laid down in the Scriptures, or one that is oftener repeated and enforced, and by a great variety of motives. "To do good and to communicate forget not, for with such sacrifices the Lord is well pleased." The strong should help the weak those who have power and influence should be ready to protect those who want it, and are ex He has, indeed, commanded us to love all | men, without distinction, because they are partakers of the same nature, and have the same wants and desires, and are expectants of the same immortality. He has commanded his disciples to follow peace with all men, so far as it is possible-to be courteous and kind in their intercourse with the world-and to make sacrifices to main-posed to injuries and insults, and should tain good neighbourhood and fellowship. But, in particular, he has laid an injunction upon them to love one another; and they ought to love one another, not as men, but as Christians as persons redeemed with the same blood-as heirs of the same heavenly inheritance, and possessed of the same spirit. And this love is to be shown in a great variety of ways. Christians ought to bear with one another's infirmities: nothing can be more unreasonable or absurd than to expect perfect conduct from our brethren of mankind. We are not to overlook the forlorn of our fellow-menwe are even called upon to take notice of them, and, in the spirit of meekness, to address them, in the hope of promoting their spiritual improvement. We ought to bear with them; and we are not to separate from them, to treat them with harshness, to dismiss them from our affections and cares : we should remember that we too are imperfect, and that the allowances we grant to them, it is necessary that they should grant in return to us. We are commanded to bear one another's burdens; and Christians ought to help one another in spiritual and in temporal things, according to their ability and circumstances. They ought to help one another in spiritual things, by meeting together, as they have opportunity, speaking of the things of God, and joining together in the exercises of devotion. They ought to lend their useful counsel to each other, for the direction of their conduct and the correction of their faults. In temporal things the rich should help the poor: out of their abundance they should supply the wants of the indigent. There is no duty more expressly come forward to defend them against their The reverend Doctor then concluded his address, by reading that beautiful description of charity, or love, which is contained in 1 Corinthians, chapter xiii. GLASGOW :-W. R. M'PHUN, PUBLISHER, 86, TRONGATE, EDWARD KHULL, PRINTER TO THE UNIVERSITY. a time, yet, on the first cause for discontent, the smothered flame burst forth, and the ten tribes established themselves as a separate kingdom, under the government of the leader of the revolt, Jeroboam the son of Nebat. The man of God who was disobedient unto the word of the Lord."-1 KINGS xiii. 26. THE true history of man presents us with sad and humiliating proofs of his weakness. The glowing but deceitful pages of a laudatory biography may represent the matter differently; but when we come to look at facts around us, or when we have the advantage of considering facts and motives as they stand recorded in the sure pages of inspiration, then the truth appears with all its humiliating force. We read in the true history of others the proof and the condemnation of our own weakness, vacillation, and inconsistency. Among the many interesting narratives which the sacred Scriptures present to us, few read us a more solemn lesson than that from which the text is taken, and which sets before us the conduct of him whom we know by no other name than the disobedient prophet. His melancholy fate, recorded in the Word of truth, like a beacon-light upon a dangerous coast, warns us of the evils of inconsistency. It is my purpose, therefore, at the present time, to direct your attention to it, with a view to our practical benefit. We will consider, 1st, The facts of the case; 2dly, An important question arising out of them; and 3dly, The practical reflections suggested by the whole subject. 1. The facts of the case. At the time when this event occurred, a schism had taken place in the kingdom of Israel. After Solomon's death, the conduct of his son Rehoboam had irritated the people, and ten tribes out of the twelve had revolted from him. Some symptoms of this separation had appeared in the days of David; and though the wisdom of Solomon and his prosperous reign had prevented it for This, however, was not the only evil. That which is begun ill generally ends worse. It is dangerous to act in any degree, however small, against the will of God; for, too frequently the man who has been guilty of an act of disobedience is tempted to commit another to maintain his position. After Jeroboam had established his kingdom and built his capital city, he saw that the true worship of God, which had its appointed centre in Jerusalem, was likely to have a healing influence on this unseemly and unnatural schism; and the ready evil of his ambitious heart suggested to him the plan of inventing and adopting a different mode of worship. He took counsel on the occasion-of whom we are not told-but it was wicked, accursed counsel; and having made two golden calves, he set these idols in two places of his dominion, in Dan and in Bethel, and said, "Behold thy gods, O Israel, which brought thee up out of the land of Egypt." This was the great sin of Israel, and of her king. It was the sin of national apostasy. The writer of the sacred book says, "And this thing became a sin," and the evil clung especially to the name and memory of the ruler of it, for he is always called on account of it, with melancholy propriety of distinction, "Jeroboam the son of Nebat, who made Israel to sin." Now, it was in the awful crisis, when Jeroboam, as the usurping sovereign of the revolted people of God, was leading their impious worship, when he was offering of men. But such being the commission sacrifice to the calves that he had made, of this prophet, observe, in the next and stood by the altar to burn incense, place, that the subject of this narrative appears first upon the scene. 66 Observe the solemnity of his office. He came as a sacred messenger of the true and the living God, the insulted Jehovah, to testify against this grievous and abominable profanation. Behold," it is said, "there came a man of God out of Judah, by the word of the Lord, and cried against the altar in the word of the Lord." There is something exceedingly solemn in this duty. Ere the act of apostasy can be completed, the word of the Lord summons a man of God from that only remaining portion of the people that adhered to the true faith, and brought him forth from Judah, to stand before the idolatrous altar, and to protest against their unwarranted, unmeaning, and impious sacrifices. In the midst of all their pomp and show, he stood forth boldly in the cause of truth, in the name of Jehovah, and delivered his message, which foretold the destruction of that worship, and the fulfilment of that very event which Jeroboam had hoped by this idolatry to prevent. "A child shall be born unto the house of David, Josiah by name and upon thee shall he offer the priests of the high places that burn incense upon thee, and men's bones shall be burnt upon thee." And the power of the Almighty was with this man, constituting him a true prophet by revelation from himself, and confirming his word by signs following; for, according to his word, the altar was rent in the midst, and the ashes poured out; and when Jeroboam, irritated at this testimony from heaven against him, put forth his hand to do him mischief, it dried up so that he could not pull it in again; and we are told, that it was only when this man of God besought the Lord, that the king's hand was restored to him again, and became as it was before. Here, then, was a man employed in a most sacred and important duty: delegated by divine command, and sanctioned by divine power, he was singled out to testify against the national apostasy of Israel, and to pronounce the fall of that false worship which Jeroboam had set up. It is a most responsible situation to testify thus against the sins of other men, to stand with intelligence, and with sincerity, on the Lord's side, and to declare his will to the children The restrictions by which it was accom panied. It appears by verse 9, that it was charged upon him by the same divine authority which sent him to prophesy by the Word of the Lord. Eat no bread nor drink water, nor turn again by the same way that thou camest." This restriction was most probably twofold in its object: it regarded the honour of God, and the safety of his messenger. It regarded the honour of God. He came to bear an unexpected and unqualified testimony against the new idolatry, against an impiety which had defiled all Israel, and which had especially dishonoured and polluted the city in which it was esta blished; for as Jerusalem was especially holy, where the true God was worshipped according to his will, so was Bethel peculiarly desecrated when that worship was mimicked and profaned. It became necessary, therefore, that the messenger of God, who should go to Bethel on a divine errand, should go there in the strength of Him who sent him, and not defile himself by partaking, in the smallest degree, of the hospitality of that polluted city. This total separation from the people, and his refusal of the ordinary sustenance of life from their hands, was a part of his testimony. This was an extraordinary and extreme case; but it points out the duty, in a subordinate degree, of all those who are called even now to testify, by the light of sacred Scripture, against the sin, unrighteousness, and profanity of their own generation. If a man that is called a brother walk disorderly, we are to withdraw from him, we are not to keep company with him-no, not so much as to eat; and certainly, therefore, if the great body of the people, forgetful of God and of the holy practices required by the divine Word, devote themselves to this world exclusively, and its vanities, even though specious argument may make out respecting many of them that they have in them no more sin abstractedly than eating bread and drinking water; yet, it behooves the Christian to withdraw from them, badges of a worldly mind and of a dangerous state; and by a steady and constant abstinence to testify against them. a But this injunction had in view also the prophet's safety. Sin, even the sin of idolatry, foolish as it is, is catching. Witness the poisonous influence of Rome, | directly, seemed impracticable. It is and its wretched buffooneries, upon the lamentable how far men will go in order idle English mind. The prophet must not to obtain the sanction of apparently good share in the hospitality of Bethel, lest he men to their own questionable courses. be seduced by the example of the many This prophet had dwelt at Bethel, and to share with them in their sin; nor must had not regarded the sin of the worship he return by the same that he came, lest established there with sufficient detestaa snare should be laid for him in the way tion, or he would have left the place by the idolaters whom he had offended. himself, and would neither have eaten bread He came unexpectedly and unknown, and nor drunk water where Jehovah was so therefore he travelled safely; but the palpably dishonoured. But dwelling there, openness and the awfulness of his message assimilated to the habits of the people, had made him a public character; and there the delicate tact of conscience injured, and is no character the object of a more bitter the course of unconscientiousness and of hatred than he who publicly impugns the vice begun, he was prepared now, with the moral and religious habits of a people, vain purpose of obtaining the seeming and protests against them, even in their sanction of a man of God, to dissemble, and holy things. It was probable therefore to profess that he also had received a that the vengeance of the king or of the divine intimation on this point. He said people might overtake him in his return. unto him, I also am a prophet as thou He must go back another way. art; and an angel spake unto me by the word of the Lord, saying, Bring him back to thy house that he may eat bread and drink water; but he lied unto him." Notice, in the next place, his disobedience. From whatever cause, a strict and intelligible prohibitory command had been given to him. This was likewise distinctly admitted by him-"It was said to me by the word of the Lord, Eat no bread nor drink water there." This was sufficiently plain to have exacted an unhesitating obedience; the dignity and awfulness of the message should have given resistless weight to all the accompanying injunctions; and the man should not have felt himself at liberty to depart from his instructions, till the restriction under which he came was openly taken off by the same authority by which it was imposed. Seeing that the command of God has said, "Thou shalt not covet," we can never regard that or any other distinct command, such as the keeping of the Sabbath, to be abrogated, till we are told by the same divine authority, in some equally plain and conclusive way, that the command ceases, and that covetousness, or Sabbath-breaking is allowable and acceptable before the living God. The command of the word of the Lord, even in a subordinate matter, was in full force with him till it was rescinded by a similar communication. It appears, however, that when this man refused to accept of the king's hospitality, a prophet who dwelt in Bethel, hoping to succeed better, followed him; and when he heard the ground of his objection, endeavoured to obtain by falsehood that 66 Now, it might be argued, that in this statement the man from Judah had thus obtained a direct affirmation of the fact of a revelation, altering the injunction previously given to him; and that, as he could not discern between revelation and revelation, therefore he was blameless in returning. But this will not justify him. The crisis in which he was placed might be a trying and a difficult one; but then it is our duty to be diligent and accurate in ascertaining truth, just in proportion to the difficulty of the circumstances. And, unquestionably, there were, in the circumstances of this case, features which should have led him to a very different decision. On the one hand, he had a distinct revelation, made to himself by the word of the Lord. On the other, the prophet who came to him could only make a human communication; and, at the best, he only professed to have been spoken to by an angel. But, farther than this, who was this prophet? He was a man resident in Bethel, the seat of idolatry-living and associating in the very town in which it was declared by God, that he was not to eat bread or to drink a drop of water, so completely had its toleration of this iniquity laid it under the divine displeasure. İf this was the case, and God had sent a messenger expressly out of Judah to testify against it, was it likely that he would send, THE SCOTTISH PULPIT. of the tacit abettors of the mischief-one that seems a more fearful account of him who, as a prophet, was more especially called to have protested, and to have come out from among them-was it likely that, by such a one, a directly contradictory message should have been communicated? Was not such a message just so far suspicious, as it came by such a messenger? We must never, under any circumstances, take the reasons advanced by rebellious and irreligous worldly men, as the justification of their doings. They may be very plausible and specious, but rest assured that they are unsound. deliberation would have shown this man A little calm of God, that he could not be justified for a moment in deviating from his course. He was "disobedient unto the word of the Lord." He allowed himself to be led astray by reasons which ought not to have had weight with him. The light that was in him would have kept him; but he was unwilling to be restricted by its power, and he was guilty of disobedience-he went back. than if he had been a less marked and prominent character; for there is nothing more melancholy than "an evil heart of unbelief, in departing from the living God;" for "it were better not to have known the way of righteousness, than, after they have known it, to turn from the holy commandment delivered to them." It is true that he began well-he went forth boldly to the resolute performance of a difficult duty, and he performed it at the risk of his life. But trials are of mation of the mind-and while the terrors different kinds, according to the conforof the monarch might for him have no alarm, the amenities of social intercourse might have many; and he who would be on his guard against the threatening that called on him for a direct and open unfaithfulness, might be mortally wounded amidst the comforts of hospitable indulgence and the kindness and the flattery of friends. And then, lastly, notice the consequence of this disobedience. After he had eaten and drank, he departed. And when he was gone a lion met him by the way, and slew him. The event was marked by peculiar circumstances. The lion remained by the carcass without touching it; so marking it especially as an event in which the hand of the Lord was manifest-as the prophet of Bethel said, “It is the man of God, that was disobedient unto the word of the Lord, therefore the Lord hath delivered him unto the lion, which hath torn him and slain him, according to the word of the Lord." These are the leading facts of the case. In the second place, 2. There is an important question arising out of them, and that is, the question as to the religious sincerity of the individual. Was this man a truly pious and sincere servant of the living God? And this is a very difficult point to determine. tainly he was called out and sent forth at Cera very critical time, and on a very difficult duty-a duty in which the honour and glory of God were immediately concerned. But this is no absolute proof of his sincerity; for Judas was called to the apostleship, and preached the Word, and sustained it by the working of miracles. he is called "the man of God," but then Certainly it is, "the man of God who was disobedient to the word of the Lord;" and Evidently, whatever this man him. It was well, indeed, that he was not might think of it, Bethel was no place for permitted to sojourn in it, or, with all his boldness, he might have become a shipper of the abominations of Jeroboam. wor But the text are only the opinion of the case But again, it may be said, the words of formed by the old prophet of Bethel. we have more than this; for the word of the Lord came to his host in Bethel, before they separated; and, under the guidance of divine inspiration, he then charged him with having disobeyed the mouth of the Lord, and with not having kept the commandment which the Lord had commanded him. And, in fact, the awful termination strongly the Lord's displeasure. He went of the man's life appears to speak very prosperously through the greater part of out on a message from God-he went on his course; but he disobeyed, and, in the midst of his journey, his life was cut short How, then, are we to decide the question in anger, for an act of wilful disobedience. as to his religious state? decide it. We can only remain in doubt. We cannot It is just possible that, in the main, the man's heart might be right with God, and that his disobedience, in this particular instance, went only so far as to bring a upon him. Still it is an awful fact, that corporal judgment and a premature death he died suddenly in disobedience died under circumstances strongly indicative |