that by that it may be more clear and manifest that its foundation is a rock of eternity. If persecution hovers over the community; why is it but that the faith should display its brilliancy, which has overcome the world. If funeral piles are erected for the holy of God; they are only thrones of glorification which are built for them. Should they even shed their blood; their blood is more than that fabulous seed of dragon's teeth, whence germinated heroes. If vent is given to mockery and calumny, they only themselves imprint upon their own forehead the brand marks, and establish beyond all doubt the origin and intrinsic worth of the true cause. Yes, be only ungodly, ye nations, and thus procure Him in heaven above occasion for the proof, as to who carries the sword. Arm yourself only against his work, and bring his firmness into evidence! Contrive your plots against his kingdom in the best way you can, in order that over their ruins the jubilee, "Here is Emanuel !” which has resounded so many thousand times before, may be renewed. Advance, together with Satan himself at your head, or be against him in word and deed, and build for him out of your necks the lofty stage over which he may stride in majesty and triumph! O who can attempt aught against him? Thousands of years have demonstrated who has remained the last upon the plain. Draw up your threads, ye, his adversaries, for you only weave unconsciously according to patterns which he has put into your hands. His counsel rules, and outlasts all-and all, whether with or against his will, contribute to his honour.

The Syrians have not been able to form their plan of operation so quickly without its being already betrayed to Elisha. The guardian of Israel, who neither slum

bers nor sleeps, has communicated to the man of God the designs of the enemy, and thus exhibited afresh the most tender care for his people, and the most gracious condescension towards his servant. In what way he has made known what the enemy bare on his shield, whether it was in a dream, through the Spirit, or in a personal appearance, is left to conjecture. Suffice it, that what the enemy imagined they preserved as a deeprooted secret, is already, without human means, made public, as if the walls of the tent had possessed ears, and the flowing air mouth and tongue. Yes, let it dismay you, ye hooded sinners amongst us, to find that all is so exposed and discovered before his eyes, and be ye struck with terror at the thought, that the curtains behind which you carry on your proceedings, are not placed there for him. All that you transact in your corners, you will find either to-day or to-morrow written down in his book; and however stealthily and cunningly, you may have spun your web, not the slightest thread is concealed from his eye. But all ye, who may venture to count yourselves among the number of his friends, shout with joy, to know that you have an ally upon your side, who appoints his all-searching eyes as messengers for you, and to whom it is a trifle to communicate to you in a trice, without the aid of couriers or telegraphs, the most profound secrets of your enemies; He, without sword or contest, to stretch your enemy at your feet, and to extract from his most refined projects, a result which, contrary to what he had in contemplation through the sacrifice of yourself, turns out only to the honour of his, the Lord's name, and the furtherance of your cause.

Elisha, divinely instructed in the state of things,

sends to the King of Israel and warns him thereof: "Beware that thou pass not such a place; for thither the Syrians are come down!" Observe well, it is to the King of Israel that he sends; for he knows how to forget the man Jehoram and his injuries in the King of Israel, equally as he knows how to forget the ungrateful Jews in the chosen people, which they were. Neither

the former nor the latter did he longer know according to the flesh, he only beheld their divine calling, their position in the kingdom, and it was just this free and high-minded manner of contemplation which made

it

easy for him always to rescue out of the most heartfreezing circumstances his love for his people. O that we also, my brethren, when opposed to our equals in birth in the Lord, always shared in that holy point of view, and be equally the same, in a state to overlook among the children of God, those of them whom we must recognise as poor, frail sinners, when the excrescences with which we behold them burdened, obscure even the last glimmer of their new life. How much more copiously would love then flow amongst us, and how few occasions for blaspheming Christ and our cause would then present themselves for our enemies! But how does it come to pass now amongst us? A trifling offence, which we fancy we have suffered on the part of these or those brethren, so frequently influences us, that we do not offer any opposition at all to the most decided judgment of suspicion pronounced by the world. against them. With others there is no necessity even for the mortification and neglect which they might have caused us; an unkind manner in their outward appearance is frequently sufficient to estrange our heart from them. A too pietistic or world-fashioned cut, in which

they appear; a too unpolished or affected manner, which clings to them; an ingratitude with which they may perhaps return us a service of affection; or an error in doctrine or life, with which we think we have reason to accuse them ;-O how often is such like sufficient ground to meet true associates in the kingdom of the Lord, as strangers, and casting them aside to set us against them; whilst, instead of dwelling upon the stained garment which covers him, we ought to preserve in our look of faith, the man himself thereunder, and the spot on the former should be covered by the joyful love to the latter. But we are too carnal ourselves to penetrate, in the estimation of others, through the flesh into the spirit and internal being, and are too weak in faith to overcome, with the faith, appearances and that which is before the eye. O that it pleased God to sharpen our mind to that deeper fathomed reflection, by the power of which a Paul continued to tenderly embrace not merely secularized Corinthians, judaised Galatians, and fanatic Colossians, but also in such Christians, the "beloved in Christ" who were capable of rewarding him with the bitterest misconstruction, and wounding him with the most painful neglect. From how many an unnecessary mortification and vexing strife would the occasion have been taken, and how much richer would the sheaves of peace and joy have grown for us!

Elisha sends to Jehoram, and opens to him the divine injunction: "The Syrians are advancing; be beforehand with them, and take possession of the narrow pass, which they have chosen as the ground from which to begin their attack!" This is a brief and conclusive dispatch; but in this decided simplicity and brevity, it is the more impressive and sharp. Long prologues and

explanations, of what we have to announce as being really the truth, weaken the announcement rather than give it force, and usually only make suspicious the firmness of faith of the messenger, instead of proving it. The man alive to, and deeply penetrated with, the divine certainty of his announcement, sends forth in elevated simplicity with positive certainty his word as God's word; and that penetrates, strikes at the heart, convinces and fires. The King of Israel is to take possession of the pass. Similar counsel, my beloved brethren, might be given to us; for do not at the present day also our enemies find, alas! towards Zion, too many passes open? Let us then throw into these passes a proportionate force, and block them up. A pass of attack of that nature, is the worldliness, of which, more or less, has been the portion of us all. Let us fortify it with that earnestness which with a constant representation of the cross of Christ, and the nearness of eternity, will never abandon us. Such a running trench for the adversary is the scepticism which we have sucked in with the social and literary air that blows around us. Continued supplication and sighing for a firm heart and a firm spirit, will stop and wall up this breach. A road of entrance of that nature, is formed by the incompleteness of faith, in which so many among us refuse to recognize the entire word of God as such. O if we even allow the origin of only one passage of the Scriptures to be suspected, to say nothing of a whole book, then has the enemy already won more than half the victory. He retreats before the confident assertion, that "Every letter is divinely inspired." A path of approach for our opponents is the unhappy passion with which we wish absolutely to render honourable our