diate hand of the Lord in judgment—“ And a certain man drew a bow at a venture, and smote the king of Israel between the joints of the harness: wherefore he said unto the driver of his chariot, Turn thine hand, and carry me out of the host; for I am wounded” (ver. 34).

The expedient, indeed, has apparently almost answered Ahab's purpose. His friend, the king of Judah, as he expected, is mistaken for him, and becomes the mark for a thousand weapons.-"And it came to pass, when the captains of the chariots saw Jehoshaphat, that they said, Surely it is the king of Israel. And they turned aside to fight against him: and Jehoshaphat cried out" (ver. 32). Ahab himself in the mean time escapes detection, and is exulting in the success of his scheme, and in his own security; when, as if to mark him out as the victim not of man but of God, no well-aimed dart, but an arrow sent at a venture, becomes to him the unerring bolt of wrath, and accomplishes his just and predetermined doom.

And thus, O sinner! the judgment of God will overtake you, and your sin will find you out. You may follow the multitude to do evil, and, mingling in the multitude undistinguished and unobserved, you may seem to get rid of your own individual responsibility and your own individual risk. You may flatter yourself that in your worldly course you have lost and merged your own particular share of the guilt and hazard in the general mass, and, as one of many involved in a common liability, are not specially marked and specially doomed. You may place before you, in the foremost rank, some dear friend, some greater and better man than yourself, who can better stand the brunt of battle. Against him the charge must be

made; on him the fault, if any, must lie: he stands between you and judgment, and under the warrant and with the excuse of his authority, you feel yourself safe.

Still," be sure your sin will find you out." An arrow drawn at a venture will enter your soul. The Lord singles you out individually, and separately deals with you. There is a shaft of conviction, or a bolt of wrath, on the wing, rushing, seemingly at random, through mid air-the arrow of Christ the king shot from his word, his gospel. Whose heart shall it sharply pierce? Yours, O sinner! though a high name lead you, and a high example authorise you. Then stand forth now from the crowd alone, singly, separately, pierced in your heart now, that you may not be pierced hereafter. Flee from the camp and company of the wicked. "Say not, A confederacy, to whom this people say, A confederacy, neither fear ye their fear; but sanctify the Lord of Hosts in your heart, and let him be your fear, and let him be your dread." Beware of Ahab's doom. Beware of Ahab's sin. Trifle not with the remonstrances of God. Abuse not his long-suffering. Resist not his Spirit, when he is, in long-suffering patience, striving with you. In particular

1. Beware of the beginning of Ahab's evil coursehis fatal compromise with the enemy of his peace. See that you enter into no terms with any sin, and that you be not hardened through its deceitfulness. When God in Christ gives you the victory, delivering you from condemnation by his free grace, and upholding you by his free Spirit ; when, justified and accepted in the Beloved, you see every sin of yours prostrate beneath your feet, stripped of all its power to slay or to enslave you be sure that you make thorough work you—be

in following out the advantage you have gained—that you listen to no plausible proposals of concession-that you suffer no iniquity to escape-that you mortify every lust. For, if a single iniquity be tolerated, or allowed, or indulged; if a single sin remain alive; if, deceived by Satan's sophistry, you let your vanquished enemy go, and trust to his fair promises-who can tell what a thorn in the flesh that one enemy may prove to you—what a root of bitterness to spring up and trouble you-and how soon you may be led into Ahab's course of impatience, and presumption, and rebellion-to what shifts and subtleties of an unsatisfied conscience you may be compelled, like him, to resort-how, by one petty sin unmortified and unsubdued, your peace may be disturbed, your heart hardened, and your soul involved again in danger and in death? Let your prayer, O penitent believer! be the prayer of the psalmist :"Who can understand his errors? Cleanse thou me from secret faults. Keep back thy servant also from presumptuous sins: let them not have dominion over me: then shall I be upright, and I shall be innocent from the great transgression. Let the words of my mouth, and the meditation of my heart, be acceptable in thy sight, O Lord, my strength and my redeemer." 2. Beware of provoking a slumbering foe. If there be any enemy of your peace to whom, by former compliances or concessions, you have given an advantage over you, beware of invading his territories again. Be on your guard against the very first beginnings of evil-of any evil especially that you have ever, in all your past lives, tolerated, or flattered, or fondled in your bosoms, when you should have been crucifying it. You may have many plausible reasons for ventur

ing into nearer and closer contact with it than is at all necessary or safe. You may wish to recover a lost opportunity of grappling with it in the death-struggle of repentance and faith. You may wish to assert your Christian liberty and power. But, oh! beware, if conscience whisper that there is in you any latent lurking remnant of the spirit that made you once indulgent towards that sin, or any thing like that sin. not on the wine-cup when it is red." "Make a covenant with thine eyes that they behold not a maid.” "If thy right hand offend thee, cut it off, and cast it from thee: for it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish, and not that thy whole body should be cast into hell."

"Look

3. Beware of the deceitfulness of sin. The wiles of the devil are not unknown to you. In a doubtful case, where you are hesitating, it is easy for him to insinuate and suggest reasons enough to make the worse appear the better cause. Generally you may detect his sophistry by its complex character. Truth is simple; the word of God is plain-"Come out from among them and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing." The voice of conscience also is clear-"How shall I do this great wickedness and sin against God?"

4. Beware of being hardened through the deceitfulness of sin. Beware of a judicial hardening of your hearts, or of your being given over to believe a lie. Imagine to yourselves what may be at this very moment going on in the high court of heaven concerning you. It may be your case that is under consideration; it may be the crisis of your fate that is come. No Micaiah is here, indeed, to unfold the solemn scene. But some

tell of it.

There is

thing in your own conscience may a hesitancy: Felix trembles-Agrippa is moved. It is not yet too late; you are at the very point of the decisive choice. All is trembling in the balance. Then, to-day, if ye will hear his voice, harden not your hearts. Trifle not with the convictions of conscience or the strivings of the Spirit of God. Beware of provoking and incurring the sentence-" Ephraim is joined to his idols, let him alone;" or the judgment indicated by the blessed Saviour in his parable of the barren fig-tree-" Cut it down, why cumbereth it the ground?"-the judgment which, after all suitable influences have been applied in vain, is acquiesced in by the intercessor himself as in the last resort inevitable "Then after that thou shalt cut it down" (Luke xiii. 6-9).