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dæans did; and it may be that Ezekiel was commissioned by God to set them right, and by his vision to give a type, pattern, or picture of God's spiritual laws, by which he rules the world.

Be that as it may.—In the first place, Ezekiel's cherubim are far more wonderful and complicated than those which he would see on the walls of the Assyrian buildings. And rightly so; for this world is far more wonderful, more complicated, more cunningly made and ruled, than any of man's fancies about it; as it is written in the Book of Job,-'Where wast thou 'when I laid the foundations of the earth? 'declare, if thou hast understanding. Whereupon are the foundations thereof fastened? or 'who laid the corner-stone thereof; when the morning stars sang together, and all the sons ' of God shouted for joy?'

Next (and this is most important), these different cherubim were not independent of each other, each going his own way, and doing his own will. Not so. Ezekiel had found in them a divine and wonderful order, by which the services of angels as well as of men are

constituted. Orderly and harmoniously they worked together. Out of the same fiery globe, from the same throne of God, they came forth all alike. They turned not when they went; whithersoever the Spirit was to go, they went, and ran and returned like a flash of lightning. Nay, in one place he speaks as if all the four creatures were but one creature: 'This is the 'living creature which I saw by the river of Chebar.'

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And so it is, we may be sure, in the world of God, whether in the earthly or in the heavenly world. All things work together, praising God and doing his will. Angels and the heavenly host; sun and moon; stars and light; fire and hail; snow and vapour; wind and storm; all fulfil his word. He hath made

them fast for ever and ever: he hath given

them a law which shall not be broken.' For before all things, under all things, and through all things, is a divine unity and order; all things working towards one end, because all things spring from one beginning, which is the bosom of God the Father.

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And so with the wheels; the wheels of fortune and victory, and the fate of nations and of kings. 'They were so high,' Ezekiel said, that they were dreadful.' But he saw no human genius sitting, one in each wheel of fortune, each protecting his favourite king and nation. These, too, did not go their own way and of their own will. They were parts of God's divine and wonderful order, and obeyed the same laws as the cherubim. 'And when the living creatures went, the wheels went with them; for the spirit of the living creature was in the wheels.' Everywhere was the same divine unity and order; the same providence, the same laws of God, presided over the natural world and over the fortunes of nations and of kings. Victory and prosperity was not given arbitrarily by separate genii, each genius protecting his favourite king, each genius striving against the other on behalf of his favourite. Fortune came from the providence of One Being; of him of whom it is written, God standeth in the congregation of princes: 'he is the judge among gods.' And again

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The Lord is king, be the people never so 'impatient he sitteth between the cherubim, be the earth never so unquiet.'

And is this all? God forbid. This is more than the Chaldæans saw, who worshipped angels and not God-the creature instead of the Creator. But where the Chaldæan vision ended, Ezekiel's only began. His prophecy rises far above the imaginations of the heathen.

He hears the sound of the wings of the cherubim, like the tramp of an army, like the noise of great waters, like the roll of thunder, the voice of Almighty God: but above their wings he sees a firmament, which the heathen cannot see, clear as the flashing crystal; and on that firmament a sapphire throne, and round that throne a rainbow, the type of forgiveness and faithfulness, and on that throne A Man.

And the cherubim stand, and let down their wings in submission, waiting for the voice of One mightier than they. And Ezekiel falls upon his face, and hears from off the throne a human voice, which calls to him as human

likewise, 'Son of man, stand upon thy feet, and I will speak to thee.'

This, this is Ezekiel's vision: not the fiery globe merely, nor the cherubim, nor the wheels, nor the powers of nature, nor the angelic host, dominions and principalities and powers, but The Man enthroned above them all, the Lord and Guide and Ruler of the universe, he who makes the winds his angels, and the flames of fire his ministers; and that Lord speaking to him, not through cherubim, not through angels, not through nature, not through mediators angelic or human, but speaking direct to him himself, as man speaks to man.

As man speaks to man. This is the very pith and marrow of the Old Testament and of the New; which gradually unfolds itself, from the very first chapter of Genesis to the last of Revelation, that man is made in the likeness of God; and that therefore God can speak to him, and he can understand God's words and. inspirations.

Man is like God; and therefore God, in some inconceivable way, is like man. That

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