hypocrites, as those of Thammuz, of Bel, and of Dagon?

By his conduct, then, in requesting a gift of Naaman in his master's name, Gehazi had not only told a falsehood; but he had told a falsehood of a nature extremely injurious to his masters character, and to the cause of true religion. He had done dishonour to the God of Israel, by obtaining money on false pretences, in the name of a prophet, and in the expectation, that he should be able to escape the knowledge of his master: and, by the lie, which, to his face, he ventured to tell him, he proved, that he did not believe that Elisha was a prophet of God; or, if he were, that God had power to detect and punish his falsehood. To lie to God's inspired minister is the same thing, indeed, as we learn in the case of Ananias and Sapphira, with lying to God: it is an audacious putting of His knowledge to the test, -a defiance of His power and vengeance. In the case, which I have just mentioned, it was punished by sudden death and we cannot, therefore, wonder that a painful and disfiguring disease was inflicted on Gehazi.

Having, thus far, explained the nature of his offence, and the propriety of his punishment; I would wish to call your attention to certain truths of more general interest and importance, which a consideration of the present history

suggests to us. First, we may observe an example, in the case of Gehazi's punishment, of a dispensation of Providence, which is, in the present life, as common, as it is aweful and remarkable; namely, that the possessors of ill-gotten wealth are often punished, not by the loss of the property, which they have thus unjustly acquired; but by some calamity, which shows, more plainly still, the vanity of those hopes, for which they have bartered their souls, - by taking away from them the power of enjoying the object, which they have so unduly coveted. There are many rods, in the hand of our Heavenly Father; and this is one of the severest and most painful; that, when a man shall have sold his hopes of everlasting salvation, in pursuit of a worldly object, that object, when within his grasp, turns into bitterness; and the fruit becomes ashes in his mouth, which he had plucked with so much guilty daring. This man, for instance, will have scrupled at no means, either right or wrong, to scrape wealth together, and to climb up to distinction, in the hope, that his favourite son shall enjoy what his father has toiled so hard, and sinned so grievously, to accomplish; and this son, when his father has reached, for his sake, the utmost height of his wishes, shall be cut off, in the flower of his days; or, living, shall be grief to that father's eyes and bitterness to his heart, unthankful, and unnatural,

a drunkard, a spendthrift, or a fool. Others there have been, who, after working through every species of disgrace and guilt, to raise themselves in the world, and come forward as men of consequence, have found, too late, that, though they had succeeded in procuring rank, they had not the qualifications necessary for making rank respectable; that their new friends disclaimed them; and that their old friends enjoyed their mortifications; and that the higher they have climbed, they have only made themselves more conspicuously ridiculous. There is, again, another, who, when, by his successful frauds, or by his more daring violence, he has made himself independent and prosperous among men, is smitten, at the very entrance of his enjoyments, by the hand of God; and, like this Gehazi, in the pangs of an incurable disease, is condemned to give up his expected plans of pleasure, for a crutch and a sick bed; and the strong drink and delicate food, with which he pampered his imagination, for a long course of abstinence and medicine. "Is this a time," said Elisha to his servant, "Is this a time to receive money, and to receive garments, and oliveyards, and vineyards, and sheep and oxen, and men-servants and maid-servants?" Is it a time for thee to multiply thy possessions, when thou art doomed to an evil and tormenting malady?

Will costly garments be any comfort to thy parched and ulcered skin? Can oliveyards and vineyards and sheep and oxen help him, whose stomach loathes food; or can the pomp of attendance of men-servants and maid-servants give a single night's sweet rest to the feverish and heavy eyelids? "There is an evil which I have seen under the sun," saith Solomon, "and it is common among men. A man, to whom God hath given riches, wealth, and honour, so that he wanteth nothing for his soul, of all that he desireth; yet God giveth him not power to eat thereof; but a stranger eateth it: this is vanity, and it is an evil disease." Nor can any thing more strongly prove the folly of seeking after worldly goods by dishonest means, than the knowledge, that, without God's blessing, and the continuance of His favour, the best things, which the world can bestow, cannot possibly add anything to his happiness.

Secondly, I would wish you to observe the nature of that miraculous knowledge, which Elisha possessed, as to the conduct of an absent person. "Went not mine heart with thee," said the prophet to his guilty servant, "went not mine heart with thee, when the man turned again from his chariot to meet thee?" Not that Elisha, in his own power, had the gift of

1 Eccles. vi. 1, 2.

being in more places than one; or that, like Christ who saw Nathanael under his fig-tree, his eye embraced the wide scope of all created things; but that his heart, or understanding, was possessed by God with a knowledge of the crimes of his servants. But, however this knowledge was conveyed to Elisha, is it not plain, that, if Gehazi had supposed for a moment that his master was privy to his goings on, he would never have ventured to make an improper use of his name, or to have tricked, by such a shameful fraud, the grateful Naaman out of a valuable present?

And shall we forget that a greater than Elisha is privy to all our ways, our words, and our wishes that a purer eye, than that of any earthly prophet, follows us into our darkest retirements; that the hand of God is upon us, when we seem most alone; that He is about our bed, and above our path; and spieth out all our ways; that he knoweth our words, and our thoughts, long before; and setteth our secret sins in the light of his countenance ? How many actions are there, which the presence of any human being, of a servant, of a perfect stranger, whom we never expected to see again, would effectually make us ashamed, or afraid, of attempting? And yet, how many of these do we perpetrate without reluctance, while angels and