In the 8th chapter of Ezekiel the Lord's prophet is shown the holy temple as the high court of wickedness, provoking Him to go away from His sanctuary! Seventy men, the ancients of Israel, wrought abominations with idol-worship, offering incense in thick clouds, every man in the chambers of his imagery, saying, "The Lord seeth us not; He hath forsaken the earth." The women, too, wept for Tammuz*; and between the porch and the altar, five-and-twenty men with their backs to the temple of Jehovah worshiped the sun:they filled the land with violence; they provoked Jehovah to wrath, and put the branch to their nose (as of sweet-smelling odor). *Obscene rites and practices accompanied its worship in Syria.* Disowned in the temple of His grace, the Lord announces to the prophet that He will deal in fury with the people, that His eye should not spare, neither would He have pity; yea, He would not hear them should they cry to Him with a loud voice!

Such was the crisis when, in the ninth chapter, the prophet, who had sought to walk with Him and to serve, is permitted to know what the Lord was about to do, and was used of the Lord to record before man the wonder of His dealings with men, as told us as follows:

"He cried also in mine ears with a loud voice, saying, Cause them that have charge over the city to draw near, even every man with his destroying weapon in his hand. And, behold, six men came from the way of the higher gate, which lieth toward the north, and every man a slaughter weapon in his hand; and one man among them was clothed with linen, with a writer's inkhorn by his side:and they went in, and stood beside the brazen altar. And the glory of the God of Israel was gone up from the cherub, whereupon he was, to the threshold of the house. And he called to the man clothed with linen, which had the writer's inkhorn by his side; and the Lord said unto him, Go through the midst of the city, through the midst of Jerusalem, and set a mark upon the foreheads of the men that sigh and that cry for all the abominations that be done in the midst thereof. And to the others he said in mine hearing, Go ye after him through the city, and smite:let not your eye spare, neither have ye pity:slay utterly old and young, both maids, and little children, and women:but come not near any man upon whom is the mark; and begin at my sanctuary. Then they began at the ancient men which were before the house. And he said unto them, Defile the house, and fill the courts with the slain:go ye forth. And they went forth, and slew in the city. And it came to pass, while they were slaying them, and I was left, that I fell upon my face, and cried, and said, Ah Lord God! wilt thou destroy all the residue of Israel in thy pouring out of thy fury upon Jerusalem? Then said he unto me, The iniquity of the house of Israel and Judah is exceeding great, and the land is full of blood, and the city full of perverseness:for they say, The Lord hath forsaken the earth, and the Lord seeth not. And as for me also, mine eye shall not spare, neither will I have pity, but I will recompense their way upon their head. And, behold, the man clothed with linen, which had the inkhorn by his side, reported the matter, saying, I have done as thou hast commanded me."

The judgment-holy and just, yet little when compared with the sin-was about to be poured out:they that should execute it stood ready to do so, but grace stayed the blow till inquisition had been made for those who, in the scene, had separated themselves from the evil-such must be marked for preservation. And by what was their separation marked? "They sighed and cried for all the abominations that were wrought around them." The distinctive mark was not, "Those who have not done likewise," nor, "Who have done their utmost against such sins," but "that sigh and that cry for all the abominations that be done in the midst thereof." It is remarkable! It points to a similarity of spirit with the Lord when decreeing judgment.

The Spirit of an insulted, despised God, about to take judgment in wrath will, as in any one who has the mind of the Lord in the midst of the doomed scene, oft sigh and cry for all the abominations that are done around them. Our blessed Lord wept over Jerusalem:"He beheld the city, and wept over it, saying, If thou hadst known, even thou, at least in this thy day, the things that belong unto thy peace! but now they are hid from thine eyes."

Ten righteous persons in the city would have saved the city where Lot dwelt. And when it was destroyed, the Lord remembered Abraham, and saved Lot and his two daughters out of it; while a tremendous judgment on his wife marked the value of implicit obedience upon an escaping people. In this chapter 9, while the Lord said He would have no pity, and charged those that executed the sentence, "Let not your eye spare, neither have ye pity:slay utterly old and young….and begin at my sanctuary," yet they that had the mark upon them were to be spared in the time of judgment-those that sighed and that cried at those abominations.

The prophet's zeal and love for the people on earth that bear the name of the Lord, led him, on receiving the revelation, to a kindred expression:"And it came to pass, while they were slaying them, and I was left, that I fell upon my face, and cried, and said, Ah, Lord God! wilt Thou destroy all the residue of Israel in the pouring out of thy fury upon Jerusalem?"

And if that which bears upon it the Lord's name in our day is looked upon by us in any sense as the Lord's house, or as responsible for His glory, have we such hearts to "sigh and cry" for the worldliness, carnality, and idolatry found in it? Have we such loving hearts as to fall on our faces and intercede for it, that the moldering and crumbling which is going on in it might be stayed? If we talk of it as the "great house," morally incapable of meeting the Lord's claims, we may yet tax our own hearts with the questions, Do I indeed sigh and cry for such a state, and for such in it that are dear to God? Do I love the members of Christ's Body, the Church, and intercede for them amid the desolations around?

No hard spirit of judging others, no using of the light of prophecy for self-exaltation and contempt of others, are consistent with such a position. Entire separation from evil (from the spirit as well as the practice of it) is imperative. It is but self-preservative, when the Lord's judgments are in hand:but if we have Christ's spirit, while we purge ourselves from all idolatry (1 John 5:23)-while we seek to bring every high and lofty imagination into captivity to Christ (2 Cor. 10:4)-while we guard with all .anxiety against man's evil doings, let the heart be free to pour forth earnest affections and feelings as were our Lord's in His day. I feel greatly we are not sufficiently clear from evil in our own selves to have the full display of the broken spirit of the sigher and cryer, nor the zeal of the servant of the Lord.

J. G. Bellett in "The Present Testimony."