eloqncnco (cf. P~. lxxii. 8-17; Isa. Ix. 1-14). And the New Testame1,t s11p1,lies most abundant and convincing evidence that the blesHings of Uhristianity are f.,r all. peoples. 'l.'hoy are adequate for all, suited to all, ojfered to all, and free for all. Jesus Christ is the Saviour and King of the entire human race. 3. Its progress >JJill produce the conviction of its Divine origin in aU men. "And all the trees of the field 8ball know that I the Lord have brought down the high tree," etc. " The trees of the field" are the princes and potentates of this world. Expositors have endeavoured to fix a definite and special meaning to "the high tree, . . . the low tree, . . . the ~reen tree, and . . . the dry tree." But it seems to us that the truth here stated is a general one. In the rise and fall of kings and kingdoms God himself works for the establish- ment and progress and universal triumph of the kingdom of his Divine Son. "He bringeth princes to nothing; he maketh the judges of the earth as vanity." " For neither from the east, nor from the west, Nor yet from the south, cometh lifting up. But God is the Judge; He putteth down ooe, and lifteth up another." And through all changes he is advancing the interests, and promoting the glories and universal supremacy of the kingdom of the Lord Jesus Christ. And men will come to see this; they shall know that the Lord Jehovah has been the great Worker in all the changes and revolutions by which the triumph of the kingdom of the Messiah has been brought about. And all this is guaranteed by God. "I the Lord have spoken and have done it." It is well said by Hengstenberg, io his 'Christology,' "These last words point out that what may seem to the outward senses a. mere dream, yea, the wildest of dreams, becomes, by virt.ue of him who promises it, the greatest reality. It is God who gives the promise; it is God who fulfils it." And Matthew Henry: "With men saying and doing are two things, but they are not so with God. What he has spoken we may be sure that he will do, nor shall one iota. or tittle of his Word fall to the ground, for he is not a man, that he should lie, or the son of man, that he sho11ld repeot either of his threatenings or of his promises." Thus gloriously certain is the universal prevalence of his kingdom. And it is perpetual also. "He shall reign over the house of Jacob for ever; and of his kingdom there shall be no end;" "His king- dom is an everlasting kingdom, and a.11 dominions shall serve and ohey him."-W. J.
EXPOSITION. OHAPTER XVIII. look, for a reverso.l of the proverb, to the distant Me ssie.nic time of the new covenaot Vera. 1, 2.-What mean ye, that :,e use (Jer. xui. 29-31). The plea with which this proverb, eto.? Another and entirely Ezekiel had to deal was therefore one which different section opens, and we see o.t once seemed to rest on the be sis of a Di vine from what it started. Ezekiel had heard authority. And that authority was con- from the lips of his countrymen, e.nd he.d firmed by the induction of a wide experi- seen its working io their hearts, the proverb ence. Every preacher of righteousness in (already familiar to him, it mo.y be, every e.ge has to warn the evil-doer that he throngh Jar. xxxi. 29) with which they is workiog evil for geoerntions yet uohorn, blunted their sense of personal responsi- to whom ho tmnsmits his own teodencies, bility. They had to bear the punishmeot of the evil of his own influence and exa.mple. sins which they had not commilted. The It is well that he ce.o balance that thought sins of the fathers were visited, as in with the belief that good also me.y work Exod. xx. 5; xxxiv. 7; Lev. xxvi. 39, 40 ; in the future with o. yet wider range nnd Numb. xiv.IS; Deut. v. 9, upon the third o.nd mightier power (Exod. xx. 5). Authority fourth generatioos. Manasseh and. his people nnd experience nlike might seem to favour hnd sinood, and Josiah and his descendo.nts the plea thnt the fathers had eaten sour nn<l their contemporaries had to suffer for it. grapes, and the children's teeth were set on The thought wns familiar enough, and the edge. Ezekiel was led, however, to feel 1;eoernl law of the passages above referred that there was o. latent falsehood in the to was afterwards applied, as with authority, plea. In the depth of his consciousoess to what was then po.ssiog (2 Kings xxiii. 26 ; there Wt\S the witness that every man waa .kxiv. 3). Eveo Jeremio.h recognized it in persooally responsible for the things that Lam. v. 7 and Jer. xv. 4, and was cootent to he did, that the eternal righteous11es11 of EZEKIJl:L, y 322 THE BOOK OF THE PROPHET EZEKIEL. [oH. xvm. 1-32.