men! If Ahab had no other sins, his very confidence shall defeat him.

Yet the prophet cannot be overcome in his resolution he knows his grounds cannot deceive him, and dare therefore cast the credit of his function upon this issue; If thou return at all in peace, the Lord hath not spoken by me. And he said, Hearken, O people, every one of you. Let him never be called a prophet that dare not trust his God. This was no adventure, therefore, of reputation or life. Since he knew whom he believed, the event was no less sure than if it had been past. He is no God that is not constant to himself. Hath he spoken, and shall he not perform? What hold have we for our souls but his eternal word? The being of God is not more sure than his promises, than his sentences of judgment. Well may we appeal the testimony of the world in both; if there be not plagues for the wicked, if there be not rewards for the righteous, God hath not spoken by us.

Not Ahab only, but good Jehoshaphat is carried with the multitude. Their forces are joined against Ramoth.

The king of Israel doth not so trust his prophets that he dares trust himself in his own clothes. Thus shall he elude Micaiah's threat. I wis, the judgment of God, the Syrian shafts, cannot find him out in this unsuspected disguise! How fondly do vain men imagine to shift off the just revenges of the Almighty!

The king of Syria gives charge to his captains to fight against none but the king of Israel. Thus doth the unthankful infidel repay the mercy of his late victor. Ill was the snake saved that requites the favour of his life with a sting. Thus still the greatest are the fairest mark to envious eyes. By how much more eminent any man is in the Israel of God, so many more and more dangerous enemies must he expect. Both earth and hell conspire in their opposition to the worthiest. Those who are advanced above others have so much more need of the guard both of their own vigilancy and others' prayers.

Jehoshaphat had like to have paid dear for his love. He is pursued for him in whose amity he offended. His cries deliver him; his cries, not to his pursuers, but to his God, whose mercy takes not advantage of our infirmity, but rescues us from those evils which we wilfully provoke. It is Ahab against whom not the Syrians only but God himself intends this quarrel. The enemy is taken off from Jehoshaphat.

O the just and mighty hand of that Divine Providence which

directeth all our actions to his own ends; which takes order where every shaft shall light, and guides the arrow of the strong archer into the joints of Ahab's harness! It was shot at a venture, falls by a destiny, and there falls where it may carry death to an hidden debtor. In all actions, both voluntary and casual, thy will, O God, shall be done by us, with whatever intentions. Little did the Syrian know whom he had stricken, no more than the arrow wherewith he struck. An invisible hand disposed of both, to the punishment of Ahab, to the vindication of Micaiah. How worthily, O God, art thou to be adored in thy justice and wisdom, to be feared in thy judgments!

Too late doth Ahab now think of the fair warnings of Micaiah, which he unwisely contemned; of the painful flatteries of Zedekiah, which he stubbornly believed. That guilty blood of his runs down out of his wound into the midst of his chariot, and pays Naboth his arrearages. O Ahab, what art thou the better for thine ivory house while thou hast a black soul? what comfort hast thou now in those flattering prophets, which tickled thine ears and secured thee of victories? what joy is it to thee now that thou wast great? Who had not rather be Micaiah in the gaol than Ahab in the chariot? Wicked men have the advantage of the way, godly men of the end.

The chariot is washed in the pool of Samaria: the dogs come to claim their due; they lick up the blood of the king of Israel. The tongues of those brute creatures shall make good the tongue of God's prophet. Micaiah is justified, Naboth is revenged, the Baalites confounded, Ahab judged: Righteous art thou, O God, in all thy ways, and holy in all thy works.

AHAZIAH SICK, AND ELIJAH REVENGED.—2 Kings i. Ahaziah succeeds his father Ahab both in his throne and in his sin. Who could look for better issue of those loins, of those examples?

God follows him with a double judgment; of the revolt of Moab, and of his own sickness. All the reign of Ahab had Moab been a quiet tributary, and furnished Israel with rich flocks and fleeces; now their subjection dies with that warlike king, and will not be inherited. This rebellion took advantage, as from the weaker spirits, so from the sickly body of Ahaziali, whose disease was not natural, but casual. Walking in his palace of Samaria, some grate

in the floor of his chamber breaks under him, and gives way to that fall whereby he is bruised and languisheth. The same hand that guided Ahab's shaft cracks Ahaziah's lattice. How infinite variety of plagues hath the just God for obstinate sinners! whether in the field or in the chamber, he knows to find them out. How fearlessly did Ahaziah walk on his wonted pavement! The Lord hath laid a trap for him, whereinto, while he thinks least, he falls irrecoverably. No place is safe for the man that is at variance with God.

The body of Ahaziah was not more sick than his soul was graceless. None but chance was his enemy, none but the god of Ekron must be his friend. He looks not up to the omnipotent hand of Divine Justice for the disease, or of mercy for the remedy; an idol is his refuge, whether for cure or intelligence.

We hear not till now of Baal-zebub. This new god of flies is perhaps of his making who now is a suitor to his own erection. All these heathen deities were but a devil with change of appellations; the influence of that evil spirit deluded those miserable clients, else there was no fly so impotent as that outside of the god of Ekron. Who would think that any Israelite could so far dote upon a stock, a fiend?

Time gathered much credit to this idol, insomuch as the Jews afterwards styled Beel-zebub the prince of all the regions of darkness. Ahaziah is the first that brings his oracle in request, and pays him the tribute of his devotion. He sends messengers, and says, Go, inquire of Baal-zebub the god of Ekron whether I shall recover of this disease.

The message was either idle or wicked; idle, if he sent it to a stock; if to a devil, both idle and wicked. What can the most intelligent spirits know of future things but what they see either in their causes or in the light of participation? What a madness was it in Ahaziah to seek to the postern while the foregate stood open! Could those evil spirits truly foretell events no way preexistent, yet they might not without sin be consulted. The evil of their nature debars all the benefits of their information. If not as intelligencers, much less may they be sought to as gods. Who cannot blush to hear and see that even the very evangelical Israel should yield pilgrims to the shrines of darkness? How many, after this clear light of the Gospel, in their losses, in their sicknesses, send to these infernal oracles, and damn themselves wilfully in a vain curiosity!

The message of the jealous God intercepts them with a just disdain, as here by Elijah: Is it not because there is not a God in Israel, that ye go to inquire of Baal-zebub the god of Ekron? What can be a greater disparagement to the true God than to be neglected, than to stand aside, and see us make love to an hellish rival? Were there no God in Israel, in heaven, what could we do other, what worse!

This affront, of whatever, Ahaziah cannot escape without a revenge; Therefore thus saith the Lord, Thou shalt not come down from that bed on which thou art gone up, but shalt surely die. It is an high indignity to the true God not to be sought to in our necessities; but so to be cashiered from our devotions as to have a false god thrust in his room is such a scorn, as it is well if it can escape with one death.

Let now the famous god of Ekron take off that brand of feared mortality which the living God hath set upon Ahaziah. Let Baalzebub make good some better news to his distressed suppliant. Rather the king of Israel is himself, without his repentance, hasting to Beel-zebub.

This errand is soon done. The messengers are returned ere they go. Not a little were they amazed to hear their secret message from another's mouth, neither could choose but think, "He that can tell what Ahaziah said, what he thought, can foretell how he shall speed; we have met with a greater god than we went to seek, what need we inquire for another answer?" With this conceit, with this report, they return to their sick lord, and astonish him with so short, so sad a relation.

No marvel if the king inquired curiously of the habit and fashion of the man that could know this, that durst say this. They describe him a man whether of a hairy skin, or of rough, coarse, careless attire; thus drest, thus girded. Ahaziah readily apprehends it to be Elijah, the old friend of his father Ahab, of his mother Jezebel. More than once had he seen him, an unwelcome guest, in the court of Israel. The times had been such that the prophet could not at once speak true and please. Nothing but reproofs and menaces sounded from the mouth of Elijah. Micaiah and he were still as welcome to the eyes of that guilty prince as the Syrian arrow was into his flesh. Too well therefore had Ahaziah noted that querulous seer, and now is not a little troubled to see himself in succession haunted with that bold and illboding spirit.

Behold the true son of Jezebel; the anguish of his disease, the expectation of death, cannot take off the edge of his persecution of Elijah. It is against his will that his deathbed is not bloody. Had Ahaziah meant any other than a cruel violence to Elijah, he had sent a peaceable messenger to call him to the court, he had not sent a captain with a band of soldiers to fetch him. The instruments which he useth carry revenge in their face.

If he had not thought Elijah more than a man, what needed a band of fifty to apprehend one? and if he did think him such, why would he send to apprehend him by fifty? Surely, Ahaziah knew of old how miraculous a prophet Elijah was; what power that man had over all their base deities; what command of the elements, of the heavens; and yet he sends to attach him. It is a strange thing to see how wilfully godless men strive against the stream of their own hearts, hating that which they know good, fighting against that which they know divine.

What a gross disagreement is in the message of this Israelitish captain! Thou man of God, the king hath said, Come down. If he were a man of God, how hath he offended? and if he have justly offended the anointed of God, how is he a man of God? and if he be a man of God, and have not offended, why should he come down to punishment? Here is a kind confession with a false heart, with bloody hands. The world is full of those windy courtesies, real cruelties; deadly malice lurks under fair compliments, and while it flatters killeth.

The prophet hides not himself from the pursuit of Ahaziah; rather he sits where he may be most conspicuous, on the top of an hill. This band knows well where to find him, and climbs up in the sight of Elijah for his arrest. The steepness of the ascent, when they drew near to the highest reach, yielded a convenience both of respiration and parle; thence doth the captain imperiously call down the prophet.

Who would not tremble at the dreadful answer of Elijah? If I be a man of God, then let fire come down from heaven, and consume thee and thy fifty. What shall we say? That a prophet is revengeful? that soldiers suffer while a prophet strikes? that a prince's command is answered with imprecation, words with fire? that an unarmed seer should kill one and fifty at a blow? There are few tracks of Elijah that are ordinary and fit for common feet. His actions are more for wonder than for precedent. Not in his own defence would the prophet have been the death of so many,