Standard Jet DBnb` Ugr@?~1y0̝cßFNa7M(,`{6 ߱nC753y[j/|*|eaf_Љ$g'DeFx -bT4.0dv Y S  Y   Y Y  Y Y  Y  Y  Y   Y  Y  Y  Y  Y 2Y  Y   Y  Y ConnectDatabaseDateCreateDateUpdate FlagsForeignNameIdLvLvExtraLvModule LvPropName OwnerParentIdRmtInfoLongRmtInfoShortTypeYYIdParentIdName        OYS Y Y Y  Y 2ACMFInheritableObjectIdSID  AtYObjectId YSY  Y Y Y  Y  Y Y  Y AttributeExpressionFlagLvExtra Name1 Name2ObjectId Ordernzf edY"ObjectIdAttribute -YSY Y Y  Y  Y  Y  Y  Y ccolumn grbiticolumnszColumnszObject$szReferencedColumn$szReferencedObjectszRelationship   YYYszObject$szReferencedObjectszRelationshipYv1b N  : k & W  C t/ @@X  @@OJmJLJkQkiQ^JmYdbkWYfkmJL^Qk`kvkJMQk`kvkdL[QMmk`kvkhoQiYQk`kvkiQ^JmYdbkWYfkmdfYMbdmQk`kvkOL  @~  @ @P P P P P PPPPPPPPPPPPP      d k f  _@_@Topic Notesq@QDDD88888886 @R,_@R,_@MSysRelationshipspDDDDDDDDDDB R,_@R,_@MSysQueriesp88888888886 R,_@R,_@MSysACEsp22222222220 R,_@R,_@MSysObjectsp88888888886 R,_@R,_@MSysDbq.........., R,_@R,_@Relationshipsp<<<<<<<<<<: R,_@R,_@Databasesp44444444442 R,_@R,_@Tablesp.........., jYNY Y d YID TitleCommentsNOYYIDPrimaryKeyHv1b@?LVAL^{\rtf1\ansi\deff0{\fonttbl{\f0\froman\fprq2\fcharset0 Georgia;}{\f1\fnil\fcharset0 Georgia;}} {\colortbl ;\red0\green0\blue0;} {\*\generator Riched20 5.40.11.2210;}\viewkind4\uc1\pard\sb120\sa120\lang1033\b\f0\fs24 SCRIPTURE CHARACTERS. \line\b0 BY ROBERT S. CANDLISH, D.D., \line FREE ST. GEORGE'S, EDINBURGH. \line LONDON: T. NELSON AND SONS, PATERNOSTER ROW \line EDINBURGH; AND NEW YORK. \par CONTENTS. \par I. The Universal Characteristic" and He Died " 1 \par II. Eli His Heart Trembled For the Ark of God Part I. 21 \par III. Eli a Godly Man Trembling For the Ark of God Part II. 43 \par IV. Eli a Godly Man Trembling For the Ark of God Part III. 61 \par V. The Long-Suffering of God Example in the Case of an Impenitent Sinner Character of Ahab 74 \par VI. The Forbearance of God in the Case of the Righteous Character of Jehoshaphat 101 \par VII. Herod Weakness Growing Into Wickedness On the Character of Herod, Tetrarch of Galilee . 123 \par VIII. Herod an Example of " World\rquote Sorrow Working Death" 143 \par IX. Herod an Example of an Alleged Necessity of Sinning 166 \par X. Peter His General Character Its Strength and Weakness 187 \par XI. Peter the Trial, Infirmity, and Triumph of His Faith 201 \par XII. Martha and Mary Part I. Their Common Grief . 217 \par XIII. Martha and Mary Part II. Their Different Kinds of Grief, and the Lord's Different Ways of Dealing With Them . '231 \par XIV. The Friendship of Peter and John Part I. 244 \par XV. The Friendship of Peter and John Part II. 259 \par XVI. Mary Magdalene With Peter and John at the Sepulchre . 276 \par XVII. The Spirit of God Striving With Man Pontius Pilate Judging the Lord Christ . 297 \par XVIII. The Wicked Taken in Their Own Net Pontius Pilate Dealing With the Jews . 320 \par XIX. The Case of Pilate a Warning Against Resisting the Spirit 339 \par INTRODUCTORY NOTE. \par \pard IT is not mere affectation that makes me avoid the use of the title \ldblquote Sermons\rdblquote in designating the following papers. \par \LVALpar Nearly all of them were, in point of fact, written and delivered as pulpit discourses, either in the course of the Author's ordinary ministry or on particular occasions; and they will doubtless be found to bear the usual marks of compositions intended rather to be heard than to be read. \par \par But I would not wish them to be regarded as fair specimens of what I think the preaching of the gospel to a congregation, from Sabbath to Sabbath, ought to be. Not inadmissible at intervals, for the sake of variety not inconsistent with evangelical doctrine, or incapable of a practical application they are still not altogether what one would call \ldblquote gospel sermons.\rdblquote At all events, I prefer that they should be judged by a somewhat more flexible and accommodating standard than I might myself apply to compositions professing to be the utterances of ambassadors for Christ, in the direct discharge of their commission, beseeching men to be reconciled to God. \par \par \par iv INTRODUCTORY NOTE. \par \par For the very miscellaneous character of the volume some apology is due. A slight thread of connection may perhaps be traced in certain portions of it; and one or two subjects are pretty fully discussed. But for the most part, the papers are but desultory and fragmentary essays; suggesting topics of inquiry, rather than exhausting them; and neither fitted nor intended to demonstrate any one truth, or series of truths, in the system of Theological or Moral Science. On this account I have hesitated much about obtruding them on general notice, and I even suspended the publication for a considerable time. Circumstances, however, of no interest to the community, have led me to complete the work and consent to its issue. \par \par And such as it is, it may be welcome and useful to friendly readers. \par \par Some of the papers have appeared in print before. \par \par They have undergone, however, such revision often amounting almost to rewriting that I can scarcely plead guilty to any  LVALcharge of plagiarism from myself. I have endeavoured to present them in a form more worthy of preservation than the hasty publication of most of the.m at the time permitted. \par \par I could have wished that, in appearing thus before the public, I had had a better reason to give for printing a book than the usual apologies which, if I chose, I might adopt. Had it been a treatise more evidently called for by the times, or more directly bearing upon the defence \par \par INTRODUCTORY NOTE. V \par \par of divine truth, the interests of society, or the advancement of scriptural knowledge, I might have been more justified in hazarding the publication. But let it pass. \par \par And, such as it is, may a blessing from on high accompany it!\par \par \par EDINBUBGH, 23d May 1860. \par \par PREFATORY NOTE \par \par NEW EDITION OF SCRIPTURE CHARACTERS. \par \par I HAVE been advised to publish the SCRIPTURE CHARACTERS \par in a separate form by themselves, reserving the MISCELLANIES for another volume. This accordingly is now done. \par \par A chronological arrangement also of the Characters is now, as far as practicable, adopted. The articles have undergone careful revision and correction; but no material change has been made as to their substance. \par \par EDINBUKGH, April 1857. \par \pard\sb120\sa120\par \par \par \pard\cf1\lang2058\f1\fs23\par } FR V ' 5 G [e19 Case of Pilate Warning Against Resisting Spirit~5^vj18 Wicked Taken in Their Own Net Pontius Pilate%^pd17 Spirit of God Striving With Man Pontius Pilate,^th16 Mary Magdalene With Peter & John at Sepulchre^rf15 The Friendship of Peter and John Part IIR^h\14 The Friendship of Peter and John Part I^fZ13 Martha & Mary Part II. Different Kinds of Grief^vj 12 Martha and Mary Part I. Their Common Grief^l` 11 Peter Trial, Infirmity, & Triumph of His FaithV^th 10 Peter General Character, Strength & Weakness^pd 09 Herod ... Alleged Necessity of Sinning^dX 08 Herod an Example of World Sorrow Working Death1^vj07 Herod Weakness Growing Into Wickedness }^dX06 Forbearance of God Jehoshaphat$j^TH05 Long-Suffering of God... Impenitent Sinner AhabhS^vj04 Eli His Heart Trembled For Ark of God Part IIIhH^th03 Eli His Heart Trembled For Ark of God Part II9^rf02 Eli His Heart Trembled For Ark of God Part I'&^pd01 The Universal Characteristic and He Diedx ^h\00 Scripture Characters*^@4LVAL^{\rtf1\ansi\deff0{\fonttbl{\f0\froman\fprq2\fcharset0 Georgia;}{\f1\fnil\fcharset0 Georgia;}} {\colortbl ;\red0\green128\blue0;\red0\green0\blue0;} {\*\generator Riched20 5.40.11.2210;}\viewkind4\uc1\pard\sb120\sa120\lang1033\f0\fs24 SCRIPTURE CHARACTERS. \par THE UNIVERSAL CHARACTERISTIC " AND HE DIED." \par GEN. 5: 5, 8, 11, 14, &c. \par "And Joseph died, and all his brethren, and all that generation." \cf1\ul Exo_1:6\cf0\ulnone . \par \pard THE succession of generations among the children of men has been, from Homer downwards, likened to that of the leaves among the trees of the forest. The foliage of one summer, withering gradually away, and strewing the earth with its wrecks, has its place supplied by the exuberance of the following spring. Of the countless myriads of gay blossoms and green leaves, that but a few months ago were glancing in the beams of the joyous sun, not one remains; but a new race, all full of brightness and promise as before, covers the naked branches, and the woods again burst forth in beauty and song, as if decay had never passed over any of their leafy boughs. So of men: \ldblquote One generation passeth away, and another generation cometh, but the earth abideth for ever\rdblquote (Ecc 1:4), the same to the new generation that cometh the same A \par \par 2 THE UNIVERSAL CHARACTERISTIC \par \par scene of weary labour, endless vanity, alternate hope and disappointment as if no warning of change had ever been given as if the knell of death had never rung over the generation that is passing away. \par \par But there is one point in which the analogy does not hold, there is one difference between the race of leaves and the race of men: Between the leaves of successive summers an interval of desolation intervenes, and \ldblquote the bare and wintry woods\rdblquote emphatically mark the passage from one season to another. But there is no such pause in the succession of the generations of men. Insensibly they melt and shade into one another: an old man dies, and a cLVALhild is born; daily and hourly there is a death and a birth; and imperceptibly, by slow degrees, the actors in life's busy scene are changed. Hence the full force of this thought \ldblquote One generation passeth away, and another generation cometh\rdblquote is not ordinarily felt. \par \par Let us conceive, however, of such a blank in the succession of generations as winter makes in the succession of leaves. Let us take our stand on some middle ground in the stream of history, where there is, as it were, a break or a void between one series of events and another, where the whole tide of life in the preceding narrative is engulfed and swallowed up, and the new stream has not begun to flow. Such a position we have in some of the strides which sacred history makes over many intervening years, from the crisis or catastrophe of one of the world's dramas to the opening of another: as, for instance, in the transition from the going down of Israel into Egypt in the days of Joseph, to their coming out again \par \par \ldblquote AND HE DIED.\rdblquote 3 \par \par in the time of Moses. Here is a dreary vacancy, as of a leafless winter, coming in between the scene in which Joseph and his contemporaries bore so conspicuous a part, and another scene in which not one of the former actors remained upon the stage, but \ldblquote there arose up a new king over Egypt, which knew not Joseph\rdblquote And the historian seems to be aware of the solemnity of this pause, when, dismissing the whole subject of his previous narrative, he records the end of all in these brief but most suggestive words, \ldblquote And Joseph died, and all his brethren, and all that generation' \par \par The first view of this verse that occurs to us is its striking significance and force as a commentary on the history of which it so abruptly and emphatically announces the close. The previous narrative presents to us a busy scene an animated picture; and here, as if by one single stroke, all is reduced to a blank. But now we saw a cLVALrowded mass of human beings men of like passions with ourselves moving and mingling in the eager excitement of personal, domestic, and public interests, like our own. They were all earnest in their own pursuits; and the things of their day were to them as momentous as those of our day are to us. They thought, and felt, and acted, and suffered; they were harassed by cares and agitated by passions; and, their restless energies contending with the resistless vicissitudes of fortune, the very earth they trod seemed instinct with life and the stern struggles and activities of life when, lo! as by the touch of a magic spell, or the sudden turn of the hidden wheel, \par \par 4 THE UNIVERSAL CHARACTERISTIC \par \par the whole thronged and congregated multitude is gone, like the pageant of a dream, and the awful stillness of desolation reigns. It is as if having gazed on ocean when it bears on its broad bosom a gallant and wellmanned fleet bending gracefully to its rising winds, and triumphantly stemming its swelling waves you looked out again, and at the very next glance beheld the wide waste of waters reposing in dark and horrid peace over the deep-buried wrecks of the recent storm. All the earth, inhabited by the men with whose joys and sorrows we have been sympathizing Egypt, with its proud pyramids and palaces Goshen, with its quiet pastoral homes the rich land of Canaan the tented deserts of Ishmael all passes in a moment from our view; and there is before us, instead, a place of tombs, one vast city of silent death Joseph is dead, and all his brethren, and all that generation. \par \par What an obituary is here! What a chronicle of mortality! how comprehensive, yet withal how precise and particular beginning with a particular intimation, and then swelling out into the most wide-sweeping and wholesale generality of announcement! In the first instance, the name is given \ldblquote Joseph died;\rdblquote as if the intention were to enumerate in detail the whole. But the number grows and accumulates LVALtoo fast his brethren also died. These too might in part be specified Reuben, Simeon, Levi, and Judah Issachar, Zebulun, and Benjamin Dan and Naphtali Gad and Asher. But already the family branches out beyond the limits of easy computation, and all around there stands a mighty multitude, which arithmetic is too slow to reckon, and the pen of the ready \par \par \ldblquote AND HE DIED.\rdblquote 5 \par \par writer too impatient to register, and the record too small to contain; and all must, without name or remark, be summed up in the one indiscriminating notice a notice all the more emphatical on that very account \ldblquote Joseph died, and all his brethren, and all that generation.\rdblquote \ldblquote And all that generation:\rdblquote How many thousands does this phrase embrace? and of how many thousands is this the sole monument and memorial? How startling a force is there in this awful brevity, this compression and abridgement the names and histories of millions brought within the compass of so brief a statement of a single fact concerning them that they all died! And these were men as alive as we are to the bustle of their little day as full of schemes and speculations as much wrapt up in their own concerns and the cares of the times in which they lived. Each one of them could have filled volumes with details of actions and adventures too important in his eyes to be ever forgotten; and yet all that is told of them in this divine record, and told of them as of an uncounted and undistinguished mass, is, that they all died. Or, if any particular individual has been selected for especial notice; if any one, by the leading of Providence, and by his own worth, has gained in this record an undying name; and if he has collected a small circle around him, who dimly and doubtfully stand out in his light and lustre, and are not quite lost in the common crowd; still, he to whom prominence is given, and they who partly share his exemption from oblivion, are singled out only that they may be the bettLVALer seen to have their part in the one event which happeneth alike to all; and \par \par 6 THE UNIVEKSAL CHARACTERISTIC \par \par for each and all the same summary form of dismissal suffices, \ldblquote And Joseph died, and all his brethren, and all that generation\rdblquote \par \par Surely it seems as if the Lord intended by this bill of mortality for a whole race, which his own Spirit has framed, to stamp as with a character of utter mockery and insignificance the most momentous distinctions and interests of time; these all being engulfed and swallowed up in the general doom of death, which ushers in the one distinction of eternity. \par \par I. Let us ponder the announcement as it respects the individual, \ldblquote Joseph died\rdblquote Let us carry this intimation back with us into the various changes of his eventful life, invested as these are in our recollection with a peculiar charm by the affectionate associations and the fresh feelings of childhood. Does not the intimation impart to them all a still more touching and tender interest? We see Joseph a child a boy a youth at home the favourite of a widowed father the first pledge of a love now hallowed by death. We follow him with full sympathy through the petty plots and snares of a divided family, to which his frank and unsuspecting simplicity made him an easy prey; and when we think of him as even then, in boyhood, honoured by direct communications from above, and on that very account persecuted and hated by those who naturally should have cherished and watched over him; when we read of his unsuspecting readiness to meet them half way in their plans against him, and of the desperate malignity of these plans the cruel deceit \par \par \ldblquote AND HE DIED.\rdblquote 7 \par \par practised on his aged parent, and his own narrow escape, his providential deliverance; are we not touched by the reflection, that all this is but to lead to the brief conclusion, \ldblquote Joseph died\rdblquote ? We accompany him to Egypt. \par \pLVALar We go with him into Potiphar's house, and rejoice in his advancement there. We share in his disgrace and degradation. Joseph in prison is to us like an old familiar friend. His innocence, his unsullied honour to his deceived master, his unshaken loyalty to his God, endear him to our hearts, and we burn with indignation at the wrongs he suffers. The dreams which he interpreted, the chief baker's fate, the chief butler's fault, all the particulars, in short, of his exaltation to royal favour his rank at Pharaoh's court, his power over all Egypt, his policy in providing for the years of famine, his treatment of his father and his father's house these circumstances in his history, the history which first ' won our heart in childhood, and longest retains its hold over us in age these things give to the earthly career of Joseph an attractiveness and beauty in our fond esteem, equalling, nay, far surpassing, what we have ever found in any of the pictures of romance. \par \par It may not be pleasant to cast over all this stirring picture the sullen gloom of death; yet it does invest it all with a sort of softened and twilight charm, like the peaceful shades of evening shed over a busy landscape; and it teaches, at al] events, a salutary lesson, to bear in mind, that prominent as was the station which Joseph occupied in his day, famous through all ages as his name has become, great and lasting as were the fruits of his measures \par \par \par 8 THE UNIVERSAL CHARACTERISTIC \par \par after he was gone, touching not the Israelites alone, but Egypt and all the world he himself had to go the way of all flesh. His trials, with their many aggravations his triumphs, with all their glories were alike brief and evanescent; and his eventful career ended, as the obscurest and most common-place lifetime must end for \ldblquote Joseph died.\rdblquote \par \par \par Read over again the history of Joseph with this running title, this continual motto, \ldblquote And Joseph died.\rdblquote Call before your minLVALd's eye its successive scenes; and as one by one they pass in review before you, and you gaze on the man of so many changes, let a loud voice ever and Canon ring in your ears the knell, \ldblquote And Joseph died.\rdblquote \par \par And try how this startling alarum will affect the judgment which you form and the emotions which you feel. \par \par Take each event by itself isolate it, separate it from all the rest, bring it at once into immediate contact with the event which closes all and see how it looks in the /light, or in the lurid shade, of the tomb. \par \par Joseph is at home, the idol of a fond parent. Ah!\par \par dote not, thou venerable sire, on thy fair and dutiful child. Remember how soon it may be said of him, and how certainly it must be said of him, that \ldblquote Joseph died.\rdblquote \par \par Joseph is lost, and the aged father is disconsolate. He thinks of his son's bright promise, and of all that he might have been, had he been for a season spared. But grieve not, thou grey-haired patriarch. What though thy child has gone ere he has won life's empty prizes? Ah!\par \par think, though he had been left to win them all, how it must have come speedily to the same issue at the last, \par \par \par \par \ldblquote AND HE DIED. 9 \par \par and it must have been said of him that \ldblquote Joseph died.\rdblquote \par \par Joseph is in trouble betrayed, persecuted, distressed, wounded in his tenderest feelings, a stranger among strangers, a prisoner, a slave. But let him not be disquieted above measure, nor mourn over the loss of his prosperity. It will be all one to him when a few years are gone, and the end comes. It is but a little while, and it shall be said of him that \ldblquote Joseph died.\rdblquote Joseph is exalted he is high in wealth, in honour, and in power. \par \par He is restored to his father he is reconciled to his brethren. But why should all his glory and his joy elate him? It will be nothing to him soon when it comes to be said of him LVALthat \ldblquote Joseph died.\rdblquote Ah! there is but one of Joseph's many distinctions, whether of character or of fortune, that does not shrink and shrivel beside this stern announcement. The simplicity of his trust iii God, the steadfastness of his adherence to truth and holiness, the favour of Heaven, his charity out of a pure heart and a good conscience and faith unfeigned these will stand the shock of collision with this record of his decease. \par \par And the one bright thought on which chiefly we love to rest when we read this record is, that he of whom we learn the tidings that he is dead, is the same Joseph whom we have heard uttering, under strong temptation, the noble sentiment, \ldblquote How can I do this great wickedness, and sin against God?\rdblquote the same Joseph of whom we have read in prison, that \ldblquote the Lord was with him, and showed him mercy \rdblquote the same Joseph whom we have seen in Pharaoh's presence disclaiming all personal credit, and giving glory to God alone \ldblquote It is not in me; God \par \par ] THE UNIVERSAL CHARACTERISTIC \par \par shall give Pharaoh an answer of peace;\rdblquote the same Joseph who has spoken so kindly to his father and his brethren, soothing his father's death-bed with the promise that he shall indeed, as he so fondly wishes, lie with his sires in the promised land, \ldblquote I will do as thou hast said;\rdblquote and relieving, with exquisite delicacy, the troubled consciences of his brethren, \ldblquote Fear not; ye thought evil against me, but God meant it unto good; I will nourish you and your little ones;\rdblquote and finally, the same Joseph who is found strong in faith when the hour of his own departure comes, hoping against hope, \ldblquote making mention of the departing of the children of Israel, and giving commandment concerning his bones,\rdblquote saying, \ldblquote God will surely visit you, and ye shall carry up my bones from hence.' \par \par Yes, it is something to learn that it is such aLVAL man; one who fears to offend against God, who trusts in His mercy, and who glorifies Him before kings; one, moreover, so dutiful to his father, so generous and forgiving to his brethren; and one, in fine, so firm in faith to the last, and so joyful in hope of the inheritance of God; it is something to learn that it is such an one, that it is Joseph, who is dead. There is comfort in the news that Joseph died. \ldblquote The righteous is taken away from the evil to come\rdblquote \ldblquote Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord\rdblquote So \ldblquote Joseph died\rdblquote \par \par II. \ldblquote And all his brethren.\rdblquote They too all died, and the vicissitudes of their family history came to an end in the silent tomb. That family history has its scenes \par \par \ldblquote AND HE DIED.\rdblquote 11 \par \par of tenderness and of trouble, of pathos and of passion, like other family histories before and since scenes of similar though surpassing interest; and do not all these scenes derive a new interest and new significance from* so solemn an intimation of death at the close? The actors in these scenes, the members of this family, would surely have thought and felt far otherwise than they did, had they reflected always how soon the time would come when, of all their joys and sorrows, their jealousies and heartburnings, their rivalries and resentments, their feuds and reconciliations, their sins and their sufferings when of all these the simple and solitary record would be, that \ldblquote Joseph died, and all his brethren.\rdblquote Ah! how intimately should this reflection have knit them together in unity of interest, of affection, and of aim! The tie of a common origin is scarcely stronger or closer than the tie of a common doom. That they were all born in the same father's house is an argument of love that is greatly heightened and enhanced by the consideration, that soon it may and must be said of them that they are all gone to the same resting-place of the tomb. \par \par LVAL The graves of a household, as they are dug one by one; the breaches in the little circle of home, made singly and in detail, as one and then another dear member is called away; these are very impressive to you who remain, and stamp with a new character in your estimate all the intercourse which you have been wont to have. When individuals of a family depart, ah! does it not compel the survivors to review the past in a new light, and to think alas! often in what bitterness of soul on what terms, \par \par 1 2 THE UNIVERSAL CHARACTERISTIC \par \par and for what objects and ends, they have for long years been living together? The friend, the beloved brother who has gone, has acquired, by his death, new value in your esteem a new and sacred claim to your regard. \par \par Now for the first time you discover how dear he should have been, how dear he was, to your hearts dearer far than you had ever thought. How fondly do you dwell on all his attractions and excellencies! How do his faults and failings fade away from your eyes! And oh!\par \par with what a pang, and with what poignancy of grief, does the wounded soul brood over any passages of unkindness, any instances of neglect! How frivolous are all former causes of misunderstanding, all excuses for indifference, now seen to be! Death has stamped upon them all a character of most absolute insignificance; and bitter almost beyond endurance is the idea now, that for the sake of such trifles and vanities as are all the things of earth that breed coldness and suspicion among brethren, you have in any degree lost or wasted the season of friendly and familiar communion, so precious and so soon to close. \par \par How cheerfully would you give your all, if you could recall the lost one but for a day, or for an hour, that you might unburden your heavy heart, and exchange anew forgiveness and affection! With what warmth would you now meet, with what fulness of confidence and love would you embrace, him whom but yesterday, perhaps, you carelessly overlooLVAL ked or cruelly offended! Would that you had known then how soon and how suddenly death was to claim him as ite victim! Ah! you would have better improved the time of his remaining with you. \par \par \par \ldblquote AND HE DIED\rdblquote 13 \par \par You would not have omitted so many opportunities of cultivating and enjoying his intimacy. You would not have delayed from day to day your purposes of kindness. \par \par You would not have been so readily and so frequently estranged from him. You would not have suspected, or envied, or provoked, or wounded him, as you have done. \par \par You would not have consulted so habitually your own selfish inclinations, or sought your own selfish ends, or indulged your own selfish passions. And, above all, you would not, in your dealings with him, have so exclusively regarded the things of time/ and so grievously neglected ^ \par \par the things of eternity. Ah! you would not have met so often, and so soften parted, without one sentence or one mutual thought of godliness interchanged between you. \par \par You would have spoken more faithfully; you would have conversed and communed on the things that belong to your peace. You would have wept over sin together, and praised the love of the Saviour together, and prayed together, and joined together in works of faith and labours of love. Your reserve would have been far more completely laid aside, and God would have been far more fully acknowledged, and a \ldblquote word in season\rdblquote would have been uttered, and something, it may be, perilous to the soul of a dying sinner would have been left unsaid, if, when you last saw and conversed with your brother, you had had the slightest idea that he was so speedily to go to his long home. \par \par And does this consideration lose its force when, by such a sentence as that before us, the members of a family are not, as it were, individually and one by one, but alto\par \par 14 THE UNIVERSAL CHARACTERISTIC \par \par gether, and in one sweeping sumLVAL!mons, called to pass from the shadows of time to the dread realities of the eternal world? Is there not an awful voice to families in this short, solemn note of death \ldblquote Joseph died, and all his brethren\rdblquote ? \ldblquote With their loves and hatreds, their fears and hopes, their family affections, such as they were, their family sins they are all gone from this earth, and the place that once knew them knows them no more. And whither are they gone? And what are their views now, and what their feelings, on the matters which formed the subject of their familiar intercourse here? Are they united in the region of blessedness above? Are they formed again into a society in heaven, more happy and more stable than was their household on earth Joseph and his brethren, the beloved Benjamin and the aged Jacob, all met in joy, to part no more for ever? Or is there a fearful separation, and are there some of their number on the other side of the great gulf, vainly regretting the time when they would not cast in their lot with those who were faithful to their father's God? We dare not raise the curtain, or gaze even in imagination on the mysterious secrets of the invisible state. It is enough that they are all dead, and have left the many things about which they were careful, and have all now at last learned the lesson \ldblquote One thing is needful.\rdblquote \par \par would to God that the anticipation of the time when, concerning us and those with whom we are dwelling together in families, the final and summary record shall be, that we are dead and all our brethren, were sufficient to teach us that lesson now, ere it be too late! that \par \par \ldblquote AND HE DIED\rdblquote 15 \par \par God himself would persuade us now so to cultivate the charities of home, in the spirit and the hope of heaven, that to us and our brethren may be applied, in their highest and holiest and happiest sense, the words of David's lamentation over the father and son who fell together in the fight \ldblquote LVAL"They were lovely and pleasant in their lives, and in their death they were not divided! \ldblquote So \ldblquote Joseph died, and all his brethren\rdblquote \par \par III. \ldblquote And all that generation\rdblquote The tide of mortality rolls on in a wider stream. It sweeps into the one vast ocean of eternity all the members of a family, all the families of a rr^e. The distinctions alike of individuals and of households are lost. Every landmark is laid low. \par \par The various dates and manners of different departures are merged and overwhelmed in the one universal announcement, that of all who at one given time existed on the earth, not one remains Joseph is dead, and all his brethren, and all that generation. Some are gone in tender years of childhood, unconscious of life's sins and sufferings some in grey-headed age, weighed down by many troubles. Some have perished by the hand of violence some by natural decay. Here is one smitten in an instant to the dust there is another, the victim of slow and torturing disease. The strong man and the weak the proud man and the beggar the king and the subject whether in prosperity and nursed by friends, or in dreary and desolate destitution, without a friend or brother to close the anxious eye all are gone. The thousands have met their doom from a thousand different causes, and \par \par 1 6 THE UNIVERSAL CHARACTERISTIC \par \par in a countless variety of circumstances. War, famine, pestilence, have had their innumerable victims. Crime has carried off, in one undistinguishable crowd, the ministers that did his pleasure the dupes that fell into his snares. Profligacy has slowly preyed on the pining souls and bodies of her votaries. Accident has suddenly snapped the thread of life. The tyrant, mingling men's blood with their sacrifices the falling tower, crushing its inmates under its weight fire seizing the midnight dwelling, or the lonely ship in mid ocean afar the Assassin's knife the poisoning cup or the weary wear; and tear of a prolonged baLVAL#ttle with life's ills, all have; achieved their triumphs over the proud race that lords it in this lower world. Grave after grave has been opened and filled; man after man has gone the way of all living; new bodies have been consigned to the silent tomb; new sets of mourners have gone about the streets. \par \par And now, of the entire multitude that at some one point of time occupied the earth, not one remains, all, all are gone. Various were their pursuits, their toils, their interests, their joys, their griefs various their eventful histories; but one common sentence will serve as the epitaph of all \ldblquote Joseph died, and all his brethren, and all that generation.\rdblquote \par \par \par And another generation now fills the stage a generation that, in all its vast circle of families, can produce not one individual to link it with the buried race on whose ashes it is treading. Make for yourselves, in imagination, the abrupt transition which the historian here makes in his narrative the sudden leap across an interval of years, \par \par \ldblquote AND HE DIED\rdblquote 17 \par \par during which the gradual process of death and birth has been going on, ever emptying, but ever replenishing, the earth, and keeping it ever full. Make that interval, as he does, an absolute blank, a dreary void, a great gulf. Let the sleep or oblivion of a century come in between; and as you awake out of a trance, let it be amid a throng as eager and as intensely active as that which you left, but a throng in which you see \ldblquote not the face of one old friend rise visaged to your view\rdblquote It is the same scene as before; but ah! how changed!\par \par \par On a smaller scale, you have experienced something of what we now describe. In the sad season of bereavement, how have you felt your pain imbittered by the contrast between death reigning in your heart and home, and bustling life going on all around! Oh! to step out from the darkened chamber of sickness, or the house of solitary woe, and staLVAL$nd all at once in the glare and amid the tumult of the broad and busy day; to see the sun shine as brightly, and the green earth smile as gladly, and all nature rejoice as gloriously as ever, while all to you is a blank; to hear the concord of sweet voices mocking your desolation; to mix with dreary heart in the unsympathizing crowd; it is enough often to turn distress into distraction, and make you loathe the light and life that so offend your sadness! In the prospect, too, of your own departure, does not this thought form an element of the dreariness of death, that when you are gone, and laid in the silent tomb, others will arise that knew not you? your removal will scarce occasion even a momentary interruption in the onward course and in\par \par 18 THE UNIVERSAL CHARACTERISTIC \par \par cessant hurry of affairs, and your loss will be but as that of a drop of water from the tide that rolls on in its career as mighty and as majestical as ever. \par \par But here, it is a whole generation, with all its families, that is engulfed in one unmeasured tomb! And, lo!\par \par the earth is still all astir with the same activities, all gay with the same pomps and pageantries, all engrossed with the same vanities and follies, and, alas! the same sins also, that have been beguiling and disappointing the successive races of its inhabitants since the world began!\par \par \par Is there no moral in the shadow which this gigantic burial of a whole generation in a single brief text casts upon all these things? What are they all, the joys and sorrows, the cares, the toils, the pleasures of time, as the gate of eternity opens to shut in from our view, with one wide sweep, the millions that once used them, as we are using them now? What are they all, with the tears and smiles which they caused, to these millions, to whom but now they seemed to be everything? What will they all be to us, when of each one of us, as of Joseph, the simple record shall be, that \ldblquote Joseph died, and all his brethren, and LVAL%all that generation?\rdblquote \par \par This funeral of a whole generation! the individual, the family, and the entire mass of life, mingled in one common tomb! surely it is a solemn thought. It appeals to our natural sensibility. But does it not appeal also to our spiritual apprehension? Natural sensibility is but little trustworthy. It is easily moved by such musings; and it is as easily composed. Violent emotion \par \par \ldblquote AND HE DIED\rdblquote 19 \par \par and frivolous apathy are the extremes between which it vacillates and vibrates. To win and command its sympathies for the moment is an insignificant and unworthy triumph. Faith, on the other hand, finds matter of deeper and more lasting impression here. Death is the great divider. It severs families and cuts friendships asunder, breaking closest ties, and causing the most compact associations to fall in pieces. Coming as it does upon the race of men one by one, singling out individually, one after another, its successive victims, it, resolves each hill or mountain into its constituent grains, taking separate account of every one of them, as separately it draws them into its insatiable jaws. But death is, after all, the great uniter too. Separating for a time, it brings all together at last. The church-yard opens its graves to part dearest brethren and friends; but soon it opens them again, to mix their kindred ashes in one common dust. \par \par Is the union, however, that death occasions real, substantial, enduring? \par \par \ldblquote Joseph died, and all his brethren, and all that generation\rdblquote Death passed upon them all, for they all had sinned. It is the common lot the general history the universal characteristic. \par \par And there is another common lot another general history another universal characteristic: \ldblquote After death, the judgment\rdblquote Joseph rises again, \ldblquote and all his brethren, and all that generation\rdblquote And they all stand before the judgment-seat. There is unionLVAL then. The small and the great are there; the servant and his master all are brought together. But for what? And for how long? \par \par \par 20 THE UNIVERSAL CHARACTERISTIC \ldblquote AND HE DIED.\rdblquote \par \par \par \ldblquote The wicked shall go away into everlasting punishment, but the righteous into life eternal\rdblquote \par \par What a solemn contrast have we here! Death unites after separation: the judgment unites in order to separation. Death, closing the drama of time, lets the ample curtain fall upon its whole scenery and all its actors. The judgment, opening the drama of eternity, discloses scenery and actors once more entire. All die; all are judged, the two events happen alike to all. \par \par And both are near; for the time is short, the Lord is* at hand. \par \par But before death, before the judgment, is the gospel, which is now freely preached to all. And a voice is heard, \ldblquote Behold, I stand at the door, and knock; if any man open unto me, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me\rdblquote Let this feast of love be begun in heart after heart, as one by one sinners die in Christ unto sin and live in Christ unto God. And when individuals, families, generations, are separated, and united, to be separated again separated by death, united at the judgment, to be finally separated for eternity may it be our privilege to meet at the marriage-supper of the Lamb, beyond which there is no parting any more for ever. \par \par \cf2\f1\fs23\par } LVAL^'{\rtf1\ansi\deff0{\fonttbl{\f0\froman\fprq2\fcharset0 Georgia;}{\f1\fnil\fcharset0 Georgia;}} {\colortbl ;\red0\green128\blue0;\red0\green0\blue0;} {\*\generator Riched20 5.40.11.2210;}\viewkind4\uc1\pard\lang1033\f0\fs24 II. ELI HIS HEART TREMBLED FOR THE ARK OF GOD. \par \par \ldblquote I will judge his house for ever; because his sons made themselves vile, and he restrained them not.\rdblquote \ldblquote And Eli said, It is the Lord; let him do what seemeth him good.\rdblquote \ldblquote Eli sat by the wayside watching; for his heart trembled for the ark of God.\rdblquote 1 SAM. i.-iv. \par \par PART FIRST. \par \par THE key to Eli's character is in these simple words: \ldblquote His heart trembled for the ark of God\rdblquote He was a good man, but timid; faithful, but fearful; with much love in his heart to God and the ark of God, but with little strength of mind or firmness and decision of purpose. His conduct at this crisis may be contrasted with that of Moses on a similar occasion. \par \par When the Israelites, discouraged by the report of the spies, refused to go up and take possession of the promised land, and were condemned, in consequence, to wander for forty years in the wilderness, stung with remorse, they resolved hastily to repair their fatal fault: \ldblquote They rose up early in the morning, and gat them up into the top of the mountain, saying, Lo, we be here, and will go up unto the place which the Lord hath promised: for we have sinned\rdblquote Not only did Moses strenuously oppose their resolution, \ldblquote It shall not prosper; go not up, for the Lord is not among you; that ye be not smitten before \par \par 22 SCRIPTURE CHARACTERS ELI, \par \par your enemies;\rdblquote he peremptorily refused either to lead them himself, or to let the ark of God go with them, \ldblquote They presumed to go up unto the hill-top: nevertheless the ark of the covenant of the Lord, and Moses, departed not out of the camp\rdblquote The issue of the engagement was disastroLVAL(us to the Israelites; for \ldblquote the Amalekites came down, and the Canaanites which dwelt in that hill, and smote them, and discomfited them, even unto Hormah.\rdblquote \par \par But, thanks to the moral courage of Moses, the ark of God was safe (\cf1\ul Num_14:40-45\cf0\ulnone ). \par \par Eli is placed in circumstances not unlike those in which Moses acted so nobly. The army of Israel is smarting under a defeat sustained at the hands of the Philistines. \par \par It is proposed to send for the ark of God: \ldblquote Let us fetch the ark of the covenant of the Lord out of Shiloh unto us, that, when it cometh among us, it may save us out of the hand of our enemies\rdblquote (1 Sam. iv. 3). Eli being both high priest and chief magistrate for he is at the head of civil affairs as well as ecclesiastical has of course the custody of the ark; and has in fact, in virtue of his double office, more power over it than even Moses himself could possess. Evidently he has misgivings as to the step about to be taken; and well he may, considering all things. \par \par A heavy cloud of judgment overhangs himself and his household. If the ark is to accompany the army, it must be under the custody of his sons. Are they fit keepers of it, vile as they have made themselves, and doomed to perish miserably? Is the army itself engaged in so righteous a warfare, and animated by so good a spirit, as to warrant their carrying with them what, in better times, \par \par HIS HEART TREMBLED FOR THE ARK OF GOD. 23 \par \par was wont to be the pledge of victory? Eli may well hesitate; and, when the message from the army reaches him, it must cause him deep distress. Is he to consent? \par \par Hoplmi and Phinehas are ready to run every risk; not unwilling, perhaps, to seize the opportunity of somewhat recovering their character, and gaining a little credit with their countrymen. The elders and people are importunate. \par \par The old man does not resist, though in the very act of yielding his mind misgives hiLVAL)m, and his heart cannot but tremble for the ark o? God. \par \par He is a godly man, and as kind as he is godly. The brief notices of his connection with Samuel are singularly affecting. He seems never to have forgotten the little injustice he had inadvertently done to his mother, Hannah, when he mistook her unwonted fervency in prayer for a sign of intoxication: \ldblquote Now Hannah, she spake in her heart; only her lips moved, but her voice was not heard, therefore Eli thought she had been drunken\rdblquote (1 Sam. i. \par \par 1 3). Observe how promptly and eagerly he accepts her explanation, and hastens to relieve her wounded spirit, \ldblquote No, my lord, I am a woman of a sorrowful spirit: I have drunk neither wine nor strong drink, but have poured out my soul before the Lord\rdblquote (ver. 15). \ldblquote Then Eli answered and said, Go in peace; and the God of Israel grant thee thy petition that thou hast asked of him. \par \par And she said, Let thine handmaid find grace in thy sight. \par \par So the woman went her way, and did eat, and her countenance was no more sad \ldblquote (ver. 17, 18). Thus he turns her weeping into joy. \par \par And ever after he seems anxious to make up for that \par \par 24 SCRIPTURE CHARACTERS ELI, \par \par first affront by his treatment of her son, whom the Lord gave her in answer to her many prayers, and whom, in terms of her own vow, she gave to the Lord. The child, Samuel, is warmly welcomed by him when his mother leaves him, while yet an infant, under his care; and as he \ldblquote grows on, and is in favour both with the Lord, and also\rdblquote with men\rdblquote (1 Sam. ii. 26), he shares the home, perhaps even the chamber, of his venerable guardian; the parents, as they pay their annual visit to Shiloh, receive his blessing; and the youthful servant of the sanctuary is to Eli, as it might seem, instead of his own sons. \par \par With what affectionate tenderness does Eli initiate Samuel in the right manner of receiving the wordLVAL* of the Lord! Eli, old and well-nigh blind, is \ldblquote laid down in his place;\rdblquote and Samuel hearing himself called by name, naturally starts up to ask what service his now almost helpless friend may be requiring from him: \ldblquote Here am I, for thou didst call me\rdblquote \ldblquote I called not, my son; lie down again;\rdblquote is the simple reply, until the third repetition of the incident awakens Eli to its real meaning, \ldblquote Eli perceived that the Lord had called the child \ldblquote (1 Sam. iii. 8). Nor is there any grudging in the old man's bosom that he should be passed by, and another, a mere child, chosen to receive one of those divine communications which in those degenerate days had become so precious, because so rare (ver. 1). On the contrary, we almost seem to see the lighting up of his dim eye, and to feel the throbbing of his heart, as with tenderest interest he tells the favoured youth how to demean himself under so high an honour: \ldblquote Go, lie down: and it shall be, if he call \par \par HIS HEART TREMBLED FOR THE ARK OF GOD. 25 \par \par thee, that thou shalt say, Speak, Lord; for thy servant heareth\rdblquote (ver. 9); and then he quietly composes himself to await the issue of the scene. \par \par Ah! little did he dream what the issue was to be!\par \par Some fond thoughts he might have as to the sort of voice or vision from on high likely to mark the beginning of a child's and such a child's prophetic ministry. Something bright, something encouraging, something charged with the fulness of divine love and heavenly joy, will probably form the appropriate subject of the Lord's first message or address to so gracious a youth. Alas! alas!\par \par little thinks the old man that Samuel's office, like Jeremiah's afterwards, is to open with denunciations of wrath and judgment; still less, that these denunciations are to be directed against himself. Eli has been warned already by a man of God, and warned in language of terrible distinctness, thLVAL+at he and his whole house are to be cut off with dishonour from the earth (1 Sam. ii. 27-36). Must the warning be repeated? and must it be through the lips of the child he has so fondly cherished? And must it be the very first word these lips are to be inspired to utter in the name of the Lord? A hard and cruel trial this might well be thought to be. \par \par No wonder that \ldblquote Samuel feared to show Eli the vision,\rdblquote and that it was only after the most solemn and urgent importunity on the part of Eli \ldblquote God do so to thee, and more also, if thou hide anything from me\rdblquote \par that he could find it in his heart to \ldblquote tell him every whit, and hide nothing from him/ 3 Nor would it have been any wonder, if, on hearing such a message conveyed \par \par 26 SCRIPTURE CHARACTERS ELI, \par \par through such a messenger, some little of the irritation of wounded love had ruffled Eli's spirit, and some impatient words had escaped from his mouth. But nothing of the kind appears. The grey-haired saint of God is as a little child, and meekly takes rebuke from the little child he has himself nursed. Reversing the prophecy, \ldblquote The child shall die a hundred years old,\rdblquote the man all but a hundred years old is to die a child: for it is the \ldblquote quiet spirit and mild\rdblquote of a little child that breathes in the simple utterance, \ldblquote It is the Lord; let him do what seemeth him good\rdblquote \par \par * What a soul is Eli's! Truly, his \ldblquote soul is even as a weaned child\rdblquote (Ps. cxxxi.) What else could have made him so gentle when he heard, out of the mouth of a mere babe, as it might seem, and one too who \ldblquote had eaten of his own meat and drunk of his cup, and had lain in his bosom, and been unto him as a son\rdblquote such unmitigated threatenings as these? \ldblquote Behold, I will do a thing in Israel, at which both the ears of every one that heareth it shall tingle. I will perform against Eli all that I hLVAL,ave spoken concerning his house; when I begin, I will also make an end. For I have told him that I will judge his house for ever for the iniquity which he knoweth; because his sons made themselves vile, and he restrained them not. \par \par And therefore I have sworn unto the house of Eli, that the iniquity of Eli's house shall not be purged with sacrifice nor offering for ever\rdblquote (1 Sam. iii. 13, 14). \par \par Think of Samuel, the child Samuel, having such a message to deliver! Think of Eli, the venerable Eli, having such a message, so delivered, to receive! No \par \par HIS HEART TREMBLED FOR THE ARK OF GOD, 27 \par \par doubt, his conscience testified that he had grievously sinned, and deserved many stripes; but severity so pitiless as this wrath, as it might seem, so unrelenting, after so long a time of service, during the whole of which, however weak and indulgent he may have been to others, he has himself been faithful to his God might be felt as treatment that it was very hard to understand, and harder still to endure. He might almost have been tempted to cry out with Cain, \ldblquote My punishment is greater than I can bear\rdblquote And that it should be the very hands so often clasped in holy adoration between his own knees, that were now selected to strike the blow, and the very lips he had himself taught to lisp in prayer, that were to pour forth the oracle of vengeance and of woe against him was it not a strange and sad aggravation of the distress? was it not, in a sense, like \ldblquote seething a kid in its mother's milk?\rdblquote \par \par But, \ldblquote It is the Lord; let him do what seemeth him good.\rdblquote \ldblquote Though he slay me, yet will I trust in him\rdblquote \par What acquiescence is here! what patience! what faith!\par \par There is no justifying of himself nothing like charging God foolishly. The old man's \ldblquote sin is ever before him.\rdblquote \par \par He acknowledges it all to the Lord. He owns the perfect righteousness oLVAL-f the sentence. God is just in judging. \par \par Eli's mouth is stopped. He is verily guilty. That he should be thus rebuked and chastened is no more than he deserves; nay, it may even be fitting that the stroke should come through that dear child, in whose opening and expanding graciousness of character he has been apt, perhaps, too readily to find comfort and compensation for \par \par IVT. \par \par \par 28 SCRIPTURE CHARACTERS ELI, \par \par the unbridled license of his own sons. For it could not but be a more congenial task to Eli to train the docile Samuel than to restrain unruly Phinehas and Hophni; and there might be something of retribution in the arrangement, that the very first act of Samuel's ministry, in the prophetic office for which Eli had with so fond and deep an interest been preparing him, should be, to denounce the parent's neglect of parental discipline and duty, and open his eyes to all its inexcusable guilt. At all events, Eli makes no complaint. There is no feeling of even momentary resentment, either against God or against Samuel. He sees nothing amiss, either in the dreadful message or in the channel through which it comes. He blames only himself. Samuel is as dear to him as ever, although reluctantly the bringer of evil tidings. And God is honoured by the exercise, not of a mere stern and stubborn bravery, submitting sullenly to an irrevocable and irresistible decree, but of a meek faith; faith accepting judgment, and yet clinging to and confiding in the very judge himself; faith, in short, still seeing, even in the God of judgment, a pacified and reconciled God, a father and a friend! \ldblquote Lord, rebuke me not in thine anger, neither chasten me in thy hot displeasure. Have mercy upon me, Lord; oh save me for thy mercies' sake. The Lord hath heard the voice of my weeping; the Lord hath heard my supplication; the Lord will receive my prayer,\rdblquote (Ps. vi.) Such a man is Eli, so godly, so gracious and kind; the very \ldblquote meekness and gentleness of LVAL.Christ\rdblquote might be \par \par HIS HEART TREMBLED FOR THE ARK OF GOD. 29 \par \par supposed to characterize him. But, alas! he is deficient in that quality which alone can give to all other good dispositions their proper weight and value, the quality of which the Apostle Paul speaks when he says, \ldblquote Add to your faith, virtue\rdblquote or valour, fortitude, and moral courage. His deficiency in this respect comes sadly out in all the relations which he has to sustain as a ruler, in the State, in the Church, and in the Family. \par \par 1. Eli was head of the State. He was a judge in Israel. He was the last but one in the succession of judges or rulers, coming after Samson as it is generally thought, and having only Samuel as his successor; for the kingly power soon superseded that of the judges, in the person, first of Saul, and then of David. As a judge, in his capacity of civil governor, Eli saw the affairs of the Jewish commonwealth brought to the lowest ebb of fortune. It is true, that little or nothing is recorded of his administration; but in the last act of it, the war waged with the Philistines, and in the way in which that war is conducted, we see indications of imbecility not to be mistaken. (1 Sam. iv.) There is an evident want of due consideration and concert. The contest is obviously begun rashly, without a previous appeal to God; and the army marches without the divine sanction: (for the first clause in the first verse of the chapter, \ldblquote And the word of the Lord came to all Israel\rdblquote is to be connected with the previous chapter; it indicates the general acceptance of Samuel in his prophetic character, and has nothing to do with the Philistian war.) The expedition, then, wants that symbol of the divine presence which of \par \par 30 SCEIPTURE CHARACTERS ELI, \par \par old was wont to strike terror into the foe, and to inspire every heart in the host of Israel with holy zeal; according to the usage described in the book of Numbers, \ldblquote And iLVAL/t came to pass, when the ark set forward, that Moses said, Rise up, Lord, and let thine enemies be scattered; and let them that hate thee flee before thee. And when it rested, he said, Return, O Lord, unto the many thousands of Israel\rdblquote (Numb. x. 35, 36). No such ringing battle-cry, \ldblquote Rise up, Lord\rdblquote is heard on this occasion; and no glad note of peace concludes the fight. The sudden expedient, the desperate after-thought, of summoning the ark to help in retrieving the disaster, only brings out more sadly the absence of all sound and godly counsel in the whole affair at the first; and the conduct of Eli is throughout that of a habitual waverer. One thing is clear, as a ruler, he left the State on the very brink of ruin. \par \par 2. As high priest, set over the affairs of the House of God, he lets his weakness still more shamefully get the better of him. The scandalous outrages and excesses committed by his two sons when they were associated with him in the priesthood, never could have taken place had \ldblquote things been done decently and in order.\rdblquote The law as to offerings, and as to the several shares which the altar, the priesthood, and the worshippers, were to have in them, was clear enough, if due authority had been put forth to enforce it; nor, with all their greed, could Hophni and Phinehas have so used their flesh-hooks as to make \ldblquote men abhor the offering of the Lord,\rdblquote if there had not been prevalent already a grievous laxity in the mere \par \par HIS HEART TREMBLED FOR THE ARK OF GOD. 31 \par \par routine of the tabernacle service. This laxity Eli must have tolerated; at least he wanted firmness to repress it (1 Sam. ii. 1 2-1 7). Need we point to the still grosser infamies, that made the holy place of the Most High resemble the abominable dens of moral pollution to be found in the heathen temples (ver. 22)? Such foul wickedness never could have been so practised by the most abandoned of mankind, except under a state of things LVAL0implying the most deplorable misrule. We do not speak of the actual misconduct of the miserable young men themselves, who prostituted to these vile purposes their priestly character and office; we found rather on the mere fact, that misconduct like theirs was possible, as proving that the reins of spiritual government must have fallen into the hands of one himself either very wicked or very weak And as, in the case of Eli, the former side of the alternative is out of the question for he was a holy man, and hated sin we are forced to conclude, that in his capacity of priest, as well as in that of judge, he was the victim of indecision and imbecility. \par \par 3. But it is as a parent that he chiefly shows his weakness; and it is in that character that he is especially reproved and judged. \ldblquote Thou honourest thy sons above me\rdblquote is the charge which the Lord brings against him (chap. ii. 29). And yet Eli feared God, and had no sympathy with his sons in their vile crimes. On the contrary, he remonstrated with them faithfully: \ldblquote Why do ye such things? for I hear of your evil dealings by all this people. Nay, my sons; for it is no good report that I hear: ye make the Lord's people to transgress. If one \par \par 32 SCRIPTURE CHARACTERS ELI, \par \par man sin against another, the judge shall judge him; but if a man sin against the Lord, who shall entreat for him?\rdblquote (chap. ii. 23-25.) What more could he do? Instruction, admonition, expostulation, persuasion, are all in vain. \par \par The resources of his parental influence are exhausted. \par \par What further remains to be tried? \par \par Ah! he forgets that he is invested with parental authority, authority, in his case, backed and seconded by all the powers of law and all the terrors of religion. Nay, it is not so much that he forgets this, as that he has not \ldblquote nerve to act upon the recollection of it. He knows his right and duty as a father; but he weakly shrinks from enforcing his right and perforLVAL1ming his duty, out of false tenderness and pity to his sons. \par \par And what construction does God put upon his weakness? \ldblquote Thou honourest thy sons above me.\rdblquote Is it not a harsh construction? Is no allowance to be made for his parental feelings? He does not mean deliberately to prefer his sons to God; and if he fails to execute the full measure of severity that their offences merit, and his position warrants, is it not hard to ascribe the failure to a want of respect for God? Might it not rather be allowed to pass as the venial, and even amiable, infirmity of parental love? \par \par No. For it is not really parental love, according to any right view of that pure affection, but self-love at bottom that Eli indulges, and self-love in one of its least respectable, forms. It is himself that Eli is unwilling to mortify, not his sons. It is to himself that he is tender, not to them. And when it is considered that his selfish \par \par HIS HEART TREMBLED FOR THE ARK OF GOD. 33 \par \par feebleness and fondness show themselves in his neglect of parental discipline even in matters in which the divine honour is immediately concerned, it is not too much to say that he is preferring his children to his God. \par \par How offensive to God must be a parent's want of firmness in enforcing his authority! For what, in fact, is that authority but the authority of God himself? God has delegated his own authority to the parent; and, so far as the parent has any right of rule at all over his child, he has it as representing God. In the exercise of it, therefore, he has properly no discretion. If he rule as God, he must rule for God; and to let any partial leaning of the natural heart towards his child tempt him to act as if it were otherwise, as if he ruled in his own right and for himself, and not in God's right and for God, and might, in consequence, please himself or his child as he sees fit, this is evidently to usurp a power independent of that of God, it is to dishonour the Lord of aLVAL2ll. \par \par How this sin of Eli's, in his treatment of his sons, commenced, we cannot tell; probably in their early childhood, when their evil dispositions began to show themselves, and he spared the rod and withheld correction. \par \par What his sin was, is very precisely pointed out; \ldblquote he restrained them not.\rdblquote Doubtless he taught them; surely he prayed for them; he certainly exhibited to them the example of a holy and blameless life; but he restrained them not. At first, he might have restrained them with comparatively a very gentle hand: a firm voice, a decided look, might have been enough; a few instances of patient, persevering determination, with an absence of all angry \par \par c 34 SCRIPTURE CHARACTERS ELI, \par \par passion provoking them to wrath, might have taught the little rebels how hopeless it was to think of making their father yield to them; judicious kindness, not being bitter against them, would have made them feel the relief and gladness of yielding to him; and thereafter he might have guided them with his eye. Failing at that first stage to form in them the habit of obedience, Eli's task became of course more difficult as his sons grew in strength and stature, as well as in force of will. The waywardness and impetuosity of early youth, succeeding to the insubordination of spoiled and fondled childhood, presented a stouter aspect of resistance or defiance. Still he might have restrained them; his parental resources were not yet exhausted; they had not yet outgrown the power of the parental arm, nor could they yet dispense with the support of parental love. He has a hold over them still by many ties, if only he will summon resolution for the task of first thoroughly studying their characters, and then vigorously and wisely using bit and bridle, if need be, to keep them in. It may be a struggle; but calm consistency will gain the day. For a parent's rule commends itself to the conscience, as a parent's kindness touches the heart; and an effort put fortLVAL3h even at the last hour, in faith and prayer, to resume the reins of parental discipline, will have the countenance of God, and will not fail of success. But, alas for Eli! This second opportunity also is allowed to pass. His sons have become men; they have left the parental roof; they have families of their own; they take rank on their own account in the world; they hold office in the Church. They \par \par HIS HEART TREMBLED FOR THE ARK OF GOD.> 35 \par \par are their own masters now, and, availing themselves of their liberty, they let loose their unruly passions and make themselves vile. Still Eli should have restrained them; for it is expressly mentioned, th< his not restraining them even then was his sin. He had power to restrain them. He had the power every parent has, when his children make themselves incurably vile, he could disown them, discountenance them, solemnly renounce their fellowship, and cast them off. He had power also as their ruler in the state, and their superior in the priesthood. And every consideration of decency and good order, as well as of.godliness and virtue, should have made him use his power to the utmost, and adopt the most decided measures, when they were making the very sanctuary a foul scandal. But he had not the heart; he could not bring himself to be severe. Even God's highest honour must give place to the indulgence of his fond and feeble dotage. And the issue is, that \ldblquote the iniquity of Eli's house shall not be purged for ever.\rdblquote \par \par \par It is an issue, as to all the parties concerned, sufficiently disastrous. \par \par For the sons of Eli, whom \ldblquote he did not restrain\rdblquote what hope is there? Sudden destruction comes upon them. \par \par There may be a show and semblance of adventurous patriotism in their readiness to bear the ark, as a forlorn hope, into the midst of Israel's renewed battle with the Philistines. But, with all their daring, they carry into the fight a weight of guilt and a crushing sentence of wLVAL4rath, that cannot but be fatal. They perish miserably. \par \par 36 SCRIPTURE CHARACTERS ELI, \par \par Will it alleviate the pang of a sudden and violent death will it allay the burning torments of the fire that is not quenched to think of their indulgent father, who did not restrain them? Eli may well be cut to the heart as the reflection comes across him, that possibly, had he restrained his sons, they might not have made themselves so vile and perished so miserably. But will any such, reflection avail them? On the contrary, will not the very fondness of Eli, which they have so foully abused, add a scorpion-sting to the gnawing of the worm that \ldblquote dieth not? In spite of all his ill-judged leniency and want of firmness to restrain them, he was the kindest of parents and the holiest of men. These unnatural and ungrateful sons knew this right well. Many a holy thought was associated with their father's image; many a tender tear; many a fervent prayer. The very mildness of his pleading with them \ldblquote Why do ye such things? \par \par Nay, my sons; it is no good report that I hear\rdblquote that gentleness which at the time only emboldened them to scoff and sneer must enhance their agony when their sin finds them out; and whatever fault his extreme paternal fondness may be in him, and however sharply it may be visited upon him, assuredly it is not fitted to be even so much as a drop of cold water to their parched tongues, when in hell they lift up their eyes, being in torments. \par \par Of the utter ruin of Eli's household we need not speak. \par \par The priesthood passes away from his family; the government is upon other shoulders; his seed are a beggared race. The last incident recorded concerning his cliildren \par \par HIS HEART TREMBLED FOR THE ARK OF GOD. 87 \par \par is most profoundly touching; it is the birth of his grandson, the child of his son Phinehas. The unhappy mother hears of her husband Phinehas, fallen in the disastrous fight; and of her father-in-law ElLVAL5i, suddenly dead. She cannot stand the shock. She bows her head and the pangs of premature travail are upon her. The women about her say, \ldblquote Fear not, for thou hast born a son.\rdblquote \par \par But there is no joy for her because a man-child is born into the world. She is a godly woman, broken-hearted by the sin and fate of an ungodly husband. She is likeminded with her husband's godly father, Eli. When the women tell her of the son she has born, \ldblquote she answers not, neither regards it.\rdblquote But with her dying breath she names the child \ldblquote Ichabod;\rdblquote for she says \ldblquote The glory is departed from Israel, because the ark of God is taken.\rdblquote \par \par The whole house of Eli is a ruin; the priesthood degraded; the nation defeated; the ark taken; and, amid the wreck, his own family broken up, and the sole survivor launched on the stream of time with an ominous name, and under a heavy curse. And all this in connection with one of the meekest and holiest of the saints of God! It is a terrible lesson. And, in keeping with it, is the lesson taught by the melancholy notice of his own decease. \par \par For in truth there is not anywhere in the Bible and, if not there, certainly nowhere else a more affecting picture than that of the aged Eli, sitting on the watch for tidings of the disastrous battle which was to be fought on the day when he allowed the ark to be \par \par 38 SCRIPTURE CHARACTERS ELI, \par \par carried from its home at Shiloli to the camp of Israel at Eben-ezer. \par \par He had many things to make his heart tremble. He had a deep stake in the fight, on which issues most vital to him, both public and domestic, depended. It seems to have been a critical death-struggle between the two armies, which was to decide the fate of their respective nations; and Eli, as a patriot, must have had many an anxious thought as he brooded over the alternative of his country's liberty or bondage, which one brief and bloody hour might fix for ageLVAL6s. Nor could he be insensible to the fate of the many thousand brave hearts that, ere the setting of the sun, must cease to beat, and the many mothers in Israel that must be made to mourn. \par \par And, besides these public cares, he had his two sons on that field of battle, with a dark and heavy prophecy of judgment hanging over their heads; which, whatever they in their profligate impiety might think of it, their devout, though, alas! too fond father, could never dismiss for a moment from his memory. \par \par It was not any of these things, however, that moved the old man most deeply: \ldblquote His heart trembled for the ark of God.\rdblquote \par \par \par For this, he sat upon a seat by the wayside watching. \par \par And when he heard the noise of the tumult in the city as the man of Benjamin, running out of the army, with clothes rent and earth on his head, came into the city, and told the woful tale which made all the city cry out the old man stretched forth his palsied arms and strained his sightless eyes. \ldblquote What is there done, \par \par HIS HEART TREMBLED FOR THE ARK OF GOD. 39 \par \par my son?\rdblquote is his eager question to the messenger. \ldblquote And the messenger answered and said, Israel is fled before the Philistines, and there hath been also f. great slaughter among the people, and thy two sons also, Hophni and Phinehas, are dead, and the ark of God is taken\rdblquote (\cf1\ul 1Sa_4:17\cf0\ulnone ). \par \par The messenger of evil delivered his tidings; and his hearer could stand the accumulation of horrors Israel fled before the Philistines a great slaughter among the people ay, and his two sons, Hophni and Phinehas, dead also. But when the crowning calamity burst upon him \ldblquote the ark of God is taken \ldblquote Eli could bear up no longer. Bending under the weight of ninety and eight years, and crushed by the stunning blow of this disastrous intelligence, \ldblquote he fell from off the seat backward by the side of the gate, and his neck LVAL7brake, and he died; for he was an old man, and heavy.\rdblquote \par \par No words could add to the pathos of this sad and simple announcement. It is all the epitaph which Scripture has for one who had spent nearly a century beside the altar, and for somewhat less than half that time had occupied the seat of power for \ldblquote he had judged Israel forty years.\rdblquote Such was the end of so protracted a life; thus miserably died this man of God. \par \par Many practical remarks suggest themselves in connection with the painful history which we have been considering remarks applicable to parents and members of families, to individual Christians, to the ungodly, and to all. \par \par \par 40 SCRIPTURE CHARACTERS ELI, \par \par 1. It is a most emphatic warning that the fate of Eli gives to parents; and not to parents only, but to all who have influence or authority of any sort in families. \ldblquote Whoever in a family has any power at all to restrain evil, and fails to use that power to the uttermost, incurs a responsibility from which a thoughtful man would shrink. \par \par The power may be of various kinds; it may be superior strength, or superior station, or weight of character, or example, or that control which seasonable and tender affection wields, and gratitude gladly owns. But whatever it be, let it be faithfully and fully used. The positive duty lying upon all heads and members of households, to seek one another's good in the highest and most spiritual sense, is not more binding, and scarcely more important, than the negative duty of restraining one another's evil. Nor is this a harsh or invidious task. \par \par It may be done with all the meekness and gentleness of Christ. And the secret of its being rightly and effectively done is this: Let no one, let nothing, be honoured above God; let God be honoured above all. Let your intercourse with children, or brothers, or sisters, or domestics, or any with whom you dwell together in families, be upon this principle. Honour GodLVAL8, honour God supremely, honour God alone. Consider not merely what may be best for them, but what, in every instance, is due to God. This will prevent compromise, concession, and fond indulgence on your part; while it will place your power of restraining evil on the highest of all grounds of advantage, the law and the will of God himself. \par \par HIS HEART TREMBLED FOR THE ARK OF GOD. 41 \par \par 2. Let individual Christians ponder the lesson of Eli's character. Much, very much, there is in it to be admired and imitated, especially the grace and godliness of his walk, the tenderness of his affections, and the manner in which he takes the divine rebuke. But his defects or, let us say at once, his sins are recorded for our especial warning. The first of these, his want of firmness, is a very sad one; it mars and hinders the exercise of every other grace, and stamps upon the whole man the character of one like a wave of the sea, driven by the winds and tossed. \ldblquote Add to your faith virtue\rdblquote or moral courage, is a precept to be again and again repeated and pondered well. But another fault in Eli is that which is so emphatically rebuked by God, he honoured his sons above God; or, in other words, he did not honour God with an entirely undivided and undistracted heart. \ldblquote How can ye believe,\rdblquote said our Lord to the Jews, \ldblquote which receive honour one of another, and seek not the honour that cometh from God only? \ldblquote And if seeking honour from any but God is a fatal obstacle in the way of guileless faith, giving honour to any besides God is a serious and dangerous hinderance in the way of holy obedience. \par \par 3. Let the ungodly tremble. Let them look on, and see how God deals with sin in his own people. Does he spare sin in them? Does he spare them in their sins? \par \par Behold the severity of God in his treatment of the good and gracious Eli, and tremble at the thought of what may be his treatment of you! \ldblquote If the righteous scarcely hLVALxbe saved, where shall the ungodly and sinners appear?\rdblquote \par \par Or as a greater than Eli reasoned, when, bearing the \par \par 42 SCRIPTURE CHARACTERS ELI, \par \par cross up the hill of Calvary, he pointed to his own sufferings for sin as a pledge and presage of judgment against sinners, \ldblquote If these things be done in the green tree, what shall be done in the dry? \ldblquote\par \par 4. And, finally, let all lay to heart the irrevocable decree and determination of God, that sin shall not pass unpunished; let them look and see the end of the ungodly, while they stand in awe at the chastisement of the just. Whatever excuse the wicked may frame out of the weakness of those who should have restrained them; and whatever promise the just may plead, as warranting assurance and good hope through grace; the law of the divine procedure is fixed, as announced to Eli and his sons: \ldblquote I said indeed that thy house, and the house of thy father, should walk before me for ever; but now the Lord saith, Be it far from me; for them that honour me I will honour, and they that despise me shall be 'lightly esteemed\rdblquote (\cf1\ul 1Sa_2:30\cf0\ulnone ). \par \cf2\f1\fs23\par } LVAL^:{\rtf1\ansi\deff0{\fonttbl{\f0\froman\fprq2\fcharset0 Georgia;}{\f1\fnil\fcharset0 Georgia;}} {\colortbl ;\red0\green128\blue0;\red0\green0\blue0;} {\*\generator Riched20 5.40.11.2210;}\viewkind4\uc1\pard\lang1033\f0\fs24 III. ELI A GODLY MAN TREMBLING FOR THE ARK OF GOD. \par \par \ldblquote His heart trembled for the ark of God.\rdblquote \cf1\ul 1Sa_4:13\cf0\ulnone . \par \par PART SECOND. \par \par IN the circumstances, as we have seen, Eli's heart might well tremble, and could not but tremble, for the ark of God. That sacred symbol was put in peril; nor was there anything, either in the composition of the army or in the character of the fight, to allay the apprehension that might be awakened. On the contrary, whether he considered into what hands the ark had fallen, when it was carried into the camp under the charge of his unhappy sons; or pondered on the circumstances that led to its being sent for, and the use to which it was to be applied; the old man had more than one good reason for apprehension and alarm. \par \par The same reasons, alas! might cause the heart of many an Eli now to tremble for the ark of God; whether the holy veteran looked to the sort of company which has assumed, or accepted, the guardianship of that sacred symbol; or to the exigencies which demand, and the motives which prompt; the risking or committing of what is God's, on the uncertain field of human controversy and strife. Our subject may thus branch out into \par \par 44 SCRIPTURE CHARACTERS ELI, \par \par two topics: I. The heart trembling for the ark of God on account of the hands that bear or defend it; and, II, The same anxiety caused by the occasions and circumstances which serve to bring it forward in battle, and to peril it on the issue. The first of these topics will chiefly occupy our attention, the second being but briefly noticed. \par \par I. The mixed and motley character, the very miscellaneous composition, of the army in whose hands the ark of God seems to be placed, may well cause thLVAL;e heart of an Eli to tremble. Let any thoughtful man cast his eye along the ranks alas! how broken and disordered of the host that should be fighting the Lord's battle, and can his heart fail to tremble? \par \par In the first place, there are those whose mere bodily presence is all that can be reckoned on, the lukewarm and indifferent, the treacherous and false, the men who have joined the standard on compulsion, or in the crowd, or to serve a purpose, disguised spies and traitors in the enemy's interests, or soldiers of fortune, fighting every one for himself. \ldblquote Unto the wicked God saith, What hast thou to do to declare my statutes, or that thou shouldest take my covenant in thy mouth?\rdblquote \ldblquote Thy people\rdblquote says Jehovah to our Lord, the Captain of our salvation, the Conqueror out of Zion, the Ruler in the midst of his enemies \ldblquote thy people shall be willing in the day of thy power.\rdblquote They shall be all volunteers, no pressed men among them; they shall be all in ear\par \par A GODLY MAN TREMBLING FOR THE ARK OF GOD. 45 \par \par nest. That indeed will be the day of his power, when his people are thus willing; the day of his power in a double sense; the day when, in the first place, he makes them all willing, with the rod of discipline and doctrine wielded by his own Spirit, thinning perhaps the columns, yet by that very process inspiring new courage and giving new compactness to those that remain; and when, secondly, he uses that band of brothers for mightier conquests and triumphs than have ever yet been dreamed of. \par \par Gideon's proclamation, \ldblquote Whosoever is fearful and afraid, let him return and depart;\rdblquote ay, and besides this appeal to conscience, some Gideon-like test, some trial appointed by the Lord himself, whether it be the lapping of water or the baptism of fire; must go before that \ldblquote breaking of the yoke of Zion's burden, the staff of his shoulder and the rod of his oppressor\rdblquote which is to be LVAL<as another day of Midian: \ldblquote for every battle of the warrior is with confused noise, and garments rolled in blood, but this shall be with burning and fuel of fire.\rdblquote * \par \par It is no strife this for mere hireling mercenaries; or \par \par * \fs22 Judges 7; \cf1\ul Isa_9:4-5\cf0\ulnone , where this comparison occurs between the victory of Christ and that of Gideon, in immediate connection, on the one hand, with that brief picture of restored peace after successful war which goes before, \ldblquote Thou hast multiplied the nation, and increased to him the joy (marginal reading or, ivhosejoy thou hadst not increased): they joy before thee according to the joy in harvest, and as men rejoice when they divide the spoil;\rdblquote and, on the other hand, with that glorious doxology or song of praise that follows (\cf1\ul Isa_9:6-7\cf0\ulnone ), \ldblquote Unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder; and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The Mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace. Of the increase of his government and peace there shall be no end, upon the throne of David, and upon his kingdom, to order it, and to establish it with judgment and with justice from henceforth even for ever. The zeal of the Lord of hosts will perform this.\rdblquote \par \fs24\par \par \par 46 SCRIPTURE CHARACTERS ELI, \par \par for reluctant recruits, enlisted in a fit of temporary excitement, and almost unawares, and now kept in the camp only because they are ashamed, or are not allowed, to draw back; or for officious allies, encumbering the real force with their intrusive self-sufficiency. The Lord needs no such aid for any purpose of his, his own zeal will perform it; and it will be a zeal whose cleansing and sifting power his own troops may have to experience in the first instance, before he pours out its fury on his foes. They are not all accessions that the Church receives, as its numbers are filled up from aLVAL=mong the people of the land. The \ldblquote mixed multitude\rdblquote who go up with the children of Israel out of Egypt, \ldblquote fall a lusting \ldblquote themselves, and spread discontent and weeping throughout all the tribes; and when the sacred deposit is in the custody of such hands, the godly man may indeed tremble for the ark of God. These are they who, if they are not conscious and wilful hypocrites, making a gain of godliness, yet almost seem to think that they compliment God by giving in their adherence to his cause, and consenting to take charge of his ark; and make no scruple about bearing it ostentatiously before them into the very heart of the enemy's country, and the thickest throng of the ungodly; having no fear, no misgiving, as to their being able to bear it in safety through, or to retrieve and repair any temporary damage it may sustain. \par \par Oh! how does our heart tremble for the ark of the Lord, when we see so many lightly taking upon them the Christian name, and making the Christian profession with little of anything like an adequate and serious \par \par A GODLY MAN TREMBLING FOR THE ARK OF GOD. 47 \par \par sense of what so solemn a pledge implies. Alas! how many do we see rushing to the Lord's table to-day, and frequenting the haunts of vanity to-morrow, exposing their Christian character, in the very flush and bloom of its newly-budding freshness, to the withering blight of a worldly atmosphere and worldly conversation. They profess, and perhaps feel, not a little devotion in the sanctuary, although at home, and in the social circle, they make it too plain to their ungodly companions that there is really no very essential difference between them. \par \par They refuse to come out and be separate, So as to shun and shrink from the very touch of the unclean thing; while still they dream of preserving sufficiently entire all the pure grace and holy beauty of their blood-washed raiment, and all the tenderness and truth of their filial reverence and love, as theLVAL> sons and daughters of the Lord God Almighty. Is it any wonder, then, that the cause of God languishes, and conversions are few, and iniquity abounds, and the adversary waxes bold, and many an aged believer's heart but lately perhaps cheered with the hope of a better day, as the Lord seemed to be leading his Church out into the wilderness, and there reviving her begins again to tremble for the ark of God!\par \par But, secondly, there are those in the camp who are not thus insincere and false, who are, nevertheless, disabled and enfeebled by some rankling inward wound, some corroding grief, some sad sense of insecurity, or of a doubtful right to be themselves there, and to have the \par \par 48 SCRIPTURE CHARACTERS ELI, \par \par ark among them. On the occasion before us, the Israelites had just been smitten in a previous battle with the Philistines; and it was as defeated men that they were about to take the field again. True, they had now got possession of what was wont to be a pledge of victory. Their elders, in proposing to bring down the ark of the covenant of the Lord out of Shiloh, had assured them that whenever it came it would save them out of the hands of their enemies; and the multitude, ready to grasp at any lie and trust in any spell, had welcomed with mad joy -the consecrated symbol, and made the earth ring again with their shouting. But were there no sad countenances and grave looks, as this ill-timed scene of premature exultation went on? Were there no ears on which the rude clamour of that noisy mirth struck as a funeral knell? And when the first drunken and senseless fit of enthusiasm was over, were there none among the sh outers themselves whose hearts began to misgive them, who, hurried along in the first tumultuous burst of the contagious rapture, had since got leisure to reflect, and found too good cause to despond? \par \par We may imagine some such little group of thoughtful men, as the shout arose, or at least as the shout fell, opening to one another their minds, and LVAL?exchanging words of fear: ' It is so far well to see the army in good heart, and, instead of the lamentations of defeat, to hear the brave note of defiance again; but is all this confidence justly warranted? The ark, indeed, is with us; but in what spirit has it been sent for, and in what spirit received? If it be right to take it down with us into the \par \par A GODLY MAN TREMBLING FOR THE ARK OF GOD. 49 \par \par second battle, it must have been wrong to go without it to the first. By thus seeking to have God in the midst of us now, we confess that he was not in the midst of us before, and that it was in our own strength that we fought. Have we repented of our sin? Is it out of a returning sense of duty that we now hasten to repair our sad omission; or is it by a mere feeling of superstition, and on the pressure of extreme necessity, that we are driven to avail ourselves of this high refuge? If so, can we expect that it will stand us in stead? Its presence has not always saved our armies in time past; nor will it now, if it be all that we have to look to, if there be no searching of heart among us, no humiliation before God, and no turning with weeping and lamentation to him. \par \par The elders themselves, in the proposal they made to us to send for the ark in our straits, submitted to us a solemn question in reference to our former defeat (ver. 3): \ldblquote Wherefore hath the Lord smitten us to-day before the Philistines?\rdblquote Has that question been duly weighed and faithfully answered? If not, with all the security which the ark of God is fitted and designed to give ay, and that multiplied a hundredfold can we dare' to hope for a better issue in the enterprise which we are about to undertake to-morrow? ' \par \par Thus, they that feared the Lord might have much talk one with another, both as to the state of mind in the army generally, and as to their own condition in particular. And if such a feeling of doubt, respecting others or respecting themselves, began to spread like a paLVAL@nic through the ranks, it was they, and not the enemy, that \par \par 50 SCRIPTURE CHARACTERS ELI, \par \par had the best reason to be afraid. The Philistines might rally and recover themselves after the first surprise occasioned by this new device: for they might shrewdly suspect that it was no honest faith in their God that moved the Israelites to resort to it, but the mere helplessness of despair; and they might gather courage in the end, rather than lose it. The Israelites themselves, however, or at least the serious and thoughtful among them, could scarcely get so easily over the consciousness of guilt and of guile; and sympathizing in these sentiments even at a distance, as the godly Eli could not fail to do, what marvel if, as he sat and watched, his heart trembled for the ark of God? \par \par Is there anything analogous to this state of feeling among us? Let all, as they read, inquire; and let us inquire with reference not onto to our standing as individual believers, but to the congregation with which we are associated, the community to which we belong, and the Church of Christ generally. Let us consult first and principally our own personal experience. We have failed, perhaps, hitherto once, or it may be more than once, in maintaining the Lord's cause, and resisting the enemies of our peace. We have yielded in the struggle with our evil hearts of unbelief, and with the world, the devil, and the flesh. We have sustained a sad and shameful defeat, and left the field of battle thickly strewed with the fragments of our shivered shields and swords, our broken promises, and resolutions, and vows, our unanswered, because unwatched and unheeded prayers. \par \par Is this indeed our case? Are our consciences thus \par \par A GODLY MAN TREMBLING FOR THE ARK OF GOD. 5 1 \par \par laden with the sense of recent backsliding? It may be some specific instance of unfaithfulness that it vexes us to think of; or it may be a certain general listlessness and languor and spiritual declension of whicLVALAh we have to complain. Let us affectionately ask one another, let us faithfully ask ourselves, Wherefore is it so? Is it the remembrance of particular occasions on which we are conscious that we have compromised our truth and integrity, dissembled our principles, connived at sin, or treated it lightly, or made a mock at it; failed, in trying circumstances, to testify for God; wounded tender consciences, or cast a stumbling-block in the way of anxious inquirers, or stifled awakenings in careless souls, by our inconsistency, our worldly conformity, our easy walk, our abuse of our Christian liberty; is it any such remembrance that haunts us? Or is it, what is even more distressing, a certain vague feeling of apathy, for which we can scarcely assign any tangible cause, that oppresses us, a want of interest in sacred things, a dreary drowsiness in poring over the word and drawing near to the throne of grace, a kind of lethargy, in short, coldly stealing and insinuating itself through all our spiritual frame? Have we to confess that we are in the position of beaten men in Christ's warfare, or of men who have given way? And are we engaging in any holy service coming, let us say, to the Lord's table in something of the same spirit in which the Israelites sent for the Lord's ark, expecting, somehow, to be the better for this sacrament being administered to us, as they imagined they would fight the better for that symbol being among them; \par \par \par 52 SCRIPTURE CHARACTERS ELI, \par \par and determined, on the strength of this holy ordinance, to make a firmer stand in the next trial of our courage, and leave no inglorious buckler on the field? And yet, all the time we are not quite at ease, we have our misgivings and alarms. The unanswered question, \ldblquote Wherefore did the Lord smite us before the Philistines?\rdblquote stands ominously out as a barrier against our complete enlargement, confidence, and security. \par \par But why, let us ask again, why is it still an unanswered question? Why sLVALBhould it be an unanswered 'question any longer? Even now the Lord is ready to answer it. Even now he will search and try us. He will unfold to us the real cause of any controversy he has with us, or of any failures and defeats on our part, in our walking with him, and our warring for him. Have any of us been offering in earnest the prayer of the psalmist: \ldblquote Search me, God, and know my heart; try me, and know my thoughts: and see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting?\rdblquote \par \par And may not some of us truly say, that in a way we little thought of by terrible things in righteousness the Lord has been answering that prayer to us? Would that we were all made willing now, under the searching of his providence as well as of his word and Spirit for he is searching us very sharply this day to have the* \par wound of our souls thoroughly probed, and not slightly healed; each man among us submitting the plague of his own heart to be dealt with oh! how faithfully and yet how tenderly by him who is the holy God, but who is also to us in Christ Jesus a reconciled and loving Father. \par \par \par A GODLY MAN TREMBLING FOR THE ARK OF GOD. 53 \par \par See, brother, he waiteth to be gracious. He has balm for every wound, blood for every sin, healing for every backsliding, and a gracious reception and free love for each and all, however miserable on account of the greatness of their guilt or the stony hardness of their heart, who, with all that great guilt and that hard heart, will only so far honour, and trust, and gratify him, as let him take the guilt away and turn the smitten rock within into a fountain of tears. \par \par Thus repenting and doing our first works, returning anew to God, and embracing anew his promises of full and free reconciliation, by all means let us send for the ark; by all means let us come to the sacrament; it will do us good now. No matter for our past defeat, we shall be more than conquerors now. And it will be no vain and idle LVALCshout of boasting that lifts us. up, as if a chest of shittim-wood, or this covered table and these elements of bread and wine, could save us; but the deep and grateful consciousness of our having, not the seal and symbol only of God's presence, but God himself in very truth, in all the fulness of his redeeming love and all the power of his quickening Spirit, in us and among us; this will so inspire a calm serenity, and humble, holy resolution, as to strike real, and it may be salutary, fear into the consciences of the enemies of the truth, and satisfy aged Eli, that, so far as this particular cause of anxiety is concerned, his heart need no more tremble for the ark of God. \par \par Would to God that all of us individually, all the congregations of the Church, and our beloved Church her\par \par \par 54 SCRIPTURE CHARACTERS ELI, \par \par self, were thus brought low, that we might be exalted, thus weakened, that we might be strengthened in the Lord! For who can shut his eyes to the fact, that even since the Lord began to deal with us, and with the Church, as in these last years he has been dealing, there has been too much of human boasting and human confidence, too much noise and shouting? The high testimony which we have been honoured to bear for Christ, and the great things which he has done for us; the liberty and enlargement which he has granted to us, and the liberality and love which he has called forth among us; the approving voice of other Churches, and of all our missionaries in other lands; our door of access to the people at home; nay, even the partial droppings of the dew of the Holy Spirit on our assemblies and flocks; the prosperity of so many of our congregations; the very persecutions which have visited others; all these things we have been too apt to regard very much as the Israelites regarded the arrival of the ark among them; we have exulted when our adversaries seemed to be startled and surprised; and we have congratulated one another, as if the warfare were accomplished anLVALDd the victory were already ours. \par \par Is it in rebuke of such untoward and untimely lifting up of our hearts, that the great Head of the Church is chastening us, that symptoms of disorder are showing themselves here and there, and masters in Israel are cut down? May the Lord himself sanctify these troubles!\par \par Everywhere may clamour cease, and deeply may the question be pondered, and fairly may it be met in refer\par \par A GODLY MAN TREMBLING FOR THE ARK OF GOD. 55 \par \par ence both to the past and the present: \ldblquote Wherefore hath the Lord smitten us?\rdblquote For, assuredly, until that great outstanding question be disposed of, as regards individuals, congregations, and the Church at large whatever zeal there may be, whatever enthusiasm, whatever wise plans and bold doings the heart of an aged and godly Eli cannot cease to tremble for the ark of God.* \par \par Once more, in the third place, let us take yet another, and that the most favourable view of the parties in whose hands the ark has come to be placed. Let us suppose them to be neither hypocrites and mere formalists on the one hand, nor backsliders and men of doubtful position on the other. Let them be men of truest conscience and tenderest walk before God in Christ. Still, compassed about as they are with manifold infirmities, and liable to err and stumble at every step they take, how shall they carry the precious burden safe along the rough road, or across the channel of the stormy sea, or by the way of the howling wilderness, or through the rage and din of hostile crowds? For it is a delicate and tender, as well as a costly deposit that is committed to their charge, easily susceptible of injury, apt to be soiled and tarnished if the dust of earth reach it, or the very wind of heaven be suffered to visit it too roughly. \par \par The essential holiness of God, do we rightly appre\par \par \fs22 * This whole passage I have thought it best to leave as it was originally written, although its application is pLVALEartly local and temporary, having reference to a time of private bereavement and public loss (April and May, 1845) a time, moreover, when men's minds in the Church to which the author belongs were not a little exercised in the manner here indicated. \par \fs24\par \par 56 SCRIPTURE CHARACTERS ELI, \par \par hend what it is? And have we any adequate impression of that holiness as imparted and communicated to whatever is his? The name, the word, the day, the house of the Lord, whatsoever he vindicates and challenges to himself, not by the right of creation merely, but by that of redemption through the blood of his Son, and renewal through the operation of his Spirit; these things, that thus belong to God our Saviour how venerable are they, and how awful! And it is these glories and wonders of his grace and power that he commits into our hands, to J>e defended and to be displayed. \par \par Ah! my brother, if indeed you are a believer in Jesus, consider how much of what is God's you carry about with you wherever you go! your body and your spirit, which are his, your character and reputation, which are his, your talents, which are his, your very life, which is now altogether his! His honour, and the interests of his kingdom, are now bound up with everything you say and do. Not a plan or purpose you can form but must affect something that is his; every hour you spend is a portion of his time, eveiy mite you cast into whatsoever treasury is his property!\par \par \par For it is not with us now as it was with the Israelites of old. They might place the ark in comparative security in the midst of their close and compact ranks, where not a finger of the enemy could touch and pollute it, until all its defenders were slain. Man after man might be smitten, and phalanx after phalanx might be cut down or scattered to the winds; and though the danger, becoming more imminent every moment, might make the heart of \par \par A GODLY MAN TREMBLING FOR THE ARK OF GOD. 57 \par \par one who witnessed it tremblLVALFe more and more, not a profane or unhallowed breath could sully the sacred symbol till its last guardians, the wretched Hophni and Phinehas, had fallen. But in the Christian army, what of God's is intrusted to men's care, is so diffused and circulated through all the troops, that not a tongue can speak, nor a limb move, nor the poorest soldier in the utmost extremity of the lines be wounded, or turn his back, or lay down his arms, without instant damage to the holy trust which is committed more or less to all. And how sensitive to the slightest shock is the holiness of all belonging to God that you have to handle and to bear about with you! The smallest rent mars that seamless coat, woven from the top throughout, which is the uniform of all Christ's volunteers, the faintest stain shows itself on that clear bright name with which each forehead is sealed!\par \par ' Ah! who may venture to undertake such responsibility, as this? Who is sufficient for these things? Let me never open my mouth for Christ, or lift my hand for Christ, or stir my foot for Christ, lest inadvertently I offend, and be found hindering instead of furthering the cause which I love, blemishing instead of adorning the doctrine which I believe, discrediting instead of magnifying the only name under heaven which I care to honour, because it is the only name under heaven given among men whereby I, or any sinner like me, can be saved/ \par \par Nay, but, brother, inactivity, reserve, hanging back, will not mend your position. You have got your post assigned to you; and whether you decline to act at all, or act amiss, the jewel of Christ's crown which you have \par \par 58 SCRIPTURE CHARACTERS ELI, \par \par in charge is in either way compromised. Nor have you any choice, or any liberty to stand aloof. Necessity is laid upon you. Woe is unto you if you preach not the gospel! Woe is unto you if you testify not for Christ I Woe is unto you if you speak not to your ungodly neighbour's conscience, and care not for his soul! Woe is untoLVALG you if you visit not the fatherless and widows in their affliction! Woe is unto you if you speak not a word in season to him that is weary! You have your task, your office, your ministry, allotted to you, whether as a public functionary or as a private member of the Church; and if you undertake it with fear, if your heart trembles for the ark of God, which you feel yourself to be so incompetent to handle, ask yourself, would either it or you be at all the safer were you to refuse to handle it at all? \par \par Let me put myself now for an instant in the position of an onlooker or watcher, like the aged Eli; and what might be my thoughts, as I gaze, not on the faithless or the faltering part of the Lord's army, but on his true and earnest adherents? \par \par Do I see any living for themselves alone, caring for their own souls, apparently finding food and refreshment in ordinances, and striving to have a close walk with God while yet there is no sign of their talcing any special interest in any department of the Lord's work, or charging themselves with any specific duty with reference to any one in particular of their fellow-sinners around them? I ask, if, with all their devout assiduity of personal and private piety, their souls are prospering and in health? \par \par \par A GODLY MAN TKEMBLING FOR THE ARK OF GOD. 59 \par \par Ah! the complaint is, \ldblquote My leanness, my leanness! \ldblquote And when I consider the selfish, secluded, isolated, and indolent character of their devotions, I cease to wonder, I simply mourn; and, having a regard to those very spiritual interests of their own which they seem exclusively to care for, more even than to the good cause which they are sinfully neglecting, my heart trembles for the ark of God. \par \par Do I see any who are keepers of the vineyards of others, and are not keeping their own; any spiritual busybodies in other men's matters, and idlers in their own; any who are tempted to put an officious and bustling energy in the Lord's work in thLVALe place of deep experimental searching of the Lord's word; any, in short, who find it easier to exhaust themselves for whole days in active service than to pass a still and silent hour in solitary prayer? Ah! I may cease to wonder that such incessant pains should issue in such scanty fruit; and, with special reference even to those public concerns which such persons seem to prefer to their own spiritual well-being, my desponding heart trembles for the ark of God. \par \par Where, then, shall this trembling heart find rest? I pass in review before me the whole muster-roll of the tried and tested army of the Lord. I take the champions and captains one after another. I rely on the mature experience of many a hoary veteran. I hail the fresh ardour of many an eagle-eyed recruit. But as, one after another, they take up the seemingly desperate battle, and one after another give some melancholy advantage to the foe, my heart still trembles for the ark of God. I cannot see a preacher, however gifted, ascend to his desk; \par \par \par 60 SCRIPTURE CHARACTERS ELI, \par \par or a pastor, however faithful, visit his flock; or an elder, the most conscientious, go his rounds; or a deacon, the most punctual, perform his service; or any private member of the church draw near a sick-bed where an anxious soul is tossing, or enter a parlour where a word in season may be spoken, and a clear testimony may be borne; but my heart must tremble for the ark of God. And all the while my heart must tremble the more, because the parties who are the occasions of its trembling seem themselves to tremble so very little. For if the Israelites in the camp had trembled more for the ark of God, Eli's heart, as he sat by the wayside watching, might have trembled less. \par \par \cf2\f1\fs23\par } LVAL^I{\rtf1\ansi\deff0{\fonttbl{\f0\froman\fprq2\fcharset0 Georgia;}{\f1\fnil\fcharset0 Georgia;}} {\colortbl ;\red0\green128\blue0;\red0\green0\blue0;} {\*\generator Riched20 5.40.11.2210;}\viewkind4\uc1\pard\lang1033\f0\fs24 IV. ELI A GODLY MAN TREMBLING FOR THE ARK OF GOD. \par \par \ldblquote His heart trembled for the ark of God.\rdblquote \cf1\ul 1SA_4:13\cf0\ulnone . \par \par PART THIRD. \par \par THE composition of the army to whom the ark of God is committed, may but too well account for the trembling of an Eli's heart. Not to speak of the false and formal adherents to the cause, how feeble and faint-hearted are many of the host, how ill at ease, how unbelieving!\par \par And even the best and bravest are compassed about with infirmity; and the holiest fall far short of any adequate apprehension of what it is to serve the holy God, and uphold the honour of his holy name. It is a gloomy picture we have been contemplating. May there be no representation given somewhat less discouraging, to relieve the gloom ere we pass from this first cause of the trembling of Eli's heart? Let us try. Let us ask if no company or army of men may be got together, to whom Eli could see the ark of God committed without his heart trembling, at least so very anxiously? The three sketches we have attempted to give, being reversed, may suggest the reply, and furnish the materials of a more trustworthy host. Let us summon our troops. \par \par In the first place, let them all be men who come, not \par \par 62 SCRIPTURE CHARACTERS ELI, \par \par as fancying that the Lord hath need of them, but as feeling that they have need of Him. This is our primary and capital qualification. We are to have no selfrighteous, self-confident cavaliers, who would either hire themselves to Christ for a reward, or espouse his cause with an air of condescending patronage, as if they were doing him a favour. But is there any poor sinner in all the world who looks upon himself as lost, and so far from imagining that he could ever LVALJlend a helping hand in an emergency, considers himself the very Jonah, that, if taken on board, would sink the ship the worse than Achan, that, if admitted into the camp, would only mar the fight? \par \par Come, sinner! whosoever thou art, with nothing but thy wants for Christ to supply thy sins for Christ to forgive thy diseases for Christ to heal thy hard heart for Christ to break; come, thou art the very man for whom Christ is looking out. It was to enlist thee that he came into the world; it was to save thee that he suffered and died. Come; and at thy coming, though thou bringest nothing but guilt and sorrow, wounds and bruises and putrefying sores, Eli's heart will not tremble for the ark of God. \par \par Secondly, let all who flock to the Lord's standard at first, or continue to rally round it, make sure and thorough work of the settlement of their covenant with the Lord himself Let there be nothing ambiguous or equivocal, nothing uncertain or precarious, as respects the footing on which you are to be with him. And if any cause of misunderstanding has arisen if any defeat has been sustained while he withdrew his presence on account of your sin \par \par A GODLY MAN TREMBLING FOR THE ARK OF GOD. 63 \par \par think not to patch up a truce or accommodation with him, or to recover his favour and his powerful aid, by having recourse to half measures or formal devices. Come again, at once, to himself; let there be an entire clearing up of all that is amiss between him and you. On his part there is no hesitation or reserve; he would have a perfect covenant of peace established. No measured or doubtful boon does he dispense; but, taking you once more to be his own, he would have you to be again, and for ever, complete in him. Let him have your consent to be so. Let his Spirit incline you to submit thoroughly to him, to his searching of your painful wounds, to his tender upbinding of them all. Be satisfied with no noisy shout of triumph, upon any merely external and temporary sign of his presenLVALKce. Be satisfied with nothing short of an uncompromising adjustment of the question, why has he been smiting you? Then, all being clear and bright, his Spirit abiding in you and his countenance shining upon you, when he now commits himself to you, and commits you again to himself, frankly and freely, without condition on his part and without guile on yours, there will be no occasion for Eli's heart to tremble for the ark of God. \par \par Finally, let all in this army recognise and feel their responsibility, the peculiar sacredness of the trust committed to them, and its extreme liability to receive damage in their hands. Let them know what it is to work out their own salvation, and to aim at the salvation of others. Let them have a due sense of the tenderness of the heavenly vessel which they bear, and the holiness \par \par 64 SCRIPTURE CHARACTERS ELI, \par \par of the heavenly name by which they are called. Then, though their infirmities may be many, and they may often feel themselves to be in straits, let them be assured that it is not on their account that Eli's heart will tremble for the ark of God. \par \par You may be hesitating even now, my brother, and shrinking from an explicit and open avowal of your faith, or from the undertaking of some labour of love to which you feel yourself called or prompted. ' Ah! ' you may be saying within yourself, ' I would gladly receive the seal ajid pledge of my living union to Christ, and have him committed to be mine, and myself committed to be his. \par \par And I would esteem it a precious privilege and high honour to have a hand in some personal ministry for the glory of his name, and the winning of souls to him. Had I any good reason to hope that I would not dishonour my profession, or do harm instead of good in any work I might undertake, oh! how cordially would I take my place at his table, and enrol myself among those whose whole aim in life it is to be ever doing something for Christ, for perishing sinners, for poor sufferers. But I feel tLVALLhat it is a much more solemn thing than many think or than I once thought myself to take the name of God into my lips, and have the vows of the Lord upon me. I would not rush into such a position so hastily as many do, nor carry its tremendous responsibilities so lightly. \par \par You do not err, brother, in your estimate of the solemnity of the Christian culling. You cannot form too high a conception of the delicacy, and unsullied purity. \par \par \par A GODLY MAN TREMBLING FOR THE ARK OF GOD. 65 \par \par and integrity beyond suspicion, that ought to characterize the follower of Jesus; the light that should ever kindle in his eye, the love that should ever burn in his heart, the grace that should be poured into his lips, the comely beauty that should shed a charm over his whole demeanour, and the high authority that should give weight to his counsels, his example, his rebuke. But what then? \par \par Do you on that account hesitate, and halt, and hang back, when the Lord is calling you? Are you deterred, by the very loftiness of the standard which you have set up, from casting in your lot with the Lord's host, and do you think it safer for yourself, and better on the whole for the cause, that you should not be so deeply pledged to a style of life which you might not realize, and that the holy name should not be taken into the keeping of one who might only tarnish and soil it? Nay, brother, suffer the word of expostulation. Assuming your scruples to be real, and not affected, let me say to you, first, You have no right thus to reason; you cannot thus evade the responsibility which you would decline. It is laid on you by Christ, and it is treachery or cowardice, or both, to shrink from it. Accept it, rather, cheerfully, manfully, in faith; you have his own assurance: \ldblquote My grace is sufficient for you; for my strength is made perfect in weakness.\rdblquote And let me also say to you, further, It is precisely you, and such as you, that the Lord seeks to serve him; you who have some LVALMadequate notion of the sacredness of the Christian profession, and the magnitude of the Christian enterprise your irresistible call to undertake both, and your utter and helpless insufficiency \par \par \par 66 SCRIPTURE CHARACTERS ELI, \par \par for either. The Father seeketh such to worship him; the Son seeketh such to commit himself to them; the Spirit seeketh and searcheth such to dwell in them; that they may \ldblquote work out their own salvation with fear and trembling, because it is God that worketh in them both to will and to do of his good pleasure\rdblquote Ay, and their fear and trembling will go far to supersede all Eli's trembling for the ark of God. \par \par \ldblquote Who is among you that feareth the Lord, that obeyeth the voice of his servant, that walketh in darkness, and 'hath no light? Let him trust in the name of the Lord, and stay upon his God.\rdblquote \ldblquote Thus saith the Lord, The heaven is my throne, and the earth is my footstool, where is the house that ye build me? and where is the place of my rest? For all these things hath mine hand made, and all these things have been, saith the Lord, but to this man will I look, even to him that is poor and of a contrite spirit, and trembleth at my word.\rdblquote \ldblquote Fear not, thou worm Jacob, and ye men of Israel: I will help thee, saith the Lord, and thy Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel. Behold, I will make thee a new sharp threshing instrument, having teeth: thou shalt thresh the mountains, and beat them small, and shalt make the hills as chaff. Thou shalt fan them, and the wind shall carry them away, and the whirlwind shall scatter them: and thou shalt rejoice in the Lord, and shalt glory in the Holy One of Israel\rdblquote \par \par It was not a trembling, but a presumptuous look into the ark, that slew the men of Bethshemesh. It was not a trembling, but a presumptuous hand that Uzzah laid \par \par A GODLY MAN TREMBLING FOR THE ARK OF GOD. 67 \par \par upon the ark, when for that error he was smLVALNitten. It was not a trembling, but a presumptuous shout around the ark in the camp that made the old man's heart tremble as he sat watching. Look ye on the ark touch ye the ark rejoice ye in the ark, under the profound impression of this awful inquiry: \ldblquote Who is able to stand before this holy Lord God? Wherefore hath the Lord smitten us?\rdblquote Let there be such trembling as this in your hearts when you handle the ark of God, and at last the trembling of Eli's heart may cease. \par \par II. Besides the composition of the army into whose hands the ark may have come, the occasions and circumstances which seem to bring it forward in battle, and to peril it on the issue of battle, may cause not a little trembling of heart for its safety. We might here speak of such occasions as that on which the Israelites sustained a miserable defeat at the hands of the Amalekites and Canaanites, when they would have taken the ark with them in their unwarranted enterprise, had not Moses sternly refused to let it go out of the camp (Numb. xiv. \par \par 40-45). There is not always at hand a Moses to keep the ark from being involved in the hazards of a presumptuous enterprise, undertaken in the impatience of unbelief, by men smarting under the Lord's rebuke, and in haste to retrieve a false or sinful step. An Eli may be unable in such circumstances, to arrest the hot impetuosity)f the irritated host, his heart can but tremble for the ark of God. \par \par \ldblquote Woe is me, \ldblquote said the royal psalmist, whom superficial \par \par 68 SCRIPTURE CHARACTERS ELI, \par \par critics would pronounce, with cursing Shimei, to have been a man delighting only in blood; \ldblquote Woe is me, that I sojourn in Mesech, that I dwell in the tents of Kedar!\par \par My soul hath long dwelt with him that hateth peace. I am for peace; but when I speak, they are for war.\rdblquote \par \par How weary was David of wars and fightings when he cried out, \ldblquote Oh that I had wings like a dove! for then wLVALOould I fly away, and be at rest!\rdblquote Nor was it for his own sake alone that he yearned for this quietness; he desired to see the ark of God, so long tossed on the unsettled flood, at last lodged in safety on the holy mountain. \par \par And for the sincerity and intensity of this desire, he could appeal to God himself: \ldblquote Lord, remember David, and all his afflictions: how he sware unto the Lord, and vowed unto the mighty God of Jacob; Surely I will not come into the tabernacle of my house, nor go up into my bed; I will not give sleep to mine eyes, or slumber to mine eyelids, until I find out a place for the Lord, an habitation for the mighty God of Jacob\rdblquote (\cf1\ul Psa_132:1-5\cf0\ulnone ). But it was not given to him to accomplish this fondest wish of his heart. It was reserved for Solomon to build for God an house. All David's lifetime, the symbol of the covenant, unsettled and unhoused, was constantly exposed to peril and profanation, amid the vicissitudes of his stormy career; whether lodged with Abinadab at Gibeah, or carried aside into the house of Obed-edom, or covered with a tent on Zion; whether \ldblquote heard of at Ephratah,\rdblquote or \ldblquote found in the fields of the wood \ldblquote (\cf1\ul Psa_132:6\cf0\ulnone ). All his lifetime, therefore, considering these manifold exposures, David's heart, like Eli's, might tremble for the ark of God. \par \par \par A GODLY MAN TREMBLING FOR THE ARK OF GOD. 69 \par \par It is the prayer of every true servant and soldier of the Lord, that the din of war and controversy may speedily come to an end, and the Church may dwell safely in a quiet habitation. The world, indeed, is apt to judge otherwise of those who maintain the Lord's cause, especially in troublous times, stigmatizing them as troublesome and pestilent sowers of sedition, or as lovers of strife, seeking to turn the world upside down. There may be those amongst the ranks of Christ's army who delight in contest for its own sake, and are, as it were, iLVALPn their element when the storm is at its height; and they who witness only the untiring energy and unflinching courage of such devoted men, may conceive of them as having no pleasure in any scene but one of stirring incident and adventure, of peril and of death. But could we read their hearts as God does, ah! we would soon see what injustice the world does them. Not willingly, but because necessity is laid on them, do they engage in such scenes; and amid all their bold and hearty animation when the war is raging, what secret sighs are breathed for the return of a serene and honourable peace! Could it be effected without compromising the cause of truth and righteousness, how gladly, whether on the field of theological controversy, or of ecclesiastical contention, or of those political struggles in which the interests of Christ's kingdom are mixed up, how gladly would we proclaim a cessation of hostilities, a truce, an armistice, a pause, that the ark of God might have a little rest!\par \par \ldblquote thou sword of the Lord, how long will it be ere thou be quiet? Put up thyself into thy scabbard; rest \par \par 70 SCRIPTURE CHARACTERS ELI, \par \par and be still. How can it be quiet, seeing the Lord hath given it a charge against Askelon, and against the seashore? There hath he appointed it,\rdblquote (\cf1\ul Jer_47:6\cf0\ulnone ; \cf1\ul Jer_47:7\cf0\ulnone ). \par \par Quiet! rest! how can it be? Satan is not bound; the world still lieth in wickedness; heresies, divisions, strifes, abound; Babylon is not yet fallen. Nay, if ever there was a time when rest and quiet might appear indefinitely remote when the sacred symbol might be regarded as but a speck like the halcyon bird, or that Noetic ship dimly seen amid the chaos of the wild and tumultuous waters it is this present age, this present hour, in which, as it would seem, old controversies and new, old causes of agitation and new outbreaks, are about to be blended in one general hurricane and fiery storm. What former dispute, in literatuLVALQre, theology, or politics, is not revived? \par \par What fixed foundation of opinion, in any department of human thought, is not now unsettled? What body of men is in security and at ease? What creed, or covenant, or combination, is giving compactness to the gathering masses, whether of the higher intellectual and spiritual orders, or of the grosser portions of mankind? Statesmen and people, priest and flock all alike are thrown back on first principles if they have any, or on mere hour-glass expediency if they have none. And seeing how things most sacred are now at issue on the field of strife, and how much risk there is, in such stirring times, of the kindling of that wrath of man which worketh not the righteousness of God, as well as the scheming of that wisdom of man which is foolishness with God, how shall not Eli's heart tremble for the ark of God!\par \par A GODLY MAN TREMBLING FOR THE ARK OF GOD. 71 \par \par Is there, then, no source of consolation in the prospect of such trials and commotions as these? \par \par Had any one sought to comfort the blind old man, as he sat upon a seat by the wayside watching, and to allay the agitation of his soul he might have been reminded that what his heart trembled for was the ark of God; that God himself, therefore, might be expected to care for it; and that for him to be so anxious concerning it, was almost like distrusting God. Or it might have been represented to him, that for any evil consequences ensuing from the ill-advised policy on the part of the elders and people that put the ark in peril, he at least could not be held personally responsible. The whole of these proceedings were against his judgment and remonstrances; and be the issue what it may, his conscience at all events must be clear, and his hands must be clean. \par \par Would these considerations materially alleviate his grief? \par \par The last of them, so far from taking in as comfort, he might almost have resented as an insult. What! was he thinking only of himself, and LVALRof his own individual credit or security, when his heart trembled for the ark of God? \par \par There may be men who, in such circumstances, would rather congratulate themselves on their own exemption from blame, than enter into the risk and danger of the good cause and of its soldiers. From the safe shore they pleasantly view the toil of the exhausted crew, whose bark is all but engulfed in the billows; all the while complacently taking credit to themselves for having wisely declined to embark, and having warned their rash com\par \par 72 SCRIPTURE CHARACTERS ELI, \par \par rades of the impending storm. These are they who are so selfish, even in the Lord's work, that they can rejoice in no success that is not won by themselves, and grieve over no failure for which they cannot be brought in as personally accountable. Not such was Eli. That selfish ground of congratulation is not one that he can stand on. \par \par The other topic, indeed, is more congenial; it is comfort which he can take in. He calls to mind, that great as is the peril to which it is exposed, and weak and unworthy as are the hands that bear or defend it, it is the ark of God still; and, remembering this, he bids his trembling heart be calm. \par \par Still it costs him an effort to say, when things seem to be at the worst, \ldblquote I will trust, and not be afraid.\rdblquote It is impossible for him to disconnect himself from the battle that is raging: nor can even the assurance of the ark's ultimate safety and triumph make him insensible in the meantime to the rude shocks that assail it, and the perils it has to encounter alike from friends and from foes. \par \par I cannot help becoming indignant and uneasy when a father's good name is aspersed, or his good faith is called in question, even though I know that he will certainly clear himself at last. No more can I look on with calm indifference, when I see the good cause injured by human pride, and prejudice, and passion, even though I firmly believe that it will ere LVALlong come off victorious. If I love God, I feel for the honour and safety of his ark with that nice sense of honour which would make the sword leap from its scabbard when the faintest whisper \par \par A GODLY MAN TREMBLING FOR THE ARK OF GOD. 73 \par \par is breathed, or the puniest arm is raised, to its disparagement or injury. \par \par But, alas! I know not what spirit I am of, when I would call fire from heaven on the heads of those who will not give it homage, or when I would use the fire of earth to minister in its service. Let me be still and know that it is the ark of God. And while engaged in the strife, let me beware of all that, if I were but a looker-on or a looker-out, would make my heart tremble for the ark of God. Then only may I say with Moses, when the ark sets forward: \ldblquote Arise, Lord, and let thine enemies be scattered; and let them that hate thee flee before thee.\rdblquote And when it rests oh that it might be soon! how gladly will I join in the triumphant and peaceful strain: \ldblquote Return, Lord, unto the many thousands of Israel\rdblquote (\cf1\ul Num_10:35\cf0\ulnone -\cf1\ul 36\cf0\ulnone ). \par \par \par \cf2\f1\fs23\par } LVAL^T{\rtf1\ansi\deff0{\fonttbl{\f0\froman\fprq2\fcharset0 Georgia;}{\f1\fnil\fcharset0 Georgia;}} {\colortbl ;\red0\green128\blue0;\red0\green0\blue0;} {\*\generator Riched20 5.40.11.2210;}\viewkind4\uc1\pard\lang1033\f0\fs24 V. THE LONG-SUFFERING OF GOD. \par \par EXAMPLE IN THE CASE OF AN IMPENITENT SINNER CHARACTER OF AHAB. \par \par 1 KINGS 22. \par \par THE narrative in this chapter brings prominently out two very different characters that of Ahab, king of Israel, and that of Jehoshaphat, king of Judah. We begin with the consideration of Ahab's character, as it is illustrated in the closing scene of his life. \par \par This Ahab had been all along in his life, as he continued to be in his death, a signal monument and Example of the long-suffering patience of God In the very beginning of his reign he had provoked the Lord by a new crime. He did evil, it is said, in the sight of the Lord, above all that were before him; and, as if it had been a light thing for him to walk in the sins of Jeroboam, he took to wife Jezebel, the daughter of Ethbaal, king of the Zidonians, and went and served Baal and worshipped him (\cf1\ul 1Ki_16:30\cf0\ulnone ). \par \par The sin of Jeroboam was not so much idolatry as schism not the worship of false gods, but the worship of the true God in a false, unauthorized, and divisive course. After the revolt of the ten tribes, he saw that their political separation from Judah would be of short \par \par THE LONG-SUFFERING OF GOD. 5 \par \par duration if they still went up to Jerusalem to worship; whereupon, taking counsel (\cf1\ul 1Ki_12:28\cf0\ulnone ), he set up in Dan and Bethel two golden calves, in imitation of the cherubic emblems in the temple, and as substitutes for them; and, ordaining a separate priesthood to minister at these new shrines, he made the people believe that they need not go out of their own possessions to find the God who had brought them out of Egypt. This was the policy of Jeroboam and his successors, to make the ten tribes independent oLVALUf Jerusalem in things sacred as well as in things civil, by erecting separate altars, as well as a separate throne. Still they did not profess to differ in the object of their worship from their brethren of the two tribes, who continued subject to the house of 'David. \par \par But Ahab improved upon this device; he completed the separation, and consummated the apostasy. Having married, against the law, a heathen princess, he openly adopted the heathen worship. The daughter of the king of Zidon easily introduced and established the Zidonian idolatry, the worship of Baalim, or the heavenly hosts. \par \par This fierce and persecuting idolatry well-nigh suppressed the religion of Jehovah, and exterminated his prophets. \par \par A small but chosen band, however, of these devoted men escaped the fury of Ahab and Jezebel; and in this depth of wickedness, when the Levites were expelled, the priesthood degraded, and the people sunk in crime, boldly maintained the cause of God. \par \par Among these, Elijah was the chief. On the very first outbreaking of Ahab's new offence, he was commissioned to announce one of the judgments threatened by Moses, \par \par 76 SCRIPTURE CHARACTERS AHAB, \par \par that of long drought. A parched land and a famished population wrought at last a salutary change. Elijah, miraculously preserved during the famine, appears suddenly before the king, challenges the priests of Baal to a trial of their respective faiths, and having confounded them and vindicated himself by the fire from heaven descending on his altar, brings back the prince and people to the acknowledgment of the true God. The heathen priests and prophets are slain. Those of Jehovah are sought out and honoured, (1 Kings xvii. and xviii.) -It was in this interval of partial and transient reformation that Ahab, by divine encouragement, defeated the king of Syria, and repelled his invasion. But in the very height of triumph he forgot God, and made a covenant with the enemy, whom he was commanded utterly to destLVALVroy; suffering him to escape on his promising to restore a few towns formerly taken from the Israelites. \par \par He had victory given to him, and final deliverance secured, if only he had been willing, in faith, to follow up and follow out the advantage he had gained, and, according to God's command, utterly exterminate the foe. \par \par But he would be wiser more politic or more pitiful than God. He would make terms of compromise, drive a profitable bargain, and, in consideration of a merely nominal and apparent concession for the Syrian king soon showed he was not in earnest let the oppressor go in peace. For this he was rebuked by one of the prophets: \ldblquote Thus saith the Lord, Because thou hast let go out of thy hand a man whom I appointed to utter destruction, therefore thy life shall go for his life, and \par \par THE LONG-SUFFERING OF GOD. 77 \par \par thy people for his people\rdblquote The rebuke, instead of humbling, irritated and provoked him: \ldblquote He went to his house heavy and displeased\rdblquote (1 Kings 20.) \par \par Soon he was still farther misled by that covetousness which in his case most emphatically was idolatry. The longing eye which he cast on Naboth's vineyard seduced him into compliance with his wife's diabolical counsel to have Naboth stoned to death on a false charge of blasphemy; and that unscrupulous and unprincipled woman having regained her influence over him, soon hurried him again into the worst excesses of his former heathenism; insomuch that \ldblquote there was none like unto Ahab, which did sell himself to work wickedness in the sight of the Lord, whom Jezebel his wife stirred up; and he did very abominably in following idols\rdblquote (1 Kings 21.) \par \par But still he is not forsaken by God. In the veiy instant of his relapse into sin, the prophet Elijah is sent to admonish him. Ahab repents; not perhaps very thoroughly, or with a really godly sorrow, but still so as to procure for himself one more respite, one other trial. \paLVALWr \par For it is a striking feature of the providence of God, as exemplified in Scripture, that he sometimes accepts even a hypocritical, or at least a temporary and superficial, reformation, so far as to make it the occasion of a new respite and a new trial; but it may be the final respite, the final trial, as it was in the case of Ahab (\cf1\ul 1Ki_21:17-29\cf0\ulnone ). \par \par Let us pause, however, here for a moment, and behold thus far, and at this stage, the goodness of God. In an age and nation of abounding iniquity, he has all along \par \par 78 SCRIPTURE CHARACTERS AHAB, \par \par been raising up witnesses of his truth and his love. And in the particular case of Aliab, how patiently has he waited! It seems as if he were willing to make all possible allowance for the man's natural infirmity, his impetuosity of temper, the circumstances in which he has been placed, and the influences exerted over him. He is reluctant to give him up altogether. He labours to arrest his downward career; he hails and welcomes every appearance of improvement; he counteracts the advice of evil counsellors by the faithful and effectual expostulatiens of true prophets; he is long-suffering and slow to anger. \par \par But there is a period to this forbearance. The time is come when Ahab's fate must be decided. We arrive at the history of Ahab's fall, the last, controversy between the goodness of God on the one hand, and the wilfulness of this heady and high-minded man on the other. \par \par Let us mark the successive stages of this strife: the king's wilful purpose; the Lord's gracious opposition; the issue of the contest; the issue and end of all \par \par PART FIRST. The King's Wilful Purpose (\cf1\ul 1Ki_22:1-6\cf0\ulnone ). \par \par Ahab's purpose is announced in the beginning of the chapter. We find him, after three years of peace, preparing to attack the Syrians. The Syrian king, whom Ahab had treated with such ill-timed lenity, and with whom lie had made so sinful a compromise, has, as mighLVALXt have been anticipated, failed to fulfil tin 1.stipulated terms of ransom, and to restore the cities of Israel Ahab, provoked at his own simplicity in having suffere 1 so favour\par \par THE LONG-SUFFEKING OF GOD. 79 \par \par able an opportunity to slip, through his fond trust in the honour of a perfidious prince, and stung by the recollection of the prophet's rebuke, conceives the design of retrieving his error, and compelling the fulfilent of the treaty, on the faith of which he had been weakly persuaded to liberate the enemy whom God had doomed. In this, Aliab acts under the impulse of resentment and ambition. \par \par He burns with the desire of avenging a personal wrong and insult, rather than of fulfilling the decree of God. \par \par Had he consulted the will of God, he must have seen and felt that it was now too late for him to take the step proposed. He had let the time go past. When God gave him victory, and assured him of power over his enemy, then he should have used his opportunity. This he had failed to do; and for his failure he had been reproved by God, and warned by the prophet that his people and his life were forfeited. He might have acquiesced in the reproof, and learned caution from the warning; and, thankful for the undeserved blessings of peace and safety which he enjoyed, he might have waited patiently on the Lord, who, in his own good time and way, would have accomplished his purpose. This would have been his true wisdom; and the best, or rather the only proof which he could give of the sincerity of his repentance, would have been to show himself thus humbled instead of being displeased. Certainly Ahab should have been the very last person to think of rousing and provoking the very foe who, by the divine sentence and by his own compromise, had gained so sad and signal an advantage over him. \par \par But instead of following so wise a course, Ahab blindly \par \par v 80 SCRIPTURE CHARACTERS AHAB, \par \par rushes into the opposite extreme from his former faultLVALY; and because before he has been blamed. For not going far enough, with God on his side, he is provoked to go too far now, though God has declared against him. His conduct was like that of the Israelites of old, who, discouraged by the report of the spies, refused to invade the land, even when assured of God's help; but when God refused his help on account of their unbelief, instead of humbly receiving the just punishment of their offence, were stung by it to the madness of making the rash attempt themselves. So Ahab, instead of meekly submitting to the displeasure of God for his late unjustifiable weakness, would brave that displeasure again by an act of equally unjustifiable rashness; in the very temper of a petted and froward child, who, when reproved for doing too little, thinks to show his spirit by instantly doing too much. \par \par Still, however, though in breaking the peace or truce with which he is favoured, and venturing to provoke his perfidious and powerful neighbour, Ahab is acting without the warrant, nay, against the express warning of the Lord, he is not without his reasons, and they are very plausible reasons, to justify the step proposed. \par \par In the first place, it is in itself an act of patriotism and of piety; at least it looks very like it, and may easily be so represented: \ldblquote And the king of Israel said unto his servants, Know ye that Ramoth in Gilead is ours, and we be still, and take it not out of the hand of the king of Syria?\rdblquote (ver. 3.) The city unquestionably belonged originally to Israel, and the king of Syria had promised \par \par THE LONG-SUFFERING OF GOD. 81 \par \par to restore it, along with his other conquests. It lay within the territory of the tribe of Gad. It was a city of the Levites, and a city of refuge. It was a possession, therefore, an important and indeed sacred possession of the Israelites. What harm, then, is Ahab doing? where is the injustice of his proceedings? Nay, is it not fair, reasonable, honourable, to attempt theLVALZ recovery of his own and his people's rights? Is he not even consulting the honour of God, in seeking thus zealously the restoration of what is God's? Justice, duty, religion, appear to sanction his purpose. \par \par Secondly, it has received the countenance of a friend, \ldblquote And he said unto Jehoshaphat, Wilt thou go with me to battle to Kamoth-gilead? And Jehoshaphat said to the king of Israel, I am as thou art, my people as thy people, my horses as thy horses\rdblquote (ver. 4). And that friend is not a wicked man, but one fearing God, and acknowledged by God as righteous. \par \par And, thirdly, it has obtained the sanction of four hundred prophets: \ldblquote Then the king of Israel gathered the prophets together, about four hundred men, and said unto them, Shall I go against Ramoth-gilead to battle, or shall I forbear? And they said, Go up; for the Lord shall deliver it into the hand of the king\rdblquote (ver. 6). And these are not prophets of Baal; for his prophets had been lately dishonoured and almost utterly destroyed, and Ahab could not venture to bring any of them forward before so pious a prince as Jehoshaphat. Ahab is at this time professing a regard to the true religion, and he keeps at his court and about his person many disciples of the schools of the F \par \par \par 82 SCRIPTURE CHARACTERS AHAB, \par \par prophets, who themselves hold, or are reputed to hold, the prophetic character. The most complaisant and courteous of their number would doubtless be his counsellors: the boldest, as we know, he imprisoned. Still the approbation of these four hundred prophets, such as they were, might well confirm his resolution. \par \par Looking, then, at the act itself as an act of patriotic and pious zeal, encouraged by the consent of his friend and the concurrence of the prophets, Ahab, we may think, might well be misled. And we might pity and excuse him too, as one misled, did we not see him so willing to be so. Is he not all the while deceiving himself, and that too almLVAL[ost wilfully and consciously? Is it not the fact does he not feel it in his secret soul to be the fact that it is no sincere regard to the honour of his God and the good of his people that actuates him, but pride, vain-glory, ambition, and a spirit of impatience under the Lord's rebuke? Is he not aware, that in the enterprise which he contemplates he has no call from Heaven, and no right to reckon on help from on high? that instead of having any title now to attack his enemy and to recover his lost possession, he should be very grateful if he is not himself attacked, his own life and his people's being declared to be forfeited? Then as to his friend's consent, has he dealt fairly with that friend? Has he stated to him all the circumstances of the case? And does he not see plainly his friend's desire to conciliate, or fear to offend? Is he not deliberately taking advantage of a good man's weakness? Lastly, as to the prophets, has he no cause to suspect flattery and falsehood? Is he not of free choice \par \par THE LONG-SUFFERING OF GOD. 83 \par \par preferring their soothing lie to the honest truth? Does he not know that there is one prophet at least whom he cannot venture to consult? And is not this of itself a proof that he is by no means himself satisfied that he is right; that, on the contrary, he feels or fears that he may be doing wrong? \par \par beware, ye pilgrims in an evil world, ye soldiers in an arduous fight, beware of your own rash wilfulness, of the weakness of compliant friends, and of the flattering counsels of evil men and seducers, who in the last times in the last and critical stage of individual experience, as well as of the world's history are sure to wax worse and worse! There is no design, no device, no desire of your hearts, which you may not find some specious arguments to justify, some friends to countenance, ay, and some prophets too to sanction. You scarcely ever can be tempted to take a single doubtful or dangerous step in life without having some plea of reason or LVAL\religion to warrant it. It may be a step which God does not require you to take, and which he does not promise to assist you in taking. \par \par You may be putting in jeopardy your principles, and risking the very safety of your souls, by rushing needlessly and unwarrantably into the province of the enemy, and braving, or even courting, temptation challenging, by invasion of its haunts, the seductions of an evil world provoking the slumbering power of sin, of the very sin to which, by former concessions and compromises, you have given a formidable advantage over you. Ah! but you have some good purpose to serve in thus exposing yourselves you have some important end to gain. You have to make up for past neglect; \par \par \par 84 SCRIPTURE CHARACTERS AHAB, \par \par you have to repair past errors; you have to win back to God some part of what the great adversary has conquered, which still you think might be cleansed and sanctified again; you have to assert your Christian freedom and vindicate your superiority over the world, the devil, and the flesh. And if you should go a step too far, and venture somewhat imprudently into the very midst of the strongholds of this world's god, you will surely, in consideration of the sincerity of your motives, be forgiven and protected. \par \par And then you can get good men, in their complaisance, to go_ along with you, and even some form, or feeling, or fashion of religion some spiritual plea of gospel liberty or love to consecrate the undertaking; and you may seem to have a very good cause, or at least a very fair excuse, for venturing, as you do, on the very margin of what is wrong. \par \par Ay, but are you sure that, all this while, there is no guile in your spirit? Is there no consciousness of a selfish aim, no feeling that, in part at least, you are seeking to gratify your own pride and passion, as well as to advance the interests of righteousness, when, not content with the security and peace which by God's special mercy you might enjoy, through LVAL]simply believing in Jesus, hiding yourselves in him, and humbly keeping aloof from the evfl one, you are thus ready to risk a nearer encounter with the foe, and trust in your own ability to conquer? \par \par Are you not deceiving yourselves, and willing to be deceived? Is there no pious friend, to win whose approval you feel that you would need to state your case falsely, or partially? Is there no sound judgment that you fear to \par \par THE LONG-SUFFERING OF GOD. 85 \par \par consult? no eye of searching penetration and keen reproof to which you would not wish the whole purpose of your hearts to be unveiled? no argument or expostulation to which you would not like to listen? no prophet of the Lord whom you dare not send for? \par \par Oh, if there be, let this proof of a bad, or a doubtful cause, startle and alarm you! Doubt, deliberate no more, if you would not be lost. However innocent, however justifiable, the line of conduct in question may be, however plausible the arguments in its favour, however ready the consent of friends, however full the sanction, of prophets, be sure it is the beginning of evil, the first step to ruin, as it was in the case of. Ahab. \par \par PART SECOND. The Lord's Gracious Opposition (\cf1\ul 1Ki_22:7-23\cf0\ulnone .) We come now to consider the Lord's opposition to AhaVs purpose; for God did not yet leave this infatuated man to himself he interposed to warn him by the mouth of a faithful servant. \par \par The king of Israel is satisfied with the oracular answer of the prophets. Not so, however, the king of Judah. \par \par He suspects something wrong, missing probably among the four hundred some one of whom he has heard. \par \par Hence his question (ver. 7), \ldblquote Is there not here a prophet of the Lord besides, that we might enquire of him?\rdblquote \par \par And hence the pains he takes to overcome Ahab's prejudice against Micaiah (ver. 8): \ldblquote And the king of Israel said unto Jehoshaphat, There is yet one man, Micaiah the son oLVAL^f Imlah, by whom we may enquire of the Lord, but I hate him; for he doth not prophesy good concern\par \par 86 SCRIPTURE CHARACTERS AHAB,\par \par ing me, but evil. And Jehoshaphat said, Let not the king say so\rdblquote The king of Judah, it is true, does not venture to speak very boldly; for that he is too timid, or too temporizing. Still he persuades Ahab, and so far prevails as to have Micaiah summoned from the prison in which, for his freedom of speech, he had been confined, \ldblquote Then the king of Israel called an officer, and said, Hasten hither Micaiah the son of Imlah.\rdblquote \par \par \par This Micaiah is supposed to be the prophet who reproved Ahab formerly, on the occasion of his compromise with the Syrian king; and it was probably his boldness on that occasion that caused him to be imprisoned. That for some such reason he was at this time a prisoner, seems to be plainly implied, both in the king's manner of summoning him and in the terms in which he is afterwards remanded to confinement (ver. 26, 27). To please, then, his over-scrupulous ally, Ahab calls Micaiah into his counsels. But mark in what spirit he does so; not willingly, but reluctantly; not out of a candid desire to hear him, but with a fixed prejudice and predetermination against him. \par \par And is not this the spirit in which good advice is too often asked, and the word of God consulted, when it is too late, when a man's mind is already all but made up? You go when your conscience will not otherwise let you alone, or when the remonstrances of pious friends trouble you; you go to some man of God, to God himself, by prayer and the searching of his word: for what? \par \par what is it that you want? light for duty, however selfdenying? or light to justify your doubtful course? Alas!\par \par THE LONG-SUFFERING OF GOD. 87 \par \par alas! it may be all a mere form, gone through to satisfy some scruple of a friend; or it may be a desperate effort to catch at any semblance of divine permission for what youLVAL_ have, at any rate, set your heart on doing. \par \par Look at Ahab, for example. See how he is occupied while his messenger is gone for Micaiah. Instead of preparing himself to judge impartially, he is still lending an itching ear to the prophets of smooth things, one of whom goes so far as to mock and mimic the symbolic mode of prophecy adopted by the true prophets, and to represent, by the similitude of two pushing horns, the supposed successes of the allied kings: \ldblquote And the king of Israel and Jehoshaphat the king of Judah sat each on his throne, having put on their robes, in a void place in the entrance of the gate of Samaria; and all the prophets prophesied before them. And Zedekiah the son of Chenaanah made him horns of iron: and he said, Thus saith the Lord, With these shalt thou push the Syrians, until thou have consumed them. And all the prophets prophesied so, saying, Go up to Ramoth-gilead, and prosper, for the Lord shall deliver it into the king's hand\rdblquote (ver. 10-12). Thus Ahab is confirmed in his purpose, and is still further prejudiced against Micaiah. \par \par Meantime that man of God is called. He is advised, in friendship perhaps, to accommodate himself to the humour of the king, and to fall in with the rest of the prophets (ver. 13): \ldblquote And the messenger that was gone to call Micaiah spake unto him, saying, Behold now, the words of the prophets declare good unto the king with one mouth: let thy word, I pray thee, be like the \par \par 88 SCRIPTURE CHARACTERS AHAB, \par \par word of one of them, and speak that which is good.\rdblquote \par \par His answer is noble (ver. 14): \ldblquote As the Lord liveth, what the Lord saith unto me, that will I speak\rdblquote And right nobly does he redeem his pledge. \par \par He stands before the princes, undaunted by their royal state. First of all, he rebukes the prejudice of Ahab, by seeming to flatter it (ver. 15): \ldblquote So he came to the king. \par \par And the king said unto him, Micaiah, sLVAL`hall we go against Ramoth-gilead to battle, or shall we forbear? And he answered him, Go, and prosper: for 'the Lord shall deliver it into the hand of the king.\rdblquote He says this in bitter irony and sarcasm, taunting the king, and using the very words of the prophets to whom he delighted to listen. ' What is the use of consulting me? They have given you already the advice and the promise which you desire. Doubtless they are to be believed, and you have resolved to believe them. They bid you go; yes! go by all means. They assure you of success; certainly they must know best. \par \par The irony conveys a cutting reproof, and a merited one; and with this the holy prophet might have left the prince to believe his own and his flatterers' lie. \par \par But the mercy of God and the sin of Ahab are to be yet more signally brought out. Micaiah, therefore, when again adjured, speaks plainly. Ahab discerns the sharp and keen ridicule of the prophet's first address, and feels the rebuke. He presses him more closely: \ldblquote How many times shall I adjure thee that thou tell me nothing but that which is true in the name of the Lord?\rdblquote (ver. 16.) In reply, the prophet first describes what he saw in vision, \par \par THE LONG-SUFFERING OF GOD. 89 \par \par scene of desolation, the king lost, and the people dispersed, the shepherd smitten, and the sheep scattered; an expression which became proverbial, and was prophetic of another scene, when another Shepherd was smitten: \ldblquote And he said, I saw all Israel scattered upon the hills, as sheep that have not a shepherd: and the Lord said, These have no master: let them return every man to his house in peace \ldblquote (ver. 17). And then, still more thoroughly to awaken and alarm the king, the prophet, by -a striking announcement of what is presented to him in vision as at that moment passing in the unseen world, denounces the falsehood of the other advisers, and unveils to Ahab the crisis of his fate: \ldblquote And he said, Hear thou LVALatherefore the word of the Lord: I saw the Lord sitting on his throne, and all the host of heaven standing by him on his right hand and on his left. And the Lord said, Who shall persuade Ahab, that he may go up and fall at Ramoth-gilead? And one said on this manner, and another said on that manner. And there came forth a spirit, and stood before the Lord, and said, I will persuade him. And the Lord said unto him, Wherewith? And he said, I will go forth, and I will be a lying spirit in the mouth of all his prophets. And he said, Thou shalt persuade him, and prevail also: go forth, and do so. Now therefore, behold, the Lord hath put a lying spirit in the mouth of all these thy prophets, and the Lord hath spoken evil concerning thee\rdblquote (ver. 19-23). \par \par Thus Micaiah describes the Lord sitting on the throne of judgment, and in judgment sending forth a spirit of delusion to lure and decoy Ahab to his fall: not that God \par \par 90 SCRIPTURE CHARACTERS AHAB, \par \par ever seeks and desires the destruction of his creatures, or influences them by any necessity to be destroyed; but that, both as the natural consequence and also as the just punishment of their perverseness, when he sees them, in spite of all remonstrances, enamoured of destruction, he suffers them to destroy themselves. He leaves them, when willing to be deceived, at the mercy of the great deceiver. He causes blindness to fall on those who will not see, and hardness of heart on those who will not believe; and when men are ready to grasp a lie, sends a lying spirit to put a lie in their right hands. \par \par And yet even to the last, in judgment God remembers mercy. The very scene of judgment which the prophet discloses does not imply any fixed and irrevocable design of wrath against Ahab; with such a design, indeed, the disclosure of the scene would be incompatible and inconsistent. We speak of the revealed, not the secret will of God; with the revealed will of God alone Ahab had to do. And accordingly this scene, while LVALbit indicates a fearful trial, appointed in iust wrath God himself sending forth a lying spirit indicates also, in the very intimation given of it previously by one whom Ahab knew he ought to believe as a true prophet, that the Lord would have him to be forewarned and forearmed. He thus puts into Ahab's hands, if he will but take them, the arms by which he may meet the adversary; the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God; and the shield of faith, whereby he may be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked one. It is in love that this scene is disclosed in truest and most tender pity to rouse, to \par \par THE LONG-SUFFERING OF GOD. 91 \par \par arrest, to turn him, ere it is too late. There is yet time for him to stop short; else why this last attempt to open his eyes? \par \par And is it not ever thus? The sentence of final infatuation does not come without previous intimation. \par \par However you may be deceived, or may be deceiving, yourselves, is there not a voice of truth, or a prophetic warning, which you feel might keep you right if you were but willing to be kept right? Lying spirits of Satan may be sent abroad; but is not the Spirit of the living God still to the last striving with you? Though all your friends, and all the prophets, and all the longings of your own heart, join to beguile you, is there not still something in your conscience, in the Bible, in the providence of God, which tells you that all is not well, and bids you pause and see how Satan is mustering his agents to betray you, and God is permitting or appointing it, on account of your sin? And is not this the very height of your criminality and the aggravation of your doom, that, with your eyes opened, and suspicions and doubts awakened, when, by the misgivings and forebodings of your own souls, as well as by signs all around you, God is in mercy calling you to beware of the fearful visitation of judicial blindness and a reprobate mind, soon to be inflicted on such as you are, you can still listen to theLVALc soothing voice which speaks according to your wish, and count the faithful monitor your enemy because he tells you the truth? \par \par So it was with Aliab. \ldblquote Did I not tell thee,\rdblquote he says to his ally, that this Micaiah was mine enemy, \ldblquote that \par \par 92 SCRIPTURE CHARACTERS AHAB, \par \par he would prophesy no good concerning me, but evil?\rdblquote (ver. 18.) ' You see what I gain by consulting so severe and gloomy a fanatic. But, after all, why should he arrest our glorious career of triumph? What need have we of his sanction? Have we not enough of countenance without him? What fault have you to find with the four hundred, who have all with one consent promised us victory? And then see how tame and mean-spirited this vsaint is, how meekly he submits to insult and affront, \ldblquote But Zedekiah the son of Chenaanah went near, and smote Micaiah on the cheek, and said, Which way went the Spirit of the Lord from me to speak unto thee?\rdblquote (ver. 24.) When he is buffeted, he takes it patiently. \par \par Is he a fit counsellor of brave men and potent kings? \par \par Is his sour and malignant envy, grudging our success, his morose and unaccommodating temper, crossing our purposes, thus always to blast our fair prospects with the ominous presage of woe? No; his very presence spreads cowardice and disaffection. Let him leave war and government to nobler spirits; away with him to his dungeon and his cell, to meditate his tame doctrine of slavery and peace, and muse on the glories of his visionary heaven. \par \par The prophet, having faithfully discharged his conscience, and served his God and his king, retires happy to his prison, calm and confident of the result: \ldblquote And Micaiah said, Behold, thou shalt see in that day, when thou shalt go into an inner chamber to hide thyself. \par \par And the king of Israel said, Take Micaiah, and carry him back unto Amon the governor of the city, and to \par \par THE LONG-SUFFERING OF GOD. 93 \par \paLVALdr Joash the king's son; and say, Thus saith the king, Put this fellow in the prison, and feed him with bread of affliction and with water of affliction, until I come in peace. And Micaiah said, If thou return at all in peace, the Lord hath not spoken by me. And he said, Hearken, people, every one of you \ldblquote (ver. 25-28). \par \par The prince, enraged and irritated by the consciousness of this last wrong, having sealed his doom by his abuse of this last mercy, losing now all temper and self-command, rushes infatuated to battle and to death: \ldblquote So the king of Israel and Jehoshaphat the king of Judah went up to Kamoth-gilead\rdblquote (ver. 29). \par \par PART THIRD. The Issue of the Contest (\cf1\ul 1Ki_22:29-38\cf0\ulnone ). \par \par We come now to the closing scene, the issue of Ahab's trial. Having at last overmastered the scruples of his friend, Ahab marshals the hosts of Israel and Judah to go up against Ramoth-gilead. \par \par And here, in the first place, let the expedient by which Ahab consults his own safety be observed. For he does riot feel entirely comfortable and secure; he cannot rid himself of the uneasy apprehension which the prophet's word has suggested. There is danger. O but he will fall on a shrewd way of escaping it! The prophet has announced that it is the shepherd, that is the king, who is to fall; and accordingly, as it turns out, the orders of the Syrian commander are (ver. 31), that his troops are to spare all meaner enemies, and bend their whole force against the royal captain of the Jewish host. Ahab, knowing the hazard, cunningly proposes to resign the \par \par 94 SCRIPTURE CHARACTERS AHAB,\par \par post of honour to his ally: \ldblquote And the king of Israel said unto Jehoshaphat, I will disguise myself, and enter into the battle; but put thou on thy robes. And the king of Israel disguised himself, and went into the battle\rdblquote (ver. 30). \par \par While Ahab is to disguise himself, or, in other words, to go forth in the ordinaryLVALe armour of a common soldier, Jehoshaphat is to retain his royal robes and assume the command. The design of the crafty prince is so far successful. His too easy friend accepts the post of honour, as being the post of danger too. The dauntless spirit of this honourable man suspected no fraud in his ally, and shrunk from no force of the enemy. How narrowly he escaped without paying the penalty of his confidence and complaisance, we may afterwards remark. Meantime, what are we to think of the meanness of him who could thus treacherously impose upon another the conduct and hazard of his own unholy enterprise, and that other, too, his sworn comrade, his friend? what but that there can be no friendship, no honour at all, in a confederacy of sin, a confederacy against God? Cowardice, treachery, these are the characteristics of an evil conscience and a doubtful cause. Ahab was perhaps no coward naturally, no traitor to the sanctities of friendship; yet how unscrupulously does he sacrifice his friend and ally to the dastardly hope of shifting away from himself the sin and danger of the step that he is taking? \par \par And what are we to expect but that, false to his God, a man will be false to his friend also. Especially in any matter in which he has sought to fortify his own wavering resolution by his friend's companionship, he \par \par THE LONG-SUFFERING OF GOD. 95 \par \par make that friend's godly character available as a shield and cover for his own sin. \par \par Let none trust the fidelity of him who is not faithful to his best, his kindest, his most generous benefactor, his Saviour, his God. Consult your own conscience. When you are prepared to violate the restraints of God's holy law, and to despise the warning of his holy prophets, will you stand upon much ceremony with the cobweb delicacies of courtesy and kindness, of that honour which is but breath, and that friendship which is but a name? will you hesitate one moment to endanger the peace, the safety, or the reputation, even of the man LVALfwho treats you with the most simple and confiding frankness? will you scruple to turn his simplicity to your own account, and to play and work upon his confidence? You will try to make him as bad as you are yourselves; perhaps a little worse. \par \par By flattery, by solicitations, by false representations of your design, you will persuade him to join you to give you his consent and countenance to take a lead perhaps in your enterprise. Under pretence of honouring him, deferring to his advice, and trusting in his wisdom, you will propose that he should stand forward while you occupy the back ground. And if you succeed, how will you secretly exult! And if he be a good man, you will triumph ah 1 the more. You will lay all the blame and all the risk on him; and under his wing you will think that you are safe. \par \par But will the treacherous and cowardly device avail? \par \par did it in the case of Ahab? \par \par No; God is not mocked. He sees the trembling caitiff \par \par i 96 SCRIPTURE. CHARACTERS AHAB, \par \par under his mean disguise. And in the random shot which struck the guilty prince we recognise the immediate hand of the Lord in judgment. \par \par The expedient, indeed, has apparently almost answered Ahab\rquote s purpose. His friend, the king of Judah, as he expected, is mistaken for him, and becomes the mark for a thousand weapons: \ldblquote And it came to pass, when the captains of the chariots saw Jehoshaphat, that they said, Surely it is the king of Israel. And they turned aside to fight against him: and Jehoshaphat cried out\rdblquote (ver. 32). Aliab himself in the meantime escapes detection, and is exulting in the success of his scheme, and in his own security; when, as if to mark him out as the victim, not of man, but of God, no well-aimed dart, but an arrow sent at a venture, becomes to him the unerring bolt of wrath, and accomplishes his just and predetermined doom, \ldblquote And a certain man drew a bow at a. venture, and smote the king of Israel between tLVALghe joints of the harness; wherefore he said unto the driver of his chariot, Turn thine hand, and carry me out of the host; for I am wounded\rdblquote (ver. 34). \par \par It is thus, sinner! that the judgment of God will overtake you, and \ldblquote your sin will find you out.\rdblquote You may follow the multitude to do evil, and, mingling in the multitude undistinguished and unobserved, you may seem to get rid of your own individual responsibility and your own individual risk. You may flatter yourself that in your worldly course you have lost and merged your own particular share of the guilt and hazard in the general mass, and, as one of many involved in a common liability, \par \par THE LONG-SUFFERING OF GOD. 97 \par \par are not specially marked and specially doomed. You may placed before you, in the foremost rank, some dear friend, some greater and better man than yourself, who can better stand the brunt of battle. Against him the charge must be made; on him the fault, if any, must lie: he stands between you and judgment, and under the warrant and with the excuse of his authority, you feel yourself secure. \par \par Still, \ldblquote be sure your sin will find you out.\rdblquote An arrow drawn at a venture will enter your soul. The Lord singles you out individually, and separately deals with you. There is a shaft of conviction or a bolt of wrath on the wing, rushing seemingly at random through mid, air the arrow of Christ the king shot from his word, his gospel. Whose heart shall it sharply pierce? Yours, sinner! though a high name lead you, and a high example authorize you. \par \par Then stand forth now from the crowd alone, singly, separately, pierced in your heart now, that you may not be pierced hereafter. Flee from the camp and company of the wicked. \ldblquote Say not, A confederacy, to whom this people say, A confederacy, neither fear ye their fear; but sanctify the Lord of hosts in your heart, and let him be your fear, and let him be your dread\rdblquote Beware of Ahab'sLVALh doom. Beware of Ahab's sin. Trifle not with the remonstrances of God. Abuse not his long-suffering. Resist not his Spirit, when he is, in long-suffering patience, striving with you. In particular, \par \par 1. Beware of the beginning of Ahab's evil course his fatal compromise with the enemy of his peace. See that you enter into no terms with any sin, and that you be not hardened through its deceitfulness. When God in \par \par 98 SCRIPTURE CHARACTERS AHAB, \par \par Christ gives you the victory, delivering you from condemnation by his free grace, and upholding you by his free Spirit; when, justified and accepted in the Beloved, you see every sin of yours prostrate beneath your feet, stripped of all its power to slay or to enslave you be sure that you make thorough work in following out the advantage you have gained that you listen to no plausible proposals of concession that you suffer no iniquity to escape that you mortify every lust. For, if a single iniquity be tolerated, or allowed, 'or indulged; if a single sin remain alive; if, deceived by Satan's sophistry, you let j our vanquished enemy go, and trust to his fair promises of moderation and good behaviour who can tell what a thorn in the flesh that one enemy may prove to you, what a root of bitterness to spring up and trouble you! How soon may you be led into Aliab's course of impatience, presumption, and rebellion! To what shifts and subtleties of an unsatisfied conscience may you be compelled, like him, to resort! How, by one petty sin unmortified and unsubdued, may your peace be disturbed, your heart hardened, and your soul involved again in danger and in death! Let, your prayer, O penitent believer! be the prayer of the psalmist: \ldblquote Who can understand his errors? Cleanse thou me from secret faults. \par \par Keep back thy servant also from presumptuous sins: let them not have dominion over me: then shall I be upright, and I shall be innocent from the great transgression. Let the words of my mouth, and the meditation of my hLVALieart, be acceptable in thy sight, Lord, my strength and my redeemer\rdblquote \par \par THE LONG-SUFFERING OF GOD. 99 \par \par 2. Beware of provoking a slumbering foe. If there be any enemy of your peace to whom, by former compliances or concessions, you have given an advantage over you, beware of invading his territories again. Be on your guard against the very first beginnings of evil of any evil especially that you have ever, in all your past lives, tolerated, or flattered, or fondled in your bosoms, when you should have been nailing it, without pity, to your Saviour's cross. You may have many plausible reasons for venturing into nearer and closer contact with it than is at all necessary or safe. You may wish to recover a lost opportunity of grappling with it in the death-struggle of repentance and faith; you may wish to assert your Christian liberty and power. But, oh! beware, if conscience whisper that there is in you any latent lurking remnant of the spirit that made you once indulgent towards that sin, or anything like that sin. \ldblquote Look not on the wine-cup when it is red.\rdblquote \ldblquote Make a covenant with thine eyes that they behold not a maid\rdblquote \ldblquote If thy right hand offend thee, cut it off, and cast it from thee, for it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish, and not that thy whole body should be cast into hell.\rdblquote \par \par \par 3. Beware of the deceitfulness of sin. The wiles of the devil are not unknown to you. In a doubtful case, where you are hesitating, it is easy for him to insinuate and suggest reasons enough to make the worse appear the better cause. Generally you may detect his sophistry by its complex character. Truth is simple; the word of God is plain: \ldblquote Come out from among them and be ye \par \par 100 SCRIPTURE CHARACTERS AHAB,\par \par separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing\rdblquote \par \par The voice of conscience also is clear: \ldblquote How can I do this wickednesLVALs, and sin against God?\rdblquote \par \par \par 4. Beware of being hardened through the deceitfulness of sin. Beware of a judicial hardening of your hearts, or of your being given over to believe a lie. Imagine to yourselves what may be at this very moment going on in the high court of heaven concerning you. It may be your case that is under consideration; it may be the crisis of your fate that is come. No Micaiah is here, indeed, to unfold the solemn scene; but something in your own conscience may tell of it. There is a hesitancy, Felix trembles Agrippa is moved. It is not yet too late; you are at the very point of the decisive choice. \par \par All is trembling in the balance. Then, to-day, if ye will hear His voice, harden not your hearts. Trine not with the convictions of conscience or the strivings of the Spirit of God. Beware of- provoking and incurring the sentence \ldblquote Ephraim is joined to his idols, let him alone;\rdblquote or the judgment indicated by Him who is the faithful and true witness, in his parable of the barren fig-tree \ldblquote Cut it down, why cumbereth it the ground?\rdblquote the judgment which, after all suitable influences have been applied in vain, is acquiesced in by the intercessor himself as in the last resort inevitable \ldblquote Then after that thou shalt cut it down\rdblquote (\cf1\ul Luk_13:6-9\cf0\ulnone ). \par \cf2\f1\fs23\par } LVAL^k{\rtf1\ansi\deff0{\fonttbl{\f0\froman\fprq2\fcharset0 Georgia;}{\f1\fnil\fcharset0 Georgia;}} {\colortbl ;\red0\green128\blue0;\red0\green0\blue0;} {\*\generator Riched20 5.40.11.2210;}\viewkind4\uc1\pard\lang1033\f0\fs24 VI. THE FORBEARANCE OF GOD IN THE CASE OF THE RIGHTEOUS. \par \par CHARACTER OF JEHOSHAPHAT. \par \par 1 KINGS 22; 2 CHRON. 18, 19. \par \par \ldblquote SHOULDEST thou help the ungodly, and love them that hate the Lord? therefore is wrath upon thee from before the Lord\rdblquote (\cf1\ul 2Ch_19:2\cf0\ulnone ), such is the reproof administered by Jehu the seer to Jehoshaphat, on his return from the unsuccessful warfare in which he had been engaged with the king of Israel against the Syrians. In the history of that event we have an interesting exhibition of character, especially of the characters of the two leaders of the Jewish host Ahab king of Israel, and Jehoshaphat king of Judah. In Ahab we have an instance of a wicked man partially reclaimed, frequently arrested, but yet finally hardened in his iniquity. In Jehoshaphat, again, we have a still more affecting example. We see how a man, upright before God, and sincere in serving him, may be betrayed into weak compliances; and how dangerous and melancholy the consequences of these compliances may be. \par \par The general uprightness of Jehoshaphat, his sincerity in serving God, is expressly acknowledged and commended by the prophet in the very act of condemning his sin (ver. 3): \ldblquote Nevertheless there are good things found in thee, in that thou hast taken away the groves out of the \par \par 102 SCRIPTURE CHARACTERS JEHOSHAPHAT, \par \par land, and hast prepared thine heart to seek the Lord\rdblquote And this high and honourable commendation corresponds with what we elsewhere read concerning his character and conduct. The 17th chapter of Second Chronicles gives an account of his piety and zeal at the beginning of his reign, and before the event to which the prophet refers; and the 19th and 20th chapters proveLVALl the continuance of these excellent dispositions, even after that most sad and untoward occurrence. We read of his labours in removing idolatry out of the land, and restoring the worship of the true God (xvii. 6); of his attention to the religious instruction of the people (xvii. 7); of his concern for the administration of justice (xix. 5); and of his care for the defence of his people against their enemies, by the best of all resources an appeal to God (xx.): on all which accounts he was eminently favoured by God with prosperity at home and honour from abroad; the attachment of his people, the submission of his hostile neighbours, the tribute of many nations, and the blessing of Jehovah, the God of David, whom he feared. \par \par Such a prince, we might naturally imagine, opposed to all corruption in the worship of God, would be especially studious to keep himself and his people separate from the heathenism and idolatry of the adjoining kingdom of Israel. He could have no sympathy with the spirit which animated that kingdom under the auspices of the infamous Jezebel no toleration for the abuses which prevailed after she had secured the open establishment of the very worst form of paganism. His aim must surely be to avoid as far as possible all communion with a \par \par THE FORBEARANCE OF GOD. 103 \par \par nation which could only insnare and corrupt his own people. \par \par Yet, strange to tell, the besetting sin of this good man was a tendency to connect himself with idolaters. The single fault charged against this godly prince is his frequent alliance with his ungodly neighbours. This is the very offence for which he is reproved by the prophet. \par \par And this offence he more than once committed in the course of his reign courting, or at least accepting, the friendly advances of the kingdom of Israel; and that in three several ways. \par \par Thus, in the first place, Jehoshaphat consented to a treaty of marriage, probably at the beginning of his reign (\cf1\ul 2Ch_18:1\cf0\ulnonLVALme ). He \ldblquote joined affinity with Ahab\rdblquote by marrying his son to Ahab's daughter (\cf1\ul 2Ki_8:18\cf0\ulnone ). \par \par This was the first overture towards an alliance. It is a policy common among princes though, alas! too often ineffectual for uniting their royal families and their respective nations. It is the very policy of which in our own history we have several examples, in the intermarriages of the heirs of the two crowns in this island; whence, by the blessing of God, has resulted that solid union which, in his mercy, may he long preserve! The powerful monarchs of the south, after vainly endeavouring to subdue their poorer northern neighbour, whose proud and singular boast it is, that, poor as she is, she has never yet yielded to a foreign yoke, were content to win by courtship what they could not conquer by arms, and to welcome on a footing of affinity the people who would not be held as subjects. In accordance with this policy, \par \par 104 SCRIPTURE CHARACTERS JEHOSHAPHAT, \par \par then, the king of Judah sought to conciliate the friendship of the king of Israel, by mingling the blood of their royal races; not, however, with the same happy consequence, but, as it turned out, with most disastrous issues. \par \par Then, secondly, Jehoshaphat twice joined in a league of war with the kings of Israel; first, in the expedition against Syria which we have been considering; and again, shortly after in an attack upon the Moabites (\cf1\ul 2Ki_3:7\cf0\ulnone ). This latter confederacy being formed against a common enemy, who had given both of them provocation, was not so unjustifiable, nor was it so unfortunate as the other: it received the sanction of Elisha's counsel and of the Lord's signal interposition. But the warlike alliance into which, of his own accord, he entered, issued in nought but evil. \par \par Lastly, in the third place, Jehoshaphat consented, though reluctantly, in the close of his reign, to a commercial alliance of his people with the ten tribes. It aLVALnppears (\cf1\ul 1Ki_22:48\cf0\ulnone ) that once before, when asked by the king of Israel to concur in a joint expedition of their two navies to Ophir for gold, Jehoshaphat promptly and peremptorily refused, having then had fresh and recent experience, in the Syrian war, of the danger of his connection with Ahab. But yet afterwards (\cf1\ul 2Ch_20:35-37\cf0\ulnone ) he agreed to a similar proposal; on which occasion he was again rebuked by the prophet of the Lord, and again visited with signal judgment. \ldblquote The ships were broken,\rdblquote and the expedition ruined; \ldblquote they were not able to go to Tarshish.\rdblquote \par \par \par Such, then, was Jehoshaphat, and such his besetting sin. \par \par THE FORBEARANCE OF GOD. 105 \par \par Now, this infirmity in so excellent a person especially as manifested in that confederacy with the king of Israel of which we have already been tracing the dismal consummation is well worthy of our study, both to ascertain its cause and to trace its effects; first, to find out the probable reasons or motives of Jehoshaphat's conduct in this matter, and then to expose its folly, its sinfulness, its danger, and its evil fruit. \par \par As to the sin itself with which Jehoshaphat is charged, and the probable reasons or motives of its commission, we cannot suppose that, in forming an alliance with the ungodly, Jehoshaphat was actuated by fondness for the crime, or by complacency in the criminal. \ldblquote We must seek an explanation of his conduct rather in mistaken views of policy than in any considerable indifference to the honour of God, or any leaning to the defections of apostasy and idolatry. For this end, let us consider the relative situation of the two kingdoms of Judah and Israel, and the feelings which their respective kings, with their subjects, mutually cherished towards one another. \par \par The first effect of Jeroboam's revolt with the ten tribes from the house of David, was a bitter and irreconcilable hostility between the twoLVALo rival kingdoms of the ten, and of the two tribes. All friendly intercourse was interrupted, mutual jealousy and suspicion prevailed, and the minds of men on both sides were exasperated and inflamed by a succession of reciprocal injuries and insults. \par \par The division was marked by all the warmth of religious controversy, and the implacable rancour of civil and \par \par 106 SCRIPTURE CHARACTERS JEHOSHAPHAT, \par \par domestic feud. The kings of Judah could keep no terms with rebels against the Lord and his anointed David; while it was manifestly the policy of the revolted princes to make the breach irreparable, by keeping alive and aggravating feelings of animosity among the Israelites against their brethren of Judah. And, as if to widen and perpetuate the breach, each party in turn had recourse to the expedient of calling in foreign aid against the other. \par \par At the instigation probably of Jeroboam, Shishak, king of Egypt, who had formerly been his patron and protector, invaded Judah. And again, by way of retaliation, the king of Judah soon after invited the Syrians to ravage the territory of the hostile kingdom of Israel, (2 Chron. xii. and xvi.) Thus these two kindred nations, when the quarrel was yet recent and the wound rankled, hated and devoured one another. \par \par In course of time, however, when a generation or two passed away, something like a change, or a tendency to approximation, began to appear. The feelings of hostility had in some degree subsided, the memory of former union had revived, and the idea might again not unnaturally suggest itself to a wise and patriotic statesman, of consolidating once more into a powerful empire communities which, although recently estranged, had yet a common origin, a common history, a common name, and, till lately, a common faith, whose old recollections and associations were all in common. The manifest folly, too, of exposing themselves, by intestine division, to foreign invasion, and even employing foreigners against each otherLVALp, might \par \par THE FOKBEAKANCE OF GOD. 107 \par \par prompt the desire of bringing the kingdoms to act harmoniously together, whether in peace or in war. Such might very reasonably be the views of an able, enlightened, and conscientious sovereign, pursuing simply, in a sense, the good of his country; and such, probably, were the views of Jehoshaphat. His favourite aim and design seems to have been, to conciliate the king and people of Israel; at least, he was always ready to listen to any proposals of conciliation. He, no doubt, thought that he could secure all the advantages of an amicable intercourse without incurring its dangers that he could sufficiently guard himself and his people from the contamination of evil influence and evil example that they could derive all the benefit to be desired from mixing with their neighbours in things temporal, without losing their own superior privileges in things spiritual. Nay, we may believe that this good man contemplated the communication of these privileges to his outcast brethren of Israel, and proposed, by the course which he adopted, to leaven them with the spirit of a better faith, and ultimately bring them back again to the legitimate dominion of the house of David, and the pure worship of the God of their fathers. \par \par If so, his object was certainly not unlawful; but in the pursuit of it, he was tempted to an unlawful compromise of principle. In his anxiety to pacify, to conciliate, and to reclaim, he was tempted to go a little too far, even to the sacrificing of his own high integrity, and the apparent countenancing of other men's iniquities. Here lay the error of this pious prince; and here it was that \par \par 108 SCRIPTURE CHARACTERS JEHOSHAPHAT, \par \par he suffered the subtlety of worldly wisdom, and the spurious kindness of worldly liberality, to interfere with the simplicity of an upright and honourable faith in God, and a godly love towards men. To desire the restoration of his brethren of Israel to the privileges of the LVALqcovenant which they had renounced, Was natural, just, and right, in one who himself valued these privileges so highly; but with this view, and under this pretence, to make friendly advances towards them, and show a disposition to unite with them, in their present state of apostasy and idolatry this was imprudence this was sin. \par \par And is not this the very sin of many good and serious Christians, who manifest to the world, its follies and its vices, a certain mild and tolerant spirit, and are disposed to treat the men of the world with a sort of easy and indulgent complacency; justifying or excusing such concessions to themselves by the fond persuasion, that they are but seeking, or at least that they are promoting, the world's Deformation? No doubt, it is your duty to conciliate all men, if you can; but there is such a thing as conciliating, and conciliating, and conciliating, till you conciliate away all the distinctive characteristics of your faith. It is true, that in your intercourse with the world you are bound to be patient, long-suffering, and kind, as your God is patient, long-suffering, and kind, even to the evil and the unthankful You are to love the most abandoned with all that intensity of compassionate regard with which God has loved an ungodly race. By all words of sympathy, by all acts of true liberality, by the cultivation of all the charities and all the courtesies of \par \par THE FORBEARANCE OF GOD. 109 \par \par social intercourse, by self-denial and self-sacrifice, by all frank and cordial testimonies of affection, you are to demonstrate your own and your heavenly Father's goodwill, if by any means, heaping coals of fire on their head, you may melt them to penitence and love. But to make men see and feel how gladly you on earth, and your Father in heaven, would welcome them as penitents, this is one thing. To make them suppose that you are willing to receive them on terms of friendship while still impenitent, this is quite another. To treat them as ii their impenitenceLVALr formed no serious obstacle to the closest and most familiar intimacy; to mix and unite with them, as if you could tolerate, and even admire, their frailties, their excesses, their loose maxims and opinions; this is to attempt a union between light and darkness, between Christ and Belial an attempt alike vain and sinful, dangerous to yourselves and ruinous to them. \par \par If, therefore, there are any in the Church of Christ who are sometimes tempted and who shall say that he is not? to advance too far in this line of concession and conciliation, and these overtures of friendly conformity to the world, and to plead that they are not thus contaminated themselves, but that they rather season the world's corruption in the circles in which they move, by the admixture of their own purer principles and practices; we bid them look to Jehoshaphat and his unholy alliance with the idolatrous king of Israel. Let them consider what the real effect of such conduct was in his case, and what must be the effect of similar conduct in theirs. Let them observe its vanity and folly, for it fails \par \par 110 SCRIPTURE CHARACTERS JEHOSHAPHAT, \par \par to serve, or rather tends to hinder, the good purpose they intend; its sin, as it regards ' their own testimony for God and maintenance of sound principle; its danger, as it puts to hazard their peace and safety; and its mischievous tendency to encourage the evil course and accelerate the ruin of the very men whom they profess that they desire to benefit. \par \par Thus, as to the first point, Jehoshaphat, when he consented to an alliance with the king of Israel, no doubt contemplated the possibility of doing him some good. \par \par He thought that his influence and example might operate as a check on the violence of his ally. He intended to interpose, at fitting seasons and opportunities, his advice, his remonstrance, his authority; and flattered himself that, under his control, the measures of the headstrong prince would assume a milder and more moderate, asLVALs well as more religious character, than was their wont. \par \par Such was his hope. How in point of fact was it realized? Do we find the presence of the Jewish king at all restraining the impetuosity of Ahab's counsels? \par \par No; but his presence gives to these counsels a weight and a plausibility which, without his countenance and consent, they never would have had. Do we find Jehoshaphat boldly resisting and opposing the ungodliness of his new friend? All, no! his voice of rebuke is feeble and unheeded. Hear how he answers Ahab's impious avowal of the hatred which he bore to the true prophet of the Lord. Is it in the tone of manly and honest indignation which it deserved? No; but with a puny, \par \par THE FORBEARANCE OF GOD. 111 \par \par pitiful, girlish gentleness of expostulation \ldblquote Let not the king say so.\rdblquote And when the prophet is insolently buffeted by one of Ahab\rquote s minions, and consigned to unmerited imprisonment by the chafed monarch himself, what has this godly king to say against such atrocities? What!\par \par not a word? No! for not a word from him will now be regarded. He has lost his high prerogative of reproof. \par \par He has descended from his footing of unquestioned and uncompromised integrity, and involved himself irretrievably in the very course he should be rebuking. In a word, do we find this pious prince exerting any salutary influence at all over Ahab's manners, or principles, or pursuits? No; but we see him a tool, a dupe, and well nigh a victim, in the hands of one too crafty and too headstrong for him to manage. \par \par And so it must ever be. The very first step a good man takes from the eminence on which he stands apart, as the friend of God and the unflinching enemy of all ungodliness in the world, he compromises his authority, his influence, his right and power of bold remonstrance and unsparing testimony against the corrupt lusts and the angry passions of men. He gives up the point of principle, and as to any resistance LVALtthat he may make in details, men see not what there is left to fight for. If you make concessions to the weak, the wicked, or the worldly, and enter into their plans, and sit down with them in their indulgences, you renounce the advantage which the consciousness of untarnished honour and unimpeached consistency, and that alone, can give you over them; you put yourself on their level; you are at their \par \par 112 SCRIPTURE CHARACTERS JEHOSHAPHAT, \par \par mercy; you are one of themselves; and it must be with an ill grace and a feeble effect that you venture timidly to stand forth either as God's witness or as their reprover. \par \par Whatever you gain by conciliation, you lose far more by forfeiting the respect and reverence which firm integrity commands. You may consent to mix with them familiarly on terms of friendship and companionship; you may thus gain their easy and indolent good-will; but you gain something very like their contempt too; and a sort of feeble paralysis comes over you in the very attempt to be faithful. Your voice of censure loses all its commanding energy; your look of disapprobation loses all its keenness; your presence is no longer felt to be a restraint on folly; your severity cannot awe, your tenderness cannot touch; you can but feebly \ldblquote hint a doubt, and hesitate dislike\rdblquote To assume a high tone and take high ground now, would but excite ridicule by its absurdity, or anger by its impertinence. Your right to testify, your influence to persuade, your power of rebuke, alas! are all gone. \par \par Is not this the natural, the necessary result of such a conciliatory course? If you condescend to flatter men in their vanities, will they listen to you when you gravely reprehend their sins? No; they will laugh you to scorn. \par \par If you countenance them in the beginning of their excess, will they patiently bear your authoritative denunciation of its end? No; they will contemptuously reject it as a fond folly, or indignantly resent it as an insult. ILVALuf you go with them one mile, may they not almost expect you to go two? at least, you have no right to take it very much amiss if they go the two miles themselves. \par \par THE FORBEARANCE OF GOD. 113 \par \par Settle it, then, in your minds, as a fixed principle, that if you would preserve unimpaired your privilege of testifying for God, and would not be disqualified for discharging a very sacred trust, and performing a very sacred duty, you must beware of a single step in the way of such conciliation as Jehoshaphat's. If you would have your influence, your example, your character and conduct, to be of any weight in the world on the side of divine truth and holiness, be very careful, by the grace of God. \par \par to keep yourselves unspotted from the world. \par \par But, in the second place, Jehoshaphat not only failed to arrest Ahab in his sinful course, he was himself involved in its sinfulness Instead of reclaiming this wicked prince, he was himself betrayed into a participation in his wickedness, he joined him in his unholy expedition. \par \par And be sure, we say to all professing Christians, that you too, if you try thus artfully to gain the advantage over the world, will find the world too much for you. \par \par For Satan, the god of this world, is far more than a match for you in this game of craft, and compromise, and conciliation. Beware how you step out of your own proper sphere, as a separate and peculiar people, to provoke such a trial of skill with Satan or his practised votaries and advocates; and that, too, in their own haunts the haunts of their own worldly vanities; and on their own ground the ground of their own worldly modes and maxims. Be sure that they are to the full as able to argue the point with you, as you are to persuade or con \par \par SCRIPTURE CHARACTERS JEHOSHAPHAT,\par \par vince them. They are as likely, at the least, to pervert you as you are to convert them. You may take part with them in their counsels, and cultivate their friendship, hoping tLVALvo influence them towards good; but beware lest the tables be turned upon you, and they influence you towards evil. Remember, that from man to man holiness diffuses and spreads its healthful savour far more slowly and less extensively than sin disperses its contagious poison. The contact of your holiness may not sanctify them; the touch of their sin will certainly contaminate you. It is your purpose, in joining with them, to stop them short at a certain point. Are you quite sure that you can stop short at that point yourselves, that you will not, when you come to it, feel yourselves committed, and be easily persuaded that, having gone so far with them, it is needless to scruple about going yet a little farther? \par \par Then go not along with them at all no, not a single step: for a single step implies tampering, in so far, with your religious and conscientious scruples; and when these are once weakly or wilfully compromised, Satan's battle is gained. The rest is all a question of time and of degree. Your spiritual faith, and your moral principles, are henceforth at the world's disposal. Your safety lies in resisting at the outset, before the world's cold and subtle influence has debauched your hearts and perplexed your understandings. The first prompt decisions of a conscience convinced of sin, and a soul touched with the Saviour's love, will, in most cases, be right; but when you give time for the world to ply you with its manifold \par \par THE FORBEAKANCE OF GOD. 115 \par \par considerations of doubtful expediency when you once entertain the world's insidious inquiry, May I? Is it lawful? Are you sure that what I long to do is positively wrong? ah! then you are already involved in the tide and current that may soon sweep you into the resistless whirlpool, where so many promises and so many professions, once as trustworthy as yours, are day after day engulfed. \par \par Stand fast, then, in your liberty. \ldblquote All things are lawful unto you, but all things are not expedient\rdblquote LVALw Be not yourselves \ldblquote brought under the power of any;\rdblquote and consider what may \ldblquote edify\rdblquote the Church and glorify God (\cf1\ul 1Co_6:12\cf0\ulnone and \cf1\ul 1Co_10:23\cf0\ulnone ). Stand fast in your integrity. \par \par Be faithful to Him who calleth and appointeth you to be children in his house; \ldblquote faithful in that which is least\rdblquote as well as \ldblquote faithful in much\rdblquote (\cf1\ul Luk_16:10\cf0\ulnone ). \par \par Then, and then only, may you expect him to be faithful to you, and to keep your eyes from tears, your feet from falling, and your souls from death. \par \par For, thirdly, see what hazard Jehoshaphat ran. Not only did he sin with Ahab, but he was on the point of perishing with him in his sin. Betrayed by his false ally and associate, who could meanly consult his own safety by exposing his friend to danger, Jehoshaphat was saved, but scarcely saved, by faith and prayer, and that only in the last extremity: \ldblquote And it came to pass, when the captains of the chariots saw Jehoshaphat, that they said, It is the king of Israel. Therefore they compassed about him to tight: but Jehoshaphat cried out, and the \par \par 116 SCRIPTURE CHARACTERS JEHOSHAPHAT, \par \par Lord helped him; and God moved them to depart from him\rdblquote (\cf1\ul 2Ch_18:31\cf0\ulnone ). \par \par The interposition was seasonable; it was just in time, and no more than in time. And critical as it was, was it not more than he had any reason to expect? Was it not a deliverance on which he had no right to calculate? \par \par It was by his own fault, and against express divine warning, that he was involved in this hazard, and he might justly have been left to take the consequences of his own perverseness. His narrow escape was a cause of peculiar thankfulness to himself, but not a warrant of presumptuous confidence to others. It was a signal and special act of most undeserved mercy. \par \par And think not, Christian! that you may depend upLVALxon a similar act of mercy when you tempt the Lord as Jehoshaphat did. If you consent to the schemes of vain, wicked, or worldly men, and compromise your devotion to God out of courtesy and complaisance to them, you may be very sure that, as in Jehoshaphat\rquote s case, they will take advantage of your easy and accommodating spirit, to put the blame and the danger on you. But you cannot be at all so sure that God will come so very opportunely to your rescue. He is in no way bound to do so. For it is not a hazard which you have encountered in his service and at his call, but a risk incurred through your own weak folly or willful self-confidence; and why should you not be left to reap the fruit of your unwise compliance with the world's sin, by sharing largely in the world's doom? \par \par But suppose that God deals with you far more kindly \par \par THE FORBEAKANCE OF GOD. 1 1 7 \par \par than you deserve, and in the hour of threatened and courted ruin your prayer is heard, and you are saved from sinking in the deep pit arid the miry clay, and your feet are set again upon a rock, and your goings established, we have still, in the fourth place, one other consideration to urge. Look to the mischief which your compliance brings on others. Here we might speak of the many evils which the weak and worldly policy of Jehoshaphat entailed upon his family and people. We might show how his connection by marriage with the house of Ahab led, in another generation, to the introduction of all the vices and abominations of that idolatrous house into his own court and kingdom. We might show also how, in the present instance, notwithstanding his own escape, his army and his subjects suffered by his rashness; and we might remind you of the harm which you may do, by involving your friends, your children, or your dependants, in the consequences of your folly, from which you may yourselves be delivered, by encouraging them through your example, and leading them on in the way of sin, and shame, and sorrow. But we rathLVALyer choose to confine your view to a single point, and we ask you to remark how Jehoshaphat\rquote s countenance contributed to the ruin of the infatuated and unfortunate prince whom he assisted and seconded in his mad career. \par \par The king of Judah was saved himself, as by fire; but his ally, his confederate, was lost. And had he no hand, had he no concern, in the loss? And when he came to reflection, had he no cause of self-reproach no blame to take to himself? Had he faithfully warned his friend? \par \par 118 SCRIPTURE CHARACTERS JEHOSHAPHAT, \par \par Had he honestly remonstrated with him? Had he fearlessly protested against him, and sharply rebuked and withstood him? Oh! such wounds would have been kind and precious. But he had been too merciful; he had been pitiful, falsely pitiful, fondly, foolishly indulgent; he had spared his companion's feelings; he had dealt mildly and gently with him; he had seemed to consent, or at least to acquiesce. Alas! might not the perishing outcast too truly plead, that in every step of his sinful and fatal career he had the sanction of a righteous man? And oh! what would that righteous man now give for the recollection of but a single word affectionately spoken in strong and stern expostulation? \par \par Friends and Christian brethren! what a thought is this, that, in making flattering advances to sinners, and dealing smoothly with their sins, you not only endanger your own peace, but you accelerate and promote their ruin! You may save yourselves by tardy yet timely repentance; you may extricate yourselves ere it be too late; but can you save, can you extricate those whom your example has encouraged, or your presence has authorized? We speak not of the evil which in your unconverted state you may have done, that is bad enough to suggest many bitter recollections; but we speak of the evil which even in your character of believers you have unwarily and incautiously sanctioned, that you should feel to be even worse. Think of any single sin which you havLVALze seen committed, any single excess of word or action that has occurred in your presence or within your knowledge. \par \par Did you testify against it? Did you boldly stand forth \par \par THE FOKBEARANCE OF GOD. 119 \par \par to protest and to condemn? Did you decidedly separate yourself? Oh! you said a few words, perhaps, to save your credit; you feebly started an objection, and ventured timidly to suggest a hint. But did you faithfully and fearlessly start back at once from the scene, and disavow all sympathy and all toleration? Nay, did you not rather, by your light mode of speech, by lending your countenance before, and continuing to lend it still, convey the idea, that though for decency's sake you opposed, you were not very earnest in your opposition? And are you sure that this idea did not tend to encourage the offender? \par \par May it not be, that had you not at first acquiesced so easily, and at last remonstrated so faintly, the offence might not have been committed? \par \par And when you think of some such individual perishing in some such sin, in sin which you seemed yourselves to countenance and tolerate, O what depth of sorrow and self-abasement can ever exhaust the repentance due for so grievous a wrong? What earnestness of unceasing prayer is needed to guard against so dangerous a weakness! We ask you, the very best of you, Have you not to charge yourselves with some such compromise and compliance! We ask you, Have you felt the guilt of it as you ought? Have you repented of it as so aggravated an injustice ought to be repented of? Have you seen that there may lie upon you the burden not of your own sins merely, but of the sins of other men, of which you have been partakers? Have you ever considered what it may be to have to answer for the loss and ruin of immortal souls? Think what it would be to have the \par \par 120 SCRIPTURE CHARACTERS JEHOSHAPHAT, \par \par dying blasphemer point to you, and say, 'It was you who, by your decent profession, your little concessionsLVAL{ and conformities, your moderate indulgences it was you who, by your easy tone of levity, by your air of indifference, or by a word, a look, of sympathy with sin it was you who emboldened me to go on! ' \par \par The thought is too dreadful for us to dwell on; and especially so when we consider that even good men, holy men, servants of God, have suffered themselves to be thus criminal, and thus cruel. Well said the patriarch, of the ungodly, \ldblquote My soul, come not thou into their secret;\rdblquote have no fellowship with them; advance not, draw not near to their council no, not a step, not for a single hour. You may be putting to hazard your own principles, and fearfully aggravating and hastening their condemnation. \par \par And will God not visit for these things? Will he not rebuke the saint's weak compliance as well as the sinner's willful sin? True he will not acquit the sinner, though he may plead the saint's infirmity as his excuse; for, after all, he sins willfully. But will he on that account hold his saints guiltless? Must not this as well as their other sins, this infirmity with its sad results, \ldblquote find them out\rdblquote so as to be made sensible to their awakened conscience? \par \par and can it be so, if their hearts are touched with a feeling for lost souls, can it be so, without almost the very agony of remorse? \par \par beware how you treasure up for future hours of disquietude and despondency for the season of desertion for the dark and doubtful death-bed in addition to too many other sad recollections, the memory of sins \par \par THE FORBEARANCE OF GOD. 121 \par \par tolerated and sinners emboldened, through your simplicity, your timidity, your faint resistance, or your half-hinted consent! Truly you have need of sound wisdom and high principle in your walk through an evil world. The men of the world are ready enough to misunderstand even what is right in you, and to speak evil even of what is good. Give them no room for the sly remark, the shrewd suspiLVAL|cion, the insinuated doubt, which the very appearance of evil in you will suggest. Plead not an innocent or a laudable design, as though your policy might tend to win souls. Be not wiser than your God; but be faithful to him. It were hard to say how much of the world's carelessness in sin, as well as of the ill success of the gospel, may be ascribed to the feebleness of the testimony which believers bear against the world, and the uncertain sound which their trumpet gives. Let there be more decision among true Christians, a higher tone of feeling, a higher standard of conduct greater consistency, greater earnestness, greater separation, a more unequivocal zeal for God, a more unhesitating care and consideration for the interests of righteousness and the souls of men; and the people of the world may be made at last to know and feel that Christianity does put a real distinction, now and for ever, between them and the people of God. Alas for the tendency of many a Christian's walk to cherish the very opposite delusion! When unconverted men find you in their company, free and unconstrained, nay, ready to go along with them in some doubtful liberty of pleasure, or some questionable plan of profit, do they understand, can they be satisfied, that you really believe them to be in a \par \par 122 SCRIPTURE CHARACTERS JEHOSHAPHAT, \par \par lost and guilty state? Are you at any pains to show them and make them feel that you believe this? Would it not be benevolent in you to do so? Are they under the wrath of God? are they going down to hell? Do you believe that they are? And is it fair, is it generous, is it kind, to leave them, amid all your intercourse with them, still by possibility under the impression that, after all, you cannot seriously think the difference between you and them so very vital, else you would scarcely treat them and their plans and pleasures so favourably as they see that you do? Your tender mercies are cruel indeed, if such be the issue of them! Be sure that, not less out of charity tB LVALR o them than out of a regard to your own safety, it concerns you to realize, and to live as realizing, the momentous truth \ldblquote We know that we are of God, and the whole world lieth in wickedness\rdblquote (\cf1\ul 1Jo_5:19\cf0\ulnone ). \par \par Such knowledge is no nurse of vain-glory; for it implies a recognition of the free gift of God: \ldblquote And we know that the Son of God is come, and hath given us an understanding, that we may know him that is true, and we are in him that is true, even in his Son Jesus Christ. \par \par This is the true God, and eternal life\rdblquote (\cf1\ul 1Jo_5:20\cf0\ulnone ). \par \par And it deepens and renders intense the feeling of duty and responsibility: \ldblquote Little children, keep yourselves from idols. Amen\rdblquote (\cf1\ul 1Jo_5:21\cf0\ulnone ). \par \cf2\f1\fs23\par } LVAL^~{\rtf1\ansi\deff0{\fonttbl{\f0\froman\fprq2\fcharset0 Georgia;}{\f1\fnil\fcharset0 Georgia;}} {\colortbl ;\red0\green128\blue0;\red0\green0\blue0;} {\*\generator Riched20 5.40.11.2210;}\viewkind4\uc1\pard\lang1033\f0\fs24 VII. HEROD WEAKNESS GROWING INTO WICKEDNESS. \par \par ON THE CHARACTER OF HEROD, TETRARCH OF GALILEE. \par \par \cf1\ul Mar_6:14-19\cf0\ulnone . \par \par \ldblquote And the king was exceeding sorry; yet for his oath's sake, and for their sakes which sat with him, he would not reject her.\rdblquote \cf1\ul Mar_6:26\cf0\ulnone . \par \par THERE is a very remarkable quality to be observed in the evangelical histories; it is the tone of calm simplicity and candour which uniformly pervades them. Among many singular and admirable characteristics of their style and manner of composition, this is not the least. There is everywhere a mild and passionless equanimity, a quiet dignity, which marks the guidance and superintendence of a spirit truly divine. Not a trace, not a vestige or feature, anywhere occurs of wrath, or bitterness, or envy, or railing accusation, or evil speaking, or malice, or resentment, or any of those seeds and symptoms of human passion, which are so apt to disfigure the writings of uninspired men on subjects which interest and excite their feelings. With entire self-possession, or rather with an entire oblivion and forgetfulness of self, they write as the disciples of the meek and lowly Jesus, who, when reviled, reviled not again, when buffeted, threatened not. \par \par Nor is theirs the calmness of affected philosophic \par \par 124 SCRIPTURE CHARACTERS HEROD, \par \par impartiality, the indifference or insensibility which some think it the height of wisdom to assume when they write, as if in carelessness or in scorn of all the high and spirit-stirring recollections, and the deep, heart-moving associations, which their subject should suggest. The writers of the New Testament are not thus destitute of interest and sympathy in what they write. They wriLVALte with feeling. They write from the heart. None, indeed, could write narratives so simply and profoundly cordial and hearty, without being hearty and cordial themselves. \par \par But yet what is remarkable in them is, that they are never betrayed or hurried into the slightest excess. \par \par There is not a word, not a hint, of extravagance or exaggeration, or unbecoming heat and intemperance: all is fervour, indeed; but it is the chastened and subdued fervour of heavenly meekness. They never lose their temper. They are never hastily provoked to utter unadvisedly one single sentence. They never wonder, though they have wonderful things to tell of. They never fret or rage, though they have intolerable wrongs to set forth. \par \par They show no studied enthusiasm to recommend their cause, no impatient resentment against its adversaries; although theirs was a cause to rouse from their depths all the soul's emotions of admiration, exultation, triumph, and revenge. Still there is no violence of feeling in what they write, but a plain and temperate record of facts. \par \par And is not this especially singular? Is it not a proof of divine influence restraining all human pride and human wrath, and leaving nothing but the forbearance and single-minded devotion to the majesty of sacred truth, \par \par WEAKNESS GROWING INTO WICKEDNESS. 125 \par \par becoming the historians of Heaven's own acts and counsels? Even when they are most tempted to launch forth into declamation, or to indulge in invective, still all the narrative is calm. \par \par Here, for instance, what an occasion had they for impassioned oratory! What a handle for stirring men's minds might they have seized in the tale of cruel wrong which they had to relate! No colours could be too dark to paint the atrocity of the transaction; no language strong enough to denounce and stigmatize the perpetrators of so foul an enormity. There is the mean and dastard tyrant, who would fain have been a villain had he dared, but whose coward spirLVALit made him a mere tool. \par \par There are the monsters in female form, whom unhallowed lust and passion converted into blood-hounds. And the deed itself! unparalleled in the annals of cold-blooded crime, a match for the blackest cruelties of the blackest pages of Roman story, casting quite into the shade that savage inhumanity which could make its jest of slaughter, and find a fit accompaniment for its strains of levity in the carnage and conflagration of a devoted city! Here was an occasion that seemed to justify, nay, to call for indignation, here was a theme on which the friends of the murdered and martyred saint might well be expected to grow warm. \par \par But no. They forget not their character as historians of heavenly truth. They condescend to no vivid painting, no passionate upbraiding. They simply discharge their office, and tell their story. Nay, it appears almost as if, instead of exposing the full and aggravated enor\par \par 126 SCRIPTURE CHARACTERS HEROD, \par \par inity of the crime, they were willing rather to say what could be said in the way of extenuation and excuse. \par \par Instead of enlarging on its horrors, they hint rather at what might be received as some palliation, or at least some explanation of the affair. \ldblquote The king was exceeding sorry\rdblquote he was not willing to do this cruelty, he shrunk from it; it was, in a manner, forced upon him after much reluctance and regret. \par \par What more could a professed apologist of Herod, what more could the prince's warmest friend and admirer, have suggested? What more could he have desired to see put on record, in extenuation of Herod's conduct? \par \par The deed was not properly his own, he was compelled to it against his will, \ldblquote he was exceeding sorry;\rdblquote but there was a necessity; he could no