those sacred treasures, which were dedicated by himself, by his progenitors. Like the true son of David, he would not serve God cost-free. Rehoboam turned Solomon's gold into brass; Asa turns Rehoboam's brass into gold. Some of these vessels, it seems, Abijam, Asa's father, had dedicated to God; but, after his vow, inquired, yea, withheld them: Asa, like a good son, pays his father's debts, and his own. It is a good sign of a well-meant devotion, when we can abide it chargeable; as contrarily, in the af fairs of God, a niggardly hand argues a cold and hollow heart.

All these were noble and excellent acts; the extirpation of sodomy; the demolition of idols; the removal of Maachah; the bounteous contribution to the Temple: but that, which gives true life unto all these, is a sound root; Asa's heart was perfect with the Lord, all his days. No less laudable works than these have proceeded from hypocrisy; which, while they have carried away applause from men, have lost their thanks with God. All Asa's gold was but dross, to his pure intentions,

But oh, what great and many infirmities may consist with uprightness! What allays of imperfection will there be found, in the most refined soul! Four no small faults are found in true-hearted Asa,

First, the high places stood still, unremoved. What high places? There were some dedicated to the worship of false gods; these, Asa took away: there were some misdevoted to the worship of the true God; these, he lets stand, There was gross idolatry in the former; there was a weak will-worship in the latter. While he opposes impiety, he winks at mistakings. Yet even the variety of altars was forbidden, by an express charge from God, who had confined his service to the Temple. With one breath, doth God report both these; The high places were not removed; yet, nevertheless, Asa's heart was perfect. God will not see weaknesses, where he sees truth, How pleasing a thing is sincerity, that, in favour thereof, the mercy of our just God digests many an error! O God, let our hearts go upright, though our feet slide: the fall cannot, through thy grace, be deadly, however it may shame or pain us.

Besides, to confront his rival of Israel, Baasha, this religious king of Judah fetches in Benhadad, the king of Syria, into God's inheritance, upon too dear a rate; the breach of his league, the expilation of the temple. All the wealth wherewith Asa had endowed the house of the Lord, was little enough to hire an Edomite, to betray his fidelity and to invade Israel. Leagues may be made with infidels; not at such a price, upon such terms. There can be no warrant, for a wilful subornation of perfidiousness. In these cases of outward things, the mercy of God dispenseth with our true necessities, not with the affected. Asa, where was thy piety, while thou robbest God, to corrupt an infidel for the slaughter of Israelites O princes, where is your piety, while you hire Turks to the slaughter of Christians? to the spoil of God's Church?

Yet, which was worse, Asa doth not only employ the Syrian, but

relies on him; relies not on God. A confidence less sinful cost. his grandfather David dear. And when Hanani, God's seer, the herald of heaven, came to denounce war against him for these sins, Asa, instead of penitence, breaks into choler: fury sparkles in those eyes, which should have gushed out with water: those lips, that should have called for mercy, command revenge. How ill do these two agree, the heart of David, the tongue of Jeroboam! That holy grandfather of his would not have done so : when God's messenger reproved him for sin, he condemned it, and himself for it: I see his tears; I do not hear his threats. It ill becomes a faithful heart to rage, where it should sorrow; and, instead of submission, to persecute. Sometimes, no difference appears, betwixt a son of David and the son of Nebat. Any man may do ill, but to defend it, to outface it, is for rebels; yet even upright Asa imprisons the prophet, and crushes his gainsayers. It were pity, that the best man should be judged by every of his actions, and not by all. The course of our life must either allow condemn us; not these sudden eruptions.

or

As the life, so the death-bed of Asa wanted not infirmities. Long and prosperous had his reign been: now, after forty years' health and happiness, he, that imprisoned the prophet, is imprisoned in his bed. There is more pain in those fetters which God put upon Asa, than those which Asa puts upon Hanani. And now, behold, he, that in his war seeks to Benhadad, not to God, in his sickness seeks not to God, but to physicians. We cannot easily put upon God a greater wrong, than the alienation of our trust. Earthly means are for use, not for confidence. We may, we must employ them; we may not rely upon them. Well may God challenge our trust, as his peculiar ; which, if we cast upon any creature, we deify it. Whence have herbs, and drugs, and physicians their being and efficacy, but froin that divine hand? No marvel, then, if Asa's gout struck to his heart, and his feet carried him to his grave; since his heart was miscarried for the cure of his feet, to an injurious misconfidence in the means, with neglect of his Maker. 1 Kings xv. 2 Chron, xiv, xv, xvi.

ELIJAH WITH THE SAREPTAN.

WHO should be matched with Moses in the hill of Tabor, but Elijah? Surely next after Moses, there was never any prophet of the Old Testament more glorious than he.

None more glorious; none more obscure. The other prophets are not mentioned without the name of their parent, for the mutual honour both of the father and the son; Elijah, as if he had been a son of the earth, comes forth with the bare mention of the place of his birth. Meanness of descent is no block in God's way, to the most honourable vocations. It matters not whose son he be, whom God will grace with his service. In the greatest honours that hunan nature is capable of, God forgets our parents: as, when we shall be raised up to a glorious life, there shall be no

respect had to the loins whence we came, so it is proportionally in these spiritual advancements,

These times were fit for an Elijah: an Elijah was fit for them. The eminentest prophet is reserved for the corruptest age. Israel had never such a king as Ahab, for impiety; never so miraculous a prophet as Elijah: this Elijah is addressed to this Ahab. The God of Spirits knows how to proportion men to the occasions; and to raise up to himself such witnesses, as may be most able to convince the world: a mild Moses was for the low estate of afflicted Israel; mild of spirit, but mighty in wonders; mild of spirit, because he had to do with a persecuted, and yet a techy and perverse people; mighty in wonders, because he had to do with a Pharaoh : a grave and holy Samuel was for the quiet consistence of Israel: a fiery spirited Elijah was for the desperatest declination of Israel: and if, in the late times of the depraved condition of his Church, God have raised up some spirits, that have been more warm and stirring than those of common mould, we cannot censure the choice, when we see the service.

The first word, that we hear from Elijah, is an oath, and a threat to Ahab, to Israel; As the Lord God of Israel liveth, before whom I stand, there shall not be dew nor rain these years, but according to my word. He comes in like a tempest, who went out in a whirlwind. Doubtless, he had spoken fair and peaceable invitations to Israel, though we hear them not: this was but the storm, which followed his repulse, their obstinacy. After many solicitations and warnings, Israel is stricken by the same tongue that had prayed for it.

Elijah dares avouch these judgments to their head, to Ahab. Ido not so much wonder at the boldness of Elijah, as at his power; yea, who sees his power, can no whit wonder at his boldness. How could he be but bold to the face of a man, who was thus powerfu with God!

As if God had lent him the keys of heaven, to shut it up and open it at pleasure, he can say, There shall be neither dew nor rain these years, but according to my word. word. O God, how far it hath pleased thee to communicate thyself to a weak man! What angel could ever say thus? Thy hand, O Lord, is not shortened. Why art thou not thus marvellous, in the ministers of thy Gospel? Is it, for that their miracles were ours? Is it, for that thou wouldest have us live by faith, not by sense? Is it, for that our task is spiritual, and therefore more abstracted from bodily helps? We cannot com mand the sun with Joshua, nor the thunder with Samuel, nor the rain with Elijah: it shall content us, if we can fix the Sun of Righteousness in the soul; if we can thunder out the judgments of God against sin; if we can water the earthen hearts of men, with the former and latter rain of heavenly doctrine.

Elijah's mantle cannot make him forget his flesh. While he knows himself a prophet, he remembers to be a man; he doth not therefore arrogate his power as his own, but publisheth it as his Master's. This restraint must be according to his word; and that

rare, in that they are seldom given to any; common, in that they are indifferently given to the evil and to the good. A little holiness is worth much illumination.

Whether out of envy, to hear that said by the seer of Judah which he either knew not or smothered, to hear that done by another which he could not have effected and could not choose but admire; or, whether out of desire to make trial of the fidelity of so -powerful a messenger; the old prophet hastens to overtake, to recal, that man of God, who had so defied his Bethel : whom he finds sitting faint and weary under an oak, in the way; taking the benefit of that shade, which he hated to receive from those contagious groves, that he had left behind him. His habit easily bewrayed him, to a man of his own trade; neither doth his tongue spare to profess himself.

The old prophet of Bethel invites him to return, to a repast; and is answered with the same words, wherewith Jeroboam's offer was repelled. The man of God varies not a syllable from his message. It concerns us, to take good heed of our charge, when we go on God's errand.

A denial doth but invite the importunate. What he cannot do by entreaty, the old man tries to do by persuasion; I am a prophet also, as thou art, and an angel spake to me, by the word of the Lord, saying, Bring him back with thee into thine house, that he may eat bread and drink water. There is no temptation so dangerous, as that which comes shrouded under a veil of holiness, and pretends authority of God himself. Jeroboam threatens, the prophet stands undaunted; Jeroboam fawns and promises, the prophet holds constant: now comes a grey-headed seer and pleads a counter-message from God; the prophet yields and transgresses. Satan may affright us as a fiend, but he seduces us as an angel of light.

Who would have looked for a liar, under hoary hairs and a holy mantle? Who would not have trusted that gravity, when there was no colour of any gain in the untruth? Nothing is so apt to deceive, as the fairest semblances, as the sweetest words. We cannot err, if we believe not the speech for the person, but the person for the speech.

Well might this man of God think "An aged man, a prophet, an old prophet, will not, sure, bely God unto a prophet. No man will forge a lie, but for an advantage. What can this man gain by this match, but the entertainment of an unprofitable guest? Perhaps, though God will not allow me to feast with Jeroboam, yet, pitying my faintness, he may allow me to eat with a prophet. Perhaps, now that I have approved my fidelity in refusing the bread of Bethel, God thinks good to send me a gracious release of that strict charge. Why should I think that God's revelations are not as free to others, as to me? And if this prophet have received a countermand from an angel of God, how shall I not disobey God, if I do not follow him ?"

Upon this ground, he returns with this deceitful host; and,

when the meat was now in his mouth, receives the true message of death, from the same lips that brought him the false message of his invitation; Thus saith the Lord, Forasmuch as thou hast disobeyed the mouth of the Lord, and hast not kept the commandment of the Lord thy God, but camest back and hast eaten bread, and drunk water, in the place forbidden thee, thy carcase shall not come to the sepulchre of thy fathers.

O woeful prophet! When he looks on his host, he sees his executioner; while he is feeding of his body, he hears of his carcase; at the table, he hears of his denied sepulchre; and all this for eating and drinking where he was forbidden by God, though bidden as from God. The violation of the least charge of a God is mortal. No pretences can warrant the transgression of a divine command.

A word from God is pleaded on both sides: the one was received immediately from God; the other related mediately by man: one, the prophet was sure of; the other was questionable. A sure word of God may not be left, for an uncertain. An express charge of the Almighty admitteth not of any check. His will is but one, as himself is; and therefore, it is out of the danger of contradiction.

Methinks, I see the man of God change countenance, at this sharp sauce of his pleasing morsel. His face before-hand is dyed with the paleness of death. Methinks, I hear him urging, many unkind expostulations, with his injurious host: who yet dismisses him, better provided for the ease of his journey, than he found him. Perhaps this officiousness was out of desire, to make some amends for this late seducement. It is a poor recompence, when he hath betrayed his life and wronged the soul, to cast some cour tesies upon the body.

The old Bethelite, that had taken pains to come and fetch the man of God into sin, will not now go back with him, to accompany his departure. Doubtless, he was afraid to be enwrapped in the judgment, which he saw hanged over that obnoxious head. Thus the mischievous guides of wickedness leave a man, when they have led him to his bane; as familiar devils forsake their witches, when they have brought them once into fetters.

The man of God returns alone; careful, no doubt, and pensive, for his offence; when a lion out of the wood meets him, assaults him, kills him. Oh the just and severe judgments of the Almighty, who hath brought this fierce beast, out of his wild ranges into the highway, to be the executioner of his offending servant!

Doubtless, this prophet was a man of great holiness, of singular fidelity, else he durst not have been God's herald, to carry a message of defiance to Jeroboam, king of Israel, in the midst of his royal magnificence; yet now, for varying from but a circumstance of God's command, though upon the suggestion of a divine warrant, is given for a prey to the lion. Our interest in God is so far from excusing our sin, that it aggravates it. Of all others, the sin of a prophet shall not pass unrevenged.

The very wild beasts are led by a providence. Their wise and