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"Then followed the great day of Protestantism when creeds and denominations sprang up in every direction and upon many pretenses. God's sheep were scattered and divided, as it was foretold in Ezek. 34:11-25. The true church of Jesus Christ was lost sight of. It was spoken of as the invisible church, while the denominations were the visible churches.
The Publican durst not be his own mediator; he knew he had a blemish, and was infirm, and therefore he stands back; for he knew that it was none of him that his God had chosen to come near unto him, to offer "the fat and the blood;" Ezek. xliv. 13-15.
James to the closing years of the first century A.D.; for its writer, in his account of the Flood, has actually used Ezek. xiv. 12 ff. in order to elaborate the divine speech in Gen. viii. 21 f. And therefore I will not again destroy together all living as I have done.
Secondly, Ezekiel’s temple and city are very large and capacious, as I showed in the beginning; and the city had three gates looking toward each of the four quarters of the world, Ezek. xlviii. 31-34: all this to signify the spreading of the gospel into all the earth; which is also signified by the holy waters issuing from the threshold of the temple, and rising so high that they were waters to swim in, Ezek. xlvii. 1, 5.
And Ezek. xliv, 10: "And the Levites that are gone away far from me, when Israel went astray, which went astray away from me after their idols, they shall even bear their iniquity;" v. 13: "And they shall not come near unto me, to do the office of a priest unto me, nor to come near to any of my holy things, in the most holy place; but they shall bear their shame, and their abominations which they have committed."
Jesus answers this question once for all in Matthew 15:19, 20: 'For out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies. It is the heart that sins; 'the soul that sinneth, it shall die, says the prophet Ezekiel in Ezek. 18:4.
Doth he not here, by the lost sheep, mean the poor publican? plenty of whom, while he preached this sermon, were there, as objects of the Pharisees' scorn, but of the pity and compassion of Jesus Christ: he did without doubt mean them. For, pray, what was the flock, and who Christ's sheep under the law, but the house and people of Israel? Ezek. xxxiv. 11.
In a word, such was the political condition of the Strangers, that the Jewish polity offered a virtual bounty, to such as would become permanent servants, and thus secure those privileges already enumerated, and for their children in the second generation a permanent inheritance. Ezek. xlvii. 21-23. None but the monied aristocracy would be likely to decline such offers.
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