brethren of Ahaziah fell, like sheep under the butcher's knife, at the pool of the shearinghouse near Samaria.

1

Thus Jehu "slew all that remained of the house of Ahab in Jezreel, and all his great men and his kinsfolk, and his priests, until he left him none remaining." And thus the Lord accomplished that, which he spake by His servant Elijah, insomuch that nothing fell unto the ground, of the word which the Lord spake concerning the house of Ahab.

In reading the history of these bloody transactions, there are two reflections which can hardly fail to recur to a thoughtful mind: first, that God sometimes brings about the ruin of wicked men, by the agency of others little less bloody and wicked than they: secondly, that the fate of Ahab's family is a remarkable instance of that aweful, and, at first sight, revolting dispensation, whereby the sins of the parents are visited on their children and kindred.

Jehu, the son of Nimshi, who was God's instrument in this work of destruction, was, so far as his conduct is related to us in Scripture, as far from being a holy or conscientious person, as any other of those fortunate and unscrupulous adventurers, who have, in other ages of the world, rebelled against and slew their master. His zeal for the true God, if he really felt any,

was, at least, by no means "according unto knowledge;" inasmuch as, though he destroyed the temple and worshippers of Baal, he continued to worship Jehovah in the form which was most displeasing to Him; and which was expressly forbidden, both by the law of Moses, and by the denunciations of all the prophets. "From the sins of Jeroboam, the son of Nebat, who made Israel to sin, Jehu departed not from after them, to wit the golden calves that were in Beth-el, and that were in Dan." In the slaughter of Ahaziah and his brethren, who, though the kindred of Ahab, were not his children, he may be thought to have followed, not the will of God, but the dictates of his own bloody policy; and in the hypocrisy, with which he disclaimed the death of Ahab's sons', when their death was the consequence of his own express though secret order, we may perceive a crafty and deceitful, as well as a bloody character, little calculated, as it might be thought, to call forth the approbation of God, or to be rewarded by the gift of sovereignty. Yet we find that God did, in fact, commend him, for executing that which was right in His eyes;" and for doing "unto the house of Ahab, according unto all that was in His heart:" and that a promise was, therefore, given, that Jehu's children" of the fourth generation should sit 1 2 Kings, x. 29. 22 Kings, x. 9.

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upon the throne of Israel." Nor can we wonder, that some inattentive observers of God's providence have been found, who have argued hence against the truth of Scripture; inasmuch as sentiments like these could not, as they have maintained, have proceeded from the All-righteous and All-merciful.

A little consideration, however, will enable us to perceive the propriety of such a dispensation; and to reconcile these ways of God to the known attributes of His nature, and to the general course of His doings with the children of men. It should be, in the first place, observed, that the favour and protection, which God promised to Jehu, and to his children of the fourth generation, were promised to them, in this life only; they were to sit on the throne of Israel. But many sufficient reasons may be conceived, which may induce God to confer worldly prosperity or grandeur on men, not only without reference to their virtuous or vicious qualities, but even in spite of a great deal of vice and disobedience. The power and prosperity, thus bestowed on them, may be not for their own advantage; but in order to the advantage of other persons, as of the nations given to their charge, and of the Church of God, whose interests they may, from worldly motives, be disposed to favour. It may be, as in the case of Ahab and Jehu, that others may be punished by

their means; - it may be, in order to their own punishment. High rank and outward prosperity are not always, I might have said, are not often, productive of genuine happiness: and the promise made to Jehu was simply, that his seed should reign; not that either he, or they, should reign in peace, or be exempt from the ordinary visitations and disappointments, to which all those, who wear a crown, are liable. And though we should allow, as, indeed, we are compelled to do, by the words of Scripture, that the kingly state was promised to Jehu and his posterity, in the terms of a reward, it cannot be said that the bare possession of a crown might not be fairly the recompence for the ready faith in God's promise, and for the courageous obedience to His will, which sent him forward, so slenderly attended, to attack two kings'; while it may be said, that the cutting short of his territory, and the continual wars, to which he and his family were exposed, were a punishment not only for his negligence, in the case of the golden calves, but for the cruelty with which he outstepped the necessary limits of the Divine commission.

They, indeed, who murmur against God, for employing a wicked person, or bloody and wicked actions, to the effecting of His wise and beneficial purposes, forget, that their objections will reach far beyond the scope of revealed

1 2 Kings, ix. 16. 28.

religion; and must equally operate against the general and necessary doctrine of God's superintending Providence. That the ungodly are often outwardly prosperous in the world, is a fact beyond dispute; and that they are so, by God's appointment, will not he denied by any, whether they believe in the Scriptures or no, who acknowledge that the events and fortunes of earth are in His hands; and that " He giveth the kingdom of men to whomsoever He will." But, if the prosperity of the wicked, even when no cause can be assigned for it, is not inconsistent with the power and justice of God, how can we deny that God may, to answer an useful end in the punishment of an incorrigible offender, invest a wicked person with extensive power, and raise him to the royal dignity? The only difference is, that the film of our mortality is, in the present instance, removed; - that God exposes to our view the machinery, whereby He guides the world; - and that what He does, in one case, secretly, and by the operations of secondary causes, He does, in the other, publicly and directly.

But let those, who murmur that a wicked man is employed to punish the wicked, consider, how little a virtuous person is adapted to undertake the office. In the first place, it is an office for which, the more just, and mild, and amiable,