The weight of this probability is greatly enhanced by the consideration, that the earlier and principal agencies and instrumentalities by which those doctrines and that faith had been maintained were discontinued prior to the deportation of the Jews and the destruction of their temple, and were never afterwards renewed. For, previous to these events, Jehovah in the similitude of man, radiant in appearance as the brightness of amber and of fire, appeared to Ezekiel at his place of exile, and in vision transported him to Jerusalem. And having exhibited to his astonished gaze the utter desecration of every part of the temple by the most impious and loathsome abominations of idolatry; and having notified him of the tokens by which the remnant of true worshippers was to be discriminated, and how they were to be preserved; and predicted that restoration which is yet future; and shown for his own conviction and that of the captives on his report to them, the grounds and reasons of his righteous judgments upon the rest; and finally having passed from the interior of the temple to the threshold, and assumed the glorious form, with the cherubic accompaniments, in which he had appeared by the river of Chebar, (chap. i.,) "he departed from off the threshold of the house, and," in the sight of the prophet, "mounted up from, the earth," and afterwards "went up from the midst of the city," (rather, from over the city,) "and stood upon the mountain which is on the east side of the city." "So," adds Ezekiel, "the vision that I had seen went up from me." Ezekiel, chap. viii.--xi. Ezekiel was one of the captives carried to Babylon with Jehoiachin, B. C. 600. Jehoiachin was the last who in due succession sat on the throne of David. He was deposed by Nebuchadnezzar, who placed Zedekiah on the throne as his own viceroy and vassal. No one of the family of David ever afterwards reigned over Judah. The theocratic viceroyalty ceased; the temporal kingdom of the house of David was dissolved. Jehovah, being rejected by his covenant people, and idolatry substituted for his worship, forsook his temple, discontinued his former theocratic relation, ceased to manifest himself in the Shekina, and turned to execute wrath upon Judah and Israel for their idolatrous abominations, and upon the surrounding nations whose idols they worshipped, and by whom they had been seduced and oppressed. This signal procedure was the sequel of many clear and emphatic predictions, and a long course of discipline tending to restrain the whole house of Israel, and more especially the house of Judah, from total apostasy and alienation; and its occurrence is distinctly noted by the prophets.