good works and of fancied personal merit. A delusive confidence is theirs. Others build the wall of theological orthodoxy. They hold what they regard as a sound creed, and in some cases are zealous in maintaining it against everything and every on! that appears opposed to it, and because of this they consider that their salvation i, sure. But their assurance is vain. Others build the wall of Ohurch-membershi1 deeming their eternal interests secure because they are members of a Christian Church, But their names may be enrolled in the register of a true Church on earth, but have no place "in the Lamb's book of life." And others build the wall of religious observances. '.!.'hey have been duly baptized and confirmed, they partake of the communion of the body and blood of our Saviour, and are exemplary in their attendance at public worship, and therefore they conclude that their salvation is assured. Perilous, and if persisted in fatal, is their delusion. Flimsy walls are these, each and all of them. Yet there are not wanting religious teachers to encourage builders such as these, and to daub their slight walls with untempered mortar. III. FALSE HOPES OF SALVATION SWEPT AWAY BY THE GREAT GoD. "Say unto them which daub it with untempercd mortar, that it shall fall," etc. (ver. 11). 1. A period is approaching when the worlcs and hopes of men will be severely tested. "There shall be an overflowing shower; and ye, 0 great hailstones, shall fall; and a stormy wind she.II rend it." Our Lord spake in a very similar strain of his hearers, and how they and their works would be tried. "Whosoever heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them," etc. (Matt. vii. 24-27). And St. Paul wrote, "The fire shall prove each man's work of what sort it is." The testing-time sometimes occurs in this life. Change of circumstances, temptation, affliction, the near approach of death, each of these sometimes proves a crucial test of the character and the hopes of men. And after death "God shall bring every work into judgment, with every hidden thing, whether it be good or whether it be evil." 2. In the great testing-time no works and hopes shall abide but those which accord with the will of God. The slight wall of these foolish builders, daubed with untempered mortar by these false prophets, would be rent and destroyed by the storms of God. The Chaldean army would soon shatter the unsubstantial fabric of their vain hopes, and destroy both them and their city. And in the spiritual testing every faith which does not work through love, and cleanse the heart and life, will prove a fatal delusion. Every character which is not founded upon Christ, and fashioned after his, will be found ruinously defective (cf. Isa. xxvili. 16, 17; 1 Cor. iii. 11). ' IV. THE UTTER FAILURE OF THE VAIN HOPES WHICH THEY ENCOURAGED WILT, COVER THE FALSE PROPHETS WITH REPROACH AND SHAME. "Lo, when the wall is fallen, shall it not be said unto you, Where is the daubing wherewith ye have daubed it?" The detection of false prophets is certain, and will certainly be followed by bitter derision. "What cause," says Greenhill, "had these prophets to blush, when God brought Nebuchadnezzar to besiege the city, when the walls were broken down, and they discovered to be false prophets, and their foundation, with which they upheld tho hope of this people, to be lies, flatteries, and false divinations 1" Unspeakably terrible will be the retribution of those who, professing to make known the will of God, have misled others in respect to the things which make for their eternal peace. The bitter reproaches of those whom they have ruinously deceived, and the just punish- ment adjudged them by the holy Lord God, will be a doom of intolerable anguish. CONCLUSION, 1. Let reli_qious teachers regard it as of supreme importance that their teaching be in harmony with the will of God. 2. Let every one earnestly inquire upon what foundation, with what materials, and in what manner, he is building his personal character and his religious hopes.- W. J.
Vers.17-23.-False prophetesses, their characteristics and condemnation. "Like- wise, thou son of man, set thy face against the daughters of thy people," etc. God sometimes raised up and inspired women to be prophetesses to his people. Miriam (Exod. xv. 20), Deborah (Judg. iv. 4), Hannah (1 Sam. ii. 1-10), and Huldah (2 Kings xxii. 14-20) were genuine prophetesses of the Lord in the times of the Old Testament. And in the time of Ezekiel thero were false prophetesses-women who pretended to possess Divine inspiration, and to speak with Divine authority, but who "prophesied out of theil' own heart," and grievously misled the people. Greenhill 246 THB BOOK OF THE PROPHET EZEKIEL. [err. xm. 1-23.