the high places that burn incense upon thee, and men's bones shall be burnt upon thee." To show his Divine commission, the prophet gave the word, and the altar was miraculously rent in twain, and the ashes of the sacrifice scattered on the ground. Nothing could be more public than a judgment like this, denounced from God Himself, after Rehoboam, Solomon's son, had not been allowed to take the matter into his own hands. And to make the occurrence still more impressive, two further signs were added. Jeroboam stretched forth his hand to seize the prophet; it was instantly shrivelled up, so that he could not pull it to him again. At the prophet's prayer, it was restored. The second miracle was still more awful. The prophet, wearied with his journey, was, on his return, persuaded by a bad man to eat and drink, against the express word of God declared to him. An immediate judgment followed. As he sat at table, his seducer was constrained to declare to him his punishment,—that his body should not come into the sepulchre of his fathers; and as he went home, a lion, God's second instrument for its infliction, met and slew him, yet did not devour him, nor touch the ass he rode on, nor molest other passengers he met, but, fixed to the spot by miracle, he stood over the prophet's body, a sign, more truly than the idols at Dan and Bethel, of God's power, holiness, and fearful justice, and suggesting, throughout all Israel, the fearful argument,-"If God so punish His own children, what will be the final, though delayed,

punishment of the wicked? If the righteous scarcely be saved, where shall the ungodly and the sinner appear 1?"

1

As for Jeroboam, in spite of all this, "after this thing he returned not from his evil way, but made again of the lowest of the people priests of the high places; whosoever would, he consecrated him, and he became one of the priests of the high places 2." Such was his life.

At the close of his reign, he lost even his earthly prosperity. "The Lord struck him, and he died." Such was his end.

His family was soon cut off from the throne; and after all his wise counsels and bold plans he has left but his name and title to posterity. "Jeroboam the son of Nebat who caused Israel to sin." Such is his memorial.

"Cursed be the man that trusteth in man, and maketh flesh his arm, and whose heart departeth from the Lord. For he shall be like the heath in the desert, and shall not see when good cometh, but shall inhabit the parched places in the wilderness, in a salt land, and not inhabited "."

It requires but a very few words to show the application of this history to the circumstances in which we find ourselves. So strongly does it portray to us the existing disorders and schisms of the Christian

1 1 Pet. iv. 18. VOL. III.

1 Kings xiii. 33. * Jer. xvii. 5, 6.

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Church, the profane and tyrannical usage which it meets with from the world,-that the only question which can possibly arise in the mind is, whether it is allowable to apply it, and whether, as the events are alike, their respective character and their issue are like each other also. This, I say, is the only question, whether we may, without blame, judge of what we see, by the light of what we read in the history of Israel; and I wish all readers would clearly understand that this is the only question. If the deeds of Israel and Jeroboam may be taken as types of what has been acted under the Gospel for centuries past, can we doubt that schism, innovation in doctrine, a counterfeit priesthood, sacrilege, and violence, are sins so heinous and crying, that there is no judgment too great for them, no woe which we may not expect will ultimately fall on the systems which have been born in them, and the lineage of their perpetrators? ? What other lesson can we draw from the history but this? but that we ought to draw a lesson, is plain from the repeated declarations of St. Paul. 66 Whatsoever things were written aforetime, were written for our teaching." "All these things happened unto them as types, and they are written for our admonition, upon whom the ends of the world are come." "All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness." St. Peter also and St. Jude expressly apply occurrences

in the Old Testament to parallels under the Gospel'.

May God give us the will and the power to realize to our minds this most serious truth, and fairly to follow it out in its necessary consequences! And may He of His mercy have pity upon our poor distracted Church, rescue it from the domination of the heathen, and grant that "the world's course may be so peaceably ordered by His governance, that” it and all branches of the One Church Catholic "may joyfully serve Him in all godly quietness!"

1 Rom. xv. 4. 1 Cor. x. 11. 2 Tim. iii. 16. 2 Pet. ii. 1-15. Jude 5-11.

SERMON VI.

FAITH AND OBEDIENCE.

MATT. xix. 17.

If thou wilt enter into life, keep the commandments.

LET a plain man read the Gospels with a serious and humble mind, and as in God's presence, and I suppose he would be in no perplexity at all about the meaning of these words. They are clear as the day at first reading, and the rest of our Saviour's teaching does but corroborate their obvious meaning. I conceive that if such a man, after reading them and the other similar passages which occur in the Gospels, were told that he had not mastered the sense of them, and that in matter of fact to attempt to enter into life by keeping the commandments, to attempt to keep the commandments in order to enter into life, were suspicious and dangerous modes of expression, and that the use of them showed an ignorance of the real spirit of Christ's doctrine, he would in despair say, "then truly Scripture is not a book for the mul