did not perish in battle, to dwell as slaves in the country of their invaders.

This obstinacy in error may seem to demand explanation. It may be therefore well to inform you, that, having rebelled from their rightful sovereigns, the kings of Judah,- the rulers of Israel, as we read in the 12th chapter of this same book of Kings, were anxious to keep the ten tribes, which obeyed their authority, as much divided as possible from the two which remained faithful to the family of David.-With this view, Jeroboam, the first king of Israel, under pretence of saving his people the trouble of going twice in every year to offer sacrifices at Jerusalem in the temple built by Solomon,-the place which God Himself had appointed,brought back, by the full force of his example and authority, the old idolatry of the golden calf, which the tribes had worshipped in Horeb: and he had the audacity to proclaim once more, in defiance of all God's judgements and threatenings, that these were a fit repesentation of the GOD, which brought them out of the land of Egypt.

As this was neither more nor less than open rebellion against the acknowledged will of Jehovah, they were repeatedly warned, and punished with a merciful severity, which, if they had known how to profit by it to repentance, might have saved them from total ruin.—

But the voice of worldly wisdom was always louder than the whispers of conscience; and that short-sighted cunning, which led them, by whatever means, to avoid any intercourse with the kingdom of Judah, led them also to despise, or distrust, as enthusiastic, or treasonable, all the exhortations of the different religious men, whom God raised up for their amendment.

To this national and customary transgression of the divine laws, Ahab, as we read in the chapter which goes before, was persuaded to add a new and still more unpardonable abomination, in worshipping the idol of the Sidonians, Baal, or the Sun. I call this error still more unpardonable than the sin of Jeroboam, because this was an absolute departure from the worship of the true GOD; whereas that of the golden calves was only worshipping God under an absurd and degrading form. The worshippers of the golden calves, however strange it may appear, did not mean to adore any other Divinity than the JEHOVAH, who made both earth and heaven, and who had brought their forefathers out of the land of Egypt. They broke the second commandment, in fancying that they could represent by this image [which, though the men of Judah called it a calf, in contempt of its weakness, is supposed to have been that of an animal composed of the bull and the lion, with wings, also,] that they could represent,

by this image, the strength, and swiftness, of the unseen GOD: and they were doubtless most absurd in transforming the similitude of their glory to the likeness of an ox that eateth grass; and most guilty in transgressing, from motives of worldly prudence, the two positive commands of God: the first in pretending to make any image or likeness of Him; the second in offering their sacrifices any where else, than at Jerusalem, where He had commanded.

But the worshippers of Baal were not content with adoring, as the true God, an image made with hands: they sinned against the first command, no less than against the second; inasmuch, as in the person of their fancied thunderer, they set up an absolute rival to Jehovah ; and, by paying their vows and prayers and sacrifices to another, declared, in no doubtful language, that the God of their forefathers should not be their king.

The question between the followers of Jeroboam, and those faithful Israelites who still continued to worship at Jerusalem, was only whether God might lawfully be worshipped at Bethel; and whether it were right to represent His glory by a golden image:— but they were both agreed, that the LORD only was to be adored and honoured. The question between the prophets of the groves, and Elijah, was, whether the LORD, or Baal, was GOD? and while

Elijah exhorted his countrymen to return to the worship of Jehovah, the agents of Jezebel attempted to persuade them that it was not Jehovah, but Baal, who was the proper object of prayer. It was the worship of this idol, which Ahab, king of Israel, allowed his wife to introduce into the land; and which he himself was led, by her example, to serve and honour; though, at the same time, with an inconsistency which shall be hereafter explained, he continued himself to worship occasionally the true God, after the irregular and unlawful manner which Jeroboam, the son of Nebat, had first, as we have seen, from worldly motives, introduced.

Of the crimes of Ahab's after life, and of the curse which God laid on him, and on all his family, you have heard in the Lesson which has been read to-day; and I shall take an opportunity, very shortly, of speaking on them more at large. Yet may it be noticed here, that, in all his offences, the man himself does not appear to have been a hardy and determined sinner : when reproved, he repented; —although when tempted, he immediately fell; and his character discovers itself, as one which was rather easily led into wickedness, than one which took delight in transgression.

When, in punishment for the horrid massacre which the queen had instigated, of all the prophets of the Lord, the windows of Heaven were

shut up for three years, so that no rain fell in the land of Israel; though Ahab at first turned all his anger, not on his wicked wife, whose cruelty had brought this curse on his country, but on the prophet Elijah, who had forewarned him of it, in order to his repentance; yet when at length Elijah met him, the king, we find, is awed and overcome by the aweful presence of him whom he had persecuted; and yields a ready obedience to his injunctions, first in calling together all the prophets of Baal, to meet the one surviving teacher of righteousness, in a solemn trial of the truth of their different creeds; and, afterwards, in putting to a merited death those bloody deceivers, who had so long persecuted the worshippers of the living God.

But, though, for this act of justice, he was immediately rewarded by the fertile rain, which he had for three years desired; and, though Elijah entered Jezreel with him, on terms of seeming reconciliation; yet no sooner was the feeble mind of the king exposed to the arts of his wife, than he gives up at once to her vengeance that prophet, by whose prayers his country had just been saved from ruin. In the evening of the first day, Elijah and Ahab are friends; and the worship of the true God is restored by acclamation in Israel in the morning of the second, Jezebel has sufficient power to drive away into the desert, as one who fled for his life, that person