Ezekiel 33

33 : 1, 2 AND the word of the LORD came unto me, saying, Son of man, speak to the children of thy people, and say unto them, When I bring the sword upon a land, if the people of the land take a man from among them, and set him for their watchman : if, when he seeth the sword come upon the land, he blow the trumpet, and warn the people ; then whosoever heareth the sound of the trumpet, and taketh not warning, if the sword come, and take him away, his blood shall be upon his own head. He heard the sound of the trumpet, and took not warning ; his blood shall be upon him : whereas if he had taken warning he should have delivered his soul. But if the watchman see the sword come, and blow not the trumpet, and the people be not warned, and the sword come, and take any person from among them ; he is taken away in his iniquity, but his blood will I require at the watchman’s hand. So thou, son of man, I have set thee a watchman unto the house of Israel ; therefore hear the word at my mouth, and give them warning from me. When I say unto the wicked, O wicked man, thou shalt surely die, and thou dost not speak to warn the wicked from his way ; that wicked man shall die in his iniquity, but his blood will I require at thine hand. Nevertheless, if thou warn the wicked of his way to turn from it, and he turn not from his way ; he shall die in his iniquity, but thou hast delivered thy soul.

10. And thou, son of man, say unto the house of Israel : Thus ye speak, saying, Our transgres-

11 sions and our sins are upon us, and we pine away in them; how then should we live? Say unto them, As I live, saith the Lord God, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked; but that the wicked turn from his way and live: turn ye, turn ye from your evil ways; for why will

12 ye die, O house of Israel? And thou, son of man, say unto the children of thy people, The righteousness of the righteous shall not deliver him in the day of his transgression; and as for the wickedness of the wicked, he shall not fall thereby in the day that he turneth from his wickedness: neither shall he that is righteous be able to live thereby in the day that he

13 sinneth. When I say to the righteous, that he shall surely live; if he trust to his righteousness, and commit iniquity, none of his righteous deeds shall be remembered; but in his

14 iniquity that he hath committed, therein shall he die. Again, when I say unto the wicked,

15. Thou shalt surely die; if he turn from his sin, and do that which is lawful and right; if the wicked restore the pledge, give again that he had taken by robbery, walk in the statutes of

16 life, committing no iniquity; he shall surely live, he shall not die. None of his sins that he hath committed shall be remembered against him; he hath done that which is lawful and

17 right; he shall surely live. Yet the children of thy people say, The way of the Lord is not

18 equal: but as for them, their way is not equal. When the righteous turneth from his right-

19 eousness, and committeth iniquity, he shall even die therein. And when the wicked turneth

20 from his wickedness, and doeth that which is lawful and right, he shall live thereby. Yet ye say, The way of the Lord is not equal. O house of Israel, I will judge you every one after his ways.

21. And it came to pass in the twelfth year of our captivity, in the tenth month, in the fifth day of the month, that one that had escaped out of Jerusalem came unto me, saying, The city

22 is smitten. Now the hand of the LORD had been upon me in the evening, afore he that was escaped came; and he had opened my mouth, until he came to me in the morning; and my

23 mouth was opened, and I was no more dumb. And the word of the LORD came unto me,

24 saying, Son of man, they that inhabit those waste places in the land of Israel speak, saying, Abraham was one, and he inherited the land: but we are many; the land is given us for in-

25 heritance. Wherefore say unto them, Thus saith the Lord God: Ye eat with the blood, and

26 lift up your eyes unto your idols, and shed blood; and shall ye possess the land? Ye stand upon your sword, ye work abomination, and ye defile every one his neighbour’s wife: and

27 shall ye possess the land? Thus shalt thou say unto them, Thus saith the Lord God: As I live, surely they that are in the waste places shall fall by the sword, and him that is in the open field will I give to the beasts to be devoured, and they that be in the strong holds and

28 in the caves shall die of the pestilence. And I will make the land a desolation and an astonishment, and the pride of her power shall cease; and the mountains of Israel shall be deso-

29 late, that none shall pass through. Then shall they know that I am the LORD, when I have made the land a desolation and an astonishment, because of all their abominations which

30 they have committed. And as for thee, son of man, the children of thy people talk of thee by the walls and in the doors of the houses, and speak one to another, every one to his brother, saying, Come, I pray you, and hear what is the word that cometh forth from the

31. LORD. And they come unto thee as the people cometh, and they sit before thee as my people, and they hear thy words, but do them not: for with their mouth they shew much love,

32 but their heart goeth after their gain. And, lo, thou art unto them as a very lovely song of one that hath a pleasant voice, and can play well on an instrument: for they hear thy words,

33 but they do them not. And when this cometh to pass, (behold, it cometh,) then shall they know that a prophet hath been among them.

Chap. 33. This chapter has a manifest unity of purpose throughout, its aim considered as a series of revelations from God to the prophet being first to impress his own mind with a just sense of his responsibility for the souls of the people, and then to give him certain messages which demanded precisely this conscious sense of responsibility, and this true fidelity in their deliverance to the people. The messages to be borne to the people were: 1.

An earnest rebuke and refutation of the charge against God of crushing the people down under His judgments in a way to crush out all hope from their souls (verses 10-20). 2. A message respecting the survivors in the land of Judah, designed to slay their false hopes and open their eyes both to their own sins and to the certain ruin of their own land (verses 21-29). 3. A rebuke of the heartless but nicely critical hearing of the people in exile (verses 30-33). In a moral and spiritual point of view, the chapter is one of the highest interest and value, bearing with immense power on the spiritual life of the people among whom Ezekiel labored, and applying with equal force to the spiritual state of multitudes in every Gospel land. H. C.

1-10. The first ten verses of this chapter are the same with chap. 3 : 17-22. Here, the people choose the watchman; there, the Lord appoints him. When God chooses, the people should approve. A. C.

1-6. In view of the predatory and nomadic habits of that age and country, the business of the watchman is drawn here to the life. He does not stand on some lofty tower or battlement of the walled city; but he is a scout, far out on the borders of the land, on the mountain tops, where his practised eye will command a sweep of the great travelled routes which an invading foe must take. Then, trumpet in hand, he is ready to give the shrill and long notes of danger when he sees the sword of some invading foe approaching. The same illustration of the moral duty and responsibility of the Lord’s prophets and indeed of all His ministering servants appears chap. 3 : 17-21. The case supposed and its application are entirely clear. When it is made a man’s special duty to give warning of danger, when the life of a nation depends on his faithfulness, he has but one course to think of; he must be on the alert to mark approaching danger, and must be faithful to make it known to his people. Else the blood of souls will be required of him. If he does this duty faithfully, and the people, duly warned, give no heed to his warnings, their blood will be on their own head. He has done his duty and they die in their folly and under their own righteous curse. So every minister of the Gospel, and indeed every Christian man or woman, each in their own sphere, bear responsibilities for others’ souls. If they see others in sin, exposed to perdition, they are solemnly bound to give them warning. Special circumstances may intensify this responsibility, but no possible circumstances can exempt any human being, intelligent of obligation, from the duty of warning faithfully whomsoever he may see in this danger. H. C.

3-6. In heathenism, prediction was absolute; in the Old Testament, prophecy was never absolute, but always subject to moral conditions. Commenting on the 33d chapter of Ezekiel, which declared that the prediction of death to the wicked and life to the righteous were not absolute, but would be reversed on their moral change, Jerome aptly observes: “Nor does it follow that because a prophet foretold, that which he foretold should come to pass; for he does not foretell in order that it might take place, but lest it should take place.” It is in this sense that Holy Scripture, taking the human point of view, so often speaks of God’s repenting. All the prophets who announced judgment also called to repentance, and all such calls—as so many in the prophecies of Isaiah; in Jer. 4 : 3-5; Ezek. 18 : 30-32; Joel 2 : 12-14, and in other passages—were accompanied by the promise that in case of obedience the predicted judgments would be averted. More especially do we refer to the words of Jeremiah (18 : 7-10). A. E.

7. God hath hired servants to fight against sin. He hath employed advocates to plead against it; He hath made laws and decrees against it; He hath despatched prophets to warn us of it; and hath established an order of men, men of His own family, and who are fed at His own charges, whose office is, like watchmen, to give an alarum at every approach of sin with as much affrightment as if an enemy were near, or the sea broke in upon a flat country. Bp. Taylor.

10. “Therefore,” implies that the prophet’s responsibilities come into play at once as a watchman in rebuking this slanderous imputation. This plea of a hopeless doom assumed that God was heartlessly severe and which ignored His repeated promise of mercy to the penitent. Hence the Lord replies as one abused and wronged by an unjust implication. H. C.

11. As I live, saith the Lord God, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked. From this to the twentieth verse inclusive is nearly the same with chap. 18. A. C.

The implied charge (verse 10) touched the character and the heart of God in a tender point. Nothing could be so cruelly unjust! Had not their own God and Father loved them and borne with them in all long-suffering and with exceedingly great compassion? Had He ever said or done anything which could with any fairness be construed to imply that He had pleasure in the death of the wicked? Never! On the contrary, He had always shown that His heart was with the penitent, and His highest joy in those who turned, sorrowing for their sins, to implore His mercy. Had He not besought them to turn from their wicked ways and live? Had not His heart and hand labored for this result? Had He ever turned coldly away from those who humbly sought His mercy? Never. So He declares here, under the solemnities of His oath, affirming His innocence of the cruel charge which the people had by implication brought against Him, and again placing the issue between themselves and Him on its true merits—Himself entreating them to turn and live. H. C.

See also Isa. 5:4; Hos. 13:9; Isa. 65:2; Rom. 10:21; Jer. 7:31; Prov. 1:24, 29; Isa. 65:12; 66:4; 1:18; Jer. 6:10; Zech. 7:11, 12. Which passages, and many others of the like importance that occur, do imply the large extent of God’s merciful intentions, and the competency of the means, which God affords for the salvation of men; that He wants no affection or inclination to save them; that He neglects no means proper for effecting it; that He draws them into the way leading thither by serious and earnest invitation, directs them by needful light and instruction, excites them by powerful arguments and persuasions; and, as Ambrose speaketh, that “God hath showed to all, that, what was in Him, He did will to deliver or save all men.” Whence He may truly and properly be called the Benefactor and Saviour even of those who by their wilful malice or neglect do not obtain salvation. Isaac Barrow.

And upon this foundation of God’s mercy we may build our assurance that God’s will is not then done when His creatures are undone; but that, as it was His pleasure at first to make us, so it is His pleasure still to preserve us; and as from His everlasting will we all have our life, so by His will we should all have everlasting life. When as yet we were not, His will was we should be; now that we are, His will is that we should be holy. And if any man sin, His will is He should repent; and if a man repent, His will is he should be saved. Let this will, O Lord, be as Thy last will, which yet can come but as streams from the fountain of Thy first will; for, as it was merely Thy will that at first made Thee to make us, so it is merely Thy will that must make us to be holy, that must make us to repent, that must make us to be saved. These wills in God are as the chain of His mercy, whereof every link is fastened to one another, and all of them firmly fastened upon us, unless by the violence of our sins and the sinfulness of our wills we do wilfully break them. O God, so frame our wills, that they may be fit links to be fastened to this chain of Thy will. Sir Richard Baker, 1645.

If there be any one thing true in the Bible, it is that God welcomes the very first approach which man makes to Him. The Bible has no other end than to give men the invitation to return to God. Christ, who fills the Bible from first to last, has no word on His lips but “Come;” and God Himself has declared, “As I live, saith the Lord God, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked; but that the wicked turn from his way and live.” Ker.

Death means here eternal death. For why or how can God address mortal men, and ask them why they should die and be laid in their graves? To ask us “why we should die,” and be consigned to the grave, and moulder back to dust, as if we could avoid it, would be to tantalize and mock us—and God would not, could not do it. But to ask us why we will persevere and go down to hell, when we might be saved; why we would dwell with devouring fire when we might dwell amid the glories of heaven, is a question worthy of a God, and fit to be pondered by every traveller to eternity. Barnes.

“Sinner, turn!” says God. “Lord, I cannot attend to it,” says the sinner. “Turn or burn,” says God. “I will venture that,” says the sinner. “Turn and be saved,” says God. “I cannot leave my pleasures,” says the sinner. But what grace is it in God thus to parley with the sinner! Oh, the patience of God to a poor sinner! What if God should now say, “Then get thee to thy sins, get thee to thy delights, get thee to thy pleasures, take them for thy portion; they shall be all thy heaven, all thy happiness, all thy portion?” Bunyan.

The Bible did not make sin the parent of sorrow. It did not make certain that every transgression and disobedience should reap its just recompense of reward. We are the causes of their coming upon ourselves; and the Bible but proclaims the end to which the paths of sin must lead, and beseechingly calls to us all, “Turn ye, turn ye! why will ye die?” And yet how many of you shrink from its merciful knife, that cuts into all the wounds of the festering spirit! How many of you feel as if “the truth that is in Jesus” was a hard and bitter truth; when all the while its very heart’s blood is love, and the very secret of its message is the tenderest compassion, the most yearning sympathy, for every soul among us! A. M.

12-20. See chap. 18, where the same points are made with even greater fulness and more ample repetition. The bearing of these statements to the point now in hand is obvious. The Lord insists that He holds the door most fully open for the repentance of every sinner. If he will turn from his wickedness to cordial obedience, he shall surely live. If he turns from a just and upright life to sin, he shall certainly die. If the people charge their God with injustice in His ways, He denies the charge, and avers that their ways are utterly unjust and unequal toward Himself. His judgments of them will evermore be precisely according to their ways. H. C.

14. When I say unto the wicked, Thou shalt surely die, etc. In the whole course of Scripture God’s threatenings, and so His promises too, have ever a condition annexed to them in God’s purpose; which though it be but seldom expressed, yet is it ever included, and so to be understood. All God’s promises, how absolutely soever expressed, are made on condition of obedience; and all His threatenings, how absolutely soever expressed, on condition of impenitence. This is plain from the passage before us. Bp. Sanderson.

15. Restitution and reparation for damage. Under the Levitical law, reconciliation could be obtained only by repentance, and no repentance was accepted which did not prove its sincerity by practical reformation. For every transgression the law prescribed a trespass-offering. Where the transgression was of a mere ritual precept, and committed without deliberation or design, when discovered, the trespass-offering was sufficient alone; for this showed that the offender acknowledged the authority of the law which he had unintentionally violated. But where the transgression included any encroachment on the rights of another, the trespass-offering could not be received unless it was accompanied by a public acknowledgment of the offence, a resignation of the usurped property and a restitution to the person injured if he or his heir could be found; if not the usurped property was to be consecrated to pious uses, as the offender could not procure pardon while he retained it. No regulation could point out more clearly the inefficacy of sacrifice where guilt was not unfeignedly repented of, and all the advantages which had tempted to its perpetration renounced and resigned; and where full restitution to the injured individual did not accompany humiliation before God. Graves.—This shows us the absolute necessity of making restitution for any wrong or injury that we have done. By this law he that had done the wrong was obliged to make restitution to the injured person; and he is directed what to do in case the injured person could not be found. It was not his confessing his sin, not his sacrifice with that confession, that would procure his pardon if he did not make restitution as he is directed there. This is the doctrine of the law, and of the prophets also (Ezek. 33:15), as well as of the New Testament (Luke 18:8; Rom. 13:8, 9). Bp. Kidder.—There is one doctrine relative to the economy of Divine Providence little heeded among men: I mean the doctrine of restitution. When a man has done wrong to his neighbor, though on his repentance and faith in our Lord Jesus, God forgives him his sin, yet He requires him to make restitution to the person injured if it lie in the compass of his power. If he do not, God will take care to exact it in the course of His providence. Such respect has He for the dictates of infinite justice that nothing of this kind shall pass unnoticed. A. C.

21. The date shows an interval of one and one half years from the taking of Jerusalem (Jer. 52:12) to the arrival of the messenger. The confusion which followed the capture of the city may have retarded the arrival of one who would furnish full and authentic particulars. The general news that the city was taken must have reached them, but it was only when the messenger arrived that the prophet’s mouth was opened (24:26). B. C.

It should be noted that the word revealed from the Lord (verses 24-29) came to meet a feeling among the scattered remnant in Judea which developed itself some time subsequent to the fall of the city. Hence the date as here given is doubtless correct. Verse 22 implies that during the evening and night previous to the arrival of this messenger the Lord had remarkably opened His mouth to speak—perhaps by impressing His own solemn responsibilities as a prophet-watchman, in the line of the thought in verses 1-9; and perhaps also in anticipation of the effect of these tidings upon the people. The fall of the city could scarcely fail to make solemn impressions on the exiles. It would create a crisis, demanding the most urgent pressure of truth upon their heart and conscience. H. C.

22. The prophet was under the hand of God in ecstatic trance (cf. 3:22; 8:1; 37:1; 40:1) on the evening preceding the arrival (in which trance it was communicated to him that his enforced silence should cease) and continued in this state until the arrival of the messenger.

23-33. The exhortation to repentance. So the preaching of repentance by John the Baptist prepared the way for the Messiah’s kingdom. Before God speaks comfort He searches the heart; for only those who truly repent shall receive the blessing. Ezekiel first addresses the remnant that still linger in their ancient home, and warns them against presumptuous hopes resting on false grounds (23-29), then he turns his eye to those near him, and points out that their apparent attention to his words was illusory. B. C.

24. Those who were then “inhabiting the wastes of the land of Israel” were the small remnant of poor men that survived the fall of the city. Jeremiah has given their history in chaps. 40-44. They are seen here deluding themselves with the hope that the land was given them for their permanent inheritance. Their argument ran thus: Abraham was but one man; yet God gave him this whole land by promise, and all he could use, in fact. We are many; certainly he will give it to us to repeople and to restore to its former greatness. Ah, how could they overlook the contrast between Abraham’s faith in God and their unbelief: Abraham’s conscientious, consistent, most exemplary piety, and their persistent, deep-rooted, and unutterably loathsome iniquity! They seem not to have had the slightest sense of the moral grounds on which God gave Abraham the land of Canaan.

25-29. The Lord’s reply is in two parts: 1. To show them their sin and appeal to their moral sense whether they could or ought to possess the land (verses 25, 26). 2. To declare most solemnly that He would give them to the sword and the land to utter desolation, until they should know that He is the Lord, the righteous Ruler and Judge of His apostate people (verses 27-29). H. C.

30-33. The foregoing verses spake conviction to the Jews who remained in the land of Israel, who were monuments of sparing mercy, and yet returned not to the Lord; in these verses those are reproved who were now in captivity in Babylon, under Divine rebukes, and yet were not reformed by them. They are not indeed charged with the same gross enormities that the others are charged with; they made some show of religion and devotion; but their hearts were not right with God. The thing they are here accused of is mocking the messengers of the Lord—one of their measure-filling sins, which brought this ruin upon them, and yet they were not cured of it. H.

Here is an inside view of the moral life of the people among whom Ezekiel lived and prophesied in Chaldea, showing how they talked about him between themselves and behind his back; how they sat and heard his messages; how they enjoyed his rich, lively, highly cultivated and finely poetic style, and said very complimentary things about it and about him, but never thought of doing the things which the Lord through him enjoined as their duty, and only let their heart press on recklessly after their unrighteous gain. The whole description is beautifully graphic and finely drawn, but in its moral showing is exceedingly painful, revealing among that people an intense depravity, and suggesting the fearful truth that other myriads in Gospel lands are using the preaching of the Gospel in the same way, for the same ends of amusement, the same gratification of literary taste, and the same pride in displaying their critical skill in making comments on sermons. H. C.

32. And, lo thou art unto them as a very lovely song. They were struck with his eloquence without regarding his exhortations and admonitions. It is no unusual thing for people to listen to discourses from the ministers of God, only to enjoy the satisfaction which a well-composed discourse naturally affords. Their ears are gratified, their sentiments are enlivened, agreeable emotions of various kinds are excited. So the hearer is pleased, the speaker is commended and followed; but with no thought of practising one word that he hath said. This is the turn of mind so admirably described many ages ago by the prophet Ezekiel in this passage. But religious instruction could never be appointed to give such empty, insignificant delight as this: nor doth it in the least attain its proper end unless it influences men to forget the preacher and think of themselves; unless it raises in them not a superficial complacency or an idle admiration, but an awful and a durable solicitude about their eternal welfare. Abp. Secker.

Many come to the Word only to feast their ears; they like the melody of the voice, the sweetness of the expression, the newness of the notion. This is to love the garnishing of the dish more than the food; this is to desire to be pleased rather than edified. Like a woman that paints her face, but neglects her health; so they paint and adorn themselves with curious speculations, but neglect their souls’ health. This hearing doth neither sanctify the heart nor the Sabbath. Watson, 1696.

There is something inexpressibly mournful in the thought of one who, week after week, month after month, year after year, comes to the place of worship, and hears and sees as if he heard and saw not; the convenient season constantly recurring, Sabbaths dawning and setting, the weeks and months and years moving him steadily onward toward eternity, but no voice breaking the frightful silence of his soul, no light discovering to his view the scenes that hide in the eternal darkness before him. Anon.

Never is man brought into that state in which he becomes the subject of a spiritual change, except as his conscience is roused to action under the influence of heavenly truth. While it slumbers, all our demonstrations, however clear, and all our appeals, however forceful, are but “like a lovely song of one who hath a pleasant voice and can play well on an instrument”—as pleasing it may be to the ear, but as evanescent in their impression upon the mind; and when we know that stifling conscience is but throwing it into a stupor, we can easily understand that he who has been able to keep it down, and to smother its remonstrances, under the clearest light of the Gospel, has, in so doing, triumphed over his better self, and over all that is powerful in the means of grace, and all that was hopeful in his condition—and when you look at him, after having thus mastered his conscience, sitting unmoved when the messenger of truth takes his stand for God, and clearly illustrates and enforces with mighty urgency the claims of his Saviour, it seems as though all that was impressible about him had been turned to ice and iron and adamant; and we do not hesitate to say that as he has rendered himself more inaccessible to recovering influences, he has to the same degree rendered his spiritual condition hopeless. The most hopeless of God’s creatures in this world is not, necessarily, the man of the greatest outward deformities of character, not necessarily the man of the fewest spiritual advantages, but the man of the most; the man who has been the subject of the deepest and most pungent convictions of truth and duty, which he has mastered; the man who has been brought nearest to the kingdom of heaven, yet has never entered it. Better for him that his conscience never should have been roused to action than that it should have awakened only to drink the anodyne which he himself had mingled for it. E. Mason.

Christianity did not come from heaven to be the amusement of an idle hour, to be the food of mere imagination; to be as a very lovely song of one that hath a pleasant voice, and playeth well upon an instrument. No; it is intended to be the guide, the guardian, the companion of all hours, the food of our immortal spirits, the serious occupation of our whole existence. Bp. Jebb.

Count yourself no Christian because you like thoughts and discourses about God. Be jealous of any gospel that merely pleases you, and puts your natural sentiments aglow. See

God in the flowers if you will, but ask no gospel made up of flowers. Look after a sinner’s gospel—one that brings you God Himself. Doubtless you are hungry; therefore you want bread, and not any mere feeling after it. Understand the tragic perils of your sin, and think nothing strong enough for you but a tragic salvation. Require a transforming religion, not a pleasing. Be enticed by no flattering sentimentalities, which the children of nature are everywhere taking for a religion. Refuse to sail in the shallows of the sea; strike out into the deep waters where the surges roll heavily, as in God’s majesty, and the gales of the Spirit blow. Man your piety as a great expedition against God’s enemies and yours, and hope for no delicate salvation, not to be won by great sacrifices and perils. Bushnell.

Remember that God sent both priest and prophet. The law made nothing perfect. Men got used to the priestly function, and saw no other aspects of truth. The priest went into the holy place for them. They asked nothing, and reasoned about nothing. They were saved as they were. They were in the kingdom of God without effort of their own. The prophet taught more. He corrected impressions that were superficial. He showed how thoroughly the whole ethical life had gone astray, and everything was secularized and nominalized. The heart went after covetousness, and there was no God there. They made light of the name of God, which at first to them was too holy a word to utter. They heard His truth as it were a lovely song, and a pleasant voice, and a well-played instrument. It produced no genuine effect on their life. No sin was slain, no appetite was rebuked.

We need to be warned against the same sentimentalism to-day—a shallow and superficial life that is satisfied with merely outward forms or transient emotions; with that which is dramatic, which makes one “feel good,” but does not go down into the very blood and fibre of one’s moral being, and does not affect character. The apostle John, who approached nearest of any of the apostles to what might be called emotional experience, knocks flat all these fictitious and sentimental ideas, when he says, “If a man love not his brother, whom he has seen, how shall he love God, whom he has not seen?” God has brought in the prophet. His stern utterances of truth go down into the marrow of life. A touch of His hand crumbles to dust the mere manikin of a formal profession. J. B. Thomas.

We are passing out rather now into a kind

of holiday freedom, talking piety as a natural taste, enjoying our fine sentiments of reverence to God, and protesting our great admiration of Christ and His beautiful lessons—all in the plane of nature itself. Multitudes of us, and especially of the young, congratulate ourselves that we are about as good Christians, on the ground of mere natural sentiment, as need be. Nay, we are somewhat better Christians than there used to be, because we are more philanthropic, better reformers, and in that are so easily up to the level of Christianity, in a fashion of piety so much more intelligent. Our doctrine of the Gospel grows flashy, to a large extent, in the same manner. High sentiments, beautiful aspirations, are taken, sometimes wittingly and sometimes unwittingly, as amounting to at least so much of religious character. Where we shall be landed, or stranded rather, in this shallowing process, is too evident. Christianity will be coming to be more and more nearly a lost fact. A vapid and soulless naturalism will be all that is left, and we shall keep the Gospel only as a something in Divine figure and form, on which to play our natural sentiments. Bushnell.