V.]

DEGRADATION OF A KINGLY SOUL.

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was the seed of idolatry in him as there is in every man. That early prayer for an understanding heart was the prayer against it; the prayer for an inward eye to look through the semblances of things to their reality; for a continual revelation of that which passeth show. The prayer was answered, as fully as any prayer ever was. The divine judgment, the discrimination of good and bad, came to Solomon; it was not limited in any direction; it could be exercised on persons as on things; it was shown to be the faculty which a king requires, because it is that which a man requires, since by it God perceives the thoughts and intents of the heart. But there comes a moment when the king or the man ceases to desire that the light should enter into him, should separate the good from the bad in him. There comes a time when his faculty begins to be regarded as a craft, when he half suspects that the light by which he sees is his own. Then appears the tempter. He may come in the form of an Egyptian princess, or any other; but he will in some way appeal to the senses; he will point the road to idolatry. The secret desire of the heart, mightily resisted once, will be allowed to prevail; it will convert all that once checked it to its nourishment. The gold and the silver, not of the palace only but of the temple-not the glory only of the kingdom, but of the sanctuary—will strengthen and deepen the falsehood of the inner man. The glorious power of judging, which enabled one who knew not how to go out or come in, to look into the hardest cases and to resolve them, itself receives the yoke and bows to the image; its keenness and subtilty only inventing arguments and apologies for the shame. And the sympathising king who sent his people away with gladness of heart, sure that God was the king, and that they had a human king, who

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WISDOM IMPERISHABLE.

[Serm. felt towards them as He felt, would gradually become a tyrant, laying on his subjects Egytian burdens, compelling them to do the work of beasts, proving that he valued the stones, the iron, and the brass which formed the materials of God's house above the living beings who were to draw nigh to offer their supplications in it. So the wise king may prepare his subjects for rebellion and his kingdom for division.

A lesson surely full of instruction and wisdom for all kings and for all men; for those who think and for those who act; for those who study the secrets of the human heart, and for those who investigate the meaning of nature; for those who despise the arts and wealth of the world, and for those who worship them; for those who hold strength and glory to be the devil's, and for those who covet them and hunt after them as if they were divine; for nations upon which God has bestowed mechanical knowledge and the blessed results of it; for nations which look upon human beings as only the machines and the producers of a certain amount of physical enjoyments. But though so full of instruction it would be utterly melancholy and oppressive-seeing that it speaks of retrogression instead of progress, of folly coming forth from wisdom, death from life—if there were no sequel to the story. But the Wisdom which Solomon prayed for and pursued with so true and earnest a heart was not a Wisdom which could die with him, or which his forgetfulness of it could kill. "The Lord possessed me," says the writer of the book of Proverbs, "in the beginning of His way before His works of old. I was up for everlasting, from the beginning or ever the earth was. "In the beginning was the Word," says Saint John, "and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

set

V.]

HOW WE MAY SEEK IT.

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All things were made by Him, and without Him was not any thing made that was made. In Him was life, and the life was the light of men.' "And this Word," so we shall read on Christmas-day, " was made flesh and dwelt among us and we beheld His glory as of the only begotten of the Father full of grace and truth." This is the King "who shall be found as long as the sun and the moon endureth, whom all nations shall call blessed." This is that Son "who shall judge the people with righteousness and the poor with judgment." This is He in whom the prayers of David are ended.

Brethren, every one of us may ask that Divine Word who is near to us and with us, for an understanding heart. Every one of us who feels that a great work is laid upon him and that he is in the midst of a people which God hath chosen, and some of whom, at least, he must teach and judge, and that he is but a little child, may crave for a spirit to discern the good and bad in himself and in all others. And if we feel, as most of us perhaps do, that what we need above all things else, is that sense of responsibility, that consciousness of a calling, that feeling of feebleness which were the source of Solomon's prayer, let us ask for these gifts first. He who took upon Himself the form of a servant and became a little child has said, Come unto me and take my yoke upon you for I am meek and lowly of heart. He promises us His own meekness in place of our pride. He who was straitened till his work was accomplished will teach us to understand the object and the blessedness of ours. He whose delight was to do the will of His Father who sent Him, will make us enter into the delight of shewing forth God's love to His children. And so we shall understand more and more clearly that we are called

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THE REWARD.

[Serm. V.

to be kings and priests in that city which He hath set up, and in which He reigns, a city in which there is no one visible Temple; for the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are the Temple of it; a city into which the kings of the earth shall at last bring their glory and honour.

SERMON VI.

THE RENDING OF THE KINGDOM.

LINCOLN'S INN, 2ND SUNDAY AFTER EPIPHANY.-JAN. 18, 1852.

1 KINGS, XII. 21—25.

When Rehoboam was come to Jerusalem, he assembled all the House of Judah with the Tribe of Benjamin, an hundred and fourscore thousand chosen men which were warriors, to fight against the House of Israel, to bring again the kingdom to Rehoboam the son of Solomon. But the word of God came unto Shemaiah the man of God, saying, "Speak unto Rehoboam the son of Solomon, king of Judah, and unto all the House of Judah and Benjamin, and to the remnant of the people, saying, Thus saith the Lord, Ye shall not go up nor fight against your brethren the children of Israel. Return every man to his house, for this thing is from me."

THE thing which the prophet declared to be from the Lord was the separation of the tribes of Israel, the revolt of Jeroboam from the house of David, the establishment of a new kingdom. Yet these events, to all appearance, contradicted the very purpose for which the chosen people existed, and confuse their history. Their early records had reminded them that they were the descendants of one man. institutions of Moses had carefully preserved the feeling

The