ort on the other, of the term of earthly existence.
The promise of living long in the land, or, as in Hezekiah's case,
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 appearances, 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 anything: