Ezek. vii. 5 — 9. Thus saith the Lord God : An evil, an only evil, behold, is come. An end is come; the end is come: it watcheth for thee ; behold, it is come. The morning is come unto thee, 0 thou that dwellest in the land : the time is come ; the day of trouble is near, and not the sounding again of the mountains. Now ivill I shortly pour out my fury upon thee,
1097.1 APPROACHING END OF GOD's FORBEARANCE. 31.3
and accomplish mine anger upon thee; and 1 will judge thee according to thy ways, and will recompense thee for all thine abominations. And mine eye shall not spare, neither will I have pity : I will recompense thee according to thy ways, and thine abominations that are in the midst of thee ; and ye shall knoiv that I am the Lord that smiteth.
EZEKIEL is perhaps the most terrific writer of all the prophets : there is a force and energy in his de- nunciations which can find no parallel : his repetitions are so frequent, as to present before the view of the reader the very judgments which he predicts. In the chapter before us we are made to see, as it were, the Chaldean army in the very act of desolating the city and temple of Jerusalem, and of carrying into captivity all who should survive the mortality occa- sioned by pestilence, by famine, by the sword a. In fact, the siege commenced within three years of these predictions, and terminated in their most exact ac- complishment. It is not our intention to enter into the consideration of this prophecy as it relates to the Jews : we shall rather take occasion from it to ob- serve in general,
I. That the final execution of God's judgments is fast approaching —
The period for the execution of them is certainly fixed in the Divine counsels —
[" Known unto God are all his works from the founda- tion of the world." Nothing is left to chance : every thing takes place " according to the determinate counsel and fore- knowledge of God." We are ready to consider things as depending altogether on those by whose agency, or whose authority, they are done. But men are only instruments in God's hands : they are his sword, and the staff of his indigna- tion ; and they only carry into effect what " his hand and his counsel have determined before to be done." The elements in like manner all " fulfil his will." It was at the precise time that he had ordained, that the waters deluged the earth, and that fire and brimstone consumed the cities of the plain. As in the self-same night that had been foretold four hundred and thirty years before, God brought his people out of Egypt; so at the precise period fixed by him were they carried captive to
a See the foregoing chapter.