of adding to his days fifteen years, is very different from the
full and unreserved blessing, "Thou shalt surely live." And we know,
undoubtedly, that both the good and the bad to whom Ezekiel spoke, died
alike the natural death of the body. But the peculiar force of the
promise, and of the threat, was, in the one case, Thou shalt belong to
God; in the other, Thou shalt cease to belong to him; although the veil
was not yet drawn up which concealed the full import of those terms,
"belonging to God," and "ceasing to belong to him:" nay, can we venture
to affirm that it is fully drawn aside even now?

I have dwelt on this at some length, because it really seems to place
the common state of the minds of too many amongst us in a light which is
exceedingly awful; for if it be true, as I think the Scripture implies,
that to be dead, and to be without God, are precisely the same thing,
then can it be denied, that the symptoms of death are strongly marked
upon many of us? Are there not many who never think of God, or care
about his service? Are there not many who live, to all appearance, as
unconscious of his existence as we fancy the inferior animals to be? And
is it not quite clear, that to such persons, God cannot be said to be
their God? He may be the God of heaven and earth, the God of the
universe, the God of Christ's church; but he is not their God, for they
feel to have nothing at all to do with him; and, therefore, as he is not
their God, they are, and must be, according to the Scripture, reckoned
among the dead.

But God is the God "of the living." That is, as before, all who are
alive, live unto him; all who live unto him, are alive. "God said, I am
the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob;" and,
therefore, says our Lord, "Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, are not and
cannot be dead." They cannot be dead, because God owns them: he is not
ashamed to be called their God; therefore, they are not cast out from
him; therefore, by necessity, they live. Wonderful, indeed, is the truth
here implied, in exact agreement, as we have seen, with the general
language of Scripture; that, as she who but touched the hem of Christ's
garment was, in a moment, relieved from her infirmity, so great was the
virtue which went out from him; so they who are not cast out from God,
but have any thing whatever to do with him, feel the virtue of his
gracious presence penetrating their whole nature; because he lives, they
must