idolatry, Israel took to it earnestly, with both hands-" and served Baalim, and Ashtaroth, and the gods of Syria, and the gods of Zidon, and the gods of Moab, and the gods of the children of Ammon, and the gods of the Philistines," any number of gods. Yet if Christian people are at all warm in their subject, they become "fanatics," and are blamed for sensationalism, by men who work seven days in the week to increase their balance at the bank! Let us keep the matter steadily in view. Which is better, a great excitement in the Church in the direction of bringing men to Jesus Christ, saving souls from death, converting the world; or a devotion to Mammon, in which the name of God is never mentioned, in which the Church is forgotten, in which every religious impulse is annihilated? One or the other of the enthusiasms we must have-an enthusiasm of life (and it is hardly a contradiction in terms so to say) or an enthusiasm in death. Christians must not allow themselves to be too easily rebuked: they must rather say with the Apostle, "Whether we be beside ourselves, it is to God: or whether we be sober, it is for your cause." Israel could hardly have gods enough. There is a marvellous licence in irreligion. Even Cicero said it was not sufficient for the majesty of Rome to have but one god; Rome must have a multitude of gods, said he, for reasons of State. There is then enthusiasm in idolatry; a keeping up of idolatry to its very highest pitch. These revivals are published, too. The idolaters were not ashamed to say to how many gods they had bowed down. Is all courage to be on the side of the opposition? and are Christians to sit down in the quietness of death, because they are afraid of the criticism of the world?

"And the anger of the Lord [compare 1 Sam. xii. 9] was hot against Israel, and he sold them [or, gave them up] into the hands of the Philistines, and into the hands of the children of Ammon. And that year [imperfect, as no year is specified] they vexed and oppressed the children of Israel: eighteen years, all the children of Israel that were on the other side Jordan in the land of the Amorites [the kingdoms of Og and Sihon], which is in Gilead. Moreover the children of Ammon passed over Jordan to fight also against Judah, and against Benjamin, and against the house of Ephraim; so that Israel was sore distressed " (vv. 7-9).

Desperate diseases require desperate remedies. The Lord said in effect: If you will have the gods of the Philistines, you may

VOL. VI.

5

take the Philistines also; if you will have the gods of heathen, you may have the whole yoke of heathendom to carry you must not pick and choose, taking out the gods and leaving the customs, following the idolatry and escaping the tyranny. This is the reason why the Lord sends upon us all manner of evil,-because we have forsaken him. We may not have forsaken him nominally, but there is a forsaking that is worse than a merely nominal and formal renunciation. A man may not be forsaken in any public or mechanical manner by his family, but if they neglect him, if they allow him to mourn in his loneliness, and to cry in the bitterness of an unrelieved solitude,—if they hear his complaints without replying to them, he is indeed forsaken. It is impossible, therefore, to have a church, and an altar, and a merely nominal God, and a creed full of points innumerable, and yet never to turn the living, loving heart to the Father in heaven. Providence is full of chastisement in relation to evil-doers. The Lord is very pitiful and kind, but pity may be exhausted, and kindness may come to an end. So health is broken; the strong man is bowed down; those who were proud of their vigour have now to sigh their wants because they cannot express them in words. And the business is all broken up. Nobody can account for it. All the arrangements have been as usual; every appointment has been kept; attention has been paid to the whole circle; but there is no response: everything goes wrong; every figure is turned into a cipher, old books become practically blank. And bereavement is sent, the choice one is taken away, the best one dies, and the bird with the brightest wing takes flight; the sweetest singer becomes dumb. And the way is shut up; yet no man can see where the bars are: there is no gate of wood or brass or iron that can be touched, for then it might be broken through or opened; but the air is full of bars, and we cannot make any progress. We earn wages, and put them into bags with holes in them. Is God always going to allow himself to be mocked? The point of sovereignty must be found somewhere: shall it be found in the riotous mob, God-forgetting, God-insulting; or in the eternal unchangeable throne of righteousness? Blessed be God for broken health, depressed trade, graves without number, ways that are barred up with invisible iron, if our use of these things should lead us to thought, repentance, and better life. Israel was sore

"

distressed." There is a moral in agony. It is not every pain that will make a man pray. Some pain may be treated lightly, referred to as a momentary inconvenience; but the pain becomes sharper, the agony more burning, the fire more intolerable, and men who thought they could not pray are made to "cry," for they are "sore distressed." Do not let us suppose that we can outrun or outwit the living God. He will overtake us, and trip us, and scourge us, and it shall be found that among the multitude of the deities there has been in reality but one God.

"And the children of Israel cried unto the Lord ["cried they had before, as very brutes will do when they are hurt, but not with their whole heart; their cries were the fruits of the flesh for ease, not of faith for God's favour "] saying, We have sinned against thee, both because we have forsaken our God, and also served Baalim" (v. 10).

Both the points are put

That is a true conception of the case. effectively. Not only was there a forsaking of God, but there was a taking up with Baalim. Men cannot throw off their church robe without putting on some other garment. It is impossible simply to "leave the church." Yet there are men who deceive themselves with the idea that they have simply given up attendance upon religious duties and observance-have merely withdrawn from church appointment and action: nothing else has occurred. That is a profound mistake. No man leaves the true Church, wherever and whatever it may be,- -no man abandons its ceremonies and observances and duties without exposing himself to a thousand assaults and temptations: he is more easily trifled with; he listens more eagerly to temptations which appeal to his ambition or his cupidity. He who goes down in veneration goes down in every faculty of his nature that pointed towards heaven or aspired after nobler life. Israel proved this. Having forsaken God, Israel took up with Baalim, with all the gods of the heathen; with many gods-yea, countless in number-absolutely forgetting the true God. There are losses which never can be made up. Loss of character is never made up by gain of wealth: there is no correspondence between the two quantities. Loss of the true God cannot be amended by the multiplication of false gods. The many do not total into the

one.

Now comes a sad word. The Lord said in the course of his reply,―

"Go and cry unto the gods which ye have chosen; let them deliver you in the time of your tribulation" (v. 14). [Compare very carefully Deut. xxxii. 37, 38; 2 Kings iii. 13; Jer. ii. 28.]

We do not wonder at the "cry." The wonder is in heaven, not in man: the wonder is that we have anything, not that we are left with a solitary staff; the surprise is that we have a coal in the grate, or a loaf in the cupboard, not that we die of cold and perish with hunger. The taunting word we must all approve, if it comes to a question of bare justice, fair and honourable revenge. But when God laughs the universe grieves. "I also will laugh at your calamity." Who can bear it? There is a laughter which we can return with disdain equal to its own contempt. But there is another laughter, the laughter of mocked love, the laughter of avenging affection, the laughter of dishonoured holiness who can abide its scorn? "I also will laugh at your calamity," I will refer you to the gods you have served; I will say, "Cry aloud: for he is a god; either he is talking, or he is pursuing, or he is in a journey, or peradventure he sleepeth, and must be awakened." Cry aloud! Acquaint now thyself with him, and be at peace." The day of "sore distress" overtakes every life. Is the Lord Jesus Christ only to be sought after when everything gets darkened, and when the pathways round about the house are so treated as to prevent any noise reaching the dying life? Is he never to be invited to the wedding, where he would make the water wine? Is he never to come to the evening feast, where all the children would grow in his presence like flowers opening in the sun? Is he never to go out with us into the fields, golden with vernal and summer flowers? Is he never to be invited into the best rooms of the house, but always to be kept outside until he is asked into the chamber darkened because light means pain, and only to be spoken to when we need something from him? The question is a solemn one, and the answer is with ourselves. The voice of warning we have heard; the voice of redemption we have also listened to. "Choose you this day whom ye will serve." Keep to your god! If Baalim be god, keep to him, serve him; if the Lord be God,

cleave unto him with full purpose of heart. That the Lord is God we know-we know in our heart, in our best feeling, in our least-perverted instincts; that there is a throne in the universe we know by the history of humanity upon the face of the earth, —a living Bible, a moving apocalypse, and obvious inspiration. Many deliverers have arisen, many redeemers have appeared in time of stress and sorrow, but each of them has said in mysterious language, "I am not he: there cometh one after me." We pass through a whole array of deliverers, emancipators, soldiers, ardent in patriotism, the meaning of them all being that there is one coming whose name is Jesus Christ. He must reign till he hath put all enemies under his feet. In heavenly vision I see him, and on his vesture and on his thigh is written, "KING OF KINGS, LORD OF LORDS." On his head are many crowns, and all heaven is filled with the thunder of his praise. Be Christ our captain. Be the Son of God our infinite deliverer.

SELECTED NOTE.

"The children of Ammon passed over Jordan" (v. 9). These were the descendants of the younger son of Lot (Gen. xix. 38). They originally occupied a tract of country east of the Amorites, and separated from the Moabites by the river Arnon. It was previously in the possession of a gigantic race, called Zamzummims (Deut. ii. 20), "but the Lord destroyed them before the Ammonites, and they succeeded them and dwelt in their stead." The first mention of their active hostility against Israel occurs in Judges iii. 13: "The king of Moab gathered unto him the children of Ammon and Amalek, and went and smote Israel." About one hundred and forty years later we are informed that the children of Israel forsook Jehovah and served the gods of various nations, including those of the children of Ammon, "and the anger of Jehovah was hot against them, and he sold them into the hands of the Philistines and of the children of Ammon" (x. 7). The Ammonites crossed over the Jordan, and fought with Judah, Benjamin, and Ephraim, so that "Israel was sore distressed." In answer to Jephthah's messengers (xi. 12), the king of Ammon charged the Israelites with having taken away that part of his territories which lay between the rivers Arnon and Jabbok, which, in Joshua xxiii. 25, is called "half the land of the children of Ammon," but was in the possession of the Amorites when the Israelites invaded it; and this fact was urged by Jephthah in order to prove that the charge was ill-founded. Jephthah "smote them from Aroer to Minnith, even twenty cities, with a very great slaughter" (xi. 33). In the writings of the prophets terrible denunciations are uttered against the Ammonites on account of their rancorous hostility to the people of Israel; and the destruction of their metropolis, Rabbah, is distinctly foretold (Zeph. ii. 8; Jer. xlix. 1-6; Ezek. xxv. 1-5, 10; Amos i. 13-15).