children, this pleased not Naaman, this pleases not man in this or any day, "the things that are impossible with man, are possible with God," or none would be saved. Strange is it how much men will give, how much they will undergo under a false religion, to merit Heaven, but the message of mercy from the God who is Love, is too simple, too blessed, too free, too like that God from whom it comes, to be trusted and rejoiced in by the estranged heart of man; "some great thing," they will do, which God doth not command, the great salvation they will neglect or oppose which He himself beseeches them to accept, even redemption through His blood. . . . But when "GOD SAITH" casts down "I THOUGHT," and we submit to follow where He points, when in fact the finite obeys the Infinite, then our language is, "I abhor myself and repent in dust and ashes,"1 and our next utterance, "LORD, what wilt thou have me to do?" 2 .... The remonstrance of Naaman's servants stayed him from his purpose of return, "And his servants came near and spake unto him, and said, My father, if the prophet had bid thee do some great thing, wouldst thou not have done it? how much rather then, 2 Acts ix. 6.

'Job xlii. 6.

when he saith to thee, wash and be clean."... Happy indeed is it when servants and masters thus seek each other's interest, when with respectful submission on the one side, and the due exercise of authority on the other, there is yet that love that binds them together in bands that time cannot break; when, like the centurion, "the servant is dear unto us," or, like these servants of Naaman, the master's welfare is even as their own. Blessed that household where concord thus dwells! "In these last days," the "perilous times "2 are come, when such ties are by pride and selfishness, and impatience of restraint, too often broken; light causes separate; too little consideration on the one side, and the desire of change on the other, continually interfere with domestic peace and comfort. Oh forbear one another in love! pray for each other's weal, expect not too much, regard not “the mote in thy brother's eye," but rather "the beam in thine own;" think of the day of gathering, and rule, and serve in reference to that day.... The persuasions of Naaman's servants prevailed. He received kindly their reproof, and obeyed the directions given. Then went he down, and dipped himself

seven times in Jordan according to the saying of the man of God, and his flesh came again, like unto the flesh of a little child, and he was clean," (14th verse.) His faith was indeed small, even as a grain of mustard seed, but it was real, for it led to obedience, and it brought the happy result in the promised blessing of health.

Brethren! go ye and do likewise, "wash and be clean," believe and be saved, receive and live. Be in earnest, for such the Lord will bless; the Syrian was in earnest in the pursuit of health, and he received health and a cure; but, with all your earnestness be humble. Pride will send you to “Abana and Pharpar,"-to works and ceremonies and the form of godliness, and will seek to keep you from the river of life, the blood that alone cleanseth from all sin; but restonthe promise of your God, go to the ONE Fountain, so shall He address you (Who speaketh, and it is done) "I will, be thou clean ;" and you shall find in your own happy experience that "the leprosy is cleansed," your "iniquity taken away, your sin purged," you are "clean."

VIII.

NAAMAN'S DOUBT.

2 KINGS, chap. v. verse 19th.
"And he said unto him, Go in peace."

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"WERE there not ten cleansed," said our Lord, after the miracle of mercy to the lepers, "but where are the nine? There are not found that returned to give glory to God save this stranger.' Naaman was of the same spirit as that Samaritan stranger. Eager to return to his country and his home, he will not thither bend his way, until he hath owned at the hands of the instrument of mercy, the gift of health; yea, and owned that Jehovah, whose instrument Elisha was,-" He returned to the man of God." Happy at that moment the heart of the prophet, not only that health was restored to him so lately loathsome to behold, but that the miracle had gone deeper, had reached the inner man, had

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drawn Naaman to the knowledge of the true God.

In concluding this eventful history, let us dwell on,

I. The Blessed Change.

II. The Conscientious Doubt.

I. The Blessed Change. Behold Naaman renovated in body. The hue of health is on his countenance, vigour is in his limbs; that elasticity of mind is his, of which health is so great a promoter. How different from what he once was! when that corrosive leprosy kept him restless and sad, whose course is to penetrate unseen, till it has wasted the substance, and made its victim a mass of corruption.' That disease, which man could never heal, God has healed: Naaman is clean. Has it been our lot, brethren, to have been laid up in the chamber of sickness, there to have counted wearisome days and wearisome nights, till the desire of life has almost failed, and then to have been restored? and at length, on some day long looked for, long asked for, to have been permitted to go forth, and to taste again the freshness of the air of Heaven, and to feel that the full energy of health had

'See Bonar on "Leviticus," p. 230. (Nisbet and Co.)