Daniel 3
Butler3:1 NEBUCHADNEZZAR the king made an image of gold, whose height was threescore cubits, and the breadth thereof six cubits: he set it up in the plain of Dura, in the province of Babylon. Then Nebuchadnezzar the king sent to gather together the satraps, the deputies, and the governors, the judges, the treasurers, the counsellors, the sheriffs, and all the rulers of the provinces, to come to the dedication of the image which Nebuchadnezzar the king had set up. Then the satraps, the deputies, and the governors, the judges, the treasurers, the counsellors, the sheriffs, and all the rulers of the provinces, were gathered together unto the dedication of the image that Nebuchadnezzar the king had set up; and they stood before the image that Nebuchadnezzar had set up. Then the herald cried aloud, To you it is commanded, O peoples, nations, and languages, that at what time ye hear the sound of the cornet, flute, harp, sackbut, psaltery, dulcimer, and all kinds of music, ye fall down and worship the golden image that Nebuchadnezzar the king hath set up: and whoso falleth not down and worshippeth shall the same hour be cast into the midst of a burning fiery furnace. Therefore at that time, when all the peoples heard the sound of the cornet, flute, harp, sackbut, psaltery, and all kinds of music, all the peoples, the nations, and the languages, fell down and worshipped the golden image that Nebuchadnezzar the king had set up. Wherefore at that time certain Chaldeans came near, and brought accusation against the Jews. They answered and said to Nebuchadnezzar the king, O king, live for ever. Thou, O king, hast made a decree, that every man that shall hear the sound of the cornet, flute, harp, sackbut, psaltery, and dulcimer, and all kinds of music, shall fall down and worship the golden image: and whoso falleth not down and worshippeth, shall be cast into the midst of a burning fiery furnace. There are certain Jews whom thou hast appointed over the affairs of the province of Babylon, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego; these men, O king, have not regarded thee: they serve not thy gods, nor worship the golden image which thou hast set up. Then Nebuchadnezzar in his rage and fury commanded to bring Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego. Then they brought these men before the king. Nebuchadnezzar answered and said unto them, Is it of purpose, O Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego, that ye serve not my god, nor worship the golden image which I have set up? Now if ye be ready that at what time ye hear the sound of the cornet, flute, harp, sackbut, psaltery, and dulcimer, and all kinds of music, ye fall down and worship the image which I have made, well: but if ye worship not, ye shall be cast the same hour into the midst of a burning fiery furnace; and who is that god that shall deliver you out of my hands? Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego, answered and said to the king, O Nebuchadnezzar, we have no need to answer thee in this matter. If it be so, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace; and he will deliver us out of thine hand, O king. But if not, be it known unto thee, O king, that we will not serve thy gods, nor worship the golden image which thou hast set up. Then was Nebuchadnezzar full of fury, and the form of his visage was changed against Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego: therefore he spake, and commanded that they should heat the furnace seven times more than it was wont to be heated. And he commanded certain mighty men that were in his army to bind Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego, and to cast them into the burning fiery furnace. Then these men were bound in their hosen, their tunics, and their mantles, and their other garments, and were cast into the midst of the burning fiery furnace. Therefore because the king’s commandment was urgent, and the furnace exceeding hot, the flame of the fire siew those men that took up Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego. And these three men, Shadrach, Meshach,
24 and Abed-nego, fell down bound into the midst of the burning fiery furnace. Then Nebuchadnezzar the king was astonied, and rose up in haste: he spake and said unto his counsellors, Did not we cast three men bound into the midst of the fire? They answered and said
25 unto the king, True, O king. He answered and said, Lo, I see four men loose, walking in the midst of the fire, and they have no hurt; and the aspect of the fourth is like a son of
26 the gods. Then Nebuchadnezzar came near to the mouth of the burning fiery furnace: he spake and said, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego, ye servants of the Most High God, come forth, and come hither. Then Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego, came forth out of the
27 midst of the fire. And the satraps, the deputies, and the governors, and the king’s counsellors, being gathered together, saw these men, that the fire had no power upon their bodies, nor was the hair of their head singed, neither were their hosen changed, nor had the smell
28 of fire passed on them. Nebuchadnezzar spake and said, Blessed be the God of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego, who hath sent his angel, and delivered his servants that trusted in him, and have changed the king’s word, and have yielded their bodies, that they might
29 not serve nor worship any god, except their own God. Therefore I make a decree, that every people, nation, and language, which speak any thing amiss against the God of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego, shall be cut in pieces, and their houses shall be made a dung-
30 hill: because there is no other god that is able to deliver after this sort. Then the king promoted Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego, in the province of Babylon.
It is easy to see that as chaps. 2 and 7 go together, so do chaps. 3 and 6, and 4 and 5. And, indeed, these two middle pairs of chapters (3 and 6, 4 and 5) have a symbolical significance independent of their historical value. The first pair shows us, by the example of Daniel and his three friends, how wonderfully near God is to His saints, especially when, faithfully adhering to their Master, they seem to be crushed by the world-power. The second pair present the two kings of the first monarchy, as an example of how God can suddenly humble the world-power in the very height of its insolence and rebellious scorn, and of how little reason the faithful have to dread its might. Auberlen.
Chap. 3. The king makes a huge golden image, sets it up, and convenes the officers of every grade in his kingdom to attend its dedication and join in its worship. Daniel’s three friends refuse, and are cast into a furnace of fire: God preserves them from all harm, and the king by decree dooms to death all who shall speak against their God. H. C.
The noble example of faith and courage recorded in this chapter has been the comfort of the Church in all ages of persecution. Jerome observes that it was a testimony of the truth to the Gentiles, and an opportunity of embracing salvation, that they who first learned the power of one God by the revelation of Daniel might learn from the firmness of the three saintly children to leave off the worship of idols and to despise death. Rose.
An interval of sixteen years had elapsed since the events of the previous chapter. As the event here narrated occurred just after the final captivity of Judah, Nebuchadnezzar had had ample time to forget the impressions made by the dream which had been previously disclosed and interpreted by Daniel. His unbroken series of magnificent triumphs, without one interposed warning, had naturally sealed this forgetfulness of the God of Daniel. His supremacy was universally acknowledged as a world conqueror. It was natural that he should undertake some act of worship to his god, upon a scale corresponding to his own achievements. Thus was furnished the occasion and the motive for the erection of the colossal image upon the plain of Dura, adjacent to the walls of Babylon. Including the pedestal, the image, which was in the form of a man, was ninety feet high and nine feet broad, constructed of wood covered with gold. For the dedication of this image to some particular deity, he issued a decree calling together official representatives from all the peoples included in his vast dominions. Among these came the three friends of Daniel, who was still in charge of the province of Babylon. B.
1-3. The king could not convene all the people of his vast dominions. The next thing to it was to convene all the officers of every name and grade. These would be the strong and influential men of his realm. Hence this convocation would send its influence for idolatry down through the whole political framework of his kingdom and reach its entire population. The great number of grades of officers indicates a high degree of system and order in the constitution of this government. Of the eight several officers grouped in this summons, the first is the highest grade, a sort of viceroy.
The second is the class of deputies. The third is commonly rendered “governor,” and is used repeatedly by Ezra, Nehemiah, and others; indeed, it is identically the pasha. The fourth class are the chief judges; the fifth the royal treasurers; the sixth were persons skilled in the law, and might be either counsellors or judges; the seventh term seems to be essentially the same as the sixth, lawyers; and the last comprehends all other officers in the province. All these were summoned to come to the dedication of the great image.
1. The image was sixty cubits high and six cubits broad—dimensions which must have rendered it visible to the most remote of the worshippers assembled in the great plain at the dedication. This vast size is not without parallel, and has even been exceeded. The Colossus of Rhodes was seventy cubits high, and the Colossus of Nero was not of inferior magnitude, being one hundred and ten feet high. It is observable that the height is out of all proportion to the breadth; and as the rules of proportion were usually observed in such cases, it is probable that the assigned height included that of the pedestal on which the image stood. Kitto.
4. O people, nations, and languages. Babylon at this time at the height of her glory, commercial and military, contained within her vast area representatives from east and west, north and south, the Greek and the Mede, the Phoenician and the Assyrian, the “captive of Judah,” and the Arab of the south. The official proclamation, spoken by the herald, addressed them as “people, nations (better ’tribes’), and languages.” It was a form of address which reminded them of the greatness of the monarch who claimed the obedience of Semite and Aryan alike, and it was probably the formula then in use. B. C.
4-7. The signal for simultaneous worship by prostration of the body before the great image was to be given by this grand orchestra, which seems to have combined all sorts of musical instruments known in that age—another case in proof that the controlling spirit in all systems of idolatry seizes on every attraction of art, and not least, upon external beauty and upon music as important auxiliaries of power. The precise character of these various instruments can be reached in this age only proximately. The first was a horn. The third is the word “cithera” in Hebrew letters. The “sackbut” is thought to have been a trombone—an instrument which secures a wide range of tone by being constructed with a slide by which its length and volume may be changed at pleasure. The word “psaltery” is the same in Hebrew and in Greek. H. C.
There was, however, something more than mere worship included in the command to bow down before this massive golden idol. As in every age, wherein Church and State are combined under one head, the recognition or denial of one implied the recognition or denial of the other; so here, disobedience to Nebuchadnezzar’s decree with reference to worship was deemed equivalent to treason against his sovereignty. Moreover, this double test had a special application at this time, when so many captives and foreigners had been gathered in Babylon, as the result of his wide conquests. That the three friends of Daniel should have been enviously watched by the heathen astrologers was natural; as also that these astrologers should tell the king of the disobedience of these three favored Jews to his decree. B.
7. Splendid ceremonies, which attach to those who observe them a certain degree of distinction and glory, may be easily performed; but the internal offering, “the sacrifices of a broken and a contrite spirit,” love to God and separation from the world, can only belong to true religion, as they spring from the energy of Divine grace, and are the proofs of that moral victory over human nature which Christianity alone can achieve. No pomp, or sound of cornet, flute, harp, sackbut, and psaltery are here required. The spirit of genuine religion is free from that which is ostentatious and merely adapted to allure the senses; it neither prevails by parade nor by compulsion; it disclaims what is artificial and noisy; its music is the voice of prayer; its herald the exhibition of a “conduct becoming the Gospel;” its triumph the sanctification of the heart. F. A. Cox.
12. Daniel was not present at this dedication of the image, and he was not among the Jews accused. Conjectures have been freely offered to explain his absence, such as, that Daniel stood too high in royal favor to be touched; that he, personally, was too much loved; that he was ill; that he was engaged elsewhere on business; that as “Rab-Signin” (2:48) he was exempted from the prostration demanded of lay officials. These conjectures raise more difficulties than they appease. Yet it may be safely asserted that, had his absence caused any defect in the religious ceremonies, had it been possible to raise against him a charge of dereliction of duty, the “accusers of the Jews” would not have been slow to incriminate him in the charges they alleged against Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. That they did not do so, is not to be explained away upon the supposition that the deliverance of his companions stopped proceedings against their chief. Certainly had this chapter been the composition of a pseudo-Daniel or the record of a fictitious event, Daniel would have been introduced and his immunity explained. B. C.
12,13. The way in which the “Chaldeans” describe the three recusants betrays their motive in accusing them. “Certain Jews whom thou hast set over the affairs of the province of Babylon” could not but be envied and hated, since their promotion wounded both national pride and professional jealousy. The form of the accusation was skilfully calculated to rouse a despot’s rage. They “have not regarded thee” is the head and front of their offending. The inflammable temper of the king blazed up according to expectation, as is the way with tyrants. His passion of rage is twice mentioned (verses 13, 19), and, in one of the instances, is noted as distorting his features. What a picture of ungoverned fury as of one who had never been thwarted! It is the true portrait of an Eastern despot. A. M.
13-15. The king orders these offenders before him, and gives them one more trial to test their obedience. His last words, “Who is that God that shall deliver you out of my hand?” shows that as yet he has practically no just sense of the power of the Supreme Being, or indeed of any god higher than mortal man. H. C.
14. Is it of purpose? A question this from a potent monarch backed with a wrathful threatening; enough to have put Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego to the stand. Their answer must provoke their God or their king. But did they hesitate a moment? Were they at all in suspense? No; they had faith in their Lord, and they boldly replied, “O king, we need not answer thee in this matter. Our cause lies before our God; we are not left to ourselves; our present life, our immortal soul is in His hands. If you command us into the fiery furnace, our God will be with us; we shall be safe; He will deliver us; either our bodies that we shall not be burnt, or if they are, the burning furnace shall be only as a fiery chariot to convey our souls to heaven and glory.” See the power of faith; according as they believed so it was; the Son of God was with them; the fire could not hurt them. W. Mason.
But we may draw another lesson from this truculent apostle of his god. He is not the only instance of apparent religious zeal, which is at bottom nothing but masterfulness. “You shall worship my god, not because he is God, but because he is mine.” That is the real meaning of a great deal which calls itself “zeal for the Lord.” The zealot’s own will, opinions, fancies, are crammed down other people’s throats, and the insult in not thinking or worshipping as he does is worse in his eyes than the offence against God. A. M.
16-18. “We have no need to answer thee,” we are in no straits; are not pressed by any stringent necessity as men who tremble in fear for their lives; for if thou shouldest do thy worst—cast us into the fiery furnace—our God is able to deliver us; and if He should not, we are ready for the result, let come what may. Be it known to thee, therefore, we will not serve thy gods nor worship thy golden image! This was moral heroism and devoted piety, both of the highest order. H. C.
It is due to Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego to remember that, in the unexplained absence of Daniel, who may have been in a remote part of the empire upon official duties, these men exhibited the same heroism, the same superior intellectuality, and the same devotion to principle which characterized Daniel. One of the sublimest passages attributed to men of God in any age is in these words: “We will not do it; we will not argue about it; and if our God in His infinite wisdom will not deliver us, we will still believe Him, die in the furnace, and will not worship thy false god nor obey thee in this matter.” This was stronger than if they had contented themselves with the assertion that God would surely deliver them. Many would begin with equal courage, expecting deliverance, and quail and fail if deliverance delayed to come. But these men would die, in any event, rather than worship. J. M. Buckley.
God could keep them out of the fiery furnace, or save them in it, if He chose to do so. But whatever His decision might be on that point, their decision to do right and take the consequences was made up unalterably in advance. And there is no other spirit than this in which God can be served faithfully. When the question comes between lying and dying, it is safe to say that, whether you die or not, you won’t lie. So when the question comes between dishonesty and beggary, between treachery and ruin, between faithlessness in little matters or in larger, and the loss of everything that you have held dear in the life that is, you can say of the peril: “If it be so, our God is able to deliver us; but if not, we will not swerve from the right.” What a world this would be if God’s children would all take that stand and stick to it! H. C. T.
Duty is sovereign. The obligation to resist all temptations to go against conscience is unaffected by consequences. There may be hope that God will not suffer us to be harmed, but whether He does or not should make no difference to our fixed resolve. That temper of lowly faith and inflexible faithfulness which these Hebrews showed in the supreme moment, when they took their lives in their hands, may be as nobly illustrated in the small difficulties of our peaceful lives. The same laws shape the curves of the tiny ripples in a basin and of the Atlantic rollers. No man who cannot say “I will not” in the face of frowns and dangers, be they what they may, and stick to it, will do his part. He who has conquered regard for personal consequences, and does not let them deflect his course a hair’s breadth, is lord of the world. A. M.
19-23. In great rage at such fearless opposition to his will, the despotic monarch ordered them to be cast into a fiery furnace heated to its utmost intensity. The practice of punishment by burning alive had existed among the Assyrians for centuries, as we learn from both monumental and historical notices. The furnace was either a fire kindled in the open court, or a structure in the form of a pit, with one of its sides open to receive the fuel for the flame.
Bound probably with chains, in their usual garments (of the particulars of which we have no knowledge), they were taken up by the king’s soldiers, and cast into the mouth of the blazing furnace. So urgent was the king’s wrath and so hot was the flame, that the near approach proved instantly fatal to the soldiers who fulfilled the despot’s command. They were slain by the flame. This was the only destruction wrought by the king’s maddened passions. The burning of the executioners only emphasized the more this signal miracle of protection to these servants of the Most High God. As for the intended victims, the flames only melted their chains, and left them free to rise and stand unhurt amid the fire. B.
God did not interfere to prevent them from being cast into the furnace. Thus, too, He often suffers His dear children to be cast bound into the furnace of sore affliction, from which they cannot extricate themselves. He does not always preserve from distress, but He preserves in the midst of distress. W. H. G.
24, 25. What the astonished king beheld. He saw four men walking in the midst of the fire. The three who had been bound were loose. The flame had not harmed them. A fourth form there was, whose majestic appearance impressed the amazed monarch as a son of the gods. This, we may believe, was no other than the angel of the Lord, who so often had appeared to His people, and who was none other than Christ the Son of God. Never before had He appeared to any but chosen friends of God. Now He manifests Himself to this heathen monarch, as the deliverer and companion of these His persecuted saints.
A striking fulfilment was here of the Divine promise uttered by Isaiah (43: 2). B.—The flame recognized the presence of Him that made it, and bowed reverently before the Son of God, just as on other occasions the waters of the sea owned Him, the winds heard Him, and all nature responded to Him, and obeyed Him. The flame lost its power to consume, because it was commanded not to do so by Him that kindled it at the first. These Hebrews, we are told by Paul in his Epistle to the Hebrews, “quenched the violence of fire” by their faith. Cumming.
His walking with them there seems to imply that they were conscious of His presence and sustained by His comfort, like Stephen in the agony of his martyrdom, and they would doubtless recognize in him the “Angel Jehovah,” who had so often shown Himself to their fathers, and who had promised, “When thou walkest through the fire, thou shalt not be burned.” P. S.
How uniform and majestic the testimony that rises from all the lands and ages of faith to this simple truth, that it is not rules of conduct, not systems of ethics, not patterns of propriety, not eloquent expositions that inspire the believing and faithful heart with its immortal energy and peace, but the simple secret assurance of being as one with the Lord Jesus, and resting in His almighty friendship! Where is the fiery furnace deep enough to burn despair into our souls, if we can see walking with us through the fire the form of the Son of God? What, then, is the tribulation, or famine, or sword, or nakedness that shall separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord? The mystery of that unity where He who is one with God yet cried, “Not as I will, but as Thou wilt,” is not for us to understand. Yet the prayer of promise, “They shall be with Me where I am,” is for us to lay hold of and breathe again and again, when we are aching and alone and troubled. So believers have found. Anon.
26, 27. At Nebuchadnezzar’s bidding they come forth unharmed from the fire. The king’s spirit was utterly subdued within him. He acknowledges the presence of the Most High God with these His servants. He recognizes the perfect freedom of these men, and their ability to come forth at their will. But now instantly his command was obeyed, and God’s servants came forth from the fire. Then around them gathered princes and officers of every class with the king in the midst, intensely moved at the strange result. The fire had not harmed their bodies, nor even was there a hair of their heads singed, nor their flowing garments scorched; nay, even the smell of fire was not found upon them.
28,29. But the result wrought as marvellous a change upon the temper of the king. His wrath yielded to admiration for the faithful heroism of these men. From the senseless deity that he had reared upon the plain, he turns to behold and to acknowledge anew the God of heaven. This God had proved His power to protect them that trusted in Him. Again as on the previous occasion he recognizes the being as the might of the God of Israel. He publishes a decree forbidding the people under his dominion to utter anything against the God of these Hebrews. He went indeed no further than this. His change of conviction and action was based upon the superior might of God. He offered to Jehovah no worship or reverence, but remained an idolator. B.—Though the heathen king is again convinced of the power and greatness of the God of the Jews, it will be observed that the proclamation is only a decree of punishment against those who calumniate Him. It does not declare Him God alone, and the other gods mere idols. Rose.
28. The things he specially notes as done by them are—that they “trusted in their God” (he had never seen such trust before!); that they “changed” in the sense of disregarding and finally reversing the king’s mandate; and that they “yielded their bodies” to be burned if the Lord should not be pleased to protect them. These were new developments for Babylon! When in all the foregone ages had such things been seen in that proud city? H. C.
A steadfast faith in God will produce a steadfast faithfulness to God. Now this honorable testimony, thus publicly borne by the king himself to these servants of God, we may well think would have a good influence upon the rest of the Jews that were, or should be, captives in Babylon. Their neighbors could not with any confidence urge them to do that, nor could they for shame do that, which their brethren were so highly applauded by the king himself for not doing. Nay, and what God did for these His servants would help not only to keep the Jews close to their religion while they were in captivity, but to cure them of their inclination to idolatry, for which end they were sent into captivity; and when it had had that blessed effect upon them they might be assured that God would deliver them out of that furnace, as now He delivered their brethren out of this. H.
Always and everywhere men fall back and give place to those who practise a religion which costs them something. The world is looking on to see if ours is a religion which costs us anything. Do we really feel the sacrifice of any one thing for Christ? Does our life unmistakably and inevitably remind men of Christ’s life? Does it probably remind Him of it? Does He see in it of the travail of His soul that which satisfies Him? This is the style of questioning by which the world is silently putting our religion to the test. Phelps.
29. One important result of these events is a special decree, forbidding the people of his entire realm to say aught amiss against the God of these Hebrews. Apparently, the reason assigned went forth with the decree—viz., “Because there is no other god that can deliver after this sort”—a distinct recognition of the God of Israel as higher and mightier than all the gods of the heathen. This decree went over all his realm, a grand manifesto, setting forth the conviction of this autocrat on his throne in favor of the great Jehovah. Naturally it would carry with it an account more or less full of the circumstances which had called it forth. Officers of government from his whole realm were its witnesses. Hence these events must have sown broadcast some ideas of the true God among the thousands and probably millions of his subjects. H. C.
30. Either his sense of justice or his fear of the Hebrews’ God led him to restore the three men to their offices and to advance them to higher positions of trust. B.—He justly promoted them in his kingdom; but he had no honors to confer, after what Heaven had made to shine and flame upon them on that great day. He could not confer honor on those who had triumphed over him and his gods. And as to them, there could remain, after that day, but one thing more that was sublime enough for their ambition—the translation by death! Foster.
The contents of this chapter, apart from the consideration of the event as a miracle, may be summed up in Archdeacon Rose’s words: “Never was the promise, ‘when thou walkest through the fire thou shalt not be burned; neither shall the flame kindle upon thee’ (Isa. 43: 2), so wonderfully fulfilled as here. Doubtless it was ever the source of spiritual comfort to the Christian martyr, but here it was fulfilled in the letter.” B. C.
The great lesson to be gathered from this miracle of deliverance is simply that men who sacrifice themselves for God find in the sacrifice abundant blessing. They may, or may not, be delivered from the external danger. Peter was brought out of prison the night before his intended martyrdom; James, the brother of John, was slain with the sword; but God was equally near to both, and both were equally delivered from “Herod, and from all the expectation of the people of the Jews.” The disposal of the outward event is in His hands, and is a comparatively small matter. But no furnace into which a man goes because he will be true to God, and will not yield up his conscience, is a tenth part so hot as it seems, and it will do no real harm. The fire burns bonds, but not Christ’s servants, consuming many things that entangled, and setting them free. “I will walk at liberty, for I seek Thy precepts” even if we have to walk in the furnace. No trials faced in obedience to God will be borne alone. A present Christ will never fail His servants, and will make the furnace cool even when its fire is fiercest. A. M.
The central, comprehensive, and significant truth herein conveyed is expressed in the words of Christ: “He that will lose his life for My sake shall save it.” B.
Christ has been with His Church from the beginning of the world. The bush may blaze, but God is in the bush, and it cannot be consumed. His saints may suffer, but their sufferings shall only spread their faith, and glorify their Lord. And all things, the blunders of its friends, the bitterness of its enemies, the silence of its advocates, the opposition of its foes—all things, in height and depth, shall aid the cause of Christ, and prosper that Church of which He is the foundation and blessed hope. Cumming.
Thousands in later times have walked calmly to the stake, cheered by the words of these young Hebrew exiles. Their great service to the world of subsequent ages is their teaching by word and act the nature and the working of a religion of principle. They illustrate the truth that a religion of principle is founded on intelligent convictions of truth, so fixed in the heart as to be beyond the reach of argument. Their answer to the king’s command has been the watchword of martyrs from that day to this: “We are not careful to answer thee in this matter. . . . But be it known unto thee, O king, that we will not serve thy gods.” There is a state of religious experience, possible to every Christian, of which this is a sample. It is a state in which the believer no longer needs argument to support his convictions, and is no longer open to argument against them. Certain central truths of religion are fixed in his very soul. They have been settled once for all and forever. They are thus settled, because they have become matters of experience.
The religion of principle consists pre-eminently in obedience to the sense of duty, without regard to consequences. So far as it appears from the story of these “men in the fire,” this was their reasoning, and the whole of it: “We have only to do right, in the fear of God.” Not a word appears, except a sublime assurance that God will save them, but a more sublime purpose to obey Him whether He will or not. The religion of principle carries with it a profound sense of a personal God. “Our God whom we serve.” This is the first and last and ruling thought of these youthful heroes. Duty is no abstraction to them. They are not philosophers. They are simply believers in a living God. Phelps.