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 LIBRARY OF THE THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY 
 
 PRINCETON, N. J. 
 
 Green Fund 
 
 BS 1545 .G87 1856 
 Guthrie, Thomas, 1803-1873 
 The gospel in Ezekiel 
 
THE 
 
 GOSPEL IN EZEKIEL 
 
 ILLUSTRATED IN 
 
 A SERIES OF DISCOURSES 
 
 THOMAS GUTHRIE, D.D. 
 
 ADTHOR OP "pleas FOE BAGGED SCHOOLS," ETC. 
 
 TWELFTH THOUSAND. 
 
 EDINBUEGH : 
 ADAM AND CHARLES BLACK. 
 
PBINTED BY E. AND E. CLARK, EDINBURGH. 
 
TO THE 
 
 KEY. WILLIAM HAMA, LLD. 
 
 To you, my dear Sir, I dedicate these Discourses 
 
 — tlie substance of wliicb. was preached to our 
 
 Congregation — not so much as an expression of 
 
 my high admiration of the genius and talents 
 
 which you have consecrated to the cause of our 
 
 common Lord, as a mark of the warm affection 
 
 which I cherish for you, and of the kind, cordial, 
 
 and most happy intercourse, which we have 
 
 enjoyed since our union as colleagues and pastors 
 
 of the same flock. 
 
 THOMAS GUTHRIE. 
 
 Edinburgh, 1st December 1855. 
 

 
 DISCOURSES. 
 
 — ♦ — 
 
 PAGE 
 
 I. The Messenger 1 
 
 II. The Defilek 24 
 
 III. Man Sinntng 44 
 
 IV. Man Sufteeing 63 
 
 V. God's Punitive Justice 82 
 
 VI. God's Motive in Salvation 102 
 
 VII. Man an Object of Divine Mercy 119 
 
 VIII. God Glorified in Eedemption 140 
 
 IX. The Wisdom and Holiness of God Illustrated in Sal- 
 vation 154 
 
 X. The Mercy of God Illustrated in Salvation . . . . 170 
 
 XI. The Benefits Flowing from Eedemption 189 
 
 Xn. Man Justified 210 
 
 XIII. Man Justified through the Kighteousness of Jesus 
 
 Christ 230 
 
 XIV. Man Converted 253 
 
 XV. The Heart of Stone 274 
 
VI CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 XYI. The New Heart . . " 293 
 
 XVII. The Kenovator 320 
 
 XVIII. The New Life 337 
 
 XIX. The New Life — continued 356 
 
 XX. The Blessedness of the Saints 378 
 
 XXI. The Security op the Believer 394 
 
 XXII. The Nature, Necessity, and Power of Prater . . . 415 
 
^l^*^»♦^M■*.?«.1lil. , . 
 
 THE GOSPEL IN EZEKIEL. 
 
 THE MESSENGER. 
 
 Moreover, the word of the Lord came unto me, saying, Son of man — 
 EzEKiEL xxxvi. 16, 17. 
 
 TTAVING scattered over an open field the bones of 
 the human body, bring an anatomist to the scene, 
 Conduct him to the valley where Ezekiel stood with his 
 eye on the skulls and dismembered skeletons of an un- 
 buried host. Observe the man of science how he fits bone 
 to bone and part to part, till from those scattered mem- 
 bers he constructs a framework, which, apart from our 
 horror at the eyeless sockets and fleshless form, appears 
 perfectly, divinely beautiful. In hands which have the 
 patience to collect, and the skill to arrange these mate- 
 rials, how perfectly they fit ! bone to bone, and joint to 
 joint, till the whole figure rises to the polished dome, 
 and the dumb skeleton seems to say, " I am fearfully 
 and wonderfully made." 
 
 Now as with these parts of the human frame, so is 
 it with the doctrines of the Gospel, in so far as they are 
 
 B 
 
THE GOSPEL IN EZEKIEL. 
 
 intelligible to our limited understandings. From the 
 pages of Scripture over v;liich they are scattered let these 
 doctrines be collected ; arrange them in systematic order; 
 how beautifully they fit ! doctrine to doctrine, duty to 
 duty ; till — connected with each other, all " members 
 one of another " — they rise into a form of perfect sym- 
 metry, presenting that very system which, with minor 
 differences but substantial unity, is embodied in the 
 confessions, creeds, and catechisms of Evangelical Chris- 
 tendom. I have said so far as they are intelligible to 
 us ; for it is ever to be borne in mind, that while the 
 Gospel has shallows through which a child may wade to 
 heaven, it has also deep, dark, unfathomed pools, which 
 no eye can penetrate, and where the first step takes a 
 giant beyond his depth. 
 
 There is a difference, which even childhood may dis- 
 cern, 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 here and there 
 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 — he finds both enamelled 
 with flowers of every hue ; and in those primeval forests 
 
THE MESSENGER. 
 
 which have been planted by the hand of God, and 
 beneath whose silent and solemn shades man still walks 
 in savag-e freedom, trees of every form and foliage stand 
 side by side like brothers. With the Sabbath hills 
 around us, far from the dust and din, the splendour and 
 squalor of the city, we have sat on a rocky bank, to 
 wonder at the varied and rich profusion with which God 
 had clothed the scene. Nature, like Joseph, was dressed 
 in a coat of many colours — lichens, grey, black, and 
 yellow, clad the rock ; the glossy ivy, like a child of 
 ambition, had j)lanted its foot on the crag, and, hang- 
 ing on by a hundred arms, had climbed to its stormy 
 summit ; mosses, of hues surpassing all the colours of 
 the loom, spread an elastic carpet around the gushing 
 fountain ; the wild thyme lent a bed to the weary, and 
 its perfume to the air; heaths opened their blushing 
 bosoms to the bee ; the primrose, like modesty, looked out 
 from its leafy shade ; at the foot of the weathered stone 
 the fern raised its plumes, and on its summit the fox- 
 glove rang his beautiful bells ; while the birch bent to 
 kiss the stream, as it ran away laughing to hide itself 
 in the lake below, or stretched out her arms to embrace 
 the mountain ash and evergreen pine. By a slight 
 exercise of fancy, in such a scene one could see Nature 
 engaged in her adorations — we could hear her singing, 
 " The earth is full of the glory of God." " How mani- 
 fold are thy works. Lord God Almighty ! in wisdom thou 
 hast made them all." 
 
 Now, although over the whole surface of our globe — 
 as in that spot — plants of every form and family seem 
 
THE GOSPEL IN EZEKIEL. 
 
 confusedly scattered, amid this apparent disorder the 
 eye of science discovers a perfect system in the floral 
 kingdom ; and just as — although God has certainly 
 scattered these forms over the face of nature without 
 apparent arrangement — there is a botanical system, so 
 there is as certainly a theological system, although its 
 doctrines and duties are not classified in the Bible 
 according to dogmatic rules. Does not this circum- 
 stance teach us that God intended his Word to be a 
 subject of careful study as well as devout faith, and 
 that man should find in its saving pages a field for the 
 exercise of his highest faculties ? We are commanded 
 to compare " spiritual things with spiritual ;" we are 
 to " search the Scriptures," to dig for their treasures, 
 and dive for the pearls. Hence the prayer of David, 
 " Give me understanding, that I may learn thy com- 
 mandments." 
 
 While the trees and flowers that clothe the fields 
 of nature are scattered without apparent order over the 
 wide surface of the earth, there are mountain regions 
 lying within the tropics, where, in the course of a single 
 day, the traveller finds every vegetable form peculiar to 
 every line of latitude between the equator and the poles, 
 and all these laid out in regular arrangement. Leaving 
 the palms which cover the mountain's feet, he ascends 
 into the regions of the olive ; from these he rises to a 
 more temperate climate, where the vine festoons the 
 trees, or trails its limbs along the naked rock ; still 
 ascending, he next reaches a belt of oaks and chestnuts ; 
 from that he passes to heights shaggy with the hardy 
 
THE MESSENGER. 
 
 pine ; by and by, he enters a region where trees are 
 dwarfed into bushes ; rising above that, his foot presses 
 a carpet of lowly mosses ; till, climbing the rocks where 
 only the lichen lives, he leaves all life beneath him ; and 
 now, shivering in the cold, panting in the thin air for 
 breath, he stands on those dreary elevations, where 
 eternal winter sits on a throne of snow, and, waving her 
 icy sceptre, says to vegetation, " Hither shalt thou come 
 and no further." Like some such lofty mountain of 
 the tropics, there are portions of the Divine Word, 
 where, in a space also of limited extent — within the 
 short compass of a chapter, or even part of it — the 
 more prominent doctrines of salvation are brought into 
 juxtaposition, and arranged side by side, almost in syste- 
 matic order. 
 
 This chapter offers to our attention one of the most 
 remarkable of these ; and in illustration of that remark 
 I observe ; — 
 
 I. That this portion of Scripture, extending onwards 
 from the 16th verse, presents an epitome or out- 
 line 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. We are aware 
 that the Mosaic economy, and many of God's dealings 
 with his ancient people, were but the shadows of good 
 
6 THE GOSPEL IN EZEKIEL. 
 
 things to come ; and that, when the things are come — 
 as come they certainly are — you may meet us on the 
 very threshold with this question, Why look at the 
 shadow when you possess the substance ? However 
 valued in his absence the portrait of a son may be, what 
 mother, when her boy is folded in her arms, and she has 
 the living face to gaze on, turns to the cold picture ? 
 What artist studies a landscape in sombre twilight, when 
 he may see it in the blaze of day ? True — true at least 
 in general. Yet such study has its advantages. It 
 not seldom happens that a portrait brings to view some 
 shade of expression which we had not previously observed 
 in the face of the veritable man ; and when some mag- 
 nificent form of architecture, or the serried ridges and 
 rocky peaks of a mountain, have stood up between us 
 and the lingering lights of day, we have found, that 
 although the minor beauties of fluted columns or frown- 
 ing crags were lost in the shades of evening, yet, drawn 
 in sharp and clear outline against an evening sky, the 
 effect of the whole was even more impressive than 
 when eyed in the glare of day. 
 
 Thus it may be well, occasionally, at least, to exa- 
 mine the Gospel in the broad shadows and strongly 
 defined outhnes of an old economy ; and through God's 
 government of his ancient people, to study the motives, 
 the nature, and the ends of his dealings with ourselves. 
 In this way the passage before us has peculiar claims 
 upon our attention. Addressed in the first instance to 
 the Jews, and applicable also, in the first instance, to 
 their condition, it presents a remarkable summary of 
 
THE MESSENGER. 
 
 Gospel doctrines in a form, which approaches at least to 
 systematic order. 
 
 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 suflfermg — " Where- 
 fore, I poured my fury upon them." 
 
 In the 21st verse, man appears an object of mercy — 
 " But I had pity." 
 
 In the 22d verse, man is an object of free mercy — 
 mercy without merit — " I do not this for your sakes, 
 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 I will give you, and a 
 new spirit will I put within you ; and I will take away 
 the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you an 
 heart of flesh. And I will put my spirit within you, 
 and cause you to walk in my statutes, and ye shall keep 
 my judgments and do them." 
 
 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 the Lord." 
 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 obtain- 
 
THE GOSPEL IN EZEKIEL. 
 
 ing them in the declaration of the 37th verse — " I will 
 yet for this be inquired of by the house of Israel, to do 
 it for them." • 
 
 Such is the wide and interesting field that lies before 
 us. But before entering upon it, let us consider — 
 
 II. The party who is commissioned to deliver God's 
 message. 
 
 Who is the ambassador of Heaven ? What is he ? 
 An angel ? No ; but a man. " Son of man," says the 
 Lord. In the 1st verse of this chapter he says — " Son 
 of man, prophesy unto the mountains." In the 3d verse 
 of the following one he asks — " Son of man, can these 
 bones live ?" Again, in the 9th verse of the same chap- 
 ter, he says — " Son of man, prophesy unto the wind." 
 And in the 11th verse, still addressing him by the same 
 title, he tells the prophet — " Son of man, these bones are 
 the whole house of Israel." By the title of " Son of man " 
 Ezekiel is so often addressed, " Son of man," " Son of 
 man," is so constantly sounded forth both in hrs ears 
 and ours, that it forces on our attention this remarkable 
 fact, that God deals with man through the instrument- 
 ality of man, by men communicating his will to men. 
 The rain, descending from heaven, falls upon the surface 
 of our earth, percolates through the porous soil, and 
 flowing along rocky fissures or veins of sand, is con- 
 veyed below ground to the fountain whence it springs. 
 Now, although out of the earth, that water is not " of 
 the earth, earthy." The world's deepest well owes its 
 
THE MESSENGER. 9 
 
 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. Those 
 waters at whose pure and perennial springs Faith drinks 
 and lives, while conveyed to man along earthly channels, 
 have their source far away — in the throne of God. Their 
 fountainhead is the Godhead. No doubt, God could 
 have used other instrumentality. He might have com- 
 missioned angels on his errands of mercy, and spoken at 
 all times, as he did sometimes, by seraph lips. With 
 rare exceptions, however, his ambassadors were men. 
 The patriarchs, prophets, and apostles, by whom in days 
 of old he revealed his will — those inspired missionaries 
 of heaven — were all sons of man. 
 
 Now in this arrangement observe, in the first place: — 
 The kindness of God to man. Who has read the 
 story of Moses without feeling that it was a very great 
 kindness, both to him and his mother, that he had her 
 bosom to lie on, and that God in his providence so 
 arranged matters that the mother of the child was hired 
 to be its nurse ? Who else would have treated the out- 
 cast infant so lovingly and kindly ? And I hold it a 
 singular kindness to man that he is selected to be the 
 instrument of saving his fellow-men. The God of salva- 
 tion, the author and finisher of our faith, might have 
 arranged it otherwise. " Who shall limit the Holy One 
 of Israel?" The field is the world. And as the hus- 
 bandman ploughs his fields and sows his seed in spring 
 by the same hands that bind the sheaves of autumn, 
 God might have sent those angels to sow the Gospel, 
 
10 THE GOSPEL IN EZEKIEL. 
 
 who shall descend at judgment to reap the harvest. But 
 although these blessed and benevolent spirits, who are 
 sent forth to minister to them that are heirs of salvation, 
 take a lively interest in the work — although watching 
 from on high the progress of a Redeemer's cause, they 
 rejoice in each new jewel that adds histre to his crown, 
 and in every new province that is won for his kingdom ; 
 and although 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. Theirs is the joy of those 
 who, occupying the shore, or crowded on its heights, 
 with eager eyes and beating heart follow the bold 
 swimmer's movements, and watching his head as it rises 
 and sinks among the waves, see him near the drown- 
 ing child, and pluck from the billow its half-drowned 
 prey ; and, still trembling lest strength should fail him, 
 look on with anxious hearts, till, buffeting his way 
 back, he reaches the strand, and amid their shouts and 
 sympathies restores her boy to the arms of a fainting 
 mother. 
 
 To man, however, in salvation, it is given to share, 
 not a spectator's but a Saviour's joy ; and with his lips 
 at least to taste the joys of that cup for which Jesus 
 endured the cross and despised the shame. Tf that 
 parent is happy who has snatched a beloved child from 
 the flood or fire, and the child, saved, and thus twice 
 given him, becomes doubly dear, what happiness in 
 purity or permanence to be compared with his, who is a 
 
THE MESSENGER. H 
 
 labourer with God in saving souls ? Let me invite 
 you to share in pleasures — the sweetest out of heaven. 
 This is a privilege and a pleasure free to all. It is one 
 which kings cannot command, and yet beggars may 
 enjoy ; which wealth cannot purchase, and yet poverty 
 may possess ; one also (and what more could be said 
 of it ?) which enhances and intensifies the joy of heaven. 
 While every saint shall have one heaven, some shall 
 have more. Those who have helped to fill its mansions 
 shall possess many heavens in one ; and in proportion 
 to the number they have brought to Christ, shall their 
 crowns shine with jewels, and their cup flow with joys — 
 joys which eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, and which 
 entereth not into the heart of man to conceive. 
 In this arrangement I observe again — 
 The honour conferred on man. Did Moses occupy a 
 noble position when he stood aloft upon a rock amid the 
 dying IsraeKtes, and there, the central figure of the 
 camp, on whom all eyes were turned, he raised high the 
 serpent, to look at which was life ? Nobler his attitude, 
 much holier his office, who, with his foot on a dying 
 world, Hfts up the cross — exalts "Jesus Christ and him 
 crucified" — that, whosoever looketh and believeth on 
 him, might not perish, but have everlasting life. Give 
 me the bleeding Saviour, make me the instrument of 
 converting a single soul, and I grudge not Moses his 
 " piece of brass ;" nor envy him the honour of saving a 
 thousand lives, all now quenched in death. Great 
 honour to the memory of the mighty men who swept 
 like a hurricane through the camp of the Philistines, 
 
12 THE GOSPEL IN EZEKIEL. 
 
 and cleaving their way through a crowd of foes, drew 
 the water of Bethlehem for their king ; yet, rather than 
 be reckoned among David's mighty men, it would con- 
 tent me to be one of Christ's humblest servants, and 
 hold the cup of life to a pauper's lips. All honour to 
 the deathless prophet who rode up to the gate of hea- 
 ven in a chariot of fire ; but nobler still his departure, 
 who leaves spiritual sons behind him to weep by the 
 mantle of his flesh, and cry, as in faith they follow his 
 ascending spirit, " My father, my father, the chariots of 
 Israel and the horsemen thereof!" What dignities 
 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 cursed power of Satan to 
 the living, loving God? Each soul they have con- 
 verted a gem in their crown, they that have turned 
 many to righteousness shall shine with the brightness of 
 the firmament — as the stars, for ever and ever. 
 
 How has the hope of this touched, as with glowing 
 fire, the preacher's lips, sustained his sinking heart, held 
 up prayer's weary hands, and proved an ample recom- 
 pense 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 ! Their master — a man of 
 sorrows and acquainted with grief — was rejected and 
 despised of men, and, the disciple being no better than 
 his Lord, they have shared in his sufferings. But, 
 
THE MESSENGER. 13 
 
 fellow-sufferers, are they not fellow-labourers with 
 Christ — his associates in the noblest work beneath the 
 sun ? Despised as the preacher of the Gospel maj be 
 by many, the apostle lifts him to an eminence from 
 which he can contemplate this great world, with all its 
 grandeur and glory, rolling away into dark oblivion. 
 Viewed in the hght of eternity, the church stands on a 
 far loftier elevation than the palace, and the pulpit offers 
 man a grander position than the throne of empires. 
 To ministers of the Gospel belongs a high pre-emi- 
 nence. They can say, " We are fellow-labourers with 
 God;" and with such an associate — in such lofty com- 
 pany — devoting his life to so great a cause — no w'on- 
 der that Paul calmly confronted a sceptic, sneering, 
 scoflSng world, and bravely said, " I am not ashamed 
 of the Gospel of Christ." 
 
 I am anxious that you should understand that the 
 honours which I have spoken of are not reserved for pul- 
 pits. The youth who, finding rest and refreshment in 
 Christian labours, teaches a Sabbath class ; the mother, 
 with her children grouped around her, sweet solemnity 
 sitting on her face, and an open Bible resting on her 
 knee; the friend who deals faithfully with another's 
 soul ; any man who kindly takes a poor sinner by the 
 hand, and offering to guide, and urging him to go to 
 the Saviour, says, '' Come with us and we will do you 
 good ; " " arise, for we have seen the land, and behold 
 it is very good ; " these are ministers of the Gospel, and 
 not less than its ordained pastors are fellow-labourers 
 with God. Think not that this noblest work is our 
 
14 THE GOSPEL IN EZEKIEL. 
 
 exclusive privilege, nor stand back as if you had neither 
 right nor call to set to your hand. What although you 
 hold no rank in the church ? No more does the private 
 who wears neither stripes on his arm nor epaulettes on 
 his shoulder ; yet although a private, may he not bleed 
 and die for the colours which it is not his privilege to 
 carry? If it is not his business to train recruits, it is 
 his business, and shall be his reward to enlist them. 
 To that ofiice, to recruit the ranks of the cross, the 
 Gospel calls you — calls all — calls the meanest soldier in 
 the army of the faith. " The Spirit and the bride say 
 come." But more than they should call. In the itine- 
 rant ministry which Jehoshaphat sent forth to teach in 
 the cities of Judah there Avere princes from the court, as 
 well as priests and Levites from the temple ; and where 
 sinners are perishing, where opportunity offers, where a 
 door stands open, where the rule, " Let all things be 
 done decently and in order," is not outraged and violated 
 — -call it preaching if you choose, but in God's name let 
 hearers preach. Has God gifted any with power to 
 speak for Christ? Then, with such high interests at 
 stake, from forms which churches, not their head — man, 
 not God, has established, we say, " Loose him and let 
 him go." " Let him that heareth say come, and let him 
 that is athirst come ; and whosoever will, let him take 
 of the water of hfe freely." 
 
 Thou art "a son of man : " 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. Thousands, tens of thousands, 
 
THE MESSENGEE, 15 
 
 are dying in their sins. Although every minister were 
 a flaming fire in the service of his God, every bishop 
 were a Latimer, every reformer were a Knox, every 
 preacher were a Whitefield, every missionary were a 
 Martyn, the work is greater than ministers can accom- 
 pHsh ; and if an indignant country will not suffer the 
 interests of nations and the success of armies to be 
 sacrificed to routine and forms of office, much less should 
 these be tolerated where the interests of heaven and the 
 cause of souls are at stake. I say therefore to every 
 Christian, " The Master hath need " of you. Take a 
 living, lively, loving interest in souls. Don't leave them 
 to perish. Permanently and formally to instruct may be 
 the duty of others, but to enlist is yours, " This honour 
 have all his saints." And in attempting to engage you 
 in the work of enlisting others, and of recruiting from 
 out of your family, and friends, and neighbourhood, the 
 armies of the faith, I call you to a work in which every 
 man may bear his share, and one which offers honours 
 as exalted as its pleasures are pure. It was no honour 
 to Elijah to gird up his loins, and with the storm at his 
 back to run abreast of the smoking horses of Ahab's 
 chariot. Considering who the parties were, it had been 
 meet, I think, that the king should have ran, and the 
 prophet ridden. But to run by the chariot where Jesus 
 sits, with a crown on his head, his bow in his hand, 
 and his sword girded on his thigh ; to employ our feet 
 in offices that have employed angels' wings ; to carry 
 the news of mercy to a dying sinner ; to gather crowds 
 around the Saviour, that they may strew his royal path 
 
16 THE GOSPEL IN EZEKIEL. 
 
 with palms, and swell the song of Hosanna to the Sou 
 of David — for such a work a king might divest himself 
 of robes and crown, and, ceasing to be a monarch, become 
 a missionary. 
 
 Yes — he surely would not demean, but in the eyes 
 of all good men rather dignify his office, who should 
 descend from a throne where nobles bend the knee to 
 him, to bend his own knee to God by a peasant's bed, 
 or leave his palace for a cell, to watch, and weep, and 
 pray with one whom crime had consigned to death. As 
 yon planet worlds that roll and shine above us draw 
 radiance from the sun around which they move, so surely 
 shall they shine who spend and are spent in Jesus' 
 service ; they shall share his honours, and shine in his 
 lustre. The man, however lowly his condition, who, 
 some way between his cradle and the tomb, has converted 
 even one soul to God, has not lived in vain, nor labom-ed 
 for nought. He has achieved a great work. Let it 
 content him to go down into the grave by men un- 
 praised, by the world unknown. His works, if they have 
 not preceded, shall follow him ; and needing no tablet 
 raised among mouldering bones and tombstones, he has a 
 monument to his memory, where there are neither 
 griefs nor graves, more enduring than brass or marble. 
 Others may have filled the world with the breath of 
 their name ; he has helped to fill thrones in heaven. 
 Others may have won an earthly renown ; but he who, 
 one himself, has sought to make others Christians — who, 
 reaching the rock himself, draws another, a perishing 
 child, brother, friend, neighbour, up— plucked from the 
 
THE MESSENGER. 17 
 
 flood himself, pulls another out — who has leaped into 
 the depths that h^ might rise with a pearl, and set it 
 lustrous in Jesus' crown — he is the man who shall wear 
 heaven's brightest honours — the man to whom, before 
 all else, the Lord will say, " Well done, good and faithful 
 servant, enter thou into the joy of thy Lord." Weak 
 in yourselves, but strong in God, go forth on this enter- 
 prise, the motto on your banner, the prayer of your 
 heart, this wish of Brainerd, " Oh that I were a flaming 
 fire in the service of my God!" 
 
 Li this arrangement we see, lastly, 
 
 Tlie icisdom 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. An obscure man rose up to address 
 the French Convention. At the close of his oration, 
 Mirabeau, the giant genius of the Eevolution, turned 
 round to his neighbour, and eagerly asked. Who is 
 that? The other, who had been in no way inter- 
 ested by the address, wondered at Mirabeau's curiosity. 
 Whereupon the latter said. That man will yet act a 
 great part; and, asked to explain himself, added. He 
 speaks as one who believes every word he says. Much 
 of pulpit power under God depends on that — admits of 
 that explanation, or 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 him- 
 self despises and rejects him? Unhappy indeed, and 
 doubly blind those whose leader is as blind as they are ; 
 
 c 
 
18 THE GOSPEL IN EZEKIEL. 
 
 and imhappiest of all the preacher; while leader and 
 led fall into the ditch, he falls foreijiost, undermost — 
 his the heaviest condemnation, the deepest and most 
 damned perdition. In possession of such a man — of 
 one who has adopted the church as other men the law, 
 or army, or navy, simply as a profession, and goes through 
 the routine of its duties with the coldness of a mere offi- 
 cial — the pulpit seems filled with the ghastly form of a 
 skeleton, that in its cold and bony fingers holds a 
 burning lamp. 
 
 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, 
 concentrating the rays of the sun, kindles touchwood 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 stiff" and lifeless finger-post pointing 
 the way on a road, where he neither leads nor follows. 
 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. Still, although the minis- 
 try of men who are themselves strangers to piety — 
 although a Judas or Simon Magus in office — is an evil 
 to which the church, in every age and under every form 
 of government, stands more or less exposed, it were a 
 poor refuge to seek exemption from such an evil in the 
 ministry of angels. While man may not feel what he 
 
THE MESSENGER. 19 
 
 preaches, angels could not. How could they? They 
 never felt the stings of conscience ; they never hung 
 over hell's fiery gulf, and saw the narrow ledge they 
 stood on crumbling away beneath their feet, and sent 
 up to heaven the piercing cry, " Lord, save me, I perish ; " 
 tortured by remorse, they never felt the balm and power 
 of Jesus' blood ; pursued by a storm of wrath, they 
 never flew to the Rock of Ages, and folded their wings 
 in the sweet and safe serenity of its welcome clefts ; in 
 an agony for pardon, they never were ready to give a 
 thousand worlds for one Christ ; like a hart panting 
 for the water brooks, they never thirsted for salvation ; 
 they never, as we have done, trode the valley of humili- 
 ation, and with bleeding feet and weeping eyes toiled 
 along its flinty path ; they never knew what it is, 
 between them and their bright home in heaven, to see 
 death's gloomy passage, and — more appalling still, a 
 sight which makes the saint grasp his sword with a 
 firmer hand, and lift up his shield on high — Satan posted 
 there, and striding across the pass to dispute the way. 
 Never knowing what it is to have been in bondage, 
 having neither country nor kindred here, how could 
 they preach like Paul? how could their bosoms burn 
 and glow with this apostolic fire — " I could wish that 
 I myself were accursed from Christ for my brethren, my 
 kinsmen according to the flesh ! " 
 
 We have read the story of a traveller who stood 
 one day beside the cages of some birds, that ruflled their 
 sunny plumage on the wires, and struggled to be free, 
 A way-worn and sun-browned man, like one returned 
 
20 THE GOSPEL IN EZEKIEL. 
 
 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 and thus he did with captive after captive, 
 till every bird had flown away, soaring to the skies — 
 singing 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 ser- 
 pent's bite, the burning poison 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, or with God for man. Each Sabbath morn- 
 ing the gates of heaven might have been thrown open, 
 and, sent by God on a mission worthy of seraphic fire, 
 an angel might have lighted down upon this sanctuary, 
 and, flying into the pulpit, when he had folded his 
 wings, and veiled with them his glory, he might have 
 taken up the wondrous theme of salvation and the cross. 
 No angel, I believe, would leave heaven to be a king 
 and fill a throne ; and yet, I believe, were it God's will, 
 there is no angel there but would hold himself hon- 
 oured to be a preacher and fill a pulpit. Another and 
 very different messenger appears — a frail, dying, sin- 
 ful man, one who is bone of your bone, and flesh of 
 
THE MESSENGER. 21 
 
 your flesh ; and if his humanity made Jesus the better 
 Saviour, it makes his servants the better ambassadors, 
 that they also are touched with a feehng of their 
 people's infirmities, and are made in all points like as 
 they are, and especially in this point, that we cannot 
 add, " yet, without sin." 
 
 It is true that in us the instrument which God 
 employs is a humble one — one in itself worthy neither 
 of honour nor respect. The treasure is committed to 
 earthen vessels ; and these sometimes of rudest form 
 and the coarsest clay. What of that? If the letter 
 from a distant land brings good tidings of his son, what 
 father quarrels with the meanness of the paper ? While 
 tears of joy bedew the page, does he so much as notice 
 it? If the servant offers safe or savoury meat, a starving 
 man enjoys it none the less although not served up on 
 gold or porcelain. An ointment worthy of the Master's 
 head, and exhaling odours that fill the house with fra- 
 grance, is as welcome from a sinner's as an angel's hand 
 — from a vessel of the poorest earth as of the purest 
 alabaster. Even so will you, if the people of God, 
 receive and relish saving truth. Without worshipping 
 him as an idol, and giving the honour to the servant 
 which is due to the Master, you will respect the servant 
 for his Master's sake. 
 
 Are some of you yet sinners — in the gall of bitterness 
 and bond of iniquity ? Because we are ourselves sinners, 
 and know what it is to have been captives, we are the 
 fitter to address you. We know that you are not happy, 
 nor can be happy in sin ; its pleasures perish in the using. 
 
22 THE GOSPEL IN EZEKIEL. 
 
 and pain in the recollection ; and surely it is madness, 
 the height of madness — for a man to stake eternity on 
 the chances of a to-morrow, and purchase short-lived 
 joys at the expense of eternal happiness. We know 
 that out of Christ, as you have no safety, you can find 
 no peace, no true peace. " There is no peace, saith my 
 God, to the wicked ; " " they are like the troubled sea 
 which cannot rest ; " in storms a raging ocean, and in 
 summer's serenest day ebbing or flowing, and breaking 
 its billows, like the world's joys and happiness, on a 
 beach of wrecks and withered weeds. Seek Christ, seek 
 your peace through him, seek it in him; and, saved 
 yourself — yourself plucked from the wreck — oh, remem- 
 ber the perishing ; let the first breath and effort of your 
 new life be spent for others. I give you an example ; 
 and in the words spoken for a fellow-sufferer's life, see 
 what you should do for a fellow-sinner's soul. 
 
 During a heavy storm off the coast of Spain, a dis- 
 masted 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 there yet might be life on 
 board. With all their faults, no men are more alive to 
 humanity than our rough and hardy mariners ; and 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 drift- 
 ing hulk go these gallant men through the swell of a 
 roaring sea ; they reach it ; they shout ; and noAV a 
 strange object rolls from that canvas screen against the 
 
THE MESSENGEK. 23 
 
 lee shroud of a broken mast. • Hauled into the boat, it 
 proves to be the trunk of a man, bent head and knees 
 together, so dried and shrivelled as to be hardly felt 
 within the ample clothes — so hght that a mere boy lifted 
 it on board. It is laid on the deck ; in horror and pity 
 the crew gather around it. These feelings suddenly 
 change into astonishment. It shews signs of life ; they 
 draw nearer ; it moves, and then mutters — mutters in a 
 deep sepulchral voice — " There is another man.'^ Rescued 
 himself, the first use the saved one made of speech 
 was to seek to save another. Oh ! learn that blessed 
 lesson. Be daily practising it. And so long as in our 
 homes, among our friends, in this wreck of a world 
 which is drifting down to ruin, there lives an uncon- 
 verted one, there is " another man,'' let us go to that 
 man and plead for Christ ; go to Christ and plead for 
 that man ; the cry, " Lord, save me, I perish," changed 
 into one as welcome to a Saviour's ear, '• Lord save 
 them, they perish. " 
 
THE DEFILEE. 
 
 Son of man, when the house of Israel dwelt in their own land, they 
 defiled it by their own way and by their doings. — Ezek. xxxvi. 17. 
 
 T^HY holy cities are a wilderness ; Zion is a wilderness ; 
 Jerusalem is a desolation. So low as this had the 
 fortunes of Israel ebbed, when the words of my text were 
 penned. Judah was in chains ; the people were captives 
 in the hands of the heathen — exiles in the land of 
 Babylon. Jerusalem lay in ruins ; the grass grew long 
 and rank in her deserted streets ; an awful silence filled 
 the temple ; the fox looked out of the window, and the 
 foul satyr had her lair in the Holy of Holies. No plough 
 turned a furrow in the field ; the vines grew wild and 
 tangled on crumbling terraces ; nor cock crew, nor dog 
 bayed, nor flock bleated, nor maid sang, nor shepherd 
 piped, nor smoke curled up from homestead among the 
 lonely hills. The land was desolate — almost utterly 
 desolate. She now enjoyed what the love of pleasure 
 and the greed of gain had denied her. She rested, and 
 had a long Sabbath ; while over an expatriated people, 
 far away, beyond the desert, and beside the river, the 
 seventy years' captivity rolled wearily on. 
 
 The few pious men, who had in vain striven to stem a 
 
THE DEFILER. 25 
 
 tide that swept the nation on to ruin, were mourning 
 over the guilt of which this captivity was the punishment. 
 AVearying to be home again, they cried, " How long, 
 Lord, how long ? Wilt thou be angry for ever ? Shall 
 thy jealousy burn like jBre?" "Be not wroth very 
 sore, Lord, neither remember iniquity for ever. 
 Behold, see, we beseech thee, we are all thy people ; thy 
 holy cities are a wilderness ; Zion is a w^ilderness ; 
 Jerusalem a desolation." *' Turn us again, Lord God 
 of Hosts, and cause thy face to shine on us, and so we 
 shall be saved." So they felt and prayed who were as 
 salt in the putrid mass. 
 
 The larger portion, however — as has too often been 
 the case in the visible church — lived only to dishonour 
 their faith, their creed, their country, and their race. 
 Like many still, who go abroad, and in leaving their 
 native shores, leave all appearance of piety behind them, 
 they profaned God's holy name, and gave scoffers abun- 
 dant occasion for the bitter sneer, — " These are the 
 people of the Lord ! " In its application to his contem- 
 poraries, the prophet briefly describes in my text these 
 sad and sinful days, referring also to that preceding 
 period of deep and wide degeneracy, during which the 
 corruption of kings, princes, priests, and people had 
 arrived at such a height, that, to use the words of 
 Scripture, "Their trespass was grown up to the heavens." 
 The patience of God was at length exhausted, and as 
 he "drove" the man and woman from the garden, 
 he expelled Israel from the land which their sins had 
 defiled. 
 
26 THE GOSPEL IN EZEKIEL. 
 
 However much we may abhor their crimes, it is 
 impossible not to pity the sufferers — in a sense to sym- 
 pathize with them. Are we men who, were that Firth 
 crowded with hostile ships, would meet invasion boldly 
 on the shore, fight every inch of ground, and, when 
 driven back, take a last stand in our OAvn doorway, nor 
 suffer the foot of foe to pass but over our dead body ? 
 If our bosoms burn with any patriotic fire, if we cherish 
 the ordinary affections of men for family and friends, 
 it is not possible to look unmoved on that bleeding 
 fragment of a brave nation gathered for the march to 
 Babylon, amid the blackened and blood-stained ruins of 
 their capital. What a mournful company ! The sick, 
 the bedrid, the blind, old men tottering forth on the 
 staff of age, and plucking their grey beards with grief; 
 the skeleton infant hanging on a breast that famine and 
 sorrow have dried ; mothers with terror-stricken children 
 clinging to their sides, or, worse still, with gentle 
 daughters imploring their protection from these rude 
 and ruffian soldiers ; a few gallant men — the survivors 
 of the fight — wasted by famine, bleeding from unban- 
 daged wounds, their arms bound, and anger flashing 
 through the tears that stream from their eyes as they 
 are turned on wives and daughters shrieking, struggling, 
 fainting in the arms of brutal passion. How they strain 
 at their bonds ! how bitterly they envy their more 
 fortunate compatriots wdio lie in the bloody breach, nor 
 had survived to see the horrors of that day ! The piety 
 that abhors the sins of this people is not incompatible 
 with the pity that sympathizes with their sorrows. 
 
THE DEFILER, 27 
 
 We could sit down and weep with Jeremiah, as, seated 
 on a broken pillar of God's plundered temple, desola- 
 tion around him, no sound in his ear but that long 
 wild wail of the captive band, he wrings his hands, and, 
 raising them to heaven, cries, " Oh that my head were 
 waters, and mine eyes a fountain of tears, that I might 
 weep day and night for the slain of the daughter of my 
 people !" 
 
 There was a home-leaving, however, in which we 
 feel a nearer interest. I do not refer to that eventful 
 morning when some of us first left a father's house; and 
 the gates of that happy sanctuary slowly opened, amid 
 tears, fears, and many a kind farewell — watched by a 
 father's eye, and followed by a mother's prayers, we 
 pushed out our bark on the swell of life treacherous 
 sea. The turning time of many a young man's history 
 — the crisis of his destiny — that day may have exerted 
 an influence as permanent on our fate as its impression 
 remains indelible on our memory. I refer to a home- 
 leaving of far older date ; to one, not of personal, or 
 national, but of universal interest. ]\Iy eye is turned 
 back on the day when our first parents fell into sin, 
 forfeited their inheritance, and were in consequence 
 expelled from their primeval home. And, having been 
 witness to the reluctance with which a heart-broken 
 mother made up her mind to disown the prodigal, and 
 send him from her door — knowing, when with slow and 
 trembling hand she had barred him out, how it seemed 
 to her as if in that horrid sound she had heard the door 
 of heaven bolted against her son — feeling how much 
 
28 THE GOSPEL IN EZEKIEL. 
 
 cruel provocation we could and would endure, ere a 
 bleeding heart consented to turn a child out upon the 
 open streets — believing also that our Father in heaven 
 is kinder than the kindest, and better than the best of 
 us, and that the fondest, fullest heart is to his but as the 
 rocky pool — the lodge of some tiny creature — to the great 
 ocean which has filled it with a wave, no demonstration 
 of God's abhorrence of sin (always excepting the cross 
 of Calvary) comes so impressively to our hearts as the 
 expulsion of our first parents from his blissful presence 
 and their own sweet home in Eden. When with slow 
 and lingering steps Adam and Eve came weeping forth 
 from Paradise, and the gate was locked behind them, 
 that was the bitterest home-leaving the world has seen. 
 Adam, the federal head of his family — they come not 
 alone. A longer and sadder procession follows them, 
 than went weeping on the way to Babylon. They are 
 attended by a world in tears. Cast out in them — in 
 them condemned and expatriated — we all defiled the 
 land wherein we dwelt. In this sense the world sinned 
 in Adam, and defiled the pure bowers of Eden ; and the 
 universality of sin stands indisputable, immovable on the 
 universality of the sentence, " 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 in the aspect of a defilement. 
 But before fixing your attention on this feature, I may 
 
THE DEFILER. 29 
 
 remark, that it offers but one of many aspects in which 
 sin appears ; all alarming, all hateful, all detestable. 
 
 As opposed to sin and its bitter, baleful consequences, 
 heaven is set forth in the Bible through the emblems of 
 everything we hold most dear and desirable, and painted 
 in colours that glow upon the canvas. Raise your eyes 
 to the New Jerusalem. Gold paves its streets, and 
 around its blissful homes rise walls of jasper. Earth 
 holds no such city, nor the depths of ocean such pearls 
 as form its gates. No storms sweep its sea ; no winter 
 strips its trees; no thunders shake its serene and cloud- 
 less sky; day there never darkens into night; harps and 
 palms are in the hand, while crowns of glory flash and 
 blaze upon the heads of its sinless and white robed 
 inhabitants. From this distant and stormy orb, as the 
 dove eyed the ark, faith gazes on the glorious vision, 
 and, weary of the strife, longing to be gone, cries, " Oh 
 that I had the wings of a dove, that I might fly away 
 and be at rest ! " 
 
 And how diflScult would it be to name a noble figure, 
 a sweet simile, a tender or attractive relationship, in 
 which Jesus is not set forth to woo a reluctant sinner 
 and cheer a desponding saint ! Am I wounded ? He 
 is balm. Am 1 sick ? He is medicine. Am I naked ? 
 He is clothing. Am I poor ? He is wealth. Am I 
 hungry ? He is bread. Am I thirsty ? He is water. 
 Am I in debt ? He is a surety. Am I in darkness ? 
 He is a sun. Have I a house to build ? He is a rock. 
 Am I to be tried ? He is an advocate. Am I con- 
 demned ? He is pardon. Must I face that black and 
 
30 THE GOSPEL IN EZEKIEL. 
 
 gathering storm? He is an anchor sure and stedfast. 
 To deck him out, and set him forth, Nature culls her 
 finest flowers, brings her choicest ornaments, lays her 
 richest treasures at his feet. The skies contribute their 
 stars. The sea gives up its pearls. From fields, and 
 mines, and mountains. Earth brings the rich tribute of 
 her gold, and gems, and myrrh, and frankincense ; the 
 lily of the valley, the clustered vine, and the fragrant 
 rose of Sharon. He is the "chiefest among ten thousand, 
 and altogether lovely;" "in him dwelleth all the fulness 
 of the Godhead bodily." I ofier — ^make a free offer of 
 him to you, and doing so dare challenge the world to 
 name a want for which I shall not find the supply in 
 Christ, something that fits your want as accurately as 
 the works of a key the wards of its lock. 
 
 " A Way he is to lost ones tliat have strayed ; 
 
 A Eobe he is to such as naked he ; 
 Is any hungry, to all such he is Bread; 
 
 Is any weak, in Him how strong is he ! 
 To him that's dead he's Life ; to sick men. Health; 
 Eyes to the blind, and to the poor man Wealth." 
 
 Look now at Sin ; 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." Name me 
 the evil that springs not from this root — the crime that 
 
THE DEFILER. 31 
 
 lies not at this door. Who is the hoary sexton that 
 digs man a grave ? Who is the painted temptress that 
 steals his virtue ? Who is the murderess that destroys 
 his life ? Who is the sorceress that first deceives and 
 then damns his soul ? — Sin. Who, with icy breath, 
 blights the fair blossoms of youth ? Who breaks the 
 hearts of parents? Who brings grey hairs with sor- 
 row to the grave ? — Sin. Who, by a more hideous 
 metamorphosis than Ovid ever fancied, changes sweet 
 children into vipers, tender mothers into monsters, and 
 their fathers into worse than Herods — the murderers of 
 their own innocents ? — Sin. Who casts the apple of 
 discord on household hearths ? Who lights the torch 
 of war, and carries it blazing over happy lands ? Who, 
 by divisions in the Church, rends Christ's seamless robe ? 
 — Sin. Who is this Delilah that sings the Nazarite 
 asleep, and delivers up the strengtii of God into the 
 hands of the uncircumcised ? Who, with winning 
 smiles on her face, and honied flattery on her tongue, 
 stands in the door to ofifer the sacred rites of hospitality, 
 and, when suspicion sleeps, pierces our temples with a 
 nail ? What Siren is this, who, seated on a rock by 
 the deadly pool, smiles to deceive, sings to lure, kisses 
 to betray, and flings her arms around our neck, to leap 
 with us into perdition ? — Sin. Who petrifies the soft 
 and gentlest heart ? Who hurls reason from her throne, 
 and impels sinners, mad as Gadarene swine, down the 
 precipice, into a lake of fire? — Sin. Who, having 
 brought the criminal to the gallows, persuades him to 
 refuse a pardon, and with his own insane hand to bar 
 
32 THE GOSPEL IN EZEKIEL. 
 
 the door against the messenger of mercy ? What witch 
 of hell is it, that thus bewitches us ? — Sin. Who nailed 
 the Son of God to that bloody tree ? and who, as if it 
 were not a dove descending with the olive, but a vulture 
 swooping down to devour the dying, vexes, grieves, 
 thwarts, repels, drives off the Spirit of God? AVho is 
 it that makes man in his heart and habits baser than a 
 beast ; and him, who was once but little lower than an 
 angel, but little better than a devil ? — Sin. Oh ! Sin. 
 Thou art a hateful and horrible thing ; that " abominable 
 thing which God hates." And what wonder ? Thou 
 hast insulted his holy Majesty ; thou hast bereaved 
 him of beloved children ; thou hast crucified the Son of 
 his infinite love ; thou hast vexed his gracious Spirit ; 
 thou hast defied his power ; challenged his wrath ; de- 
 spised his gi'ace ; and in the body and blood of Jesus, 
 as if that were a common thing, thou hast trodden under 
 foot his matchless mercy. Brethren, surely, the wonder 
 of wonders is, that sin is not that abominable thing 
 which we also hate. 
 
 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 us ? Yet how strange 
 it is, that some deformity of body shall prove the sub- 
 ject of more parental regrets and personal mortification 
 than this most foul deformity of soul. Is it not miser- 
 able to think how hearts have grieved, and even eyes, 
 which got their tears surely for better uses, have wept 
 over the stain on some costly dress, that never grieved 
 
THE DEFILER, 33 
 
 and never wept for a sin-stained soul ? What pains 
 are taken, what costs and cares incurred, to bedeck the 
 body for the house of God, as if this flimsy finery could 
 conceal or compensate for a foul heart within ! 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 are 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 full comfort of a 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 eye, the "clean linen" of a Re- 
 deemer's righteousness. His speech may be rude, his 
 accent vulgar ; but let him open his heart, unbosom its 
 secrets, and such gracious thoughts, such holy desires, 
 such heavenly aspirations, such hallowed joys come 
 forth, that it seems as if w^e had opened some rude sea- 
 chest, brought by a foreign ship from southern lands, 
 which, full to the lid with pearls, and gold, and diamonds, 
 loads the air with floating odours of cassia, and myrrh, 
 and frankincense. 
 
 Hypocrite and dead professor ! let us open thy 
 bosom : full of all corruption, how it smells like a 
 charnel-house ! We are driven back by the noisome 
 stench — we hasten to close the door. It is a painted, 
 
 D 
 
34 THE GOSPEL IN EZEKIEL. 
 
 putrid sepulchre, whose fau' exterior, but aggravates 
 the foulness within. Yes. It is not what lies without, 
 but within, that defiles a man. And when you wash 
 on a Sabbath morning, it is well to remember that 
 your soul needs washing in another laver ; when your 
 person is decked for church, that you need other robes 
 — a raiment fairer than worm spins or shuttles weave, 
 or the wealth of banks can buy. See that by faith ye 
 put on Christ, that righteousness of his, in which the 
 eye of God sees neither spot nor stain, nor any such 
 thing. 
 
 II. The nature of this defilement. 
 
 It is internal. Like snow-drift, when it has levelled 
 the churchyard mounds, and, glistening in the winter 
 sun, lies so pure, 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 upon the sides of the mountain that holds a volcano 
 in its bowels. Behind the rosy cheek and lustrous eye 
 of beauty, how often does there lurk a deadly disease, 
 the deadliest of all ! Internal, but all the more dangerous 
 that they are internal, such maladies are the last to be 
 suspected or believed in by their victims, and the hardest 
 to cure. To other than the physician's skiU or a mother's 
 anxious look, this fair and graceful form never wears 
 bloom of higher health, nor moves in more fascinating 
 charms, nor wins more admiring eyes, than when fell 
 
THE DEFILEE. 35 
 
 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, and the worst and deadliest of all 
 heart-complaints. Looking on the surface there may 
 be no symptom to create alarm ; in the conduct that 
 lies exposed to human eyes there may be little offensive 
 to holiness ; yet this fair exterior affords no criterion 
 whatever, no sure or certain test by which to judge of 
 matters within. Thanks indeed be to God and praise 
 to sovereign grace, if sin does not find unchallenged 
 entrance, and meet a cordial welcome in our inner 
 man ; yet how constant, how arduous, how prolonged, 
 is the fight which even gracious men have to maintain 
 against the tendency to secret errors ! The old man 
 has been nailed to the tree, but how difficult to keep 
 him upon the cross ! How difficult to keep pollution 
 down, and maintain a current of pure and hallowed 
 desires flowing through the channels of the heart ! It is 
 well to judge ourselves that we be not judged, yet, in 
 doing so, beware how you trust to outward appearances. 
 What if it should be with us as with this unruffled pool, 
 which seems so clean, nay, with heaven mirrored in its 
 face, so beautiful? Let some temptations stir up our 
 passions, (and how little does it need to stir them !) and 
 those pure, pellucid waters grow foul and noisome ; and, 
 sending forth the most offensive odours, prove what 
 vile pollution may lie concealed beneath the fairest 
 surface. Think not that the evil is accidental — that, as 
 
36 THE GOSPEL IN EZEKIEL. 
 
 some say, it lies in education, in temptation, in external 
 causes. It is traceable to the heart itself. What more 
 harmless than temptations — this fiery dart launched by 
 Satan's hand — that flaming arrow from his bow — if they 
 fell like sparks in water ? Alas ! they fall like a torch 
 flung into a magazine of combustibles. Knowing this, 
 and jealous of themselves, let God's people watch and 
 pray that they enter not into temptation. To life's 
 last step, with life's latest breath, be this your prayer, 
 " Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil." 
 Another prayer, indeed, the sinner is called to offer. 
 You have not to seek that your heart may be kept clean , 
 but made clean ; it is not health preserved, but health 
 restored you w^ant ; you need not food, but medicine ; a 
 new nature, a new heart, a new life : this the prayer 
 that suits thj lips and meets thy case : " Create in me 
 a clean heart, God, and renew a right spirit within 
 me." 
 
 This defilement is universal. Our world is inhabited 
 by various races of men — different specimens, not dif- 
 ferent species. The Mongolian, the Negro, the race 
 early cradled among Caucasian mountains, and the Eed 
 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. Whence 
 came this variety ? "God made of one blood all the 
 families of the earth ; " so says the Bible. According 
 to that authority they are all sprung of one pair, who 
 were located in a garden somewhere in the distant east. 
 There, in that central and elevated region of the old 
 
THE DEFILEK. 37 
 
 world, our race was both created and redeemed ; there 
 the cradle of our family was rocked, and the cross of 
 salvation raised ; and, first breaking forth in an eastern 
 sky, the lights of knowledge and religion, learning 
 human and divine, letters, science, and arts have, as by 
 a law of nature, followed on the track of the sun. The 
 origin of these different races is a question of no small 
 importance, and has formed a battle-gi*ound between the 
 enemies and defenders of our faith ; one long and 
 obstinately contested. 
 
 If, in order to account for these different races on 
 the principles of unchallengeable physiology, it could be 
 demonstrated, that Europe, Africa, and America must, as 
 well as Asia, have had their parent pairs ; if it could be 
 proved that there must of necessity have been as many 
 Adams as there are races of men, then it is plain that we 
 must yield up the divine authority of the Bible, and read 
 the story of IMoses as an old-world fable — some fragment 
 of Egyptian wisdom, which he had embalmed in the page 
 of Genesis. Infidelity, quick to see what would serve 
 her purpose, has attempted to prove this, and boldly 
 challenged religion to meet her on the field of science. 
 Her challenge has been accepted. Men-at-arms in the 
 ranks of the faith have taken up the gauntlet ; the 
 battle has been fought — fought well, and fought out. 
 With what result ? To the confusion and complete 
 discomfiture of the infidel, it now stands demonstrated, 
 that in this question, as in others, science is in perfect 
 harmony with revelation. Dismissing all Adams but 
 one, she demands no more than the Bible grants, will 
 
38 THE GOSPEL IN EZEKIEL. 
 
 receive no more than it offers, and believe no more than 
 it reveals ; concluding that all these varieties of the 
 human family are, in the providence of God, and in 
 the hands of an Omnipotence which delights in variety, 
 the offspring of a single pair. 
 
 There is one argument which these unhired, impar- 
 tial, and independent defenders of our faith — these high- 
 priests of science — did not, perhaps, feel warranted to 
 employ, but which yet presents to us the most convincing 
 and conclusive evidence of a common origin. - It lies 
 where the tests of chemistry cannot detect it, nor the 
 knife of the anatomist reach it, nor the eye of the phy- 
 siognomist discover it, nor the instruments of the phreno- 
 logist measure it. Its place is in the inner man. It 
 lies in the depths of the soul. It comes out in this 
 remarkable fact, that 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 civilized 
 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 (to quote 
 the words of the prophet), " the heart is deceitful above 
 all things, and desperately wicked ; " in the no less 
 emphatic language of the Apostle, " the carnal mind is 
 enmity against God.'' The pendulum vibrates slower 
 at the equator than the pole ; the further north we push 
 
THE DEFILER. 39 
 
 our way over thick-ribbed ice, the clock goes the faster ; 
 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 beat true to 
 God. In Adam all have died — have sinned, and there- 
 fore died. Thus sin, like our atmosphere, embraces the 
 world. Like death, it is universal. Its empire is coeval 
 and co-extensive with that of the king of terrors. How 
 can it be otherwise ? If man is the child of unholy 
 parents, how can a clean thing come out of an unclean ? 
 When water of its own accord shall rise above its foun- 
 tain, then may Adam's children boast of a nature loftier 
 and holier than his. 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. Is anything plainer, more palpable than this, that 
 if the fountain was polluted, to whatever quarter of the 
 world the stream of population flowed, it must have 
 borne pollution in its bosom? Is suffering the sure 
 index of sin ? Then, if there be no country beneath 
 the sun where signs of suffering are not seen, and 
 sounds of pain are not heard, sin is everywhere — is in 
 every man. Be they dug in Greenland snows, or in 
 the desert sands, there is no land without its graves ; 
 nor, wherever it stands, a city without its cemetery. Be 
 they monarchies or republics, unaffected by the revolu- 
 tions that cast down other dynasties, death reigns in 
 them all — a king of kings. Death sits on the world's 
 oldest throne. Suffering the stings of conscience, sin 
 and serpent-bitten, man is condemned by a voice within 
 
40 THE GOSPEL IN EZEKIEL. 
 
 liim ; there sits a divinity enshrined, enthroned in every 
 soul, whose voice is the clear, articulate, and solemn 
 echo of this judgment, " All have sinned, and come 
 short of the glory of God." 
 
 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 that have been accustomed to do 
 evil learn to do well." 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 effect had God's judgments on his ancient people ? 
 Some children owe their ruin to excessive indulgence ; 
 others, the victims of an injudicious severity, are driven 
 iirst into falsehood, and from that onward to other 
 crimes. Mismanagement may be laid at our door ; but 
 who will impute error to God, or challenge the wisdom 
 of his ways ? Now, when the scourge was in the hands 
 of a God all wise, what effect had it on his people ? 
 Were they cured by their afflictions, by trials, that ex- 
 tended over years of suffering? Did these arrest the 
 malady ? Had they the effect even 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 dea^i became 
 more and more offensive. The brighter it shines, and 
 
THE DEFILEK. 41 
 
 the more it rains, the thicker the dews of night, and the 
 hotter the sun of day, the faster the dead tree rots ; 
 because those agents in nature which promote vegetation 
 and develope the 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. He commissioned servants, 
 and he inflicted sufferings ; but, until the Spirit of life 
 descended from on high, their habits only grew more 
 depraved, their case more desperate, their profanity 
 more profane ; they but laid themselves more and more 
 open to the charge — " The last state of that man is 
 worse than the first." Wherever on weary feet these 
 exiles wandered, they dishonoured religion, disgraced the 
 faith; and, instead cf extorting the respect of their 
 oppressors, they but exposed themselves and their God 
 to contempt. 
 
 The heathen sneered and said, " These are the people 
 of the Lord!" and — what is less common — these down- 
 trodden exiles, these debased and degraded sinners, seem 
 themselves to have felt the desperate nature of their case ; 
 they said, " Our bones are dried, and our hope is lost." 
 
 Now, as we may learn from the history of the Jews, 
 the case of every sinner, apart from divine assistance, is 
 a desperate one. This internal and universal defile- 
 ment is one which neither sorrows nor sufferings can 
 remove. In a passage which we have already quoted, 
 God says, " Though thou wash thee with nitre, and 
 
42 THE GOSPEL IN EZEKIEL. 
 
 take thee much soap, yet thine iniquity is marked before 
 me." Yes. Sorrows have no more virtue than soap, 
 tears than nitre here. Trust not, therefore, in any 
 unsanctified afflictions, as if these could permanently and 
 really change the true 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 gi-acious God send along with 
 these something else than these, bruised, broken, bleeding 
 as thy heart may be, its nature remains the same. You 
 may weep for your sins ; and, since all of us have need 
 to seek a more tender conscience, and that this too cold 
 and callous heart were warmed and softened, sorry should 
 I be to stop your weeping. Should a mote of dust get 
 into the natural eye, the irritation induced will weep 
 out the evil ; and so, in a way, with sin offending a 
 tender and holy conscience. But tears — oceans of tears 
 — wash not guilt away. Although all are lost that fall 
 not on the feet of Jesus ; yet even the tears which bathe 
 a Saviour's feet wash not away our sins. When falling 
 thickest — flowing fastest, we are to remember that it is 
 not the tears we shed, but the blood he shed, which is 
 the price of pardon ; and that guilty souls are nowhere 
 cleansed but in that bath of blood where the foulest are 
 welcome to wash and certain to be cleansed. From its 
 
THE DEFILER. 43 
 
 crimson margin a IMagdalene and a Manasseh liave gone 
 lip to glory ; and since their times, succeeding ages 
 have been daily and more fully proving, that grace is 
 still free, salvation still full, and that still the blood of 
 Christ cleanse th from all sin. 
 
 " There is a fountain filled with blood, 
 Drawn from Emmanuel's veins ; 
 And sinners plunged beneath that flood, 
 Lose all their guilty stains." 
 
MAN SINNING. 
 
 Wlien tlie house of Israel dwelt in their own land, they defiled it by 
 their own way, and by their doings. — Ezekiel xxxvi. 17. 
 
 T HAVE dreamed a dream," said Joseph, " and behold 
 the sun, moon, and eleven stars made obeisance to me." 
 Om- earth was once supposed to occupy a place of no 
 less honour in creation. Turning daily on its axis, and 
 performing also an annual revolution round the sun, our 
 globe is in incessant motion ; and yet it was once 
 believed that its state was one of rest — perfect rest, and 
 that, like the small pivot on which some great wheel 
 revolves, it formed a centre, around which went rolling 
 the whole machinery of heaven, those suns and planets, 
 both fixed and wandering stars. This dream of science 
 met a happier fate than Joseph's. Believed in the credu- 
 lous ages of the world's childhood, it was obstinately clung 
 to as an article of faith down to no very distant period. 
 It is not so long ago since the telescope of Galileo 
 demonstrated that our earth — whatever the Pope might 
 say to the contrary — is a satellite of the sun, and but 
 one of many orbs that roll around him ; and he but one 
 of many suns, which, requiring millions of years to com- 
 plete their circle, revolve about some greater centre. At 
 
MAN SINNING. 45 
 
 some period preceding the pliilosopher's discovery, the 
 throne of Spain was occupied by a man who had acute- 
 ness enough to perceive, that if all these vast systems, 
 suns, planets, and comets, were daily turning round this 
 earth, then, in making the greater subservient to the 
 less, the Creator of the universe had constructed a clumsy 
 and very cumbersome piece of mechanism. History has 
 preserved the profane language of his dissent from the 
 science of his own day. It was something to the effect, 
 that if God had consulted him when he made the worlds, 
 they would have been better designed. Far be it from 
 us, under any perplexity felt in contemplating the 
 mechanism of creation or the mysteries of providence, 
 to question the wisdom of God, to cherish a thought so 
 daring, or utter an expression so profane. In his 
 dealings toward us his way may be in the sea, his path 
 in the mighty waters, and his footsteps not known ; 
 " by terrible things in righteousness," he may answer us ; 
 but although he dash the cup of happiness from our hand, 
 or fill it to the brim with " wine of astonishment," we 
 shall never deem it right to think that God has done 
 wrong. Whatever appearance of error his ways or 
 works may present, be assured that the defect is not in 
 the object, but in the spectator ; in the eye that sees, 
 not in the thing that is seen ; in you, not in God ; not 
 in the plans of infinite wisdom, but in the finite mind, 
 which has the folly to condemn what it has not the 
 understanding to comprehend. " Manifold are thy 
 works. Lord God Almighty ; in wisdom hast thou made 
 them all." 
 
46 THE GOSPEL IN EZEKIEL. 
 
 Such is the judgment of the Psalmist. From this 
 verdict no work of God so strongly tempts us to dissent 
 as the condition and character of man himself; and I 
 am ignorant of any way by which so well to meet this 
 temptation as by receiving into our creed the doctrine 
 of the Fall. If we reject this doctrine, — if we hold with 
 some that the children are not in any sense implicated 
 in their parents' sin, — then, in the providence of God, 
 and in the government of the world, there appears to 
 me nothing, I shall not say so deficient in wisdom, but 
 so obscure, so inscrutable, so painfully and fearfully 
 mysterious, as the position and character of man. On 
 the supposition that he has never fallen, — that the vessel 
 is as pure and perfect as when it passed from the pot- 
 ter's hand — these questions are ever rising, and, dismiss 
 them as we may, are ever returning, — how could a good 
 God make such a wicked creature ? How could a kind 
 God make such an unhappy creature ? How could a 
 wise God make such a foolish creature ? How could a 
 holy God make such a sinful creature ? If it is impos- 
 sible for a pure stream to be born of a polluted fountain, 
 is it not as impossible that a crystal fountain can be the 
 parent of a polluted stream ? If a clean thing cannot 
 come out of an unclean, is not the conclusion as fair, as 
 logical, as inevitable, that an unclean thing cannot come 
 out of a clean ? 
 
 Now let us shut the Bible — exclude every ray of 
 inspired and celestial light ; we stand in darkness ; and 
 yet the subject seems to me like the dead substance, the 
 decaying wood, the putrid animal matter which grows 
 
MAN SINNING. 47 
 
 luminous tlu*ougli its decay, and emits in death a phos- 
 phorescent hght. By the help of man's very corruption 
 we have light enough to discover his fallen, dead, de- 
 graded state. Indeed, I would a thousand times sooner 
 believe that man made himself what he is, than that God 
 made him so ; for in the one case I should think ill only 
 of man ; in the other, if not compelled, I am at least 
 tempted to blame his Maker. Just think, I pray you, 
 to what conclusion our reason would conduct us in any 
 analogous case. You see, for example, a beautiful capi- 
 tal still bearing a few of the flowers and some vestiges 
 of the foliage which the sculptor's chisel had carved 
 upon the marble. It is prostrate, lying on the ground, 
 half-buried among rank weeds and nettles ; while beside 
 it there rises from its pedestal the headless shaft of a 
 noble column. Would you not conclude at once that its 
 present position, so base and mean, was not its original 
 position ? You say the lightning must have struck it 
 down ; or an earthquake had shaken it, or some igno- 
 rant barbarian had climbed the shaft, and with rude 
 hand hurled it to the ground. Well, we look at man, 
 and arrive at a similar conclusion. There is something, 
 there is much that is wrong, both in his state and con- 
 dition. His mind is carnal, and at enmity with God ; 
 the " imaginations of his heart are only evil continually." 
 So says the Bible. His body is the seat of disease ; his 
 eyes are often swimming in tears ; care — anticipating 
 old age — has drawn deep furrows on his brow ; he pos- 
 sesses noble faculties, but, like people of high descent, 
 who have sunk into the low estate of slaves or menial 
 
48 THE GOSPEL IN EZEKIEL. 
 
 servants, they drudge in the service of the meanest pas- 
 sions. He has an immortal soul, but it is clogged by 
 the infirmities, and imprisoned within the walls of a 
 " body of death." His life is vanity. He is ever seek- 
 ing happiness, but like the child who chases the rainbow, 
 or climbs the hill-top to catch the silvery moon, he is 
 doomed to disappointment, he never finds the object of 
 his search. In some respects manifestly made for a 
 sphere higher than he fills, he appears to us like a crea- 
 ture of the air which a cruel hand has stripped of its 
 silken wings. How painfully he resembles this hapless 
 object which has just fallen on the pages of a book that 
 we read by the candle on an autumn evening ! it retains 
 the wish, but has lost the power to fly ; allured by the 
 taper's glare, it has brushed the flame, and, dropping 
 with a heavy fall, now it crawls wingless across the 
 page, and seeks the finger of mercy to end its miser}^ 
 Compare man with any of the other creatures of God, 
 and how directly we come to the conclusion that he is 
 not, cannot be the creature he came from his Maker's 
 hands ! 
 
 Who has not had this truth borne in upon his mind 
 when his feet carried him forth into the beauteous realms 
 of nature ? I pass out among her sylvan scenes ; and 
 here, on the spray of the tasseled broom, there sits a 
 little bird ; he sings, filling the glen with melody. 
 From tlu'oat and throbbing breast, hear how he rings 
 out the sweetest music, as with keen bright eye he now 
 looks up to God and next down on the bush where 
 his mate is seated with wings extended over their 
 
MAN SINNING. 49 
 
 iinfeatlierecl nestlings ; with lightsome song be cheers her 
 cares, and is then away on busy wing to cater for the 
 mother and her young. Next, I turn my steps to the 
 open moor ; and so soon as the intruder appears on her 
 lonely domain, the lapwing comes down upon the wind. 
 Brave and venturesome she sweeps us with her wing, 
 and shrieks out her distress as she wheels round and 
 round our head. Her homeless brood are cowering on 
 that naked waste ; nor does she rest until our foot is 
 off the ground, and even then, when the coast is clear, 
 we hear her long wild screams, like the beating of a 
 mother s heart when her child is saved — like the mourn- 
 ful dash of waves upon the shore long after the wind is 
 down. Next I climb the mountain, when snow drifts 
 thick from murky heavens, and — like Satan taking 
 advantage of a believer's trials — the wily fox has left his 
 cairn and prowls abroad for his prey. Every mother of 
 the flock lies there with a tender lamb behind her ; with 
 her body she screens it from the rudeness of the storm ; 
 and with her head to the wind, and expanded nostrils 
 snuffing the distant danger, she lies ready, so soon as 
 her eye catches the stealthy foe, to start to her feet, 
 receive him on her horns, and die like a true mother, 
 in her lamb's defence. Such are God's creatures. And 
 although the shock of the Fall has been felt throughout 
 all this lower creation, which " groaneth and travaileth 
 in pain together until now," yet the work is to a great 
 extent unmarred, — the workmanship as it came from the 
 Maker's hand ; and away among these old hoar hills, 
 remote from man, his cities, his sins, his works, his 
 
 E 
 
50 THE GOSPEL IN EZEKIEL. 
 
 sorrows, we are out of hearing of the groans of creation ; 
 and, but for the corruption we carry within us, we 
 could forget the Fall. Stretched on a fragrant bank of 
 thyme, with the hum of bees, the song of birds, and the 
 chirp of the merry gi-asshopper in our ear, a cloudless 
 sky overhead, and beneath us the placid lake, where 
 each flower and bush and birch-tree of the rock looks 
 down into the mirror of its own beauty, the murmur of 
 the waterfall sounds to us, like an echo from the crags 
 of the Creator's voice, '' All is very good." 
 
 But let us retrace our steps along the dusty road 
 from the bosky glen where the little bird sings, and the 
 moor where the lapwing screams out her fears, and the 
 hill where the timid sheep faces the fox to die for her 
 offspring, or the forest den, where the bear with her 
 cubs behind her offers her shaggy bosom to the hunter's 
 spear. Enter this town. Look at that wretched 
 mother, as we saw her when Sabbath bells rung wor- 
 shippers to prayer, and God was calling sinners to 
 a throne of mercy. Her back rests against the church's 
 wall ; she has sunk on the cold pavement ; her senses 
 are steeped in drink ; and on her lap — pitiful sight ! 
 lies an emaciated, half-naked infant, with the chill cold 
 rain soaking its scanty rags, and lashing its pallid face. 
 Is this mother God's handiwork ? Is this the clay as 
 it came from the potter's wheel ? Was it in such 
 shape as this that woman came from her Maker's 
 hand? When Adam awoke, was Eve such as this 
 her daughter ? If so, better he had never woke ; if 
 so, it had been good for him to be alone. But nature, 
 
MAN SINNING. 51 
 
 to say nothing of religion, revolts from the impious 
 thought. 
 
 It is common enough to call such spectacles brutal. 
 The language is a libel on creation, and a blasphemy 
 against the Creator. These scenes are not brutal. 
 My very argument lies in this, that the brute beasts 
 never present themselves in such a degraded and re- 
 volting aspect. Under the impulse of instincts neces- 
 sary for then' well-being, for the due balance of races, 
 and the general welfare of the world, they may, and 
 indeed must prey upon each other. They do destroy 
 each other, but did man ever find them committing 
 self-destruction ? Range the wide fields of nature, 
 travel from the equator to the poles, rise from the worm 
 that crawls out of its hole to the eagle that 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 
 Hons of the desert leave their 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 the traveller and his tale to scorn. But 
 should anything so strange and monstrous occur — 
 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 
 
52 THE GOSPEL IN EZEKIEL. 
 
 bury their horns in each other's bodies, we would proclaim 
 a prodigy — asking what madness had seized creation. 
 
 Well, is not sin the parent of more awful prodigies ? 
 Look here — turn to the bloody horrors of this battle- 
 field. This is no fancy picture, but a fact — a sad, 
 sickening fact. The trampled ground lies thick with 
 the mangled brave ; the air is shaken with the most 
 horrible sounds ; every countenance expresses the pas- 
 sions of a fiend. Covering her eyes, humanity flies 
 shrieking from the scene, and leaves it to rage, revenge, 
 and agony. Fiercer than the cannon's flash flames of 
 wrath shoot from brothers' eyes ; they draw, they 
 brandish their swords, they sheath them in each other's 
 bowels ; every stroke makes a widow, every ringing 
 volley scatters a hundred orphans on a homeless world. 
 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. Nature, society, the state of the 
 world, are so many echoes of the voice of Revelation ; 
 they proclaim our fall — that the gold has become dim — 
 that the most fine gold has changed ; and, in words to 
 which we again turn your attention, that we have de- 
 filed the land in which we dwell, by our ways and by 
 our doings. Now, leaving the subject of Original, to 
 speak of Actual Sin, we remark — 
 
 I. Apart from derived sinfulness, we have personal sins 
 to answer for. 
 
 Dispose of the doctrine of Original Sin as you 
 
MAN SINNING. 53 
 
 please ; suppose that you could disprove it ; when that 
 count of the indictment is cancelled, what advantage 
 have you gained ? Enough, more than enough, remains 
 to convict us of guilt, and condemn all within these 
 walls. You may deny original, but can any man in his 
 senses deny actual sin? You may as well deny your 
 existence ; it sticks to you like your shadow. " If we 
 should say that we have no sin, we make God a liar, 
 and the truth is not in us." 
 
 " 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 ? Lives there a man so happy as to 
 look back on the past and feel no remorse, or forward 
 to the future and feel no fear? What! is there no 
 page of your history that you would obliterate — no pas- 
 sage that you would erase — no leaf that, with God's 
 permission, you would tear from the book? Is there 
 neither work, nor word, nor wish of days gone by, that 
 you would not, if you could, recall ? To David's prayer, 
 " Lord, remember not the sins of my youth, nor my 
 transgressions," have you no solemn and hearty Amen ? 
 Could you be carried back to the 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 life anew — would you run the 
 self-same course ; would you live over the self-same life? 
 
54 THE GOSPEL IN EZEKIEL. 
 
 What ! is there no speech that you would unsay ? is 
 there no act that you would undo ? is there no Sabbath 
 that you would spend better ? are there none yet alive, 
 or mouldering in the grave, none now blest in heaven 
 or damned in hell, to whom you would bear yourself 
 otherwise than you have done ? Are there 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 ? never fail in faithful- 
 ness that might have saved their souls ? Oh ! if every 
 thread of life's web were yet to weave, what man would 
 make the future a faithful — I will add, fearful copy of the 
 past ? I will make bold to say no man living would ; 
 and that the Apostle has universal conscience on his side, 
 when he declares, " If we say that we have no sin, we 
 deceive ourselves." No sin! Our sins are more in 
 number than the hairs upon our head ; nor do I know of 
 language or attitude so becoming us as those of Ezra, 
 when, rending his mantle, that holy man fell upon his 
 knees to cry, " Oh, my God, I am ashamed, and blush 
 to lift up my face to thee ; for our iniquities are in- 
 creased over our heads, and our trespass is gone up into 
 the heavens." 
 
 II. The guilt of these actual sins is our own. 
 
 "Hast thou eaten of the tree?" God puts the 
 question, and man replies, " The woman whom thou 
 gavest to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I 
 
MAN SINNING. 55 
 
 did eat." Adam points an accusing finger at Eve ; and 
 turning round to the woman, God says, " What is this 
 that thou hast done?" She in turn lays the blame on 
 the serpent, saying, " The serpent beguiled me, and I 
 did eat." And, each repudiating the guilt, thus and 
 thus they shift the sin. We have " eaten of the tree ;" 
 and — unless it be to roll the guilt on Jesus Christ — we 
 attempt in vain to fix the blame on others — to lay the 
 burden on any shoulders but our own. 
 
 There are strong pleas which the poor heathen may 
 advance in extenuation of their guilt ; there are excuses 
 Avhich they, stepping forward with some confidence to 
 judgment — may urge upon a just and merciful as well 
 as holy God. 
 
 They may say, we knew no better ; no man cared 
 for our souls. Great God ! when thy followers landed 
 on our benighted shores, they brought no olive branch 
 or Bible ; they came with fire, and sword, and chains, 
 and slavery. On the back of those who, bearing thy 
 name, oppressed us, plundered us, enslaved us, and left 
 us to die ignorant of thy love, we lay our guilt. Let 
 them answer for us. Place these Christians at thy bar ; 
 demand of them "where is thy brother Abel?" and on 
 their heads, not on ours, let thy dread justice fall. 
 Again, this wretched child, the victim of cruel neglect, 
 who has left cold and hunger and a bed of straw or a 
 bare floor to stand at the bar of God, may lift up his 
 injured head at that august tribunal, and stand on his 
 defence with more certain expectation both of justice 
 and pity than he ever met here below. In shivering 
 
56 THE GOSPEL IN EZEKIEL. 
 
 cold and nakedness, in gnawing hunger and thirst, in 
 rags and heathen ignorance, he was left to wander our 
 hard streets, nor, among all the Christians of this city, 
 was there one kind hand to guide his erring feet to 
 Sabbath church or infant school. Poor wretch ! pity- 
 was not for him ; kindness was not for him ; the house 
 of God was not for him ; but now that he addresses one 
 who will not rudely order him away nor refuse to hear 
 him — child of misfortune ! — how may he say. Merciful 
 Lord ! my mother taught me to steal, my father taught 
 me to swear. How could I obey a Bible which I never 
 learned to read ? How could I believe in thee, whom 
 no one taught me to know ? Saviour of sinners ! con- 
 demn me not ; how was I to avoid sins against which 
 I was never warned ? No man cared for my soul. I 
 did not know what I did. I throw myself at thy feet. 
 Seizing thy cross I claim the benefit of its dying prayer, 
 " Father, forgive them, for they Jcnoio not ichat they do^ 
 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 attempt to determine. The judge of all the 
 earth will do right. 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. Some, indeed, plead their natural prone- 
 ness to sin ; excusing themselves to conscience on that 
 ground, or on this, that the temptation before which 
 they fell, fell on them with the suddenness and vehe- 
 
MAN SINNING. 57 
 
 mence of a hurricane. The command, however, to 
 watch and pray leaves you without excuse. You were 
 fully warned. You should have been on the outlook 
 for the tohite squall. The sentinel is righteously shot 
 who is caught asleep upon his post. 
 
 Supposing, however, that the plea were accepted ; 
 enough, I repeat, more than enough, remains to con- 
 demn us, and leave guilt no refuge out of Christ. We 
 talk of the strength, we plead the suddenness of temp- 
 tation ; but how often have we sinned designedly, 
 deliberately, repeatedly ? 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 
 sins which he did abstain from, when it served some 
 present purpose to do so ? This reehng sot and slave 
 of drunkenness keeps sober at a communion season ; 
 and that swearer, who alleges that he cannot refrain 
 from oaths, puts a bridle on his tongue in the presence 
 of his minister. It is useless for the sinner to allege 
 that he is swept away by temptation ; "he conceiveth 
 mischief, and he bringeth forth falsehood;" and if 
 swept away, it is as the suicide, who repairs to the river, 
 stands on its brink, and, leaping in, is swept off to his 
 watery grave. I know that Satan goes about seeking 
 whom he may devour, but, while he tempts us, how 
 often have we tempted him ? Stealing on unawares, 
 like a lion crouching to the leap, with sudden and un- 
 looked for spring he may throw himself upon us ; but 
 how often have we cast ourselves in his way? We 
 have gone down to Delilah ; we have stood in the way 
 
58 THE GOSPEL IN EZEKIEL. 
 
 of sinners ; we have sinned when we knew that we 
 were sinning ; we have repaired to scenes where we 
 knew that we were to sin. In pursuit of its guilty 
 pleasures — trampling conscience beneath our feet, and 
 more than that, the body and blood of Jesus Christ — 
 we have done what the heathen never did, what Sodom 
 and Gomorrah never did, what Tyre and Sidon never 
 did — we have rejected a Saviour, and insanely refused 
 eternal Hfe. There is hope for us in the blood of his 
 cross, but none in its prayer. We knew what we did. 
 Some years ago, on a great public occasion, a dis- 
 tinguished statesman rose to address his countrymen, 
 and, in reply to certain calumnious and dishonourable 
 charges, held up his hands in the vast assembly, ex- 
 claiming, " 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 sitting in judgment, 
 I could comprehend the calm, the unimpassioned indif- 
 ference with which men sit in church on successive Sab- 
 baths, idly eyeing the cross of Calvary, and listening 
 with drowsy ears to the overtures of mercy. Are these, 
 I ask, matters with which you have nothing to do ? If, 
 indeed, you have no sins to answer for — if before this 
 world's great assize you are prepared not only to plead, 
 but to prove your innocence — if conscience accuses you 
 in nothing, and excuses you in everything — then sleep 
 on, in God's name sleep on, and take your rest. But 
 when the heavens over men are clothed in thunders, and 
 hell yawns beneath their feet, and both God's law and 
 their own conscience condemn them, such indifference 
 
MAN SINNING. 59 
 
 is insanity ! Beware ! Play with no fire ; least of 
 all, with fire unquenchable. Play with no edged 
 sword ; least of all, with that which justice sheathed in 
 a Saviour's bosom. Play by the mouth of no pit; 
 least of all, on the brink of that — the smoke of whose 
 torment goeth up for ever and ever. Think of these 
 things. What incalculable issues are at stake ? 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 jeers and taunts of the ungodly. It is a 
 very common thing with scoffers, and with those who 
 use their religion as a cloak always worn loosely, nor 
 ever drawn closely round, save, so to speak, in incle- 
 ment weather — when distress troubles, or death alarms 
 them, it is no uncommon thing for such to eye all men 
 of zeal with cold suspicion, and represent them as either 
 rogues or fools, fanatics, or hypocrites. I might answer 
 this charge. Fools ! I could produce an array of bril- 
 liant and immortal names — names of men in whom a 
 child-like piety has been associated with the highest 
 intellect, the loftiest genius, the most profound and 
 statesmanlike sagacity — men beside whom most of your 
 scoffers, sceptics, and worldlings were as dwarfs in 
 the company of giants. Folly ! if Christians really 
 such are chargeable with any folly, it is with that of 
 not being zealous enough — with that of being, not too 
 much, but too Httle religious. In the name of common 
 sense and religion also, I ask, is it possible, if there be 
 a hell, to be too anxious to escape it ? If men are 
 
60 THE GOSPEL IN EZEKIEIi. 
 
 perishing, can I, with children, brothers, sisters, friends 
 in the burning, be too anxious to save them ? The 
 man who leaves his bed at mirk midnight to quench 
 the flames in a neighbour's house, is surely no fool ; but 
 he who can coolly eat his meals beside the sea, or go 
 singing about his common avocations along the shore, 
 when a wreck is in his eye, and the roar of the surf and 
 the shrieks of the drowning are in his ear, he is a fool, 
 or something worse. 
 
 As to the insinuation of general hypocrisy, the 
 wretched charge got up against all religion, when some 
 specious professor stands unmasked before the world, 
 how absurd it is ! Is there no sound grain in our barn- 
 yards, because there is so much chafi"? Are all patriots 
 — Wallace and the Bruce, Tell, Eussel, and Washing- 
 ton — deceivers and liars, because some men have vil- 
 lainously betrayed their country ? Is there no bright 
 honour in our army, because some soldiers — the sweep- 
 ings probably of our city streets — have deserted, — ^left 
 the lines, and leapt the trenches, and gone over to the 
 enemy? Is there no such virtue as integrity among 
 British merchants, because now and then we hear of a 
 fraudulent bankruptcy ? Because some religious profes- 
 sors prove hypocrites, is therefore all ardent piety hol- 
 low hypocrisy ? To reason so, argues either a disordered 
 intellect, or a very depraved heart. The conclusion is 
 as contrary to logic as to love. When or where were 
 hypocrites ever known to sufifer for principle ? Yet is 
 there a country within the bounds of Christendom that 
 has not been strewed thick with the ashes and dyed red 
 
MAN SINNING. 61 
 
 with the blood of martyrs ? Have not their heads in 
 ghastly rows stood spiked above our city gates ? Two 
 hundred years ago, and the windows of the very houses 
 that still stand beside this church were crowded with 
 eager faces taking their last look of men who went with 
 firm step and lofty carriage to die — loving Christ more 
 than their lives, and, as one said before they threw him 
 off, ready — had they as many lives as they had hairs on 
 their head, to lay them all down for Christ. Religion 
 has fairly won her honours, and stands before you an 
 honest thing, and the highest wisdom. Whatever you 
 be, be religious. God working in you, work out your 
 salvation. The way to the refuge lies open ; with the 
 feet of an Azahel haste to Jesus. Once in him, you can 
 turn on the avenger, saying, Man-slayer, I fear thee not ; 
 here thou comest, but no further ; this blood-red line 
 thou canst not pass — " There is no condemnation for 
 them who are in Christ Jesus." 
 
 Do you see that sin, staining your holiest services, 
 has defiJed your head, heart, hands, feet — the whole 
 man ? Haste to the fountain where sins are lost and 
 souls are cleansed. With its base ingratitude to your 
 heavenly Father — the wounds it has inflicted on a most 
 loving Saviour — the grief it has caused, and the resis- 
 tance it has offered, to a most gentle and Holy Spirit 
 — the deep injuries it has done your own soul, and 
 souls which, loving, you should have longed, and 
 yearned, and laboured, and watched, and wept, and 
 prayed to save — Oh, let sin be your deepest sorrow, 
 your heaviest grief, the spring of many tears, the 
 
62 THE GOSPEL IN EZEKIEL. 
 
 burden of many sighs, the occasion of daily visits to the 
 cross of Calvary. 
 
 " Weep not for broad lands lost ; 
 Weep not for fair hopes crossed ; 
 Weep not when limbs wax old ; 
 Weep not when friends grow cold ; 
 Weep not, that death must part 
 Thine and the best-loved heart : 
 Yet weep — weep all thou can — 
 Weep, weep, because thou art 
 A sin-defiled man." 
 
MAN SUFFEEING. 
 
 Wherefore I poured my fury upon them, and I scattered them among 
 the heathen, and they were dispersed through the countries. Ac- 
 cording to their way and according to their doings, I judged them. 
 EzEKiEL xxxvi. 18, 19. 
 
 TT appears a very easy thing to say what a plant or 
 animal is. It is not so. There are myriads of living 
 creatm-es that occupy the debateable ground between 
 the vegetable and animal kingdoms ; nor have naturalists 
 yet determined on which side of the border to assign 
 them a place — whether to rank them among plants or 
 animals. What is man ? It seems an easy thing to 
 answer that question ; yet I am not sure that, even at 
 this day, we have any correct definition which — distin- 
 guishing man on the one hand from the angelic race and 
 on the other hand from the higher orders of inferior 
 creatures — is at once brief and comprehensive. Now, 
 if we have such difficulty in defining even ourselves, or 
 those objects that, being patent to the senses, may be 
 made the subject of searching and prolonged experiment, 
 is it wonderful that, when we rise above his works to 
 their Maker, from things finite to things infinite, it should 
 be found much easier to ask than answer the question, 
 "What is God?" The telescope by which w^e hold 
 
64 THE GOSPEL IN EZEKIEL. 
 
 converse with the stars, the microscope which unveils 
 the secrets of nature, the crucible of the chemist, the 
 knife of the anatomist, the reflective faculties of the 
 philosopher, all the common instruments of science avail 
 not here. On the threshold of that impenetrable mys- 
 tery, from out the clouds and darkness that are round 
 about God's throne, a voice arrests our advancing steps ; 
 the question comes, " Who can by searching find out 
 God, who can find out the Almighty to perfection?" 
 
 Divines, notwithstanding, have ventured on a de- 
 finition of God. According to the Catechism of the 
 Westminster Assembly, " God is a spirit, infinite, 
 eternal, and unchangeable, in his being, wisdom, power, 
 holiness, justice, goodness, and truth." A very com- 
 prehensive definition, no doubt ; yet did it never strike 
 you as strange, that there is no mention of love here, 
 and that that is a very remarkable omission ? — an omis- 
 sion as remarkable as if one undertook to describe the 
 firmament, and left out the sun, or, painting the human 
 face made it sightless, giving no place on the canvas 
 to those beaming eyes which impart to the features 
 their life and expression. 
 
 Why did an assembly, for piety, learning, and 
 talents, the greatest, perhaps, that ever met in England, 
 or anywhere else, give us that catalogue of the divine 
 attributes, and deny a place to love ? Unless we are 
 to understand the term goodness as comprehending love, 
 the omission may be thus explained and illustrated. 
 Take a globe, and observing their natural order, lay on 
 its surface the hues of the rainbow ; give it a rapid 
 
MAN SUFFERING. 65 
 
 motion round its axis ; and now you no longer see blue, 
 red, yellow, and the other colours. As if by magic, the 
 whirling sphere changes into purest white, presenting 
 to our eyes and imderstanding a visible proof that the 
 sunbeam is not a simple, but compound body, a thread 
 spun of various rays, which form, when blended into 
 one, what we call light. Now, may it not be, that 
 these divines make no distinct mention of love just 
 because they held that as all the colours blended together 
 form light, so all the attributes acting together make 
 love ; and that thus, because God has justice, wisdom, 
 power, holiness, goodness, and truth, of necessity there- 
 fore, and in the express words of John, " God is love." 
 This is the briefest and best definition of Divinity. 
 This had been John's answer to the question, " What 
 is God?" 
 
 It may be said, and is no doubt true, that objects 
 take a colour from the eyes that look at them. The 
 very sun, as well as sky and sea and mountains, appear 
 yellow to the jaundiced eye ; the brightest prospects 
 wear an air of gloom to a gloomy mind ; a sunny temper 
 gilds the edges of life's blackest cloud, and flings a path 
 of light across its stormiest sea ; contentment sits down 
 to a crust of bread and a cup of water, and gives God 
 thanks ; and the plainest person is beautiful in the eyes 
 of fond affection. Now it may be thought, to John's 
 loving eye, his heavenly Father seemed so loving and 
 so lovely, that it was very natural for him to give the 
 colour of his own eyes to this divine object, and say, 
 " God is love." But it is to be remembered, that when 
 
 F 
 
66 THE GOSPEL IN EZEKIEL. 
 
 he gave this shortest, sweetest definition of divinity, he 
 was not painting ohjects only as they appeared to him. 
 He was a pen in the hand of inspiration — hhe the keys 
 of a musical instrument, he sounded to the movements 
 of another's will, and the touch of another's finger. One 
 of the holy men of old, who spake as they were moved 
 by the Holy Ghost — it was not he, but God himself, 
 who thus described and defined himself, " God is love." 
 Assuming then that God is love, it may be asked, 
 how does that harmonise with the text? How is it to be 
 reconciled with words where God represents himself as 
 pouring down his fury like a thunder shower, and scat- 
 tering his people, in a storm of indignation, as light and 
 worthless chaff blown away upon the wind. How, it 
 may be asked, does this consist with God's love and 
 mercy ? Now, there is no greater mistake than to sup- 
 pose that God, as a God of justice and a God of mercy, 
 stands in antagonism to himself. It is not mercy, but 
 injustice, which is irreconcilable with justice. It is 
 cruelty, not justice, that stands opposed to mercy. 
 These attributes of Jehovah are not contrary the one to 
 the other, as are the elements of light and darkness, 
 fire and water, truth and falsehood, right and wrong. 
 No. Like two streams which unite their separate waters 
 to form a common river, justice and mercy are combined 
 in the work of redemption. Like the two cherubims 
 whose wings met above the ark — like the two devout 
 and holy men who drew the nails from Christ's body 
 and bore it to the grave — like the two angels who 
 received it in charge, and, seated like mourners within 
 
MAN SUFFERING. 67 
 
 the sepulchre, the one at the head, the other at the feet, 
 kept silent watch over the precious treasure — justice 
 and mercy are associated in the work of Christ. They 
 are the supporters of the shield on which the cross is 
 emblazoned ; they sustain the arms of our heavenly 
 Advocate ; they form the two solid and eternal pillars of 
 the Mediator's throne. On Calvary mercy and truth meet 
 together, righteousness and peace embrace each other. 
 
 These remarks may prepare our minds for entering 
 with advantage on the solemn subject of God's punitive 
 justice ; but, ere we open the prison, and look down 
 into the pit, I would further bespeak your candid and 
 tender consideration of this affecting and most awful 
 subject, by remarking — 
 
 I. That God is slow to punish. 
 
 " He executeth not judgment speedily against the 
 workers of iniquity." He does punish ; he shall punish ; 
 with reverence be it spoken, he must punish. Yet no 
 hand of clock goes so slow as his hand of vengeance. 
 Of that, the world, this city, and this church, are wit- 
 nesses ; each and all, speaker and hearer, are living 
 witnesses. It is too common to overlook this fact; 
 and, ignoring the kindness, patience, longsuffering, and 
 warnings which precede the punishment, we are too apt 
 to give the punishment itself our exclusive attention. 
 What divine kindness is impressed on all God's works ! 
 Even the lion growls before he leaps, and before the 
 snake strikes she springs her rattle. 
 
68 THE GOSPEL IN EZEKIEL. 
 
 Look, for example, on the catastrophe of the Dehige. 
 And let not our attention be so engrossed by its dread 
 and awful character, as to overlook all that preceded it, 
 and see nothing but these devouring waters. 
 
 The waters rise till rivers swell into lakes, and lakes 
 into seas, and along fertile plains the sea stretches out 
 her arms to seize their flying population. Still the 
 waters rise ; and now, mingled with beasts that terror 
 has tamed, men climb to the mountain tops, the flood 
 roaring at their heels. Still the waters rise ; and now 
 each summit stands above them like a separate and sea- 
 girt isle. Still the waters rise ; and, crowding closer 
 on the narrow spaces of lessening hill-tops, men and 
 beasts fight for standing-room. Still the thunders roar, 
 and the lightnings flash, and the waters rise, till the last 
 survivor of the shrieking crowd is washed off, and the 
 head of the highest Alp goes down beneath the "wave. 
 Now the waters rise no more. God's servant has done 
 his work. He rests from his labours ; and, all land 
 drowned — all life destroyed — an awful silence reigning 
 and a shoreless ocean rolling, Death for once has nothing 
 to do, but ride in triumph on the top of some giant 
 billow, which, meeting no coast, no continent, no Alp, 
 no Andes to break upon, sweeps round and round the 
 world. 
 
 We stand aghast at the scene ; and as the corpses 
 of gentle children and sweet infants float by, we exclaim, 
 " Has God forgotten to be gracious — is his mercy clean 
 gone for ever?" No; assuredly not. Where, then, is 
 his mercy ? Look here ; behold this ark which, steered 
 
MAN SUFFERING. 69 
 
 by an invisible hand, comes dimly through the gloom. 
 Lonely ship on a shoreless ocean, she carries mercy on 
 board. Within walls that are pitched without and within, 
 she holds safe the costliest freight that ever sailed the sea. 
 The germs of the church are there — the children of the 
 old world, and the fathers of the new. Suddenly, amid 
 the awful gloom, as she drifts over that dead and silent 
 sea, a grating noise is heard. Her keel has grounded 
 on the top of Ararat. The door is opened ; and beneath 
 the sign of the olive branch, her tenants come forth from 
 their baptismal burial, like life from the dead — like souls 
 translated from a state of nature into the light and liberty 
 of grace — like the saints when they shall rise at the 
 summons of the trumpet to behold a new heaven and a 
 new earth, and see the sign which these " grey fathers " 
 hailed encircling a head that w^as crowned with thorns. 
 
 Nor is this all. Our Heavenly Father's character 
 is dear to us. And I must remind you that ere mercy 
 flew, like the dove, to that welcome asylum, she had 
 swept the wide world with her wings. Were there but 
 eight, only eight saved ? There were thousands, mil- 
 lions sought. Nor is it justice to God to forget how 
 long a period of patience, and preaching, and warning, 
 and compassion, preceded that dreadful deluge. Long 
 before the lightning flashed from angry heavens, or 
 thunders rolled along dissolving skies, or the clouds 
 rained down death, or the floor and solid pavement of 
 this earth, under the prodigious agencies at work, broke 
 up, like the deck of a leaking ship, and the waters 
 rushed from below to meet the waters from above, and 
 
70 THE GOSPEL IN EZEKIEL. 
 
 sink a guilty world ; long before the time when the 
 ark floated away by town and tower, and those crowded 
 hill-tops, where frantic groups were clustered, and amid 
 prayers and curses, and shrieks, and shouts, hung out 
 their signals of distress — very long before this, God had 
 been calling an impenitent world to repentance. Had 
 they no warning in Noah's preaching? AVas there 
 nothing to alarm them in the sight of the ark as storey 
 rose upon storey ; not enough in the very sound of those 
 ceaseless hammers to waken all but the dead ? It w^as 
 not till Mercy's arm grew weary, as she rung the 
 warning bell, that, to use the words of my text, God 
 " poured out his fury upon them." I appeal to the 
 story of this awful judgment. True, for forty days it 
 rained incessantly, and for one hundred and fifty days 
 more "the waters prevailed on the earth;" but while 
 the period of God's justice is reckoned by days, the 
 period of his long-suifering was drawn out mto years. 
 There was a truce of one hundred and twenty-years 
 between the first stroke of the bell and the first crash 
 of the thunder. Noah grew grey preaching repentance. 
 The ark stood useless for years, a huge laughing-stock 
 for the scoffer's wit ; it was covered with the marks of 
 age, and its builders with the contempt of the world ; 
 and many a bitter sneer had these men to bear, as, 
 pointing to the serene heavens above and an empty ark 
 below, the question was put, " Where is the promise of 
 his coming?" Most patient God! Then, as now, 
 thou wert slow to punish — " waiting to be gracious." 
 As that catastrophe and also many other judgments 
 
MAN SUFFERING. 71 
 
 prove — he is slow to anger. God does pour out his 
 fury ; but his indignation is the volcano that groans 
 loud and long before it discharges the elements of 
 destruction, and devastates with its lavas the vineyards 
 at its feet. Where, when God's anger has burned 
 hottest, was it ever known that judgment trode on the 
 heels of sin ? A period always intervenes ; room is given 
 for remonstrance on his part, and repentance upon ours. 
 The stroke of judgment is indeed, 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, and 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 gathering clouds, the deepening gloom, the still and 
 sultry air, the awful silence, the big pattering rain-drops 
 — these reveal his danger to the traveller, and warn 
 him from river, road, or hill, to the nearest refuge. 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 turn to him and live." 
 No man ever yet went to hell, but trampling under foot 
 ten thousand warnings — ten times ten thousand mercies. 
 Whatever injustice men may do themselves — how- 
 ever recklessly they may cast away salvation and their 
 souls, T demand justice for him whose ambassador I am — 
 for these mysteries of salvation of which I am a steward. 
 No doubt he says, " I poured out my fury upon them ;" 
 but when was this done ? Not till divine patience was 
 
72 THE GOSPEL IN EZEKIEL. 
 
 exhausted, and a succession of servants had been com- 
 missioned to warn, to preach, and plead with them. 
 Eemember the words of a weeping Saviour, as he looked 
 on the city from the crest of Olivet — " 0, Jerusalem, 
 Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets, and stonest 
 them which are sent unto thee, how often would I have 
 gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth 
 her chickens under her wings, and ye would not ! " Has 
 language terms more tender or pathetic than these ? Or 
 those, in which God pours forth his affection for this 
 very people — " When Israel was a child, then I loved 
 him : I taught Ephraim also to go : taking them by 
 their arms. I drew them with the cords of a man, and 
 with bonds of love?" This language carries us into 
 the tenderest scenes of domestic life. It reminds us of a 
 mother, who unbosomed her grief to us, and, telling 
 how one sweet child had been blighted in the bud, and 
 how another had strayed from the paths of virtue, and 
 how all the flowers of her cottage home had withered 
 away, cried, as she bitterly looked back on departed joys, 
 and w^ept, and wrung lier hands — " These were happy 
 days, when they were children at my knee." Like a 
 father who hangs over some unworthy son, and, while 
 his heart is torn by contending emotions, hesitates what 
 to do — whether once and for ever to dismiss him, or to 
 give him another trial — it is most touching to see God 
 bending over sinners, and this flood of melting pathos 
 bursting from his heart — " How shall I give thee up, 
 Ephraim ? how shall I deliver thee, Israel ? How shall 
 I make thee as Admah, how shall I set thee as Zeboim ? 
 
MAN SUFFERING. 73 
 
 Mine heart is turned within me ; my repentings are 
 kindled together. I will not execute the fierceness of 
 mine anger ; I will not return to destroy Ephraim, for 
 I am God and not man." 
 
 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 although the trembling 
 lip, and weeping eyes, and choked utterance of his 
 culprit boy, and a fond mother's intercession also, 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 his child ; and 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 
 requires, that you should have seen with what slow 
 and lingering steps lie went for the rod, the trembling 
 of his hand, and how, as the tears fell from his eyes, he 
 raised them to heaven and sought strength to inflict a 
 punishment which, were it to serve the purpose, he 
 would a hundred times sooner bear than inflict. 
 
 When Absalom — nursing his rage for months, and 
 coolly planning the atrocious murder — slew his brother, 
 David was so shocked, struck with such horror at the 
 crime, that, although he permitted the assassin to return 
 to Jerusalem, for two whole years he refused to see 
 him. His son, his eldest son, his favourite son, he would 
 
74 THE GOSPEL IN EZEKIEL. 
 
 hold no intercourse with Absalom, nor speak to him, 
 nor look on him. Would it be justice to David to con- 
 fine our attention to this ? Under that averted eye, and 
 cold demeanour, and stern aspect, what a heart ! Goaded 
 on by ambition, this guilty man aims his next blow at a 
 father's life — and falls ; then how are the fountains of 
 the great deep opened, what a flood of feeling ! What is 
 it now to David that the battle is won, his enemies are 
 crushed, his crown is safe, his throne secure ? Absalom 
 is slain ! " Oh Absalom ! my son, my son Absalom ! 
 would God I had died for thee. Oh Absalom, my son, 
 my son ! " And, would we do our heavenly Father 
 justice, we must look on Calvary as well as on Eden. 
 " God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten 
 Son, that whosoever belie veth in him should not perish, 
 but have everlasting life." His Son indeed does not go 
 up and down heaven weeping, wringing his hands, and, 
 to the amazement of silent angels, crying. Would God I 
 had died for man ! A more amazing spectacle is here. 
 He turns his back on heaven ; he leaves the bosom and 
 happy fellowship of his Father, he bares his own innocent 
 breast to the sword of justice, and in the depths of a 
 love never to be fathomed, he dies on that accursed tree, 
 " the just for the unjust, that we might be saved!" 
 
 Through this vestibule of love, mercy, and long-suf- 
 fering, we have thought it well to introduce you into 
 the scenes of God's punitive justice. It is on iron, 
 softened by the glowing fire, that impressions are made 
 and left ; and expecting good only when the terrible is 
 associated with the tender, we have thought it well that 
 
MAN SUFFERING. 75 
 
 you should see how slow God is to smite, how swift God 
 is to save. Fast fly the wings of mercy. Slow goes 
 the hand of justice ; like the shadow on the sun-dial 
 ever moving, yet creeping onwards, with a motion all 
 but imperceptible. Still let sinners stand in awe. Let 
 it never be forgotten, that although God's patience is 
 lasting, it is not everlasting. The hand of justice has not 
 stopped ; although imperceptibly, it steadily advances ; 
 by and by it reaches the tenth, eleventh, twelfth hour — 
 and now the bell strikes. Then, unless you have fled to 
 Christ, the blow which was so slow to fall, shall descend 
 on the head of impenitence with accumulated force. 
 Observe — 
 
 II. How he punished his ancient people. 
 
 This is illustrated in many portions of Scripture. 
 For example, "Now, because ye have done all these 
 works, saith the Lord, and I spake imto you, rising up 
 early and speaking, but ye heard not ; and I called you, 
 but ye answered not ; therefore will I do unto this house 
 which is called by my name, wherein ye trust, and unto 
 the place which I gave to you and to your fathers, as I 
 have done to Shiloh. And I will cast you out of my 
 sight, as I have cast out all your brethren, even the 
 whole seed of Abraham. Therefore pray not thou for 
 this people, neither lift up cry nor prayer for them, neither 
 make intercession to me ; for I will not hear thee. 
 The carcasses of this people shall be meat for the fowls 
 of the heaven, and for the beasts of the earth ; and none 
 
76 THE GOSPEL IN EZEKIEL. 
 
 shall fray them away. Then will I cause to cease from 
 the cities of Judah, and from the streets of Jerusalem, 
 the voice of mirth, and the voice of gladness, the voice 
 of the bridegroom, and the voice of the bride ; for the 
 land shall be desolate. And death shall be chosen 
 rather than life by all the residue of them that remain 
 of this evil family, which remain in all the places whither 
 I have driven them, saith the Lord of Hosts. I will 
 surely consume them, saith the Lord ; there shall be no 
 grapes on the vine, nor figs on the fig-tree, and the leaf 
 shall fade ; and the things that I have given them shall 
 pass away from them. The Lord our God hath put us 
 to silence, and given us water of gall to drink, because 
 ■we have sinned against the Lord. AYe looked for peace, 
 but no good came ; and for a time of health, and behold 
 trouble ! The snorting of his horses was heard from 
 Dan ; the whole land trembled at the sound of the 
 neighing of his strong ones : for they are come, and have 
 devoured the land, and all that is in it — the city, and 
 those that dwell therein. The harvest is past, the sum- 
 mer is ended, and we are not saved. I am black ; 
 astonishment hath taken hold on me. Is there no 
 balm in Gilead ? Is there no physician there ? Why, 
 then, is not the health of the daughter of m}^ people 
 recovered?" 
 
 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 such things were done 
 
MAN SUFFERING. 77 
 
 in the green tree, what shall be clone in the dry ? " 
 Look at Jiidah 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 spared not the natural 
 branches, take heed lest he spare not thee." 
 
 We have seen an ancient mirror from the sepul- 
 chres of Egypt, in which some three thousand years 
 ago, the swathed and mummied form beside whose 
 dust it lay looked upon her face, to indulge her vanity 
 or conceal the ravages of time. In the verses quoted, 
 we have a mirror well nigh as old, in which the prophet 
 shewed God's ancient people their likeness and their 
 sins ; and when I take it from the dead man's hand, 
 to hold it up before you, may not some of you recognise, 
 in the features which it presents, those of your own 
 state and character ? Are they not to be seen in such 
 words as these — " I spake unto you, rising up early, 
 but ye heard not; I called you, but je answered not:" 
 or these — " The harvest is past, the summer is ended, 
 and we are not saved," Are none of us the degenerate 
 plants of a noble vine? Are there none of us, who, 
 although trained to respect the Sabbath, have forgotten 
 the lesson of our childhood ? none with a holy picture 
 of their early days yet fresh in memory, that exhibits a 
 venerable father bending over the Bible, and, with his 
 family around him, leading the domestic devotions, who 
 have themselves no altar in their homes ; — who have 
 
78 THE GOSPEL IN EZEKIEL. 
 
 a house, but no household God ? Have none of us 
 defrauded our children, not of ancestral lands, but of 
 Avhat is infinitely more valuable, an ancestral piety ? 
 On the walls of many a house from which piety has 
 been expelled may we not read the words — " They did 
 worse than their fathers?" 
 
 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 disassociated from tender- 
 ness. Trusting more to drawing than 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 ten- 
 derly, lays it on his shoulder, and, retracing his steps, 
 returns homeward with joy, and invites his neighbours to 
 rejoice along with him. The " green pastures" where 
 he feeds his flock, the rocks under whose grateful shadows 
 they repose in noontide of the day, the flowery and 
 fragrant banks of the streams where they drink, are dis- 
 turbed by no scenes of violence nor sound of terror. 
 Yes ; Jesus rules his flock by love, not fear ; and amid 
 
MAN SUFFEKING. 79 
 
 the holy calm of sweet Sabbath mornings with some 
 sweet lamb in his arms, its mother at his side, and the 
 wdiole flock behind him ; gentle of countenance, he may- 
 be seen at their head, conducting them to pastures, all 
 sparkling with the dews of heaven, his rod their guard 
 — his voice their guide. Catching grace from his hps, 
 and tenderness from his looks, I would 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 ? Shall I sacrifice truth at 
 the shrine of a false politeness ? To hide what Jesus 
 revealed were not to be more tender, but only less faithful 
 than He. If the taste of these days were so degene- 
 rate as to frown down the honest preacher who should pro- 
 nounce that awful word " Hell," and leave him to vacant 
 pews, it were better, far better, that he should be as 
 " one crying in the wilderness," and getting no response 
 but the echo of empty walls, than that he should fail in 
 proclaiming " the Avhole counsel of God." Apart from 
 your interests, and looking exclusively at my own, how" 
 could I otherwise hold up these hands to say, " They 
 are clean from the blood of all men? " How otherwise 
 could the preacher turn from his unhappy head this 
 closing curse — " If any man shall take away from the 
 words of this book, God shall take away his part out of 
 the book of life." Regard to myself, to you — regard to 
 a gracious God, to a blessed Saviour — regard to all that 
 is precious, solemn, sacred, eternal — these now compel 
 me, although with trembling hands, to hft the veil. 
 
80 THE GOSPEL IN EZEKIEL. 
 
 If any are living without God, and Christ, and hope, 
 and prayer, I implore them to look here : turn to this 
 dreadful pit. How it gleams with fire ? How it resounds 
 with wails and woful groans ! Now, while we stand 
 together on its margin, or rather shrink back with hor- 
 ror, ponder, I pray you, the solemn question, " who can 
 lie down in everlasting burnings ? " 
 
 It is alleged by travellers, that the ostrich, when 
 hard pressed by its 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. God makes no mistakes ; and, guided as 
 the lower animals are in all their instincts by infinite 
 Wisdom, I fancy that a more correct knowledge of that 
 creature would shew, that whatever stupidity there may 
 be in the matter, lies not in the poor bird, but in man's 
 rash conclusion regarding it. Man trusts to hopes 
 which fail him : the spider never ; she commits her 
 weight to no thread which she has spun, till she has 
 pulled on it with her arms, and proved its strength. 
 Misfortune overtakes man unprovided and unprepared 
 for it : not winter the active bee. Amid the blaze of 
 Gospel light, man misses his road to heaven : in the 
 starless night, the swallows cleave their way through the 
 pathless air, returning to the window nook where they 
 were nestled ; and through the darkest depths of ocean 
 
MAN SUFFERING. 81 
 
 the fish steer their course back to the river where they 
 Avere spawned. Would we find folly, Solomon tells us 
 where to seek it : — " Folly," says the wise man, " is 
 bound up in the heart of a child : " and what is folded 
 np there, like leaves in their bud, blows out in the deeds 
 and habits of men. 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 an- 
 other 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 there were neither 
 a bed of death nor a bar of judgment. Be wise. Be 
 men. Look your danger in the face. Anticipate the 
 day when you shall behold a God in judgment and a 
 world in flames ; and 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 ; 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. 
 
 G 
 
GOD'S PUNITIVE JUSTICE. 
 
 T\Tiereforc I poured my fury upon them, and I scattered them among the 
 heathen, and they were dispersed through the countries : according 
 to their way, and according to their doings, I judged them. — 
 EzEKiEL xxxvi. 18, 19. 
 
 nPHE dank mossy sward is deceitful : its fresh and glossy 
 carpet invites the traveller to leave the rough moor- 
 land track; and, at the first step, horse and rider are buried 
 in the morass. The sea is deceitful. What rage, what 
 stormy passions sleep in that placid bosom ! and how 
 often — as Vice serves her used-up victims — does she 
 cast the bark that she received into her arms with sunny 
 smiles a wreck upon the shore. The morning is oft 
 deceitful. With bright promise of a brilliant day, it 
 lures us from home ; ere noon the sky begins to thicken, 
 the sun looks sickly ; the sluggish, heavily-laden clouds 
 gather upon the hill-tops, the landscape all around closes 
 in; the lark drops songless into her nest; the wind 
 rises, moaning and chill ; and at length — like adversities 
 gathering round the grey head of age — tempests, storm, 
 and rain thicken on the dying day. The desert is 
 deceitful : it mocks the traveller with its mirage. How 
 life kindles in his drooping eye, as he sees the playful 
 waves chase each other to the shore, and the plumes of 
 
god's punitive justice. 83 
 
 the palm waving in the watery mirror ! Faint, weary, 
 parched, perishing with thirst, he turns to bathe and 
 drink ; and exhausting what httle strength remains in 
 pursuit of a phantom, unhappy man ! he turns to die. 
 
 Deceitful above sward, or sea, or sky, or enchanted 
 desert, is the heart of man ; nor do I know a more 
 marked or melancholy proof of this than that afforded by 
 our light treatment of such weighty matters as sin and 
 judgment. There is no exaggeration in the prophet's 
 language — " The heart is deceitful above all things, and 
 desperately wicked." Put a case : — The flames have 
 broken out in some house, and the fire spreads fast ; 
 at midnight the roll of the drum wakens the sleeping 
 streets — a fearful sound ! soon followed by the hurried 
 yet measured tramp of armed men, and the rush of a 
 crowd, who, guided by a glare that illumines the sky, 
 and turns night into ruddy day, pour on the scene of 
 danger ; and where the flames, bursting out from cellar 
 to roof, shed their lurid light on glancing bayonets, 
 strong arms below are working as for life, and daring 
 men above, ever and anon lost among clouds of smoke, 
 turn the stream upon the hissing fire. In this stirring 
 scene, where is the tenant ? How is he engaged ? 
 They thunder at the door ; they call his name ; they 
 rear the ladder against the window ; and hark, how they 
 shout to him to wake, and haste, and flee, leaving house 
 and furniture to the flames. They listen, but no answer. 
 Alas ! he has perished ? Help has come too late ? No ; 
 he lives ; he has heard all that horrid din. He smells 
 the smoke ; he feels the floor grow hot, and hotter, 
 
84 THE GOSPEL IN EZEKIEL. 
 
 beneath his feet ; and amid the thick and suffocating air 
 the man gasps for breath. He has heard the cries of 
 kindly neighbom-s ; the glass of the window, as a strong 
 hand dashes it in, falls at his feet ; he sees the very- 
 ladder resting on its sill. Well ; has some ruffian hand 
 bound him neck and heel, that he does not move ? or 
 gagged him, that he gives back no answer ? Not at all. 
 The man is busy, very busy, ruminating on the question 
 how the fire began ; or with some pugnacious neighbour, 
 as insane as himself, he is engaged in keen discussion 
 about when and where it first broke out. Incredible ! 
 yet, incredible as that appears, so deceitful is this heart, 
 that something less excusable and more incredible still 
 daily meets us in the folly, shall I call it the insanity, of 
 thousands? God has sounded the alarum. Roused 
 from sleep — in some sense convinced of sin — in some 
 measure awake to danger — the dream of safety broken 
 in upon — warned that there is no time to spare — with 
 the flames of wrath above, beneath, around, blocking up 
 all the ordinary avenues of escape — the first, if not the 
 only question, should be, " Oh, Sirs, what shall I do ? 
 Where shall I turn ? Quick ; speak, this moment say, 
 ' What shall I do to be saved?'" Yet, when the ques- 
 tion, how to escape from the impending danger, is so 
 pressing, hours, days, years, are wasted in inquiries and 
 discussions such as this — How the race came to be 
 exposed to it. 
 
 We leave theologians to settle the metaphysics of 
 the Fall. Their business may be to know how we 
 became sinners ; our first, great, immediate busmess, is 
 
god's punitive justice. 85 
 
 to know how we are to be saved. Leave those who 
 have reached the land to settle how and on what reef 
 the vessel struck : the question with us, who still cling 
 to the shrouds, or are battling with the surf, is, how to 
 gain yonder blessed shore. In God's name, and by his 
 help, get the fire put out ; and then, when the flames 
 are quenched, it will be time enough to consider how 
 they were kindled. Tie the bleeding artery ; and when 
 life is saved, settle, if you can, how it was wounded. 
 When you have plucked the drowning man from the 
 water, and laid him on the bank, and the colour flushes 
 again on his cheek, and the pulse beats again at his 
 wrist, and speech again returns to these blue and livid 
 lips, then may you speculate on how he fell into the 
 flood. When, in spite of Satan, and by God's gracious 
 help, we have wakened some careless one to care about 
 his soul, it is one of the de^dl's wiles to distract his 
 attention by such subjects, and amid the mazes of their 
 inextricable labyrinths, to bewilder him, who should be 
 pressing on to salvation at the top of his speed. I 
 would have the man who is engaged in such an enter- 
 prise to give these questions in the meanwhile the go- 
 by — and for once to apply well, words so often applied 
 ill — " I will hear thee again on this matter:" "when 
 I have a more convenient season I will send for thee." 
 These are profound subjects ; worthy of the investiga- 
 tions of angels and exalted saints. And although we 
 could not apply to their study the words of Nehemiah — 
 " I have a great work to do ; therefore I cannot come 
 down," yet in saving ourselves and others, I am sure 
 
86 THE GOSPEL IN EZEKIEL. 
 
 that there is enough to do, without occupying our atten- 
 tion with unsatisfactory speculations on moral evil, and 
 the entrance of sin into our world. In the first place, 
 few have time and fewer still the talent for such studies. 
 In the second place, although we had, we should find 
 that, like going down into a coal-pit or the depths of 
 ocean, the further we descended the darker it grew : 
 and so we should fare no better than the fallen intelli- 
 gences described by Milton : — 
 
 " Others apart sate on a hill retired, 
 In thoughts more elevate, and reasoned high 
 Of Providence, foreknowledge, will, and fate — 
 Fixed fate, free will, foreknowledge absolute — 
 And found no end, in wandering mazes lost. 
 Of good and evil much they argued there — 
 Vain wisdom all, and false philosophy." 
 
 In the third place, we may postpone these speculations 
 till we enjoy the leisure of eternity, and can examine 
 subjects so obscure in the clear light of heaven. Mean- 
 while let it content us to be assured, that the extent 
 of our knowledge shall correspond to the height of 
 our elevation. As a man, from the bartisan of some 
 lofty tower, or the summit of some loftier mountain, 
 commands a wider landscape, and, tracing the course 
 of rivers, the ranges of hills, the outlines and indenta- 
 tions of the coast, obtains a far more extensive view 
 of these objects, and a much clearer conception of their 
 relative bearings, than he enjoyed in the plain below, 
 so, while some subjects, like the snowy summits of the 
 Himalayas or Andes, may remain for ever inaccessible, 
 
god's punitive justice. 87 
 
 yet, once raised to heaven, we shall understand many 
 mysteries, and solve many questions, of which it is 
 best now to say, " Such knowledge is too high for 
 me ; I cannot attain unto it." A child seated on the 
 shoulders of a man sees further than the man himself; 
 an infant standing on the top of a mountain very much 
 further than a giant at its base : and even so, the lisping 
 babe, whom Jesus has taken from a mother's bosom to 
 his own, excels in science the profoundest of philoso- 
 phers and in divinity the greatest of divines. In heaven 
 we shall see as we are seen and know as we are known ; 
 there " the light of the moon shall be as the light of the 
 sun, and the light of the sun shall be sevenfold." 
 
 In considering at greater length the punitive justice 
 of God, 1 shall not attempt to offer any full or satisfac- 
 tory explanation of what is beyond our understanding. 
 How a wise, holy, good, and gracious God permitted 
 what he certainly could have prevented — permitted sin 
 to exist at all — is a mystery now and may remain one 
 for ever. With others I might contribute some attempts 
 to solve that difficulty ; but I believe that, like all pre- 
 ceding efforts, they would throw no more light on this 
 vast and mysterious subject than a candle sheds on a 
 widely extended landscape veiled in mist or wrapped in 
 midnight darkness. Amid these awful and often pain- 
 ful mysteries, we can only cling to our holy faith, and 
 cherish an unshaken confidence in this, that the Judge 
 of all the earth doeth right. God is a king who can do 
 no wrong. 
 
 To the man, then, who asks. Why am I born with 
 
88 THE GOSPEL IN EZEKIEL. 
 
 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 ? 
 If in reply to the query — " What mean ye, that ye use 
 this proverb concerning the land of Israel : the fathers 
 have eaten sour grapes, and the children's teeth are set 
 on edge ? " The Bible says, " As I live, saith the Lord 
 God, ye shall not have occasion any longer to use this 
 proverb in Israel," why, then, do I suffer for Adam's 
 sin ? Why, most virulent of poisons ! should this sin 
 infect the blood of a hundred generations ? Why should 
 I sufier for a crime committed six thousand years ago, 
 and to which I no more consented than to the murder 
 of Abel, or the massacre in Bethlehem ? 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 is rent, and ex- 
 piring Time, echoing the cry of the cross, exclaims, " It 
 is finished," it shall be seen that righteousness and judg- 
 ment are the pillars of Jehovah's throne — that " there 
 is no unrighteousness with God." These questions open 
 up an abyss respecting which man's business is to adore 
 and not explore ; and to them, meanwhile, I have no 
 other answer than the gi-eat Apostle's, " Who art thou, 
 man ! that repliest against thy Maker ? Shall the 
 thing made say to him who made it, why hast thou 
 made me thus?" 
 
 But although the permission of sin is a mystery, the 
 fact of its punishment is no mystery at all ; and, while 
 
god's punitive justice. 89 
 
 every answer to the question, How did God permit sin? 
 leaves us unsatisfied, to my mind nothing is plainer than 
 this, that, whatever was his reason for permitting it to 
 exist, God could not permit it to exist unpunished. In 
 proof of that, I observe — 
 
 I. The truth of God requires the punishment of sin. 
 
 " Take now thy son, thine only son Isaac, whom 
 thou lovest, and offer him for a burnt-offering on a 
 mountain that I will tell thee of." Startling announce- 
 ment! It is not possible to suppose that the alarmed, 
 amazed, confounded patriarch received it at once — 
 believed it without a dreadful struggle. No; there 
 never rung from mailed hand or battle-axe such a stun- 
 ning blow. What father doubts that it made Abraham 
 stagger, and brought to his knees this man of stoutest 
 faith ? I think I hear him saying, " Take Isaac — take my 
 son, the son of my love, the son of promise, the miraculous 
 gift of heaven — offer Isaac for a burnt-offering ! Surely I 
 dream. What a dreadful fancy ? Did my ears deceive 
 me ? No : there was a voice ; I heard it. It sounded Hke 
 the voice of God : but could it be so ? Was it for this that 
 angels announced his birth ? Was it to be thus rudely 
 shaken off, that the old stock was made to blossom, and 
 this sweet fruit to grow on a withered tree ? Although 
 this trembling hand could plunge the knife into the bosom 
 of my son, would it not be most honourable to God 
 to conclude that some demon, with false and wicked 
 mimicry, had borrowed his voice to lure me into a foul 
 
90 THE GOSrEL IN EZEKIEL. 
 
 and monstrous crime, and, getting me to embriie these 
 hands in Isaac's blood, by this horrid sacrifice to quench 
 the hght of heaven and the hope of earth — in this 
 sweet bud to crush an unblown salvation and unborn 
 Saviour?" Now, whatever room Abraham might have 
 had for doubt — whatever struggle faith had with unbe- 
 lief in that father's heart — we have no room nor pre- 
 tence to doubt that, however terrible its punishment, 
 God has threatened to punish sin, and, true to his word, 
 shall pour out his fury on the sinner's head. Christ is ' 
 offered ; and ye cannot escape, if ye neglect this great 
 salvation. 
 
 Had that truth been written only in one solitary 
 passage — within the whole compass of the Bible had 
 there been but a single line to that effect — we might 
 have succeeded in persuading ourselves that its sense 
 was mistaken, and its terms misunderstood. But is it so? 
 Ah ! no : there is text upon text, " hne upon line, 
 precept upon precept, here a little and there a little." 
 God has recorded his irrevocable resolution, not in one, 
 but in a hundred passages ; and reiterated in a thousand 
 ways the awful sentence — " The soul that sinneth, it 
 shall die." 
 
 Some have fancied that they honour God most 
 when, sinking all other attributes in mercy — indiscrimi- 
 nating mercy — they represent him as embracing the 
 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 
 
god's punitive justice. 91 
 
 said so before them. It is the identical doctrine that 
 damned this world. The serpent said to the woman, 
 " Thou shalt not surely die." Are your hopes of sal- 
 vation resting on such a baseless fancy ? If so, you 
 have not surely 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 at a price still more costly 
 than was paid for sinners upon the cross of Calvary. Is 
 there something dearer than life to me ? — to God there 
 was something more precious than the blood even of his 
 Son. I can part with my life, but not my honour ; — 
 and God could part with his Son, but not with his truth. 
 But let sin go unpunished, either in person or substitute ; 
 this saves the sinner — no doubt of that ; but at what 
 price ? You save the creature's life at the expense of 
 the Creator's honour. Your scheme exalts man ; but 
 far more than man is exalted is God degraded. By it 
 no man is lost ; but there is a greater loss — something 
 more awful happens. The truth of God is lost ; and in 
 that loss his crown is spoiled of its topmost jewel, and 
 the throne of the universe shaken to its 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 it 
 stood on, and stood on— as I flattered myself— stedfast, 
 immovable. For, however awful the threatenings in 
 his Word may be, if God is not true to them, what 
 
92 THE GOSPEL IN EZEKIEL. 
 
 security have I that he will be true to its gracious 
 promises ? The rod which bends in one direction will 
 prove as supple in another; and, since the truth of 
 a Heaven stands upon the very same foundation as 
 the truth of a Hell — the one resting upon the promise, 
 the other upon the threatening, and both alike upon the 
 simple word of God — why, then, the scheme which 
 quenches the fears of the wicked extinguishes the hopes 
 of the just. If he that belie veth not shall not be con- 
 demned, farewell — a long and sad farewell — to the 
 confidence I cherished, that he who believeth shall be 
 saved. I cannot consent that you should thus pull 
 down my heaven, to build with its ruins, not a palace 
 to justice, but an asylum for crime. Away with such 
 a scheme. It is fatal to the peace of God's people. It 
 is essentially blasphemous and dishonouring to their God. 
 It makes the true God a liar. Making him do wrong, 
 how can it be right? making him untrue, it must be 
 itself untrue. We reject it with horror. It is a snare 
 of the Evil One ; and happy would we be to set loose 
 its captives, and send them away singing, as on wings 
 of faith they soared to heaven, " My soul is escaped as 
 a bird out of the fowler's snare : the snare is broken, 
 and I am escaped." 
 
 II. The love of God requires that sin should be 
 punished. 
 
 You may start at this. Love require punishment? 
 How strange ! Had we said the justice, or holiness, or 
 
god's punitive justice. 93 
 
 purity of God, we, no doubt, should have used an 
 expression less startling, and more sure to command a 
 ready assent. These attributes present strong positions, 
 within which it may be admitted that we could entrench 
 this doctrine, — impregnable to all assaults. On that very 
 account it is that in this brief discussion we pass these 
 by, and, confident in the strength of our cause, select, of 
 very purpose, although some may think unwisely, what 
 they deem the weakest argument and point of defence. 
 Now I find one of the strongest and most affecting 
 proofs that the impenitent and unbelieving shall not go 
 unpunished, just in that tenderest of all subjects, the love 
 of God ; and with the man who uses this love to prove 
 that sin shall go unpunished, I think that I could close ; 
 and having wrested that weapon from his hand, take ofi" 
 the head of his argument with his own sword. I say 
 of this love of God, what David said of Goliath's sword, 
 " there is none like that — give it me." 
 
 Lend me your candid attention, and it will not be 
 diSicult to convince you, that the love of God — which is 
 a sevenfold shield to the believer — not merely consents 
 to, but demands, the condemnation, as it aggravates the 
 guilt, of the impenitent. 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 joy of all honest citizens, he 
 
94 THE GOSPEL IN EZEKIEL. 
 
 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 when the law is left 
 to take its course, 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 
 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 and purity of a thousand happy 
 families lie open to foul attack. Love for those who 
 have the best claim on a sovereign's protection, requires 
 that justice take her course, and the guilty die. That 
 the community may live in peace, each man sitting 
 beneath his own vine and fig tree — that the citizen may 
 feel safe in the bosom of his family — that streets may be 
 safe to walk on — that beds may be safe to lie in — that 
 our land may be a country fit to live in — crime must be 
 punished. The magistrate who would reward obedience 
 must punish rebellion ; nor can he be a praise and pro- 
 tection to them that do good, but by making himself a 
 terror to them that do evil. 
 
 There are scenes of domestic suffering which present 
 another, no less convincing, and more touching analogy. 
 I refer to those distressing cases where natural affection 
 
god's punitive justice. 95 
 
 yields to the holiest parental duty ; and where, although 
 she thereby inflicts on her own bosom a wound balms 
 cannot heal and time never closes, Love seizes the knife, 
 and, lest the canker should extend to the other branches, 
 lops off a once pleasant bough from the family tree. It 
 has happened that, from love and regard to the interests 
 of his other children — to save them from a brother's con- 
 tamination — a kind parent has felt constrained to banish 
 his son, and forbid him a father's house. How sad to 
 think that he may be lost ! The dread of that goes like 
 a knife into the heart ; yet, bitter truth ! painful conclu- 
 sion ! 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, dem.ands 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 their 
 other children, rather than punish one ; and in conse- 
 quence of this I have seen sin, like a fever, infect every 
 member of the family, and vice ferment and spread till 
 it had leavened the whole lump. Divine Love, how- 
 ever, is no blind Divinity : and that love being as wise 
 as tender, sinners may rest assured, that out of mere 
 pity to them, God will neither sacrifice the interests, nor 
 peril the happiness of his people. Even bleeding, dying 
 redeeming love with her own hand shall bolt the door 
 of heaven, and from its happy, holy precincts, exclude all 
 
96 THE GOSPEL IN EZEKIEL. 
 
 that could hurt or defile. Stern words these ! and when 
 Love puts on her armour, to fight, what hope for the 
 man who has compelled her to be his enemy ? Having 
 armed Her against you, where now are you to fly? 
 Look at this scene of judgment. He who died on the 
 cross occupies the throne. Love incarnate presides at 
 that august tribunal, and I see the print of the nail on 
 the very hand which waves away the lost into perdition. 
 The voice which so often invited the impenitent now 
 condemns and commands them to depart. Calmly, 
 serenely anticipating that day. Faith says, "It is God 
 that justifieth ; who is he that condemneth ? " But if 
 Jesus Christ condemn, who shall justify? If He spare 
 not, who shall save? From the wrath of the Lamb 
 which impenitence has changed into the wrath of a Lion, 
 despair turns away a face covered with the blackness of 
 darkness, to wring her hands and cry, " The great day 
 of his wrath is come, and who shall be able to stand ? " 
 If the Lamb and love of God be our adversary, our case 
 is desperate. Oh! take warning in Time, that you 
 perish not for Eternity. " Kiss the Son, lest he be 
 angry, and ye perish from the way, when his wrath is 
 kindled but a little." " Blessed are all they that put 
 theu: trust in him." 
 
 HI. Unless sin is to be awfully punished, the language 
 of Scripture appears extravagant. 
 
 To a man of tender feelings, next to the suffering is 
 the sight of pain. Nor, but for yom' good, would I ask 
 
god's punitive justice. 97 
 
 any one to cast even a hurried glance on those appalHng 
 scenes which the Bible describes. But if men, for the 
 mere gratification of taste — if the lovers of the fine arts 
 — crowd to some picture of the damned — a scene of 
 the last Judgment painted by a master's hand, where 
 hideous demons torment shrieking victims, and drag the 
 seven deadly Sins down into the gulf of fire — when, as 
 far as the heavens do the earth, the preacher's object 
 transcends the painter's, and the salvation of souls the 
 gratification of taste — when my object is not to please 
 your fancy, but to profit your souls — shall that be con- 
 demned in the pulpit which is so much applauded in 
 the painting ? Where the highest interests are at stake, 
 shall the preacher be judged harsh, and shewing no 
 regard to feeling and propriety, because I ask you to 
 turn your eyes on this spectacle — on the worm that 
 never dieth, and this fire that is never quenched ! Oh ! 
 let me beseech, implore you, to read with tears and 
 prayers those passages of Scripture that reveal the miseries 
 of the lost. Blot not from your minds what you can- 
 not blot out of the Book of God. 
 
 What is so sad — what does so strongly and mourn- 
 fully illustrate the deceitfulness of this wicked heart — as 
 the entertainment which men extract from the solemnities 
 of judgment ? Only think of those, who turn away 
 with ill-disguised distaste from the very mention of such 
 subjects in the house of God, crowding a brilKant saloon, 
 to hear this same judgment set to music, and listen, 
 with loud and rapturous applause, to the hired musi- 
 cians, who give a bold (shall I say profane ?) imitation 
 
 H 
 
98 THE GOSPEL IN EZEKIEL. 
 
 of the trumpet that rends the grave, of the thunders 
 that announce the Judge, the song of adoring angels, 
 the shouts of ransomed saints, and — for anything I 
 know — the despairing shrieks of the damned ! Think 
 of criminals leaving the bar to set their sentence to music ? 
 AVhen their life is a matter of hours, and its few remaining 
 sands should be given to prayer and the Holy Bible, 
 think of felons shut up in a cell and covering its walls 
 with a wretched caricature of their judge, the gallows, 
 the mighty crowd, the victim turning round on his cord, 
 with eyeballs that protrude beneath the white cap, and 
 limbs convulsed in the spasm and agony of death ! 
 
 The sufferings and misery which await the impeni- 
 tent and unbelieving, God has painted in most appalling 
 colours. They are such that to save us from them, his 
 Son descended from these heavens and expired upon a 
 cross. They are such that when Paul thought of the 
 lost, he wept like a woman. A dauntless man, who 
 shook his chain in the face of kings — whose spirit no 
 sufferings could subdue, and whose heart no dangers 
 could appal — who stood as unmoved amid a thousand 
 perils as ever rock amid a thousand billows — he could 
 not contemplate the fate of the wicked without the 
 deepest emotion : his tears fell fast and thick upon the 
 page where he wrote, " of whom I have told you often, 
 and now tell you even weeping, whose god is their belly, 
 whose end is destruction." 
 
 What horror did David feel at the sight and fate 
 of sinners? With his face turned up to heaven joii 
 see a blind man approach the edge of an awful precipice : 
 
god's punitive justice. 99 
 
 every step brings him nearer — still nearer, the brink. 
 Now he reaches it : he stands on the grassy edge. Oh 
 for an arm to reach him — for a voice to warn him — for 
 a blow to send him staggering back upon the ground ! 
 But 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 has taken hold of you. And such 
 were David's feelings when he contemplated the fate of 
 the wicked : " Horror hath taken hold upon me, because 
 of the wicked that forsake thy law : rivers of waters run 
 down mine eyes, because they keep not thy law, 
 God." 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 a 
 Saviour down. Had that wrath been either tolerable 
 or terminable, the sword of Justice had never been dyed 
 with the blood nor sheathed in the body of her noblest 
 victim ; and if there is a need be for the lightest cross 
 that lies on a good man's lot, how great the necessity 
 for that upon which the Saviour died ! God 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 to the man 
 that striveth with his maker !" " Who can lie down in 
 everlasting burnings ?" " The wicked shall be cast into 
 hell and all the nations that forget God." 
 
 Rather than that you should perish, even thus, although 
 I should pain, I would persuade you. Oh ! there are terrors 
 
100 THE GOSPEL IN EZEKIEL. 
 
 enough in the Bible to make a man's hair stand on end. 
 Surely, were God but for one moment to let us hear the 
 wail and shrieking of the lost, how would that sound, 
 more terrible than Egypts' cry, rouse the student at his 
 books, arrest the foot of dancer in the ball, stop armies 
 in the very fury of the fight. Calling a sleeping world 
 from their beds, it would bend the most stubborn knees, 
 and extort from all this one loud cry, " Lord save me, 
 I perish ! " Still it is not terror which is the power 
 — the might}^ 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 
 element is love. No man yet was ever driven to heaven : 
 he must be drawn to it. I wish to draw you. The 
 Gospel has in it elements of terror, no doubt. But it 
 is like our atmosphere — occasionally riven by the thunder, 
 and illumined by the fatal flash — at times the path of 
 the stealthy pestilence — charged with elements of de- 
 struction, and impregnated with the seeds of disease ; but 
 how much more a great magazine of health, filled with 
 the most harmonious sounds, fragrant with the sweetest 
 odours, hung with golden drapery, the pathway of sun- 
 beams, the womb of showers, the feeder of fertilising 
 streams, the parent of harvests, and the fountain of all 
 Earth's life ! And, just as in that atmosphere, which 
 God has wrapped around this world, there is much more 
 health than sickness, much more food than famine, much 
 more life than death, so in the Bible there is much more 
 love than terror. 
 
 The terror is not only subordinate to love, but suh- 
 
god's punitive justice. 101 
 
 servient to it. God, indeed, tells us of liell, 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 promi- 
 nence to Jesus, the cross of Calvary, 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 any creature's pain, had never turned 
 our eyes to the horrible gulf unless for the voice that 
 cries, " Deliver from going down to the pit, for I have 
 found a ransom." We had never heard of sin had there 
 been no Saviour. We had never heard of hell had there 
 been no heaven. " Sufficient for the day is the evil 
 thereof;" and never had Bible light been flashed before 
 the eyes of the sleeping felon to wake him from his 
 happy dream, but that he might see the smiling form of 
 Mercy, and hear her, as she says with finger pointing 
 the way, " Behold, I have set before thee an open 
 doort" 
 
GOD'S MOTIVE IN SALVATION. 
 
 I do this for mine lioly name's sake. — Ezekiel xxxvi. 22. 
 
 'INHERE 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 — that river whose associations carry us upward to 
 the beginning of all human history — upon whose banks, 
 in the sepulchres of forgotten kings, stand the proudest 
 monuments of human vanity — a river, the very name of 
 which recals some of the grandest scenes that have 
 been acted on the stage of time. The Nile is Egypt : 
 in the course of long ages it has deposited her soil, 
 and by an annual overflow it maintains her fertility. 
 The limits of that flood are the limits of life and verdure ; 
 and without her Nile — that great artery of vegetable 
 life — she would be another Sahara — a vast expanse of 
 burning and barren sands. Humbled as she now is, let 
 this gift of heaven be improved, as of old, by the skill 
 
god's motive in salvation. 103 
 
 and industry of her inhabitants, and, vivified by a free 
 and Christian government, Egypt would rise from the 
 sepulchres of her kings, and take her place once more 
 in the van of nations. The Truth shall prove her resur- 
 rection. The Gospel shall restore her to life and pros- 
 perity ; and the day is coming when that land — rich 
 now only in memories of the past, famous now only for 
 her temples and gods, her pyramids and dusty tombs, for 
 her throne of the Pharaohs, for her sacred stream, for the 
 wonders God wrought of old in the field of Zoan, and, 
 most dear above all to Christian hearts, for the asylum 
 she opened to an infant Saviour — shall fulfil a noble des- 
 tiny. Her day approaches. These prophecies regarding 
 her wait their accomplishment — " The Lord shall be 
 known in Eg^^Dt;" and, "Blessed be Egypt my people." 
 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 attempt ; and when — forcing his 
 way upwards through many difficulties, and travelling 
 along its banks, from where, by many mouths, it dis- 
 gorged its waters into the sea, till its ample volume had 
 shrunk into the narrowness of a mountain stream — our 
 hardy countryman at length stood beside the long sought 
 for fountain, this achievement won for him an immortal 
 reputation. I can fancy the pride with which, first of 
 travellers, he looked on that mysterious fountain. How 
 sweet its waters tasted ! How he enjoyed his triumph, 
 
104 THE GOSPEL IN EZEKIEL. 
 
 as he sat down by the cradle of a river, which had fed 
 the millions of successive generations, and in days long 
 gone by had saved in famine the race which gave a 
 Eedeemer to the world ! 
 
 Now, what this river, which turns barren sands into 
 the richest soil, is to Egypt, the Gospel of Jesus Christ 
 is to the world. It flows through the earth, the " river 
 of the waters of life." AVhether, transplanted to heaven, 
 they now bloom there, or are still in the nurseries of 
 earth, every plant of grace owes to the Gospel its 
 existence and renown. Observe, however, that — 
 although the parent of those harvests which angels shall 
 reap and the heavens receive — no more in the case of 
 the Gospel than of the Nile does the bounty of heaven 
 supersede human exertions. No ; but on earth's im- 
 provement of heaven's bounty the blessings of both are 
 commonly suspended. " The hand of the diligent maketli 
 rich : " and as it is according to the industry or indo- 
 lence of the inhabitants that Egypt's river flows through 
 barren sands or waters smiling fields, so is it with the 
 Gospel. It is a blessing only where it is sedulously and 
 prayerfully improved; and when, like the overflowings 
 of the Nile, which are conducted along their channels to 
 irrigate its banks, the " living waters," through the use 
 of means, are turned on our hearts and habits. *' Not 
 the hearers of the law are just before God, but the doers 
 of the law shall be justified." 
 
 Now, if it is interesting to trace a Nile, or Ganges, 
 or Amazon to its source, how much more interesting to 
 a Christian to explore the stream of eternal life, and 
 
god's motive in salvation. 105 
 
 trace it upward till we have reached its fountain. Bruce 
 discovered — or thought he had discovered — the springs 
 of Egypt's river : he found them away among cloud- 
 capped mountains, at an elevation of many thousand 
 feet above the plains they watered. Great men have 
 been born in lowly circumstances ; but all great rivers 
 boast of a lofty descent. It is when the traveller has 
 left smiling valleys far beneath him, and toiling along 
 rugged glens, and, pressing through deep mountain 
 gorges, he at length reaches the chill 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. But the river of such a lofty birth- 
 place is only a humble image of salvation. How high 
 its source ! " He shewed me a pure river of water of 
 life, clear as crystal, proceeding out of the throne of 
 God and of the Lamb." The stream of mercy flows 
 from the throne of the Eternal ; and here we seem to 
 stand by its mysterious fountain : in contemplating the 
 words of the text, we look upon its spring — " I do this 
 for mine holy name's sake." 
 
 In now entering on the question, What moved God 
 to save man ? let us — 
 
 I. Attend to the expression " my name's sake." 
 
 This is a comprehensive, a most comprehensive 
 term. It indicates much more than what, in common 
 language, is involved in a name. That may convey 
 
106 THE GOSPEL IN EZEKIEL. 
 
 much meaning. " Adam," for instance, means " clay ;" 
 made of earth, our first parent receives a name that 
 reminds him of his humble origin. " Isaac," again, 
 means "laughter;" and in her son's name God re- 
 buked Sarah for the unbelieving merriment with which, 
 when listening with a woman's curiosity behind the 
 door, she heard of her coming child, and how fruit in 
 her should grow on such an old and withered stock. 
 "Moses," again, means "drawn from the water;" and 
 that name reminded him, who was to deliver others, 
 how he himself had been delivered from death. And 
 — to come to the name that is above every name, — in 
 "Jesus," our Lord received a name that revealed his 
 office and anticipated his work — the angel said, " Thou 
 shalt call his name Jesus, for he shall save his people 
 from their sins." Commonly, however a man's name 
 sheds no light on his properties, character, works, or 
 life. It is nothing more than an appellation which he 
 receives in infancy, and receives — since the flower is 
 still in the bud — before his fortune can be told, or his 
 character even guessed at. " What's in a name ?" Its 
 chief end is just to prevent confusion by distinguishing 
 one person from another. 
 
 The name of God, however, 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 — if paraphrased — may his arms be around 
 thee ; may his wisdom guide thee ; may his power support 
 
god's motive in salvation. 107 
 
 thee ; the bounty of God supply thy wants ; the mercy 
 of God forgive thy sins ; may the shield of heaven 
 cover, and all its blessings crown thy head. In the 
 days of miracles, again, the name of Jesus carried with 
 it the idea of his authority, and of the efficacy of his 
 power. Uttered by the lips of faith, it was a word of 
 resistless might. It healed disease, shed light on the 
 darkness of the blind, and breathed life into the cold form 
 of death ; it mastered devils, controlled the powers of 
 hell, and commanded into immediate obedience the 
 wildest elements of nature. Like Pharaoh's signet on 
 Joseph's hand, he who used that name in faith, was 
 gifted for the time with his master's power ; so that what- 
 ever he loosed on earth was loosed in heaven ; and what- 
 ever he bound on earth was bound in heaven. Standing 
 over a cripple — one impotent from his mother's womb — 
 Peter said, " In the name of Jesus of Nazareth, rise up 
 and walk." And lo ! deformity instantly changes into 
 strength and gracefulness ; he who had never stood erect 
 till now, bounds from the earth, and, in the joyful play 
 of new-born faculties, walking, leaping, dancing, singing, 
 he ushers the Apostles into the astonished temple. 
 Powerful as was this name when used by faith, yet on 
 unbelieving lips no name more useless ; like a residuum 
 from which the spirit has been evaporated, or a body 
 bereft of life, it possessed no virtue or power at all. 
 There was no charm in the mere name, either to pour 
 light on a blind man's eyeball, or restore vigour to a 
 withered limb. See how Sceva's seven sons learn that 
 
108 THE GOSPEL IN EZEKIEL. 
 
 to their cost ! Profaning this holy name, and employing 
 it in the black arts of witchcraft, they use it to cast out 
 a devil ; and — themselves Satan's servants — they find 
 that " Beelzebub casts not out devils." " Jesus I know, 
 and Paul I know," says the Evil One, " but who are 
 ye ? " Hell disowns their authority : the Demon defies 
 them ; he leaps on them with the fury of a savage beast ; 
 and — theirs the fate of the engineer who is hoised on 
 his own petard — they are driven off the field, covered 
 w'ith disgrace and wounds. 
 
 Again in Micah iv. 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, there will I 
 come unto thee and bless thee," the expression bears 
 yet another meaning : it stands for God's ordinances 
 and worship — rearing, as it were, by the hands of faith, 
 a holy temple out of the rudest edifice, and converting 
 into heaven-consecrated churches those rocky fastnesses 
 and lonel}'' moors where our fathers worshipped 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, which directly or remotely 
 afiects the divine honour and glory ; whatever touches, 
 to use the words of our catechism, " His titles, attri- 
 butes, ordinances, word or works ; or anything whereby 
 God maketh himself known." 
 
god's motive in salvation. 109 
 
 II. We are to understand that the motive which moved 
 God to save man was regard to his own glory. 
 
 " Where is boasting then ? " we may ask with the 
 Apostle, and leave him to answer, " it is excluded." 
 If salvation is not of merit, but of mercy — not of earth, 
 but heaven — not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, 
 nor of the will of man, but of God — " Not by might nor 
 by power, but my Spirit, saith the Lord of Hosts," 
 boasting is, and must be, " excluded." Grace glorifies 
 man, no doubt; but for what purpose? that he may 
 glorify God. It saves man, but saves him that he may 
 sing, not his own praises, but a Saviour's. It exalts 
 man, but exalts him, that, like an exhalation, sun-drawn 
 from the ground, and raised to heaven, each of us may 
 form a sparkling drop in the bow, which encircles the 
 head that God crowns with glory, and man once crowned 
 with thorns. Even our Lord himself, although in a 
 sense the " fellow " of his Father, and reckoning it no 
 robbery to make himself equal with God, kept his eye 
 steadily on that lofty mark. His Father's, not his own 
 glory, was the burden of Jesus' prayers and the end of 
 Jesus' sufferings : born for it in a stable, he bled for it 
 on a cross, and was buried for it in a sepulchre. When, 
 on the solemn eve of his last and most awful sufferings, 
 our champion buckled on his armour for the closing 
 struggle, ere he joined battle with men, death, and him 
 that had the power of death, that is, the devil, was not 
 this his prayer — " Father, glorify thy Son, that thy Son 
 also may glorify thee?" Dutiful Son! Pattern of 
 
110 THE GOSPEL IN EZEKIEL. 
 
 filial piety ! Thou didst forget thine own in a mother's 
 sufferings ; and wast more concerned for thy father's 
 honour than thine own. 
 
 This doctrine, that God saves men for his own glory, 
 is a grand, and very precious truth ; yet there is a way 
 of stating it which seems as offensive as it is unscriptural. 
 Concave mirrors magnify the features nearest to them 
 into undue and monstrous size ; and in common mirrors, 
 ill cast and of uneven surface, the most beautiful face is 
 distorted into deformity. Now there are some good men 
 whose minds appear to be of such a cast and character. 
 Not exhibiting the truths of the Bible in their proper 
 harmony and proportions, they represent Jesus Christ in 
 this matter of salvation as affected by no motive what- 
 ever but a regard to his Father's glory, and even God 
 himself as moved only by respect to his own. Excluding 
 from their view the commiseration and love of God, or 
 reducing these into shrunk and very small dimensions, 
 they magnify one doctrine at the expense of another, 
 and, thereby go to annihilate some of the most sacred 
 and tender ties which bind a believer to his God. Now, 
 it appears to us that this ill-proportioned theology — this 
 doctrine that the only motive which God had in re- 
 demption was a regard to his own glory — receives no 
 countenance from the Bible. Does not God " pity us, 
 as a father pitieth his children?" Taught to address 
 him "by the endearing appellation of Father, Oh, what 
 affection, love, and loving-kindness, are expressed in a 
 term so tender ! And if, on seeing some earthly father, 
 whom a child's scream has alarmed, rush up the blazing 
 
god's motive in salvation. Ill 
 
 stair, or leap into the boiling flood, it were wrong, it 
 were cruel, it were a shame, to suspect him of being 
 dead to affection — of being moved to this noble act by 
 no other motive than a regard to his own honour — by 
 no other voice than the calm command of duty — how 
 much more wrong were it to harbour such unworthy- 
 suspicions of " our Father who is in heaven." 
 
 I know that we should approach a theme so high 
 with the deepest reverence. It becomes us to speak 
 on such a subject, and, indeed, on anything that touches 
 the secret movements of the Divine mind, with pro- 
 found humility. Yet, reasoning from the form of the 
 shadow to the object which projects it — from man to 
 God — I would venture to say, that it is with the Divine 
 Being as with us, when we are moved to a single action 
 by the combined influence of various motives. To borrow 
 an example from the place I fill : — The minister appears 
 before his assembled people to preach ; and, in doing so, 
 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, a regard to God's glory, and regard to 
 man's good : these, like the air, water, light, heat, elec- 
 tricity, gravitation, which act together in the process of 
 vegetation, may all combine to form one sermon. They 
 are present, and act not as conflicting but concurring 
 motives in the preacher's breast. This difference, how- 
 ever, there is between us and God, that although our 
 motives — like the Rhone, which is formed of two rivers, 
 the one pure as the sky above it, the other turbid and 
 discoloured — are ever mixtures of good and evil, all the 
 
112 THE GOSPEL IN EZEKIEL. 
 
 emotions of the Divine mind, all the influences that 
 move God to action, are of the purest nature. 
 
 God cherishes, indeed, such respect to his own glory, 
 that, had the salvation of the world been incompatible with 
 that end — this world had been left to perish. Dreadful 
 thought ! How should we adore and extol the wisdom 
 which discovered a way to harmonise the glory of God, 
 and the good of men ! He was undoubtedly moved by 
 regard to both, and it is an imperfect vision that sees 
 but one motive. This subject resembles those binary 
 stars which appear to the naked eye as but one, yet when 
 brought into the field of the telescope, resolve themselves 
 into two orbs, that roll in their brightness and beauty 
 around a common but invisible centre. Blessed be his 
 holy name ! " He so loved the world, that he gave his only 
 begotten Son, that whosoever believeth on Him should 
 not perish but should have everlasting life." " He com- 
 mendeth his love to us, in that, while we were yet sin- 
 ners, Christ died for us." Never, therefore, let us exalt 
 this doctrine of the divine glory, at the expense of the 
 divine love. His love to sinners is his mightiest, his 
 heart-softening, as an old writer called it, his heart-break- 
 ing argument ; and it were doing God, his blessed Gos- 
 pel, and our own souls the greatest injustice, if we should 
 overlook the love that gives Divinity its name, and which, 
 sending in his Son, a Saviour from the Father's bosom, 
 was eulogised by an Apostle as possessed of a "height, 
 and depth, and breadth, and length, which passeth know- 
 ledge." 
 
god's motive in salvation. 113 
 
 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 attri- 
 butes of the Godhead. 
 
 The truth is, that God saves man from much the same 
 reasons as at first he made him. AVhat moved God to 
 make him? The ball rolls forward over the ground, 
 and the ship moves onward through the sea, by virtue 
 of an external force — the hand projects the one, and the 
 wind, caught in her sails, impels the other. But no 
 foreign agent imparted an impulse to creating power ; 
 nor did any one command or compel God to make man. 
 It is his prerogative to command — the creature's duty 
 to obey. Why, then, did He make man ? Did He need 
 to make him? Was it with Him as with some lordly 
 master, who depends for his comfort on his servants ? — 
 as with a king, whose glory lies in the number of his 
 attendants or the brilliancy of his court ? — as with the 
 greatest general, who owes his triumphs to the bravery 
 of his soldiers, and who, however great his military 
 genius, would win no battles and wear no laurels with- 
 out an army at his back ? Assuredly not. " Our 
 goodness extendeth not to thee ; " our wealth makes 
 God no richer, our praise makes Him no happier. 
 " Hear, my people, and I will speak. I will take no 
 bullock out of thy house, or he-goat out of thy fold ; for 
 every beast of the forest is mine, and the cattle upon a 
 thousand hills. I know all the fowls of the mountains 
 and the wild beasts of the field are mine. If I were 
 
 I 
 
114 THE GOSPEL IN EZEKIEL. 
 
 hungry, I would not tell thee, for the world is mine, 
 and the fulness thereof." 
 
 What moved God, then, to make man, or, to enlarge 
 the question so as to embrace creation, when 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, as in a past eternity, 
 God dwelt alone in silent, solemn, awful, but complacent 
 solitude, what moved Him to make creatures at all, with 
 these bright worlds, suns, and systems, to garnish the 
 empty heavens, and people a lonely universe ? These 
 are the deep things of God, and it becomes us with our 
 finite and fallible minds to approach them modestly. 
 If the great fabric of nature, if the machine of provi- 
 dence, with its wheels rolling within wheels in many 
 and complicated parts — if these, and the scheme of 
 redemption, are full of mysteries inscrutable — how much 
 more the vast mind that designed and executed them ! 
 The meanest of his works are full of Himself, and of 
 mysteries which, when apprehended, are not compre- 
 hended. I adore divinity in a humble daisy. And if 
 in the creature, that lives for a day and dances in a sun- 
 beam, I see the wisdom that made the sun — how can I 
 lay aside the telescope by which I have held communion 
 with the distant heavens, or the microscope that shews 
 a world of wonders in one drop of water, without con- 
 cluding that, if the works of God are so wonderful, 
 how much more wonderful his own infinite and eternal 
 mind? 
 
god's motive in salvation. 115 
 
 "These are thy glorious works, Parent of good, 
 Almighty ! thine this universal frame, 
 Thus wondrous fair : thyself how wondrous then 
 Unspeakable ! who sitt'st above these heavens. 
 To us invisible, or dimly seen 
 In these thy lowest works ; yet these declare 
 Thy goodness beyond thought, and power divine." 
 
 By turning the eye inward, however, on our own 
 mind, we can form some conception of the mind of 
 Divinity, 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, although I 
 had never walked its pebbly shore, nor heard the voice 
 of its thundering breakers, nor played with its swelling 
 waves, I could still form some feeble conception of the 
 ocean from a lake, from a pool, from a drop of water, 
 even from this sparkling dew-drop, which, born from 
 the womb of night, and cradled in the bosom of a 
 flower, lies waiting, like a soul under the Sun of Righ- 
 teousness, to be exhaled to heaven. 
 
 Look at man, then. Is he a poet or a phflosopher, 
 a man of mechanical genius or artistic skill, a states- 
 man or a philanthropist, or, better than ah, a man who 
 glows with piety ? It matters not. We see that his 
 happiness does not lie in indolence, but in the gratifica- 
 tion of his tastes, the indulgence of his feelings, and the 
 active exercise of his faculties. Assume the same to be 
 true of God — the conception, while it exalts, endears 
 our Heavenly Father. Does it not present Him in 
 this most winning and attractive aspect, that the very 
 
116 THE GOSPEL IN EZEKIEL. 
 
 happiness of Godhead Hes in the forthputting — along 
 with other attributes — of his goodness, love, and mercy ? 
 Now, we may he mistaken, and I would not venture 
 to speak dogmatically; yet this does appear to shed 
 a ray, if not a flood of light, on some mysterious 
 passages in the providence of God. Shores on which 
 man has never landed lie paved with shells ; fields 
 which his foot has never trod are carpeted with flowers ; 
 seas where he has never dived are inlaid with pearls ; 
 and caverns into which he has never mined, are radiant 
 with gems of the finest form and the fairest colours. 
 Wefl, it may be, and has been asked, for what pur- 
 pose this lavish expenditure of skill and beauty upon 
 scenes, when there is neither an eye of intelligence 
 to admire nor piety to adore the Maker? The poet, 
 lamenting genius unknown, unpatronized, sinking into 
 an ignoble grave, has sung of " flowers that waste their 
 fragrance on the desert air." And up on the unfrequented 
 shelf of a mountain rock, or rooted in the crevice of an 
 old castle wall, I have found such a flower, opening its 
 modest beauty to the sun, and putting to shame the 
 proudest efi"orts of human skill. Did you never sit down 
 beside such a flower, and courting its innocent society, 
 ask the question, Fair creature ! for what end were you 
 made, and made so very beautiful ? It certainly does 
 look a waste of power and skill divine. Yet may it not 
 be, that angels, as they flew by on their missions of 
 mercy, have stayed their wing over that lowl}'' flower, 
 and hovered there awhile, to admire its colours and adore 
 its Maker ? But whether or no, God himself is there. 
 
god's motive in salvation. 117 
 
 Invisible, He walks these unfrequented solitudes, and 
 with ineffable complacency looks on this little flower as 
 his own mighty work, and a mirror of his infinite per- 
 fections. " God," it is said, *' shall rejoice in his work." 
 " He made all things for Himself — even the wicked for 
 the day of wrath." 
 
 The minnow plays in a shallow pool, and leviathan 
 cleaves the depths of ocean — winged insects sport in a 
 sunbeam, and winged angels sing before the throne ; 
 but whether Ave fix our eye on the one or the other, the 
 whole fabric of creation appears to prove that Jehovah 
 delights in the evolution of his powers, in the display of 
 his wisdom, love, and goodness ; and, just as it is to the 
 delight which God enjoys in the exercise of them that 
 we owe this beautiful creation, just 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. ]\Ian had as little to do with saving as 
 with making himself. The creation of Eden and the 
 cross of Calvary are equally the work of God : and He 
 stands forth before the universe as not by one tittle less 
 the Saviour than the Creator of the world. To display 
 his glory in radiant effulgence — to blaze it out on the 
 eyes of delighted and adoring angels — to evoke the 
 hidden attribute of mercy — to give expression to his 
 grace and pity — Jehovah resolved to save, and, in 
 saving man, to turn this world into a theatre for the 
 most affecting tragedy and amazing love. 
 
 Salvation is finished. Salvation is offered — freely 
 offered. Shall it be rejected ? Take the good, and 
 
118 THE GOSPEL IN EZEKIEL. 
 
 give Him the glory. " He is the God of Salvation ; " 
 and " in his name we will set up our banners." In 
 that ladder whereby faith climbs her way aloft to heaven, 
 there is not a round that we can call our own. In this 
 ark which, with open door, offers an asylum in the . 
 coming storm — a refuge in the rising flood — from stem 
 to stern and keel to deck there is neither nail, nor plank, 
 nor beam, that we can claim as ours. The plan of 
 redemption was the design of infinite wisdom ; its exe- 
 cution was left to redeeming love ; and it is Mercy — 
 generous Mercy — whose fair form stands in the open 
 door, inviting, entreating, beseeching you all to come in. 
 Listen to the voice of Jesus — " Come unto me, all ye 
 that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you 
 rest." Let his mother teach you how to speak, and 
 learn from angels how to sing. With her — the casket 
 of a divine jewel, holding the babe yet unborn in a 
 virgin womb — with Mary say, " My soul doth magnify 
 the Lord ; my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Saviour ; 
 for He that is mighty hath done great things to me, and 
 holy is his name." Or, hark to the angels' song ! 
 glowing with seraphic fire, borrow seraphic words ; and 
 sing with them, ere they wheel their bright ranks for 
 upward flight, " Glory to God in the highest ; on earth, 
 peace and good will to men." 
 
MAN AN OBJECT OF DIVINE MEECY. 
 
 Therefore say unto the house of Israel, I do not this for your sakes, 
 house of Israel, hut for mine holy name's sake. — Ezekiel xxxvi. 22. 
 
 TTTE have seen a sere and yellow leaf, tenacious of its 
 hold, hang upon the tree all the winter through ; 
 and there it kept dancing and whirling idly in the wind, 
 not beautiful or graceful, out of place and season, in 
 humbling contrast with the young and green companions 
 which budding spring had hung around it. Like that 
 wrinkled and withered thing, some men (who were better 
 in their graves) hang on by this world. They live too 
 long, and die too late — for themselves at least. Half- 
 dead and half-alive, mind failed and memory faded, 
 outliving their usefulness, the melancholy wrecks of 
 what once they were, they tax affection to conceal from 
 strangers' eyes the sad ravages of time, and do for them 
 the tender office of the ivy, when she kindly flings her 
 green and glossy mantle over the crumbling ruin or old 
 hollow tree. 
 
 It was the happy fate of Moses — and one most 
 singular at his age — neither to outlive his honour nor 
 his usefulness : the day he laid down his leadership saw 
 him lay down his life. Death found him at his post. 
 
120 THE GOSPEL IN EZEKIEL. 
 
 Palinurus was swept from the helm. When Heaven saw 
 meet to take Moses, he was one whom the earth and 
 church would have gladly retained ; but the time has 
 arrived when the jjilot, who, in calm and storm, through 
 winter and summer seas, has steered the Commonwealth 
 of Israel for well nigh half a century, is to resign the 
 helm to other hands. A faithful God calls a faithful 
 servant to his reward and rest. He did not leave them, 
 however, till these weary voyagers were brought within 
 sight of land, and, indeed, to the mouth of the very 
 haven they had so long desired and looked to see. The 
 children of Israel have arrived at the banks of Jordan. 
 Grateful sight to eyes weary of the desert's naked 
 mountains or its dreary level of barren sand — the people 
 cluster with eager looks on every summit, and, scattered 
 along the banks, gaze across the flood on the Land of 
 Promise. How they feed their eyes, and never weary 
 looking on the verdant pastures, the golden harvests, 
 the rocks clothed with vines, the swelling hills crowned 
 with wood, the plains studded with villages, and cities 
 teeming with a population that told how rich the soil, 
 and how well described the land, as one " full of corn 
 and wine, and flowing with milk and honey." In this 
 posture of afiairs, before he ascends to his rest, ]\Ioses 
 summons the tribes ; and, like the members of a family 
 who gather from their different and distant homes around 
 a father's deathbed, they come to receive the old man's 
 blessing, his parting counsels, and last, long farewell. 
 
 Propped upon pillows, bending on his staff", pausing 
 for breath, speaking in brief and broken sentences, by 
 
MAN AN OBJECT OF DIVINE MERCY. 121 
 
 those groping hands that felt for Ephraim's and Manas- 
 seh's head betraying the stone-blindness of a great old 
 age, Jacob gave his blessing to the twelve sons, who all 
 — uncommon fortune in so large a family — survived 
 their father, and were themselves the ancestors of the 
 living millions, that, swarming out of Egypt, had now 
 reached the banks of Jordan. But how different the 
 bearing and aspect of Moses from that of the hoary 
 patriarch ! An old man ! if not as old a man, of age 
 not much short of Jacob's, one hundred and twenty 
 years had passed on his head, but they had neither 
 blanched his beard nor thinned his locks, nor drawn a 
 wrinkle on his lofty brow. That eye had lost none of 
 its fire, nor that arm any of its force, since the day when, 
 striking in for a brother's cause, he bestrode the pros- 
 trate Hebrew, and, parrying the blow of the Egyptian, 
 gave it back, like a battle-axe, oil his head. Nearly the 
 same age as Jacob, whose bent and venerable form, as 
 he entered leaning on Joseph's arm, led Pharaoh to ask, 
 " How old art thou," Moses bore himself erect, and 
 looked the same as on the day, forty years before, w^ien 
 he boldly strode into Pharaoh's hall, and demanded of 
 an angry king that the Hebrews should go free. His 
 sun that went down in the evening of summer's longest 
 day, sunk as full and bright, as if it had set at noon ; 
 " his eye was not dim, nor was his natural strength 
 abated," and his life closed amid the rich glories of the 
 noblest address that genius, patriotism, and piety, ever 
 uttered. 
 
 Standing on some rocky platform, with his back to 
 
122 THE GOSPEL IN EZEKIEL. 
 
 the sky, and his face to the people, Moses delivered an 
 address never forgotten, and that for long ages continued 
 to sound its trumpet echoes in the ears, and to breathe 
 courage into the hearts of Israel. He blessed the tribes 
 in succession, and — charged with inspiration, as a cloud 
 with lightning — he burst forth at the close into these 
 glowing exclamations — " There is none like unto the 
 God of Jeshurun, who rideth upon the heavens in thy 
 help ; thy shoes shall be iron and brass ; and as thy 
 days, so shall thy strength be." " The eternal God is 
 thy refuge, and underneath are the everlasting arms." 
 Jordan gleamed in his eye, and stretching out his arms 
 to the land across its flood, he cried — " Israel then shall 
 dwell in safety alone ; the fountain of Jacob shall be 
 upon a laud of corn and wine ; his heaven shall drop 
 down dew. Happy art thou, Israel : who is like 
 unto thee, people saved by the Lord?" — Glorious 
 words to the Hebrew's ear ! and most gracious in 
 Christian eyes. Faith claims them as part of her 
 unalienable heritage, and, looking on that multitude as 
 the dying type of a never-dying church, serves us heirs 
 to the spiritual blessings which lay beneath the veil of 
 these earthly promises. 
 
 It is not, however, so much of the close as of the 
 commencement of Moses' speech, that I would speak. 
 Their deliverer from the house of bondage, and leader 
 of their exodus to the promised land, he was a type of 
 Jesus. That host, supplied with streams from the flinty 
 rock, guided by the Shekinah, and fed with manna from 
 the skies, in its grievous bondage and great deliverance, 
 
MAN AN OBJECT OF DIVINE MERCY. 123 
 
 its pilgrim wanderings and hard-fought battles, its trials 
 and crowning triumph, was a type of the Church. We 
 are undoubtedly heirs of all its promises ; but since we 
 cannot take the sweet and reject the bitter, in serving 
 ourselves heirs to Israel's promises, we become heirs also 
 to her chastisements, her guilt and sin, her warnings 
 and rebukes. Now, listen to Moses as he addressed 
 the very people over whose coming fortunes he threw 
 such glory : — " Hear, Israel : Thou art to pass over 
 Jordan this day, to go in to possess nations greater 
 and mightier than thyself : Not for thy righteousness 
 or for the uprightness of thine heart dost thou go to 
 possess their land. Understand, therefore, that thou 
 goest not in for your own sakes. The Lord thy God 
 giveth thee not this good land to possess it for thy 
 righteousness ; for thou art a stiff-necked people, and 
 hast been rebellious against the Lord from the day that 
 1 knew you." 
 
 If there be a man on earth, in a situation corres- 
 ponding to theirs who stood on the brink of the flood 
 and saw Canaan's fields inviting them across, that man 
 is a dying Christian. With life fast ebbing — his battle 
 fought, the journey finished, the desert travelled, the 
 world with its rough paths and illusive vanities behind 
 him, heaven opening its glories to his eye, and death's 
 dark stream rolling at his feet — he stands on the bank 
 of the river, and, ready to pass over when the High 
 Priest has gone down to divide the flood, he waits but the 
 summons to go. Well — I repair to the chamber where 
 this good man dies, and, sitting down beside his bed, I 
 
124 THE GOSPEL IN EZEKIEL. 
 
 open the Bible, and read these words in bis listening 
 ear, " Thou art to pass Jordan this day. Speak not 
 thou in thine heart, saying, for my own righteousness 
 the Lord hath brought me in to possess the land. Under- 
 stand, that the Lord giveth thee not this good land for 
 thy righteousness and uprightness ; for thou art stiff- 
 necked, and hast been rebellious against the Lord." To 
 some, who, in their ignorance taking compassion on ours, 
 might turn round to tell us, what a good man, what an 
 example of piety he had been, how bright and steady his 
 light had shone, how much the church would lament his 
 death, and how much the poor would miss his charit}'', 
 these words would sound hard and harsh, unseasonable 
 and most uncharitable. But whatever harshness might 
 appear to others in such an address, this, sure I am, would 
 be his own humble, prompt, hearty response : — How 
 true ! how characteristic ! what a faithful picture ! how 
 descriptive alike of my original unregenerate state, and 
 the many shortcomings of my renewed nature ! Raising 
 his dying eye to heaven, and clasping his hands, he hushes 
 into silence the ill-timed praise of friends, and repeats as 
 his own, the confession of Job, — " I have heard of thee 
 with the hearing of the ear, but now mine eye seeth 
 thee ; wherefore I abhor myself, and repent in dust and 
 ashes." In that solemn hour he clings like Peter to 
 the hand of Jesus. Mercy is all his prayer, and mercy 
 all his praise ; hopes of mercy in the future light up 
 his eye, while grateful thanks for mercies in the past 
 employ life's latest breath, and dwell on his faltering 
 tongue. His last conscious look turns away from his 
 
MAN AN OBJECT OF DIVINE MERCY. 125 
 
 own works to fix itself upon the cross, and the last word 
 that trembles on his quivering lip is, " Jesus." 
 
 It were not easy to find a better example of this 
 than one which is recorded in the history of England's 
 greatest apostle. When he lay on an expected deathbed 
 (though God spared him some years longer to the world 
 and church), his attendants asked John Wesley, what 
 were his hopes for eternity ? And something like this 
 was his reply — For fifty years, amid scorn and hardship, 
 I have been travelling up and down this world, to preach 
 Jesus Christ : and I have done what in me lay to serve 
 my blessed Master. What he had done, how poor 
 Wesley lived, how hard he laboured, with what holy fire 
 his bosom burned, with what success he preached, how 
 brilliantly he illustrated the character — "dying, and 
 behold we live ; unknown, and yet well known ; poor, 
 yet making many rich ; having nothing, yet possessing 
 all things;" — these things his life and works attest. 
 They are seen in his church's history, and in the crown 
 he wears in heaven so bright with a blaze of jewels — 
 the saved through his agency. Yet thus he spake, " My 
 hopes for eternity? my only hopes rest on Christ;" 
 and as the confession of his faith, he repeated these 
 glorious words : — 
 
 " I the chief of sinners am, 
 But Jesus died for me." 
 
 This confession, so redolent of Wesley's piety, and 
 honourable to his memory, and the words of Moses to 
 Israel, are in perfect harmony. And both are in har- 
 mony with this great truth of the text, that God saves 
 
126 . THE GOSPEL IN EZEKIEL. 
 
 sinners, not for their sakes, or out of any regard what- 
 ever to then- merits. We have ah-eady dwelt at some 
 length on this truth. Why, then, it may be asked, 
 choose the same text, and expatiate again on the 
 same theme? If I needed apology or defence for 
 lingering on this humbling, but most salutary and 
 important subject, I would find it in a high example. 
 Observe how Moses, in his dying address to Israel, 
 repeats and repeats, iterates and reiterates, this very 
 truth — " Speak not thou in thine heart, saying, for 
 my righteousness the Lord hath brought me in to pos- 
 sess this land : but for the wickedness of these nations 
 the Lord doth drive them out from before thee." Again 
 — " Not for thy righteousness, or the uprightness of 
 thine heart, dost thou go to possess their land." Again 
 — " Understand therefore, that the Lord thy God giveth 
 thee not this good land to possess it for thy righteous- 
 ness, for thou art a stiff-necked people." Again — 
 " Remember, forget not how thou provokedst the Lord 
 thy God to wrath in the wilderness ; from the day that 
 thou didst depart out of the land of Egypt, until ye 
 came unto this place, ye have been rebellious against 
 the Lord." Again — " In Horeb ye provoked the Lord 
 to wrath, so that the Lord was angry with you, to have 
 destroyed you." Again — •" The Lord spake unto me, 
 saying, I have seen this people, and behold, it is a stiff- 
 necked people ; let me alone, that I may destroy them." 
 And again — " Ye have been rebellious against the Lord 
 from the day that I knew you." Thus Moses. A 
 master, who charges his servant with some important 
 
MAN AN OBJECT OF DIVINE MEECY. 127 
 
 message, repeats and reiterates it. The careful teacher, 
 who communicates some leading rule in grammar to 
 his pupils, or some fundamental truth in science to his 
 students, comes over it again and again ; just as a car- 
 penter, by repeated blows, drives home the nail, and 
 fixes it firm in its place. For the same end we resume 
 our study of the text. It divides itself into two branches ; 
 first, what does not ; secondly, what does move God to 
 save us. 
 
 To the first question our answer is — Not anything 
 in us ; to the second — His regard to his own holy name. 
 Now, in speaking on the first of these, I remark — 
 
 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 and consequence to sinners. 
 
 This is no doctrine — like our Lord's personal reign, 
 or the question of adult or infant baptism, or the points 
 of difference between Episcopalians, Presbyterians, and 
 Independents — in regard to which it is not of vital 
 importance which side of the controversy we espouse 
 and advocate. This doctrine has a direct bearing on the 
 salvation of sinners. Like the rough and stern Baptist it 
 prepares the way for Christ. Man must be emptied of self 
 before he 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 ; buiied in disgrace, that we may rise in 
 
128 THE GOSPEL IN EZEKIEL. 
 
 grace. " Sown in corruption, that we may be raised in 
 incorruption ; sown in dishonour, that we may be raised 
 in glory ; sown in weakness, that we may be raised in 
 power." These are words as true of the soul as the 
 body. To borrow an illustration from the surgeon's 
 art, the ill-set bone must be broken again, in order that 
 it may be set aright. I press this truth on your atten- 
 tion, because a soul filled with self has no room for 
 God; and, like the inn of Bethlehem, given to lodge 
 meaner guests, a heart full of pride has no chamber, 
 within which Christ may be born " in us the hope of 
 glory." 
 
 To tell man that he has no merit is, no doubt, a 
 humbling statement. It lays the loftiest self-sufficient 
 sinner low in the dust. Yes. This doctrine is the true 
 leveller. It puts all men on the same degraded platform 
 before God ; sets kings as low as beggars, and the strict- 
 est virtue — virtue which the breath of suspicion never 
 sullied — alongside of base and brazen-faced iniquity. 
 I admit that, if we had no better righteousness than 
 our own to rest on, we should do our best to establish 
 its claims, and mayhap assert the right of decency to 
 say to harlots, publicans, and sinners, " Stand aside, I 
 am holier than thou." But why cling to that when we 
 have a better righteousness in our offer? No wonder 
 at all that the mendicant, whose timid knock has called 
 us to the door, stands there shivering in filthy rags. 
 Poor wretch ! His crimes or misfortunes have reduced 
 him to this pitiful condition. He has no change of 
 raiment nor choice of clothing ; and so, — with none 
 
MAN AN OBJECT OF DIVINE MERCY. 129 
 
 kind or rich enough to help him, — he must make the 
 best of what he has to cover his naked and emaciated 
 frame from the biting cokl. No wonder also, that the 
 prodigal, having wasted his portion in riotous living, in 
 such dress — if dress it could be called — sought his 
 father's house ; nor any great wonder that his father, so 
 soon as the quick eyes of love espied him from afar, ran 
 to meet the penitent, fell on his neck, and passionately 
 kissed him in that ragged and loathsome attire. To 
 say nothing of those who have yearned over some un- 
 worthy child — every father understands that. But how 
 had the wonder of the story grown, how had son, and 
 servants, and neighbours concluded that the wretched 
 youth had drunk away his senses as well as money, had 
 he so loved his rags, as to decline to part with them, 
 and clinging to these wrecks of better days — these sad 
 memorials of his sin and folly — had he refused to put 
 the foul rags off, that he might put the fair robe on ! 
 He did nothing so foolish. Why should we ? 
 
 God pronounces our righteousnesses — 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 — to 
 wait upon a king in rags ? Nor think that the righ- 
 teousness 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 have a Saviour and yet keep their 
 sins, that you may wear these rags beneath his righteous- 
 
 K 
 
130 THE GOSPEL IN EZEKIEL. 
 
 ness. Away with them ; not as a dress, which a man 
 lays aside, to be afterwards resumed; but cast them 
 away, hke a beggar who, having got a better attire, 
 flings his rags into the nearest ditch, and leaves them 
 there in their foulness to rottenness and decay. God 
 says of the 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." 
 
 If this doctrine is humbling to human pride, it is 
 full of encouragement to a penitent's hope. 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. Since it is not for our 
 sakes that we are saved, since mercy stoops to the low- 
 est guilt, oh then there is hope for me — for a man who 
 has nothing that he can call his own but misery and 
 sin. I will not sit here to perish ; but, following a 
 Manasseh and a Magdalene, the dying thief, and a blood- 
 stained Saul, I will join the throng that, called from 
 highways and hedges, are pouring — a ragged crowd — 
 into the marriage supper of the Lamb. Are any among 
 you holding back, until, by this or that improvement in 
 your habits, you esteem yourselves fit to go to Christ ? 
 Fit to go to Christ! — fit to go to Christ, you shall 
 never be, but only by going to him. Your waiTant in 
 a sense, lies in your very wants ; your plea for mercy in 
 his merits ; your plea for an interest in his merits in 
 your own demerit. Hear and adopt the prayer of David 
 — " For thine own name's sake, pardon mine iniquity." 
 
MAN AN OBJECT OF DIVINE MERCY. 131 
 
 That is his prayer ; now what is his plea ? That his 
 iniquity is httle, very little, or less than that of others ? 
 No. This he adds, this he urges, '' for it is great." 
 
 Was there ever an invalid so senseless as to say, 
 when I am somewhat better, when this fever burns less 
 fierce, this pulse beats more calm, this running ulcer has 
 a less loathsome and offensive discharge, I will repair to 
 the hospital ? Yet such is their folly who say, when I 
 am holier, I will go to Jesus. Go to him as you are ; 
 shew the physician thy grievous wounds, thy bruises, 
 thy putrifying sores — how the whole head is sick, and 
 the whole heart is faint. It is said of the disciples, that 
 " they took in our Lord as he was into the boat;" now 
 he is to take you in as you are — -just as you are. You 
 can be made holy, but not till you repair to him. And 
 what hinders you to go, and go now ? What does he 
 say ? Hear him — " I came not to call the righteous, 
 but sinners to repentance." Is your case bad — very 
 bad ? The worse your case is, the higher, in a sense, 
 your assurance of immediate salvation — yours the hope 
 of the maimed and bleeding soldier whom kind comrades 
 bear from the deadly trench, and who knows that the 
 worse his wound, the more confidently he can reckon on 
 the surgeon's earliest care ; and that from the very couch, 
 where noblest birth or highest rank lies stretched under 
 some less serious injury, that man of humanity — image 
 of the great Physician — will turn to kneel down by a 
 poor orphan boy, the meanest private — aye, even a muti- 
 lated enemy, to tie the severed vessel, and stem the 
 tide that pours his life's blood upon the ground. God 
 
132 THE GOSPEL IN EZEKIEL. 
 
 help you to say with Paul — " It is a faithful saying, and 
 worthy of all acceptation, that Jesus Christ came into 
 the world to save sinners, of whom I am chief," and 
 believing that, to cry with David, " Make haste unto me, 
 God. Lord make no tarrying." 
 
 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 stiffened its bark and fibres, if you 
 bend a branch in a new direction, either turn that to the 
 right hand which had grown to the left, or raise a bough 
 to the skies which had pointed to the ground, it is long 
 before it loses the 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 ! For many years after 
 its course has been changed, and the art, that conquers 
 nature, has turned its waters into a new cut, the river 
 needs careful watching; else, when swollen by winter 
 snows or summer flood, it bursts our barriers, sweeps 
 dyke and bulwark to the sea, and, in the pride of victory, 
 foams, and roars, and rages, in its old accustomed 
 channel. And when He that sitteth upon the flood, 
 and turneth the hearts of men like the rivers of water, 
 hath sent the current of our tastes and feelings in a new 
 direction, ah ! how apt are they, especially in some out- 
 burst of sudden temptation that comes down like a 
 thunder-spout, to flow back into the old and deep-worn 
 
MAN AN OBJECT OF DIVINE MERCY. 133 
 
 channels of a corrupt nature ! Of this, 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 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 a wandering thought ; and 
 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 dis- 
 course, replied, " You need not tell me that ; Satan told 
 me so before I left the pulpit." Ah ! it were w^ell for 
 the best of us that we could say with Paul, " We are not 
 ignorant of his devices." 
 
 Step into this room, where the greatest Scotchman 
 lies a dying, and see an example more striking, warning, 
 alarming still. From the iron grasp of kings and princes, 
 Knox has wrung the rights of Scotland. Eeady to con- 
 tend even unto the death, he had bearded proud nobles 
 and prouder churchmen ; he had stood under the fire of 
 battle ; he had been chained to the galley's oar ; he had 
 occupied the pulpit with a carabine levelled at his fear- 
 less head ; to plant God's truth, and that tree of civil 
 and religious liberty which has struck its roots deep 
 into our soil, and under whose shadow we are this day 
 sitting, he had fought many a hard-fought battle ; but 
 
134 THE GOSPEL IN EZEKIEL. 
 
 his hardest of all was fought in the soHtude of the night 
 and amid the quietness of a dying chamber. One 
 morning his friends enter his apartment. They find 
 him faint, pallid, wearing the look of one who has passed 
 a troubled night. So he had : he had been fighting, 
 not sleeping ; wrestling, not resting ; and it required 
 all God's grace to bring him off a conqueror. Till day- 
 break, Jacob wrestled with the Angel of the Covenant ; 
 but that long night Knox had passed wrestling with 
 the Prince of Darkness. Like Bunyan's pilgrim, he 
 had encountered Apollyon in the valley, and their 
 swords struck fire in the shadow of death. The lion 
 is said to be boldest in the storm. His roar never 
 sounds so loud as in the pauses of the thunder, and 
 when the lightning flashes, brightest are the flashes of 
 his cruel eye. Even so he, who, as a roaring lion goeth 
 about seeking whom he may devour, often seizes the 
 hour of nature's greatest distress to assault us with his 
 fiercest temptations. Satan tempted Job when he was 
 bowed down with grief. Satan tempted Jesus when he 
 was faint with hunger. Satan tempted Peter when he 
 was weary with watching and heart-broken with sorrow ; 
 and, one who shall reserve perhaps his grand assault on 
 "US for scenes and seasons that offer him a great advan- 
 tage, it was when Knox was worn out, and left alone, 
 his head laid low on a dying pillow, that Satan, like a 
 roaring lion, leapt upon his bed. Into that room the 
 Enemy had come. He stands by his side. He reminds 
 him that he had been a standard-bearer of the truth, — 
 a reformer — the most thorough of all the Reformers ; a 
 
MAN AN OBJECT OF DIVINE MERCY. 135 
 
 bold confessor ; a distinguished sufferer ; the very fore- 
 most man of his time and country ; he attempts to per- 
 suade him, that surely such rare merits deserve the crown. 
 The Christian conquered — but hard put to it — only con- 
 quered through him that loved him. His shield was the 
 truth of my text. He had been lost, wrecked at the mouth 
 of the very harbour, had he lost sight of this beacon — " I 
 do not this for your sake, but for mine holy name's sake." 
 And seeing that, as these cases shew — like a snake 
 coiled among flowers — there may be such danger lurking 
 under our best attainments ; seeing that, like the inflam- 
 matory attacks to which those are most liable Avho are 
 highest fed, whose bones are most full of marrow, and 
 whose veins are gorged with blood, we may be exposed 
 to spiritual pride through the very fulness of our graces ; 
 seeing that he, who can turn the Bible into arguments 
 for sin, can use our best works as fuel to the fires of 
 vanity, let us watch and pray and learn to be humble. 
 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 b}'' 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." 
 
 in. 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 deve- 
 
136 THE GOSPEL IN EZEKIEL. 
 
 lope that stem into tall and graceful beauty — to clothe 
 with blossoms these naked branches, and hang them, till 
 they bend, with clustered fruit ? Change such as that 
 is not to be effected by surface dressing, or any care 
 bestowed on the upper soil. The remedy must go to 
 the root. You cannot make that tree grow upwards till 
 you break the crust below — pulverize the hard subsoil, 
 and give the roots room and way to strike deeper 
 down ; — for, the deeper "flie 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 sun- 
 beams, 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 doth not wither" — offers this analogy 
 between grace and nature. As the tree grows best 
 skyward that grows most downward, the lower the saint 
 grows in humility the higher he grows in holiness. The 
 soaring corresponds to the sinking. 
 
 I wish you to think little, very little of yourselves ; 
 but why ? because the less you think of yourselves, the 
 more will you esteem Christ ; and the humbler you are 
 in your own eyes, the higher you will stand in God's. 
 The guest, who, coming modestly in, takes the lowest 
 place at the table, is called up to the seat of honour ; 
 
MAN AN OBJECT OF DIVINE MEKCY. 137 
 
 and I have always thought, that none are so sure to lie 
 in Jesus' bosom as those I have seen lying the lowest at 
 his feet. Was it not on a woman, who, content to be 
 spoken of as " a dog," held herself well served with 
 crumbs, and asked nothing but the sweepings of the 
 table, that Jesus bestowed a most signal honour. " God 
 resisteth the proud and giveth grace to the humble." 
 How important, therefore, the sentiment of my text ! 
 Receive it ; for " the loftiness of man shall be bowed 
 down, and the haughtiness of men shall be made low ; 
 and the Lord alone shall be exalted in that day." 
 
 Piety and pride are not less opposed to each other 
 than light and darkness. No doubt strange and incon- 
 gruous conjunctions are seen in grace as well as in 
 nature. Like an ill-assorted marriage, you may find a 
 sour look and ascetic temper allied to genuine faith. 
 Eminent piety has stood blushing in sackcloth on a 
 pillory of shame. The sun of saintship has undergone 
 a dreadful and un looked for echpse. Good and great 
 men have fallen into gross sin — causing God's people 
 to hang down their heads, and cry, as they wept in 
 secret, " How are the mighty fallen ! " In short, the 
 grace of God has been found in such strange company 
 as to give occasion for the remark, " The grace of God 
 will live where neither you nor I could live. But, 
 among these anomalies, passing sometimes almost into 
 monstrosities, I will venture to say you never saw — no, 
 nor the church, nor world, nor any eye nor any age ever 
 yet saw — a saint distinguished for his holiness, who was 
 not also remarkable for his humility. The grandest 
 
138 THE GOSPEL IN EZEKIEL. 
 
 edifices, the tallest towers, the loftiest spires, rest on 
 deep foundations. The very safety of eminent gifts and 
 pre-eminent graces lies in their association with deep 
 humility. They were dangerous without it. Great 
 men do need to be good men. Look at this mighty 
 ship — a leviathan on the deep ; with her towering masts, 
 and carrying a cloud of canvas, how she steadies herself 
 on the waves, and walks erect upon the rolling waters, 
 like a thing of inherent, self-regulating life ! Why — 
 when corn is waving, and trees are bending, and foaming 
 billows roll before the blast and break in thunders on 
 the beach, is she not flung on her beam-ends — sent 
 down — foundering into the deep?" Why, because, 
 unseen beneath the surface, a vast well-ballasted hull 
 gives her balance, and, taking hold of the water, keeps 
 her steady under a press of sail, and on the bosom of 
 the swelling sea. Even so, to preserve the saint upright, 
 erect, and safe from falling, God gives him balance and 
 ballast — giving the man on whom he has bestowed lofty 
 endowments, the grace of a proportionate humility. 
 
 We have wondered at the lowliness of one, who 
 stood among his compeers like Saul among the people — 
 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, 
 
MAN AN OBJECT OF DIVINE MERCY. 139 
 
 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. 
 
 Would you be holy ? learn to be humble. Would 
 you be humble ? take my text, and, with a pen of iron 
 and the point of a diamond, engrave it upon your heart ; 
 or rather pray — Holy Spirit, fountain of light and giver 
 of all grace, with thine own finger inscribe it there ! 
 
 Would you be holy ? you must be humble. Would 
 you be humble ? Oh then ! never forget that the mag- 
 net, which drew a Saviour from the skies, was not your 
 merit, but your misery. " Be clothed with humility," 
 and ere long you shall exchange the sackcloth for a 
 shining robe. What ! although this grace may impart 
 to your feelings a sombre hue ? Grey mornings are the 
 precursors of brightest days ; weeping springs are fol- 
 lowed by sunny summers and autumns of richest harvest; 
 and in the spiritual as in the natural kingdom — " They 
 that sow in tears shall reap in joy." 
 
GOD GLOEIFIED IN EEDEMPTION. 
 
 And I will sanctify my great name wliich was profaned among the 
 heathen, &c. — Ezekiel xxxvi. 23, 24. 
 
 T^HE character of a government may be read in the 
 condition of its subjects. Are they turbulent — in 
 their habits lawless, in their religion superstitious? 
 With coasts full of harbours, and mountains rich in 
 minerals, with a genial climate and a productive soil, 
 are they clothed in rags, housed in cabins, steeped to 
 the lips in poverty? These are the certain signs of 
 bad government. Fields overrun with weeds — fences 
 falling into ruins — the plough rotting in the flooded 
 furrow — and hungry cattle bellowing on scanty pastures 
 — these are the sure signs of bad husbandry. And 
 yonder ragged family, who at school hours roam our 
 streets — the unwashed face and tangled hair bespeaking 
 no mother's kindness — hunger in the hollow eye, and 
 pale emaciated features — these are the sure and too 
 common signs of an unhappy parentage. They suggest 
 the picture of a lodging at the top of some filthy stair, 
 or in some dingy den of a cellar, where a miserable 
 father, the neglected victim of disease and poverty, lies 
 stretched upon the floor, or — as is still more likely — 
 
GOD GLORIFIED IN KEDEMPTION. 141 
 
 where a brutal drunkard lives, the tyrant of his children, 
 and the terror of his wife. Thus we judge of a sove- 
 reign by his subjects, and thus we see the husbandman 
 in his farm, and the father in his family. 
 
 It may be — it were indeed unfair — to apply this rule 
 to our Faith and its Founder. Yet men have done so, and 
 will do so ; and thus the cause of God and religion is 
 made to suffer grievous injury at the hand of its nominal 
 friends. By their coldness, their worldliness, their sel- 
 fishness, their open sinfulness, the little apparent difference 
 between them and those who make no profession at all — 
 nay, sometimes, by their glaring inferiority to the latter 
 in the blow and fruit of the natural virtues, professing 
 Christians — like venders of a bad coinage, have exposed 
 genuine piety to suspicion, and inflicted its deepest 
 wounds on the cause of Christ. Seeing how, in natural 
 graces — kindness of heart — sweetness of temper — gene- 
 rosity — the common charities of life — mere men of the 
 world lose nothing by comparison with such professors, 
 how are you to keep the world from saying, " Ah ! your 
 man of religion is no better than others ; nay, he is 
 sometimes worse?" With what frightful prominence 
 does this stand out in the answer — never to be forgotten 
 answer — of an Indian chief to the missionary who urged 
 him to be a Christian. The plumed and painted savage 
 drew himself up in the consciousness of superior rectitude, 
 and, with indignation quivering on his lip and flashing 
 in his eagle eye, replied, '• Christian lie ! Christian cheat ! 
 Christian steal! — drink! — murder! Christian has 
 robbed me of my lands and slain my tribe !" adding as he 
 
142 THE GOSPEL IN EZEKIEL. 
 
 turned haughtily on his heel, " the Devil, Christian ! I 
 will be no Christian. " Let such reflections teach us to be 
 careful how we make a religious profession. Having 
 made the profession — cost what it. may cost — by the 
 grace of God let us. live up to it, and act it out. " It is 
 better not to vow, than, having vowed, not to pay." 
 
 These remarks are suggested by the fact already 
 adverted to in the previous discourses — that the inte- 
 rests of divine truth and the name of God suffered in 
 Babylon, in consequence both of the miserable outward 
 condition and more miserable moral condition of the people 
 of Israel. Reduced to bondage, sunk lower still — for, 
 compared to a sinner, how free is a slave ! — they ex- 
 ceeded their masters in crime, plunging into greater 
 excess of riot. The heathen — who overlooked the sins 
 of which their misery was the righteous punishment — 
 naturally enough concluded, that the God of a people so 
 wretched and so worthless, must be a weak — perchance 
 a wicked one. Thus his name was profaned, and 
 Jehovah himself dishonoured, till the time arrived, when, 
 arising to plead the cause that was his own, He sancti- 
 fied his great name in the fortunes of his people, and in 
 the sight of the heathen. 
 
 Passing over the special application of these words to 
 the Jews, and looking at them in their prophetical connec- 
 tion with the scheme of redemption, I now remark — 
 
 I. That God might have vindicated his honour and 
 sanctified his name in our destruction. 
 
 He sanctified his name in the emancipation of his 
 
GOD GLORIFIED IN REDEMPTION. 143 
 
 ancient people. When by one blow He struck the 
 fetters from a nation's limbs, baptized them with his 
 Spirit, gave them favour in the sight of kings, and 
 brought back these weary exiles to Jerusalem, with 
 songs and gladness, then God was sanctified in the midst 
 of all the heathen. His power, wisdom, holiness, and 
 goodness, were beautifully illustrated in the renewed 
 character, joyous homes, and happy fortunes of his people. 
 Now, God might undoubtedly have sanctified himself in 
 them otherwise — vindicating his character in such de- 
 struction upon Zion, as he here threatens upon Sidon 
 — " Behold I am against thee, Sidon, and I will be 
 glorified in the midst of thee, and they shall know that 
 I am the Lord when I shall have executed judgment in 
 her, and shall be sanctified in her ; I will send with her 
 pestilence and blood into her streets ; and they shall 
 know that I am the Lord." 
 
 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, 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. Ere he was done 
 with him, he gave Egypt's king a terrible answer to 
 the insolent question, " Who is the Lord that I should 
 serve him?" God was sanctified before Pharaoh, 
 when, hurrying to the banks of the Nile, and turning- 
 pale at the sight, he saw them filled with blood — blood 
 
144 THE GOSPEL IN EZEKIEL. 
 
 brimming in every goblet, and blood flowing in every 
 channel. God was again sanctified before Pharaoh, when 
 he saw the same skies rain ice and fire. God was again 
 sanctified before Pharaoh, when, startled at midnight by 
 a nation's wail,, and summoned to the bed of his heir and 
 eldest born, he saw him stiff and dead — smitten by the 
 angel of death. And God was again sanctified before Pha- 
 raoh, when — as he looked along the watery vista — he saw 
 Moses come down in the grey of morning to the beach, 
 and watching the last Hebrew safe on shore, stretch his 
 rod out upon the deep, whose w^aves, roaring on their 
 prey, now rush from either flank on the power of Egypt, 
 and bury pale rider and snorting horse — all that bannered 
 army — in their whirling waters. The sea refused God's 
 enemies a grave. She flung them out in contempt 
 upon her shore. Moses stands over the body of the 
 king; and as he gazes on that glassy eye, which had 
 lost its haughtiness, and on those lips, whose insolence 
 the waters had washed away, how might he stoop down, 
 and say, Now you know who is the Lord ! Oh ! had 
 the seal of death been broken — removed from these blue 
 discoloured lips — theirs had been this solemn utterance, 
 " Let the potsherds strive with the potsherds of the 
 earth ; woe to the man that striveth with his maker." 
 
 In like manner, God sanctified his name on the plains 
 of Sodom. He sanctified it, on the one hand, in the 
 destruction of his enemies, and on the other in the 
 salvation of Lot. Ah ! then the world ceased to doubt His 
 character, and perhaps angels ceased to wonder that such 
 wickedness was allowed on earth. The light of the city's 
 
GOD GLOKIFIED IN REDEMPTION. 145 
 
 conflagration illuminated His holiness, and His throne 
 rose up in dread and awfid majesty amid the smoking 
 ruins. And how was He sanctified in that wretched 
 fugitive, who has crossed but half the plain ! a wife, she 
 comes not to a husband's calls — a mother, she stirs not 
 to her children's piercing cry. Look at that white and 
 spectral form with head turned on the burning ruins — 
 a woman stiffened into stone, with her cold grey eyes 
 staring large on Sodom, and the surprise — horror — that 
 had seized her soul, as she felt her warm flesh hardening 
 into stone, carved on these rigid features. " Remember 
 Lot's wife." She stands there an example of God's 
 power to sanctify his name, and an awful lesson to the 
 end of time. Deep on the statue's stony brow these 
 words are engraven — " No man having put his hand to 
 the plough, and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of 
 God." 
 
 Since there are two ways open to God, by either of 
 which he may sanctify his great name, he might there- 
 fore, at the fall, have vindicated his justice by swift and 
 unsparing vengeance — by destroying the whole human 
 family. He did so, in the case of 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 shew how he sanctifies himself in the redemption of 
 
 L 
 
146 THE GOSPEL IN EZEKIEL. 
 
 his people, let me warn you, that what God might have 
 done with all, he shall do with some — with all who 
 despise, reject, or even neglect salvation. " How shall 
 ye escape if ye neglect this great salvation ?" Yes ; the 
 trees shall hurn that will not bear. Be assured that God 
 loses nothing in the end. He will make his own use 
 of every man, extracting glory out of all — even from 
 cumberers of the ground. If you are not good for fruit, 
 you shall serve for fuel. God indeed is not willing that 
 any should perish ; wilhng, most willing, rather that the 
 sinner should live, he follows him to the precincts of 
 perdition, to the gate of hell, crying, " turn ye, turn ye, 
 why will ye die ?" Yet be warned in time ; you cannot 
 escape the alternative ; this or that you must choose — 
 to honour God by your active or your passive obedience. 
 God help you, like Mary, to choose the better part ! This 
 day I set before you " life and death." Will you do 
 His will in heaven, or suffer it in hell ? How terrible 
 these words ! " God hath made all things for himself, 
 yea, even the wicked for the day of wrath." 
 
 II. God sanctifies his name, and glorifies himself in our 
 redemption. 
 
 It is easy to destroy — to inflict irreparable injury 
 on character, virtue, life, anything. Falling with mur- 
 derous strokes on yonder noble tree, the woodman's 
 axe demolishes in a few hours what it has required cen- 
 turies to raise. Look at that beautiful gourd, under 
 whose green and grateful shade the prophet sits I 
 
GOD GLORIFIED IN REDEMPTION. 147 
 
 Emblem of all happiness that has its root in earth, it 
 falls by the feeblest of means — a worm's teeth ; the 
 poisonous east wind breathes on its leaves, the hot sun 
 glares on them, and they wither away. An* ounce of 
 lead, one inch of steel, a drop distilled from a serpent's 
 fang, even a grain of sand lodged in the passages of life 
 — any one of these is fatal. How quickly they turn 
 our living, delicate, wondrous frame into a heap of 
 nndistinguishable dust — a handful of cold black ashes ! 
 In the body man destroys what God only can make, 
 and in this more precious and immortal soul, Satan 
 destroys what God only can save. It needs but a devil 
 to ruin the spirit, it needs Divinity to redeem it. It 
 needs but a villain to steal virtue, it needs a divine 
 power to restore the stolen jewel. How much easier 
 is it to kill a man than cure him ? to be an executioner 
 than a physician ? To sit robed on the bench of 
 justice, and, assuming her fatal cap, to condemn a poor 
 wretch to die ; to draw the bolt and from the drop 
 launch a soul into another world ; to stand on the field 
 of battle, and with levelled musket — by a slight motion 
 of the finger — to dash a fellow-creature into eternity — 
 these are easier than to bless with one hour's sleep a bed 
 of pain. It is less difficult to stop this pulse for ever, 
 than bring down its death gallop to the calm and 
 measured march of health. And as, in such cases, man's 
 glory is more illustrated by curing than killing, so God's 
 glory is more pre-eminent in redemption than it had 
 been in our final and everlasting ruin. 
 
 Excepting of course the preacher's — for with Paul 
 
148 THE GOSPEL IN EZEKIEL. 
 
 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. Casting 
 no disparagement on the brave and gallant spirits, who 
 have guarded a country's shores — and some of whom 
 falling in the ranks of battle have offered most illustrious 
 examples of soldiers, true both to an earthly crown and 
 a Saviour's cross — yet we know that the aim of a warrior 
 is ingeniously to invent, and his business effectively to 
 use, instruments of destruction. His greatest achieve- 
 ments are wrought where deadly wounds are suffered ; 
 his proudest triumphs are won where flames, kindled by 
 the torch of war, blaze over blood-stained hearths, and, 
 horrible to think of ! where fields are fattened with human 
 gore. His laurels are watered with tears ; his course, 
 like the hurricane, is marked by destruction ; and it is 
 his unhappy lot — perhaps the unhappiest view of arms 
 as a profession — that he cannot conquer foes but at the 
 sacrifice of friends. 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 save life, to remove defor- 
 mity, 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 
 
GOD GLORIFIED IN REDEMPTION. 149 
 
 save an anxious wife from widowhood, and these little 
 children from an orphan's lot. And if, although they 
 be wove round 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." 
 
 Apart, however, from this general consideration, I 
 remark that the scheme of redemption is eminently illus- 
 trative of the attributes of Jehovah. For example — 
 
 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 inhabitants, mingling with men, walk the 
 stage of redemption. Here one angel speaks out of a 
 burning bush, and there another leaps on a burning altar, 
 and, with wing unscorched, ascends to heaven in its 
 flame. Here a prophet, exempted from the law of 
 death, goes np to glory in a fiery chariot, and there 
 
150 THE GOSPEL IN EZEKIEL. 
 
 another within the belly of a whale goes down into the 
 depths of ocean. In contradiction of the laws of nature, 
 a body that should have gravitated to the earth, floats, 
 from the top of Olivet, upward into the ambient air. 
 Across the surface of a lake which frost never bound, and 
 winter never paved with ice, walks a human form, 
 stepping on from billow to billow. The captive of the 
 grave becomes its conqueror, and, laying aside its cere- 
 ments as night-clothes left in bed, he walks forth on 
 the dewy grass at the break of day ; the prisoner has 
 bound his jailor and carried off the keys. Over Beth- 
 lehem's fields, angels with the light of their wings turn 
 midnight into day, and shepherds, who watch their 
 flocks, are regaled by voices of the skies — the song of 
 heaven over a babe, who has a poor woman for his 
 mother, and a stable for his lowly birth-place. Nor less 
 remarkable, the deaf are listening to the songs of the 
 dumb, and the blind are gazing on the dead alive ; 
 a dumb beast takes human speech and rebukes the hoary 
 seer ; ravens leave their young to cater in the fields for 
 man ; and angels abandon heaven to hold sentinel watch 
 by the grave of one Avhom his God forsook, his country 
 rejected, his friends repudiated, and none but a thief con- 
 fessed. And amid these wonders and thousands more, 
 acted before men's eyes on the stage of redemption, and 
 all so illustrative of the presence and power of God, the 
 crowning wonder — the wonder of wonders — is He that 
 works them ; the son of a virgin ! dust and Divinity ! 
 Creator and creature ! " the mystery of godliness, God 
 
GOD GLORIFIED IN REDEMPTION. 151 
 
 manifest in the flesh." Truly " This is the Lord's 
 doing ; it is marvellous in our eyes." 
 
 But to glance at the change wrought in redemption 
 on man himself, what amazing power does it display ! 
 What a glorious combination of benevolence and omni- 
 potence ! Punishment is confessedly easier than refor- 
 mation. 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, honourable, kind, and tender man — ah ! that 
 is another thing. Hence, by men callous of heart, and 
 deaf to the groans of suffering humanity, the preference 
 given to prisons over schools, to punishment over pre- 
 vention. Well, then, since it is confessedly easier — 
 easier, not better ; easier, not in the end cheaper — to 
 punish than reform, I say that God's power is more 
 illustriously displayed in pardoning one guilty — in puri- 
 fying one polluted man, than if the law had been left to 
 take her sternest course, and our entire family had been 
 buried in the ruins of the fall. We honour justice when 
 she holds the balance even, and before a land that cries 
 for blood, brings out the murderer to hang him up in 
 the face of the sun : " whoso sheddeth man's blood, by 
 man shall his blood be shed." Yet, like the noble- 
 minded Romans, who decreed a crown to the man that 
 saved a citizen, we would hold him worthy of highest 
 honours who brings a criminal from his cell, so changed 
 as to be worthy, not only of being restored to the bosom 
 
152 THE GOSPEL IN EZEKIEL. 
 
 of society, but of holding a place in the senate, or some 
 post of dignity beside the throne. That were an 
 achievement of brilliant renown — a victory over which 
 humanity and piety would shed tears of joy. 
 
 To compare small things with great, something like 
 this — but unspeakably nobler and greater — God works 
 in salvation. For example — In John Bunyan, he calls 
 the bold leader of village reprobates to preach the Gos- 
 pel ; a blaspheming tinker to become one of England's 
 famous confessors ; and from the gloomy portals of 
 Bedford jail, to shed forth the lustre of his sanctified and 
 resplendent genius to the further limits of the world, and 
 adown the whole course of time. From the deck of a 
 slave ship he summons John Newton to the pulpit; 
 and by hands defiled with Mammon's most nefarious 
 traffic, he brings them that are bound out of darkness, 
 and smites adamantine fetters from the slaves of sin. In 
 Paul, the Apostle of the Gentiles, he has converted his 
 Son's bitterest enemy into his warmest friend. To the 
 man whom a trembling church held most in dread, she 
 comes to owe, under God, the weightiest obligations. 
 In Paul she has her boldest champion, her greatest 
 logician, the most gallant of her defenders, her grandest 
 preacher, the prince of apostles, the largest contributor 
 to this imperishable volume. How much better for 
 these three stars to be shining in heaven, than quenched 
 in the blackness of darkness. Better for the good of 
 man — better for the glory of God. In them, and in all 
 the sainted throng around them, has not God more 
 illustriously displayed his power, than if he had crushed 
 
GOD GLORIFIED IN REDEMPTION. 153 
 
 tliem by the thunders of his vengeance, and buried 
 them in the depths of hell ? The power of divinity 
 culminates in grace. Oh, that we also may become its 
 monuments, and be built up by the hands of an eternal 
 Spirit, to the glory of the cross ! And why not ? Look 
 at these men ! Think what they were ; behold what 
 they are ! The thief of the cross bends from his throne 
 in glory and bids you hope. Addressing your prayers 
 to him whose ear is never heavy that it cannot hear, 
 nor his hand shortened that it cannot save, be this your 
 earnest, your urgent cry, "Awake, awake, put on strength, 
 arm of the Lord. Awake, as in the ancient days in 
 the generations of old." 
 
THE WISDOM AND HOLINESS OF GOD 
 ILLUSTEATED IN SALVATION. 
 
 And I will sanctify my great name wliicli ye have profaned — 
 
 EzEKiEL xxxvi. 23. 
 
 nPHE effect of the wind is visible — not the element 
 itself. The clouds scud across the sky, the trees 
 swing their arms wildly in the air, aerial waves chase 
 each other across the corn, and the boat, catching the 
 gale in her flowing sheet, goes dancing over the billows. 
 So — although in a sense infinitely higher — the invisible 
 is visible ; and in his works we see One, who, seeing 
 all, remains himself unseen. He is lost — not in dark- 
 ness — but in light ; a sun that blinds the eye which is 
 turned on its burning disc. Angels themselves, unable 
 to sustain his glory, cover their faces with their wings, 
 and use them — as a man his hand — to screen their eyes 
 from the ineffable effulgence. 
 
 Suppose that we ascend the steps of creation, 
 from matter in its crudest form to nature's highest 
 and most beautiful arrangements ; from the lichen that 
 clothes a rock to the oak that stands rooted in its 
 crevices ; from the dull coal to the same mineral crys- 
 tallized in a flashing diamond ; from a dewdrop, cradled 
 in the cup of a flower, to the great ocean that lies in 
 
GOD GLORIFIED IN REDEMPTION. 155 
 
 the hollow of its Maker's hand ; from a spark that 
 expires in the moment of its birth, to the sun which 
 has risen and set with unabated splendour on the 
 graves of a hundred generations ; from the instinct of 
 the moth that flutters round a taper, to the intellect of 
 an angel, who hovers before the throne ; from a grain 
 of sand to this vast globe ; from this world to a creation 
 in its amplitude perhaps as much greater than our 
 planet as it is greater than the grain of sand : As we 
 chmb upwards, step by step, our views of God's glory 
 enlarge. They rise with our elevation, and expand 
 with the widening prospect. At length we reach a 
 pinnacle where the whole heavens and earth lie spread 
 out beneath our feet ; — we reach it to fall on our knees, 
 and cry, as we catch the strain of adoring seraphim, 
 " Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of Hosts, the whole earth 
 is full of his glory ! " 
 
 It is not given to man to discover all the works 
 and ways of God. No ; with our boasted discoveries 
 and pride of science, perhaps these lie as unknown to us 
 as the wide forest to the microscopic insect, whose life is 
 measured by a day, whose world is a leaf — that narrow 
 territory the scene of its most distant journeys, its 
 country, its cradle, and its grave. With what modesty, 
 then, should the highest intellect bow down and bear 
 itself in presence of the Creator ! Let the patriarch, in 
 language worthy of so high a theme, describe his majesty. 
 " He stretcheth out the north over the empty place, and 
 hangeth the earth upon nothing. He holdeth back the 
 face of his throne, and spreadeth his cloud upon it. 
 
156 THE GOSPEL IN EZEKIEL. 
 
 He liatli compassed the waters with bounds, until the 
 day and night come to an end. The pillars of heaven 
 tremble and are astonished at his reproof ; he divideth 
 the sea with his power, and by his understanding he 
 smiteth through the proud ; by his spirit he hath gar- 
 nished the heavens ; his hand hath formed the crooked 
 serpent ; lo, these are parts of his ways ; but how little 
 a portion is heard of him ? but the thunder of his power 
 who can understand?" Unbeliever although he was, the 
 great Laplace echoed these sentiments in this, one of his 
 last and not least memorable utterances — " It is the little 
 that we know ; it is the great that remains unknown." 
 And in the confession of his ignorance, has not a 
 Christian, and still greater philosopher, left us perhaps 
 the finest illustration of his wisdom ? Newton's most 
 brilliant discoveries reflect no brighter lustre on Newton's 
 name than his well-known comparison of himself to a 
 little child — a child who had gathered some few pebbles 
 on the shore of a vast and unexplored ocean. 
 
 Although comprehending but little of the ways of 
 God, man, however, is privileged to contemplate, and 
 is in his own person honoured to illustrate, the noblest 
 of them all. He may be a houseless beggar, but, if 
 grace has made him a new creature, there is more of 
 God seen beneath his rags than in the sun itself; nor 
 does that brilhant sky studded thick with stars reveal the 
 fulness of Divinity that shines in the cross of Calvary 
 and the face of Jesus. Bethlehem Ephratah was " little 
 among the cities of Judah." And our world seems little 
 also among the suns and systems of creation — a dark 
 
GOD GLORIFIED IN REDEMPTION. 157 
 
 dim, insignificant spot ; yet the eyes of an astonislied 
 and admiring universe have been turned on our planet. 
 It has all the importance spiritually, Avliich physically 
 was attributed to it, when men supposed our earth to 
 be the centre of creation. 
 
 Here is the place in the great universe from which 
 God and his attributes are beheld in the clearest light, 
 and may be studied to the greatest advantage. It 
 corresponds to that one spot lying right beneath the 
 dome of a noble cathedral — where the spectator, com- 
 manding all the gi-andest features of the edifice, is 
 instructed to look around him, if he would see the 
 monument of its architect. For where is God to be 
 seen as we behold him on the cross and in the Gospel ? 
 I scale bartizan or tower to embrace at one view the 
 map of a mighty city. Or I climb the sides of some 
 lofty hill to survey the land that lies in beauty at its 
 feet. And had I the range of the universe, where 
 should I go to obtain the fullest exhibition of the 
 Godhead? Rising on angel-wings, shall I soar to the 
 heights of heaven to look on its happiness, and listen to 
 angel's hymns ? Or shall I cleave the darkness, and — 
 sailing round the edge of the fiery gulf — listen to the 
 wail, and weep over the misery of the lost ? No ; 
 turning alike from these sunny heights and doleful 
 regions, here I would remain; and, travelling on a 
 pilgrimage to Palestine, would stand beneath the dome 
 of heaven with my feet on Calvary. On that conse- 
 crated spot, where the cross of salvation rose, and the 
 blood of a Redeemer fell, I find the centre of a spiritual 
 
158 THE GOSPEL IN EZEKIEL. 
 
 universe. Here the hosts of heaven descended to 
 acquaint themselves with God in Christ ; here in a 
 completed arch, if I may so speak, locked fast by the 
 key, all the properties of divinity meet ; here, concen- 
 trated as in a burning focus, its varied attributes blend 
 and shine. 
 
 We had begun to shew how these attributes were 
 exhibited in the work of redemption ; and having illus- 
 trated this in the power of God, we now remark that — 
 
 11, The wisdom of God is glorified in redemption. 
 
 The British Museum possesses in the Portland Vase 
 one of the finest remains of ancient art ; and it may be 
 remembered how — some years ago — the world of taste 
 was shocked to hear that this precious relic had been 
 shattered by a maniac hand. A¥ithout disparaging classic 
 taste or that exquisite example of it, I will venture to say, 
 that there is not a poor worm which we tread upon, not 
 a sere leaf, that, like a ruined but reckless man, dances 
 merrily in its fallen state to the autumn winds, but 
 has superior claims upon our study and admiration. 
 The child who plucks a rose to pieces, or crushes the 
 fragile form of a fluttering insect, destroys a work which 
 the highest art could not invent, nor man's best skilled 
 hand construct. Nor was there a leaf that quivered 
 on those trees which stood under the domes of the 
 Crystal Palace, but eclipsed the brightest glories of 
 loom or chisel ; it found no rival among the triumphs 
 of invention, which a world went there to see. Yes ; 
 
GOD GLORIFIED IN REDEMPTION. 159 
 
 in his humblest works, God infinitely surpasses our 
 highest efforts. " Wisdom is justified of her children ;" 
 nor shall our God be left without a witness so long as 
 thunders peal and lightnings flash, and breakers beat 
 upon the shore ; so long as a flower blooms in the field, 
 a fin cleaves the deep, or a wing cuts the air ; so long 
 as glowing suns blaze above, or dying glow-worms 
 shine below. That controversialist gave the Atheist a 
 crushing answer who told him that the very feather 
 with which he penned the words, " There is no God," 
 refuted the audacious lie. 
 
 In redemption this wisdom is pre-eminent. 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 tJie wisdom of God." Nor can the propriety of the 
 language be doubted by any, who 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 would 
 swim in a sea of fire ; she had to construct a ladder 
 long enough to scale the skies ; she was required to 
 invent a plan whereby justice might be fully satisfied, 
 and yet the guilty saved. The highest intelligences 
 had been at fault here. They might well have asked, 
 who is sufficient for these things ? " He saw that 
 there was no man, and wondered that there was no 
 intercessor." In such an emergency — for such a task 
 
160 THE GOSPEL IN EZEKIEL. 
 
 — sufficient wisdom dwelt only with the Godhead — in 
 him in whom " are hid all the treasures of w^isdom and 
 knowledge." " How shall man be just with God," is 
 a mystery insolvahle to all but Him in whom the most 
 extraordinary and apparently conflicting elements have 
 met ; who has a double nature in a single person — who 
 has a divine father and human mother, who is the only 
 begotten of God and first born of a virgin womb — who, 
 being in one sense dust, and in another sense divinity, 
 has a nature to satisfy and also a nature to suffer. 
 
 Now, this wisdom of God in redemption is in no 
 aspect brought out more strikingly than in the harmony 
 which it has established among what appear conflicting 
 attributes. Here is nothing hke the prophet's graphic 
 picture of a city, where chariots jostle each other on 
 the streets; nor like what happens even on the spacious 
 ocean, when in the gloom of night bark dashes into 
 bark, and foundering crews find in their ship a coffin, 
 and in the deep sea their grave. Harmony, indeed, 
 sits enthroned amid the beautiful order of' the starry 
 heavens. Flaming sun, and wandering comet, and roll- 
 ing planets, move in their orbits without accident or 
 collision ; yet in the harmony established among the 
 attributes of God, redemption illustrates a higher wisdom. 
 We appeal to one fact, which brings that out most 
 palpably. It is this, that with the deepest interests at 
 stake — in circumstances eminently fitted to sharpen his 
 ingenuity — man never approached, so much as guessed 
 at, the only method of salvation. We can shew how 
 near preceding philosophers have reached to the later 
 
GOD GLORIFIED IN EEDEMPTION. IGl 
 
 discoveries of science. For many centuries before their 
 practical application, China was familiar with the pro- 
 perties both of gunpowder and the magnet ; and in our 
 own day have not we seen one astronomer get upon the 
 track of a star, and start a thought, by which another — 
 who pursued it to its ultimate conclusions — has been 
 conducted to the brilliant discovery ? Every one 
 acquainted with the history of science, knows that some 
 of the greatest inventions of the nineteenth century were 
 all but anticipated at former periods ; another step — 
 but another step — and the world had possessed them 
 ages before ; and, centuries ago, man would have steered 
 his way across the sea by the compass needle, yoked the 
 spirits of fire and water to his triumphant wheels, and 
 flashed his messages over oceans and continents on the 
 wings of hghtning. 
 
 The mystery of godliness, however — 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 boldest mind 
 to conceive. We find nothing corresponding to this in 
 the creeds and religions of a heathen world. There is 
 neither glimpse nor glimmering of it in these. Every 
 way but the right one was thought of. Here, the 
 sinner seeks by his own works to work out redemption ; 
 here, by costly sacrifices he attempts to appease offended 
 justice ; here, in children — whom he offers on the bloody 
 
 M 
 
162 THE GOSPEL IN EZEKIEL. 
 
 altar, or passes through the fire to Moloch — he gives the 
 " fruit of his body for the sin of his soul ; " here again — 
 doing less violence to nature — guilty of a crime less 
 contrary to reason and revolting to humanity, he courts 
 death beneath the ponderous wheels of Juggernaut, and 
 sheds the blood of his own body to expiate the guilt of 
 his soul. These were the sands on which man built 
 his house. These were the straws the drowning caught 
 at. There never entered into other mind than God's a 
 plan, or shadow of a plan, by which gentle Mercy 
 might be espoused to stern Justice, and God — in the 
 lustre of untarnished holiness, and the majesty of a vin- 
 dicated law — might appear, as he is seen in Jesus, the 
 "just and yet the justifier of the ungodly." 
 
 III. The holiness of God is glorified in redemption. 
 
 The eyes are moved by the heart, as the hands of 
 a time-piece are tm-ned by its internal machinery. We 
 turn them to what the heart loves, and from what the 
 heart loathes. The most emphatic expression of dislike 
 is a silent one — the closed eyes and averted head. Such 
 an attitude as I can fancy Zedekiah's was, when they 
 brought out his sons to slay them in their father's 
 presence ; and " to wound him that God had smitten," 
 to add bitterness to his captivity and a crushing weight 
 to his chains, to imprint a spectacle on his memory, that 
 should haunt him like a horrid spectre, when sight was 
 quenched and hope for ever gone, his barbarous enemies 
 put the children to death before they put out the father's 
 
GOD GLOKIFIED IN REDEMPTION. 163 
 
 eyes. When you have in fancy put yourself in that 
 father's place, imagining, when you had implored them 
 to begin with you, and save you this horrid sight, and 
 they had refused the favour of these burning irons, how 
 you would have closed your eyes, and turned shuddering 
 from the scene, you may be able in some measure to 
 appreciate the abhorrence "with which a holy God regards 
 iniquity. Hear the prophet — " Thou art of purer eyes 
 than to behold evil, and canst not look on iniquity." 
 
 Nothing might ajjpear more strongly to express the 
 holiness of God than this language, " Thou canst not 
 look on iniquity ;" and yet his hatred of sin is still more 
 fully and much more strongly expressed by the very 
 w^ay in which he saves the sinner ; more fully expressed 
 in redemption, than if, executing relentless 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, what father, has not 
 felt so on reading even the story of the Roman judge ? 
 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 weak expression of his abhorrence of crime, com- 
 pared with the death of this solitary youth. When the 
 culprit — his own child, the infant he had carried in his 
 arms, his once sweet and beautiful boy, the child of his 
 tenderest affections, who had wound himself round a 
 father's heart — rose and received the immolating sen- 
 
164 THE GOSPEL IN EZEKIEL. 
 
 tence at a father's lips, oh ! that iron man offered the 
 costhest sacrifice man ever made at the shrine of justice, 
 and earned for Roman virtue a proverbial fame. 
 
 That is nothing to the spectacle which redemption 
 offers. Over what are these angels hovering? On what 
 scene do they bend a gaze so fixed, intent, so full of 
 awe and wonder ? Sons of the morning ! they had sung 
 in their joy over a new-born world. Attendants at the 
 birth of earth ! they now hail with intenser wonder, and 
 praise in loftier strains, the birth in a stable, the appear- 
 ance of a babe in Bethlehem. They had seen suns 
 blazing into light ; they had seen worlds start into being, 
 and watched them as, receiving their first impulse from 
 the Creator's hand, they rolled away into the far realm 
 of space ; but never had they followed world or sun with 
 such interest as they follow the steps of this weary 
 Traveller from his lowly cradle to the cross of Calvary. 
 What draws all eyes to that sacred spot? what holds 
 them gazing on it with looks of such solemn interest ? 
 The Son of God dies beneath his Father's hand. Inno- 
 cence bleeds for guilt ; divine innocence for human guilt ; 
 a spectacle at which, perhaps, in the mysterious language 
 of the Apocalypse, " There was silence in heaven." On 
 the night which Daniel passed in the lions' den the 
 Persian would hear no music ; — nor flute, nor harp, nor 
 psaltery, nor dulcimer, woke the echoes of his palace ; 
 the daughters of music were all brought low. And I 
 could be bold enough to fancy that during these dread 
 hours, when God's Son hung dying on the tree, there 
 was no music in heaven — there was a solemn pause ; 
 
GOD GLORIFIED IN REDEMPTION. 165 
 
 still every harp, sileut and hushed the voice of song ; 
 then, when all is over, and the cry, " It is finished," and 
 the last dying quiver have passed from Jesus' lips, I can 
 fancy how these angels broke the awful silence, and, 
 turning round to the throne, exclaimed, with new, with 
 deeper, with holier reverence, " Holy, holy, holy. Lord 
 God Almighty." 
 
 This holiness, so glorified in redemption, appears 
 •still more plainly, when we consider how the eyes of 
 Love both multipl}^ and magnify beauties ; and, over- 
 looking all defects, reconcile us even to deformity. How 
 beautifully, tenderly, touchingly, affection clings to an 
 idiot child ! with what ingenuity does Love palliate in 
 our children faults which are tolerable and tolerated in 
 no one else. She flings a broad and kindly mantle over 
 the shame of child and parent, brother, sister, and friend. 
 See how Eli — a too indulgent parent — tolerates crimes 
 in his sons, which it is only doing this holy man justice 
 to believe, he would have died rather than have himself 
 committed. Now, in our judgment, the holiness of 
 God shines conspicuously in this, that, even when sin 
 was mysteriously associated with his beloved Son, it 
 appeared none the less vile in his eyes ; perhaps viler, 
 fouler, still more loathsome, — just as the churchyard 
 mould, flung by the sexton from a grave upon winter's 
 fresh fallen snow, looks the blacker for the contrast. 
 Love would have spared the pains of a beloved Son, 
 but see how it is met and mastered by God's hatred of 
 sin. He looks on our sins as laid on Christ, and still 
 he hates them with a perfect hatred, turning on our. 
 
166 TEE GOSPEL IN EZEKIEL. 
 
 generous substitute an unmitigated vengeance. To 
 slay sin, he passes his sword through the bosom of a 
 well-beloved Son. If he spared not even his own Son, 
 when he took our sins upon him, how holy is God ! 
 Whom will he spare ? What will he spare ? How loud 
 the alarum that Calvary rings in the ears of a drowsy 
 world ! With your eye turned to the cross, within sight 
 of its agonies, within sound of its groans, I ask the ques- 
 tion, and wait for an answer. If he did not spare his own 
 Son, how shall he spare the impenitent and unbelieving ? 
 " If they do these things in a green tree, what shall be 
 done in the dry ? " 
 
 IV. The justice of God is glorified in redemption. 
 
 The prophet is perplexed. He strains his eye to 
 penetrate a mystery. He says to God, " Thou art of 
 purer eyes than to behold evil ; " but then, as one un- 
 able to reconcile the attributes of his character with the 
 dealings of his providence, he asks, " Wherefore lookest 
 thou upon them that deal treacherously, and boldest 
 thy tongue when the wicked devoureth the man that 
 is more righteous than he?" Now, although — as that 
 question implies — clouds and darkness are round about 
 Jehovah's throne, whatever shadow present events may 
 appear to cast upon his justice, and to whatever trial, as 
 in the wrongs of a Joseph or David, faith may be put, 
 in beheving that there is a just God upon earth, his 
 justice is as conspicuous in redemption as was the cross 
 which illustrated it to the crowd on Calvary. Sinners, 
 
GOD GLOEIFIED IN REDEMPTION. 167 
 
 indeed, are pardoned, but then, their sins are punished ; 
 the guilty are acquitted, but then, their guilt is con- 
 demned ; the sinner lives, but then, the surety dies ; 
 the debtor is discharged, but not till the debt is paid. 
 Dying " the just for the unjust, that he might bring us 
 to God," Jesus satisfies for us ; and as we have seen a 
 paid and discharged account pierced by a nail, and hung 
 to gather cobwebs on the dusty wall, the surety who 
 paid our debt, nor left us one farthing to pay, has taken 
 the handwriting that was against us and nailed it to his 
 cross. 
 
 And now, I aver, that justice is not only satisfied, 
 but more than satisfied. She is better pleased to have 
 her debtors free in heaven than incarcerated in hell. It 
 must be so. It is better for the creditor to hold the 
 money in his purse than him who owed it in a prison, 
 and there is no man of common humanity or even of 
 common sense, but esteems himself happier to have the 
 debt paid than the debtor rotting in a jail. Observe, I 
 pray you, that in regard to the lost, and her claims on 
 them, justice, in a sense, is never satisfied. The pains of 
 hell do not, and cannot exhaust the penalty. Dreadful 
 sentence ! banishment for life, for fife eternal, from the 
 blissful presence of God. ]\Iysterious debt ! which ever 
 paying is never paid. No wonder, in one sense, that 
 Jesus died to save. The calamity is so tremendous, 
 so incalculably tremendous, that the occasion was as 
 worthy of the interposition of God, as the salvation it 
 offers is of your grateful and instant acceptance. 
 Embrace it ; for no length of sufiering discharges this 
 
168 THE GOSPEL IN EZEKIEL. 
 
 debt — an awful truth clearly established by the awful 
 fact that the debtor is never discharged. Justice, in the 
 way of punishment, is never satisfied ; and it is plain 
 therefore — to say nothing of his mercy — that God's 
 justice is more illustriously glorified, and far more fully 
 satisfied through the satisfaction rendered by our sub- 
 stitute, than it could have been by our everlasting 
 sufierings. 
 
 Nor is that all. It is a vulgar error to suppose 
 that the only office of justice is to punish. Justice has 
 higher and more pleasing functions. Sternly, indeed, 
 she stands by the gallows tree ; and when her hand has 
 drawn the bolt and launched her victim into eternity, 
 she leaves the scene, sorrowing, it may be, yet satisfied. 
 It is a melancholy satisfaction. From that revolting 
 spectacle turn to this hall of assembled nobles, where 
 amid the brilliant, flashing, gorgeous, magnificence of 
 the scene, all eyes are fixed upon one man. He comes 
 red with the blood of a hundred battles, and crowned 
 with the trophies of a hundred victories ; he comes at 
 the summons of a sovereign whose crown he has saved ; 
 he comes to receive the thanks of a country, grateful for 
 his defence of its shores. Justice presides in that 
 assembly. She was satisfied on the scafibld, here she 
 is more than satisfied. Pleasure and triumph light up 
 her eye, as, with lavish hand, she dispenses titles and 
 rewards, and upon a head so often covered by the God 
 of battles, she places a laurel crown. 
 
 In fact, it is her noblest function to reward merit, 
 to wreath with honours the brow of virtue or of valour, 
 
GOD GLORIFIED IN REDEMPTION. 169 
 
 and send suspected innocence back to the world cheered 
 by the plaudits and flushed with the triumph of a public 
 acquittal. Justice did a stern but righteous act, when 
 she hung up Haman in the face of the sun, and before 
 the eyes of the city — a warning to all tyrants, and a 
 terror to all sycophants ; yet it was a loftier and a 
 happier exercise of her functions to call the Jew from 
 obscurity, to conduct him along the crowded streets 
 with a crest-fallen enemy walking at his stirrup, and 
 royal heralds going before to blow his fame, and ever 
 and anon to cry, " Thus shall it be done to the man 
 whom the king delighteth to honour." Even so, shall 
 the justice of God be glorified when heads, now lying 
 in the grave, are crowned with honour. Believer ! lift 
 up thy drooping head. Thou shalt lift it up in glory 
 from the dust. " He is faithful and just to forgive us 
 our sins." In consideration of a Redeemer's righteous- 
 ness, God shall crown thy brows ; in the righteousness 
 that is on thee, he will reward the work of his Son ; 
 and in the righteousness that is in thee, approve the 
 work of his Spuit. The august assembly of the skies 
 shall present a spectacle of justice glorified. In the 
 Head ^vith all the members exalted, the Captain and 
 every soldier of his army crowned, Jesus shall receive 
 the full payment of His wages, and justice shall reward 
 a Saviour in the saved. " He shall see of the travail 
 of his soul, and shall be satisfied." 
 
THE MEECY OF GOD ILLUSTRATED 
 IN SALVATION. 
 
 And I will sanctify my great name, which ye have profaned. — 
 
 EzEKiEL xxxvi. 23. 
 
 f^ EADUAL development appears to be the law of 
 
 nature, or, to speak more correctly, the method of 
 the divine government. The day does not rush into 
 light, nor blaze upon a dazzled world with the flash of 
 an explosion ; but the sky brightens overhead, and the 
 various features of the landscape grow more and more 
 distinct, as the first streaks of morning are developing 
 into a perfect day. Nature never moves abruptly — by 
 starts and sudden impulses ; — the day bm'sts not into 
 light, nor the woodland into song, nor the buds into leaf, 
 nor the flowers into full blown beauty. From her grave 
 she comes forth at the voice of spring, but not all of a 
 sudden, like the sepulchred Lazarus, at the call of Jesus. 
 The seasons advance with a steady march — by gradual and 
 graceful steps. From the first notes that break the long 
 winter silence, till groves are ringing with love songs ; 
 from the first bud which looks out on departing storms, 
 till woods are robed in their varied foliage ; from the first 
 flower — sweet and welcome harbinger of spring — that 
 
GOD GLORIFIED IN REDEMPTION. 171 
 
 hangs its white bell beside the hngering snow, till gar- 
 dens and meadows bloom, and earth offers incense to her 
 God from a thousand censers ; from summer's first ripe 
 fruit, till autumn sheaves fall to the reaper's song, and 
 fields are bare, and barnyards are full, and every farm 
 keeps " harvest home " — all is progressive. 
 
 Man himself presents no exception to this law. The 
 cradle is shorter than the coffin ; infancy outgrows its 
 dress ; the stammering tongue waxes eloquent ; the 
 tottering foot follows the chase, or stands balanced on 
 the rocking mast ; and those feeble arms which now 
 clasp a mother's neck, shall ere long battle Avith dif- 
 ficulties, subdue the rugged soil, or lay groaning forests 
 low. 
 
 Our minds also grow with our bodies. They expand 
 like a flower-bud ; memory, fancy, reason, reflection, lie 
 folded up in an infant's soul, just like the leaves of an 
 unblown rose. Bathed by night in dews, and by day 
 in sunbeams, these open out to delight the eye with their 
 colours and perfume the air with then* fragrance ; so 
 those expand under the genial influences of a mother's 
 culture, and the dawning light of truth. 
 
 Universal as that of gravitation, the law that reigns 
 paramount in the worlds of mind and matter, extends 
 into the spiritual kingdom. The God of nature is the 
 God of grace, and as he acts without the church, he 
 acts within it. In the first place, the Gospel system 
 itself was gradually developed. The Bible was once a 
 very little book. It grew by degrees to its present 
 size ; and, as in a house, stone is laid on stone, and storey 
 
172 THE GOSPEL IN EZEKIEL. 
 
 built upon storey, so book was superadded to book — 
 history to history — prophecy to prophecy — gospel to 
 gospel — ^and one epistle to another, till the hands of 
 John laid on the copestone, and, standing on the 
 pinnacle' of this sacred edifice, he pronounced God's wide 
 and withering curse on all who should impair its 
 integrity. The temple, in which " the Lord of the 
 temple " appeared, took forty years to complete, but the 
 written word was a work of two thousand, and the 
 revealed word of not less than twice two thousand years. 
 It was a long road between Paradise and Patmos ; and 
 a protracted dawn from the first streak of morning that 
 rose on the Fall, till the sun introduced the perfect day. 
 A period of at least four thousand years separated the 
 curse of Eden and the cross of Calvary. 
 
 In the second place, while the truth was thus slowly 
 developed and admitted by degrees on a benighted world, 
 the effect of that truth on a benighted soul is also gradual. 
 Who starts up into a finished Christian ? The very best 
 men come from their graves, like Lazarus, " bound with 
 grave clothes " — not like Jesus, who left the death dress 
 behind him ; and, alas ! in their remaining corruptions, 
 all carry some of these cerements about with them, nor 
 drop them but at the gate of heaven. The Christian is 
 an example of gradual development. When our growth 
 is quickest, how slow it is ! As, from some fresh stain 
 we wash our hands in the blood of Jesus ; as, from the 
 field of daily conflict we retire wounded at evening to 
 apply the balm of Gilead ; as, with David, we eye some 
 eminence from which we have fallen, or, looking back 
 
GOD GLORIFIED IN REDEMPTION. 173 
 
 along the year, measure the little progress we have made 
 — how often are we constrained to ask in disappoint- 
 ment, "When shall I be holy?" how often are we 
 constrained to cry in prayer, " How long, Lord, how 
 long?" At times it seems as if the dawn would never 
 brighten into day. We almost fear that our fate shall 
 have its emblem in some unhappy flower, which — 
 withered by frost, or the home of a worm — never blows 
 at all ; but dies like an unborn infant, whose coffin is a 
 mother's womb. Blessed be God! this shall not happen 
 with any child of grace. He will perform all things for 
 his people, and perfect what concerneth them. Still, 
 although he who has begun a good work in them will 
 carry it on to the day of the Lord Jesus, all the figures 
 of Scripture indicate progress — a gradual progress. The 
 believer is a babe who grows " to the stature of a 
 perfect man in Christ," and " the path of the just is as 
 the shining light, that shineth more and more unto the 
 perfect day." 
 
 These laws of development have their limit in 
 creation. They affect not God. He has made no pro- 
 gress. There was room for none. His maturity, eter- 
 nally as well as divinely perfect, knows neither growth 
 nor age. His wisdom, knowledge, goodness, love, justice, 
 truth, and mercy, were always — millions of ages ago 
 — what they are now. Knowing no growth, he can 
 suffer no decay. It is the sun which rises that sets ; but 
 it is the peculiar and characteristic attribute of Divinity 
 to be " the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever." His 
 being is as an infinite ocean, which holds within its 
 
174 THE GOSPEL IN EZEKIEL. 
 
 bosom all that lives and is ; that has neither shore nor 
 bottom, beginning nor end, ebb nor flow, calm nor 
 tempest ; which no changes alter, nor tributaries supply ; 
 and which, affected neither by tide nor time, has been, 
 is, and ever shall be full. How adorable is God ! He 
 is great, and greatly to be feared. The attributes of 
 God, however, have been gradually revealed to the 
 knowledge of his intelligent creatures ; their light has 
 risen on the universe like daybreak upon our planet. For 
 example, when he created angels, suns, and worlds, God, 
 in the first instance, displayed his being, his wisdom, his 
 power, his holiness, and his goodness. Then came the 
 first fall. Its scene was laid in heaven. A part of the 
 angelic host committed sin ; and that event called forth 
 the exhibition of another attribute, or — to speak with more 
 propriety — a new display of justice. Punitive justice 
 was now revealed. She unsheathed her glittering sword ; 
 and ftilling in righteous vengeance on the workers of 
 iniquity, it sheared their glory from angels' heads. 
 
 Time rolled on ; how long we know not. At 
 length our world was created, and, after passing through 
 many changes, became the scene of our first parents' pro- 
 bation. Sin came ; and death, sin's shadow, followed ; 
 for, as the Apostle tells, " Sin entered into the world, 
 and death by sin, and so death passed upon all men, for 
 that all have sinned." Now the culprits stand trem- 
 bling before their Maker, nor is there an angel who 
 looks on, but expects to see the sword once more un- 
 sheathed, and hear the thunders, that shook thrones and 
 principalities in heaven, roll, and peal, and crash among 
 
GOD GLORIFIED IN REDEMPTION. 175 
 
 the hills of earth. At this awful moment — at that 
 eventful crisis — how unexpected the voice which came 
 from the most excellent majesty — " Deliver from going 
 down to the pit ; I have found a ransom." To the sur- 
 prise and admiration of angels, from out the light that 
 veils the throne, a beautiful form steps forth, and jMercy, 
 arresting the uplifted arm, turns its weapon away from 
 man on her own bared, spotless, loving bosom. In the 
 Son of God about to assume our nature, she says — " Lo ! 
 I come to do thy will, God. Ready both to satisfy 
 and suffer for his elect, Jesus interposes as he did after- 
 wards for his disciples, when, stepping in between them 
 and the armed band, he said — " I am he ; let these go 
 their way." This brings us now to remark — 
 
 V. The mercy of God 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. This is no example of a distinction without 
 a difference. Some time ago, upon a cold winter day, 
 we passed the door of a humble abode. A venerable 
 old woman stood in the open doorway, facing a very 
 wretched, ragged, starved like child. With one hand 
 she offered a piece of bread — sharing her food with a 
 poverty sorer than her own — while the other held a bowi 
 of milk to the lips of the emaciated creature ; and had 
 you seen the benevolence that beamed in her aged face 
 as she gazed on the orphan partaking of her bounty, 
 you would have gone and done likewise — won over to 
 
176 THE GOSPEL IN EZEKIEL. 
 
 humanity by such a lovely and living picture of the truth 
 that charity is twice blessed — blest in those that give, 
 and blest in those that get. Now, however beautiful 
 that scene was to the eye of humanity, it was not a 
 display of mercy. Not mercy but pity moved that kind 
 hand and gentle breast ; and there the aged matron stood, 
 an example of what is not uncommon among the poor — 
 lofty charity in lowly life. Take another example : — A 
 man builds an asylum for the destitute — a harbour of 
 refuge for the wrecks of fortune. This may be an 
 honourable monument to his memory — it may be, per- 
 haps, but a monument of his vanity; but, whether it 
 be erected for the benefit of the poor, or merely to gratify 
 man's craving for posthumous fame, it is not a temple of 
 mercy. This wandering mendicant, into whose hand 
 you drop your money, as he begs his weary way to a 
 grave, where, with 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 
 but 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 
 divine Graces. On her heavenly wings man rises to 
 his loftiest elevation, and makes his nearest approach 
 and closest similitude to God. This distinction be- 
 
GOD GLORIFIED IN REDEMPTION. 177 
 
 tween 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 ; " but 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 essence of mercy. Mercy is the forgiveness 
 of an injury ; mercy is the pardon of a sinner. Smiling 
 when justice frowns, and extending her favours out and 
 beyond those who are merely without merit, she bestows 
 them on those who are full of demerit. 
 
 Leaving the priest and Levite to walk on in their 
 cold and selfish indifference, look at this good Samaritan. 
 Bending over a bleeding form, he binds the wounds of 
 a man whom robbers have assaulted, and these sancti- 
 monious hypocrites have left to die. There, pity kneels 
 beside suffering humanity, bears a brother's burden, and 
 is afflicted in all his afflictions. From that beautiful spec- 
 tacle turn now to Calvary ; contemplate the cross upon 
 which Jesus dies. Here — herself wounded, and bleeding 
 — Mercy hangs over a wicked world, and with her tears 
 sheds blessings on the head of murderers — " Father, for- 
 give them ; they know not what they do." In fine, the 
 objects of pity are sufferers who have been unfortunate ; 
 the objects of mercy are sufferers who have been guilty. 
 And now understanding mercy to be the forgiveness of 
 a wrong, the pardon of a sinner, the kindness of the 
 
 N 
 
178 THE GOSPEL IN EZEKIEL. 
 
 injured to the injurer, where, as in redemption — where 
 but in redemption — is this crowning attribute of tlie 
 Godhead to be seen ? Save for redemption, this fairest 
 jewel in the crown of heaven had been still concealed — 
 unknown as a pearl shelled in the depths of ocean, or a 
 diamond bedded in the dark mines of earth. 
 
 Guilty man embraced within her arms, how visible 
 is mercy now ! Where can we turn our eyes but she 
 meets them ? Pointing to the pit of perdition, do you 
 say, look there ! Well, we look there. And we see 
 mercy there : not mercy enjoyed, but mercy, alas ! 
 rejected. Turning with horror from the sight, do we 
 raise our eyes to heaven ? There in every saint, robed 
 in righteousness and crowned with glory, we behold a 
 monument of mercy, and exclaim with David, " Thy 
 mercy, oh Lord, is in the heavens." Then as to this 
 guilty world, are not the arms of mercy around it ? 
 They preserve it and sustain it. Every sinner is a 
 monument of sparing, and every believer is a monument 
 of saving mere}''. However God's people in their creeds, 
 catechisms, and confessions may differ in their mode of 
 expressing some points of faith, do not they all concur 
 in this confession — each and all adopt these words — 
 " Great is thy mercy toward me, thou hast delivered my 
 soul from the lowest hell ? " There is mercy above the 
 ground, aye, and beneath the ground. There is mercy 
 in the grave. You may see her form, and hear her 
 sweetly singing upon a believer's tomb. To the shelter 
 of that quiet home God has brought many a dear one, 
 and housed them safely before the storm burst. There, 
 
GOD GLORIFIED IN REDEMPTION. 179 
 
 as a gentle mother, earth has wrapped her mantle around 
 the tender child ; and, when the fierce tempest was 
 beating upon their own heads, oh ! have not many been 
 thankful that some whom they loved, were now beyond 
 its reach — sleeping quietly in the peaceful grave. Yes ! 
 and to believers themselves there is the kindest mercy in 
 the grave. How can they doubt it ? Were I the tenant 
 of an old, crumbling cottage, through whose chinks and 
 gaping rents the cold rain dripped, and frosty winds blew, 
 it were, I think, a favour to pull down this crazy build- 
 ing and build me a palace in its room. Quarrel not 
 with death's rude hand. It is rough but kind. It pulls 
 this frail tabernacle to pieces, that, on the day when 
 mortal shall put on immortality, mercy may raise from its 
 dusty wreck, " a building of God, an house not made 
 with hands, eternal in the heavens." 
 
 In short, on everything I read the words, " The earth, 
 oh Lord, is full of thy mercy." Blessings bestowed on 
 the unworthy come in the form of mercies ; and thus 
 mercies arrive on the wings of every moment ; mercies 
 supply our table ; mercies flow, and overflow in life's 
 brimming cup. They fall in every shower, they shine in 
 every sunbeam, and lie as thick around man's tent as 
 desert manna in the days of old. Here, mercy runs to 
 meet the returning prodigal, and opens her arms to fold 
 the penitent to her bosom. Here, she pleads w^ith the 
 impenitent, and pronounces pardon over the chief of 
 sinners. Here, she weeps with sufferers, or di'ies the 
 tear upon sorrow's cheek. And here, eyeing the storm, 
 she launches her lifeboat through foaming breakers, and 
 
180 THE GOSPEL IN EZEKIEL. 
 
 pulls for the wreck where souls are perishing. It is her 
 blessed hand which rings the Sabbath bell, and her 
 voice that, on savage shores or from the pulpits of a 
 Christian land, proclaims a Saviour for the lost. None 
 she despises ; she despairs of none ; and, not to be 
 scared away by foulest sin, she stands by the bed of 
 guilt, and, bending down to death's dull ear — when the 
 twelfth hour is just about to strike — she looks into the 
 glassy eye and cries. Believe, oh believe, only believe, 
 " whosoever believeth in the Lord Jesus shall not perish, 
 but have everlasting life." 
 
 VI. In redemption, God is glorified in the complete 
 discomfiture of all his and our enemies. 
 
 He is glorified hy Satan s defeat. 
 
 God, having made man in his own image, put him 
 on probation. But was he, could he, be indifferent to 
 the issue ? Assuredly not ; for, although he does not 
 wish the death of guilt, he must, in a sense, have willed 
 the triumph of innocence. What father ever saw his 
 son leave for the field of battle, and did not follow him 
 with wishes for his success ? When the Spartan widow 
 laced on the armour of her warrior boy, and, kissing his 
 cheek, sent him away to the fight, in handing him his 
 father's shield, she bade him return with it or on it — 
 dead, or a conqueror — in honourable life or not less 
 honourable death. And I cannot but believe that the 
 life and honour of our first parents were as dear to God 
 — dearer, far dearer, than ever son's to mother ; for. 
 
GOD GLOKIFIED IN REDEMPTION. 181 
 
 even in our guilt he commended his love to us by giving 
 up his Son to die for us. 
 
 Well ; the hour of conflict arrived, and with it came 
 God's enemy and man's — the Adversary, the Devil, the 
 Evil One, Satan, the Prince of Darkness, the power and 
 Potentate of Hell. A drowning man will seize the 
 swimmer's limb, clasp his arms, nor relax the death-grasp, 
 till after a brief, terrible struggle, they sink together. 
 Thus it has often happened, most pitifully and miserably, 
 that, in his unwise attempts to save himself, the perishing 
 has been the death of a generous friend. But there is 
 in sin a deep and damnable malignity, which, without 
 hope or prospect of personal advantage, prompts the 
 sinner to seize all within his grasp. That he may in- 
 volve others in the same perdition with himself, he lays 
 siege to honesty to conquer it, to virtue to corrupt it. 
 Hence the danger of ungodly associates — " A companion 
 of fools shall be destroyed." It was this diabolical prin- 
 ciple, which we see every day at work, that carried havoc 
 into Eden. Yet not this alone. Besides the inherent 
 hatred that sin bears to holiness, Satan was smarting 
 under his wounds, and, with a fire as unquenchable as 
 that of his own hell, he burned to be avenged. Was 
 there not a vacant throne in heaven ? Had that 
 throne not once been his ? aye, and still been his, 
 but that divine vengeance had hurled him into per- 
 dition ? God was his enemy, and he was God's. 
 He would be revenged. He would defeat God's 
 purposes ; cross, thwart, dissappoint him ; and wreak 
 his vengeance in the only way within a creature's 
 
182 THE GOSPEL IN EZEKIEL. 
 
 reach — he would wound a father's heart through the 
 sides of his children. 
 
 Placed on probation, tested by means of the for- 
 bidden tree, man looked, lusted, ate, sinned, and fell. 
 Satan triumphed. The ruins of Eden scattered around 
 him, he stood upon the grave of human hopes, and, as 
 it seemed, of heaven's intentions also. With what 
 proud satisfaction he contemplated the triumph of his 
 malignant subtilty ! As he wrung the first tears from 
 human eyes, I can fancy how he taunted his weeping 
 victims with the question — " Where is now thy God?" 
 Pharaoh, ere God had done with him, and he with God, 
 got his question answered — " Who is the Lord that I 
 should obey his voice?" The Devil also got his 
 answer. In the fulness of time, and in a son of that 
 woman, Satan encounters her God, to find in him not a 
 match only, but a master. 
 
 When his vessel has broken in the storm, and Ajax 
 stands unsheltered on a rock in mid-ocean, he is repre- 
 sented as in anger with the gods, shaking his clenched 
 hand at heaven. In Eden, for a time, at least, Satan 
 stands in a different and prouder position ; he has con- 
 quered; he has won the victory. Who shall pluck it 
 from his grasp ? He tramples on earth, and laughs at 
 heaven. Although on a grander scale, and involving 
 much grander issues, the scene reminds us of the day 
 when — with the Philistines clustered on this mountain, 
 and Israel on that — there stalked out into the narrow 
 valley, Goliath, the pride of Gath, a moving tower, 
 terrible to look on, in stature six cubits and a span. 
 
GOD GLORIFIED IN REDEMPTION. 183 
 
 High above his dancing phime, the giant shakes a spear, 
 shafted like a weaver's beam, and thunders up this 
 challenge to the trembling host — " Am not I a Philis- 
 tine ? I defy the armies of Israel this day. Give me 
 a man that we may fight together." 
 
 So Satan stood, in bold defiance and unchallenged 
 possession of the field ; and now God might have left 
 man to reap the full harvest of his sin and folly — to 
 drink and drain the cup which his own hands had filled. 
 In the words of Scripture, He had entered into " a 
 covenant with death ; " he had been at an agreement 
 with hell ; " — let him reap as he has sowed. But what 
 then ? Why, Satan then would have seemed to have 
 and hold the advantage — would make himself appear a 
 match for God ; would have boasted ability and skill 
 enough, by his own wiles, to thwart the purposes of 
 eternal wisdom. In that event, all men should have 
 perished ; but in that event, would Jehovah's power 
 have stood out as unchallengeable, or his glory as clear, 
 as at this day ? Assuredly not. And it was for the 
 purpose of exhibiting his power and glory that God per- 
 mitted this temporary triumph. 
 
 Observe yon skilful v*Testler ! He embraces his 
 antagonist, and, lifting him from the ground, with the 
 power of an athlete, he holds him aloft ; ah ! but he 
 raises, to dash him back on the earth with a more 
 crushing 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. 
 
184 THE GOSPEL IN EZEKIEL. 
 
 He does so, that from his proud eminence he may hurl 
 Satan into a deeper hell ; and, angel's 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 ! " From this, believer ! when 
 providences are of the darkest, and thou canst not trace 
 the footsteps of thy God, learn to place unquestioning 
 confidence in his ways and wisdom. 
 
 While God is glorified hy Satan s defeat, he is glori- 
 fied also hy the very time and manner of it. 
 
 You ask, why did four thousand years elapse 
 between the promise and the promised One? I may 
 reply, by asking you, why does this accompHshed racer, 
 who stands abreast of his competitor, not start along 
 with him ? Why, lingering by the starting post, does 
 he give his opponent a long advantage? and then, 
 springing forward on the feet of the wind, approach him, 
 pass him, leave him lagging far behind ? Why, but to 
 prove more plainly his own superiority, and embitter the 
 bitterness of an antagonist's defeat. Or, we may ask 
 you, why, when the news of his friend's illness was 
 conveyed to Galilee, did our Lord tarry there, nor, hurry- 
 ing through Samaria, hasten to the relief of Lazarus ? 
 He does not even arrive just when the breath has left, 
 and ere the form of him he loved is yet rigid and cold 
 in death. He leaves Lazarus to die. He leaves Lazarus 
 to be buried. He leaves Lazarus to lie four days rotting 
 in the grave. Why this strange delay ? why, but that 
 
GOD GI-ORIFIED IN REDEMPTION. 185 
 
 before the dead man's tomb he might stand forth all the 
 more evidently, the conqueror of death, and Lord also 
 of the grave. 
 
 On the alarm of war, the news fly through the land, 
 beacon fires are blazing on every hill and headland, and 
 before one hostile foot has touched the soil, hurrying 
 from shepherd's hut and peasant's cottage, lonely glens 
 and crowded cities, freemen line the beach to fight a 
 country's enemies on a country's shores. What a con- 
 trast to that great battle of redemption ! Here there 
 is no such haste. Not for four days, nor even four 
 years, but for the long period of four thousand years, 
 Satan is left in all but undisturbed and undisputed 
 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? but 
 that a Redeemer's power might appear the more tri- 
 umphant in its ignominious and total overthrow. And 
 so Christ glorified himself; just as we should do, were 
 we to leave the sapling in possession of the soil until it 
 was developed into a full-grown tree, and then, bending 
 on it more than a giant's strength, should lay its pride 
 and glory in the dust. As a Redeemer, Jesus Christ 
 shews himself to be the " Power" as well as the "Wisdom" 
 of God. Such is the manner of redemption. And may 
 I not take occasion from it to tell the oldest, hardest, 
 most hoary sinner, that he should hope, and turn to 
 God ? He has left you long ; He has left j^ou till now ; 
 He has left you amid the infirmities of years to grow 
 stronger in sin. Despair not of mercy ! nor yield to 
 
186 THE GOSPEL IN EZEKIEL. 
 
 the fear that he has shut the door of hope ! What if he 
 has left you so long, just to shew how he can save at 
 the very uttermost — call at the eleventh hour — and by 
 the breath of his Spirit cause " dry bones" to live. 
 
 God is not only glorified in Satan s defeat, and also 
 in the time and manner of it, hut ^re-eminently glorified 
 in tJie instrument of it. 
 
 He was no veteran, the giant's match in years, 
 experience, stature, or strength, who defeated Goliath. 
 When the battle between the two nations was fought 
 by their respective champions, fire flew not from op- 
 posing swords, nor were spears shivered on opposing 
 shields ; the valley shook not beneath the tread and 
 collision of two giants; nor did victory hang in the 
 balance, and anxious partisans endure the agony of sus- 
 pense on confronting mountains, while the air resounded 
 with the clash of arms, and blood gushed from gaping 
 wounds. Never to appearance were two men more 
 unequally matched. When the lines of Israel opened, 
 and a youth, a beardless lad, clad in a shepherd's garb, 
 with no weapon but a sling, and no confidence but God 
 in heaven, stepped forth to measure his strength with 
 the son of Anak, loud laughed the Philistine, and wit ran 
 merrily through his countrymen's ranks. Ere one brief 
 hour had run its course, they wept that laughed, and they 
 laughed that wept. He who guides the sun in his path 
 in heaven, guided the stone as, winged with death, and 
 winged by prayer, it shot from the whirling sling. It 
 sung from the shepherd's hand ; it sank into the giant's 
 
GOD GLORIFIED IN REDEMPTION. 187 
 
 brow ; lie reels, he staggers — and his armour making a 
 mighty clash — he measures his long length upon the 
 ground. Bounding like a young hon, David leaps upon 
 his prey, and, leaving a headless carcass to feed the vul- 
 tures, he returns to the ranks of shouting countrymen — 
 in this hand the giant's sword, in that other his gory 
 head. Old men bless the brave lad, and young men 
 envy him, and happy mothers and laughing maidens 
 sing his fame ; and ere that day's sun has set, there 
 is music, and dancing, and feasting in the homes of 
 Israel. 
 
 That was the type of a still brighter day, on which 
 God glorified himself, discomfited and scattered his 
 enemies, and restored a fallen house to more than its 
 ancient honours. 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 
 head ; summoning the forces of heaven, he might have 
 overwhelmed this enemy and borne him back to hell by 
 legions of embattled angels. It is not so. He meets 
 him, matches him, masters him by a solitary man. Out 
 of the mouth of a babe and suckling he ordaineth 
 strength. Beneath the heel of a man of sorroAvs 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, 
 so completely, so triumphantly turned. By one who 
 died, God destroys " death and him that had the power 
 of death, that is, the devil." And now the babe of a 
 
188 THE GOSPEL IN EZEKIEL. 
 
 cradle, the nursling of a woman's bosom wears the crown 
 and wields the sceptre of the universe. 
 
 " Give thanks then unto the Lord, for he is good ; 
 for his mercy endureth for ever. Oh give thanks unto 
 the God of Gods ; for his mercy endureth for ever. Oh 
 give thanks unto the Lord of Lords ; for his mercy 
 endureth for ever ; who remembered us in our low 
 estate, and hath redeemed us from our enemies. Oh 
 give thanks unto the God of heaven, for his mercy 
 endureth for ever." 
 
THE BENEFITS FLOWING FROM 
 REDEMPTION. 
 
 I will take you from among the heathen, and gather you out of all coun- 
 tries, and hring you into your own land. — Ezekiel xxxvi. 24. 
 
 ly/TAN'S chief end is to glorify God; and God's chief 
 end is to glorify himself. While that is an end 
 worthy of the great Creator, it goes greatly to enlarge 
 our interest in his works, and enhance their value in our 
 eyes. That end dignifies the meanest, and gives loftiness 
 to the humblest of them. When I know that for his 
 own glory he paints each flower, gives the fish its silver 
 scales, and sends forth the beetle armed in mail of gold, 
 his creatures rise in m}^ esteem. It may look a sickly 
 fancy, but one almost feels reluctant to destroy the 
 humblest flower or insect, lest we should silence one of 
 the ten thousand voices which form the choir of nature, 
 and swell the praises of nature's God. Is there a child 
 whose heart does not warm towards the man who 
 praises his father, or speaks honourably of the good 
 man's memory? Now, the very same feeling inclines 
 every affectionate child of God to love all the works that 
 do his Father honour ; and of all men he cannot fail to 
 enjoy the most exquisite pleasure in the beauties of 
 
190 THE GOSPEL IN EZEKIEL. 
 
 nature, who carries to her fields a pious spirit, and sees 
 his Father mirrored in them all; hears his praise sweetly 
 sung in the voices of groves, or nobly pealed in the roar 
 of thunder. Such was the spirit of one — a venerable 
 patriarch — who shed on a very humble station the lustre 
 of brilliant graces. When the storm cleared the street, 
 and sent others in haste to their homes, he was wont to 
 leave his loom, and, going forth, stand with upturned 
 face, raised eye, and his grey head uncovered, to watch 
 the flash, and listen to the music of the roaring thunder. 
 How fine his reply to those who expressed their wonder 
 at his aspect and attitude — " It's my Father's voice, and 
 I like well to hear it." "What a sublime example of the 
 perfect love that caste th out fear ! " Happy is that 
 people that is in such a case, yea happy is that people 
 whose God is the Lord." 
 
 Now, as it ennobles nature — so that the sun shines 
 more bright, and the flowers look more beautiful, and 
 there is a grander majesty in the rolling sea — when we 
 know that God does all things for his own glory, it 
 greatly enhances the preciousness of salvation to know, 
 that in the kingdom of grace he has the self-same end 
 in view. If God saves — not because we deserve mercy 
 — ^but that his own great mercy may be illustrated in 
 saving, ah ! then there is hope for me — Yes, although 
 thou wert an adulterer, a thief, a murderer, the vile 
 wretch who spit in Jesus' face, the rufiSan who forced 
 the thorny crown deep into his bleeding brow, although 
 thou wert that very soldier who buried the lance in his 
 side, and just returning from Calvary, with the blood of 
 
THE BENEFITS FLOWING FROM REDEMPTION. 191 
 
 Christ's heart red on thy spear head, I would stop thee 
 in thy way to say, there is hope for thee. Oh, this has 
 gilded the edges of guilt's darkest cloud, and inspired 
 with hope souls which had otherwise sunk into despair. 
 In circumstances where we would have been dumb — 
 opening not the mouth — when called to the dying bed 
 of vilest, lowest sin, it has unsealed our lips, and lent 
 wings to prayer. Of the preacher, whose walk lies 
 among the most wretched, hopeless, and abandoned, this 
 truth says, since God saves for his own glory, " loose 
 him, and let him go." Go to offer Christ (as I do to- 
 day) to the chief of sinners ; like a sunbeam passing 
 undefiled through the foulest atmosphere, go in thy 
 heavenly purity where the basest of thy race is perish- 
 ing ; nor shrink from this loathsome guilt, but with 
 Jesus' pity and his tears, lift up her dying head, and in 
 the mercy of God in Christ, let her drink the wine of 
 love out of its cup of gold. If the worse a patient is, 
 if the fiercer his fever burns, if the deeper his wound 
 has penetrated, so much the greater is the glory of the 
 physician who cures him ; then the worse a sinner is, 
 the greater Christ's glory when he saves him. But for 
 this, that God in every case saves men, not out of regard 
 to their merit, but his glory, what could sustain the faith 
 of him who, in preaching the Gospel to unconverted 
 men, has to run his horses on a rock, and plough there 
 with oxen ; to sow the seed of God's blessed word under 
 the most unfavourable circumstances ; to write sermons 
 for dead men, and preach them to dry bones. Nothing 
 but faith in this could carry us to the top of Carmel, 
 
192 THE GOSrEL IN EZEKIEL. 
 
 not seven, but seventy times seven, to look abroad over 
 the sea of mercy, and wait till the cloud of blessing rose 
 on the distant horizon, and, spreading over the heavens, 
 discharged its treasures on a barren land. " Seeing we 
 have this ministry we faint not." 
 
 Having already attempted to shew how God glori- 
 fies himself in redemption, we shall now address our- 
 selves to the subject matter of the text, where we are 
 taught that redemption brings good to man as well as 
 glory to God. And it appears from the text — 
 
 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. The 
 Apostle settles that point by the question, " Who maketh 
 thee to differ from another?" and the confession, "By 
 the grace of God I am what I am." Our Lord teaches 
 the same doctrine in these brief but expressive parables — 
 " Two women are grinding at the mill ; one is taken, 
 and another left." " Two men are in one field ; the one 
 is taken, and the other left," " Two men are in one bed ; 
 one is taken, and another left." Christ states the truth, 
 how often does providence supply the commentary? 
 Here are two children ; they were born of one mother ; 
 nestled in one 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. 
 
THE BENEFITS FLOWING FROM EEDEMPTION. 193 
 
 and in death not divided, they are sleeping now, where 
 their dust commingles, in the same grave. But the one 
 is taken, and the other left. This, a child of God, 
 ascends to heaven ; the other, alas ! is lost. Who dare 
 challenge the justice of God ? Mysterious subject ! 
 " He will have mercy on whom he will have mercy." 
 " The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest 
 the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, 
 and whether it goeth : so is every one that is born of 
 the Spirit." 
 
 The truth is, that by nature this world is sunk in 
 sin, and in a sense all men are idolaters. In the days 
 of old, it is said that Egypt had more gods than men. 
 Elsewhere than in Egypt, everywhere, as the Bible says, 
 " there be lords many and gods many." 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. He has been 
 an idolater, who, rebelling against providence, follows 
 the hearse of a coffined god ; he made an idol of wife or 
 child ; and now, when the robber of all our homes has 
 stolen these his gods away, and bears off his plunder to 
 
 
 
194 THE GOSPEL IN EZEKIEL. 
 
 the grave, the feehngs of that man's heart may be ex- 
 pressed in Micah's complaint to the Danite robbers, 
 " Ye have taken away my gods which I made, and what 
 have I more ? and what is this that ye say unto me, 
 What aileth thee ?" Since man, therefore, in his natural 
 state, is — although not in fact — in spirit as much an 
 idolator as the Pagans of any heathen land, it may 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 mysterious 
 electric agency, their scattered atoms were put in motion, 
 and, being made to pass through the solid stone, were 
 aggregated in those shining veins, w^here they now lie 
 to the miner's hand. Gold and silver are the emblems 
 of God's people. And as by some power in nature 
 God has separated these emblems 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. He will " say to 
 
THE BENEFITS FLOWING FROM REDEMPTION. 195 
 
 the north, Give up ; and to the south, keep not back ; 
 bring my sons from afar, and my daughters from the 
 ends of the earth." The corruption of nature, circum- 
 stances of temptation, an evil world, the hostility of 
 hell, all interpose between his purpose and the objects 
 of his mercy. Difficulties in the way these, that tower 
 up into a mountain ! Yet fear not. He will make up 
 the number of his chosen. " Who art thou, great 
 mountain, before Zerubbabel thou shalt become a plain." 
 His grace shall prove sufficient. No doubt grace 
 has a great work to do. Think from what an abominable 
 life, see from what abandoned company God calls some to 
 piety on earth and glory in heaven. Look at this 
 Manasseh or at that Magdalene. How different their 
 Sabbaths now from what once they were ! How different 
 their society now from the associates with whom in 
 mad and frantic dance, they once went whirling round 
 the mouth of the burning pit ! Another and another, 
 and another plunge shrieking into the abyss ; that stops 
 not the dance ; they drown the lost one's cry in louder 
 music ; and in giddier whirl dance on, as little deterred 
 by the fate of their fellows, as the insects that on an 
 autumn evening dash one upon another into the flame 
 of our candle. Ah, when God's saints look down from 
 their elevation on the depths of guilt into which grace 
 descended, and from whence it raised them, they are 
 not satisfied to sing, " He raiseth up the poor out of 
 the dust, and lifteth up the beggar from the dunghill, to 
 set them among princes, and to make them inherit the 
 thrones of glory." They prune their wings for a higher 
 
196 THE GOSPEL IN EZEKIEL. 
 
 flight ; they tune their harps to a higher strain. Lost 
 in wonder, love, and praise, they adopt the words which 
 a humble-minded but eminent Christian insisted should 
 be engraved upon her tombstone — " How great is thy 
 mercy toward me," " Thou hast dehvered my soul from 
 the lowest hell?" It is in a state of deep ungodliness 
 — without God, without the love of God, without the 
 holiness that shall see God, without true purity of heart, 
 without solid peace of conscience — that grace finds all 
 it saves. Such, I know, is not the judgment of the 
 world. Nor do I deny but that many are very lovely 
 in the mere bloom and beauty of natural virtue — so 
 beautiful, so very beautiful, that we cannot help loving 
 them. Is there sin in that ? No ; for even Jesus 
 loved the young ruler at the very time when he refused 
 to follow him. But then, with much that is attractive 
 in the graces of the natural man, they have the same 
 nature, and lie under the self same condemnation, as a 
 world that liveth in wickedness, and lieth under sentence 
 of death. An old writer uses a rough but true expres- 
 sion ; he says that " man in his natural state is half a 
 devil and half a beast." How wonderful the grace 
 which changes such a monster into the image of God ; 
 which converts the basest metal into the purest gold ! 
 
 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 it stood — in 
 search of food sending its roots out over the bare stone, 
 
THE BENEFITS FLOWING FROM REDEMPTION. 197 
 
 and down into every cranny — securely anchored by these 
 moorings to the stormy crag. We have wondered how 
 it grew up there, amid such rough nursing, how it could 
 have survived many a wintry blast, and where, indeed, 
 it found either food or footing. Yet, like one who has 
 become familiar with hardship and 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 think not of yield- 
 ing, but nail their colours to the mast, it has maintained 
 its defiant position, and kept its green flag waving on 
 nature's topmost battlements. 
 
 More wonderful still, is it to see where the grace of 
 God will live and grow. Tender exotic ! plant brought 
 from a more genial clime ! one would suppose that it 
 would require the kindliest nursing and most propitious 
 circumstances; yet look here — A Daniel is bred for 
 God, and for the bravest services in his cause, in no 
 pious home of Israel ; he breathes unhurt the poison, 
 and grows in saintship amid the gross impurities of a 
 heathen palace. Paul was a persecutor, and is called 
 to be a preacher — he was a murderer, and becomes a 
 martyr ; once no Pharisee so proud, now no publican 
 so humble. Like those fabled monsters, which sailing 
 on broad and scaly wings, descended on their prey with 
 streams of fire issuing from their formidable mouths, he 
 took his flight to Damascus " breathing out threatenings 
 and slaughter against the disciples of the Lord." Seeing 
 this from his throne in heaven Jesus descends, appears 
 in person to encounter this terrible persecutor, subdues 
 
198 THE GOSPEL IN EZEKIEL. 
 
 him, and selects him for his chiefest apostle. He bids 
 him wash the blood of Stephen from his hands, and go 
 preach the Gospel. And where afterwards has this very- 
 man some of his most devoted friends ? where, but in 
 Caesar's household ? Truly nothing is impossible with 
 God. What can more strikingly express the power of 
 his all-sufficient grace than the words of John Newton ? 
 Asked by one whether he thought that the heathen 
 could be converted, he replied, " I have never doubted 
 that God could convert the heathen, since he converted 
 me." 
 
 " Never despair," should be the motto of the Chris- 
 tian ; and how should it 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 cold 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 
 hghts upon the ground, but — flitting in painted beauty 
 from flower to flower — drinks honied nectar from their 
 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 won- 
 derful ! yet but an earthly and imperfect emblem of the 
 divine transformation wrought on those who are " trans- 
 formed by the renewing of their minds." Glorious 
 change ! Have you experienced its gracious influences ? 
 Would God they were felt by all of us ! You have it 
 here in this woman, who, grieved in her mind, hes 
 
THE BENEFITS FLOWING FROM REDEMPTION. 199 
 
 a-weeping at the feet of Jesus, nor says anything, nor 
 does anything, but washes them with tears, and, shak- 
 ing out her locks, wipes them with the hairs of her head. 
 She was a sinner. Her condition had been the basest; 
 her bread the bitterest ; her company the worst. She 
 is casting off her vile sinful slough. She leaves it. 
 She appears a new creature. She is radiant with 
 heavenly beauty ; and now rising on the outspread 
 Avings of faith and love, she mounts with her Lord to 
 heaven. How encouraging the wonders of converting 
 grace ! Let us despair of none — neither of ourselves 
 nor any one else. 
 
 III. God will make up the number of his people. 
 
 " I will gather you out of all countries." There 
 are some gatherings in this world which are largely 
 alloyed with pain. Christmas, the New Year, or a 
 birthday time comes round, summoning the members of 
 a scattered family. The circle is again formed ; but, 
 like that of men who have been standing under fire, and 
 closing up their broken ranks, how is it contracted from 
 former years ! There are well-remembered faces, and 
 voices, and forms, that are missing here ; and the family 
 group, which looks down from the picture on the wall, 
 is larger than the living company met at table. Some 
 are dead and gone — " Joseph is not, and Simeon is 
 not;" and a dark cloud hangs on a mother's brow, for 
 on the cheek of yet another her anxious eye, quick to 
 
200 THE GOSPEL IN EZEKIEL. 
 
 see, discovers an ominous spot that threatens to " take 
 Benjamin away." 
 
 There is a gathering, also, when, at the close of a 
 hard-foiight day, the roll of the regiment is called, and 
 to familiar names there comes back no answer. How 
 small the band who meet at night compared with the 
 morning muster ! As the day wore on, and the ranks 
 grew thinner, and the "red line" grew less and less, 
 they came back from each onset like a wave flung upon 
 an iron shore, and every shock they stood, and charge 
 which they repelled, left broad gaps to fill. And now 
 when the fight is over, and the broken hosts muster on 
 the field, to many a gallant soldier in vain the trumpet 
 sounds, or war-pipe blows the gathering of the clan. 
 Alas, for the day ! They shall answer no trumpet but 
 that which calls a world to judgment. 
 
 When dayhght breaks on the shore of 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 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 others, less fortunate, are 
 wringing their hands in the wildness of their grief. 
 Flying from group to group, distracted mothers cry, 
 " Where is my child ?" With the dead on their knees, 
 some sit stunned by sorrow ; frightful to look upon ! 
 speechless, tearless, motionless, as if turned into stone ; 
 while some, wild, raving, shrieking, frantic, stand on the 
 
THE BENEFITS FLOWING FROM REDEMPTION. 201 
 
 shores of the sullen sea, and, stamping on its sands, 
 demand back their dead. 
 
 These are mournful musterings. In striking con- 
 trast to them look at this gathering on Melita's shore : 
 — It was a frightful storm ; the coast unknown ; the 
 ship grounds in deep water with nigh three hundred 
 souls on board. The night before, the boats had been 
 cut adrift, and now not a boat — if boats could live in 
 such a swell — to save them. The swimmers, who strip 
 and plunge into the sea, may perchance reach the shore, 
 but none else shall cheat the deep of its prey. Yet, 
 when there is not another head among the billows — when 
 the last survivor has climbed the beach — they muster ; 
 and soldiers, sailors, prisoners, — all are there. Paul got 
 their lives, and not one has gone amissing, not a soul 
 has perished. " 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, 
 " 1 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. What 
 they have committed to him, he will keep until the great 
 day. And when all earthly schemes are foundered, and 
 life itself has become a wreck — plunging us amid the 
 billows of eternity's shore — and this old world itself 
 is stranded and breaks up like a worn out ship — then 
 
202 THE GOSPEL IN EZEKIEL. 
 
 all who are Christ's shall be safe at the last day's 
 muster, not one of them shall be amissing. Sooner or 
 later all shall reach in safety the heavenly coast. " 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 patriot- 
 ism, or shrivelled up in the cold and narrow spirit of 
 bigotry, allow themselves to " limit the Holy One of 
 Israel," and say with the Jews of old, " We are the 
 people of the Lord ; the temple of the Lord are we." 
 " We have Abraham to our father." Alas ! we are all 
 too prone to think that we stand allied to Jesus in closer 
 relationship than others, even as Benjamin to Joseph ; 
 others may be brothers, ours is a closer brotherhood : we 
 are not only father's but mother's sons. Now, we are 
 patriotic enough to hope much for our country — for a 
 land which has been crimsoned with precious blood, con- 
 secrated by prayers, and whose almost every mountain, 
 as Rutherfurd said, " has been flowered with martyrs." 
 We sympathise, also, with domestic affection ; and the 
 hope that families — so dear to us as our own — shall 
 rise from the place of many graves to dwell together in 
 the house of many mansions. Still, heaven, like the 
 starry firmament which encompasses our globe, is as 
 near other countries as our own. God has people both 
 where we look not for them, and know not of them. 
 A hundred prophets lie secreted in Obadiah's cave ; 
 and when Elijah, wrapped in his mantle, stands before 
 
THE BENEFITS FLOWING FKOM REDEMPTION. 203 
 
 the God of the storm and calm, and the " still small 
 voice," complaining " they have slain thy prophets, and 
 I, even I only am left," he is surprised to hear of the 
 seven thousand in Israel, as true men as he, who have 
 not bowed the knee to Baal. We may be astonished to 
 miss some whom we calculated on meeting in heaven, 
 we shall be astonished to see some there whom we never 
 expected. 
 
 The Gospel is indigenous in no country, and yet 
 belongs to all. Every sea is not paved with pearl shells ; 
 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 golden 
 sands. These symbols of grace have a narrow range ; 
 not grace herself. She owns no lines of latitude or 
 longitude. All climates are one to her. She wears no 
 party badge ; and belongs neither to class nor colour. 
 She takes no objection to a negro's skin. He, whom his 
 white oppressor shrunk from worshipping with, eating 
 with, sailing with, or dwelling with on earth, shall feast 
 at a banquet, and worship in a temple, and reign in a 
 kingdom where his master may never be ; and when — 
 as may often happen — the white skin is shut out, and 
 the black man, now and for ever free, passes in at the 
 celestial gate, it shall furnish but another illustration of 
 the truth, that salvation is " not of blood, nor of the will 
 of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God." 
 
 With this truth, as by a zone of love, elastic enough 
 to be stretched round the globe, we would bind mankind 
 together. Let it awaken in Christian hearts an interest 
 
204 THE GOSPEL IN EZEKIEL. 
 
 in every land, and an affection for every race. Humanity 
 rejoices with piety in the prospects that it opens. The dis- 
 tant natives of the Poles and Equator shall be associated 
 in heaven ; they who have never met in earth shall 
 meet there ; they who never could agree on earth shall 
 agree there ; the desire of our hearts shall be accom- 
 plished there ; up there those who, scowled at by bigots, 
 and pitied by many as amiable visionaries, have sought 
 a closer union among God's children here, shall have 
 their fondest wishes gratified. Turning from the dreadful 
 wars that now shake the earth, and the hardly less painful 
 battlefields of churches, it is a delightful change to con- 
 template this general assembly, where — Jesus himself 
 presiding — the representatives of all nations, tribes, 
 languages, sects and parties, are met to sing the jubilee 
 of universal peace, and celebrate the funeral of their 
 differences. Over that grave no tears are shed ; beside 
 it no pale mourners stand ; within it all quarrels and 
 controversies, with their weapons of war, are buried 
 without fear of resurrection ; above it heaven rises, a 
 glorious temple dedicated to eternal concord, " whose 
 builder and maker is God." 
 
 In the present time, often dishonoured by their 
 quarrels, and always by their separation, Jesus shall 
 then be glorified in all his saints. It is the dust and 
 the rust which the liquid mercury has contracted that 
 impair the brilliancy of its lustre, and prevent the union 
 of its divided globules. And what is it that now keeps 
 true Christians apart but earthly contaminations and 
 unworthy passions ? From these let them be purified 
 
THE BENEFITS FLOWING FROM REDEMPTION. 205 
 
 either by the genial fires of love, or the sharp fires of 
 sufiering, and union will follow — as it follows when the 
 globules of quicksilver, cleansed from impurities, brought 
 into contact, and animated as by mutual affection, run 
 into each other's embraces to form one brilliant and 
 shining mass. May God give his Spirit of love and 
 unity for an end so blessed — to achieve a consummation 
 so devoutly to be wished for. The prophecy fulfilled 
 which foretells this union, then, the redeemed of the 
 cross, and elect of God, shall make up a countless com- 
 pany, one which no man can number — multitudes, mil- 
 lions, myriads — offering such a contrast to the small 
 company who in the days of his flesh followed the steps 
 of the Man of Sorrows, that we shall hear these words 
 no more — " Ye are a little flock." 
 
 " He Cometh, he cometh to judge the earth ; " and 
 how ? after what manner, and in what royal state ? 
 " Behold he cometh with clouds " — clouds, that on their 
 nearer approach to earth, when the general mass resolves 
 itself into individual objects, may be found to consist of 
 an innumerable number of winged and shining angels. 
 On that grand occasion, the saints — countless as the 
 atoms that float in the vapours, or the drops that fall in 
 the showers of the sky — shall form, to use Paul's 
 expression, "a cloud of witnesses." Receiving continual 
 accessions, already they form a cloud in heaven ; one, 
 that, to the eye of faith, resembles those nebulous spots, 
 which, in consequence of their great distance, shine 
 only with a faint luminosity in the far away depths of the 
 starry firmament, and yet resolve themselves, under the 
 
206 THE GOSPEL IN EZEKIEL. 
 
 telescope of the astronomer, into a countless aggregate 
 of burning suns. 
 
 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. 
 
 In that lay the salvation of ancient Israel. " How 
 long will this people provoke me ? I will smite them 
 with the pestilence, and disinherit them ; and I will 
 make of thee a greater nation and mightier than they." 
 Thus spake the Lord to Moses, and how did he reply ? 
 He had certainly a great temptation to return no answer 
 but let things take their course, since in that event the 
 issue would bring him and his family such great advan- 
 tage. Type of the Saviour, he flung himself between 
 justice and her culprits. He ventures to remonstrate 
 with God. He sets himself to shew, that the destruction 
 of Israel — although the just punishment of their sins — 
 might militate against God's declarative honour, and 
 expose it to suspicion ; and that, therefore, although 
 Jehovah could not spare them for their sakes, he should 
 spare them for his own. Moses was concerned for the 
 fate of his countrymen. Like a true patriot, he declined 
 to rise on their ruins ; but still more deeply concerned 
 for the honour of God, he takes courage to reply, " Then 
 the Egyptian shall hear it, and they will tell it to the 
 inhabitants of this land. Now if thou shalt kill all 
 this people as one man, then the nations which have 
 heard of thee will speak, saying, Because the Lord was 
 
THE BENEFITS FLOWING FROM REDEMPTION. 207 
 
 not able to bring this people into the land which he 
 sware unto them, therefore he hath slain them in the 
 wilderness." 
 
 As it was then, so is it now. God's honour, and 
 truth, and covenant are all concerned — are, so to speak, 
 compromised to make good the promise, that he will 
 bring his redeemed to glory. It is, indeed, no easy work 
 to bring believers to glory. 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 of voyages, where for nights 
 the 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. I select a case of recent occurrence. Some 
 while ago a vessel entered one of our western harbours 
 and the town poured out to see her. Well they might. 
 She had left the American shore with a large and an 
 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 does she spread her wings to leave, till but 
 two survive to work that ill-fated ship over the broad 
 waters of a wintry sea. And when, with Providence 
 at the helm, these two men, worn by toil and watching 
 
208 THE GOSPEL IN EZEKIEL. 
 
 to ghastly skeletons, have brought their bark to land, 
 and now kiss once more wives and little ones they never 
 thought more to see, and step once more on a green 
 earth they never more hoped to touch, men throng the 
 pier to see the sight, and hear the adventures of a voyage 
 brought against such dreadful odds to such a happy issue. 
 
 Yet there is never a bark drops anchor in heaven, 
 nor a weary voyager steps out on its celestial strand, but 
 is a still greater wonder. Save for the assurance that 
 what God hath begun He will finish — save for the pro- 
 mise that what concerns his people He will perfect — Oh, 
 how often would our hope of final blessedness altogether 
 expire. Well might David say, " I had fainted unless 
 I had believed." And knowing what we know, and 
 feeling what we feel, how entirely may we acquiesce in 
 the old remark, that the greatest wonder we shall see in 
 heaven, shall be to see ourselves there. 
 
 Yet let Christians take comfort. Your good and 
 God's glory ever run in the same direction. They are 
 the parallel rails on which the chariot of salvation rolls. 
 They shall bring you to the Jerusalem above. To com- 
 pare 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 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 cut in the solid rock, with nothing seen 
 but heaven ; now, boring into the earth, he dashes into 
 some gaping cavern, for a while losing sight even of 
 
THE BENEFITS FLOWING FROM REDEMPTION. 209 
 
 heaven itself, and then again he sweeps forth and on in 
 sunshine, till at length the domes, and towers, and temples 
 of the city burst on his view. And, these close at hand, 
 he concludes his journey by passing through an emblem 
 of death. He enters a gloomy arch, advances slowly in 
 darkness through a place of graves, and then all of a sud- 
 den, emerges into day, to feast his eyes on the glorious 
 scenery, and receive the congratulations of waiting- 
 friends, as he finds himself safe " in the midst of the 
 city." 
 
MAN JUSTIFIED. 
 
 Then will I sprinkle clean water upon you, and ye shall be clean ; from 
 all your filthiness, and from all your idols, will I cleanse you. — 
 EzEKiEL xxxvi. 25. 
 
 TN the earliest peopled regions of the world, there still 
 stand some ancient monuments, bold in plan, and 
 colossal in dimensions, defying both time and change. 
 Raised, as these rude structures were, in the very in- 
 fancy of art, and ere the giant arms of machinery had 
 grown into their present strength, they are objects of 
 deep interest both to the architect and antiquary. How 
 came these great stones there ? By what means or 
 machinery did man, in days so rude, raise such pon- 
 derous masses ? 
 
 Science has questions as inexplicable to put regard- 
 ing the works of nature. We climb a mountain range, 
 and, standing on its apex, see valley and plain stretching 
 far away to meet the ocean, that lies, gleaming like a 
 silver border, on the dim and distant horizon. After 
 enthusiastically expatiating over the glory and beauties 
 of the scene, our eye turns downwards, and lights on a 
 very unexpected object — a shell — a plant — a zoophite, 
 whose proper habitat is the low sea-shore — or, lower 
 
MAN JUSTIFIED. 211 
 
 still, down in the dark depths of ocean — embedded 
 in the rock. How came it here ? what business has 
 it here ? We at once conclude, that, although now 
 raised some thousand feet above the sea, the platform on 
 which we stand had once been an ocean's bed. And 
 he would be a dull and stupid man, in whose mind the 
 question would not arise, what was that agent of tremen- 
 dous power which, upheaving the crust of earth, has 
 turned the floor of a sea, where corals grew, and fish 
 swam, into a mountain crag whereon eagles build their 
 nest. 
 
 In the Providence which determines the lot of man, 
 history presents subjects not less interesting. It is a 
 curious thing to consider how a sea shell came to be 
 embedded in the summit of a mountain crag. It is 
 even a curious thing to watch the progress of a cater- 
 pillar as it climbs up tree or wall to the place of its 
 apparent death and beautiful resurrection. It is still 
 more interesting to see a man fighting, toiling, tearing, 
 his way up from the bottom, to the sunny but often cold 
 and stormy pinnacles of society ; so that, perhaps, when 
 dead, he, whose birth a cottage saw, lies in state within 
 a palace. There are all manner of ways by which men 
 rise in the world. Some, flung up by national convul- 
 sions, rise like the fire stones shot from a volcano's 
 mouth ; they flare for a little, and then are lost in night. 
 Some like sea-weed or a hollow shell, are thrown up by 
 the wave of popular agitation, only by its reflux to be 
 swept back into their original obscurity. Some rise in 
 times of trouble and of turmoil, like the dust and light 
 
212 THE GOSPEL IN EZEKIEL, 
 
 Straws of the whirlwind ; and the lighter they are the 
 more sure are they to rise. Some ascend by the foul 
 and slippery paths of crime ; rising on their neighbours' 
 shoulders, and building dishonest fortunes on honest 
 men's ruin. While some, — being amid all the mysteries 
 of Providence, witnesses that there is a jnst God upon 
 earth, — illustrate the common adage, " Honesty is the 
 best policy," and the still better saying of Scripture, 
 " Godliness is profitable unto all things, having promise 
 of the life that now is, and of that which is to come." 
 But there is no ascent so interesting to study, or by 
 those who are fired with a holy ambition, so blessed to 
 emulate, as that of a sinner into a saint — of a soul to 
 glory. 
 
 That man enjoys one of the charms of history, and 
 reads one of the strangest chapters in the book of provi- 
 dence, who traces the successive steps by which great 
 actors in the theatre of this world have mounted to fame 
 and fortune out of the deepest obscurity. Yet to us 
 there are inquiries of greater interest than these. Few 
 rise from cottages to be kings — nor are such giddy 
 elevations desirable ; most men slip the foot, fall and are 
 crushed ere they arrive at the top of their ambition ; 
 the few who have reached it do so to learn that " uneasy 
 lies the head that wears a crown." It is of little moment 
 to me, how this base-born but brave peasant reached a 
 throne ; but to me it is everything to know how this 
 sinner became a saint, and from being the slave of 
 Satan and very drudge of sin rose to a crown in heaven 
 — to be a king and priest to God. If I am engrossed 
 
MAN JUSTIFIED. 213 
 
 with the momentous interests of eternity, if I have not 
 yet made my caUing sure, if I am still lying in the 
 anxieties and darkness of spiritual distress, it will be 
 of little importance to me, how the shell, which once lay 
 in the depths of ocean, has been raised into the light 
 and regions of the sunny air, but to me it is everything 
 to know, how I, lying buried beneath the wrath of God, 
 can be raised to the sunshine of his peace and favour. 
 To me the question is of the highest importance, which 
 the elder put to John, when, pointing to the innumer- 
 able multitude, "■ who stood before the throne and before 
 the Lamb, clothed with white robes, and palms in their 
 hands," he said, " who are these, and whence came 
 they ?" I am deeply interested to know by what means 
 these, each one — originally like myself — a being of sin 
 and guilt, escaped the wrath of God, and rose to such 
 lofty favour ? Recognising in that company, one, and 
 another, and yet another — who were the chief of sinners, 
 I take heart to say, if they have got up there, why 
 should not I ? The door that was wide enough and 
 high enough for them, can neither be too straight nor 
 too low for me. These questions, in other words, how 
 does God save the sinner ? and what am I to do to be 
 saved ? — questions, the most important which you can 
 ask, or I can attempt to answer, are those at which, in 
 the progress of these discourses, we are now arrived. 
 
 I intend, God helping me, to set forth the means 
 by which he who is most willing to save sinners, accom- 
 plishes his generous and gracious purpose. I am now 
 to shew you that famous breach by which the soldiers of 
 
214 THE GOSPEL IN EZEKIEL. 
 
 the cross, pressing on behind their captain, with banners 
 flying and sword in hand, have taken the kingdom, and, 
 trampling under foot the body of sin, have entered into 
 glory with a holy violence. We are now to look upon 
 that famous ladder which the hand of God has let down 
 from heaven, and by which Abel, and Adam, and Enoch, 
 and Noah, and Abraham, and Jacob, and Daniel, and 
 Peter, and Paul, and the Marys, and Dorcas, and Phoebe, 
 — martyrs and confessors, prophets and saints — following 
 each other, have scaled the walls of glory, and entered 
 into possession of the celestial city. And now, as the 
 angel who had blown the coal and baked the bread 
 beside the lonely sleeper — for such things angels will 
 do for saints — woke Elijah and said to him, " rise and 
 eat ; " with this ladder within your reach — you at its 
 foot, and heaven at its top — I say rise and climb 
 What meanest thou, sleeper ? What do you sleeping 
 there ? The slightest turn, and you roll over into the 
 pit, upon whose dreadful edge the sinner has his bed. 
 House thee up, rise and climb ; God helping thee, by 
 faith lay hold of Him who says — " I am the Wa}'', the 
 Truth, and the Life." 
 
 In entering upon the subject of a sinner's justifica- 
 tion, I remark — 
 
 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 God justifies, as it is after he has justified that he 
 
MAN JUSTIFIED. 215 
 
 sanctifies. This appears — stands out most visibly — in 
 the very terms of the text, " then will I sprinkle clean 
 water upon you." Do not, I pray you, suppose that 
 we disparage holiness. Among the doctrines of gi-ace 
 holiness holds a most important place ; a place so impor- 
 tant — so prominent and conspicuous — that the notion, 
 once current, that the doctrine of a free salvation through 
 the mercy of God and the merits of Christ alone is 
 unfavourable to the interests of morality, can only be 
 ascribed to the malice of the natural heart, or the grossest 
 ignorance. These doctrines set forth the love of Christ 
 as a believer's great motive power, and it might be a 
 sufficient refutation of the calumny to quote the just and 
 glowing exclamation of the poet — 
 
 " Thou bleeding Lamb ! 
 The best morality is love of Thee." 
 
 But what place in the scheme of grace do we assign to 
 holiness ? what language do we hold regarding it ? We 
 distinctly and solemnly aver that without holiness no 
 man shall see God. Could more be asked or said than 
 that? We say so to all — to the sovereign on his 
 throne we say. Without holiness thou shalt never wear 
 a crown in heaven ; to the minister in his pulpit we say. 
 Without holiness thou shalt never minister before the 
 Throne — thou mayst save others, but shall be thyself a 
 castaway ; to the communicant at the table we say, 
 Without holiness thou shalt never sit at the marriage 
 supper of the Lamb ; thou mayst drink of the juice 
 of the grape — but shalt never drink the new wine 
 of his " Father's kingdom ;" we say to all men, " If any 
 
216 THE GOSPEL IN EZEKIEL. 
 
 man have not tlie spirit of Christ, he is none of his." 
 You may have his name ; but that is worth nothing, 
 unless with the name you have received his nature — 
 the nature of one who was holy, harmless, and unde- 
 filed. Grace may make you his ; but whatever you 
 may become, you are not so now, except there be ger- 
 minating in you the very mind of him who was holiness 
 in the flesh — incarnate virtue. We ever echo the ex- 
 hortation of the apostle, " Be careful to maintain good 
 works." 
 
 This is surely no lax or immoral creed. So far from 
 holding good works cheap, we say that by them God is 
 glorified, by them faith is justified, and by them on the 
 great day of judgment shall you, and 1, and every man 
 be tried. You are not to be justified by works, but 
 you are to be judged by works. The rule of that day 
 shall be this — " The tree is known by his fruit," " Every 
 tree which bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down 
 and cast into the fire." Are any of you, then, living 
 in sin — known, habitual, cherished sin — and yet in 
 hope ? Oh, how great is your mistake ! You may be 
 saved f)'om, you cannot be saved in your sins. One 
 sin, even one ! is the " dead fly, that maketh the apo- 
 thecary's ointment to stink;" — is the leak, however 
 small and concealed from the public eye, which, if not 
 stopped, fills and sinks the ship. Hell enters at the 
 smallest breach of God's law, and the smallest sin is 
 thus an enormous evil. Men shrink from poverty, mis- 
 fortune, disease, bereavement, as evils ! There is no 
 radical evil in this world but sin ; if you still persist in 
 
MAN JUSTIFIED. 217 
 
 calling other things evils, sin is their parent — these are 
 her hateful progeny. No sin, no suffering; no sin, no 
 sorrow ; no sin, no sting, nor death, nor grave, nor hell. 
 We change the saying of Paul, and, so changed, apply 
 to sins what he spoke of the sailors. He said of the 
 seamen, Excejjt these abide in the ship ye cannot be 
 saved. To prevail on you to abandon and cast your 
 sins — these Jonahs — overboard, we say, If these abide 
 ye cannot be saved. 
 
 Now, while maintaining to the utmost, that holiness 
 is essential to salvation, we nevertheless regard it as of 
 the highest importance to assign holiness a right and 
 not a wrong place in our system. Should earthquakes 
 shake the ground, or even storms the air, that pyramid 
 must stand unsafely which according to the poet, 
 
 " Like an inverted cone, 
 "Wants the proper base to stand upon." 
 
 That body were a monster in nature, hideous of aspect, 
 and happily of brief existence, which should have its 
 organs and members so misplaced, that the hands should 
 occupy the place of the feet, and the heart should 
 beat in the cavity of the brain. Who does not know 
 that the fruitfulness, beauty, the very life of a tree, 
 depends not only on its having roots and branches, but 
 on these members being placed in their natural order ? 
 Let a tree be planted upside down — set the roots in the 
 air and the boughs in the earth — and I need not ask 
 how much fruit it would yield, nor how many seasons 
 the unhappy plant would survive such barbarous and 
 blundering treatment. 
 
218 THE GOSPEL IN EZEKIEL. 
 
 Well, if it be of such consequence in these things 
 not to depart from the order established in nature, I can 
 certainly affirm that it is of as much consequence not to 
 depart from the order established in the kingdom of 
 grace. It is not enough that you hold right doctrines 
 — nay in a sense hold all the doctrines. The right 
 doctrines must be in the right places. Your astronomy 
 may include all the bodies that enter into our solar 
 system, but if it give a satellite the imperial position of 
 the sun, your system passes into inextricable confusion. 
 The machine may have all its parts, but, if the great 
 wheel that moves them, or the balance wheel that regu- 
 lates them, revolve on any shaft but its own, the entire 
 mechanism either stops, or flies round in furious and 
 destructive disorder. Even so, although all the doctrines 
 of the Gospel be present in our creed, we may commit 
 a great, a dangerous — possibly a fatal mistake — by any 
 mal-arrangement that would put these out of their pro- 
 per place. Such is their mistake who build election 
 upon holiness — not holiness upon election ; who regard 
 good works, not as the result, but the cause of God's 
 mercy ; and who, mistaking the root for the fruit, fancy 
 that God adopts men because they are holy ; when, in 
 point of fact, he makes them holy, just because he has 
 adopted them. 
 
 This, believe me, is not an example of the nice and 
 fine distinctions which theologians have spun ; nor an 
 example of those secondary matters about which bigots 
 may contend, but good men need give themselves no 
 trouble. Let it look a small matter : what great effects 
 
MAN JUSTIFIED. 219 
 
 do some small things produce ? A slight wedge of 
 ■wood, a small pebble lying upon the slip, prevents the 
 vessel from being launched on the bosom of a tide that 
 rises to receive her in its arms ; and when the full tide 
 of love was flowing in Jesus' heart, and his bosom was 
 open to receive the sinner, and everything was conspir- 
 ing to his salvation, in such happy circumstances, have 
 not we seen the notion, that a man must be holy before 
 he goes to Christ, act obstructively and arrest a soul 
 that had already moved, advanced, got some way in its 
 course, and, as w^e thought, was off for heaven ? This 
 is a delusion of the enemy of souls ; and I believe it to 
 be a common, as it is a most dangerous wile of Satan. 
 When conscience gets so uneasy, that for all the devil's 
 rocking it won't sleep, and men grow anxious about 
 their eternal interests, and will be out of the " City of 
 Destruction," it is no uncommon thing with him to 
 send them away in a wrong direction. Thus deluded, 
 are you trying to make yourselves more pure and more 
 penitent, that you may have some right to divine mercy ? 
 Let me tell you 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 bye 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 another illustration of the 
 saying — " The last state of that man is worse than the 
 first." 
 
 With God's help I would endeavour to disabuse 
 your minds of such an error. For that purpose, let me 
 
220 THE GOSPEL IN EZEKIEL. 
 
 borrow an illustration from an asylum, which, like the 
 Gospel which it teaches, in the form of a ragged school, 
 opens its loving arms to the outcast, and seeks to train 
 lip to God and glory the poor children whom its piety 
 and pity have adopted. On entering these blessed 
 doors — the gate of hope to many — your attention is 
 caught by a child, who is supported there by the bounty 
 of some generous Christian. The boy now can spell his 
 way through a Bible — once a sealed book to him ; he 
 knows now, and, in tones fitted to melt any heart, he 
 sweetly sings of a Saviour, of whom once he knew not 
 even the name. 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 their pitiful emaciation to 
 plead for charity. And there is such sharp intelligence 
 in that bright eye, and such an open air of honesty in 
 his beaming face, and such attention to cleanliness 
 appears in his dress and person, and such buoyancy in 
 his whole bearing, as if hope hailed a brighter future 
 for that poor child, that these bespeak your favour. 
 But do you suppose, that these were the child's pass- 
 port to this asylum ? Do you suppose, that when he 
 wandered, an outcast upon the winter streets, shoeless 
 among the snow, shivering in the cold, it was what 
 now so interests you that caught the eye of pity ? Do 
 you suppose, that to these habits and accomplishments, 
 learned under a parental roof, the child owed his adop- 
 tion ? How great your mistake ! This were to tnrn 
 things " upside down." He was adopted, not for the 
 sake of these, but notwithstanding the want of them. It 
 
MAN JUSTIFIED. 221 
 
 was that which, if I may so speak, carried his election. 
 It was his wretchedness that saved him. It was his 
 very misery — when he stood there with sadness in his 
 face, and beggary on his back and hunger in his looks, 
 cold, naked, wicked, wretched — which pled for him. 
 These with more power than eloquence, melted men's 
 hearts and gained his' cause. 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 our regard, are the consequences of his 
 adoption, and never were nor could be its cause. Even 
 so is it with holy habits and a holy heart in the matter 
 of redemption — " Ye have not chosen me, but I have 
 chosen you," says God. Blessed truth ! Glad tidings, 
 indeed, to sinners ! for, since God chooses his people, 
 not because they are holy, but to make them so, who 
 may not be chosen ? who should not hope ? To my 
 eye hope, in that truth, bends her bright bow on life's 
 blackest cloud, and sends a beam of light streaming 
 down into the guiltiest heart. 
 
 11. In redemption the saved are not justified by them- 
 selves, but by God. 
 
 This is no recondite truth — one which we need to 
 dig or dive for. The pearl lies in the dark depths of 
 the sea, but gold commonly lies near the surface of the 
 earth. Like the 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. 
 
222 THE GOSPEL IN EZEKIEL. 
 
 For how is a sinner made clean ? but through the apph- 
 cation 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 hy the sinner. 
 
 Elisha remained within his house, nor accompanied 
 Naaman to the banks of Jordan. Directed by the 
 prophet to wash, and — when pride was ready to revolt 
 from so mean a remedy — persuaded by his servants that 
 it were a foolish thing not to try so small a remedy for 
 so great a cure, the Syrian descended into the water ; and, 
 going down a leper, rose at the seventh dip with a skin 
 fresh as a new born child's. A type of salvation in one 
 respect, that case is not so in another. It is not so 
 in this that Naaman bathed himself : — the sinner does 
 not. In salvation, as in the sacrament of baptism, there 
 are two parties. The baptized and the baptizer are not 
 one. Whether that ordinance be administered to infant 
 or adult, the water is applied by another's hand : and, as 
 no man baptizes, so no man saves himself, no man justifies 
 himself, nor did any man ever sprinkle himself with that 
 atoning blood, which we shall shew to be symbolized by 
 this " clean water." The bloody baptism is administered 
 by the same hand which kindled the sun, and sustains 
 the universe. To God, as Author and Finisher of our 
 Faith, the whole glory of salvation belongs ; for, observe 
 how he says in my text — " / will sprinkle clean water 
 upon you, and ye shall be clean." 
 
 Job enquires, " How should man be just with God?" 
 A great question — one in which we have the deepest 
 interest — one which the Gospel was revealed, and the 
 
MAN JUSTIFIED. 223 
 
 cross of Calvary was raised to answer — and one to 
 which our own merits and works furnish no satisfactory 
 solution. It is natural, most natural, for us to trust in 
 these. I do not deny it. Observe what happens when 
 at sea the cry rises — "A man overboard!" With 
 others you rush to the side of the vessel ; with beat- 
 ing heart you watch the place where the rising air-bells 
 and boiling deep tell that he has gone down. After 
 some moments of breathless anxiety, you see his head 
 emerge from the wave. Now, that man 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, to keep his 
 head from sinking. These struggles may but exhaust 
 his strength, and sink him all the sooner ; nevertheless, 
 that drowning wretch 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 tliat we are lost, when we feel our- 
 selves 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 toil and spend weary, 
 painful, unprofitable days in attempting to establish a 
 righteousness of their own, and to find in the deeds of 
 the law protection from its curse. 
 
 There was a time, no doubt, when man held his 
 fortunes in his own hand ; but that time is gone. Our 
 
224 THE GOSPEL IN EZEKIEL. 
 
 power passed away with our purity. Impotence lias 
 followed the loss of innocence, and we have nothing 
 now left us but a wretched pride. Amid the changes 
 which this world presents, I have seen a man who had 
 known better days — who had been nursed in luxury, and 
 reared in the lap of fulness — outlive his good fortune, 
 and sink into the baseness and meanness of the deepest 
 poverty. It seems to be in such a case with men as with 
 plants. Naturalists say that it is much more difficult to 
 teach a mountain plant to accommodate itself to a low 
 locality, than to get one, which by birth belongs to the 
 valleys, to live and thrive at a lofty elevation. So, there 
 seems nothing more difficult to men than to descend 
 gracefully. How few, who have been accustomed to a 
 high position in society are able to reconcile themselves to 
 a humble one ? And thus. I have seen such an one as I 
 have described, when he had lost his wealth, retain in 
 his vanity what he should first have parted with, 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 can- 
 not pay, we are yet, like the unjust steward, ashamed to 
 beg. Indulging a pride that assorts ill with our rags, we 
 will not stoop to stand at God's door, poor mendicants, 
 who ask for mercy. We shall work out our own salva- 
 tion — nor be beholden to another. Nor, sometimes, if 
 
MAN JUSTIFIED. 225 
 
 not always, till the sinner learns, by prolonged, and pain- 
 ful, 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 Jesus' merits and 
 our own misery. Yet thus and there we must stand if w^e 
 would be saved. Jesus is a saviour of none but the lost. 
 
 Now, to bring us down to this conviction, and to 
 draw from our lips and hearts the cry, " Lord, save me, 
 I perish," God often leaves those whom he calls to try 
 their hand at working out their own salvation, and of 
 the rubbish and untempered mortar of their own works 
 and vows to build up a righteousness of their own. 
 They toil and labour at the Babel tower — a tower to 
 reach to heaven. It rises imposingly. It grows lofty. 
 It looks strong. But some day conscience awakens, and 
 there follows an earthquake of the soul which shakes the 
 fabric to its foundation ; or some sudden gust of tempta- 
 tion strikes it, and the labour of years is laid in ruins 
 upon the ground. This ruin proves their redemption : 
 for— first step in a right direction — they at last come 
 to feel, that, notwithstanding their most strenuous efforts 
 to live holily, holy they are not, holy they cannot be. 
 
 God deals with them as Jesus did on Galilee with 
 Simon Peter. Impetuous, self-satisfied, puffed up with 
 vanity, Peter will walk the sea to parade his power and 
 prove his superiority to the other disciples. His master 
 lets him try it. He bids him come ; not that he may 
 drown Simon, but drown Simon's pride. Boldly he ven- 
 tures on the water. He begins to walk ; but, alarmed at 
 
226 THE GOSPEL IN EZEKIEL. 
 
 his new position as lie rises and falls with the swell of the 
 waves, he begins to fear, and, like a cause which is lost for 
 want of courage, he begins to sink — Slower and lower still 
 he sinks, till the cold water rises to his heart, and kisses his 
 drowning hp. Painful but profitable lesson ! His danger 
 and failure have taught him his weakness. Terror 
 masters shame, and, stretching out his arms to Christ, 
 he cries, " Lord save me, I perish." Now, to such a 
 state, and such a confession, all who are to be saved 
 must first be brought. " I perish," is a saving word. 
 " I perish," like the cry of the child in the natal cham- 
 ber, is the first sign of life, the first utterance of a new 
 existence. He who raises his eyes to heaven to cry, 
 " I perish," " Lord, save me, I perish," has planted his 
 foot on the first round of the ladder that raises man 
 from earth to heaven. Have you got your foot there? 
 conscience stricken and pale with terror, have you ever 
 cried, "Lord, save me, I perish?" 
 
 This confession and this petition will, sooner or 
 later, rise to God from every man, who, under the 
 enlightening and awakening influence of divine grace, is 
 intelligently, seriously, resolutely, bent on salvation. We 
 say so, because no man ever yet tried to live without 
 sinning, and succeeded. Who that ever tried it has not 
 failed ? — Who has not found, that it were as easy for a 
 man of mortal mould and weiglit to walk the water, as 
 to walk this world one day without sin ? Oh, has not 
 He who is angry with the wicked every day, reason to 
 be angry every day with the best of us ? "In many 
 things we offend." 
 
MAN JUSTIFIED. 227 
 
 Imagine not by vows, and engagements, and promises, 
 and resolutions, entered into, in your own strength, to 
 restrain the corruption of your nature — to bind the Hmbs 
 of the " old man." That " old man" is ever yomig. 
 To him age brings no infirmities. He grows in vigour 
 with increase of years. Vulnerable to no weapon but the 
 " Sword of the Spirit," and, intrenched within your 
 heart, he is immortal till you pierce him there. This 
 terrible " old man " laughs at thy strongest bonds, and 
 snaps them on his giant arms, as Samson in the days of 
 old the green withes of the Philistines. 
 
 Time is precious. You waste it in attempting to 
 work out a righteousness of your own. In you so 
 engaged, I see a negro, black and tawny, seated by a 
 running stream, a laughing-stock to some, an object of 
 pity to others, who labours and toils to w^ash himself 
 white, and remove the dark pigment of his skin. Rise 
 up, throw soap and nitre into the stream, and, turning 
 your back on these, go, seek the blood that clean seth 
 from all sin. Are you busy and painstaking in the 
 attempt to work out a righteousness of your own? 
 Leave that loom. Gossamer threads ! are not your 
 vows and promises ever snapping in your hand, and 
 breaking at each throw of the shuttle ? The robe of 
 righteousness was never woven there. The raiment 
 meet for thy soul, and approved of by God, was wrought 
 upon the cross ; there, with colour more enduring than 
 Tyrian purple, it was dyed red in the blood of the Son 
 of God. 
 
 Come away, then, and come to Jesus. Come as you 
 
228 THE GOSPEL IN EZEKIEL. 
 
 are. There is neither time nor need for delay. Imagine 
 not that you have such preparation to make as Joseph 
 had before he was ushered into Pharaoh's presence. The 
 Hebrew prisoner is lying immured in a foul and lonely 
 dungeon, when to a thundering at the gate and the cry 
 of " a message from the palace ! " the ponderous bolts 
 are drawn. The door is thrown open, and, guided by 
 the jailer, the royal messengers hurry along the dreary 
 passages and enter Joseph's cell. Pale, sad, disconso- 
 late, far from his father, and a father's love, a slave, a 
 captive, neglected in dress and person, the Hebrew lies 
 before them. They strike the fetters from his limbs, 
 they hurry him off, for the King with royal impatience 
 frets and grieves till his dream is read ; and yet with 
 all their haste Joseph is not ushered into Pharaoh's 
 presence till the marks of the prison are removed, and 
 in attire and appearance he is made like one who may 
 be admitted into a palace, and stand before a king. 
 We are told that " he shaved himself, and changed his 
 raiment, and came in unto Pharaoh." But I have to 
 tell the sinner that, although he pines in a deeper and 
 more loathsome dungeon, although he is covered with 
 fouler and filthier rags, and although the presence of 
 Jesus is infinitely more august, and venerable, and 
 exalted, than that of any mortal king, he stands in 
 no need of preparatory holiness, of even one short 
 hour's delay. You have neither to change a rag, nor 
 wipe out a stain. Jesus is ready to receive you as you 
 are. Come then as you are. Here, this hour, the 
 bridegroom stands by the marriage altar. It is not 
 
MAN JUSTIFIED. 229 
 
 your wealth, nor rank, nor beauty which has won his 
 heart. He loves you ; he has shed his blood to wash 
 you ; at a great price he has purchased the wedding 
 garment, a robe of righteousness, and the crown of 
 glory. The romance which relates how a low-born 
 maid was united to a prince, the turn in fortune's fated 
 wheel which gave the honours of a queen to a foreign 
 slave, these but dimly shadow what thy fate might be. 
 AVhy, when Christ seeks you, should you hang back ? 
 He is read}'^ to espouse you to himself in the marriage 
 bonds of an eternal covenant — " The mountains shall 
 depart, and the hills be removed, but my kindness 
 shall not depart, neither shall the covenant of my 
 peace be removed, saith the Lord that hath mercy on 
 thee." 
 
MAN JUSTIFIED THEOUGH THE 
 RIGHTEOUSNESS OF JESUS CHEIST. 
 
 Then will I sprinkle clean water upon you, and ye shall he clean. 
 
 EzEKiEL xxxvi. 25. 
 
 T^HE feast was to prepare, the rooms were to be made 
 ready, there were servants to direct, and guests to 
 accommodate, there was the character of the house to 
 maintain, and its whole machinery to keep oiled and in 
 smooth working order — with these things ]\Iartha was 
 busy. Not only busy, but, like many others, she was 
 so occupied, so engrossed with household cares, that in 
 a tone which had the sound of a gentle rebuke, our Lord 
 said, " Martha, thou art cumbered about many things ; 
 but one thing is needful." That observation applies as 
 much to men as to women ; more so, perhaps. 
 
 Furnished with clasping tendrils, and strong by the 
 attachments which they form, the woodbine and ivy wind 
 their pliant arms around the tree, embrace it closely, and 
 rising to its lofty boughs, and clinging to its rough bark, 
 they give ornament and beauty — a vesture of soft green 
 spangled with flowers — in return for the support they 
 get. Like these, woman — gentle, loving, confiding — is 
 prone to attach herself to a nature stronger than her 
 
MAN JUSTIFIED. 231 
 
 own, and to lean on it for support. And whether it be 
 that from this pecnhar disposition she is less opposed to 
 the faith which looks to another's righteousness and leans 
 on another's strength, certain it is there is more religion 
 among women than men. If, on account of the elevation 
 and high position which it has given her in Christian 
 countries, woman owes most to religion, religion in turn 
 owes most to her. You tell me that " by woman came 
 sin ?" I know it ; but I set off this against the fact — by- 
 woman came the Saviour. Jesus was a virgin's child ; it 
 was not, in a sense, by the son of man but woman that 
 ihe serpent's head was crushed. More than that, in those 
 days when he walked this world, women were his trustiest, 
 kindest friends. Whoever betrayed, denied, deserted him 
 — they never did. The nearest to his cross, and earliest 
 at his sepulchre, they were faithful when all others were 
 faithless, and gave early promise of that devotedness to 
 his cause, which their sex in all ages have honourably and 
 pre-eminently displayed. Go through our Christian 
 households, and I will venture to say, that you shall 
 find more women than men, more wives than husbands, 
 more sisters than brothers who are living under the 
 influence of true religion. Many more children have 
 to refer their earliest, deepest, holiest impressions to a 
 mother's than to a father's piety. 
 
 But, be we men or women, " One thing is needful.'' 
 Yet how sad and strange it is, that this one needful 
 thing, which, for that very reason, should be the most, 
 is often the least sought after ; which, for that very reason, 
 should be the first, is often the last sought after ; and 
 
232 THE GOSPEL IN EZEKIEL. 
 
 sometimes, alas ! never sought after at all. It is the 
 brightest featm'e in man's sad and sinful lot, that while 
 amid the business and anxieties, and toils, and cares, and 
 keen competitions of a world, which has so many blanks 
 and so few prizes, there is, after all, but one thing need- 
 ful. And especially blessed is it, that the only thing we 
 really need is the only thing we are sure to get. Sought 
 in sincerity, was it ever sought in vain ? Other gifts 
 may be asked and refused ; but it is true of this as of 
 nothing else whatever, " Ask and ye shall receive, seek 
 and ye shall find, knock and it shall be opened to you." 
 The one thing needful is salvation — it must be that 
 — can be nothing else than that To a man, the con- 
 scious possessor of a never-dying soul, to a man who is 
 burdened with a load of guilt, to a man who, in an 
 eternity which he is nearing every hour, descries a 
 throne of rigid and righteous judgment, oh, what has 
 this wide world to oifer comparable to salvation ? What 
 profit would it be to me though 1 gained it all, if I 
 lost my soul ? All those other things which we seek, 
 all that we toil and travail for, all for which we daily 
 fret and vex ourselves, nay, all for which some are 
 fools enough to barter away their souls, compared to 
 this are but mere spangles and tinsel, dross and dust — 
 bubbles coloured with rainbow hues that break at a 
 touch, and, bursting, smart the eyes of the children whose 
 breath has blown them. When a man lies stretched out 
 on a bed of death, ah, he sees objects then in their 
 due proportions. From that point of view the highest 
 points of earthly ambition, the loftiest pinnacles of 
 
MAN JUSTIFIED. 233 
 
 ■wealth, of power, of fame, dwindle down into littleness, 
 and look as far beneath salvation as the peaks of the 
 loftiest Alp beneath the sun. Yet, strange to tell — 
 incredible, did we not know it to be true — many, as if 
 there was neither God in heaven, nor fire in hell, nor 
 soul in man, take no interest and feel no care about the 
 matter. They live and die like beasts. Is it otherwise 
 with you ? Anxious about what alone is worth anxiety, 
 are you pressing on the preacher the jailer's question, 
 " Oh, sir, what shall I do to be saved?" 
 
 That great question — the greatest of all questions 
 — is one which admits of a short and intelligible answer. 
 Capable of a wide expansion, it can yet be brought 
 within a very narrow compass. The river, which there 
 flows between distant banks, and yonder spreads itself 
 out into a lake, reflecting on its mirror-face the bright 
 heavens above and the dark hills around, is here — where 
 its foaming waters flash past, loud as thunder, and quick 
 as lightning, or creep sullenly along at the bottom of 
 the deep, dark gorge — brought within narrow bounds ; 
 bounds so narrow, that with nerve enough, by one 
 brave leap from rock to rock, I could clear its breadth. 
 Even so all the wide expanse of doctrines to be believed, 
 and duties to be done, which might be expatiated over 
 in reply to the question. What shall I do to be saved ? 
 is contracted, compressed, comprehended in the apostle's 
 brief address, " Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and 
 thou shalt be saved." From the dust of six thousand 
 years bring out the old covenant of Eden, and on that 
 soiled and torn banner, you read the fading motto, " Do 
 
234 THE GOSPEL IN EZEKIEL. 
 
 and live." But what read we on the folds of the 
 triumphant banner, which, defiant of hell and the world, 
 waves on Mount Calvary, and under which believers, 
 panoplied in the armour of God, march to crowns and 
 victory ? The eye of a sinner's hope hails and kindles 
 at the sight of another and better motto ; for there, 
 inscribed in the blood of Jesus, like red letters on a 
 snow-white ground, we read, " Believe and live." Thus 
 as salvation is the one thing needful for man, faith is 
 the one thing needful for salvation. 
 
 Like other things, however, that are one in the 
 aggregate, this one thing consists of many parts. My 
 hand, for instance, is one, yet it is furnished with five 
 fingers. This body is one, yet it has many organs. 
 The Nile or Ganges is one river, but one which is fed 
 by many tributaries, and disgorges its waters into the 
 sea by the channels of many mouths. A tree is one 
 vegetable form, but one that has many roots below, and 
 many branches above ; and even so, to leave the other 
 figures, and select the last, is that " Tree of Life," 
 which has Christ for its root, and for its fruit holiness 
 and heaven. I have seen a tree, after rising in a single 
 stem, divide itself into two great boughs, which, after- 
 wards divided and subdivided into innumerable branches, 
 spread out their foliage to drink in the air and light, and 
 dews and heat, of heaven. So is it with redemption. 
 The subject presents itself to our eye under two grand 
 divisions. First, the remission or pardon of sin ; and 
 secondly, the renovation of the soul. While salvation is 
 the one thing needful, the two things needful to salvation 
 
MAN JUSTIFIED. 235 
 
 are sin pardoned and the soul renewed. For, suppose 
 that your sins were pardoned, but that your heart 
 remained in its corruption, the door of heaven remains 
 shut ; because, " Without holiness no man shall see the 
 Lord." " There shall in no wise enter into it any thing 
 that defileth, neither whatsoever worketh abomination, or 
 maketh a lie ; but they which are written in the Lamb's 
 book of life." Then, again, although your hearts w^ere 
 renewed, unless your sins also were pardoned, that door 
 stands shut ; because of the sentence, " The soul that 
 sinneth shall die." The door of heaven, like that of some 
 treasure-chest or gate of citadel, guarded with jealous care, 
 is thus barred by two strong bolts. Both bolts must be 
 drawn. Before we can enter into glory, we must be par- 
 doned as well as renewed, and renewed as well as pardoned. 
 Leaving the renovation of the soul to be afterwards 
 considered, I resume my observations on the pardon of 
 sin, and justification of the sinner, as expressed and pro- 
 mised in these words : " I will sprinkle clean water upon 
 you, and ye shall be clean." Having endeavoured to 
 prove, first, that God's people are not chosen because 
 they are holy, but that they may become so ; and, 
 secondly, that man does not justify himself, but is justi- 
 fied by God, I now remark — 
 
 III. That 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 you shall be clean." 
 
 Now, since the cleansing is accomplished through 
 
236 THE GOSPEL IN EZEKIEL. 
 
 the application of sprinkled water, surely, some may 
 say, this refers to baptism. The element used in that 
 ordinance is water, and the common method of using it 
 is by sprinkling. And seeing that God says, " I will 
 sprinkle clean water upon you, and ye shall be clean ;" 
 and by that, certainly, means that he will cleanse his 
 people from sin ; and seeing that he thus appears to 
 connect the forgiveness of sin with the sprinkling of 
 w^ater, is there not something — if not much — in these 
 words, favourable to the views of those who maintain 
 that the due administration of baptism removes original 
 sin, and confers on its recipients the grace of regenera- 
 tion ? No ; nothing of the kind, as we shall prove. 
 
 Three hundred years ago, our church, with an open 
 Bible on her banner, and this motto, " Search the Scrip- 
 tures," on its scroll, marched out from the gates of 
 Rome. Did they come clean out of Babylon ? Expe- 
 rience shews, that it is much easier to leave our mother 
 country than drop our mother tongue. Across the seas 
 which they sail, and to the lands which they colonise, 
 the emigrants carry their prejudices, passions, and even 
 old-fashioned superstitions. They people the glens and 
 valleys of the new world with the fairies that dance on 
 the green, and the spectres that walk by night among 
 the haunted ruins of the old country. So I fear that, 
 on departing from the Church of Rome, we carried into 
 our Protestantism — as was not unnatural — some of her 
 ancient superstitions ; just as our Scottish fathers 
 carried into their practice some of her intolerant 
 principles. We cannot approve of their intolerance, 
 
MAN JUSTIFIED. 237 
 
 yet it is but justice to the memory of these great men 
 to add, that it admits of an apology. They had been 
 suckled by the wolf, and it was no great wonder that, 
 with the milk of the wolf, they should have imbibed 
 something of her nature. 
 
 It is not the privilege and happiness of man to pass 
 through his changes like the Saviour. When Jesus 
 rose a conqueror from the grave, he left the dead-clothes 
 behind him. But look at this apparition, from which 
 sisters and friends shrink back. Some scream with 
 terror ; and all afraid to touch him, they leave Lazarus 
 to stand in the dark mouth of his grave, till the word is 
 given, " Loose him and let him go." He comes forth 
 alive, but bound hand and foot ; he leaves the sepulchre, 
 but with his grave-clothes on. And prone, as we of 
 Scotland are, to boast that our fathers, with Knox at 
 their head, came forth from Rome with less of her old 
 superstitions about them than most other churches, to 
 Avhat else than some lingering remains of Popery can 
 we ascribe the painful anxiety which some parents shew 
 to have baptism administered to a dying child '? Does 
 not this look very like a rag of the old faith ? It smells 
 of the sepulchre. 
 
 Summoned once, and in haste, to the dying bed of 
 a mother, who was anxious to see her child baptized ere 
 she herself expired, I found that with her I could sym- 
 pathise. The last act of life — the last effort of her 
 sinking heart — was to give the infant to God. With 
 her dying arms she laid the new-born lamb on the Shep- 
 herd's bosom, and, ere the water was sprinkled by our 
 
238 THE GOSPEL IN EZEKIEL. 
 
 hands on its face, the mother had breathed her last. 
 Unconscious of the affecting scene, the sleeping infant 
 received a double baptism ; at once baptized by the 
 water that fell from our agitated hand, and by the big 
 bitter tears that rolled down on its sweet face from a 
 father's cheeks. There was sorrow and anguish there ; 
 beside that dead mother deep solemnity, but no super- 
 stition ; and, if there was a mother's weakness in the 
 wish, it was one which we felt it no sin to sympathise 
 with. But sympathise with those we cannot, who, 
 when death has stamped his seal upon an infant brow, 
 hurry off for a minister to baptize the dying. I cannot 
 believe that water holds any virtue to save a soul. I 
 recoil with horror from the thought that a God of mercy 
 would suspend salvation on a mere outward ordinance. 
 Is there not reason to suspect that at the root of this 
 anxious and unnecessary haste, there lies some lurking 
 feeling that baptism — if not absolutely essential — is at 
 least very serviceable to salvation, and has some con- 
 nection, near or remote, with regeneration and the 
 remission of sins ? 
 
 Now, with all respect and due regard to the feelings 
 of others, so far as they are conscientious, we cannot look 
 upon such notions as else than the vestiges of an old 
 superstition. We acknowledge no authority in these 
 matters but the word of God. And there I can see no 
 foundation for the idea, that baptism and salvation — 
 baptism and regeneration — are necessarily linked to- 
 gether, or are in any respect inseparably connected. 
 Were it so, baptism were the highest, hohest ordi- 
 
MAN JUSTIFIED. 239 
 
 nance in the universe of God. Had it been so, surely 
 it is not reasonable to suppose that our Lord would 
 have left a rite of such transcendant importance to be 
 administered in every case by inferiors — by the hands 
 of his servants. Were baptism identified with regenera- 
 tion and the " new creature," would the Apostle Paul, 
 who gloried in preaching, have spoken of it as an inferior 
 ordinance ? He declared with manifest satisfaction that 
 he had not been sent to baptize but to preach ; and, 
 leaving the administration of the rite to his inferiors, he 
 even thanked God that he had baptized none of them. 
 Besides, do the cases, for instance, of Simon Magus and 
 the Ethiopian lend any sanction to this theorj'- of bap- 
 tismal power? Assuredly not. 
 
 Look at Simon Magus ! He was baptized by 
 apostolic hands ; and in his case the ordinance, beyond 
 all doubt and controversy, was duly administered. Do 
 his conduct and bearing warrant us to believe that his 
 sins were pardoned or his heart renewed ? By no means. 
 On the contrary, this man is declared, on apostolic autho- 
 rity — by the voice of Simon Peter himself, to be still 
 " in the gall of bitterness and the bond of iniquity." 
 Shocked to find a baptized man, offering with money to 
 buy the Holy Ghost, Peter, bursting with indignation, 
 said, " Thy money perish with thee, because thou hast 
 thought that the gift of God may be purchased with 
 money. Thou hast neither part nor lot in this matter ; 
 for thy heart is not right in the sight of God. Repent, 
 therefore, of this thy wickedness, and pray God if per- 
 haps the thought of thine heart may be forgiven thee, 
 
240 THE GOSPEL IN EZEKIEL. 
 
 for I perceive that tliou art in the gall of bitterness and 
 the bond of iniquity." Surely it is much more reason- 
 able to believe that Simon Magus, although baptized, 
 was not regenerated, than to believe that an inspired 
 apostle would speak in such terms of a regenerate man. 
 What evidence did he give of regeneration ? How could 
 he be regenerate when we hear high heaven itself pro- 
 nouncing him by the lips of its inspired messenger to 
 be still " in the gall of bitterness and bond of iniquity ?" 
 Look next at the Ethiopian eunuch. Was he not 
 haptized and regenerate ? True ; but observe that that 
 order should be reversed ; he was regenerate and haptized 
 — regenerate before he was baptized — not born again 
 in his baptism, but born again before it. Why did 
 Philip baptize him ? He granted him baptism, because 
 he believed with all his heart. Bu't how can a man 
 believe until he is renewed ! In other words, can a dead 
 man move, or cry, or wish, or walk ? The stifled shriek, 
 this awful sound within the coffin, these struggles to force 
 up the lid and throw off the cerements, prove that the 
 dead is alive — that he has passed " from death to life." 
 And did not the Ethiopian give proof of spiritual life 
 previous to his baptism ? Ere he had left the chariot, 
 ere his feet had been dipped in the stream, ere one drop 
 of its water had fallen on his bended head, the Spirit of 
 the living God had manifestly fallen on his heart. Hear 
 the narrative : — " And, as they went on their way, they 
 came unto a certain water ; and the eunuch said. See, 
 here is water ; what doth hinder me to be baptized ? 
 and Philip said, If thou believest with all thine heart. 
 
MAN JUSTIFIED. 241 
 
 thou mayest. And he answered and said, I believe 
 that Jesus Christ is the Son of God." These cases are 
 altogether irreconcilable with the notion that baptism 
 has any necessary connection with the forgiveness of sin, 
 cind the renewing of the Holy Ghost. They evidently 
 prove that baptism and regeneration do not, and cannot 
 stand to each other in the relation of cause and .effect. 
 Otherwise, the case of the Ethiopian were an illustration 
 of what the world never saw, and never shall see — 
 Avould be an example of what were a contradiction and 
 an absurdity — of something far more wonderful than a 
 miracle — of such an impossibility as a son older than his 
 father, or as a thunder-peal that preceded the flash in 
 which it originated — of, in short, an effect in the order 
 of time preceding its own cause. 
 
 Besides, does not the sad and melancholy history 
 of thousands prove that the outward ordinance is often 
 administered without any corresponding administration 
 of renewing gi-ace? The altar and the offering are 
 there, but no fire descends from heaven on the sacrifice. 
 Grant that in our case, and in that of any other such 
 church as ours, the cause of the failure is to be found in 
 our lack of apostolic succession ; grant that in our case the 
 water, if not actually polluted by unconsecrated hands, 
 is deprived of all virtue by the channel through which 
 it flows ; grant that we have no commission to baptize, 
 and that therefore what we do in such holy offices is 
 null and void ; grant the relevancy of all these allega- 
 tions (each and all of which we deny) — is it not an un- 
 deniable and melancholy fact, that the lives of persons in 
 
 B 
 
242 THE GOSPEL IN EZEKIEL. 
 
 all churches — even of the most transcendental in their 
 claims — demonstrate that many are baptized with water 
 who have never been baptized with the Holy Ghost. 
 The question, therefore, 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, rather, nothing, through what 
 church, or by what channel it may flow. Have you 
 got the 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 may be 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, 
 impossible, though it be, without his rod to repeat 
 the miracle of Egypt. 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. It covers more than two- 
 thirds of the entire globe ; it is universally diffused 
 
MAN JUSTIFIED. 243 
 
 through the ambient air; by the clouds it forms it 
 tempers the force of a fiery sun ; it drapes the heavens 
 with curtains of the most gorgeous colours, dyed in the 
 rosy tints of morn or in evening's golden hues ; and it 
 fills the floating reservoirs of the sky, to descend, when 
 burst by lightning, or breaking by their own weight, in 
 refreshing showers on the thirsty ground. The circula- 
 tion 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 
 be 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 on his own person the 
 ejes of thousands, as on a perennial fountain — one never 
 sealed by winter's frost, nor dried by summer suns — free, 
 fufl, 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." Thus in the hope that some of 
 you are thirsting for eternal life thus let me say Jesus 
 now addresses us. AVould to God, he were as precious 
 to us as is water in the sight of him who is perishing 
 of thirst ! With bloodshot eyes, a throat black as coal, 
 his speechless tongue cleaving to the roof of his mouth, 
 the desert reeling round him, oh! what will the traveller 
 not give for one cup of water ? Fill it with water, he 
 will give it back to you filled, twice, ten times over with 
 gold. Would to God that our thirst for Jesus Christ were 
 
244 THE GOSPEL IN EZEKIEL. 
 
 as ardent; that He were all our salvation, and all our 
 desire. 
 
 The property of water, however, to which reference 
 is made here, is one different from any of these. It is 
 not the property by which it sustains or revives life, yet 
 it is one for which this element is as well known, and 
 as universally used. All the world wash with water, 
 as well as drink water ; and the reference here is to that 
 solvent power, by virtue of which it dissolves 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 the 
 question lies in the epithet clean water. Let us ex- 
 amine and analyse this water. It is not water in the 
 state in which it descends from the skies, or flows in 
 our rivers, or may be drawn from a common well ; for, 
 observe, it is not said, then will I sprinkle water, but 
 " clean water on you, and ye shall be clean." The 
 water is such as the Jews understood by clean water — 
 not 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 and changing into blood. 
 
 Gathering the lowing herds from their difierent 
 pastures, they sought up and down among them, till a 
 red heifer was found — red from horn to hoof, and mottled 
 
MAN JUSTIFIED. 245 
 
 by no other colour — one all red, and upon wliose free 
 neck yoke of bondage had never lain. Separated from 
 the herd, accompanied by the people, she is led by priestly 
 procession outside the camp ; and there, struck by a 
 mortal blow, she falls under the hands of the priest. 
 As the blood gushes to the knife, he catches it in his 
 hand, and seven times casts the crimson shower towards 
 the tabernacle. So soon as the victim is dead, it is 
 heaved on the burning pile, and while the smoke of the 
 sacrifice floats away to heaven, horn and hoof, skin, flesh, 
 and bone, are all reduced to ashes. These, being care- 
 fully collected, are mixed with pure water in a pure vessel 
 — and that water is the dean water of my text. See 
 now how plainly — when understood aright — this expres- 
 sion refers to a vicarious sacrifice, and the merits of an 
 atoning death. 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, un defiled, 
 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." 
 Ked 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 
 
246 THE GOSPEL IN EZEKIEL. 
 
 victim, but a flaming image of the wratli of God, imder 
 which his soul was " withered like grass?" And what 
 was the water mingled with this heifer's ashes, but a 
 t3qDe 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. 
 
 Let me further illustrate this. There was another 
 method of preparing this clean water, which, although 
 in some respects different, was the same in this, that it 
 also implied the death of a vicarious sacrifice. The 
 leper, a moving mass of sores, a banished man — ex- 
 pelled from city, synagogue, the dwellings of men, and 
 the house of God — the victim of a disease, which by its 
 loathsomeness, made his presence an offence to others, 
 and his life a burden to himself, was a hideous, doleful, 
 revolting emblem of a sinner. Now let us see how — 
 when God was pleased to cure him — his ceremonial un- 
 cleanness was removed. On the happy occasion, which 
 was to restore him to the arms of his wife, the sweet 
 society of his children, the brotherhood of men, and the 
 presence of God — two living birds were taken. They 
 must be doves or turtles — the gentlest of all God's 
 creatures, and therefore the more fitting emblems of his 
 Son. They are held over a vessel already filled with 
 running water. One bird is slain. The blood, as it 
 
MAN JUSTIFIED. 247 
 
 flows over the plumage o the fluttering victim, falls into 
 the water ; and that, dyed by the crimson stream, now 
 becomes " water of pm-ifying" — the clean water of the 
 text. AVith this sacred lavation the priest sprinkles the 
 man who had been a leper, and now ceremonially clean, that 
 blessed moment he is folded in the embrace of his wife ; 
 he kisses his children ; he walks with them a most joyful 
 man, at the head of a happy family, into the house of God. 
 
 But there were two birds. We have seen one dis- 
 posed of. What has become of the other? With 
 beating heart it remains a prisoner in the hands of the 
 priest; and the close of this ceremonial ofiers us a 
 beautiful and most vivid picture of the removal of guilt. 
 The living bird, type of a sinner to whom a Saviour's 
 merits are to be imputed, is dipt head, feet, wings, and 
 feathers — plunged overhead — into the blood-dyed water. 
 It is " baptized unto death." And, brought out before 
 the people — all crimsoned with blood — the priest opens 
 his consecrated hand, and restores the captive to liberty. 
 Image of a pardoned one on his path to glory, it spreads 
 out its wings, and, beating the air with rapid and 
 rejoicing strokes, with " wings of silver, and feathers of 
 yellow gold," it flies away to its forest home. 
 
 You will now understand the nature of this clean 
 water ; and cannot fail, I think, to see, that although 
 robed in a Jewish dress, justification by faith in the 
 righteousness of Jesus — that paramount article of our 
 creed which Luther called the test of a falling or stand- 
 ing church — is the doctrine of my text. Thus under- 
 stood, it sheds, we think, a valuable light on one of the 
 
248 THE GOSPEL IN EZEKIEL. 
 
 best known, and not least important passages in the 
 Word of God. When Nicodemus, not yet prepared 
 to confess Christ before the world, mufSed himself up 
 in his cloak, and, stealing along the silent streets under 
 the cloud of night, sought an interview with our Lord, 
 Jesus said to him — " Except a man be born again, he 
 cannot see the kingdom of God," adding, by way of 
 explanation, the no less memorable words — " Except a 
 man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot see 
 the kingdom of God." According to the common 
 understanding of these words, they refer only to the 
 renewing of the Holy Ghost. It is generally thought 
 that the water there is but an emblem of the Spirit, and 
 that our Lord just meant to say — Except a man's soul 
 is purified by the Spirit's regenerating influence, as his 
 body is by water, he cannot be a recipient of grace, and 
 an heir of heaven. 
 
 We venture to think, that on that occasion, our 
 Lord preached the Gospel more fully. Turn the light 
 of my text upon these words, read them in connection 
 with it, understand by the water of Christ's address that 
 of my text, and his language to Nicodemus expands into 
 a fuller Gospel. If the water in his address meant only 
 the Holy Spirit, he told the truth, but not the whole 
 truth. Are not more than regenerating influences 
 needed, that a man may enter the kingdom of heaven ? 
 For that end is not the blood of the Saviour as neces- 
 sary as the renewing of the Holy Ghost? Now let our 
 Lord, in addressing Nicodemus — who as a Jew would 
 at once catch the allusion — have an eye to the clean 
 
MAN JUSTIFIED. 249 
 
 water of the ceremonial law ; let the water there refer, 
 like that here, to an atoning sacrifice, and from that 
 celebrated passage the Gospel shines forth in its effulgent 
 radiance. Our Lord tells this ruler what I preach, and 
 pray you to ponder on, that except you are washed in 
 his blood, as well as renewed by his Spirit, you cannot 
 see the kingdom of God. 
 
 The doctrine of the text, and, indeed, of all Scrip- 
 ture is, that nothing saves but blood. In that, as in 
 other senses, " the life is in the blood." There may be 
 sprinkling of water, but without the shedding and 
 sprinkling of blood there is no remission — no remission, 
 though the water fall from the holiest hand, and be itself 
 the purest that ever dripped from mossy well or gushed 
 from mountain rock. What has its fountain in those 
 upper heavens, of which the visible firmament is but 
 the starry floor, is that, which takes away sin. It is not 
 the tears that fall from weeping heavens but those that 
 fell from Jesus' eyes ; it is not the rain that drops from 
 dissolving clouds, but the blood that dropped from a 
 wounded Saviour ; it is not what falls when lightnings 
 flash, and thunders roll along shaking skies, but what 
 fell when the sword of justice was flashed in his dying 
 eye, and the law pealed its loudest thunders on his 
 bleeding head — it is that which brings peace and pardon 
 to a guilty soul, and fills to the brim this crimson foun- 
 tain, which is open for all uncleanness. 
 
 " I," not my ordinances, not baptism, nor the supper, 
 nor preaching, nor praj^er, not these, but "I," says Jesus, 
 " am the way." Not a way, but the way. There is 
 
250 THE GOSPEL IN EZEKIEL. 
 
 but one way. Yet, let me warn you, that although 
 there be but one way of getting to heaven, there are 
 two ways of missing it ; and — strange as at first it seems 
 — these go off in opposite directions ; the one to this 
 side, and the other to that. As one man travelling due 
 westward, and another due eastward, at the same rate 
 of so many miles a day, would meet again face to face 
 in that part of the globe which lies directly beneath our 
 feet, the travellers by the two opposite paths I speak of 
 meet again — meet in perdition. Now, God blessing and 
 enabling you to believe it — this doctrine of salvation by 
 the blood and righteousness of Christ will guard you 
 against both errors — on this side against presumption, and 
 on that against despair. Some — and of these the Pharisee 
 is a type — believe that they are not sinners; or, if 
 sinners, that God is not angry with them, and will not 
 punish them. What an exposure of this delusion is that 
 cross ! The Son of God dies there ; and unless he dies, 
 your sin is not forgiven. Others — and of these Iscariot 
 is the type — turning away from God, believe that he is 
 so angry with them that he will not pardon. They look 
 on him as a stern, austere, vindictive, and implacable 
 Divinity ; in whose bosom the hatred of sin, like a roaring 
 whirlpool, has swallowed up all other feelings — in whom 
 the love, kindness, and pity of the father is lost in the 
 sternness of the judge. And so — nor any wonder when 
 this is their gloomy creed — they shun God, they hate 
 God, they try to shut him out from their thoughts, they 
 wish — how vain the wish ! — that there were no God at 
 all. But where, let me ask, do they find this implacable 
 
MAN JUSTIFIED. 251 
 
 God? If I ascend into heaven, he is not there; there 
 Jehovah sits enthroned, the father of a happy family — 
 hke an effulgent sun, pouring gladness and glory upon 
 all. I return to this earth — go up and down the world 
 — seek him, but he is not here ; I cannot find a trace 
 or footprint of him here. Images of the true God, I see 
 his sun shining without distinction on the evil and the 
 good, and his rain falling with the same affluent abun- 
 dance on the fields of the just and the unjust. Fields, 
 forests, mountains, smihng valleys, and sunny seas, are 
 not more full of creatures than of happiness ; and from 
 the deep bass of ocean to the ringing carol of the lark, 
 nature forms one choir, and chants her hymns to God. 
 I open the Bible, but he is not here. Gift of our heavenly 
 Father, dying legacy of an incarnate Son, revelation of a 
 kind and winning Spirit ! love shines on thy every page, 
 and in thy very name thy generous mercy is proclaimed 
 — Gospel, glad tidings, good tidings of good. Of this 
 God, this appalling spectre, armed to destroy, whom 
 Despair eyes with dark, and hating, and horrid scowl, 
 Heaven says, he is not in me ; Earth says, he is not in 
 me ; the Bible says, he is not in me. 
 
 Where is he, then ? With head averted, hair stand- 
 ing on end, and stony horror in her looks. Despair points 
 to the pit, saying — look there ! What have you to say 
 to that ? In the first place, I have certainly not to say 
 that that hell is but the dream which haunts a guilty 
 conscience — nor yet to deny that there is a hell. No : 
 nor, further, to conceal it although I could. It were no 
 kindness with a green covering to hide the pit ; that is 
 
252 THE GOSPEL IN EZEKIEL. 
 
 the cunning hunter's business ; and the business of him 
 who hunts the world for souls and plants snares in every 
 footpath. It is an awful thought, that pit; it is an 
 awful reality, that pit ; it is an awful abode, that pit ; 
 and this is an awful declaration, " The wicked shall be 
 cast into hell, and all the nations that fear not God." 
 But over against these stern declarations, and between 
 the pit and you, a high red cross is standing. Mercy 
 descends from heaven, alights upon its summit, and 
 preaches hope to despair, pardon to guilt, salvation to 
 the lost. Free as the winds that fan her cheek, free 
 as the sunbeams that shine on her golden tresses, she 
 invites all to come, opens her arms to embrace the 
 world, and in a voice that rings like a silver trumpet, 
 cries, "0, Earth, Earth, Earth, hear the word of the 
 Lord." A beautiful vision ! Her eye, so pitiful, swims 
 in tears as she looks on sinners, and, not willing that 
 any should perish, she bids you read on that cross, 
 where they are written, not in letters of gold, but blood, 
 these blessed words, this greatest oath : — " As I live, 
 saith the Lord, I have no pleasure in the death of the 
 wicked." As Hive, says God, I have no pleasure in 
 the death of the wicked. By my shame and sorrow, by 
 my cross and agony, by this thorny crown and bloody 
 tree, as I die, says Jesus, I have no pleasure in the 
 death of the wicked. And, Holy Spirit ! Dove of 
 heaven ! hovering over us, staying, lingering, refusing 
 to be driven away, thou also sayest, as I loarn, jylead, 
 entreaty im.jplore, " I have no pleasure in the death of 
 the wicked." 
 
MAN CONVERTED. 
 
 A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I putwitbin you ; 
 and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will 
 give you an heart of flesh. — Ezekiel xxxvi. 26. 
 
 TT is a happy thing that baptism is not the door of 
 heaven. Otherwise it had been unhappy for mil- 
 Hons, who, dying in earliest infancy, never undergo 
 that rite — never pass that way. Dying unbaptized, 
 we hold that they die not on that account unsaved ; for 
 whoever dare hang God's mercy on any outward rite, 
 we do not, and although we believe that this interesting 
 ordinance is also, when engaged in with faith, an emi- 
 nently blessed one, we dare not. Thousands go to 
 heaven without baptism. Thousands, alas ! perish with 
 it. Heaven is greatly made up of little children — sweet 
 buds that have never blown, or which death has plucked 
 from a mother's bosom to lay on his own cold breast, 
 just when they were expanding, flower-like, from the 
 sheath, and opening their engaging beauties in the 
 budding time and spring of life. " Of such is the 
 kingdom of heaven." How soothing these words by 
 the cradle of a dying infant? They fall like balm 
 drops on our bleeding heart, when w^e watch the ebbing 
 of that young life, as wave after wave breaks feebler, 
 
254 THE GOSPEL IN EZEKIEL. 
 
 and the sinking breath gets lower and lower, till with 
 a gentle sigh, and a passing quiver of the lip, our sweet 
 child leaves its body lying like an angel asleep, and 
 ascends to the beatitudes of heaven and the bosom of 
 its God. Perhaps God does with his heavenly garden 
 as we do with our own. He may chiefly stock it from 
 nurseries, and select for transplanting what is yet in its 
 young and tender age — flowers before they have bloomed, 
 and trees ere they begin to bear. 
 
 In the words of the Westminster Catechism, "Baptism 
 is a sacrament, wherein the washing with water in the 
 name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Ghost, 
 doth signify and seal our ingrafting into Christ, and par- 
 taking of the benefits of the covenant of grace, and our 
 engagement to be the Lord's." Baptism attaches us to 
 the visible church ; admits to that, and is its door of 
 entrance ; but, while this ordinance unites to the body 
 of professing believers, no more than the sacrament of 
 the supper does it of necessity form a living attachment 
 between us and the Saviour. Let us see what is done 
 in these ordinances. 
 
 Years ago a man stood up in the house of God, and 
 in his arms there lay a sleeping child. Dipping his hand 
 into a laver, the minister sprinkled some drops on the 
 infant's face, and over the unconscious creature pro- 
 nounced the names of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. 
 That child was you. By hands, now mouldering in the 
 grave, your father then tied you — so to speak — to Christ. 
 Well, time rolls on, and infants grow into children, chil- 
 dren shoot up into youths, and youths change into bearded 
 
MAN CONVERTED- 255 
 
 men ; and then there comes another day. A table is 
 spread in the house of God. Like the white shroud 
 in which kind women swathed his body, a hnen cloth 
 covers the memorials of Christ's death. The sacred 
 symbols are uncovered ; the commemoration begins; and, 
 amid the stillness of that solemn scene, with thoughtfal 
 countenance, a man leaves his seat, and taking the 
 bread, and raising the wine cup in his hand, he dedicates 
 himself to the Saviour. That man again is you. And 
 now awake, not asleep, conscious of what is done, not 
 passive but active now, with your own hands you have 
 cast another knot upon the cord by which your father 
 years ago bound you to Jesus. You are now tied — 
 doubly tied — yet it does not follow that you are 
 engrafted into him. 
 
 I have seen a branch man had bound to the bleed- 
 ing tree, that, being engrafted into its wounded side, 
 both might thus be one. Yet no incorporation followed ; 
 there was no living union. Spring came singing, and 
 with her fingers opened all the buds ; summer came, 
 with her dewy nights and sunny days, and brought out 
 all the flowers ; brown autumn came to shake the trees 
 and reap the fields, and with music and dances and mirth 
 to hold " harvest home ;" but that unhappy branch bore 
 no fruit, nor flower, nor even leaf. Just held on by 
 dead clay and rotting cords it stuck to the living tree — 
 a withered and unsightly thing. And so alas ! is it 
 with many ; " having a name to live they are dead." 
 They have no faith ; they want that bond of living 
 union between the graft and what it is gi-afted on — 
 
256 THE GOSPEL IN EZEKIEL. 
 
 between the sinner and the Saviour. And therefore, 
 in quitting this part of our subject for another, let me 
 ask, *' behevest thou ;" and if thou dost not, oh, let me 
 urge you to pray with the man in the Gospel, " Lord 
 help mine unbelief?" 
 
 Do you say, I cannot believe ? In one sense^ that 
 is true ; in another, it is not. It is not true in the 
 same sense as it is true — that a man who has no eyes 
 in his head — nothing but empty sockets — cannot see. 
 All men, in fact, are born with faith. Faith is as natural 
 to a man as grief, or love, or anger. One of the earliest 
 flowers that springs up in the soul — it smiles on a mother 
 in the infant's cradle ; and living on through the rudest 
 storms of life, it never dies till the hour of death. On 
 the face of a child which, left for a little time with 
 strangers, has been caressed with their kisses, and courted 
 with their smiles, and fondled and dandled in their arms, 
 I have seen a cloud gathering, and growing darker, till at 
 length it burst in cries of terror and a shower of tears. 
 The mother returns ; and when the babe holds out its 
 little arms to her, in these I see the arms of faith ; and 
 when, like a believer restored to the bosom of his God, it 
 is nestling in a mother's embrace, and the cloud passes 
 from its brow, and its tears are changed into smiles, and 
 its terror into calm serenity, we behold the play and 
 power of faith. This is one of its earliest, and — so far 
 as nature is concerned — one of its most beautiful deve- 
 lopments. So natural, indeed, is it for us to confide, 
 and trust, and believe, that a child believes whatever it 
 is told, until experience shakes its confidence in human 
 
MAN CONVERTED. 257 
 
 veracity. Its eye is caught by the beauty of some 
 flower, or it gazes up with wonder on the starry hea- 
 vens ; — with that inquisitiveness which in childhood, 
 active as a bee, is ever on the wing, it is curious to 
 know who made them. Now it would believe you if 
 you said you made them yourself. Such is the faith 
 which nature gives it in a father, that it never doubts 
 his word. It believes all he says, and is content to 
 believe where it is not able to comprehend. For this, 
 as well as other reasons, our Lord presented a child as 
 the living model of a Christian. He left Abraham, 
 father of the faithful, to his repose in heaven ; he left 
 Samuel, undisturbed, to enjoy the quiet rest of his grave ; 
 he allowed ]\Ioses and Elias, after their brief visit, to 
 leave the earth, and wing their way back to glory. For 
 a pattern of faith, he took a boy from his mother's side, 
 and, setting him up, in his gentle, blushing, shrinking 
 modesty, before the great assembly, he said, " Whosoever 
 shall not receive the kingdom of God as a little child, 
 shall in no wise enter therein." 
 
 While Paul said, " When I was a child I spake as a 
 child, I thought as a child ; but when I became a man, 
 I put away childish things," neither he nor any other 
 man ever thought of leaving the faith of childhood with 
 its rattle and its toys. Faith is, in fact, the very life 
 and soul of friendship. What is a friend, but one whom 
 I can trust, one who, T believe, will in sorrow's hour 
 mingle his tears with mine, one on whose support I 
 reckon when my back is at the wall ? Without faith 
 in each other's friendship, kindness, and honesty, this 
 
 s 
 
258 THE GOSPEL IN EZEKIEL. 
 
 world would be turned into a Bedouin desert ; men would 
 become Ishmaelites ; my hand against every man, and 
 every man's hand against me. Faith is the marriage- 
 ring ; the guardian angel of conjugal felicity; the jewelled 
 zone that binds society together ; the power, mightier 
 than steam, or wind, or water, that moves all the wheels 
 of commerce. Unless man could trust his fellow-man, 
 business would come to a dead stand ; the whole machi- 
 nery of the world were stopped ; our busy streets Avould 
 bear crops of grass ; and, though winds blew and tides 
 flowed as before, rotting ships would fall to pieces in 
 our silent and deserted harbours. 
 
 Leaving the crowded city for rural scenes, or setting 
 your foot on board ship, and pushing out upon the heaving 
 ocean, you find faith ploughing the fields of both — faith 
 in the laws of nature, in the ordinances of Providence. 
 When the air has still a frosty breath, and, although 
 cleared of winter snow, the earth is cold and — looking 
 dead as a corpse but disrobed of its shroud — it shews 
 neither flower nor leaf, nor sign of life, the husbandman, 
 notwithstanding, yokes his team and drives the bright 
 ploughshare through its breast. With confidence in his 
 step, liberality in his hand, and hope in his eye, he scatters 
 the seed far and wide on the bosom of the ground. He 
 is a believer ; a believer in Providence — in the laws and 
 procession of the seasons. He has faith ; not saving faith 
 indeed, but still true faith. He believes that out of these 
 frosty skies gentle zephyrs shall blow, and soft showers 
 shall fall, and summer beams shall shine ; and, looking 
 along the vista of time, he sees golden corn waving thick 
 
MAN CONVERTED. 259 
 
 upon these empty fields, and hears in this silent scene 
 the joy of light hearts ringing in the laugh and song of 
 the reapers. His ploughing and his sowing are acts of 
 genuine faith ; and, as he strides across the field with 
 his sowing sheet around him, he is an example of one, 
 who, with his eye, as well as his foot, on earth, " Walks 
 by faith, not by sight." 
 
 Then, again, sailing as much as sowing is an act of 
 faith. In this rough and weather-beaten mariner, on 
 board whose ship we are dashing through the gloom of 
 a starless night, and over the waves of a pathless ocean, 
 I see faith standing at the helm. That man has faith 
 in the needle. Believing that the heart of an angel is 
 not more true to God than this needle to the north, he 
 presses forward over the watery waste in a voyage, that 
 may with perfect truth be called a voyage of faith. 
 Would to God we had as strong a faith in the Bible ! 
 Would to God that our trembling hearts pointed as true 
 to Jesus, as his needle in all weathers, and on all seas, 
 to the distant pole ! What we want divine grace to do, 
 is not so much to give us faith, as to give to the princi- 
 ple or faculty of faith, which we have by nature, a right, 
 holy, heavenward direction ; to convert it into faith in 
 things eternal. The faith that sees the unseen — a faith 
 just as strong in the revelations of the Bible as in the 
 ordinary laws of nature, this is what we need. Let it 
 be sought in earnest, persevering prayer. It is " the 
 gift of God ; " for saving faith has God for its author, 
 and the Spirit for its agent, as well as Christ for its 
 object, grace for its root, holiness for its fruit, and 
 
260 THE GOSPEL IN EZEKIEL. 
 
 heaven for its reward. Accepting the righteousness of 
 Jesus Christ, it makes us just; and seeing every sin 
 pardoned, all guilt removed, God smiling, and heaven 
 opening to receive us, faith is the spring of a peace of 
 mind vv^hich is worth more than the wealth of worlds — 
 which passeth all understanding. May God help us to 
 the confession and the prayer, " Lord, I beheve, help 
 thou mine unbelief." 
 
 We have already stated that while salvation was 
 the one thing needful, there were two things needful for 
 salvation. Having considered the first of these, namely, 
 the remission of sin and justification of the sinner, we 
 now enter upon the second, namely, the renovation of 
 the soul as enunciated in the words, " A new heart also 
 will I give you, and a new spirit Avill I put within you, 
 and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, 
 and I will give you a heart of flesh." And we remark — 
 
 I. This is a great change. Not that all men think so. 
 Once on a time, for instance, we wandered into a church 
 in this city. It was the Socinian chapel. The preacher 
 read these words for his text, " Except a man be born 
 again, he cannot see the kingdom of God." And just as 
 at the fords of Jordan, they knew a man's country by the 
 way he sounded Shibboleth, so you can never fail to know 
 a man's creed by the way in which he handles such a 
 passage as that. The preacher read his text ; and then, 
 as it were, sat down by the cradle, where his charge was 
 sleeping, to rock them over into a deeper slumber. The 
 text, forsooth, was an oriental figure! a hyperbole! — 
 
MAN CONVERTED. 261 
 
 pointing to an outward change. No more was needed. 
 In the strong and highly figurative language which 
 eastern nations are accustomed to employ, it described the 
 change undergone b}' a man who has abandoned a wild 
 and wicked life for habits of decency, honesty, and tem- 
 perance. Far be it from me to speak hghtly of temper- 
 ance societies, or of any scheme whatever, that aims at 
 the dignity and elevation of man ; yet, according to the 
 preacher, our Lord's language meant nothing more than 
 the change which these institutions are of themselves 
 able to accomplish — a change of habits without any 
 gracious change of heart. Did a drunkard become 
 sober ? he was born again ; a libertine pure '? or thief 
 honest ? or liar true ? he was born again ! In short, 
 such was the style and character of the discourse, that 
 if a poor hungry soul had gone there for bread, he got 
 nothing — carried away nothing — but a stone. Instead 
 of a fish, there was the serpent's coil, the sound of her 
 deadly hiss. Believe the preacher, and these words 
 were applicable only to the scum and off-scourings of 
 the city — the dregs of society — those poor, depraved, 
 degraded creatures, who, weighed down by a load of 
 poverty and ignorance, and guilt, have sunk to the 
 bottom, and to our shame, are left to lie there in dis- 
 tressing and dreadful pollution. So far as any congre- 
 gation of decent, well dressed, sober, honest, reputable 
 professors of religion were concerned, the saying had 
 no reference to them ; our Lord — although he assuredly 
 found in Nicodemus one of this class — did not speak of 
 them ; they,happy mortals! had no need to be born again. 
 
262 THE GOSPEL IN EZEKIEL, 
 
 You cannot fancy any two things more opposed 
 than that doctrine and ours. We believe that the 
 purest, the gentlest, the loveliest, most amiable creature 
 that blesses fond parents, and one of nature's fairest 
 flowers, adorns earth's happiest home, stands as much 
 in need of becoming a new creature as the vilest outcast 
 who walks these streets — the lost one, whose name is 
 never mentioned but in broken hearted and wrestling 
 prayers to God. The best of mankind are so bad that 
 all have need to be born again ; so bad, that the change 
 promised in the text, and insisted on by our Saviour, 
 cannot be a surface of superficial matter — a mere defile- 
 ment of the skin which nitre and soap may remove. 
 Words have lost their meaning unless this change is a 
 radical reform — a change great in its character, and 
 lasting in its consequences — a change, which, affecting 
 not the habits only but the heart, both reaches down- 
 ward into the deepest recesses of the soul, and stretches 
 forward into the ages of eternity. 
 
 Now, I am afraid that some — dreaming that they 
 have been born again, and so are safe, because their 
 conduct is changed, and because, so far as their mere 
 habits are concerned, they are better than once they were 
 — have gone to sleep before this work is ever begun. In 
 a matter of such momentous importance, beware of rash 
 conclusions. Have we not seen the passions, like the fire 
 upon the hearth, burn out and die for want of fuel? 
 Have we not seen the course of vice, like a worn-out 
 machine, stop from the decays of nature, from the mere 
 wear and tear of its materials ? And since virtue is cheap, 
 
MAN CONVEKTED. 263 
 
 while vice is costly, — levying a heavy tax upon the purse 
 — destructive of health, and damaging to character, have 
 we not seen self-interest turn a man from the indulgence 
 of his strongest passions ? Then, old age cools hot blood. 
 Successive bereavements will in a way break the heart, 
 and some deep disappointment may wean those, who have 
 the keenest appetite for its pleasures, from the gaieties 
 and vanities of the world. And, as in Roman Catholic 
 countries, many a cowled monk, and many a veiled nun, 
 enters monastery or convent more under the influence 
 of disappointment than devotion ; so, when hopes are 
 blasted, and pride is mortified, and ambition has lost the 
 game, you may get sick of the world. Alas ! all who 
 bid adieu to the ball-room and theatre, and giddy round 
 of fashion, do not leave the circle of her enchantments 
 for the closet, the sanctuary, the fields of Christian 
 benevolence. As by sleight of hand and necromantic 
 trick Egypt's magicians produced a set of mimic miracles, 
 that were clever counterfeits of those which God wrought 
 by the hand of Moses, may not other causes than true 
 love of holiness or. godly hatred of sin w^ork such an 
 outward, as bears some cunning likeness to a saving 
 change ? In matters of religion, beware of confounding 
 an almost with an altogether Christian. So far as it goes, 
 any change for the better is good. We hail it with hope. 
 It is good so far as it goes, and good so long as it lasts ; 
 but oh, let us not fall into the fatal mistake of confound- 
 ing an outward reformation with that divine, inward, 
 eternal transformation which is wrought by the Spirit, and 
 promised in the words, " A newheart also will I give you.' 
 
264 THE GOSPEL IN EZEKIEL. 
 
 Leaving the nature of this change to be afterwards 
 considered, let me attempt meanwhile to shew that it is 
 a great change. In illustration of that truth, look, I 
 pray you, to the symbols under which it is presented in 
 the Word of God. 
 
 It is a hirtli. 
 
 So soon as an infant leaves the womb — that dark- 
 some dwelling, where it has passed the first stage of its 
 existence — although the same, it may be said to be a 
 new creature. It enters on a new being. How great the 
 change from that living sepulchre, where it lay entombed, 
 nor saw, nor heard, nor breathed, nor loved, nor feared, 
 nor took any more interest than the dead in all that was 
 happening around it ! Alive, yet how like death its 
 state has been. Having eyes it saw not, ears it heard 
 not, feet it walked not, hands it handled not, affections 
 it felt not. Its condition was a mysterious mingling of 
 the characters of life and death. When the windows of 
 its senses are thrown open, and streams of knowledge 
 come rushing in on its young and wondering soul, and 
 its eyes follow the light, and with these restless hands 
 it is acquainting itself with the properties of matter, and 
 sounds are entering its ears, amid whose mingled din it 
 soon learns to distinguish the sweet tones of one tender 
 voice — its mother's, and it loves, and is loved, and lies 
 nestling in dreamy slumbers on her bosom, or sweetly 
 smiles in her smiling face — how great the change! 
 Now, just because the change wrought on the soul in 
 conversion is also great, and introduces its subject into 
 a new and delightful existence, it borrows a name from 
 
MAN CONVERTED. 265 
 
 that change. That is the first, this is the second birth ; 
 aye, and infinitely the better of the two. Better ! 
 because in that a son of man is born but for the grave, 
 whereas in this a son of God is born for glory. Better! 
 because the march of these little feet is along a rough 
 path between a cradle and a coffin ; whereas the way of 
 grace, however full of trials, toil, and battle, is from the 
 pangs of birth onward and upward to a crown in heaven. 
 Happy for you if you are heaven-born, and heaven- 
 bound. It may be that a stormy life is th}'- earthly 
 destiny. Be of good courage. Let storms rage and 
 tempests roar — however rude the gale or high the 
 swelling billows — a heaven-born passenger in a heaven- 
 bound bark, you cannot miss the haven. " There re- 
 maineth a rest to the people of God." 
 
 This change is a resurrection. A resurrection is a 
 great change. Go to the churchyard. Go to that lone 
 home where thy dearest friends shall one day carry you, 
 whether you will or not. " Come," said the angels, 
 " see the place where the Lord lay." Come, let us see 
 the place Avhere we ourselves shall lie, and look at others 
 as we ourselves shall be. Take man in any of his stages 
 of decay. Look at this compressed line of mould, that 
 by its colour marks itself out as different from the 
 neighbouring clay. Black earth, retaining no apparent 
 vestige of organization ! what resemblance does it bear 
 to a man ? None. Yet gather it up and give it to the 
 chemist ; he analyses it, and pronounces this unctuous 
 dust to have been once a human creature. It may have 
 been a beauty, who saw with alarm the roses fading on 
 
266 THE GOSPEL IN EZEKIEL. 
 
 her cheek, and age tracing wrinkles on her ivory brow, 
 and mixing in grey hairs amid her raven locks. It may 
 have been a beggar, who, tired of a cold and hungry 
 pilgrimage, laid his head gladly in the lap of mother 
 earth, and ended his weary wanderings here. It may 
 have been a king, who was dragged from amid his 
 guards to the tomb, and sullenly yielded to the sway of 
 a monarch mightier than himself. Or, look here at 
 these yellow relics of mortality which the gravedigger — 
 hardened by his trade — treats with such irreverent con- 
 tempt. Look at these preachers of humility — at this 
 mouldering skull, the deserted palace of a soul, within 
 which high intellect once sat enthroned — at those flesh- 
 less cheeks, once wreathed with smiles, and blooming 
 with roses — at that skeleton hand which may once have 
 grasped the helm of public affairs, or swayed the passions 
 of capricious multitudes, or held up the cross from 
 sacred pulpits before the eyes of dying men — at those 
 mouldering limbs, which piety may have bent to God — 
 or at these hollow sockets — now the nest of slimy worms 
 — where glances of love have melted and looks of fire 
 have flashed. 
 
 Turning away your head with horror and humilia- 
 tion, to think that you shall lie where they are — and 
 be as they are — you say, Alas : what a change is there ! 
 Ah, but Christian Faith steps forward, and plants a trium- 
 phant foot on the black grave's edge. Silencing my 
 fears, dispelling my gloom, reconciling me to that lowly 
 bed, she lifts her cheerful voice, exclaiming. True ! but 
 what a change shall be there! Looking through her eyes, 
 
MAN CONVERTED. 267 
 
 I see the spell broken. I see that dust once more animate. 
 And when the blast of the trumpet — penetrating the 
 caves of the rocks, rending the marble tomb, and felt 
 down in the depths of ocean — pierces the ear of death 
 in this dark, and cold, and lonely bed, where I have 
 lowered a coffin, and left the dear form and sweet face 
 of some loved one, I see mortality rising in form immor- 
 tal, more beautiful than love ever fancied, or poet sang. 
 How great the change, when these mouldering bones, 
 which children look at with fear, and grown men with 
 solemn sadness, shall rise instinct with life ! Think of 
 this handful of brown dust springing up into a form 
 like that on which Adam gazed with mute astonishment, 
 when first he caught his own image mirrored in a glassy 
 pool of Paradise ; in a form such as, when awakening 
 from his slumber, he saw with wondering, admiring- 
 eyes, in the lovely woman that lay beside him on their 
 bed of love and roses. And now, because the change 
 which conversion works on the soul is also inexpressibly 
 great, it borrows a name from that mighty change ; that, 
 a resurrection of the body from the grave, this, a resur- 
 rection of the soul from sin. In this also we " pass from 
 death to life " — in this are " created anew in Jesus 
 Christ." " We rise with him," says the Apostle, " to 
 newness of life." 
 
 The greatness of the change is set forth in the symbo- 
 lical representation of it in the next chajpter. Seized by 
 the hand of the Spirit, Ezekiel is borne aloft, carried 
 away through the air, and set down in a lonely valley 
 among the hills of a distant land. At some former 
 
268 THE GOSPEL IN EZEKIEL. 
 
 period, it appears to have been the scene of a great 
 battle. There hosts had sustained the charge of hosts, 
 and crowns perhaps were staked and won. The peace 
 of these solitudes had been rudely broken by the shrieks 
 of the wounded, the wild shouts of the victors, the clash 
 of arms, and the savage roar of battle. It was silent 
 now. But the tide that swept over it had left it strewed 
 with Avrecks. The dead had mouldered unburied where 
 they fell ; the skull rattled in the cloven helmet ; the 
 sword of the warrior lay rusting beside his skeleton, and 
 the handle was still in the relaxed grasp of the bony 
 fingers. On these unsepulchred corpses the " birds of 
 the air had summered," and " the wild beasts of the 
 field had wintered." The rain had washed, and the sun 
 had bleached the bones which the ravens had picked 
 bare ; — they were white and dry. In these grim and 
 ghastly skeletons a doleful picture of death lay stretched 
 out before the prophet ; and in all the scene which he 
 surveyed there was neither sign nor sound of life, but, 
 it may be, the croak of the raven, or the howl of the 
 famished wolf, or the echo of his own solitary footfall. 
 Here Ezekiel was standing, a lonely man, amid the 
 mouldering dead, when a voice m.ade him start. It 
 came from the skies, charged with the strange question, 
 " Son of man, can these bones live ? 
 
 We stay not to relate all that was said and done. 
 It serves our purpose to say, that after the prophet 
 had preached to the bones, he prayed to Him who — 
 to dead bones, dead bodies, dead hearts, dead souls, 
 dead families, and dead churches — is " the Resur- 
 
MAN CONVERTED. 269 
 
 rection and the Life." Ezekiel's was the praj^er of 
 faith — and, as always happens, it had its answer. How 
 encouraging to us, when on our knees, that answer ! 
 We feel as if Aaron and Hur sat by our side, and held up 
 our weary arms. After preaching, the prophet prayed, 
 and then there came from heaven a living, life-giving 
 breath. It blows down the valley ; and as in passing it 
 kisses the icy lips of the dead, and stirs their hair, and 
 fans their cheek, man after man springs to his feet, until 
 the field which Ezekiel found covered with ghastly 
 skeletons is crow^ded with a mighty army — all armed for 
 battle and war — the marshalled host of God. 
 
 Verily that was a great change ; but not less so the 
 work of grace in conversion. While the prophet is 
 gazing with astonished eye on this martial array, where, 
 amid trumpet echoes, spears are gleaming, and plumes 
 are dancing, as, bold in aspect and stout for war, the 
 serried ranks march on, mark what the Lord said ; — 
 " Son of man, these bones are the whole house of Israel ; 
 behold, they say, our bones are dried, and our hope is 
 lost." Now, is not this the very judgment — the identical 
 sentence — which the sinner often pronounces on his own 
 case so soon as his eyes are opened, and he sees himself 
 lost and undone ? What is the house of Israel here, 
 but a type of God's chosen people ? What do we see 
 in Israel here, but our condition by nature ; a state of 
 death ; a state in which we are " dead in trespasses 
 and sins." On this account Satan would have us yield to 
 despair. It is he, who says that for such sinners there 
 is no help — no hope. It is his voice which speaks in 
 
270 THE GOSPEL IN EZEKIEL. 
 
 the complaint, " Our bones are dried, and our hope is 
 lost." The father of lies, the eneruy of souls ! listen 
 not to him. Nor yielding even to a doubt, — for here 
 " he that doubteth is damned " — but mark God's gracious 
 answer to such dark, querulous, desponding words — 
 " Thus saith the Lord God ; behold, my people, I will 
 open your graves, and I will put my spirit within you, 
 and ye shall live." 
 
 Hereafter we shall enter particularly into the nature 
 of this great change ; meanwhile let me ask, Have you 
 any experience of it? I neither ask when, nor where, 
 nor how you felt its first impressions. On these sub- 
 jects the experience of saints is very different. Some 
 can tell the time — giving day and date, the hour, the 
 providence, the place, the text, the preacher, and all 
 the memorable and ever interesting circumstances asso- 
 ciated with their conversion. They can shew the arrow, 
 which, shot from some bow drawn at a venture, pierced 
 the joints of their armour, and quivered in their heart. 
 They can shew the pebble from the brook, that, slung 
 it may be, by a youthful hand, but directed of God, was 
 buried in the forehead of their giant sin. They can 
 shew the word that penetrated their soul, and — in some 
 truths of Scripture — the salve that healed the sore, the 
 balm that staunched the blood, the bandage that Christ's 
 own kind hand wrapped on the bleeding wound. Able 
 to trace the steps and relate the whole progress of their 
 conversion, they can say with David, " come and hear, 
 all ye that fear God, and I will declare what he hath 
 done for my soul." 
 
MAN CONVERTED. 271 
 
 It is not so, however, with all, or, perhaps, with 
 most. Some, so to speak, are still-born ; they were 
 unconscious of their change ; nor knew when or how it 
 happened ; for a while at least, they gave hardly a sign 
 of life. And thus with many the dawn of grace is in 
 more respects than one, like the dawn of day. We turn 
 our face to the eastward, and our back to the setting 
 stars, to note the moment of the birth of morning ; yet 
 how hard it is to tell when and where the first faint, 
 cold steel-grey gleam appears. And it is with many in 
 regard to their spiritual dawm, — with the breaking of an 
 eternal day, — with their first emotions of desire, and of 
 alarm, as with that faint and feeble streak, which bright- 
 ened, and widened, and spread, till it blazed into a 
 brilliant sky. 
 
 The chief matter, about which to be anxious, is not 
 the time, nor place, nor mode of the change, but the 
 fact itself. Has this change taken place in you? 
 Are you other than once you were ? Rather than 
 be what once you were, would you cease to be ? Would 
 you prefer annihilation to your old corruption ? Some 
 alas ! changing to the worse, give themselves up to 
 sins, which once they would have blushed to mention. 
 Breaking loose from the innocence of their childhood, 
 casting off the comely habits and pious practices of a 
 paternal home, dead to all sense of shame, they rush 
 into excess of riot ; and, borne on by the impetus 
 they have acquired in the descent, like one running 
 down hill who would but cannot stop, when they reach 
 the mouth of the pit they are borne over into perdition. 
 
272 THE GOSPEL IN EZEKIEL. 
 
 They change, but like " seducers," they " wax worse 
 and worse." The night grows darker and darker ; the 
 edge of conscience duller and duller ; the process of 
 petrifaction goes on within, till the heart has acquired 
 the hardness of stone. Wallowing now in the mire of 
 the lowest sensuality, they can actually boast of sins, 
 regarding w^hich, on the day when they left a father's 
 roof, with his blessing on their head, and a mother's 
 warm tears on their cheek, they would have said with 
 feelings of indignant abhorrence — " Is thy servant a dog 
 that he should do such a thing." What a melancholy 
 change. 
 
 In beautiful contrast to a metamorphosis so sad and 
 shocking, has the change in you taken an opposite direc- 
 tion ? Can you say, I am not what once I was — I am 
 better, godlier, holier ! Happy are you ! Happy, 
 although, afraid of presumption, and in the timid modesty 
 of a spii'itual childhood, you can venture no further than 
 one who was urged to say whether she had been con- 
 verted ? How humble, yet how satisfactory her reply ! 
 That, she answered, I cannot — that I dare not say ; but 
 there is a change somewhere ; I am changed, or the 
 world is changed. If you can say so, it is well. Such 
 an answer leaves no room for painful doubts. Our little 
 child — watching with curious eye the apparent motion 
 of objects — calls out in ecstasy, and bids us see how 
 hedge and house are flying past our carriage. You know 
 it is not these that move ; nor the fixed and firm shore, 
 with its trees and fields, and boats at anchor, and harbours 
 and headlands, that is gliding by the cabin windows. 
 
MAN CONVERTED. 273 
 
 That is an illusion of the eye. The motion is not in 
 them but us. And if the world is growing less in your 
 eye, it shews that you are retreating from it, rising above 
 it, and, upborne in the arms of grace, are ascending to 
 a higher region ; and if the fashion of this world, to our 
 eye, seems passing away, it is because we ourselves are 
 passmg — passing and pressing on in the way to heaven. 
 Sin never changes. If what once seemed lovely looks 
 loathsome now — if what was once desired is de- 
 tested now — if what was once sought we now shun and 
 shrink from, it is not because sin is changed, but — 
 blessed be God, and praise be to his grace — we are 
 changed. Our eyes are opened ; the scales have dropt 
 from them ; and the solution of the problem is found in 
 the blind man's answer — " Whereas I was bhnd, now 
 I see." 
 
THE HEAET OF STONE. 
 
 A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you, 
 and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh. — Ezekiel 
 xxxvi. 26. 
 
 T^HERE is a mine of sound sense in the adage of an old 
 divine, " seriousness is the greatest wisdom, temper- 
 ance the most efficient physic, and a good conscience the 
 very best estate." Early habits of self-restraint, total 
 abstinence from all excess, diligence in business, attention 
 to our duties, and that tranquillity of mind which piety 
 brings, and which they enjoy who are at peace with God 
 — these, we confidently affirm, would do more to abate 
 disease than all our physicians, much more to feed the 
 hungry and clothe the naked than our poor laws and 
 charitable institutions, and very much more than any 
 Acts of Parliament to promote the comforts of the people 
 and preserve the liberties of the commonwealth. The 
 older we grow, and the more our observation enlarges, 
 the deeper grows our conviction that " godliness is profit- 
 able unto all things, having promise of the life that now 
 is, and of that which is to come." 
 
 One of the most remarkable instances of this truth, 
 which it was ever our good fortune to see, presented itself 
 
THE HEART OP STONE. 275 
 
 in the vicinity of this house of God. A weary day had 
 passed in visiting a wretched neighbourhood. Its scenes 
 were sad, sickening, repulsive. Famine, fever, want, 
 squaUd nakedness, moral and physical impurities, drunken- 
 ness, death, and the devil were all reigning there. Those 
 only who have known the sinking of heart which the 
 miseries of such scenes produce — especially when 
 aggravated by a close and tainted atmosphere — can 
 imagine the grateful surprise with which, on opening a 
 door, we stepped into a comfortable apartment. Its 
 whitewashed walls w^ere hung round with prints ; the 
 household furniture shone like a looking-glass ; and a 
 bright fire was dancing merrily over a clean hearth-stone. 
 It was an oasis in the desert. And we well remember, 
 ere question was asked or answered, of saying to ourselves, 
 " Surely the fear of God is in this place ; this must be 
 the house of a church-going famil}^ " It proved to be so ; 
 yet it was a home where squalid poverty might have 
 been excused. A blind man dwelt there. And carrying 
 away with us a lively sense of the temporal advantages 
 of piety, we felt inclined to chalk these words on the 
 blind man's door as a lesson to his godless neighbours — 
 " The fear of the Lord, that is wisdom ; and to depart 
 from evil is understanding." 
 
 Suppose — and we suppose nothing impossible, nor 
 in coming days improbable, for the promise waits fulfil- 
 ment, " a nation shall be born in a day" — suppose, then, 
 that in the plenitude of his grace, God should bend an 
 eye of pity on the wretched inhabitants of our immediate 
 neighbourhood, and pour down his Spirit in the affluence 
 
276 THE GOSPEL IN EZEKIEL. 
 
 of Pentecostal showers. At present, with a few happy 
 exceptions, they are the votaries, and victims of dissipa- 
 tion — I say votaries and victims, because vice is such a 
 damning thing, that he who begins by ministering at 
 her altar always ends by becoming the sacrifice. Around 
 us live thousands who never enter a house of God. Their 
 children, unless they have the good fortune to die early, 
 are reared in ignorance, vice, and crime ; while of the 
 adult population many are reduced by habits of intem- 
 perance to pinching hunger, and a squalid wretchedness, 
 ill-reheved by the uncertain supplies of charity. Now, 
 suppose that God were pleased to send life to these " dry 
 bones " — suppose that from lip to lip, and house to house, 
 the cry were passing, " Oh, sirs, what shall I do to be 
 saved ?" — suppose that the last shilling which vice had 
 left them were spent in the purchase of a Bible, and that, 
 like water by men parched in the desert and dying of thirst, 
 God's word were bought, borrowed, or begged — suppose 
 that, rising to the summons of the Sabbath bell, these 
 streets — where only a solitary worshipper may now be 
 seen — were crowded with the unaccustomed spectacle 
 of a ragged congregation pouring into the house of 
 God ; — how soon would their common aspect change ? 
 A few weeks, and we should hardly recognise them. 
 
 Save these picturesque and old-fashioned tenements, 
 the blue heavens above, that rocky citadel with its frown- 
 ing batteries, yonder noble arm of the sea, and the same 
 green fields, rich valleys, and romantic crags of the ever- 
 lasting hills around us, all old things else would have 
 passed away. Prisons, that now complain of crowded 
 
THE HEART OF STONE. 277 
 
 cells, would be found too large ; and many churches, cold 
 now with empty pews, would be found too small. The 
 smouldering fever, like an unfed fire, would go out for 
 want of fuel ; and rank churchyards would grow green 
 at Christmas, for lack of their too frequent burials. The 
 brutal features of dissipation would give place to an 
 expression of intelligence and humanity ; roses would 
 blow on childhood's pallid cheek, and mother's smiles 
 would chase the sadness from many a poor, sallow, infant 
 face. Under the patronage of religion, and the sign of 
 the Bible, the craft of the honest mechanic, and the 
 trade of the useful merchant would flourish, while the 
 panderer to vice would fall into unpitied bankruptcy, 
 and the voice of a sober people would tell him to 
 shut shop and begone. Furniture would crowd these 
 empty rooms ; the rags, through whose loopholes poverty 
 stared out upon an unpitying world, would change into 
 decent attire. Piety, descending like an angel from the 
 skies, would visit these dwellings with a prophet's bless- 
 ing ; beneath her celestial feet, happiness would spring 
 up like summer flowers ; plenty would pour her full 
 horn into the lap of poverty ; meal would be found in 
 every household barrel, and oil in every widow's cruse. 
 Underneath the virtuous, benign, and heavenly influences 
 of religion, this wilderness would be glad ; our city 
 Ishmaelites would change into Israelites ; and these 
 moral deserts would rejoice and blossom like the rose. 
 " Even so, come. Lord Jesus ; come quickly." 
 
 The truth is, the world's great want is the want of 
 religion. Perhaps men want more equal laws, more 
 
278 THE GOSrEL IN EZEKIEL. 
 
 liberal institutions, and through their happy influence, 
 better and more stable governments. The greatest want 
 of nations, however, is, that without which liberty has no 
 solid pedestal to stand on — a genuine, mass-pervading 
 piety. To drop all reference to foreign countries, I am 
 sure that he who attempts to cure our social maladies, 
 independently of this best and most sanatory element, 
 may be a philanthropist, but is not a philosopher. We 
 had almost said he is a fool. He is a fantastic schemer, 
 who has set himself to make bricks without straw, and 
 heal the waters of Jericho without the prophet's salt. 
 His theories are as baseless and unsolid as if they con- 
 ceived of man as a creature without a soul — of the solar 
 system as without its central sun — of the universe with- 
 out its God. Religion is the mortar that binds society 
 together ; the pedestal of liberty ; the very backbone of 
 the social system. But while the poor man may sup- 
 port, and be assured that if he leave his family no 
 inheritance save his prayers and the priceless legacy 
 of a godly example, he leaves them rich indeed. — 
 while an education of domestic piety is better than 
 all Greek and Roman lore, — and while godliness is 
 the most stable basis on which to erect an earthly 
 fortune, — I pray you to observe that the change pro- 
 mised in the text does not necessarily imply any tem- 
 poral advantage — any improvement either in our bodily 
 condition or worldly circumstances. We live in a 
 world of mysteries. We sometimes see religion lan- 
 guishing neglected on a bed of sickness ; and, in other 
 cases than that of Lazarus, piety may be found clad 
 
THE HEART OF STONE. 279 
 
 in rags and covered with sores, sitting a beggar at tlie 
 rich man's gate. The change is on the man within. 
 It affects the tenant, not the tenement ; the soul, not 
 the body ; our circumstances, not so much in this life as 
 in the life to come. If by faith in Christ you come to 
 God, I cannot promise for him that he will pour luxuries 
 into your cup, health into your veins, or money into your 
 purse. But he will endow you with better, infinitely 
 better gifts. Hear his promise in the text — " A new 
 heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put 
 within you ; and I will take away the stony heart out 
 of your flesh, and I Avill give you an heart of flesh." 
 
 Having already illustrated the greatness of this 
 change, I now proceed to examine its nature ; and 
 remark — 
 
 I. The old heart is taken away, and a new one put in 
 its place. 
 
 The head was justly considered by the ancients 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 afiections as hav- 
 ing 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 an 
 entire change in the character and current of our affec- 
 
280 THE GOSPEL IN EZEKIEL. 
 
 tions. 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. If aught was ever worthy of the name, it is a 
 revolution — a spiritual, mighty revolution — one greater 
 than the tomes of profane history or any old monuments 
 of stone or of brass record. It changes the heart, the 
 habits, the eternal destiny of an immortal being. On 
 the banner borne in triumph at the head of this move- 
 ment, I read the words which doom all old things to 
 ruin, " Overturn, Overturn, Overturn." In place of the 
 old mischievous laws which it repeals, it introduces a 
 new code of statutes. Changing the laws, it changes 
 the reigning dynasty, wrenches the sceptre from a 
 usurper's hand, and, banishing him forth of the kingdom, 
 in restoring the throne to God, restores it to its rightful 
 monarch. 
 
 The Gospel is in the highest sense revolutionary ; — 
 there can be no doubt of the fact. The old charge 
 brought against its preachers is quite true. " These 
 that have turned the world upside down, are come hither 
 also." But the world requires to be turned upside 
 down. Like a boat capsized by a sudden squall, and 
 floating keel uppermost in the sea, with men clinging to 
 it and drowning around it, the world has been turned 
 upside down already. To be set right, it must just be 
 turned upside down again. If the order which God 
 established has been reversed by sin — if in our hearts 
 and habits time has usurped the place of eternity — the 
 body of the soul — earth of heaven, and self of God ; — 
 
THE HEART OF STONE. 281 
 
 if that is first which should be last, and that last which 
 should be first — if that is uppermost which should be 
 undermost, and that undermost which should be upper- 
 most, then things must be turned " upside down ; " and 
 happy the homes and the hearts of which, in reference 
 to the entrance of God's Word, of the Holy Spirit, 
 of converting grace, it can be said, " TJiese that 
 have turned the world upside down, are come hither 
 also." 
 
 Where, it may be asked, lies any absolute necessity 
 for a change so pervadingly elementary, so radical, so 
 revolutionary ? such an inward and total change ? To 
 discover that necessity we must search in the records of 
 a distant past. It lies in an old event — in the Fall. 
 By reason of that great crime and most sad disaster, the 
 condition of our hearts, in reference at least to spiritual 
 objects and interests, has become naturally so bad as not 
 to admit of repair. We understand how this may be 
 averred of a house. The tenement has fallen into such 
 utter decay, so many cracks gape in its bulged and 
 tottering walls, the timbers are so moth-eaten, the foun- 
 dations so shaken, post, pillar, and lintel so mouldered 
 away, that nothing remains but to pull it down level 
 with the ground, and on its old site to erect a new and 
 stately edifice. Or — to vary the illustration — a watch, 
 which has slipped through careless fingers, and crashed 
 on the pavement, may be so shattered that its works 
 are damaged beyond repair. It passes the skill of the 
 most accomplished mechanic to mend them. He must 
 clear out the shell, take away the old works, and substi- 
 
282 THE GOSPEL IN EZEKIEL. 
 
 tute new machinery. In that case, although wheels, 
 axles, levers, move within the old casements, the watch, 
 in point of fact, is new ; even so, when converted, 
 although the man suffers no loss of personal identity, he 
 who gets a new heart becomes, in a sense, a new man : 
 to use the Apostle's words, " He is, in Christ, a new 
 creature." 
 
 It is no doubt true that man}'-, and some very seri- 
 ous injuries aduiit of repair. A steady, honest, indus- 
 trious, enterprising merchant may repair a bankrupt 
 fortune ; a sagacious statesman may solder a broken 
 crown ; a physician may patch up a shattered and worn- 
 out constitution ; even some Mary Magdalene, returning 
 to the paths of virtue, may repair that most fragile of all 
 things — a woman's character ; and, with time and God's 
 grace given me, I would undertake to heal a broken heart. 
 In the divine government we see the most remarkable 
 provision made for the reparation of those injuries to 
 which his creatures are exposed. The bark grows on 
 the peeled surface of an old elm or oak, so as in time to 
 obliterate the letters that friendship or doting love has 
 carved. From the lips of the gaping wound a hquid 
 flesh is poured, which, receiving nerves and blood-vessels 
 into its substance, solidifies, and at length fills up the 
 breach. From its shattered surfaces, the broken limb 
 discharges a fluid bone — a living cement — which, grow- 
 ing solid, restores the continuity of the shaft, and gives 
 the sufferer a leg or arm, strong as before. In some of 
 the lower animals, indeed, this power is equal to the 
 task, not only of repairing a broken, but of even restor- 
 
THE HEART OF STONE. 283 
 
 ing a lost member. With such renovating energy has 
 God endowed them, that, if by accident or otherwise, 
 the writhing worm, for example, is divided, the headless 
 portion not only survives such a formidable lesion, but, 
 strange to see ! produces and puts on a new head ; 
 offering us an example of animal life, which besides 
 being fortified against the most formidable injuries, is 
 actually multiphed by division. " How marvellous are 
 thy works. Lord God Almighty!" 
 
 Now while there are many striking and very inter- 
 esting analogies between grace and nature, there is no 
 analogy between these cases and the case before us. 
 So far as man's natural and inherent powers are con- 
 cerned, his heart sustained an irreparable injury by the 
 fall. Sin is that deadly disease which our constitution 
 has no power to throw off; and which no human skill 
 can remove. The preacher is here assisted by none of 
 that " healing power of nature" which in the sick 
 chamber is the physician's best ally. Not only so, but 
 God himself — with whom in a sense all things are pos- 
 sible, and to whom nothing is too hard — does not 
 attempt its repair. In the work of conversion, it is 
 not an old heart which is to be mended, but a new one 
 which is to be given. In any attempt to patch up the 
 old garment, the new cloth is lost, and the rent gapes 
 but wider. Be assured that heaven is wiser than waste 
 her costly wine on old, frail, musty bottles. The truth 
 is, man does not admit of being repaired ; and the more 
 we become acquainted with our hearts, the more ready 
 shall we be to describe their desperate and deplorable 
 
284 THE GOSPEL IN EZEKIEL. 
 
 condition in the words of holy Scripture — " The heart 
 is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked." 
 The first thing, therefore, which you, who are seeking 
 the kingdom of God and his righteousness, have need 
 to seek, is what God has promised in the text, and 
 David pleads for in this prayer — " Create in me a clean 
 heart, God, and renew a right spirit within me." 
 
 Let me press this truth upon your thoughtful atten- 
 tion. May God impress it upon your hearts ! It is a 
 truth of the highest importance. To be sensible of our 
 need of a new spirit, to feel that this old heart will not 
 mend nor make better, is, in fact, the first step in 
 salvation ; and the deeper our impression of the reality 
 of this truth, the more diligently shall we labour, and 
 the more earnest shall be our prayers to be renewed 
 day by day. Such an impression will secure our cordial 
 assent to the memorable saying, with which one of 
 England's greatest men, her bravest and noblest spirits, 
 closed an illustrious career on the scaffold of an ungrate- 
 ful country. As Sir Walter Raleigh laid his head upon 
 the block, he was asked by the executioner, whether it 
 lay right. Whereupon, with the calmness of a hero, 
 and the faith of a Christian, he returned an answer — 
 the power of which all of us shall feel, when our head 
 is tossing and turning on death's uneasy pillow — " It 
 matters little, my friend, how the head lies, provided 
 the heart is rights 
 
 Now, as the view of the old heart, given in my text, 
 is eminently calculated, with the divine blessing, to shew 
 us how much we need a new one, let us consider — 
 
THE HEART OF STONE. 285 
 
 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." We shall best understand the mean- 
 ing and appreciate the power of this figure, by consider- 
 ing, in a popular point of view^, some of the characteristic 
 properties of a stone. 
 
 A stone is cold. Coldness, indeed, is characteristic 
 of a stone. Hence, the lapidary, using his tongue to 
 test the temperature, can, by that simple means, 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 marble was only painted w^ood. It 
 is a common saying, "As cold as a stone." But what 
 stone so cold as that which sin has lodged in man's 
 breast? Cold is the bed of the houseless, who lies 
 stretched on the wintry pavement, cold the cell within 
 whose dank stone walls the shivering prisoner is im- 
 mured ; but colder far by nature this heart of ours in 
 its affections to God and Christ. We are lovers of 
 pleasure rather than lovers of God. He is not the 
 object of our love, nor do we make any return to Jesus 
 for his warm and matchless affection. Blessed Lord ! 
 he had many a cold lodging on this ungrateful earth ; 
 his couch was oft the open field, where his locks were 
 wet with the dews of night ; drenched with the spray 
 of the sea, and the lashing rain, his weary frame found 
 sleep on the hard benches of a fisher's boat; yet on 
 these he lay not on so cold a bed as he would find in 
 
286 THE GOSPEL IN EZEKIEL. 
 
 the dark, dreary chambers of an unrenewed heart. Sin 
 has quenched a fire that once burned bright and holy 
 there, and nothing now is left on that chill hearth, but 
 embers and ashes — cold as death, " The carnal mind 
 is enmity against God ; is not subject to the law of God, 
 neither indeed can be." 
 
 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. Stone resists these ; and, 
 emblem of a heart crushed, but unsanctified by affliction, 
 it may be broken into fragments, or ground to powder, 
 yet its atoms are as hard as ever. This is illustrated in 
 the practice of the arts ; it is with the dust of diamonds 
 that the diamond is cut. We have stood on a sea rock, 
 when every billow, swung on by the tempest, broke 
 against it with the roar of artillery, and shot up a shower 
 of snowy spray ; we have looked to the crag, on whose 
 bald brows the storm was bursting ; and have wondered 
 how these, for so many thousand years, had braved the 
 war and wear of elements. There is more cause to be 
 surprised at what a man's heart will stand. He sits in 
 the church under a series of affecting sermons, — or a 
 succession of affecting and afflicting providences like 
 great sea waves break over him ; and he is unshaken, 
 at least unaltered ; to all but divine grace unalterable. 
 He can be saved ; but he only can be saved, because 
 there is nothing impossible to God. Sitting there, so 
 cold and hard, he reminds us of a mountain crag, cut by 
 nature's fantastic hand into the features of a human 
 face, which looks out with stony eye upon the gathering 
 
THE HEART OF STONE. 287 
 
 tempest, prepared, as it has already weathered a thou- 
 sand storms, to weather a thousand more. 
 
 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 lightnings that 
 play round his brow, and feels no more than a rock the 
 influences that fall like summer sunbeams from the face 
 and cross of Jesus, 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 turn that heart of 
 stone into a heart of flesh. What need here of the 
 Spirit of God ! Oh ! there is in unconverted men an 
 obstinacy, an obduracy, a strength of resistance, an im- 
 penetrability to impression, before which man, however 
 anxious to save, is utterly powerless. And in dealing 
 with such a case, we seem to hear the voice of God 
 addressing us in his words to Job — " Canst thou draw 
 out leviathan with a hook ? or his tongue with a cord 
 wdiich thou lettest down ? Canst thou put a hook into 
 his nose, or bore his jaw through with a thorn ? Wilt 
 thou take him for a servant ? Wilt thou play with him 
 as a bird? or wilt thou bind him for thy maidens? 
 His scales are his pride ; joined one to another they 
 stick together that they cannot be sundered. His eyes 
 are like the eyelids of the morning. Out of his mouth 
 go burning lamps, and sparks of fire leap out. The 
 sword of him that layeth at him cannot hold ; the spear, 
 
288 . THE GOSPEL IN EZEKIEL. 
 
 the dart, nor the habergeon. He esteemeth iron as 
 straw, and brass as rotten wood. Darts are counted as 
 stubble ; he laugheth at the shaking of a spear. He 
 maketh the deep to boil like a pot ; he maketh the sea 
 like a pot of ointment ; he maketh a path to shine after 
 him ; one would think the deep to be hoary. His heart 
 is as firm as a stone, yea as hard as a piece of the nether 
 mill-stone." 
 
 A stone is dead. It has no vitality, no feeling, no 
 power of motion. It hes where it is laid. The tomb- 
 stone above and the dead body in its grave below under- 
 go no change, other than that both, by a slower or 
 speedier decay, are mouldering into dust. Enter that 
 hall of nobles and see how the marble forms of departed 
 statesmen look down unmoved upon scenes where once 
 they played a distinguished part, and stand, alike un- 
 moved, whether their policy be reviled or praised. Look 
 at this statue — however skilful the sculptor's imitation 
 — there is no life here ; no speech breaks from these 
 mute hps ; 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. In grief's wild 
 and frantic outbursts afiection may indeed address the 
 form of one deeply loved, and for ever lamented. Speak 
 to it, it returns no answer ; weep over it, it sheds no 
 tears ; image of a lost and loved one, it feels not the 
 grief that itself can move. Now, how many sit in the 
 house of God as unmoved ? Careless as spectators who 
 have no concern in what takes place before them, they 
 
THE HEART OF STONE. 289 
 
 take no interest in anything that ^vas done on Calvary ! 
 And is it not sad to think that more tears are shed in 
 playhouses than in churches ; and how by those who 
 call themselves Christians, the new novel is sought more 
 eagerly, and devoured more greedily than the New 
 Testament ? What a deplorable account of the human 
 heart ! One would think it is of stones, and yet it is of 
 living men, too like, alas ! to many of ourselves — these 
 words are spoken — " Having eyes, they see not ; having 
 ears, they hear not; neither do they understand." 
 
 We have described a stone as cold, hard, dead. 
 And is this, some may ask, a just and correct picture of 
 the human heart? The question is a fair one, and 
 deserves a frank answer. Now, I should hinder a cause 
 I desire to help, and do injustice to the truth of God, 
 were I to answer that question by simply affirming, that 
 the picture is a true portrait of the natural heart in re- 
 spect of all its sentiments and emotions. Human nature 
 is bad enough, and there is no need to exaggerate its 
 evils. In one sense, they do not admit of exaggeration. 
 But, if we dared, instead of exaggerating, we should be 
 happy to excuse them, and render to our mother nature 
 the kind and filial office of casting a cloak upon her 
 shame. 
 
 We know as well as others do, and would ever 
 remember, that although man be dead to gracious affec- 
 tions, until sin has had " its perfect work," he is not 
 dead to many tender and lovely emotions of nature. 
 Many beauties are lingering about this ruin — the en- 
 gaging, but melancholy vestiges of its former glory. We 
 
 u 
 
290 THE GOSPEL IN EZEKIEL. 
 
 freely admit, that, so far as regards father and mother, 
 wife and children, brother and sister, and the beloved 
 friends of our social circles, an unrenewed heart may be 
 the warm nest of kindliest affections. There can be no 
 doubt, I think, that the Christian will prove the best 
 father, the best husband, the best wife, the best master, 
 the best servant, the best citizen, the truest, trustiest, 
 friend. Nay, for their pith and truth, notwithstanding 
 their homeliness, I will venture to quote the words of 
 Rowland Hill, who said, " I would give nothing for 
 the Christianity of a man whose very dog and cat were 
 not the better of his religion." Still, it is no treason 
 against the Gospel to believe, that one, as yet unhappily 
 a stranger to the grace of God, may be endowed with 
 many most pleasant and lovely virtues. 
 
 Away among the rough moors, by the banks of 
 tumbling river, or the skirts of green wood, or on slop- 
 ing acclivity, or steep hill side, we have gathered, remote 
 from gardens and the care of men, bunches of wild flowers, 
 which, although very perishing, were exquisitely beauti- 
 ful, and steeped in fragrant odours ; and such as these 
 are some men and women, who have never yet been 
 transplanted into a state of grace. There is no sin in 
 loving them. In the young ruler who declined to 
 take up his cross and follow Christ, was not there so 
 much that was amiable, gentle, attractive, that Jesus' 
 heart was drawn to him ? It is said that he " loved 
 him : " and the emotions of a Saviour's bosom cannot 
 be wrong in mine. Nor is his a rare phenomenon — a 
 solitary case. We have seen men who made no great 
 
THE HEART OF STONE. 291 
 
 profession of religion, who certainly were not pious, 
 and yet so kind, tender, affectionate, generous, large 
 hearted, and open handed, that it was impossible not to 
 love them. Nature never asked our permission. Whether 
 we would or would not, we felt drawn to them, as our 
 Lord to the amiable youth who refused to follow him. 
 And as we have rooted up from the moor some wild 
 flower to blow and shed its fragrance in a sweeter than 
 its native home, have we not longed to do the same 
 with these fine specimens of the natural man ? Trans- 
 planted by grace into the garden of the Lord, baptized 
 with the dews of heaven, converted to the faith, they 
 would be flowers fit to form a wreath for the brow that 
 men wreathed with thorns. I am compelled to acknow- 
 ledge, that I have known some, whom even charity could 
 not reckon among true Christians, who, yet in point of 
 natural virtues, put Christians to shame. In some 
 beautiful traits of character they were more like Jesus 
 than not a few of his real disciples. 
 
 Let there be no mistake, then. When I speak of 
 the heart as a stone, I am looking at it as it looks on 
 God, a Saviour, salvation, and eternity. However dis- 
 tressing it may be (and it is most distressing) to think 
 that persons otherwise most lovely and of most loving 
 hearts, are so cold and callous to the claims of Jesus, yet, 
 so far as divine love to sinners, and so far as the kind- 
 nesses of saving mercy are concerned, I am convinced 
 that among the rocks which beat back the roaring sea — 
 up on the mountain peaks where dews, and rain, and 
 bright sunbeams fall — down in earth's darkest and deepest 
 
292 THE GOSPEL IN EZEKIEL. 
 
 mines, there lies bedded no stone colder, harder, less 
 impressible, more impenetrable, than an unrenewed heart. 
 Does unbelief suggest the question. Why, then, preach 
 to the unconverted ? as well preach to tomb-stones ? as 
 well knock with thy hand upon a door which is locked 
 on a coffin and a corpse ? In a sense true ; and alto- 
 gether true, but for the promise — " Lo I am with you 
 alway, even unto the end of the world." That promise 
 is the soul of hope and the life of preaching. It forbids 
 despair. And should recreant ministers, yielding to 
 despair, hold their tongues, and pulpits all be silent, 
 Christ still were preached. Strange evangelists would 
 start up from our streets to break this awful silence ; for 
 did not our Lord, when required by an envious priest- 
 hood to silence the hosannahs of the multitude, turn on 
 them and say, " I tell you, that if these should hold their 
 peace, the stones would immediately cry out?" Thus 
 assured, not only of our children, of our people, of the 
 dead womb of Sarah, but even of the very stones of the 
 street, that " God can raise up children to Abraham," 
 despair we cannot feel, and dumb we dare not be. He 
 who shall raise the dead in churchyards can waken the 
 dead in churches. Therefore we anticipate conversions ; 
 and in hope offer Christ to the chief of sinners, beseech- 
 ing you, " Be ye reconciled to God." 
 
THE NEW HEAET. 
 
 A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you ; 
 and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will 
 give you an heart of flesh. — Ezekiel xxxvi. 26. 
 
 A S in a machine where the parts all fit each other, and, 
 bathed in oil, move without din or disorder, the most 
 perfect harmony reigns throughout the kingdom of grace. 
 Jesus Christ is the " wisdom," as well as the "^ power" of 
 God. This kingdom perplexes us with nothing corres- 
 ponding to the anomalies and incongruities of the world 
 without. There we sometimes see a noble title and 
 exalted station disgraced by a man of low habits ; while 
 others are doomed to an inferior condition, who would 
 shine like gilded ornaments on the very pinnacles of 
 society. The beautiful congruity of Christ's kingdom is 
 secured by those who are the objects of saving mercy being 
 so renewed and sanctified that their nature is brought into 
 harmony with their position. The man within corres- 
 ponds to all without. 
 
 Observe how this property of neio runs through 
 the whole economy of grace. When Mercy first rose 
 upon this world, she presented an attribute of divinity 
 which was new to the eyes of men and angels. Again, 
 the Saviour was born of a virgin ; and, again, he who 
 
294 THE GOSPEL IN EZEKIEL. 
 
 came forth from a womb where no child had been pre- 
 viously conceived, was sepulchred in a tomb where no 
 man had been previously interred. The infant had a new 
 birth-place, the Crucified had a new burial-place. Again, 
 Jesus is the mediator of a new covenant, the author of 
 a new testament, the founder of a new faith. Again, 
 the redeemed receive a new name ; they sing a new 
 song ; their home is not the Old, but the New Jerusalem, 
 where they shall for ever dwell on a new earth, and walk 
 in glory beneath a new heaven. Now it were surely 
 strange, when all things else are new, if they themselves 
 were not to participate in this general renovation. Nor 
 strange only, for such a change is indispensable. A new 
 name without a new nature were an imposture. And it 
 were not more an untruth to call a lion a lamb, or the 
 rapacious vulture by the name of the gentle dove, than 
 to give the title of sons of God to the seed of the 
 venomous Serpent. 
 
 Then again, unless man received a new nature, 
 how could he sing the new song ? The raven, perched 
 on the rock, where she whets her bloody beak, and with 
 greedy eye watches the dying struggles of some unhappy 
 lamb, cannot tune her croaking voice to the mellow 
 music of a thrush ; and, since it is out of the abundance 
 of the heart that the mouth speaketh, how could a sinner 
 take up the strain and sing the song of saints ? Besides, 
 unless a man were a new creature, he were out of place 
 in the new creation. In circumstances neither adapted 
 to his nature nor fitted to minister to his happiness, 
 he would find himself in heaven as much out of his 
 
THE NEW HEAET. 295 
 
 element as a finny inhabitant of the deep, or a sightless 
 burrower in the soil beside an eagle, soaring in the sky, 
 or surveying her wide domain from the top of a moun- 
 tain crag. ^ 
 
 In the works of God I know nothing more beautiful 
 than the perfect skill with which he suits his creatures 
 to their condition. He gives wings to birds, fins to the 
 fish, sails to the thistle-seed, a lamp to light the glow- 
 worm, great roots to moor the cedar, and to the aspiring 
 ivy her thousand hands to climb the wall. Nor is the 
 wisdom so conspicuous in nature, less remarkable and 
 adorable as exhibited in the kingdom of grace. He 
 forms a holy people for a holy heaven — fits heaven for 
 them, and them for heaven. And calling up his Son to 
 prepare the celestial mansions for their tenants, and 
 sending down his Spirit to prepare the tenants for their 
 mansions, he thus establishes the most perfect harmony 
 between the new creature and the new creation. 
 
 You cannot have two hearts beating in the same 
 bosom, else you would be, not a man, but a monster. 
 Therefore the very first thing to be done, in order to 
 make things new, is just to take that which is old out 
 of the Avay. And the taking away of the old heart is, 
 after all, but a preparatory process. It is the means, 
 but not the end. For — strange as it may at first sound 
 — he is not religious who is without sin. A dead man 
 is without sin ; and he also is sinless, who lies buried 
 in deep and dreamless slumber. Now God requires 
 more than a negative religion. Piety, like fire, light, 
 electricity, magnetism, is an active, not a passive ele- 
 
296 THE GOSPEL IN EZEKIEL. 
 
 ment ; it has a positive, not merely a negative existence. 
 For how is pure and undefiled rehgion defined ? " Pare 
 rehgion and undefiled is to visit the fatherless and 
 widows in their affliction." And on whom does Jesus 
 pronounce his beatitude ? " If ye know these things 
 happy are ye if ye do them." And what is the sum of 
 practical piety — the most portable form in which you 
 can put an answer to Saul's question, " Lord, what 
 wouldst thou have me to do ?" What but this " depart 
 from evil, and do good." Therefore, while God 
 promises to take the stony heart out of our flesh, he 
 promises more. In taking away one heart, he under- 
 takes to supply us with another ; and to this further 
 change in the process of redemption, I now proceed to 
 turn your attention. And by way of general observa- 
 tion, I remark — 
 
 I. Our affections are engaged in rehgion. 
 
 An oak — not as it stands choked up, in the crowded 
 wood, with room neither to spread nor breathe, but as 
 it stands in the open field — swelling out below where 
 it anchors its roots in the ground, and swelling out 
 above where it stretches its arms into the air, presents 
 us with the most perfect form of firmness, self-support, 
 stout and sturdy independence. So perfectly formed, 
 indeed, is the monarch of the forest to stand alone, 
 and fight its own battle with the elements, that the 
 architect of the Bell Rock Lighthouse is said to have 
 borrowed the form of that tower from God. Copying 
 
THE NEW HEART. 297 
 
 the work of a Divine Architect, he chose the trunk of 
 the oak as the model of a building which was to stand 
 the blast of the storm, and the swell of winter seas. 
 
 In striking contrast with this tree, there are plants 
 — some of them of the gayest colours, richest perfume, 
 and fairest beauty — such as the passion-flower, the ivy> 
 the clematis, the woodbine, the splendid creepers of 
 tropical forests, which cannot stand alone. They have 
 neither pith nor fibre to maintain themselves erect. 
 
 Yet these are not doomed to the base fate of being 
 trodden in the dust by the hoof of every passing beast, 
 and having their beauty soiled in the mire. Types of 
 one whom God has called by his grace, and beautified 
 with salvation, who is strong in weakness, and rises to 
 the highest honours of heaven, these plants may overtop 
 the tallest oak, and, holding on by the everlasting rocks, 
 they have laughed at the storm which laid his proud 
 head in the dust. This strength they have, these 
 honours they win, by help of their tendrils, and arms, 
 those curious instruments of attachment with which God 
 has kindly furnished them. These plants are thus formed 
 to attach themselves to other objects. It is their nature 
 to do so. If they get hold of one noble and lofty, they 
 rise to the height of its nobility ; if of a mean support 
 — a rotten stake or shattered wall — they embrace the 
 ruin, and, like a true friend, share its fate ; and we have 
 seen, when they had no other object on which to fix, 
 how — like a selfish man, who is the object of his own 
 affections, and has a heart no bigger than his coffin, just 
 large enough to hold himself — they would embrace them- 
 
298 THE GOSPEL IN EZEKIEL. 
 
 selves, and lie basely on the ground locked in tangled 
 embarrassment in their own arms. 
 
 It is with man as with these. What their tendrils 
 are to them, our affections are to us. Ambition aims 
 at independence ; and men fancy, that when they have 
 accumulated such or such a fortune, obtained such or 
 such a position, arrived at such or such an age, they 
 shall be independent. Independent ! what folly ! man 
 was never made to be self-supporting, and self-satisfying. 
 Even when his home was Eden, and he was blessed 
 with the visits and enjo^^ed the full favours of a benig- 
 nant God, the Lord said — " It is not good for man to 
 be alone." 
 
 We are constituted with affections, of which we can 
 no more divest ourselves than of our skin. Be the 
 objects which we love noble or base, good or bad, holy 
 or sinful, belonging to earth or to heaven, some object 
 we must love. It were as easy for a man to live with- 
 out breathing, as to live without loving. It is not more 
 natural for fire to burn, or light to shine, than for man 
 to love. And the commandment, " Love not the world, 
 neither the things that are in the world," had been 
 utterly impracticable, unless taken in conjunction with 
 the other precept, " Thou shalt love the Lord thy God 
 with all thy heart, and soul, and mind." It is with 
 human hearts as with this plant which is creeping along 
 the ground ; to upbraid it for its baseness, to reproach 
 it for the mean objects around which its tendrils are 
 entwined, will never make it stiffen and stand erect ; 
 you cannot raise it unless you present some lofty object 
 
THE NEW HEART. 299 
 
 to which it may cling. Or it is with our hearts as with 
 vessels which can only be emptied of one element by 
 substituting another in its place. And just as I can 
 empty a vase filled with air or with oil by pouring water 
 into it, because water is the heavier fluid, or as I can 
 empty one of water by pouring quicksilver into it, 
 because the specific gravity of mercury is greatly in 
 excess of that of water, so, the only way to empty my 
 heart of the world, and the love of the world, is by filling 
 it with the love of God. This is the divine science of 
 the Gospel. The Gospel, the scheme of redemption, 
 is divinely accommodated to our nature. It has blessings 
 for our gratitude, unseen objects of the grandest character 
 for our faith, for our ambition a heavenly crown, sin for 
 our hatred, God for our love, for our hopes the brightest 
 prospects, for our fears the greatest terrors. Its light is 
 adapted to our darkness ; its mercy to our misery ; its 
 pardon to our guilt ; its sanctification to our impurity ; 
 its comforts to our griefs ; and in substituting the love 
 of Christ for the love of sin, in giving us an object to 
 love, it meets our original constitution, and satisfies the 
 strongest cravings of our heart. It engages our affec- 
 tions, and, in taking away an old heart, supplies its 
 place with a new one and a better. 
 
 II. Consider now the new heart — " A new heart also 
 will I give you." 
 
 We have said enough in a preceding discourse to 
 shew that we are not to look for evidence of the new 
 
300 THE GOSPEL IN EZEKIEL. 
 
 heart in the natural affections. Eehgion does not bestow 
 these. We are born with them. We possess some of 
 them in common with the brutes that perish ; and they 
 may be seen flourishing in all their beauty in those who 
 are utter strangers to the love of God. To them as to 
 all things else, indeed, which are his gifts, sin is antago- 
 nistic and injurious. Let sin ripen, so as to have *' its 
 perfect work," and it eats like a cancer into man's best 
 affections. It first indurates, then deadens, and at length 
 destroys. Sinners are essentially, offensively, selfish ; and 
 — as we see exemplified every day — the more men grow 
 in sin, they grow the more heartless, and hesitate less to 
 sacrifice the tenderest feelings and best interests of others 
 to their own base and brutal gratifications. There is a 
 picture in the book of Komans, painted by the hand of 
 a master, which is more affecting and more appalling 
 than any that her greatest artists have hung in the 
 galleries of Rome. Here it is, a full-length portrait of 
 sinners drawn by the hand of Paul, in these vivid and 
 terrible colours : — '^' God gave them over to a reprobate 
 mind, to do those things which are not convenient, 
 being filled with all unrighteousness, fornication, wicked- 
 ness, covetousness, maliciousness ; full of envy, murder, 
 debate, deceit, malignity ; whisperers, backbiters, haters 
 of God, despiteful, proud, boasters ; inventors of evil 
 things, disobedient to parents, without understanding, 
 covenant breakers, without natural affection, implacable, 
 unmerciful." What a dark and dreadful picture of 
 liumanit}^ There see the monster into which fully 
 developed sin turns the sweetest child. What an " evil 
 
THE NEW HEART. 301 
 
 and abominable thing" is sin ! Like God, may we hate 
 it with a perfect hatred! 
 
 Observe, that although the state of the natural affec- 
 tions does not furnish any certain evidence of conversion, 
 it is the glory of piety that these are strengthened, ele- 
 vated, sanctified by the change. The lover of God will 
 be the kindest, best, wisest lover of his fellow-creatures. 
 The heart that has room in it for God, grows so large, 
 as to find room for all his train, for all he loves, and for 
 all that he has made ; so that the church, with its many 
 denominations of true Christians, the world, with its 
 millions of perishing sinners, nay — all the worlds which 
 he has created, find orbit-room to move, as in an ex- 
 pansive universe, within the capacious enlargement of a 
 believer's heart. For while the love of sin acts as an 
 astringent — contracting the natural heart, shutting and 
 shrivelling it up — ^ The love of God expands and enlarges 
 its dimensions. Piety never fails to quicken the pulse 
 of love, warm and strengthen our better feelings, and 
 send forth fuller streams of natural afiection toward all 
 that have a claim on us, just as a strong and healthy 
 heart sends its tide of blood along the elastic arteries to 
 every extremity of the body. 
 
 This new heart, however, mainly consists in a change 
 of the afiections as they regard spiritual objects. With- 
 out again travelling over ground which we have already 
 surveyed, just look at the frame and feelings of an uncon- 
 verted man. His mind being carnal, is enmity or hatred 
 against God. This may be latent — not at first sight 
 apparent, nor even suspected — but how soon does it 
 
302 THE GOSPEL IN EZEKIEL. 
 
 appear when put to the proof? Fairly tried, it comes 
 out like those unseen elements, which chemical tests 
 reveal. Let God, for instance, by his providences or 
 precepts thwart the wishes or cross the propensities of 
 our unrenewed nature — let there be a collision between 
 His will and ours — and the latent enmity flashes out 
 like latent fire when a cold black flint is struck with 
 steel. 
 
 The apostle pronounces men to be by nature lovers 
 of pleasure more than lovers of God ; and is it not a 
 fact that the services of religion are so contrary to all 
 our natural tastes, that we are prone to say of them, as 
 of that day which brings heaven down to earth — " It is 
 a weariness; when will it be over?" The affections of 
 the natural man, like the branches of a weeping willow 
 — droop to the earth, and sweep the ground ; harmless 
 or deleterious, their bent is earthward. This world is 
 his god ; his heaven is below ; the paradise he seeks is 
 here ; his ten commandments are the opinions of men ; 
 his sins are his pleasures ; his prayers are a task ; his 
 sabbaths are his longest, weariest days ; and, although 
 no sheeted ghosts rise at midnight and leave the church- 
 yard to walk the world till cock crowing or break of 
 day, in thoughts of God, of judgment, of eternity, he 
 has spectres that haunt him, to escape from which he 
 will fly into the arms of vice, plunging deeper and deeper 
 into sin. 
 
 Now, if you have received a new heart, this state is 
 past, or is passing. Your affections, as you know, are 
 not dried or frozen up ; warm, or rather warmer than 
 
THE NEW HEART. 303 
 
 ever — they are still flowing, only flowing toward other 
 objects, and in another channel. In obedience to a 
 divine impulse, their course is not only in a different, 
 but in a contrary direction ; for the grace of God v*'orks 
 such a thorough change of feeling, that what was once 
 hated you now love, and what was once loved you now 
 loathe ; you fly from what once you courted, and pursue 
 what once you shunned. 
 
 For example. Was there not a time when, like Adam, 
 cowering among the bushes of the garden, you tried to 
 hide yourself from God ? Like Jacob, when about to 
 encounter an angry brother, did you not once tremble 
 at the prospect of meeting God? How did you fret 
 under the yoke of his law? In those who bore his 
 image, how did you revile, and shun, and hate him ? 
 You could not banish him from the universe, but how 
 did you try to banish the thought of him from your 
 thoughts, and so put him and keep him out of your 
 mind, that it might be that black, cold, empty, dark, 
 dead, atheistic spot of this creation, where God should 
 not be ? Believers ! oh what a blessed revolution has 
 grace wrought? Praise ye the Lord. Although our 
 attainments come far short of David's and the love of 
 our bosoms may burn with a dim and much feebler flame, 
 and we should therefore perhaps pitch the expression of 
 our feehngs on a lower key, let him express for us the 
 language of a renewed heart — " how love I thy law ! 
 it is my meditation all the day. Thy testimonies are 
 better to me than thousands of gold and silver. Like 
 as the hart panteth after the water brooks, so panteth 
 
304 THE GOSPEL IN EZEKIEL. 
 
 my soul after thee, God. My soul tliirsteth for God, 
 for the Hving God. When shall I come and appear 
 before God. One thing have I desired of the Lord, 
 that will I seek after, that I may dwell in the house of 
 the Lord all the days of my life. I love the Lord 
 because he hath heard my prayer and the voice of my 
 supplication. Bless the Lord, ye his angels, that excel 
 in strength. Bless the Lord, all ye his hosts. Bless 
 the Lord, all his works. Bless the Lord, my soul. 
 Let everything that hath breath praise the Lord. Praise 
 ye the Lord." 
 
 in. In conversion God gives a new spirit. 
 
 Conversion does not bestow new faculties. It does 
 not turn a weak man into a philosopher. Yet, along 
 with our affections, the temper, the will, the judgment 
 partake of this great and holy change. Thus, while the 
 heart ceases to be dead, the head, illuminated by a light 
 within, ceases to be dark ; the understanding is enlight- 
 ened ; the will is renewed ; and our w^hole temper is 
 sweetened and sanctified by the Spirit of God. To 
 consider these in their order, I remark — 
 
 By this change the understanding and judgment are 
 enlightened. Sin is the greatest folly, and the sinner the 
 greatest fool in the world. There is no such madness 
 in the most fitful lunacy. Think of a man risking 
 eternity and his everlasting happiness on the uncertain 
 chance of surviving another year. Think of a man 
 purchasing a momentary pleasure at the cost of endless 
 
THE NEW HEART. 305 
 
 pain. Think of a dying man living as if he were never 
 to die. What convert to God can review his hfe and 
 look back upon his unconverted state, without saying 
 with David, " Lord, I was as a beast before thee?" 
 
 Now conversion not only restores God to the heart, 
 but reason also to her throne. ^ Time and eternity are 
 now seen in their just proportions — in their right rela- 
 tive dimensions ; the one in its littleness, and the other 
 in its greatness. When the light of heaven rises on 
 the soul, what grand 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, sublime, affecting scenes open 
 to her astonished eyes ! Now, as by one convulsive 
 bound, she leaps to the conclusion that salvation is the 
 one thing needful, and that if a man will give all he hath 
 for the life that now is, much more should he part with 
 all for the life to come. The Saviour and Satan, the 
 soul and body, holiness and sin, have competing claims ; 
 and between these reason now holds the balance even, 
 and man finds, in the visit of converting grace, what 
 the demoniac found in Jesus' advent. The man whose 
 dwelling was among the tombs, whom no chains could 
 bind, appears seated at the feet of Jesus, " clothed, and 
 in Ms right mindJ'^ 
 
 By this change the toill is renewed. Bad men are 
 worse, and good men are better than they appear. In 
 conversion the will is so changed and sanctified, that 
 although a pious man is in some respects less, in other 
 
 X 
 
306 THE GOSPEL IN EZEKIEL. 
 
 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 nobler than his deeds ; his 
 wishes are holier than his works. Give other men their 
 will — full sway and swing to their passions — and they 
 would be worse than they are ; give that to him, and he 
 would be better than he is. And if you have expe- 
 rienced the gracious change, it will be your daily grief 
 that you are not what you not only know you should 
 be, but what you wish to be. To be complaining with 
 Paul, " When I would do good, evil is present with me ; 
 that which I would I do not, and what I would not, 
 that I do," is one of the best evidences of a gracious, 
 saving change. 
 
 Children of God ! let not your souls be cast down. 
 This struggle between the new will and the old man — 
 painful and prolonged although it be — proves beyond 
 all doubt the advent of the Holy Spirit. Until the 
 Saviour appeared there was no sword drawn, nor blood 
 shed in Bethlehem, nor murderous decree issued against 
 its innocents — they slept safely in their mothers' bosoms, 
 Herod enjoyed his security and pleasure, and Rachel 
 rose not from her grave to weep for her children because 
 they were not. Christ's coming rouses all the devil in 
 the soul. The fruits of holy peace are reaped with 
 sharp swords on the field of war ; and this conflict within 
 your breast proves that grace, even in its infancy a 
 cradled Saviour, is engaged in struggling with, and strang- 
 ling the old Serpent. When the shadow of calamity 
 falls on many homes, and the tidings of victory come with 
 
THE NEW HEART. 307 
 
 sad news to anxious families, and the brave are lying 
 thick in the deadly breach, men comfort us by saying, 
 that there are things worse than war. That is em- 
 phatically true of this holy war. Rejoice that the peace 
 of death is gone. 
 
 Bij conversion the temjyer and disposition are clianrjed 
 and sanctified. Christians are occasionally to be found 
 with a temper and tone of mind as little calculated to 
 recommend their faith, as to promote their happiness. 
 I believe that there are cases in which this is due to a 
 deranged condition of the nervous system, or the presence 
 of disease in some other vital organ. These unhappy 
 persons may thus be more deserving of our pity than 
 censure. This is not only the judgment of Christian 
 charity, but of sound philosophy, a conclusion to which 
 we are conducted in studying the union between mind 
 and body, and the manner in which they act and react 
 upon each other. So long as grace dwells in a " vile 
 body," one which is the seat of frequent disorder and 
 many diseases — these infirmities of temper no more 
 admit, perhaps, of being entirely removed, than a defect 
 of speech, or some physical deformity. The good 
 temper for which we take credit, may be the result of 
 buoyant health and a well developed frame — a physical 
 more than a moral virtue ; while an ill-temper, springing 
 from bad health, or an imperfect organization, may be a 
 physical rather than a moral defect — giving its victim a 
 claim on our charity and forbearance. But, admitting 
 this apology, making this allowance for the unhappy 
 tone and temper of some pious men, his defect is one 
 
308 THE GOSPEL IN EZEKIEL. 
 
 which the true Christian will bitterly bewail, and, re- 
 gretting his infirmity more than others do a deformity, 
 he will carefully guard and earnestly pray against it. 
 Regarding it as a thorn in his flesh, a messenger of 
 Satan sent to buffet him, it will often send him to his 
 knees in prayer, that the grace which triumphs over 
 nature may be made " sufficient for him." 
 
 Those, however, who, having no such plea to urge, 
 are envious, sour, discontented, irritable, uncharitable, 
 have good ground to suspect the genuineness of their 
 Christianity. Grace sweetens where it sanctifies. In 
 the name of God and Christianity, what has Christ to 
 do with Belial? What has grace to do with that fret- 
 ful, or avaricious, or jealous, or malignant, or implacable 
 disposition, which is utterly opposed to the genius of 
 the Gospel and the Spirit that was in Jesus Christ? 
 Am I told that his disciples sought fire from heaven to 
 consume their enemies ? Am I told that, with the in- 
 tolerance of bigotry, and a narrowness of mind still too 
 common, they thought to put down those whom they 
 regarded as rivals ? Am I told that, set on fire of an 
 earthly ambition, they blazed out into unseemly quarrels 
 with each other ? Am I told that, even on the solemn 
 eve of a Saviour's sufferings, when their tears should 
 have quenched all unhallowed fires, they strove for the 
 highest place in the kingdom ? Am I told how harshly 
 they silenced the cries, and rebuked the importunity of 
 suffering, how haughtily these proud fishermen bore 
 themselves to the mothers and babes of Israel ? True ; 
 but this temper passed away. Their master cast out 
 
THE NEW HEAET. 309 
 
 the unclean spirit. Pentecost baptized them with a 
 gentler nature. With the peace of Jesus, they received 
 his generous, gracious, loving, forbearing, forgiving spirit. 
 These Elishas entered on their mission clothed in the 
 mantle of an ascended Master. Had it been otherwise 
 — had they not, so to speak, been made of love, as well 
 as messengers of love — had the grace they preached not 
 breathed in every tone, and beamed in every look — had 
 they not illustrated in their practice the genius of the 
 Gospel, their mission had been a signal failure ; they 
 had never won the hearts of men ; they had never made 
 their way in a resistant world — never conquered it. 
 Just as it is by pliant, not stubborn iron, that locks are 
 picked, the hearts of sinaers are to be opened only by 
 those who bring a Christ-like gentleness to the work ; 
 and who are ready, with Paul's large ideas, and loving 
 liberal heart, to accommodate themselves to circum- 
 stances, to be all things to all men, if so be that they 
 may win some. Never had these disciples gone forth 
 " conquering and to conquer," had they gone forth from 
 Jerusalem in their old bigoted, quarrelsome, unsanctified 
 temper. They might have died for Christianity, but 
 she had died with them ; and, bound to their stake, ex- 
 piring in their ashes, she had been entombed in the 
 sepulchre of her first and last apostles. 
 
 I pray you, then, to cultivate the temper that was 
 in Jesus Christ. " Let all bitterness, and wrath, and 
 anger, and clamour, and evil-speaking, be put away from 
 you, with all malice ; and be ye kind one to another, 
 tender-hearted, forgiving one another, even as God for 
 
310 THE GOSPEL IN EZEKIEL. 
 
 Christ's sake hath forgiven you," Is he like a follower 
 of the Lamb who roars and rages like an angry lion ? 
 Is he like a pardoned criminal who sits moping with a 
 cloud upon his brow ? Is he like an heir of heaven, one 
 destined to a crown, who vexes and frets over some 
 petty loss ? Is he like one in whose bosom the Dove of 
 heaven is nestling, who is full of all manner of bile and 
 bitterness ? Oh, let the same mind be in you that was 
 in Jesus. A kind, catholic, gentle, loving temper pre- 
 sents religion in its most winning aspect; and by its 
 silent and softening influence you will render more real 
 service to Christianity than by the loudest professions, 
 or any exhibition of a cold and skeleton orthodoxy. 
 Shew that it is with the believer under the influences 
 of the Spirit as with fruit ripening beneath the genial 
 influences of heaven's dews and sunbeams. Hard at 
 first, it 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. He comes away 
 i readily to the hand of death, and leaves the world 
 without a wrench. 
 
 IV. In conversion God gives a heart of flesh. " I will 
 give you a heart of flesh." 
 
 Near by a mass of rock that had fallen from the 
 
THE NEW HEART. 311 
 
 overhanging crag — which had some wild flowers growing 
 in its fissures, and on its top the foxglove, with its spike 
 of beautiful hut deadly flowers, — we once came upon an 
 adder as it lay in ribbon coil, basking on the sunny 
 ground. At our approach the reptile stirred, uncoiled 
 itself, and raising its head, with eyes like burning coals, 
 it shewed its venomous fangs, shook its cloven tongue, 
 hissed, and gave signs of battle. Attacked, it retreated ; 
 and, making for that grey stone, wormed itself into a 
 hole in its side. Its nest and home were there. And 
 in looking on that shattered rock — fallen from its 
 primeval elevation — with its flowery but fatal charms, 
 the home and nest of the adder, where nothing grew but 
 poisoned beauty, and nothing dwelt but a poisoned brood, 
 it seemed to us an emblem of that heart which the text 
 describes as a stone, which experience proves is a habi- 
 tation of devils, and which the prophet pronounces to 
 be desperately wicked. I have already explained why 
 the heart is described as a stone. It is cold as a stone ; 
 hard as a stone ; dead and insensible as a stone. Now, 
 as by the term " flesh" we understand qualities the very 
 opposite of these, I therefore remark that — 
 
 In conversion a 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 the interests of his kingdom 
 has passed away ; and now these have the warmest place 
 
312 THE GOSPEL IN EZEKIEL. 
 
 in a believer's bosom, and are become the objects of its 
 strongest and tenderest affections. The only place, alas ! 
 that religion has in the hearts of many is a burial place ; 
 but the believer, whose soul is a temple, not a tomb 
 can say with Paul, " Christ liveth in me." Nor is 
 his heart like the cottage of Bethany, favoured only 
 with occasional visits. Jesus, abiding there in the 
 double character of guest and master, is its most 
 loving and best loved inmate ; and there subsists a 
 difference as great between that heart as it is, and 
 that heart as it was, as between the warm bosom where, 
 folded in ]\Iary's arms, the Infant slept, and the dark 
 cold sepulchre where his weeping followers laid and left 
 the Crucified. 
 
 Is there such a heart in you ? Do you appreciate 
 Christ's matchless excellences ? Having cast away 
 every sin to embrace him, saying with Ephraim, " what 
 have I to do any more with idols?" do you set Jesus 
 above your chiefest joy? Would you leave father, 
 mother, wife, children, to follow him, with bleeding feet, 
 over life's roughest path? Rather than part with him, 
 would you part Math a thousand worlds ? Were he now 
 on earth, w^ould you leave its loftiest throne to stoop 
 and tie his latchet ? If I might so speak, would 
 you be proud to carry his shoes? Then, indeed, you 
 have got a new heart, the " heart of flesh." The new 
 love and the old love may still meet in opposing cur- 
 rents ; but in the war and strife of these antagonistic 
 principles, the heavenly shall overpower the earthly, as 
 at the river's mouth I have seen the ocean tide, which 
 
THE NEW HEART. 313 
 
 came rolling in with a thousand billows at its Lack, fill 
 the channel, carry all before its conquering swell, clam 
 up the fresh water, and with resistless power drive it 
 back upon the land. 
 
 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 ahke 
 the kiss of kindness and the rod of correction. It is flesh ; 
 and no longer like a stone, hard, obdurate, impenetrable 
 to the genial 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 Avater. 
 How are you, who have been renewed in heart, moved 
 now, stirred now, quickened now, sanctified now, by 
 truths once felt no more than dews falling from starry 
 heavens upon a rugged rock ? The heart of grace, 
 endowed with a delicate sensibility, vibrates to the 
 slightest touch of a Saviour's fingers. How does the 
 truth of God affect it now? A stone no longer, it 
 melts under the heavenly fire — a stone no longer, it 
 bends beneath the hammer of the word ; no longer like 
 the impenetrable rock, on which rains and sunbeams 
 seem wasted, it receives the impression of God's power, 
 and retains the very footprints of his presence. Like 
 the flowers that close their eyes at night, but waken at 
 the voice of morning, like the thirsty earth that gapes 
 in summer drought, the new heart opens to receive the 
 bounties of grace and the gifts of heaven. Have 
 you experienced such a change ? In proof and evidence 
 
314 THE GOSPEL IN EZEKIEL. 
 
 of its reality, is David's language yours — " I have 
 stretched out my hands unto thee. My soul thirsteth 
 after thee as a thirsty laud?" 
 
 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 touches his crown and kingdom. 
 With Clii'ist living in his heart, the believer feels that 
 now he does not belong to himself, and is not his own. 
 As another's, and purchased at a great price, the grand 
 object of his life is to live to Christ. He reckons him 
 an object worth living for, had he a thousand lives to 
 live ; worth dying for, had he a thousand deaths to die. 
 He says with Paul, " I am crucified with Christ, never- 
 theless I live. " In the highest sense alive, he is dead 
 — dead to things he was once alive to ; and he wishes 
 that he were more dead to them — thoroughly dead. 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. 
 " Understandest thou what thou readest?" 
 
 It is a test and sure mark of grace, that the believer, 
 in his progress heavenward, grows more and more alive 
 to the claims of Jesus. If you " know the love of 
 Christ," his is the latest name you will make an efibrt 
 to utter ; his the latest thought you will desire to form ; 
 upon him you will fix your last look on earth ; upon 
 him your first in heaven. When memory is oblivious 
 
THE NEW HEAET. 315 
 
 of every other object — when all that attracted the 
 natural eye is wrapt in the mists of death — when 
 the tongue is cleaving to the roof of the mouth, and 
 speech is gone, and sight is gone, and hearing gone, and 
 the right hand, lying powerless by our side, has lost its 
 cunning, Jesus ! then may we remember thee ! If the 
 shadows of death are to be thrown in their deepest dark- 
 ness on the valley, when we are passing along it to glory, 
 may it be ours to die like that saint, around whose bed 
 wife and children stood, weeping over the wreck of faded 
 faculties, and a blank departed memory. One had asked 
 him, "Father, do you remember me?" and received no 
 answer, and another, and another, but still no answer. 
 Then, all making way for the venerable companion of a 
 long and loving pilgrimage — the tender partner of many 
 a past joy and sorrow — his wife, draws near. She bends 
 over him, and as her tears fall thick upon his face, she 
 cries, " Do you not remember me ?" A stare — but it is 
 vacant. There is no soul in that filmy eye ; the seal of 
 death lies upon these lips. His sun has gone down, 
 and life's brief twilight is darkening fast into a starless 
 night. At this moment one, calm enough to remember 
 how the love of Christ's spouse is " strong as death " — 
 a love that " many waters cannot quench " — stooped to 
 his ear, and cried, " Do you remember Jesus Christ ? " 
 The word seemed to recall the spirit hovering for a 
 moment, ere it took wing to heaven. Touched as by an 
 electric influence, the heart beat once more to the name 
 of Jesus ; the features, fixed in death, relax ; the coun- 
 tenance, dark in death, flushes up like the last gleam of 
 
316 THE GOSPEL IN EZEKIEL. 
 
 day ; and, with a smile in which the soul passed away 
 to glory, he replied, " Remember Jesus Christ ! dear 
 Jesus Christ ! he is all my salvation, and all my desire." 
 
 By conversion man is ennobled. 
 
 Infidelity regards man as little better than an ani- 
 mated statue, living clay, a superior animal. She recog- 
 nises no jewel of immortality as enshrined in this earthly 
 casket. Believe her, and man's future being is a bril- 
 liant but baseless dream ; death, an everlasting sleep ; 
 and that dark, low, loathsome grave our eternal 
 sepulchre. 
 
 Vice, again, looks on man as an animal formed for 
 the indulgence of merely brutal appetites. She sees no 
 divinity in his intellect, nor pure feelings, nor lofty aspi- 
 rations worthy of cultivation for the coming state. Her 
 foul finger never points him to the skies. Powers and 
 feelings which might have been trained to heaven she 
 leaves to trail upon the ground ; to be soiled in the mire, 
 trodden in the dust, or to entwine themselves around 
 the basest objects. In virtuous shame, purity, integrity, 
 gentleness, natural affection, she blights with her poi- 
 sonous breath whatever vestiges of beauty have survived 
 the fall ; and, having done her perfect work, she leaves 
 man a wreck, a wretch, an object of loathing, not only 
 to God and angels, but — lowest and deepest of all 
 degradation — an object of scorn and loathing to him- 
 self. 
 
 While infidelity regards man as a mere animal, to 
 be dissolved at death into ashes and air, and vice changes 
 
THE NEW HEART. 317 
 
 man into a brute or devil, Mammon enslaves him. She 
 makes him a serf, and condemns him to be a gold-digger 
 for life in the mines. She puts her collar on his neck, 
 and locks it; and bending his head to the soil, and 
 bathing his brow in sweat, she says. Toil, Toil, Toil ; 
 as if this creature, originally made in the image of God, 
 this dethroned and exiled monarch, to save whom the 
 Son of God descended from the skies, and bled on Cal- 
 vary, were a living machine, constructed of sinew, bone, 
 and muscle, and made for no loftier end than to work to 
 live, and live to work. 
 
 Contrast with these the benign aspect in which 
 the Gospel contemplates man. Religion descends from 
 heaven to break our chains. She alone raises me from 
 degradation, and bids me lift my drooping head, and 
 look up to heaven. Yes, it is that very Gospel which 
 by some is 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 and venerable does even this body 
 appear in the eye of piety ! No longer a form of ani- 
 mated dust ; no longer the subject of passions shared 
 in common with the brutes ; no longer the drudge and 
 slave of Mammon, the once " vile body " is changed 
 into a temple of the Holy Ghost. Vile in one sense it 
 may be ; yet what though it be covered with sores ? 
 what though it be clothed in rags ? what although, in 
 
318 THE GOSPEL IN EZEKIEL. 
 
 unseemly decrepitude, it lack its fair and pleasant pro- 
 portions ? this poor, pale, sickly shattered form is the 
 casket of a precious jewel. This mean and crumbling 
 tabernacle lodges a guest nobler than palaces may boast 
 of. Angels hover around its walls. The Spirit of 
 God lodges there. What a powerful incentive to holi- 
 ness, 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 dedi- 
 cated by his prayers, and a greater than Solomon con- 
 secrated by his presence. In Popish cathedral, where 
 the light was streaming through painted window, and 
 the organ pealed along lofty aisles, and incense floated 
 in fragrant clouds, and candles gleamed on cups of gold, 
 and silver crosses, we have seen the worshipper uncover 
 his head, raise an awe-struck eye on the imposing spec- 
 tacle, and drop reverently on bended knee to kiss the 
 marble floor. We knew that sooner would he be smitten 
 dead upon that floor than be guilty of defiling it. 
 Bhnded devotee, how does he yet rebuke us ! We 
 wonder at his superstition ; how may he wonder at our 
 own profanity ! Can we look on the profound venera- 
 tion he expresses for an edifice which has been erected 
 by some dead man's genius, and holds but some image 
 of a deified Virgin, or bones of a canonized saint, and 
 which — proudly as it raises its old cathedral towers — 
 time shall one day cast to the ground, and bury in the 
 dust ; can we, I say, look on that, and, unless callous 
 to rebuke, not feel reproved by the spectacle ? In how 
 much more respect, in how much higher, holier venera- 
 
THE NEW HEAKT. 319 
 
 tion should we bold this body ! The work of God, a 
 fabric " fearfully and wonderfully made," the shrine of 
 immortality, dedicated to the Son of God, and conse- 
 crated by the presence of the Spirit, it is a living temple, 
 over whose porch the eye of piety can read what the 
 finger of inspiration has written — " If any man defile 
 the temple of God, him shall God destroy : for the 
 temple of God is holy, which temple ye are." 
 
THE EENOVATOE. 
 
 And I will put my spirit withiu you. — Ezekiel xxxvi. 27. 
 
 npHERE are three that bear record in heaven : the 
 Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost." They form 
 the mystery of one, Godhead, and act in harmony. As 
 might be expected, the divine record represents these 
 three Persons as co-operating in creation. For example, 
 Paul crowns the Son with the honours of a work, usually 
 ascribed to the Father. Mark what he says of the Son 
 — " By Mm were all things created, that are in heaven, 
 and that are in earth, whether they be thrones or domi- 
 nions, or principalities or powers ; " and speaking else- 
 where of the Father, he says — "He, who at sundry 
 times, and in divers manners spake to our fathers by the 
 prophets, hath in these last days spoken unto us by his 
 Son, whom he hath appointed heir of all things, by 
 whom also he made the w^orlds." Now, as to the third 
 person, or Holy Spirit, we discover indications of his 
 existence even in the Mosaic record of creation. He 
 appears in the earliest epochs of time, and amid those 
 sublime and magnificent spectacles with which the Bible 
 opens. 
 
 The curtain rises upon the first act of creating 
 
THE RENOVATOR. 321 
 
 power, and through the enveloping shroud of darkness, 
 we behold the earth — a shapeless mass, crude and 
 chaotic. It is a world in embryo. " The earth was 
 without form and void." Yet at- this early period, when 
 there was neither golden cloud nor blue sky, nor green 
 land, nor silver sea ; when no rolling wave broke upon 
 the shore, and there were no shores for waves to break 
 on ; when no mountain peak rose to greet the morning 
 sun, and there was no sun to shine on them ; when no 
 wing of bird was cleaving the air, nor fin of fish the 
 waters ; when — like the rude and various materials from 
 which an architect proceeds to rear the fabric he has 
 designed — the elements of fire, air, earth, and water lay 
 mingled in strange confusion, through the darkness that 
 lies on the face of the deep, we discover a mysterious 
 and living presence. It is the Spirit of God. He is 
 moving, and at work. He presides at the birth of time. 
 Evoking order from confusion, he forms the world in 
 the womb of eternity, and is preparing a theatre for 
 scenes and events of surpassing grandeur. Concerning 
 that early period of creation, Moses has recorded this 
 important fact — " The Spirit of God moved on the face 
 of the waters." In this glorious creation, therefore — in 
 our beautiful world, and these star-spangled skies — we 
 behold the mighty monuments of his presence and 
 power. Ancient of days and Architect of the universe, 
 he sprung the arch of that crystal dome, and studded 
 it over with these gems of light. Listen to the magni- 
 ficent hymn of the Patriarch — " He stretcheth out the 
 north over the empty place, and hangeth the earth upon 
 
 Y 
 
322 THE GOSPEL IN EZEKIEL. 
 
 nothing. He holdetli back the face of his throne and 
 spreadeth his cloud upon it; he hath compassed the 
 waters with bounds, and divideth the sea with his power. 
 By his Spirit he hath garnished the heavens." In the 
 temple of nature, therefore, as in that of grace, we adore 
 a Godhead — the three in one ; and see Father, Son, and 
 Holy Ghost, the presiding and co-equal authors of a first 
 creation. 
 
 But let us come to man. The pillar is erected, and 
 stands ready for its capital. The house, finished and 
 furnished, now waits its tenant. He is about to be 
 formed who shall be not merely a work, nor a servant, 
 but a son of God ; a mirror in which Divinity may com- 
 placently contemplate itself; a being who is to exhibit 
 what, amid their bright and beautiful forms, neither sun, 
 nor sea, nor earth could boast of — an image of God. In 
 man the crown of creation is to be topped with its 
 brightest gem. This province of the divine empire is 
 to have a king, who, wielding a delegated sceptre, shall 
 exercise dominion " over the fish of the sea, the fowls of 
 the air, the cattle, and the creeping things." It is a 
 great occasion. And, as was worthy of it, the three 
 persons of the Godhead appear upon the scene. God 
 fashions the plastic clay into the form of man, and 
 moulds those features which have descended to us from 
 his hand ; — bending over the prostrate and inanimate 
 statue, he breathes into its hollow nostrils the subtle 
 element of life ; — rushing in, this mysterious power sets 
 its organs into play, and, as the heart begins to beat, 
 and the current of the blood to flow, Adam opens his 
 
THE RENOVATOE. 323 
 
 eyes on the world. But, ere, by this greatest crowning 
 act, he closes the drama of creation — addressing the 
 Son on this hand and the Spirit upon that, the Father 
 saith, " Let us make man in our image." 
 
 In many respects, the new corresponds with that 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. Now, while the first chapter 
 of Genesis — raising a portion of the curtain which hangs 
 before the mysteries of creation — shews us the Holy 
 Spirit as an active agent in that work, my text intro- 
 duces the same divine person, as discharging functions 
 not less important in the more exalted and enduring- 
 work of a new creation. The Father decrees redemp- 
 tion ; 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." In illus- 
 tration of the doctrine, I remark — 
 
 I. The Holy Spirit is the great agent in conversion and 
 sanctification. 
 
 Man cannot be saved unless elected, nor elected 
 without the Father; nor saved unless redeemed, nor 
 redeemed without the Son ; nor saved unless converted, 
 nor converted without the Spirit. Do you ask why? 
 Is there not a fountain opened to the house of David, 
 and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem, for sin and for 
 
324 THE GOSPEL IN EZEKIEL. 
 
 uncleanness ? Is it not true that whosoever seeks sal- 
 vation there, may wash and shall be clean ? Most true. 
 Jesus has filled that fountain with blood, and, bathed 
 there, the foulest become white as snow. Blessed truth ! 
 that fountain is free to all ; free as air or sunlight, free 
 as the waves of ocean, where proud man, who parcels 
 out God's earth, and forbids other foot than his own to 
 tread it, claims no exclusive property — where the beggar 
 may bathe abreast of a king. 
 
 What need I more, then ? you may ask. We require 
 much more. Our necessities resemble those of the cripple 
 — who, for thirty years, sat uncured by Bethesda's pool, 
 nor took his anxious eye off the water as he waited for 
 its first stir and ruffle. The healing of that pool was 
 regulated by a remarkable law, and it was this. Like 
 an electric battery, which to one and the first touch dis- 
 charges all its fluid, this pool gave off at once all its 
 virtue, and cured but one at a time. He got its benefit 
 who first stepped in after the angel's descent. What- 
 ever his disease might be, he was cured. Was he 
 dumb ? he sung. Was he blind ? he received his sight. 
 Was he a cripple ? he shouldered his crutch, and walked. 
 And why had this man sat out these weary years un- 
 healed ? Had the vision tarried, and did the rare advent 
 of the angel to this pool suggest the figure, " Like angel's 
 visits, few and far between?" These waters had been 
 often agitated during that long period of thirty years. 
 Often. Many a time this cripple had seen the sudden 
 spring, and heard the loud plunge, as some neighbour 
 flashed into the pool. Many a time, as the cured left 
 
 
THE RENOVATOR. 325 
 
 the scene, had he followed them with envious eyes. 
 ]\rany a time had he witnessed proofs of the healing 
 power — the lame man bounding away like a deer, the 
 song of the dumb ringing out his joy, and pallid sickness 
 standing on the brim of the watery mirror, and — as she 
 contemplated her beautiful image — smiling to see the 
 light of her beaming eyes, and fresh roses blowing upon 
 her wasted cheek. Poor man ! why was he not cured 
 as well as others? He was impotent, powerless; he 
 could not go down unassisted ; and — as he told Jesus 
 — one of the friendless poor, "he had no one to help 
 him in." Even so, although seated by the fountain, 
 where sins are lost and sinners washed, we need assist- 
 ance, some one to help us in. In the words of Paul, 
 we are " without strength ;" and it is for the very pur- 
 pose of helping us to seek, to believe in, to love — in 
 one word, to embrace the Saviour — that God gives his 
 Holy Spirit. For this end he fulfils the promise, " My 
 grace shall be sufficient for thee, and my strength made 
 perfect in weakness." 
 
 In a preceding discourse, we compared the change 
 wrought in conversion to the removal of what was old 
 and shattered, and the supplying of its place with a new 
 machinery. But what is mere machinery ? Just what 
 the new heart were without the Spirit of God. Besides 
 the machinery, we must have a moving power. Of what 
 use were that which is to be moved, without a force 
 adequate to move it? Without* a main-spring within 
 the clock, however complete the number and perfect the 
 workmanship of its wheels, pinions, pivots, and axles. 
 
326 THE GOSPEL IN EZEKIEL. 
 
 these hands would stand on the face of time, nor advance 
 one step over the encircHng hours. So were it with the 
 renewed soul without the Spirit of God to set its powers 
 in motion, bring them into pla}'-, and impart to their 
 movements a true and heavenward character. For this 
 purpose God fulfils the promise, " I will put my Spirit 
 within you." 
 
 In order to illustrate this truth, and with God's 
 blessing fix it in your heart, let me avail myself of the 
 element which gives a name to the Spirit, and which 
 our Saviour selects as its emblem — " The wind bloweth 
 where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but 
 canst not tell whence it cometh, nor whither it goeth, so 
 is every one that is born of the Spirit." 
 
 Here is a noble ship. Her masts are all in ; and 
 her canvas is all shaken out ; yet no ripple runs by her 
 side, nor foam flashes from her bows, nor motion has she 
 but what she receives from the alternate swell and sinking 
 of the wave. Her machinery 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 weighecl to the rude sea chaunt ; 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 fare- 
 well to wives and children, why 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 
 
THE KENOVATOR. 327 
 
 empty sails. They look to heaven — and so they may 
 — the skies only can help them here. At length their 
 prayer is heard. The pennon flutters at the mast head ; 
 spirits of the air sing aloft upon the yards ; the sails 
 swell ; the wind whistles through the rattling cordage ; 
 and now, like a steed, touched by the rider's spur, she 
 starts, bounds forward, plunges through the waves, and 
 — heaven's wind her moving power, is off, and away, 
 amid blessings and prayers, to the land she is chartered 
 for. Even so, although heaven born, heaven called, 
 heaven bound, endowed with a new heart, new mind, 
 new will, we stand in the same need of celestial influ- 
 ences — of the grace and spirit of God. That heart, 
 mind, and will, are the machinery. He is the moving 
 power ; these the instruments, but He the agent. 
 
 This divine gift 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. On the contrary, long away and wearying 
 to be home, his eye often turned homeward across the 
 water's waste, he shakes out every yard of canvas on 
 the bending mast, and works the harder to gain the full 
 advantage of propitious winds. It should be so with 
 us. May it be so with us ! 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 
 Bible, of all those ordinances through which the Spirit 
 works, and bears believers onward and homeward in 
 their heavenly course. 
 
328 THE GOSPEL IN EZEKIEL. 
 
 Were God, provoked by our indifference, to with- 
 draw or withhold his Spirit, ah ! would it not be with the 
 best of us as in a dead calm at sea ? No progress would 
 be, or could be made ; or rather, with the run of the 
 tide in a contrary direction — the tendencies of a depraved 
 nature and a wicked world working the other way — 
 instead of gaining ground, we should drift astern. 
 Alarming and warning sinners. God says in the Bible, 
 " Remember Lot's wife." Here we may say to saints. 
 Remember David. With what full sail is he bearing on 
 to heaven ! how far a-head he has shot of his country- 
 men and contemporaries ! But he enters into tempta- 
 tion ; yields to it ; falls into sin ; the Spirit is withdrawn, 
 and, although finally saved, how nearly is he lost ! 
 What a fearful backsliding! what an awful warning — 
 and, yet — an example full of encouragement to a peni- 
 tent backslider — see, in his case, how God fulfils the 
 promise, '' I will heal thy backsliding and love thee 
 freely," 
 
 Let me now urge on you the advantage and the duty 
 of improving to the utmost every season of heavenly visi- 
 tation. You cannot command the influences of heaven. 
 There are seasons more favourable and full of grace than 
 others ; and in this there is nothing surprising, but much 
 that is in harmony with the common dispensations of 
 Providence. Does not the success of the farmer, sea- 
 man, merchant, of men in many other circumstances, 
 chiefly depend on their seizing and improving opportu- 
 nities, which come and go like showers — which flow and 
 ebb like the tides of ocean ? The sea, for example, is 
 
THE RENOVATOR. 329 
 
 not always full. Twice a day she deserts her shores, 
 and leaves the vessels high and dry upon the beach ; so 
 that they who would sail must wait and watch, and take 
 the tide ; and larger ships can only get afloat, or, 
 if afloat, get across the bar and into harbour, when, 
 through a favourable conjunction of celestial influences, 
 in stream or spring tides, the ocean swells beyond her 
 common bounds. And as the sailor has his spring tides, 
 the husbandman has his spring time, and those showers, 
 and soft winds, and sunny hours, on the prompt and 
 diligent improvement of which the state of his barn and 
 barnyard depends. 
 
 " Let it be," said the Lord to David and his men of 
 war, when — lying in ambush, and expecting divine 
 assistance — they waited the battle signal, " let it be, 
 when thou hearest the sound of going on the tops of 
 the mulberry trees, that thou shalt bestir thyself" 
 Like the sound of the feet of the angelic host marching 
 to David's help over the tops of the trees, heaven may 
 vouchsafe to us such a signal in some holy desire, emo- 
 tion, thought, which, if yielded to and improved, may 
 lead to heaven ; but neglected, rejected, or repelled, may 
 leave us to perish in hell. In these, which occasionally 
 come to the most careless sinner, you feel the Spirit 
 moving — in them you hear the Spirit calling. Improve 
 them ; and " what thy hand findeth to do, do it with all 
 thy might." 
 
 If improved, who can tell but it may be with you as 
 with one well known to us. She was a fair enough 
 professor, yet had been living a careless, godless, Christ- 
 
330 THE GOSPEL IN EZEKIEL. 
 
 less life. She awoke one morning, and, most strange 
 and unaccountable ! lier waking feeling was a strong 
 desire to pray. She wondered. She hesitated. It was 
 a summer day, and early dawn ; and what more natural 
 than that she should say, there is time enough — mean- 
 while, " a little more sleep, a little more slumber, a little 
 more folding of the hands to sleep ?" As she was 
 drowsily sinking back again into unconsciousness, sud- 
 denly, with the brightness and power of lightning, a 
 thought flashed into her mind, filling her with alarm — 
 this desire may come from God ; this may be the hour 
 of my destiny — the tide of salvation, which, if neglected, 
 may never return. Springing up, she flung herself on 
 her knees. The chamber was changed into a Peniel, 
 and when the morning sun looked in at her window, he 
 found her wrestling with God in prayer. And, like one 
 rising from a sepulchre, she came forth at the call 
 of Jesus to follow him faithfully from that day forward, 
 and in her future life to walk this world with God. 
 
 I. God's Spirit is not only given to his people, but dwells 
 in them. " I will put my Spirit within you." 
 
 The communication between spirits, otherwise than 
 through the medium of matter, and our bodily organs, 
 is so great a mystery, that we are not prepared to say 
 how far unconverted men may or may not be " pos- 
 sessed of the devil." Of many a wretched slave of vice, 
 on whom tears and prayers, and expostulations, and 
 rewards, and punishments, have all been tried, and tried 
 
THE RENOVATOR. 331 
 
 in vain, it may be said without extravagance or exag- 
 geration, " He is grievously tormented of a devil." 
 There are incidents and expressions in the Word of 
 God, which do invest the subject of demoniacal posses- 
 sion with a permanent, painful, and very alarming 
 interest. On one occasion Peter endeavours to dissuade 
 his master from the cross, and stands between him and 
 the salvation of mankind ; whereupon, as if he saw the 
 devil looking through a disciple's eyes, and recognized 
 his accent in a disciple's tongue, Jesus turned on Simon, 
 saying — " Get thee behind me, Satan." Again, when 
 Judas received the sop, it is said that " Satan en- 
 tered into him," and immediately — as the ship turns 
 to the helm, when a new hand steps on board and 
 changes her course — he left the supper table, to do his 
 master's business. Again, Paul speaks of a " fellowship 
 with devils," a " cup of devils," and a " devil's table." 
 And who knows but that those terrible spectacles of pos- 
 session, where the bodies of unhappy men were seized, 
 inhabited, tormented by unclean spirits, may have been 
 visible emblems of the unclean and unconverted heart ? 
 When God left man at the fall, and abandoned that 
 heart which had once been his holy and happy home, it 
 became an empty house for Satan to occupy ; and like 
 bands of robbers, who haunt the vaults of a ruined castle, 
 where power and grandeur, and rank once resided, many 
 devils may be secretly lurking in the dark chambers of 
 this desolate and dismantled palace. 
 
 We have sometimes thought that we saw the fittest 
 emblem of our fallen state in the roofless ruins of an old 
 
332 THE GOSPEL IN EZEKIEL, 
 
 church. Now deserted, desecrated, defiled, what a 
 change is there ! Save in the ivy, that Hke pity chngs 
 to the crumbhng wall — sustaining and veiling its decay 
 — and in some sweet wild flower rooted in window sill, 
 or gaping rent, beauty and life are gone. Yet there, 
 once on a time, many a beautiful babe was baptized to 
 God ; there holy words were spoken ; holy vows were 
 taken, and holy communions held. There are eyes in 
 glory that turn with interest to that lonely spot. God 
 and man often met there ; " This and that man was 
 born there." But now the only sounds are the sighing 
 of the wind, or the roar of the storm — the hoot of the 
 owl, or the hiss of the serpent ; nor life is found there 
 now, but in the brood of the night bird, which has its 
 nest among the ruins above, or in the worms that fatten 
 upon the dead in their cold graves below. " The glory 
 is departed." Even so, once a holy shrine, but now a 
 deserted sanctuary, may we not write "Ichabod" on the 
 heart? The ruin resounds with the echoes which the 
 ear of fancy hears muttering among the desolate mounds 
 of Babylon—'' Fallen, fallen, fallen !" 
 
 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 
 raise up within them those thoughts of blasphemy, and 
 desires of sin, which come as unbidden as they are un- 
 welcome — the saints of God enjoy, what may be called, 
 a blessed possession. Not the angels, but the Spirit of 
 God inhabits them. Heaven has descended into their 
 bosoms, and there they have a little heaven below. God 
 
THE RENOVATOR. 333 
 
 now in very truth not only dwells " with man," but in 
 man. " I will put my Spirit within you." He is en- 
 shrined within them ; so that as the soul dwells in the 
 body, God dwells in the soul. " Know ye not," says an 
 apostle, *' that ye are the temple of God, and that the 
 Spirit of God dwelleth in you ? " Thus — although in a 
 subordinate sense — the members resemble their crowned 
 and exalted head ; their bodies, like his own, are a holy 
 temple, and the honoured shrine of him whom the heaven 
 of heavens cannot contain. 
 
 Speaking of the man that loves him, our Lord said, 
 " We will come unto him." This promise is one which 
 he fulfils in the daily communications of his word and 
 Spirit. Earth has no lovers who meet so often as Jesus 
 and his bride. On the lowliest and poorest Christian, 
 God bestows the honour of daily A'isits. He comes at 
 the time of prayer ; he occupies the mercy seat at the 
 stated hour of worshi]) ; and into the closet where the 
 good man goes, he goes along with him. He is closeted 
 there with God ; and comes forth like a warrior from 
 his tent inspired with courage, and armed for the battle 
 of life. Happy man ! he sleeps at night in God's arms ; 
 happy man ! in cA^ery trial he weeps on God's bosom ! 
 happy man ! although his fare be but a crust of bread 
 and cup of water, he banquets every day at heaven's 
 royal table. 
 
 Contented, nor coveting the luxuries which wealth 
 commands, he has bread to eat and company to keep 
 the world knows not of; and, although he be the 
 poorest of God's poor ones, none of the great ones of 
 
334 THE GOSPEL IN EZEKIEL. 
 
 this earth, with their privileged and prized access to 
 court, move in such high society. Could you see the 
 angels who wing their flight to this moorland cottage — 
 the telegraph of prayer, that, with lines stretched up to 
 the throne, is ever w^orking — the messages that go up, 
 and the answers that come down — Jesus himself de- 
 scending to bow his kingly head at that lowly door, with 
 " Peace to this house " on his lips, gifts in his hand, 
 love beaming in his eye and burning in his bosom, j^ou 
 would not wonder how its pious tenant can endure so 
 many hardships, and yet live so contented beneath his 
 thatch of straw. Pitying the poverty of riches, the 
 meanness of rank, the littleness of greatness — envying 
 no man his high acquaintances, coveting no man's large 
 estates — all he needs is to wear his honours meekly. 
 Occupying a rank higher than princes inherit or kings 
 can bestow, with a patent of nobility that never can be 
 forfeited, all he needs is to be " clothed with humility;" 
 while he throws open his heart and invites his Lord to 
 come in, all he needs is to do that with the modesty of 
 the man who said, " I am not worthy that thou shouldst 
 enter beneath my roof." 
 
 Here, however — as also in those words of Christ to 
 which 1 have referred — God not only promises to visit 
 his people, but by his Spirit to abide with them. " I 
 will put my Spirit within you." Happy is that people 
 whose God is the Lord." For who or what else abides ? 
 Not our parents or pastors ; the arms that embraced us 
 are mouldering in the grave, and on the lips that taught 
 us knowledge, the dust of death lies thick. Our health 
 
THE RENOVATOR. 335 
 
 may not abide ; — there is a griefless, graveless land, 
 where " the iuhabitant never says that he is sick;" but 
 faith Hfts her eye to heaven, and seeks it yonder — not 
 here. Our wealth may not abide ; and so one who, 
 better than many, remembered its uncertainty, when 
 remonstrated with for giving lavishly to the cause of 
 Christ, replied, " Riches take to themselves wings and 
 flee away ; and I think it best to clip them." Our 
 children may not abide. The earth sounds hollow to 
 the foot — it is so full of graves. Ah ! hov/ few are the 
 gardens where death has not left his footprints, when 
 he came and stole away some of our sweetest flowers. 
 Few are the trees standing on this earth, from which his 
 axe has not lopped some goodly boughs. In this world, 
 I have seen one and another stand bleak and branchless ; 
 and oh, how blessed for the father who, when he has 
 laid the last survivor in the dust, returns from that 
 saddest funeral to find God Avaiting for him in his empty 
 home ! 
 
 When the believer is alone — God in his Holy Spirit 
 abiding with him — he is not alone. How happy, yet 
 how strange a man he is ! Those paradoxes by which 
 Paul describes him — " Unknown, and yet well known ; 
 dying, and behold we live ; sorrowful, yet alway rejoic- 
 ing ; poor, yet making many rich ; having nothing, and 
 yet possessing all things" — admit of important additions. 
 Kill him, and he lives ; bury him, and he rises ; exalt 
 him, and he is humbled ; humble him, and he is exalted ; 
 curse him, and he prays for you ; hate him, and he loves 
 you ; an orphan, he clings to a living father ; a widow, 
 
336 THE GOSPEL IN EZEKIEL. 
 
 she weeps on the bosom and sleeps in the arms of a 
 living husband. " A father of the fatherless, and a judge 
 of the widow is God in his holy habitation." Piety sits 
 on a husband, a father's grave, confident in that living 
 relationship, and calm beneath the shield of him who 
 says — " You shall not afflict any widow nor fatherless 
 child. If thou afflict them in any wise, and they cry 
 unto me, I will surely hear their cry. And my wrath 
 shall wax hot, and I will kill you with the sword ; and 
 your wives shall be widows, and your children shall be 
 fatherless." Let a believer never count himself desolate. 
 Nor let others ever call him so. If thy heart lodges 
 this noblest guest, it matters not how mean thy dwell- 
 ing be ; God, turning even a prison into a palace, shall 
 abide with thee there on earth, till thou art called up to 
 abide with him in heaven. 
 
THE NEW LIFE. 
 
 I -will cause you to walk in my statutes, and keep my judgments 
 
 and do tliem. — Ezekiel xxxvi. 27. 
 
 T^HE Divine Being has established a variety of laws 
 — some of a physical, others of a moral nature. And 
 it is as impossible to violate with impimity a moral as a 
 physical law ; although the consequences in the former 
 case may be more remote, and the suffering may not 
 follow so closely on the heels of the sin. Solomon asks 
 " Can a man take fire into his bosom and not be 
 burned ?" " Can he touch pitch and not be defiled ?" 
 You at once answer no. He who drops a red hot coal 
 into his bosom shall certainly be burned ; he who falls 
 into the water shall certainly be drowned ; and if any 
 man were mad enough to pitch himself over a lofty bar- 
 tizan, he lights not on the ground as bird or angel with 
 expanded wings — he shall certainly be dashed to pieces. 
 Not only so, but a passive, like the active violation 
 of nature's laws is followed by suffering. Let a man 
 resist her demand for sleep — let him turn a deaf ear to 
 the calls of hunger — let him deny his body the rest and 
 refreshment that nature requires, and he must die. Now, 
 no less certainly shall he suffer who neglects or violates 
 
 z 
 
338 THE GOSPEL IN EZEKIEL. 
 
 those moral laws which have also been established by a 
 fixed decree. 
 
 It may seem a strange, and even foolish thing to 
 assert, but it is not the less true, that it is safer to touch 
 fire than sin — safer in a sense to quaff a cup of poison 
 than taste the cup of devils. He, certainly, stands 
 a better chance of escape who violates a physical than 
 moral law. This is difiicult to be believed. And why ? 
 Just because, in the breach of moral, judgment does 
 not, as in the breach of physical laws, follow speedily on 
 the transgression, nor succeed it as the peal thunders on 
 the flash. Yet it is not more strange than true ; and 
 true, for this plain, satisfactory, and unanswerable reason, 
 that the God who instituted the laws which govern the 
 physical world, may modify, may change, may even alto- 
 gether repeal them. He has already, and not seldom 
 done so. Iron is heavier than water ; yet did not the 
 iron axe float like a cork at the prophet's bidding ? Did 
 not the unstable sea stand up in walls of solid crystal, 
 till the host passed over ? Did naked foot, bathed in 
 morning dew, ever feel the green sward cooler, than 
 those three Hebrews the floor of the burning furnace, 
 when they trod at once beneath their feet a tyrant's 
 power and the red hot coals of fire ? Fire may not 
 burn. Water may not drown. He who gave these 
 elements their laws may alter them as he sees meet ; but 
 that moral law which is a transcript of his own mind and 
 will, is, and must be unchangeable as himself. Be sure, 
 therefore, that you cannot sin with impunity. Be sure 
 that your sin will find you out. Be sure that what you 
 
THE NEW LIFE. 339 
 
 SOW you shall reap. Be sure, that although the cloud 
 is long of gathering, it shall sooner or later explode. Be 
 sure that sin and sorrow are linked together by an 
 adamantine chain — durable and eternal as that which 
 binds the creature to the throne of God. When, there- 
 fore, Satan, the flesh, or the world solicit, remember, that 
 if your weakness yields, you are more certain to suffer, 
 than you would be to burn the finger which you thrust into 
 the flames. Sin is the fire that a man cannot take into 
 his bosom, and not be burned. 
 
 Is it urged, by way of objection, that God's people 
 are exempted from suffering — commit sin, and yet escape 
 the penalty? True. But their exemption from future 
 punishment forms no exception to the rule. In their 
 case, indeed, the debtor escapes, but then the creditor is 
 paid. The sufferings from which they are exempted were 
 endured by their substitute, and their sins were punished 
 in a dying Saviour. " He bore our griefs, and carried 
 our sorrows. The chastisement of our peace was upon 
 him, and with his stripes we are healed." 
 
 Entertaining these views, we ought not to be sus- 
 pected of lowering the dignity or losing sight of the 
 claims of the law in our faith in a crucified Redeemer. 
 That holy law was not interred in Jesus' sepulchre, nor 
 left behind with the grave clothes in his tomb. While 
 we no longer look for life from the law, nor any longer 
 hope to be saved by the law, yet we hold with the 
 Apostle — hold as strongly as any can do — that " the 
 law is holy, and the commandment holy, just, and 
 good," and that these moral laws which were enshrined 
 
340 THE GOSPEL IN EZEKIEL. 
 
 in the ark of Moses, and most awfully illustrated on the 
 cross of Christ, have lost none of their authority. They 
 continue to this day as imperative as those which regu- 
 late the flow and ebb of tides, control the procession of 
 seasons, or steer the planets through the realms of space. 
 Obedience to the moral law has indeed ceased to be the 
 condition of salvation ; and it is well it is so. Otherwise 
 who had been, who could be saved ? " If thou, Lord, 
 shouldst mark iniquity, Lord, who shall stand?" 
 " Enter not into judgment with thy servant, for in thy 
 sight shall no man living be justified." " Who may 
 abide the day of his coming ? and who shall stand when 
 he appeareth? for he is like a refiner's fire, and like 
 fuller's soap." The law is not now the gate of fife ; yet 
 it has not ceased, and never shall cease, to be the rule 
 of life. We preach, indeed, a free and a full salvation. 
 Glorying in that lofty theme, we say that the greatest 
 lawbreaker may be saved ; the foulest sinner washed 
 white as snow ; the basest of the base, the vilest of the 
 vile, exalted to a throne in heaven ; and that as no 
 obedience rendered to the law since the fall of Adam can 
 open heaven to man, so since the death of Christ no dis- 
 obedience can shut its gates against him. We hold it 
 with Paul, to be " a faithful saying, and worthy of all 
 acceptation, that Jesus Christ came into the world to 
 save sinners, of whom 1 am chief." Blessed be God, the 
 law, so stern-like in a sinner's eyes, no longer carries the 
 keys of heaven. Purchased by his blood, they are in the 
 custody of him who is very pitiful and of great mercy, 
 and who — never turning a deaf ear to the cry of dis- 
 
THE NEW LIFE. 341 
 
 tress — cheers the expiring hours of guilt, and said even 
 to a thief, " To-day thou shalt be with me in paradise." 
 
 " Do we then make void the law through faith ?" as 
 Paul asks. Some have done so. Wild and wicked fanatics 
 have arisen to trouble the church, and bring a gospel of 
 grace into open contempt. They have daringly asserted 
 that it has set them free from the obligation of these 
 holy commandments, and granted to believers a plenary 
 indulgence to commit all manner of iniquity. The saint, 
 they have said, may fall into the foulest sins, and remain 
 as pure as the kernel within a nut which has rolled into 
 the foulness of a gutter. From such licentious and im- 
 moral principles, from doctrines not less calculated to 
 dissolve society than to dishonour the church of Christ, 
 child of God ! shrink with holy abhorrence ; this your 
 language, " My soul, come not thou into their secret ; 
 unto their assembly, mine honour, be not thou united." 
 
 I know that the Apostle says, " We are delivered 
 from the laAv, that being dead wherein we were held;" 
 but are we delivered that we may sin ? Assuredly 
 not. On the contrary, we are set free that we may 
 serve God ; serve him better, holier, as Paul also says, 
 " in the newness of the spirit, and not in the oldness 
 of the letter." Addressing us not with the voice of 
 Sinai's thunders, but in the melting and yet mightier 
 tones of a Redeemer's love, the Gospel lays this injunc- 
 tion upon all, " Be careful to maintain good works." 
 Good works, these, although not always the believer's 
 attainment, will always be his aim. Committing to 
 his heart, and enshrining there those tables which, in 
 
342 THE GOSPEL IN EZEKIEL. 
 
 honour of their excellence, Moses deposited in the 
 tabernacle's holiest shrine, he will say, " how I love 
 thy law, Lord ;" and he will pray that God would 
 fulfil to him this gracious promise of the test — '' I will 
 cause them to walk in my statutes, and they shall keep 
 my judgments and do them." 
 
 In now addressing ourselves to the subject of that 
 new life which the believer lives in obedience to the 
 law of God, I remark — 
 
 I. It is a willing obedience. 
 
 Many movements take place in the universe inde- 
 pendent 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 
 matter, we ascend into the regions where mind and 
 matter, or even blind instinct and matter are united, we 
 discover a beautiful and benevolent law, by virtue of 
 which God at once secures the happiness and provides 
 for the welfare of his creatures. He so orders it that 
 their will is in perfect harmony Avith their work ; their 
 inclinations with their interests ; and their instincts with 
 the functions which they are called on to perform. The 
 bee constructs its cell, the bird weaves her nest, the 
 eagle among the crags above teaches her brood to fly, 
 
THE NEW LIFE, 343 
 
 and ill cairn or cave below, the fox suckles her young. 
 These are all labours of love — labours to which they bring 
 a willing heart. Thus their happiness lies in their work. 
 And to ascend even into heaven, is not this the secret 
 of its felicity? As the imperial law of gravity ex- 
 tends its influence to the most distant stars, so that 
 that which rounds a tear-drop gives its shape to every 
 sun, I cannot doubt that this law of divine benignity 
 reaches the highest and holiest existences. The will 
 and work of angels are in perfect harmony ; therefore 
 an angel's duty is an angel's delight. 
 
 Observe, also, how, when God changes the condition 
 of his creatures, he accommodates their will to the change. 
 Take, for example, that insect to which I have elsewhere 
 alluded. It comes from the egg a creeping worm ; it is 
 bred in corruption ; it crawls on the ground ; and with 
 voracious appetite it lives on the coarsest fare. In time 
 it undergoes a wonderful metamorphosis. The wrig- 
 gling caterpillar becomes a winged and painted butterfly ; 
 and at this change, with its old skin it divests itself of 
 old habits and instincts. Now, the insect has a wiU as 
 well as wings to fly. And with its bed the bosom of a 
 flower, its food the honied nectar, its home the sunny air, 
 and new instincts animating its frame, its will plays in 
 harmony with its work. The change within corresponds 
 to the change without. It spurns the ground ; and, as 
 you may gather from its merry, mazy dance, the creature 
 is happy, and delights in the new duties which it is 
 called to perform. Even so it is in that change which 
 grace works in sinners. The nature of the redeemed is 
 
344 THE GOSPEL IN EZEKIEL. 
 
 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 pol- 
 luted pleasures than this beautiful creature to be stripped 
 of its silken wings, and condemned to pass its days amid 
 the old foul garbage, — its former food. With such a 
 will and nature as believers now possess, their old life 
 would be misery — would be hell. Would not the re- 
 claimed prodigal, rather than leave his father's table and 
 bosom for the society of harlots and the husks of swine 
 troughs, embrace death itself and go to his grave ? Even 
 so God's people would rather not be at all, than be what 
 once they were. Hence, on the one hand, their unhap- 
 piness 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 Avhen 
 they said unto me. Let us go unto the house of the 
 Lord." 
 
 Are you unconverted? Let this teach you what 
 most you need. To men who are strangers to the 
 happiness of piety, and have their will set contrary to 
 the law of God, rehgion seems, and cannot but seem, a 
 very sad, demure, miserable thing. Oh ! it appears a 
 weary thing to be singing psalms! — they would sing 
 songs rather ; a dull book the Bible — a most uninterest- 
 ing task to be poring over these pages — they would 
 prefer a novel or a newspaper. Eather than sit at the 
 
THE NEW LIFE. 345 
 
 communion table, they would be guests where the board 
 groans with luxuries, bowls flow with wine, peals of 
 laughter follow the bright flashes of wit, and thoughtless 
 joy dances awa}'' the hours. Earth's short Sabbaths 
 seem long, and are weary ; and it is a mystery which 
 they cannot fathom, how, when they go to heaven, (and, 
 who is not hoping one day to get there ?) they are to 
 pass an endless Sabbath of psalms, and songs, and such 
 listless services. 
 
 No wonder, if this is your state, that piety wears no 
 charms to win you. Without the clean heart and the 
 right spirit, your attempts to obey the law cannot fail 
 to be as unpleasant as they are unprofitable. It is hard 
 to row against the tide, hard to go against the wind, 
 hard to swim against the stream, but harder still, under 
 no impulse but the lash of a guilty conscience, and the 
 terrors of a coming judgment, to attempt conformity to 
 the will of God. And admitting your conformity to be 
 much greater than it is, what possible value can it have 
 in the eyes of God. If even we would rather do the 
 work ourselves than have it done for us by a sullen, 
 sulky servant — what pleasure can God have in your, 
 slavish service ? I would not be served by a slave, I 
 would not have a slave stand behind my chair, I would 
 not have a slave breathe the same air, live in the same 
 home with me ; nor will Jesus Christ. His arguments 
 are not whips — his reasons are not blows — his servants 
 do not walk and work in clanking fetters. He is the 
 beloved sovereign of a people who, free and devoted to 
 his interests, are ready to die for his person and crown. 
 
346 THE GOSPEL IN EZEKIEL. 
 
 A master he is, who measures the value of service not 
 so much by the work done, as by the wilUngness to do 
 it. Even they serve that wait. Then, as the Apostle 
 says, " Let there be first a willing mind, and it is 
 accepted according to that a man hath, and not accord- 
 ing to that he hath not." 
 
 In short, the union between the Saviour and the 
 believer, like the marriage of Isaac and Rebecca, stand 
 on a cordial assent. " Peradventure, " said Eleazer to 
 his master, " peradventure the woman will not be will- 
 ing to follow me." "Then," said Abraham, " if the 
 woman be not willing to follow thee, thou shalt be clear 
 from this my oath." On this condition his servant 
 set off to woo and win a wife for Isaac. He arrives 
 at Haran ; he is introduced to Laban, and the scene that 
 follows excites in us these two wishes. 
 
 First, Would to God, that those who hold a higher 
 commission, being stewards of the mysteries of the Gospel, 
 were as intent on the duties of their oflSce, as was this 
 steward on his. Laban presses his hospitality upon the 
 hungry man ; the savoury meat appeals to his appetite ; 
 he has had a long journey, and it is reasonable surely that 
 he take some rest, get the dust of the road washed from 
 his feet, and refresh exhausted nature before he enters 
 upon business ! No — Pattern of fidelity ! He says — " I 
 will not eat until I have told mine errand." And would to 
 God, also, that he who dealt with Rebecca's heart, would 
 persuade you to accept a better offer with its tokens of 
 better love, that you might give us, as ambassadors for 
 Christ in his love suit, that maiden's ready answer. Isaac 
 
THE NEW LIFE. 347 
 
 had sent a far way for her. She saw his messenger 
 He stood in her presence, covered with the dust, and em- 
 browned with the sun of the desert. She saw Isaac's love 
 in these sparkling gems — the golden tokens of his affec- 
 tion. Her heart was won. Fair and lovely pattern of 
 faith ! Whom she had not seen she loved ; she walked 
 by faith, not by sight ; and paying a last visit to a 
 mother's grave, forgetting " her father's house and her 
 own people," the companions of her youth, and the 
 sweet home of her early days, she turned round to her 
 brother, and to his question — " Wilt thou go with this 
 man ? " with maiden modesty, but masculine firmness? 
 she replied, "I will go." 
 
 II. This is a progressive obedience. 
 
 To "walk" implies progress in grace. Walking 
 is an art, and one not acquired 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. Like every other habit, indeed, 
 walking 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 con- 
 tinuous, conquering perseverance. In fact, our erect 
 attitude and progressive motion over the ground — 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 up on 
 
348 THE GOSPEL IN EZEKIEL. 
 
 bis feet, than he falls at yours, a heap of loathsome 
 mortality. 
 
 In beauty or splendour, the figure of my text may 
 yield to other images expressive of a believer's progress 
 — such as that of a seed dropped into the soil, where 
 striking down a delicate fibre, and sending up a green 
 and tender shoot, it first rises into a seedling, which the 
 finger of an infant could crush, but which, after a hundred 
 summers have come and gone, grows into a robust and 
 lofty tree, that, with its roots moored in the rock, lifts 
 a proud head on high, and laughs at storms. Or, such 
 as that furnished by the growth of daj'', from the first 
 faint streak of dawn, or the face of morn — blushing as 
 it were, to look on the crimes of earth — to the moment 
 when the sun rises to bathe mountains, plain, and sea, 
 in one full flood of golden light. In so far, however, as 
 the setting forth of a very prominent and important 
 feature of a believer's progress is concerned, the figure of 
 my text yields the palm to none, nay, is perhaps superior 
 to any. Other images convey the idea of progress, but 
 this, of progress achieved by exertion — progress, the 
 triumph of an intelligent mind, and the reward of a 
 determined will. To explain this special point, let me 
 borrow an illustration from our Lord, when he took a 
 little child, and, presenting the blushing boy to the 
 wondering assembly, said, masters of Israel, doctors of 
 the temple, priests of the altar, chiefs of the Sanhedrim, 
 behold this pattern ; " whosoever would enter the king- 
 dom of heaven must be as this little child." 
 
THE NEW LIFE, 349 
 
 In this image God's people find comfort and en- 
 couragement. 
 
 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 w^e often stumble, and not seldom fall ? 
 We — many of us at least — are but babes in Christ ; and 
 he no more gives up hope of his people because they fall, 
 than the mother her fond hope and confidence that this 
 infant who is now creeping across the floor, shall one day 
 stand erect in the beauty of its form, balanced on firm 
 feet, and with free and perfect command of all its limbs. 
 Every man was once a babe. Samson himself — the 
 mighty Nazarite who burst asunder new-spun ropes like 
 flax touched with fire — who with more than a giant's 
 strength wrenched away the gates from Gaza's port, 
 and, heaving them on his back, climbed the steep accli- 
 vity — was once a feeble suckling, a wailing infant, barely 
 able to hold its head erect — a tottering child, hesitating 
 to venture from a mother's knee. The believer takes a 
 law of God, and tries to walk in it — he endeavours to 
 resist a temptation to which he has often yielded — he 
 fixes his eye on Jesus, and, fired with a holy ambition, 
 attempts to follow him. He fails. Eepeated attempts 
 attended by repeated failures cast him into despondency. 
 He lies where he fell. He gives himself up to dark and 
 distressing doubts. Taking advantage of his failure, 
 Satan insinuates that he has never been converted — that 
 
350 THE GOSPEL IN EZEKIEL. 
 
 his religious impressions are a delusion — that his fair 
 profession has been a vile hypocrisy. But why should 
 we despond ? In such distressing circumstances let our 
 children become our teachers. God ordains strength 
 out of the mouth of babes. The lesson of the nursery 
 is invaluable. Learning there that walking is a progres- 
 sive and not a sudden attainment, I get heart to say with 
 David, " Why art thou cast down, my soul, and why art 
 thou disquieted within me ? " That to my soul ; and 
 this to the devil, when he stands brandishing a sword 
 over me, and I am lying with my back to the ground, 
 but my eyes on heaven, " Rejoice not against me, 
 mine enemy, though I fall I shall arise." 
 
 This image stimulates to exertion, as well as comforts 
 under failure. 
 
 In attempting to walk, the child falls ; and blood 
 stains its brow, tears fill its eye. Does it lie there just 
 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 implores her 
 help. Nor in vain. She flies to raise it ; and when 
 she has stanched the bleeding wound, and kissed away 
 the tears, and soothed it in her gentle bosom, and it has 
 there sobbed out its grief, what then, and next ? Re- 
 covering from the alarm, soon forgetting its wounds, it 
 seeks the floor again. Perhaps it has been taught some 
 caution — perhaps it has learned to cling more to a 
 mother's hand — perhaps it ventures less rashly from her 
 
THE NEW LIFE. 351 
 
 side ; yet, moved by an indomitable will, see how it 
 returns to the attempt, tries it again and again, until 
 after many falls and many blows, it earns the reward 
 of perseverance. Now, with bright health on its check, 
 grace in every motion, and beauty in all its attitudes, 
 laughing in its joy, and luxuriating in the exercise of 
 its new-born powers, it runs " without wearying, and 
 walks without fainting." 
 
 Teachers of our children ! here let us be their 
 scholars, and take a lesson from the nursery. Why do 
 we make so little progress in grace ? Why at this time 
 of day, when some of us are bowed, wrinkled, wearing 
 the snows of many winters on our head, are we so unable 
 to walk in God's statutes — to keep his judgments and 
 do them ? It is not because our education has been 
 neglected. It is not because any child has in a mother 
 one so fond, so kind, so quick to help, so able to raise 
 the fallen and guide the tottering step, as we have in 
 Him who suffered for us more than mother's birth's 
 pangs, and feels for us more than a mother's love. 
 What child in earth's happiest home enjoys a believer's 
 advantages ? " Happy art thou, Israel ! who is like 
 unto thee, people saved by the Lord ? The eternal 
 God is thy refuge, and beneath the everlasting arms." 
 Why, then, is the progress of the church so slow, com- 
 pared with the progress of the nursery ? Why has child 
 after child in our families learned to walk, while the best 
 of us are still but creeping, tottering, stumbling, on the 
 path to heaven ? 
 
 There are mysteries in grace; but there is no mystery 
 
352 THE GOSPEL IN EZEKIEL. 
 
 here. The reason is plain. Every hour of the day the 
 infant is on its knees or feet ; it falls, but it is to rise ; 
 it fails, but it is to begin again ; its very happiness and 
 business he in the acquisition of this power, and the 
 smile which lights up its beautiful face, and its proud- 
 like air when it can stand alone, or cross the floor to 
 throw itself laughing into a mother's arms, shew that 
 its heart and happiness are in this work. We say to 
 God's people, Go, by God's grace, " go and do like- 
 w^ise." Take more pains, be more dihgent, give more 
 prayer to learn this holy art. Let the perseverance of 
 the nursery be imitated by the church. Let our knees 
 be as much employed in prayer, and our powers and 
 hours 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 dihgence to " work out our salvation," I am certain 
 that we should be holier — much holier than we are. 
 Our life would rise into a happy illustration of these 
 sublime and resplendent emblems — " Ye are the light of 
 the world :" " The path of the just is as the shining light, 
 that shineth more and more unto the perfect da}'' :" 
 " They shah mount up with wings as eagles ; they shall 
 run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint." 
 
 III. This willing and progressive obedience is the sign 
 and seal of salvation. 
 
 Am I a child of God ? How am I to know that I 
 am ? These are anxious questions with believers ; and 
 
THE NEW LIFE. 353 
 
 yet they are questions that admit of a very simple answer. 
 We have not, nor can we expect to have, such a testi- 
 mony to our sonship as the Saviour received when he 
 went up from the bed of Jordan, and the form as of a dove 
 descended from heaven on a head, still wet with the 
 waters of baptism. By the descent of the dove as by 
 the voice of the thunder, his Father said — " This is my 
 beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased." And yet 
 God's people enjoy that very same testimony. The 
 descent of the Spirit is still the evidence of sonship ; 
 — its sign not a dove perched upon their heads, but the 
 brooding dove nestled within their hearts. By his 
 Spirit God creates them " anew in Jesus Christ unto 
 good works ;" and by these — by the fruits of a holy hfe, 
 by the joys of the Holy Ghost, by the advancing stages 
 and ascending steps of a holy progi-ess — his spirit wit- 
 nesses with then spirits that they are sons of God. A 
 witness this, as uncertain, and therefore as satisfactory 
 as the voice of the skies, or the approving verdict of 
 final judgment. 
 
 The fruit is now, as it shall be hereafter, the test of 
 the tree. And since there is no such thing as faith 
 without works, without these, your profession is a lie, 
 your faith is dead, your hope is a delusion. It is a 
 delusion and a snare, like the phosphoric light, the pro- 
 duct of putrefaction, which to the terror of superstitious 
 peasants, and the destruction of unwary travellers, 
 gleams and burns at night, above the eddying pool in 
 whose dark depths hfe has been lost, and a body, evolv- 
 ing gases capable of spontaneous combustion, is going 
 
 2 A 
 
354 THE GOSPEL IN EZEKIEL. 
 
 to decay. Now as the fruit is the test of the tree, 
 obedience is the test of love ; hear our Lord — " He that 
 hath my commandments, and keepeth them, he it is that 
 loveth me." Do not mistake us. We do not mean 
 to say that any man keeps these commandments per- 
 fectly. Alas ! the history of the church, and each man's 
 own personal experience, prove to our shame and sor- 
 row, that God's people may, and do fall into sin ; and, 
 but for the restraining and constraining grace of God, 
 would fall into the deepest, grossest sin. Noah drunk, 
 Abraham equivocating, David an adulterer, Solomon a 
 fool, Hezekiah a backslider, Peter vehemently swearing 
 " I do not know the man," these teach us to walk softly, 
 humbly, prayerfully, circumspectly ! Oh, never leave 
 God's side, nor let go the strong hand of grace. Cling 
 to Christ ; hang on his arm, as if the storm of Galilee 
 were beating about your head, and every footstep were 
 planted upon a swelling wave. 
 
 I do not say that saints will not fall into sin, but I 
 do say that, even when they are so unhappy and un- 
 faithful, there will be an unmistakeable difference be- 
 tween them and the ungodly. Judas sinned, and went 
 and hanged himself; Peter sinned, and went out and wept. 
 The sins of saints are the occasion of saintly sorrows.. 
 God sees them at the fountain weeping and washing away 
 their guilt in the blood of Jesus ; and, a sense of their 
 sins bringing them to the Saviour, to Jesus himself they 
 go with the confession of Peter — Lord, I know that I have, 
 sinned, I know that I am a great sinner ; yet " thou 
 knowest all things; thou knowest that I love thee." 
 
THE NEW LIFE. 355 
 
 There is one test — nor any more sure in the labo- 
 ratory of the chemist — by which to distinguish the godly 
 from the ungodly, when both have fallen even into the 
 self same sin. It is well worth knowing. It is very 
 simple, and yet a most sure, I would say, an infallible 
 criterion. It is one which a child may comprehend, 
 and " the wayfaring man, though a fool," may apply. 
 I pray you to apply it, not to your neighbours' case, 
 but to your own — nor reject it because it is humble, 
 and plain, and simple, and vulgar, if you will. It is the 
 test by which you may know a sheep from a swine, 
 when both have fallen into the same slough, and are, in 
 fact, so bemired, that neither by coat nor colour can the 
 one be distinguished from the other. How then distin- 
 guish them? Nothing more easy! The unclean animal, 
 in circumstances agreeable to its nature, wallows in the 
 mire ; but the sheep — type of the godly — fills the air 
 with its bleatings, nor ceases its struggles to get out. 
 
THE NEW LIFE. 
 
 (Continiied.J 
 
 I will cause you to walk in my statutes, and keep my 
 
 judgments, and do them. — Ezekiel xxxvi. 27. 
 
 npHE predestination which I believe in, is that of Paul 
 — " Whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate 
 to be conformed to the image of his Son." To redeem 
 us from the power, as well as punishment of iniquity, 
 Jesus died. For this his most precious blood was 
 poured out upon the earth — for this the Spirit has de- 
 scended from heaven. We are " called with a holy 
 calhng." We are " called " to pluck the love of sin from 
 our hearts, and dethrone every idol that usurps the place 
 of God. We are " called " to nail the old man to the 
 cross with his affections and lusts. We are " called" to 
 be like Jesus. His meat and drink was to do his Father's 
 will. He was " holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from 
 sinners." By this lofty end of a good man's life, by the 
 regard which you cherish to Christ, by the welfare of 
 your soul, by the interest of other men's souls, you are 
 solemnly bound to beware of everything which might 
 blemish your profession, which might obscure the lustre 
 of your graces, which might hinder you from walking in 
 God's statutes, and keeping his judgments, and doing 
 
THE NEW LIFE. 357 
 
 them. So far, therefore, as circumstances permit you, 
 see that you literally " depart from evil," and in the 
 choice of your company and companions follow the ex- 
 ample of David, "I am a companion to all them that 
 fear thee ; " and remember the warning of his son, " a 
 companion of fools shall be destroyed." Sin is a disease 
 which is communicated by contagion. Shun, therefore, 
 the place of infection. More than if they had plague 
 or fever — avoid the company of the infected. Abjure 
 every scene, abstain from every pleasure, abandon every 
 pursuit, which experience has taught you tends to sin, 
 dulls the fine edge of conscience, unfits for religious 
 duties, indisposes for religious enjoyments, sends you 
 prayerless to bed, or dull and drowsy to prayer. As 
 the seaman does with surf beaten reef or iron bound 
 shore, give these a wide berth ; and, passing on, hold 
 straight away, under a press of canvas, in your course 
 for heaven. 
 
 Never fear to sufier; but oh! fear to sin. If you 
 must choose between them, choose rather the greatest 
 suffering than the smallest sin. Stand in awe of God, 
 and in fear of temptation. " Watch and pray, that ye 
 enter not into temptation." It is not safe to bring gun- 
 powder within the fall even of a spark ; nor safe, how- 
 ever dexterous your driving, to shave with your wheels 
 the edge of a beetling precipice ; nor safe in the best- 
 built bark that ever rode the waves, to sail on the out- 
 most rim of a roaring whirlpool. The seed of the 
 woman has indeed bruised the head of the serpent ; yet 
 beware ! The reptile is not dead ; and it is dangerous 
 
358 THE GOSPEL IN EZEKIEL. 
 
 to handle an adder, or touch its envenomed fangs, if the 
 creature is alive, even though its head he crushed. 
 
 Let me also warn you that such a holy life as the 
 text enjoins, is impossible to any but those who stand on 
 their guard against the beginnings of evil. Take alarm 
 at an evil thought, wish, desire. What are these, but the 
 germs of sin — the winged seeds which, wafted on by the 
 wind, drop into the heart, and finding in our natural cor- 
 ruption a fat and too favourable soil, spring up into actual 
 transgressions ? These, like the rattle of the snake, the 
 hiss of the serpent, reveal the presence and near neighbour- 
 hood of danger. Besides, does not the experience of all 
 good men prove that sin is most easily crushed in the 
 bud, and that it is safer to flee from temptation than to 
 fight it ? Fight like a man when you cannot avoid the 
 battle, but rather flee than fight. Be afraid of temptation, 
 avoid it, abhor it ; and if caught by the enchantress, 
 tear yourself from her encircling arms, seek safety in 
 flight, your answer that of Joseph's chastity — " Shall I 
 do this great evil and sin against God ? " 
 
 True religion, however, consists not in a passive, but 
 active piety. We are to walk in God's statutes, to keep 
 his judgments, and to do them. Our pattern is not the 
 shaven monk who wears a cowl, and tells his beads, and 
 keeps his midnight vigils, and goes through the dull routine 
 of mumbled prayers and irksome fastings within the 
 walls of a monastery, remote from the world among the 
 snows of the mountains or in the gloom of the forest ; 
 nor she who, having assumed the black veil and renounced 
 society, seeks safety from its contamination, or solace 
 
THE NEW LIFE. 359' 
 
 from its sorrows, within the cold formalities and quiet 
 cloisters of a convent. The pattern of a Christian is 
 that divine man, who — while he passed a brief period 
 of probation in the lonely desert, and often spent whole 
 nights on the momitain in solitary communion with 
 his God — walked the corn-fields of Galilee, frequented 
 the fishing villages on the shores of Tiberias, and was 
 occasionally to be met with in Judah's towns, and on 
 Jerusalem's crowded streets. Our exemplar is he, who, 
 wherever he went, " went about doing good," earning 
 for himself this noble opprobrium, "the friend of publicans 
 and sinners." 
 
 Observe, also, that activity of Christian life is implied 
 in the very terms of the text. Grant that we may thereby 
 be exposed to hardships and temptations, from Avhich 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 of what use is 
 it ? On whose work does it shine ? Whose steps does 
 it guide ? Whose path does it illumine ? I would 
 rather burn and waste on some lofty headland to guide 
 the bark through night and tempest to its desired haven. 
 No light shineth for itself, and " no man liveth for him- 
 self." 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 
 valleys. The stoutest timber stands on Norwegian rocks, 
 where tempests rage, and long, hard winters reign. And 
 
360 THE GOSPEL IN EZEKIEL. 
 
 is it not also with the Christian as with the animal life ? 
 Exercise is the parent of health, and strength the reward 
 of activity. The muscles are seen most fully developed 
 in the brawny arm that plies the blacksmith's hammer. 
 Health blooms ruddiest on the cheek of him, who — 
 not nailed to a sedentary occupation, nor breathing the 
 close atmosphere of heated chambers — but fearless of 
 cold, a stranger to downy pillows and luxurious repose, 
 rises with the day, sees the early worm rise in the 
 dank meadow, hears the morning lark high over head, 
 and, passing his hours in athletic exercises, increases his 
 strength by spending it. Even so, the most vigorous 
 and healthy piety is that which is the busiest, which 
 has difficulties to battle with, which has its hands full of 
 good works, which has — I may say — neither time nor 
 room for evil, but aiming at great things, both for God 
 and man, promptly, summarily dismisses temptation, 
 with Nehemiah's answer — " I have a great work to do, 
 therefore I cannot come down." 
 
 With so many living and dying in it without God 
 and hope, with the whole heathen world still unconverted, 
 with thousands, tens and hundreds of thousands at home 
 sunk in the deepest ignorance, and slaves of the vilest 
 sins, with members of our families or friendly circles far 
 from God, and between whom and us — appalling thought! 
 — death would make an eternal separation, this world 
 has much need that we were up and doing, and throwing 
 ourselves with eager zeal and our whole soul into the 
 cause of active Christianity. Our opportunities of good 
 are many and multiform. A Christian man should feel 
 
THE NEW LIFE. 361 
 
 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, if not worse than frivolously spent. 
 " 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. Run in 
 God's statutes without wearying, walk in them without 
 fainting ; and let the day on which some good has not 
 been done to ourselves and others — some glory won for 
 God, some progress made in the divine life — be a day 
 mourned over, wept for, this black sentence written 
 down against it in the calendar of our life — " I have 
 lost a day." Our Christianity is a name, a shadow, a 
 mockery, unless we resemble him who, being incarnate 
 God, was incarnate goodness, and of whom, although 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," the friend both of sufferers and 
 sinners. Thus are we to fulfil the duties of the Chris- 
 tian life, and thus exhibit a living picture of one to whom 
 this promise is fulfilled — " I will cause you to walk in 
 my statutes, and to keep my judgments and do them." 
 In closing my observations on this part of our subject, 
 I remark — 
 
362 THE GOSPEL IN EZEKIEL. 
 
 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 which have been bathed in his dazzling beams, 
 how do other objects appear ? Why, all are changed. 
 They have grown dim, if not dark and invisible. Candles, 
 that burned bright, have lost their flame ; flowers, that 
 looked gay, are colourless ; the very diamond has ceased to 
 sparkle. And saw we Jesus Christ in the full effulgence 
 of his Saviour glory, all sinful, even all common created 
 objects, would appear to undergo some such change. 
 
 We see but through a glass darkly. The dimness 
 of sin impairs our vision ; but were we to see Jesus, as 
 he shall be seen in heaven, would it not happen to us as 
 once it befell a celebrated philosopher? Pursuing his 
 discoveries on the subject of light — with a zeal not too 
 often consecrated to science, but too seldom consecrated 
 to religion — he ventured on a bold experiment. With- 
 out protection of smoked or coloured glass, he fixed his 
 gaze steadily, for sometime, on the sun — exposing his 
 naked eyes to the beams of its fiery disc. Satisfied, he 
 turned his head away ; but, strange to see ! — such was 
 the impression made on the organ of sight — wherever he 
 turned, the sun was there ; if he looked down, it seemed 
 to have dropped from heaven and was burning at his 
 feet ; it shone in the top of the sky in the mirkest mid- 
 night ; it blazed on the page of every book he read ; 
 
THE NEW LIFE. 363 
 
 he saw it when he shut his eyes, he saw it when he 
 opened them. The last object which he saw when he 
 passed off into sleep, it was the first to meet his waking 
 eyes. Now, happy were it for us if we got some such 
 sight of Christ. Happy for us if the glory of that sun of 
 righteousness were so impressed upon the eye of faith 
 that we could never forget him. Ever seeing, we should 
 ever love him. With Christ thus always present to our 
 mind's eye, we should be able more fully to adopt the 
 words of Paul, and say, " the love of Christ constraineth 
 us, because we thus judge, that if one died for all, then 
 were all dead, and that he died for all, that they which 
 live should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto 
 him who died for them, and rose again." 
 
 Experience has proved that of all instruments, the 
 mightiest for conversion is the love of Jesus. None 
 other than " Christ and him crucified," was Paul to 
 know and preach ; and in every age of the church and 
 region of the world has not that proved the rod to smite 
 rocky hearts ? Let me illustrate the fact by referring to 
 the oft-quoted experience of some Moravians who had 
 gone to carry the glad tidings to the cold clime and rude 
 savages of Greenland. Imagining that there must be a 
 preparatory process, they commenced and continued for 
 months to preach to these savages of their sins. They 
 annc)unced the wrath of God ; they sounded Sinai's 
 thunders ; they blew its loudest trumpet in their 
 ears ; they appealed to conscience, to fear, to their 
 self love and self interest. They told them of a heaven 
 above, with a sun that never set; they told them of a 
 
364 THE GOSPEL IN EZEKIEL. 
 
 dark and dreary hell below, where nor sun, nor hope 
 ever rose; of fire«that burned and a worm that gnawed 
 incessantly. Thus they preached. But their preaching 
 was all in vain. The aspect of their hearers had its- 
 counterpart in the wintry landscape of these Arctic 
 regions ; characterized by a sunless sky — perpetual night 
 — the intensest cold — a death-like silence — the land 
 wrapped in a death-like shroud — and a sea bound fast 
 in chains of ice. These good men changed their plan. 
 Choosing another theme, exchanging the law for the love 
 of God, they preached of Calvary, they expatiated on the 
 love which brought the Man of Sorrows to a cross, and 
 opened his arms to embrace the world. The effect was 
 as immediate as it was remarkable. When summer 
 came, and the snows melted on the hills ; and, with 
 sounds, like the salvos of cannon that announce a vic- 
 tory, the ice broke on these frozen seas ; and beneath 
 the beams of a sun, which blazed at mid-day nor set at 
 midnight, the earth — like a corpse come to life — dis- 
 robed itself of its shroud ; and the sea, rejoicing in free- 
 dom from its icy bonds, with tides that ebbed and flowed, 
 once more answered to the influences of heaven, and 
 rising to the wind, praised God night and day with the 
 voices of its roaring breakers, this glorious change was 
 but a picture of the melting, moving, transforming, 
 regenerating power felt by the wondering savage, as he 
 gazed with weeping eyes on the love of Christ and the 
 bloody cross of Calvary. 
 
 As the love of Christ to us is the mightiest power 
 to awaken faith, so in the love of our hearts to Christ 
 
THE NEW LIFE. 365 
 
 will be found the mightiest power to secure obedience, 
 and ensure our walking in God's statutes, and keeping 
 his judgments, and doing them. Therefore, we urge 
 you to cultivate it ; for 
 
 Love is the most powerful of all motives. 
 
 Samson's great strength lay in his hair. Shorn of 
 his flowing locks, he was like other men. Now the 
 Christian's great strength lies in his love ; and when 
 Christ invites us to sacrifices and sufferings which the 
 world would pronounce intolerable, love is prepared both 
 to explain and justify the language of his invitation — 
 " Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, 
 and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, for 
 it is easy, and my burden, for it is light.'''' On the back 
 of love the burden loses more than half its weight, and 
 the work that is done in love loses more than half its 
 tedium and difficulty. It is as with a stone, which in 
 the air, and on the dry ground, we strain at, but cannot 
 stir. Flood the field where it lies ; bury the block 
 beneath the rising water ; and now when its head 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 
 
366 THE GOSPEL IN EZEKIEL. 
 
 love is stronger than death. She welcomes sacrifices, 
 and glories in tribulation. Duty has no burden, nor 
 death any terrors for her. 
 
 Look at that bird, which, with wings outstretched, 
 sits dead on the scorched and blackened tree. She 
 might have flown away in safety. The smoke below 
 alarmed her. Dashing through and through it on 
 frightened wing, she screamed, as, climbing from branch 
 to branch, the fire rose to her nest and unfeathered 
 brood. She plunges right into the danger ; and, perched 
 on the brim of the nest — a tender mother — with her 
 wings she fans her young as they gape and gasp for 
 breath. At length the flames Hck it with their fiery 
 tongues — and now she leaves her perch. False to her 
 God? False to her ofispring? No. A true mother. 
 She has abandoned it — not to soar away to heaven — 
 but as on dewy nights and in happier hours, to seat 
 herself above her poor nestlings ; and with wings ex- 
 panded, protecting them to the last — to be found dead 
 with a dead brood beneath her. I look on that — or on 
 this other mother, who stands with her child on the side 
 of the sinking wreck, watching the last chance of a 
 passing boat. She seizes it — not to leap in herself; 
 but, lifting her boy in her arms, and printing a last 
 loving kiss upon his lips, she drops him in, the mother 
 herself remaining to drown and die. Or I look at that 
 noble maid in old border story, who having caught a 
 glance of the arrow that, shot by a rival's hand, came 
 from the bushes on the other bank, flung herself before 
 her lover, and received the quivering shaft in her own 
 
THE NEW LIFE. 367 
 
 true and faithful heart. I look at these things, and 
 seeing love to be strong as death, I urge you to culti- 
 vate the love of Jesus, and pass on in its divine strength 
 to the field of duty, and the altar of sacrifice. 
 
 I do not say that you will find it easy to walk in 
 God's statutes, to keep Christ's commandments, and do 
 them. To pluck sin from a bleeding heart — to place our 
 right hand on the block and cut it off — to pull a right eye 
 from its socket, and put our foot upon it — for a proud 
 man to learn humility — for a lover of the world not to 
 love it — for one whose corruption is strong to nail it to 
 the cross, and keep it nailed there till it die — when the 
 path of duty is strewed with flints and thorns, to walk 
 over them with bleeding feet — is, and must be painful. 
 There is no use of concealing it, or of denying it. No. 
 But all the more need there is that you inflame your love 
 by looking to Christ. Go often, and, with the shepherds, 
 gaze on the heavenly babe as he lies on a pallet of straw 
 in the corner of a manger. Accompany the disciples to 
 Gethsemane, and sit with them beneath her hoary olives, 
 listening in the stilly night to the groans of a Son in 
 his Father's hands. Or join the group of weeping 
 women, and with the other Marys and his fainting 
 mother, take up your station beside the awful cross. 
 Meditate on these things till you can say with David, 
 " While I was musing, the fire burned." 
 
 Liove is a motive to duty as pleasant as it is jpoicerful. 
 
 Love weaves chains that are tougher than iron, and 
 yet softer than silk. She unites the strength of a giant 
 
368 THE GOSPEL IN EZEKIEL. 
 
 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. The mother, for instance, with- 
 drawn from scenes of gaiety, without which to others and 
 once also to herself the cup of life was flat and tasteless, 
 is awakened to new enjoyments. She never wearies 
 watching by her infant's cradle; nor does she grudge the 
 nights of broken rest, the toils, the cares, the troubles 
 that creature costs her, although these may have blanched 
 her cheek, and paled the lustre of her eye. To cares 
 that others would feel irksome, how cheerfully she de- 
 votes herself, even before the babe can lisp her name or 
 reward her kindness with a look of recognition and its 
 grateful winning smile ! Nor does the father weary of 
 the toil that wins his children's bread. The thought of 
 these imparts strength to the arms of daily labour, fires 
 the patriot's zeal, kindles a soldier's courage, cheers the 
 seaman on his midnight watch, and reconciles thousands 
 of our honest poor to a life of incessant struggle — carry- 
 ing them through toils and hardships, otherwise intoler- 
 able, Avith a contented, cheerful, buoyant, singing spirit. 
 You would think it a most weary and dreary thing 
 to lead the life which that mother passes. And why? 
 You think so, because you are a stranger to her love. 
 And it is just because they are strangers to the love 
 of Jesus — because they have never known nor loved 
 him, that many cannot comprehend, how a pious hfe 
 can be a pleasant one — how any man can think that 
 the finest music is the sound of Sabbath bells — 
 
THE NEW LIFE. 369 
 
 that God's is the best house — and the Lord's the best 
 table. How a man of exalted grace would rather sit 
 down with a devout peasant at the Lord's supper, than 
 at a banquet where he was the guest of kings — and how 
 King David should have thought a day spent in the 
 sanctuary better than a thousand passed amid the stir- 
 ring scenes of camp life, or the glory and luxuries of a 
 palace, they cannot understand. They cannot under- 
 stand how, unless they were fools or fanatics, the disci- 
 ples should leave the judgment seat with bleeding 
 stripes, and rejoice that they were counted worthy to 
 suffer for Christ ; they cannot understand how Paul 
 and Silas should have sung as cheerfully in a dungeon 
 as ever lark that shook the night dew from its wings, 
 and rose to greet the morning sun ; they cannot under- 
 stand how the only fear of that brave old man John 
 Welch in yonder rocky prison of the Bass, was lest, 
 that others were winning the crown of martyrdom, he 
 should miss it, nor be counted worthy of that bloody 
 honour. But they, in some measure at least, under- 
 stand these things, whose pulse beats true to the law 
 of God, and whose heart burns with the love of Christ, 
 To the feet of love the ways of that law are like a fresh 
 and flowery sward, '• ways of pleasantness and paths of 
 peace." Love changes bondage into liberty. Delight- 
 ing in a law which was to our carnal nature what his 
 chain is to the dog, what his task is to the slave, and 
 against which our corrupt passions once foamed and 
 fretted like angry seas on their iron shores, she takes 
 up the harp of David, and thus celebrates its praise : — 
 
 2 B 
 
370 THE GOSPEL IN EZEKIEL. 
 
 " The law of the Lord is perfect, converting the soul ; 
 the statutes of the Lord are right, rejoicing the heart ; 
 the judgments of the Lord are true, and righteous alto- 
 gether ; more to be desired are they than gold, yea, than 
 much fine gold ; sweeter also than honey and the drop- 
 pings of the honeycomb." " Oh ! how I love thy law, 
 Lord ; it is my meditation all the day." 
 
 II. A powerful motive to the duties of the text lies in 
 the fact, that by our obedience to these statutes 
 the verdict of judgment shall be settled. 
 
 We are saved by grace, but shall be 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 great 
 realities of eternity are projected in outline on the field 
 of time, and this world lies under the long, solemn 
 shadow of coming events. Imagine them come — the 
 day of judgment come ! For whatever purpose met, 
 there is something impressive in the spectacle of a great 
 multitude ; that vast sea of faces — that mighty aggregate 
 of human beings with living hearts, immortal souls, 
 eternal destinies — all in a few years to be dead and 
 gone ; the joys and sorrows, the fears and hopes, that 
 now animate and agitate them, cold and buried in the 
 dust. How unspeakably more solemn the scene of the 
 resurrection ! the spectacle of a world come from their 
 
THE NEW LIFE. 371 
 
 graves to judgment! that vast assembly where, amid 
 drcumstances of terrible and transcendant sublimity — 
 thunders that rend the skies — the perpetual hills passing 
 away — burning mountains hurled into boiling seas — the 
 sun dying — the starry heavens rolling up like a scroll — 
 all eyes are fixed on the " great white throne," which 
 rises in lonely majesty high above the countless crowd. 
 
 It shall be a solemn thing to meet the dead, and 
 see those again — our father and mother, children, 
 brethren — who are now mouldering in the dust. How 
 solemn it was to part with them — to stand by the 
 dying bed and look on as they passed away, till we 
 heard life's parting sigh, and saw the last convulsive 
 quiver on the lip of one that was our own. But the 
 meeting of those who, although lying side by side, have 
 been long parted — who, although their coffins and dust 
 commingle, have held no communion in these silent 
 graves, shall be a still more solemn thing ; and an awful 
 thing, should we meet, how dreadful the thought !— with 
 face of terror, mutual accusations and bitter reproaches ; 
 awful, overwhelming, unless we meet with mutual con- 
 gratulations, to dwell together in a better than our old, 
 sweet, earthly home — in those blissful mansions where 
 friends in Jesus meet to part no more. 
 
 Still the solemnity rises. If it shall be a solemn thing 
 to find ourselves face to face with the dead, how much 
 more solemn to stand face to face with the great Judge 
 both of the quick and dead. We have read of Jesus 
 Christ — 'We have often thought of the Saviour, till we 
 felt as if we saw him. We have followed him in fancy's 
 
372 THE GOSPEL IN EZEKIEL, 
 
 vision through the chequered scenes of his earthly history 
 — along his rough and bloody path, from the night that 
 angels sung his advent, to the day when they returned 
 to escort the conqueror home. We have seen his form 
 stretched out — for want of a better bed — upon the 
 dewy field, or wrapped up in coarse boat-cloak as he lay 
 asleep amid the storm on Galilee. We have seen the 
 eyes of pity he bent on the weeping Magdalene — 
 the expression of reproachful love he fixed on a recreant 
 disciple — that dying look, so full of tenderest affection, 
 which he turned on a fainting mother. AVe have seen 
 him standing calm and collected before a prejudiced 
 and time-serving judge, patient and self-possessed be- 
 neath the bloody scourge, mute and meek before the 
 frenzied multitude ; and as we watched the successive 
 events of the cross, like the eclipse from the face of the 
 sun we have seen the darkness roll away from his soul, 
 and the joy that gleamed in his dying eyes as he raised 
 them to heaven and cried, "It is finished." We have 
 often in fancy seen him. When our dust revives, and 
 graves shall give up their dead, with these very eyes 
 we shall see him, by the light of a Avorld in flames behold 
 him, a God enthroned for judgment. 
 
 The day grows yet more solemn. Its solemnity 
 reaches its highest point, culminates in the momentous 
 issues of judgment. That Last Day is God's day of 
 settlement with a world that has had a long credit. It 
 is the winding up of this earth's bankrupt estate and 
 each man's individual interests. It is the closing of an 
 open account that has been running on ever since the 
 
THE NEW LIFE. 373 
 
 Fall. It is the day when the balance is struck, and our 
 fate is heaven or hell. And what invests my text with 
 its most solemn importance is this, that by the manner 
 in which we have walked in these statutes, and kept 
 these judgments, and done them, shall our destiny be 
 determined. The most common actions of life, its every 
 day, every hour, are invested with the highest grandeur, 
 when we think how they extend their issues into eter- 
 nity. Our hands are now sowing seed for that great 
 harvest. We shall meet again all we are doing and 
 have done. The graves shall give up their dead, and 
 from the tombs of oblivion the past shall give up all 
 that it holds in keeping, to be witness for or witness 
 against us. Oh, think of that, and in yonder hall of the 
 Inquisition, see what its effects should be. 
 
 Within those blood-stained walls, for whose atrocious 
 cruelties Rome has yet to answer, a prisoner is under 
 examination. He has been assured that nothing he 
 reveals shall be recorded or used against him. While 
 making frank and ingenious confession he suddenly 
 stops. He is dumb — a mute. They ply him with 
 questions, flatter him, threaten him ; he answers not a 
 word. Danger makes the senses quick. His ear has 
 caught a sound ; he listens ; it ties his tongue. An ari-as 
 hangs beside him, and behind it he hears a pen running 
 along the pages. The truth flashes on him. Behind 
 that screen there sits a scribe committing to the fatal 
 page every word he says, and he shall meet it all again on 
 the day of trial ! Ah ! how solemn to think that there 
 is such a pen going in heaven, and entering on the books 
 
374 THE GOSPEL IN EZEKIEL. 
 
 of judgment whatever we say, and wish, all we think and 
 do. Would to God we heard it — heard it everywhere, 
 always heard it ! What a check ! and what a stimulus 
 it might prove ! Are we about to sin, how strong a 
 curb ; when slow to duty, how sharp a spur. What a 
 motive have we in that to pray for the blood that blots 
 out a guilty past, and for such grace, in time to come, 
 as shall enable us to walk in God's statutes, to keep his 
 judgments, and to do them. 
 
 Do any flatter themselves that, as to theii^ sins and 
 transgressions, God hath not seen or doth not regard, 
 or hath forgotten ? Most fatal delusion ! " I have seen 
 all that Laban hath done unto thee," said the Lord to 
 Jacob in a dream. " Surely I have seen yesterday the 
 blood of Naboth," are his words to Elijah, when he sends 
 him away with a charge to throw down the gauntlet at 
 Ahab's feet, and proclaim war between heaven and his 
 bloody house. Naboth has been most foully murdered. 
 The crime is concealed. Cunning and cruelty have 
 triumphed ; and no living man now stands between 
 Ahab and the vineyard. His evil genius, in his wife, 
 approaches his bed. " Arise," says Jezebel, " Naboth is 
 dead, arise and take possession." The king rises, rides in 
 royal state to Jezreel, and luxuriates among the beauties 
 and clustered grapes of his ill-got possession. Suddenly a 
 man c^.othedin rough garment, unsummoned, unwelcomed, 
 appears upon the scene. He comes boldly on intruding 
 himself on royalty. It is Elijah. With steady step 
 and stern look, he marches up to Ahab, and, fixing his 
 eyes on the quailing coward, asks, " Hast thou killed and 
 
THE NEW LIFE. 375 
 
 also taken possession ? In the place where dogs licked 
 the blood of Naboth, they shall lick thy blood, even 
 thine." Tread upon a worm and it turns on you. Now, 
 to be a king, and yet be rudely bearded before his court 
 by this unmannerly intruder, to have the damning deed 
 — which had been contrived with such cunning, and 
 executed with such success — dragged out from its con- 
 cealment by this rough hand into the light of day, to 
 be branded before his courtiers, and proclaimed through- 
 out all tlie country as Naboth's murderer, stirs — if not 
 the courage — at least the wrath of Ahab. With guilt 
 on his scowling brow, and malignant anger flashing from 
 his eyes, he turns on the prophet, saying, " Hast thou 
 found me, mine enemy ? " "I have found thee," 
 was the calm, terrible, intrepid answer. 
 
 Now, impenitent and unbelieving sinner ! flatter not 
 thyself that God hath not seen, or doth not regard. 
 Fancy not that thy crimes are buried in a grave deeper 
 than Naboth's, and that, because the dust of death lies 
 on the lips of the partners, or witnesses, or victims of 
 thy guilt, therefore you may be at ease, since the dead 
 tell no tales. The day is coming when every unpardoned 
 sin shall find out its author ; — when what has been done 
 in darkness shall be revealed in daylight, and the word 
 whispered in the ear shall be published as with a trumpet 
 upon the house top. By our obedience to these statutes 
 and judgments we shall be tried. We have often dis- 
 obeyed them, and if, on that dread day, we would not 
 have these sins confront us as Elijah did the king — if then 
 we would meet not our sins but our Saviour, oh let us 
 
376 THE GOSPEL IN EZEKIEL. 
 
 have immediate recourse to the blood that blotteth them 
 out. 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, there shall be peace — " Being justified 
 by faith, we have peace with God, through our Lord 
 Jesus Christ ; " and the secret of our peace shall lie 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 so trying to the strongest nerves, he could 
 bear himself so calmly. They saw him pass on to the 
 bar without a cloud upon his brow, or an expression of 
 anxiety in his eye, as he gazed around him on judges, 
 accusers, the crowd of anxious spectators. The trial 
 began. As it proceeded, his case grew darker and 
 darker — not so his aspect. Witness after witness bore 
 crushing evidence against him, yet the keen eyes of his 
 enemies could detect no quiver on his lip, or shade upon 
 his brow. Long after hope had expired in the breast 
 of anxious friends, and they looked on him as a doomed 
 man, there he was, looking round serenely on that ter- 
 rible array. His pulse beat calm, nor started suddenly, 
 but went on with a stately march. Peace, like inno- 
 cence, sat enthroned upon his placid brow. At length, 
 amid the silence of the hushed assembly, the verdict of 
 " Guilty " is pronounced, and he rises. Erect in atti- 
 tude, 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 
 
THE NEW LIFE. 377 
 
 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 w^ell wife 
 and children, brothers and sisters, sweet friends, and all 
 dear to us here below. Welcome death, welcome judg- 
 ment, welcome eternity ; welcome God and Christ, 
 angels and saints made perfect, welcome — welcome 
 heaven. In the grace that leads to a holy walk, in some 
 measure of godly obedience to these statutes, in the 
 faith that worketh by love, purifieth the heart, and over- 
 cometh the world, have you the evidence of forgive- 
 ness? In these, do you carry in your bosom God's 
 pardon, already sealed with the blood of Christ, and ready 
 to be produced when you are summoned to trial ? Then, 
 you may look forward without fear and with calm con- 
 fidence to the gTeat account. These shall bear witness 
 that you have received the righteousness which makes 
 the sinner just. Best of all shrouds, may you be 
 wrapped in the " clean linen " of Jesus' righteousness ! 
 With that robe around you may you rise from the 
 grave ! — this your plea — Almighty God ! of my own 
 works I have nothing to say but this. What is bad in 
 them is mine ; what is good in them is thine. Behold 
 this pardon — look on this robe, and " know now whether 
 it be thy Son's coat or no." 
 
THE BLESSEDNESS OF THE SAINTS. 
 
 And ye shall dwell in tlie land that I gave to your fathers ; and ye shall 
 be my people, and I will be your God. I will also save you from 
 all your uncleannesses ; and I will call for the corn, and will increase 
 it, and lay no famine upon you. And I will multiply the fruit of the 
 tree, and the increase of the field, that ye shall receive no more re- 
 proach of famine among the heathen. — Ezekiel xxxvi. 28, 29, 30. 
 
 A COUNTRY cleared of its inhabitants wears a 
 mournful aspect. It may be that the emigrant has 
 left poverty for plenty. Still it is not a pleasant thing 
 to see nettles growing where the garden bloomed — the 
 smoke-stained gable — the roofless ruin — the empty 
 window where the morning sun was wont to shine upon 
 the Bible and a pious patriarch. There is something 
 chilling about that cold hearth-stone where in other days 
 the fire of a winter evening gleamed on the faces of a 
 happy circle, while the mother plied her busy wheel, and, 
 forgetful of the toils and dangers of the day, the shepherd 
 dandled a laughing infant on his knee. Those are now 
 silent walls that once sounded to the evening psalm, and 
 from which, when Sabbath rested on the hills, a decent 
 family went out, wending their way by the lake side to 
 that old ruin beside whose crumbling walls the fathers 
 
THE BLESSEDNESS OF THE SAINTS. 379 
 
 of the exile sleep. The wind, as it moans and sighs 
 among the trees beside that roofless home, seems in our 
 fancy's ear to somid the prophet's lament — '* Weep not 
 for the dead, neither bemoan him, but weep sore for 
 him that goeth away, for he shall return no more, nor 
 see his native country." 
 
 Such scenes, the pain of which, indeed, lies more in 
 fancy than in fact, give us an image of the desolation 
 which reigned in the land of Judah during the time of 
 the long captivity. By contrast also, they enhance the 
 pleasure with which we turn to this glowing picture — 
 a land teeming with inhabitants, the rich plains studded 
 all over with cities, each busy as a bee-hive — the valleys 
 clothed with corn, crowded with reapers, and ringing to 
 their song — every rocky terrace in the close embrace 
 of vines, and flocks bleating on a hundred hills. Such 
 a scene, in fact, as surveyed from some eminence, awoke 
 the piety and poetry of David — " Thou crownest the 
 year with thy goodness, and thy paths drop fatness ; they 
 drop upon the pastures of the wilderness, and the little 
 hills rejoice on every side. The pastures are clothed with 
 flocks, the valleys also are covered over with corn ; they 
 shout for joy, they also sing." 
 
 The fulfilment of my text to God's ancient people 
 would have invested this prophecy with interest, even 
 though its application had been altogether confined to 
 the Jews ; and for this reason — Their God is our God, 
 and everything which he did for them is a most precious 
 pledge of what he can and will do for us. " He is the 
 dwelling-place of his people in all generations." Thus 
 
380 THE GOSPEL IN EZEKIEL. 
 
 while faith turns her eye upon the future — a prospect 
 often dark enough — she draws courage and comfort from 
 the past, saying, " I will remember the years of the 
 right hand of the ]\Iost High." But, in fact, we have 
 more to do with this prophecy than the Jews had. 
 Under those blessings which God poured into their cup 
 — those temporal mercies which filled their mouths with 
 meat, and their hearts with gladness — lie the better 
 mercies of Messiah's kingdom. 
 
 This shines plainly through the mystic language of 
 the prophet. The conversion of the Gentiles is, for 
 instance, distinctly announced in the 36th verse, " Then 
 the heathen, that are left round about you, shall know 
 that I the Lord build the ruined places, and plant that 
 which was desolate. I the Lord have spoken it, and 
 will do it." In the succeeding chapter, again, the 
 resurrection of the body and the renovation of the soul 
 are set forth in the vision of dry bones. In the same 
 place also have we not a kingdom more enduring far 
 than any which has had its seat in Palestine ? " And 
 David, my servant, shall be king over them, and they 
 all shall have one shepherd ; they shall also walk in my 
 judgments, and observe my statutes, and do them ; and 
 they shall dwell in the land which I have given to Jacob, 
 my servant, wherein your fathers have dwelt ; and they 
 shall dwell therein, even they, and their children and 
 their children's children, for ever ; and my servant David 
 shall be their prince for ever." It appears to us that 
 this language cannot, without violence, be applied to the 
 old Jewish land and people ; that the Roman plough- 
 
THE BLESSEDNESS OF THE SAINTS. 381 
 
 share has buried such pious fancies under the ruins of 
 Jerusalem. With the blood of God's Son and man's 
 best brother on their heads, the Jews, like Cain, are 
 vagabonds. They have no dwelling in the land which 
 God gave to Jacob. For eighteen hundred years they 
 have been wandering the world, nor have the soles of 
 their feet yet found a resting-place. A nation scattered 
 and spoiled, they are a byeword, a proverb, and a hiss- 
 ing — nor land, nor temple, nor oracle, nor prince, have 
 they, nor shall have, till, turning to the hope of his best 
 and oldest fathers, the Jew bows his proud head to the 
 Nazarene, and kisses the feet that were nailed to 
 a cross. 
 
 Looking at these words, therefore, in this light — 
 taking them in an Evangelical, not a Jewish sense — let 
 us give our attention to some of the blessings which 
 they announce — the benefits which, to use the words of 
 our Catechism, "flow from justification, adoption, and 
 sanctification." Let the believer look — 
 
 I. To the abundance of the blessings of grace. 
 
 A new born 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 circum- 
 stances in which his promises are exceedingly precious. 
 The condition of believers closely resembles that of 
 a man of boundless affluence, whose wealth hes, not so 
 much in money, as in money's worth — in bills and bonds, 
 
382 THE GOSPEL IN EZEKIEL. 
 
 which have only to become due to be duly honoured. 
 AVith 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. 
 
 This rude and naked savage — the dupe of avaricious 
 traders — barters a coronet of gold for some worthless 
 trinkets, and buys the wonders of a mirror, the tinkling 
 of a bell, or a string of coloured beads, with a handful 
 of pearls, the fit ornaments of a crown. But the child 
 of God knows better than to sell what is of surpassing- 
 value, for anything intrinsically worthless. With this 
 promise, " thy bread shall be given thee, and thy water 
 shall be sure," he holds himself richer, more sure of meat 
 to eat, and raiment to put on, than he would be with 
 the wealth of banks. And why ? Is this reasonable ? 
 No doubt of it. No logician ever reasoned more 
 soundly. These may fail ; God's promise cannot. The 
 stars shall drop like figs from shaking skies, and these 
 ancient heavens themselves shall pass away, but not 
 one jot or tittle of what his God has spoken shall fail, 
 till all be fulfilled. 
 
 With such security as we have in the character of 
 God, and such fulness as is promised in the text, it 
 needs, therefore, only a prophet's faith to echo a 
 prophet's speech, and — when gaunt famine walks our 
 streets, and there are " clean teeth," and children cry 
 for bread, and their mothers have none to give them — 
 to repeat the boldest words that ever fell from mortal 
 lips — " Although the fig-tree should not blossom, and 
 there be no fruit on the vine ; though the labour of the 
 
THE BLESSEDNESS OF THE SAINTS. 383 
 
 olive should fail, and the fields yield no meat ; though 
 the flock should he cut off from the fold, and there 
 be no herd in the stall, yet I will rejoice in the Lord, 
 and joy in the God of my salvation." I can fancy a 
 sceptic exclaiming — Extravagance ! fanaticism — mad 
 fanaticism ! No such thing. In his word God's people 
 have meat to eat that you know not of — promises that 
 have proved like the breasts of his daughter to the aged 
 captive who had been barbarously condemned to die of 
 hunger. In that cell, where the grey old man each day 
 takes her infant's place, her love and ingenuity have 
 found means to save a father's life, which his enemies 
 never dreamt of; and the child of God, around whom 
 fears of want are gathering, may rest assured, that he 
 who inspired that daughter with the wit and will for 
 such an emergency, will find ways and means to make 
 his promise good. " The word of the Lord is a tried 
 word" — fail us who, and what may, that cannot. 
 
 There are, indeed, times when the believer is ready 
 to faint. Faith staggers beneath the burden, and hope 
 all but expires. My sins are so many, my guilt so great, 
 my burden so heavy ! thus and thus they speak ; now, 
 complaining with Jacob, " All these things are against 
 me ; " and, on finding Satan so often conquering them 
 Avhen they should have conquered him, now crying with 
 David, " I shall one day fall by the hand of this Saul." 
 Well, let your burdens, your sins, your cares, be all that 
 you describe. Answer me this question. Is it not as 
 easy for yonder sea to carry the bulkiest ship that ever 
 rode her waves, as the sea-weed or foam she flings upon 
 
384 THE GOSPEL IN EZEKIEL. 
 
 the shore ? Is it not as easy for that affluent and 
 effulgent sun to bathe a mountain, as to bathe a molehill 
 in gold ? Is it not as easy for this vast earth to carry 
 on its back an Alp as a grain of sand — to nourish a 
 cedar of Lebanon, as the hyssop on the wall ? Just so, 
 beUever, it is as easy for God to supply thy greatest 
 as thy smallest wants ; even as it was as much within 
 his power to form a system as an atom — to create a 
 blazing sun as kindle a fire-fly's lamp. 
 
 To one, indeed, whose standing point is on the 
 ground, objects differ much in respect of size. The chffs 
 tower above the low level shore ; piercing the horizontal 
 cloud of smoke, the spires rise above the humbler tene- 
 ments of the town ; and from her throne of snow in 
 high midsummer, winter looks down on the valleys that 
 lie far below smiling at the mountain's feet. Eyed from 
 the dead level of shore or plain, objects do appear in 
 strong contrast, high or low, great or small, big or little. 
 But I rise on eagle's wings ; I sit on the circle of the 
 earth; higher still, I stand beside the angel whom John 
 saw in the sun ; still higher, I follow Paul in his 
 ascent to the third heavens ; and, seen from such eleva- 
 tions — if seen at all — dwarf and giant, the mountain 
 and the molehill, are on one level. All these sublu- 
 nary differences vanish, sink into insignificance — into 
 nothing. 
 
 Now, here lies a believer's comfort, and here shines 
 a sinner's hope. So vanish all distinctions between great 
 and little wants in the eye of God ; so disappears all 
 difference between great and little sins, or great and 
 
THE BLESSEDNESS OF THE SAINTS. 385 
 
 little sinners, to the blood of Christ ; and, when our cares 
 are cast on him who invites the burden, so sinks every 
 difference between light and heavy burdens, to the back 
 of Jesus. It is as easy for him to save a Magdalene, or 
 Manasseh, or hoary thief, as the infant, that (happy crea- 
 ture !) just leaves its mother's womb to make of this 
 earth a stepping-stone to heaven. Whatever be your 
 circumstances, trials, cares, griefs, this promise fits them 
 — "As thy day, so shall thy strength be." Be he 
 dwarf or giant, no man can say of an assurance so full 
 and ample, " The bed is shorter than a man can stretch 
 himself upon it ; the covering is narrower than a man 
 can wrap himself in it." 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 his people 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." 
 
 2 G 
 
386 THE GOSPEL IN EZEKIEL. 
 
 II. Consider tlie happiness which God's people enter on 
 at death. 
 
 Egypt pursued the Hebrews to the very shores of 
 the sea. There, however, the people saw the last of 
 those tyrants and taskmasters who had made their 
 burden heavy and their life so bitter, that the cry of their 
 wrongs came up before the Lord. On this shore the 
 oppressor and the oppressed are to part. In these wel- 
 tering waves, from which they shrink back with dread — 
 as some good men from death — their enemies and their 
 griefs shall find a common grave. In these the wicked 
 shall cease from troubling ; beyond them the weary shall 
 be at rest. Night has come. A sun they shall never 
 see more has set on Pharaoh and his host. And, now 
 under the light that illumined the camp of God, and 
 flung a fiery lustre across the heaving deep, Moses 
 stood up to address the people. Their redemption was 
 nigh. That darkest hour had come which ushers in 
 the dawn. With his foot on the shore, the symbol of 
 power in his hand, the fiery pillar lighting up his face, 
 Moses pointed to the gloom where the Egyptians lay, 
 and said, " The Egyptians whom ye have seen to-day, 
 ye shall see them again no more for ever." 
 
 God's people are like his ancient Israel, They 
 have enemies who will harass them in life, and follow 
 them to the very shores of time ; but whoever, or what- 
 ever these may be — sin, sorrow, poverty, temptations, 
 trials, fears, doubts, Satan himself — oh ! a death-bed shall 
 be the death of them all. In leaving life we leave them 
 
THE BLESSEDNESS OF THE SAINTS. 387 
 
 behind. Death is their destruction, not ours. And 
 how should it reconcile us to that dark and doleful pas- 
 sage from which nature shrinks, that when we stand in 
 its gloomy portal to take a last look at this fading world, 
 we shall take our last look, not of friends in Christ — 
 for we shall meet them again in heaven — but only of these 
 our enemies. We " shall see them again no more for 
 ever." Pursuing God's people to their very death-bed, 
 Satan may harass them upon it. His time is short. 
 It is his last chance. He knows it. Another day or 
 hour, and they are out of his grasp ; and so — summoning 
 all his hellish powers — like the Egyptians who drove 
 down into the sea — he follows the saint into the very 
 depths of death — and aggravates by his horrible sug- 
 gestions, the struggles of a dying hour. And now, in 
 that time of darkness, the saint has two enemies upon 
 him — death, and him that has the power of death, that 
 is the devil. Be it so ; God shall take off their chariot 
 wheels ; they reach not the other shore, nor set foot 
 in heaven ; there, there entereth nothing to hurt or to 
 defile. 
 
 The dead enter into rest. " Blessed are the dead 
 which die in the Lord, they rest." " He that is dead 
 is free from sin." And as in the chamber of death I 
 have gazed on the calm and deep repose of the quiet 
 sleeper, when the tossing arms are still, and the restless 
 head lies on its pillow, and the features which have now 
 lost all expression of pain, or passion, present an aspect 
 of solemn, sublime, beautiful, perfect rest, I have some- 
 times thought, that this was an emblem which the soul 
 
388 THE GOSPEL IN EZEKIEL. 
 
 had left us of its own still more profound, perfect, 
 heavenly rest. 
 
 This is what the redeemed escape from^ but wdiat 
 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. 
 Ere the wail has sunk in the chamber of death, the 
 song of the upper sanctuary has begun. There is no 
 delay ; no waiting for an escort to travel that invisible, 
 untrodden path. Angels unseen are moving in that 
 chamber, looking on with tearless eyes where all else 
 are weeping ; and, the last breath out — the last quiver 
 passed from the lip — and away, away, they are off with 
 the spirit for glory. On angel's wings the beggar is 
 borne to Abraham's bosom. And the shout of saints 
 and angels, that greeted the conqueror, is still ringing 
 amid the arches of heaven, when the door is again 
 thrown open and the thief walks in. " This day thou 
 shalt be with me in Paradise." He leaves his cross, 
 and direct, as on a summer evening I have seen a lark 
 with outspread wings drop singing into her nest, he 
 goes up singing to his crown. 
 
 And what and where is heaven ? I cannot tell. 
 To the eye of faith, heaven looks much like a star to 
 the eye of flesh. Set there a gem on the brow of night, 
 the star shines most bright — most beautiful ; but sepa- 
 rated from us by so great a distance as to be raised 
 almost as high beyond our investigations as above the 
 
THE BLESSEDNESS OF THE SAINTS. 389 
 
 storms and clouds of earth. A shining object, we see it 
 gleaming in the fields of space, but we 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 charac- 
 ter 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, on the wings 
 of a wish, from world to world of our Father's kingdom. 
 Never, at least till then, shall we know either where 
 heaven is, or what heaven is. The best description of 
 it is to say that it is indescribable. Paul on his return 
 attempted no other. There he " heard and saw things 
 unutterable." Nor does the matter cost us the least 
 anxiety. If God spared not his own Son, heaven shall 
 want nothing to make us supremely happy. It is 
 enough for me to know that the home of the blessed — 
 the palace of the Great King — has joys which eye never 
 saw, nor ear heard, and which it hath not entered into 
 the heart of man to conceive. 
 
 III. — The complete blessedness of the saints at the 
 resurrection in the restoration of all that sin for- 
 feited. 
 
 There were periods in creation — progressive stages. 
 Step by step the work advanced to its consummation. 
 In creation, just as in conversion, the process began 
 
390 THE GOSPEL IN EZEKIEL. 
 
 with light — letting light iu upon the darkness. God 
 said, " Let there be light, and there was light, and the 
 evening and the morning were the first day." And 
 then a wide-spread firmament of blue separates the 
 waters above the earth from the waters beneath, and 
 the work completed, the evening and the morning are 
 the second day. The third day introduces a new 
 epoch. The mountains raise their heads above tbe 
 waters ; like an infant the earth comes naked from the 
 womb, and when God has wrapped his new born world 
 in a beautiful robe of flowers, green fields, and waving 
 forests, the evening and the morning are the third day. 
 The heavens next are garnished, and when their bound- 
 less fields are sown with millions of stars, the evening 
 and the morning are the fourth day. Thus the Creator 
 goes on with his work. Each succeeding period brings 
 it nearer to perfection, till, on the evening of the sixth 
 day, as the sun was sinking behind the western hills, 
 his slanting beams shone on our holy parents — their 
 home a garden, their estate a world, the creatures all 
 their servants ; in their hearts no taint of sin, in their 
 eyes no tear of sorrow, and on brows — too soon to be 
 bathed in sweat, and blushing with shame — flashing 
 crowns of innocence. Then, from the throne of his 
 most excellent majesty, God looked on this world as it 
 rolled away in its happy orbit, and, pronouncing all that 
 he had made to be very good, " the evening and the 
 morning were the sixth day." 
 
 Like creation, the Gospel has had its periods of pro- 
 gress. It gradually advanced in its development from 
 
THE BLESSEDNESS OF THE SAINTS. 391 
 
 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. First we have a rude altar 
 with the smoke of sacrifice curling up to the skies from 
 earth's unbroken forests ; — none there but our two soli- 
 tary parents, weeping, as well they might, when they 
 gazed on the miserable wreck which they had made of 
 their own and their children's fortunes ; yet, while they 
 wept, lifting up their heads in hope of a coming redemp- 
 tion. The scene shifts, and next we have a desert with 
 a mighty host scattered over its arid sands, and in their 
 midst a tented sanctuary, up from which a cloud of 
 incense goes floating, like a prayer, away to heaven. 
 The scene shifts again, and Jerusalem sits upon her hills, 
 and where hundreds of white-robed priests are serving, 
 and thousands of worshippers are kneeling, a magnificent 
 temple of marble, cedar, and gold, towers high over all 
 — the ornament and palladium of the land. The scene 
 shifts once more. It is mid-day, and yet dark ; smitten 
 with fear, the earth is trembling, graves are yawning 
 to let out their dead, and through the gloom of an 
 unnatural eclipse, we behold the cross of Calvary with 
 its bleeding victim. Son of God ! He is dying, " the 
 just for the unjust." He cries, " It is finished," and, 
 Saviour of the world, he expires. The work, so long 
 ago begun, has reached its triumphant close. By the 
 act of death he swallows up death in victory. And 
 thus you see how, from one garden to another, from the 
 bowers of Eden to the olives of Gethsemane, from the 
 first promise to the final performance, redemption ad- 
 
392 ■ THE GOSPEL IN EZEKIEL. 
 
 varices by successive steps. Jesus bows his head ; and 
 then once more from the throne of his most excellent 
 majesty, God looks on all his work, and over the bloody 
 cross and his own dead Son, pronounces this judgment, 
 " Behold, it is very good." And ushering in an eternal 
 Sabbath, the evening and the morning were the sixth 
 day of redemption. 
 
 There yet remains an aspect of redemption in which 
 it is not complete. The prince of this world is still out, 
 and in the battle-field fighting — fighting like the devil 
 he is for his kingdom. The body yet lies a captive in 
 the tomb, and the grave must yield its ancient charge. 
 Insatiate and insatiable devourer ! thou robber of our 
 pleasant homes ! Avith thy black mouth ever' opening, 
 and thy cry " give, give, give," ever in our ear, thou 
 thyself must give — thou must restore thy dead. The 
 dust of saints is dear to Christ. He comes to claim it. 
 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 — a,je, 
 and claim the very earth they lie in. " The saints 
 shall inherit the earth." 
 
 A grand and most noble destiny awaits our world. 
 Purified by judgment fires, this earth shall be the home 
 of the blessed. The curse, that lies upon its soil, shall 
 pass away with sin. " Instead of the thorn shall come 
 up the fir tree, and instead of the briar shall come up 
 the myrtle tree." Of the thorns of that curse Christ's 
 
THE BLESSEDNESS OF THE SAINTS. 393 
 
 crown was woven, and he bore them off upon his head. 
 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 ; these 
 fields of snow and arid sands shall blossom all with 
 roses. From the convulsions of expiring — or rather 
 the birth-pangs of parturient nature — a new-born world 
 shall come, a home worthy of immortals, a palace befit- 
 ting 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 king- 
 dom, and the witness of his glory. 
 
 Then the saints shall inherit the earth. Some, like 
 Abraham in the promised land, are poor wanderers here 
 — the proprietors of nothing but a grave. Some own 
 not even so much as that. Like the descendants of a 
 noble but decayed house, we wander strangers on the 
 soil w^hich was once the property of our fathers. But 
 the time of redemption draweth nigh. Man shall get 
 his own again, and hold it by a charter written in the 
 blood of his King. This world was our patrimonial 
 estate. It was the land given to our fathers. And it 
 seems most meet, that with the rank and title, the lands 
 should come back to the old family ; and, as forming 
 the crowning triumph over sin and Satan, that our 
 redemption should be altogether like that of Israel, when 
 Moses turned round on Pharaoh, saying — " Not a hoof 
 shall be left behind." Even so come, Lord Jesus, come 
 quickly. 
 
THE SECURITY OF THE BELIEVER. 
 
 I the Lord have spoken it, and I will do it. — Ezekiel xxxvi. 36. 
 
 T^HEN in a sultry summer day the sky gets over- 
 cast, and angry clouds gather thick upon its 
 brow, and bush and brake are silent, and, the very cattle, 
 like human beings, drawing close together, stand dumb 
 in untasted pastures, and where there is no ripple on the 
 lake, nor leaf stirring on the tree, all nature seems struck 
 with awe, and stands in trembling expectation, then, 
 when the explosion comes, and a blinding stream of fire 
 leaps from the cloud, and, as if heaven's riven vault were 
 tumbling down upon our head, the thunders crash, peal, 
 and roar along the sky, he has neither poetry nor piety, 
 nor sense, who does not reverently bow his head and 
 assent to the words of David, " The voice of the Lord 
 is full of majesty." 
 
 When the God of glory thundereth in nature, his 
 voice is full of majesty ; when, in still louder thunders, 
 the God of providence speaks by calamities that alarm 
 the nation, or shake to its foundations the happiness of 
 our home, his voice is also full of majesty ; and when 
 the ear of faith listens to these august and lofty words, 
 " I have spoken, and I will do it," the voice of the Lord 
 
THE SECUKITY OF THE BELIEVER. 395 
 
 again "is full of majesty." The language is stamped 
 with divinity ; and with the highest propriety we may 
 address to God the words which the flatterers of royalty 
 blasphemously offered to an orator, whose proud assump- 
 tion of divinity the worms soon refuted. The lie of 
 their adulation to Herod changes to truth on our lips, 
 when — speaking of him who says, " I the Lord have 
 spoken, and I will do it" — we exclaim, " This is the 
 voice of a God, and not of a man." 
 
 The words of my text fit not mortal lips. Of that 
 averment, Jephthah's calamity and Herod's crime afford 
 memorable illustrations. In the full tide of patriotism, 
 and the fierce excitement of the fight, burning with a 
 warrior's ambition to win the field, Jephthah made his 
 vow, and resolved to keep it — to do what he spake. Ah ! 
 little did he dream that the first to leave his house, the 
 victim for sacrifice, should be the daughter of his heart 
 — his only child. And as little did Herod foresee, upon 
 what a bloody path of remorse and crime the rash 
 pledge extorted by the fiendish hatred of a paramour 
 would lead him. 
 
 Often, we have not the power to do what we say, 
 to perform what we promise. " If the Lord will," 
 should qualify all our future. And even although the 
 power were ours, some vows are more honoured in the 
 breach than in the observance. The language of my text 
 therefore, belongs only to him whose glance penetrates 
 eternity ; to whose omniscience nothing is impervious, 
 to whose power nothing is impossible. Weak, short- 
 sighted, ignorant, erring mortals, such words in our 
 
396 THE GOSPEL IN EZEKIEL. 
 
 mouths were impudent and impotent presumption. We 
 have no more right to assume the imperial tone of 
 Divinity, than we have ability to launch his thunder- 
 bolts, or wisdom to guide his counsels. 
 
 These great words of power are also words of 
 mercy. Connect them with the exceeding precious 
 promises, the exceeding lofty offers of the Gospel, with 
 such a passage as this — " Believe on the Lord Jesus 
 Christ and thou shalt be saved;" or this, " Come unto 
 me all ye that labour, and are heavy laden, and I will 
 give you rest ; " or this, " My grace shall be sufficient 
 for thee, and my strength made perfect in your weak- 
 ness ; " or this, " With my dead body shall they arise." 
 " Awake and sing, all ye that dwell in the dust. For 
 thy dew is as the dew of herbs, and the earth shall cast 
 out the dead" — and these words are as full of mercy as of 
 majesty. In them God speaks with absolute confidence. 
 And how is his confidence calculated both to create 
 and sustain in our hearts the firmest assurance that he 
 can and that he will do all he says ? He speaks " as 
 one having authority." There is no dubiety about his 
 language, or hesitancy in its tone. He speaks as one 
 whose word is law, whose will is power, whose smile is 
 life, whose frown is death. He speaks as one who has 
 entire confidence in his own resources. He speaks as 
 one whose word is as efficient now as on the day when 
 he issued the creative fiat, and said, " Let there be light, 
 and there was light." 
 
 Were you ever at sea in a storm, when the ship 
 reeled to and fro like a drunken man, and struggling, 
 
THE SECUKTTY OF THE BELIEVER. 397 
 
 as for life in the arms of death, now rose on the top of 
 the billow, now plunged into the trough of the sea? 
 Partially infected with other's terror, did you ever leave 
 slii'ieking women and pale men below, to seek the deck, 
 and look your danger bravely in the face? In such 
 circumstances, I know nothing so reassuring as — when 
 we have staggered across the slippery planking, and are 
 holding by rail or bulwark — to see amid these weltering 
 foam wreaths, that fierce commotion, the hurricane roar 
 of the wind among the shrouds, and the loud dash of the 
 billows beneath, the calm confidence that sits on the 
 brow of that weather-beaten man who with iron strength 
 leans upon the Avheel, and steers our ship through the 
 roaring billows. Such — only much higher — is the con- 
 fidence which we draw from the confidence of God, as 
 expressed in the words — " I have spoken, and I will 
 do it." 
 
 In illustration of this, take the night of the storm 
 in Galilee. The disciples gather round our Lord, and 
 wake him, crying, Master, Master, '• Carest thou not that 
 we perish ?" Look up, and see these mountain waves ! 
 Hark to the roaring of the storm ! the boat fills — we 
 sink. Save, oh save, we perish ! Had they known 
 him fully, how would they have drawn courage from his 
 very slumbers ? With a boat-cloak protecting his 
 wasted and weary form from the flying spray, they 
 would have let him sleep on ; and bold faith, arresting 
 the arm of fear, had said, " Hush, wake him not ; let 
 him take his rest ; were his disciples in danger he would 
 not, he could not sleep." 
 
398 THE GOSPEL IN EZEKIEL. 
 
 When a mother, on her watch by the cradle where in- 
 fant life has been feebly flickering, falls asleep, we are sure 
 that the crisis is over — the worst is passed. Before sleep 
 sealed these kind and anxious eyes, they had seen the tide, 
 that had ebbed, returning. And let the storm wreck a 
 hundred boats, and carry disaster, widowhood, orphanage 
 among the fishing hamlets upon Galilee's shores, to my 
 eye the disciples had full assurance of safety in the fact 
 that Jesus slept — slept as soundly in that storm-tossed 
 boat as when ]\Iary rocked the cradle, or sung him over 
 on her gentle bosom. In that sleeping form " there was 
 the hiding of his power," and the confidence of high and 
 worthy faith. But my text is one that meets the lowest, 
 weakest faith ; for who can mark the firm, unqualified, 
 determined, supreme, sovereign tone of the words, "I the 
 Lord have spoken, and I will do it," and doubt that God 
 will make good all his promises. Man is often confident 
 when he should be diffident ; and yet, if the confidence of 
 man inspires us with hope, and speaks peace to the appre- 
 hensions of a troubled heart, how much more should the 
 confidence of God? With these words in our eye, we 
 can look on the starry dome of heaven and this solid 
 earth, and believe that sooner that vaulted roof shall fall, 
 and crush the world, burying it in its ruins, than that one 
 good word spoken of his people shall fail till all be fulfilled. 
 
 I. The text announces a most important truth. 
 
 So long as there was pulse and breath in Lazarus, 
 his sisters had often left their brother's couch, and gone 
 
THE SECURITY OP THE BELIEVER. 399 
 
 to door and window to see if there was yet any sign of 
 Jesus. Days ago a messenger had been dispatched 
 with the tidings, " He whom thou lovest is sick ;" and 
 they felt like the mother of Sisera, when, wearying for 
 her son's return, she looked for him in the glare of day, 
 and listened for him in the gloom of night, crying, "Why 
 is his chariot so long in coming? why tarry the w^heels 
 of his chariots ? " Death at length quenches the last 
 spark of hope. The funeral is over; and, when four 
 days have elapsed, a lingering Lord is seen descending 
 the heights of Olivet in his approach to Bethany. 
 Hurriedly, one enters the house of mourning and 
 whispers, " The Lord is come." Martha rises, and, 
 advancing to meet him, she pours forth her regret for 
 his absence, and her confidence in his power in this 
 bitter cry, " Lord, if thou hadst been here, my brother 
 had not died." 
 
 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 Ms presence 
 have preserved the life of Lazarus ? No less certainly 
 had these words been present in their power to Eve, they 
 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 this sufiering world, had Eve, when she stood by the 
 fatal tree, but remembered, believed, felt this sentence, 
 " I have spoken, and I will do it." Then, on the 
 serpent saying, " Thou shalt not surely die," with a 
 voice as prompt and peremptory as her Son's, she had 
 
400 THE GOSPEL IN EZEKIEL. 
 
 replied, " Get tliee behind me Satan, thou savourest not 
 the things that be of God." The honour reserved for 
 her seed had been her own. She had placed her naked 
 foot upon the serpent, and, stamping down a heel un- 
 bruised, had crushed the reptile's head. Oh, the world 
 had been saved, had she, taking up her position on the 
 high ground of my text, answered the tempter thus, 
 " The Lord hath said, In the day thou eatest thereof, 
 thou shalt surely die. He hath spoken, and He will do 
 it." Entrenched more strongly within these lines than 
 ever army that behind batteries — bristling with cannon — 
 beat back the fierce sortie, she had stood alone ; within 
 the impregnable barriers of God's mighty word, she had 
 defied the aUied powers of hell. Omnipotent in God, 
 this woman had received the battle on her single shield. 
 Eden had still been ours, and our family had still been 
 blessed and holy, with God for their father and Paradise 
 for a home. 
 
 Some years ago, when autumn floods wrought great 
 devastation in our country, a strong man was swept 
 away into the swollen river. It bore him — as he and 
 others thought — by good fortune, to a tree, which 
 stood bravely up amid the sea of waters. He caught 
 it and climbed it. Seated on a bough, he stretched out 
 his arms for help to the distant banks. Attempts were 
 made to rescue him before nightfall, but all in vain. 
 The day wore on, and the night at length came down ; 
 and now a frantic wife, and weeping little ones, and 
 some kind neighbours, were left nothing to do, but to 
 listen amid the pauses of the tempest for his long shrill 
 
THE SECUKITY OF THE BELIEVEK. 401 
 
 whistle. Ever and anon that signal came across the 
 flood to cheer them up ; he sounded it to let them 
 know that he was still alive, and that the tree was yet 
 breasting the impetuous stream. About midnight it 
 ceased. They strained their ears, and heard nought but 
 the sullen roar of the angry river, mingled with the 
 shrieking of the storm. Morning at length arrived ; the 
 man was gone — tree gone — and where it stood they saw 
 but the whirling waves of a red roaring flood. At this 
 moment, one — considered little else than a fool — 
 stepped forward to say, " I could have saved him." 
 Any other but that heart-broken group would have 
 laughed him to scorn ; and yet he shewed them how, 
 by attaching a rope to a float, and sending that away 
 from the very bank where the lost man had been car- 
 ried off", he could have saved him, since the current that 
 bore the man to the tree would have been certain to 
 convey to him this means of communication with the 
 shore. The plan was perfect ; no doubt of it. But it 
 came too late ; and they had to leave the scene with 
 their gi'ief exasperated and embittered by the thought, 
 that had they possessed but the wisdom of this fool, their 
 desolate home had received a joyous family, to give God 
 thanks for the " dead that was alive again, and the lost 
 that was found." 
 
 I have told you, that had my text been present to 
 the mind and felt in its power by the heart of Eve, Ave 
 had not been lost. But when the deed has been done, 
 and it is now too late, my object is not to shew, how man 
 might have been saved. There is little kindness in 
 
 2d 
 
402 THE GOSPEL IN EZEKTEL. 
 
 telling me of a medicine that would have cured my 
 dead. To tell me that had this or that been done, 
 these arms and not the cold grave had held him, is 
 not to close but open my wound — to drop not balm, 
 but burning acid upon a raw and bleeding sore. Glory 
 to the grace of God, I tell not that my text would 
 have saved man, but, if believed in, still shall save 
 him. It would have saved us from the grave. It can 
 raise us out of it. It is hke Jesus Christ. Had he 
 been present, Lazarus had not died, but he who could 
 have saved Lazarus from the tomb, when it has closed 
 upon his friend, calls him out of it. The power that 
 would have proved the sick man's remedy, stands there 
 at the mouth of that yawning sepulchre the dead man's 
 resurrection. Let my text lay hold of the redemption 
 of Christ, and it has all, more than all the power it ever 
 had. 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 this truth. " I the Lord have 
 spoken, and I will do it." 
 
 Take, on the one hand, these precious invitations — 
 " Ho, every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters ; 
 come ye, buy and eat, yea, come, buy wine and milk 
 without money and without price ;" and this, " Look 
 unto me and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth ;" 
 and this, " The blood of Jesus Christ cleanseth us from 
 all sin ;" and this, " I will take out of you the hard and 
 stony heart ;" and this, *' Behold, my people, I will open 
 your graves, and I will cause you to come up out of your 
 
THE SECURITY OF THE BELIEVER. 403 
 
 graves, and ye shall live ;" and take, on the other hand, 
 these : — " They that sow to the flesh, shall of the flesh 
 reap corruption ;" and this, " The soul that sinneth, it 
 shall die ;" and this, " The wicked shall be cast into 
 hell." Now, would God by his Spirit help us to lodge 
 in men's hearts an earnest, cordial belief of these truths 
 as they appear in the light of the text, man would not — 
 man could not be lost. At once warning and winning 
 men, the Gospel would be glad news. Hearers with all 
 their hearts would embrace its mercy. Churches would 
 become sanctuaries ; the place of worship would be a 
 gate to heaven ; nor would ministers — disheartened and 
 despondent — have to return so often to their Master, 
 saying, " Lord, they are perishing ; yet they will not 
 come to thee that they may have life. I have brought 
 back thine offer. They will not take it. No man hath 
 believed my report, and to none has the arm of the Lord 
 been revealed." 
 
 IL The comforts this truth imparts to a true Christian. 
 
 Through his confidence in this truth the believer com- 
 mits all his earthly cares to God. 
 
 I do not say that we are not to embrace every 
 opportunity, which providence may present, for im- 
 proving our circumstances, and acquiring lawful objects 
 of pursuit. Far from it. The Gospel inculcates dih- 
 gence, even in our worldly calling. " Go to the ant, 
 thou sluggard, consider her ways, and be wise." Nor 
 will our lawful calling, whatever it be, interfere with the 
 
404 THE GOSrEL IN EZEKIEL. 
 
 best interests of our souls. Religion is none the worse, 
 but all the better for work ; and a man's work is all the 
 better for his religion. The morning prayer does for a 
 good man's heart what the morning meal does for his 
 body. It braces him up for the day and its duties ; its 
 business and its battle. He has least need of a master's 
 watchful eye, who feels that the eye of God is ever on him. 
 You may safely trust those who make conscience of the 
 meanest work ; who, in kindling a fire or sweeping a 
 floor, have an eye uplifted to the glory of God ; who 
 ennoble Hfe's humblest employment by aiming at a noble 
 end ; and who address themselves to their business in the 
 high and holy belief, that when duty — however humble 
 it may be — is well done, God is glorified; just as he 
 is glorified as well by a lowly daisy, as by the garden's 
 gaudiest and proudest flower. 
 
 But while this truth gives no encouragement to 
 indolence — to a languid and idle waiting upon pro- 
 vidence — and no encouragement to cast our work itself 
 on God, it teaches his people to cast the cares of their 
 work upon him. Are not these among the words that 
 he hath spoken, and will do, " The steps of a good man 
 are ordered by the Lord." *' Cast thy burden on the 
 Lord, he shall sustain thee." " The lot is cast into the 
 lap, but the whole disposing thereof is of the Lord?" 
 Child of God ! put in, then, a fearless hand into fortune's 
 lottery, and draw thy fate. With faith in a superin- 
 tending providence and an unfailing word, Child of God ! 
 shield thy heart from cares that are the torture of others, 
 and from temptations that are often their ruin ! Between 
 
THE SECURITY OF THE BELIEVER. 405 
 
 a man, torn with anxieties, tossed with fears, fretting 
 with cares, and the good man, who calmly trusts in the 
 Lord, Oh ! there is as great a difference as between a 
 brawhng, roaring, mountain brook, that with mad haste 
 leaps from crag to crag, and is ground into boiling foam, 
 and the placid river, which, with beauty on its banks, 
 and heaven in 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. " It is 
 better to trust in the Lord than to put confidence in 
 man ; it is better to trust in the Lord than to put con- 
 fidence in princes." " They that trust in the Lord shall 
 be as ]\Iount Zion, which cannot be removed." 
 
 Through his confidence in the truth of my text, the 
 believer is sustained amid the trials of life. 
 
 God visits his people with trials for the very same 
 reason that the refiner casts his silver into the furnace. 
 He tries them to purify them. He does not afflict wil- 
 lingly. Be assured that he has no more pleasure in your 
 sufferings than a kind surgeon in his patient's groans, 
 or a tender parent in his children's tears. 
 
 Trials, no doubt, are ill to bear. To be reduced 
 from affluence to poverty — to become dependent on cold 
 charity — to lie on a bed of languishing — to pass sleep- 
 less nights of pain — to be exposed to evil tongues — to 
 be hissed on the stage where we were once applauded — 
 to sit amid the ruins of fortune — to lay loved ones in 
 a lonesome grave — such things are not "joyous, but 
 grievous." Winter, no doubt, is not the pleasant 
 
406 THE GOSPEL IN EZEKIEL. 
 
 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 be 
 ready to thank God for physic as well as food ; and for 
 the winter frost that kills the weeds, and breaks up the 
 soil, as for the dewy nights and sunny days that ripen 
 the fields of corn. May God give us such a faith ! 
 AVith nature weak and grace imperfect, when there is no 
 lifting of the cloud, and trials are severe and long pro- 
 tracted ! ah ! though it be easy for an onlooker to preach 
 patience, it is not easy for a sufferer to practise it. In 
 such circumstances, how prone we are to take the case 
 out of God's hands, and, getting discontented with his 
 discipline, how ready we are to cry, " How long, 
 Lord, how long ? " " If it be possible, let this cup pass 
 from me ; " or, take away this, and give me any one 
 else to drink. Yet let mine be a firm faith in the truth 
 and love of God, let me be confident that he will do what 
 he has said, and perform all that he has promised, and I 
 can discover mercy's bow bent on fortune's blackest 
 cloud, and, under most trying providences, shall enjoy 
 in my heart, and exhibit to others in my temper, the 
 blessed difference between a sufferer that mourns, and a 
 sufferer that murmurs. 
 
 Through his confidence in the truth of my text, the 
 believer cheerfully hopes^ and jjatiently waits for heaven. 
 
 Home ! to be home is the wish of the seaman on 
 the stormy sea and his lonely watch. Home is the wish 
 
THE SECURITY OF THE BELIEVER. 407 
 
 of the soldier, and tender visions mingle with the troubled 
 dreams of trench and tented field. Where the palm-tree 
 waves its graceful plumes, and birds of jewelled lustre 
 flash and flicker among gorgeous flowers, the exile sits 
 staring upon vacancy ; a far off country lies on his heart ; 
 borne away on the wings of fancy over intervening seas 
 and continents, he is again at home, and hears the lark 
 singing above his father's fields, and sees his fair-haired 
 boy brother, with light foot, and childhood's glee, chasing 
 the butterfly by his native stream. And in his best 
 hours, home, his own sinless home — a home with his 
 Father above that starry sky — will be the wish of every 
 Christian man. He looks around him — the world is 
 full of suffering ; he is distressed by its sorrows, and 
 vexed with its sins. He looks within him — and finds 
 much corruption in his own heart to grieve for. And 
 so he often turns his eye upwards, saying, " I would 
 not live here alway." No. Not for all the gold of 
 the world's mines — not for all the pearls of her seas — 
 not for all the pleasures of her flashing, frothy cup — 
 not for all the crowns of her kingdoms — would I live 
 here alway. Like a bird about to migi-ate to those 
 sunny lands where no winter sheds its snows, or strips 
 the grove, or chains the dancing streams, he will often 
 be pruning his spirit's wing for the hour of his flight to 
 glory. 
 
 The holier the child of God becomes, the more he 
 pants after the perfect image and blissful presence 
 of Jesus ; and dark although the passage, and deep 
 although the waters be, the more holy he is, the more 
 
408 THE GOSPEL IN EZEKIEL. 
 
 ready is he to say, " It is better to depart and be 
 with Jesus." " Tell me," said a saintly minister of 
 the Church of England, whose star but lately set on 
 this world, to rise and shine in brighter skies — "tell 
 me," he said to his physician, " the true state of my 
 case ; conceal nothing ; " adding, as his eye kindled, and 
 his face beamed at the thought, " if you have to tell me 
 that my dissolution is near, you could not bring happier 
 or more welcome news." 
 
 Paul said, "I am in a strait betwixt two, having a 
 desire to depart and to be with Christ, which is far 
 better : nevertheless to abide in the flesh is more need- 
 ful for you." He judged it best for himself to go, but 
 for others he held it best to stay. And there are few 
 nobler sights than to see that man, with his foot on the 
 door-step of heaven, return to throw himself into the 
 very thick of battle, and spend and be spent in his Mas- 
 ter's work. The crown of martyrdom often within his 
 reach, he drew back a hand that was eager to grasp it. 
 He took as much care of life as the coward-guilt that is 
 afraid to die. So long as he could serve the cause of 
 Jesus, he was not impatient of the hardships, wounds, 
 and watchings of the warfare. It was sin, not sufiering 
 that he felt intolerable ; it was that which rung from him 
 the bitter cry, " 0, wretched man that I am ! who shall 
 deliver me from this body of death ? " His a Saviour's 
 spirit, he chose rather that Christ should be glorified 
 through his labours on earth, than that he himself should 
 be glorified with Christ in heaven. And so long as he 
 had a tongue to speak for Jesus, and an arm to hold 
 
THE SECURITY OF THE BELIEVER. 409 
 
 high above the battle's tumult the banner of the faith, 
 he was willing to work on — not impatient for death and 
 his discharge. His was a higher and more heroic wish 
 than to get to heaven. He wished to make a heaven 
 of earth ; and, persuaded that nothing could separate 
 him from the love of God, or, finally, from heaven, 
 believing that all which God had said of him he would 
 do for him, and knowing that, though the vision tarried, 
 it would come, he possessed his soul in patience and 
 peace — waiting for the Lord. 
 
 It is a cowardly thing for a soldier to seek his dis- 
 charge so long as his country's banner flies in the battle- 
 field. The Christian should be a hero, not a coward ; 
 and with such faith as all may get, and many have en- 
 joyed, God's people, while they look to heaven, will with 
 patience wait for it. On his way home, the saint will 
 prove himself a good Samaritan — ready to stop even on 
 a heavenward journey, that he may raise the fallen, bind 
 up the wounds of humanity, and do all the work that 
 meets him upon the road. Nor shall this go unrewarded. 
 " The sleep of a labouring man is sweet." And, Oh ! 
 heaven shall be sweetest to him who has wrought through 
 the longest day, and toiled the hardest at his work. Now 
 and then, he may be lifting up a weary head to see how 
 the hours wear by — if there be yet any sign of his Master 
 coming ; but upborne under the heat and burden of the 
 day by the confidence that " he who shall come will come, 
 and will not tarry," he w^orks assiduously, and suffers 
 patiently. The most importunate and urgent prayer he 
 ventures on, that of one, who, trembling lest patience 
 
410 THE GOSPEL IN EZEKIEL. 
 
 should fail and religion suffer dishonour, cried, when 
 her pain deepened into agony, and the agony became 
 excruciating — "Come, oh come, Lord Jesus! come 
 quickly." 
 
 III. Both nature and providence illustrate the truth of 
 my text. 
 
 Nature assures us, that ivhat God hath said, he ivill do. 
 
 It can never be wrong to do what Jesus did. That 
 must be sound reasoning, in the use of which he sets us 
 an example. I see him bring a flower to the pulpit, 
 and choose a lily for his text. He bids the people listen 
 to that sweet preacher — the little bird — that, seated on the 
 bending spray, with providence for its song and sermon^ 
 neither sows nor reaps; without harvests, suffers no want; 
 and without a barn, feels no fear. Thus he taught his 
 hearers to cast their cares on God, and thus have I the 
 highest authority for summoning Nature to this house that 
 she may bear witness to the character of God. We ask 
 her then to say, whether her God, who is our God, is 
 true to his word ? whether he ever says, and fails to do ? 
 By the voices of the sun, the stars, the hills, the valleys, 
 the streams, the foaming cataracts, the rolling thunders, 
 and the roaring sea, she returns a majestic answer. It 
 is an echo of the text. Spring comes with the infant year 
 waking in her arms ; rosy Summer comes bedecked with 
 a robe of flowers ; brown Autumn comes with her swar- 
 thy brow, crowned with vines, and on her back the 
 nodding sheaves of corn ; old Winter comes with his 
 
THE SECURITY OF THE BELIEVER. 411 
 
 shivering limbs, and frozen locks, and- hoary head; — 
 and these four witnesses — each laying one hand on the 
 broad table of nature, and, lifting the other to heaven — 
 swear by Him that liveth for ever and ever, that all 
 which God hath said, God shall 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 hanging 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 to the sea. We consult the 
 Nautical Almanack, and, finding that it shall be high 
 water to-morrow at such an hour, we make our arrange- 
 ments 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 be- 
 come ! 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 volumes of na- 
 ture and providence. This is the pillow on which a 
 sleeping world rests its weary head ; this is the pivot 
 on which its wheels of business turn. And now let us 
 remember, that there are not two Gods ; a consistent 
 
412 THE GOSPEL IN EZEKIEL. 
 
 Divinity who presides over nature, and a capricious 
 Divinity who presides in the kingdom of grace. " Hear, 
 Israel, the Lord thy God is one Lord." In regard, 
 therefore, to all the promises and solemn warnings of 
 the Bible, Nature lifts up her voice and cries in the 
 words of the prophet — " Earth, Earth, Earth, hear 
 the word of the Lord." 
 
 Providence assures us that wliat God hath said, he 
 will do. 
 
 Some time ago the heavens were pouring down tor- 
 rents of rain ; and we passed through a district where 
 the streams had risen into rivers, the rivers were swollen 
 into seas, fields were changed into lakes, and boats were 
 plying where ploughs w^ere wont to go. It looked like 
 the beginning of a second deluge ; and to some who had 
 fled from their beds for safety to cottage roofs, the howl- 
 ing of the wind, the incessant pouring of the rain, the 
 waters steadily rising on the walls, may have recalled 
 the memory of that day when the ark began to float, 
 and men hung round it fiercely knocking on a door 
 which God had shut in judgment against a wicked world. 
 Yet, I will venture to say, that the dread of a second deluge 
 aggravated no man's sufierings, nor changed one sinner's 
 curses into a penitent's prayers. Why not ? Ah ! men 
 say the sea has never left her bounds. Apart altogether 
 from the records of revelation, geology tells us that she 
 has, and that round the rock where now the eagle has 
 her nest, monsters of the deep have swum, and that the 
 highest peaks of earth's loftiest mountains were once the 
 
THE SECUKITY OF THE BELIEVER. 413 
 
 islands of an ancient sea. Yes ! but then, it is said, there 
 is the bow in the cloud, and the promise in the Bible, 
 " Neither shall all flesh be cut off any more by the waters 
 of a flood ; neither shall there any more be a flood to 
 destroy the earth. This is the token of my covenant 
 that I will make between me and you, and every living 
 creature that is with you for perpetual generations. I 
 do set my bow in the cloud, and it shall be for a token 
 of a covenant between me and the earth." That indeed 
 is a security against a second flood. And shall God 
 keep his word to this doomed, sinful, polluted world — 
 shall he keep the covenant of the bow, and not keep the 
 covenant of the cross ? The providences of four thou- 
 sand years assure us that he who is true to his covenant 
 with Noah, shall not be less true to the blood-sealed 
 covenant made with his beloved Son. 
 
 The voice of every storm that, like an angry child, 
 weeps and cries itself asleep — the voice of every shower 
 that has been followed by 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 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 
 
414 THE GOSPEL IN EZEKIEL. 
 
 will do it." These words are written on every Hebrew 
 forehead. The Israelite bartering his beads with naked 
 savages — bearding the Turk in the capital of Moham- 
 medan, power — braving in his furs the rigour of Russian 
 winters — overreaching in China the inhabitants of the 
 Celestial Empire — bujang diamonds in Golconda — and in 
 our metropolis of the commercial world standing highest 
 among her merchant princes — the Hebrew everywhere, 
 yet everywhere without a country; Avith a religion, 
 but without a temple; with wealth, but without honour; 
 with ancient pedigree, but without ancestral possessions ; 
 with no land to fight for, nor altars to defend, nor patri- 
 monial fields to cultivate ; with children, and yet no child 
 playing under the trees that his grandsire planted ; be- 
 longing to a race, who are floating about over the world 
 like scattered fragments of a wreck upon the bosom of 
 the ocean — he is a living evidence, that what the Lord 
 hath spoken, the Lord will do. 
 
 True to his threatenings, thy God, believer, shall be 
 true to all his promises; and to both we may apply these 
 lofty words of Balaam — " Rise up, Balak, and hear ; 
 hearken unto me, thou son of Zippor : God is not a man 
 that he should lie, nor the son of man that he should 
 repent. Hath he said, and shall he not do it, hath he 
 spoken, and shall he not make it good?" 
 
THE NATURE, NECESSITY, AND POWER 
 OF PRAYER. 
 
 I will yet for tliis be inquired of by the bouse of Israel, to do it for 
 them. — EzEKiEL xxxvi. 37. 
 
 TN pursuing his voyage to the shores of the New World 
 the seaman steers southward. His object is to catch 
 the trade wind. It blows so steadily from east to west, 
 that having once caught it in his sails he has often no- 
 thing else to do. With his ship's head set westward, 
 he is borne steadily along beneath a brilliant sun, and 
 gently wafted over a summer sea. His voyage is one 
 extended, happy holiday. The thrilling cry of land 
 comes at length from the outlook on the topmast ; and 
 he drops his anchor in some quiet bay of those lovely 
 islands, where the waves wash coral strands, and the 
 breezes that blow seaward from the spicy forests, come 
 loaded with delicious perfumes. 
 
 It is not thus man reaches the shores of heaven. 
 That landing may be a picture of his arrival — the voy- 
 age is not. In yonder vessel, which enters the harbour 
 with masts sprung, sails in rags, bulwarks gone, bearing- 
 all the marks of having battled with storms and ridden 
 many a crested wave, and on her deck a crew of weather- 
 
416 THE GOSPEL IN EZEKIEL. 
 
 beaten and worn men, happy and glad to reach the land 
 again — behold the plight in which the believer arrives 
 at heaven. It is hard work to get there ? No doubt 
 of it. Paul, the man, in labours more abundant — Paul, 
 the martyr, in stripes above measure, in prisons more 
 frequent, in deaths oft, thrice beaten with rods, once 
 stoned, thrice shipwrecked, in journeyings often, in perils 
 of waters, in perils of robbers, in perils by his country- 
 men, by the heathen, in the city, in the wilderness, on 
 the sea — Paul, the patient sufferer for Christ, of a life 
 of weariness, and painfulness, and watchings, hunger, 
 thirst, fastings, cold, nakedness — even Paul stood 
 alarmed, lest he himself should be a castaway. " The 
 righteous scarcely are saved." The busiest in praying, 
 watching, working, fighting, are no more than saved. 
 Oh then, " if the righteous scarcely are saved, where 
 shall the ungodly and the wicked appear?" 
 
 My text summons you to prayer. But does any 
 man think, that by repeating a daily prayer — learned 
 long ago perhaps at his mother's knee, reading, as a 
 task, some verses of scripture, abstaining, as a trial, 
 from grosser sins, attending church on Sabbath, and the 
 Lord's table on communion days, he is by such a smooth 
 and easy way to reach the kingdom, and receive its 
 crown ? What says our Lord ? " The kingdom of 
 heaven suffereth violence, and the violent take it by 
 force." It is the prize of men who are valiant in faith 
 and strong in prayer — men like those who, at bugle 
 sound or flare of rocket, rush from the trenches, and 
 springing into the deadly breach — leaping into the very 
 
THE NECESSITY AND POWEK OF PKAYER. 417 
 
 mouth of death — fight then- way on and up till their 
 flag ot" victory waves above the smoke of battle. 
 
 Or take Paul's figure of the energies and activities 
 of the Christian life. Look at these two men, stripped 
 to the skin, who stand face to face, confronting each 
 other in the public arena. They have been in training 
 for weeks and months. Strangers to the pleasures of 
 ease and sweets of luxury, they have been on foot every 
 day by the dawn. Abstaining from all indulgences 
 which might enervate their frame, in hard bed, dry 
 food, severe work, they have endured every trial which 
 could develope their muscles, and add to their physical 
 strength. And now these athletes are met to contend 
 for the prize ; foot touches foot, eyes watch eyes, and 
 their spare but sinewy and iron forms are disrobed, that 
 nothing may impede the lightning rapidity of their 
 movements, or lessen the power of the stroke. The 
 signal is given. Blows fall thick as hail ; and now the 
 candidates are rolling on the ground ; now they emerge 
 from a cloud of dust to continue the fight, till one, — 
 planting a tremendous stroke on the head of his anta- 
 gonist — stands alone in the arena, and amid applauses 
 that rend the sky and weaken up the distant echoes, 
 holds the field. At this moment Paul steps forward, 
 and, addressing Christians, says. So fight; so win. 
 " They do it to obtain a corruptible crown, but we an 
 incorruptible." 
 
 Woe to the man, in these old games, who allowed 
 his competitor to catch him off his guard. Woe to 
 
 2 E 
 
418 THE GOSPEL IN EZEKIEL. 
 
 the man who turned to look on father, mother, wife, or 
 mistress. Woe to the man who hfted his eye but for a 
 moment from the glaring eyeball of his antagonist ; 
 that moment a ringing blow fells him to the earth — 
 he bites the dust. 
 
 Not less does our safety depend on constant prayer 
 and watchfulness. " Be instant in prayer." " Pray 
 without ceasing." " Watch and pray." Ah ! you will 
 never have to offer Satan an advantage twice. Should 
 he catch you asleep, as David found Saul — when he put 
 aside the spear that gleamed in the moonlight above the 
 unconscious sleeper, and whispered to Abishai, " Destroy 
 him not" — Satan will not be satisfied with carrying off 
 spear and water cruse, or skirt of robe. He will not be 
 content to prove how you were in his power, and that, 
 like a noble enemy who declines to take advantage of a 
 sleeping man, he had generously left you your peace 
 and piety. Constant prayer, unceasing watchfulness, 
 these are what your interests imperatively demand. It 
 is these the Christian life requires, and these the crown 
 of redemption rewards. Observe how in my text 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, a certain heaven — all these 
 blood-bought, gracious, happy, holy blessings shall be 
 yours, freely yours; yet not yours, unless they are 
 
THE NECESSITY AND POWER OF PllAYER. 419 
 
 sought in prayer. " I will yet for this be enquired of 
 by the house of Israel, to do it for them." 
 
 In directing your attention to prayer, let me notice — 
 
 I. Nature herself teaches us to pray. 
 
 Like our intuitive belief in the existence of the soul, 
 or in man's responsibility, there seems to be lodged in 
 every breast, what I may call an instinct to pray, and 
 an intuitive belief in the eflScacy of prayer. Prayer 
 must be natural, for it is universal. Never yet did 
 traveller find a nation upon 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 ; no more than without speech, 
 human features, or human passions. Prayer is univer- 
 sal, 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. 
 Even so man is — as it were instinctively — moved to 
 cast himself into the arms of God, to seek divine help in 
 times of danger, and in times of sorrow to weep on the 
 bosom of a Father who is in heaven. 
 
 Nature and necessity have wrung prayers even from 
 an atheist's lips. 
 
 There was a celebrated poet, who was an atheist — 
 or at least professed to be so. According to him there 
 was no God. Very strange. A rude heap of bricks 
 and timber shot from a cart upon the ground was never 
 
420 THE GOSPEL IN EZEKIEL. 
 
 seen to arrange itself into the doors, stairs, chambers, 
 and chimneys of a house. The dust and filings on a 
 brassfounder's table have never been known to form 
 themselves into the wheels and mechanism of a watch. 
 The types loosely flung from the founder's mould never 
 yet fell into the form of a poem, such as Homer, or 
 Dante, or Milton would have constructed. The rudest 
 hut of Bushmen, the Indian's simple canoe — fashioned 
 by fire from a forest tree, the plainest clay urn, in which 
 savage affection had enshrined the ashes of the dead, 
 %vere never supposed to owe their form to the hands of 
 chance. Yet this man believed (if it is possible to think 
 so), that nature's magnificent temple was built without 
 an architect, her flowers of glorious beauty were coloured 
 without a painter, and her intricate, complicated, but 
 perfect machinery constructed without an intelligent 
 mind. According to him there was no God — the behef 
 in a Grod was a delusion, prayer a base superstition, and 
 religion but the iron fetters of a rapacious priesthood. 
 So he held when sailing over the unruffled surface of 
 the iEgean Sea. But the scene changed ; and, with the 
 scene, his creed. The heavens began to scowl on him ; 
 the deep uttered an angry voice, and, as if in astonish- 
 ment at this God-denying man, " lifted up his hands on 
 high." The storm increased, till the ship became un- 
 manageable. She drifted before the tempest. The 
 terrible cry, " breakers a-head ! " was soon heard ; and 
 how they trembled to see death seated on the horrid 
 reef — waiting for his prey ! A few moments more, and 
 the crash comes. They are whelmed in the devouring 
 
THE NECESSITY AND TOWER OF TRAYER. 421 
 
 sea ? No. They were saved by a singular providence. 
 Like apprehended evils, which in a Christian's experi- 
 ence, often prove to be blessings, the wave, which flung 
 them forward on the dreaded reef, came on in such 
 mountain volume as to bear and float them over into 
 the safety of deep and ample sea-room. But ere that 
 happened, a companion of the atheist — who, seated on 
 the prow, had been taking his last regretful look of 
 heaven and earth, sea and sky — turned his eyes down 
 upon the deck, and there, among papists, who told their 
 beads and cried to the virgin, he saw the atheist pros- 
 trate with fear. The tempest had blown away his fine- 
 spun speculations like so many cobwebs. He was on 
 his knees, imploring God for mercy. In that hour — in 
 that terrible extremity — Nature rose up in her might, 
 asserted her supremacy, vindicated the claims of religion, 
 smote down infidelity by a stroke, and bent the stubborn 
 knees of atheism in lowliest prayer. 
 
 Danger may thus extort prayer ; it does not foflow 
 that God will accept it. How can a man expect to 
 have prayers accepted which are only wrung from him 
 by the hand of danger or the fear of death ? Let us 
 translate their language ? Is it not this ? I will serve 
 my lusts as long as I dare. So long as I can say it 
 safely, I will say — Evil be thou my good ; my vices, be 
 ye my gods ; I will turn to religion when I can do no 
 better. Does Jesus stand at my door? are his locks 
 wet with the dews of night ? are his limbs weary stand- 
 ing ? is his hand weary knocking ? Till another hand 
 is knocking there — the loud impatient hand of death — ■ 
 
422 THE GOSPEL IN EZEKIEL. 
 
 Jesus comes not in. " What have I to do with thee, 
 thou Son of God?" With thy rehgion — "Art thou 
 come to torment me before the time ?" " Go thy way 
 at this time ; when I have a convenient season I will 
 call for thee." 
 
 In the name of reason, religion, gratitude, love, is 
 this the treatment which a Saviour deserves? Un- 
 grateful deluded sinner ! " Is this thy kindness to thy 
 friend?" Beware ! What if he should mete out to thee 
 the measure thou metest out to him ? Even this — " I 
 have spoken, and ye have not heard ; I have called 
 and ye have not answered ; when ye speak I will not 
 hear ; when ye call, I will not answer. I will laugh at 
 your calamity, and mock when your fear cometh." 
 
 II. Some difficulties connected with this duty. 
 
 The decrees of God, say some, render prayer unneces- 
 sary, useless. Are not all things, they ask, fixed by these 
 decrees — irrevocably fixed? By prayer I may, indeed, pre- 
 vail 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 shew him 
 such good reasons for doing it, as to change his resolu- 
 tion. But if an immutable God has foreseen and fore- 
 settled everything by an eternal and irreversible decree, 
 what purpose can prayer serve? AVho shall change 
 the unchangeable? Thus men have argued, say- 
 ing — " What profit shall we have if we should pray 
 unto him ?" 
 
THE NECESSITY AND POWER OF PRAYER. 423 
 
 It were not difficult to expose the fallacy of this 
 reasoning. The objection may be entirely answered. 
 We might shew 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 be embraced 
 within these very decrees, and cannot be excluded by 
 them. I content myself, however, with simply remark- 
 ing, that this objection is not honestly, at least not intelli- 
 gently, entertained by any man. For, if the objection is 
 good against prayer, is it not good against many things 
 besides ? If it stops action in the direction of prayer — 
 if it arrests the wheels of prayer — it ought to stop the 
 wheels of our daily business. If it is valid against 
 prayer, it is an equally good objection to ploughing, 
 sowing, taking meat or medicine, and a thousand other 
 things. Might not an unwilling or indolent husband- 
 man in spring, with as much propriety ask, what is the 
 use of sowing? Has not God ordained everything? 
 If I am to have a harvest — if he has decreed a harvest 
 for my farm — then, although no ploughshare turn up a 
 furrow, nor sower walk its fields, they shall wave in 
 autumn with golden corn. Or might not one, who 
 sickens at the sight of nauseous drugs, as well say, Take 
 these away, I'll drink no more of them ? Has not God 
 ordained everything ? Can a sparrow fall to the ground 
 without the Father ? If he has decreed that I am to 
 live, come cholera, fever, pestilence, I shall live ; if he 
 has decreed otherwise, all the medicines of the apothe- 
 cary, and the skill of science cannot avail to save me — 
 cannot add one grain to the sands of my existence. 
 
424 THE GOSPEL IN EZEKIEL. 
 
 Did any man in his sober senses ever reason so ? "With 
 that simple question we dismiss this objection. 
 
 Others, more earnest and honest, reading that "with- 
 out 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 the simple word, nor trouble ourselves with the 
 metaphysics of the question. 
 
 If you were suiSciently alive to your danger, oh, these 
 diflSculties would have no more power to hold you than 
 the 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 impri- 
 soned limb ! Dreadful predicament ! There he sat, Avith 
 his back to the shore, and his face to the sea. Above 
 his head sea- weed and shells hung upon the crag — the 
 too sure signs that when yonder turning tide comes in, 
 it shall rise on him inch by inch, till it washes over his 
 head. 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 
 
THE NECESSITY AND POWEK OF PRAYEK. 425 
 
 his shriek ! how, hopeless of help from man, he turned 
 up 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 Avatched 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 rock. Whe- 
 ther 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 rose from an 
 anxious heart, but it rose to be heard, and accepted in 
 heaven. And if Satan bids me hold my peace — as the 
 disciples bade the blind man — I bid him hold his own. 
 I refuse to be silent ; I but cry the louder, " Jesus, thou 
 Son of David, have mercy on me." In God's hands, 
 when he is smiting, let me be " dumb, opening not the 
 mouth." In my Father's arms, I may lie and do 
 nothing but weep — weep upon his loving bosom ; but 
 in the arms of this mortal and malignant and infernal 
 enemy, who has seized me, and carries me off to prison 
 and pit — a lamb bleating in the lion's jaws — " I will cry 
 unto the Lord, and he will answer me, and send help 
 from above, and deliver me." 
 
 III. Prayer must be earnest. 
 
 The public become suspicious even of good money 
 when coiners have pushed their base metal into wide 
 
426 THE GOSPEL IN EZEKIEL. 
 
 circulation. Even so, religion falls into disrepute, and 
 the character of piety suffers in the eyes of the world, 
 when the church swarms with pretenders and false pro- 
 fessors. And in like manner, the value of prayer has 
 fallen in the eyes of men in consequence of many prayers 
 which are offered being rejected by God; rejected, be- 
 cause they are not genuine. Hence prayer comes to be 
 held in light esteem, and — if I might so speak — the 
 bills drawn on the bank of heaven being dishonoured, 
 man says — "Who is the Lord that I should serve him, 
 or what profit shall I have if I pray unto him ?" 
 
 Among other gross and venal impieties, the Church 
 of Rome sells prayers. By her prayer market she con- 
 verts God's house into a house of. merchandise and a 
 den of thieves. Her prayers — although their price, like 
 that of other goods, varies with the locality — may be 
 bought for money, under this general rule of the market, 
 that the praying shall correspond to the paying. The 
 rude Tartar saves his money by a practice that achieves 
 the object just as well, or rather that fails as completely 
 to do anything but deceive the blind. Pe cuts a 
 cylinder from a block of wood. Upon its surface he 
 writes a series of prayers ; and then he runs an axle 
 through the cylinder, and fitting it up so that it shall 
 keep turning like a mill-wheel in the running stream, 
 he sets it in motion. He goes away on his hunt, to 
 the pursuit of war, business, or pleasure, and reckons 
 that, whether he sleeps or wakes, as the wheel goes 
 round, and the prayers in its revolution turn up to the 
 eye of the skies, heaven reads them there, and God 
 
THE NECESSITY AND POWER OF PRAYER. 427 
 
 accepts the prayers of the dead cyhnder for the desires 
 of a hving heart. 
 
 Prayers without wishes are like birds without wings ; 
 the eagle soars away to heaven, but these never leave 
 the ground. 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 every day ; you may be punctual as a Moham- 
 medan who, at the Mollah's call from the minaret of the 
 mosque, drops on his knees in the public assembly or 
 crowded street. What then ? The prayer of the lip, 
 of the memory, of the wandering mind in its dead for- 
 mality, is, in God's eyes, of no more value than the 
 venal prayers of Rome, or the revolutions of the Tartar's 
 wheel. " The sacrifice of the hypocrite is an abomina- 
 tion to the Lord." 
 
 Wou^d you see true prayer — would you know what 
 prayer really is ? Step into this Egyptian palace where 
 Benjamin stands bound — his amazed and trembling 
 brothers grouped around the lad. Judah advances. 
 He bows himself before Joseph. His heart is full. 
 His lip trembles. The tear glistens in his manly 
 eye ; and now, with tenderness thrilling in every tone, 
 he pours forth this plea of surpassing pathos — "Oh 
 my lord, let thy servant, I pray thee, speak a word 
 in my lord's ears, and let not thine anger burn against 
 
428 THE GOSPEL IN EZEKIEL. 
 
 thy servant : ]\Iy lord asked his servants, saying, Have 
 ye a father, or a brother ? and we said unto my lord, 
 We have a father, an old man, and a child of his old 
 age, a little one ; and his brother is dead ; and he alone 
 is left of his mother, and his father loveth him." Thus 
 on he goes ; every sentence passing like a knife into 
 Joseph's heart. And then he closes and crowns his 
 appeal Avith this most brave and generous proposal, 
 " Now, therefore, I pray thee, let thy servant abide 
 instead of the lad, a bondsman to my lord ; for how 
 shall I go to my father, and the lad be not with me, 
 lest I see the evil that shall come on my father?" 
 Joseph's heart, which has been SAvelling Avith emotion, 
 is now ready to burst. He can stand it no longer; 
 nor any wonder. That is prayer ; and could we bring 
 such earnestness to Jesus, oh, how would his tender, 
 much more tender heart melt, like wax, before it. Did 
 we approach him with the fervour that gloAved and 
 burned in Judah's speech; did we plead for our own 
 souls or those of others, with such tears, in such tones, 
 as Judah's when he pled for Benjamin, hoAA^ Avould a 
 divine brother discover himself to us. 
 
 Turn now from that Egyptian to this Hebrew palace. 
 There also is prayer. Two women stand before King 
 Solomon. In the darkness of the night one has crept, 
 with noiseless step, to her neighbour's bed, and while the 
 mother slept, and the babe slept in her bosom, softly, 
 cautiously, she steals the living child, and leaves her oAvn 
 cold, dead infant in its place. They carry the dispute to 
 Solomon — each claiming the living, each repudiating the 
 
THE NECESSITY AND POWER OF PKAYER. 429 
 
 dead. With a skill that earned him his world-wide fame, 
 the king summons nature as a witness. Horrible to hear, 
 he commands the living child to be divided. The sword 
 is raised — another moment, and each mother gets a 
 quivering half — another moment, and interference comes 
 too late. One stands firm, hard, collected, looking on 
 with a cruel eye. With a bound that carries her to his 
 feet, and a shriek that rings wild and high over all the 
 palace, the other clasps her hands in agony and cries — 
 " Oh, my lord, give her the living child, in no wise slay 
 it." That again is prayer. That cry, that spring, that 
 look of anguish — all these proclaim the mother. How 
 different these from the cold, callous, unimpassioned 
 frame in which, alas, the best too often present them- 
 selves at the throne of grace, as if when we are seeking 
 pardon, it were a matter of supreme indifference, 
 whether our prayer were or were not answered. Oh ! 
 how should we pray that God would help us to pray, 
 and touch our icy lips with a live coal from off his altar. 
 
 IV. Praj^er 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 sun- 
 beam 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 the bower, whose flowery roof " showered 
 
430 THE GOSPEL IN EZEKIEL. 
 
 roses which the morn repaired," and where our first 
 parents, " hilled by nightingales, embracing slept." 
 There a toad was sitting squat by the ear of Eve. His 
 suspicions were awakened. In his hand he bore a spear 
 that had the celestial power of revealing truth, unmask- 
 ing 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 hor- 
 rid dreams into the woman's ear — changed its shape, 
 and there, confronting him face to face, stood the proud, 
 maUgnant, 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. Are we 
 in doubt whether a thing is right or wrong ? Are we 
 indulging in pleasures, or engaged in pursuits with which 
 we are not altogether satisfied, and yet are not prepared 
 decidedly to condemn, and promptly to abandon ? In 
 any matter of Christian morals, are we halting between 
 two opinions ? The simplest and shortest way of 
 determining the doubt is to apply the test of prayer. 
 Take the subject to God. Look at your pleasures and 
 your practices in the light of his countenance. Examine 
 the matter on your knees. Can you make it a subject 
 of prayer? Ah! be sure you are not safe in the place 
 to which you cannot ask God to accompany you. Be 
 sure that that good (as the world may call it), is bad — 
 that pursuit or enjoyment, however gainful or pleasant, 
 is an evil — upon which you cannot implore his blessing, 
 for which you dare not go to a throne of grace, and give 
 God thanks. 
 
THE NECESSITY AND POWEK OF PRAYER. 431 
 
 Is this test of universal application ? Is everything 
 to be made a subject of prayer ? Certainly. So thought 
 Fowell Buxton, even of those amusements with which, 
 in holiday times, he was wont to brace up mind and 
 body for noble labours in the cause of God and his 
 country. So thought that Corsican patriot, who never 
 went down to battle till he had gone down to his 
 knees, nor ever levelled a rifle, that never missed, with- 
 out praying for the soul he was about to send into 
 eternity. And so speaks Paul, when linking peace and 
 prayer together, he writes — " Be careful for nothing ; 
 but in everything by prayer and supplication, with 
 thanksgiving, let your requests be made known unto 
 God ; and the peace of God which passeth all under- 
 standing, shall keep your heart and minds, through 
 Jesus Christ." 
 
 Such is one of the indirect uses, and not unim- 
 portant effects of prayer. But what say we of its 
 direct power ? It is in a sense omnipotent. Prayer 
 moves the hand that moves the universe. It secures 
 for the believer the resources of Divinity. What 
 battles has it not fought ! what victories w^on ! wdiat 
 burdens carried ! what wounds healed ! what griefs 
 assuaged ! Prayer is the wealth of poverty ; the re- 
 fuge of affliction ; the strength of weakness ; the light 
 of darkness. It is the oratory that gives power to the 
 pulpit ; it is the hand that strikes down Satan, and breaks 
 the fetters of sin ; it turns the scales of fate more than 
 the edge of the sword, the craft of statesmen, or the 
 weight of sceptres ; it has arrested the wing of time, 
 
432 THE GOSPEL IN EZEKIEL. 
 
 turned aside the very scythe of death, and discharged 
 heaven's frowning and darkest cloud in a shower of 
 blessings. 
 
 Prayer changes impotence into omnipotence. Com- 
 manding the resources of Divinity, there is nothing it 
 cannot do, and there is nothing it need want. It 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 bless- 
 ings ! 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 child- 
 ren, would wish it otherwise ? My little child is angry 
 when I pluck a knife from his hands; he doubts his 
 father's love because he does not always kiss, but some- 
 times corrects him ; and turning away his head from the 
 nauseous drug, he must be coaxed — sometimes compelled 
 to drink the cup which, although bitter to the taste, is 
 the restorative of health. Who that sees the child seek 
 meat when he needs medicine, eagerly clutch at tempt- 
 ing but unripe fruit, prefer play, and go weeping to 
 school, reject simple, but healthful fare, for some luscious 
 but noxious luxury, who, I say, does not feel thankful 
 that God reserves to himself the right of refusal, and 
 suits his answers to our wants rather than to our wishes ? 
 Possibly, this limit to prayer may make poverty our lot ; 
 may bind us to a sickbed ; may leave us to suffer and 
 bleed under the stroke of an impending calamity ; but 
 — while we will get as much of earth as we need on 
 earth — for the pardon of sin, for peace of conscience, for 
 
THE NECESSITY AND POWER OF PRAYER. 433 
 
 purity of heart, for growth in grace, for all that we need 
 to make us meet for heaven, and at length for ensuring 
 heaven itself, prayer secures to us the heart of Love and 
 the hand of Omnipotence. 
 
 By prayer, besides, God's children can reckon on 
 immediate assistance. Prayer flies where the eagle never 
 flew ; and rises on wings broader and stronger than an 
 angel's. It travels further and faster than light. Rising 
 from the heart of a believer, it shoots away beyond that 
 starry sky, and, reaching the throne, enters into the ear 
 of God. So soon, indeed, as the heart begins to work on 
 earth, it moves the hand of God in heaven ; and, ere the 
 prayer has left the lips of faith, Jesus has presented it to 
 his Father, and secured its answer. It is a telegraph 
 stretched not between shore and shore — the mother 
 country and her distant colonies, the provinces and the 
 metropolis, the seat of government and the far off scene 
 of battle — but its extended lines connect heaven and 
 earth, man and God, the sinner and the Saviour, the 
 humblest home of piety and a throne of grace. That 
 high invention of human genius, which, by its wires of 
 iron connects distant countries, and has, in a sense, 
 abolished both time and space — offers but an imperfect 
 image of a power which piety has been working before 
 science was born — nay, ever since the world began. 
 From remote regions the electric telegraph may convey 
 to a father the tidings that his child has been struck 
 with disease ; but it carries not the physician to his 
 side, nor the drug of potent virtue which could cure his 
 malady. It leaves him to die. The telegraph may 
 
 2 F 
 
434 THE GOSPEL IN EZEKIEL. 
 
 bring to-night a detail of the fortunes of the war. Along 
 it our army may send a cry for help — for more men and 
 more munitions ; but days and weeks must elapse, and 
 many miles of ocean be travelled, ere our fleets can 
 pour their bayonets on the hostile shore ; and then it 
 may be too late ; the tide has ebbed that, taken at the 
 full, had led on to fortune. 
 
 But does God never make his people wait ? He 
 does. Faith and patience are put upon their trial ; 
 there is no answer, nor relief. God is silent, and the 
 church is left to cry, " How long, Lord, how long ?" 
 All true. Jesus addresses his Bride in the language 
 he of old used to his mother, " Woman, my hour is 
 not yet come." But let us need present help, and you 
 shall see that he is " a very present help in time of 
 trouble." Let the disciple, sinking amid the waves of 
 Galilee, be crying, " I perish " — let the prophet be on 
 his knees in the depths of the sea and the dark belly of 
 the whale — let the widow's last mite, and the barrel's 
 last handful have come — let the confessor be descending 
 into the lions' roaring den — let the queen have her 
 brave hand upon the door, with these words of high 
 resolve upon her lips, " If I perish, I perish " — let the 
 trembling host have the waters of the Red Sea foaming 
 in their front, and the chariots of Egypt pressing on 
 their rear — let God's people have reached such a crisis 
 — let them stand in any such predicament— and his 
 answer anticipates their prayer. The supply is on the 
 road before the want is expressed ; the door opens 
 before the hand has struck it ; while prayer is travel- 
 
THE NECESSITY AND POWEK OF PKATER. 435 
 
 ling up the one line, the answer is speeding down the 
 other. Hear the word of the Lord, " It shall come to 
 pass ; hefore they call I will answer, and while they are 
 yet speaking, I will hear." 
 
 V. Prayer is confident. 
 
 In speaking of our Lord, Paul says, " In whom we 
 have boldness and access with confidence by the faith of 
 him ; " " Jesus, our High Priest, has entered within 
 the veil, and having reconciled us to God, we have bold- 
 ness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus ; " 
 " Seeing, then, that we have a great High Priest, that 
 is passed into the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God, let 
 us hold fast our profession. For we have not an High 
 Priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our 
 infirmities ; but was in all points tempted like as we 
 are, yet without sin. Let, us, therefore, come holdly 
 unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, 
 and find grace to help in time of need." 
 
 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 treated as a troublesome 
 and unworthy mendicant ; the door may be flung in my 
 face by some surly servant. How different, on his return 
 fi-om school, the loud knocking, the bounding step, the 
 joyous rush of the child into his father's presence, and, 
 as he chmbs his knee, and flings his arms round his neck, 
 the bold face and ready tongue with which he reminds 
 
436 THE GOSPEL IN EZEKIEL. 
 
 his father of some promised favour? Now, why are 
 God's people bold ? Glory to God in the highest ! To 
 a. Father in God, to an elder brother in Christ, Faith 
 conducts our steps in prayer; therefore, in an hour of 
 need, bold of spirit, she raises her suppliant hands, and 
 cries tip to God, " that thou wouldst rend the hea- 
 vens, and come down." 
 
 T think I see a sneer curling on the sceptic's lip as 
 he says, How absurd ! What presumption ! as if it 
 were not below the dignity of the Supreme Divinity to 
 come at king's or peasant's, prince's or pauper's call. 
 Should the lofty purposes of the Eternal be shaped by 
 your petitions ? Creature of a day, child of the dust ! 
 what are you that the universe should be steered — its 
 helm moved this or that way for your sake ? Well, no 
 doubt the language is bold ; yet with God a Father, 
 our Father, my Father in Christ, I feel that I can be 
 bold and confident in prayer. I know a father'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 strong 
 grasp 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, 
 w^ith 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 carrying away, and, with shrieks 
 fit to pierce a heart of stone, struggle to retain her dead ? 
 
THE NECESSITY AND POWEK OF PRAYER. 437 
 
 And if we, that are but worms of the earth, will peril 
 life for our children, and, 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 
 wounds bleed forth afresh, can we adequately conceive 
 or measure, far less exaggerate — even with fancy at its 
 highest strain, the paternal love of God? Talk not 
 of what you suppose to be the dignity of Divinity. 
 Talk not of the calm, lofty, dignified demeanour which 
 becomes a king, who sees his child borne ofi" on the 
 stream that sweeps his palace wall. The king is at 
 once sunk in the father. Divesting himself of his trap- 
 pings — casting away sceptre, robe of gold, and jewelled 
 crown, he rushes forth to leap into the boihng flood. 
 Lives there a father with heart so dead as, at the sight 
 of a child fallen overboard, and struggling with 
 death, would not back every sail, and whatever might 
 be the mission on which his ship was bound, whatever 
 the peril he ran, would not put up her helm, and steer 
 for the waves where his boy was sinking? 
 
 Child of God ! pray on. God's people are more dear 
 to him than our children are or can be to us. He regards 
 them with more complacency than all the shining orbs 
 of that starry firmament. They were bought at a price 
 higher than would purchase the dead matter of ten thou- 
 sand worlds. He cares more for his humblest, weakest 
 child, than for all the crowned heads and great ones of 
 earth. He takes a deeper interest in the daily fortunes 
 of a pious cottage than in the fall and rise of kingdoms. 
 
 Child of God ! pray on. By prayer thy hand can 
 
438 THE GOSPEL IN EZEKIEL. 
 
 toucli the stars, thy arm stretch up to heaven. Nor 
 let thy holy boldness be dashed by the thought that 
 prayer has no power, to bend these skies, and bring 
 down thy God. When I pull on the rope which fastens 
 my frail and little boat to a distant and mighty ship, 
 my poor strength may not draw its vast bulk to me, but 
 I draw myself to it — to ride in safety under the pro- 
 tection of its guns, and enjoy in want the fulness of its 
 stores. And it equally serves my purpose, and supplies 
 my needs, that prayer, although it were powerless to 
 move God to me, moves me to God. If he does not 
 descend to earth, I ascend to heaven. 
 
 Child of God ! pray on. Were it indispensable for 
 thy safety that God should rend these heavens, it should 
 be done — a wondering world should see it done. I dare 
 believe that ; and " I am not mad, most noble Festus." 
 Have not these heavens been already rent ? Eighteen 
 hundred years ago, robed in humanity, God himself came 
 down. These blue skies, where only larks now sing and 
 eagles sail, were cleft with the wings and filled with the 
 songs of his angel train. Among the ancient orbs of 
 that firmament, a stranger star appeared, travelling the 
 heavens, and blazing on the banner borne before the 
 King, as he descended on this dark and distant world. 
 On Canaan's dewy ground — his lowly bed — the eye of 
 morning saw the shape and form of the Son of God ; 
 and dusty roads, and winter snows, and desert sands, 
 and the shores and very waves of Galilee, were impressed 
 with the footprints of the Creator. By this manger, 
 where the kingly babe lies cradled — beside this cross 
 
THE NECESSITY AND POWEK OF PRAYER. 439 
 
 upon whose ignominious arms the glory of the universe 
 is hung — by this silent sepulchre, where, wrapped in 
 bloody shroud, the body reposes on its bed of spices, and 
 while Roman sentinels walk their moonlit round, Death 
 — a bound captive — sits within, so soon as the sleeper 
 wakes, to be disarmed, uncrowned, and in himself have 
 death put to death — Faith can believe all that God has 
 revealed, and hope for all that he has promised. Reading 
 on that manger, on that cross, deeply lettered on that 
 rocky sepulchre, these glorious words — " He that spared 
 not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how 
 shall he not with him also freely give us all things ? " 
 Faith lifts an eagle eye to heaven, and rising to the 
 boldest flights, soars aloft on the wings of prayer — 
 
 Faith, bold faith, the promise sees, 
 
 And trusts to that aloue, 
 Laughs at impossibihties. 
 
 And says it shall be done. 
 
 THE END. 
 

Princeton Theological Semmary-Speei 
 
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