a creaturl.'I, be dependent, le it better to depend on law or on the Lawgiver? on the cistern or on the Fount? on blind circumstances or on Omniscient Wisdom? on natural forces or on the all-creative God? My faith is founded in common sense. God undertakes to be my Friend-my Father. Then I am his child ; and " if a son, then an heir-heir of God." "All things are yonrs, for ye are .•. God's."-D. Vers. 1, 2.-The shut gate: reverence. What is the trne significance of this closure? Much bas been made of it by fanciful exposition ; but surely the true lesson is that which lies upon the surface, viz. that the closed gate would be a continual reminder that the people must reverently abstain from using the entrance through which the Most High himself bad once passed. It was another symbolic utterance of the truth that we must "put off uur shoes" when we stand on "holy ground." The fact that there was a closed gate in this visionary, this ideal temple, may not unfittingly suggest to us (though it cannot be said to teach us)- 1. THE WAY THAT 1s BARRED. If we try to enter the kingdom of God by the way or the gate of: 1. A false independence; ifwe attempt to reach the saving and redeeming truth of God by our unaided intelligence, unwilling to learn of him who came to teach us, to be to us "the Wisdom of God,"-then we shall find no entrance there (see Matt. xviii. 3; 1 Cor. iii. 18). The same may be said of: 2. Unholy indul- gence; and of: 3. 'I'he favourable opportunity in the future. Whoever seeks to enter the kingdom of Christ by these doors will find no open gate, but a barred way ; he must enter by the way of childlike faith, of purity, of immediate decision. The closed gate may also suggest to us, by contrast- H. THE OPENNESS OF THE KINGDOM. There is a very valuable and most precious sense in which no gate is shut that was ever open into the kingdom of God. No man, let him be who or what he may, let him have been anything whatever in the past, coming to the gate of the kingdom of Christ in sincere penitence and simple faith, will find it closed against him. By whatever path he may have approached, by what- ever influences constrained, if he be earnestly desirous of seeking God and serving him, he will find himself before an open door. Christ himself is the Door, and he is ever saying, "Him that cometh unto me, I will in no wise cast out." But the true lesson of the passage is- III. THE CONSTANT DUTY OF REVERENCE IN THE WORSHIP AND SERVICE OF Goo. The sbut gate said (in effect), "Where God has come, you may not enter; there must be another way for the feeble and sinful creature than that taken by the almighty and holy Creator; realize the immeasurable difference between yourself and him." It is well that there sbould be raised, now and again, the reminder that the Lord whom we serve is the Most High and the Most Holy One; that it becomes us to worship him and to speak for him in the spirit of deepest reverence; that if a "holy boldness" mo.y be cultivated, an unholy irreverence is to be most sedulously shunned; that our dearest Friend is our Divine Lord, worthy of the profoundest homage our hearts co.n pay him, claiming the fullest subjection we can bring to his feet, as we worship in his house or work in his vineyard.-C.
Vers. ~14.-Divine discrimination. The prophet is necessarily expressing himself in the terms of the old dispensation; and he declares, in God's name, that no man who has not received a right spirit (" uncircumcised in heart"), and that no mnn who has not been admitted to the citizenship of the kingdom of God(" uncircumcised in flesh"), can "enter the sanctuary "--can come into closest oontact with, and render holiest service unto, the Lord (see ver. 9). And he further declares that those of his people who had grievously sinned against him by their guilty apostasy should be excluded from the more sacred offices of the priesthood; yet that they should be admitted to the humbler posts of guarding the doors, of slaying the sacrificial animals, and of minister- ing to those priests who were worthier thnn themselves (vcrs. 11, 14). The general lesson we learn is that God deals with us graciously and generously, bnt discriminatcly. He gives to all his children, but he does not give the same kind, nor docs he crive the same measure, to all; he is merciful to the penitent-, but he does not let hi~ mercy obscure or reduce bis righteousness. Those who have done serious wrong "bear their iniquity" (ver. 10), they "bear their shame" (ver. 13); and yet they h1we their place 408 THE BOOK OF THE PROPHE1' EZEKIEL. [oH. ntv.1-31.