"Elias was a man subject to like passions as we are, and he prayed earnestly that it might not rain; and it rained LONDON: (PRINTED AT THE CITY PRESS, LONG LANE; BY W. H. COLLINGRIDGe). AYLOTT & JONES, 8, PATERNOSTER ROW; AND ALL BOOKSELLERS. 1852 275.2. ELIJAH THE TISHBITE. ELIJAH'S APPEARANCE. IT is a splendid description, my beloved, which the Lord gives us of his true church here upon earth, addressing it in the Song of Solomon.* "Thy neck is like the tower of David, built for an armory; whereon there hang a thousand bucklers, all shields of mighty men." He compares it with that strong tower which David built on mount Zion. Thus also stands based upon a rock the church of God; and "that rock is Christ," and his blood. It rests upon the power and word of God. The triune God, who lives for ever, holds it in his hands, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. to whom, as the organs and instruments of the living God, we are indebted for the preservation of our light, and the defence of the true sanctuary. They also glitter on the turret, to the joy of us-a late posterity, and for our consolation as well as for our encouraging example. Here, the sword of Noah, of the preacher of righteousness; there, that of Moses, the tortured man; here, the armour of Daniel; there, that of Judas the Maccabee; here, that of Paul the stanch warrior; there, that of Peter, the man of rock; here, the helmet and breastplate of Huss and Wickliffe; and, there, the tournamental accoutrements of Luther, Calvin, and Zuinglius; all zealous assertors of the honour of God, all valiant defenders The tower of David was built for an armory,of the fortress of Zion. whereon hung, in thousands, the shields of his chamAnd, behold! amongst those spiritual weapons of pions. And when has the tower of the church of heroes, there is one which strikes the eye with its Christ been seen unprotected. The marksman of particular lustre : it has achieved many a deed of hell has, for thousands of years, bent his bow towards faith for the glory and kingdom of God, and was it, and discharged his shafts of hellish fire against it; two-edged and piercing as ever a sword could be yet, to this day, it stands uninjured. Here, one during a heavy and calamitous time, and is covered shield suffices for a thousand; this one covers it en- with sweat and gore. Whose is the powerful weapon? tirely, shining with dazzling brilliancy. Where is It is that of Elijah the Tishbite, of the man great in the spear that will pierce it. Its shield is the Alpha word, and deed, and wonders, who broke forth like a and Omega, and no rust shall ever corrode it. But flame, and whose word burned like a torch, and who the tower of David was also emblazoned with was so glorious and distinguished by grace that, when various weapons of powerful and mighty men. They the only glorious One walked on earth, the Jews said, were weapons of vanquished enemies, set out as "It is Elijah." The life of Elijah, in his inward trophies of valour; or they were weapons of cham-emotions and in his outward conduct, is an inexhauspions, crowned with victory, who fought for Zion; preserved for posterity as spirit-stirring memorials. tible source of confirmation of faith, encouragement, and solace. Therefore, we intend to unroll to your view the history of this man of God in a series of Thus also is the living tower of the church of God discourses. We will accompany him at times into covered with the like ornament for the spiritual eye. the streets of the royal city, and to the thrones of Behold, behold! there they hang on the battlements, princes; at times into the desert and the inhospitable conquered and broken, the weapons of many thou-wilderness; at times to the open and turbulent thesands of vanquished men of power. Here, the sword of the murderer from the beginning, the old serpent; there, the poisonous sting of death, the dire king of terrors; here, the artillery of the seven hills; there, the shivered spears and battle-axes of many false prophets, and erroneous minds, together with their conquered standards: and the number of broken hostile lances, and of vanquished adversaries, brought forth by the hero to public show, increase from year to year. But, let us not overlook, on the tower, the heroic weapons of those who stood in battle for Zion, and * Chap. iv. 4. atre of his action; at times into the retired chamber, and the solitary nook of tears; and learn of him how the Lord guides his people, and how the power of God is strong in the weak. May the Spirit of the Lord of Lords regard in mercy these our contemplations, and grant that many an oppressed heart be comforted by them, and many a staggering knee be strengthened. 1 KINGS, XVII. 1. "And Elijah the Tishbite, who was of the inhabitants of Gilead, said unto Ahab, 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.'" Thus commences the history of our prophet, con- is, father of many nations; or it denoted the peculiar cisely and emphatically, placing us at once into the position of a man towards God, as the name midst of his life, so that we have already, in his first Enoch, the consecrated, David, the beloved; and appearance, the whole man as he is, respecting his so on. outward deportment, and internal character. The manner in which Elijah is introduced in history is remarkable. The preceding chapters dig as it were through the wall, and disclose to us the wickednesses and abominations in which Israel was deeply plunged at that distressing period. And, behold, clouds and mists envelop the whole country; images of Baal and Ashturoth grin at us in every direction; heathenish temples and idolatrous altars cover the holy soil; all the hills smoke from unhallowed sacrifices; all the mounts re-echo the blasphemous yells of the priests of falsehood. The people swallow iniquity like water, and in shameless rites rage around the golden calves. Alas, how deeply has sunk the splendour of Israel! how little is the seed of Abraham to be recognized!--the light, how dark has it become; how insipid the salt; and the gold, how dim! A black heavy night all around--yea, nothing but night-without a single consoling star in the skies. Here on a sudden we hear, "And Elijah said;" as if dropped from the clouds; to be compared to a lightning flash of God. Like a blazing torch hurled by the hand of Jehovah, this man enters into the dire scene of night, fatherless and motherless, without lineage, like Melchizedek. There he stands, in the midst of devastation in the wide world, alone with his God: almost the only grain of salt in the general rottenness, the only leaven that has to leaven the whole mass and, in order that it may be immediately known who he is, he commences his course almost like a God, with an astonishing deed of faith, by shutting up, in the name of his Lord, the heavens upon Israel, and changing the firmament into brass and iron. God be praised! the night is no longer so dreary, for a man of God is present, which makes it safe as if the moon had risen above it. Let us now dwell for awhile in our contemplation upon what is recorded to us in our present paragraph respecting this man of God, and direct our attention, 1.-To his name and to his circumstances. 2. To his character. 3.-To the prophetic denunciation with which he makes his appearance. The man with whom we are occupied is called Elijah. Therefore it is not to be wondered at, that in Israel the name a person bore was also included in the sphere of his more serious contemplations, and that he used to investigate and to inquire what the Lord might have intended to say and to declare by his name. The names served to the people as memorandum tablets, and like the small bells on the garments of the priest, reminding them of the Lord and his government, and prompting them to all manner of wholesome reflections. People gained consolation and strength, warning and encouragement, from their name; and to many the name grew even unto a rope by which they were drawn to God. I am well aware that a man who extends his religious investigation as far as to niceties and details such as those of a name is condemned and laughed at before the tribunal of our enlightened people as a shallow-minded person, and as an absurd and superstitious trifler. To our sorrow may it be said that even amongst professed Christians the faith in the God who counts the hairs of our head, and who wishes to be great in small things, has in practice become a rare jewel. But in whomsoever this childlike faith holds yet its tabernacle, whosoever does not distinguish between great and small things, and brings down the Almighty into every place about him, and beholds him sitting by his side under the fig tree or the vine, he is blessed, and has much joy and peace, and divine delight at all times: and whereever he be, he beholds tokens, and hears voices of God, in names, in dreams, in thoughts, in vicissitudes, and all around him is the language of God, and the rustling of his feet upon the mounts; and, the Lord his God lisps and prattles with him in all manner of signs and figures, now thus, now otherwise, like a mother with her infant, and is not ashamed of the childish idiom. Our prophet is called Elijah, which is, interpreted, "my God of power," or, "the Lord is my strength;" a beautiful and a great name; and he bore it in deed, and in verity. He was a man like myself and thyself; nothing in himself, and yet the strength of God was his he had no power, yet deeds of omnipotence proceeded from his hands; he lay in the We do not consider it a frivolous pastime, in dust, a worm, and yet participated in the authority treating of men of God like Elijah, to pay some re- and government of God, a king; and had the power gard to the name they bear, and to inquire into its to close and open the clouds, to command the dead meaning and import. In Israel, where the nomen- that they live, the living that they perish, and to clature was not at the disposal of human wilfulness, hold judgment upon the enemies of God. Hence but stood under the immediate guidance of God, in he might justly be called Elijah, which implies, you a manner that the Lord often ordered expressly and will say, "God strengthens me?" By no means: directly, "Thus is the child to be named!" there" God himself is my strength." Here is a diffewas not a single name without meaning; not a name rence; for it does not mean the same, my beloved, if was there void of some positive signification, without some real purport. Hence, if it was in one instance a precious promise and divine assurance, it was, in another, a serious warning or a holy maxim, or some other memento, which every man carried with him in the name he had received. The names amongst the people of God either denoted the character and the predominant disposition of a man, like the name Abel, insignificancy, humility; or a divine calling, like the name Noah, consoler; or a man's fate upon earth, like Maria, bitterness; or it included a promise which was bestowed upon a man, like the name of the son of Terah, Abraham, which you say, "God guards me with his shield," or if countenance, "God is my shield!" It does not signify the same condition, if a person says, "God comforts me," and if another may declare, "God is my comfort." If the Lord comfort me, I am light and glad, and happy in my heart, and into the sorrow of my soul flows sensation of joy, that cheering spirit. If God be my comfort, the heart can be riven, and sad, and parched; I do not despair, but am comforted and of good cheer, and pursue my way in the turmoil, and am calm. I do not possess it in the feelings, but I possess it in the naked faith in the God who has once sworn to me to be my God; I have it in the faith which has and possesses also what I neither see, nor taste, nor feel. Amorites. It was situate not far from the place where once the devils entered into the herd of swine, and it may be conjectured that no Jew was tempted to put up his residence between these hills, unless by the most urgent circumstances. It may have been an indigent household, perhaps an expelled Jewish family, where the infant Elijah was born and bred. Tishbe, his birth-place, was most likely nothing more than an unfrequented miserable village of the mountains; and, in all probability, our boy saw but little of schools, colleges, and the pomp of the world. However, it is a rule adopted of yore, by our God, to choose those by whom he intends to accomplish great things from out the dust rather than from regal thrones, that it may be manifested how every It is not one and the same thing, my beloved, thing depends upon his choice, and be understood to say, "God gives me peace," and to affirm, "God that it is not the flesh that has accomplished this or is my peace." If God give me peace, the proud that object, but that the honour is due entirely to waves of my soul subside, the storm is abated, and him. By reason of which he also prepared, at that the burning flames are extinguished; calm and time, at Gilead, the eye-salve which should cure the soft breezes, as from the summit of Horeb, pervade eyes of the daughter of Zion, and brought up under my heart, and spices spread their perfume in my special care in the murderous den of the Amorites garden. But, if tempestuous clouds still encompass the man with whom he intended, as with a bludgeon, the horizon of my soul, and it thunder and lighten to scatter altars, to judge kings, and to destroy the here and there, and conscience may murmur, and priesthood of Baalim. If we translate "Tishbite" the flesh rebel, and thoughts accuse, and the fiery into English, it means a converter. How congruent shafts of the wicked one whiz through the alarmed is also this appellation with the whole life and the soul, I suffer affliction, but do not alarm myself; peculiar calling of our prophet. We know nothing am in fear, but despair not; and, lifted in the chariot of the juvenile days of Elijah, and his former life and of faith above the tumult, throw my arms round actions, save that an old, no, doubt fictitious, yet the glorified wounds of my Lord, and save myself very ingenious tradition, gives us the following narin the reflection that he is " God, Amen," and that rative:-At the birth of Elijah, his father, Sobach, he keeps his covenant and faithfulness unto the is said to have had a vision. He beheld several men thousandth generation. I anchor the poor weather- in white shining garments around his little son, who beaten bark of my heart in the haven of faith, at was wound by them with great reverence in fiery the free grace of God, and by the rocks of inviolable linen, and presented with burning flames in lieu of promises, then the Lord is my peace. The same food. The priests then interpreted this vision to the distinction bear also the expressions, "God strength-effect that the house of Elijah would, in time, stand ens me," and "God is my strength." If God strengthen me, I am something through his grace, and feel a divine power within me by means of which I am capable of something, and feel armed and equipped with courage and the spirit of joy in my soul, and disregard walls and barriers, and have a clear and unimpeded passage, and fear nothing. But, as long as I am nothing, and find nothing but futility and weakness within my soul, and a trembling at the sight of danger that surrounds me, and of the tremendous mountains of difficulties that lie before me, and yet, if nature even recoil, I go cheerfully to meet them, hoping, contrary to reason, feeling, and hope, in the naked faith in Him who is everlastingly nigh, who will go along with me, and to whom it is a trifle to rebuke the waves in the sea with a single word, and to plough down mountains into plains, and I proceed by faith on the waves of natural fear, without courage, a hero strong in weakness, brave in despair; then I can boast, "God is my strength," and my feet are placed upon a rock. A wonderful thing is faith, that enshrines omnipotence, that brings God and a worm into unity, and gives the sceptre of the omnipotent into the hands of babes. Elijah could not boast much of his pedigree, rank, and mother country. He was a native, as we perceive from the text, of the mountains of Gilead, on the other side of Jordan; which region, if even rich in all kinds of plants, herbs, spices, and salves, was, for the most part, inhabited by blind heathens, and covered with the idolatrous abominations of the in great splendour, and he himself would judge Israel with the fire of his mouth.-And what prophecy could have been more punctually fulfilled than this one! With a word of faith and power, Elijah enters upon the stage of history. "And Elijah," we hear, "the Tishbite, said. And where, and when, and to whom, does he speak? Lo, behold! The voice of one crying in the wilderness. Since the death of Solomon, misfortune had rushed in upon Israel precipitously, as on the wings of the vulture, and no impediment was strong enough to keep off any longer the flood of general depravity. The arbitrary declaration of Rehoboam, the son of Solomon, on his succession to the throne, that, as his father had punished the people with the whip, he would scourge them for the future with scorpions, created great discontent, and, in consequence, ten of the tribes revolted, renounced their submission to him, constituted themselves a separate kingdom, and chose the field-marshal Jeroboam for their king. Only the two tribes Benjamin and Judah remained subject to the reigning king, and forthwith to the house of David, and from this period formed the kingdom of Judah: on the other hand, the ten rebellious tribes called themselves the kingdom of Israel. The kings of the realm of Judah, who possessed the south of the promised land, resided in Jerusalem and on Zion. The kings of the realm of Israel, which comprised the northern provinces, kept their seat in the fortress Thirza, situated on a mount, and subsequently in the city of Samaria. Both these realms were in perpetual strife against |