotence! Punishment is confessedly easier than reformation. Nothing is more easy than, by the hand of an executioner, to rid society of a criminal; but to soften his stony heart, to turn his steps from the paths of crime, to wean him from vice, to get him to fall in love with virtue, to make the cunning rogue, the brutal ruffian, an honest, high-minded, kind, and tender man--ah! that is another thing. Hence, among politicians callous of heart, and deaf to the groans of suffering humanity, the preference given to prisons over schools, to punishment over prevention. Well, then, since it is confessedly easier--easier, but not better, nor cheaper--to punish than reform, I say that God’ s power is more illustriously displayed in pardoning one guilty, in purifying one polluted man, than if the law had been left to take her sternest course, and bury our entire family in the ruins of the fall. The power of divinity culminates in grace. Oh, that we also may be made its monuments, built up by the hands of an eternal Spirit to the memory and glory of the Cross! II. His wisdom is glorified in redemption. That work associates such transcendent wisdom with love, power, and mercy that the Saviour of man is called the wisdom of God. The apostle selects the definite article, and pronounces Christ to be “ the power of God and the wisdom of God.” Nor can the propriety of the language be doubted, if we reflect but for a moment on what a hard task Wisdom was set, what a difficult problem she was called to solve, when man was to be saved. She had to forge a key that could unlock the grave; she had to build a lifeboat that could swim in a sea of fire; he had to construct a ladder long enough to scale the skies; she had to invent a plan whereby justice might be fully satisfied, and yet the guilty saved. The mystery of godliness, God manifest in the flesh, a “ daysman” such as the patriarch desired, with the right hand of divinity to lay on God, and the left hand of humanity to lay on man, and thus the “ fellow” and friend of both, to reconcile the estranged; in short, a man to suffer and a God to satisfy, this was a thought which it never entered the noblest minds to conceive. We find nothing corresponding to it, nor guess nor glimmering of it, in the creeds and religions of a heathen world. Every way but the right one was thought of. III. His holiness is glorified in redemption. What saith the prophet? Thou art of purer eyes than to behold evil, and canst not look on iniquity. Nothing might appear more strongly to express the holiness of God than this language, Thou canst not look on iniquity; and yet His hatred of sin is more fully illustrated, and much more strongly expressed by the very way in which He saves the sinner; more fully expressed than if, relentless, executing vengeance with an eye that knew no pity, and with a hand that would not spare, He had made an utter end of sinners; such an end that, to borrow the language of the prophet, there was none that moved the wing, or opened the mouth, or peeped. What man, being a father, has not felt this on reading the story of the Roman who pronounced sentence of death upon his own son? Had that sternest of patriots condemned common criminals enough to make the scaffolds of justice and the gutters of Rome run red with blood, such wholesale slaughter had been a feeble expression of his abhorrence of crime compared with the death of this solitary youth. When the culprit, his own child, the infant he had carried in his arms, the once sweet and beautiful boy who had wound himself round a father’ s heart, rose to receive the immolating sentence at a father’ s lips, that man offered the greatest, costliest sacrifice ever made at the shrine of justice, and earned for Roman virtue a proverbial fame. But that is nothing to the spectacle which redemption offers. The Son of God dies beneath His Father’ s hand. Innocence bleed for guilt; Divine innocence for human guilt. IV. His justice is glorified in redemption. The prophet, addressing God, says, Thou art of purer eyes than to behold evil; but then, as one perplexed, unable to reconcile the attributes of God’ s character with the dealings of His Providence, he asks, Wherefore lookest Thou upon them that deal treacherously, and holdest Thy tongue when the wicked devoureth the man that is more righteous than he? This question implies that clouds and darkness are round about Jehovah’ s throne. Still, whatever mysterious shadow present events may seem to cast upon His justice, and to whatever trial, as in the wrongs of a Joseph or David, faith may be put, in believing that there is a just God upon earth, His justice appears as conspicuous in redemption as was the Cross, which illustrated that justice to the crowd on Calvary. Sinners, indeed, are pardoned, but then, their sins are punished; the guilty are acquitted, but then, their guilt is condemned; the sinner lives, but then, the surety dies; the debtor is discharged, but not till the debt is paid. V. His mercy is glorified in redemption. To do justice to God, to the Saviour, and to our subject, we must be careful to distinguish between pity and mercy. The poor old man, into whose trembling hand you drop your alms as he begs his way onward to a grave, where, his head sheltered beneath the sod, he shall feel neither cold nor hunger, appeals to your compassion, not to your mercy. He has done you no wrong. He has not stolen your goods, nor traduced your character, nor inflicted injury on your person, nor in any way whatever disturbed your peace; and so it is only pity that walks forth in the charity which shares its bread with the hungry, and spares a corner of an ample cloak to cover the nakedness of the poor. Mercy is a higher attribute; an act of mercy is a far nobler achievement. She sits enthroned among the Graces. On her heavenly wings man rises to his loftiest elevation, makes his nearest approach and closest similitude to God. This distinction between compassion and mercy is clearly enunciated in the sacred Scriptures. We are told that like as a father pitieth his children, so the Lord pitieth them that fear Him; bat the Lord is merciful to them that fear Him not. He so loved the world as to give up His Son to die for it; but more than that, He commended His love to us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. We pity simple suffering; but let pity and love be extended to guilty suffering, and you have now the very element and heavenly essence of mercy. Mercy is the forgiveness of an injury. Pity relieves a sufferer, but mercy pardons a sinner. Now, understanding mercy to be the forgiveness of a wrong, the pardon of a sinner, the kindness of the injured to the injurer, where, I ask, as in redemption, where but in redemption, is this crowning attribute of the Godhead to be seen? VI. In redemption, God is glorified in the complete discomfiture of all His and our enemies.1. He is glorified by Satan’ s defeat. Observe yonder skilful wrestler! He embraces his antagonist, and, lifting him from the ground with the power of an athlete, he holds him aloft. Ah! he raises, but to dash him back on the earth with a heavier fall. So fared it with the Evil One. God permits him to push on his sap and mine, to scale the walls, to carry the citadel by assault, and plant for a time his defiant standard on the battlements of this world, just that from his, proud eminence He may hurl Satan into a deeper hell; and, angels rejoicing in man’ s salvation, and devils discomfited in their leader’ s defeat, both friends and foes might be constrained to say, Hast thou an arm like God, or canst thou thunder with a voice like His! 2. While God is glorified by Satan’ s defeat, He is glorified also by the very time and manner of it. Here are no marks of haste. Not for four days, nor even four years, but for the long-drawn out period of four thousand years, Satan holds all but undisturbed possession of his conquest. God leaves the invader ample time to entrench himself; to found, to strengthen, to establish, to extend his kingdom. And why? bat that a Redeemer’ s power might appear the more triumphant in its ignominious, and more complete in its total overthrow. 3. God is not only glorified in Satan’ s defeat, and also in the time and manner of it, but preeminently glorified in the instrument of it. Man falls; the world is lost; Satan triumphs. And how does God pluck the victory from his hands? He might have hurled thunderbolts at his audacious head. Summoning the forces of heaven, He might have overwhelmed this enemy, and borne him back to hell by legions of embattled angels. Not thus is the Prince of Darkness defeated. He is met and mastered by a solitary man. Out of the mouth of a babe and suckling God ordaineth strength, and by the heel of a man of sorrows He crushes the Serpent’ s head. A son of man is the saviour of his race; a brother rises up in the house of exile to redeem his brethren; a conqueror is born in the conquered family. Never was tide of battle so strangely, completely, triumphantly turned. (T. Guthrie, D. D.) Ezekiel 36:24I will take you from among the heathen. The benefits flowing from redemption I. In carrying out the work of redemption God will call His people out of the world. “ I will take you from among the heathen.” By nature His people are no better than other people. They were no better till grace made them so. Here are two children. They were born of one mother; nestled in one loving bosom; rocked in one cradle; baptized in one font. Reared under the same roof, they grew up under the same training; sat under the same ministry; and, in death not divided, are sleeping now, where their dust mingles in a common grave. But the one is taken, and the other left. This, a child of God, ascends to heaven; the other, alas! is lost. Mysterious fate! Yet who dare challenge the justice and decree of God? By nature this whole world is sunk in sin, and in a sense all men are idolaters. The Hindu reckons his divinities by thousands and tens of thousands; yet the world has a larger Pantheon; as many gods as it has objects, be they innocent or guilty, which usurp the place of Jehovah, and dethrone Him in the creature’ s heart. Nor are men less idolaters if drunkards, though they pour out no libation to Bacchus, the god of wine; nor less idolaters, if impure, that they burn no incense at the shrine of Venus; nor less idolaters, if lovers of wealth, that they do not mould their gold into an image of Plutus, and, giving a shrine to what lies hoarded in their coffers, offer it their morning and evening prayers. It may therefore be justly said of all who have been converted by the grace of God, that He has taken them from among the heathen. II. The power of Divine grace is strikingly displayed in this effectual calling. It is a remarkable fact that, while the baser metals are often diffused through the body of the rocks, gold and silver lie in veins, collected together in distinct metallic masses. They are in the rocks, but not of the rocks. Some believe that there was a time, long gone by, when, like other metals, these lay in intimate union with the mass of rock, until by virtue of some electric agency, their scattered atoms were put in motion, and, made to pass through the solid stone, were aggregated in those shining veins, where they now lie to the miner’ s hand. These precious metals are the emblems of God’ s people. And as by some power in nature God has separated them from the base and common earths, even so by the power of His grace will He separate His chosen from a reprobate and rejected world. They shall come at His call. It is in a state of deep ungodliness--without God, without the love of God, without holiness, without purity of heart, without solid peace of conscience--that grace finds all it saves. It is indeed amazing to see what grace will do, and where grace will grow; in what unlikely places God has His people, and out of what unfavourable circumstances He calls them. I have seen a tree proudly crowning the summit of a naked rock; and there, sending its roots out over the bare stone, and down into every cranny in search of food, it stood securely anchored by these moorings to the stormy crag. I have wondered how it could grow up there, starved on the bare rock, and how it had survived the rough, unkindly nursing of many a wintry blast. Yet, like some neglected, ragged child, who from early infancy has been familiar with adversities, it has lived and grown; it has stood erect on its weather-beaten crag when the pride of the valley has bent to the storm; and, like brave men, who, scorning to yield, nail their colours to the mast, there it maintains its defiant position, and keeps its green flag waving on nature’ s rugged battlements. More wonderful still is it to see where the grace of God will live and grow. “ Never despair” should be the motto of the Christian; and how ought it to keep hope alive under the darkest and most desponding circumstances, to see God calling grace out of the foulest sin! Look at this cold creeping worm! Playful childhood shrinks shuddering from its slimy touch; yet a few weeks, and with merry laugh and feet that press the flowery meadow that same childhood is hunting an insect which never alights upon the ground, but, flitting in painted beauty from flower to flower, drinks honeyed nectar from their fairy cups, and sleeps the short summer night away in the bosom of their perfumes. If that is the same boy, this is no less the self-same creature. Change most wonderful! yet but an imperfect emblem of the Divine transformation wrought on those who are transformed by the renewing of their minds. Glorious change! Have you experienced its Divine gracious influences? III. God will make up the number of His people. “ I will gather you out of all countries.” There are some pleasant gatherings in this world which are alloyed with pain. Christmas, the New Year, or a birthday time comes round, summoning the members of a scattered family. Some are dead and gone--“ Joseph is not, and Simeon is not” ; and a dark cloud hangs on a mother’ s brow, as on the cheek of yet another her anxious eye, quick to see, discovers an ominous spot that threatens “ to take Benjamin away.” There is a gathering also when, at the close of a hard-fought day, the roll of the regiment is called, and to familiar names there comes no answer back. They shall answer no trumpet but that which calls a world to judgment. When daylight breaks on the shore and the shipwreck, there is also a mustering and reckoning of numbers. There, a mother clasps and kisses the living babe which the waves had plucked from her arms, and she never hoped more to see; and here, a true brother cheers up the boy whom he held in a grasp strong as death, while, with the other hand buffeting the billows, he bore him safely to the beach. But many, less fortunate, are wringing their hands in the wildness of unavailing grief. Flying from group to group, distracted mother’ s cry, Where is my child? These are mournful mutterings. In striking contrast to them look at the gathering in that land-locked creek on Melita’ s shore:--It was a frightful storm; the coast is unknown; the ship, run ashore, grounds in deep water with nigh three hundred souls on board. “ Some on boards, and some on broken pieces of the ship” ; but, by whatever way it came to pass, it did come to pass, as the narrative tells, “ they escaped all safe to land.” Even so shall it be with those of whom Jesus says, I give unto them eternal life, and they shall never perish. My Father that gave them Me is greater than all, and no man is able to pluck them out of My Father’ s hand. Happy those who sail in the ship, and have embarked in the same good cause with Christ. The Lord knoweth them that are His; and all that His Father hath given Him He shall keep. But my text tells us not only that He will gather His people, but gather them out of all countries. Let those mark that who, indulging an extravagant patriotism, or shrivelled up in the cold and contracted spirit of bigotry, allow themselves to limit the Holy One of Israel, and say with the Jews of old, We have Abraham to our father, we are the people of the Lord; the temple of the Lord are we. God has people both where we look not for them, and know not of them. The Gospel is indigenous in no country, and yet belongs to all. Every sea is not paved with pearl shelves; nor does every soil grow vines and stately palms; nor does every mine sparkle with precious gems; nor do the streams of every land roll their waters over gold-glittering sands. These symbols of grace have a narrow range; not grace itself. She owns no lines of latitude or longitude. All climates are one to her. She wears no party badge; and belongs neither to caste, nor class, nor colour. With this truth, as by a zone of love, elastic enough to stretch round the globe, we would bind together the whole family of man. Let it awaken in Christian hearts an interest in every land, and an affection for every race. IV. We are assured that God will bring all His people to glory, by the fact that His own honour, as well as their welfare, is concerned in the matter. When I think of the sins to be forgiven, and the difficulties to be overcome, the wonder seems, not that few reach heaven, but that any get there. We have read the story of voyages during which for nights the weary and storm-tossed sailors enjoyed no sleep, and for days saw no sun. Lying at one time becalmed beneath a fiery sky, at another time shivering amid fields of ice; here with sunken rocks around them, and treacherous currents there sweeping them on dangerous reefs, exposed to sudden squalls, long dark nights, and fearful tempests, the wonder was that their battered ship ever reached her port. Some while ago a vessel entered one of our western harbours, and all the town went out to see her. Well they might. She had left the American shore with a large and able-bodied crew. They have hardly lost sight of land when the pestilence boards them; victim drops after victim; another and another is committed to the deep: from deck to deck, from yard to yard, she pursues her prey; nor spreads her wings to leave that ill-fated ship till but two survive to work her over the broad waters of a wintry sea. And when, with providence at the helm, these two men, worn by toil and watching to ghastly skeletons, have brought their bark to land, and now kiss once more the wives and little ones they never thought more to see, and step once more on a green earth they never more hoped to touch, thousands throng the pier to see the sight, and hear the adventures of a voyage brought to such a happy issue against such dreadful odds. Yet there is never a bark drops anchor in heaven, nor a weary voyager steps out on its welcome strand, but is a greater wonder. Save for the assurance that what God hath begun He will finish, but for the promise that what concerns His people He will perfect, oh, how often would our hope of final blessedness expire! To compare small things with great, our heavenward journey, with its dangers and changes, has sometimes appeared to me like that of a passenger to our own lovely, romantic city. On these iron roads he now rolls along rich and fertile plains; now, raised to a dangerous and dizzy height, he flies across intervening valleys; now he rushes through a narrow gorge excavated in the solid rock, with nothing seen but heaven; now, plunging into the earth, he dashes into some gaping cavern, and for a while loses sight even of heaven itself; then again he sweeps forth and on in sunshine, till the domes and towers and temples of the city burst upon his view; and, these now near at hand, he concludes his journey by passing through an emblem of death. Entering a gloomy arch, he advances slowly and in darkness through a place of graves, and then all of a sudden emerges into day, to feast his eyes on the glorious scenery, and receive the kind welcomes and congratulations of waiting friends, as he finds himself safe “ in the midst of the city.” (T. Guthrie, D. D.) Ezekiel 36:25-36 Then will I sprinkle clean water upon you. The new heart All God’ s bestowal of good must begin with cleansing. The black barrier of sin lies across the stream, and before His full goodness can reach us it must be broken and swept away. Experience teaches us that not only is sin the direct cause of many of our sorrows, but that it so clogs the heart that it keeps God’ s love out, like an iron shutter which excludes the sunshine. Our deepest need, then, is to be delivered from sin, and all attempts to banish human sorrow which do not begin with grappling with sin must fail, as they have failed. They are like physicians who treat a patient for pimples when he is dying of cancer. To sprinkle clean water upon a person or thing which had become unclean by touching a dead body was part of the Mosaic ritual. That practice is probably the source of Ezekiel’ s metaphor, as his priestly descent would familiarise him with it. In any case, the substance of the Divine promise is cleansing, and we must not narrow it down to forgiveness only. The difference between that first washing with clean water and the subsequent gift of a new heart and spirit is not so much that the one promises pardon and the other sanctifying, as that the one is mainly negative--the removal of sin, both in regard to its guilt and its tyranny; and the other is positive--the giving of a new nature. Forgiveness never comes alone, but hand in hand with its twin sister, purity. And such double cleansing “ from its guilt and power” is a Divine prerogative. But more is needed than even these blessings. The past having been thus dealt with, the future remains to be provided for. Therefore the prophet holds forth a still brighter hope, and comes still nearer to the very heart of New Testament teaching, in his assurance of the gift of a new life’ s centre and power, a “ heart of flesh,” from which shall come issues of a God-pleasing and God-inspired life. Two forces act on us all, and our sensitiveness to the one measures our non-sensitiveness to the other. Either we are “ flesh” towards God, and “ stone” towards the world, impressible by and yielding to Him, and unaffected by earth’ s temptations, or our hearts are soft and weak as flesh towards them, and hard as the nether millstone towards God. But Ezekiel was given a glimpse into still deeper and more wonderful abysses of God’ s givings, when he learned that the new spirit to be given was “ My Spirit.” Ezekiel may not have had any conscious dogma about the Spirit of God, but he had been taught by that Spirit at least this much--the possibility of a Divine spirit entering into a human spirit, and being there the motive power. We know more than he did. Do we feel as deeply as he felt, that the only way by which our spirits can be kept pure, and give forth pure streams, is by God’ s Spirit being within us? But what is the end of all these Divine gifts? A life of obedience. We are forgiven, cleansed, made sensitive to God’ s touch, inspired with His Spirit, for this purpose most chiefly, that we may shape our lives by His will. Not a correct creed, not blessed emotions, but a life which runs parallel with God’ s will, should be the outcome of our religion. The result of obedience is abundance (verses 28-30). If there were anywhere a nation of people all obedient to God’ s laws, no doubt it would be exempt from most of the ills that afflict our modern so-called civilisation. Suppose one of our great cities inhabited only by God-fearing men living by His law, most of the evils that make the scandal of our national profession of Christianity would die out, like a fire unfed by fuel. And if, individually, we ordered our footsteps by God’ s word, we should find that even the rough ways became ways of pleasantness. It is forever true that “ godliness” hath “ promise of the life that now is,” even though its promise may not always be what the world calls “ good.” The result of these lavish blessings within and without is deepened sense of unworthiness. The penitence that springs from experience of God’ s love is far deeper than that which rises from dread of His wrath. When all fear of penal consequences is gone, and a new standard of judging ourselves is set up within by the indwelling Spirit, and when a flood of blessings has been poured on us, then we see, as never before, the sinfulness of sin against such a God. The higher a true Christian goes, the lower he lies. The more sure we are that God has forgiven us, the less can we forgive ourselves. The holiness and prosperity of the renewed Israel will reveal God to the world. The lives of men and communities, who are cleansed and blessed by God, proclaim Him to the world in His character of being able and willing to repair all the desolation of humanity, and build up our ruined nature in fairer shapes. Christian lives should be illustrated copies of the Gospel. Gardeners pick out their best plants for flower shows; would the great Gardener select us as specimens of what He can do? If not, it is not because His gift has been withheld, but because we have not taken, or not used, “ the things that are freely given to us of God.” (A. Maclaren, D. D.) Man justified I intend to set forth the means by which He, who is most willing to save sinners, accomplishes His generous and gracious purpose. I am now to show you that famous breach by which the soldiers of the Cross, pressing on behind their Captain, with banners flying and sword in hand, have taken the kingdom, and, trampling under foot the powers of sin, have entered heaven as by a holy violence. I. God’ s people are not chosen because they are holy. They are chosen that they may become holy, not because they have become so. It is after God elects that he justifies, as it is after He has justified that He sanctifies. This stands out very visibly in the terms of the text, “ then will I sprinkle clean water upon you.” We do not hold good works cheap. We say that by them God is glorified; by them faith is justified; by them on the great day of judgment shall you, and I, and every man be tried. You are not to be justified by works, yet you are to be judged by works; the rule of that day being this--The tree is known by his fruit, and every tree which bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down and cast into the fire. The most important results often depend on the right adjustment of place and position. What a monster in nature, how hideous of aspect, and happily how brief its existence, were that body which should have its organs and members so arranged, that the hands occupied the place of the feet, and the heart palpitated in the cavity of the brain! And who, besides, does not know that the fruitfulness, the beauty, the very life of a tree depends not only on its having both roots and branches, but on these members being placed in their natural order? Well, if the order established in nature is of such consequence, I can confidently affirm that it is of as much consequence to abide by the order established in the kingdom of grace. It is not enough that you hold right doctrines, nay, hold all the doctrines. Each right doctrine must be in its own right place. Are any of you attempting to make yourselves more pure and more penitent, that you may get up some claim to Divine mercy? In that you are trying to weave ropes of sand; and he who has set you to a task so impracticable knows right well that by and by you will abandon it in despair; and then, perhaps, returning to your old sins, like a drunkard to his cups after an irksome season of sobriety, you shall furnish but another illustration of the saying, The last state of that man is worse than the first. I would endeavour to disabuse your minds of so great an error. For that purpose let me borrow an illustration from such an asylum as a ragged school. That institution, like the Gospel that it teaches, opens its loving arms to the outcast, and seeks to train up to God the poor, perishing children whom its piety and pity have adopted. On entering these blessed doors, the only gate of hope to many, your attention is caught by a child, who is supported thereby the bounty of some generous Christian. The boy now can spell his way through the Bible, once a sealed book to him; now he knows the name, and in tones that have melted our heart he now sings sweetly of a Saviour who said, Suffer little children to come unto Me, for of such is the kingdom of heaven. These little hands are now skilful to weave the net, or ply the shuttle, which once were alert only to steal, or held out in pitiful emaciation for oft-denied charity. And now there is such sharp intelligence in his once languid eye, and such an open air of honesty in his beaming face, and such attention to cleanliness in his dress and person, and such buoyancy in his whole bearing, as if hope hailed a bright future for him, that these bespeak your favour. But were these the child’ s passport to this asylum? Do you suppose that, when he wandered an outcast in the winter streets, shoeless among the snow, shivering in the cold, it was what now so interests you that caught the eye of pity? If you suppose that to these habits and accomplishments, acquired under a parental roof the child owed his adoption, how great is your mistake! This were to turn things upside down. He was adopted, not for the sake of these, but notwithstanding the want of them. It was his wretchedness that saved him. The clean hands and rosy cheek and eye lighted up with intelligence and decent habits and useful arts and Bible knowledge and all which now wins your regard, are the consequences of his adoption. They never were nor could be its cause Even so it is with holy habits and a holy heart in the matter of redemption; Ye have not chosen Me, lint I have chosen you, says God. Blessed truth! II. In redemption the saved are not justified by themselves, but by God. This is no recondite truth, one which we need to dig or dive for. The pearl lies in the hidden depths of the sea, but gold commonly near the surface of the earth; and like that precious ore gleaming from the naked rock, this truth shines on the face of my text. A child’ s eye can catch it there and a child’ s mind comprehend it. For how is a sinner made clean? but through the application of what is here called clean water; and by whom, according to the text, is that water applied? It is applied to the sinner, but not by the sinner. Observe what happens when the cry rises at sea--A man overboard! With all on deck you rush to the side; and, leaning over the bulwarks, with beating heart you watch the place where the rising air bells and boiling deep tell that he has gone down. Some moments of breathless anxiety, and you see his head emerge from the wave. Now, that man, I shall suppose, is no swimmer, he has never learned to breast the billows; yet, with the first breath he draws he begins to beat the water; with violent efforts he attempts to shake off the grasp of death, and, by the play of limbs and arms, keep his head from sinking. It may be that these struggles but exhaust his strength, and sink him all the sooner; nevertheless, that drowning one makes instinctive and convulsive efforts to save himself. So, when first brought to feel and cry. “ I perish,” when the horrible conviction rushes into the soul that we are lost, when we feel ourselves going down beneath a load of guilt into the depths of the wrath of God, our first effort is to save ourselves. Like a drowning man, who clutches at straws and twigs, we seize on anything, however worthless, that promises salvation. Thus, alas! many poor souls toil and spend weary, unprofitable years in the attempt to establish a righteousness of their own, and find in the deeds of the law a protection from its curse. There was a time, no doubt, when man held his fortunes in his own hand. That time is gone. Our power passed away with our purity. Impotence has followed the loss of innocence, and nothing is left us but poverty and a proud spirit. How few, who have been accustomed to a high position in society, are able to reconcile themselves to a humble one! I have seen such an one, when he had lost his wealth, retain his vanity, and continue proud in spirit even when he had become poor in circumstances. So is it with us in our low and lost estate. Spiritually poor, we are spiritually proud, saying, I am rich and increased in goods, and have need of nothing, while we are wretched and miserable and poor and blind and naked. Even when we are in some degree sensible of our poverty, and know we cannot pay, like the unjust steward we are ashamed to beg. Indulging a pride out of all keeping with filthy rags, we will not stoop to stand at God’ s door, poor mendicants, who ask for mercy. No. We shall work out our own salvation, nor be beholden to another. Nor, ordinarily, till the sinner learns, by prolonged and painful and unsuccessful trials, that he cannot be his own saviour, does this proud heart allow us to stand suppliants at the gate of mercy; our plea for pardon not our own merits; nothing, nothing whatever but a Saviour’ s merits and a sinner’ s misery. Yet thus and there we must stand if we would be saved. Jesus is a Saviour of none but the lost. Now, to bring us down to this humbling conviction, to draw from our lips and hearts the cry, Lord, save me, I perish, God often leaves awakened sinners to try their hand at working out their own salvation. God, in fact, deals with them as Jesus did with Simon Peter. Impetuous, self-satisfied, puffed up with vanity, to parade his power and prove his superiority to the other disciples, he will walk the sea. His Master allows him to try it. “ Lord, save me, I perish.” Painful but profitable lesson! His danger and failure have taught him his weakness. Now, to such a state, and confession, all who are to be saved must first be brought. III. We are not justified or cleansed from the guilt of sin through the administration or efficacy of any outward ordinance. “ I will sprinkle clean water upon you, and ye shall be clean.” The question that we would urge on your most serious consideration does not concern the sign, but the thing signified. If you have got the living element, I care little, or nothing, through what church or by what channel it may flow. Have you got the living grace of God? In the words of an apostle, Have ye received the Holy Ghost? IV. We are justified, or cleansed from the guilt of sin, by the blood of Christ. “ Without the shedding of blood there is no remission” ; and none, we may add, without its application. Where do we find this doctrine in the text? By what process of spiritual chemistry can this truth be extracted from it? There is water, and clean water, and sprinkling of water, it maybe said, but no word of blood; there is neither sign nor spot of blood upon the page, True, so it looks at first sight; but without the hand of Moses we shall see this water turned into blood. This at least is plain, that here, as elsewhere, water is but the sign of spiritual blessings. And a most expressive symbol we shall find it, if we but reflect on the important part that this element plays in the economy of nature. The circulation of this fluid is to the world what that of blood is to the body, or that of grace to the soul. It is its life. Withdraw it, and all that lives would expire; forests, fields, beasts, man himself would die. This world would become one vast grave; for water constitutes as much the life as the beauty of the landscape; and it is true, both in a spiritual and in an earthly sense, that the world lives because heaven weeps over it. It was Christ’ s choicest figure of Himself. Turning the eyes of thousands on His own person, as on a perennial fountain, one never sealed by winter’ s frost, nor dried by summer suns, free, full, patent to all, He stood up on the last and great day of the feast, and cried, If any man thirst, let him come unto Me and drink. All the world use water for washing as well as drinking; and the reference in the text is to that solvent power, by virtue of which it removes impurities, turning white what is black, and cleansing whatever is foul. It stands here, therefore, the figure of that which cleanses. The object to be cleansed is the soul; the defilement to be cleansed away is sin; and we now therefore address ourselves to the all-important question--Of what is this water the figure? The key to that question lies in the epithet “ clean” water. The water is such as the Jews understood by clean water; not merely free from impurity, and in itself clean, but that maketh clean; in the words of the ceremonial law, “ water of purifying.” This was prepared according to a divinely appointed ritual. Look how it was prepared, and you shall see it reddening into blood. Gathering the lowing herds from their different pastures, they sought up and down among them, till a red heifer was found; red from head to tail, from horn to hoof, mottled by no other colour, but all red; and one also on whose free neck yoke of bondage had never lain. What was that heifer? Spotless and separated from the common herd, she is a type of Him who was without spot or blemish, holy, harmless, undefiled, and separate from sinners. With neck on which yoke had never lain, she is a type of Him who said, The prince of this world cometh, and he hath nothing in Me. Red in colour, she is a type of Him whose feet were dipped in the blood of His enemies, and who, as seen by the prophet on His way from Bozrah, was red in his apparel, travelling in the greatness of His might. And what is this public procession, which conducts the heifer without the camp, but a figure of the march to Calvary? And what is her bloody death, but a type of that which Jesus suffered amid the agonies of the Cross? And what are these fires that burn so fiercely, and consume the victim, but a flaming image of the wrath of God, under which His soul was withered like grass? And what is the water mingled with this heifer’ s ashes, but a type of the righteousness, which, imputed by God, received by faith, and applied to sinners, makes sinners just? For, as the Jew over whom that water was sprinkled became ceremonially clean, so the guilt of original and actual sin, all guilt, is removed from him (much the happier man), whom God sprinkles with the blood of Jesus, and to whom sovereign mercy imputes a Saviour’ s merits. (T. Guthrie, D. D.) Cleansing: a covenant blessing Sin, to the awakened sinner, is his burden, his misery, his horror. It is a nightmare which haunts him; he can never escape from it. Like David, he cries, “ My sin is ever before me.” Even when sin is forgiven, the memory of it often makes a man go softly all his days. It is therefore a very blessed thought on the part of our God to make the covenant to bear so much ripen our sin and our sinfulness, and especially to make it open with this unconditional promise of infinite love, “ Then will I sprinkle clean water upon you,” etc. I. God begins to deal with His people while they are yet in sin. He does not make promises of purification to them upon condition that they cleanse themselves; but He comes to them according to the riches of His grace, even when they are dead in trespasses and sins. He finds them in all their defilement, rebellion, and iniquity, and He deals with them just as they are. His grace stoops to the ruin of the fall and lifts us up from it. If the covenant of grace did not deal with sinners as sinners I should be afraid to come to Christ; but because it opens its mouth wide to me while I am yet unclean and polluted by sin, I feel that it meets my case. You may notice in the text, or gather it therefrom by clear inference--that these people with whom God dealt were not only unclean, but they could not cleanse themselves, lit Is a rule with miracles, as well miracles of the Spirit as miracles of the body, that God never does what others can do. Cleansing cannot come from any other place, therefore seek it of the Lord, who says, “ I will sprinkle clean water upon you, and ye shall be clean.” If you go about through heaven, and earth, and hell, you shall find no other detergent that shall take away sin but the precious blood of Jesus Christ the Son of God. More than that, when God begins to deal with His people many of them have a special filthiness. “ From all your filthiness, and from all your idols, will I cleanse you.” The heathen of old once reported that ours was the religion of the most abandoned. They laughed at Christianity, for they said it was like the building of Rome, when Romulus received everybody that was in debt and discontented, and all the criminals from all the towns round about came to make the city of Rome. There is much truth in the statement; it is a very good figure, though meant to be a slander. The Lord does receive the devil’ s runaways. II. God provides for the cleansing of those to whom He comes in sovereign grace. Where could this “ clean water” be found by mortal man? God has provided a system of cleansing men, perfect in itself, and just, and right, and effectual. When under the old Mosaic law they took water, and scarlet wool, and hyssop, and sprinkled the unclean therewith, he was cleansed ceremonially; and now under the Gospel God has provided a wondrous way by which, being Himself perfectly pure, He can put away the impurities of our nature, and the iniquities of our lives.1. It is a righteous way. Sin must not go unpunished; it would be ruinous that such a thing should be. Therefore the Lord took sin and laid it on His Son, that His Son might bear what was due for our transgressions. This the Lord Jesus did as our substitute and Saviour. In addition to that, God has given the Holy Ghost as a gift of Christ on His ascension; and that Holy Spirit is here to renew men in their hearts, to take away from them the love of sin, to give them a new life, to create in them a new heart and a right spirit, and so to change their inward longings and desires that their outward conduct shall become altogether different from what it was before. 2. And what a simple way it is, as well as clean! The wisdom of God made the rite by which the leper was cleansed under the law very simple; but even more simple is the act by which God applies the merit of His dear Son to us. 3. It is a way of universal adaptation, too; for wherever there is a soul on whom God has looked with love He can apply to that soul the blood of sprinkling. 4. It is a way of unfailing efficacy, for He says, “ From all your filthiness and from all your idols, will I cleanse you.” He does not only attempt the cleansing, but He accomplishes it. What though your heart be like the Augean stable, the labours of Hercules shall be outdone by the wonders of Jesus. III. God Himself applies this means of cleansing. Some of you remember when first the Lord revealed to you how much you needed to be cleansed: that discovery was a great part of the cleansing. Then did it not seem to you impossible that you could be cleansed from so much defilement? It seemed to me--I dare say it did to you--the most extraordinary thing in the world to believe in Jesus. I could not make it out. How could I get to Christ? I could see that He was a Saviour. I could see that He saved others, and I was glad that He did; but the thing was, how could I ever come to be personally a partaker of His power to save? I heard about that woman touching the hem of the garment; and I felt that if Christ were before me, I would touch the hem of His garment with my finger; but I could not understand how I was to touch Him spiritually. To this day the simplest thing under heaven is perverted by our evil hearts into difficulty and mystery. Despite the simplicity of faith, no man ever would have savingly believed in Jesus Christ if the Lord had not guided him, and led him into faith. Oh yes, the clean water is provided, but the clean water must be sprinkled by another hand than ours if we are to be cleansed. And all the way through the rest of life it is just the same. “ All things are of God.” IV. The Lord effectually cleanses all His people. First, He cleanses them from all their filthiness. Oh, what a vast “ all” that is! All the filthiness of your birth sin; all the filthiness of your natural temperament and constitution and disposition. All the filthiness that came out of you in your childhood, that was developed in you in your youth, that still has vexed your manhood, and perhaps even now dishonours your old age. From all your actual filthiness, as well as from all your original filthiness, will I cleanse you. From all your secret filthiness, and from all your public filthiness; from everything that was wrong in the family; from everything that was wrong in the business; from everything that was wrong in your own heart--“ From all your filthiness will I cleanse you.” And then it is added that we shall be cleansed “ from all our idols.” We are all of us idolaters by nature and by practice. If there is anything that has our love more than God, it is an idol, and we must be purged from it. This is not a threatening but a promise: it is a great blessing to have our images of jealousy put away. (C. H. Spurgeon.) Ezekiel 36:26A new heart also will I give you. The necessity of a new heart I. The work which is here promised.1. A work of spiritual purification. The gains of business, the pleasures and enjoyments of the world, the vanities and follies of time; of these we may, and of these many do, make a God. Now when the Lord takes a sinner to Himself, and calls him out of that state in which he is by nature, He says, “ From all your idols will I cleanse you.” He cleanses, both from the power and the guilt of them. The love of sin is now destroyed, as well as the guilt of it taken away. The great end of the Gospel is thus accomplished (Ephesians 5:26-27). 2. As a work of inward regeneration. Man is often content with outward reformation, but the Lord goes to the seat of the evil. The heart of man is hard by nature. There may be, and there is, in many persons much kindness towards their fellow creatures; much affection towards their friends, and all around them; but the heart is hard towards God. How unfeeling is it under the Divine dispensations. Warnings and invitations are given; judgments from God of the most awful nature are pointed out; the dying love of Christ is preached and heard; the sweet and encouraging promises of the Gospel are held forth; but still these are met with cold indifference, or possibly with disdain! Melted by the love of Christ, he grieves over sin; he hates himself on account of it, and both prays and strives against it. A wrong temper causes him more sorrow now, than cursing or drunkenness did in former days. In short, old things are passed away, all things are become new. 3. A work of outward reformation. If the Lord gives a new heart, it follows as a necessary consequence that there must be a willingness to walk in His statutes. Was a man, before this change, addicted to sinful practices? They will be given up. Did be keep sinful company? It will be forsaken. He is not indeed perfect, for perfection is a plant which grows not in this lower world; it flourishes only in the paradise above. Sin will cleave to him, for it is his nature; but the sin which the Christian does, he allows not; it is his grief; he prays and he struggles against it. When the heart of stone is changed to a heart of flesh, there is a total alteration both in the motives and habits of a man. II. The author of this work.1. Man cannot be the author of it. It is far above human power. It is opposed to all the prejudices, passions, and inclinations of man. 2. God alone is the Author of it. He may, and does use instruments; and, in various ways, brings about this change; but the work is His. III. The blessed privileges flowing from this work.1. He acknowledges them as His people. “ They shall be My people,” not in that general sense in which all the world belongs to Him by right of creation; but His peculiar people, His “ chosen ones” ; those over whom He delights to do good; over whom He rests in His love; making them His care, and enriching them with all spiritual blessings; and all this from His free grace and mercy. 2. They claim Him as their God. Mark the steps which lead to this blessed privilege. God sprinkles clean water; He purifies the heart of the sinner; He renews it, and puts into it right dispositions, and then they walk in His statutes. This promise then ensures a supply of all that His people can possibly need or desire. Are they weak? I will be their God to strengthen them. Are they guilty? I will be their God to pardon them. Are they ignorant? I will be their God to teach them. Do they mourn? I will be their God to comfort them. Are they mortal? and do they sometimes look upon the grave with trembling? What are the words of God on this subject? (Hosea 13:14.) (J. G. Breay, M. A.) The heart all wrong made all right I. The rottenness of the human heart.1. Every unregenerated heart is unclean. “ From your filthiness will I cleanse you.” Our hands may be clean as water can wash them, and our garments as white as snow; and yet our inward nature be polluted. Sin is not like wine, that gets better by being kept. It gets worse and worse. The Arabs have a fable that once a camel came to the door of a tent and thrust in his nose. Not being resisted, he thrust in his feet. There being no hindrance, he came half way in. After a while he got all the way in. The Arab said to the camel, “ This tent is too small for two.” Then the camel said to the Arab, “ If that be so, you had better leave.” So sin comes into the heart further and further, until it takes full possession. It is not satisfied until it has pushed the soul into an eternal prison house, and slammed to the door, and shoved the bolts, and turned the locks of an everlasting incarceration. 2. The text represents the heart as idolatrous. “ From all your idols will I cleanse you.” If we do not worship the God in heaven, we worship something on earth. This man worships pleasure. This one, applause. This one, money. This one, his family. That to which a man gives his supreme thought and affections is his idol. Like Dagon, how often it falls down, crushing its worshippers. God will have no rivals. 3. The text represents the heart as stony, or insensible. I prove it by the fact that we do not realise the truth of what we have already said. If we had any appreciation of our unclean and idolatrous nature, could we be as unmoved as we are? We are insensible. I saw men walking through the Louvre Gallery, in Paris, half asleep. No flash came to their eyes, no flush to their cheeks, no exclamation to their lips, amid the most thrilling triumphs of painter’ s pencil and sculptor’ s chisel. And so, until grace touches our soul, we walk through the great picture gallery of the Gospel; and the wonders of Christ and the glories of heaven strike no thrill through the heart. II. The healing process that God proposes for everyone. “ I will sprinkle,” etc. It is a change from black to white, from down to up, from the highway to hell to the highway of heaven. The whole nature made over again. Here are men who once rejected the Bible, cared not for God, talked against high heaven; but now all their hopes are hung on one strong nail: the Nail of the Cross. One Form is to them more glorious than any other: the Form of the Son of God. “ I take Him,” they cry. “ Through joy and sorrow, through fire and flood, for time and for eternity. None but Jesus!” They would stick to Him though the guillotine flashed its bloody knife in their faces. They have a new heart. New in its sentiments, hopes, affections, ambitions. (T. De Witt Talmage.) The power and dominion of God over the heart I. God hath supreme dominion over the hearts of men.1. He furnishes the hearts of men with qualifications suited to their several offices and employments, which He assigns them in the course of His providence. 2. He moderates and controls the most unruly passions, and renders them subservient to His own glory. 3. He sends spiritual judgments into the hearts of men. 4. He also shows His supreme dominion over the hearts of men, by renewing and sanctifying the various powers of their souls. 5. He restores order to the affections, and places them upon their proper objects. 6. He likewise inclines the heart to those things which are well-pleasing in His sight, and brings it into a willing subjection to His law. II. God mercifully removes every obstacle that might obstruct His powerful gracious operation. The stony heart, which God graciously promises to take away, is remarkable--1. For insensibility. (1) It is insensible to the majesty and glory of God, impressed on the works of His hands, and to His power and presence displayed in His providential dispensations. (2) It is insensible to the spirituality and excellence of the Divine law, and to the wonderful discoveries made in the Gospel of Jesus Christ. 2. For obduracy. The hearts of all men are naturally possessed of this bad quality, which is greatly augmented by sinful habits, which, when indulged, provoke God to permit them judicially to harden themselves more and more. 3. For inflexibility. The stony heart is not easily bent to comply with the gracious purposes which God hath in view to execute. It will not be persuaded to accept of the rich mercies which He offers to bestow, nor obey the directions of His Word. 4. For resistance. The stony heart strongly resists the instruments employed to soften and render it tender. The merciful designs of providence are counteracted. Even the convictions and impulses of the Holy Spirit are resisted. III. God promises to work a great change in the hearts of his people.1. The spiritual and gracious qualities conveyed to the soul, by the fulfilment of this promise, are called a new heart and a new spirit; because they come in place of the old things which pass away, and are very different from them. By the new heart and the new spirit, we are made partakers of the Divine nature, and renovation after the image of Christ is begun, which is afterward gradually carried forward under the influence of the Holy Spirit. The eyes of the mind are enlightened, and a new light shines into it, whereby it is filled with the knowledge of God’ s will. Divine truths are seen in their native beauty, displaying the manifold wisdom of God, and the unsearchable riches of Christ; they penetrate to the bottom of the heart, they are embraced with sincere affection, and have a transforming influence on the heart and life. 2. God also promises to give you an heart of flesh--which seems to intend, a heart the reverse of the stony heart, which He takes away. (1) The heart of flesh is a sensible heart, that perceives the great importance and excellence of spiritual and Divine things. (2) The heart of flesh is a soft and tender heart, that is deeply impressed with a sense of the Divine goodness and the manifold mercies of God. (3) The heart of flesh is likewise flexible and pliant to the holy will of God. (4) The heart of flesh makes no resistance to God, as doth the stony heart. 3. “ And I will put My Spirit within you.” By the Spirit may be meant, the Holy Ghost, who dwelleth in the people of God as in His temple, the Comforter whom Jesus Christ promises to send from the Father, that He may abide with them forever, even the Spirit of truth--who dwelleth with you and shall be in you (John 14:16-17). As a Spirit of power, He strengthens with all might in the inner man; as a Spirit of supplication, He helps their infirmities, and teaches them to pray; in every respect acting as a Spirit of holiness, sanctifying them wholly, and enabling them to perform duties in another and more spiritual manner than ever before. As the promised Comforter, He supports and comforts; so that as their sufferings abound, their consolations by Christ are made to superabound. As a Spirit of wisdom and revelation, He discovers the deep things of God, that we may know the things freely given us of God. As a Spirit of adoption, He enables us to cry, Abba, Father, and to draw near to God with filial freedom and confidence. IV. The accomplishment of the precious promises which are here given, is attended with blessed effects and consequences. Those who have the Spirits of God put within them, shall be made to walk in God’ s statutes, and to keep His judgments and do them. The statutes of God are the rule by which they shall walk, His judgments point out the work which they ought to do. By both expressions the Word of God is intended, which is given to be a lamp to our feet, and a light to our goings, and to show us what is good, and what the Lord our God requireth of us. In these statutes and judgments, God promises that those in whom He puts His Spirit shall walk. In Scripture, walking is often mentioned in a figurative sense, to denote a person’ s habitual temper and practice.1. Walking in God’ s statutes is a voluntary, agreeable employment to those who have received a new heart and spirit. They delight in the law of the Lord after the inward man, and in the ways of His commandments which they have loved. In doing the will of their heavenly Father, they find far more real pleasure and satisfaction than in sensual pleasures, worldly riches, and great temporal honours. 2. Walking in God’ s statutes is a diligent and progressive business. There may be, no doubt, some accidental obstructions and checks made to growth in grace, and progress in holiness; still, however, faith and love, and other graces, increase and grow up to the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ. (W. M’Culloch.) The Lord’ s New Year’ s gifts to hardened sinners It is recorded that when Sir Walter Raleigh knelt on the scaffold with his neck on the block waiting for the axe of the executioner to behead him, the latter said, “ Does your head lie easy, Sir Walter?” The brave man replied, “ It matters not, my friend, how my head lies, provided my heart is right.” I. A new heart. The old heart is compared in this verse to a stone. What use is there then in preaching to such as are in heart senseless? The love of Christ is a solvent to soften the heart which is hard as a stone; and the Holy Spirit then shall mould it into the image of the Saviour. In a cathedral at Rome I saw what I thought to be most precious stone; but, placing my hand upon that huge slab, I found that it was wood, painted like marble. A stone is known by its coldness; and we know a man is unconverted by his coldness to God and to his fellow men. A few men possess natural benevolence; but many are as cold as a stone to the appeals of the helpless and the suffering. When the new heart is received their disposition is changed; they are tender and compassionate to the sufferer, and weep with the sorrowing. A man with a stony heart who loves money wonders why another gives his time and his money so generously, day after day, to the cause of God and of his fellow men; and he says to himself, “ Why, the Christian does this as if he really enjoyed it! I like to get money; but he seems to be most pleased when he is giving it!” The reason is that the Christian has received a new heart; and, loving God and his fellow men, it is his delight to minister to them of his time and substance. The new heart does not grudge what it gives; because it loves. II. A new spirit. The old spirit readily conforms itself to the world; and it seeks to run with the stream. But when God gives the new spirit, we are ruled by the mind that was in Jesus; and though there were only one Christian in an opposing world, that Christian would be against the world. The old spirit thinks it cannot resist sin, and it yields to it as a necessity of his nature; but when God gives the new spirit, it breaks the gyves of Satan, and cries, “ I am free; and will not longer submit to my besetting sin; I am to cast aside every weight, so that I may run the race that is set before me.” The old spirit trusts in outward circumstances, in money, and in men; but when we receive the new spirit we trust in the power of our God. The old spirit does not know the sweetness of communion with God. But the new spirit delights to pray; it is a privilege rather than a duty. The old spirit also is corrupt. It is like the polished veneer that is placed over the decayed wood which smells with the dry rot. But when the new spirit is received the Christian is all glorious within. III. A new pilot. “ I will put My Spirit within you.” IV. A new life. “ And cause you to walk in My statutes.” We shall not be dragged to heaven: ours is a willing service. It is a walk, not a limp Christ heals perfectly. V. New rules. “ Ye shall keep My judgments.” The fingerpost points out your way at the corner of the road, and you do not hesitate to walk in the path pointed out, because you believe that fingerpost to tell the right direction. Likewise, the fingerpost of the Bible is a sufficient security for us to keep in the path of righteousness. VI. New employment. “ And do them.” How sweet to be assured that God will give us power to do His will! Pray with increasing faith, “ Thy will be done” ; and expect the ability and the resignation to do it. You shall do His will! Rejoice! VII. God’ s guarantee. “ I will do it: I will give it you.” The Lord means what He says. Cannot you trust Him? Whosoever will may receive the gifts offered by our loving Father. (W. Birch.) Covenant blessings I. Observe, first, we have here to all God’ s covenanted people, or in other words, to all believers, a promise of preparation for the Spirit’ s indwelling. This promise is as a cluster of nuts, or a bough with many golden apples. Like the cherubim of Ezekiel it has four faces, all smiling upon the heirs of salvation. Like the New Jerusalem it lieth four-square. It is a quadruple treasure worthy of four-fold consideration.1. The first of the four blessings is the gift of a new heart. Observe where the inward work of grace begins. All man’ s attempts at the betterment of human nature begin from without, and the theory is that the work will deepen till it reaches that which is within. They profess to emancipate the man from the grosser vices, trusting that the reform will go further, that he will be brought under superior influences, and so be elevated in mind and heart. Miserable physicians are they all. Their remedies fail to eradicate the deep seated maladies of humanity. God’ s way of dealing with men is the reverse. He begins within and works towards the exterior in due course. Look at our brooks and rivulets which have been by a lax legislature so long delivered over to the tormentors to be blackened into pestiferous sewers; if we want to have them purged it is of small avail to cast chloride of lime and other chemicals into the stream; the only remedy is to forbid the pollution, to demand that manufactories shall not poison us wholesale, but shall in some other manner consume their useless products. The voice of common sense bids us go to the original cause of the defilement and deal with it at its sources. That is just what God does when He saves a sinner, He begins at the origin of the sinner’ s sin and deals with His heart. Blessed be God, He is omnipotent enough to give Us new hearts, He has wisdom enough to renew us, He has purity sufficient to cleanse us, He has abounding mercy to bear with us. 2. Turn, now, to the second blessing--“ A new spirit will I put within you.” The natural man is correctly and strictly speaking a compound of soul and body only. The first man, Adam, was made a living soul; and, as we bear the image of the first Adam, we are body and soul only. It is our own belief that in regeneration something more is done than the mere rectifying of what was there: there is in the new birth infused and implanted in man a third and more elevated principle,--a spirit is begotten in him; and, as the second Adam was made a quickening spirit, so in the new birth we are transformed into the likeness of Christ Jesus, who is the second Adam. The implantation, infusion, and putting into our nature the third and higher principle is, we believe, the being born again. Regarded in this light, the words before us may be regarded as an absolute and unconditional promise of the covenant of grace to all the seed that a new spirit shall be put within them. But, if we view it as some do, we shall then read it thus--the ruling spirit of man’ s nature shall be changed. The spirit which rules and reigns in Godless, Christless men, is the spirit of a rebellious slave, the spirit of self. But, when the Spirit of God comes upon us, to make our spirit a fit place for His residence, He takes away the spirit of the slave, and gives us the spirit of a child, and from that moment the service of God becomes a different thing: we do not serve Him now because we are afraid of the whip, but nobler motives move us; gratitude binds us to the Lord’ s service, and love gives wings to the feet of obedience. Now the Lord is no more regarded as a tyrant, but as a wise and loving parent. Whatever He may do with us, we rejoice in His wisdom and goodness. We view Him no longer with suspicion and dread, but with confidence and joy. 3. A third and further blessing of the text is the removal of the stony heart. “ I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh.” I do not think the Lord removes at once the evil heart out of any man’ s flesh; there it remains to be fought with, like the Canaanites in Canaan when Israel had entered there, to prove us and to try us, but He does take away the stony heart at once. The stony heart is a hard heart. We have heard of many expedients for softening hard hearts, but none of them are of any avail. You may make a man weep over his dead child or his dead wife, till his eyes are red, but his heart will be black for all that. Men’ s hearts are changed by quite another agency than oratorical or rhetorical appeals to the natural affections. 4. The fourth promise of the preparation of the heart for the indwelling of the Spirit is this: “ I will give you a heart of flesh,” by which is meant a soft heart, an impressible heart, a sensitive heart, a heart which can feel, can be moved to shame, to repentance, to loathing of sin, to desiring, to seeking, to punting, to longing after God; a tender heart, a heart that does not require a thousand blows to move it, but, like flesh with its skin broken, feels the very faintest touch,--such is the heart which the Holy Spirit creates in the children of God. It is a teachable heart, a heart willing to be guided, moulded, governed by the Divine will: a heart which, like young Samuel, cries, “ Speak, Lord, for Thy servant heareth” :--an obedient heart, ready to be run into the mould, plastic beneath the sacred hand, anxious to be conformed to the heavenly pattern. II. The indwelling of the Holy Ghost.1. Observe, first, that the Lord says, “ I will put My Spirit within you.” God Himself, the Eternal Spirit in propria persona, in His own person, resides and dwells within the renewed heart. The mystery of the incarnation is not greater than that of the Holy Ghost’ s indwelling, nor does it appear to me to involve more condescension. I marvel at Christ’ s dwelling with sinners, and I marvel equally at the Holy Ghost’ s dwelling in sinners. 2. Note a little word also in the text worthy of your attention. “ I will put My Spirit within you.” It is not the spirit of angels, it is not the spirit of good men, it is God’ s own Spirit who takes up His residence in every sinner’ s heart when God renews it. “ My Spirit.” And, perhaps, this may allude to the fact that this is the self-same Spirit which abode without measure in our Lord Jesus Christ. 3. Observe also carefully the words, “ within you.” This is marvellous. Augustine, when reflecting upon the various glories which come to God, and the benefits which accrue to men through redemption, none of which could have been revealed without the fall of Adam, exclaimed, “O beata culpa!” “ O happy fault” ; and I have the self-same expression trembling on my lips. Where sin abounded grace has much more abounded. III. The blessed results which come from all this. The indwelling Spirit leads every man in whom He reigns into obedience to the ways of God. The soul that possesses the Spirit becomes active. It walks. It is not passive, as one carried by main force; it works because the Spirit works in it, “ to will and to do of His own good pleasure.” The Holy Ghost leads us to holy habits, for, mark the phrase, “ I will cause you to walk in My ways.” Mere excitement may produce momentary zeal, and transient morality, but habitual holiness is the fruit of the Spirit. Note, next, the delight it implies. “ I will cause you to walk in My ways,” not as a man who toils, but as one who walks at ease. The believer finds it as sweet to walk in God’ s ways as Isaac felt it sweet to walk in the fields at eventide, it implies, too, holy perseverance; the words have the meaning of continuing to follow after holiness. It is a small matter to begin, but to hold out to the end is the testing point. The text promises to us a complete obedience,--“ I will cause you to walk in My statutes, and to keep My judgments.” A Christian man is obedient to God,--he minds the first table; he is just to man,--he does not despise the second table. And the Holy Ghost also works a holy care for righteousness in the soul. “ I will cause you to keep My judgments” ;--that is, to have an exactness of obedience, a precision, a deliberation, a willingness to find out God’ s will, and a care to attend to it in every jot and tittle. Now, to what a delightful consummation has our text conducted us. It began with a renewed heart, and it ends in a purified life. It commenced with taking away the stone and giving the flesh; now it gives us the life of Christ written out, in living characters in our daily practice. Glory be to God for this! (C. H. Spurgeon.) A new heart 1. No problem, whether of religion or philosophy, of nature or revelation, more transcends the power of human reason to solve than that of the existence of moral evil in the world. 2. In what consists the nature of this evil? What is its essence? In nature, it subsists in a heart not in accordance with the Divine law. In essence it is a moral depravity; a moral corruption; a perversion of the understanding and the affections in regard to moral truth and duty; a discord among the harmonies of our moral being, and a slavish subjection to the appetites of our bestial nature in opposition to the nobler promptings and requirements of our higher, our godlike, nature. 3. Is there any escape from this evil--any remedy for it on man’ s behalf. And if so, in what, and where, and how may it be obtained? “ A new heart will I give you.” God makes for us a way of escape; God provides the remedy, and we are made the beneficiaries of it by God’ s bestowal upon us of a new heart. I. This gift of God, a new heart. A new heart contrasts with the old. The old heart is alienated from God; the new heart cleaves to God with supreme affection of love. The old heart is sold under sin; the new heart is redeemed from all iniquity. The old heart is accompanied by carnal-mindedness, which is death; the new heart by spiritual-mindedness, which is life and peace. II. How does God bestow this gift? God gives this new heart, not by destroying the freedom of human will and agency, but by emancipating it from every condition of slavery. By the unspeakable gift of His Son Jesus Christ to die for our sins, by the influence and agency of His Holy Spirit, enlightening us in the knowledge of Christ, and renewing our wills, and regenerating our natures, and by His blessing upon the means of grace which He has appointed, God confers this gift of a new heart upon all those who believe in Jesus, and who walk by the Spirit, according to revealed truth, in the use of the appointed means of grace, and in obedience to God’ s law. III. How does the new heart manifest itself in the life and character of its recipient? It effects an entire change in them. There are new objects of life and new attributes of character consequent upon the desires, affections, and purposes of a new heart. His life is a continual proof and illustration of the power of the Gospel to save, and his character is a beautiful example of purity of thought, simplicity and integrity of purpose, kindliness of demeanour, beneficence of deeds, and faithfulness in the discharge of every duty toward God and man. (W. T. Findley, D. D.) A new heart I. A new heart is a contrast to the old. II. A new heart is productive of new effects.1. Repentance.2. Holiness. III. A new heart is connected with new privileges (verse 28). If Jehovah be our God, there is not a real good that is not ours. We have Him for the portion of our souls. We are interested in the exercise of all His perfections. His love is inviolably and eternally fixed upon us. His wisdom is incessantly engaged in making all things work together for our good. His power is ever operating to defend us from essential injury. His universal presence becomes an uninterrupted source of peace and a never failing occasion of comfort. We have access to Him and communion with Him. He is our Father, our Guide, our Friend. IV. A new heart is the work of God. V. A new heart is the gift of God. Application--1. What an important subject on which to examine ourselves. It is possible to be mistaken--and a mistake here is fatal. 2. How vain are the attempts men make to do without a new heart. 3. Let the most guilty be encouraged to seek this blessing as the gift of God in Christ Jesus; and the most hardened to hope for it as the work of God, if He be sought as the Author of it. 4. Let every man know that he inevitably and justly perishes if he neglects it--despises it--or presumes that he can be saved without it. 5. Let us adore God for having made known so wonderful and gracious a method of restoring our fallen nature. (Essex Remembrancer.) The new heart Behold a wonder of Divine love. When God maketh His creatures, one creation He regardeth as sufficient, and should they lapse from the condition in which He has created them, He suffers them, as a rule, to endure the penalty of their transgression, and to abide in the place into which they are fallen. But here He makes an exception; man, fallen man, created by his Maker, pure and holy, hath wilfully and wickedly rebelled against the Most High, and lost his first estate, but behold, he is to be the subject of a new creation through the power of God’ s Holy Spirit. I. The necessity for this great promise. You will notice that God does not promise to us that He will improve our nature, that He will mend our broken hearts. No, the promise is that He will give us new hearts and right spirits. Human nature is too far gone ever to be mended. If only a wheel or two of that great thing called “ manhood” were out of repair, then He who made man might put the whole to rights; He might put a new cog where it had been broken off, and another wheel where it had gone to ruin, and the machine might work anew. But no, the whole of it is out of repair; there is not one lever which is not broken; not one axle which is not disturbed; not one of the wheels which act upon the others. The whole head is sick, and the whole heart is faint. From the sole of the foot, to the crown of the head, it is all wounds and bruises and putrifying sores. Consider for a moment how bad human nature must be if we think how ill it has treated its God. I remember William Huntingdon says in his autobiography, that one of the sharpest sensations of pain that he felt after he had been quickened by Divine grace was this, “ He felt such pity for God.” I do not know that I ever met with the expression elsewhere, but it is a very expressive one; although I might prefer to say sympathy with God and grief that He should be so evil entreated. Let us look back upon our past lives--how ungrateful have we been to Him! We have never returned His mercies into His bosom with gratitude and thankfulness; but we have let them lie forgotten without a single hallelujah, from our carelessness concerning the Most High, that He had entirely forgotten us, and that therefore we were trying to forget Him. It is so very seldom that we think of Him that one would imagine that surely He never gave us occasion to think of Him. But worse than this, we have not only been forgetful of Him, but we have rebelled against Him. We have assailed the Most High. Oh! it is a mercy that He is God and changeth not, or else we sons of Jacob would long ago have been consumed, and justly too. You may picture to yourselves, if you like, a poor creature dying in a ditch. I trust that such a thing never happens in this land, but such a thing might happen as a man who had been rich on a sudden becoming poor, and all his friends deserting and leaving him; he begs for bread and no man will help him, until at last, without a rag to cover him, his poor body yields up life in a ditch. This, I think, is the very extreme of human negligence to mankind; but Jesus Christ, the Son of God, was treated even worse than this. Ah, if you think of human nature as it acts towards God, you will say indeed it is too bad to be mended, it must be made anew. Again, there is another aspect in which we may regard the sinfulness of human nature: that is its pride. It is the very worst phase of man--that he is so proud. What a strange thing it is to see a sinful, guilty wretch proud of his morality! and yet that is a thing you may see every day. A man who is an enemy to God, proud of his honesty, and yet he is robbing God; a man proud of his chastity, and yet if he knew his own thoughts, they are full of lasciviousness and uncleanness; a man proud of the praise of his fellows, while he knows himself that he has the blame of his own conscience and the blame of God Almighty. Ah, human nature, this is, then, thine own condemnation, that thou art insanely proud, while thou hast nothing to be proud of. Write “ Ichabod” upon it. The glory has departed forever from human nature. Let it be put away, and let God give us something new for the old can never be made better. It is helplessly insane, decrepit, and defiled. Furthermore, it is quite certain that human nature cannot be made better, for many have tried it, but they have always failed. A man trying to improve human nature, is like trying to change the position of a weathercock, by turning it round to the east when the wind is blowing west; he has but to take his hand off and it will be back again to its place. But, once again, you will easily perceive we must have a new heart when you consider what are the employments and the enjoyments of the Christian religion. The nature that can feed on the garbage of sin, and devour the carrion of iniquity, is not the nature that ever can sing the praises of God and rejoice in His holy name. And yet once again God hates a depraved nature, and therefore it must be taken away, before we can be accepted in Him. II. The nature of this great change which the Holy Spirit works in us.1. It is a Divine work from first to last. To give a man a new heart and a new spirit is God’ s work, and the work of God alone. We have heard of some kind of insects that have lost their limbs, and by their vital power have been able to recover them again. But take away the seat of the vital power--the heart; lay the disease there; and what power is there that can, by any possibility, rectify it, unless it be a power from without--in fact, a power from above? 2. It is a gracious change. When God puts a new heart into man, it is not because man deserves a new heart--because there was anything good in his nature, that could have prompted God to give him a new spirit. The Lord simply gives a man a new heart because He wishes to do it; that is His only reason. 3. It is a victorious effort of Divine grace. God will have the sinner, if He designs to have him. God never was thwarted yet in any one of His purposes. Man does resist with all his might, but all the might of man, tremendous though it be for sin, is not equal to the majestic might of the Most High, when He rideth forth in the chariot of His salvation. He doth irresistibly save and victoriously conquer man’ s heart. 4. It is instantaneous. To sanctify a man is the work of the whole life; but to give a man a new heart is the work of an instant. Other parts of salvation are done gradually; but regeneration is the instantaneous work of God’ s sovereign, effectual, and irresistible grace. III. Hope and encouragement to the vilest of sinners.1. There are some who are seeking after mercy; for many a day you have been in prayer in secret, till your very knees seemed sore with the oftenness of your intercession. Your cry to God has been, “ Create in me a clean heart, and renew a right spirit within me.” Let me comfort you by this reflection, that your prayer is already heard. You have a new heart and a right spirit: perhaps you wilt not be able to perceive the truth of this utterance for months to come, therefore continue in prayer till God shall open your eyes, so that you may see that the prayer is answered; but rest assured it is answered already. The Lord hath begun a good work in thy heart, and He will carry it on even unto the end. All these feelings of thine are more than thou ever couldst have attained of thyself. God has helped thee up this Divine ladder of grace, and as sure as He has brought thee up so many staves of it, He will carry thee to the very summit, till He grasps thee in the arms of His love in glory everlasting. 2. There are others, however, who have not proceeded so far, but you are driven to despair. The devil has told you that you cannot be saved; you have been too guilty, too vile. Any other people in the world might find mercy, but not you, for you do not deserve to be saved. Have I not tried to make it as plain as the sunbeam all through this service, that God never saves a man for the sake of what he is, and that He does not either begin or carry on the work in us because there is anything good in us? The greatest sinner is just as eligible for Divine mercy as the very least of sinners. He can take you, a thief: a drunkard, a harlot, or whoever you may be; He can bring you on your knees, make you cry for mercy, and then make you lead a holy life, and keep you unto the end. “ Oh!” says one, “ I wish He would do that to me, then.” Well, soul, if that be a true wish, He will. (C. H. Spurgeon.) A new spirit will I put within you. The invaluable gift The gifts of God are unspeakably great; should we attempt the enumeration they would appear like the stars of heaven, or the sands on the shore for multitude. When the author of the Spectator recovered from a dangerous illness he penned a delightful hymn, in which he expresses the transports of his soul, and the wonder, love, and praise which a sense of the Divine mercies awakened in his grateful mind. But if such language was the result of a survey of God’ s providential goodness, how should the believer exult in the gift of a Saviour, and in that last, best blessing, the enlightening and sanctifying Spirit by which He is revealed to the heart! I. What this invaluable blessing includes and what we are to understand by a new spirit.1. God engages to bestow that grace upon us of which we were altogether undeserving. 2. In the bestowment of this blessing we invariably see the providence and word of God preparing the way for its reception. (1) It includes a renewed and sanctified mind.(2) A sorrowful and penitential disposition.(3) A humble, resigned, and obedient spirit. II. The reasons and grounds of encouragement we have to seek this blessing.1. Think of the character of Him who gives this new spirit. 2. Consider that this is a free gift. 3. Reflect on the many instances in which this blessing has been conferred on individuals as undeserving as ourselves. 4. The perfection of our moral character depends on obtaining it. Enriched with this treasure, we can never be poor or unhappy; nor is it in the power of men or devils to make us miserable. 5. By individually seeking this precious gift we shall be instrumental in promoting the advent of Christ’ s kingdom, and in hastening that blessed consummation which the Church of God so earnestly desires. (Essex Remembrancer.) The new heart bestowed I. The old heart removed.1. The senselessness of the unconverted heart.2. The resistance of the unconverted heart.3. The impenetrableness of the unconverted heart.4. The coldness of the unconverted heart. An unconverted man will have a very tender and warm heart about earthly things. If he loses a wife, or a child, or some valuable property, oh, what intense warmth of feeling do we instantly behold! But when we tell him about the death of Christ, or the love of the Holy Spirit, he takes no more notice of what we say than the cold pavement of the street would listen to a beggar’ s petition. II. The new heart given.1. Your new heart is sensitive. “ The spiritual man,” we are told, “ discerneth all things.” You are sensitive of spiritual pains and of spiritual pleasures. You are especially sensitive with respect to sin. 2. Your new heart is flexible. It can bend in accordance to God’ s will. 3. Your new heart is easily impressed. Its fleshy tablets are always waiting to receive the writing of the Lord’ s commands. 4. Your new heart is well known for its warmth of feeling. Once it saw no beauty nor comeliness in Jesus; but now that it is renewed, it cries, “ Thou art the King of glory, O Christ” : “ Thy name is as the ointment poured forth” : “ In Thee, O Jesus, have I righteousness” : “ Whom have I in heaven but Thee? and there is none upon earth that I desire in comparison of Thee” : “ Thou art the chiefest among ten thousand, and the altogether lovely.” III. The author of the change. Clean water is here used as the emblem of the blood of Christ, and of the work of the Holy Spirit. When the blood of Christ is applied to our conscience through faith, it cleanses us from all dead works; and the Holy Spirit, when applied to all the powers of your soul, purifies it from the love and dominion of sin. Conversion work is all God’ s work; insomuch that, wherever God’ s Spirit converts men by the ministry, He there may be said to raise up children to Abraham out of stones. There He makes water to gush out of rocks; and there He makes dead and dry bones to live. (C. Clayton, M. A.) A new heart I. The old principle which must be got rid of. “ A stony heart.” Of course this is a figure when you speak of a man’ s heart, because you do not speak of that which beats in a man’ s frame, but of his will and affections. Likewise a stony heart is a figure used to describe one who knows not Christ, and cannot until it is removed. What is a stone? A stone is a thing upon which you can make no impression. You may strike it with a hammer, or a sword, or any other weapon, but you can make no impression upon it; so with a stony human heart, no arguments or anything we can do will influence it. There are some hearts we cannot reach, they seem harder than the nether millstone. Until God touches the hard heart it has no feeling; and there are men and women now who figuratively go to that stony rock of Calvary, whereon Christ died for our sins, and even come to services like these in which we literally go there with Him, and yet do not feel touched in their hearts. II. A new principle which is to be given us. There are two ways in which people may be said to have anything new. First, when it is absolutely new. When the Ark of God was to be brought back, a cart was to be made by the Divine Will, and it has to be a new cart, entirely out of new materials. So in the New Testament we are told Joseph of Arimathea laid our Lord in a new tomb, wherein yet never anyone had lain. There is another sense in which a thing is made new, that is, when it is renewed, for that comes to the same thing. This is what happens when a man’ s heart is renewed, and turned to God. You may meet a man, and say, “ I see no change in him,” and yet that man has been renewed by the Spirit of God. This, then, is the new principle that God will give; and it is “ a new heart,” and when that happens the whole man is changed. Again, when a man’ s will is renewed he is made to say, “ Not my will, but Thine be done.” And a man’ s affections are renewed, and even his memory is renewed. That memory, that used to be running off on other things, now returns to God. III. The Divine Giver. It is the work of Omnipotence. He can make the heart love and glow with life. When He does this work it is done in an instant. A man at the receipt of custom, who was as busy as any of you, was called by Christ, and Matthew arose and followed Him in a moment. He said also to Zacchaeus, “ Make haste and come down,” “ and he made haste and came down.” It was done in a moment. And when Lydia sat listening to Paul’ s address we are told that “ the Lord opened her heart,” and then she attended to the words spoken by Paul. And when Saul was entering into Damascus to persecute the Christians in that city, carrying with him letters from the high priest at Jerusalem, a voice asked him, “ Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou Me?” God touched his heart, and it was done in a moment. IV. It brings great glory to God. It is greater than creating a world. Someone has said. “ It was great to speak a world from nought” ; but it is a greater work when He comes down to that heart which He first made in His own image, and which sin has marred and ruined, and promises to dwell there, than the work of creation. (Canon Fleming.) I will take away the stony heart.--The stony heart removed I. The stony heart and its dangers.1. Why is the heart of man compared to a stone at all? (1) Like a stone it is cold. You may heat a stone for a little season if you thrust it into the fire, but for how short a time will it retain its heat; and though it glowed just now, how very soon it loses all its warmth, and returns again to its native coldness. Such is the heart of man. It is warm enough towards sin; it grows hot as coals of juniper towards its own lusts, but naturally the heart is as cold as ice towards the things of God. You may think you have heated it for a little season under a powerful exhortation, or in presence of a solemn judgment, but how soon it returns to its natural state! (2) Like a stone it is hard. You get the hard stone, especially some sorts of stone which have been hewn from granite beds, and you may hammer as you will but you shall make no impression. I have seen the great hammer of the law, which is ten times more ponderous than Nasmyth’ s great steam hammer, come down upon a man’ s heart, and the heart has never shown the slightest signs of shrinking. (3) Again, a stone is dead. You can find no feeling in it. Talk to it; it will shed no tears of pity, though you recount to it the saddest tales; no smiles will gladden it, though you should tell it the most happy story. Now, though man’ s heart is not like this as to natural things, yet spiritually this is just its condition. (4) Man’ s heart is like a stone, because it is not easily to be softened. Lay a stone in water as long as you will and you shall not find it readily subdued. There are some sorts of stone that yield to the stress of weather, especially in the smoky atmosphere and the sulphurous vapours of London; certain stones crumble to decay, but the stone of a man’ s heart no climate can affect, no weather can subdue; it grows harder whether it be the soft sunshine of love or the harsh tempest of judgment that falls upon it. (5) It is utterly senseless, incapable of receiving impressions. I remember an anecdote of Dr. Gill which hits this nail on the head. It is said that a man came to him in the vestry of his chapel and said, “ Dr. Gill, you have been preaching the doctrine of human inability; I don’ t believe you. I believe that man can repent and can believe, and is not without spiritual power.” “ Well,” said the doctor, “ have you repented and believed?” “ No,” said the other. “ Very well, then,” said he, “ you deserve double damnation.” And so I say to the man who boasts that he has not such a hard heart as this--have you laid hold of Christ? have you come to Him? if you have not, then out of your own heart be you condemned, for you deserve double destruction from the presence of God for having resisted the influences of God’ s Spirit and rejected His grace. 2. The danger to which this hard heart is exposed. (1) A hard heart is exposed to the danger of final impenitence. If all these years the processes of nature have been at work with your heart, and have not softened it, have you not reason to conclude that it may be so even to the end? And then you will certainly perish. (2) Hearts that are not softened grow harder and harder; what little sensibility they seemed to have at last departs. (3) Then further, a man who has a hard heart is Satan’ s throne. There is a stone, they tell us, in Scotland, at Scone, where they were wont to crown their old kings: the stone on which they crown the old king of hell is a hard heart; it is his choicest throne; he reigns in hell, but he counts hard hearts to be his choicest dominions. (4) Then again, the hard heart is ready for anything. When Satan sits upon it and makes it his throne, there is no wonder that from the seat of the scorner flows all manner of evil. (5) Besides that, the hard heart is impervious to all instrumentality. John Bunyan, in his history of the Holy War, represents old Diabolus, the devil, as providing for the people of Mansoul a coat of armour, of which the breastplate was a hard heart. Oh! that is a strong breastplate. Hard hearts are the devil’ s lifeguards. When he once gets a man in an armour of proof--that of a hard heart--“ Now,” says he, “ you may go anywhere.” II. A heart of flesh and its privileges.1. What is meant by a heart of flesh? It means a heart that can feel on account of sin--a heart that can bleed when the arrows of God stick fast in it; it means a heart that can yield when the Gospel makes its attacks--a heart that can be impressed when the seal of God’ s word comes upon it; it means a heart that is warm, for life is warm--a heart that can think, a heart that can aspire, a heart that can love--putting all in one,--a heart of flesh means that new heart and right spirit which God giveth to the regenerate. 2. But wherein does this heart of flesh consist; wherein does its tenderness consist? (1) There is a tenderness of conscience. Men who have lost their stony hearts are afraid of sin, even before sin they are afraid of it. The very shadow of evil across their path frightens them. And then, after sin--here comes the pinch--the heart of flesh bleeds as though it were wounded to its very core. Before sin, and in sin, and after sin, it smarts and cries out to God. (2) In duty as well as in sin the new heart is tender. “ Only let me know my Master’ s will and I will do it.” (3) A heart of flesh, again, is tender with regard to suffering. A heart of flesh would give its very life blood if it might but snatch others from going down to the pit, for its bowels yearn and its soul moves toward its fellow sinners who are on the broad road to destruction. Have you, oh, have you such a heart of flesh as this? 3. The privileges of this renewed heart are these. “‘ Tis here the Spirit dwells, ‘ tis here that Jesus rests.” The soft heart is ready now to receive every spiritual blessing. It is fitted to yield every heavenly fruit to the honour and praise of God. A soft heart is the best defence against sin, while it is the best preparative for heaven. A tender heart is the best means of watchfulness against evil, while it is also the best means of preparing us for the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ. (C. H. Spurgeon.) The nature of the change in conversion I. The old heart is taken away and a new one put in its place. The head was justly considered by ancient philosophers to be the residence of the intellectual faculties, where the soul, presiding over all, sat enthroned, as in a palace. On the other hand, they regarded the affections as having their home in the heart, that other great organ of our system. Within the breast, love and hatred, grief and joy, aversion and desire, generosity, jealousy, pity, revenge were supposed to dwell; and thus (to dismiss the metaphor), that substitution of one heart for another which is promised in the text, just implies a thorough change in the character and current of our affections. Now, a change may be simply a reform; or, extending deeper and taking a wider range, it may pass into a revolution. Conversion is not a mere reform. No. It changes the heart, the habits, the everlasting destiny of an immortal being. To be sensible of our need of a new spirit, to feel that this old heart will not mend nor make better, is one of the first steps in salvation; and the deeper our impression of this truth, the more diligently shall we labour, and the more earnest shall be our prayers to be renewed day by day. II. The view which our text gives of the natural heart. It is a heart of stone. “ I will take the stony heart out of your flesh.”1. A stone is cold. Coldness is its characteristic. Hence, the lapidary, by using his tongue to test the temperature, can tell whether the seeming jewel is paste or a real gem. Hence, also, when our eye has been deceived by the skill of the artist, the sense of touch has informed us that what seemed a marble pillar was only painted wood. There is reason, therefore, in the common saying, As cold as a stone. But what stone so cold as that which sin has lodged in man’ s breast? We are by nature lovers of pleasure, not of God. He is not the object of our love, but of our aversion. And what return do we make to Jesus for His warm and matchless affection? The carnal mind is enmity against God; is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be. 2. A stone is hard. Fire melts wax, but not stone; water softens clay, but not stone; a hammer bends the stubborn iron, but not stone. It resists all these agents; and, emblem of a heart crushed, but unsanctified by affliction, a stone may be broken into fragments, or ground to powder, yet its atoms are as hard as ever. The man who remains unmoved under a ministry of mercy, who is insensible at once to the most appalling and appealing lessons of providence, who fears no more than a rock the thunders that peal and the lightnings that play round his brow, and feels no more than a rock the influences that fall like summer sunbeams from the face of a gracious Saviour, is manifestly beyond all human power. I would despair of his salvation, but for the omnipotence and benevolence of God; and because I know that He, who of the stones of the street could raise up children to Abraham, can change that heart of stone into a heart of flesh. 3. A stone is dead. It has no vitality, nor feeling, nor power of motion. Look at this statue; however skilful the sculptor’ s chisel, there is no life here; no speech breaks from these cold lips; the limbs seem instinct with power, yet they never leave their pedestal; no fire flashes in these dull grey eyes, nor passions burn within that stony breast; the stone is deaf, and dumb, and dead. Spoken to, it returns no answer; wept over, it sheds no tears. III. In conversion God gives a new spirit.1. By this change the understanding and judgment are enlightened. Time and eternity are now seen in their just proportions, in their right relative dimensions; the one in its littleness, and the other in its greatness. When the light of heaven rises on the soul, oh, what grand and affecting discoveries does she make of the exceeding evil of sin, of the holiness of the Divine law, of the infinite purity of Divine justice, of the grace and greatness of Divine love. On Sinai’ s summit and on Calvary’ s Cross, what new truths and what sublime scenes open to her astonished eyes! 2. By this change the will is renewed. Bad men are worse, and good men are better than they appear. Yes, better; for in conversion the will is so changed and sanctified that, although a pious man is in some respects less, in other respects he is more holy than the world gives him credit for. The attainments of a believer are always beneath his aims; his desires are loftier than his deeds; his wishes are holier than his works. Give other men their will, let them have full sway and swing for their passions, and they would be worse than they are; give him the hill power to do as he would, and he would be better than he is. And thus, if you have experienced this gracious change, it will be your daily grief that not only are you not what you know you should be, but what you wish to be. The fruits of holy peace are reaped with sharp swords on the field of war; and this conflict within you proves that grace, even in its infancy a cradled Saviour, is engaged in struggling with and strangling the old Serpent. 3. By conversion the temper and disposition are changed and sanctified. It is with the believer under the influences of the Spirit as with fruit ripening beneath the genial power of dews and sunbeams. Hard at first, its substance grows soft; sour at first, its juices become sweet; green at first, it assumes in time a rich and mellow colour; at first adhering tenaciously to the tree, when it becomes ripe it is ready to drop at the slightest touch. So with the man who is ripening for heaven. His affections and temper grow sweet, soft, mellow, loose from earth and earthly things. IV. In conversion God gives a heart of flesh. “ I will give you a heart of flesh.”1. In conversion man gets a warm heart. Let us restrict ourselves to a single example. When faith embraces Him, how does the heart warm to Jesus Christ! There is music in His very name. “ His name is as an ointment poured forth.” All the old indifference to His cause, His people, and interests of His kingdom has passed away; and now these have the warmest place in a believer’ s bosom, and are become the objects of its strongest and tenderest affections. 2. In conversion a man gets a soft heart. As “ flesh,” it is soft and sensitive. It is flesh; and can be wounded or healed. It is flesh; and feels alike the kiss of kindness and the rod of correction. It is flesh; no longer like a stone, hard, obdurate, impenetrable to the gentle influences of heaven. To change the figure, once a hard block of ice, it has been melted by the beams of the sun, and turned into flowing water. 3. In conversion a man gets a living heart. The perfection of a saint’ s life is death; is to be dead to sin, but alive to righteousness, alive to Christ, alive to everything which affects His crown and kingdom. With Christ living in his heart, the believer feels that now he is not his own, and belongs no longer to himself. As another’ s, and purchased at a great price, the grand object of his life is Christ’ s. He wishes that he could look on the seductions of the world, and sin’ s most voluptuous charms, with the cold, unmoved stare of death; and that these had no more power to kindle a desire in him than in the icy bosom of a corpse. 4. By conversion man is ennobled. Religion descends like an angel from the throne of God, to burst our chains. She raises me from degradation, and bids me lift my drooping head and look up to heaven. Yes, it is that very Gospel, by some supposed to present such dark, degrading, gloomy views of our destiny, which lifts me from the dust and the dunghill to set me among princes, on a level with angels, in a sense above them. To say nothing of the nobility grace imparts to a soul which is stamped anew with the likeness and image of God, how sacred, how venerable does even this body appear in the eye of piety! Angels hover round its walls, and the Spirit of God dwells within. What an incentive to holiness, to purity of life and conduct, lies in the fact that the Body of a saint is the temple of the living God!--a truer, nobler temple than that which Solomon dedicated by his prayers, and a greater even than Solomon consecrated by his presence. (T. Guthrie, D. D.) The heart of stone; or, the soul without religion I. The soul of man is, like the stone, a mystery. Here is a stone. I see it, weigh it, feel it. But what is it? Colour, weight, and tangibility are not entities. These are mere qualities which belong to entities. By these qualities we may recognise the entities and form an opinion respecting them. In this sense the stone, itself a mystery, may be looked on as a type or picture of every soul, saved or unsaved. Every soul feels, reasons, and think;--and yet the soul is neither feeling, reason, nor thought: these are mere qualities which form no part of its essence. In itself it is a mystery. II. The soul of the unregenerate, however, is, like the stone, very hard.1. All stones are not equally hard, though hardness is a characteristic of each. 2. Neither are all souls equally without feeling or moral susceptibility, though all are sadly deficient in this respect. This is illustrated-- (1) By the cruel practices of Pagan nations. Infanticides, parricides, self-torture, human sacrifices, Sutteeism etc. (2) By the indifference of those who are not Pagans--even Christians, to the welfare of others. (3) By the difficulty invariably found of awakening the soul to an earnest inquiry for its own personal and highest interest. III. The soul of the unregenerate is, like the stone, not what it originally was. The stone has not been always as hard as it is now. Every pebble or grain of sand was once a part of a great rock, and that rock itself a soft material; but heat, pressure, and time combined made it hard. Even flint existed in a soft and pulpy form. Similar is the history of your soul, my unregenerated brother. It was once soft, tender, and full of felling, though now it is hard. This is proved--(1) From the universal traditions of men.(2) From man’ s intuitive ideas of the moral nature of God.(3) From the infallible testimony of the Scripture. IV. The unregenerated soul has, like the stone, been gradually hardened. Even Nero, who assassinated his mother, set fire to the Roman capital, and brought to an untimely grave in misery thousands of men, women, and innocent children, had once a tender heart, like others. “ Would to God I could not write!” was his feeling exclamation once when a death warrant was presented to him for signature. V. The unregenerated soul, like the stone, bears in itself a faithful record of all the powers which have helped to make it what it is. In the stone, some of its particles are spherical, showing that once, after having been broken from the mother rock, they were for centuries under the action of flowing water; others are crystallised, showing that once they were in a state of solution; others are organic, showing that they were once the seat of vegetable or animal life. In the form and composition of these particles we find a record of the various changes through which the stone has passed, as well as the numerous influences which have been at work in the effecting of those changes. The soul of man is similar. In eternity it may be possible to trace distinctly in every soul in heaven or hell a faithful record of all the influences which, on earth, have ever tended to elevate or degrade it. VI. The unregenerated soul, like the stone, may be softened by the application of appropriate elements. The flint, may be reduced to pulp by chemical reagents, and moulded like the clay to any form. The hardest metals may be dissolved. So may also the hardest heart. The love of Christ is the dissolving element for souls. (Evan Lewis, B. A.) Change of heart I. The old and stony heart. There are some who tell us that the heart of man by nature is like a sheet of white paper or parchment, that you may inscribe on it whatever you please. We are bound to say, from our experience, this is not the condition of our hearts. We are conscious in ourselves that we were born with inclinations to evil; and that, as the fruit of inward corruption and depravity, our lives have been exceedingly defective and blemished everywhere, and that we have been disobedient to the Lord. The heart is said to be stony, that is, to be hard; and it remains so although we try it by every system, every principle, and every revelation of God, which would be adapted to impress and to make it feel, feel deeply and poignantly, if it were not a stone. This entry is longer than a Bible module can hold. The rest is at https://www.sermonindex.net/commentary/bi/ Ezekiel 36:27I will put My Spirit within you.The gift of Pentecost I. The agent in this change. God Himself.1. Nothing less than this will suffice. Outward morality not enough, does not produce true obedience. Importance of motives. 2. Failure of all else to regenerate mankind. (1) Failure of nature (Genesis 6:5).(2) Failure of the law (Galatians 3:21-22; Romans 8:3).(3) Failure of heathen systems (Acts 17:23-30; Romans 1:21-22; 1 Corinthians 1:21; 1 Corinthians 2:14). II. The method of this change, as here predicted.1. Change of heart. Heart of stone removed (Zachariah 7:12); heart of flesh given, receptive of holy influences: case of Lydia (Acts 16:14). The whole will thus changed. 2. The Spirit bestowed. God Himself dwelling in the heart (Psalms 68:18; John 14:17; John 16:13; 1 Corinthians 3:16). The great gift of Pentecost (Acts 2:4); the Church’ s birthday. Mark the wider diffusion, the increased knowledge, the higher tone, the advance in spiritual life since the day of Pentecost. III. The result of this change. “ Cause you to walk in My statutes,” etc. The fruit of the Spirit is obedience (Galatians 5:22-23); no true obedience without the Spirit (Romans 8:8-9); the good tree alone brings forth good fruit (Matthew 7:17-20). This then supplies a practical test.1. Are we exhibiting these fruits? If not, then we are not led by the Spirit, then we are “ none of Christ’ s” ; then the great work of the changed heart has not taken place. 2. Do we desire a better, higher life? If so, then remember the distinct promise of text. Pentecost is a pledge (Acts 2:39). (A. G. Hellicar, M. A.) The renovator In many respects the new corresponds with the old creation, the Paradise Regained with the Paradise Lost. Man is the subject of both; his good and the Divine glory are the ends of both; devils are the enemies, and angels are the allies of both; the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost are the authors of both. The Father decrees redemption; the Son procures it; the Holy Spirit applies it; and for the latter purpose this promise is both given and fulfilled--“ I will put My Spirit within you.” I. The Holy Spirit is the great agent in conversion and sanctification. Man cannot be saved unless elected; nor elected without the Father. He cannot be saved unless redeemed; nor redeemed without the Son. Not less true is it, that he cannot be saved unless converted; nor converted without the Spirit. Do you ask why? We may compare the change wrought in conversion to the removal of what was old and shattered, and the supplying its place with new machinery. But what is mere machinery? Just what a new heart were without the Spirit of God. In addition to the machinery we must have a moving power. Of what use were that which is to be moved without a force adequate to the end in view? Without a mainspring inside the timepiece, however complete the number and perfect the workmanship of its wheels, pinions, pivots, axles, the hands would stand on its face, nor advance one step over the encircling hours. So were it with the renewed soul without the Spirit of God to set its powers in motion, bring them into play, and impart to their movements a true and heavenward character. For this purpose God fulfils the promise, I will put My Spirit within you. To illustrate this truth, let me avail myself of the clement which gives a name to the Spirit, and which our Saviour selects as its appropriate emblem--“ The wind bloweth where it listeth,” etc. Here is a noble ship. Her masts are all in; and her canvas is spread out; yet no ripple runs by her side, nor foam flashes from her bows, nor has she any motion, but what she receives from the alternate swell and sinking of the wave. Her equipment is complete. The forests have masted her; in many a broad yard of canvas a hundred looms have given her wings. Her anchor has been weighed to the rude sea chant; the needle trembles on her deck; with his eye on that friend, unlike worldly friends, true in storm as in calm, the helmsman stands impatient by the wheel. And when, as men bound to a distant shore, the crew have said farewell to wives and children, why then lies she there over the self-same ground, rising with the flowing, and falling with the ebbing tide? The cause is plain. They want a wind to raise that drooping pennon, and fill these empty sails. They look to heaven, and so they may; out of the skies their help must come. Even so, though heaven born, heaven called, heaven bound, though endowed with a new heart, and new mind, and new will, we stand in the same need of celestial influences. The grace and Spirit of God are indispensable. This Divine gift, however, neither circumscribes nor supersedes our own exertions. These gracious influences descend not to set us idle, any more than the breeze blows to send the sailor to his hammock and rock him over in the arms of sleep. The more full the gifts and Divine breathings of the Spirit, the busier let us be; more diligent in the use of prayer, of sacraments, of the Word, of all those ordinances through which the Spirit works, and bears believers onward and homeward in their heavenly course. II. God’ s spirit is not only given to His people, but dwells in them. “ I will put My Spirit within you.” Whatever habitation the prince of darkness may have within unconverted men; and however also, holding for a time some footing, even in God’ s people he may suggest those thoughts of blasphemy and desires of sin, which come as unbidden as they are unwelcome, yet the saints of God enjoy what may be called a blessed possession. Not the angels, but the Spirit of God dwells in them. Heaven has descended into their bosoms, and there they have a little heaven below. God now in very truth not only dwells with man, but in man. “ I will put My Spirit within you.” He is enshrined within them: so that, as the soul dwells in the body, God dwells in the soul. Speaking of the man that loves Him, our Lord said, We will come unto Him. A condescension and kindness unknown to those who boast the friendship of kings, God bestows the honour of daily visits on the lowliest and poorest Christian. He comes at the time of prayer; He occupies the mercy seat at the stated hour of worship; and into the closet where the good man goes, He goes along with him. (T. Guthrie, D. D.) The necessity of the Spirit’ s work We lay down this proposition--that the work of the Holy Spirit is absolutely necessary to us if we would be saved.1. This is very manifest if we remember what man is by nature. Holy Scripture tells us that man by nature is dead in trespasses and sins. It does not say that he is sick, that he is faint, that he has grown callous, and hardened, and seared, but it says he is absolutely dead. When the body is dead it is powerless; it is unable to do anything for itself; and when the soul of man is dead, in a spiritual sense, it must be, if there is any meaning in the figure, utterly and entirely powerless; and unable to do anything of itself or for itself. The Spirit finds men as destitute of spiritual life as Ezekiel’ s dry bones; He brings bone to bone, and fits the skeleton together, and then He comes from the four winds and breathes into the slain, and they live, and stand upon their feet, an exceeding great army, and worship God. But apart from that, apart from the vivifying influence of the Spirit of God, men’ s souls must lie in the valley of dry bones, dead, and dead forever. But Scripture does not only tell us that man is dead in sin; it tells us something worse than this, namely, that he is utterly and entirely averse to everything that is good and right. “ The carnal mind is enmity against God; for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be” (Romans 8:7). Turn you all Scripture through, and you find continually the will of man described as being contrary to the things of God. They will not come unto Christ, that they may have life. Until the Spirit draw them, come they neither will nor can. Hence, then, from the fact that man’ s nature is hostile to the Divine Spirit, that he hates grace, that he despises the way in which grace is brought to him, that it is contrary to his own proud nature to stoop to receive salvation by the deeds of another--hence it is necessary that the Spirit of God should operate to change the will, to correct the bias of the heart, to set man in a right track, and then give him strength to run in it. 2. Salvation must be the work of the Spirit in us, because the means used in salvation are of themselves inadequate for the accomplishment of the work. And what are the means of salvation? Why, first and foremost stands the preaching of the Word of God. But what is there in preaching, by which souls are saved, that looks as if it would be the means of saving souls? Under the ministry dead souls are quickened, sinners are made to repent, the vilest of sinners are made holy, men who came determined not to believe are compelled to believe. Now, who does this? If you say the ministry does it, then I say farewell to your reason, because there is nothing in the successful ministry which would tend thereunto. It must be that the Spirit worketh in man through the ministry, or else such deeds would never be accomplished. You might as well expect to raise the dead by whispering in their ears, as hope to save souls by preaching to them, if it were not for the agency of the Spirit. 3. The absolute necessity of the work of the Holy Spirit in the heart may be clearly seen from this fact, that all which has been done by God the Father, and all that has been done by God the Son, must be ineffectual to us unless the Spirit shall reveal these things to our souls. We believe, in the first place, that God the Father elects His people; from before all worlds He chooses them to Himself; but let me ask you--what effect does the doctrine of election have upon any man, until the Spirit of God enters into him? Until the Spirit opens the eye to read, until the Spirit imparts the mystic secret, no heart can know its election. He, by His Divine workings, bears an infallible witness with our spirits that we are born of God; and then we are enabled to “ read our title clear to mansions in the skies.” Look, again, at the covenant of grace. We know that there was a covenant made with the Lord Jesus Christ, by His Father, from before all worlds, and that in this covenant the persons of all His people were given to Him, and were secured; but of what use or of what avail is the covenant to us until the Holy Spirit brings the blessings of the covenant to us? Take, again, the redemption of Christ. We know that Christ did stand in the room, place, and stead of all His people, and that all those who shall appear in heaven will appear there as an act of justice as well as of grace, seeing that Christ was punished in their room and stead, and that it would have been unjust if God punished them, seeing that He had punished Christ for them. We believe that Christ having paid all their debts, they have a right to their freedom in Christ--that Christ having covered them with His righteousness, they are entitled to eternal life as much as if they had themselves been perfectly holy. But of what avail is this to me, until the Spirit takes of the things of Christ and shows them to me? 4. The experience of the true Christian is a reality; but it never can be known and felt without the Spirit of God. Trouble comes, storms of trouble, and he looks the tempest in the face, and says, “ I know that all things work together for my good.” His children die, the partner of his bosom is carried to the grave; he says, “ The Lord gave and the Lord hath taken away, blessed be the name of the Lord.” His farm fails, his crop is blighted; his business prospects are clouded. You see him approaching at last the dark valley of the shadow of death, and you hear him cry, “ Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil; Thy rod and Thy staff they comfort me, and Thou Thyself art with me.” Now, I ask you what makes this man calm in the midst of all these varied trials, and personal troubles, if it be not the Spirit of God? But look at the Christian, too, in his joyous moments. He is rich. God has given him all his heart’ s desire on earth. Mark that man; he has plenty of room for pleasures in this world, but he drinks out of a higher cistern. His pleasure springs from things unseen; his happiest moments are when he can shut all these good things out, and when he can come to God as a poor guilty sinner, and come to Christ and enter into fellowship with Him, and rise into nearness of access and confidence, and bold approach to the throne of the heavenly grace. Now, what is it that keeps a man who has all these mercies from setting his heart upon the earth? What can do this? No mere moral virtue. No doctrine of the stoic ever brought a man to such a pass as that. No, it must be the work of the Spirit, and the work of the Spirit alone, that can lead a man to live in heaven, while there is a temptation to him to live on earth. 5. The acceptable acts of the Christian life cannot be performed without the Spirit; and hence, again, the necessity for the Spirit of God. The first act of the Christian’ s life is repentance. Have you ever tried to repent? If so, if you tried without the Spirit of God, you know that to urge a man to repent without the promise of the Spirit to help him, is to urge him to do an impossibility. Faith is the next act in the Divine life. Perhaps you think faith very easy; but if you are ever brought to feel the burden of sin you would not find it quite so light a labour. Then we have to cry for the help of the Spirit; and through Him we can do all things, though without Him we can do nothing at all. In all the acts of the Christian’ s life, whether it be the act of consecrating one’ s self to Christ, or the act of daily prayer, or the act of constant submission, or preaching the Gospel, or ministering to the necessities of the poor, or comforting the desponding, in all these the Christian finds his weakness and his powerlessness, unless he is clothed about with the Spirit of God. (C. H. Spurgeon.) The promise of the Spirit I. The blessing promised.1. The gift of the Spirit. The Spirit of God is revealed to us. (1) As the good Spirit. “ Let Thy good Spirit lead me,” etc. (Psalms 143:10; Nehemiah 9:20). He is the essence and the source of all goodness; the opposite of the evil and malignant spirit. (2) As the Holy Spirit. “ Take not Thy Holy Spirit,” etc. (Psalms 51:11). “ If ye, being evil,” etc. (Luke 11:13). “ Grieve not the Holy Spirit,” etc. (Ephesians 4:30). He is essentially holy, the Author of holiness, etc. (3) Described as the Spirit of prayer. “ And I will pour out,” etc. (Zechariah 12:10). “ Likewise the Spirit,” etc. (Romans 8:26). (4) He is also the Spirit of adoption (Romans 8:14-15). He takes out of the kingdom of Satan, etc. His indwelling the sign, etc. (5) He is styled the Comforter and Guide of His people (John 14:16-17). 2. That Spirit is to be put within us. The signs of the Spirit dwelling in us will be-- (1) The expulsion of enemies from the heart. (2) We shall be led by the Spirit. “ As many as are led,” etc. “ He will guide you,” etc. (3) We shall have free access to God (Ephesians 2:18). He will excite us, influence us, prepare us for fellowship with God. (4) We shall have a confident expectation of glory (Romans 8:16-17; 2 Corinthians 1:21). The Spirit is the “ earnest,” or “ first-fruits,” of future glory. (5) We shall be increasingly conformed to the image of Christ. Make us fruitful in every good work (Galatians 5:22; 2 Corinthians 3:18). II. The practical influence this blessing is to produce. The Spirit will--1. Impart the nature and disposition to serve God. This must be the new nature, the new heart, the right spirit, the obedient mind. 2. Will give us ability to serve God We require strength, power, etc. (Ephesians 3:16; 2 Corinthians 4:16). 3. Will enable us to advance in the service of God. Application--1. Let us seek largely the influences of the Holy Spirit. It is obtained by believing prayer. 2. Let us yield ourselves freely to His Divine influence. 3. Let us be careful that we quench not and grieve not the Spirit of God. (J. Burns, D. D.) The covenant promise of the Spirit I. The commendation of the text, the tongues of men and of angels might fail. To call it a golden sentence would be much too commonplace: to liken it to a pearl of great price would be too poor a comparison. “ I will put My Spirit within you.”1. I would begin by saying that it is a gracious word. So great a boon as this could never come to any man by merit. A man might so act as to deserve a reward of a certain kind, in measure suited to his commendable action; but the Holy Spirit can never be the wage of human service: the idea verges upon blasphemy. 2. Note, next, that it is a Divine word: “ I will put My Spirit within you.” Who but the Lord could speak after this fashion? 3. To me there is much charm in the further thought that this is an individual and personal word. “ I will put My Spirit within you” one by one. “ A new heart also will I give you.” Now, a new heart can only be given to one person. Each man needs a heart of his own, and each man must have a new heart for himself. “ And a new spirit will I put within you.” Within each one this must be done. “ And I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you an heart of flesh” --these are all personal, individual operations of grace. 4. This is a separating word. Those who have the Spirit are not of the world, nor like the world; and they soon have to come out from among the ungodly, and to be separate; for difference of nature creates conflict. 5. It is a very uniting word. It separates from the world, but it joins to God. By the Spirit we have access to the Father; by the Spirit we perceive our adoption, and learn to cry, “ Abba, Father” ; by the Spirit we are made partakers of the Divine nature, and have communion with the thrice holy Lord. 6. It is a very condescending word--“ I will put My Spirit within you.” The Saviour has gone away on purpose that the Comforter might be given to dwell in you, and He does dwell in you. Is it not so? If it be so, admire this condescending God, and worship and praise His name. Sweetly submit to His rule in all things. Grieve not the Spirit of God. Watch carefully that nothing comes within you that may defile the temple of God. Let the faintest monition of the Holy Spirit be law to you. 7. It is a very spiritual word. Our text has nothing to do with outward rites and ceremonies; but goes much further and deeper. God puts His Spirit not upon the surface of the man, but into the centre of his being. The promise means--“ I will put My Spirit in your bowels, in your hearts, in the very soul of you.” 8. This word is a very effectual one. “ I will put My Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in My statutes, and ye shall keep My judgments and do them.” The Spirit is operative--first upon the inner life, in causing you to love the law of the Lord; and then it moves you openly to keep His statutes concerning Himself, and His judgments between you and your fellow men. II. The exposition of the text.1. One of the first effects of the Spirit of God being put within us is quickening. We are dead by nature to all heavenly and spiritual things; but when the Spirit of God comes, then we begin to live. This life of the Spirit Shows itself by causing the man to pray. The cry is the distinctive mark of the living child. He begins to cry in broken accents, “ God be merciful to me.” Remember, dear friends, that as the Holy Spirit gives quickening at the first, so He must revive and strengthen it. Whenever you become dull and faint, cry for the Holy Spirit. 2. When the Holy Spirit enters, after quickening He gives enlightening. We cannot make men see the truth, they are so blind; but when the Lord puts His Spirit within them their eyes are opened. At first they may see rather hazily; but still they do see. As the light increases, and the eye is strengthened, they see more and more clearly. 3. The Spirit also works conviction. Conviction is more forcible than illumination: it is the setting of a truth before the eye of the soul, so as to make it powerful upon the conscience. 4. Furthermore, the Holy Spirit comes into us for purification. When the Spirit comes, He infuses a new life, and that new life is a fountain of holiness. 5. Next, the Holy Ghost acts in the heart as the Spirit of preservation. Where He dwells men do not go back unto perdition. He works in them a watchfulness against temptation day by day. He works in them to wrestle against sin. 6. The Holy Spirit within us is for guidance to lead us into all truth. Truth is like a vast grotto, and the Holy Spirit brings torches, and shows us all the splendour of the roof; and since the passages seem intricate, He knows the way, and He leads us into the deep things of God. He is also our practical Guide to heaven, helping and directing us on the upward journey. 7. Last of all, “ I will put My Spirit within you,” that is, by way of consolation, for His choice name is “ The Comforter.” You that are under the burden of sin; it is true no man can help you into peace, but the Holy Ghost can. (C. H. Spurgeon.) The gift of inward moral power It would be a very poor affair if all we had to say to man was:--“ There is a beautiful example, follow it!” Models are all very well, only, unfortunately, there is nothing in a model to secure it being copied. You may have a most exquisite piece of penmanship lithographed on the top of the page in a child’ s copy book, but what is the good of that if the poor little hand is trembling when it takes the pen, and if the pen has got no ink in it, or the child does not want to learn? Copy books are all very well, but you want something more than copy books. (A. Maclaren.) And cause you to walk in My statutes. The new life Good works, though not always the believer’ s attainment, will always be his aim. Committing to his heart those tables which, in testimony of their excellence and authority, Moses committed to the tabernacle’ s holiest shrine, he will say, O how I love Thy law, O Lord; and he will ever pray that God would fulfil to him this gracious promise, “ I will cause them to walk,” etc. I. It is a willing obedience. Many movements take place in the universe independent of any will but that of God. The sap ascends the tree, the planets revolve round the sun, the moon waxes and wanes in her quarters, the stars rise and set in the heavens, the tides flow and ebb upon the shore, and Nature walks in God’ s statutes, keeping His judgments, and doing them, moved to obedience by no will but His. So soon, however, as, leaving inanimate creation, we ascend into the regions where intelligent mind and matter, or even blind instinct and matter are united, we discover a beautiful and benevolent law, by virtue of which their Maker at once secures the happiness and provides for the welfare of His creatures. He so orders it that the will of His creatures is in perfect harmony with their work; their inclinations with their interests. The nature of the redeemed is so accommodated to the state of redemption, their wishes are so fitted to their wants, their hopes to their prospects, their aspirations to their honours, and their will to their work, that they would be less content to return to polluted pleasures than the butterfly to be stripped of its silken wings, and condemned to pass its life amid the foul garbage of former days. With such a will and nature as believers now possess, their old pleasures would be misery; their old haunts a hell. Rather than leave his father’ s table and bosom for the arms of harlots and the husks of swine troughs, would not the reclaimed prodigal embrace death itself, and seek a refuge in the grave? Even so God’ s people would rather not be at all, than be what once they were. Hence, on the one hand, their unhappiness when entangled in sin; hence, on the other hand, their enjoyment in God’ s service; hence David’ s ardent longing for the place of ordinances; hence the beauty of a Sabbath scene, and the sweet music of Sabbath bells, and the answer of their hearts to the welcome sound, I was glad when they said unto me, let us go unto the house of the Lord. II. This is a progressive obedience. To “ walk” implies progress in grace. Walking is an art, and one not acquired either in a moment or a day; for the power to walk is not ours, in the same sense as the power to breathe. We are born with the one power, but born without the other. Walking, indeed, becomes so easy by use, that we are unconscious of any effort; yet step into the nursery, and you see that this art, acquired by labour, is the reward of continuous, conquering perseverance. In fact, our erect attitude and progressive motion, simple and easy as they seem, are achieved by means of most delicate and dexterous balancing. The marble statue cannot stand erect without foreign support: and you have no sooner raised a dead man, and set him upon his feet, than he falls at yours, a heap of loathsome mortality.1. In this image God’ s people find comfort and encouragement. Does the infant who is learning to walk abandon the attempt, or yield to despair, because its first efforts are feeble, and come far short of success? If not, why then should we despond, because in attempting to walk in God’ s ways we often stumble, and not seldom fall? 2. This image stimulates to exertion, as well as comforts under failure. In attempting to walk, the child falls; blood stains its brow, and tears fill its eye. Does it lie there to weep? By no means. If not by speech, yet by signs that go to a mother’ s heart, it prays; for it can pray before it speaks, Looking through these tears, and stretching out its little arms, the infant solicits, implores her help. Nor in vain. Teachers of our children! here let us become their scholars, and take a lesson from the nursery. Let the perseverance of the nursery be imitated by the Church. Let our knees be as often employed in prayer, and our powers and hours as much engaged in attempting a holy life, as those of infancy in learning to walk. Oh, if we would give the same diligence to make our calling and election sure, the same diligence to work out our salvation, the same diligence to grow in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, I am certain that we should be holier; much holier than we are. III. This willing and progressive obedience is the sign and seal of salvation. True religion consists not in passive, but active piety. We are to walk in God’ s statutes, to keep His judgments, and to do them An active Christian life is implied in the very terms of the text. Grant that we are thereby exposed to hardships and temptations, from which a retiring piety might exempt us. Still, a life of active service shall prove best for others, and in the end also for ourselves. A candle set beneath a bushel is, no doubt, safe from wind and weather; but what good purpose does it serve? No light shineth for itself, and no man liveth for himself. Besides, the very trials to which piety is exposed on the stormy heights of duty, impart to it a robust and healthy character. The strongest trees grow not beneath the glass of a conservatory, or in sheltered and sunny nooks. The stoutest timber stands on Norwegian rocks, where tempests rage, and long, hard winters reign. And is it not also With the Christian as with animal life? Exercise is the parent of health; and strength the reward of activity. A Christian man should feel like some strong, brave swimmer, who has hundreds around him sinking, drowning, shrieking for help. The difficulty is to make selection, on whose unhappy head first to lay a saving hand. Amid such scenes and calls, oh, it is lamentable to think how much of our time has been frivolously, or worse than frivolously spent. Surely the time past of our lives may suffice us to have wrought the will of the flesh; to have enjoyed our own ease, made money, and gathered around us the comforts of life. To nobler ends be its remaining sands devoted! Take Jesus Christ for your copy. What is our Christianity but a name, a shadow, a mockery, unless we resemble Him who, being incarnate God, was incarnate goodness; and of whom, though He stood alone in that judgment hall, without one brave brother’ s voice raised to speak for Him, there were hundreds and thousands to bear witness that He went about doing good, and was the friend both of sufferers and sinners. (T. Guthrie, D. D.) Incentives to Christian activity I. One of the most powerful means to accomplish the duty of the text is to cultivate the love of Christ. They who would live like Jesus must look to Jesus. The effect which should be produced by looking to Jesus we may learn by turning our gaze on the sun. To eyes that have been bathed in his dazzling beams, how do other objects appear? Why, all are changed. They have become dim, if not dark and invisible. And were Jesus Christ revealed to us in the full effulgence of His Saviour glory, all sinful, even all created and dearly loved objects, would appear to undergo some such, and a no less remarkable change.1. Love is the most powerful of all motives. It is as with a stone on the dry ground, which we strain at, but cannot stir. Flood the field where it lies; bury the huge block beneath the rising water; and now when its holed is submerged, bend to the work. Put your strength to it. Ah! it moves, rises from its bed, rolls on before your arm. So, when under the heavenly influences of grace the tide of love rises, and goes swelling over our duties and difficulties, a child can do a man’ s work, and a man can do a giant’ s. Let love be present in the heart, and out of the mouths of babes and sucklings God ordaineth strength. Strength! How great strength? Death pulls down the youngest and the strongest; but love is stronger than death. She welcomes sacrifices, and glories in tribulation. Duty has no burden too heavy, nor death any terrors too great for her. 2. Love is a motive to duty as pleasant as it is powerful. Love weaves chains that are tougher than iron, and yet softer than silk. She unites the strength of a giant to the gentleness of a little child; and with a power of change all her own, under her benign and omnipotent influence duties that were once intolerable drudgeries become a pure delight. To the feet of love the ways of God’ s law are like a fresh and flowery sward, ways of pleasantness and paths of peace. Love changes bondage into liberty. Delighting in a law which is to our carnal nature what his chain is to a savage dog, what his task is to the slave, and against which our corrupt passions foam and fret like angry seas on an iron the fact, that by our obedience to these statutes the verdict of the last judgment shall be settled. We are saved by grace, but are tried by works. We are to be judged by the deeds done in the body, whether they were good or bad. Every one of us, says Paul, shall give account of himself to God. Oh! how should these solemn truths hedge up our path to a close and holy walk in His statutes! The day is coming when every unpardoned sin shall find out its author. Without a pardon, Jesus shall have no answer to us but the terrible response of Jehu, What hast thou to do with peace? Peace!--Yes, being justified by faith, we have peace with God, through our Lord Jesus Christ; and the secret of that tranquillity lies in that which gave courage to a royal favourite when arraigned before his country for a most flagrant crime. Men wondered at his strange serenity, and how, amid circumstances trying to the strongest nerves, he could bear himself so calmly. Long after hope had expired in the breast of many anxious friends, and they looked on him as a doomed man, there he was, looking round serenely on that terrible array. His pulse beat calm, nor started suddenly, but went on with a stately march. Peace, like innocence, sat enthroned upon his placid brow. At length, amid the silence of the hushed assembly, the verdict of guilty is pronounced. He rises. Erect in attitude, in demeanour calm, he stands up not to receive a sentence, which was already trembling on the judge’ s lip, but to reveal the secret of this strange peace and self-possession. He thrusts his hand into his bosom, and lays on the table a pardon--a full free pardon for his crimes, sealed with the royal signet. Would to God we all were as well prepared for the hour of death and the day of judgment! Then fare ye well earth, sun, moon, and stars; fare ye well wife and children, brothers and sisters, sweet friends, and all dear to us here below. Welcome death, welcome judgment, welcome eternity; welcome God and Christ, angels and saints made perfect, welcome--welcome heaven. (T. Guthrie, D. D.) Ezekiel 36:28 Ye shall dwell in the land . . . and ye shall be My people.The blessedness of the saints I. The abundance of the blessings of grace. A newborn infant is the most helpless of all creatures. In its nakedness, weakness, dumbness, how dependent on a mother’ s love; yet not more so than God’ s people are on His care and kindness. Theirs are therefore circumstances in which His promises are exceedingly precious. The condition of believers closely resembles that of a man of boundless affluence, whose wealth lies, not so much in money, as in money’ s worth; in bills and bonds, all to be duly honoured, so soon as they become due. With these promises the poorest Christian is really a richer man than other men, with all their possessions; nor would he part with one of them for the world’ s wealth. Are you cast down because, while others have shallows, you have depths, dark depths of sorrow and suffering to pass through? Be it so: it is as easy for God to march “ the host” through the wide, deep sea, as across the bed of Jordan. Are your corruptions strong? Be it so: Samson found it as easy to snap a new spun cable as withes fresh gathered on the river’ s bank; and believe me it is as easy for God to break thy tyrant’ s strongest as his lightest chain. A chain of iron and a thread of flax are all one to God. The blood of thy Saviour cleanseth from every sin; and nothing being impossible, nay, not even difficult to Omnipotence, be assured that in your battle, and watch, and toil, you shall find this promise true, My grace is sufficient for thee. II. The happiness which God’ s people enter on at death. God’ s people are like His ancient Israel. They have enemies who will harass them in life, and follow on their track to the very shores of time; but whoever or whatever these may be--sin, sorrow, poverty, temptations, trials, fears, doubts, Satan himself--oh! a death bed shall be the death of them all. This is what the redeemed escape from, but what they escape to, oh, the joys they enter on when they are with Christ, who can tell? We know that to die is--not shall be at a future time, and after some intermediate state--but to die is gain, gain immediate. One step, and what a step! the soul is in glory. And what and where is heaven? I cannot tell. It looks to the eye of faith, much like a star to the eye of flesh. A shining object, we see it gleaming in the dusky fields of space, but see nothing more, even when our eyes are assisted by the most powerful telescope. By what beings it is inhabited; what forms they have; what tongue they speak; what the character of the landscape in these upper worlds, we do not know, and perhaps never shall, till we have cast loose a body which, like an anchor, moors us to this earth, and with a soul unchained, free perhaps as thought, we are left to roam the universe, and pass, as on the rapid wings of a wish, from world to world of our Father’ s kingdom. Never, till then, shall we know either where or what heaven is. The best description of it is to say that it is indescribable. III. The complete blessedness of the saints at the resurrection in the restoration of all that sin forfeited. There were periods in creation; progressive stages. Step by step the work advanced to its consummation. Like creation, the Gospel has had its periods of progress. It gradually advanced in its development from the date of the first promise given by God; when He, the Judge, and the culprits, man and the devil, stood face to face upon the ruins of Eden. There yet remains an aspect of redemption in which it is not complete. All that death and Satan hold they must relinquish; all that Christ has purchased He shall possess. The soul wants her partner; and although the exile may return no more, nor see his native land, the redeemed shall come back to claim their bodies from the earth; aye, and claim the very earth they lie in. The saints shall inherit the earth. Under laws accommodated to a new economy, this wide world shall become one smiling Eden, where, exempt from physical as from moral evils, none shall shiver amid arctic frosts, nor wither under tropic heat; and these fields of snow and arid sands shall be all flowered with roses. From the convulsions of expiring, or rather the birth-pangs of parturient nature, a newborn world shall come; a home worthy of immortals; a palace befitting its King. The blood that, falling on Calvary, dyed earth’ s soil shall bless it; and this ancient theatre of Satan’ s triumph shall be the seat of Emmanuel’ s kingdom, and the witness of His glory. (T. Guthrie, D. D.) Ezekiel 36:31 Then shall ye remember your own evil ways . . . and shall loathe yourselves.True conversion Israel had fallen from God, had gone after idols, and had sunk into the grossest moral corruptions. Then came the Chaldeans and crushed the nation, and removed it into captivity. However, God promised restoration to His people. I. What is the result, the very first result of restoration? What happens directly that Israel is cleansed from past defilements, saved from present misery, assured against future fall? There would be exultation, no doubt, triumphant shouting when restored to the promised land and full privileges of being God’ s children; but this is observable, that the first and truest emotion called forth is remembrance of past transgression and therefore self-loathing. It is the sight of God’ s mercy enduring forever, the sight of the overflowing of the cup of love from His hand that calls forth this intense sorrow, this bitter loathing. There is a German story of a man, who, for the love of gold, sold his heart to a wood demon, and obtained in its place a heart of stone, and a purse which was never empty. He was now rich, but cold-hearted. He ill-treated his wife and caused her death, he drove his old mother from his door, be oppressed the poor, neglected his children, and went over the world seeking selfish pleasure. After many years he returned discontented, but still rich. He could get no real pleasure anywhere. Then in a fit of spleen, he sought the demon of the forest, and by the aid of the Cross recovered his heart of flesh. And the moment it was again in his breast, all that he had done returned to him. He flung himself, in floods of tears, on the ground weeping for his wife, his mother, his children, his friends, for all the wrong he had done, and all the good he had left undone. So it was with Israel. The heart of stone was taken from them, a heart of flesh was given them back, and instantly they remember their evil ways, and loathe themselves in their own sight for their iniquities. II. This is the picture of true conversion. (S. Baring Gould, M. A.) The sense of sin A true sense of sin implies the consciousness of the fact of our sinfulness. Intellectually speaking, at different periods we estimate ourselves very differently. Whilst still young, we were confident and self-sufficient. But years bring experience to all, and sense to some, and looking back on our earlier selves we are distressed: we see how egregiously vain, stupid, and intolerable we were. The older man knows that his younger self was a fool.1. A true sense of sin implies the consciousness that our sinfulness is personal. “ Your own evil ways.” Ezekiel is the prophet of individuality, and here he singles out the individual sinner, seeking to bring home to the consciousness of his personal fault. (1) Before we become truly awake to sin we delude ourselves by identifying it with nature. Just as certain laws of nature work out eclipses, volcanoes, earthquakes, and blizzards, so we imagine that other laws of nature work out in murderous tempers, greedy appetites, wrathful and defiant lusts and disobediences. We are fond of boasting of our ability to control the laws and forces of nature--taming the lightning, harnessing Niagara, and coercing sun, storm, and stream into our service: intellectual pride gloats over these triumphs; but as soon as it becomes a question of responsibility for our moral faults, we are in haste to abase ourselves, and to plead that natural laws and forces ride rough shod over us. (2) Again we delude ourselves by charging sin back upon our ancestry. Our failings are inherited, and are not therefore properly ours. Men and women never cordially give the credit of their strength and beauty, their wit and virtue to their ancestry, these they coolly and emphatically claim as distinctively their own; but their anger, pride, gluttony, and selfishness are unblushingly debited to their grandfather. It will not do. Much about us is inherited from man, but a little something about us is inherited from God. (3) We blind ourselves by blaming society. All men are dominated by the spirit of the age, and the community is blamed for the lapses of the individual. Yet how often do men who argue like this in regard to their sordid and soiled character boast of their social independence and proceed proudly to set the community at defiance! If their commercial advantage or political ideals are at stake, they are good against the world; but when society constrains them to vanity and vice, no choice is left them but meekly to succumb! No, no; our sins are our own. 2. A true sense of sin implies the consciousness of its hatefulness. The text speaks of evil with the sense of horror and loathing--“ detestable” things, “ iniquities,” “ abominations,” “ filthiness,” “ uncleanness.” How tenderly and apologetically certain writers speak of ghastly vices! The true thinker must know no anger or contempt in the presence of a crime; he must regard it with the indifference with which the chemist regards a poisonous drug, or the naturalist a poisonous flower. Again Bourget writes: “ The artist admits that there are virtues which are not lovely, and corruptions which are splendid, or, rather, he cares nothing for virtue or for corruption. He knows that there are beautiful things and things that are ugly, and he knows nothing else.” It is altogether another thing when the soul is convinced of sin and judgment. “ Ye shall loathe your own face,” declares the text. As a patient afflicted with a malignant disease shrinks with horror from the sight of his own face when for the first time he looks in the mirror, so does the convicted sinner shrink at the sight of his heart and life as revealed in the light of God’ s holiness. “ Ye that fear the Lord hate evil.” “ I repent and abhor myself in sackcloth and ashes.” 3. A true sense of sin implies the consciousness of its guilt. “ And shall judge yourselves unworthy to live.” We judge ourselves, condemn ourselves, pass the sentence of death upon ourselves. We instinctively feel that the difference is simply immeasurable between a mistake and a sin. A man may be liable to punishment for a mistake, as it involves culpable carelessness; but a simple error of judgment, a lapse of memory, an oversight, belongs to a mild category compared with the deliberate breach of the moral law. We feel that the difference is infinite between a misfortune and a sin. When one is overtaken by blindness, crippled by rheumatism, smitten by fever, or shattered by an accident, we do not blame and punish, we pity and help; but a transgression of God’ s law awakens quite another order of ideas and sentiments. The penitent stands face to face with the righteous and loving God, and is filled with surprise, grief, and shame. He has done what deserves utterest reprobation, and is worthy of death. The sense of sin is first created by the Divine Spirit causing us to see and feel the purity and love of God, especially as these attributes are revealed in Jesus Christ. This is the golden ground against which sin stands out in terrible relief. And the sense of the folly, shame, and peril of sin becomes more acute all through the regenerate life. (W. L. Watkinson.) Mistaken notions about repentance The day of manifested mercy is to be the day of hearty repentance. “ Then.” When God loads you with benefits you shall loathe yourselves. Repentance is wrought in the heart by a sense of love Divine. Many are kept from Christ and hope by misapprehensions of this matter. They have-- I. Mistaken ideas of what repentance is.1. They confound it with-- (1) Morbid self-accusation, which is the fruit of dyspepsia, or melancholy, or insanity. This is an infirmity of mind, and not a grace of the Spirit. A physician may here do more than a divine. (2) Unbelief, despondency, despair: which are not even a help to repentance, but tend rather to harden the heart. (3) Dread of hell, and sense of wrath: which might occur even to devils, and yet would not cause them to repent. A measure of this may go with repentance, but it is no part of it. (4) Satanic temptations. These are by no means like to repentance, which is the fruit of the Spirit. (5) A complete knowledge of the guilt of sin; which even advanced saints have not yet obtained. (6) Entire abstinence from all sin,--a consummation devoutly to be wished, but by no means included in repentance. 2. It is-- (1) A hatred of evil. (2) A sense of shame. (3) A longing to avoid sin. 3. It is all wrought by a sense of Divine love. II. Mistaken ideas of the place which repentance occupies.1. It is looked upon by some as a procuring cause of grace, as if repentance merited remission: a grave error. 2. It is wrongly viewed by others as a preparation for grace; a human goodness laying the foundation for mercy, a meeting of God half way; this is a deadly error. 3. It is treated as a sort of qualification for believing, and even as the ground for believing: all which is legality, and contrary to pure Gospel truth. 4. Others treat it as the argument for peace of mind. They have repented so much, and it must be all right. This is to build our confidence upon a false foundation. III. Mistaken ideas of the way in which it is produced in the heart.1. It is not produced by a distinct and immediate attempt to repent.2. Nor by strong excitement at revival meetings.3. Nor by meditating upon sin, and death, and hell, etc.4. But the God of all grace produces it-- (1) By His free grace, which by its action renews the heart (verse 26).(2) By bringing His great mercy to our mind.(3) By making us receive new mercy (verses 28-30).(4) By revealing Himself and His methods of grace (verse 32). 5. Every Gospel truth urges repentance upon the regenerate. Election, redemption, justification, adoption, eternal love, etc., are all arguments for loathing every evil way. 6. Every Gospel privilege makes us loathe sin: prayer, praise, the reading of Scripture, the fellowship of saints, the table of the Lord, etc. 7. Every Gospel hope purifies us from sin, whether it be a hope for more grace in this world, or for glory in the next. (C. H. Spurgeon.) True repentance I. The nature of true repentance.1. True repentance is the gift of God, and the peculiar effect of His Holy Spirit. 2. The grief and self-loathing of true penitents do not flow so much from their feeling that sin is hurtful to themselves, as from the consideration of its own base nature; and especially of the ingratitude which it carries in it towards a kind and merciful God. 3. The soul’ s conversion to God is the great introductory blessing which renders all other blessings valuable. 4. As this great and valuable blessing cometh down from the Father of lights, who is the Author of every good and perfect gift, it is therefore to be sought by our humble supplications and prayers (verse 37). II. To recommend the example of these penitents described in the text to your imitation.1. Let me call upon you to remember your ways. The neglect of serious consideration is the ruin of almost every soul that perisheth eternally. Consider the various relations in which you have been placed, the special duties which arose from those relations, and the manner in which you have performed them. When by such means you have discovered your own evil ways, then proceed to consider attentively the nature and degree of that evil which is in them. Let it not suffice to know that you have been sinners, without pondering the dreadful malignity and demerit of sin. 2. Loathe yourselves in your own sight, for your iniquities, and for your abominations. Thou art displeased with thine enemies who seek to injure thee; but where is there such an enemy as thou art to thyself? Thou abhorrest him who hath killed thy dearest friend; but where hadst thou ever such a friend as the Lord Jesus Christ, whom, by thy sins, thou hast crucified and slain? 3. Let me conclude with exhorting you to repair to that fountain which is opened for sin and for uncleanness, to that blood which can cleanse you from all sin. (H. Blair, D. D.) Self-abasement, the sign of a Christian Bradford, a martyr, yet subscribes himself “ A sinner.” “ If I be righteous, yet will I not lift up my head” ; like the violet, a sweet flower, but hangs down the head. (Thomas Watson.) Ezekiel 36:32 Not for your sakes do I this, saith the Lord God, be it known unto you: be ashamed and confounded. Free grace There are two sins of man that are bred in the bone, and that continually come out in the flesh. One is self-dependence and the other is self-exaltation. It is very hard, even for the best of men, to keep themselves from the first error. Instead of looking to grace alone to sanctify us, we find ourselves adopting philosophic rules and principles which we think will effect the Divine work. We shall but mar it; we shall bring grief into our own spirits. But if, instead thereof, we in every word look up to the God of our salvation for help, and strength, and grace, and succour, then our work will proceed to our own joy and comfort, and to God’ s glory. The other error to which man is very prone, is that of relying upon his own merit. Though there is no righteousness in any man, yet in every man there is a proneness to trust in some fancied merit. Human nature with regard to its own merit, is like the spider, it bears its support in its own bowels, and it seems as if it would keep spinning on to all eternity. I. I shall endeavour to expound this text. “ Not for your sakes do I this, saith the Lord God.” The motive for the salvation of the human race is to be found in the breast of God, and not in the character or condition of man. God, who doeth as He wills with His own, and giveth no account of His matters, but who deals with His creatures as the potter deals with his clay, took not upon Him the nature of angels, but took upon Him the seed of Abraham, and chose men to be the vessels of His mercy. This fact we know, but where is its reason? certainly not in man. Here, very few object. If we talk about the election of men and the non-election of fallen angels, there is not a cavil for a moment. Come, then, we must go further. The only reason why one man is saved, and not another, lies not, in any sense, in the man saved, but in God’ s bosom. The reason why this day the Gospel is preached to you and not to the heathen far away, is not because, as a race, we are superior to the heathen; it is not because we deserve more at God’ s hands; His choice of Britain, in the election of outward privilege, is not caused by the excellency of the British nation, but entirely because of His own mercy and His own love. We are taught in Holy Scripture that, long before this world was made, God foreknew and foresaw all the creatures He intended to fashion; and there and then foreseeing that the human race would fall into sin, and deserve His anger, determined, in His own sovereign mind, that an immense portion of the human race should be His children and should be brought to heaven. As to the rest He left them to their own deserts, to sow the wind and reap the whirlwind, to scatter crime and inherit punishment. Now in the great decree of election, the only reason why God selected the vessels of mercy must have been because He would do it. As the fruit of our election, in due time Christ came into this world, and purchased with His blood all those whom the Father hath chosen. Now come ye to the Cross of Christ; bring this doctrine with you, and remember that the only reason why Christ gave up His life to be a ransom for His sheep was because He loved His people, but there was nothing in His people that made Him die for them. After Christ’ s death, there comes, in the next place, the work of the Holy Spirit. Those whom the Father hath chosen, and whom the Son in us. To go a little further: this truth, which holds good so far, holds good all the way. God’ s people, after they are called by grace, are preserved in Christ Jesus; they are “ kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation” ; they are not suffered to sin away their eternal inheritance, but as temptations arise they have strength given with which to encounter them, and as sin blackens them they are washed afresh, and again cleansed. But mark, the reason why God keeps His people is the same as that which made them His people--His own free sovereign grace. And to conclude my exposition of this text. This shall hold good in heaven itself. The day is coming when every blood-bought, blood-washed child of God shall walk the golden streets arrayed in white. Our hands shall soon bear the palm; our ears shall be delighted with celestial melodies, and our eyes filled with the transporting visions of God’ s glory. But mark, the only reason why God shall bring us to heaven shall be His own love, and not because we deserved it. We must fight the fight, but we do not win the victory because we fight it; we must labour, but the wage at the day’ s end shall be a wage of grace, and not a debt. II. I have to illustrate and enforce this text, Suppose that some great criminal is at last overtaken in his sin, and shut up in Newgate, He has committed high treason, murder, rebellion, and every possible iniquity. He has broken all the laws of the realm--every one of them. The public cry is everywhere--“ This man must die; the laws cannot be maintained unless he shall be made an example of their rigour. He who beareth not the sword in vain must this time let the sword taste blood. The man must die; he richly deserves it.” You look through his character: you cannot see one solitary redeeming trait. He is an old offender, he has so long persevered in his iniquity that you are compelled to say, “ The case is hopeless with this man; his crimes have such aggravation we cannot make an apology for him, even should we try. Not jesuitical cunning itself could devise any pretence of excuse, or any hope of a plea for thin abandoned wretch; let him die!” Now, if the Queen, having in her hands the sovereign power of life and death, chooses that this man shall not die, but that he shall be spared, do you not see as plain as daylight, that the only reason that can move her to spare that man, must be her own love, her own compassion? For, as I have supposed already that there is nothing in that man’ s character that can be a plea for mercy, but that, contrariwise, his whole character cries aloud for vengeance against his sin. Whether we like it or not, this is just the truth concerning ourselves. This is just our character and position before God. III. I come to a very solemn practical application.1. First, since this doctrine is true, how humble a Christian man ought to be. I remember visiting a house of refuge. There was a poor girl there who had fallen into sin long, and when she found herself kindly addressed and recognised by society, and saw a Christian minister longing after her soul’ s good, it broke her heart. What should a man of God care about her? she was so vile. How could it be that a Christian should speak to her? Ah! but how much more should that feeling rise in our hearts? My God! I have rebelled against Thee, and yet Thou hast loved me, unworthy me! How can it be? 2. This doctrine is true, and therefore it should be a subject of the greatest gratitude. (C. H. Spurgeon.) The true redemption of man I. Has its origin in God and God only. “ I do this for My Holy Name’ s sake.” All that God does is self-originated. He alone is spontaneous in action. This fact--1. Takes away all ground for human pride.2. Should inspire us with adoring gratitude. II. Serves to reveal the glory of God’ s character to the world. The moral redemption of man, which involves the marvellous history and work of Christ, reveals more of the glory of God than all the material universe in its vastness and variety. III. Involves separation from all unholy associations.1. “ Come out,” as a protest against iniquity.2. “ Come out” as an example to others.3. “ Come out” to qualify yourself for usefulness. Every man must morally be like Christ, “ separate from sinners,” to be able to save them. IV. Comprises a thorough renovation of human life.1. The nature of this renovation. (1) Cleansing.(2) Exchange of hearts. 2. The consequences of this renovation. (1) A new mode of life. Turn the rudder, and you turn the ship. (2) A new relationship, The real meaning of this promise is, You shall be Mine--My loyal subjects, My willing servants, My loving children. And I will be yours. You shall have Me for your King, Father, Everlasting Portion. (3) New circumstances. He that seeks first the kingdom of God, will have all necessary things added to him, This is fulfilled in the temperance, industry, and economy of truly redeemed lives. (4) A new view of past life. It rises up as a huge and a hideous enormity, before which they quail and tremble; and ever after are humble in themselves, lowly before God, charitable towards men. (Urijah R. Thomas.) Ezekiel 36:36I the Lord build the ruined places.The security of the believer I. The text announces a most important truth. When we look at our text, we feel, in reference to the sad event of Eden, much as Martha did when she fixed her weeping eyes on Jesus. Would His presence have preserved the life of Lazarus? No less certainly, these words, had they been present in their power to Eve, would have protected her innocence, and saved the world. Not Lazarus only, but no man had died; there had been neither sin, nor sorrow, nor griefs, nor graves, in a happy world, had our mother, when she stood by the fatal tree, but remembered, but believed, but felt this sentence, “ I have spoken, and I will do it.” But when the deed has been done, and it is now too late, my object is not to show how man might have been saved. There is little kindness in telling me of a medicine that would have cured my dead. Glory to the grace of God, I tell not that my text would have saved man, but, if believed in, still shall save him. What would have saved us from the grave, can raise us out of it. Let my text lay hold of the redemption of Christ, and it has all, more than all, the power it ever possessed. The cross, the crown, peace, pardon, grace in life, hope in death, heaven throughout all eternity--these are all wrapped up in a deep, solemn, heartfelt, Divine conviction of the truth. “ I the Lord have spoken, and I will do it.” II. The comforts this truth imparts to a true Christian.1. Through his confidence in this truth he commits all his earthly cares to God. By faith in a superintending providence and an unfailing word, Child of God, thou mayest shield thy heart from cares that torture others, and from temptations that often prove their ruin! Between a man, torn with anxieties, haunted by fears, fretting with cares, and the good man, who calmly trusts in the Lord, there is as great a difference as between a brawling, roaring, mountain brook, that with mad haste leaps from crag to crag, and is ground into boiling foam, and that placid river, which with beauty on its banks, and heaven on its bosom, spreads blessings wherever it flows, and pursues the noiseless tenor of its way back to the great ocean, from which its waters came. 2. Through his confidence in this truth the believer is sustained amid the trials of life. Winter, no doubt, is not the pleasant season that summer brings with her merry songs and wreaths of flowers, and long, bright, sunny days; nor are bitter medicines savoury meat. Yet he who believes that all things shall work together for good, will thank God for physic as well as food; for the winter frost that kills the weeds, and breaks up the clods, as for these dewy nights and sunny days that ripen the fields of corn. May God give us such a faith! 3. Through his confidence in this truth the believer cheerfully hopes, and patiently waits for heaven. Home! to be home is the wish of the seaman on his lonely watch and on the stormy deep. Home is the wish of the soldier; and tender visions of it mingle with the troubled dreams of trench and tented field. And in his best hours, home, his own sinless home, a home with his Father above that sky, will be the devout wish of every true Christian man. The holier the child of God becomes, the more he pants after the perfect image and blissful presence of Jesus; and dark though the passage, and deep though the waters be, the more holy he is, the more ready is he to say, It is better to depart and be with Jesus. III. Both nature and providence illustrate the truth of my text.1. Nature assures us that what God hath said He will do. No man looks for sunrise in the west. No soldier stands beneath the hissing shell expecting to see it arrested in its descent, and hang like a star in empty space. We build our houses in confidence that the edifice will gravitate to the centre; nor ever doubt, when we set our mill wheel in the running stream, that as sure as man is on his way to the grave, the waters shall ever wend their way onward to the sea. We consult the Nautical Almanack, and, finding that it shall be high water tomorrow at such an hour, we make our arrangements for being then on board, certain that we shall find our ship afloat, and the seamen shaking out their sails to go away on the bosom of the flowing tide. If fire burned the one day, and water the next; if wood became at one time heavy as iron, and iron at another as buoyant as wood; if here the rivers hasted to the embraces of the sea, and there, as in fear, retreated from them, what a scene of confusion this world would become! In truth, its whole business rests on faith; on our belief that God will carry into unfailing effect every law which His finger has written in the great volumes of Nature and Providence. This is the pillow on which a sleeping world rests its weary head. This is the pivot on which the wheels of business turn. And now let us remember, that there are not two Gods; a consistent Divinity who presides over nature, and a capricious Divinity who presides in the kingdom of grace. Hear, O Israel, the Lord thy God is one Lord. In regard, therefore, to all the promises and also all the solemn warnings of the Bible, Nature lifts up her voice and cries in the words of the prophet, O Earth, Earth, Earth, hear the word of the Lord. 2. Providence assures us that what God hath said, He will do. The voice of every storm that, like an angry child, weeps and wails itself asleep, the voice of every shower that has cleared up into sunshine, the hoarse voice of ocean breaking in impotent rage against its ancient bounds, the voice of the seasons as they have marched to the music of the spheres in unbroken succession over the earth, the scream of the satyr in Babylon’ s empty halls, the song of the fisherman, who spreads his net on the rocks, and shoots it through the waters where Tyre once sat in the pride of an ocean queen, the fierce shout of the Bedouin as he hurls his spear and careers in freedom over his desert sands, the wail and weeping of the wandering Jew over the ruins of Zion--in all these I hear the echo of this voice of God, “ I the Lord have spoken, and I will do it.” (T. Guthrie, D. D.) Ezekiel 36:37-38 Thus saith the Lord God, I will yet for this be inquired of by the house of Israel, to do it for them.The prayers of the Church required for the conversion of souls This chapter is full of “ exceeding great and precious promises.” The text is associated with all these prophecies. Though God promises these blessings, and they are absolute blessings springing out of Divine grace and flowing from sovereign electing love to this people, yet He determined that for these blessings there should be prayer, and that not one of them should be communicated but through this channel. Two things God designs by this plan. The first is, to make the mercy we get, valuable. No man fancies a thing that comes without his care, without his concern, without his anxiety; hence, to render these mercies precious and valuable to us--as they are valuable in themselves, so also to make us account them so--God will have us ask for them. And next, we shall not only prize them more, but praise the Giver of them, when we have them in answer to prayer. Coming without prayer, we should be very apt to forget the hand that bestowed them; but coming immediately in answer to prayer, a song of gratitude naturally arises to God. I. The subject of our prayers. What is it to be? “ I will yet for this be inquired of by the house of Israel, to do it for them.”1. The conversion or sanctity of souls, human souls, to God. 2. Not only that souls should be converted and sanctified, but that numbers should be converted. Why are we to ask for this so especially? (1) God’ s promises warrant it. “ All flesh,” He says, “ shall see the salvation of God.”(2) God’ s Spirit can easily accomplish it. If these seem great things to ask, yet we are straitened in our own bowels, not in Him.(3) God’ s honour is advanced by it.(4) The Church is encouraged. II. The impediments to prayer.1. The want of vigorous personal piety. 2. The power of unbelief. 3. Private sins. Sometimes these sins are personal; sometimes relative; sometimes social. III. The success of prayer. God then designs to do it for us. He ha made up His mind to the granting of the blessings. And here is our comfort--that no uncertainty exists when we ask Him to grant His blessings which He has promised.1. It has been His practice to answer prayer in all generations of the Church. 2. He pledges His faithfulness and honour to hear and answer prayer. 3. Christ’ s fulness is to be received by prayer--is to be communicated through this channel. (James Sherman.) Inquire of the Lord I. Why should we arouse ourselves to this inquiry at the hands of the Lord?1. It is a great privilege to be allowed to inquire at the hands of the Lord. 2. Prayer is also to be looked upon as a precious gift of the Spirit of God. It is by virtue of covenant promise and covenant grace that men are made to pray: for the Lord has said, “ I will pour out upon the house of David, and upon the inhabitants in Jerusalem, the spirit of grace and of supplications. 3. We must pray, because it is a needful work in order to the obtaining of the blessing. The Church of God is to be multiplied; but “ Thus saith the Lord God, I will yet for this be inquired of.” 4. It is a business which is above all others remunerative. “ I will yet for this be inquired of by the house of Israel, to do it for them; I will increase them with men like a flock.” That is a beautiful idea of multitude. You have perhaps seen an immense flock, a teeming concourse of congregated life. Such shall the increase of the Church be. But then it is added, to enhance the blessing, “ As the holy flock, as the flock of Jerusalem in her solemn feasts.” This to the Jewish mind conveyed a great idea of number. 5. The results of prayer as I have already described them are such as greatly glorify God. “ And they shall know that I am the Lord.” When the kingdom of God is largely increased in answer to prayer, there is a wonderful power abroad to answer the arguments of sceptics, and put to silence the ribaldry of ungodly tongues. “ This is the finger of God,” say they. II. How should this duty be performed?1. First, it should be by the entire body of the Church. For this will I be inquired of by” --By the ministers? By the elders? By the little number of good people who always come together to pray? Look! Look carefully! “ By the house of Israel” ; that is by the whole company of the Lord’ s people. 2. Next, the successful way to inquire of the Lord is for the Church to take personal interest in the matter. “ Thus saith the Lord God; I will yet for this be inquired of by the house of Israel, to do it for them.” If the sinner will not repent, let us break our heart about him. Let us go and tell the Lord his sins, and mourn over them as if they were our own. If men will not believe, let us by faith bring them before God, and plead His promise for them. If we cannot get them to pray, let us pray for them and intercede on their behalf, and in answer to our repentance they shall be made to repent, in answer to our faith they shall be led to believe, and in reply to our prayer they shall be moved to pray. 3. The blessing will come to the prayer of a dependent Church. “ I will yet for this be inquired of by the house of Israel, to do it for them” ; that is to say, they will not dream of being able to do it for themselves, but will apply to God for it. Christian men should never speak of getting up a revival. Where are you going to get it up from? We must wait upon God, conscious that we can do nothing of ourselves, and we must look to the Holy Spirit as the alone power for the conversion of souls. If we pray in this dependent way we shall obtain an overflowing answer. 4. Again, the way to obtain the promised blessing is that the prayer must be offered by an anxious, observant, enterprising Church. The expression used, “ I will be inquired of,” implies that the people must think and ask questions, must argue and plead with God. It is well to ask Him why He has not given the blessing, and to urge strong reasons why He should now do so. 5. If we are to obtain the blessing in answer to prayer, that prayer must be offered by a believing Church. Answers to prayer do not now appear to us to be contrary to the laws of nature; it seems to us to be the greatest of all the laws of nature that the Lord must keep His promises and hear His people’ s prayers. Gravitation and other laws may be suspended, but this cannot be. “ Oh,” says one, “ I cannot believe that.” No, and so your prayers are not heard. You must have faith, for if faith be absent you lack the very backbone and soul of prayer. III. On what ground can anybody be excused from the duty of prayer? Answer: On no ground whatever.1. You cannot be excused on the ground of common humanity; for if it be so that God will save sinners in answer to prayer, and I do not pray, what am I? Surely the milk of human kindness has been drained from my breast, and I have Ceased to be human, and if so, it is idle to talk of communion with the Divine. 2. Next, can any excuse be found in Christianity for neglect of prayer? In God’ s name, how can we make a profession of Christianity if our hearts do not ascend in mighty prayer to God for a blessing on the sons of men? 3. But perhaps an excuse is found in the fact that the Christian man does not feel that his prayer is of very much consequence, for his heart is in a barren state. Ah, well, this is no excuse, but an aggravation of the sin. At such a time there should be a double calling upon God that the Spirit of prayer may be vouchsafed. 4. I do charge you, professing Christians, not to restrain prayer to God for a blessing, for, if you do, you hurt all the rest of the brotherhood. Get a bit of dead bone into your body and it harms first the member in which it is placed and subsequently the whole body. So if there is a prayerless professor among us, he is an injury to the entire company. 5. Now, surely we ought to be much in prayer, because after all we owe a great deal to prayer. Those who were in Christ before me prayed for me: should I not pray for others? 6. I am afraid I shall have also to plead that I must suspect your soundness in the faith, brethren, if you do not join in prayer. Correct opinions are a poor apology for heartlessness towards our fellow men. (C. H. Spurgeon.) The necessity and power of prayer Observe how God hangs all the blessings of salvation upon prayer. He says, as it were, I have had pity upon sinners; I have provided pardon for the guilty, justification through the righteousness, and life through the death of My Son; I have engaged to take away the heart of stone and replace it with one of flesh; I have promised My Spirit to sanctify, sufficient grace, and certain glory; all these blood-bought, gracious, happy, holy blessings shall be yours, freely yours; yet not yours, unless they are sought in prayer. “ I will yet for this be inquired of by the house of Israel, to do it for them.” I. Nature herself teaches us to pray. Prayer must be natural, for it is universal. Never yet did traveller find a nation on this earth but offered prayers in some form or other to some demon or God. Races of men have been found without raiment, without houses, without manufactures, without the rudiments of arts, but never without prayers. Prayer is as common as speech, human features, or natural appetites. It is universal, and seems to be as natural to man as the instinct which prompts an infant to draw the milk of a mother’ s bosom, and by its cries to claim a mother’ s protection. II. Some difficulties connected with this duty. The decrees of God, say some, render prayer unnecessary, useless. Are not all things, they ask, fixed by these decrees, irrevocably fixed? By prayer I may, indeed, prevail on a man to do a thing which he has not previously resolved not to do, and even although he should have so resolved, man is changeable; and I may show him such good reasons for doing it, as to change his resolution. But if an immutable God has foreseen everything, and indeed, foresettled everything by an eternal and irreversible decree, what purpose can prayer serve? The objection admits of a conclusive answer. We might show that the decrees of God embrace the means as well as the end; and since prayer is a means of grace, being a means to an end, it must therefore be embraced within these very decrees, and cannot be excluded by them. I content myself, however, with simply remarking, that this objection is not honestly, at least not intelligently, entertained by any man. For, if the objection is good against prayer, is it not good against many things else? If it stops action in the direction of prayer, if it arrests the wheels of prayer, it ought also to stop the wheels of our daily business. If it is a valid argument against prayer, it is an equally good objection to ploughing, sowing, taking meat or medicine, and a thousand other things. Others, more earnest and honest, reading that without faith it is impossible to please God, reading and misunderstanding what they read, He who doubteth is damned, say that from want of faith, their prayers must be useless. Most false reasoning! What says the apostle? I will that men pray everywhere. God will have all men to be saved. Like little children, we take our Father’ s simple word, nor trouble ourselves with the metaphysics of the question. If you were sufficiently alive to your danger, oh, these difficulties would have no more power to hold you than the fragile meshes of a spider’ s web. I knew of one who, while wandering along a lonely and rocky shore at the ebb of tide, slipped his foot into a narrow crevice. Fancy his horror on finding that he could not withdraw the imprisoned limb. Dreadful predicament! Did he cry for help? Cry for help! Who dreams of asking such a question? True, none heard him. But, how he shouted to the distant boat! how his heart sank as her yards swung round, and she went off on the other tack! how his cries sounded high above the roar of breakers! how bitterly he envied the white sea mew her wing, as, wondering at this intruder on her lone domains, she sailed above his head, and shrieked back his shriek! how at length, abandoning all hope of help from man, he turned his face to heaven, and cried loud and long to God! All that God only knows. But as sure as there was a terrific struggle, so sure, while he watched the waters rising inch by inch, these cries never ceased till the wave swelled up, and washing the dying prayer from his lips, broke over his head with a melancholy moan. There was no help for him. There is help for us, although fixed in sin as fast as that man in the fissured rock. Whether we have true faith, may be a question which is not easily settled; but to pray is a clear and commanded duty. The “ help, oh, help, Lord,” never yet burst from an anxious heart, but it rose to be heard in heaven, and accepted by God. III. Prayer must be earnest. It is the heart that prays; not the knees, nor the hands, nor the lips. Have not I seen a dumb man, who stood with his back to the wall, beg as well with his imploring eye and open hand, as one that had a tongue to speak? If you would have your prayers accepted, they must be arrows shot from the heart; none else reach the throne of God. You may repeat your prayers day by day; you may be punctual in your devotions as a Mohammedan who, at the Mollah’ s call from the top of the minaret, drops on his knees in the public assembly or crowded street. What then? The prayer of the lip, the prayer of the memory, the prayer of the wandering mind in its dead formality, is, in God’ s eyes, of no more value than the venal masses of Rome, or the revolutions of a Tartar’ s wheel. The sacrifice of the hypocrite is an abomination to the Lord. IV. Prayer is powerful. An angel, says our great poet, keeping ward and watch on the battlements of heaven, caught sight of Satan as he sailed on broad wing from hell to this world of ours. The celestial sentinel shot down like a sunbeam to the earth; and communicated the alarm to the guard at the gates of Paradise. Search was made for the enemy, but for a time without success. Ithuriel at length entered a bower, whose flowery roof “ showered roses which the morn repaired,” and where our first parents, “ lulled by nightingales, embracing slept.” There he saw a toad sitting squat by the ear of Eve. His suspicions were awakened. In his hand he bore a spear that had the power of revealing truth, unmasking falsehood, and making all things to stand out in their genuine colours. He touched the reptile with it. That instant the toad, which had been breathing horrid dreams into the woman’ s ear, changes it shape, and there, confronting him face to face, stands the proud, malignant, haughty form of the Prince of Darkness. With such a spear as that with which Milton, in this flight of fancy, arms Ithuriel, prayer arms us. Prayer moves the hand that moves the universe. It secures for the believer the resources of Divinity. What great battles has it fought! what victories won! what burdens carried! what deep wounds healed! what sore griefs assuaged! Prayer is the wealth of poverty; the refuge of affliction; the strength of weakness; the light of darkness. Prayer has just two limits. The first is, that its range is confined to the promises; but within these, what a bank of wealth, what a mine of mercies, what a store of blessings! The second is, that God will grant or deny our requests as He judges best for His own glory and our good. And who that knows how we are, in a sense, but children, would wish it otherwise? V. Prayer is confident. It is easy to know the knock of a beggar at one’ s door. Low, timid, hesitating, it seems to say, I have no claim on the kindness of this house; I may be told I come too often; I may be dismissed as a troublesome and unworthy mendicant; the door may be flung in my face by some surly servant. How different, on his return from school, the loud knocking, the bounding step, the joyous rush of the child into his father’ s presence; and, as he climbs his knee and flings his arms round his neck, the bold face and ready tongue with which he reminds his father of some promised favour! Now, why are believers bold? Glory to God in the highest! It is to a father in God, to an elder brother in Christ, that Faith conducts our steps in prayer; therefore, in the hour of need, bold of spirit, she raises her suppliant hands, and cries, O that Thou wouldst rend the heavens, and come down. I know a parent’ s heart. Have I not seen the quivering of a father’ s lip, the tear start into his eye, and felt his heart in the grasp and pressure of his hand, when I expressed some good hope of a fallen child? Have I not seen a mother, when her infant was tottering in the path of mettled coursers, with foam spotting their necks, and fire flying from their feet, dash like a hawk across the path, and pluck him from instant death? Have I not seen a mother, who sat at the coffin head, pale, dumb, tearless, rigid, terrible in grief, spring from her chair, seize the coffin which we were bearing away, and, with shrieks fit to pierce a heart of stone, struggle to retain her dead? And if we, that are but worms of the earth, will peril life for our children, and, even when they are mouldered into dust, cannot think of our dead, nor visit their cold and lonesome grave, but our hearts are wrung, and our old wounds bleed afresh, can we adequately conceive or measure, far less exaggerate--with fancy at its highest flight--the paternal love of God? (T. Guthrie, D. D.) The necessity of prayer I. The blessings for which we should inquire.1. We should pray for ourselves. We are sinful, indigent, and dependent creatures. God only can supply our wants and satisfy our desires. 2. We should pray for the Church of God. Good men feel interested in each other’ s welfare, and desire the peace and prosperity of Zion (Psalms 122:6-9). They pray for the extension and stability of her borders--the increase of her converts--and the unity and progression of her members (Habakkuk 3:2; Ephesians 3:14-21; Philippians 1:9-11). 3. We should pray for the world (Psalms 43:3; Isaiah 62:1; Matthew 6:10; Revelation 11:15). II. The manner how we should inquire for them.1. In the method which He appoints. We cannot approach unto Him acceptably, but through Jesus Christ, who is the high priest over the House of God forever (John 14:6; Hebrews 7:17). 2. With devout dispositions of mind. (1) Sincerely, without hypocrisy (Matthew 15:8);(2) Humbly, with reverence and godly fear (Psalms 89:7);(3) Fervently, with holy ardour (Genesis 32:26);(4) Affectionately, with hearts filled with love to God, and goodwill to all mankind (Matthew 6:14-15);(5) Believingly, in the lively exercise of faith (Matthew 21:22; 1 John 5:14-15). 3. In every situation of human life. In private retirement (Matthew 6:6);--in our families (Joshua 24:15)--in the public ordinances of the Gospel (Psalms 27:4)--and in our daily occupations, we should “ pray always, with all prayer, and everywhere, lifting up holy hands without wrath and doubting” (Ephesians 6:18; 1 Timothy 2:8). 4. With diligent perseverance unto death. III. The reasons why we should inquire of the Lord.1. Prayer is an ordinance of Divine authority. The Lord commands us to pray (Psalms 4:4-5; Jeremiah 29:12; Luke 18:1)--He promises to hear and answer prayer (Psalms 91:15-16); and He directs how to pray (Matthew 6:9-13). 2. Prayer evinces the dependence of the creature on the Creator. 3. Prayer demonstrates the connection between duty and interest. As intellectual beings, we are capable of moral actions and spiritual enjoyments. The Lord is therefore pleased to suspend the blessings He promises, on the performance of the duties He enjoins: and it is only by complying with the latter, that we can realise the former (Psalms 34:17; Jeremiah 33:3). (Sketches of Four Hundred Sermons.) Prayer I. Prayer is a “ reasonable service.” This can be best shown by examining those speculative objections which have been preferred by sceptics against it.1. That prayer is inconsistent with the Divine omniscience. “ If God knows your wants, and your disposition to have them supplied, why inform and importune Him in prayer?” The objection proceeds from a misapprehension of the design of prayer. Its ostensible design is indeed the attainment of the blessing for which we pray; but there is an ulterior and higher object for which it was appointed, namely, the spiritual influence, the disciplinary effect of the habit. 2. Another objection alleges that prayer is inconsistent with God’ s immutability. I answer, God is immutable in the principles of His administration, but not in His acts. The laws protect you today because you conform to them, tomorrow they may put you to death for transgressing them; not because they change--the change is in yourself. So the sinner is heard if he truly prays, but lost if he prays not; yet God does not change, it is His ordained economy that it should be so. And this economy is founded in His immutable wisdom. 3. It is objected again that the universe is governed by secondary causes; and, in order that prayer should bring about results different from what would take place without it, there must be an interference with--a suspension of--those fixed causes; but there is no such interference. I have three remarks to make on this objection. The first is, that it applies to prayer only so far as physical blessings are concerned, for these alone are affected by physical causes. I remark, secondly, that the objector is incompetent to the assumption, that there is no Divine interference with fixed causes in answer to prayer. How does he know it? And how can he assert it against God’ s own assertion if he is incompetent to know it? Thirdly, I remark it is not necessary to assume that there is any rupture of natural causes in the case. We notice but the lowest links in the chain of those causes; how then can we assume that the higher ones are not adapted or controlled, so as to meet this peculiarity of the moral system? The last link of the series is in the hand of Omnipotence. 4. Another objection is, man’ s comparative insignificance. “ Can it be supposed that the infinite God will stoop from amid all worlds to regard our wants and prayers?” The objection includes two elements,--the insignificance of man and the greatness of the Deity. The first is a mere fallacy. Man is, indeed, physically insignificant, but not morally nor intellectually. Weakest and most imbecile of all living creatures at his birth, in a few years he masters all others, controls the elements by his arts, and by his science transcends his own sphere to survey kindred worlds. This he does amid innumerable impediments, physical, mental, and moral. What then must be his progress in his purely spiritual sphere? It is not improbable that an hour’ s exercise of his faculties there will unfold them more than the labour of a life here. Let us pass to the next element in the objection--the greatness of the Deity. “ Can it be supposed that the infinite God will stoop from amid all worlds to regard our wants and prayers?” Yes, the greatness of God, the very ground of the objection, is the ground of our confidence. God is infinite; were He finite, however great, there might be plausibility in the objection. Then it might be supposed that His attention would be so absorbed in the more general affairs of the universe, as to exclude from it entirely our minute interests; but infinite greatness implies that the small as well as the great, the minutia as well as the aggregate--that all things are comprehended by it. II. Prayer is a salutary exercise. It is so, in the first place, because it is the means of the blessings prayed for. Faith is the condition of salvation; it is faith that is imputed for righteousness: yet prayer is the expression, the vehicle of faith; prayer is the wing on which faith rises to the mercy seat. In the second place, its disciplinary effect is salutary. If our spiritual blessings were not conditional, but matters of course, like the blessings of light, air, or water, we would forget, as the world has in regard to the latter, the merciful agency of God in conferring them. Prayer, therefore, tends to humility. Gratitude, likewise, is produced by it in the same manner; for every blessing received in answer to it comes to us as a gratuity of the Divine mercy. There is no virtuous affection with which it is not congenial. It is serene, tranquillising, spiritualising. It cannot consist with sin. “ Prayer,” says one, “ will make us either cease sinning, or sin make us cease praying.” III. Prayer is a consolatory exercise. Man has a moral nature. His moral faculties are as distinguishable and as constitutional as his physical or intellectual. His most perfect happiness consists in the due gratification of all his faculties. There is a higher gratification than that of sense; there is a higher exercise than that of thought. It is the satisfaction of the conscience and the exercise of the heart. God made man for intercourse with Himself; all other exercises and enjoyments were to be but secondary to this. Prayer is the means of this intercourse; its language is the converse of this communion. But it is consolatory in a second sense. It is a source of aid and security. A devout mind, constant in the habit of prayer, may acquire such a lively sense of the immediate presence and sympathy of God as to exult in the most trying danger, and be almost superior to even the instinctive fears of human nature. IV. Prayer is a sublime exercise. The reach of a mighty mind, transcending the discoveries of ages, and evoking to view new principles or new worlds, is sublime. Newton’ s discoveries, pushing human comprehension higher in the series of natural causes and effects, were sublime. But there may be a progress remaining, compared with which his discoveries, as he said himself, are like the bubble compared with the ocean, But prayer sweeps over all secondary causes, and lays hold on the first cause; it bends not its flight to repose its wing, and refresh itself amid the light of undiscovered worlds, but rises above stars and suns, until it bathes its pinions in the light of “ the excellent glory.” Conclusion--1. These views should lead us to estimate prayer as a privilege, not merely as a duty. 2. Our interest in it may be considered a criterion of our piety. (A. Stevens, M. A.) Prayer--the forerunner of mercy The word used here to express the idea of prayer is a suggestive one. “ I will yet for this be inquired of.” Prayer, then, is an inquiry. No man can pray aright, unless he views prayer in that light. First, I inquire what the promise is, I turn to my Bible, and I seek to find the promise whereby the thing which I desire to seek is certified to me as being a thing which God is willing to give. Having inquired so far as that, I take that promise, and on my bonded knees I inquire of God whether He will fulfil His own promise. I take to Him His own word of covenant, and I say to Him, “ O Lord, wilt Thou not fulfil it, and wilt Thou not fulfil it now?” So that there, again, prayer is inquiry. After prayer I look out for the answer; I expect to be heard; and if I am not answered I pray again, and my repeated prayers are but fresh inquiries. “ Wilt Thou answer me, O Lord? Wilt Thou keep Thy promise? Or wilt Thou shut up Thine ear, because I misunderstand my own wants and mistake Thy promise?” I. Prayer is the forerunner of mercies. We bid you turn back to sacred history, and you will find that never did a great mercy come to this world unheralded by prayer. The promise comes alone, with no preventing merit to precede it, but the blessing promised always follows its herald, prayer. You shall note that all the wonders that God did in the old times were, first of all, sought at His hands by the earnest prayers of His believing people. Our Lord Jesus Christ was the greatest blessing that men ever had. He was God’ s best boon to a sorrowing world. And did prayer precede Christ’ s advent? Was there any prayer which went before the coming of the Lord, when He appeared in the temple? Oh yes, the prayers of saints for many ages had followed each other. Abraham saw his day; and when he died Isaac took up the note; and when Isaac slept with his fathers, Jacob and the patriarchs still continued to pray; yea, and in the very days of Christ, prayer was still made for Him continually: Anna the prophetess, and the venerable Simeon, still looked for the coming of Christ; and day by day they prayed and interceded with God, that He would suddenly come to His temple. It has been so in the history of the modern Church. Whenever she has been roused to pray, it is then that God has awaked to her help. Jerusalem, when thou hast shaken thyself from the dust, thy Lord hath taken His sword from the scabbard. When thou hast suffered thy hands to hang down, and thy knees to become feeble, He has left thee to become scattered by thine enemies; thou hast become barren, and thy children have been cut off; but, when thou hast learned to cry, when thou hast begun to pray, God hath restored unto thee the joy of His salvation, He hath gladdened thine heart, and multiplied thy children. And now, again, to come nearer home: this truth is true of each of you, my dearly beloved in the Lord, in your own personal experience. God has given you many an unsolicited favour, but still great prayer has always been the great prelude of great mercy with you. And now some will say to me, “ In what way do you regard prayer, then, as affecting the blessing? God, the Holy Ghost, vouchsafes prayer before the blessing; but in what way is prayer connected with the blessing?” I reply, prayer goes before the blessing in several senses. It goes before the blessing, as the blessing’ s shadow. Even as the cloud foreshadoweth rain, so prayer foreshadoweth the blessing; even as the green blade is the beginning of the harvest, so is prayer the prophecy of the blessing that is about to come. Again: prayer goes before mercy, as the representative of it. The prayer comes, and when I see the prayer, I say, “ Prayer, thou art the vice-gerent of the blessing; if the blessing be the king, thou art the regent; I know and look upon thee as being the representative of the blessing I am about to receive.” But I do think also that sometimes, and generally, prayer goes before the blessing, even as the cause goes before the effect. Some people say, when they get anything, that they get it because they prayed for it; but if they are people who are not spiritually minded, and who have no faith, let them know that whatever they may get it is not in answer to prayer; for we know that God heareth not sinners, and “ the prayer of the wicked is an abomination to the Lord.” “ Well,” says one, “ I asked God for such-and-such a thing the other day; I know I am no Christian, but I got it. Don’ t you consider that I had it through my prayers?” No, sir, no more than I believe the reasoning of the old man who affirmed that the Goodwin Sands had bean caused by the building of Tenterden steeple, for the sands had not been there before, and the sea did not come up till it was built, and therefore, said he, the steeple must have caused the flood. Now, your prayers have no more connection with your blessing than the sea with the steeple; in the Christian’ s case it is far different. Ofttimes the blessing is actually brought down from heaven by the prayer. Oh! the testimonies to the power of prayer are so numberless, that the man who rejects them flies in the face of good testimonies. We are not all enthusiasts; some of us are cold blooded enough; we are not all fanatics; we are not all quite wild in our piety; some of us in other things, we reckon, act in a tolerably common sense way. But yet we all agree in this, that our prayers have been heard; and we could tell many stories of our prayers, still fresh upon our memories, where we have cried unto God, and He has heard us. II. Why it is that God is pleased to make prayer the trumpeter of mercy, or the forerunner of it.1. I think it is, first, because God loves that man should have some reason for having a connection with Him. It is as if some father should say to his son, who is entirely dependent upon him, “ I might give you a fortune at once, so that you might never have to come upon me again; but, my son, it delights me, it affords me pleasure to supply your wants; I like to know what it is you require, that I may oftentimes have to give you, and so may frequently see your face. Now I shall give you only enough to serve you for such a time, and if you want to have anything you must come to my house for it. Oh, my son, I do this because I desire to see thee often; I desire often to have opportunities of showing how much I love thee.” 2. God would make prayer the preface to mercy, because often prayer itself gives the mercy. You are full of fear and sorrow; you want comfort--God says, pray, and you shall get it; and the reason is because prayer is of itself a comforting exercise. Take another case. You are in difficulty; you don’ t know which way to go, nor how to act. God has said that He will direct His people. You go forth in prayer, and pray to God to direct you. Are you aware that your very prayer will frequently of itself furnish you with the answer? For while the mind is absorbed in thinking over the matter, and in praying concerning the matter, it is just in the likeliest state to suggest to itself the course which is proper; for whilst in prayer I am spreading all the circumstances before God, I am like a warrior surveying the battlefield, and when I rise I know the state of affairs, and know how to act. Often, thus, you see, prayer gives the very thing we ask for in itself. 3. But again it seemeth but right, and just, and appropriate, that prayer should go before the blessing, because in prayer there is a sense of need. A sense of need is a Divine gift; prayer fosters it, and is therefore highly beneficial. 4. And yet again, prayer before the blessing serves to show us the value of it. If we had the blessings without asking for them, we should think them common things; but prayer makes the common pebbles of God’ s temporal bounties more precious than diamonds; and in spiritual, prayer cuts the diamond, and makes it glisten more. III. Let me close by stirring you up to use the holy art of prayer as a means of obtaining the blessing. Do you demand of me, and for what shall we pray? The answer is upon my tongue. Pray for yourselves, pray for your families, pray for the Churches, pray for the one great kingdom of our Lord on earth. Prayer Almost every page of the Bible is radiant with exceeding great and precious promises, which God in His love has given and in His faithfulness has fulfilled. When we have pleaded them confidingly in prayer, and obtained the fulfilment of anyone, even the least of them, how rich and happy have we become! Prayer is the golden link which binds promise to fulfilment. If men say, God has purposed this, and it will be done whether we pray or not, this passage asserts just the contrary. In this utterance, stern in its condemnation of all that is not simple in prayer, and yet encouraging to all that is so, the Lord solves the ever-recurring doubt, “ Will God, in deference to our prayer, interfere with the order of the world?” He has already, in arranging that order, provided for the answer to every prayer. I. One reason why God looks for prayer before the fulfilment of a promise is that we may be reminded the more strongly of our entire dependence upon Him. This dependence is taught us in various ways. Sometimes we have grasped something as if it were our own, and it has been suddenly taken from us. Sometimes, when we have fancied that we had attained some strength of virtue so as to be able to resist temptation, we have been made to feel, by our sins and our failures, what utter weakness ours is. Now, of the various ways in which God teaches us the lesson of dependence on Him, I know none at once so powerful and so pleasant as that which He has adopted when He says: If you are to have any promise fulfilled you must plead it with Me; come to Me as one who remembers that all the sufficiency of man is in God; come to take good from My gracious hands, as the bestowment of My unchanging love and faithfulness, the fulfilment of My certain promises; come and ask of Me and you shall receive; seek Me and ye shall find Me; knock at My door and it shall be opened unto you. II. Another reason which may be adduced why God particularly desires that we should pray is in order that we may have a due estimate of the worth of His gifts. You must look at things in the light which the eternal world throws upon them. You are apt to miscalculate their value amidst your fellow men, who themselves estimate amiss the true proportion of the things that God either gives or withholds. You are too liable to take their estimate of them; and when you are enjoying God’ s earthly gifts you are too apt to undervalue the higher blessings which are most to be enjoyed in quiet communion with Himself. Therefore He draws you away from the glare of the world, and from the false notions prevalent among your fellow men, and brings you into your closet, that there, as you think of Him, as you approach Him, as you remember that these things come from Him, you may estimate that as the best which speaks most of Him, that which has most of His own nature, and brings you most into harmony with Himself. Then you begin to see that it is comparatively immaterial whether you be strong or feeble in body, if only you be strong in faith, giving glory to God; that it matters little whether you be rich or poor, if only you be rich in faith and have firm hold of the inheritance of the kingdom of heaven. III. Another reason is to connect the gifts more particularly with the giver and with the purposes for which those gifts are bestowed. In Fatherly love He looks down upon His children, and for His children’ s happiness He pours out His bounties of every kind upon them. But we are not to let our thoughts terminate here. No; we must love Him beyond ourselves. Why are His blessings given? As “ of Him and from Him,” so “ to Him are all things.” Everything that He bestows is indeed intended to enrich and to bless those who receive His gifts, but it is intended also to come back to Himself in love and praise and service. God has connected the fulfilment of His promises with prayer, in order that we, asking these blessings, and being heard in our prayers, and receiving God’ s gifts, may also remember that, if given by Him, they are given for His own purposes and to be used according to His will. How can we bend our knees before Him, and earnestly solicit some benefit, some one of God’ s blessings, with the thought in our minds that the gifts of God may be used merely for ourselves? Is there not in the very position we are made to occupy, as creatures dependent upon His will, something which suggests to the mind which has been renewed, the heart in which the love of God has been in some measure shed abroad by the Holy Spirit, that all with which God enriches us, should be used for Him? We feel then that we are “ stewards of the manifold grace of God.” Observe, too, another thing in connection with this recognition of God as the Giver, and the use and purpose of His gifts. We find that those who obtain God’ s blessings in answer to prayer constantly pass on from the benefit to recognise in their gratitude the Divine beneficence of Him who gives it. When you have received a blessing there may be a transient feeling of happiness, but it is important that we should remember that every blessing we have is but an isolated instance of the exercise of that Divine beneficence, a putting forth of those Divine attributes, which are always and everywhere at work. IV. Yet another reason is in order to encourage the habit of intercourse with himself. It is impossible for anyone fully to understand, until he experiences it himself, what the coming into the secret presence of God is; what it is to shut the door and have communion with the Father who seeth in secret. But every renewed soul, the soul of every true Christian believer, knows what it is to have access to God through Jesus Christ. Yet there are influences which so drag us down, so draw us away from God, so shut up the channels of communication, so send the heart, as it were, coldly back into its own selfishness, that we continually need to be drawn again and again into this intercourse with God. We mourn oftentimes that it is so; yet so it is; and because it is so, God has coupled His blessings with prayer. He gives us a promise of a blessing, and then, in order that we may be drawn to intercourse with Him, He tells us that if we would have the promise fulfilled, we must come to Him and ask as His children; we must enter into our Father’ s presence and must kneel before Him; we must lift up the pleading eye and utter words of entreaty, and endeavour, with the strength of faith, to grasp all His declarations. We must do this, and then, and not till then, shall we have the fulfilment of God’ s promise. (W. A. Salter.) Why God requires His people to pray, even though He has told them what He is about to do I. In order that He may teach us that we have nothing at all to do with His purposes and determinations. Suppose God has fixed something, His decree is nothing to you,--that is not to be the law of your action. He calls you to a nobler and a more profitable study than the study of His determinations would be. You would soon be lost in such a subject, and never would arrive at any reasonable and satisfactory result respecting them. He calls you to search deep down into the eternal principles of your own nature, and of those Scriptures which He has given you for your guidance. He calls you to exercise your own sense of right and wrong. He has not revealed His determinations that He may lessen your activity or repress your thought. He calls you to exercise and make use of the powers He has given you. And that His determinations may not have a wrong influence over you, He has enjoined upon you the duty of prayer, even in reference to their execution. II. In order that He may teach us that He accomplishes nothing without the use of means. If everything has been fixed absolutely, then clearly there is no occasion for any means to be employed to secure the result. It is equally clear that things have not been fixed and determined in this manner; and anyone who should presume that they have been, and act upon his presumption, would soon discover, in his utter ruin and destruction, the error he had Committed. In all matters relating to this present life, we never entertain such ideas for a moment. We all know that God has fixed and promised that there shall be a harvest every year whilst the world lasts. This fixing, however, does not secure the harvest. Suppose the husbandman, relying upon the promise, had refused to sow the seed, he would most assuredly have been taught his folly by being deprived of any harvest. But it is not in this direction that we need to be cautioned. We shall never be deterred from working in temporal matters by the knowledge we have of God’ s decrees. But there is still danger in the principle, and that danger is sometimes realised in religious matters. The knowledge that God has promised success, and that we are entirely dependent upon God for our success, may lead us to inactivity. Because we know what God intends to do, we may rashly and foolishly conclude that He will accomplish His purpose without the employment of any means at all. But I do not find God acting in this way in the world around us. There was a time when God would prepare the world for the coming of His own Son. He might have done so by an immediate act of His own will; but He chose to raise up a visible messenger, and sent John the Baptist to prepare in the wilderness a highway for our God. There was a time when God would gather the fulness of the Gentiles unto His Church. He might have done so by causing some mysterious and unseen influence to be felt simultaneously throughout the world; but He raised up Paul, and sent him to preach amongst them the unsearchable riches of Jesus Christ. He works through means. It matters not that those means are trifling and insignificant, and disproportioned to the end they serve to secure. The slightest means, so long as they are used, serve to substantiate and justify the principle that God works not without them, and the weakest instrumentality becomes strong and powerful when it is wielded by the hands of an Almighty God, and serves, too, to show us that we have some part to do in the carrying out and accomplishment of the purposes of God. And this is the lesson we have to learn here. God has promised; but He says that the fulfilment of the promise rests with ourselves. It may not be much that we have to do, but that little must be done before God’ s work will he accomplished. III. In order that He may teach us what immense capacities for doing good He has endowed us with. The whole world is within the range of our influence, because it may be made the object of our prayer. There is not a single living person who is not within reach of our power. Our prayer can rise up unto the highest, and it can sink down to the lowest and most depraved. Our friends may be separated from us by distances which we cannot destroy; but distance is a thing unknown to prayer, and so, for all practical purposes, they are near, and we can bring to bear upon them an immense, an omnipotent power. Our feelings may not allow us to talk upon religious subjects to some of our friends, and yet we can use, on their behalf, an instrumentality that has never been known to fail. We may have no wealth with which to carry forward the cause of Christ, and yet, out of our poverty, we may enrich its treasures and augment its affluence. We may have no talents to set forward, and no eloquence to describe, the glories of our Redeemer,--we may never be able to speak a single word in support of the claims of religion, and yet we may do more to Promote the cause of Christ, to magnify the glories of our Lord, and to support the claims of religion, than the man who has at his command wealth and talents and eloquence, but who is not a man of prayer. IV. In order that He may teach us that, after all our efforts, success cometh wholly from the Lord. The husbandman never thinks of taking to himself the credit when he reaps a bountiful harvest. He blesses Him who made the seed to burst forth into life, even when it had died; who watered the earth with His showers, and matured its fruits by the genial influence of His sun. He praises God for His faithfulness to His promise. Such, too, ought our feelings to be. We knew beforehand what the result would be. We were sure of success, for God had said that He would do it. We only prayed for the fulfilment of a promise thus graciously given, and the very fact that we were only told to pray, ought to teach us that God meant that we should attribute all the glory, and ascribe all the praise to Him. Had He meant that we should share with Him the glory of securing the result, He would have given us some greater portion of the toil. He only told us to pray; and those few words that we breathe,--what are they towards securing so grand a result? They are nothing. It is only the fact that they are told to God that makes them strong and efficacious. Clearly, then, there is no glory belonging unto us. Success only humbles us: and as we look upon the answers to our Prayers in souls renewed and converted, piety and reason alike dictate the confession: “ I have planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the increase.” (F. Edwards, B. A.) . Ezekiel 37:1-14 Son of man, can these bones live?The vision of a true revival I. Such a revival often seems utterly hopeless. The condition of a nation in some of its eras of misfortune; the condition of the human race in their graves; the condition of men who have lapsed into low spiritual life;--are all conditions whose striking emblem would be a valley full of dry bones. There seems nothing to promise better things. There is no effort, no struggle upwards. Hope is lost. II. Such a revival is deeply interesting to good men. By a dialogue Ezekiel is interested in the present condition, the possible future, of these “ bones,” is taught his own weakness, and has revealed to him the source of strength and the methods of renewal. So always some Divine influence comes to interest good men in the recovery to higher life of those with whom He has to do. By His Spirit too, and by the, discipline of life, and by the Scriptures, God, as in a dialogue with such a man’ s soul, teaches him all he needs to know about such a renewal as He sees is deeply needed. III. Such a revival is partly wrought by creature agency. For political regeneration there are appointed heroes of the State; for the resurrection of the body there is appointed the angel with the trumpet, that shall sound when the dead are to be raised; for revival of the Church of God, earnest-souled men are appointed. IV. Such a revival is gradual in its progress. There were several stages in the accomplishment of the revival in this valley of vision. So in every revival. First, “ a noise.” This is the least important of all, yet often seems to be a needful accompaniment, an indication of awakening life. Then “ a shaking.” This politically finds its fulfilment in revolution, and often in war. In spiritual things it finds its fulfilment in throes of spirit, sometimes the agonies of doubt. Then “ the bones came together, bone to his bone.” This surely points to right organisation and consolidation, whether of the nation or of the individual character. Then “ the sinews and the flesh came upon them, and the skin covered them from above.” Here is the accomplishing of all that can be accomplished of merely external order and beauty. But how poor are all! For “ there was no breath in them.” V. Such a revival requires God’ s special operation. From the four winds the breath came, that is the symbol of the Divine Spirit. So only “ righteousness exalts a nation,” and without the Spirit of God there will not be righteousness: so the dead at the last day will be raised by God. VI. Such a revival produces sublime results. Instead of a valley of dry bones, there is an army, living, united, loyal, mighty. So, by their true regeneration, nations rise from being abject, poor, immoral, to kingdoms of liberty, prosperity, virtue. So human characters shall be elevated: the man no longer “ dead in sin,” shall have a heart united to fear God, a nature that reveals the Divine in spiritual harmony, strength, and glory. (Urijah R. Thomas.) Can these bones live Ezekiel differs from the other prophets in this: that he stands before us as half prophet and half priest. He has been described by a great authority as a priest in a prophet’ s mantle. In him the two streams met and parted. In this passage, however, Ezekiel is not a priest, but a pure prophet, and he is in the direct prophetic line. We are perhaps in a position to trace the growth of this famous allegory and to reconstruct the process by which it took shape in the prophet’ s thought. It had taken fire from a spark, and that spark was a phrase he had heard from his fellow exiles in Babylon--“ Our bones are dried and our hope is lost.” The metaphor swelled in his imagination to a vision and became one of the great dreams of the world--so much more a dream because its explanation is the sleepless purpose of Almighty God with man. Ezekiel stands up among the prevailing lassitude and indifference, and he is a prophet because he is a man of hope, because he has faith in God. What we have here is an allegory; it is an allegory of resurrection, but not the resurrection of the body, nor perhaps of the dead as individuals, but of the nation. The resurrection of the individual dead was perhaps no part as yet of the Hebrew faith. I. As to the scene, it was the scene of so many visions--the valley by the river Chebar. Now it wore a hideous aspect, and to the prophet its face was a scene of desolation; it was ghastly with dry ruin, with the chronic leprosy of death. And it was death grown grey and sere, death that was hopeless of any life to come; death settled down into possession; death that was privileged, enthroned and secure. That was Israel--defeated, destroyed, and dismembered, crumbling into paganism, some not hoping, not wishing to revive. The bones were many and they were very dry. Death always has the majority on its side. The dryness and death of a dead multitude is something more than the death of the same number scattered up and down the community. The dead city is always worse than so many dead people scattered about the country; therefore pull down the infested places; erase the slums, destroy the hotbeds of vice, however difficult, and get rid of the ferment of corruption. II. As to the prophet’ s acting. He “ passed by them round about” ; he did not tread upon them as the lout upon the cemetery graves. The Spirit moving among them was God; He is God of these bones also, and, therefore, Ezekiel is reverent to them. May the Spirit of God make us reverent towards all human wrecks--whether black or white. The Christian preacher has no right to be anything else. Can he be otherwise than respectful towards those whose hope and joy are gone? Who acts otherwise does it from a low heart. Can these dry bones live? Well, they are relics, things with memories, things once wedded to life although now in such tragic divorce from it. A mere mummy of a man, living under the wrath and curse of God, may not be the object of God’ s neglect. God’ s anger is not out of all relation to His love; not beyond His pity; not foreign to His grace. To have the anger of God, I venture to say, is at least some melancholy dignity. “ Son of man, can these bones live?” This question is put every time we review the past. Is there not often in the dead past life for the present? “ Can these bones live?” It is the question God is asking us by the mouth of history today. Why, these Gospels which have done so much are comparatively meagre--they are His bones--when you compare them with the fulness of the whole historic Christ, who takes ever a saving relation to Him as a historic revelation of God. The faith of Pentecost makes a great difference in the meaning of the historical creed. Then the Christ within us can take full measure of the Christ without. His evidence is Himself, and the history of the Risen One, with the experience of the Church during these two thousand years, must interpret and supplement the historic evidence of His Resurrection. Experience verifies the Gospels. The living evidence is not confined to the first, second, and third centuries. It is vital and mighty in every century, and not least in the century in which we live. The Spirit which quickens is as essential as the vision which sees. The faith which felt what these bones could be was as real as the eyesight which saw them on the plain. There can be, indeed, no new revelation of the Father: “ Jesus Christ the same yesterday, today, and forever.” But the future may reveal more of the revelation which is fixed in the history of the past, and elicit its infinite resources. By way of history will come the extraction of the resources of that revelation. The circumstances of history must work ever with the relics of history--personal history and public history--that is the way of God’ s Spirit. And the coming revival which is to move no mere sect or coterie, which is to change the whole of our national life--that revival will show its genius also in this: it may recast here and there the history of the Church, but it will enlarge by new races the Christianity of the future. From age to age God confounds the pessimists. He takes the man of little faith, carries him back through history to the dark ages and asks him, “ Can these bones live?” God puts you into the valley of the fifteenth century when paganism was even settling in the Church itself, when the faithful had almost ceased to believe. “ Could these bones live?” You see not how, but God’ s answer was the wonderful sixteenth century with the rediscovery of Paul and the coronation of faith, with all that followed. Once more He plants you in the Church early in the eighteenth century. Can that thing live? God’ s answer is Wesley, the Oxford Club, and the Evangelical Revival. Do you doubt if any such answer can be given to the question now? We have the answer before our eyes, and the world has it, and it is often like smoke in the world’ s eyes. But the men who first faced the missionary problem had it not before their eyes, they had it before their faith only. They were prophets, truly, and they had the answer more surely by faith than many of us have it even by sight. They saw men trooping from their living graves, they saw the races around them rescued and civilised by the Gospel. They saw the Church reconverted because they had within them the spirit that makes it to be so and they felt the first flutterings of its breath. What preacher does not sometimes despair when he looks at the spiritual skeletons around him? Or, perhaps, the preacher himself preaches only because it is a duty and prophesies in obedience rather than in belief. What of these? Well, preach hope until you have it, and then preach it because you have it--you have heard something of that sort before. Today the preacher is a man of parts and affairs. Often the congregation looks well and comfortable, but there is something lacking. It lacks life. It is a congregation and not a church. It may be cultured, but it is not kindled. There is more religion than regeneration. It has been clothed but not quickened. It knows about sacred things but little about the Holy Ghost. Oh, prophesy once more, prophesy till the Spirit of life comes. Preach, but still more pray. And how can you do that if your appeal to man be not inspired by your residing with God? Pray to the Spirit of God and preach to the spirit in men. Never mind current literature, but preach the deep things of God and remember that it is possible to lose your souls by mistaken efforts to gain others. Preach character by all means--more than has been done--but preach it through the Gospel that makes it. It is the demands of life that make men of us. Ask of them great sacrifices. Leave them not at ease. There are those who have not got beyond,, human, nature and its kindnesses, who care more for culture and to have something going on than for the Gospel. Rouse them to conflict, call on the Spirit to seize them and do with them what you never could do. Does not the Spirit do for us what no man can ever do? III. As to the result. “ Ye shall know that I am the Lord, when I have opened your graves, O My people, and brought you up out of your graves.” The true insight and knowledge comes by way of resurrection. We know what must rule others by knowing what has changed and ruled us. This is the source of true conquest and dominion in the world. The power of the final lordship is one of which we know nothing until we have saved men. And we cannot use the power until we ourselves have experienced it. The world is to be ruled at last only by those men and that society that knows the laws and powers of the new soul. We cannot know God’ s way with the mighty world unless we give our own manhood as the pledge and lay ourselves down before Him. Spiritual power makes its own procedure, and human society must finally take its shape from the light of the redeemed soul. I suppose there never was a time when--for good or ill--organisation meant so much as today. It has been called into being until it threatens to oust the home and submerge the Church. But is there no danger in this passionate desire for an organised state of existence? As we perfect the form, what is to become of the spirit? Can we organise ourselves into eternal life? Where are we to find that life which is to save our organisation from becoming our grave? “ Ye shall know that I am the Lord when I have brought you out of your graves.” The efficiency of the world can only be secured by the sufficiency of the Spirit. It is Christ’ s power and courage and resource we need to face the perils around us, and the trouble is that these do not occur to our common thoughts, our common Press, and our common Parliament. What we need is to know ourselves for what we are, for the moral laggards and traitors and rebels we are. We want a power that will enable us to go on when robust assurance fails and disillusionment comes and we find ourselves out. If we have no such discovery, no Redeemer, no Quickener, then there is no God, no future. It is in His redemption we must find our power and our methods to rule the world. The life of a people depends not merely on magnanimity or devotion, but on the righteousness whose source is Christ. Our ethics are suffering today because we think of love and sacrifice for their own sake. We hear so much about them that they have become self-conscious. They fancy themselves, as we say, and dress themselves for the public gaze. They should be lost in moral inspiration. Before I admire any sacrifice or ardour I wish to know how it has been inspired. It is not idealism but sanctity that saves a nation. The greatest power we know is holiness. It was the first care of Christ not to sacrifice Himself for an ideal; it was that He might glorify the holiness of God. He died to bless man, but still more to glorify God. The first charge on us must be not the happiness of men, but the holiness of God. Then people will be “ called from their graves.” There is no future for Godless commerce or Godless ardour of any sort. The missionary spirit is the spirit that brings nations out of their graves and resurrects them to Godliness. If you ask me whether all the human wrecks of this world can live, I am sure of it; first, because God has made something out of my shipwreck, and secondly, because I know that when He died He died for the whole world. And God knows, if I do not know, the world’ s future and the world’ s possibilities; it is He who still commands and has told me to act and pray till every man is saved, and therefore every man shall be saved. It would not be so hard to believe in the black races if we were sound in our belief about the white races. We are straitened within ourselves, and when there is lack of power what can we do but pray? We are bound in our passions and our sins: our bones are dried up, we are weary and too easily weighted down. These things lie upon us like the weight of earth. We can live only in Thee, O Lord of life. Clothe our bones, quicken our flesh, and the valley of Death shall be one of hope, because though we have fallen we rise to holier love and a nobler life. (T. P. Forsyth, D. D.) Lessons from the valley of vision The primary object of this chapter was to encourage the Jews to expect their restoration from the Babylonish captivity. At the time of the utterance of this prophecy they were scattered among the cities of the Babylonish dominions without any existence as an independent nation. But as the bones in the valley of Ezekiel’ s vision only needed the quickening process described in the narrative to become a living army, so the Jews only needed the interposition of God on their behalf to become again an independent nation. The meaning of the vision is explained in verses 11 to 14. But there are three other meanings that it is regarded as conveying. Applying the vision to the nominal Christian Church, it teaches that if any of God’ s people have lost their spiritual life, and so their capacity for usefulness, the Holy Spirit can quicken them, and so restore to them their power for efficiency, making them an army for Immanuel. Applying the vision to the human race, it shows us God’ s method of awakening into spiritual life the dead in trespasses and sins. A third view looks upon the vision as teaching the resurrection of the body at the last day, especial reference being had to the bodies of believers. I. The text presents us with a picture of the spiritual state of our race; “ dead in trespasses and sins.” The scene presented to Ezekiel’ s sight in vision was a valley full of bones. They were “ very dry.” For a long time they had lain under the scorching heat of an eastern sun, until they were ready to crumble into dust. Here we have symbolised the condition of our race. Men are “ dead in trespasses and sins.” Spiritual life is departed. Sad as the picture may appear, it is not overdrawn. Scripture testimony is true. All flesh is corrupt, Man is born in sin and shapen in iniquity. “ There is none righteous,” naturally, “ no, not one.” It is all-important for us to maintain this doctrine now. For there are those who would persuade us that man is not wholly corrupt; that the race is improving; that there are germs of good in us; that by the cultivation of his faculties, a man may subdue vicious propensities and become virtuous and holy. Why did Christ come to this world? Not simply to leave us an example of perfect holiness, but to atone for sin. He died to save us from a death from which we could not save ourselves. But take away any necessity for the atonement of Christ, and the love of God does not appear so great as the doctrine of man’ s depravity makes it appear. This doctrine of original sin is one too humbling to man’ s pride to be received without remonstrance, and the deep-rooted opposition to it is one proof of its truth. Who likes to be told that by nature he is wholly corrupt, and void of spiritual life? Christianity is the great civilising power in the world today, but in the most Christianised countries there is ample evidence of the universal prevalence of sin. There is no hope for the world from itself. As Ezekiel looked forth upon the valley of desolation, God said to him, “ Son of man, can these bones live?” and he answered, “ O Lord God, Thou knowest.” We ask, “ Is it possible for the millions of our race now in ignorance of the Gospel, in darkness about a future state, never having heard of the only way of salvation, to be enlightened and all brought at last to worship the same Lord and trust in the same Saviour as ourselves?” We look around us: we see that in a Christian land, like our own, the masses of our fellow creatures, with all the spiritual advantages they possess, are careless about salvation and treat the Gospel as if it were some cunningly devised fable. “ Can these dry bones live?” They cannot save themselves; they are powerless to procure themselves spiritual life. Looked at from a human standpoint, the work is an impossibility. To Him who created a world out of nothing, there is no impossibility in restoring to life, whether the dead in sins or the dead in body. Be it ours to follow the directions of Divine Providence, and patiently to wait for the exertion of God’ s almighty power. II. The text presents us with an illustration of the human instrumentality God generally employs in the work of quickening the dead in sins; the preaching of the Gospel. Ezekiel was commanded to prophesy unto the bones, and say, “ O ye dry bones, hear the word of the Lord.” Thus it appears that the dry bones were fit subjects for prophecy. They could hear the Word of God and understand it. Remembering that the dry bones primarily represented the Jewish nation, we see the propriety of the command. And taking the dry bones as representing the human family, we see an equal propriety in the vision. Our business is with the command, not the results. We are to use the means, and leave it to God to prosper them. Ezekiel’ s was a message of life (verses 5, 6). The Gospel is a message of life. We are told to go and preach to every creature. This preaching has been the human instrumentality chiefly employed. Yet Christianity triumphed over the religions of heathen Greece and Rome; it superseded the subtle philosophies and hoary idolatries of the East; it destroyed the worship of the barbarous Gauls and Germans, and rough savages of Northern and Eastern Europe, and has ever since maintained its hold. Yet the world still speaks of the foolishness of preaching, and wonders that such simple means should accomplish such great results. Let people say what they will, the power of the pulpit is the greatest of human instrumentalities employed to bring about the conversion of the world. The press cannot supersede it, and never will; for in the living voice of a man in sympathy with his mission and burning to save souls, there is a power that the lifeless page can never exercise. It is a divinely appointed institution. God honours it. In this valley of vision, there was one prophet commissioned to declare God’ s will. Now it is different. One was enough then for the work to be done. But the command to preach Christ’ s Gospel was given to all His disciples. Ezekiel was prepared to deliver his message, and it would have been grievous sin in him to refuse to do so. So now the disciples of Christ, who are called to preach His Gospel, are prepared for their work. God gives physical, mental, and spiritual gifts to His servants. Ezekiel had the message which he was to deliver, given him, and he dared not announce any other. Had he done so, punishment from God would have been richly deserved, and speedily inflicted, and there would have been no resurrection of the army. And if a preacher preaches any other Gospel than that of “ Christ crucified,” not only does he expose himself to the punishment of unfaithfulness in a matter of such transcendent importance, but also he will be of no use in saving souls. Many are the ways in which God’ s servants, divinely commissioned to preach the Gospel, perform their task. Each man for himself must give up his account to God of the way in which he has fulfilled his commission, and ought to do his duty unmoved by the frowns or favour of men. All are not learned as Apollos, or zealous as Paul, or loving and persuasive as John in later life. Like the diversity in the plumage of the feathered tribes; like the variety in the hues of flowers; like the perpetual variation in the shapes of the fleeting clouds, so is the variety endless in the gifts and manner of the divinely commissioned preachers of the Gospel. So long as God owns His servants’ labours, let us stand by, and murmur not against His ambassadors. III. The text presents us with a view of the Divine agency employed in the work of quickening the dead in trespasses and sins: the power of the Holy Spirit. What was the result of Ezekiel’ s prophecy (verses 7, 8)? Ezekiel might prophesy, but all his prophesying could not give them life. The change which had been accomplished was not done by Ezekiel’ s prophesying, but by the power of God. Thus it was the Holy Spirit’ s power that made that army of slain men to live. Similarly, when God’ s servants preach the Gospel message to the spiritually dead around them, they feel their utter helplessness to quicken them into spiritual life. As the bodies of Ezekiel’ s vision had the form of living beings before the breath entered into them, so men may be like Christians in their outward behaviour, but lack their spiritual life. To give this is the work of the Spirit. Oh, recognise the power of the Spirit, Third Person in the ever-blessed Trinity. All the preaching in the world will he useless to give spiritual life to a single soul unless He put forth His power. Trust not in the preacher whoever he may be, but in the Spirit. Already in answer to faithful prayer the Spirit has descended, and dead souls have been quickened, and are an army for Christ doing His work For the vision of Ezekiel showed that the dead when raised became a living army. Their life was given them that they might fight against and subdue God’ s enemies: they were not simply to enjoy life themselves. And when by the Holy Spirit’ s working, sinners are led to trust in Jesus and gain spiritual life; they are at once effective soldiers for Christ, and able to lead others to serve under the same gracious King. (T. D. Anderson, B. A.) The valley of dry bones In the galleries of Versailles the history of France is written in colour. Passing from corridor to corridor, the observer reads from those pictured pages of the centuries, the fortune of ideas, institutions, and dynasties. It is an impressive method of teaching. Many passages of Scripture are marvellous specimens of colour writing. The truth is not taught in dry formulas, but is flashed upon the mind, from parable or symbol or picture. Inspiration is the highest art. Who paints truth like God? Burning bush, pillar of fire and cloud, visions of patriarchs and prophets, splendours of the Transfiguration mount, flaming canvas of the Apocalypse,--what is there that equals these limnings of the Divine pencil? The passage before us is one of these colour sketches of inspiration. It is clear that God designed to teach desolate Israel, by this vision, three things.1. That there was hope for them. In the judgment of men, they were past help. They were utterly destroyed, their land ravaged, their capital overthrown, themselves captives in Babylonia. Where on the horizon was there a morning ray of promise? God still lived. God had not been carried away into captivity, and “ in the Lord Jehovah there is everlasting strength.” 2. The lesson of self-distrust. They could not deliver themselves. The wisest heads among them might scheme, the boldest conspirators might plot, but it would avail nothing. Those bleaching bones in the valley were the symbol of utter impotence. 3. Entire dependence upon God. It was the Word of the Lord, at whose utterance bones knit themselves to bones, and covered themselves with flesh. It was the Word of the Lord, at whose bidding the inspiration of life came into the motionless bodies, and transformed the valley of sepulture into an amphitheatre crowded with a host of stalwart men. Israel’ s hope was Israel’ s God. The history of Israel was a microcosm, the world’ s history in type and miniature. The principles on which God governed that people, are the principles on which He governs the race. His arguments and appeals and instructions to them are for all men and all time. This is a lost world. By many that statement is branded as unwarrantable. How wonderful is the march of our modern civilisation! How it hunts out and subsidises the hidden forces of earth and sea and sky, how it annihilates distance, and accelerates the transit of human thought! What beneficent changes it has wrought in ideas and institutions! But there is another side to the matter. It is a universally confessed fact that there is a vast amount of moral and spiritual inertia, which the so-called progress of the race does not overcome, nor sensibly abate. Humanity grows bigger, rather than better. There is not a well-balanced correspondence between the growing intelligence, and the increasing righteousness, of the race. The intellectual outstrips the moral advance. The discoveries of curiosity outnumber and outweigh the accretions of character. 1. That human expedients will prove ineffectual. There has been no stinting of effort to reclaim the world, on the part of good men. The utmost that human effort can compass in this matter is reform, and what a lost world needs is a remaking. Reform alters the shape, but not the nature of things. Man’ s wisdom has as yet found no way of renewing mankind. 2. The instrumentality to be used is the preaching of the Gospel. As a matter of history, the preaching of the Gospel has proved the most efficient method of reaching a lost world. The little company of the apostles, by the simple proclamation of Christ and the resurrection, dealt the deathblow to Greek and Roman superstition, entrenched in the stronghold of centuries. Cyril and Chrysostom moved two continents with their message. The earth shakes with the tread of the millions who are mustering at the Gospel call. In the jungles of India, under the shadow of the great wall of China, in thronged and eager Japan. 3. The efficient agent is the Spirit of God. The bleaching relics became the bodies of men, but “ there was no breath in them.” There is a certain measure of influence in the simple utterance and acknowledgment of the claims of Divine truth. Christian governments, Christian institutions, Christian ethics are the result of the confessed sovereignty of the Gospel teachings. But this is not the last power of the Gospel of Christ. It is only when, and only as, the Spirit of God “ takes of the things of God, and shows them unto men,” that wonderful transformations are wrought in nature, and character. No masterly eloquence, no exhaustive learning, can supply His place. “ Paul may plant and Apollos water, but God giveth the increase.” The consolidation of all human agencies is comparatively inoperative in the work of man’ s renewal, and uplift to spiritual life. It is “ not by might, nor by power, but by My Spirit, saith the Lord.” We are to concern ourselves less about our intellectual greatness, and more about our fitness to be instruments, through which and with which the Divine power can work. Certain inferential teachings of this passage are worth noting.1. Some of the methods by which churches and Sabbath schools endeavour to enlarge their influence are weak and wicked. Eternal well-being is at stake, and the fair, the sociable, the concert, the drama cannot lift men “ dead in trespasses and sin,” into “ newness of life in Christ Jesus.” 2. The passage is full of encouragement to Christian workers. The spiritually dead are not beyond their reach. The same power that peopled that silent valley with hosts of stalwart men, that transformed blaspheming Saul into fervent Paul, is at their command. 3. The general and concentrated outcome of this portion of Scripture is to urge all who work for God to rely entirely upon God. The invincible Spirit, if He be for us, who can be against us? (Sermons by the Monday Club.) Ezekiel’ s vision I. A striking description of the religious state of the heathen world.1. The persons made the subject of this prophetic vision are represented as dead. To be dead is to be in a state which excites reset and sympathy. To lose the image of God is to die; because as death destroys the human form, sin destroys truth, holiness, and love, in which the image of God in man consists. This is the unhappy case of the heathen. The heathen world is judicially dead, under the wrath and curse of Almighty God. To counteract generous feelings, and to stop the stream of pity in its very fountain, we are aware that the doctrine of the safety of the heathen has been confidently affirmed. The true question is among such persons often mistaken. It is not, whether it is possible for heathens to be saved,--that we grant: but that circumstance proves the actual state of the heathen world to be more dangerous than if no such possibility could be proved; for the possibility of their salvation indisputably shows them to be the subjects of moral government, and therefore liable to an aggravated punishment in case of disobedience. The true question is, Are the heathens, immoral and idolatrous as they are, actually safe? 2. The number of the dead forms another part of the picture,--“ the valley was full of bones.” The slain of sin are innumerable. The valley as we trace it seems to sweep to an unlimited extent, and yet everywhere it is full! The whole earth is that valley. Where is the country where transgression stalks not with daring and destructive activity? where it has not covered and polluted the soil with its victims? If we turn to the east, there the peopled valleys of Asia stretch before us; but peopled with whom? With the dead! That quarter of the earth alone presents five hundred millions of souls, with but few exceptions, without a God, save gods that sanction vice; without a sacrifice, save sacrifices of folly and blood. 3. To the number of the dead the prophet adds another circumstance,--“ they were unburied” : the destructive effects of sin, the sad ravages of death, lay exposed and open to the sun. So open and exposed have been the unbelief and blasphemies of the Jews, and the idolatry and vices of the Gentiles. 4. The prophet closes his description by adding, that “ the bones were very dry.” Under this strong figure the hopelessness of their condition is represented. Thus the Jews, introduced in verse II, are made to say, “ Our bones are dried up, our hope is lost” ; and the state of the heathen must, at least, be equally hopeless. As far as mere human means and human probabilities go, “ there is no hope.” From themselves it is certain there is none. II. The means by which its mystical resurrection is to be effected: “ Prophesy upon these bones,” etc.1. This direction intimates that the ministry of the Word is the grand means appointed by God for the salvation of the world. Others have looked for the amelioration of the human race from the progress of science. Another class of speculatists would wait until wars and revolutions have broken up old systems of despotism, and introduced political liberty, before any means are taken to spread the Gospel. Here is another attempt to build the pyramid upon its point. In vain do men expect liberty without virtue. 2. The words may be considered as an injunction on the ministers of the Gospel. But to whom is the message directed? To missionaries only? Nay; but to all who are called “ to preach among the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ.” 3. The injunction, “ Prophesy,” respects not only ministers, but you also who have a private station in the Church. In the society of Christians the particular work of every member is his own salvation; but he owes a duty to the whole body, which is to promote, by all the means in his power, the common end of the association. That common object is to bring “ the wickedness of the wicked to an end, and to establish the just.” III. The prophecy expresses the certain success which should follow the application of the appointed means. We are engaged in no doubtful cause: the kingdom of Christ must prevail; and the Word which has given Him the heathen for His inheritance is “ forever settled in heaven.” Our confidence rests--1. On the power of the Gospel. We are not to consider the Gospel as a mere system of doctrines, and duties, and hopes, offered coldly to the reason of mankind. It is this system, but it is more; it is the source of a Divine influence which exerts itself upon the faculties of those who hear it. The Word is never sent without its Author. “ Go, and preach My Gospel, and lo, I am with you.” The same union subsists between the Spirit and the Word. 2. Our confidence in the certain success of the Gospel rests also upon experience. Christianity is not a novelty; and its efficacy is not now to be put, for the first time, to the test of experiment. It is that powerful and Divine instrument which has for ages been wielded with glorious success in the cause of God and truth. 3. Prophecy confirms the certainty of success. (R. Watson.) The valley of dry bones and the true preacher I. This preacher had a fine church to preach in. It is in “ the midst of the valley.” The true preacher of Christ has open nature for his temple. He need not be confined to the buildings of man’ s hands, or tied to the conventionalities of society. Wherever men are, on the valley, the hilltops, the seashore, the high road, or in the market place, he can open his mission, he can deliver his message. Thus Christ and His Apostles preached. II. This preacher had an affecting congregation to address. The valley was full of bones, “ very many and very dry.” Unregenerate souls are like dead bodies in many respects.1. They are the creatures of the outward. While there is life in the human body it has a power to appropriate the external to its own use; but when life has departed, the external elements make it their sport. It is so with unregenerate souls. They are the creatures of circumstances. 2. They are loathsome to the eye. The human frame that is beautiful in life becomes so offensive in death, that love seeks a place to bury it out of sight. Unregenerate souls are loathsome to the eyes of all who are truly and spiritually alive. III. This preacher had a Divine sermon to deliver.1. He appealed to his dead auditory. This showed his strong faith in God. His own reason would suggest to him the absurdity of his work, but he trusted God. 2. He appealed to Heaven. “ Come from the four winds, O breath,” etc. From Heaven the power came, and that power he invoked with all the earnestness of his nature. Thus with the true preacher of Christ. His words will be powerless unless made powerful by the mighty Spirit. IV. This preacher had marvellous results to witness.1. The results were what he worked for. The efforts he exerted were for resuscitation, and resuscitation came. Every true preacher will get, to some extent, that for which he earnestly labours. 2. The results were gradually developed. Here is-- (1) Motion--bones moving.(2) Organisation--bones knitted together and covered with flesh.(3) Vitality--the organisation animated.(4) Exertion--stood on their feet “ a great army.” Under every true preacher the work in a congregation goes on something in this way. (Homilist.) The vision of dry bones I. The representation given us in this vision of the moral condition of our world. Bones--dry bones--unburied bones--very many of them--what a crowd of suggestive thoughts seem to be called up by this picture! A bone--who likes to look on this dishonoured relic of life? What a recoil do youth and beauty feel at being told that “ to this complexion they must come at last” ! But the bones the prophet saw were, on our spiritual interpretation, yet more painful to contemplate; they represented the bones, not of a dead body, but, so to speak, of a dead soul, scattered members of the immortal part--God’ s image defaced, corrupted, broken into dust and fragments. Furthermore, to complete the picture of death and desolateness, the prophet adds, “ and they were very dry.” They had not only remained a long time in this state, they were bleached and crumbled in the sun, and all vestige of the human thing was gone. The application of this lies upon the surface. God made us men, but sin has changed us into skeletons. Observe, further, the vision seems to point to the utter shamelessness of the unconverted state. The bones were in an open valley, or champaign. There may be those who sin in secret, those who defraud and plunder by means of locked up and secret ledgers, who concoct their mendacious schemes in chambers dark as the unsunned and unfrequented sepulchre; but the many hardly care to hide their iniquity, they leave the pestiferous breath of corruption to go up from the valley, and seem to glory in their shame. And how unblushingly does vice walk our streets, and lying enter into our commerce, and sinful and foolish jesting dishonour our entertainments, and the offer of cheap excursions affront the sanctities of God’ s holy day! And whey justify themselves who do such things. Even concealment--that homage which bad men pay to the divinity of virtue--is deemed uncalled for. “ They are dead in trespasses and sins,” and desire that none should bury them out of our sight. Another mournful spectacle which the vision exhibits of spiritual death reigning around us is its universality. It is not in the midst of the valley only, in the crowd of cities, and in the feverish stir of courts, the haunts of dissipation, or amidst the thickly nestling families of the outcasts that we meet with these relics of spiritual corruption. Wherever we pass, with the prophet, round about, in the retirement of the village, in the seclusion of the cloister, in the calm privacies of family and domestic intercourse--sweet Auburn, mighty London--it is all one--there is not a house in which there is not one dead. II. The means to be employed for the recovery of the world from its spiritually dead condition. “ Can these dry bones live? Can your faith grasp the great fact of these bones becoming men?” And the answer which the downcast man of God would return, would be in substance Ezekiel’ s answer--“ O Lord God, Thou knowest.” “ Judging by past results, judging by present evidences, judging by any standards of human likelihood, I should say these bones will continue bones. I see not hope or sign of life among them. Every form of moral inducement fails. Mark here, the ministry of the Word is God’ s great agency for the world’ s conversion. The days we live in are fertile of expedient and project and bold thought. Every sun that rises finds a thousand busy minds planning and devising something for the good of mankind, The philanthropist’ s calling is absolutely overdone; and by education, by cultivation of e taste for the arts, by shortened labours for the sons of toil, and open doors for the repentant criminal, by reformatories, dormitories, penitentiaries, and industrial schools, everybody has his scheme for mending the world’ s present condition. Amidst this multitudinous assemblage of human remedies, all good in their way however, it is a great repose to the mind just to see what is God’ s remedy. He interferes not with our social machinery, our commerce, our science, our philanthropy, or our laws--these may all go on as before; but He has His own cure for the moral disorders of mankind; and where that cure is left out of sight, God will bless no other. And that is, to prophesy upon these bones and say unto them, “ O ye dry bones, hear ye the word of the Lord!” And at this part of the vision the minister of God finds his lesson, He has a pardonable preference for the great promising fields of labour. True, he must go where he is sent, but he would not choose a valley of bones if he could get an auditory of living things. But the tenor of his commission runs--“ Preach to the most ignorant, and dark, and hopeless; speak to the dead; even in the place of tombs and at the very mouth of graves; prophesy upon these bones.” Neither are we to be tellers of smooth things when we prophesy, to shrink from calling people by their right names and addressing many among them as spiritually dead; for you see there God’ s own instructions to the preacher--“ Say unto them, O ye dry bones, hear ye the word of the Lord.” And this is our confidence when we speak--that it is the word of the Lord. III. The success which shall attend the use of all heavenly-appointed means for the conversion of souls. We may not omit to observe here, how, under every dispensation the dead and the hopeless are the objects of the Almighty’ s care. They are the tempted among disciples, the heavy laden among sinners, the weeping among the prodigals; it is among the reeds the sorest bruised, and among bones the “ very dry,” that mercy finds occasion for its most tender and bright displays. Let us see this principle acted out in the vision. There was a noise and a shaking. To two out of the three proposed interpretations of the vision suggested at the outset these effects seem applicable enough. Thus we can have no difficulty in imagining that a great political commotion should be stirred up on the first proclamation of Cyrus for the return of the Jews to their own land; whilst for the other interpretation, or that which applies the vision to the resurrection of the body, we have the later New Testament confirmation, that the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the powers of heaven shall be shaken. But what fitness have these terms for our spiritual rendering? Much every way. There is no resurrection to spiritual life, whether in a nation, in a family, or in an individual soul, without both a noise and a shaking. Yes, the chariots of the Redeemer never have been noiseless chariots. There was a noise in Judea when John preached the baptism of repentance; there was a noise at Athens when Paul preached the doctrines of the resurrection; there was a noise at Ephesus when the craftsmen saw the danger which threatened their silver shrines. And is there not often a noise in families when the prophesying is just beginning to take effect, when some solitary member of a household comes out from the rest, and with a lofty disregard of the results, resolves to cast in his lot with the people of God? Ask yourselves, have you ever been shaken from these sandy and unstable foundations on which so many are building their immortal house? Have you over been shaken from those unscriptural and hollow creeds which are the only answer many have to make to the fears of death, the terrors of the grave, and the heavy indictment to be preferred against them at the last day? Or, lastly, have you ever felt a shaking in yourselves? Have you ever known what it is to have the heart to sink, and the knees to smite, and the tongue to falter through an oppressive sense of your soul’ s danger and urgent need? If so, be of good cheer; at this time there was a shaking in you, the bones were beginning to move, and flesh was beginning to come up, and over the face of your regenerate soul the Spirit of God was moving and imparting to you the first breathings of spiritual life. IV. The last scene of this imposing spectacle. See in this feature of the prophet’ s vision, a type of that halting stage in the Christian life, in which all external forms of godliness are kept up without any growing experience of its power; living, indeed, in shape, but having no breath in them. Seeing there was no breath in these risen forms, the voice said unto Ezekiel, “ Prophesy unto the wind, prophesy, son of man, and say to the wind, Thus saith the Lord God; Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe upon these slain, that they may live. So I prophesied as He commanded me, and the breath came into them, and they lived, and stood up upon their feet, an exceeding great army.” We want more breath in our body, more of that which distinguishes the skeleton from the man and the religious automaton from the thing of life--and this is to be obtained only by our prophesying to the wind; by one and all in the church and in their closet offering that fervent petition, “ Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe upon these slain, that they may live.” (D. Moore, M. A.) The vision of the dry bones Like many other visions before and since, it is partly shaped by the circumstances of the times. The horrors of the Chaldean invasion, which had resulted, in carrying away the Jewish people into Babylon, were still fresh in the memories of men. In many a valley, on many a hillside in Southern Palestine, the track of the invading army as it advanced and retired would have been marked by the bones of the unoffending but slaughtered peasantry. In a work written some years ago, Mr. Layard has described such a scene in Armenia, an upland valley, covered by the bones of the Christian population who had been plundered and murdered by Kurds. Ezekiel, wrapt in a spiritual ecstasy, was set down in a valley that was full of bones. But what are we to understand by the dry bones of the vision of Ezekiel? This is plainly a picture of a resurrection, not, indeed, of the general resurrection, because what Ezekiel saw was clearly limited and local, but at the same time it is a sample of what will occur at the general resurrection. It may be urged that this representation is presently explained to refer to something quite distinct--namely, the restoration of the Jewish people from Babylon, and therefore that what passed before the prophet’ s eye need not have been regarded by him as more than an imaginary or even impossible occurrence intended to symbolise a coming event. But if this were the case, the vision, it must be said, was very ill adapted for its proposed purpose. The fact is that the form of Ezekiel’ s vision, and the popular use which Ezekiel made of it, shows that at this date the idea of the resurrection of the body could not have been a strange one to religious views. Had it been so Ezekiel’ s vision would have been turned against him. The restoration from the captivity would have been thought more improbable than ever if the measure of its improbability was to be found in a doctrine unbelieved in as yet by the people of revelation. We know, in fact, from their own scriptures, that the Jews had had for many a century glimpses more or less distinct of this truth. Long ago the mother of Samuel could sing that the Lord bringeth down to the grave and bringeth up, and Job could be sure that though worms destroy his body yet in his flesh he would see God; and David, speaking for a Higher Being than himself, yet knows that God will not leave His soul in hell nor suffer His Holy One to see corruption; and Daniel, Ezekiel’ s contemporary or nearly so, foresees that many who “ sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt,” and later on the courageous mother of the seven Maccabean Martyrs cries to her dying sons that “ the Creator of the world, who formed the generations of men, and thought out the beginning of all things, will also of His mercy give you life and breath again if you regard not yourselves for His sake.” Undoubtedly there was among the Jews a certain belief in the resurrection of the body, a belief which this very vision must have at once represented and confirmed. Ezekiel’ s vision, then, may remind us of what Christ our Lord has taught us again and again in His own words of the resurrection of the body. But its teaching by no means ends with this. For the dry bones of Ezekiel’ s vision may well represent the conditions of societies of men at particular times in their history, the condition of nations, of Churches, of less important institutions. Indeed, Ezekiel was left in no kind of doubt about the Divinely intended meaning of his vision. The dry bones were pictures of what the Jewish nation believed itself to be, as a consequence of the captivity in Babylon. All that was left of it could be best compared to the bones of the Jews which had been massacred by the Chaldean invader, and which bleached the hillsides of Palestine. “ He said unto me, These bones are the whole house of Israel; behold, they say, Our bones are dried, and our hope is lost; we are cut off.” Certainly in the captivity little was left of Israel beyond the skeleton of its former self. There were the sacred books, there were Royal descendants of the race of Jacob, there were priests, there were prophets, there was the old Hebrew and sacred language not yet wholly corrupted into Chaldean, there were precious traditions of the past days of Jerusalem, these were the dry bones of what had been earlier. There was nothing to animate them, they lay on the soil of heathenism, they lay apart from each other as if quite unconnected. To the captive people Babylon was not merely a valley of dry bones, but socially and politically it was fatal to the corporate life of Israel, “ Thus saith the Lord God, Behold, O My people, I will open your graves.” And this is what actually did happen at the restoration of the Jews from Babylon. Each of the promises in Ezekiel’ s vision was fulfilled. The remains of the past history, its sacred books, its priests, its prophets, its laws, its great traditions, its splendid hopes, these once more moved in the soul of the nation as if with the motion of reviving life. It was a wonderful restoration, almost if not altogether unique in history. We see it in progress in the 119th Psalm, which doubtless belongs to this period, which exhibits the upward struggle of a sincere and beautiful soul at the first dawn of the national resurrection, and we read of its completion in the books of Ezra and Nehemiah; it was completed when the Temple, the centre of the spiritual and national life, was fully rebuilt, and when the whole life of the people in its completeness was thus renewed in the spot which had been the home of their fathers from generation to generation. And something of the same kind had been seen in portions of the Christian Church. As a whole, we know the Church of Christ cannot fail, the gates of hell shall not prevail against it; but particular Churches may fail in their different degrees,--national churches, provincial churches, local churches. These, like the seven churches in Asia, which stand as a warning for all the ages of Christendom, these may experience their varying degrees of corruption and ruin and the moral insensibility which precedes death. And some of us may have noted a like resurrection in some institution, neither as defined as a church nor yet so broad or inclusive as a nation, in a school, a college, a hospital, a charitable building, a company. It is the creation, it is the relic of a distant age, it is magnificent in its picturesqueness, it lacks alone nothing but life. It persists in statutes that are no longer observed, it observes ceremonies and customs which have lost their meaning, it constantly holds to a phraseology which tells of a past time and of which the object has been forgotten. But certain it is in each year its members meet, they go through the accustomed usages, they signalise their meeting, it may be by splendid banquets, by commanding oratory, but in their heart of hearts they know they are meeting in a valley of dry bones. The old rules, usages, phrases, dresses, these are scattered around them like the bones of Ezekiel’ s vision, a life which once animated and clothed has long since perished away. Lastly, the dry bones of Ezekiel’ s vision may be discovered, and that not seldom, within the human soul. When the soul has lost its hold of truth or grace, when it has ceased to believe or ceased to love all the traces of what it once has been, do not forthwith despair. There are survivals of the old believing life, fragments and skeletons of the old affection, bits of stray logic which once created phrases which express the feeling which once won to prayers, there may remain amid the arid desolation of every valley full of dry bones the aspirations which have no goal, the actions which have no real basis, no practical consequences, the friendships which we feel to be holy and which are still kept up, the habits which have lost all meaning, we meet with writers, with talkers, with historians, with poets whose language shows that they have once known what it is to believe, but for whom all living faith has perished utterly and left behind it only these dried-up relics of its former life. “ Can these bones live?” Can these phrases, these forms, these habits, and these associations which once were part of the spirit life, can they ever again become what they were? A man may have ceased to mean his prayers, his prayers may now be but the dry bones of that warm and loving communion which he once held with his God, but do not let him on that account give them up, do not let him break with the little that remains of what once was life. It is easy enough to decry habit, but habit may be the scaffolding which saves us from a great fall, habit may be the arch which bridges over a chasm which yawns between one height and another on our upward road; habit without motive is sufficiently unsatisfactory, but habit is better, better far, than nothing. Some of us it may be surveying the shrivelled elements of our religious life cannot avoid the question which comes in upon us from heaven, “ Can these bones live?” They seem to us, even in our best moments, so hopelessly dislocated, so dry, so dead, but to this question the answer always must be, “ O Lord God, Thou knowest.” Yes, He does know; He sees, as He saw of old into the grave of Lazarus; He sees as He saw into the tomb of the Lord Jesus, so He sees into the crypt of a soul of whose faith and love only these dry bones remain, and He knows that life is again possible. (Canon Liddon.) The restoration and conversion of the Jews I. There is to be a political restoration of the Jews. Israel is now blotted out from the map of nations; her sons are scattered far and wide; her daughters mourn beside all the rivers of the earth. But she is to be restored; she is to be restored “ as from the dead.” She is to be reorganised; her scattered bones are to be brought together. There will be a native government again; there will again be the form of a body politic; a state shall be incorporated, and a king shall reign. “ I will place you in your own land,” is God’ s promise to them, They shall again walk upon her mountains, shall once more sit under her vines and rejoice under her fig trees. And they are also to be reunited. There shall not be two, nor ten, nor twelve, but one--one Israel praising one God, serving one king, and that one king the Son of David, the descended Messiah. They are to have a national prosperity which shall make them famous; nay, so glorious shall they be that Egypt, and Tyre, and Greece, and Rome shall all forget their glory in the greater splendour of the throne of David. II. Israel is to have a spiritual restoration or a conversion. Both the text and the context teach this. The promise is that they shall renounce their idols, and, behold, they have already done so. Weaned forever from the worship of all images, of whatever sort, the Jewish nation has now become infatuated with traditions or duped by philosophy. She is to have, however, instead of these delusions, a spiritual religion: she is to love her God. “ They shall be My people, and I will be their God.” The unseen but omnipotent Jehovah is to be worshipped in spirit and in truth by His ancient people; they are to come before Him in His own appointed way, accepting the Mediator whom their sires rejected; coming into covenant relation with God, for so our text tells us, “ I will make a covenant of peace with them,” and Jesus is our peace, therefore we gather that Jehovah shall enter into the covenant of grace with them, that covenant of which Christ is the federal head, the substance, and the surety. They are to walk in God’ s ordinances and statutes, and so exhibit the practical effects of being united to Christ who hath given them peace. III. The means of that restoration. Observe that there are two kinds of prophesying spoken of here. First, the prophet prophesies to the bones--here is preaching; and next, he prophesies to the four winds--here is praying.1. It is the duty and the privilege of the Christian Church to preach the Gospel to the Jew, and to every creature, and in so doing she may safely take the vision before us as her guide. (1) She may take it as her guide, first, as to matter. What are we to preach? The text says we are to prophesy, and assuredly every missionary to the Jews should especially keep God’ s prophecies very prominently before the public eye. Every man has a tender side and a warm heart towards his own nation, and if you tell him that in your standard book there is a revelation made that that nation is to act a grand part in human history, and is, indeed, to take the very highest place in the parliament of nations, then the man’ s prejudice is on your side, and he listens to you with the greater attention. But still the main thing which we have to preach about is Christ. Preach His hallowed life, the righteousness of His people; declare His painful death, the putting away of all their sins. Vindicate His glorious resurrection, the justification of His people; tell of His ascent on high, their triumph over the world and sin; declare His second advent, His glorious coming, to make His people glorious in the glory which He hath won for them, and Christ Jesus, as He is thus preached, shall surely be the means of making these bones live. Let this preaching resound with sovereign mercy; let it always have in it the clear and distinct ring of free grace. Man has a will, and God never ignores that will, but by His almighty grace He blessedly leads it in silken fetters. Preach, preach, preach, then, but let it be the preaching of Christ, and the proclamation of free grace. The Church, I say, has a model here as to the matter of preaching. (2) And I am certain that she has also a model here as to her manner of preaching. The manner of our preaching is to be by way of command, as well as by way of teaching. Repent and be converted, every one of you. Lay hold on eternal life. “ Seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you.” “ Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved.” (3) We have a model here, moreover, as to our audience. We are not to select our congregation, but we are to go where God sends us; and if He should send us into the open valley, where the bones are Very dry, we are to preach there. Do not say, “ Such-and-such a man is too bigoted” ; the case rests not with him, nor with his bigotry, but with God. These bones were very dry, but yet they lived. Let not, therefore, the greater viciousness of a people, or their greater hardness of heart, ever stand in our way, but let us say to them, dry as they are, “ Ye dry bones, live.” (4) And here, again, we have another lesson as to the preacher’ s authority. If you will observe, you will see the prophet says, “ Hear the Word of the Lord.” Always put to your fellowman the truth which you hold dear, not as a thing which he may play with or may do what he likes with, which is at his option to choose or to neglect as he sees fit; but put it to him as it is in truth, the Word of God; and be not satisfied unless you warn him that it is at his own peril that he rejects the invitation, and that on his own head must be his blood if he turns aside from the good word of the command of God. (5) I cannot leave this point without noticing how the prophet describes the effect of his preaching--there was a voice, and there was a noise. Is this stir, then, the stir of opposition, or is it the stir of inquiry? Anything is better than stagnation: of a persecutor I have quite as much hope as of a quiet despiser. 2. After the prophet had prophesied to the bones, he was to prophesy to the winds. He was to say to the blessed Spirit, the Life-giver, the God of all grace, “ Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe upon these slain, that they may live.” Preaching alone doth little; it may make the stir, it may bring the people together, but there is no life-giving power in the Gospel of itself apart from the Holy Spirit. The “ breath” must first blow, and then these bones shall live. Let us betake ourselves much to this form of prophesying. Observe that this second prophesying of Ezekiel is just as bold and as full of faith as the first. This entry is longer than a Bible module can hold. The rest is at https://www.sermonindex.net/commentary/bi/ Ezekiel 37:7 So I prophesied as I was commanded: and as I prophesied, there was a noise, and behold a shaking, and the bones came together, bone to his bone.The resurrection of dry bones The prophecy of Ezekiel is a remarkable illustration of the nearness of the spiritual world, and of many of its laws, scenes, and circumstances The prophet was from time to time brought into the spiritual state in which the surrounding spirit world is seen, and he “ saw visions of God.” The fact that we are lying in two worlds is suggestive of the very deepest considerations. It solves the mystery of the earth’ s motions and its ever-abounding varied life. The earth lives because joined to a living world, as the body lives because joined to a living soul. We are united to matter as to our outer life, but as to our inner we are now living in eternity, and shall simply live on in the inner world when loosened from this outer sphere. We have companions, too, in the spirit, as well as in the body. The virtuous soul is Inked in spirit bonds with an innumerable company of angels: the wicked plotter against another’ s peace knows it not, and would that he knew it well, but he is the instrument of malignant fiends “ more wicked than himself.” The object of the vision before us was two fold, natural and spiritual, temporary and everlasting. It was given in its natural meaning to comfort the Israelites with a hope of their return from the captivity in which they were in Babylonia; and it was, in its spiritual meaning, to testify to every man’ s resurrection from the death of sin to the life of righteousness. The Lord opened the graves of captive Israel after they had declared that their very hope was lost; and this same Lord can and will restore us from the depths of difficulty, and even of despair, when our penitence has prepared us for future blessing. Let our language then ever be, “ Why art thou cast down, O my soul, and why art thou disquieted within me? Hope thou in God, for thou shalt yet praise Him, who is the help of my countenance and my God.” The natural man is dead to God, to heaven, to justice, to truth. Any possibility of resurrection arises from the inner man, which the Lord has implanted at each person’ s creation, and strengthened by heavenly influences, both from within and from without, from his childhood. But by this arrangement of Divine mercy, the resurrection from disorder and sin is possible. (John 5:24-25; Ephesians 5:14; Philippians 3:11-12.) These passages show, in the most striking manner, how truly in the light of Scripture we are dead by nature, and the absolute necessity of a spiritual resurrection. But all our experience teaches the same thing. How else is it that we are so cold to recognise the love of our heavenly Father, which yet surrounds us with blessings? that we are so prone to wrong, so difficult to be led to adopt the right? that heavenly wisdom is so undelightful to our minds, until our taste has become changed, while the merest folly, and often the worst pollutions, are greedily received? It is because of this depraved and deadened state of the lower degree of the soul. The state of the natural mind is described in the vision before us, by the valley which was full of bones. The natural mind is called a valley, because its principles, as compared with the elevated affections of heavenly love, are as a valley compared to mountains. The mountains are said to bring peace (Psalms 72:3), because the exalted affections which unite the soul to the Lord do indeed bring peace; but in the valleys, fruitfulness is found, for the works which are the fruits of religion can only be produced in practical life. All men start on their spiritual journey in the valley, and only by effort and by prayer ascend to higher, holier states. But the valley the prophet saw was full of bones. What are these bones? The doctrinal truths of religion which form the framework or skeleton of man’ s regenerate state, round which all other virtues fix and cluster, are as bones. These bones of doctrinal truth are taught in childhood. They are stored in the memory, but often, after that, neglected. In such case their condition is like that mentioned in the description before us, “ they are very dry.” You look upon the careless and indifferent possessor of the most sacred truths, and see them, if noticed at all, regarded as things of no account, and you are tempted to say, like the question put to the prophet, “ Can these bones live?” Can they who hear with indifference the grandest themes, the most solemn appeals, really be awakened to their higher interests? While musing sadly over this desolation, a voice comes from heaven to the conscience, “ Can these bones live?” And while we dare scarce venture to hope for so great a restoration, again the Divine mercy speaks within us the gracious promise: “ Thus saith the Lord God unto these bones, Behold, I will cause breath to enter into you, and ye shall live.” Confidence is imparted to the conscience. The angel Hope takes the place of grim despair, and we go to the Word, and from it learn to prophesy as the Lord has commanded. The effects which follow this sacred prophesying are portrayed. First, “ there was a noise, and then a shaking.” The noise represents the agitation which takes place in the thoughts of the newly awakened convert, the shaking is the tremor and change experienced in the affections. The noise induced as the first effect by the prophesying of the prophet, brings vividly to mind the conflicting thoughts which fill the council chamber of the soul, when making its first efforts for a new life. Hope and fear both utter their voices. Accusations and defences, encouragements and blame, oppose each other; a complete tumult of contending sentiments clash together; the subject in debate is, Shall we arise and live for heaven, or shall we lie down and die forever? The noise was followed by a shaking. When the soul has determined to follow the truth, and employ its Divine light to explore the affections, a discovery of their impure character takes place. We tremble, and we determine to renounce our self-will, and all its impurities. We tremble, but we look up to Him who has said, “ I give you power to tread upon serpents and scorpions, and nothing shall by any means hurt you.” This is a shaking which is most salutary, and breaks the bonds which have held us in spiritual captivity to the earth and sin. The truth has made us free. The next operation is thus described. “ The bones came together, bone to his bone.” The soul has become earnest. It is seen that there is a beautiful harmony and order in religious truths. Each has its proper place, and takes it; they come together, bone to his bone. There are doctrines in relation to the Lord, these form the head of the religious system; there are doctrines in relation to the neighbour, these are the breast; there are doctrines in relation to the active uses of love and faith in the world, these are the arms and hands; and there are doctrines for the duties of everyday life, these are the legs and the feet. To perceive all these in harmony, and to have thus an entire and complete religious system, is of the highest importance to our best interests. The accomplishment of this is intimated by the significant words, “ The bones came together, bone to his bone.” The prophet describes further, “ and beheld that the sinews and the flesh came up upon them.” The word rendered sinews would be more correct if translated nerves. We have noticed that the moving and arrangement of the bones represent the formation of a correct and complete religious system in the soul. But system is hard and stem, as an unclothed skeleton, unless accompanied and softened by the presence of heavenly goodness. This goodness is represented by flesh, which is at once soft and solid. In the form of muscles it is the grand source of energy and power in the body. Flesh, throughout the Word, is the symbol of goodness, which imparts at once fulness and softness to our spiritual states. The flesh, then, that came upon the bones in the view of the prophet, represented the goodness which is imparted to the soul as it advances in its heavenly career, and seeks not only to know and believe, but to love and do what the Divine commandments teach. With earnest desires it presses on to attain the heavenly life, and thankfully feels that it is becoming stronger for good, warmer in the course it daily pursues. The prophet next observed that, after the preceding changes, he saw skin appear, to surround and beautify the whole. The functions of the skin are three fold. It clothes, it feels, it purifies. It is the seat of sensation and touch. Feeling, in relation to all the ever-occurring particulars of momentary life, is expressed in the skin. Without this presence of life in the extremes we should both do and suffer much that would be utterly detrimental to health and life. Secondly, the skin is a means of absorbing light, moisture, and other grateful elements from the surrounding objects, which are eminently useful to the preservation and beauty of the body. Thirdly, the skin is the grand instrument by which the waste material, which had formed part of the body, is carried off invisibly, and the body’ s renewal and progression are secured. I dwell upon the importance of the skin, to illustrate what is equally important in a spiritual point of view, that is, a consistent Christian life, for our outward life of virtue is the skin of the Christian character. This consists of faith and love, like minute blood vessels and nerves, living in all the daily acts, the words and works of life. A just, kind, beautiful life is the expression of the soul’ s highest emotions and sentiments--the skin unveiling the principles within. While, then, you look well to love and faith, the heart and the lungs of religion, do not forget those works of justice, piety, and gentleness which make the Christian skin. On the contrary, go often and hold communion with the Lord, that you may become radiant with holiness, like the skin of the face of Moses, when he had talked with God. Our text adds, respecting these bodies preparing for life, “ there was yet no breath in them.” Breath, or spirit, signifies conscious spiritual life. As we learn, think, and act in accordance with the Divine commands, new principles of virtue and order are formed within us. We grow in grace, we acquire a new nature; but for a considerable time we have no inner consciousness of living a spiritual life. To bring out our freedom, to regenerate us as men, and to make us more completely men, we are left for a considerable time to the comparatively slow growth of rational thought, consistent obedience, and constant effort, as if from ourselves, to draw nigh to the Lord, and to win His kingdom. The time, however, comes when we feel the presence and the power of heavenly life. “ Come from the four winds (the Divine Mercy says), and breathe upon these slain.” We find the energies of a new state diffusing themselves with vigour and delight through our whole being, and we stand up as a portion of the Lord’ s grand army. (J. Bailey, Ph. D.) The resurrection of dry bones Let the world be surveyed by one who knows and feels that men are destined for eternity, and what aspect will it wear if not that of the valley of vision, through which the prophet Ezekiel was commissioned to pass? On all sides are the remains of mighty beings, born for immortality, but dislocated by sin. Can these be men, creatures fashioned after the image of God, and constructed to share His eternity? What disease hath been here, eating away the spiritual sinew, and consuming the spiritual substance, so that the race which walked gloriously erect in the free light of heaven, and could hold communion with angels, hath wasted down into moral skeletons, yea, disjointed fragments, from which we may just guess its origin, whilst they publish its ruin? It is not that men are the spectres, the ghosts, of what they were, as made in the likeness of God, and with powers for intercourse with what is loftiest in the universe. They have gone beyond this. It is in their spiritual and deathless part that they have become material and lifeless: it is the soul from which the breath of heaven has been taken: and the soul, deprived of this breath, seemed turned into a thing of earth, as though compounded, like the body, of dust; and dwindled away till its fibres were shrivelled and snapped, and its powers lay scattered and enervated, like bones where the war has raged and the winds have swept. If we had nothing to judge by but the apparent probability, so little ground would there be for expecting the resurrection of these souls, and their re-endowment with the departed vitality, that if, after wandering to and fro through the valley, and mourning over the ruins of what had been created magnificent and enduring, there should come to us, as to the prophet, the voice of the Almighty, “ Son of man, can these bones live?” our answer could be only the meek confession of ignorance, “ O Lord God, Thou knowest.” But we go on to observe that the parable is not more accurate, as delineating our condition by nature, than as exhibiting the possibility of a restoration to life. It cometh frequently to pass, mere frequently, it may be, than shall be known till all secrets are laid bare at the great day of judgment, that, when the minister of Christ is launching the thunders of the Word, or dilating, with all persuasiveness, on the provision which has been made for the repentant, a sound is heard, if not by men, yet by the attendant angels who throng our sanctuaries; the sound of an agitated spirit, moving in its grave clothes, as though the cold relics were mysteriously perturbed. The prophesying goes on in the valley of vision; and there is a shaking amongst the bones, as close appeals are made to the long torpid conscience, and the motives of an after state of being are brought to bear upon those who are dead in their sins. And then may it be said that bone cometh unto bone--the different faculties of the soul, which have heretofore been disjointed and dispersed, combining into one resolve and effort to repent, and forsake sin--and that sinews and flesh knit together, and clothe the bones, the various powers of the inner man being each roused to its due work; so that, as there appeared before the prophet the complete human body in exchange for the broken skeleton, we have now a spirit stung with the consciousness of its immortality, where we had before the undying without sign of animation. But this is not enough. There may be conviction of sin, and a sense of the necessity that some great endeavour be made to secure its forgiveness; and thus may the soul, no longer resolved into inefficient fragments, be bound together as the heir of eternity; yet there may not be spiritual life, for the soul may not have been quickened with the breath which is from heaven. Accordingly, the parable does not end with the formation of the perfect body, figurative as that was of the reconstruction of the soul into a being aware of its immortality; it proceeds to the animating the body, and thus to the representing the quickening of the soul. The prophet is commanded to prophesy unto the wind, and then breath comes into the bodies which he had seen succeed the scattered bones. This part of the parable is expressly interpreted as denoting the entrance of God’ s Spirit into the house of Israel, that they might live; and we therefore learn the important truth that, whatever the advances which may be made towards the symmetry and features of a new creature, there is nothing that can be called life, until the Holy Ghost come and breathe upon the slain. And we have to bless God that, in this part also, the vision is continually receiving its accomplishment, It is the special office of the Holy Ghost to open the graves in which sinners lie, and to animate the moral corpse, so that the dead are “ born again.” There would be no use in our prophesying upon the bones, if there were not this Divine agent to revivify the buried: we might indeed go down into the sepulchres, and gather together the mouldering remains of humanity, and compound them into a body, and then, as by the strange power of electricity, work the limbs into a brief and fearful imitation of the living thing: but the active and persevering wrestler for the prizes of eternity, oh! the Spirit of God must be in every member of this creature, and in every nerve, and in every muscle; and let that Spirit only be taken from him, and presently would you observe a torpor creeping over his frame, and all the tokens of moral death succeeding to the fine play of the pulses of moral life. But there is one respect in which the vision, as thus interpreted, appears not to be thoroughly accomplished. We carry on our prophesying over the heaps of dry bones; and now and then there may be produced the effects of which we have spoken: a solitary sinner arises from his lethargy, and sets himself to the working out salvation. But what is there in any one district of the valley I nay, what is there in the combined districts of the valley, supposing that valley to include the whole earth, which answers to the starting up of an “ exceeding great army” ? In the valley which Ezekiel traversed, such was the result of his prophesying. What would be the parallel to this, if, at this moment and in this place, the parable were to be spiritually fulfilled? It would be, that, if there be still amongst you the tens, or the fifties, or the hundreds, of souls sepulchred in flesh, these tens, or these fifties, or these hundreds, would be roused by the announcement of wrath to come, and spring into consciousness that they have been born for eternity; so that, however at the commencement of our worshipping, the dry bones had been scattered profusely amongst us, at its clone the whole assembly would be one mass of life, and no individual would depart, as he came, “ dead in trespasses and sins.” It would be--we dare not expect so mighty a resuscitation, and yet days shall come when even nations shall be “ born in a day,” --that whatsoever is human within these walls would bear traces of a new creation, and man, woman, child, be “ alive unto God” through Christ Jesus their Lord. And if the spiritual fulfilment were effected throughout the whole valley of vision, we should be living beneath the millennial dispensation, in that blessed season when all are to know the Lord “ from the least to the greatest,” and the knowledge of His glory is to fill the earth, “ as the waters cover the sea.” When commensurate with the marvellous quickening of the dead on which Ezekiel gazed: the spiritual sepulchres will be emptied, and the almost quenched immortality be everywhere reillumined. (H. Melvill, B. D.) Ezekiel 37:8 There was no breath in them.No life apart from the Spirit of God I. The servant of God, anxiously engaged in his work, often sees among the people to whom he ministers, a state of things which may be thus described: “ There was no breath in them.” This may be said where there is--1. Theology without religion. Theology is truth. Religion is life. And a framework of bones without living breath in it, aptly represents a well-arranged scheme of doctrine without an inspiring spirit to animate it. The doctrines may be as beautifully set as is the wondrous human frame--everything in its place; but if that be all, there is a grievous defect--there is no breath in them! Glorious as Gospel doctrine is when it is alive in living souls, there is nothing so hateful as dead doctrines held in dead souls. 2. Knowledge without service. There is a man who is ever making researches in one direction or other--in philosophy, literature, science, history, or art. Never a day passes but he makes some fresh acquirement. His memory is so retentive he lets nothing drop out, and can summon at will any thought or fact from the recesses of his brain when it is required. His mental digestion is marvellously strong; his reading well-nigh universal. The laws which minister to health, and the laws which lead on to wealth, he knows with a clearness and fulness beyond those of most men. But all that he knows is merely so much dead material; like so much magnificent furniture covered up in an unused drawing room: an index of wealth, but of no manner of use. 3. Faith without works. There is a man who has been brought up from childhood in the beliefs of the doctrines of the Gospel--and he does not doubt one of them--but with him, these beliefs are all dogmas dead as a corpse; they never stir. He is not moved by them to penitence, or to love. Here is a mass of useless capital--which, though more precious than gold, is lying idle as lumber. 4. Teaching that is without heart. Have not most of us had experience enough to understand what this is? Mr. is a clear thinker, a close reasoner, and an eloquent speaker and preacher. You listen. The words pour out uninterruptedly, without difficulty, without a flaw; faultlessly accurate, and yet somehow, you know not how, they leave no impression behind. Rather give me a plain, humble discourse from a man who has a heart, than all the fine words and faultless harangues in the world, if there is no breath in them! 5. Organisation without animation. That is just what a breathless, but otherwise perfect skeleton would show. The ordinary machinery of Christian work moves on without discomfort. Orthodoxy unimpeachable. Propriety unspotted. But it is like being in an ice house to be there. Official mechanism smothers, suppresses, stifles all eagerness; that would be irregular, and nothing but a stereotyped conventionalism is permitted. Earnest souls speed elsewhere in despair. Bone fits to bone--but there is no breath in them! 6. Ceremonial worship without devotion. The water imparts spiritual life; the bread and wine nourish it. The priest absolves--the priest at the font--the priest at the marriage altar--the priest at the communion--the priest at the confessional--the priest in sickness--the priest at the article of death--the priest at the grave! Oh, the miserable sham! The mere skeleton work of a religion. No life--no breath in it! 7. Words without deeds. Fluency of tongue may be a blessing, but it is often a snare. And where God has imparted this gift, which, when put to high and holy uses, is of vast service, yet its use may bring its own temptation with it. The fairest talker may not be the man of holiest life. He may be an accomplished critic, having a keen eye for the defects of his fellow members, and perhaps a ready flow of wit, which he does not hesitate so to use as to sting and wound another. But all the while he forgets to turn the talk upon himself; he never thinks of criticising his own acts and words, nor of setting them in the light of the holy and searching law of God: nor does he care to inquire how he stands in the sight of Him with Whom he has to do! His religion is but superficial and empty. There is no breath in it. 8. Profession without possession, or church membership without real godliness. His religion, such as it is, is of a neutral tint. He does not offend by provocation: nor does he help anybody in religion, as if his heart and soul were inspired for Christ. No fervour--no glow. The bones, at the prophet’ s voice, have come together, bone to his bone, and the skin covers them above, so that they do not drop to pieces again--but there is no breath in them! II. What is to be said of such a state of things?1. Such a state of things is extremely unsatisfactory. This indeed is saying little; for the fact is that in each case there is a dead failure. What purpose can a row of corpses answer, however perfect the skeletons? The world is none the poorer for the bones of the dead dropping to pieces in coffins underground; and if theology be dead, and beliefs be dead, and churches are dead, away with them! No loss if they go! The loss of lifelessness is one which both the world and the Church can well afford to bear; and, indeed, it is one of God’ s mercies that dead things must go! 2. “ No breath in them.” Looking at Ezekiel’ s vision, we see that, in that case, bad as it was, it had been even worse. For these dead bodies were organised. We do not know of any revealed law of God by which breath could come into a promiscuous collection of bones! But let chaos cease, let order reign, let bone fit to bone, and skin cover them above, and then there is, at all events, something for the living breath to animate. So that-- 3. The case is not a hopeless one. For if at the appointment of God, when s prophet spake to dead bones, there was a rustling, a shaking, so that bone came to his bone,--that looks as if God did not mean things to stop there. “ No breath in them.” But God wills that there shall be. 4. Thus the case is one which indicates duty. Namely, the duty, the important duty of pleading with God. “ Come from the four winds, O breath.” (C. Clemance, D. D.) Ezekiel 37:9 Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe upon these slain, that they may live.The vision of the valley of the dry bones All else was done. Three things are prominent--the multitude, the dryness, and the isolation. We shall not stay to draw out the figure in detail in its national application. But who does not do it for himself when once the thought is suggested? What are the despairing things in the problem this day presented to the statesman, to the philanthropist, to the Christian, as any one of the three gives his mind to the study of his dear, his suffering, his unmanageable people? Is net indeed multitude the first of them? The population has outgrown its spot of earth; has outgrown its home supplies and resources; has outgrown its civilising influences; has outgrown its means of grace. But if multitude is one despairing thought, another is dryness. What is sometimes called “ the milk of human kindness” --that indescribable something which ought to be capable of being appealed to as sure to respond, that appreciation of kindness in the motive, in the intention, in the effort to serve, that meeting half-way the fellow feeling of love--all this seems to have been (as the vision would say) dried up and dried out of the human being which meets us in the streets and lanes, the high roads and hedges, into which the messenger of an unselfish compassion tries to make his way: the bones are very many--that is not the worst of it--they are also by long habit, of neglect on the one side, of suspicion on the other, so utterly dry. There is yet a third despairing thing--it is the isolation. Each bone, of the once one compact frame, lies apart and separate. The parable is too easily read. The corporate life, as we speak, is extinct in vast masses of our people. Patriotism, loyalty, public spirit, are not ideas, not names, only, they are jests and gibes. “ Every man for himself” is the hateful maxim--hateful enough if it were all, but there is a companion maxim--“ and every man’ s hand against his brother!” We turn for a moment from the social to the religious aspect. Multitude--dryness--isolation--yes, they are all here. It is not only the difficulty (though that is enormous) of providing for what we call the spiritual destitution of the masses--masses springing up suddenly in valley and mountain, in harbour and hamlet, in town and country. We would look more broadly at the religion of our times. Certainly it has multitude. Legion is its superscription. This of itself is perplexing: perplexing any way: deeply depressing to the lover of order, to the educated churchman who must have the exact thing or nothing. It is idle to sit wishing for what men call union--generally meaning by it uniformity; generally meaning by it a uniformity to be brought about by the unconditional surrender of all but one form to the one. It is too late--or too soon--for this. The one hope now for religion is the practical confederation (without much talking about it, without programme or treaty of peace) of all schools and all parties, of all sects and all churches against what ought to be the common foe of all--ignorance and profaneness and infidelity and sin. And, in order to this, a spiritual unity--the holding of a unity of spirit in the bond of peace. “ Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe upon these slain, that they may live” --live each first, live then all. We hasten to our last use of the text, which is the individual. Is it fanciful to see a valley full of dry bones within the continent of the one being? Multitude--dryness--isolation--have those words, those despairing things we have called them, no meaning for the man? Has the scattering of Babel, the very confusion of tongues, no parable for the individual? Oh, how many provinces, how many islands and continents are there in one life, in one bosom! The disunion which works all around works first within. Oh, if there were peace within, how many discords would be precluded or healed around. Uncertain tempers, inordinate affections, unruly passions, hurtful lusts--desire of things forbidden, indisposition to things commanded--doubts about revealed truth, alienation from God in His beauty and His holiness--questionings what to think of Christ--suspenses about things vital to faith, vital to hope, vital to charity--these are the things spoken of when we make the vision personal. There is no need to traverse this part of the ground: we all plead guilty to the charge of selfishness. Rather let us listen to what the vision tells of as the steps of the revival. We can trace them more clearly in the individual case than in the collective. There is, first, what a prophet calls a “ noise” --the margin of the revised version calls it a “ thundering” : a “ shaking” --the revised version calls it an “ earthquake.” What is it in the man? It is something, it is anything, which interrupts the course of the everyday life. It may be a loss--it may be a disappointment--it may be a sickness--it may be a death. The immediate result of this shaking, where it has its proper work, will be the earnest effort to amend the life. God, whose hand is in all, yet expects this of the man. If he wishes to be saved, he must help the work by a reformation of the life. He must give up, in resolution and honest effort, his known sins. He must exert himself, in resolution and honest effort, to do his known duties. And then, sooner or later, not all at once but little by little, that prophecy to the wind, the breath, the spirit, shall make itself audible within, and God Himself shall “ breathe upon the slain,” so that the dead carcase shall become a living man, and the gathering of the bones and the reconstruction of the frame shall have its perfect work in the reanimation of the whole by the entrance of the life-giving Spirit. (Dean Vaughan.) The wind of the Holy Ghost blowing upon the dry bones in the valley of vision I. Speak a little unto this deadness which is incident unto a people externally in covenant with God.1. Some kinds of deadness. (1) Death, properly so called, is a thing so well known that it is needless for me to tell you what it is. (2) There is a death which is metaphorical; which is nothing else but a disease or distemper of the soul, whereby it is rendered unmeet and incapable for holy and spiritual exercises. And this again is two fold, either total or partial. There is a total death incident unto the wicked and ungodly, who are stark dead, and have nothing of spiritual life in them at all. There is a partial death incident to believers, whom God hath raised out of the grave of an unrenewed state, and in whose souls He hath implanted a principle of spiritual life. And this partial death, incident to believers, consists in a manifest decay of spiritual principles and habits, in the abating of their wonted life and vigour and activity in the way and work of the Lord: their faith, their love, their hope, and other graces, are all in a fainting and languishing condition; they lie dormant in the soul, like the life of the tree that lies hid in its root, without fruit or blossoms, during the winter season. 2. Some of the causes of this spiritual deadness. (1) Abstinence or neglect of food, you know, will soon bring the body into a pining, languishing condition: so, if the means of grace be not diligently improven, if we neglect, by faith, to apprehend and to improve Christ, and to feed upon Him, whose “ flesh is meat indeed, and whose blood is drink indeed,” the spiritual life of the soul will soon languish and wither (John 6:53). (2) Surfeiting the soul with sensual pleasure is another great cause of spiritual death (Hosea 4:11). (3) Inactivity and sloth in salvation and generation work is another cause of spiritual deadness. (4) The contagion of ill example, of a carnal world, and irreligious relations, has a fatal influence this way. (5) Some deadly wound in the soul, not carefully noticed, may be the cause of spiritual death. (6) A holy God has sometimes a righteous and holy hand in this spiritual death, that the Lord’ s people are liable unto, by withdrawing and suspending the influences of His Spirit from them. He does it sometimes in a way of awful and adorable sovereignty, to show that He is not a debtor unto any of His creatures. Sometimes He does it to humble His people, and to prevent their pride, which makes Him to behold them afar off. He does it to make them prize Christ, and see their continual need of fresh supplies out of His fulness. He does it sometimes for the trial of His people, to see if they will follow Him in a wilderness, in a land that is not sown, as well as when he is feeding them with sensible communications of His grace and Spirit; to see if they will live on Him by faith, when they cannot live by sight or sense. Sometimes he does it for their chastisement, to correct them for their iniquities. Not hearkening to the motions of His Spirit, is one great reason why the Lord withdraws His Spirit. Lukewarmness and formality in the discharge of duty is another cause of it, as we see in the church of Laodicea; it made Him to spue that church out of His mouth. Prostituting the gifts and graces of the Spirit unto carnal, selfish, and base ends, to procure a name, or make a show in the world. Sinning against light, trampling upon conscience, as David no doubt did in the matter of Uriah and Bathsheba; whereby he provoked the Lord so far to leave him, that he cries out (Psalms 51:11). Barrenness and unfruitfulness under the means of grace. Their not listening carefully to the voice of God in ordinances and providences (Psalms 81:11-12). 3. Some of the symptoms of it and would to God they were not too visible, rife, and common. (1) Want of appetite after the bread and water of life is a symptom of spiritual death. (2) Though a man have something of an appetite, yet if he do not grow, or look like his food, it looks something dangerous and death-like. (3) Ye know, when death takes a dealing with a person, it makes his beauty to fade. Perhaps the day has been, O believer, when the beauty of holiness adorned every step of thy conversation; but now, alas! the beauty of thy conversation is sullied and stained, by lying among the pots of sin. This says, that spiritual death is dealing with thy soul. (4) Death not only wastes the beauty, but the strength also (Ecclesiastes 12:3). (5) Death wastes the natural heat and warmness of the body. So it is a sign of a spiritual decay and deadness, when wonted zeal for God and His glory, and the concerns of His Church and His Kingdom, is abated. (6) A dead man, you know, cannot move, but only as he is moved from without, in regard he wants a principle of motion within. So it is a sign of spiritual death, even in believers, when external motives and considerations have a greater influence in the duties of religion upon them, than an internal principle of faith and love. II. Speak a little unto these breathings and influences of the Spirit of God, which are absolutely necessary for the revival of the Lord’ s people under deadness.1. The nature of these breathings or influences. The influences and gifts of the Spirit of God are of two sorts, either common or saving. 2. The variety of these influences of the Spirit. (1) There are the convincing influences of the Spirit (John 16:8). (2) There are the enlightening influences and breathings of the Spirit. Hence He is compared unto eye-salve (Revelation 3:18). (3) There are the renewing influences of the Spirit. We are said to be “ saved by the washing of regeneration, and renewing of the Holy Ghost” (Titus 3:5). Hence He is called “ a new Spirit.” (4) There are the comforting influences of the Spirit. This is the south wind, as it were, gentle and easy, and refreshing; and therefore He is called the Comforter. (5) There are the corroborating and strengthening influences of the Spirit. By the breathings of the Spirit the feeble are made “ like David, and as the angel of God before Him.” (6) There are the drawing and enlarging influences of the Spirit. He is like oil to their chariot wheels; and when He comes, they are as the chariots of Amminadib, or a willing people. (7) There are the sin-mortifying and sin-killing influences of the Spirit. (8) There are the interceding influences of the Spirit (Romans 8:26). (9) There are the sealing and witnessing influences of the Spirit. 3. The manner of the acting or operation of these influences, or how it is that this wind blows upon the soul. (1) The wind of the Holy Ghost blows freely; the Spirit acts as an independent sovereign (John 3:8). (2) He breathes on the soul sometimes very surprisingly. (3) These breathings and influences of the Spirit are sometimes very piercing and penetrating. (4) The breathings of this wind are very powerful, strong, and efficacious. He masters the darkness of the mind, the contumacy and rebellion of the will, and the carnality of the affections: the enmity of the heart against God, and all the spiritual wickedness that are in the high places of the soul, are made to fall down at His feet, as Dagon did before the ark of the Lord. (5) Although He act thus powerfully and irresistibly, yet it is with an overcoming sweetness, so as there is not the least violence offered unto any of the natural faculties of the soul. (6) There is something in the breathing of this wind that is incomprehensible by reason (John 3:8). (7) These influences of the Spirit are sometimes felt before they be seen; as you know a man will feel the wind, and hear it, when he cannot see it. 4. The necessity of these breathings. (1) That they are necessary, will appear--From the express declaration of Christ (John 15:5). From the express acknowledgment of the saints of God upon this head (2 Corinthians 3:5). From the earnest prayers of the saints for the breathings of this wind (Son 4:16). (2) To what are these breathings necessary? To the quickening of the elect of God, when they are stark dead in trespasses and sins. For the suitable discharge of every duty of religion. For accomplishing our spiritual warfare against sin, Satan, and the world. To the exercise of grace already implanted in the soul. 5. Some of the reasons of these influences of the Spirit: for the wind, you know, has its seasons and times of blowing and breathing. (1) The Spirit’ s reviving influences blow very ordinarily in a day of conversion. (2) When the soul has been deeply humbled under a sense of sin and unworthiness. (3) After a dark night of desertion, when the Lord returns again. (4) Times of earnest prayer and wrestling; for He giveth His Spirit to them that ask it (Ezekiel 36:37). (5) Times of serious meditation (Psalms 63:5-6; Psalms 63:8). (6) Communion days are sometimes days of sweet influences. (7) The day of death has sometimes been found to be a day of such pleasant gales of the Spirit, that they have been made to enter into the haven of glory with triumph. III. The life that is effected and wrought in the souls of God’ s elect by these influences and breathings of the Holy Spirit.1. It is a life of faith (Galatians 2:20). 2. It is a life of justification. 3. It is a life of reconciliation with God. 4. It is a life of holiness and sanctification: for the Spirit of the Lord is a cleansing, purifying, and renewing Spirit. 5. It is a very lightsome and comfortable life: and no wonder; for His name is The Comforter. His consolations are so strong, that they furnish the soul with ground of joy in the blackest and cloudiest day (Habakkuk 3:17-18). 6. It is a life of liberty; for “ where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.” 7. It is a hid life (Colossians 3:3). 8. It is a heavenly life; they are made to live above the world: “ Our conversation is in heaven.” 9. It is a royal life: for they are “ made kings and priests unto God” (Revelation 1:6). 10. It is an eternal life (John 17:3). IV. The use of the doctrine.1. The first use shall be of trial and examination. (1) If these breathings have blown upon thy soul, man, woman, then He has blown away the vail and face of the covering that was naturally upon thy mind and understanding. (2) If the wind of the Holy Ghost has blown upon thy soul, He has blown away some of the filth of hell that did cleave to thy soul, and has transformed thee into His own image (2 Corinthians 3:18). (3) If this wind has blown upon your souls, then it has driven you from your lying refuges, and made you take sanctuary in Christ. (4) If ever you felt any of the reviving gales of this wind of the Spirit, you will long for new gales and breathings of it; and when these breathings are suspended and withheld, your souls will be like to faint, as it were, like a man that wants breath. (5) If you have felt the breathings of this wind you will not snuff up the east wind of sin and vanity (John 4:14). (6) If this wind has blown upon your soul, then you will follow the motion of this wind; you will not run cross to this wind, but will go along with it. But, say you, How shall I know if I be led by the Spirit of God? I answer, If ye follow the Spirit, then you will not fulfil the lusts of the flesh; but, on the contrary, you will study to “ crucify the flesh, with the affections and lusts.” Then the way wherein you walk will be a way of holiness, for He is a Spirit of sanctification; and a way of truth. Ye know leading imports spontaneity and willingness. 2. The second use shall be of exhortation. (1) Consider that spiritual deadness is very prevalent in the day wherein we live. (2) Consider the evil and danger of spiritual deadness. The evil of it will appear, if ye consider that it is a frame of spirit directly cross to the command of God. The evil and danger of it appears further from this, that it unfits the soul for every duty, and mars our communion and fellowship with God. It opens a door for all other sin, and renders a man an easy prey unto every temptation. It lays a foundation for sad and terrible challenges from conscience. (3) Consider, that as the breathings of the Spirit are necessary for every duty, so particularly for that solemn work which you have before your hands of commemorating the death of the exalted Redeemer. (4) Consider the excellency of these influences of the Spirit. They blow from an excellent original: the Holy Ghost is the author of them; and you know He proceeds from the Father and the Son. So that a whole Trinity, as it were, convey themselves with these breathings. They are the purchase of a Redeemer’ s blood, and therefore excellent. These influences of the Spirit, they, as it were, supply Christ’ s room while He is in glory. (E. Erskine.) The Spirit’ s advent The vision illustrates-- I. The deadly effects of sin.1. It begets death. Although the upas tree in Java feeds on wholesome soil, and light and dew, it yet spreads the miasma of death; so sin, the more it flourishes in the heart of man, the more completely it destroys all good. 2. This is the testimony of experience. Even thy secret sin has benumbed thy best feelings, robbed thee of thy peace, raised a barrier between thee and God. It has undermined thy character, blinded thine eyes to the beauty of truth, dulled thy sense of duty, blunted the fine edge of conscience. 3. Observance of others deepens this conviction. On every side we see men and women ruined by sin. Conscience, reverence for God, filial love, aspirations after a holy life--all dead. II. God’ s power we save.1. Life giving is the prerogative of God alone.2. The fulness of the Spirit’ s power is required.3. A variety of force and influence is sent forth. Some need terror, others softening influences. III. The place of human agency.1. It is in man’ s power to stay this life-giving energy.2. The condition of His advent is very simple. Simply ask.3. The alternative is a thing to be dreaded. (J. D. Davies, M. A.) Life to the dead I. Forms without life. The work had reached an advanced stage even before the prophecy of the breath. Separate bones had been fitted and articulated together, flesh was laid upon the skeleton, and skin covered it. This was Divine, not human work. The prophet had spoken the message, but God had given the power. Yet these forms were powerless, for all the purposes of life, until quickened by the breath.1. There may be a Divine work upon the natures of men, which shall, nevertheless, stop short of spiritual life. Let two men come before you. One is opposed to Divine truth, or, at least, is utterly indifferent to it. Science attracts him; politics stir him; art charms him; music fascinates him; commerce absorbs him. But the Bible is without beauty or power to him; it has no place in his thoughts, and exercises no influence in his life. Let another stop forward. He has a perfect understanding of the Cross of Christ, and the work which was done there; he is able to explain to you very clearly how a soul may be justified before God through the righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ. The study of the subject is a recreation to him. He knows how to be justified with God, but has never sought justification. He knows that he must be born again, but has never prayed to be regenerated. In that man we see a beginning of the work of God. God has opened his mind to understand the great truths connected with the Gospel of Christ. He knows them all, and in those truths he has the vantage ground for spiritual action. 2. These forms possess all the capabilities of life. You have all the faculties for reverence, trust, and loving consecration; you understand how to use these powers in every direction of your life, save in that one upward direction that looks towards God. You have faith and love toward those around, and consecration to those who are dear; but to God, no trust, no love, no dedication. You are without spiritual life. The very development of these capabilities is an element of hope. Simply receive Christ, and God has given you all the capabilities that are necessary. Only your connection with Christ is wanted to attain spiritual life. 3. Yet, prior to the breath, these forms are powerless for all the purposes of life. You may pay homage to the beauty of truth and Christian principles; you may even speak reverently and tenderly of the loveliness of Christ--you can hardly help doing that; if you have any susceptibility, you can hardly withhold from Jesus the meed of praise--but these will not avail if there be no spiritual life. This is not only true of the individual Christian, but also of the Christian Church. No correctness of form and appearance will avail without spiritual life. I would rather belong to a Church that has some blunder in its organisation, but, at the same time, is endowed with the vigour of the Holy Ghost, than I would belong to some correct organisation in which there is no spiritual life and strength. II. The inspiration of life.1. The working of the Holy Spirit is as essential to salvation as the work of Jesus. You will not be conscious always of His working. You will only be conscious of certain feelings in your own heart. If you should feel an anxious desire to serve Christ, and to love Him, be sure it comes from the Spirit. Act upon it. Find your way to Christ. 2. The Holy Spirit does work in response to the prayer of God’ s servant, for we read that the prophet prophesied to the breath, and the breath came. (1) The Holy Spirit is the great hope of the Church today. If it was necessary three centuries ago that God should raise up Luther to press the great truth of justification by faith, it is needful today that the work of the Holy Spirit should be presented in all its grandeur, and that the Church should be roused to plead for His mighty power. It is in answer to prayer that the Holy Spirit will work. (2) The Holy Spirit’ s work is as essential for personal salvation as it is for the Church. (Colmer B. Symes, B. A.) Come, O breath I. Let us look at the surrounding scene and see if that does not say to us we must have the Holy Ghost. What was the scene that met Ezekiel’ s eyes? We must note this, because we purpose to make what I think will be a legitimate use of the vision. When Ezekiel looked abroad, he saw human nature wrecked, and I pray you mark it--not human nature rather spoiled of its beauty--not human nature sick--not human nature dying--but human nature dead--nay, more, dead and dislocated. When he looked abroad, it was human nature wrecked and ruined. The bones were scattered. They were so completely scattered, and death had so done its work, that they were beyond the power of human recognition, and beyond the power of human reconstruction. Oh, when we look around, what is the sight that meets the eye? Is it not identically the same as that which met the gaze of Ezekiel? I know there are some who seem to look at the world through a medium you and I know nothing about. I cannot say where they get their rose tint from, but to their eyes there is something of beauty and spiritual worth left in man. When man fell it was such a fall that he did not merely bruise himself: he broke his nature to pieces; and now sin has laid low the very framework of our being, and from head to foot there is not one part that has not suffered by the fatal fail The affections, the memory, all the powers of man, are lying prostrated. I said that it would have been difficult for anyone to recognise in those bones the men who once walked to battle. Am I going too far when I say that it must be almost as difficult for the angels, when they look down on earth, to recognise, in the specimens of humanity they see now, man as first he came from the Creator’ s hands? And methinks that when they now look down and see some of the bloated drunkards that reel through our streets, the brazen-faced fallen ones that flaunt along our thoroughfares--when they look at the debauched and the debased specimens of mankind to be found on every hand, they say, “ In these it is difficult to recognise man as he came from the Creator’ s hands.” No oratory, no eloquence, no human power; no church machinery, can avail aught. “ Come, O breath,” for the ease is too desperate for human wisdom or for human might,. If you look at the passage, you will see that Ezekiel was not allowed to shut his eyes to the true state of the case. “ And the Lord caused me to pass by them round about.” He was not to look at them from a distance. In order to realise the fact, Ezekiel had to take one of the most ghastly walks that I can imagine ever mortal man took. Why? That he might realise the desperate condition. I am afraid there are a good many professing Christians living in a fool’ s paradise. Talk to them about sin, and they say, “ Oh, but these thinks are so sad; I would really rather not hear about them.” Sir, will your ignoring a fact alter it? Will your shutting your eyes to festering sores heal them? The Lord said to Ezekiel, “ Go round about these bones, and take in the scene.” Ay, they are very many. Why, take London alone, and you have to say, “ O God, they are very many.” London is more than a match for the church. We have to cry concerning the metropolis, “ Come, O breath.” But let your eyes go farther afield, taking in our large provincial towns--our manufacturing centres. Oh, how the people hive--how they swarm in them! Take our Liverpools and our Manchesters. Go, ask concerning the history of some of those places, and you will have then to cry, “ Come, O breath, for the case is desperate. The bones are many.” But stay, I am only talking about a Christian country now. You have to flit across the channel. How about the millions who are swathed in the darkness of superstition? Pass on farther yet to China. There you realise it. Do you know that every third man in the world is a Chinese? Do you know that every third woman in the world is a Chinese woman, and that every third child born into the world is a Chinese child? You may well say, “ O God, they are very many.” “ And they were very dry” --no marrow, no sap left, nothing in them that could be cultivated into life. And that is the case with the world at large. Now where is your power to meet the case? Surely this view of the surroundings must drive you to the conclusion that the only one power which can meet the case is the power from on high. “ Come, O breath, for the bones are many, and the bones are dry.” II. The deep need of the Spirit’ s power is demonstrated in the scene that met the eye after the preaching. We have only looked at the valley as it was before Ezekiel began to preach. Now let us see how it appeared after his sermon.1. I note, first, that Ezekiel did preach. Preaching always has been the great agency of God for the ingathering of souls; and none of us must stand aloof and say, “ What is the good of preaching to sinners who are in such a condition as you have described?” God said unto Ezekiel, “ Go, prophesy unto dry bones,” and he said, “ I prophesied as I was commanded.” And the work of the Church of Christ is not to argue--not to ask the reason why, but to obey her Lord’ s command, and send her hosts out in the great valley of dry bones, and preach everywhere. And do you observe what he preached about? He preached about the grand essentials. If you read through his short sermon to the bones, it was all about life. Ah, that was what they wanted. Ezekiel did not waste his time in talking about a number of things that could not possibly concern dry bones. He saw death: he preached life. He saw ruin: he preached remedy. Semi-political sermons to poor dry bones? Evening entertainments for dry bones? Magnificent essays, that smell of the oil of the midnight lamp but know nothing of unction, for dry bones? Ye Ezekiels of God in the valley of death, if you preach, preach the grand essentials--life, cleansing, God’ s power unto salvation. Here is the theme to proclaim. 2. Now, notice, he did it, and what was the result? “ There was a noise.” That is not always a sign of the presence of God. You cannot always say there is a revival going on because there is a considerable amount of excitement. If any man likes he can create a certain excitement. There may be noise and no power. The Lord was not in the earthquake that rent the rocks. The Lord was not in the wind that roared around the cave. The Lord was in the still small voice. You must not always say, “ Oh, there was wonderful power, because there was a great noise.” More than that, there was a coming together. The bones all came bone to bone. Well, he would be a strange preacher who did not feel a sense of pleasure in seeing people brought round about him to hear the word. Thank God for great gatherings of people, because the first step towards salvation is generally the coming beneath, the sound of the word. But, let us remember, large congregations do not necessarily prove the presence of God. We may have crowds of people coming together, and yet no spiritual result. Then there was an external improvement. After Ezekiel’ s sermon the valley did not look as ghastly as it did before. Instead of dislocated bones there were, first, skeletons. And then I read that on the bones there came flesh, and over the flesh there came skin. Do you see what Ezekiel’ s preaching had done? It had made them look a great deal more respectable. Ay, preaching can do that apart from the power of the Holy Ghost. The drunkard may be led to give up his cup: the profane man may be led to forsake his oaths: the unchaste may be made to live a pure life, and homes may be revolutionised. There may be a very great deal of moral improvement, and yet there is need to add the sentence--you find it in the 8th verse, the latter clause--“ but there was no breath in them.” They were better looking, but they were just as dead. And so you may have moral improvement without any spiritual life. III. Let us, then, aptly to Ezekiel’ s resort. It must have been a grand sight. Ezekiel had been preaching, and thus far he had been gazing at the bones, I suppose, in the same sort of way as I have been gazing upon this congregation, and he had seen a marvellous change. Now, do you see the man of God? He does not look at his congregation any longer. He has nothing more to do with them. He has finished his preaching. He turns to praying. I see him lift up his eyes to heaven, surrounded as he was with corpses, and he cries, “ Come, O breath of God. Come and breathe upon these slain.” He had reached his boundary line. He had done all he could do. He preached as commanded: now he leaves results with the Spirit of God. Do you note with what wonderful faith he prayed? It is not the language of faltering belief mixed with unbelief. It is “ Come, O breath of God.” He has no doubt that it will come. Why? Because he had a “ Thus saith the Lord.” The Lord had told him to call upon the wind, and therefore he knew it would come. When you and I are asking for temporal mercies it will be well for us not to be too importunate. But when we come to ask for the Spirit’ s power we can dare to be bold. Here is a promise: “ If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask.” Church of God, ye need not tremble as you breathe the prayer. I want you to note one element of faith in Ezekiel which it will be well for us to follow. Do you see what unbounded faith he had in the power of the Spirit? Let me read the words to you. “ Come, O breath,” and do what? “ and breathe upon these slain, and they shall live.” We are almost ready to say, “ What, Ezekiel, do you think it will be as easy for the Spirit of God to raise up all these corpses as it is for you to breathe? Yes,” Ezekiel would have said, “ I may preach, and I may cry, and I may wear myself out. I can do nothing, but all the Holy Ghost has to do is just to breathe.” Oh the magnificent ease expressed in the sentence--“ breathe upon these slain.” Mother, though that son of yours may have heard every evangelist and every preacher in England, the Holy Ghost has only to breathe and he shall live. Oh, let us get back to our simple faith in the mighty power of the Holy Ghost. I fear me that the Spirit is too often dishonoured--too often ignored. (A. G. Brown.) “ Come from the four winds, O breath!” I. We are nothing without the Holy Spirit. We find that men are dead; what is wanted is that they shall be quickened; and we cannot quicken them. How, then, should this fact affect us? Because of our powerlessness, shall we sit still, doing nothing, and caring nothing? We cannot sit still: we do not believe that it was God’ s intent that any truth should ever lead us into sloth: at any rate, it has not so led us; it has carried us in quite the opposite direction. Let us try to be as practical in this matter as we are in material things. We cannot rule the winds, nor create them. The sailor knows that he can neither stop the tempest nor raise it. What then? Does he sit still? By no means. He has all kinds of sails of different cuts and forms to enable him to use every ounce of wind that comes; and he knows how to reef or furl them in case the tempest becomes too strong for his barque. Though he cannot control the movement of the wind, he can use what it pleases God to send. Thus, though we cannot command that mighty influence which streams from the omnipotent Spirit of God; though we cannot turn it which way we will, for “ the wind bloweth where it listeth,” yet we can make use of it; and in our inability to save men, we turn to God, and lay hold of His power.1. By this fact, we must feel deeply humbled, emptied, and cut adrift from self. It will do us good to be very empty, to be very weak, to be very distrustful of self, and so to go about our Master’ s work. 2. Next, because of our absolute need of the Holy Spirit, we must give ourselves to prayer before our work, in our work, and after our work. 3. Since everything depends upon the Spirit of God, we must be very careful to be such men as the Spirit of God can use. If any of us should become lazy, indolent, or self-indulgent, we cannot expect the Spirit, whose one end is to glorify Christ, to work with us. If we should become proud, domineering, hectoring, how could the gentle Dove abide with us? If we should become despondent, having little or no faith in what we preach, and not expecting the power of the Holy Spirit to be with us, is it likely that God will bless us? 4. Next, since we depend wholly upon the Spirit, we must be most anxious to use the Word, and to keep close to the truth in all our work for Christ among men. You cannot work for Christ except by the Spirit of Christ, and you cannot teach for Christ except you teach Christ; your word will have no blessing upon it, unless it be God’ s Word spoken through your lips to the sons of men. 5. Again, since we are nothing without the Holy Spirit, we must avoid in our work anything which is not of Him. A headlong zeal even for Christ may leap into a ditch. What we think to be very wise may be very unwise; and where we deem that at least a little “ policy” may come in, that little policy may taint the whole, and make a nauseous stench which God will not endure. 6. Moreover, we must be ever ready to obey the Holy Spirit’ s gentlest monitions; by which I mean, the monitions which are in God’ s Word, and also--but putting this in the second place--such inward whispers as He accords to those who dwell near to Him. When the Holy Ghost moves thee to give up such and such a thing, yield it instantly, lest you lose His presence; when He impels thee to fulfil such and such a duty, be not disobedient to the heavenly vision; and when on thy knees He seems to direct thee in prayer, go in that direction; or if He suggests to thee to praise God for such and such a favour, give thyself to thanksgiving. Yield thyself wholly to His guidance. 7. Once more: since, apart from the Spirit, we are powerless, we must value greatly every movement of His power. Look out for the first desire, the first fear! Be glad of anything happening to your people that looks as if it were the work of the Holy Spirit; and, if you value Him in His earlier works, He is likely to go on to do more and more, till at last He will give the breath, and the slain host shall arise, and become an army for God. II. We may so act as to have the Holy Spirit.1. If we want the Holy Spirit to be surely with us, to give us a blessing, we must, in the power of the Spirit, realise the scene in which we are to labour. Do you want to save the people in the slums? Then you must go into the slums. Do you want to have sinners broken down under a sense of sin? You must be broken down yourself; at least, you must get near to them in their brokenness of heart; and be able to sympathise with them. 2. Next, if the Holy Spirit is to be with us, we must speak in the power of faith. If preaching is not a supernatural exercise, it is a useless procedure. 3. In addition to this, if we desire to have the Spirit of God with us, we must prophesy according to God’ s command. God will bless the prophesying that He commands, and not any other; so we must keep clear of that which is contrary to His Word, and speak the truth that He gives to us to declare. 4. Notice, next, that if we would have the Spirit of God with us, we must break out in vehemency of desire. “ Come from the four winds,” etc. A man of no desire gets what he longs for; and that is nothing at all. 5. Then, if we would have more of the power of the Spirit of God with us, we must see only the Divine purpose, the Divine power, and the Divine working. III. We would speak hopefully to our hearers.1. You who are not yet quickened by the Divine life, or are afraid you are not, we would exhort you to hear the Word of the Lord. 2. Next, we would remind you of your absolute need of life from the Spirit of God. Put it in what shape you like, you cannot be saved except you are born again; and the new birth is not a matter within your own power. 3. But we would have you note what the Holy Spirit has done for others. Say to yourself, “ If the Holy Spirit could make a saint out of such a sinner as that, surely He can make a saint out of me.” 4. May I go a little further, and say that, we would have you observe carefully what is done in yourself? You have put away many things from you that were once a pleasure to you, and now you take a delight in many things which you once despised. There is some hope in that, though it may be nothing more than the sinews coming on the bones, and the flesh upon the sinews. God takes such a delight in His work, that, having begun it, He completes it. 5. Furthermore, we would remind you that faith in Jesus is a sign of life. “ He that believeth on Him is not condemned” ; wherefore be of good cheer. 6. We beg you not to be led aside to the discussion of difficulties. Leave the difficulties; there will be time enough to settle them when we get to heaven; meanwhile, if life comes through Jesus Christ, let us have it, and have done with nursing our doubts. 7. Further, we would have you long for the visitation of God, the Holy Spirit. Join with us in the prayer, “ Come, Holy Spirit, come with all Thy power; come from the four winds, O breath!” One wind will not do, it must come from all quarters. Be willing to have the Holy Spirit as He wills to come. Let Him come as a north wind, cold and cutting, or as a south wind, sweet and melting. Say, “ Come, from any of the four winds, O breath! only come.” (C. H. Spurgeon.) Spiritual revival I. The prayer. “ Come from the four winds.”1. It is an expression of deep need. Prayer was something more than a cry of “ self-relief,” such as animals utter. The scene throughout the valley is weird and gruesome--a vast charnel house, a call for earnest supplication amid the stillness and motionless state of the unwakened dead--of supplication for the breath of life. 2. It was an expression, too, of hope. Despair is dumb. It might seem impossible to men, but the Divine command had gone forth, “ Say to the wind, Thus saith the Lord God, Come” ; and the Divine command is not in vain. 3. It was the expression, too, of longing desire, and desire is the hand of the soul which reaches out after that which it thirsts for. It is a disposition for receiving Divine gifts, After the Ascension, ten days were allowed to elapse before the coming of the Spirit, thereby calling out and sharpening the desire of the apostles for the Divine afflatus. II. To whom addressed.1. Not to the natural wind. Of what we used to call the “ four elements” --fire, air, earth, water--three are symbols of the Holy Spirit. Earth alone is too material to represent Him. It is of the Spirit our Lord spoke (Luke 12:49). In the vision of “ holy waters,” Ezekiel depicts the outpouring of the Spirit. And in the conversation with Nicodemus, Christ compared the operations of the Spirit to the wind (John 3:8). 2. It is the Holy Spirit depicted by “ breath” and “ wind” in this vision. In relation to Christ He is the breath. Christ “ breathed on” the apostles, “ and saith unto them, Receive ye the Holy Ghost” (John 20:22). And in regard to man; for God breathed into man’ s nostrils “ the breath of life, and man became a living soul” (Genesis 2:7). 3. The prayer runs, “ Come from the four winds, O breath.” This betokens two things--first, the omnipresence of the Holy Spirit, to use the language of divinity, His immensity, the four winds representing all directions, all space; secondly, that, though omnipresent, He could “ come,” and be present in a new way. 4. Through the Son of Man, through the Incarnation, and all the mysteries of the Redeemer’ s life, culminating in His glorification and intercession at the Father’ s right hand, the breath of life was given to the race, which, through sin, had become like the dry, dead bones. There were the two “ prophesyings,” the two appeals to a world “ dead in trespasses and sins,” the outer one, of the visible Son of Man; the inward, of the invisible Spirit of God, the one preparing the way for the other, which was the result of it. III. For what offered.1. “ Breathe upon these slain, that they may live.” Observe the influence is calm. There are times of violence, as with the natural wind: “ the sound from heaven as of a rushing, mighty wind” (Acts 2:2); or again, when “ the place was shaken where they were assembled together” (Acts 4:31); but, as a rule, God works in stillness. There is always something unusual which accompanies “ beginnings.” So here. But, according to the ordinary laws of grace, the Spirit’ s operations are conducted with tranquillity. 2. But the influence is potent. It brought about a wondrous restoration and transformation. Where there had been death, stillness, insensibility, now there is life, movement, and consciousness. It does what nothing else has the power to do--raises a sinner from the death of sin. 3. The resurrection was (1) complete. They “ lived and stood up.” They did not remain as valetudinarians, in a recumbent posture, waiting for some further access of vitality. They stood up, ready for action. (2) It was corporate. Whatever may be the individual operations of the Spirit in man and man, he is restored as a part of “ a life larger than his own” ; he is by the very fact of his restoration a member of a body, a member of a Divine society in which the Spirit of life dwells. He has around him, on all sides of him, others with the same thrill of life which has chased away the icy grasp in which death had bound him. (3) It was aggressive. “ An exceeding great army.” The Church was to go forth and attack the strongholds of sin or false beliefs, and to conquer the world. Every member of it, if true to his calling, must be animated with a missionary spirit. 4. The vision, therefore, is a mystical picture of the work of the Church in the world, imparting life to the “ dry bones” of corrupt nature, and to the nations who were before without God and without hope (Ephesians 2:12). 5. Further, it has ever been regarded as a representation of the general resurrection in the Last Day, when the Spirit’ s work as “ the Giver of life” shall be extended to the body (Romans 8:11). IV. Lessons.1. To pray with a sense of deep need, confident hope, earnest desire. 2. To pray to God the Holy Ghost. “ Come, Holy Ghost, our souls inspire,” etc. 3. To examine ourselves, whether our spiritual resurrection bears the marks above mentioned. 4. To believe in the eleventh article of the Creed, “ the resurrection of the body,” and to keep the body in temperance, soberness, and chastity, in view of that event. (The Thinker.) The gilt of the Spirit What in its grand sum total was the moral condition of the world till Christ lived and died and rose again, and ascending up on high from thence gave gifts unto men? Contemplate that world, not as clothed in that false glamour and deceitful glory with which art and poetry invested it, but as it must have presented itself to eyes purer than to behold iniquity, contemplate it, I say, exactly on that Pentecostal day, which we may justly call the birthday of the Church;--only one small people upon the whole earth preserving the knowledge, the faith, the worship of the true God; and they only using this knowledge to sin more guiltily, because against clearer light and knowledge, than the other nations of the world; their hands still red with the blood of Him whom they should have welcomed as their King and their God;--the rest of the world “ wholly given to idolatry” ; and with idolatry to what strange and hideous forms of evil! Contemplate for an instant the gladiatorial shows of Rome, men killing one another to make sport for lookers on; by tens and by hundreds “ butchered to make a Roman holiday.” Contemplate, but with hasty and averted eye, the strange lusts of Greece, men glorying in their shame, and boasting of wickednesses which one would have thought no darkness would have seemed to them dark enough to hide. Then, when all things were thus at the worst, the Son of God was manifested in the flesh, lived a life of perfect obedience, made on His Cross a perfect offering for all the sins, past, present, and to come, of all mankind; rose again, went up on high, and, being exalted at the right hand of God, shed abroad His gifts upon men, even the rebellious. And when they that were ambassadors of His grace, at His bidding began to prophesy, immediately there was a great shaking among the dry bones in the valley of death, everywhere a mighty agitation; life once more was in conflict with and overcoming death! and as the breath of God passed first over the Jewish Church, and then over the Gentile world, and breathed upon those slain, multitudes came up out of their graves, the graves which sin had dug for them,--three thousand souls, we know, on the day of Pentecost, were the first-fruits of a far mightier harvest,--and all stood upon their feet, an exceeding great army of living men, made now by that quickening breath of the Holy Ghost alive unto God. And ever as these messengers of Christ, and such as in succession took up the message from their lips, the same effects followed; the Holy Ghost was given; and multitudes, alienated hitherto from the life of God, dead in their sins, lived to holiness and to God. Sad it is to think that there should have been ever pause or remission in such a blessed work of reanimation as this. But that such pause or remission has been we cannot deny. Death reigns not now everywhere, as once; but yet, oh! how much death, how much that has refused and is still refusing to live. Not to speak of those whom the false religions of the world, Hindu and Buddhist and Mohammedan, have slain, nor yet of the votaries and victims of a thousand meaner superstitions and idolatries, is not Christendom itself a spectacle at this day which well might make angels weep? For surely the slain in it are many--those whom superstition has slain, and those whom infidelity has slain--the slain by intemperance, covetousness, uncleanness, pride, and a thousand other weapons of the enemy;--who could number up their multitudes? Pray, ye who have any feeling sense of what the Church of the living God ought to be, terrible in its serried ranks as an army with banners, and what it is, resembling as it does only too nearly a valley of dry bones--pray, as did the prophet of old, “ Come from the four winds,” etc. And as prayer is a mockery, unless work is added to it, add in one shape or another your work to your prayers. (Archbishop Trench.) Ezekiel 37:11-13 Therefore prophesy and say unto them, thus saith the Lord God; behold, O my people, I will open your graves, and cause you to come up out of your graves, and bring you into the land of Israel.Despair denounced and grace glorified I. A true word: “ They say, our bones are dried.”1. Observe, first, that they describe themselves as dead, as dried, and as divided. These people spoke of their bones, and therefore conceived of themselves as dead; and so the sinner may without, exaggeration conceive of himself as devoid of spiritual life. He knows not the life of God, for he is dead in trespasses and sins. They were divided too. These Israelites were scattered abroad in every place; and perhaps you, dear friend, feel that, as Hosea says, your heart is divided, and you are found wanting. Perhaps you go further with the figure, and seem to be dried, sapless, useless, hopeless. This is a very sad description of a man’ s soul, and yet how many of us have had to subscribe to it for ourselves. It is just what we felt ourselves to be while we were without God, and without hope; and yet the Spirit of God was convincing us of our guilt. 2. Further, these bones could by no means raise themselves. There was no trace of moisture left upon them; they could not give themselves life or motion; it were a fool’ s hope to look for Such a thing. Is that the dreary fact which forces itself upon you? Do not try to forget it. You are discovering the truth. In you there is no spiritual power to stir towards God until His Spirit moves towards you. 3. There seemed to be before these bones no prospect but the fire. Do you begin to feel in your own conscience the first burnings of the fire which never shall be quenched? Ah, whatever may be your gloomy apprehensions they are none too gloomy. 4. Moreover, these people felt that they were cut off from healing agencies. They say, “ We are cut off for our parts” ; that is, each bone is cut off from its fellow, and the whole thing is cut off as to its parts from every hope and comfort. Happy they who have been delivered from this wretched state; but I had almost said, happy they who are experiencing it, for those who feel their sinfulness are on the road to better things. Brother, I hope your extremity will be God’ s opportunity. When your bones are dried then will God come in as the resurrection and the life and make these dry bones live. 5. It seemed to these poor people as if they were quite given over, for when bones are cast out in the field and left to be bleached by the wind and the sun, when nobody gives them burial, but there they lie, the refuse of the charnel house, then they are according to all likelihood left for destruction. Apart from Christ, we are cast off: apart from Christ, God cannot look upon us except in anger: apart from the atoning blood our sins protest against the entrance of mercy, and there we lie self-condemned and helpless, abandoned in our own judgment to condemnation swift and sure. II. Here is an ill word in the text: “ Our hope is lost.” It is a good thing if our false hopes are lost; but true hope is still to be had. They said of old in the Latin, Dum spiro spero, while I breathe I hope; and I turn the proverb over, and say, Dum spero spiro--while I hope I breathe. To render the sentences rather freely will suit me well: “ While I live I hope, and while I hope I live.” Despair, which is the mind’ s declaration that there is no hope, is not so much a sickness of the understanding as a sin of the soul. No man has a right to despair; no man can be right while he is despairing.1. Despair is a high insult to God; it casts dishonour upon His chief attributes. (1) It is most derogatory to the truth of God. If a man says, “ I cannot be saved,” he contradicts the Divine voice, “ Look unto Me, and be ye saved.” (2) He that despairs insults God’ s power. He doth in effect tell the Lord that He pretends to a power which He does not possess. (3) But despair abundantly casts dishonour upon God’ s mercy. The Lord glories in His power to save, and He has plainly declared that He will save all those who confess their sins and put their trust in Him; and do we doubt Him? 2. Mark you, while it does this, which is bad enough, despair brings out the devil and Crowns him in Christ’ s stead. Despair says to Satan, “ Thou art victorious over the mercy of God; thou hast conquered Christ Himself.” 3. This heinous sin of despair tramples on the blood of Christ. Christ has died and shed His blood, and we know that the blood of Jesus Christ cleanseth us from all sin. We have God’ s Word for it; yet here is a man who says, “ It cannot cleanse me from my sin.” 4. Despair has something in it of sinning against the Holy Ghost; for the Holy Spirit brings you rich cordials in the promises of God, which will raise your spirits and will restore you from death; and what do you do with them? You take them and dash them against the wall; as if this almighty medicine, devised by infinite wisdom, were the deceitful nostrum of a quack, and you could not receive it. 5. When a man gives way to despair, there comes upon him usually a habit of wrangling against God and His truth. Sometimes the despairing one gets into such a nasty, ugly temper against everything that comes to him from the Bible and from the ministers of God that you begin to think that he must be half mad. So perhaps he is, but it is not a madness that saves him from responsibility; it is a madness which will be laid to his charge in the great day of account, because it is self-inflicted and wilfully persisted in. 6. Worse than this, despair makes a man ready for any sin, for there are many that say, “ I can never go to heaven, therefore I will take a good swing here, and get what pleasure I can while it is within reach.” 7. Let me say further, despair degrades a man, degrades him below the brute beast; for brutes do not despair. You think worse of God than your dog thinks of you. Instead of crouching to His feet, as your poor dog does to you, to try and get a gracious word, you growl at the great Lord--“ It is of no use for me to be humble: there is no hope.” 8. Oh, this despair--avoid it, I pray you, as you would avoid death itself, for it will render all means of grace useless to you. If ye will not believe, neither shall ye be established. 9. Despair, too, is certainly vain and wicked, because it has no Scripture whatever to support it. III. A gracious word.1. God meets us upon our own ground, and takes us up where we are. They said, “ We are as dried bones.” “ Yes,” says God, “ and I will quicken you” ; but the Lord even goes beyond anything which they have felt or said, for they did not say they were buried. No, they were as bones scattered in the open valley, unburied; but the Lord knows they are worse than they think they are; and so He goes further in mercy than they thought they had gone in misery. He says, “ I will open your graves,” and that looks as if they were finally laid in the sepulchre; but the Lord adds, “ and cause you to come up out of your graves.” Oh, the mercy of the Lord! There is no bound to it. 2. Now, observe how the Word brings comfort by introducing another actor upon the scene. You are like a dried bone, good for nothing, and able for nothing; but the Lord comes in Himself, and He says, “ I will, I will.” Oh, that grand “ I will” ! 3. But recollect that God comforts us here by depicting the completeness of His working. 4. Lastly, notice the feeling which is produced by it. Ah, what a feeling a man has that there is a God when God has saved him; when he begins to dance for very joy of heart because he is fully forgiven, then he knows Jehovah is God; when his heart feels restful, and full of peace, when he can say, “ God is mine, Christ is mine, heaven is mine,” he does not need evidences of the existence of God, or arguments to prove the power of God. He carries a demonstration of the truth within his own heart, and tells of it to others with tearful eyes. (C. H. Spurgeon.) Soul resurrection I. Soul resurrection is a matter of individual responsibility. Man has no choice in the question of his bodily resurrection. He can do nothing towards hastening or delaying it, preventing or effecting it. Not so with the soul. Its moral condition is dependent upon itself. “ Arise from the dead,” is the voice of eternal justice as well as of redemptive mercy. II. Soul resurrection is a good in itself. It is the prisoner leaving the dungeon and his chains, and going forth a pardoned and reformed man, in the full play of his freedom, to enjoy with a grateful heart the blessings of life, and to discharge with a right spirit the duties of his sphere. It is the diseased man, leaving the dark chamber of suffering, and going forth, with renovated health and invigorated frame, into the fields of nature, in the opening spring, to breathe that new breath from God that is quickening all nature into life. III. Soul resurrection is the grand end of all God’ s dealings with men. In every event of Providence, in every page of history, in every verse of the Bible, in every dictate of reason, in every throb of conscience, in every sorrow, and in every joy, His voice to the soul is this, “ Arise from the dead” :--Break through thy grave of carnalities, prejudices, corrupt habits, into the life of truth and love. IV. Soul resurrection involves the highest agency of God. The Divine power, which will be employed to call up at last the teeming myriads of the buried dead, is nothing in grandeur, compared with that Divine energy which will be put forth to wake the dead soul to life. In the former case, the mere fiat or volition will do it. God has only to will it and it is done. But far more than this is employed on His part to raise the soul. For this purpose He has to “ bow the heavens and come down,” assume our nature, and in that nature reason out to us the arguments of His almighty love. V. Soul resurrection is the only pledge of a glorious bodily resurrection. (Homilist.) Ezekiel 37:15-17 Take thee one stick. Joining the sticks I. The sad condition of the people of Israel at the time the prophet wrote. It was that of separation and of estrangement. Such a condition was--1. Contrary to nature.2. Displeasing to God.3. Disastrous to themselves. That and other sin had reduced them to a condition of national bankruptcy, physical serfdom, social misery, and moral degradation. II. The happy condition to which the people of Israel were about to be restored. That of unity, harmony, and oneness. Union in a Christian Church is a condition greatly to be desiderated, and earnestly to be sought by all its members.1. It is of great importance to the Church itself.2. It is an immense advantage to the surrounding community.3. It is well pleasing and highly honouring to God. III. The agency by which this delightful change was to be effected.1. He breathed into them a principle of spiritual life. 2. He sent them wise advisers and earnest intercessors. 3. He visited them with a sore trial. The Babylonish captivity. Common suffering often awakens common sympathy, and common sorrow begets mutual interest. 4. He appointed them a common work. The rebuilding of the city and temple of Jerusalem. A common service for Christ is still promotive of union among Christians. 5. He makes His residence in their midst (Ezekiel 37:27). Christ in the midst of a Church acts like a magnet in the midst of steel particles: He attracts all to Himself. As Christians are enabled to love Christ and approach Christ, so will they love one another and approach one another. (F. Morgan.) Ezekiel 37:28I the Lord do sanctify Israel. Sanctification I. We shall view it as the Holy Spirit’ s work to “ sanctify Israel.” He gives a new, another, a spiritual life, yea, His own life, to sinners who were dead in trespasses and in sins. That is the religion of the Bible. That sanctification which becomes conspicuous and visible is the giving of life Divine, life spiritual, and into the soul of a sinner dead in trespasses and in sins. “ You hath He quickened, who were dead in trespasses and sins.” The Apostle John puts it in another form, and says to his brethren who were regenerated by the power of the Holy Ghost, “ We are of God” --that is, we have a life obtained from God--“ we know that we are of God, and the whole world lieth in wickedness.” The Son of God Himself speaks of it in the third chapter of the Gospel of St. John as a “ new birth” ; and what is that but participation in a new, another nature? “ I, Jehovah, do sanctify Israel.” Let me here glance at the identity of the covenant seed in this grand operation of grace. Wherever the Holy Ghost implants spiritual life, that soul is identified, at once, as an Israelite. “ The heathen shall know that I, the Lord, do sanctify Israel.” And who are Israel? The seed of a covenant Head; a ransomed people; an emancipated people; a peculiar people. Oh! the vast importance of this distinction. I would to God that it were kept up and maintained among the followers of the Lamb. What is the first feature of their peculiarity? They are circumcised in heart, and love God, and are distinguished from the Egyptians. Light is in their dwellings, when all else is dark and dead. Look well to this point. Am I really sanctified by the Holy Ghost, set apart from the world, and made partaker of the Divine nature? Then am I Christ’ s offspring. Then am I separated from the world for Him; redeemed by His precious blood; brought out of Egyptian bondage, and cannot live under the taskmasters and under the yoke any longer. Then am I made to serve Jehovah, and worship Him “ in spirit and in truth.” Think of our daily and hourly dependence. Think of the matter of fact, that we cannot advance a step in the Divine life, that we cannot claim a promise even, or enjoy it, that we cannot surmount a difficulty, that we cannot meet an enemy, that we cannot sustain a trial, without communications of grace from on high. And therefore, says the apostle, when referring to Him in whom all is treasured up, “ Of His fulness have all we received, and grace for grace.” Do not attempt to satisfy me, do not attempt to satisfy yourselves with a lazy religion. All God’ s sanctified ones are employed; for He says to every one of them, “ Son, go work in My vineyard today.” Don’ t stop till tomorrow. Go every day. The believing family of God are called upon to glorify Him “ with their bodies and spirits,” because their bodies and spirits are the Lord’ s. O God! employ Thy sanctified ones, and let every child of Thine be active and vigilant in extending the triumphs of the Cross! Do not tell me that you are incapable of doing anything. That is one of Satan’ s falsehoods and artifices to allure you to indulge in laziness. Do not tell me that you have no talent. I can receive none of these excuses. All God’ s sanctified ones have at least something to do in His vineyard for the glorifying of His name. And I would have them take a lesson from one of our old martyrs, picked up from the lowest walk of life, illiterate, and without a penny which he could call his own; and who when brought before a Roman pro-consul and sneeringly asked, “ What can you do for your Christ?” replied, “ I cannot preach Him: I have no talent. I cannot support His cause; I have no money: but there are two things which I can do for Him; I can live for Him, and I can die for Him.” II. “ The heathen shall know that I, Jehovah, do sanctify Israel.” The heathen shall know! What, do you mean to send all out as missionaries to foreign lands and barbarous tribes, to make known what God has done for our souls? I do not think, at any rate at present, that all should be employed thus, for you need not go out of England, or out of London, to find vast numbers of heathens. Now we would here come again to the subject of decision. Say, how is it with you? With a life so superior, with a dignity so supernatural, with prospects so bright, at an expense so vast as the atoning blood of Christ--will you degrade yourselves--will you suffer the heathen to triumph over you? Oh, to be able daily and hourly to put on the Lord Jesus Christ, that His likeness, His image, His mind, His Spirit may be exhibited by us, whilst we seek no provision for the flesh, to fulfil the lusts thereof. This is the way to make it known, that the heathen shall know and see the contrast. Not a few worldlings, whom I have thus set down as heathens, have been brought to acknowledge that there is something very singular, something very strange, something very mysterious, which they cannot fathom, in the Christianity which we possess. They cannot discover what that something is; and they never will until God gives it to them; it is His to bestow. And this brings me to dwell for a moment on the absolute sovereignty of the grace which imparts it. “ I, Jehovah, do it.” Oh, how I wish that I could be more familiar with His doings, and jealous about my own I Oh, how I wish that every spiritual act that a believer is able to perform, might be instantly traced, as the apostle did his, to the hand of God! Oh, the blessedness of subscribing to that article of the apostle’ s creed, “ Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above,” etc. Then, having laid the foundation in absolute sovereignty, see how he goes on in the next verse to describe its operations:--“ Of His own will begat He us” --not man’ s proud free-will--“ of His own will begat He us, by the word of truth, that we should be a kind of first-fruits of His creatures.” Oh, the vast importance of having this distinction between us and the heathens, and the preservation of that distinction as the work of God--an act of the operation of His absolute power! “ I, the Lord, will do it, and the heathen shall know it.” Now here is a glorious distinction--that the heathen shall know it. They must not only acknowledge that what is done is a good thing, but that it is supernatural and beyond the creature’ s power; and admit, as the heathen monarch of old did, in the case of the deliverance of Shadrach, Meshech, and Abednego, that it is the work of Him whose dwelling is not upon this earth--that it is a supernatural, Divine work. Another point which will be conspicuous to the heathen is, your circumspection; for, when God sanctifies, He makes the recipient of His sanctifying grace very circumspect. The heathen will not see the secret intercourse that is going on in your heart with God. They cannot see the hidden springs of life. They cannot see the secret purpose of predestinating love, from whence all proceeds; but they can see your circumspection. They can see how you walk; they can see what spirit, and mind, and temper you exhibit. They can see whether there is anything about you--in your whole conduct and deportment--which gives the lie to your profession; and they will not be backward in talking about it. They discover it in a moment. Oh, how important, therefore, is that solemn advice of the apostle!--“ Be ye therefore holy, even as he who hath called you is holy.” One point more: it relates to the experimental enjoyment--which sanctifying grace imparts when we stand before the heathen as a distinguished people, and the heathen shall know it. (J. Irons.) . Ezekiel 38:10 Shall things come into thy mind?The Prince of Meshech; or, thought and sterling character There is much mystery about the Prince of Meshech. Anyhow, there was much terror spread by him and his people when they overran Israel. Malicious intentions were fostered by the prince. Many things came into his mind, and among them a special “ evil thought.” His intention was to go up against the defenceless, “ to take a spoil and to take a prey.” God rebuked him and threatened that “ Divine fury should come in his face.” Evil thoughts reveal our characters and bring Divine condemnation. God looks at the thoughts, and measures the man by his thoughts. All men have a character of some sort. It is something that attaches itself to us as closely as our shadow. We cannot separate ourselves from the one any more than from the other. The general tone of the thoughts determines the real character, whether of the Prince of Meshech or a peasant of the mountains. I. The constituents of a really sterling character.1. In a man of real worth there will be transparency of life. He will be easily seen through,--not in the sense of being detected, but of being so upright that there shall be nothing wrong to detect. Some only pretend to be transparent, like the cobwebbed, unwashed, dust-covered window, opening into some close alley. These affect an openness of life, and yield to practices of which it would be a shame to speak. Others are transparent, because pure; and are like the beautiful rose window in the Cathedral at Amiens, where there is such a charming combination of colours that even the sun’ s rays passing through it are tinged with a brighter glory. 2. In the man of sterling character there will be a ready recognition of the supremacy of conscience. Too many have double consciences, one for church life, the other for commerce; one for the sanctuary, the other for the shop and the counting house. They forget that that which they approve in the one must be carried out in the other. If they have principles, let them cling to them; if they claim to be men of sterling worth, let them bow ever before conscience. 3. In the man of sterling character there must ever be a recognition of the value, and the actual possession of real piety. Morality apart from reverence for God is self-glory. It may even produce pride. Pride generally takes up its abode where piety is not enshrined. Pride hides from us our real state in God’ s sight. Pride hinders from the acceptance of the Gospel of love and mercy. 4. The man of sterling character must love truth and purity for their own sake. To be good because it brings gain, or pious because it pays, or religious because it is respectable, is hypocrisy. There are inseparable advantages attaching to the possession of good character. Solomon said, “ A good name is better than precious ointment.” The Divine approval will be followed by men’ s approval, and in this the reward of character will come. But apart from this, we should seek to be true, noble, and pious, for the sake of goodness and truth itself. II. The way in which true piety of character may be obtained. The desired possession will not be obtained as by some “ lucky stroke of business.” It must grow. To obtain it among our fellows is easy when we deserve it. A steady course of uprightness and purity will bring it. We must not be spasmodic in our goodness. We must watch little things, avoid habits that offend in the slightest degree. Getting rid of these things, we must retain our individuality. We must not measure ourselves by other persons, and think because we live just after the same manner, and on the same moral plane as some others, that therefore we are good enough. There are higher possibilities in the nature of each. There is room for, and should be enthusiasm--enthusiasm for the truth, for the welfare of humanity, for the glory of God our Father, and of Christ our Saviour. The Prince of Meshech had those around him who were ready to approve his dastardly intention, when he said, “ I will go up,” etc. The mind is coloured by the thoughts and sayings of those surrounding us, even as the lake is blue or greyish according to the qualities of the mountains down the sides of which the streams and torrents flow that fill it. How important then that we should seek to associate chiefly with Christians, and ever keep ourselves surrounded by Christian influences. There is a Persian fable which tells us that a man one day picked up a piece of scented clay, and said to it, “ What are you; are you musk?” “ No, I am only a poor piece of clay, but I have been near a beautiful rose, and it has given me its own sweet smell.” Keep, therefore, in the society of the good, and live as near as possible to Christ, and then you will gain such purity and nobility of nature that the world will take knowledge of you that you have been with Him. Let me say that we should beware of seeking to build up character in our own strength. Christ’ s example, Christ’ s sacrifice, Christ’ s pardon, Christ’ s help, Christ’ s love, Christ Himself, in the fulness of His power, these form the only true and safe foundation. (F. Hastings, M. A.) . Ezekiel 39:8 Behold, it is come, and it is done, saith the Lord God; this is the day whereof I have spoken.Christmas Day We should search the whole range of Scripture in vain for words more forcibly bringing home to our minds all the great truths upon which the Christian loves to dwell on this our own peculiar and joyful Festival. I. “ It is come.”1. Pardon and salvation are come to sinful man: they that have long sat in the darkness of unatoned transgression, have now seen that true light which is given to be the guide of their feet along the paths of pleasantness, into the way of which peace is the beginning, and joy is the end. The message “ is come,” which alone can bind up the broken heart, and speak comfort to the troubled spirit. 2. Reconciliation with the Father “ is come” for all but those who wilfully reject the means that His Son has given. 3. In the coming of the Son of Man upon earth, there is a special blessing come unto us. By His birth, as on this day, into the flesh, we are born again into the Spirit. II. “ It is done.” The power of the tempter is once and forever subdued, his usurped dominion is done away. Not that in the great event this day before us, the whole scheme of redemption is brought to its full accomplishment: to perfect that scheme, greater things yet must come to pass. Not till the Saviour had died upon the Cross; and descended into the abodes of death; and raised Himself from the silent grave on the third day; and ascended with His reassumed body, to the place which He had ever occupied at the right hand of the Father; and from that high place had sent down the gifts of the promised Spirit “ for the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry” ; not till all this had come to pass, was the whole glorious scheme of man’ s redemption complete in all its full and free loving kindness. Yet may we still, on this beginning of joyful tidings which came to us even now, say with the Prophet in the spirit of joy and thankfulness, “ It is done.” From this event all the rest naturally and connectedly springs. Even among those who saw the promises from afar off, there was a sure word of prophecy; whereunto they did well that they took heed, as unto a light that shineth in a dark place. Ezekiel looked unto the promised redemption as clearly when he said, “ Behold, it is come, and it is done, saith the Lord God; this is the day of which I have spoken” ; as when the aged Simeon held the infant Jesus in his arms, and with abundant thankfulness exclaimed, “ Lord, now lettest Thou,” etc. Lessons--1. He who came unto us as a little child, expects in every true follower of His, that mind of guileless simplicity which is the mind of little children. And then, as newborn babes, we are further to desire the sincere milk of the word, that we may grow thereby. 2. Let us remember, in the midst of all our thankfulness for the great mercy of which this day is the celebration, to have some sobering and self-humbling thoughts. If it is fitting, on the one hand, that our hearts should be filled with joy, as we think upon His love to man, it is no less fitting, on the other hand, that we should remember the sin of man, which brought the Saviour from His throne on high. 3. Let us not think of the newborn King, and yet forget the “ new commandment” which He gave unto us; that commandment was, that we should love one another, and it was a new commandment, because it placed Christian charity on a new and higher footing. 4. With all these glorious sayings, which in the services of this day are brought before us at one view, with all these still sounding in your ears, reflect continually on the great privileges that you enjoy, and the clear light of revelation, in the fulness of which you have your portion. And not only think of these things, but let me “ beseech you,” in the words of St. Paul, “ that ye walk worthy of the vocation,” etc. (H. W. Sulivan, M. A.) . Ezekiel 40:2-3A measuring reed.The measuring reed It is a complex and mysterious thing,--this human life which it is appointed us to live. At first glance it seems as if it were simply the outflowing of ourselves from day to day, very much as water flows from a jar, without effort or design or law of movement, Take the history of a day, or the larger history of a life from the cradle to the grave; what subtle breaths of desire, of affection and repulsion determine its movements! What accidents, casual contacts, unexpected pressures of circumstance carve its outlines! Day by day the tapestry is woven. We cannot stop the play of the loom. But what a wilderness of aimless lines comes out in the fabric! What a blur of unfinished patterns, overlying each other! What a tangle of broken threads! But a deeper glance reveals to us the persistent and inexorable action of law in the shaping of our life. Indeed it is easy to formulate a theory of life in which it seems as if it were all law, nothing but law, law that crushed all freedom and spontaneity out of life. This happens when you try to reduce life to a department of physics. You find everywhere law; only the law lies not so much in the life as in the things that press upon it and give it direction. The water that flows from a jar falls and sparkles and runs on the ground with no choice of its own. Every drop is the slave of law. So it seems when we look upon life and treat it as a chapter of mechanics; as if it were simply the product of the forces that beat upon it, as if the measure of the forces gave the measure of the life, as if the colours and shapes it takes in its outflow were all determined by the angle of the sunbeam that strikes it, and the lay of the ground where it falls. It is evident that this conception of life is inadequate and false. It is all the more dangerous, because it falls in with a current fashion of thought and contains a half-truth. We read so much nowadays of force and law, that it is natural to speak of the energy of life under these terms; only, if we take our conceptions of force and law entirely from the physical world, we reduce all the intricate and mysterious movement of life to the irresponsible throbbings of a machine. The life which each of us is living is neither a formless, accidental jumble of thoughts, words and deeds, which link themselves together without any compelling force or law of combination; nor is it the fixed and inevitable result of forces that lie outside the domain of the will, and that beat resistlessly upon our life for good or evil. There is both freedom and law in our life; freedom working within law, along the lines of law. Every human life is a structure like that temple in the prophet’ s dream. It is built up stone by stone. And every stone has a meaning. It falls into its place in obedience to a law. The design of the structure determines the position of the stone. The building grows according to the law of the design. But what determines the design? Here is where the element of choice comes in. We can choose one design or another. But the design once chosen determines the character of the building. It gives the law of measurement to every stone and door post and pinnacle. It is like a man with a measuring reed standing in the gate. Now there are certain things which, you will agree with me, fall entirely within our choice, which have such power and influence in the shaping of character that they become the measuring reeds of life. They give the design on the lines of which the structure of the life is built. One of these things is a man’ s estimate of himself. What a man holds himself to be, he tries to be, and in the long run becomes. If he count himself a cur, his life will be a kennel, whatever money he may lavish on it and however richly he may decorate it. If he recognise and hold himself true to a royalty of soul, his life will be a palace. Though it have the dimensions of a hut, and the roof cover but a single room, that room will be a throne chamber. Have you never noticed how Christ, in His effort to lift men to higher levels of life, kept in sight this law? Never was such dignity dreamed for human nature as He gave to it. He called men God’ s children. And all, that He might win them to a life that had the purity and beauty of God in it, a life that should be worthy of the sons of God. Christ recognised the law: man is the measure of his life. His estimate of his own worth gives the quality of his daily deed and word. The law runs from the sublime heights to which Christ carried it, to the beaten paths where men pass to and fro on the business of the world. If you hold yourself copper, your life will be copper. If you count yourself gold and diamond, your life will be gold and diamond. You must first estimate yourself as something cheap and mean, before you can sell yourself to a cheap and mean sin. But there is another measuring reed of life. As he goes on with the years, every man makes not only an estimate of himself, but also a philosophy of life. If we choose to explain life as a selfish, brutal struggle for existence, as a dull, lingering misery to be borne simply with patience or defiance, as a hunt for pleasurable sensations, as a plot for the mastery of our fellows, as a school for the education of character, as an opportunity of lighting up this earth with something of the life that pulses in the heart of God; in every case, life rises up and answers: “ Yes, that is my explanation of myself. I can furnish proofs of your theory. You have translated the cipher on my heart. Take me, read me, treat me as you choose; I will supply you with plenty of facts to substantiate your philosophy of me.” Life echoes back our own answer. She comes to us and sits down by us and goes to and fro over our threshold, in the very feature, step, and accent of our theory. The smallest details of life take tone and colour from our creed. Our life makes a constant effort to adjust itself to our theory. How can it be otherwise? Our theory is a measuring reed, with which we stand in the gate, and which we apply to every stone and beam that go into the structure of our life. Is it any wonder that the whole structure is simply a sort of flower, which has blossomed on the stalk of our measuring reed? (W. W. Battershall, D. D.) Ezekiel 40:4 To the intent that I might shew them unto thee.A good intent I. The purpose of God to stain the pride of the glory of all flesh. We may gather some instruction upon this from the 4th chapter of Daniel. The testimony that Nebuchadnezzar himself bore at the last, seems to me to be very expressive, and may be, as it were, put into the mouth of everyone that God has humbled. It is truth that we all do need humbling by the power of God. Happy man you will be if you are brought to nothing. It is one of the hardest things in the world to be nothing--to be nothing but a sinner; not a good thought, not a good word, not a good work, not a single grain or atom of goodness, but a thing of nought altogether. Now God has purposed this; He has purposed to stain the pride of the glory of all flesh; and He has purposed to do so first in mercy, and then He will do so in wrath; that is, those that He does not deal so with in their lifetime as to humble them down that they may receive His truth, He will deal with in wrath at that last great, that tremendous day. Every man’ s natural spirit is a spirit of ignorance, a spirit of unbelief, a spirit of enmity against God. Wherever true conviction enters, the soul is divided from the spirit of ignorance, and the soul comes into the knowledge of its own condition; the soul is divided from the spirit of unbelief, and comes into the faith of the Gospel; the soul of the man, his immortal soul, is divided from the native enmity of the spirit; for the natural spirit that is in us lusteth to envy, desireth to envy; it is the very desire of it, the very essence of it. Now when God begins His work it severs the soul from this spirit. II. The purpose of the Lord in bringing His people to receive the truth. If the Lord has thus brought you down far enough, then I will name now the truths that you will be glad to receive. The man that is from his own experience prepared to receive that testimony certainly is not far from the kingdom of God; the man that is prepared from his heart and soul to receive that testimony in the understanding of it, in the love of it, and to abide thereby--there never was one so poor in spirit, there never was one so humbled, there never was one so led, and at the same time lost. If we are really brought down and know our nothingness, our hearts are prepared to receive the testimony in the 1st chapter of Second Timothy. The apostle knew the tendency; he knew that Timothy would get no worldly honour; he knew it would make Timothy rather what they call narrow-minded; he knew it would be offensive to many professors, but he says, “ Be not thou ashamed of the testimony of our Lord, nor of me, His prisoner,” as I am a prisoner for that testimony. Now comes what the testimony is. “ Who hath saved us” --that is the first thing He did. Believest thou this? Art thou brought down low enough to trace up thy salvation to this Divines this pure and heavenly source? “ And called us with an holy calling not according to our works” --no--“ but according to His own purpose and grace,” etc. There is a clear epitome of the Gospel itself. Doth this offend you, or doth it please you? Are you sorry such testimonies are on record? or can you set your seal to it, that unless you are saved after that Divine order you never can be saved at all? Then, if so, I may apply to you the words here, which the Lord spake to Ezekiel,--“ Son of man, behold with thine eyes.” So I say to you,--Behold with your eyes; see after what a Divine, see after what a righteous, what a lovely, what a gracious, what a merciful, what a glorious way God hath saved thee. “ And hear with thine ears, and set thine heart upon all that I shall shew thee; for to the intent that I might shew them unto thee art thou brought hither.” So, poor sinner, you may set your heart upon these truths, and you will never have to take it away again. III. The special purpose of bringing Ezekiel to where he was brought, as meant in our text. Ezekiel was brought to the river of God. First, its source--it came from under the threshold, just the same as we read in the last chapter of the Revelation of a river proceeding from the throne of God and the Lamb. That river I take to represent the Gospel in the life and blessedness thereof. That is one thing, then--its source. The second is its increase--it went on increasing. And just so the Gospel, in direct contrast, as we sometimes say to this life. For soma of us are getting into the shades a Lit; and this is narrowing and that is narrowing, and the time is drawing nigh when we shall say we have no pleasure in this life. But, then, there is pleasure there--the river of God’ s pleasure--and those who drink of that river, “ they shall still bring forth fruit in old age; they shall be fat and flourishing” ! Bless the Lord for this. And then mark also the power of this river. There is a lake on the southeastern side of Judea, about forty-five miles long, and from perhaps twelve to fifteen wide; that lake has nothing in it in a way of life. Nothing can live in it; it is so bituminous, so nauseous, and so deadly, that nothing can live in it. Now this river was to turn this lake into a fresh-water lake; for the river was to come down into this Dead Sea, and the waters were to be healed. You can see what that means, can you not? that the souls of men are in a state of death and bitterness. And this water of the Dead Sea, all travellers tell us, is nasty to the last degree to drink; you could hardly be put to a greater punishment than to be obliged to drink half a pint of it; you would not forget it for a twelvemonth. And just so the mind--the soul. Ah, could we see ourselves as God sees us, could we see sin as He sees it, we should indeed stand aghast; for “ the heart is,” even beyond angelic comprehension, “ deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked; who can know it?” Yet these waters were to heal this Dead Sea, turn it into a fresh-water lake. Just so the Gospel comes, destroys the bitterness, destroys all that is unpleasant, and turns the soul into that that is pleasant, to holiness, to righteousness, as pleasant to God as it was before unpleasant. There is another view of the river that I may just name, and that is that on its banks were trees whose leaves faded not, and that brought forth new fruit “ according to their months.” Let these trees all of them represent Jesus Christ, and let their leaves that never fade represent His promises; and let the fruits that are perennial and immortal represent the blessings that come to us by those promises. (J. Wells.) Declare all that thou seest to the house of Israel.--Taught that we may teach I. The manifestations with which certain of God’ s servants are favoured.1. The Lord Jesus Christ does draw near in a very special manner to some of His people. He will show Himself to any of you who seek Him. He will unveil the beauties of His face to every eye that is ready to behold them. There is never a heart that loves Him but He will manifest His love to that heart. But, at the same time, He does favour some of His servants who live near to Him, and who are called by Him to special service, with very remarkable manifestations of His light and glory. 2. These revelations are not incessant. I suppose that no man is always alike. John was in Patmos I know not how long; but he was “ in the Spirit on the Lord’ s day” on one occasion, and he specially notes it. Days of heavenly fellowship are red-letter days, to be remembered so long as memory holds her seat. 3. Yes, and it is noteworthy that the occasion of these manifestations was one of great distress. Saints have seen Jesus oftener on the bed of pain than in robust health. 4. It appears, in this case, that the manifestation to Ezekiel was made when he was put into an elevated condition. God has ways of lifting His people right up, away, away, away from mortal joy or sorrow, care or wish, into the spiritual realm. And then, when the mind has been lifted above its ordinary level, and the faculties are brought up by some divine process into a receptive state, He reveals Himself to us. 5. When He had elevated him thus it appears that He conducted him to certain places, for He says, “ For to the intent that I might shew them unto thee art thou brought hither.” God’ s children are brought in experience to unusual places, on purpose that they may get clearer sights of the love and grace and mercy of God in Christ than they could obtain elsewhere. 6. However, it is not outward circumstances that can affect the Divine purpose, there must always be a movement of the Divine Spirit. In the third verse you read, “ He brought me there.” We never learn a truth inwardly until God brings us to it. We may hear a truth, we ought to be careful that we do not hear anything but the truth; but God must bring that truth home. II. The responsibility of these chosen men while they are thus favoured. When the Spirit of God favours you with light, mind that you see; and, when there is a sound of grace, mind that you hear. We tell our children to learn their lessons “ by heart.” If we put the full meaning into that expression, that is the way to learn the things of God.1. “ See with thine eyes.” What are the eyes for but to see with? He means this,--look, pry, search with your eyes. Looking to Christ will save you, but it is looking into Christ that gives joy, peace, holiness, heaven. 2. “ Hear with thine ears.” Well, a man cannot use his ears for anything else, can he? Ay, but hear with your ears. Listen with all your might. 3. “ Set thine heart upon all that I shall shew thee.” Oh, but that is the way to learn from God--by loving all that He says--feeling that, whatever God says, it is the thing you want to know. 4. The Lord bids us do this towards all that He shall shew us. “ Set thine heart upon all that I shall shew thee!” We are to be impartial in our study of the word, and to be universal in its reception. III. What is God’ s reason for manifesting Himself to His servants? The object is this,--“ Declare thou all that thou seest to the house of Israel.” First, see it yourself, hear it yourself, give your heart to it yourself, and then declare it to the house of Israel. Dear brother, you cannot tell who it may be to whom you are to speak, but this may be your guide: speak about what you have seen and heard to those whom it concerns. Have you been in gloom of mind, and have you been comforted? The first time you meet with a person in that condition, tell out the comfort. Have you felt a great struggle of soul, and have you found rest? Speak of your conflict to a neighbour who is passing through a like struggle. Has God delivered you in the hour of sorrow? Tell that to the next sorrowing person you meet. Ay, but still this is not all your duty. God has shown us His precious word that we may tell it to the house of Israel. Now, the house of Israel were a stiff-necked people, and when Ezekiel went to them, they cast him aside, they would not listen. Yet, he was to go and teach the word to them. We must not say, “ I will not speak of Christ to such a one; he would reject it.” Do it as a testimony against him, even if you know he will reject it. (C. H. Spurgeon.) Ezekiel 40:49 And he brought me by the steps whereby they went up to it.The steps of the sanctuary There are no such steps as these to be found anywhere in the world. A step to honour, a step to riches, a step to worldly glory: these are everywhere, but what are these to the steps by which men do ascend to the house of the Lord! He, then, that entereth into the house of the Lord is an ascending man; as it is said of Moses, he went up into the mount of God. It is ascending to go into the house of God. The world believe not this; they think it is going downwards to go up to the house of God. The steps, then, by which men go up into the temple are, and ought to be, opposed to those which men take to their lusts and empty glories. Hence such steps are said not only to decline from God, but to take hold of the path to death and hell (Psalms 44:18; Proverbs 2:18). (John Bunyan.) . Ezekiel 41:1 He brought me to the temple.The heavenly temple I. The place of this temple. You find in the 43rd chapter that this temple was placed on a mountain. This is a figurative form of speech, to denote that Christ’ s holiness exalts us above all that we are as sinners; that Christ’ s righteousness--for “ in Thy righteousness shall they be exalted” --exalts us above all condemnation. Here every sin, every spot, every law charge, is completely banished. We shall never live happy in our religion, and we shall never live happy with God, if we ever lose sight of that completeness we have in Christ. There is the exultation. And if you ask what it is that hath established the law of holiness, how it is that this law is established, the apostle will tell you,--that while Aaron was a priest after the law of a carnal commandment, Jesus Christ is a priest after the order of Melchisedec; He has put away sin, and established the law of holiness. And this law of holiness derives its strength from Christ’ s eternal priesthood; so that my holiness that I have in Him will fail when Christ’ s priesthood shall fail, but not before; our justification, our peace with God, and God’ s approbation of us and dwelling with us, will cease when Christ’ s righteousness shall fail, but not before; and when the Saviour can be conquered, but not before. II. The forms and fashions of this house. The Lord said to Ezekiel, “ If they be ashamed of all that they have done,” and brought to see and feel that their righteousness is as filthy rags, then “ shew them the form of the house,” etc. First, let us see if we can find out the form; and if it is a form that you approve, I shall be very glad of it, because it will prove that you are ashamed of all your own doings, renounce the whole, and that you fall in, by faith, and understanding, and love, with what the Lord has done. I go to the first chapter of the Hebrews, and there I get the form. Jesus Christ is the form of the house; He is the form to which everything must be conformed. What think you of this mediatorial form, this sacrificial form, this form of everlasting life, this form of mercy, this form of grace, this form of truth? Canst thou say that thy soul fails in with it? If so, then you are a part of this temple. “ Growing into an holy temple” --where? in yourselves? No, “ in the Lord; fitly framed together in Him for an habitation of God through the Spirit.” There is the form. But then there is the fashion--“ Shew them the fashion.” Well, I will now notice the fashion. It is a good fashion that I am going to name--a fashion that is very much gone out now in the professing world, but it is a gospel fashion; it is s fashion that will never change while time shall last. What is the fashion? We must go to the 2nd of Mark to get at what the fashion of this house is,--that is, what God’ s manner of dealing with men is; that is the meaning of the fashion. I know it is a fashion that will make you very singular. People will say, Dear me, that man is very singular in his fashion. As John Bunyan somewhere says of his pilgrims, They wore a foreign robe, that this world knew nothing of; therefore the people stared and thought they were very singular in their fashion and in their taste. But so it is. “ Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners.” Such is the fashion. Solomon, in his prayer, speaketh of the stranger, the poor Gentile stranger, or whoever he might be, that might come unto God’ s holy temple and call unto Him: such was the fashion there, that there was a sacrifice for sin; there was a mercy seat, and there was a God that delighted in mercy. So, then, show them the form, and show them the fashion also. III. The fulness of the house. Take first the 6th of Isaiah. The prophet says, “ I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up, and His train filled the temple.” Jesus Christ died, and God highly exalted Him; and by Christ’ s death and by His exaltation there came in a train of promises and a train of blessings--blessing after blessing, until the whole temple is filled with blessing. Every Christian shall thus be filled with blessing. That is the train--the train of promises and the train of blessings that follow the Saviour’ s humiliation and exaltation. Who can despair that is blessed with saving faith in such a gospel as this, such a God as this, such a Christ as this? Then in the 43rd of Ezekiel you will find the same things repeated. Ezekiel saith, “ The glory of the God of Israel came from the way of the east.” Now the east was the place of the sunrising; we will read it so; “ The glory of the Lord came from the way of the sunrising.” And so the glory of the Lord comes into the house by the resurrection of Christ. “ With great power bare they witness of the resurrection of Christ, and great grace was upon them all.” “ And His voice,” in coming in, “ was like a noise of many waters.” Is not that a beautiful description? What can you have to equal it? Was not the voice of God by the apostles as the voice of many waters? Take the many waters to represent the mercies, the blessings, of the everlasting gospel. “ Many waters” ; so it is many mercies, many blessings. “ And the earth shined with His glory.” Was it not so? Did not the Lord command the light to shine into the souls of men? He gave them the hearing ear, to hear these many waters--the sound of abundance of rain, the sound of those mercies; and then light came to show them the way to these living waters; they drank, lived, and shall live forever. “ And the house was filled with the glory of the Lord, the presence of the Lord.” One more Scripture--the 15th of the Revelation. “ The temple was filled with smoke from the glory of God, and from His power.” What a happy place is every assembly when it is filled with the fragrance of His name, from the glory of the Lord, from the glory of our great High Priest! He offers much incense with the prayers of the saints. The house was filled with the fragrance of His blessed name, “ from the glory of God, and from His power.” Jesus exercised omnipotent power when He wrought salvation, casting the enemy out, and bringing His glory in. (James Wells.) The Church of God as a temple I. The living temple of the living God will exhibit the characteristics of unity and diversity. The Father of our spirits has made none of His intelligent creatures in all respects alike. There is as much difference in their gifts and characteristics as there is in their personal identity, and this variety must border upon the infinite. The idea of a temple involves the bringing together of a great variety of materials, each kind being adapted to serve a special purpose in the building. II. The Church of God will be the abode of purity. The word temple involves this idea. A temple is a building set apart, consecrated to a religious use. This temple is represented as being surrounded by a wall of separation. But the living temple will be one of spiritual and conscious purity. The distinctive element in it will be (Revelation 21:27). III. This Church of the future will included what was symbolised by the temple of the past. In the beginning of a human life there seems a very little of the spiritual, a great preponderance of the material. But as the child grows, the intellectual and moral part of the man develops itself, until by and by, if the ideal manhood is reached, the animal part of the man is swallowed up in the spiritual part. IV. The dimensions of this spiritual Church can be taken by heavenly measurement only. Solomon’ s temple could be measured by a human hand, the temple of Ezekiel’ s vision needed an angel of God to measure it. Its size could not be rightly estimated by an inhabitant of earth or by earthly measures. The Church of the redeemed will consist of a multitude which “ no man can number” (Revelation 7:9). V. This temple of purity is the dwelling place of God. The living spirit inhabits the human body so long as that body remains in a certain state of purity and unity, viz., so long as it can, by the retaining of its animal life, resist the decomposition which sets in immediately after death. The living spirit is a temple for the living God. (A London Minister.) The Christian Church This description presents to us-- I. The extent and latitude of the Church under Christ. He measured the gate to the east, and the east side, to show that the eastern people should be of the Christian Church. And the north, south, and west sides, to assure us that the people of those parts should come to Zion. Christ sent His apostles to all nations. The Church of Christ is all the world over. II. The stability and firmness of the Church. The temple here measured was a perfect square. Such buildings are most firm and lasting. Such is the Church; “ the gates of hell cannot prevail against it” (Matthew 16:18). It is built upon Christ the chief cornerstone (Ephesians 2:20), and is established in righteousness (Isaiah 54:14). III. The beauty of the Church. Such a building Ezekiel saw. The Church is the most beautiful and comely thing in the world to such as have spiritual eyes. When the bride of a great prince hath on her royal apparel, is she not beautiful and glorious? Such is the Church, “ arrayed with fine linen, the righteousness of saints” (Revelation 19:8; Revelation 21:10; Revelation 12:11). IV. The sanctity of the Church. The Church of God is a company called oat from the world. The Corinthians were “ called” to be saints (1 Corinthians 1:2). The Macedonian churches gave themselves to the Lord (2 Corinthians 8:5). See also 1 Peter 2:9. As a wall of separation was built around this temple, so God hath set a wall of discipline between the world and the Church. (W. Greenhill, M. A.) All life planned and measured Then consider that life is a plan. It is not a cloud; it could be more perfectly illustrated by geometry than by clouds and mist or vapour. It has its four points, its main boundaries, its architectural shape; its elevation, imposing, and all its appointments detailed with scrupulous care towards the education and spiritual comfort of the inhabitant. Work on that plan, and all will be right. Ask for the plan every morning; go into the little office, and have a look at the paper. Here is the great skeleton building with all its anatomy of scaffolding and planking: what is that little house or wooden shed outside? That is where the plan is kept. Why do men go in there now and then? To look at the plan. Can they not carry the plan in their heads? Not well. Can they not make the plan as they go on? No. Architecture is not conjecture. It is settled, designed; every little part mapped out, and put down and set to scale. And art thou, poor fool, building a life house without a plan? The only man who has ever grasped life in all its bearings and relationships and issues is the Son of God. You can hew away at this old book called the Bible as much as you please, you cannot get away from this living and all-dominating fact, that no man known to history has so laid hold of life in all its depth and length and breadth and height, in all its pain, tragedy, agony, destiny, in all its discipline, education, and culture, with such grasp, such clearness, and such wisdom, as it has been realised and provided for by the Christ of God. There are other religions, and many of them fine, fantastic speculation, beautiful, cloudy, rainbow-like dreaming; but for culture of the soul, for discipline of the will, for stirring the whole nature into benevolent impulse towards other men, Christianity stands alone. To that Christ I ask my fellow men; to that Christ I would go every day and say, Lord Jesus, what is the next thing to be done? and tell me how to do it, and never leave me one moment to myself; measure out the thousand cubits, tell me which is the north side, the south side, the west side, the east side, and if it comes to a great fight, show me how to stand, how to move, how to stretch: Lord, be with me all the time, till “ the hurly-burly’ s done,” till “ the battle’ s fought and won.” Given a young man who goes out to make his own fortune and his own destiny, and you have an image of folly: given a young soul who says, As everything else is meted out, measured, adjusted, and balanced, mayhap my poor little life is treated in the same way; I will go to the Divine measurer, and He will tell me within what lines to work, where to stop and how to live--and in that young soul you have an image of Wisdom. (J. Parker.) The temple of the future I. The characteristics of the kingdom of God. 1. It is sacred. The selection of portions of time for Sabbaths, of families of men for priests, seems to have been chiefly designed to teach what is meant by setting apart of time or men to high and holy purposes, so that afterwards we may learn how all time and all men may be so set apart. So the setting apart of one building as a temple, teaches how spaces and places and services may be devoted to high and holy purposes. Its rich and its poor, its cultured and its ignorant, its art, its science, its commerce, its festivals, are all to be sanctified. 2. It is conspicuous. This temple stands on a very high mountain, and so standing is of course prominent and widely seen. How true an emblem of the kingdom of God! for goodness, like its Incarnate Pattern and Inspirer, cannot be hid. 3. It is vast. Not only has it many gates and is thus accessible from every quarter, but it is reckoned that the measurements of the temple and land, as seen by Ezekiel, would give a temple larger than all Jerusalem, and a Jerusalem larger than all the land of Canaan. So we have a beautiful indication of the growing influence of the kingdom of God. 4. It is complete. The particularisation of the details of the temple Ezekiel saw, is so minute, that, excepting as we judge it by similar minute particularisations in his other visions, we should be compelled to consider it must be literal. But it is rather an emphatic method of showing Divine knowledge of and care for every, even the smallest detail of the kingdom of truth amongst men. 5. It is sacrificial. Of course we find in the delineation of the temple, altars, and in the ritual for the house, directions for priests and arrangements for slaying animals for sacrifice. And in the great temple of truth and goodness, though now there is no need for sacrifice for sin, since the propitiation for the world’ s sin has died, there is, and there will ever be, for discipline and for development of the highest life, the many altars of daily self-denials, the high altar of complete self-sacrifice. 6. It is beautiful. Amongst the adornments Ezekiel described, were the cherubim, the symbol of ideal creature life, and the palm trees, the boughs of whose feathery foliage, beautiful in themselves, were the chosen signs of victory. So morally “ strength and beauty,” the Strength of the sterner and the beauty of the gentler virtues, “ are in the sanctuary” of God’ s kingdom. 7. It is God-inhabited. The return of God to dwell in the temple is the climax of the vision, the crown of all its glory. “ We have the mind of Christ.” He walks in the midst of the Churches, inspires all, and reigns over all. II. The qualification for having to do with this kingdom. With a simplicity and directness that make it very clear even in midst of so strange a vision, there is here proclaimed the condition on which men may have the detailed plan of this future temple given to them. They are to have a glance at the house as a whole, and if they are fascinated with its glory, and begin to glow with the hope of enjoying its privileges, they will surely begin to be ashamed of their own sins. The Divine order and purity and goodness will shame their disorder, impurity, and evil. Then, if they are truly humbled by a sense of God’ s loving kindness to them in giving them a pledge of His presence in their great unworthiness of it, they become fit to study His designs for their own and the world’ s salvation. Repentant men are the men to whom, for themselves and for others, are revelations of duty, and inspirations of earnestness and hope. (Homilist.) Ezekiel 41:3 And the door, six cubits.A wide way to God The porch, at which was an ascent to the temple, had a gate belonging to it. This gate was six cubits. Now, some may object, and say, Since the way to God by these doors was so wide, why doth Christ say the way and gate is narrow? Answer. The straitness, the narrowness, must not be understood of the gate simply, but because of that cumber that some men carry with them, that pretend to be going to heaven. Six cubits! What is sixteen cubits to him who would enter in here with all the world on his back? (John Bunyan.) Ezekiel 41:7 And there was an enlarging, and a winding about still upward.Enlargement upwards As the temple ascended in height, so it still was wider and wider; even from the lowest chambers to the top. And this was to show us that God’ s true Gospel temple, which is His Church, should have its enlargedness of heart still upward, or most for spiritual and eternal things (Isaiah 55:5; Colossians 3:1). Indeed it is the nature of grace to enlarge itself still upward, and to make the heart widest for the things that are above. The temple, therefore, was narrowest downwards, to show that a little of earth or this world should serve the Church of God. One may say of the fashion of the temple, as some say of a lively picture, “ it speaks.” I say, its form and fashion speaks; it says to all saints, to all the Churches of Christ, Open your hearts for heaven, be ye enlarged upward. I read not in Scripture of any house, but this that was enlarged upwards, nor is there anywhere, save only in the Church of God, that which doth answer this similitude. All others are widest downward, and have the largest heart for earthly things. The Church only has its greatest enlargements towards heaven. (John Bunyan.) Ezekiel 41:22 The altar of wood was three cubits high.The enlarged altar That for incense, whereof see Exodus 30:6, but here of a much larger size. See in chap. 12:1. This altar of wood, and four-square, was a type of Christ (not of the Cross), in whom our prayers come before God as incense, and He is the propitiation for our sins (1 John 2:2; Exodus 30:1; Psalms 141:2; Revelation 5:8). The largeness of this altar above that of old, showeth that the saints under the Gospel would make much more improvement of the Lord Jesus in prayer, and make use of His mediation and intercession by faith in their heavenly supplications, than the saints of old were ordinarily wont to do. (J. Trapp.) . Ezekiel 42:3-5 And before the chambers was a walk of ten cubits breadth inward.Provision made in the temple for social intercourse Before these chambers there were walks of five yards broad, in which those who had lodged in these chambers might meet for conversation, might walk and talk together for their mutual edification, might communicate their knowledge and experiences. For we are not to spend all our time between the church and the chamber, though a great deal of time may be spent to very good purpose in both. But man is made for society, and Christians for communion of saints, and the duties of that communion we must make conscience of. It is promised to Joshua, who was high priest in the second temple, that God will “ give him places to walk in among those that stand by” (Zechariah 3:7). (M. Henry.) . Ezekiel 42:5-6 The glory of the Lord filled the house. The glory without the cloud Though God may forsake His people for a small moment, He will return with everlasting loving kindness. God’ s glory filled the house, as it had filled the tabernacle which Moses set up and thee temple of Solomon. Now we do not find that ever the Shekinah did in that manner take possession of the second temple, and therefore this was to have its accomplishment in that glory of the Divine grace which shines so brightly in the Gospel Church, and fills it. Here is no mention of a cloud filling the house as formerly, for we now with open face behold the glory of the Lord, in the face of Christ, and not as of old through the cloud of types. (M. Henry.) In the uplifted life we are brought into closer fellowshi p with God:--The Spirit took Ezekiel up and brought him into the inner court, I want you to observe that while the prophet was in the inner court he saw the glory of God and heard God speaking to him. That inner court represents to us the innermost fellowship with God. I. In the inner court he saw the glory of God. You stand outside some great cathedral, looking at the large stained-glass window that is said to be of such immense value and noted for its exquisite loveliness. You have heard of its beautiful design, of its rich colouring and delicate shadings. But you are disappointed. All you can see is a dim, dull easement, blotched here and there. But that is because you have been judging it from the standpoint of the exterior of the building. In that position you can see no glory. Get into the interior,--into the inner court, and your opinion will suddenly change. The scientist, if an unbeliever, cannot see the glory of God in Nature as can the man who has been brought into the inner court of fellowship with God. The man in the outer court may see a great deal of beauty in natural phenomena, and a wonderful design in “ the operations and effects of natural laws” ; but there are beauties in Nature to the believer that far surpass those. Jonathan Edwards, speaking of his own experience of having enjoyed a wonderful sense of God’ s pardoning mercy, said, “ The wisdom, purity, and love of God seemed to appear in everything: in the sun, moon, and stars; in the clouds and blue sky; in the grass, flowers, and trees; in the water and all nature, which greatly fixed my mind. I beheld the sweet glory of God in all these things, and in the meantime sang with a low voice my contemplations of the Creator and Redeemer.” As with Nature, so with Revelation. The Bible has been called a glorious temple. “ When He the Spirit of Truth is come, He will guide you into all truth.” There our Lord indicates the faculty of spiritual perception and interpretation. How little of the glory of God we have seen! How seldom, as by a mystic hand, are we led beyond the vestibule into the inner sanctuary of the Most High! There was a time when God, maintaining strict reserve, dwelt in a peculiar way in the Holy of Holies of the ancient Temple. On the mercy seat was the Shekinah--the great symbol of His presence and unapproachable glory--which burned and glowed perpetually in bright and vivid splendour. Before this was hung the closely woven veil. There was no admission save for the High Priest, and he might pass within but once a year. But now we have “ boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way, which He hath consecrated for us, through the veil, that is to say His flesh.” The High Priest of old could not look at the glory without seeing the blood that was sprinkled on the mercy seat. “ The same blood, the same atonement by which we draw near to God, is the same by which we must remain in communion with God.” “ And,” says the prophet Ezekiel, “ the man stood by me.” Jesus Christ, the God-Man, is the glory of God. “ God, Who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.” The Holy Spirit is the light of God that we may see Him. II. While Ezekiel was in the inner court, God spake to him. Few live in the higher condition of perpetual fellowship with the Father and the Son; but it is in that higher condition that the noblest faculties of the soul are brought into use, Habakkuk said, “ I will stand upon my watch, and set me upon the tower, and will watch to see what He will say unto me” (2:1). He would get above the crush and clamour of worldly things. As he who stands upon some eminence of cliff is not disturbed by the murmuring wavelets channelling the sands beneath, so the “ lifted up” spirit, liberated from a narrow, mundane view, is unaffected by the carking cares which annoy and the anxieties which absorb the many,--the frettings which disturb serenity and scare away peace. We want to live above the corroding, cloying, flippant, superficial pleasures of time. We must get into a calm atmosphere,--the “ sphere of silence,” --the unbroken solitudes of “ the heavenlies,” if we are to hear His voice. Professor Smythe was engaged for some weeks in making astronomical observations on the Rock of Teneriffe. When he and his party descended from the height, they were surprised to find that a storm had been raging of which they had heard and seen nothing. (A. W. Welch.) Ezekiel 43:10 Let them measure the pattern.Measuring the pattern A correct exhibition of God’ s spiritual building was to be the means of awakening the Israelites to a sense of their own deficiencies. The prophet was to hold up the pattern showed in the mount, the temple as it existed in the excellence of its majesty, in order that measuring the present by the past, the national mind might be enlightened as to its true condition. I. The principle here laid down, in its application to us as members of a national Church. Now there are two errors to which the human mind is prone in estimating moral progress, the one is that of overrating the present, the other that of clothing the past in unreal excellence. It is hard to say which of these forms of error is most injurious to healthy exertion. The man who casts unmixed scorn upon the attainments and practices of his forefathers; who will see nothing admirable in their habits of thought and feeling, is almost certain to end in being intolerant in his judgment, shallow and narrow minded in his counsels. And again, the man who is always taking the lowest view of the present, is almost equally sure to grow apathetic and idle. Now let us apply these thoughts to the state of our own part of Christ’ s Catholic Church. Who has not himself come in contact with both the illusions of which we have spoken--the illusion of overrating and underrating the present? What is that will worship with which we have to struggle in reference to points of faith, but the offspring of the feeling that this generation is so wise and enlightened that it may safely cut asunder all the moorings which bind it to the past, and launch forth upon the dim waters of the future, with its own shrewdness and intellect as its sole pilot and guide? And contrariwise; we have in ourselves and in those who are actually sensible of the evils of the present, to guard against the imagination that the Church is now in a state of hopeless decay; that it is vain to bestir ourselves for a falling fabric; that the most which we can do is to assist in saving individual souls; but that the national disease is beyond the reach of the national Christianity. This latter error is, after all, perhaps the most injurious, because it is that to which the purest and most faithful souls are liable; and is, therefore, if allowed to have place, the greatest obstacle to improvement. And now what is the remedy for this two-fold temptation which we have described? Indeed the remedy is set forth in the text. That which has grown so important a duty for all, clergy and laity, is the duty of calmly, soberly, dispassionately reviewing our position, our advantages and disadvantages, our weaknesses and our strength. What the Church of Christ is, in its original ideal, as designed in the counsels of the Eternal mind; what the Church has been, at every stage of its long sojourn upon earth--the Church of revelation and the Church of history; how much it has ever been corrupted with worldly influences; how far it must concede to, at what point it must resist, the spirit of the age; to what degree it has been really successful in coercing human lusts; these are points most essential for us to form a definite conception of, if we would go forth to our labour with a good heart. Every century has its set task, every lifetime its own office in the majestic march of God’ s designs. What if it be the very work of our generation, to certify them that come after; by our failures and discomfitures to acquire and deliver down a clearer knowledge of our standing before God than we received, and so to prepare the way for a revival of faith and obedience which others shall perfect. What if to us, especially in the very difficulties which beset us, in the very perplexities which we encounter, it be given to sweep clear the scene for nobler achievements, so that we may hear our peculiar vocation sketched out in the solemn charge: “ Thou son of man, shew the house,” etc. II. A striking declaration of our proper duties as priests of God. The charge is a charge to exhibit to the people the sacred edifice, to place before them the Church; and it is implied that the sight of the mystic structure will itself go far to make them ashamed of their own backslidings. Now we learn hence that it is one of our functions, each in his own parish, to exhibit the Church in all the integrity of its provisions for overcoming the world, with the belief that this showing it to the people will have a vast moral effect upon them. The carrying out of the Church system does not depend for its results upon the number of those who use the privileges offered; the simple exhibition of the Church in a parish is calculated to produce immense moral effect. The Church is a Divine instrument for regenerating the people. And the Church is known to the masses, not by definitions of theology, but by its perpetual worship, services, and sacraments, its fast days and festivals, its Lent and its Easter. And there is, we contend, in this Divine instrument fairly exhibited, a power over men’ s hearts which we are apt to forget. It was the loveliness of the Church catholic which bowed the hearts of the nations in her infancy. Amidst jarring idolatries, the Christian Church stood forth the fairest among ten thousand. It was not more by active preaching, than by the passive exhibition, so to speak, of Christianity as practised by themselves, that the old saints attracted to the Cross the barbarian tribes of ancient Europe. The melody of perpetual prayer and praise rung out through the aisles of primeval forests by night and day, in sweet accord with ascetic lives and heroic exertions, and the institution of practices which preternaturally harmonised with human need; and rough spirits yielded to the constraining Deity. And now, we are persuaded that there is no form of religion which so commends itself to men’ s hearts, which so enlists the affections, as the Church when thoroughly exhibited. Only in the Church will you find all things at once; the unwearied Litany, the high-wrought exhortation, the didactic catechising, the frequent commemoration of Christ’ s death. “ Shew the house to the house of Israel.” O! it is a noble burden here laid upon us. To be, each in his own parish, like Solomon the king. In quietness and stillness, in peace and gentleness, no sound of axe or hammer being heard, to make to rise up before our people, in all its unearthly beauty, the house of the Lord; to lead hungry souls through the mystic arcade of the seven pillars, and show them the feast of good things which wisdom has prepared; to point out the victories of faith which overcomes the world; the might of prayer which vanquishes God; the omnipotence of love which endureth all things; to cause that upon every cottage home shall rest the shadow of a holier building;--this is our office as doorkeepers of the house of the Lord. Suffer yet one word more. We may not forget that, in measuring the pattern of the Church, men will measure ourselves; how far, as individuals, we fall short of the mark. The people cannot see the house without seeing us who have the charge of it. Let us try, then, to inflame our own souls with the love of the house which we have to show. Whatever we have done, surely we may do more. (Bishop Woodford.) Ezekiel 43:11 If they be ashamed of all that they have done.True penitence I. The character of true penitents. “ If they be ashamed of all that they have done.” Every principle of corrupted nature lies in direct opposition to penitential shame. Ignorance, pride, deceit, hostility against God, and self-righteousness, combine their influence in hardening the heart against the humiliation of sincere repentance.1. The shame here spoken of is the effect of a mighty, Divine influence, which entirely changes the views and dispositions of the soul. 2. The radical effect of God’ s renewing grace, in this respect, consists in an abiding, gracious disposition of the heart towards penitential exercises. It discovers itself in a peculiar anguish under that darkness and hardness,--a high esteem of repentance for its own intrinsic beauty,--an ingenuity, diligence, and earnestness, in laying open the conscience to Divine light, and in imploring those breathings of the Almighty Spirit, which are effectual to thaw and dissolve the frozen heart. 3. This gracious disposition obtains its aim, and comes forth to its desired exercises, through supernatural discoveries of Divine truth, attended with a heart-melting and heart-turning power. 4. We are led by the text to fix our attention on one particular ingredient of these penitential sensations, namely, shame. This shame is a generous recoiling of the soul from itself, as having once embraced and perpetrated what it now perceives to be unspeakably vile in the sight of God and His holy creatures. It implies in it a sense of the detestable deformity of sin, in its own nature; a recollection of our former love and practice of it; a consideration of our remaining depravity, and want of the perfect beauty of our nature. 5. The text teaches us particularly to take notice of the universal extent of this gracious shame: “ If they be ashamed of all,” etc. Impenitent sinners are disposed to palliate and defend the vilest enormities of their conduct. But whatever may be said of occasional slips, they suppose the general tenor of their lives to be at least harmless. It is far otherwise, when the Spirit effectually breaks in upon the conscience. The true penitent is ashamed, more or less, of his whole life, of all that he hath formerly been, thought, and done. He sees himself to have been opposite to the law of God, in every motion of his heart, in every article of his conduct. 6. This deep-felt shame renders the heart more and more soft, tender, submissive to the authority of God, and ready to receive the impression of every part of His revealed will. II. What is comprehended in the instruction here described, by such an accumulation of expressions. “ Shew them the form of the house,” etc.1. This gracious instruction includes peculiar discoveries of the ultimate end, designed by the Author of these ordinances, and to be pursued after in the observance of them. This is the end, for which such a frame of ordinances is divinely created, and for which men are collected into a society for the observance of them; that therein Jehovah may display His own glory, communicate His love, and exalt men to a heavenly communion with Himself and with each other. The glory, importance, and certainty of this sublime end are, to true penitents, manifested in a peculiar manner. Hence they are strongly attached to Divine ordinances, and to the instituted order of God’ s house. And hence their attachment to these things differs widely from the random rhapsodies of enthusiasm, superstition, or bigotry. 2. This instruction relates to the authorised methods of acquiring, cherishing, and increasing that holy inward frame of spirit which is necessary in the worshippers of God. This is a capital part of what is here spiritually signified by the goings out, and comings in, and laws of the house. The instructions and counsels of the inspired prophets and apostles, and of Jesus Christ, whose name is called Wonderful, Counsellor, will, through the grace of the Spirit, be effectual for these purposes. 3. The instruction described in the text hath a direct reference to the institutions of God, respecting the external ordinances, order, and government of His Church. (John Love, D. D.) Ezekiel 43:12 This is the law of the house.The law of the house A Church to be rightly constituted must be scriptural. It must be formed and fashioned after the pattern of the true temple--founded not on the authority of man--not on the traditions of the elders--not on the opinions of the fathers--not on the decrees of princes or of popes--not on the acts and statutes of the realm, but on prophets and apostles, Jesus Christ Himself being the chief cornerstone. It follows from the very nature, institute, and objects of a Christian Church. Its nature--that is spiritual. Its institute--that is Divine. Its ends--glory to God in the advancement of the immortal interests of man. It must be the Bible--the Bible only--the Bible wholly, which must form the basis of our Church and of our creed. Laying our hand upon this volume, and recognising in it a revelation of the mind of God, we must say, “ This is the law of the house. Behold, this is the law of the house.” That point proved, we press the obvious inference, that in Scripture we must find the warrant, and from Scripture we must plead the rule. The rites and institutes of men, however wise, expedient, or politic, will not suffice. In vain shall we teach for doctrines the commandments of men--in vain appeal to the traditions of the elders, if we cannot appeal to the “ law and to the prophets.” In vain shall we assert the authority of the fathers, if we cannot allege the “ oracles of God.” I. The outer order of the sanctuary. The solemnity, reverence, decorum, requisite in everything connected with the service of the temple. Our comings to, attendance on, and goings from the house of God--even these may not be overlooked. Among the lesser sanctities, if I may use the term, they have their place and their importance, assisting, as they do, to solemnise the mind, and give to our assemblies the air and the behaviour of “ meetings of the saints.” The Church on earth should be as though it were the miniature of that which is in heaven; and men, on coming in and looking round, struck with the sacred aspect of the scene, should be constrained to say, “ Surely God is in this place. This is none other than the house of God. It is the gate of heaven.” II. The ordinances of the house. By these, you will understand the appointments of the Lord the King, relative to the rites and ceremonies of our religious worship. They are of two kinds, viewed in reference to the common or the Christian world. Common they are in reference to the first; sealing they are in reference to the second. Under the former, we enumerate praise, prayer, the reading of the Word, the preaching of the Word; under the latter, we enumerate the sacraments of Baptism and the Lord’ s Supper. Looking to the record, it is enacted and ordained, that “ the people praise Him--that all the people praise Him--kings of the earth, and all people--princes of the earth, and all judges--young men and maidens, old men and children--that they praise the Lord.” And, finding it thus written in the law, we must enter His gates with “ praise,” His temple with thanksgiving, and mingle all grateful and all earthly honours with the nobler strains which swell the sanctuary above. Again, looking to the record, we find it written, “ Ask, and ye shall receive, seek, and ye shall find.” “ I will that men pray everywhere.” “ O Thou that hearest prayer, unto Thee shall all flesh come” And acting on the letter of the law, we must around the altar of the sanctuary bow the knee of our hearts unto the God and Father of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, and, from this our house of prayer, send up in concert with the saints, each Sabbath day, the voice of supplication in sweet memorial before the throne of God. And thus, on reading in the law, I find it written to the same effect of all the other ordinances. Of one and all of them, it may be said that they are enacted and ordained, and ought in consequence to be acknowledged, honoured, and obeyed. III. The laws of Christ’ s house. These are His statutes and decrees in reference to the rule and government thereof. They may be considered either in regard to Christ, His royalties and rights as King, or to ourselves, our powers and privilege as freemen of the Lord. And first of all, it is enacted and ordained, that Christ shall be the King and Head of His own house. I look into the law and find it written, “ The government shall be upon His shoulders.” It is His, and His alone, to order, institute, ordain--to give the law, in short, respecting everything connected with the doctrine, discipline, worship, government of His own Church. Again, it is enacted and ordained in reference to ourselves, that every man is answerable to Christ for his religious belief. I look into the record, and I find it ruled, “ Call no one master upon earth. One is your Master, even Christ.” I look again, and find it written, “ Prove all things. Hold fast that which is good.” “ Let every man be fully persuaded in his own mind.” I look again, “ So, then, everyone shall give account of himself to God.” On the force of these authorities, I am clear to say, this is a law of the house, that every man think for himself, judge for himself, decide for himself, in matters of religious belief. Let there be perfect liberty, fullest freedom, influence, or interference--none beyond the influence of reason, righteousness, and truth. (H. M. Brown.) Most holy.--Holiness Separation is the root idea of holiness in the Old Testament, and Ezekiel insists that the separation between the holy and the profane shall be more sharp and emphatic. All the profane things are to be put farther away. Indeed, the object of the whole system of ritual that is brought forward in the concluding chapters of this book--the aim was to put all profane things outside the sphere of Jehovah’ s worship. As you know, this was ceremonial, ritualistic. But the deep significance of the arrangement cannot escape you--you know that all this has been fulfilled in its largest signification in Christ and in His Gospel. Christ has come, the Lord of righteousness, to bring many sons unto glory, and He will never rest until He has brought multitudes to the splendid perfection of His own spirit and example.1. In the first place, Christianity insists upon holiness of character--most holy--the man is to be that. Christianity commences with the spirit of the man, the will, the mind, the conscience, the disposition, with the very essence of the personality. Jesus Christ begins with “ Marvel not that I said unto you, Ye must be born again.” The first conception of holiness in character is that a man gets a clean heart, and that there is renewed within him a right spirit. Christ said, being clean within, profoundly spiritual, and righteous in mind, you go outside and work that out in all the complex relationships and multiplied responsibilities of practical and daily life. That is another splendid phase of Christian ethics. It gives us executive force and skill to carry out splendid ideas and noble patterns. I was reading the other day of a critic who had just returned from the Continent criticising one of the Spanish cathedrals. He said it was the embodiment of splendid ideas, but the ideas were everywhere poorly carried out. There was blundering in the fine lines, and the rich ornamentation was tawdry and vulgar. When I read that, it struck me that the race had failed in morals in a similar fashion. The ancients had splendid conceptions and ideas. When Jesus Christ came into the world there was the majestic morality of Sinai. When He came into the world there was the exact and masterly jurisprudence of the Roman, but everywhere great ideas were carried out poorly, fine lines were blunderingly touched, and noble maxims were reduced to triviality and vulgarity in practical life. What did Jesus Christ do? He gave the race eternal and invincible energy, by which, in practice, they could bring to pass the purest and loftiest ideals. “ What the law could not do” --the law of the Jew, the law of the Roman--“ what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God, sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh, that the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.” And so we in Christ are first cleansed, exalted, made to catch the loveliness of our Lord, and then He sends us forth with a strange, indwelling Spirit, by which we accomplish the virtues that we see lamentably impossible to the natural man. And, mind, you are all to be holy, most holy. The conception of Ezekiel is that this is not for a few, but for all. “ This is the law of the house, that the whole limit thereof shall be most holy.” 2. And then we come to the other point, “ the extended range, the whole limit thereof round about shall be most holy.” There had been, as Ezekiel says, only a wall in Solomon’ s temple between God and profane things, but in the new temple there was to be a larger area. Profane things were to be pushed farther back and farther back still, until they went over the brink of the world. From every quarter of the universe they should be driven. There is no fulfilment of this conception except for the whole planet, everyone in it, and of every law and every nature. “ The whole limit thereof round about shall be most holy.” What does the religion of Jesus Christ say? Make everything in God’ s great world to be true, just, beautiful--commerce, art, science, government, fashion, amusements, gold, friendships. Let the natural world stand, lout bring into it great ideas, and take care that you make these ideas prevail, until science, commerce, literature, and entertainments, wealth, and government, all become as fine gold, like unto transparent glass. Don’ t narrow us. Let the horizon of sanctity be as wide as the horizon of nature. Let ethics grow, and civilisation grow. That is the great conception of this work. You know that a good many men object to morality; they say it is so dull, that there is no growth in morality. If you get natural science, there is growth and development; but if you come to the Ten Commandments, the only thing is going on repeating them from one generation to another; you never get any further. You might just as well object to the multiplication table. I tell you in some ways there is no advance in morality; it is quite correct. It is not by an enlarged decalogue that there is to be an expansion of ethics. I tell you another thing. There is going to be no discovery of any new principle of ethics. Addington Symonds says the future of the world depends on the method of morals. He goes on to say, this world would be put on centuries if we could discover in the field of morals some new principle like the law of gravitation discovered by Newton, and so, if there should be any ethical Newton, to discover a new principle, it would put the world on by generations. Brethren, the life of God in Jesus Christ is the constraining law in morals, as the law of gravitation is the master law in the field of nature, and there is nothing more in our opinion to be discovered. So in the principle “ the love of Christ constraineth us,” and after that there is no new law to be discovered in the range of ethics. Where is the improvement to take place in the limit round about us? Where is it? In making the extraordinary sanctity of the few the sanctity of the mass, in bringing noble ideals to bear on the lowliest things, in making personal morality to be public morality. The time is coming when a man will put his soul into a convict’ s sackcloth because he cherished a sullied imagination. The time is coming when there will be no more wife beating, when a man will put himself upon the treadmill for a month for having given her an ugly look. The time is coming when a capitalist, a lady, would rather put on the cast-off garments of a leper than put on a purple that was stained by a workman’ s tear or blood. The time is coming when a man would rather pick his master’ s pocket than waste his time. There shall be such a spirit of magnanimity and charity, that a man will stand in the church porch and do penance for having in a moment of meanness given a three penny bit at the collection. “ Oh,” you may say, “ that is a touch of the grotesque.” I give you that, that you may remember it. Just as during the last fifty years the best thing of all is that the conscience of the race has grown, in the next fifty years the conscience of the race will continue to grow, and there shall be a code of morals, character, and etiquette more superb and delicate than any that we know today. Now, I say that is exactly the direction in which you have to work. Take your Christian conscience and perfect it by fellowship with the Great Ideal, and when you have done that take it into the world with you. Don’ t let any of the bad things continue. They must all go; all the bad things, however cunningly disguised, you must detest them. Precious in many ways as they seem to be to society, you must damn them. There must be no pleading for anything that is base and vile. It must go though appreciated by every age. Drop it into Gehenna. Mean that all common things shall be lifted up, that common things shall be transfigured. In visiting an art gallery the other day, I noticed that some of the greatest pictures had not a splendid thing in them. The ordinary artist, when he wants to be effective, paints a breadth of golden harvest, or he gets a kingfisher in, or he imagines some iridescent bird or other, some bird of paradise, or he paints a tree in blossom, or the captivating rainbow. But if you notice, some of the greatest painters that ever lived never touched these things. I noticed one of the pictures there. It was a railway object into it but the black earth, the cutting, a ploughed field. They got no brown earth, the red earth, but they touched it with that supreme touch that you can see the blossom in the dust, and the rainbow shine out of the cloud, and the picture without a brilliant thing in it was altogether bathed in imagination, poetry, and beauty you want to give everything in your life the transfiguring touch of righteousness. Then you don’ t want a few great things to make it admirable and spectacular. (W. L. Watkinson.) Holiness, the law of God’ s house I. Let us expound the law of the house. Note the text carefully. It begins and ends with the same words: “ This is the law of the house: upon the top of the mountain the whole limit thereof round about shall be most holy. Behold, this is the law of the house.” These words make a frame for the statute; or a sort of hand on each side pointing to it. And what is this law of the house? Why, that everything about it is holy. All things in the church must be pure, clean, right, gracious, commendable, God-like. Observe that this law of the house is not only intense, reaching to the superlative degree of holiness, but it is most sweeping and encompassing: for we read, “ Upon the top of the mountain the whole limit thereof round about shall be most holy.” Holiness should be far-reaching, and cover the whole ground of a Christian’ s life. He should be sanctified, “ spirit, soul, and body,” and in all things he should bear evidence of having been set apart unto the Lord. We notice, once again, that this holiness was to be conspicuous. The church is not as a house sequestered in a valley, or hidden away in a wood, but it is as the temple, which was set upon the top of a mountain, where it could be seen from afar. The whole of that mountain was holy. We should be a peculiar people, distinguished by this as a race dwelling alone, that cannot be numbered among the nations. We might instructively divide holiness into four things, and the first would be its negative side, separation from the world. There may be morality, but there can be no holiness in a worldling. Holiness next consists very largely in consecration. The holy things of the sanctuary were holy because they were dedicated to God. You tell me of your generosity, your goodness, and your pious intentions--what of these? Are you consecrated, for if you are not consecrated to God you know nothing of holiness. But this does not complete the idea of holiness unless you add to it conformity, to the will and character of God. If we are God’ s servants we must follow God’ s commands: we must be ready to do as our Master bids us, because He is the Lord, and must be obeyed. I must add, however, to make up the idea of holiness, that there must be a close communion between the soul and God; for if a man could be, which is not possible, conformed to the likeness of God, and consecrated to God, yet ii he never had any communication with God, the idea of holiness would not be complete. II. Let us examine ourselves by this law. Ask yourself questions, founded on what I have already said. Do I so live as to be separated? Is there in my business a difference between me and those with whom I trade? Are my thoughts different? Next, let each one ask, Am I consecrated? Am I living to God with my body, with my soul, with my spirit? Am I using my substance, my talents, my time, my voice, my thoughts for God’ s glory? Next, ask the question, Am I living in conformity to the mind of the holy God? Am I living as Christ would have lived in my place? Then, again, do I live in communion with God? I cannot be holy and yet have a wall of division between me and God. III. What are the bearings of this law of the house? Those bearings of the law to which I now refer are these:--If the Church of God shall be most holy, it will have as the result of it the greatest possible degree of the smile and favour of God. A holy Church has God in the midst of her. Where there is holiness God comes, and there is sure to be love, for love is of the very essence of holiness. The fruit of the Spirit is love, both to God and man. That love begets union of heart, brotherly kindness, sympathy, and affection, and these bring peace and happiness. This, of course, leads to success in all the church’ s efforts, and a consequent increase. Her prayers are intense., and they bring down a blessing, for they are holy and acceptable unto God by Jesus Christ: her labours are abundant, and they secure an abundant harvest, for God will not forget her labour of love. IV. Let us take order to secure obedience to the law of the house. I believe that Jesus is always working in His own way for the purity of every true Church. His fan is in His hand,” --see it moving continually,--“ and He will thoroughly purge His floor.” God’ s melting fire is not in the world, where the dross contains no gold, but “ His fire is in Zion, and His furnace in Jerusalem.” “ The Lord will judge His people.” Church members are under peculiar discipline, as it is written, “ You only have I known of all the nations of the earth, therefore I will punish you for your iniquities.” If churches are not holy they cannot be prosperous, for God afflicts those who break the law of His house. Now, cannot we give earnest heed that this law is regarded among us? Let us set to this work at once. Here is the first exercise for us: let us repent of past failures in holiness. We shall never overcome sin till we are conscious of it and ashamed of it. Having owned our error, let us next make the law of God’ s house our earnest study, that we may avoid offences in the future. Let the inspired page be your standard. Never mind what your minister tells you, observe what the spirit of God tells you. When you have studied the law of the house, then next be intensely real in your endeavour to observe it. Then let us cry for a sincere and growing faith in God concerning this matter of holiness. And then, lastly, let us pray to be set on fire with an intense zeal for God. I do not believe that there is such a thing as cold holiness in the world. Get rid of zeal from the church, and you have removed one of the most purifying elements, for God intends to purge Jerusalem by the spirit of judgment and by the spirit of burning. Oh, to be baptised into the Holy Ghost and into fire. (C. H. Spurgeon.) Ezekiel 43:13 These are the measures of the altar after the cubits.The altar measurable and immeasurable There is nothing held to be insignificant in the Book of God that pertains to the Divine altar or the holy house. Everything is of consequence; perhaps it would be more than paradoxical to say that everything is of supreme consequence. “ These are the measures of the altar after the cubits.” That is to say, if you look upon the thing geometrically, here it is, so long, so broad, so high, thus, and thus, and no other way. Such is the Divine specification; the altar is measurable, it is a question of cubits; make the cubits right, and you make the geometric altar right. Beyond that, the measuring man can do nothing. But when you have given the cubits you have given nothing. The altar, as a mechanical structure, is measurable; as a spiritual symbol, it is without measure. There are persons who imagine that if they have read the book called the Bible through, they have read God’ s revelation completely. It is the same sophism. There are men who think if they have told you how far it is from Dan to Beersheba they have been preaching. They have not begun to preach in the name and spirit of Christ. All this is mere secular instruction. There are what are called ecclesiastical antiquarians. They occupy a respectable position in society. They are often pensive-looking men; they are men of most studious habits. If you wanted to know the meaning of any ecclesiastical term, they would find it for you; they can go back century after century, and tell you the measure of every part, and the colour of every robe, and the significance of every line; and they can press matters down to the centuries of corruption, when all these original meanings were lost or perverted; then they can proceed to the centuries of restoration, and tell you all concerning the reconstruction of matters that had been overthrown, perverted, or neglected. All this they can do without ever praying. A man may build a cathedral and never pray. Remember, in dealing with the altar we are not dealing with a merely geometrical figure. The altar has its finite side, yet it has also its infinite aspect. What does the altar do? The altar looks towards the Unknown. If we might personify the altar, we should think of it as having eyes that wander through eternity. The altar would be saying in its silence, There is another home; this is but a stepping stone to something higher, this is but the dawn of the coming day, this is but the seed time--the golden harvest is not yet: I look beyond all these white sapphires that make the midnight rich with their jewellery, and I see beyond, and still beyond, God’ s measured sanctuary. It ought to be a grand thing to have amongst us an altar that talks thus. We want some sublimating influences. The tabernacle of God is with men upon the earth. Our houses are sanctified by the presence of the holy place. The walls of the sanctuary give security to the city; not its banks and festive chambers, but its sanctuaries are the glory of the town. We do not know what the sanctuary is doing in any city. It may be the humblest place viewed architecturally and geometrically, but seen in its spiritual significance and relationship it may be the poor little despised church or conventicle that is keeping the city out of hell. Do not, therefore, despise anything that has spiritual significance in it. We cannot tell how far its influence reaches. Little noise it makes; the kingdom of heaven cometh not with observation: when the morning dawns there is no crash of wheels upon the hills; the dawn is glorified silence. What is true of the public sanctuary is true of the home sanctuary: it is your family altar which keeps your house together. It may not be a formal altar, but the spirit of prayer that is in your house makes your bread sweet, and keeps all the windows towards the south, though geometrically they may stand square north. It is the Spirit of God, the altar, the Divine genius that makes the house warm in January and glorious in June. See what other words occur in connection with the term altar. You never find that word alone. Some men could not read this description of the altar. They are too sensitive; there are men so super-refined that they could not read this description of God’ s altar. Thou shalt “ sprinkle blood thereon,” etc. Beware of that insensate sensitiveness which cannot pronounce the word “ blood” in its religious and spiritual signification. Do not imagine yourselves refined and sensitive because you can talk about the example of Christ but not about the blood of Christ. You can debase any word; you can pronounce the word “ music” so as to take all melody and all harmony and rhythm out of it; you can pronounce the word “ gospel” so that it shall be but a common word of two syllables; you can shrink from anything: but you can so pronounce music and blood and Cross and Christ as to give those who hear you to feel that you have caught some inner and upper meaning which had hitherto escaped your own attention. Then how do we stand in this matter? You are Bible readers, are you students of revelation? You can quote all the dimensions of the altar, have you ever entered into its spirit? We are called to spirituality, not to carnality; to profoundest wisdom, not mere literal information; to an altar not made with hands, and not merely and exclusively to the altar built even upon the terms of a Divine specification. Holy Spirit, baptise us as with fire! Spirit of the altar, teach us how to suffer, how to pray! (J. Parker, D. D.) Proportions of altar unintelligible “ And these are the measures of the altar.” That was the point at which I became excited. Whilst he was measuring gates and posts and porches I cared little, but when he began to measure the altar, who could but pause? And then came this disappointment, “ after the cubits.” I thought he was going to measure the altar. And what is a cubit? said I. And he mocked me with this reply: “ A cubit is a cubit, and a hand breadth.” Ah! that undefined hand breadth; that plus quantity that is in everything. “ And from the bottom upon the ground even to the lower settle shall be two cubits, and the breadth one cubit, and from the lesser settle even to the greater settle shall be four cubits and the breadth one cubit. So the altar shall be four cubits; and from the altar and upward shall be four horns. And the altar shall be twelve cubits long, twelve broad, square in the four squares thereof.” Do you understand that? No man ever understood the altar. Remember that and be calm. The altar is not to be understood. There are some places at which we can only pray, and wonder, and weep, and wait. It is the man with the foot rule in the church that I dread! He tells me, forsooth, how long I preached. Can any man preach with that person in the audience? The use of the measureable is to point to the immeasurable. The measureable is algebraic, symbolic, indicative. The foot rule means the sky, the sky, God. At first we are greatly taken by bulk, by magnitude, and we talk of the great mountains and the great seas. It fits our age well, we shall outgrow it. Great mountains! Why, a child, give him time, can climb to the top of any one of them, and wave a banner there. No height at least can keep a child back; there may be ruggedness of way, but of that we are not speaking, but of mere height, mere greatness. How great you used to think those houses down in your village--you did! I did! We passed the great house, ivy-covered, with a kind of suppressed but not wholly unconscious awe. Then you came to Birmingham, Manchester, Liverpool, London, and went back, and you said, “ Where is that great house?” Ay, where? “ That is it!” “ No.” “ It is!” “ No, no!” “ Certainly that is the house!” “ I thought, it was so large and had so many windows in it, and that it reared itself among all the other houses, very important and almost majestic.” That is it--come down. Why? Because of the greater sights you have seen, the greater houses that have passed before your vision. And thus all life goes down in that sense and yet up in another. The man who has communed with God fears no opponent. Goliath looked so huge when I saw him from the human standpoint, but after five minutes with God I sought him and he could not be found. So you tabernacle with God, live and move and have your being in God, walk in the heavenlies, then when you come down to earth, with its battle and stress and cross and pain and need, you will understand what the Apostle meant when he said, “ If you look at affliction from one point it seems intolerable, often beyond words and imagination, but if you look at it from another point you will say, ‘ Our light affliction is but for a moment.’” How so? Why, we look not at the things that are seen; not at the cubits, but at the altar; not at time, but at eternity; not at the present, but at the future. It is heaven that must one day explain the earth. (J. Parker, D. D.) The cross is beyond measurement We see the cross no more after its cubit measures. The cross was measurable, the Roman foot rule was laid upon it--so much vertical, so much horizontal, so much in weight--was that the cross? No! That was the Roman gallows, that was not the cross. Oh! why do we not preach the cross, the eternal cross, whose shadow lies even over the light of summer? Men need the cross so interpreted. But have we not made a gallows of the cross, the model of the Atonement? Who can measure the word “ atone” ? There are those who are the victims of definition idolatry. They want to know what you mean by this term and that. There are indefinable terms, there are terms that have no equivalent in other symbols. “ Atonement” may be one of those terms. I have seen it once. A man may only see the cross in its truest sense once, but that once spreads itself through all the days. A man may only take, mayhap, the ordinance of the Lord’ s Supper once. Have you taken it so? For convenience, for expedience, for merely ecclesiastical purposes, end for occasional spiritual helps, it may be necessary to have it every Lord’ s day, or every month, or every year, at certain periodic intervals. No doubt, but the soul cannot drink that Blood more than once! Do you suppose that the cross can be measured in cubits? Where was the atonement rendered? In eternity! Do you suppose that Christ was born in Bethlehem in any other than a merely visible and temporal and earthly sense? He was never born in Bethlehem! When did He die? He is the Lamb slain from before the foundation of the world. Before the sin was done the atonement was made! You cannot anticipate God. You cannot surprise the Eternal. He does not conceive of the cross as an after device; He does not attempt to make a Roman model into a living atonement. (J. Parker, D. D.) The greatest things measurable Let us look at this law of altar cubits a little while, for it admits of divers and useful illustrations. Take the alphabet, your English alphabet. There are some six-and-twenty letters in it. That is the measure of the alphabet after the cubits. Now pronounce the alphabet. You cannot! You have got all the letters in one huge mouthful, and cannot pronounce them. And most of the letters are themselves dumb, waiting for the vowels to touch them to music and into life. But suppose a man should say that was the English language--there you have the English literature, there you have the Paradise Lost and the Principia and Hamlet and all the poetry that has ever been written, and all the philosophy that has ever been reamed or published, you have it all in so far as the whole is expressed in the English language. In a sense, yes; in another sense, no. And yet without the alphabet where should we be? Who could move? Who could express themselves in the English tongue? Are you content with the alphabet? Yes; when it comes to the higher things you are. You smile at the notion of being contented with the alphabet when I refer to letters, to literature, to poetry, and to philosophy, but how many are there who have been in the Church forty years and are in the cradle still--in the alphabet still--and who, when they go to church, want to hear the alphabet pronounced. I wait! But unless you say A, B, and right down to Y, Z, there are some measurers, not sent from heaven, who say you have not preached the Gospel. The Gospel is a sky, a wind, a pathos, a spirit, as well as an alphabet. It has its writings, it can hand them to you, but ask for its inspiration, it breathes through all the centuries and makes a man live according to its kind. (J. Parker, D. D.) The measurement of the altar Manton says: “ The satisfaction must carry proportion with the merit of the offence. A debt of a thousand pounds is not discharged by two or three brass farthings. Creatures are finite, their acts of obedience are already due to God, and their sufferings for one another, if they had been allowed, would have been of limited influence.” Jesus alone, as the Son of God, could present a substitution sufficient to meet the case of men condemned for their iniquities. The majesty of His nature, His freedom from personal obligation to the law, and the intensity of His griefs, all give to His atonement a virtue which elsewhere can never be discovered. (C. H. Spurgeon.) Measuring by orbits God is a great measurer. God has a reed, a line, a pole. God makes His cities four-square, and He will not see the law of the square violated. It is His method! God is a great geometer. All your little Euclids are cut out of the Deity! It is said that He stretcheth out the heavens as a curtain, and that He spreadeth them out as a tent to dwell in. It is reported of Him that He meteth out the heavens with a span. He weighs the mountains in scales, and the hills in a balance. And no man can steal one atom of dust, and no little pebble can flee away! It is all measured! The bounds of our habitation are fixed! There are bounds that cannot be measured. What is your house? Tell me about it; I like to hear about houses. Well? “ It is large.” How large? “ Three rooms on the ground floor.” There may be certain minds who have no peace with less than four rooms on the ground floor. One is enough for me--but I am not everybody. Well, then, upstairs? “ Rooms so many.” Lofty? “ Very.” What are your proportions? “ Thirty feet by twenty-five feet.” And the garden? “ Two hundred feet by one hundred and thirty-two feet.” Is that all? I do not want to hear these things! I do not want an auctioneer to speak to me in my higher moods! He has his place, but there are levels to which I go where he in his professional capacity is nobody, and where he cannot speak in my native language. You can lay a line upon the house. Now lay me a line upon the home! No man can do that! But is not the house the same as the home? Ah, there you ask a question which is infinitely ridiculous, so destitute of sentiment, of poetry, of high spiritual sensitiveness and ideality! The house is one thing. The home is another! You may have a house and not a home! You may be in the Church, but not in the Sanctuary! You may have a book, and not a revelation! Why do we not distinguish between things that differ, and get the right values and proportions of them? Coleridge says: “ I for one am not content to call the soil under my feet my country.” Certainly not! The country is not an affair of soil. He says: “ The religion, the language, the home life, these constitute all that is best in your country.” That is what I am labouring to say. We want soil--something to stand upon; but it is nothing until we have crowned it with those happy associations to watch I have just referred. The life that has no home in it, no interior sanctuary, no altar, no cross, no hope--we cannot call it life. Call it the second death! What I want to show you, therefore, needs a little repetition in order to deepen and settle the best impressions. You see there is a measurable quantity, and you see there is an immeasurable quantity; and the measurable is of no use to me except it signify and indicate the immeasurable. The measurable is only a kind of ladder by which I climb to see the immeasurable. This is the spirit in which we have to do our work. This is the spirit, the influence, the spiritual immeasurable inwardness of what we are doing! A certain kind of man--I wonder who made him?--once wrote in the newspapers something about our missionaries, and he thought he had made them quite ridiculous. Many men have thought that; but “ The horse and his rider wilt the Lord throw into the sea.” He said the income of the Society--perhaps it was your Society or the London Missionary Society--I do not know which--the income of the Society was so many thousands; the number of conversions reported, so many hundreds; dividing the thousands by the hundreds we find that each conversion cost the Society, say, a thousand pounds. What a man that would have been for measuring altars! How very ingenious this application of a foot rule! He thought he made us all look ridiculous because he showed us, by arithmetic and statistical processes, that each conversion cost an almost fabulous amount. That is the measure of the altar by cubits! Now, the measure of the soul! the measure of the character! the measure of the influence! There is a foot rule. Lay it on light, on gravitation. on the fragrance, on the influence, on the effluence! The poor man has come to the end of his tether. If one conversion cost the total income of your Society, it was worth it! That is the right way of looking at it! “ Knowest thou the importance of a soul immortal, Behold the midnight glory, world on world, Amazing pomp: redouble this amaze. Ten thousand add and twice ten thousand more. One soul outweighs them all, and calls The astonishing magnificence of unintelligent creation poor!” Unless we work in that spirit we shall give up all our efforts and confuse all our enterprises. I have given up seeking after the results of my ministry. I have asked God in many a high hour of converse to enable me to do my work as lovingly, earnestly, and capably as I can, and I have asked Him to look after the results, and He promised me He would do so. (J. Parker, D. D.) . Ezekiel 44:7-8 In that ye have brought into My sanctuary strangers.The relation of the stranger to the service of the temple What is reprobated is not of course allowing foreigners to present sacrifices to Jehovah, which they might do (Leviticus 17:10; Leviticus 17:12), but allowing them to officiate in the offering, and in general in the ministry of the sanctuary. This is regarded by the prophet as a profanation of the house, and an infraction of the covenant between Jehovah and Israel. It is the latter from the nature of the case. Israel was the people of the Lord, and His service must be performed by Israel. These heathen were uncircumcised both in flesh and heart; their service was purely mercenary, and without religious reality. (A. B. Davidson, D. D.) Ezekiel 44:9-16 No stranger, uncircumcised in heart, nor uncircumcised in flesh, shall enter into My sanctuary.God’ s care of His altar Is not this rather severe upon the stranger? The injunction does not rest upon the fact of the strangeness of the stranger, because in Ezekiel 47:22-23 there is a distinct provision for the stranger in Israel. God will therefore have the stranger in Israel have his inheritance, his lot; but when it becomes a question of the altar, God naturally looks round for the Levite. In this case the Levite was not present; the Levite had “ gone away.” How had the Levites disqualified themselves? The facts are given in the context and in the text itself. First, in Ezekiel 47:10, they “ are gone away.” The man who has exchanged vows with God should always be found in his place. When he goes away it is like high treason in the army; when such a man goes away it is as if a troop had been cut down with the edge of the sword. Gone away far. Observe that next word. It was not a little lapse, one step aside; but “ gone away far from Me.” You cannot stop one inch away from God; one inch means two, and two inches mean a foot, and the foot soon grows into furlongs and miles. To what had they gone? They “ went astray from Me after their idols.” Here is the prostitution of reason. Here is no theological mystery, but a mystery of daily life,--that a man shall know the true God, and turn away from Him; a man shall know that there is a coming eternity, and yet shall tabernacle himself in the huts of minutes and hours and all the other little details of perishing time. To know the right, and yet the wrong pursue, is the miracle of manhood. But were the Levites without excuse? They had their reasons. There was a general decadence in Israel. In Ezekiel 47:10 we have these awful words--“ when Israel went astray.” It was not the movement of a man or two here and there, or of a Levite or a priest, or an eminent legislator or leader; but all Israel in one great mass, as it were, went away, and the Levites went with them. Were not the Levites justified? May we not follow the times? The Lord will not have it so. It is the part of the Levite to stem the torrent of the crowd. It is the part of great statesmen and great writers and great characters to stop others from doing evil, not to go along with them. The Levites should have stood firm, whatever others did. Yet we must not make a perverted use even of this explanation. There God expects every man to be firm, and we only increase in responsibility as we increase in capacity, in opportunity, in faculty, and in profession. Whilst, therefore, it is quite right to expect that certain men should keep the faith and walk in the right way, our expectancy concerning them is no excuse why we ourselves should go wrong. The Lord will not deal with us in crowds, but in individual relationship to Himself, His throne, and His law. What was the result? Were the Levites wholly discharged? No; the word “ yet” with which the eleventh verse opens point to an exercise of the Divine clemency that is really wonderful, and it is worth while to indicate this in words, because it continues unto this day. The Lord will never give up a man until the man literally wrenches himself out of the Divine grasp. What became of the errant Levites? First, they were deposed, put down to lower work; degraded, we may say, to the second place; taken down one step, three steps, a dozen steps, but still not wholly banished and excommunicated from the service of the sanctuary. Now this may happen with all of us. What some men might have been! They might have led us; instead of that they are put down to menial service. Search into the reason, and you will find there has been a moral lapse, or an intellectual infirmity, or some proof of disqualification. They are not cast into the bottomless pit, they are not put beyond the reach of light and hope and mercy; but it is of necessity that they should be deposed or degraded. What is true of men individually is true of men ecclesiastically. Churches are put into the second place; churches are put back into the third place. The Church that ought to lead the world because of its wealth, its learning, its historical opportunities and advantages, may so act that men who have no name, no status, no background of history, shall come forward by the voice and appointment of God, and lead the world into redemption and liberty and prospect of heaven. Was the Lord then left wholly without faithful men? You find the contrast in Ezekiel 47:15. There is always a contrast in history. We thought in the preceding verses that all Israel had gone astray, we find in the 15th verse that the sons of Zadok “ kept the charge of My sanctuary when the children of Israel went astray from Me.” There has always been a faithful party in the state. There has always been an element of constancy in all the mutation of men and times and institutions. God keeps watch over that permanent quantity; it is as His own ark in the wilderness of time. Sometimes the case of the ark has been brought very low; now and then in history it would seem as if the kingdom of God had been within a very short distance of extinction: but what is a “ short distance” in the estimation of God? A hair’ s breadth is a universe; if there is one moment between a nation and destruction, in that one moment God can work all the miracles of deliverance. “ Man’ s extremity is God’ s opportunity.” This lies within our province and within our hope, may it lie also within our sense of duty, that it is possible for us though few to be faithful; it is possible when all others have proved faithless for us to be faithful found. (J. Parker, D. D.) Faithful to our charge “ A beautiful story was told by Dr. Cooke, of Belfast, about a gunner at Waterloo. Just as the recruits came up, who were the means of turning, under Wellington, the great battle of modern days, the smoke and noise was so great that he could not see five yards in front of him. But he felt the swaying tides of the battle going this way and that, and did not know at one time whether he was among English or French, friends or foes; and Dr. Cooke asked him afterwards, ‘ Well, my friend, and what did you do?’ ‘ I stood by my gun,’ replied the man. And that is what we have to do.” Ezekiel 44:23 They shall teach My people the difference between the holy and profane. Steering between the rocks I. You can judge of the moral character of any amusement by its healthful result, or by its baleful reaction. In proportion as a ship is swift, it wants a strong helmsman; in proportion as a horse is gay, it wants a stout driver; and people of exuberant nature will do well to look at the reaction of all their amusements. If an amusement sends you home at night nervous, so that you cannot sleep, and you rise up in the morning, not because you are slept out, but because your duty drags you from your slumbers, you have been where you ought not to have been. If any amusement sends you home longing for a life of romance and thrilling adventure, love that takes poison and shoots itself, moonlight adventures and hairbreadth escapes, you may depend upon it that you are the sacrificed victim of unsanctified pleasure. Our recreations are intended to build us up; and if they pull us down as to our moral or as to our physical strength, you may come to the conclusion that they are in the class spoken of by my text as obnoxious. II. Those amusements are wrong which lead you into expenditure beyond your means. The table has been robbed to pay the club. The champagne has cheated the children’ s wardrobe. Excursions that in a day make a tour around a whole month’ s wages; ladies whose lifetime business it is to “ go shopping” ; bets on horses and a box at the theatre have their counterparts in uneducated children, bankruptcies that shock the money market and appall the Church, and that send drunkenness staggering across the richly figured carpet of the mansion, and dashing into the mirror, and drowning out the carol of music with the whooping of bloated sons come home to break their old mother’ s heart. When men go into amusements that they cannot afford, they first borrow what they cannot earn, and then they steal what they cannot borrow. First, they go into embarrassment, and then into lying, and then into theft; and when a man gets as far on as that, he does not stop short of the penitentiary. There is not a prison in the land where there are not victims of unsanctified amusements. III. Those are unchristian amusements which become the chief business of a man’ s life. Your sports are merely means to an end. They are alleviations and helps. The arm of toil is the only arm strong enough to bring up the bucket out of the deep well of pleasure. Amusement is only the bower where business and philanthropy rest while on their way to stirring achievements. Amusements are merely the vines that grow about the anvil of toil, and the blossoming of the hammers. Alas for the man who spends his life in laboriously doing nothing, his days in hunting up lounging places and loungers, his nights in seeking out some gas-lighted foolery! The amusements of life are merely the orchestra playing while the great tragedy of life plunges through its five acts--infancy, childhood, manhood, old age, and death. Then exit the last chance for mercy. Enter the overwhelming realities of an eternal world! IV. Those amusements are wrong which lead into bad company. If you belong to an organisation where you have to associate with the intemperate, with the unclean, with the abandoned, however well they may be dressed, in the name of God quit it. They will despoil your nature. They will undermine your moral character. They will drop you when you are destroyed. They will give not one cent to support your children when you are dead. They will weep not one tear at your burial. They will chuckle over your damnation. V. Any amusement that gives you a distaste for domestic life is bad. How many bright domestic circles have been broken up by sinful pleasuring! The father went off, the mother went off, the child went off. There are today the fragments before me of a great many blasted households. Oh, if you have wandered away, I would like to charm you back by the sound of that one word “ home.” Do you not know that you have but little more time to give to domestic welfare? Do you not see, father, that your children are soon to get out into the world, and all the influence for good you are to have over them you are to have now? Death will break in on your conjugal relations, and alas, if you have to stand over the grave of one who perished from your neglect! (T. De Witt Talmage.) Ezekiel 44:28I am their inheritance.God an inheritance We possess God as the flower the sunlight; as a babe the mother. All His resources are placed at our disposal. The seed cast into the ground immediately begins to take from earth and air the nutriment of its life, and we have the same power of deriving from the infinite fulness of God all that shall make us pure and strong and gentle. Ours are the unsearchable riches of Christ; we are made full through the fulness which God the Father has been pleased to make dwell in Him. All the resources which have been placed at His disposal in His ascension and eternal reign are gifts which He holds for men. Alas for us that we fail to possess our possessions! (F. B. Meyer, B. A.) God the portion of the people Christ is all in all to His people. He is all their strength, wisdom, and righteousness. They are but the clouds irradiated by the sun, and bathed in its brightness. He is the light which flames in their grey mist and turns it to a glory. They are but the belt and cranks and wheels; He is the power. They are but the channel, muddy and dry; He is the flashing life which fills it and makes it a joy. They are the body; He is the Soul dwelling in every part to save it from corruption and give movement and warmth. “ Thou art the organ, whose full breath is thunder; I am the keys, beneath Thy fingers pressed.” (A. Maclaren, D. D.). Ezekiel 45:10 Ye shall have Just balances.God requires just dealings That our consciences may be enlightened and set right, we want a standard, like the standard weights and measures that are kept in the Tower of London, to which all the people in the little country villages may send up their yard measures, and their pint pots, and their pound weights, and find out if they are just and true. (A. Maclaren, D. D.) Ezekiel 45:20 And so thou shalt do . . . for everyone that erreth, and for him that is simple. Provision for the erring and simple A very touching provision is here. When the services of the newly constituted temple were in full operation, and the priests were performing the usual rites in all the pomp and splendour of their ceremonial on the behalf of all righteous and godly souls, there was to be special thought of the erring and simple; for these two characters a special offering was made. Perhaps the erring were too hardened and the simple too obtuse to bring an offering for themselves; but they were not forgotten. The blood of the sin-offering was to be placed on the posts of the house and on the posts of the gate of the inner court, each seventh day of the month, on their behalf. Whenever we draw around the altar of God, whether in the home or church, we should remember the erring and simple. If a family misses from its ranks one erring member, its prayer and thought are more directed towards that one than to those that have not gone astray. Does not the child who is deficient in its intellect attract more loving care than those who are able to care for themselves? Should it be otherwise in God’ s home? (F. B. Meyer, B. A.) . Ezekiel 46:9 The north gate . . . the south gate.North and south in religion Ezekiel’ s temple sets forth the order, grandeur, and beauty of the Church in its vigour, and the life that shall go out from it in floods all over the world. It is the picture of the Gospel of Christ in its social aspect and in its healing and regenerating influence. What can be meant, then, by declaring regarding this temple that those who go in by the south door shall go out by the north, and that those who go in by the north shall go out by the south? A man may enter either by the north deer or the south. There is perfect liberty here. But there is no liberty as to what he shall do after that. He shall go right through. He shall make for the “ over against.” Has not this a very plain meaning for us--that we should not sit still at that side of religion which first attracted us, not keep going beck over the old ground, but strive to go through the whole breadth of religion. There is a north and a south in religion. There is a bright, sunny side. It is always warm and genial there. And there is a cold, dark side, which only gets the sun on the longest days. Some come in by the one side, and some by the other. Some come with grief and tears, driven by bitter cold or wild blasts. Others come in by the door of hope and joy, drawn by bright promises. They come calm, easy, and radiant, as to an old home which they had never lost. Religion has many opposites, though no contradictions. The Bible is continually speaking of the importance of joining opposites together, such as prayer and praise, working and waiting, digging and crying, resting and running, weeping and rejoicing, past and future, time and eternity. The truth taught in the text, then, is a most practical as well as suggestive one, and one that lies very near to the root of success--that we should go on to the opposite good of that which we possess, not simply further than where we are, but that we should strive to reach and embrace the directly opposite attainment, not leaving or undervaluing what is possessed, but uniting to it that which may seem contrary or which may possibly have been considered by us as wholly antagonistic and incompatible. We shall find that it is these opposites which not only preserve from exaggeration and caricature, but that they are needful even for proper rooting and strength. When one finds out how opposites coalesce and help each other, need each other, claim each other, and are only themselves when they find each other, he is fortified against moral scepticism and against religious unrest. What I contend for is not a compromise, but a junction in which each remains to strengthen and develop the other. Do we wish to see examples of this in human life? Are not great generals who have a power of wide and far arrangement also remarkable for the opposite, the attention to small details? So men who have organised and sustained large mercantile enterprises have been remarkable combinations of opposite qualities, cautious and bold, cool and intense, patient and ardent, careful of little things, observant of the slightest signs, while conceiving great projects. If a painter is happy in outlines, it will not profit him much unless he studies minute effects; if he excels in form, he must try to excel also in colour. Everything in actual life needs its opposite to give it substance, pith, and permanence. We need to be often reminded of this truth, for everyone is inclined to some particular side of things, by temperament, by habit, or surroundings. I. Truth. The truth of God has many sides, and there are truths which stand as opposites: whole classes of truths stand as opposites. A healthy, religious life seeks to lay hold of both of these.1. Religion embraces truths that are mysterious and truths that are clear and plain. Can we be right if we seek merely clear things and neglect the vast mysteries, or if we are fascinated by the mysteries and despise or forget things easy to understand? Every man needs the plainest truths constantly, for religion is not mainly an exercise for the intellect or a discipline for faith, but rest and food for the feeblest. But let no man say, The plain and simple things are all I want; I care not for mysteries. They perplex me; they weigh upon me. I avoid them, I pass them by. Do you really think, then, that you have got hold of these plain truths while you thus act? The plain truths need the vast and unsearchable to give them force. You yourself need to be awed and mastered, ay, even bewildered and perplexed by the inscrutable. 2. There are truths of theory and truths of practice. Let the one class be added to the other. Theology ought to be the most inspiring of all sciences. If you have entered the temple by this door, it is well; but do not stay there. Religion is more than theology. A man may be very theological, and only a very little religious. But you never get a real hold of theology till you learn the elementary experiences of religion. Truly to pray and be contrite, and hold fellowship with God opens up theology. II. Worship. Worship has many sides. It also abounds in opposites. Such are sorrow and joy, hope and fear, prayer and praise, supplication and promise, or resolve. How fully and impartially these are presented in the Word of God; yet how frequent it is for men to cling to one side of worship. How many enter at the north door of entreaty, and never really approach the south door of joy and praise. You must not remain in sorrow. Whoever has brought to God tears, sorrows, fears, doubts, burdens, let him bring great joy. He may find it hard to do this. It is called in the Psalms the sacrifice of joy. And truly it is a sacrifice and often the most costly that one can bring. It may cost you far more to bring joy to God than to bring labour and tears. So to pass over to the side of joy would really be the wholesomest endeavour that many a one could make. It would revolutionise his life. He would be renewed and made a spiritual man in the mere effort to bring to God joy. But there are those who find it easy to be glad and grateful, Depression, the awful burden of sin, bitter tears, or a sorrow that would find relief in tears, they have no experience of. Are they, then, under no obligation to sorrow! Can they ignore all that side of religion? Have they found their way to a region where it is superfluous? That cannot be if they are sinful men. He that does not know the secret of grief must be very much on the surface of things. There are those, again, who have been very earnest for themselves. They have pleaded and wrestled for pardon. They have cried many and many a time with all the earnestness of their nature after renewal, after deliverance from evil and attainment of Divine freedom; they have felt, as a crushing load, the burden of their own souls; but they have never felt the burden of the world’ s evil and bondage. They must learn to be in thorough earnest about some object, and some person not their own, and that can bring no benefit to them. Only then is a soul truly emancipated, only then, when it takes up God’ s cause and man’ s and forgets itself, does it know the greatness of prayer. III. Moral and spiritual life.1. How common it is to decry feeling and exalt conduct and action. The tendency is certainly right as to the comparative value of these opposites if they are regarded as antagonistic. Action, conduct in the full sense of the word, the action of the man is the end and aim of all. But, on the other hand, feeling is the proper basis of action and conduct. Pity and compassion are feelings; can anyone be acting a wise or noble part who decries or ignores them? Sympathy and benevolence are feelings. Admiration is a feeling. Taken together, these form that supreme feeling called love. Zeal and enthusiasm are feelings. Men who speak slightingly of feeling must surely be uneasy when they reflect on the value which the great human heart sets on these things, and the immense sway they wield. Surely they must be uneasy when they reflect how very differently the Word of God speaks, and how intent it is on expelling wrong feelings and awaking right ones. No! The true course is for men not to excuse or vindicate their want of feeling, but to lament it, to bewail their poverty, and press across that they may become rich. There are those who, on the other hand, rest in emotion, who are pleased with themselves that they are so susceptible, and have such fine, earnest, lofty desires. This is a huge danger. Feeling is for the purpose of action. Those, therefore, who feel strongly should of all men particularly set their hearts on action, on being extremely, thoroughly, minutely practical. It is easier for them than other men to be diligent and thorough. Their glow and enthusiasm ought to give them wings. 2. Devotion and righteousness in like manner stand over against each other; in other words, some are mainly for God, others mainly for man. There are those who feel strongly the claims of God and have a constant drawing to worship. The pleasure they take in devotion is real, but their conscience and their human affections are dormant. They need to have it strongly brought home to them that there is a whole side of things of the utmost moment which they are ignoring, that if a man love God he must love his brother also, and that this is the love of God to keep His commandments. And is not the opposite type frequent? The feeling of this class is expressed in such phrases as, The best worship of God is to do what is right. The best worship of God is to help men. The best worship of God is to be like Him. What shall we say to this? The helping of men may be a worship of God, but it may not. It will not be a worship of God unless there is first, and as the foundation of the life, direct worship of God. God claims direct worship, and the soul needs it. From whence will you draw your inspiration and your power to help men if you do not come into contact with God? (J. Leckie, D. D.) Ezekiel 46:10 The prince in the midst of them, when they go in, shall go in; and when they go forth, shall go forth.The Prince in the midst The Prince shall mean to us the man Christ Jesus, whom God has exalted to be a Prince and a Saviour. Isaiah calls Him the “ Prince of Peace” ; and Peter, the “ Prince of Life.” I don’ t know where the Prince’ s central palace is, nor where He holds His court. It is in the far country which no human eye has ever explored; somewhere beyond the unknown seas which no embodied soul can navigate, and from which no traveller has come back to tell the tale. But I live in hope, the hope that stirs many another eager heart, that on some fair morning I shall see this King in His beauty, in the land that won’ t be far off then! But this verse tells us something quite good enough and bright enough for us to know: “ The Prince is in the midst of them.” It is not often that the royalties of earth occupy a place like that; some of them are shut up in splendid seclusion. Most men know only the names of the great and noble; all of them are removed from the society of the poor. But our Prince has no preference, no selection, no priority. He is in the midst of His people, and His light and smile are always to be seen. The gifts of His bounty are as free to the man who is lowly, to the sons of poverty, as to the sons of wealth. But it is not everybody who recognises the presence of the Prince when He is here. He may smile as royally as the sunlight, and yet you may be so insensible as never to know He is near. Do you acknowledge His rule? Do you submit to His authority? Do you obey His command? A prince has laws,--do you honour them? A prince has reverence,--do you reverence Him? This Prince covets your affections,--do you love Him? I knew a Christian woman who was always found early in the sanctuary. She was quite deaf, and heard neither song nor sermon. I asked her why she came and whether she was the better for it, and her answer is worth recording: “ The communion of saints is sweet in itself, and a neighbour always finds the lessons and the text for me, and the Lord speaks to me, and His voice is very sweet to me.” You see that her loyalty brought her into the presence of royalty. The Prince was there to speak, touch, and smile to her. And the Prince in the midst of them when they go in shall go in with them. You see that the loyal hearts that honour Christ bring Him with them. They cross the threshold together with Christ, and sit together with Him in the pew. I am afraid that there is too little of this with us. We should seek to be prepared for the house of prayer beforehand, that we and the Prince may come there hand in hand. “ When they go forth.” That is the best test of any sanctuary service. Do we carry with us the companion, the guest who says to us as we go forth from the house of God, what He said to Zacchaeus when He called that publican, “ I must abide at thy house,” thy house. Always understand that where the Prince’ s subjects are, those who are loyal to Him, in whose hearts He reigns--ruling in the life,--that the Prince is always with them. He does not part company with them at morning prayer; He does not breathe a benediction on them at the family gathering, and then retire to the throne of His glory. But He takes His place, too, in the tram, the ‘ bus, or the train. He cheers and gives the strength and power to the ordinary doings of the day. If we would but remember to realise this, what a grand and noble business the daily round and common task would be! Don’ t you think the company and oversight of our Prince is to be desired? I do believe in a religion that has to do with every five minutes of our time. Sure am I that your burdens would be lighter, your cares lessened, your hands strengthened, and your hearts cheered, if you could but feel that your Prince was present to smooth your path and to dwell within prayerful reach of you all the time; and oh! what a defence that would be against the continuity of temptations that assail us through life. I remember reading of a lad who was tempted to steal his master’ s goods by one of his fellow workmen. “ John, you can do so-and-so now; the master has gone now; the master is not in.” “ No,” said the lad, “ my Master is always in.” Well done, John! that is the true principle of life. His Master was the Prince. Christ had gone into the shop with him. I want you to see that my text is especially grandly and beautifully true in the days of our suffering and trial. If you yourself are called on to drop your tool, to lay down your pen, to retire awhile from actual life, and to prepare for illness, the Prince, when you go in, shall go in too; for there, more than ever, He is near to comfort and to bless. His voice is then so gentle, His touch so tender, and His companionship so sweet. He makes the sick chamber the house of God, and the gate of heaven. And my text says a little more than that. The Prince in the midst of them when they go forth shall go forth too. This is a promise for the traveller. We travel much nowadays; travel rapidly and in a good deal of peril. What a promise for the traveller when he goes forth. He shall go forth too! What a promise for the emigrant as he says “ Good-bye” to his friends. “ Good-bye, my lad,” said an old man whom I knew, to a young fellow, “ there is one thing that keeps my heart from breaking and that is that the Lord is with thee, lad.” Christ was going forth with the boy! What a promise that is for the youth leaving the parental roof! Or for the evangelist going out to proclaim the Gospel. The Prince is in the midst of them; when they go forth He shall go forth. Is not that a grand promise for us in view of our departure from earth? Our last exit, our going forth from the brief life which is here our portion, will come, perhaps, soon. At the bedside of the dying, Christ enters, and He shall not leave us alone then. I think the record of the goings forth from life of Christians is most encouraging. Rutherford was glorying in God when his very feet were on the shore, and he said , as he went, “ I have gotten the victory, and Christ, my Savior, is holding out both arms to embrace me. Why is death called the dark valley, for it grows brighter and brighter, and it is now so bright I have to shut my eyes.” His lips parted in a smile. So he went forth, and the Prince went forth with him. Then his eyes were opened, to be shut no more. An English lady visiting the great Exhibition in Paris, was seized with sudden illness. But she longed to be loyal to the Prince whom she had long ago crowned with her heart. In her last moments her speech left her, but she managed to utter a simple word--Bring. Her friends offered her a drink of water, and she said again--Bring. Then they moistened her lips, and prayed. Then they thought she must desire to see some absent friend, and they whispered in her ear that he should be sent for, and she said, with a last effort, “ Bring forth the royal diadem, and crown Him Lord of all.” And when the Prince, who was in the midst, when she went forth, went--yes, the two went forth together--Christ and the saved soul went forth into the silence of the great unknown. (J. J. Wray.) Christ among His people I. Christ the Prince.1. His right. (1) By virtue of Fatherhood, “ Son of the Highest.”(2) By appointment (Psalms 2:6). 2. His character. Grace not only poured into Christ’ s lips, but is His distinction and beauty in all respects. Purity supreme; forbearance and tenderness distinguish His dealings; unspeakable condescension and love the spirit of His life. 3. His dominion, “ Prince of the kings of the earth.” His rule is spiritual. Casts down moral opposition, overcomes enmity, unbelief, thoughts that exalt themselves against God, and brings into captivity to Divine will. II. Christ in the midst of His Church. 1. As a Ruler among His subjects.2. As a Teacher among His disciples.3. As a Shepherd among His flock.4. As a Physician among His patients.5. As a Husbandman in His vineyard. III. The intimacy of Christ’ s fellowship.1. When do we “ go in” ? (1) At seasons of devotional retirement. Legends of saints sometimes speak of an angel as visible. The reality, though unseen, is more. Christ is with us. Prayer should be very precious; much exercised. (2) When we worship in the sanctuary. Praise. Meditation. Adoration. (3) When afflicted. Christ comforts agitated thoughts, sustains under distressing feelings, lifts mind to things above. To hearts despairing His voice is “ like a falling star” --“ It is I, be not afraid.” 2. When do we “ go forth” ? (1) To business. Lay our plans in Him. Know His eye is on us.(2) To manifold temptations. “ Greater is He who is with us.”(3) To all the forms and methods of Christian duty. “ Lo, I am with you alway.” (G. M’Michael, B. A.) Ezekiel 46:13 Thou shalt daily prepare a burnt offering unto the Lord.The Christian’ s daily sacrifice The old legend that the Grecian host lay weather bound in their port, vainly waiting for a wind to come and carry them to conquest; and that they were obliged to slay a human sacrifice ere the heavens would be propitious and fill their sails,--may be translated into the deepest verity of the Christian life. We may see in it that solemn lesson--no prosperous voyage, and no final conquest until the natural life has been offered up on the altar of hourly self-denial. (A. Maclaren, D. D.) Each day needs its sacrifice No one, who plunges himself into the affairs of the world without God, can easily escape out of two sad alternatives. Either he is utterly wearied and disgusted with their triviality, and dawdles out a languid life of supercilious superiority to his work, or else he plunges passionately into it, and, like the ancient queen, dissolves in the cup the precious jewel of his own soul. (A. Maclaren, D. D.) . Ezekiel 47:1-12 He measured a thousand cubits. Curious things in life This chapter is a chapter of measurement. Everything is meted out, as it were, by so many cubits and inches. The voice is very dogmatic:--“ This is the north side” (Ezekiel 47:17); “ This is the east side” (Ezekiel 47:18); “ This is the south side” (Ezekiel 47:19); “ This is the west side” (Ezekiel 47:20). “ So shall ye divide.” Everything is done for us in grand totals. What, then, is the suggestion of wisdom? Surely it is, Lord, teach me where I am bounded, and how I am limited, and help me with patience and eager expectancy to do my little day’ s work with all industriousness and heart-loyalty, knowing that that servant shall be blessed who shall be found working steadily at his humble lot whenever his Lord cometh. By following out this doctrine of measurement, we shall get rid of a great deal of fret and worry and excitement, and we shall be able to welcome weird-looking guests into the house, and say, For God’ s sake you are welcome, though we do not know you, and we do not like you at first; the Lord sent you this way; and presently, that weird face will become beauteous as the face of a child angel. How curious is life, and from certain points how utterly unmanageable! From other points of view, how beauteous is life, how well-proportioned, and how easily handled if we would only keep our own hands off it, and let God do what He will! Look at your own industry and endeavour in the market place, and in all the pursuits of business. What a curious law it is that in order to do a few things we must do many. The things you do without any positive or profitable result are really profitable to you in another way. Your disappointments are your educators, as well as your satisfactions. You are taught patience, your ambition is limited if not rebuked; you say again and again, We must do a thousand things by way of endeavour in order to accomplish half a dozen things by way of positive and literal success. What a curious thing it is that though we know that only one can find the prize, yet we all go out to seek for it! We are accustomed to the illustration of a treasure being lost in the darkness, and on the broad thoroughfare. A thousand men get to know that a purse has been lost. It was only a purse, only one individual could find it and take it, and yet all the thousand are looking round and groping about for it. Do you not know that only one person can get that? You know it, but something says to you, Perhaps you are the one person. Could we just have that amount of faith in the Christian Church, we should have a revival of godliness. Here is salvation; let us suppose that only one man can get it: who knows who that one man is? “ Strive to enter in at the strait gate.” A still more extraordinary thing is this, and curious in its way, that although we know we may at any moment die, our plans are laid as if we were going to live forever. Ask any man how long he will live, and he will tell you he does not know. Ask him if he may this very day die, and he will say, Certainly, this very day I may cease to live upon the earth. Now examine his plans--his plans of business, his plans of home, his plans of education--and you will not find one of them limited to the day. And the most curious part of it is that the man cannot help it. He could not be bound by the sunrising and the sunsetting. He will tell you plaintively that he may never live to see the sunset, yet his whole life is set in plans that shall endure for years and ages. He never says, Tonight at six o’ clock, I may be a dead man, therefore I will draw my lines accordingly. He says, Tonight at six o’ clock I may be a dead man, but the world will not be dead; the individual may go, but the race will remain; man dies, but humanity abides; and my last act, if it be my last act, upon earth, shall be an act of generous contribution to the progress of the total world. Do not stifle these voices. In all labour there is profit. Even in the things you have done without result you have found some advantage to the soul if you have laboured faithfully. And as for that larger life, we know not what it is, it is enough to know meantime that it is larger. God is always enlarging and ennobling the outlook of man. We might also notice as a curious thing in all this measurement, that when we have done our best there comes a point when we must simply leave results. We cannot follow our own labour beyond a certain point. The agriculturist has done what he can in the field; now, he says, I must wait. I cannot hasten the sun or the processes of nature. So with the training of your children: all you can do is to show them a noble example. You can be chivalrous in the midst of your family, you can give them the best education in your power, you can encourage all that is good and beautiful in their nature, and then you must wait. And so with business. You can apparently be driving your business with tremendous energy which ends in nothing. Really, a quiet industry may often do more than a vehement importance. You can be industrious, faithful, honourable, generous, and having done all you can, not as an atheist, but as a believer in God, you must say, Now, Lord, the harvest is in Thine hands: I have done what I can in my poor little field; Thou knowest that I have spared no energy and no thought: now let the harvest be as Thou wilt; if I come back in the autumn and find this field sterile, the day of harvest a day of sorrow, help me to say, Thy will be done: I will leave it all now; I have tried to be a faithful and honest servant; and then if the harvest be golden, abundant, and far beyond the resources of our accommodation, to God’ s name be the praise; He always surprises us by the infinity, the boundlessness of His gifts. (J. Parker, D. D.) Sounding the depth of Divine things It is good to be often searching into the things of God, and trying the depth of them, not only to look on the surface of these waters, but to go to the bottom of them as far as we can, to be often digging, often diving, into the mysteries of the kingdom of God, as those who covet to be intimately acquainted with those things. (M. Henry.) Ezekiel 47:5 Waters to swim in. Waters to swim in I. The first thought of the text concerning the Gospel is this, the idea of abundance.1. The abundant provision for the removal of sin and for making us accepted in the Beloved. Here is blood most precious, removing every spot, and a righteousness most glorious, conferring a matchless beauty, a beauty such as Adam in his perfection never had, for his was but human righteousness, but this day the children of God wear the righteousness of the Lord Himself, and this is the name wherewith Jesus is called--“ The Lord our Righteousness.” 2. God’ s stores for our sustenance and for our protection. (1) For our sustenance there is bread provided from heaven such as angels have never tasted. There is water leaping from the rock such as the fathers drank not in the wilderness. There is no fear that either the heavenly granary or the celestial fountain shall ever be exhausted. (2) And as for our protection. Think how the Lord’ s right arm is uplifted, that His power may preserve the saints; how His wisdom goeth to and fro in the earth, watching for their good; how His heart of love beats high with constant affection for them; how the whole of Godhead bows itself to protect the chosen. 3. The provision made for our training and our perfecting. In addition to affliction He has provided all the truth of God in the Bible to sanctify us; He has given us the blood of Christ to purify us; He has sent forth the blessed and eternal Spirit to refine us, and, as subordinate agencies, he has provided all our comforts, and at the same time all our trials, all our companionships with holy men, and all the beacons of unholy lives, that we may be educated for the skies. 4. What “ waters to swim in” have we by way of consolations and strengthenings. The Comforter puts into the inspired word a singular sweetness which the most able ministers cannot arrive at, even though they should be, like Barnabas, sons of consolation. 5. Think of what God has done for us by way of making us happy and noble. He has not only pardoned us, but He has received us into His family, and He has taken us there, not to be His hired servants, as we once thought He might do, but He has made us His own sons; and what is more than that, He has made us heirs, and not secondary heirs either, but “ joint heirs with Christ Jesus” ; so that we have come right up from the place of the slave into the position of the heir of all things. 6. And then, beyond! Think of that which remaineth in Immanuel’ s land, beyond Jordan. II. Our text gives us the idea of space, amplitude, room. “ Waters to swim in.” Room enough.1. First, as to thought. Think of God as He is revealed in Holy Scripture. The Father ordaining all things, according to the council of His will; take the whole line of truth which connects itself with the Father. Then consider the Son as man and as God, the surety of the covenant, the substitute for His people, the intercessor, prophet, priest, and king, the Lord who is yet to come you have a wide range of thought there. Then consider the Holy Spirit. 2. There are “ waters to swim in,” next, not only as regards subjects of thought but matters of faith. Oh, how sweet to have something to believe where you get right out of reason’ s depths! 3. Then, blessed be His name, there are “ waters to swim in” not only for thought and faith, but also for love. Some make the doctrines of the Gospel a cold stream, like the waters of the Arctic pole, and love would be frozen if she were to venture into them; but the Scriptures are like the Gulf Stream, warm as well as deep; and love delights to plunge into them, and swim in them. In the agonies of Christ there is, to the contemplative mind, a fulness of love unspeakable, which makes the heart feel, “ now I can love here without stint.” I can love the dear companion of my life; I can love my children; but there comes the thought, “ I may make them idols, and I may thus injure both them and myself.” That is not “ waters to swim in.” But if we loved the Lord ten thousand times more than we do, we should transgress no command in so doing: nay rather, the only transgression lies in falling short. Oh that we could love Him more! 4. There is room for the exercise and expansion of every faculty within the range of the Gospel. There are “ waters to swim in,” in the Scriptures. You need not think there is no room for your imagination there. Give the coursers their reins: you shall find enough within that book to exhaust them at their highest speed. You need not think that your memory shall have nothing to remember; if you had learnt the book through and through, and knew all its texts, you would have much to remember above that, to remember its inner meaning, and its conversations with your soul, and the mysterious power it has had over your spirit, when it has touched the strings of your nature as a master harper touches his harp strings, and has brought forth music which you knew not to be sleeping there. III. The text has the idea of trust, at least to my mind. The text speaks of “ waters to swim in,” and swimming is a very excellent picture of faith. In the act of swimming it is needful that a man should float in the water. So far he is passive, and the water buoys him up. You must keep your head above water if you are to swim. We are told that the body is naturally buoyant, and that if a person would lie quite still upon the water he would not sink, but if he kicks and struggles he will sink himself. The first sign of faith is when a man learns to lie back upon Christ--to give himself up entirely to Him--when he ceases to be active and becomes passive, brings no good works, no efforts, no merits, to Jesus by way of recommendation, but casts his soul upon the eternal merit and the finished work of the great Substitute. That is faith in its passive form, floating faith. In the heavenly river you must float before you can swim. But the text does not speak of waters to float in, though this is essential. Many people never get beyond that floating period, and they conclude that they are safe and all is well because they fancy their heads are above water; whereas the man who is really taught of God goes on from the floating to the swimming. Now, swimming is an active exercise. The man progresses as he strikes out. He makes headway. He dives and rises: he turns to the right, he swims to the left, he pursues his course, he goes withersoever he wills, Now, the holy Word of God and the Gospel are “ waters to swim in.” Let us learn to trust God in active exertions for the promotion of His kingdom, to trust Him in endeavours to do good. (C. H. Spurgeon.) The progress and expansion of Gospel influences It began at Jerusalem as a tiny rivulet. By our Saviour’ s preaching a few disciples were converted. These were the means of the conversion of a still larger number. But at the first, the stream was very shallow, for the whole church could meet in one upper room. Even after the Pentecostal increase it was but as a brooklet. Herod thought that he could leap across it, or could dam it up, but his persecutions swelled the stream. Very shortly after, the watercourse grew broader and deeper, till it attracted the attention of the Roman Emperors, and excited their alarm. They thought that it was time to drain the rivulet, lest it should become a torrent so great as to sweep them away. Their attempts to stay its course only added to its floods. Its current became more strong and wide than before, and on it went from age to age, till at last it had become a mighty river, watering the whole earth, and greatly blessing the nations. It is destined yet to grow until it shall be like the main ocean itself, for “ the knowledge of the Lord shall cover the earth as the waters cover the sea.” (C. H. Spurgeon.) Ezekiel 47:8 These waters . . . go down into the desert.Christ as a river in the desert Though manhood seems to be a dry place, a salt and barren land, yet in the case of this Man it yields rivers of water,--numberless streams, abounding with refreshment. I. Nature’ s drought does not hinder Christ’ s coming to men.1. He came into the dry place of a fallen, ruined, rebellious world. 2. He comes to men personally, notwithstanding their being without strength, without righteousness, without desire, without life. 3. He flows within us in rivers of grace, though the old nature continues to be a dry and parched land. 4. He continues the inflowing of His grace till He perfects us, and this He does though decay of nature, failure, and fickleness prove us to be as a dry place. III. Nature’ s drought enhances the preciousness of Christ.1. He is the more quickly discovered; as rivers would be in a desert. 2. He is the more highly valued; as water in a torrid climate. 3. He is the more largely used; as streams in a burning wilderness. 4. He is the more surely known to be the gift of God’ s grace. How else came He to be in so dry a place? Those who are most devoid of merit are the more clear as to God’ s grace. 5. He is the more gratefully extolled. Men sing of rivers which flow through dreary wastes. III. Nature’ s drought is most effectually removed by Christ. Rivers change the appearance and character of a dry place. By our Lord Jesus appearing in our manhood as Emmanuel, God with us,--1. Our despair is cheered away.2. Our sinfulness is purged.3. Our nature is renewed.4. Our barrenness is removed.5. Our trials are overcome.6. Our fallen condition is changed to glory. IV. Our own sense of drought should lead us the more hopefully to apply to Christ. He is rivers of water in a dry place. The dry place is His sphere of action. Nature’ s want is the platform for the display of grace.1. This is implied in our Lord’ s offices. A Saviour for sinners. A Priest who can have compassion on the ignorant, etc. 2. This is remembered in His great qualifications. Rivers, because the place is so dry. Full of grace and truth, because we are so sinful and false. Mighty to save, because we are so lost, etc. 3. This is manifested by the persons to whom He comes. Not many great or mighty are chosen. “ I came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.” He calls “ the chief of sinners.” In every case the rivers of love flow into a dry place. 4. This is clear from the object which He aimed at, namely, the glory of God, and the making known of the riches of His grace. This can be best accomplished by working salvation where there is no apparent likelihood of it, or, in other words, causing rivers to water dry places. (C. H. Spurgeon.) The purifying and transforming power of the Gospel What a mercy it is that the Gospel does go into the desert. Think of what this island used to be, when our sires wandered about in their nakedness among its oak groves. Think of the times when the great wicker image was set up, and the Druids surrounded it, and that image was crammed full of hundreds of men and women, who were all to be consumed in one dread fire, while the people stood by to see their fellow creatures offered to their national Meloch. That is all over now. No longer is the mistletoe cut with the golden sickle, or the fierce deity appeased with blood of men. The missionary came and preached the Gospel; and the Druids ceased out of the land. They were both the legislature and the hierarchy, but they could not stand before the Divine truth. They were everybody then, but they are nobody now. I do not know what may happen here yet,. But I do know this, that when the Gospel comes, the images, the idols, the filthy things, the cruel and horrible things must go. The river of life purified Britain once, and it will cleanse it yet again. “ The waters shall be healed.” (C. H. Spurgeon.) The waters shall be healed. The modern Dead Sea, and the living waters The remarkable vision, which lies open before us, is exceedingly reassuring to those who are troubled by reason of the dreadful condition of the times--and which of us is not? The prophet bids us think of those waters, drear and dreadful, known by the suggestive name of the Dead Sea! This was the “ Chamber of Horrors” of the land of Canaan. The world is a veritable Dead Sea upon a gigantic scale. Such also is the city in which we live: must I call it “ modern Sodom” ? Every wave that breaks upon the shore of this human lake now seems to wash up remains of monstrous things, unearthly, inhuman, beastly, devilish. London is a simmering cauldron of vice and crime. O God! how long shall it be? In certain respects such is every man’ s natural heart until he is renewed by grace. The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked, and may be well typified by the Sea of Death. If we could but look into it with such eyes as God hath, what should we not set? Thus the world, the city, the heart are each symbolised by the Dead Sea. Can they ever be purged? Can these waters be healed? According to our text, the Lord saith expressly, “ the waters shall be healed.” Let us believe His promise, and take heart of hope from this good hour. Here is room, my brethren, for the faith which, like charity, “ believeth all things, hopeth all things.” I. And, first, to encourage your faith, I bid you to consider the promise.1. We feel sure that this word of prophecy shall be accomplished to the letter in due time, because He that made the promise is able to fulfil it. What can resist the thunder of His word? Who shall stay His hand, or frustrate His design? 2. The Lord will fulfil this word thoroughly. This promise shall not be kept to the ear only, but it shall be fulfilled in the largest conceivable sense. What hosts have washed their robes, and made them white in the blood of the Lamb! 3. He will fulfil this word in connection with the present dispensation. To my mind this is clear enough, from the fact that these waters flowed forth from Mount Zion. From this I gather that our God means to use His church for His purposes of grace. “ Out of Zion, the perfection of beauty, God hath shined.” We believe that He means to win His ultimate triumphs by the preaching of the Gospel. 4. Note, carefully, that this Divine promise, “ the waters shall be healed,” will not put aside instrumentality, but when it is fulfilled it will call forth more abundant agencies. The waters run into the Dead Sea, and purify its waters; then fish begin to multiply, and then man’ s part comes in: “ The fishers shall stand upon it from En-gedi even into En-eglaim.” You, slothful Christian men and women, who have never gone to sea in this fishery, will then be moved to the work, and will say, like Peter, I go a-fishing. II. I invite you, next, to consider the wonder of the healing waters, that we may be helped thereby to believe that healing will come even to the Dead Sea of this present evil world, this present sinful Babylon, this present deceitful heart.1. The wonders of the waters which Ezekiel saw lay in many things. First, consider whence they came. The healing waters flow from the throne of God and of the Lamb. As God is God, He hath decreed and purposed to redeem His people; and in that decree and purpose is the fountain of good to men. These waters flowed in the vision hard by the altar of burnt offering. Learn hence that the one channel of mercy to the sons of men is by the sacrifice of Christ. These waters, though they flowed unseen across the temple area, presently bubbled up from under the threshold of the door of the house. You know who is the Door of the temple of God: by Him we enter in unto God, and by Him God cometh forth in blessing unto us. 2. Note next, as a wonder in connection with these waters, how they increased. You and I have waded into these waters, have we not? If so, we know how they have increased upon us. Do you not see that the God who has done all this for you can do as much for others? Can He not heal the waters of the Dead Sea of our day? 3. Notice what these waters produced. They began to flow, and very soon vegetation came into the wilderness. They flowed into the desert, and into the Acacia Vale, as Joel calls it; and soon, on both sides of the river, there were trees, and, on a sudden, the trees were bearing fruit. Wherever the Gospel goes it carries life, and growth, and fruit with it. 4. As a further wonder, note whither the stream flowed. “ These waters issue out toward the east country, and go down into the desert, and go into the sea: which, being brought forth into the sea, the waters shall be healed.” What a mercy it is that the Gospel does go into the desert! Think of what this island used to be, when our sires wandered about in their nakedness among its oak groves. III. Consider the efficacy of the waters. I will quit the figure in some measure in order to explain how the Gospel is adapted to heal the wickedness of men. “ What does the Gospel do?” saith one. I answer, In the Gospel we set before men the horrible nature of sin, and thus we lead them to turn from it. The Gospel gives man a hope; and that is a grand thing for the degraded and self-condemned. To have a hope that you can be a better man is a great help in escaping from sin. The Gospel purifies men because it gives them Christ Himself to be their Saviour. It brings them the Son of God to be their salvation. Moreover, the Gospel does not merely tell men certain truths, but it gives life, and power, and grace to them. There comes with the Gospel a power almighty, which changes the nature of the man; touches his understanding, and enlightens it; touches his will, and changes it; touches his affections, and purifies them. This power is the Holy Ghost, equal and co-eternal with the Father and the Son--nothing less than very God of very God. The power of the Gospel to cleanse this horrible Lake of Gomorrah lies in this: that it touches the heart, it moves the affections, it changes the nature, it renews the entire man. Moreover, it binds men in a holy brotherhood, and leads them back to their Father, and their God. IV. The lesson of the waters. God works in very unexpected ways. The Lord knows how to do His own work, and He does it by apparently slender means.2. As the Dead Sea has to be cleansed by that stream of water, all that we can do is, first of all, to pray, “ Spring up, O Well!” 3. When we have done that, what next have we to do? Why, begin fishing. Go and fish in the streets, fish in the street corners, fish in any little room you can open, fish in the great crowds if they will come to you. The stream is breeding swarms of life; be ye fishers of men. (C. H. Spurgeon.) Ezekiel 47:9 Every thing shall live whither the river cometh.The life-giving flyer I. Its spring (Ezekiel 47:1). The river had its spring out of sight; the fountain head was invisible; but it proceeded out of the sanctuary of God. How pointedly this tells of the Holy Spirit, the river of the water of eternal life, proceeding out of the throne of God! It is God’ s own essence, communicated to us men over the Cross of Jesus, and for His name’ s sake. Hence, St. John says that it proceeded out of the “ throne of God, and of the Lamb.” When Christ was here on earth as God-man, no one could see where the healing virtue in Him came from; but there it was, issuing forth from the very hem of His garment, so that you had but to touch it, and be healed. He was the house or temple of God,--God’ s sanctuary; God dwelt in Him, the Spirit rested upon Him, for His redeemed, “ without measure.” He was its spring for His people; therefore He said, “ If any man thirst, let him come unto Me,” etc. II. Its size (verses 2-5). Here was symbolised the gift of the Holy Spirit to the patriarchs. It was but partial,--here and there,--now to Enoch, now to Noah, now to Abraham. But presently, after an interval, that “ man that had the line in his hand went forth eastward, and measured a thousand cubits” (a thousand cubits distant from their spring in the sanctuary, but they were still shallow), “ and he brought me through the waters; and the waters were to the ankles.” The Holy Spirit had a wider and somewhat deeper flow amongst the pious Israelites, represented by such men as Joshua, and Caleb, and the seven thousand who had not bowed the knee to the image of Baal, and especially by the prophets. Again, another interval, and he measured a thousand cubits (two thousand cubits from their spring in the sanctuary), “ and brought me through the waters” (and still they were comparatively shoal), “ and the waters were to the knees.” The Holy Spirit was evidently increasing His influences just before Christ’ s incarnation. Nathanael, Simeon, Anna, and others, were “ waiting for the consolation of Israel.” Again, an interval, and “ he measured a thousand cubits” (three thousand cubits from their spring in the sanctuary), “ and brought me through, and the waters were to the loins.” The holy tide was rising rapidly during Christ’ s personal ministry. The four Gospels testify plainly and unanimously to the great preparation work through Christ’ s teaching and miracles amongst the masses. But yet one more interval, and he measured a thousand cubits (four thousand cubits from their spring in the sanctuary), and now there was no going through the waters,--now “ it was a river that I could not pass over: for the waters were risen, waters to swim in, a river that could not be passed over.” What have we here, but that glorious crisis in the history of the Holy Spirit, that first, sudden, grand outpouring of the Holy Spirit, which is described in the first chapters of the Acts? Depend upon it, the river is flowing as deeply now as on the Day of Pentecost. It is simply that we do not see it by reason of our blindness or feeble faith, and do not avail ourselves of its present and precious blessings. There are rivers in South America rolling down water enough for all the inhabitants of the globe, and yet only here and there a roving tribe knows of them; for miles and miles they are merely sipped by birds and lapped by solitary animals. But are they not there? We should say to the sceptic, Go and see; go and satisfy yourself. Why, when Christ was upon earth, a very river of fragrancy, and healing, and blessing in Himself, men did not recognise Him as such: they passed Him by as “ a root out of a dry ground.” Now, suppose, because the myriads then alive did not flock to Him, some should deny that He really was in Palestine, what should we say to them? We should say, He was there, but they knew Him not. And so now we say, Here is the majestic river of the Holy Spirit’ s influence amongst us; but we are blind about it, or we voluntarily keep aloof from it, and so it is no river to us. It is here, everywhere, and in all its efficacy; but what is it to the worldly, the carnal, the trifling, the formal? III. Its service. What did this river do? (verses 6-9). Such is the beneficent, salutary service of this river. It shall only except from its benefits the wilfully obdurate and hypocritical,--those who, having known the truth and felt it, and been urged by it, yet resist its power, and refuse to be fruitful. All others, however barren by nature, shall be visited and blessed, and transformed by it. It shall come unto hearts hard as the nether millstone, and soften them; unto families poor as beggars, and enrich them; unto neighbourhoods which have been desert, and cause them to rejoice and blossom as the rose; unto natures which have been unprofitable, and make them plenteously to bring forth the fruit of good works. In conclusion--1. Get to know and to remember more thoroughly that this river, these holy waters issuing from the sanctuary, are what you and every fellow creature most needs. 2. Get to realise more and more vividly that this blessed river is about you everywhere, about your path and your lying down. It is the river “ the streams whereof make glad the city of God.” 3. Get to open your heart to it more and more. You must go into it up to your ankles, knees, loins; nay, its waters must go over your head and wash you every whir; you must put yourself in connection with it by drinking of it, by walking in it, by floating upon it, by conducting streams of it into your own soul. 4. Go and spread the news of it and the use of it far and wide. Tell others round you what it has done for you. Let them see what life it imparts to you, what satisfaction you gather from those fruits which grow by it, what healing from the leaves, how holy it makes you, how calm, how strong. (J. Bolton, B. A.) The healing and life-giving river This beautiful representation of the healing stream rests on some natural and some spiritual conceptions common in Ezekiel’ s day. One natural fact was this, that there was a fountain connected with the temple hill, the waters of which fell into the valley east of the city, and made their way towards the sea, and long ere this time the gentle waters of this brook that flowed fast by the oracles of God, had furnished symbols to the prophets (Isaiah 8:6). Such waters in the East are the source of every blessing to men. The religious conceptions are such as these: that Jehovah Himself is the giver of all blessings to men, and from His presence all blessings flow. He was now present in His fulness, and forever in His temple. Hence the prophet sees the life-giving stream issue from the sanctuary. Another current idea was that in the regeneration of men, when the tabernacle of God was with them, external nature should also be transfigured. Then every good would be enjoyed, and there would be no more evil nor curse. (A. B. Davidson, D. D.) The master-force in character and civilisation The prophet beholds in vision a stream of water issuing from the temple buildings, and flowing eastwards until it falls into the Dead Sea, making even those bitter, fatal waters rich with life. In the first instance this mystic stream was a symbol of the miraculous transformation which the pious Jew expected the land of Canaan to undergo in order to fit it for the habitation of Jehovah’ s ransomed people. In Palestine nature was often stern and unpropitious, and large tracts of country were utterly inhospitable. The prophets cherished the expectation that one day, when Israel was wholly obedient, God would renew the face of nature, and all Palestine would blossom as the rose. But these mystic waters demand a still larger interpretation. The thought and aspiration of Israel looked forward to a time when the Messiah would send forth a tide of living influence through the nations, cleansing the corruptions, and making everything in human society and life to realise its ideal. Under the magic influence of the Gospel of Christ the most hopeless lands and classes revive, and the bitter, burning regions of sin and misery become as the garden of the Lord. “ Everything shall live whither the river cometh.” I. Spirituality in relation to personal character. That momentous issues depend upon personal character, upon the cultivation and exercise of the moral virtues, most men acknowledge. A few thinkers give intellectual perfections a place above moral qualities, but the vast mass of thoughtful men perceive that character is essential and supreme. Now, morality, true morality, requires peculiar inspiration and force to sustain it; it must be rooted in the spirit, and draw its life from eternity. Of course, the secularist scouts this fundamental conviction Of ours. He smilingly protests, What a wonderful being your poor mortal is; nothing will satisfy him but divinities, eternities, infinities, heavens, hells, boundless hopes and boundless fears: surely we can keep ourselves in order and behave decently without all these vast motives and pressures. Well, to the carnal eye we may seem poor creatures, but we need these great and solemn beliefs, and we cannot get on without them. One of these days we go into the fields, and there on the sod grows a daisy--wee, simple, modest flower. But when you come to think, what a costly flower it is! The daisy owes its shape to the action of the vast terrible law of gravitation working through all the realms of space, to refresh it the ocean must yield its virtue, to vivify it the electric forces must sweep through the planet, to colour it millions of vibrations must shoot through the light ether, to build it up, unfold it, perfect it, requires an orb ninety-five millions of miles away, an orb five hundred times bigger than all the planets put together, a million and a half times bigger than the earth itself. “ Vain little daisy, will not less than this do for you?” says the critic. No; less will not do, it will have the great sun, the sea, the imperial forces of gravitation, electricity, and light, or it will not grow, or it grows a misshapen, discoloured thing. So, in infidel eyes, we mortals may seem poor creatures, but nevertheless we require immense stimulations and restraints for our perfection and safety, and any attempt to narrow our sky means moral impoverishment and destruction. Many men discuss morality as if it were altogether a matter of knowledge, good judgment, and common sense; morality means utility; show men that their interest and happiness will be best secured by virtue, and they will follow the right pathway. But these philosophers ignore some of the most patent and most potent facts of human nature; the blinding processes of desire, the sophistry of selfishness, the madness of lust, the defiance of self-will, the irrationality of temper and impatience, the illusions of a wanton fancy, all these must be withstood and mastered before we can do the just, the noble, and the pure, and it is only in high, spiritual considerations and influences that we find the availing force; and, let me add, these spiritual considerations and influences are found at their highest in the Christian faith. The world had given great attention to morality before Christ came. Outside Palestine there was the boasted ethical system of the Stoic, and within Palestine the righteousness of the Scribes and Pharisees. Great and earnest thinkers in Greece, Rome, and India elaborated moral codes, defined the various virtues, and set forth strong and eloquent reasons why men should, be virtuous rather than licentious. What did those various and admirable systems of conduct lack? They lacked life; they lacked the force to assert themselves. A recent traveller through the wild wastes of the country beyond Tripoli reports that in the deserts he found great patches of brilliantly-coloured flowers, apparently in vivid and mysterious bloom, in the dried-up torrent beds of a land from which the scorching sky had licked up every atom of moisture far and wide. Upon nearer approach the unique phenomenon was explained. It was found that the flowers had been actually mummified in the drought and heat, and, with their natural tints preserved, were as permanent as if cut in paper. It was thus with the morality of Greece and Rome, and that of the Scribes and Pharisees; and they surprise us with patches of brilliantly-coloured virtues in apparently vivid and mysterious bloom, but closer examination shows that the virtues were only like the mummified flowers on the Sahara--all was speculative, academic, formal, traditional, the natural tints being preserved, but the virtues were dry and dead, only cut in paper. What a mighty change followed the coming of our Lord! “ Everything shall live whither the river cometh.” Christ revealing the holy God, the spiritual universe, the spirituality of human nature, the pouring forth on humanity the Holy Spirit, put a soul into morality; He gave it a sound root in a vital soil, and henceforth the righteousness of God eclipsed the righteousness of man. We are often accused of not being sufficiently teachers of morality, the Evangelical movement is accused of being defective on the ethical side, but we have a great deal to say for ourselves. Our business is, first of all, to insist on those spiritual, Evangelical doctrines, without which virtue has no root, no force, no permanence. Right in the front of John’ s Gospel is our Lord’ s conversation with Nicodemus, and everywhere our Lord is more full of the spiritual doctrine which underlies all morality than He is in the description, or analysis, or application of the several virtues. If we preach conversion we find morality its only vitalising and sustaining root. And it is only as we persist to preach the great spiritual doctrines that we kindle the enthusiasm essential to virtuous life. “ No heart is pure that is not passionate; no virtue is safe that is not enthusiastic,” wrote Professor Seeley; and it is certain that no theory of utilitarian morality can kindle any such enthusiasm. We want the sun here, not the aurora borealis. We want the thought of the just and gracious God, the glow of the love of God, the sense of Christ’ s pure presence and fellowship, the purifying, uplifting hope of immortality. Let us then be anxious that spiritual doctrine shall have its full place in our personal life, let us cherish a vivid faith in the unseen and eternal, and a rare strength and beauty shall steal into our character and conduct. “ Everything shall live whither the river cometh.” Oh! if we could but persuade men to taste the powers of the higher world, how decorum, etiquette, propriety, civility, chivalry, policy, prudence, and all the rest of those pretty words would disappear in the transfigured shapes of consummated virtue! And let us not despair even of the most sunken and desolate victims and areas of immortality. We have critics who argue, Some physically are born cripples, some intellectually are born idiots, and some morally are born vicious and incurable, and there is nothing for them but exclusion or extinction. But this will not do. It is a wonderful feature of our day, of its glorious humanity, that if a man is a cripple, we do not give him up; mechanical ingenuity supplies him with legs and arms, and other marvellous substitutions and repairs; if he is blind he is taken in hand, and by most skilful discipline educated into seeing; if he is dumb he is put to school and taught to talk; and even if he is an idiot we do not abandon him,--we build asylums where love and science combine to repair the ruin of the brain, and woo reason back to her throne. I know these struggles of mercy are sometimes unavailing, and at other times the cures wrought are pathetically incomplete, but they are nevertheless the glory of our age, we refuse to abandon the most hopeless, we seek and save that which is lost. And if we act thus in the physical and mental worlds, shall we be less devoted and enthusiastic in the moral world? Surely this is the special sphere of our power and glory. There is a fine picture in Manchester representing the river of Lethe. On the one side of the river, miserable, distorted, ghastly, withered old men and women are dropping into the flood, but on the other bank they emerge in sunshine and summer, young, beautiful, strong, with music and song, walking in glory. We have got the very river that the poet dreamed about; all who are morally sick, diseased, loathsome, helpless, hopeless, stepping into the crystal tide, suffer a glorious change and walk in newness of life. “ Everything lives whither the river cometh.” II. Spirituality in relation to national life and progress. The condition of all national growth is not material, military, or mental, but spiritual, and when you have gauged the spiritual elements of a nation you know what its potentialities and prospects of growth are. When the crystal river first gushed forth at Pentecost, into what a wild, waste desert it ran, into what a vast Dead Sea it fell! But the spiritual, evangelical doctrines vindicated themselves, and green bits began to relieve the awful desert, and the sea of death began to sweeten. Wherever men preached the pure Gospel, the virtue of it was manifest in raising and beautifying whatever it was allowed to touch. The river of the water of life flowing from the throne of God cleansed the earth of the foulness of the old paganism. You see its efficacy once again in the glorious reformation of the sixteenth century. There were two great streams of influence sent forth in that memorable period. One was intellectual, artistic, literary, and philosophical, and finds its representative in Erasmus; the other was purely spiritual, and finds its representative in Luther. Which of these movements, which of these men, brought about in the world that better state of things which all but blind men see? Now, where there are two possible causes for any phenomenon, it is easy to make a mistake and impute the effect to the wrong cause. For fifty years we have been told that England owes her mild climate and rich landscapes to the influence of the Gulf Stream, but now scientists assure us that the Gulf Stream is a pure myth, and that we owe everything not to marine currents, but to aerial currents. We have hitherto imputed our national power and progress to Luther, and to the doctrines of grace he preached. Are we wrong in this? Was it Erasmus and culture that saved us? No, we are not wrong. Writers of a certain school say that “ Erasmus would have impregnated the Church with culture, while Luther concentrated attention on individual mystical doctrines.” The fact is that the culture represented by Erasmus was identified with Roman Catholicism, it did impregnate the Church, and Italy, Spain, Austria, and to a large extent France, are the result of the intellectual, political, and ecclesiastical movement represented by Erasmus. Holland, Scandinavia, England, Germany, and America are the creations of the pure, Evangelical doctrines of Martin Luther. Mr. Lilly, a Roman Catholic, has just published a book in which he writes scornfully of Martin Luther because he was a peasant. His Master was; and it was because the peasant of the sixteenth century took us back to the peasant of the first century, because he took us back to the pure river of the water of life, clear as crystal, that flowed from the throne of God, that the Protestant world today is the fairest portion of the earth, whilst all beyond is desert, or choked with thorns and briars. Again, two other movements, and two other names, challenge our attention. Two memorable streams of influence were sent forth in the eighteenth century--Voltaire represented one great movement and John Wesley the other. Now, do we owe the immense improvement of modern civilisation to the philosopher or to the evangelist? Are we to find the origin of what is truly human and progressive in modern life in spiritual doctrine, or in philosophic and sceptical criticism? What have the principles of Voltaire done for France? Voltaire, whatever might be his intentions, led his followers to what proved a river of blood, of tears, of death, to a volcanic stream, to a current of burning, blasting lava--he did not drain the Dead Sea, he set it on fire, and hosts perished in the awful cataclysm. John Wesley led the mobs of our great cities to God in Christ, he turned the river of life down our streets and highways, he caused it to flow like a crystal Niagara into the Dead Sea of our national corruption, and the wilderness became a fruitful field, and the fruitful field was counted for a forest. We must never forget that everything touching the strength and progress of our nation, and of mankind at large, depends upon our faithfulness to spiritual doctrine and fellowship. Let nothing political or social tempt us away from our strictly spiritual faith and programme. There are many wonderful methods suggested for improving society. The purification of the world, the perfection of civilisation, the bringing in of the golden age! all is delightfully plain, simple, and, certain--good fathers, pure mothers, happy homes, and the New Jerusalem. Let us make men and women and children godly as our fathers did, and everything good will slowly and silently grow into nobler forms, and everything evil will slowly and silently drop away. “ Everything shall live whither the river cometh.” In that Gospel we have a river of God full of water which we know can clothe barrenest spots with velvet, and turn Dead Seas into crystal theatres of rejoicing life. And the spiritual power does not lessen with time. At the distance of a thousand cubits the waters were to the ankles; at the distance of a thousand cubits more the waters were to the knees; a thousand more and they were to the loins; a thousand more and they were waters to swim in. Oh! for this deepening tide of spiritual grace and power. May it come and spiritualise our churches, may it vitalise our conventional morality, may it wash away our national sins, may it transfigure our slums with the white lilies of purity and the roses of joy, may it cause righteousness and peace to spring forth before all the nations! (W. L. Watkinson.) The vision of the holy waters Whether we view the temple as the symbol of the Church or of heaven, or of the Divine humanity, it will amount to the same thing. And it is a sublime idea which is attained when we view these as one within or above the other, and all affording a grand channel of descent by which the Divine truth, represented by the sacred water, flows down into the world. First, from the inmost essence of the Lord, its infinite source, thence through His Divine humanity, which the apostle calls “ the new and living way,” into heaven; from heaven again into the minds of the good on earth. It is the same stream of which John had a spiritual view (Revelation 22:1). The prophet describes himself as being in the way of the gate northward, and being led out of this to an utter gate by the way that looketh eastward. The leader of the prophet represents the Divine providence acting through the ministry of guardian angels. He has given His angels charge over us, to keep us in all our ways. “ He brought me out of the way of the gate northward.” The quarters, East, West, South, and North, indicate earthly positions, and how we stand in relation to the Sun. They who are nearest to the Sun of heaven, by the purest love to Him, are in the spiritual east, to such the “ Sun of Righteousness ariseth with healing in His wings.” In the west are they who are in little or no love to Him. The south, where the sun is at mid-day, when he gives his greatest light, represents the state of such as are fully enlightened in spiritual intelligence; while the north, the region of cold and fog, represents the condition of the ignorant. The prophet was in the way of the gate northward, to represent the ignorant state from which we all commence our heavenward journey. Gates represent introductory truths. By these we are admitted to the higher things of the Church, as by means of gates we enter a city. Of the spiritual city, the Church, it is said, “ They shall call thy walls salvation, and thy gates praise” (Isaiah 60:18). The Lord Himself says, “ I am the door: by Me if any man shall enter in, he shall be saved” (John 10:9). The utter gate by the river, which looketh eastward, means the most general knowledge which leads us towards the Lord, the rising Sun of the soul. This is the knowledge of the Lord as the Saviour. It is said, “ He led me about, the way without, unto the utter gate.” These words conduct us to most interesting and important considerations. The circumstances of our outward life constitute “ the way without.” These are all the objects of Divine care, and are made subservient to our spiritual good. Our business pursuits require us often to change from town to town, from kingdom, it may be, to kingdom. Our friends and associates are thus changed. We come into contact with new scenes, new books, new trains of thought. Our position in life is sometimes changed. We suffer afflictions in the loss of property, or in separations from those dear to us. All these changing scenes and circumstances, sometimes chequered with deep and lengthened suffering, are overruled by a merciful Providence to our highest good. Whatever the Lord permits, or whatever He ordains, is from the counsels of His love; and when the end proposed has been effected, we may look back, and see that; all has been for the best. The truths which were before only in the memory, become now lessons on which we ponder, and which give a colour to our lives. Henceforward our lives have a deeper aim, a holier aspect. We have been led about, by the way without, and have come to the utter gate, by the way that looketh eastward. “ And, behold, there ran our waters on the right side.” The right side or the south side, for the south side would be the right when the front of the temple looked to the east, represents truth flowing from love. The right side is the strongest side, and truth from earnest heartfelt love is always stronger than truth from a mind chiefly actuated by faith. All the truths of heaven flow from love in the Lord. They are waters that come out on the right side. And, when the human soul is awakened to its highest interest and their true saving character, it sees as the prophet saw, “ Behold, there ran out waters on the right side.” The next stage in the progress marked in our text is, “ That when the man that had the line in his hand went forth eastward, he measured a thousand cubits, and he brought me through the waters; the waters were to the ankles.” Our guardian angels have the power of measuring our spiritual progress. They perceive our states most correctly. When a person has not only learned and reflected upon the Divine commandments, but loved them and reduced them to practice, he has advanced a thousand. He has performed an act of spiritual multiplication to the third power; and he will find the waters of Divine truth “ up to the ankles.” It is reported of the renowned Philip Neri, that he said he was saved by the right use of his eyes: in looking above, to God, before, to heaven, and below, to the few feet of earth he should one day occupy, he kept his mind ever directed to things eternal. But the right use of the feet is quite as important as that of the eyes; however steadily a person may look to the golden city in the distance, he will never get there unless he also walks. When, then, the prophet had completed the first stage, his thousand cubits, and was led across the waters, he found them up to his ankles, to intimate that now he could fully understand the letter of the Word, all that related to moral outward life. There are three grand stages in our religious life. In the first, we are governed by obedience, and inquire little further about any religious duty than “ Has the Lord said it must be done?” In the second, we begin to see the beauty of truth as a glorious thing in itself, and worthy of all acceptation: it is to us a “ pearl of great price.” Faith, and the things of faith, are objects of supreme importance, and we follow truth for truth’ s sake. We do the Lord’ s commandments in this opening of a second degree of the mind, but we do them not so much from command as from a rational admiration of their rectitude. The third stage of Christian progression is that which we enter upon by being introduced into such a state of supreme love to the Lord, that everything which comes from Him is our delight. We love His law, we love His truth, we love Himself. We have already described the state of obedience which is arrived at when the waters cover the feet. But he with the measuring line went on, measured a thousand, and brought the prophet forward, and then led him across, and the waters were up to the knees. It is a most important advance which is indicated by the rise of waters to the knees. To obey from command is good, but to open the mind to see the propriety and beauty of the command is much better. The Christian now becomes a merchantman seeking for goodly pearls. Each text, when opened, gives him a new delight. For it should ever be remembered, that it is not the knowing of the Word alone which gives light, but the understanding of it. When the mind is opened thus in its second degree by the presence of an interior love of truth, its deeper perceptions are a constant source of delightful and consolatory views when reading the Word. The pages of the Divine book become to him a garden of ever-varying richness and beauty. Here are beds of varied hues of flowers, there are trees of silver leaves and golden fruits. He comes to the Word as to the paradise of his heavenly Father below, and he finds he can meander in its sacred walks, or sit in its blessed bowers, with ever-increasing delight. Sir Isaac Newton compared himself, as a man of science, to a child picking up pebbles on the margin of the ocean of truth. And this was both a mark of the humility of the great philosopher, and of his reverence and value for the truth he found in science. But the true spiritual child of his heavenly Father has the privilege not only of finding pebbles on the margin of the holy waters, but of going through and enjoying the still-deepening stream of the river, which makes glad the city of God, the holy place of the tabernacles of the Nest High. But we are told, “ Again he measured a thousand, and the waters were up to the loins” (verse 4). The loins are the portion of the body where the previously-separated limbs are joined. They correspond spiritually to love united with faith. And, when the mind has been so advanced in the regenerate life, that every truth we come to comprehend is seen also to be full of love, “ the water is up to the loins.” When this blessed state is reached, fear and doubt are left far away. “ Perfect love casteth out fear.” That secret union of goodness and truth in the inner man has been attained, which realises in each soul the Divine words (Isaiah 62:4). Thrice happy is he who has attained this heaven within the soul, in which righteousness and peace have kissed each other! Along with this entire union of love and faith within, another discovery is made. The Word is seen to be infinite wisdom, and, therefore, progression in its hallowed truths to be everlasting. Hence the prophet continues (verse 5). The delight which the blessed have in the fresh and ever brighter unfoldings of Divine truth, is meant by the blessed promise (Revelation 7:17). Fountains! what an idea of its inexhaustible abundance is conveyed by the term. Living water--how the term conveys the idea of a sparkling, glittering, sunny, pearly, living brilliancy--it can never be exhausted, never be passed over. The soul may swim in it forever, but can never get beyond. And what a glorious thought is that to the lover of heavenly wisdom! Its grandeurs will be forever disclosing themselves to him in increasing beauty. From glory to glory, from brightness to brightness, from blessing to blessing: such is the career of the just made perfect. They find the wisdom which they appreciated in some slight degree here, and the truths which they found deepening with their advancing states, have become with the larger powers of their exalted condition, “ waters which have risen, a river which no man can pass over.” (J. Bailey, Ph. D.) The Gospel river Those who have read the travels of Bruce in Abyssinia, in search of the source of the Nile, may recollect the ecstasy he felt when he thought his adventurous undertaking was crowned with success. He stood in transport beside those welling fountains--so long sought for in vain--which poured forth the river that had washed the cities of the Pharaohs, and wandered among the Pyramids, diffusing fertility and beauty along its extensive course; and we must be destitute indeed of all imagination and enthusiasm if we do not, in some measure, enter into his feelings. Taking advantage of such a scene as this, and with an allusion, perhaps, to the river of paradise, the sacred writers often compare the Gospel, in its progress and blessings, to a river increasing as it flows, and diffusing beauty and fertility along its banks. I. The river itself.1. Observe its source. The prophet had gone round the temple summoned up before him in vision, without observing any stream of water. His supernatural conductor, however, brought him once more to the front of the edifice which looked to the east, and now he saw a fountain issuing from under the threshold, flowing eastward, and running in a stream past the south side of the altar of burnt offerings which stood in the outer court. The spiritual meaning of this part of the emblematic vision it is not difficult to discern. Jerusalem and its temple were, so to speak, the original seat of the Gospel, and the scene of those events by which man was redeemed. It was there that the fountain was opened to the house of David, and the inhabitants of Jerusalem, for sin and for uncleanness. It was there that the spiritual rock was smitten, and those waters flowed forth which are for the refreshment, the healing, and the regeneration of our race. There, too, it was, that the salvation wrought out in it was first applied to the souls of the guilty. “ Beginning at Jerusalem.” 2. The river of which the prophet speaks, progressively increased. The symbol was realised when the knowledge of salvation, no longer confined to the Hebrews, was communicated to the Gentiles with marked success, and provision made for its extension to men of every kindred and tongue. 3. The direction in which this river flowed. “ These waters,” said the prophet’ s guide, “ issue out towards the east country” --that is, to the region eastward of Jerusalem. This part of the prophetic symbol evidently points to the eminent and early success of the Gospel by the ministry of the apostles in Judea itself, in Samaria, and the neighbouring countries. At the same time, a more enlarged and important signification must be attached to it. Samaria was the seat, for a time, of an idolatrous worship. When, therefore, this river is represented as flowing eastward to Samaria, may we not regard it as an intimation that by the Gospel idolatry shall be overthrown? that the Gospel shall be purified from those inventions of men by which it has often been debased, and shine forth in the dominions of the man of sin in its native purity, simplicity, and beauty? II. The qualities of the waters of the river.1. They have a quickening and life-giving power. The sea into which this river falls is what is called the Dead Sea, which covers those cities of the plain which God destroyed with fire and brimstone, and a horrible tempest. But mark the change that was to be effected when the waters of the sanctuary mingled with the briny wave! Instantly was it to teem with innumerable fishes; every species found in the Great Sea or Mediterranean would increase and multiply; and the strand on which the fisherman’ s bark never rested, was to be covered with fishers from En-gedi even to En-eglaim. Here we have an illustration of the power of the Gospel to quicken those who are dead in trespasses and sins. It gives life where formerly there was desolation. It fills the world with animated and active Christians, where formerly all was stagnation and insensibility. It communicates a power to love and serve and enjoy God, to those who were destitute of these exalted capacities. 2. The waters of this river have a healing virtue. “ Being brought forth into the sea the waters shall be healed.” Its pestiferous qualities shall be neutralised; its taste and smell shall be rectified; and it shall become a fit abode for those creatures that exist in other wholesome waters. As every individual who embraces the Gospel is blessed with light and purity, so in the state of society, and in the general tone of morals, it has produced great amelioration in all parts of the world into which it has penetrated. Even where Christianity has not saved, it has reformed. It has drawn into solitude and darkness the crimes that used to flaunt in the face of day. It has put an end to that systematic impurity which was practised under pretence of religion; softened the horrors of war; it has lightened the bonds of captivity; shaken the pillars of tyranny; overturned the altars of idolatry; given origin to benevolent institutions for the relief of every malady to which the mind and body of man are subject; advanced the cause of secular education; given rise to the noblest efforts, spiritually to enlighten and convert the world. 3. The waters of this river are fertilising and fructifying in their influence. 4. This river is not universal in its quickening, healing, and fertilising influence. “ The miry places thereof, and the marishes thereof, shall not be healed; they shall be given to salt.” How aptly does this representation typify those to whom the Gospel comes in vain, who are so sunk in the mire of sin, so saturated with the love and pollution of iniquity, that they will not yield themselves to the sanctifying influence of the Gospel. To such it is not the savour of life unto life, but of death unto death. (J. Kirkwood.) The Gospel river This vision refers to the Gospel under the figure of a river. I. The Gospel as a singularly appropriate blessing. A river in the desert. Implying--1. Its suitability. The desert needs water, the world needs the Gospel. 2. The abundant measure of its blessing. A river. 3. The sweet nature of these blessings. II. The Gospel as a purifier of the world’ s supplies. The sea represents the world’ s material plenty which have been corrupted, and the Gospel is necessary to purify them.1. This implies the superior power of holiness over evil; the river purifying the sea. The larger quantity purified by the smaller. 2. This bespeaks the ultimate triumph of holiness over sin. The constant flow shall gradually change the character of the sea. “ And the waters shall be healed.” III. The Gospel as a life-giving power in our world.1. Life of a pronounced character. There is a difference in the meaning of the words “ live” in this verse. The first means “ to live and move” --nacre motion; the second means “ to live and produce.” 2. Life in an abundant measure. “ And there shall be a great multitude of fishes,” etc. The element congenial to life. 3. Life everywhere. “ And it shall come to pass that every living creature which swarmeth in every place whither the rivers come shall live” (R.V.) 4. Abiding life (verse 12). The Gospel brings satisfaction, holiness, fruitfulness, and permanence. (E. Aubrey.) Living Christianity I. Its origin. The “ waters issued from near the threshold of the house.” The fountain, then, is in the holy place, the holy of holies. By this we are reminded that Christianity, as a system of truth, is not a human invention, but a Divine revelation. In it God has “ bowed the heavens and come down.” But we are also reminded that Christianity, as a life in separate human lives, as a saving power for the individual and for the race, is also divinely given. II. Its increase. Beginning in a rill, and widening and deepening to a river, beginning as a mustard-seed and growing to a great tree, beginning as a little leaven that ferments the whole lump, Christianity, at first seen in the Babe in a manger, shall govern thrones and mould empires and redeem humanity. III. Its effects. There are two closely connected and yet not identical attributes in this visional river that symbolise the influence of a living Christianity.1. There is vivifying power. “ Everything shall live whither the river cometh.” There is prolific, exuberant life suggested here. 2. There is restorative power. The world lying in wickedness is a Dead Sea, a Marah. Its corruption, its bitterness, shall yield, have yielded, to the pure, loving, hopeful, prayerful influence of Christly lives. IV. Its absence. As we read “ the miry places and the marishes thereof that shall not be healed, they shall be given to salt,” we are reminded of the natural fact that the height of water of a sea is different at different times, and that if the water subsides, salt morasses and marishes rise here and there that are cut off from connection with the main sea, and become first pestilential and loathsome, then dry and barren. And by this natural fact we are warned of the spiritual fact, that where the waters of a living Christianity do not come there will be no life, no healing; and that sooner or later there will be the loathsome mire, the pestilential marsh, the salt and deadly morass. “ He that believeth not the Son of God shall not see life.” (U. R. Thomas.) The power of the Holy Ghost God is constantly measuring the rise of the waters of the Holy Ghost within the soul and upon the world, and may God help us never to forget that He is always measuring, and that as life passes forward year after year, God is measuring with eager scrutiny to see if the waters which were once up to the ankles had risen to the knees, etc. I. The source of the Holy Ghost. And when I speak of the Holy Ghost, I do not mean the Holy Ghost who brooded over creation, or the Holy Ghost which waited upon Elijah and Isaiah merely; but the Holy Ghost of Pentecost, that mighty power of God’ s own life which through Jesus is brought to every single person, and that awaits and throbs and pulses outside the doors of our hearts this morning. The Holy Ghost of Pentecost! Will you please notice that of old the waters came from under the altar through the temple? and the temple, in the imagery of Scripture, stands for the natural man, and, above all, for the nature of the One Man, Jesus Christ. Hence He said, “ Destroy this temple” --speaking of His body--“ and I will raise it up in three days.” So that the temple, in its deepest significance, sets forth the nature of our blessed Saviour, the Man Christ Jesus. And you will remember, of course, that was a holy separate manhood; He was holy, separate from sin. And it is because He sitteth today beside the throne of God filled with the plenitude of power, that from Him the temple the stream of Pentecostal power proceeds. And in Ezekiel’ s vision, the mention of the altar, the place of sacrifice, as being the source and origin of the stream, reminds us that it is only through the sacrificial nature of our Saviour that the power of the Holy Ghost is vouchsafed to men. If He had gone home as He might have gone from the Mount of Transfiguration, He never could have communicated the Holy Ghost to us. It was only because His nature became the altar on which He offered a sacrifice to God for the sins of the world, that sacrifice being Himself. God was able to pour through Him His own tide of life and power; just as with you and me, we never can know the indwelling power of the Holy Ghost until we have come to our Calvary, until we have too laid upon our altar everything, until we too have denied our own method and programme and ideal in order to be absolutely yielded and surrendered to God; only so can we receive the Pentecost or communicate the power that is in us, or in Him. And there the glorified Saviour, the Infinite One, lives and reigns today, waiting to bestow upon every one of us the fulness of the Holy Ghost. Hear the music of waters as they gush from the throne of God to man, as they lave the desert where you stand, as they come murmuring around your dusty feet, as they long to creep up your body, past the heart and face, until your whole being is submerged beneath that mighty, that beneficent baptism. II. The gradual rise of the power of the Holy Ghost in the man’ s life. He measured, and it came to the ankles. And I suppose in the beginning of our Christian life, our ways, our walks, our daily track of obedience becomes cleansed and purified. Is not that one of the great needs of your young life? do not your paths often take you into the midst of men and things, into contact with sins and environment which would soil and sully your pure young nature? I think it is well for you to know the evil of the world. I think you are stronger to know evil that you may know good. I don’ t want to shield you as a number of hothouse plants. I think it is better to bed you out that you may know something of the taint and corruption around. We know that the whole world lieth with the wicked one. We must know it by personal observation as well as by report. But in the midst of it all it is possible for you to walk with clean feet, because the blessed Holy Spirit is always washing away and cleansing the moral impurity that otherwise might attack you. But great and good though that be, you must not stop there; there must be the rising of the waters; and I pray that even now you may feel them rising and gathering around you, for they must creep up to the knee. The work of the blessed Spirit is teaching us to make intercession. He teaches us how to pray, and He pours through the heart an incessant stream of desire for others. Be thankful that is increasingly your experience. That is not enough; there must be the rising power of the Holy. Ghost in the loins. The loins may stand for the girding up of our loins for service. In the case of our blessed Saviour the water rose to the loins, when He girded Himself at His baptism to undertake His ministry. And I think every one of us, as we stand now in our young life, on the threshold of existence, must we not be wondering how best to serve mankind? It may be just in the place we were born in, or it may be going forth upon some further expedition of the ministry. Then the measurer comes forward, until the waters are swimming; the idea being that the mighty current of the Holy Ghost has come into a man’ s life, so as to take him off his feet; and as he lies back, his head, his face towards the blue sky above him, he is just borne in the mighty current onward, with ever intenser force, onward to the highest and fullest life. Do you know that? Don’ t be afraid of it, let yourself go; let God have His way with your young life. My mistake has been that I have anchored to the bank, that I have anchored to circumstances, to my own ideals and plans! And let the Holy Ghost rise within you until your soul is filled with its activity; your love and affection, your imagination and power of imagery, and your spirits shall all feel the rising waters and the Pentecostal baptism that comes from the loving Christ. III. The cause of this. Why is our England what she is today? Judging by her latitude she ought to be wild and bare. For eight months of the year her ports ought to be closed, and the ice floes banked up all round her shores; whilst within, her shaggy woods and ice-bound rivers should be haunted by furry animals, and the only value of our country be a hunting-ground for those who come to steal from the animals their fur. Why is it England is what she is today, so sunny and fair? Why is it that we have a temperate summer and comparatively hospitable winter? Why is it that our hills are covered with grass, and our valleys with corn, that there is a rich pasture land throughout our territory, upon which the shepherds may lead their flocks, or the herds may graze? Why is it? We should be in Arctic misery were it not for the river that threads the waters of the Atlantic. You know how, within the Caribbean Sea, the water of the ocean is being kept at boiling point, so to speak, and how presently some mighty force appears, of which we know comparatively little, probably by evaporation, and by currents above and below the water is forced out, strikes presently a promontory, is deflected across the Atlantic, and within a few weeks it touches our shores, and this warm river of water, surrounding England as it does, makes her the beautiful land of ocean she is. Oh! that beneficent current of the Gulf Stream. Wherever it comes there is life--spring flowers, woods, pasture land, cornfields, harvests. So is it in the inner life, for the more of the Holy Ghost; you have, the more harvest you yield. So is it in the world around us. Let the Holy Ghost come into your own soul, and the aridity will blossom into flower and fruit; let Him come irate this neighbourhood, and those public houses and houses of ill-fame, and those wretched stifling courts will be swept away; and the whole of this neighbourhood will become fair and beautiful. Let Him come into the world, and see if it be not healed. (F. B. Meyer, B. A.) The river of salvation Unlike most other great cities, Jerusalem did not stand on a river. The waters of Siloam, “ that go softly,” being but an inconsiderable brook, did indeed issue from the temple rock, and the bed of the Kidron, which was for most of the year a dry watercourse, bleaching in the sun, did run with a foaming torrent in the rainy seasons, but these were all. But a Psalmist’ s faith had reversed the defect, and sung of the river which made glad the city of God (Psalms 46:1-11); and a Prophet had seen the vision of a time when Jehovah would be to Zion “ a place of broad rivers and streams” (Isaiah 33:21). In like manner, Ezekiel casts his prophecy of the future blessings, which should flow from God’ s presence among His people, into His grand image of the mysterious river, rising in the temple and pouring out eastwards, with fertility and life in its waters.1. The first point to be noted is the source of the river. Ezekiel’ s reconstruction of the temple set it on the top of a mountain much higher than the real temple hill, and levelled the land around it to a wide plain. That a river should rise, not only on a mountaintop, but in the temple itself, was obviously unnatural. But the idea to be conveyed is the same as that which the New Testament seer expressed by a slight modification of the image, when he represented the “ river of water of life” as “ proceeding out of the throne of God and of the Lamb.” The stream which is to heal and vitalise humanity must rise on a height above humanity. The water power which generates electricity must fall from a height above. Moral and social reforms, which rise from lower levels, will be like rivers in the great deserts of Northern Asia, which trickle feebly for a few miles, and then are lost in the sand. From the deep heart of God His pitying love wells up, unmotived, unsought, impelled only by its own energy. Ezekiel expresses, also, by making the river rise in the temple, that God’ s presence with men is the source of all blessing. He dwells among us by the abiding with us of His Son, who, through His Spirit, is with us always. Therefore, the parched land becomes a pool, and we need thirst no more. 2. The sudden increase of the stream. A “ thousand cubits” would be, according to the usual measurement, about a quarter of a mile, so that, in successive spaces of that extent, the river was ankle-deep, knee-deep, waist-deep, and unfordable. Whence came the swift increase? Not from tributaries, of which there were none, but from the evermore abundant outpouring from the fountain in the holy place. God’ s ideal is that the blessings of His presence should continually and rapidly increase, and that Christ’ s kingdom should swiftly grow. So far as His Divine communications are concerned, these become more and more abundant in the measure of men’ s desires and faithful use. But die Divine ideal may be hampered in realisation by men’ s fault, and has been so, not only in regard to individual growth in grace, but in regard to the diffusion of the sparkling waters of the river of God through the waste places of the world. Does anyone believe that the rate at which Christianity has spread is in accordance with its possibilities of growth, or with Christ’ s desire to see of the travail of His soul? Does anyone believe that the rate of growth, characteristic of most professing Christians, is the utmost that they could attain if they tried? 3. In the east, the one condition of fertility is water. Irrigate a desert, and it becomes a fruitful field; break down the aqueducts, and the granary of the world becomes barren waste. The traveller knows where there is a brook by seeing the line of green which ties on either side. There may not be a blade of pass on the level of the plain, but as soon as one’ s path dips into a wady, trees line the banks, and birds sing in the branches. So Ezekiel’ s river had many trees on its banks. Note the almost verbal correspondence of verse 12 with the lovely picture drawn of the good man in Psalms 1:1-6, “ whose leaf also does not wither.” The continual productiveness resulting from the perennial stream is the ideal for the individual life of the Christian, as well as for the whole Church; and wherever hearts are kept open for the inflow of God’ s grace, all the year will be the season of fruit bearing, and, as on some trees in favoured lands, blossom and fruit will hang together on the laden boughs. Another view of the effects of the river is given in that great saying that its waters bring healing to the bitter waters of the Dead Sea, into which they pour. Sin pervades humanity, and only by the coming down from above of a purer source of life can it be cast out. (A. Maclaren, D. D.) The rise and progress of the Gospel Water is a Biblical emblem of salvation (Psalms 46:4; Isaiah 12:3; Zechariah 14:8). Only the salvation brought by Christ fulfils Ezekiel’ s idea of the healing waters from the sanctuary; and in what the Gospel has done and is doing for the world we see the realisation of the prophet’ s vision. I. The source of the Gospel. Christianity, viewed on the human side, was an outcome of Judaism. To Jesus the temple was His “ Father’ s house.” He taught there, and spoke of the “ living water” which He would impart. His chosen apostles and first disciples were Jews. One of His last injunctions was that the Gospel should be preached to all nations, “ beginning at Jerusalem.” II. The progress of the Gospel. The beginnings of Christianity had a small and feeble look, as of a tiny streamlet which might soon be dried up by the heats of persecution. But the stream kept deepening as it flowed, until it has now become as a great highway among the nations, carrying on its broad bosom ideas that revolutionise human thought and life, and furnishing a medium of sympathetic communion between men of far distant countries and climes. III. The beneficial effects of the Gospel.1. Are not the great salt seas of Hinduism and Buddhism already beginning to be influenced by the quickening and healing power of the water of life? 2. But the prophet saw (verse 11) how the salt marishes, which were left by the subsidence of the sea, remained unhealed; the inflowing river did not reach them. Take care, then, Chat you do not cut yourself off from the healing and life-giving influences of the Gospel. (T. C. Finlayson.) The influence of the Church of God I. The striking characteristics of this influence.1. The smallness of its beginnings. One man from Chaldea, or a dozen common Galileans, do not seem much to turn the world upside down with. That little stream, issuing out of the infant Church of Jerusalem, looked as if there would not be needed more than one hot day’ s sun of opposition to dry it up. Read the prophet’ s story, and see how the waters became a river that could not be passed over. So the Gospel stream, easily stepped over at the first, has gone on widening and deepening, until now it covers the world’ s best places and belts the whole earth. 2. These waters of the vision were fed by no tributaries--and herein is a marvellous thing. Those waters had but one source--just those drops at the gate of the temple, and that was all. They issued out of the sanctuary; they grew and they grew. They were inherently developed. This is true of the Gospel stream coming out of the sanctuary. No other religions have swelled its waters with their inflowing tide. Nor wealth, nor learning, nor art, nor government has contributed one drop to its volume. The Christ stands and breaks His five loaves, and the five thousand and the five millions are fed by the same loaves. 3. Mark again this characteristic of the waters--they transform whatever they touch. Everywhere they spread in their onward flow, they make a place of beauty. This is the picture. What are the actual scenes marking the course of the Gospel stream down through the world? Where do you find the world’ s moral garden today? Where are the high places of the earth? Places high in cleanliness and conscience, in charity and forgiveness? They are here, by the banks of the River of Life, flowing from the sanctuary. What savages have been changed to saints! What hells of opposition have become homes filled with all sweet charity! How love as a lust has been transformed into love as an inspiration! II. Is there one thing that can be named as the sole condition of the influence of the Church? Beyond the shadow of a doubt, for the Church was to be the Church of the living God, the dwelling place of Jehovah. What distinguished this sanctuary whence flowed these marvellous waters was this--that God was there. No imposing ritual, no pomp of ceremonial, no crowd of worshippers, no countless repetitions of breathed prayer, no blood of sacrifices can account for that magic stream that trickled down from the sanctuary, and swept on and out to deserts and dead seas, leaving only beauty and fertility along its track. The illimitable God was there This picture of prophecy is the reality of history. From the time of the descent of the Holy Spirit at the day of Pentecost, whenever God has been in the Church, her influence has been immediate and beneficent. The one sole condition of power on the part of the Church is that she be filled with the Spirit of God. If the Lord God come down and dwell in His sanctuary, out of His sanctuary will issue the waters of salvation. III. What all this determines concerning the Church.1. Her Divine origin. See what the Church has done. See her beginning at Jerusalem. See how she has since breasted the deep currents of the world, how she has made everything live. Demanding such sacrifices, wielding such weapons as she has, she could never have gone on one step of her brilliant way if she were not of God. 2. Her worldwide triumph. What was there these waters touched that they did not heal? The Church is here in order that the Gospel may be preached unto all nations, not alone as a testimony but as a transforming power. 3. The Spirit of God in the Church is the sole condition of her influence, and He is almighty. (H. Johnson, D. D.) The healing waters I have somewhere seen a picture, which I will endeavour to describe. The scene is in the far East; the hour, when the earth is just lighted up with that rare oriental sunlight, which we Westerns long to see; the time, the sultry August, when the fierce sun has it all his own way, and the country has a sickly cast upon it, as if it fainted with the intenseness of the glare. The plain is scorched and arid, and the river running between its sedgy banks seems to have hardly strength enough to propel its own sluggish stream from the mountain beyond. Beneath a group of ancestral palms stands a knot of Egyptian peasants, swarthy and muscular, talking wildly to each other, and with eyes strained wistfully in the direction of the south, in which quarter there seems to hang an indescribable haze, the forecasting shadow of some atmospheric or other change. Why look they there so eagerly? Why do they gaze so intently just where the river faintly glitters on the horizon’ s dusky verge? Oh, because they know, from the experience of years, that the time has come for the inundation of the Nile. They do not know the processes, perhaps, by which the waters are gathered--how in the far Abyssinia the sources of wealth are distilled; but, as certainly as if their knowledge was profound and scientific, do they calculate upon the coming of the flood. And they know, too, that when the flood does come, that scorched plain shall wave with ripening grain, that there shall be corn in Egypt, and that those blackened pastures shall then be gay with such fertile plenty, that all the land shall cat, and shall be satisfied; for “ everything shall live whither the river cometh.” This picture has struck me as being a very vivid and forcible representation of Ezekiel’ s vision, embodied in the experience of Eastern life. Nothing, surely, can better represent the moral barrenness of the world--a wilderness of sin--than that plain, on which the consuming heat has blighted and withered the green earth, and induced the dread of famine. Nothing can better set forth the grace and the healing of the Gospel, than the flow of that life-giving river; nothing can better image to us the attitude befitting all earnest Christian men, than the wistful gaze of those peasants to the place whence the deliverance shall come, that they may catch the first murmur of the quickened waters, and feel and spread the joy. I. The source of these healing waters. There was a copious fountain on the west side of the city of Jerusalem. At this fountain, which was called Gihon, Zadok and Abiathar stood beside the youthful Solomon, and with many holy solemnities proclaimed him king. The prudent Hezekiah, foreseeing that in a siege the supply from this fountain might be cut off by the enemy, conducted it by a secret aqueduct to the very heart of the city; and David, deriving from this same fountain one of his choicest emblems of spiritual blessing, struck his harp and sang--“ There is a river,” etc. The prestige and the sanctity of the ancient Jerusalem have passed away forever. This entry is longer than a Bible module can hold. The rest is at https://www.sermonindex.net/commentary/bi/ Ezekiel 47:11 But the miry places and the marishes thereof shall not be healed; they shall be given to salt.The danger of a fruitless possession of religious advantages This vision of Ezekiel unrolled the map of the progress of the Gospel. The scene on which he looked down--so dark, so sterile, so lifeless--is but a picture of the world at large, separated from the knowledge and influences of Christianity. The natural features of the one correspond to the moral features of the other; for man, untaught by revelation, or unmoved by revelation, is like the desert, uncultivated and unfruitful; or like the dead lake, devoid of spiritual activity and buoyancy, and fitted but to spread around him the poisonous exhalation of his native depravity. It is the Gospel which reclaims man from this state, which pours fertilisation on the wilderness, and healing into the distempered waters. The Gospel of our Redeemer is represented by the river, which poured itself over the panoramic world, on which the prophet’ s eye was fixed. And we shall perceive the propriety of this emblem, if we turn our thoughts to the mystery of its origin. The prophet beheld the stream stealing forth from the threshold, but he saw not the source--the fountain from which it flowed; his eye could trace it rolling slowly from the eastern door, but he knew nothing of it till it thus opened upon his notice. All, previous to its appearance was wrapped in mystery and concealment. It is so with that wondrous development of our God’ s compassion and wisdom, which we designate the Gospel of Christ. Dwelling upon this lower world, living, as it were, outside the walls of the sanctuary, we see but the revelation, the unfolding of a mighty plan which is destined to be the cause of incalculable blessedness to countless millions. We can trace its progress, and mark its footsteps, and see its marvellous results. We can cast our eye backward upon the line of bygone ages, and trace the growth and the increasing firmness of the tree from the time that it was cast a seed into the ground, till it spread its branches over many climes and many nations. And as it carried its blessings and its comforts farther and farther still, displacing barbarism and introducing civilisation, dispelling the thick darkness, and pouring out its stream of pure and golden light, we can discover the proofs and indications of its power, but we can see nothing of the fountain out of which all this issues; for that lies concealed in the sanctuary of God’ s wisdom, in the dark and veiled recesses of the council halls of eternity. It lies in the depths both “ of the wisdom and the knowledge of God,” unfathomable to the plummet, of mortal investigation. But we shall perceive the propriety of this emblem no less clearly if we consider the effects which the Gospel is calculated to produce. When the prophet’ s eye traced the course of the sanctuary river, he saw that it carried fertility and health with its waters. He beheld wildernesses converted into gardens--a wild and cheerless waste into a second Eden. The Gospel of the Son of God is calculated to effect the same result. Already has it reclaimed a large portion of our globe from the sway of ignorance, of barbarism, of unbroken darkness, and carried along with its saving announcements the blessings of civilisation, and knowledge, and social happiness. It has proved itself powerful, not simply to confer moral renovation, but to implant the seeds and the elements of spiritual life. It is clear, from the text, that there may be spots and individuals visited by the truth, and yet unreclaimed by the truth. These are “ the miry places and the marishes” of the vision--spots which the river has touched, but which it has not changed--which lie in their original wasteness and sterility, although the stream of improvement has flowed over them. And these may designate either nations, or communities, or individuals. It becomes, therefore, a point of importance for us to ascertain distinctly what constitutes that miry and marshy state which is so fearfully indicative of total disconnection with the saving blessings of the Gospel. The state of man by nature is one of spiritual deadness, for spiritual life forsook him when he became a rebel against God. If man would be saved, he must have this spiritual insensibility removed, and spiritual life implanted, There must come a quickening from the Holy Ghost, the author and giver of life, into the soul. The man must be made alive unto God. There must be life in the soul. The river of the sanctuary must not merely cleanse the wilderness, and wash away impurities from the surface, it must besides pour such a flood of quickening power into its bosom, as that “ everything where it cometh shall live.” It must give you life in your spiritual desires, life in your spiritual affections, life in your spiritual duties, life in your prayers. The second effect produced by the river of life is the healing of the distempered waters. Man is not only a being dead in trespasses, and so insensible, but he is also impregnated by corruption, and so unholy. There must enter a stream of sanctifying influences into the very fountain of his innate depravity, to expel its poisons, and to heal its corruptions. And when this is done, there will be a continual aim and effort after holiness in the life and conversation. The alteration of the mind and temper and dispositions will be there, and an energy in religion will be there, and a zeal for God will be there, and the fruits of the Spirit will be there; in other words, the man or the community touched by the Gospel’ s magic power will be Christian. But when these marks exist not, when there are no indications of a spiritual life being infused, or of a healing process having been carried forward, then, we say, the Gospel has effected nothing--it has passed over men without changing them; it has been preached to men without converting them; it has visited men without sanctifying them. And let it not for one moment be imagined that God will show Himself an unmoved spectator of all this insult offered to His mercy, of all this despite done to the Spirit of His grace. No; for such as will sit beneath the sound of a proclaimed Gospel, without being touched by its power, or healed by its virtues, the Lord has His sentence of doom. It rests not concealed in His treasury of wrath and indignation. It is already announced--it is already on record--it is at this moment entered upon the dark registries of condemnation. His own lips have spoken it--“ they shall be given to salt.” It is a doom of deep and appalling import, for it tells of the curse of present barrenness and future destruction being poured out upon the hardened and impenitent. There are many methods by which the Lord effects this. One is by withdrawing from a heedless and obdurate people the Gospel--the ordinances of His grace--altogether. When He has made the stream to roll in its richness through it, and it will neither be healed nor quickened, shall it seem a marvellous thing if He bend the direction of the river and make it flow into other lands; if He leave spots that will not be changed, without a privilege, without one single water drop of Christian advantages? Another method by which the Lord accomplishes this decree, is by continuing to an apathetic and gainsaying people the outward ministrations of His grace, but stripping them of their faithfulness and purity. We shall allude but to one method more by which the Lord executes His doom of “ giving to salt” a Gospel-resisting people. He continues to such a people the ministrations of His truth in all its purity and faithfulness, but He refuses to bless them to the salvation and improvement of the people’ s souls. The river will flow, but it will not fructify. In such an instance of judicial retribution, there will be a flintiness, a hardihood, an insensibility, a paralysis over the hearers’ hearts which will resist all approaches of the truth, and fling it back, as the breakwater rolls back the tide which would irrigate the soil. (A. Boyd, M. A.) Spiritual barrenness I. The Gospel has not the same healing effect on all where it comes. Has the Gospel come unto me, not in word only, but in power, and in the Holy Ghost, and in much assurance, and effectually wrought to the turning me from vain idols to the living and true God (1 Thessalonians 1:5)? Thus it does in all that are saved. But oh, to how many does it prove an empty sound, and who remain the same persons that they were before they heard it? They were dark and defiled, ignorant and unholy, lifeless and fruitless, and they are so still. II. The great sin of continuing unfruitful under the Gospel, of our remaining in the same corrupt state in which it found us, and so receiving the grace of God in vain.1. This is a reproach to the Gospel, as if it were spiritless thing, without power or efficacy to produce what it was sent for. 2. As it is a reproach to the Gospel, so also a grief to those that labour in it. III. The greatness of the judgment for God to say of any, they shall not be healed, but be left to perpetual barrenness.1. A soul not healed, or totally barren, is yet out of Christ: and to be doomed to perpetual barrenness, never to be healed, is forever to be excluded from Him. 2. A soul not healed, but given to perpetual barrenness, has no promise of the protection of Providence, but may be exposed to all the evils of the present life. Thus God threatens His barren vineyard with it (Isaiah 5:5-6). 3. They that are finally forsaken as incurable, and given up to perpetual barrenness, have not a moment’ s security from eternal wrath. IV. the steps by which such a judgment is brought on and how God usually proceeds to it.1. God leaves them to a careless, indifferent spirit about what momentous things the Gospel reveals, and the concern of their souls in them. 2. Such a carelessness and indifferency is usually attended with blindness and insensibility, so as not to apprehend their disease, and mind a cure, and perceive their need of it. 3. Sometimes the waters of the sanctuary are staid, or diverted; or else, they that would not be healed by them are removed to places where they have none of the external means of knowledge and fruitfulness they once enjoyed. 4. The healing grace and influence of the Spirit may be withheld; without the help of which, the disease of the soul cannot be removed, nor its barrenness cured. 5. The Spirit being withdrawn, they may be left of God to entertain errors and to believe lies; whereby they may think themselves whole, when ready to perish, and cry Peace, peace, to themselves when sudden destruction is near (2 Thessalonians 2:11). 6. Upon this, the resolution may be taken up to let them alone, that His Spirit shall not strive with them. Application. 1. Avoid those things which lead to this, which are such as these:-- (1) Making light of the waters of the sanctuary by neglecting or careless attending. (2) Taking up with a mere profession of religion, and attending upon the means of grace without looking to see that their end be answered in a saving change wrought within. (3) Neglecting or opposing the convictions of conscience, and the motions of the Spirit. (4) Setting death and judgment at too great a distance, and flattering yourselves into stupidity from a vain presumption of having many years to come. (5) Delaying to look after a cure till another time. (6) Being too much taken up with the body and this present world, the cares of which choke the Word, and cause it to become unfruitful. 2. Take the course necessary to prevent it. (1) Apprehend the dangerous case you are in by nature. (2) Attend upon the means God hath appointed in order to a cure. (3) Be diligent in hearing, much in prayer, for the presence and influence of the Spirit, to heal, quicken, and recover you to God, and bring you into vital union to Christ. (D. Wilson.) The sin and judgment of spiritual barrenness I. God is pleased oftentimes in His infinite wisdom to send the preaching of the Word unto some places wherein it shall not put forth its quickening and sanctifying power and virtue upon the souls of them that hear it.1. He doth it principally because in those places where the Word is rejected by the generality of the people, yet there may be some secret poor souls belonging to the election of grace, whom God will have gathered, and called home to Himself. 2. God doth it for a testimony against them that receive it not, and to leave them inexcusable at the last day (Mark 6:11). Let not men boast themselves in the outward enjoyment of the Word, nor rest themselves in it. II. The souls of all men are spiritually dead, and full of woeful distempers, until they are quickened and healed by the dispensation of the Gospel. I shall not stay to mention all the particular distempers that rage in some, and that rule and reign in all, before the coming of the Gospel--as darkness, blindness, ignorance, worldly-mindedness, sensuality, hatred of God, envy and malice--which are fixed in the souls of men by presumption and self-righteousness. There is nothing in them of spiritual life or holiness, of purity or zeal, nothing that is acceptable or pleasing unto God. III. The word of the Gospel is, in its own nature, a quickening, healing, sanctifying, saving word to them who receive it. They bring Christ along with them, the Great Physician of souls, who alone is able to cure a sin-sick soul. They bring mercy with them to pardon sinners. They bring grace with them to cure all the distempers of lusts (Isaiah 11:5-7; Titus 2:11-12). IV. Where the waters of the sanctuary come, and the land is not healed, that land is given up of the Lord, to salt and barrenness forever.1. By the coming of the healing waters of the sanctuary, I intend not the occasional preaching of a sermon, although this be sufficient to justify God in the rejection of any person or people. In the first preaching of the Gospel, the refusal of one sermon lost many their souls unto all eternity (Matthew 10:12-15; Luke 10:8). But oh, the unspeakable patience of Christ to many in the world, where the Word is continued ofttimes for a very long season, and the salvation tendered therein despised! But this is that which I intend, as the rule of the dispensation mentioned: namely, when God by His providence doth cause the Word to be preached for some continuance, and to the revelation of His whole counsel--as (Acts 20:27). Nor do I mean any waters, but the waters of the sanctuary; not any preaching but the preaching of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, which Paul affirms to be his work (Ephesians 3:8). 2. What is meant by their sinful distempers not being healed? (1) Men are not quickened; they receive not a new spiritual life; they are not so brought to the knowledge of God. (2) The healing of these quickened souls consists in the curing and mortifying of their sinful distempers. If men are proud, worldly, sensual, they are dead also; there is no effect of the waters of the sanctuary upon them. 3. What is the lot and portion of such persons? Why, “ they shall be given to salt” ; that is, to barrenness, fruitlessness, unprofitableness, and eternal ruin. (1) For other Scriptures which assert the same truth, take (Proverbs 1:25-31; Proverbs 29:1; Luke 13:6; Hebrews 10:28-30; 2 Corinthians 2:15-16). (2) For the degrees of rejection (Ezekiel 10:18; Ezekiel 11:23; Hebrews 6:8). (3) The ways whereby God doth usually proceed in giving up such persons to barrenness, and so to everlasting ruin. He casts them out of His care; He will be at no more charge nor cost with them, nor about them (Hebrews 6:8; Ezekiel 24:13; Jeremiah 6:29-30). He will sometimes utterly remove the Gospel from them; turn the stream of the waters of the sanctuary, that they shall come to them no more. So He threatened the Church at Ephesus of old (Revelation 2:5). 4. God doth this sometimes, though He causeth the Word to be continued unto them, by restraining the efficacy of it, that it shall not profit them. The second thing that God doth, in giving up an unhealed land unto barrenness, is His judicial hardening of them, or leaving them to hardness and impenitency, that so they may fill up the measure of their sins (Hebrews 6:8). (1) Their natural blindness and ignorance shall be increased and confirmed; and that by two ways. God will send them “ a spirit of slumber” (Romans 11:8)--that is, a great inadvertency and negligence as to the things of the Gospel that are spoken of, or preached unto them. God sends them a spirit of giddiness, causing them to err in their ways! (Isaiah 19:14). We have a notable instance of this judgment of God (2 Thessalonians 2:10-12). (2) Obstinacy in the will, or hardness of heart, properly so called, is in this judgment of God also (Isaiah 6:10; Romans 1:28). (3) Sensuality of affections is in this judgment also (Romans 1:26). (4) Searedness of conscience (1 Timothy 4:2; Ephesians 4:19). Use.1. Of exhortation. Make use of your season, that you fall not under this sore and inexpressible judgment. (1) If you are not healed during your season, you can never be healed. If the Gospel cure you not, you must die in your sins. (2) You know not how your day is going away, nor when it will be over. 2. To discover the miserable condition of poor creatures, that having not in their season been healed by the waters of the sanctuary, are given up of the Lord to salt and barrenness. (1) They know not that they are so miserable. (2) They are pleased with the condition in which they are. (3) No man can help or relieve them. All the world cannot pull a poor creature out from under the curse of the great God. (4) Their eternal ruin is certain, as before proved. (5) This ruin is very sore on Gospel despisers. (J. Owen, D. D.) Marshes I. There are some men whom the Gospel does not bless.1. It stagnates in them: they hear in vain; learn, but do not practise; feel, but do not decide; resolve, but do not perform. 2. It mingles with their corruptions, as clear water with the mire of the marshes. 3. It becomes food for their sins, even as rank, sour grass is produced by the stagnant waters of “ miry places.” 4. It makes them worse and worse. The more rain, the more mire. II. Some of these we have known.1. The talkative man, who lives in sin, flooded with knowledge, but destitute of love. 2. Those critics who note only the faults of Christians, and are quick to dwell on them; but are false themselves. 3. Those who receive orthodox truth, and yet love the world. 4. Those who feel impressed and moved, but never obey the Word. 5. Those who are mere officials, and attend to religion in a mechanical manner. III. Such persons are in a terrible plight.1. Because they are not aware of it: they think it is well with them. 2. Because the ordinary means of blessing men have failed in their case. 3. In some instances the very best means have failed. A special river of gracious opportunity has flowed down to them, but its streams have visited them in vain. 4. No known means now remain. 5. Their ruin appears certain. 6. Their ruin is as terrible as it is sure. IV. From these we may learn--1. A lesson of warning, lest we ourselves be visibly visited by grace streams, and yet never profit thereby. 2. A lesson of arousing, lest we rest in ordinances. 3. A lesson of gratitude, if we are indeed healed by the life river, let us bless the effectual grace of God. 4. A lesson of quickening to ministers and other workers, that they may look well to the results of their labour, and not be making marshes where they wish to create fields rich with harvest. (C. H. Spurgeon.) Ezekiel 47:12 It shall bring forth new fruit according to his months.Old truths and new forms It is one proof of the divinity of the Gospel that, while maintaining its own character, unaffected by the changing currents of human speculation, it still adapts itself to the new conditions with which it has to deal. It brings forth new fruit according to the seasons. I propose to consider what the new fruit is, which we find in our own age, to inquire which of it is good, and which so evil that wisdom at once rejects it; and as introductory to it, to consider the influences which are at work among us tending to change, and the kind of change which has already been accomplished. Great changes, which have the most enduring effect are not, in general, those which most impress the imagination by their rapidity and suddenness, but those which are the result of slow processes, that go on silently, which are hardly noticed until they are revealed in the extraordinary effects which they have produced. There are two figures by which our Lord describes the action of His truth. The one is that of the seed, the other is that of leaven, and they alike illustrate the general principle that the “ kingdom of God cometh not with observation.” Both teach us to expect a subtle and inward spiritual influence gradually affecting society, not in miraculous force producing an immediate revolution. The figures, in truth, are descriptive of the history of all thought. Whether true or false, for good or evil, its power is, for the most part, of this diffusive nature, percolating class after class, spreading by seeds borne we know not how, finding lodgment in spots the most unexpected, and so springing up and bearing a harvest where we had not known there had been a scattering at all. The intellectual and moral history of individuals and of communities presents, in this respect, precisely similar features. In both sudden and startling revolutions are rare; in both a process of change is continually going on, of which there is a strange ignorance. Most men who are accustomed to look into themselves, must at times be surprised to find to how large an extent their views have been modified in the course of years, even on doctrines to which they would still give their hearty assent. They have not renounced the same creed and accepted another, but the old creed has become a new thing to them, because of the different light in which they have been brought to regard it. How could it be otherwise, in the case of minds which are not stagnant? All men who are alive to what is passing around them, who are willing to learn from all who have anything to teach, who are in the current of modern life, and yielding themselves up to it with more or less reluctance, who are ever taking at new ideas--find it impossible to retain their old position unaltered. A youth has grown up under the strong bias of education and association, He has looked at the world and men through the dimly-lighted windows of his own little cell, the glass of which may probably have been so coloured as to give him impressions very far removed from the fact. His opinions and sympathies alike have been confined within a very narrow circle, and it is difficult for him at first to understand that right and goodness may be found outside its lines. But as he comes into association with other men, and especially if he mingles with those of contrary opinions, he soon finds reason to suspect some of the conclusions he has too hastily adopted. If he is fortunate, he early learns that nothing is more to be distrusted than the arbitrary standard by which he has been too prone to judge character, and that there are those whose pure and noble qualities he is constrained to respect; whose doctrines he holds in abhorrence. He soon begins to see that truth has many sides, and that on some of them he has not looked at all, and, consequently, that some of his judgments need careful revision. The central verities may have become (if he has been living near to God, have become) more clear and distinct to him, but even his views of them have been modified by the diminished importance which he attaches to others, now seen to be subordinate, but which he once regarded as of supreme moment. The personal living Christ, his Saviour, Friend, and Lord, has come, to fill more of his vision, and he is drawn to men, or repelled from them, according to their relation to Him. The process by which he has been brought to regard as more trifles, dogmas and theories, about which his thought was once deeply interested, and in whose defence much of his energy was employed, has brought him to prize more highly those truths which he feels to be the core of all creeds. The change has thus been very great. Nevertheless, he is not less loyal to his Lord--in truth, more loyal and devoted to Him, not less simple in his trust in the great sacrifice, though less confident in his own ability to explain all its significance, or to vindicate all the ways of God to man in connection with it, not less wisely and earnestly attached to the particular Christian community of which he is a member, because he has learned to take a much wider view of the extent of the true Catholic Church. (J. G. Rogers.) The imperishable beauty of the spiritual spring The text is the promise and the picture of a never-fading spring. On which side of death is that imperishable beauty and fruitfulness--this or that? I think that, although the river comes down from the throne of God and the Lamb, and is, therefore, heavenly in its origin, the whole picture is an earthly scene, the springtide of human goodness, created and perpetually nourished by influences from above; the river being the love and grace of God flowing freely among us; the trees being the men who are planted by its side; the leaf and fruit being the moral and spiritual beauty and graces which they bear through their continual reception of the power and love of God into their nature. There is in this utterance a firm belief in the eternal power of goodness, a belief which also runs through the whole of Scripture, glorifying it to the last page. Is all this poetry, or is it fact? If goodness in the human spirit is to endure forever, if its beauty is not to fade, if its fruitfulness is not to fail, then there must be some sign, even on earth, of this strength and vitality. And as a matter of fact, it is my observation of the character of goodness upon earth, as a living thing, that can be taken account of, that can be watched and measured in its progress or decline, that I have seen outlasting and outliving all manner of hostile influences, that I have beheld, as fair, as tender, as generously fruitful in old age and in youth, aye, even more so; it is this surprising, moral phenomenon which has led me to this theme. No one, I think, not even the most misanthropical, would deny that in youth, or in the early days of the soul’ s espousals to the Saviour, there is the charm of a perfect sincerity, of a guileless simplicity, of a warm affectionateness, of a noble enthusiasm, of a devoted self-forgetfulness. “ Yes,” rejoins the cynic, “ and it all vanishes when he comes into contact with the realities Of life: his ingeniousness becomes cautious prudence, his zeal measured calculation, his brotherliness a mere show of warmth, his devoutness a proper formalism; he is corrupted from his simplicity, if he ever had any.” Now, that is what I deny. Observe, I do not deny that it happens to some men--alas! to too many--to all whose spiritual life is nourished by inadequate influences, and is therefore a name not a reality; but the marvel is thereby only increased, that others should be able, by some means at their command, to withstand all blighting and perverting spiritual influences, and in their old age should he more like little children than ever they were before. You know good men and women, who, for a lifetime, have gone in and out of the cottages of the poor, unnoticed and unpraised; who have spoken words of truth to ears that seemed deaf, and to hearts that were like stone; who have sympathised with, and counselled and aided, the most hopeless of all classes; and who, now that their hair is grey and their strength failing, are abundant in labours. And they would do it all over again, if they were called of God. No regrets have they for undertaking such a task, but only that they have not done it better. No sorrow have they for having been too zealous, too prayerful, too laborious, but only that they were not more so. And through what various scenes they have passed, and what various fruits of the Spirit they have borne! In days of strength they were active, “ ready to every good work.” In days of prosperity they were humble, not boasting as if they could do anything as of themselves, but gladly confessing that from Christ was “ their fruit found.” In days of adversity they were hopeful, believing that “ all things were possible with God.” In days of sickness they were submissive, quieting their souls with the assurances of the Father’ s love. In days of disappointment they were silent, knowing that “ though Israel be not gathered,” yet God would be glorified. In all days they were brotherly, kindly affectioned, gentle, upright, true, striving to behave as became the children of the perfect Father. “ The trees shall bring forth ‘ new’ fruit, according to their months. Hereto is My Father glorified, that ye bear much fruit, so shall ye be My disciples.” But do not let us even yet pass away from the fact that while the “ outward man,” the body, waxes feebler, and the brightness of the intellect is dimmed, the Divine beauty of the Spirit can shine forth with purer radiance, for “ the inward man is renewed day by day.” There is the case of Moses: was he, at the end of a forty years’ struggle with the stubbornness, ingratitude, fickleness, and unbelief of the Israelites, a less ardent lover of his people, a feebler believer in God, a colder-hearted man, with less courage and less self-abandonment than when he went out frown Pharaoh’ s palace a lonely wanderer, “ esteeming the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures in Egypt, because he had respect unto the recompense of the reward” ? There is the case of Daniel: his youth in the court of a heathen conqueror was most attractive for its sweet simplicity, its angelic regard for spiritual rather than carnal things; well, was he at all corrupted or degraded by that court, when, next to the king, he became its most conspicuous figure? Was he less temperate, less prayerful, less God-fearing, less spiritual in tone and temper? There is the case of St. Paul: you know with what heroic courage he threw himself into the battle for Christ against both Judaism and heathenism; you know, too, how much he had to endure for the Gospel’ s sake, but remark, chiefly, how much of this came from false brethren, and cold brethren, and unloving brethren, and brethren who slighted his love, and caricatured his appearance, and you will be better able to estimate the greatness of the triumph which Christ won over him, and through him. For he never slackened his labours the least, nor avoided one of his dangers, but fresh, with more than first enthusiasm, he spent every pulse of his life in his work. What is the explanation of this phenomenon? It is what the prophet gives, “ Because their waters they issued out of the sanctuary.” Yes, there is a sacred place, a pure, holy fountain where the spirit of a man may cleanse itself from the dust and stains of the world, where also it may refresh itself with living water, so that it shall live forever. There is “ a river of God” on whose banks we may grow as trees of life, bearing fruit for meat and leaves for medicine. We may have an eternal springtime out of this perennial stream. All depends upon the relation of the tree to the river whose waters issue out of the sanctuary, Only let the tree’ s roots be within reach of the river, and then the greater the summer heat, and the fewer the showers that fall, and the more freely will it draw its supplies from thence. So the soul of man when it finds no encouragement in human approval, or fashions, or hope of present reward, or even of present success, but is rather tried by all the influences around it, clings the more earnestly and more simply to God, receiving directly from Him its impulses, and finding in Him its satisfaction. (J. P. Gledstone.) . Ezekiel 48:1-35 The Lord is there.Ezekiel’ s last vision The following are some of the principal heads of prophetic instruction intended by the vision.1. That there was to be an entire new state of things in the Church. This is intimated by the new order in the arrangement of the tribes, which is not according to the birth of the patriarchs, nor the blessing of Jacob, nor the allotments they received in the ancient division of the land by Joshua. It is farther intimated by the grant of a distinct portion to the Levites, who had formerly no inheritance among their brethren; and by the distance between the temple and the city--the former, which was anciently within the walls of the latter, being here separated from it by the intervening portion of Levi. There is also in this vision a portion on each side of the temple, the Levites, and the city, assigned to the prince. A new order of things was established by Christ and His apostles, an order very different from that which formerly existed; and by this the vision was in so far fulfilled, though there be nothing in the present state of the Church to literally conform to the subordinate parts. Nor is anything of the kind to be expected, since the New Testament constitution neither admits of a temple, Levites, or sacred metropolis, nor will ever be altered to the end of time. We may only remark, that by the double portion of the prince, our thoughts are led to Him who is the First-born among many brethren, and who is now gloriously manifested to be so in His exalted state. The figure, too, of his portion stretching on each side of the temple, the Levites, and the city, seems to coincide in meaning with those Scriptures which represent Him as in His royal character, the Lord of all sacred institutions, and the guardian of those ordinances by which the work of His priesthood is exhibited, and all its benefits realised by the children of men (Zechariah 6:13; Revelation 1:13; Revelation 1:16; Ephesians 1:21-22; Ephesians 2:20-21). 2. That the new constitution was to be as truly Divine in its origin, and as minute and exact in its authoritative appointments, as the ancient. This is suggested by the idea of a pattern shown to Ezekiel, as was of old done to Moses. And although this was not, as in the case of the carnal ordinances, a real plan to be strictly followed, but only a visionary and symbolical exhibition, yet on this very ground it must be doctrinally instructive, the minute detail of the several parts denoting that everything pertaining to the New Testament state, its laws, ordinances, and forms, should be as exactly appointed, and as authoritatively enjoined, as any thing in the dispensation by Moses. 3. That the new constitution would far excel the former in symmetry and beauty. This is suggested by the regularity which pervades this visionary distribution of things, and which far surpasses anything in the ancient allotments of the tribes, or the structure of their city and temple. The symmetry and beauty, symbolically expressed, must of course be spiritual, but not the less visible and pleasing will it be to the eye of the Christian. 4. That the new constitution was to be far more extensive in its range than the ancient. This is intimated by the greater magnitude of the city and temple. All the twelve tribes, too, have a portion assigned them, no doubt with a reference to the future conversion of all Israel, a much grander event than the restoration of the two tribes from Babylon. But as the twelve tribes in Revelation 7:1-17; Revelation 21:1-27 stand for the spiritual Israel or Church of God, the vision sets before us the provision made by the new constitution for the ingathering of the Jews with the fulness of the Gentiles. The gates of the city accordingly stand open in every direction. 5. That in the new constitution the Church would clearly exhibit her several aspects. Of old she was a great military body, an ecclesiastical nation, whose laws and constitution, though sacred, had necessarily a respect to what form the civil rights and privileges of man in other nations, and whose sacred censures partook in certain cases of the nature of civil punishment. Now, however, she was to be contemplated (1) As a chosen society, a peculiar people, inheriting the earth, and solacing themselves in all that abundance of spiritual privilege which was anciently prefigured by the land of promise. “ They shall rejoice in their portion.” (2) As a scene of worship, distinctly marked out in this light by the temple, which stands apart, and hath in its vicinity the portion of the Levites. The latter are thus represented as more fitly accommodated for their sacred service than of old, and as no longer labouring under the disadvantage of the curse on literal Levi, “ I will divide them in Jacob, and scatter them in Israel.” This curse had no original connection with sacred office; it was restricted to the posterity of Levi, and ceases to display itself in the new constitution. Though ministers of the Gospel be scattered over the Church, we are taught to regard them as blessed with their portion, a body for whom provision should be made without subjecting them to any disadvantage, and as all, wherever they are, connected with the temple or system of ordinances, residing spiritually as one body in its vicinity. (3) As the seat of government--of a sacred government, such as that for which God established the thrones of judgment in Jerusalem of old--denoted by the city. Thus completed in all her form, Christ ruleth in her to the ends of the earth; and her name shall be seen and acknowledged to be Jehovah-shammah, “ The Lord is there.” (The Christian Magazine.) God’ s presence the Jew’ s heaven As yet the Israelite had no conception of a transcendent sphere of existence for men in the fellowship of God, such as we name heaven. Man’ s final abode even in his perfect state, was considered to be still on the earth. God came down and dwelt with men; men were not translated to abide with God. But God’ s presence with men on earth gave to earth the attributes of heaven. Yet man’ s needs remained and God’ s presence was the source of all things necessary to supply them. (A. B. Davidson, D. D.) Honoured according to faithfulness It is to be noticed that the places of more or less honour assigned to each tribe are regulated by the degrees of faithfulness to the Lord and His ordinances by which the tribes severally were characterised. Thus Judah and Benjamin, the tribes which adhered longest to the ordinances of the temple, and to the house of David, when the rest apostatised, shall hold the most honourable positions--Judah the place next the centre on the north; Benjamin the corresponding place of honour next the centre on the south. Dan, on the contrary, is to have the least honourable place, at the extreme north, as having been so early as the time of the judges in a great degree demoralised and heathenised. So in respect to the degrees of glory which await all the saints in the coming kingdom of God, the measure of honour will be regulated by the measure of faithfulness. He who lays out his one pound now so as to gain ten pounds for the Master’ s glory, shall then receive the government of ten cities; he who with his one pound gains five pounds shall have rule over five cities (Luke 19:15-19). (A. R. Fausset, M. A.) Civic obligations Those that live in the city are said to serve the city, for wherever we are, we must study to be serviceable to the place some way or other, according as our capacity is. They must not come out of the tribes of Israel to the city to take their ease, and enjoy their pleasures, but to serve the city, to do all the good they can there, and in so doing they would have a good influence upon the country too. (M. Henry.) The central position of the sanctuary The sanctuary was in the midst of them. There were seven tribes to the north of it, and the Levite’ s, and the prince’ s, and the city’ s portion, with that of five tribes more to the south of it; so that it was, as it ought to be, in the heart of the kingdom, that it might diffuse its benign influences to the whole, and might be the centre of their unity. The tribes that lay most remote from each other would meet there in a mutual acquaintance and fellowship. Those of the same parish or congregation, though dispersed and having no occasion otherwise to know each other, yet by meeting statedly to worship God together, should have their hearts knit to each other in holy love. (M. Henry.) The name of the city; God’ s presence the full blessedness of His people In the allotment of the land to the tribes, and the construction and naming of the city with which this closing vision is taken up, there may be several local and temporary significations. It may be that, as in some other of the visions, there is first of all reference to the rapidly-nearing national and religious restoration of the Jews under the leadership of Zerubbabel, and Ezra, and Nehemiah. But the spirit-stirring events that are associated with the names of these patient heroes, while they fulfil very much that Ezekiel foresaw, could not have exhausted the meaning of these predictions. For such a city was never built, the blessedness here described was never perfectly enjoyed by the Jews at any time after their captivity. There may be a further literal fulfilment of the prophecy in the connection of the incarnate Christ with Jerusalem. When Simeon took the infant Jesus in his arms in the temple, when the sacred Boy of twelve inquired in that temple,--indeed, in every incident of His life and death connected with Jerusalem,--we have a revelation of what is meant by “ Jehovah-shammah.” But that was not perpetual. That city knew not the day of its visitation, and Jehovah Himself was as a wayfaring man and stranger to it. Others find further fulfilment of the prophecy in some future restoration of Israel. Without again noting the difficulties that seem to stand in the way of the literal interpretation of this, as of the earlier visions, we simply and gladly insist that, if there be such national restoration, the glory and blessedness of the people of its city will be in a special manifestation and abiding consciousness of the presence of God. I. Christly men have this experience in the Church. Any Church that may not truly be called by that name, “ Jehovah-shammah,” that has not in its worship, and its activities, its social fellowships and philanthropic labours, God’ s manifested presence, is no Church at all. An ecclesiastical society, it may be, a kindly club, a political institution; but a Church it is not. To the Church belongs by special, inalienable right, this name, “ Jehovah-shammah,” for the Saviour has promised, “ Lo, I am with you all days, even unto the end of the world.” II. Christly men have this experience in the age. They see this name inscribed1. On human affairs generally. In all the movements of the time towards liberty and light, in all that tends to lessen human woe and to increase human joy; in a word, in all that is true in art, science, exploration, civilisation, as well as in what is termed religion, God is felt to be moving. There is to the Christly man a keen interest and deep sacredness, for “ the Lord is there.” 2. In all that concerns individual life. “ All things work together for good.” III. Christly men have this experience in nature. Every reader of the Prophets and of the Psalms has often felt that to the ear of Hebrew piety, nature was eloquent with the voice of God. Even Greek thought, as it peopled the groves and streams and mountains with divinities, was evidently groping after “ the unknown God,” whose power upholds all, whose character is revealed in all, whose presence fills all, for “ in Him we live and move and have our being.” To the Christly man who dwells much and earnestly on Christ’ s teaching, who inbreathes Christ’ s spirit, who imitates, however humbly, Christ’ s life, the world, not only in its stars, in the skies that span it, or in its seas that roll around it, but in its sparrows and its lilies and its common grass, tells of God. To such a man “ every common bush is on fire with God.” IV. Christly men will have this experience perfectly in heaven. In heaven, consciousness of the devil will be known no more; the consciousness of others, that through their sin and sorrow and our weakness is often overpoweringly oppressive, will have given way to a happy and strong brotherhood; and consciousness of self, which is born of sin, and is the darkest and most inseparable shadow of Our selfishness, will be known no more. God dwells there in an effulgence of love from which none shrink. Christ is the centre of the city, and is so seen that in seeing Him all become like Him. (U. R. Thomas.) The ideal city and its name The prophecy of Ezekiel begins with the vision of a city. The temple in Jerusalem is destroyed, and the city laid in ruins, the land desolate, the princes dethroned, the people exiled. His prophecy closes with another vision, the reverse of this--it is a vision of the restoration of the temple, the return of Jehovah, the renewal of worship, the reestablishment of royalty, the reapportionment of the land, and the resettlement of the people. Now, this latter vision is contained in chaps, 40-48, and it is generally interpreted as a symbolical representation of the blessings and privileges of the Gospel dispensation. It cannot be taken literally. The dimension of the temple and of the city are too large for the land. The river is evidently ideal, and the equal partition of the country among the tribes impossible. We are, therefore, compelled to look upon this as symbolical. Moreover, there are certain very significant omissions. No day of atonement is known, and there is no high priest--evidently because, the great atonement of Christ having been offered, there is no need for any further sacrifice. Again, Christ is set forth not so much in His character as Priest, as in that of Prince. All these facts point to the truth that this vision represents the close of the Gospel dispensation. The state of things appears to be intermediate between the Jewish economy and the glories of the heavenly city. The temple and the city here delineated are larger than the temple and city of Jerusalem. The city is more like that which is described in the Book of Revelation, than like the ancient Jerusalem. The large space appropriated for sacred things indicates that the conditions here represented approach more nearly to the ceaseless and universal worship of the heavenly world. The glory of the city is that the Lord is there. He is enthroned and supreme. His law is obeyed. His worship is observed. His blessing is vouchsafed to His people. This is the crowning idea both of the vision and the prophecy as a whole. And it is this that is the glory of the dispensation conceived of as a city. May we not, then, infer that every city reaches its ideal, and becomes worthy to be a place of health and happiness in proportion as it answers to the description, “ The Lord is there” ? I. Now observe, in the first place, that this is an age of great cities. The growth of the city in population and in wealth is far out of proportion with the country at large; and in many places, while the country is going down, the city is rising by leaps and bounds. London is probably two thousand years old, and yet four-fifths of its growth has been added during the century just closed. And from the centre of every city there is a large and ever-increasing circumference of population stretching out wider and wider, further and further, into the country. And there are three causes for this. The application of machinery to agriculture, lessening the number of hands required for farm purposes, the substitution of machinery for muscular power, and its application to manufacture. The world’ s work was formerly done by muscle, and the word manufacture was applied to making by the hand; but now the word has come to be applied almost exclusively to work done by machinery. And since the machinery is in the cities it attracts the hands released from the farm. There is also the modern railway, making it easy to approach the city and supply it with food. Drummond has said that he who makes the city makes the world, and the problem of our great cities is the problem of our modern civilisation. Observe then, that there is a danger that materialism should capture the city. The great multitudes in the city seem to lower the sense of responsibility in the individual. Moral failure is not marked and reprobated as in the country home; vice is so common that it becomes less shocking, and its allurements are multiplied. The contagion of low ideas often proves deadening to the better nature. The sentiments of one person openly vicious have been enough to make for the decay of the street into the slum. Moreover, there is the increasing habit of people crowding together in such a way as to make even the decencies--to say nothing of the common comforts--of life to disappear. And this is one of the most formidable and increasing evils of the time. And it is a prolific parent of many other evils, driving men and women to the drink shops, impelling them to seek deliverance from the monotonous round of life by degrading recreations, until worldliness becomes the rule of their life. And the conditions of life are so severe, the competition so keen, the struggle so desperate, the continual tendencies among the people so unrelieved to drag them down, that multitudes are being driven down to the dregs of society. Now, unless such movements and tendencies can be checked and counteracted by moral sentiments and religious life, they will constitute a danger of appalling magnitude in many parts of the land. Saltpetre, sulphur, and some other ingredients that go to make gunpowder, are of themselves quite simple and harmless--they are non-explosive; but brought together they make gunpowder, and it has been well pointed out that neither ignorance nor vice is revolutionary, nor is ignorance when controlled by righteousness and conscience; but ignorance, vice, and wretchedness constitute social dynamite, of which the city slum is the magazine awaiting only the casual spark to make it burst into terrible destruction. What, then, is the remedy? Will repressive measures suffice? Men turn naturally enough to law and its administration. They would curb the drinking habits and gambling craze, and settle the housing problem by legislation. Far be it from me to utter one single word against law and its administration. I hold, indeed, that by wisely-conceived and well-applied law much maybe done for the benefit of the people, and my conviction is that we have not yet exhausted its possibilities. But for such evils as those of which I have been speaking law is no remedy. Indeed, the causes of these evils lie beyond the reach of civil government and its scope. They can reach to the actions of men, but not, to the inward principles from which they flow. They may check, but they cannot eradicate, the moral evil. Will social nostrums prevail? Equalise labour, and make all resources common; mete out from the general stock an adequate supply to each individual--and you will establish contentment and happiness. Will you? But what of the selfishness which demands this all-things-common policy? It is really a selfishness as portentous and mischievous as that of the most unprincipled employer who exploits the working classes. What is the real desire of those who put this policy forward, but that they may escape the penalty of their own indulgence? Will education and refinement be effective? We are counselled to increase and improve education, to open museums and picture galleries, to establish settlements and found libraries, and who but must say “ All hail!” to such proposals? What are they but honest attempts on the part of those who enjoy the advantages of education, the opportunities of station and fortune, to share those advantages, as far as they can, with those less fortunate than themselves? Their aim is to elevate men’ s minds and to strengthen the deep foundations of moral character by love of justice and truth and mercy, and their tendency must be, I think, to increase the desire for elevating enjoyments, and correspondingly to make disgusting the low and degrading pleasures that embrute men. They will have their influence, we cannot doubt; they are the offspring of charity; they are Christian principles attempted to be applied for the benefit of society; their tendency must be, to a certain extent, to check the advance of vice. But when these things are proposed as remedies for moral evil, then we feel that they are inadequate. You may have the highest knowledge and the most exalted refinement in connection with the lowest and most degrading vices. Vice is no monopoly of the poor and toiling classes. It has appeared among the privileged, and among those in elevated stations, in forms almost more shocking than among the common people. Not here can we find the relief we want. What remains then? That the city be pure and prosperous, and delivered from the evils which threaten its happiness and prosperity, it must answer the description, “ The Lord is there.” Religion must have free course, must be permitted to work out its transforming and purifying effects. Christian principles must be applied to social problems as well as to personal character and life. Nor is the reason of this difficult to understand. It is the degradation of the heart that produces viciousness of life, and the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ enters the heart and changes and purifies it, and thus commands and sanctifies the life. All the repressive and educating and refining agencies may leave the moral inclinations untouched, though they work in the same direction as the religion of Jesus Christ. But it is the grace of Christ which changes the devices of the mind and the desires of the heart, and turns the affections and inclinations from evil to good thoughts, and upward tendencies and desires. The religion of the Saviour, therefore, is just that which we need in order to bring about the changes for which the world--this part of the world--is waiting at the present time. It was the mighty, regenerating influences of this Holy Gospel which converted the old Roman Empire into a new world. It was this, after the failure of many other agencies, which changed the England of the eighteenth century, which was marked by almost unexampled irreligion, and made it to be in the main, a Sabbath-keeping and God-fearing nation. The most neutral historians confess with admiration the great moral reformation which followed the evangelical revival. The rough toilers in the coal pits of the North were melted to tears of penitence as they listened to the Gospel from the lips of Wesley; and the Cornish miners, warned by his faithful words, gave themselves to God at their work, hearing above them the sobbing of the sea. The sweater, the exploiter of labour, and the grinder of the poor, will speedily disappear, and with him all the sullenness and discontent of the toiling masses. No more will there be hatred of masters, restrictions of output, scamped work. There will be mutual trust and mutual confidence; selfishness and greed will gradually disappear before self-respect and self-restraint; and the higher and nobler element of self-sacrifice. A sweetness will breathe through the speech and” life of the people, that shall tell of heaven; and men will be brought almost instinctively to say, “ The name of the city is, The Lord is there.” Now, these things being so, what are the suggestions for our practical guidance? Surely it becomes us to bring our own spirit into harmony with the great realities of religion, that we ourselves may be the converted and sanctified children of God, that from us there may go out on every hand an influence that shall be a blessing to the community. And does it not follow that, this being realised, we must take the Gospel of salvation to the people? In addition to this, we may learn that Christian men should not shrink from public duties. There has, perhaps, been a tendency too marked for educated and refined and Christian men to shrink from taking their part in the life of the city; they shrink from the rude heckling of the election, or the rude encounter of the council chamber. The consequence is that men selfish and ignorant are apt to push into offices that men better qualified to occupy these positions ought to have. The danger is that there may come the rule of the worst for the worst. If our city councils, for instance, are not pure; if they abet and do not abate the evils and dangers of our people; if their influence is used to sustain those institutions that enrich the few for the permanent degradation of the many, then our cities may become cesspools of evil. Can we make our city pure? is the question every man should put to himself. With this object the mind must think, the hand must work, the purse must pay. We need also Christian altruism among our leading public men. In our age it is coming to be felt more and more that the hero is the man that stands forth armed not with sword and spear, but with love and kindness, and sympathy and generosity. In our age we are coming better to understand the principles of our holy religion, and to apply them. Let us see to it that our sympathy and generosity is of this Christlike and self-denying type, and we shall do something to hasten the period when the words of this ancient prophecy shall be brought to fulfilment, and “ the name of the city from that day shall be, The Lord is there.” The Lord is there! Then righteousness shall be there, and justice, and peace! And if the Lord be there, and His law be obeyed by the people, and they all come under the influence of His character and Spirit’ s power, then will men be gracious to each other, kindness and goodwill will everywhere present themselves. The Lord is there! Heavenly dispositions will then be there, kindness of heart, nobility of life; and men will realise more and more that it is a blessed thing to know and reverence, and love and serve Him. Let us realise the great truth that God in our day is bringing to pass the fulfilment of this prophecy in this city. May we not say, “ The Lord is there” ? He is commanding the minds and touching the hearts of multitudes within the bounds of this city today. Let us not despair! There are terrible social evils and various other evils abroad, and sometimes men are downcast and heavy laden, and feel as though the Lord had forgotten. Never! Not for a moment! His purposes are marching towards their accomplishment all the time through all events. We are not under a government of blind chance. Let us never think that affairs have lost their connection with the government of God. (S. Whitehead.) The ideal city I. If God is there, there are some things that will be found along with Him.1. Light. Men go to the sanctuary oppressed by the same questions as of old. Deep calleth unto deep from age to age. In God’ s house should be the answers to the heart’ s deepest needs. 2. Life. Where God comes, death is vanquished. Spiritual life is like physical, and a mystery, but it must be fed; and a table is spread in the house of God. 3. Liberty. In the city of God all are free. In His house men are manumitted. To set the captives free is the first aim of the Gospel. II. But if God is there, there are some things that will not be there.1. Divisions. Some Churches torn by factions. What is aimed at is not unity in the faith--that will never be gained--but unity in the spirit. 2. Defections. It is sad when men leave church, but sadder when they leave Christ. If God is there, life becomes richer, service fuller, and love true to death. 3. Defeat. Strong weapons are being used against it. Criticism, indifference, ridicule, are doing their best. But the cause must go on to victory, because “ the Lord is there.” (J. Wallace.) The Lord is there Between the fruits of natural and of spiritual religion there will always be considerable apparent resemblance. The amiability and generosity of the natural man will not be distinguished by the superficial observer from the charity of the Christian; nor are we called upon to disparage that which is beautiful and excellent in natural morality. At the same time, while there may be much in the uurenewed heart that is lovely and attractive, we must not shut our eyes to its true state before God, or refuse to recognise the radical deficiency which runs through all systems of natural religion or morality. We may love, we may even admire, but if the heart be really unrenewed, we must own the melancholy fact--the Lord is not there. Again and again, throughout the Word of God, we have it directly asserted, or incidentally implied, that God dwells, by His Holy Spirit, in the hearts of true believers, and that He dwells in them to form within them the New Adam, to develop the nature and spirit of Christ. “ Our bodies are the temples of the Holy Ghost,” and “ Christ is in us, except we be reprobate,” and the mystery of our calling is “ Christ in us the hope of glory.” Do these words mean anything? Can they mean what their natural sense implies? or are they simply high-sounding flights of Eastern rhetoric? I must press on you the question, Can it be truly said of your heart, “ The Lord is there” ? Does your religion consist only of doctrines and observances, or has a new power entered your soul? and are you conscious of a reverent and sacred intimacy with your Divine Guest? What is religion without this? Take away my Lord, and earth becomes a dreary desert, time a cruel taskmaster, and eternity an abysmal gulf of horrible gloom. But, as it is true of every real Christian that the Lord is there, so it is the law of the life of the unrenewed that the Lord is not there. The man of the world awakes in the morning with no sense of the presence of his God: he may hurry through some form of devotion, but the Lord is not there. The world rushes in with all its thronging cares and busy excitements, and the battle of the day is fought, but the Lord is not there; and when he lays his head on his pillow at night, while he forms his schemes for the future, or congratulates himself on the past, it still remains true the Lord is not there. Years roll on, and the life without God draws towards its close; human nature loses its charms, the affections become paralysed, the genial enthusiasm of youth is a dream of the past, the barren routine of habit has fossilised all the higher faculties of the soul; but while the transient loveliness of humanity fades away, the sad truth still remains, “ the Lord is not there.” When the last scene comes, there may be weeping friends around the bedside of the dying sinner, and some may speak oft the kindliness of his disposition, and some may tell how he ever did his duty to wife, and child, and friend; but the curtain falls upon the last scene in the sad drama of a wasted life, inscribed with the melancholy sentence, “ The Lord is not there!” Follow his receding form, if your inward sight can penetrate so far into the dreary regions of eternal hopelessness, and as you gaze with horror into the blank solitude into which he plunges, can you not catch that distant cry, of agony which wanders like an everlasting echo through the deep night of hell, “ The Lord is not here!” “ The Lord is not here!” Gladly I turn to the other side of the picture. The prophet Ezekiel had been gazing at a wondrous revelation of future glory, and doubtless the mystic temple and city in every point of their elaborate details had been full of interest and instruction for his delighted soul; but as we raise the cornerstone only when the rest of the entire building is completed, so it was reserved for the last word of the Divine Interpreter to touch the deepest chord of joy within the prophet’ s heart, and, as it were, to put the crown of glory upon the entire description in those marvellous words which I have read to you. We cannot doubt but that, in a further sense than we at present experience, those words will one day be fulfilled; at the same time, the blessed privileges to which we are heirs under this dispensation justify us in applying the description, and above all the crowning words, to the Christian Church. It, too, is a new Jerusalem that has come down to earth out of heaven, and its greatest glory is that “ the Lord is there.” (W. H. M. H. Aitken, M. A.) The presence of Christ as the chief glory of heaven I. An unveiled presence. The imperfection of the medium through which we now receive our knowledge of Him, constitutes the veil between Him and ourselves. It is not any deficiency in the amount of the knowledge communicated; nor any want of clearness in the communication itself, which constitutes the veil spread out between God and ourselves. No: that veil is found in our weakness, and inability to take in the truth in reference to God and spiritual things. But when we reach that heavenly city, whose name will be “ The Lord is there,” this difficulty will be removed. Then, instead of seeing “ through a glass darkly, we shall see face to face.” II. A transforming presence. We meet with illustrations of the power of assimilation or transformation, that are highly interesting, both in the animal kingdom and in the world of nature. The chameleon, the tree frog, and various insects among the animal tribes, occur to mind as examples. These assume the colour of the substances on which they feed, or by which they are surrounded. There is a principle of assimilation between themselves and the materials about them. But let us rise a step higher. From the animal kingdom, we look up to the world of nature Yonder is the sun. When he rises in the east, and pours his glorious beams over the clouds that are floating around the horizon, what a marvellous change is wrought upon them! A moment ago they were dark, and gloomy, and unattractive. But look at them now. They are tinted with purple, and scarlet, and gold. The sun is present with them, and what a wondrous power of transformation that presence is exerting! And if, in this lower world, we find processes like these going on, need we be surprised to find the same principle of assimilation at work, only developing results more glorious far, in the heavenly world? And this is just what we do find. For when the redeemed are introduced into that heavenly city, whose name is “ The Lord is there,” “ they shall be like Him, for they shall see Him as He is” (1 John 3:2). The same truth is brought out more clearly and absolutely by St. Paul (2 Corinthians 3:18). And there are two things connected with this transformation which are marvellous to think of. One is the extent to which it will be carried. It will not be the peculiarity of a few of the redeemed, but the privilege of them all. And then it will be no less marvellous when we think of the reality of this change. When the sun spreads his glory over the clouds of the sky, it is only the appearance of a change which the clouds put on. They remain essentially unaltered. They are the same clouds that they were before. But it is different with the heavenly transformation of which we are speaking. The likeness to God, which His presence imparts to the ransomed who stand around His throne, is real, and pervading in its nature. III. A satisfying presence. We see many objects of beauty and grandeur in the world around us; and we find real pleasure in beholding them. But however great this pleasure may be, it is still true that “ the eye is not satisfied with seeing.” And there are two things which “ account for the striking difference that exists between seeing the beauty that appears in this lower world, and seeing the King in His beauty.” We look upon the beauties seen in the sun, the moon, the stars, the mountains, the hills, the ocean; but we are not satisfied with seeing, because they are not ours. They do not belong to us. We cannot appropriate them to our own use. But it will be different when we stand and gaze on the glories of the Divine presence as displayed in heaven. It will be our privilege to point to Him and say--“ This God is our God.” But it is possible to own things which do not meet our necessities, and which, therefore, cannot minister to our satisfaction and enjoyment. We see this illustrated in the case of the traveller in the desert, who was famishing with hunger. Arriving at a well, he saw a sack lying near it. Transported at the thought that he had found a supply of food, he hastened to open it, when he discovered to his intense disappointment that it was only a sack of pearls! He was a jeweller, and understood their value. They belonged to him by discovery. There was no one to dispute his right to claim them as his own. But how gladly he would have exchanged them all for a loaf of bread! And how much of life’ s experience is in keeping with this! These things were not made to satisfy the soul, and they cannot do it. But in the presence of God, reserved for the redeemed in glory, both these elements meet. There is ownership for the ransomed in that presence, and suitableness to their wants. IV. A progressive presence. This is a feature of the Divine presence peculiar to itself. It does not belong at all to earthly things. In all earthly possessions or pursuits, we find limits to their ability to interest and gratify; and these limits are soon reached. The things of earth pall upon us, and we soon tire of them. Even as we hold them in our grasp, we feel, in reference to them, “ the fulness of satiety.” We feel that we have taken their measure. We have sounded their depths. We have scaled their heights, and have gone to the utmost boundaries of their length and breadth. Alexander conquered the world--and then, as tradition says, he wept because there were no other worlds to conquer. In nothing is the contrast more striking between earthly and heavenly things than it is here. There is a littleness about the one that is soon exhausted. There is a fulness about the other which defies exhaustion. Jehovah-Shammah: the glorious Lord, in whose presence we are to stand in heaven, is an infinite God. And all the elements of His character are infinite too. And it is this feature of His character which will afford material forever fresh development or progress in our knowledge and enjoyment of Him. V. An eternal presence. We have this assurance when told that the covenant name we are considering will be connected with this heavenly city, “ from that day.” This means the day when this city shall be revealed, and all the redeemed shall enter on the possession of its joys. “ From that day,” on, and on, and on through all the ages of eternity, “ the name of the city will be Jehovah-Shammah: The Lord is there.” The blissful presence of our covenant God and Saviour will be connected with that city, “ while life, or thought, or being lasts, or immortality endures.” Here, everything is temporary; there, nothing will be so. The life given to those who enter this heavenly city will be everlasting life. The kingdom to which they belong is “ a kingdom that cannot be moved” ; an everlasting kingdom. And everything belonging to that kingdom, its joys, its honour, its relationship, will be everlasting too. As one has well said: “ There will be no hands on the clock of eternity, and no shadow on its dial. The very hours of heaven will be measured by the sunshine--not by the shadow.” The life to come will be an eternal progression. It will be the life of the soul--life with God, and life like God’ s. (R. Newton, D. D.) Ezekiel’ s last vision 1. The vision of these last chapters is the vision of a city rebuilt and a temple restored. Ezekiel’ s temple and city seem to be only a magnified edition of the city and temple which he had known in his youth--which he had loved so fondly, and lost so early. The city and temple of St. John are purely ideal, symbolical. The city “ descends out of heaven from God, having the glory of God.” Its length and its breadth and its height are all equal. Literal temple, such as Ezekiel describes, it has none. “ I saw no temple therein,” St. John writes; “ for the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are the temple of it.” Here, then, as everywhere in the pages of the Bible, we find growth, progress: first the lower, then the higher; first the earthly, then the heavenly; first the natural, then the spiritual. The new fulfils the old, has its roots in the old, affiliates itself to the old; but transcends and surpasses it. John, the exile of Patmos, must not be as Ezekiel, the exile of Chebar: even as the exile of Chebar could not be as the exile of Patmos. Both the one and the other wrote, as it were, in view of the ruins of a destroyed temple. But the temple destroyed by Nebuchadnezzar was destined to rise again from its ruins: not so the temple destroyed by the Roman armies under Titus. In the prospect of such a literal restoration, Ezekiel, the priest, might reasonably desire that the new might be as the old, only larger and more magnificent. And within certain narrow bounds and limits at last it was so. Herod’ s pile was at least as stately and grand as that which Nebuchadnezzar destroyed. But all such hopes and visions would have been only an anachronism to St. John. It was well for Ezekiel to cherish them: it was impossible, it would have been folly, for John to do so. In the interval between the one and the other, the world had moved on some four hundred or five hundred years: and “ the fulness of the time” had come; and it was possible to proclaim as the basis of a worldwide church, and the centre of a worship which should last until the end of time--not some visible temple made with hands, but this eternal truth: “ The hour cometh, and now is,” etc. 2. We may pass now to what is of more immediate concern to ourselves; the thoughts suggested by the words of our text, and their connection with the New Year upon which we have so recently entered. Ezekiel’ s last words, and, doubtless, they expressed his dearest hopes for the future, are these: “ The name of the city from that day shall be, The Lord is there.” We realise Ezekiel’ s meaning more clearly and forcibly, if we alter the very negative name, “ Lord,” into the English word which represents most accurately the Hebrew original--the “ Eternal,” or the “ Changeless,” or the “ Selfsame.” The unchangeableness of Jehovah gives the prophet hope for the city that is to be. Let us then gather up all our own thoughts in reference to the future--our own future, and that of the nations around us--in this brief phrase of Ezekiel’ s, as motto and watchword--“ Jehovah-Shammah” --“ The Eternal is there.” And if such watchword smites us with a sober, solemn awe, it is well that it should be so. It is well that we should remind ourselves, not merely at the beginning of a new year, but at all times, that the kingdom of God is, and will be, over and around us and all men, during the coming months; that we are in it and under it, as subjects and citizens of it; and that this kingdom is the kingdom of the Eternal, the Unchangeable, the Selfsame--“ the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning.” Once, in the wilderness, under the leadership of Moses, the Israelites asked, in a season of weariness and cowardice, and of atheistic doubt, such as springs out of weariness and cowardice and feeds them, “ Is the Lord,” is the Eternal, “ among us or no?” In after years, just before he was taken from them by death, their great leader recurred to that question of theirs, and bade them beware of tempting the Lord again so. “ Ye shall not tempt the Eternal your God, as ye tempted Him at Massah.” We will welcome the lesson for ourselves. Be the individual future of each one of us what it may, at any rate of this we may be sure, the Eternal will be there. He will be with us in it. “ God’ s kingdom ours abideth,” come what may. We cannot be taken out of its reach. Now this thought admits of many applications. It must ever be a thought of solemn awe. But in that awe terror may predominate, or comfort and peace and joy, according as we will have it. (D. J. Vaughan, M. A.) Jehovah-Shammah; a glorious name for the new year These words may be used as a test as well as a text. They may serve for examination as well as consolation, and at the beginning of a year they may fulfil this useful double purpose. Do we reckon the presence of the Lord to be the greatest of blessings? If in any gathering, even of the humblest people, the Lord God is known to be present in a peculiarly gracious manner, should we make a point of being there? Very much depends upon our answer to these queries. I. The presence of God is the glory of the most glorious place. What a glorious state this world was in at the very first, in the age of Paradise, for the Lord was there! “ The Lord God walked in the garden in the cool of the day,” and communed with man; and man, being innocent, held high converse with his condescending Maker. The topstone of the bliss of Paradise was this all-comprehending privilege--“ The Lord is there.” Alas! that has vanished. Withered are the bowers of Eden: the trail of the serpent is over all landscapes, however fair. Yet days of mercy came, and God’ s saints in divers places found choice spots where they could converse with heaven. Amid a torrent of sin and sorrow, you may cross the stream of time upon the stepping stones of the places marked “ Jehovah-Shammah.” The Lord’ s delights were with the sons of men, and to them nothing brought such bliss as to find that still the Lord would be mindful of man, and visit him. In the days when God had called out unto Himself a chosen nation, He revealed Himself at Sinai, when the mountain was altogether on a smoke, and even Moses said, “ I do exceedingly fear and quake.” Well might he feel a holy awe, for the Lord was there. In Canaan itself, the days of sorrow came when the nation went after other gods, and the Lord became a stranger in the land. When He returned, and delivered His people by the judges, then the nations knew that Israel could not be trampled on, for the Lord was there. I almost tremble when I remind you of the truest temple of God--the body of our Lord. The nearest approach of Godhead to our manhood was when there was found, wrapped in swaddling bands and lying in a manger, that Child who was horn, that Son who was given, whose name was called “ Wonderful, Counsellor, the mighty God, the everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace.” Speak of Gethsemane, and we tell you God was there. Before Herod, and Pilate, and Caiaphas, and on the Cross--the Lord was there. Though in a sense there was the hiding of God, and Jesus cried, “ Why hast Thou forsaken Me?” yet in the deepest sense Jehovah was there, bruising the great sacrifice. God was in Christ Jesus on the Cross, and we, beholding Him, feel that we have seen the Father. O Calvary, we say of thee, “ The Lord is there.” Here I might fitly close, for we can mount no higher; but yet we could not afford to leave out those other dwellings of the Invisible Spirit, who still by His presence makes holy places even in this unholy world. We have to remind you that God is the glory of the most glorious living thing that has been on the face of the earth since our Lord was there. And what is that? I answer, Jesus is gone; the prophets are gone; and we have no temple, no human priest, no material holy of holies. And yet there is a special place where God dwells among men, and that is in His Church. He has but one--one Church, chosen by eternal election, redeemed by precious blood, called out by the Holy Ghost, and quickened into newness of life--this as a whole is the dwelling place of the covenant God. Because God is in this Church, therefore the gates of hell shall not prevail against her. “ The Lord is there” might be said of the Church in all ages. Flying forward, as with a dove’ s wing, to the future that is drawing near, we bethink us of the truth that there is to be a millennial age--a time of glory, and peace, and joy, and truth, and righteousness. But what is to be the glory of it? Why, this, “ Jehovah-Shammah, The Lord is there!” Up yonder, whither ninny of our beloved ones have already gone: up yonder, within that gate of pearl where eye cannot as yet see. What is it that makes heaven, with all its supreme delights? Not harps of angels, nor blaze of seraphim; but this one fact, “ the Lord is there.” What must it be to be with God? II. The presence of God is the best privilege of His Church. It is her glory that “ the Lord is there.” Note this, and mark it well.1. If the Lord be among us, the consequences will be, first, the conservation of true doctrine. God is with those who speak the truth faithfully, hold it devoutly, believe it firmly, and live upon it as their daily bread. 2. Where God is present, the preservation of purity will be found. The Church is nothing if it is not holy. It is worse--it is a den of thieves. 3. Where God is, there is the constant renewal of vitality. A Church all alive is a little heaven, the resort of angels, the temple of the Holy Ghost. 4. When the Lord is there, next, there is continuing power. With God there is power in the ministry, power in prayer, power in all holy work. 5. Furthermore, whenever it can be said of an assembly, “ The Lord is there,” unity will be created and fostered. Saints who dwell with God love each other “ with a pure heart, fervently.” 6. Where the Lord is, there is sure to be happiness. What meetings we have when the Lord is here! At the Master’ s Table I have often been so blest that I would not have exchanged places with Gabriel. The Lord was there: what more could I desire? Joy, delight, rapture, ecstasy--what word shall I use?--all these have waited around the Table of fellowship, as musicians at a king’ s banquet. If God be there, our heaven is there. III. The presence of the Lord is our delight in every place. We will think of our own dear homes. What a delightful family we belong to if it can be said of our house, “ Jehovah-Shammah, The Lord is there” ! Has it a thatched roof and a stone floor? What matters? I charge you if your homes are not such that God could come to them, set your houses in order, and say, “ As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.” Will you dare to dwell where God could not lodge with you? May all men say of your home, “ The Lord is there” ! Here is a Christian who lives alone, apart altogether from family life. All his dear ones are dead, or far away. In his lone chamber, when he bows his knee in secret prayer, or whenever he takes his walk abroad to meditate, if he be indeed a true lover of the Lord Jesus, “ the Lord is there.” Some of us can bear witness that we have had the nearest approaches of God to our souls in times of intolerable pain, and even in seasons of intense depression of spirit as to earthly things. One might almost say, “ Send me back to my prison again,” as one did say who lost God’ s presence after he had gained his liberty. One might well cry, “ Ah! let me have back my pain if I may again overflow with the joy of the Lord’ s presence.” I thank God that you and I know what it is to enjoy the presence of God in a great many different ways. When two or three of the people of God meet together, and talk to one another about the things of God, the Lord is never away. Yes, but when Christian people go forth to work, when you come to your Sunday school, or go out with your bundle of tracts, to change them on your district, or when you join a little band and stand in the street corner yonder, and lift up your voice in the name of Jesus, you may expect, if you go with prayer and faith, that it shall be written, “ Jehovah-Shammah, The Lord is there.” And now, from this time forth, beloved, ye that fear God and think upon His name, wherever you go, let it be said, “ Jehovah-Shammah, The Lord is there.” Do not be found anywhere where you could not say that The Lord was there; but if you are called into the world in the pursuit of your daily vocation, cry unto the Lord, “ If Thy Spirit go not with me, carry me not up hence.” (C. H. Spurgeon.)