priest, and he but once a year, yet there the Glory was: for that was the sanctuary which God chose, to put His name there; saying, "This is my rest for ever: here will I dwell; for I have desired it." The Jews therefore were too apt to suppose that the removal of the grand symbol was a thing impossible. Yet it came to pass; and, with the removal of the Glory, the greatness of the nation vanished away.

Why it was removed, is at once apparent. God had promised to dwell perpetually with His people, but on the condition of their fidelity and obedience. Were they faithful? were they obedient ? We have but to look into the eighth chapter of these prophecies, at once to perceive how far they had departed from the worship of Jehovah, and into what depths of guilt they had sunk. What a picture is here! The prophet is bid to look toward the north; and there, at the gate of the temple called the altar-gate, he saw "the image of jealousy" set up,-which some suppose to have been that of Venus, or Astarte; others, that of Tammuz, or Adonis; others, again, an ideal representation of idol-gods in general. Then he is brought to the door of the court; and there, through a hole in the wall, he sees depicted the forms of creeping things and abominable beasts, before which are "seventy men of the ancients of the house of Israel," with censers in their hands, offering incense. Again he sees, at the north door, in the outer court, women weeping for Tammuz, or Adonis, whose festival was celebrated with the most wicked and disgusting rites. And even viler abominations are presented to his view : for, in the inner court of the Lord's house, between the court and the altar, were "five and twenty men, with their backs toward the temple, and their faces toward the east," worshipping the sun. All this was indicative of the moral condition of the people; of what each man did in the chambers of his imagery; of the fact, that even the priests had become corrupted with idolatry; so that the land was stained with the foulest practices. Was it possible, then, for a just and holy God to endure, from a people to whom He had granted the richest blessings, such violations of His commands? He had raised them up to be witnesses of His grace and power; to preserve His name among the nations, the Gentiles of the earth. But they had become as vile as the Canaanites, who of old occupied the land; and now He must needs vindicate His authority, and visit them for their transgressions. He had already swept away the ten tribes, because of their idolatry; and He could no longer spare the two tribes and a half. Their doom also was at hand, and the Glory could no longer remain in the midst of a people laden with iniquities.

The principles of the Divine government are the same in every age. As in the times of Ezekiel, so in our own, God forsakes those nations, those churches, and those individuals, who forsake Him. Wherever He takes up His abode, He would most graciously and willingly remain but how can He remain where His laws are violated, where

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His name is dishonoured, where His worship is neglected, where His Spirit is continually grieved? Disobedience, which caused the Glory to depart from the temple in Ezekiel's day, brought a like calamity on the second temple also, after the rejection of the Son of Man. Disobedience provoked the Holy One to depart from the once flourishing churches of Asia Minor, and from those of Egypt and Abyssinia. Let us take heed to these historical warnings. Whatever form the offence takes, it will be fatal to the churches which now boast of illustrious names and widespread influence. Christians, both collectively, and in their personal character, are now the temples of the Holy Ghost; and the Shechinah dwells in them, and among them, as truly as it ever did in the temple which adorned the hill of Zion. But "if any man defile (pipe) the temple of God, him shall God defile (pepeî): for the temple of God is holy, which temple ye are." (1 Cor. iii. 17.) Not long will the Holy Spirit remain in the heart where idols are set up and worshipped for God is jealous of His honour, and will not give His glory to another. "Flee from idolatry," says St. Paul, therefore; and St. John repeats the injunction: "Little children, keep yourselves from idols."

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The manner in which the Glory departed from the temple is most significant. "The cherubim lifted up their wings, and the wheels beside them; and the Glory of the God of Israel was over them above. And the Glory of the Lord went up from the midst of the city, and stood upon the mountain which is on the east of the city." Visibly, then, to the prophet Ezekiel, did the Shechinah, borne by the cherubim, leave the temple in the midst of the city, and gradually pass toward the Mount of Olives, where it lingered for a time, and then, as it seems, wholly disappeared. It was a lamentable sight. Yet it would appear that the Glory departed reluctantly: for it stood awhile on the mountain east of the city. We may be sure that God did not willingly forsake His dwelling-place. He had called it His "rest;" and there, from the mercy-seat, He had frequently accepted the homage of the high-priest, when, on the great day of atonement, he carried the blood of the sacrifices into the holy of holies. Could He be swift to leave that place, consecrated by so many blessings which He had bestowed in answer to the prayers of Solomon, Josiah, and Hezekiah, and especially by His own promises to the chosen race?

A very striking analogy occurs in that wondrous event in the history of our Lord, when "He beheld the city, and wept over it." He was, Himself, the Glory of God; ("for in Him dwelt all the fulness of the Godhead bodily;") and He had come to Jerusalem, and had entered the temple which then was, making it by His presence more glorious than the first temple. But the people had rejected Him, and were just then filling up the measure of their guilt. Now, when about to visit the city for the last time, He stood on the same mount, to the east of the city, and uttered His pathetic lamentation :-" If thou

hadst known, even thou, at least in this thy day, the things which belong unto thy peace! but now they are hid from thine eyes." (Luke xix. 42.) This, surely, was like the lingering of the Glory in Ezekiel's vision; and most sorrowfully did Jesus leave that city, to be given up to its dreadful fate. But for its persistent malice and unbelief, already foreseen, He would have remained there, in the grace of the Holy Spirit; the beauty of Jerusalem would have survived from age to age; nor would her enemies, though all combined, have been permitted to lay her in the dust.

Is it not thus reluctantly, and after much longsuffering, that the Holy Spirit ever leaves the place in which He has taken up His abode, or the heart which He has made His temple and His shrine? "How shall I give thee up?" He asks, with regard to many an unfaithful church, and many an unfaithful professor. The Glory lingered long with the churches of Asia Minor, and with those of Northern Africa, ere it forsook them altogether. And there are now, probably, in our own and in other lands, churches not a few-congregations of such as are called Christians-whose unfaithfulness grieves the Holy Spirit so that He is provoked to give them up, though He grants a further and yet further respite. That there are many individuals in danger of being thus forsaken, we cannot doubt. Temples of God, they have, notwithstanding, defiled the chambers of their imagery; and, could you look within, you would see, portrayed on the tables of their minds, so many idols which are dividing their affections with Christ, that the wonder is that the Glory has not departed from them long ago. But it lingers still. O would they repent, and do the first works! Then might they still retain their heavenly Guest.

What followed of old the departure of the Glory ?-When, at an earlier period, the ark of the covenant, then the symbol of the Divine presence, was taken by the Philistines, there was the deepest distress in the camp of Israel, and one ran with earth upon his head to tell Eli, the aged priest. Eli was waiting the issue of the battle, when the messenger arrived. "What is there done, my son ?" said he. The answer was, "There has been a great slaughter among the people; and thy two sons also, Hophni and Phinehas, are dead; and the ark of God is taken." (1 Sam. iv. 17.) Sad intelligence this! but the last particular was the worst of all. When the old man heard that the ark was taken, he fell backward from his seat, and died. Nor was this all for his daughter-in-law, wife of Phinehas, in sudden anguish, gave birth to a child, and with her dying breath named him I-chabod, saying, "The Glory is departed from Israel."

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Consequences still more terrible followed the event which Ezekiel witnessed. The temple remained awhile in its outward splendour, but it was no longer the same temple. For, what are stones, and beams, and rafters? what are gorgeous rites and ceremonies? what are priests, and vestments, and processions, without God? To the eye

of sense, that edifice looked as fair and as attractive, after the Glory forsook it, as before. But it was essentially changed; it was now no more than a common building, doomed erelong to be overturned. Accordingly, in a later chapter, the captivity of Zedekiah is foretold, -a captivity which swiftly followed, when Nebuchadnezzar came to Jerusalem a second time, and besieged it, slew the two sons of its unhappy sovereign before his eyes, then put out the eyes of the king himself, and led him away to Babylon. The destruction of the temple was the sad sequel: for Nebuchadnezzar burnt it, together with the house of the king, and the houses of the people. (2 Kings xxv. 6-9.) Now, these calamities did not take place until after the departure of the Glory. On all the Glory had been a defence. When this departed, the defence was broken down, and both city and temple became an easy prey.

And what were the consequences of the departure of the Glory from the second temple? Let the pages of Josephus, himself an eye-witness of the siege of Jerusalem by the Roman army under Titus, give the answer. Some years elapsed, after that glorious house was "left desolate," ere its ultimate ruin came: but, from the moment when Jesus pronounced its doom, it was marked to fall; and at length, magnificent as it was, it became in fact a desolation, and a desolation it remains to this day.

And what is a Christian church, after the departure of the Glory? Its edifices may still stand, in architectural beauty; its rites may be observed, in all their imposing forms; the most solemn music may peal through its courts, and ministers the most eloquent may occupy its pulpits. But, if the Holy Spirit has forsaken it, if the Glory has departed, it ceases to answer the purposes of its existence; and, in the sight of heaven, it is but a mass of ruin, fit only to be swept away. And, as with churches, so with individual members. How pitiable is the case of many a professor, who, once a temple of the Holy Ghost, is now no longer such! There are men who formerly occupied stations of honour in the church,-who were eminent teachers, or successful ministers,-who were looked upon, by many, as patterns of exalted piety, on whose foreheads, alas! 1-chabod is written. Every day they are sinking deeper, and yet deeper, into the mire. To be forsaken of God is a calamity more to be dreaded than any other that can be conceived.

But Ezekiel witnessed another scene. He saw the Shechinah return to the temple. He "looked, and, behold, the Glory of the Lord" again "filled the house of the Lord:" and he fell upon his face. (Chap. xliv. 4; compare xliii. 2, 3.)

What temple was this, to which the Glory returned? After the captivity in Babylon, the holy house was rebuilt under the direction of Zerubbabel; and, doubtless, it was honoured with the Divine pre

THE GLORY OF THE LORD." sence. Yet the second temple was far inferior to the first; and the Jews say, that it wanted not only the Shechinah, but also, among other precious objects, the tables of the law, and the golden pot that had manna, and Aaron's rod that budded. "The glory of this latter house," nevertheless, we read in Haggai, "shall be greater than of the former, saith the Lord of hosts." And so it was: for "the Desire of all nations"

came in the person of incarnate God, and filled it with His glory,-a glory hidden under the veil of His flesh, and yet "the glory as of the Only Begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth." But it is to another period that Ezekiel now refers. In the preceding chapters, he describes his vision of a temple formed after the model of the temple of Solomon, but of far larger dimensions, and of far more imposing grandeur. It is to this that he sees the Glory return: for it is not until after the description of it is completed, that the scene opens on which we are now glancing. What, then, is the temple of Ezekiel's vision? Is it a temple hereafter to be reared, when the Jews have returned to Palestine, and their polity has been restored? So think some of our commentators; who, regardless of consequences, interpret the whole of this description literally, and look for the time when the Jewish priesthood will be re-appointed, and the daily sacrifices renewed; when, in a word, the rites of Judaism will be again observed, not, indeed, as typical of the future, but as commemorative of the past. Comparatively few, however, entertain this extreme notion. The early Fathers of the church, the Reformers, and their immediate successors, with the best and soundest scholars of later times, (as Lightfoot and Lowth,) look upon this temple as a symbolical representation, not of any particular structure of stone hereafter to be reared, but of the spiritual temple of the church, now in course of erection, composed of living stones, and resting on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ Himself being the chief corner-stone. That no literal temple can be meant is evident from the fact, noted by Lightfoot, that its dimensions exceed those of the entire city of Jerusalem, while the Jerusalem of the prophet is larger than all the land of Canaan. The temple, then, is an ideal one; and now, under the brighter economy of the Gospel, the idea is to be realized in all its grandeur. It began to be realized on the day of Pentecost, and it was on that memorable day that the Glory returned, when, the disciples of the Lord Jesus being assembled " with one accord in one place," there" came a sound from heaven as of a rushing mighty wind, and it filled all the house where they were sitting. And there appeared unto them cloven tongues like as of fire, and it sat upon each of them: and they were all filled with the Holy Ghost." (Acts ii. 2-4.) The Shechinah

* See Lightfoot's Works, vol. ix., p. 217; and, on the entire vision, Fairbairn's "Exposition," pp. 388, et seq.