2. The vindication of God's justice requires that evil should be punished. God is just. Every one must acknowledge this, all good angels and good men acknowledge it with admiration and gratitude; all bad angels and condemned bad men acknowledge it with terror and dismay: those who do not acknowledge it are such in the flesh who would wish it to be otherwise. Inasmuch as He is just, He will not overlook the rewards and punishments due to His creatures respectively. This world being a state of trial, in it a complete exhibition of justice cannot be made. Probably all that is just in such a state cannot be seen to be so, especially by creatures of our limited comprehensions. Our discernment is disproportionate to the objects of investigation. Amid the multitude of those objects we are lost, by their variety we are perplexed, by their strangeness we are staggered, by the apparent dissimilar and often seemingly inconsistent relations which they bear to each other, we are not unnaturally nor unfrequently overwhelmed with difficulties, doubts, and distresses. "Clouds and darkness are round about Him;" but the application of that justice which we cannot perceive now we shall see hereafter. He has informed us that there is beyond the grave a future state of things, and that at the end of the present existence He has appointed a day in which He will judge the world in righteousness, and will reward every man in that state according to his works. It is impossible that a Being of infinite virtue should not be just, and as that justice is not fully vindicated in this life, it must be in another. This is prophesying evil concerning the wicked, but "shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?"

3. The right of the innocent demand the retribution of the wicked. God's treatment of His intelligent creatures must be equalized. The righteous does not receive His equal share in this life; he often has to drag out a miserable existence in a hovel, whilst his wicked neighbour is pampered with the luxuries of life; dwelling in a mansion and enjoying all that heart can wish. The pious Asaph well nigh stumbled at the contrast between the righteous and the wicked. "But as for

me," he says, "my feet were almost gone; my steps had well nigh slipped, for I was envious at the foolish when I saw the prosperity of the wicked." (Ps. lxxiii. 2—13.) But looking a little forward he came to a different conclusion. "Until I went into the sanctuary of God; then understood I their end. Surely thou didst set them in slippery places; thou castedst them down into destruction." In the parable of the rich man and Lazarus, our Saviour fully establishes the fact, where Abraham is represented to say, "Son, remember that thou in thy life time received thy good things, and likewise Lazarus evil things, but now he is comforted, and thou art tormented." What is to become of the oppression and tyranny which is so often practised by the guilty over the innocent, and carried on for a life-time? What is to become of the persecutions, of the imprisonments, and of the tortures which have so often been unjustly and maliciously inflicted upon the good? What is to become of the rivers of blood that have been shed from the veins of God's own people if there be not a retributive day of judgment to recompense for all this? What say the souls under the altar? "How long, O Lord, holy and true, dost thou not judge

and avenge our

blood on them that dwell upon the earth?" How long! It was "until their brethren that be killed as they were should be fulfilled." The vengeance is only delayed; it must come. These are heavy tidings; it is not prophesying good, but evil; but it is an evil which God commands us to declare, and woe be unto us unless we declare it honestly and faithfully.

to

II. That the wicked hate those who have the courage speak the truth in God's name. Ahab had no other reason to hate Micaiah, the son of Imlah, than this: he was a good subject, an inoffensive citizen, but he had told him the truth, which was an offence not to be pardoned. It was not Micaiah's fault that the truth was to him evil, and not good. His own actions had dropped the bitter ingredient into the cup, and he dreaded the consequences. The obstinacy of his disposition, the pride of his heart, and his love of ease in sin that made truth distasteful to him, and made him conse

quently hate the messenger. "I hate him, for he doth not prophesy good concerning me, but evil.”

Those three combined causes still actuate the wicked to hate the messengers of truth.

1. They are obstinate and wish to observe the bent of their own hearts. This is one phase of sin, and draws upon man the unmitigated displeasure of God. This was the sin of Saul which incurred that cutting reproof from Samuel. "For rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft, and stubbornness is as iniquity and idolatry." It was the sin of Ananias and Sapphira which caused them to sin against the Holy Ghost. Many men in the face of conviction will persist in a course of sin, because they will have their own way. Has not this been the ruin of thousands even in a temporal point of view? Friendly advice has been seasonably proposed, even earnest petitions have been imploringly offered; but so wedded were they to their own opinions that no persuasion could influence them to change their intentions. How many a youth has been led to moral ruin merely from an obstinate opposition to the admonitions of wellwishers? A father's entreaties, a mother's tears, a pastor's prayers have been set at nought; nothing could succeed to save the self-devoted victim. In the book of Job it is said that "vain man would be wise, though man be born like a wild ass's colt." He will obstinately adhere to his own evil ways, and will hate those who warn him of his danger, and advise him to retrace his steps.

2. The pride of man's heart, which is probably at the root of his obstinacy, is the cause of this hatred. This was one great cause of Ahab's hating Micaiah. He, being the King of Israel, could not stoop to be corrected by a poor insignificant prophet, perhaps one who could not boast of a high earthly origin. He might have proceeded from a family of little or no note in Israel, and might have been contemptible in the estimation of the great and noble of this world. Why should a king submit to be corrected by such an one! "I hate him" is the too common language of men respecting such. The pride of position, the pride of wealth, the pride of learn ing, the pride of talent often stands in the way of correction.

The reproof may come from some poor homeless uneducated messenger of God; it is too much for the high and the great of the world to be taught by him. "Have any of the rulers and of the scribes believed on him?" was a question emphatically asked by the Jews of our Saviour's time. The poor insignificant Jesus of Nazareth, only the son of a carpenter, residing in a miserable little town of Galilee! how could the rulers stoop to be dictated to by Him? They hated Jesus as much as Ahab hated Micaiah. Is it not so still? Men are too proud to be told the truth, especially if that truth be told by a person whom they consider beneath themselves.

We

3. Another cause is that the carnal mind loves its ease. A little more sleep and a little more slumber is the voice of the spiritual sluggard. The awakening of conscience is an unpleasant feeling which most people wish to shake off. The troubling of the waters brings to the surface what we may be glad to conceal even from ourselves. To repent is bitter. Rousing the sensations of the heart causes an alarm. wish to indulge the pleasures of sin, we would gratify the lusts of the flesh, we would plunge into dissipation and excess, and this cannot be done when conscience witnesses against us; our rest is disturbed, our sensual peace is destroyed; woe unto that man who will attempt to interfere with our "I hate him."

ease.

There are two or three questions which we should ask ourselves individually before dismissing this solemn subject. 1. Whether is best to be awakened now by a faithful ministry while there is time to repent, and while there is hope of pardon, or to be awakened by the trump of God and the ravings of conscience when the avenues of mercy shall have been for ever closed? 2. Whether is best to listen to poor Micaiah warning us to avoid the evil, or to the lying prophets leading us onward to our destruction? 3. Whether is best to bend to the mild authority of a merciful Saviour now, or to break under the iron rule of an inexorable Judge hereafter? Let us settle these questions between us and God, and pray for His Spirit to direct us to a correct conclusion.

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The Eleventh Sunday after Trinity.

MORNING SERVICE.-First Lesson: 2 Kings v.

Verse 13.-" And his servants came near, and spake unto him, and said, My father, if the prophet had bid thee do some great thing, wouldest thou not have done it? how much rather then, when he saith to thee, Wash, and be clean ?"

NAAMAN was a great man in worldly honour and renown, being general of the Syrian army and highly esteemed by his king. We have no account of him except in this place, and in the reference made to this circumstance by our Saviour. Some have thought that he was the man who "drew the bow at a venture," and slew Ahab the king of Israel, but this is supported by no evidence except that he was a man of extraordinary courage; hence his success and promotion. However, like all other men, Naaman's high position did not exempt him from the calamities of life to which humanity is subject "he was a leper." This embittered his cup of happiness, and degraded his position of honour. But how mysterious the providence of God! the very affliction which was his greatest grief, was productive of the greatest blessing of his life. The marauding parties of his army having brought among their booties a child of pious parents from the land of Israel, who for her exemplary conduct was taken into the service of Naaman's wife, and who carried the remembrance of her religious training even into an idolatrous family; this child, feeling for the condition of her master, earnestly recommended the means within her knowledge to recover him of his leprosy. Insignificant and despised as this little maid was, her earnestness prevailed, her instructions