صور الصفحة
PDF
النشر الإلكتروني

fest the counsels of the hearts: and then shall every man have praise of God '."

O, my brethren, how ought the utterance of this solemn truth, to put to shame and silence our rash or envious judgments! How humble ought it to make us all, how zealous, how watchful! Is it possible that a more awakening appeal than this can reach the hearts of Christian ministers, or a Christian people? Can any thing more closely bring

1

[ocr errors]

1 1 Cor. iv. 4, 5. We may, (by the example of the Apostle,) make use of this; the inward testimony of our hearts being sufficient to justify us against the accusations of men but we may not rest upon this; as if the acquittal of our hearts were sufficient to justify us in the sight of God. St. Paul knew it, who durst not rest thereupon: but therefore addeth in the very next words, "Yea, I judge not mine own self; for I know nothing by myself, yet am I not hereby justified: but he that judgeth me is the Lord." Our hearts are close and false; and nothing so deceitful as they: and who can know them perfectly, but He that made them, and can search into them? Other men can know very little of them: ourselves something more: but God alone all. If, therefore, when other men condemn us, we find ourselves aggrieved; we may remove our cause into a higher Court; appeal from them to our consciences, and be relieved there. But that is not the highest Court of all; there lieth yet an appeal further and higher than it, even to the judgment-seat, or rather to the mercy-seat of God: who both can find just matter in us to condemn us, even in those things wherein our hearts have acquitted us; and yet can withal find a gracious means to justify us; even from those things wherein our own hearts condemn us.'-Bishop Sanderson's Sixth Sermon, Ad Populum, p. 343.

[ocr errors]

home to every one of us the weight of our present responsibilities, or more vividly place before us the reality of our future destinies ? Can any thing prompt us more dearly to prize the stewardship now committed to our hands; or more earnestly to look forward to the time when we must render our account of the same to Almighty God?

That time is fast approaching; and we too are drawing near to meet it. There is no aid but in His strength; no hope but in His promise. Seek we, therefore, by the help of His saving mysteries, to be filled more and more with that spirit of faithfulness which is required both of yourselves and us; that spirit which shall enable us, in this life, to run the way of His commandments, and to abide the issue of His final judgment, when time shall be no longer 1.

1 See Rev. x. 6.

SERMON V.

THE DISOBEDIENT PROPHET 1.

1 KINGS Xiii. 26.

It is the man of God, who was disobedient unto the word of the Lord.

THE disobedience of the man of God which is here recorded, and the awful punishment inflicted upon him on account of it, are detailed, with more than ordinary minuteness, in the chapter before us; and the narrative is marked throughout with circumstances of such peculiar solemnity, that it may well incline the hearts of us all to faith and calling upon God. The preceding history had set forth the manifold iniquities of Jeroboam, who, having, with the

1 This Sermon was originally published among the number of Family Sermons, under the direction of the Committee of General Literature and Education, appointed by the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge. It is now reprinted with some alterations.

ten tribes, renounced the allegiance of Rehoboam, king of Judah, and established the separate kingdom of Israel, had set up two calves of gold at Dan and Bethel (the opposite extremities of his territory), in order that the people might no longer "go up to do sacrifice in the house of the Lord at Jerusalem," but pay worship to those images, and thus be completely alienated from the authority to which they had formerly been subject'. In furtherance of the same object, Jeroboam had "made an house of high places, and made priests of the lowest of the people, which were not of the sons of Levi." He had, moreover, changed the times of religious worship, and, "in the month which he had devised of his own heart, had ordained a feast unto the children of Israel 2" At that feast he officiated in person, and, as "he stood by the altar to burn incense, the man of God" appeared from Judah, bearing the solemn message of rebuke, which he had received from the mouth of the Lord. Alone, the Prophet came into the assembly of idolaters. He was not dismayed by the presence of the sovereign or his attendant subjects, but, turning towards the altar, declared that the time should come when one "of the house of David, Josiah by name," should degrade and destroy it for ever, by burning thereon the bones of the priests who were then assisting in the unholy cere

1

1 Kings xii. 27.

2

Ibid. xii. 31. 33.

66

monies1; a prediction which was literally fulfilled about three hundred and fifty years afterwards, as we learn from the twenty-third chapter of the Second Book of Kings. As a present proof of the truth of his words, "the man of God" declared further, that the altar should, on that day, be rent, and "the ashes that were upon it be poured out :" upon which Jeroboam, enraged at his intrusion and threats, "put forth his hand from the altar, saying, Lay hold on him." But lo! "the hand which he put forth against him dried up, so that he could not pull it in again to him ;" and the King of Israel stood, in the midst of all his people, a monument of His wrath and power, who " poureth contempt upon princes, and weakeneth the strength of the mighty"." At the same moment, "the altar was rent in pieces and the ashes of the sacrifice were poured out, according to the sign which the man of God had given." These things struck terror into the son of Nebat, and with earnest prayers he besought of the prophet to entreat "the face of the Lord, and pray for him, that his hand might be restored him again. And the man of God besought the Lord, and the king's hand was restored him again, and became as it was before." But still the heart of Jeroboam remained untouched. However great had been his alarm when he felt the Divine Power withering in

1 1 Kings xiii. 2.

2 Job xii. 21.

« السابقةمتابعة »