more impression on the world in the long run, and will gain eventually more decisive triumphs for Christ; going near the furnace, but not into it, will not secure you Christ's near presence, whilst you will be burnt very much more than if, in the confidence of faith, you had ventured into it, expecting to meet Him there, and finding you had not expected in vain. Let not Christian caution border on irresolution. A sound mind is a great grace; but it must not absorb the equally high or higher graces. "For God hath not given us the spirit of fear, but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind.”*

Meantime, forget not, in conclusion, that real blessing to the child of God, which is educed for him by a gracious Father, from this growing together of the wheat and tares (St. Augustine). You long to be only with those who could help you forward in the best things; you crave it as one in a drought craves a draught of cold water. And you feel yourself weak perhaps; you doubt whether you can stand your ground; and you are pressed to join some body of Christians which professes to weed out from itself all but holy, godly, loving people! Shall you do it or not? You see the text says, "Nay; lest, while ye gather up the tares, ye root up also the wheat with them."

God is able to make you stand in the midst of all these stumbling-blocks. The fire that blazes so hotly and fiercely at times about you shall purify, not consume. "They are not of the world" (says the Lord of His own); the world hateth them, "because they are not of the world, even as I am not of the world." Yet, "as Thou hast sent me into the world, even so have I also sent them into the world."+ But He would have you draw * 2 Tim. i. 7.

↑ John xvii. 16, 17, 18.

more together: let the fellowship of saints not be a mere beautiful theory; let it find expression and manifestation, "Speaking to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs; singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord."* Elder and more experienced Christians forming rallying-points about which the young may gather; do not be afraid of scripture readings for joint and prayerful study of the Word of God, under the very wonderfully increased light which modern investigation has cast upon it. Let but the waterfloods of the Spirit descend and be outpoured, and the ice may yet break again, which for a long winter season has bound up the streams of Christian love and fellowship; and such love as the Church of the Pentecost saw may yet bear the ascendancy, and be yet again the most convincing evidence to the world of the divine origin and authority of the gospel of Christ!

"When

At any rate, this blessed promise you have, the poor and needy seek water, and there is none, and their tongue faileth for thirst, I the Lord will hear them, I the God of Israel will not forsake them. I will open rivers in high places, and fountains in the midst of the valleys: I will make the wilderness a pool of water, and the dry land springs of water."+

XX.

The Traitoress Slain, and the True King Enthroned.

2 CHRON. xxiii. 20, 21.

“And they came through the high gate into the king's house, and set the king upon the throne of the kingdom. And all the people of the land rejoiced: and the city was quiet, after that they had slain Athaliah with the sword."

Ο

So ended this great revolution, carried out so effect

ually and successfully, under God, by the wisdom and address, the courage and faith, the influence and high character of Jehoiada and Jehoshabeath, whose rank and position constituted them the natural protectors of the young king Joash, as well as the guardians of the true faith and worship of God; whilst in their practice they were examples of primitive morality and unsullied purity of life.

We saw before (in speaking on this narrative*) that an unusual interest attaches to it in Jewish annals, and in the history of the Church of God, from the fact of the line of David having all-but died out and become extinct, and with it the hopes of those who believed the covenant to be dependent on the preservation of the royal line of David. It was not possible, perhaps, at that time but that they should so regard it. And this was indeed one of the steps of the onward march of God's kingdom of grace; it was one of

* Published in Oct., 1868, at the office of the "Cheltenham Express," by request.

those marked periods of progress from victory to victory and from glory to glory, which, though often imperceptible to the eye of sense, and unrecognised by the men of this world, are yet ordained and brought about by its Great King and Head, as harbingers and forerunners of the final victory which is assured it; when He, by whose blood, and by the Word of whose testimony His people overcome, shall "take to Himself His great power, and reign."

Some of these periods are much more marked and decisive than others. The inspired writers dwell upon them with an emphasis which shows that, to a heaven-taught soul, there was more in them than the events considered in themselves alone might seem to betoken; that in the scheme and plan of God's providence they bore upon, and were preparatory to, greater events to come, which were the substance of which they were the shadow. The great victory of Jehoshaphat in the valley of Berachah was one of these; and that of David, gained over a like terrible coalition, which threatened to burst over his little devoted people, and which he commemorates in Psalm lx., counting over the various formidable fighting races that had leagued themselves against the kingdom of God, and in whose defeat he sees a most conspicuous instance of Divine interposition. "Thou hast given a banner to them that fear Thee, that it may be displayed because of the truth, that Thy beloved may be delivered. Didst not Thou, O God, go forth with our armies ? O give us help from trouble ; for vain is the help of man. My strength will I ascribe unto Thee."*

Such, again, was the famous victory of Deborah * Ps. 1x. 4, 5, 10, II.

and Barak over Sisera, the captain of Jabin's host. It was a crisis in the history of the whole Church, as well as of the little kingdom of Israel. The prophetess Deborah was given an insight of this. She betokens this when she says, at the close of her hymn of triumph, "So let all Thine enemies perish: but let them that love him be as the sun when he goeth forth in his might."* Others will easily occur to those of you who are thoughtful students of the Word of God. And the more you think over this history of Athaliah and Jehoiada, the more I think you will feel that it contained events of great and permanent consequences; that it was a typical and prophetic history; that through it, as through a mirror, we discern instructive analogies to struggles ever reproduced in the history of the kingdom of God. May the Spirit of our God be pleased to reveal to us some of these in fulfilment of His blessed office, which is to take of the things of Christ, and show them to Christ's people,† that they may "know the things which are freely given to us of God."t

I. We cannot help marking the steady, collected, self-possessed spirit and attitude of Jehoiada and Jehoshabeath. It was not a mere stifled, smothered discontent uttering its low moan of anguish, or growl of threatened indignation; nor yet hot impetuous haste, ill-digested plunge into a sea of disorder, which could do plenty of destructive work, but had no foresight, nor well-considered plan of reconstruction, no platform and framework for building again what it demolished. Jehoiada's godliness was the truest manliness. He moves from first to last as one who has God's seal and stamp of approval upon his + John xvi. 15. I Cor. ii. 12.

Judges v. 31.