450 HE IS THE PRIEST STILL. [Serm. They are new The Lord is hope in Him. chapter of the Lamentations, beginning "I am the man that hath seen affliction by the rod of His wrath," contains the climax of his experience. In the memorable passages which follow, the history of a life is gathered up. "I said, My strength and my hope is perished from the Lord; remembering mine affliction and my misery, the wormwood and the gall. My soul hath them still in remembrance. This I recall to mind, therefore have I hope. It is of the Lord's mercies that we are not consumed. every morning; great is thy faithfulness. my portion, saith my soul; therefore will I The Lord is good unto them that wait for Him. It is good that a man should both hope and quietly wait for the salvation of the Lord. It is good for a man that he bear the yoke in his youth. He sitteth alone and keepeth silence, because he hath borne it upon him. He putteth his mouth in the dust if so be there may be hope. He giveth his cheek to him that smiteth him, he is filled full with reproach. The Lord will not cast off for ever; but though He cause grief, yet will He have compassion according to the multitude of His mercies. For He doth not afflict willingly nor grieve the children of men." Any thing more individual than these utterances it is impossible to conceive; and yet is just by these that one understands the sacerdotal work to which Jeremiah was called. There was no longer any temple. The priests as well as the princes had been for the most part carried away by Nebuchadnezzar. But there was a man walking about in the deserted city to which the twelve tribes had come up, in the midst of the ruins of the holy place into which the sons of Aaron had gone with the memorial of their names on their breast-plates, who really entered into the meaning XXVI.] THE PROPHET EXPLAINS THE PRIESTLY OFFICE. 451 of that function, who really bore the iniquities of the children of Israel before the Lord; one to whom it was given to translate the ceremonies and services of the divine house into life and reality. He had been taught more perfectly perhaps than any one who had served in the temple, what was implied in its worship and sacrifices. He felt the burden to which those sacrifices pointed, the burden of individual and national sins. Yet with that burden resting upon him, he could enter into the presence of the Holy One of Israel. He was sure there was a deliverance for his people as well as for himself, that there could not be one for him if there was not also one for them. Thus when part of his work was over, when he had nothing more to say in the ears of kings or priests or people, this office, which had been so closely connected with his prophetical office, and which if it had depended upon outward conditions, must have been more entirely at an end than that, still remained in all its original power. And the words of the prophet remain to explain to all generations the spiritual character and acts of the priest. The office of the priest must have seemed to be more utterly extinct for Ezekiel than even for Jeremiah. He was forcibly removed from all the associations of the temple while it was yet standing. When he was called to be a prophet to the captives by the river Chebar, he might have supposed that the earlier designation which belonged to him as one of the Levitical family, had been extinguished in the later one. Yet we have seen how he was instructed, at the very commencement of his work as a prophet, that the glory of Him who filled the temple was surrounding him in Mesopotamia as it surrounded him when he went up to present the morning or the evening sacrifice in Jerusalem. 450 HE IS THE PRIEST STILL. [Serm. chapter of the Lamentations, beginning "I am the man that hath seen affliction by the rod of His wrath," contains the climax of his experience. In the memorable passages which follow, the history of a life is gathered up. "I said, My strength and my hope is perished from the Lord; remembering mine affliction and my misery, the wormwood and the gall. My soul hath them still in remembrance. This I recall to mind, therefore have I hope. It is of the Lord's mercies that we are not consumed. They are new every morning; great is thy faithfulness. The Lord is my portion, saith my soul; therefore will I hope in Him. The Lord is good unto them that wait for Him. It is good that a man should both hope and quietly wait for the salvation of the Lord. It is good for a man that he bear the yoke in his youth. He sitteth alone and keepeth silence, because he hath borne it upon him. He putteth his mouth in the dust if so be there may be hope. He giveth his cheek to him that smiteth him, he is filled full with reproach. The Lord will not cast off for ever; but though He cause grief, yet will He have compassion according to the multitude of His mercies. For He doth not afflict willingly nor grieve the children of men.' Any thing more individual than these utterances it is impossible to conceive; and yet is just by these that one understands the sacerdotal work to which Jeremiah was called. There was no longer any temple. The priests as well as the princes had been for the most part carried away by Nebuchadnezzar. But there was a man walking about in the deserted city to which the twelve tribes had come up, in the midst of the ruins of the holy place into which the sons of Aaron had gone with the memorial of their names on their breast-plates, who really entered into the meaning XXVI.] THE PROPHET EXPLAINS THE PRIESTLY OFFICE. 451 of that function, who really bore the iniquities of the children of Israel before the Lord; one to whom it was given to translate the ceremonies and services of the divine house into life and reality. He had been taught more perfectly perhaps than any one who had served in the temple, what was implied in its worship and sacrifices. He felt the burden to which those sacrifices pointed, the burden of individual and national sins. Yet with that burden resting upon him, he could enter into the presence of the Holy One of Israel. He was sure there was a deliverance for his people as well as for himself, that there could not be one for him if there was not also one for them. Thus when part of his work was over, when he had nothing more to say in the ears of kings or priests or people, this office, which had been so closely connected with his prophetical office, and which if it had depended upon outward conditions, must have been more entirely at an end than that, still remained in all its original power. And the words of the prophet remain to explain to all generations the spiritual character and acts of the priest. The office of the priest must have seemed to be more utterly extinct for Ezekiel than even for Jeremiah. He was forcibly removed from all the associations of the temple while it was yet standing. When he was called to be a prophet to the captives by the river Chebar, he might have supposed that the earlier designation which belonged to him as one of the Levitical family, had been extinguished in the later one. Yet we have seen how he was instructed, at the very commencement of his work as a prophet, that the glory of Him who filled the temple was surrounding him in Mesopotamia as it surrounded him when he went up to present the morning or the evening sacrifice in Jerusalem. 452 THE SON OF MAN. [Serm. Such a vision was given him of that glory as he had never beheld in the holy place. He found that the earth—that common, profane, Babylonian earth upon which he dweltwas filled with it. All the powers of nature, the forms of animals, man as the highest of the animals, the motions and order of the outward world and of human society, were pointing towards it. And the central object, the highest object which he could behold, though there was an ineffable brightness beyond, was a Man upon a throne, One who could command him, in whose Name he was to go forth, whose words he was to speak. This was no isolated revelation or dream. The very name which the prophet thenceforth bore, the name by which he was to know himself, depended upon it. "Son of Man stand upon thy feet and I will speak unto thee," were the first words which he heard after he fell upon his face. That great title is bestowed upon him through all the time in which he was prophesying. It was in many ways more suitable to him than to those who had gone before him. There was now no Hezekiah or Josiah to represent—in some measure consciously to represent—the divine king. The witnesses for a kingdom seemed to be at an end. Nebuchadnezzar was the lord of the earth. At such a time the natural position of the Jewish seer became a human position. The Israelite's glory was to be a 'Son of Man.' Yet he was not absolved from any of the obligations of the older prophets; he was not to expect a more willing or attentive audience among captives than they had found at home; briars, thorns would be with him; he must dwell among scorpions. Lamentations and mourning and woe filled his roll as much as that which Baruch wrote out for Jeremiah. And he must eat this roll; it must become a |