divide by lot the land for inheritance, ye shall offer an oblation unto the Lord, an holy portion of the land: the length shall be the length of five and twenty thousand reeds, and the breadth shall be ten thousand. This shall be holy in all the borders thereof round about. Of this there shall be for the sanctuary five hundred in length, with five hundred in breadth, square round about; and fifty cubits round about for the suburbs thereof. And of this measure shalt thou measure the length of five and twenty thousand, and the breadth of ten thousand: and in it shall be the sanctuary and the most holy place. The holy portion of the land shall be for the priests," Ezek. xlv. 1—4. Here is, first, an holy portion of the land. This spiritually signifies God's people, called fallow ground, which God ploughs up; good ground, which receives the good seed sowed by the Son of man; the dry ground, which God waters; God's husbandry, which he keeps, called Eden, and the garden of the Lord. This ground is to be holy in all its borders; the Spirit of God and his grace is to be poured out to make it so: "I will pour water on him that is thirsty, and floods upon the dry ground: I will pour my Spirit upon thy seed, and my blessing upon thine offspring." It is this water that makes this land and all its borders holy. One part of this land is to be for the sanctuary; that is, Christ shall dwell with his people, and he shall be to them for a sanctuary. And this land is to be for the priests, and for the houses of the priests. God hath made all his children kings and priests unto himself; and in this holy portion of the Lord's land they are to labour and live; and all the borders of it are to be holy; that is, God will water with his Spirit and grace every part thereof. And in this holy land there is to be a place for the city: And ye shall appoint the possession of the city five thousand broad, and five and twenty thousand long. You will have a full description of this city in Ezekiel's last chapter. And round this city fifty cubits for the suburbs thereof. Now as this city is the church, the bride, the Lamb's wife, what can the suburbs of it be but the elect of God waiting at the gates, watching at the posts of these doors; souls not yet renewed, not yet laid upon the foundation, not yet built up in faith, not yet perfected in love? These are the suburbs and the borders of the city: I will make all thy borders of pleasant stones. The saints are called the stones of a crown. And it is well known that the stones of a crown are neither all of a sort, nor all of a size. The best sight that I ever had of this sort of stones was in the king's crown, and in the prince's diadem, both in the Tower. The sardonyx, the chrysolite, and the chrysoprasus, do not appear to shine so bright as the diamond, the sapphire, or the ruby; yet there is a shining lustre in them all; for if God dwells with the broken and the contrite heart, and with them that tremble at his word, there must be a glory upon them; and this light of glory shines upon them, even when they sit in darkness, and in the shadow of death; and such souls see it too; yea, they see a great light. But once more, and I have done. The border of the church does signify the glories of the heavenly country, as appears by what follows: "Thus saith the Lord, A voice was heard in Ramah, lamentation and bitter weeping; Rachel weeping for her children, refused to be comforted because they were not. Thus saith the Lord, Refrain thy voice from weeping, and thine eyes from tears: for thy work shall be rewarded, saith the Lord: and they shall come again from the land of the enemy. And there is hope in thine end, saith the Lord, that thy children shall come again to their own border." This prophecy was fulfilled when Herod slew the children in Bethlehem. Now, the Lord comforts the daughters of Rachel with a promise of rewarding their work in suckling these infants. God tells them that there is hope in their end, and that these children that were not alive, but dead, on which account they refused to be comforted, should come again: "They shall come again from the land of the enemy." That enemy is death, and the land of the enemy is the grave; and so it follows: "And there is hope in thine end, saith the Lord, that thy children shall come again to their own border." Now, what border can these dead children come again to but to the thousand years reign in the new earth, and to the border of the heavenly country above? where the saints, in white linen, will outshine the diamond; and, having their vile bodies changed and washed in the blood of the Lamb, they will outshine the ruby; in their golden crowns they will exceed the topaz; and, being alive for evermore, they shall be more green than the emerald; in royal majesty they will transcend the amethyst; and their heaven will outshine the sapphire with all its golden specks. "They shall be mine, saith the Lord of hosts, in that day when I make up my jewels," ΧΙ. THE SAINT'S RIGHT, AND HIS LIES AGAINST IT. Jов xxxiv. 6. "Should I lie against my right? my wound is incurable JOB in his affliction had three friends which came to bemoan him and to comfort him; but they proved themselves to be but miserable comforters; for they soon fall into vain jangling, and labour to prove Job a bad man, which they conclude from God's severity with him. God's testimony of Job is, that he was a perfect and an upright man, and that he feared God, and eschewed evil. This Job pleads when he says, "The just, the upright man, is laughed to scorn." Against this they argue, "If thou wert pure and upright, surely now he would awake for thee, and make the habitation of thy righteousness prosperous." This is the opinion of Bildad; and he enforces it by insisting that God will not cast away a perfect man, nor will he help the evil doers. Hence he concludes that Job is a castaway, and therefore cannot be a perfect man; and as God afforded him no help, he must be an evil doer, |