golden calves, in imitation of the cherubic emblems in the temple, and as substitutes for them; and, ordaining a separate priesthood to minister at these new shrines, he made the people believe that they need not go out of their own possessions to find the God who had brought them out of Egypt. This was the policy of Jeroboam and his successors, to make the ten tribes independent of Jerusalem in things sacred as well as in things civil, by erecting separate altars, as well as a separate throne. Still they did not profess to differ in the object of their worship from their brethren of the two tribes, who continued subject to the house of David.

But Ahab improved upon this device; he completed the separation, and consummated the apostasy. Having married, against the law, a heathen princess, he openly adopted the heathen worship. The daughter of the king of Zidon easily introduced and established the Zidonian idolatry, the worship of Baalim, or the heavenly hosts. This fierce and persecuting idolatry wellnigh suppressed the religion of Jehovah, and exterminated his prophets. A small but chosen band, however, of these devoted men escaped the fury of Ahab and Jezebel; and in this depth of wickedness, when the Levites were expelled, the priesthood degraded, and the people sunk in crime, boldly maintained the cause of God.

Among these, Elijah was the chief. On the very first outbreaking of Ahab's new offence, he was commissioned to announce one of the judgments threatened by Moses, that of long drought. A parched land and a famished population wrought at last a salutary change. Elijah, miraculously preserved during the famine, ap

pears suddenly before the king, challenges the priests of Baal to a trial of their respective faiths, and having confounded them and vindicated himself by the fire from heaven descending on his altar, brings back the prince and people to the acknowledgment of the true God. The heathen priests and prophets are slain. Those of Jehovah are sought out and honoured.— (1 Kings xvii. and xviii.)

It was in this interval of partial and transient reformation that Ahab, by Divine encouragement, defeated the king of Syria, and repelled his invasion. But in the very height of triumph he forgot God, and made a covenant with the enemy, whom he was commanded utterly to destroy, suffering him to escape on his promising to restore a few towns formerly taken from the Israelites. He had victory given to him, and final deliverance secured, if only he had been willing, in faith, to follow up, and follow out, the advantage he had gained, and, according to God's command, utterly exterminate the foe. But he would be wiser-more politic or more pitiful-than God. He would make terms of compromise, drive a profitable bargain, and, in consideration of a merely nominal and apparent concession-for the Syrian king soon showed he was not in earnest-let the oppressor go in peace. For this he was rebuked by one of the prophets-" Thus saith the Lord, Because thou hast let go out of thy hand a man whom I appointed to utter destruction, therefore thy life shall go for his life, and thy people for his people." The rebuke, instead of humbling, irritated and provoked him; "he went to his house. heavy and displeased." (1 Kings xx.)

Soon he was still farther misled by that covetous

ness which in his case most emphatically was idolatry. The longing eye which he cast on Naboth's vineyard seduced him into a compliance with his wife's diabolical counsel, to get Naboth stoned to death on a false charge of blasphemy; and that unscrupulous and unprincipled woman having regained her influence over him, soon hurried him again into the worst excesses of his former idolatry; insomuch that "there was none like unto Ahab, which did sell himself to work wickedness in the sight of the Lord, whom Jezebel his wife stirred up; and he did very abominably in following idols."-(1 Kings xxi.)

But still he is not forsaken by God. In the very instant of his relapse into sin, the prophet Elijah is sent to admonish him. Ahab repents; not perhaps very thoroughly, or with a really godly sorrow, but still so as to procure for himself one more respite, one other trial. For it is a striking feature of the providence of God, as exemplified in Scripture, that he sometimes accepts even a hypocritical, or at least a temporary and superficial, reformation, so far as to make it the occasion of a new respite and a new trial. But it may be the final respite-the final trial-as it was in the case of Ahab.-(1 Kings xxii. 17-24, and 27-29.)

Pause, however, here for a moment, and behold thus far, and at this stage, the goodness of God. In an age and nation of abounding iniquity, he has all along been raising up witnesses of his truth and his love. And in respect of Ahab, how patiently has he waited! It seems as if he had made all possible allowance for the man's natural infirmity, his impetuosity of temper, the circumstances in which he has

been placed, and the influences exerted over him. He is reluctant to give him up altogether. He labours to arrest his downward career; he hails and welcomes every appearance of improvement; he counteracts the advice of evil counsellors by the faithful and effectual expostulations of true prophets; he is long-suffering and slow to anger.

We

But there is a period to this forbearance. The time is come when Ahab's fate must be decided. arrive at the history of Ahab's fall, the last controversy between the goodness of God on the one hand, and the wilfulness of this heady and high-minded man on the other.

Let us mark the successive stages of this strife-the king's wilful purpose; the Lord's gracious opposition; the issue of the contest ;-the issue and end of all.

PART FIRST.-The King's Wilful Purpose, 1 Kings xxii. 1-6. Ahab's purpose is announced in the beginning of the chapter. We find him, after three years of peace, preparing to attack the Syrians. The Syrian king, whom Ahab had treated with so much ill-timed lenity, and with whom he had made so sinful a compromise, has, as might have been anticipated, failed to fulfil the stipulated terms of ransom, and to restore the cities of Israel. Ahab, provoked at his own simplicity in having suffered so favourable an opportunity to slip, through his fond trust in the honour of a perfidious prince, and stung by the recollection of the prophet's rebuke, conceives the design of retrieving his error, and compelling the fulfilment of the treaty, on the faith of which he had been weakly persuaded to liberate the enemy whom God had doomed. In this, Ahab acts under the im

pulse of resentment and ambition. He burns with the desire of avenging a personal wrong and insult, rather than of fulfilling the decree of God. Had he consulted the will of God, he must have seen and felt that it was now too late for him to take the step proposed. He had let the time go past. When God gave him victory, and assured him of power over his enemy, then he should have used his opportunity. This he had failed to do; and for his failure he had been reproved by God, and warned by the Prophet that his people and his life were forfeited. He might have acquiesced in the reproof, and learned caution from the warning; and, thankful for the undeserved blessings of peace and safety which he enjoyed, he might have waited patiently on the Lord, who, in his own good time and way, would have accomplished his purpose. This would have been his truest wisdom, and the best, or rather the only proof of the sincerity of his repentance, if he had been humbled instead of being displeased. Certainly Ahab should have been the very last person to think of rousing and provoking the very foe who, by the Divine sentence and by his own compromise, had gained so sad and signal an advantage over him.

But instead of following so wise a course, Ahab blindly rushes into the opposite extreme from his former fault; and because before he has been blamed for not going far enough, with God on his side, is provoked to go too far now, though God has declared against him; like the Israelites of old, who, discouraged by the report of the spies, refused to invade the land, even when assured of God's help; but when God refused his help on account of their unbelief, instead