Vere. 16-22.-FaZlacious deliverance. Flight is not deliverance. If the invading army is God's army, no escape is possible, save in submission. We cannot elude God's detectives. Lonely mountains, no more than crowded cities, serve as an asylum, if God be our Foe. As we cannot get beyond the limits of his world, neither can we get beyond the reach of his sword. I. TeEm MISERY. They may escape, for a moment, sword-wounds and bodily captivity; yet they have not escaJ?_ed from inward distress and wretchedness. Exposure to hunger and cold aud nakedness on the mountains is _scarcely to be preferred to violent death. God, the real Avenger, has smitten them in their flight. Their sense- less cowardice has added to their pain. Even though they live, they are dishonoured among men. The heathen nations will point at them with a finger of scorn. The common moralities of men reflect, though it be feebly, the just displeasure of God. Honour is lost, th~ugh life is yet continued. II. THEIR _R~MORSE. Tears are on all faces, and sorrow is an occupant of every ~r~ast. Yet 1t 1s a selfish sorrow, which bears the fruit of death. It is not repentance, it is_ onl_y remorse. Had ~his sorrow earlier come, and had it sprung from a better n:iot1ve, 1t would have _av~1led to deliver them. They mourn, not because they have smned, but because their sin has been found out. When retribution comes, repentance is impossible. l~l. _'I'm: COL~APSE OF FALSE TRUST. In the day of their prosperity they bad made their nches their trust. They reposed their faith in idols of silver instead of the living God. For gold they imagined they could hire mercenaries or buy the favour of kings. Such wealth as theirs seemed to them an impre"nable security. They could make gates of brass and towers of iron. Yet how sudde; and how complete was the collapse of their proud hope I Their gold, instead of a protection, became a snare. It attracted the cupidity of their foes. As hounds scent the prey, so foreign soldiers scented from afar Israel's riches. The gold and silver lavished on Jchovah's temple drew, like a magnet, the avarice of the Babylonian king I To rely on material possessions is to rely on a broken reed-is to slumber on the edge of a volcano. IV. THEIR RELIGIOUS DEGRADATION. Their temple had been their pride; now it shall be their shame. They had gloried in its external beauty, and had forgotten that th~ _Lor~ of the temple is greater than the building. They had neglected the &pirituality of worship, and had profaned the holy place with human inventions and 134 THE BOOK OF THE PROPHET EZEKIEL. [en. vu. 1-27
with idolatrous symbols. In their folly they had deemed it politio to set up side by1 side wit-h Jehovah, the shrines of other deities. But their policy was rotten: It was based on atheistic· selfishness. And now the profanation they had commenced shall be completed l.iy their foes. They had admitted a trickling stream of idolatry into the temple; now it shall become a flood. Thus God makes our sins to become our punishmenu; ; at length they sting like hornets, they bite like adders: Once our sin tasted like a sweet morsel; when once in the veins it works like poison. Rebellion is but a seed, of which retribution is the ripe fruit. V. THE CLIMAX oF DISASTER Is Goo's DEPARTURE. "My face will I turn also from them." This is the crowning disaster, the bitter dregs of misery, the knell of doom. If, in our hour of crushing affliction, God would turn towards us as a Friend, the wheel of ill fortune would be reversed; all loss would be recovered. If he would only move upon our hearts with his mighty grace, and reduce our self-will and pride, disaster would be changed into dowry, night into day. The hurtling clouds would burst into 11howers of blessing. But when God departs, the last ray of hope departs, and man's prospects set in blackest night.-D.