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be stayed, one be persuaded to draw back, nay what if Ahab himself would listen and repent. With constraining love he declares the counsel of the Most High. And God's word shall not return unto Him void, some will hear and obey; eager as that crowd around us seems, hurrying its way to pleasure and to death, we will lift up our voice like a trumpet, to warn, to beseech, to alarm. Oh! turn ye at our call, and find that blessedness that can be found in Christ alone....

That day of battle closed even as the Prophet foretold. Ahab, struck by an arrow from a bow drawn at a venture, is mortally wounded; stayed up in his chariot till even, he dies, and there went a proclamation through the host "Every man to his city, and every man to his own country." Unhappy Ahab! who can tell the agonizing thoughts that wrung his mind in those hours of pain, whilst life slowly ebbed away. His hardihood in sin,' God's gracious interpositions in his behalf," his blood-stained covetousness, his repentance' so soon repented of, the last message of warning cast back on the messenger of God,'-did not these all pass before him in fearful array, in that dark hour

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1 1 Kings xvi. 33.

1 Kings xviii. 38; xx. 28, &c.

1 Kings xxi. 15. 1 Kings xxi. 29.

of distress?

Brethren, it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the Living God. Oh! dread his wrath, tempt Him not, you will need a Saviour in a dying hour, you need Him now, give Him your heart, cast away your idols, embrace His promises, live only to thy God.... And what of the faithful Prophet of the LORD? the word of God tells not further of his history; we know not whether from that prison-house his tried yet blessed spirit passed to the presence of its God, or whether delivered from chains, that witness to the truth again proclaimed, "that which the LORD should say unto him;" thus much we know, that "He keepeth the feet of His saints;" that "blessed are that people whose God is the LORD;" that the heart and lips that witness to his truth here, shall proclaim His praise hereafter. "Whosoever shall confess Me before men, him will I confess also before My Father which is in heaven."

1 St. Matthew x. 32.

V.

HIEL THE BETHELITE.

JOSHUA, chap. vi. ver. 26.

"And Joshua adjured them at that time, saying, Cursed be the man before the LORD, that riseth up and buildeth this city Jericho: he shall lay the foundation thereof in his firstborn, and in his youngest son shall he set up the gates of it."

SUCH was the curse,-such the penalty denounced. For five hundred years and more, no one was found bold enough to expose himself to the consequences of defiance. It was reserved for Ahab's reign to produce the man who dared, as it were, the God of Israel to the fulfilling of His own Word. "But who hath hardened himself against Him and hath prospered ?" Hiel built it indeed, but it was to write himself childless amongst men, laid the foundation thereof in Abiram his

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The beginning with the eldest and ending with the youngest seems to imply the death also of any between.

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firstborn, and set up the gates thereof in his youngest son Segub, according to the word of the LORD, which He spake by His servant Joshua." Let us dwell on this striking event, considering in order, the Curse,--the Defiance, -and the Fulfilment.

I. The Curse. It is not enough that the commandment of the LORD is executed in the destruction of Jericho, but Joshua is further directed to utter a denunciation against any that should rebuild it. Taken, by the might and power, not of man, but of the LORD of Hosts, it shall remain desolate, uninhabited; the walls that God has thrown down shall not be raised again by man; "Cursed be the man before the LORD, that riseth up and rebuildeth this city Jericho.".... It is not needful that we should be able to account for this proceeding of the LORD. We may refer it to the sovereignty of God; He doeth as it hath pleased Him, and suffers not His finite creatures to question His love, because they see not, in certain instances, how that love is manifested. One city may be spared, another destroyed; one individual may be drawn with loving kindness to the LORD, another be cut down suddenly in his sins; this leper may be 1 1 Kings xvi. 34.

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cured, these remain unhealed; one widow be miraculously fed, whilst many are permitted to have need;' certain Galileans may perish by the sword, and others, as guilty, survive; the tower in Siloam may fall on eighteen of the inhabitants of Jerusalem, and the rest remain unscathed; "Unsearchable are His judgments, and His ways past finding out," but yet "the Judge of all the earth doeth right." His sovereignty, though utterly beyond our reach to fathom, is the result of His united wisdom and love. In cheerful confidence in Him, let us "wait for the day," when " we shall know even as we are known."

But though this declaration concerning Jericho may be referred to God's hidden will, yet may we also read in it a mark of His remembrance of sin. On their very entrance into the promised territory shall the Israelites have a memorial of the might of the LORD, of His holy indignation against sin. Brethren! similar memorials, like witnesses, hath God been giving us since the beginning of the world. The cherubim and the flaming sword, forbidding the garden of Eden to our first parents; the flood that drowned the world; the perpetual ashes of the cities of the Plain; Jerusalem's 2 Luke xiii. 2, 3, 4.

1 Luke iv. 26, 27.

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