This history seems more strange than fertile at the first glance. But it nevertheless contains, as may be expected, its portion of ore. Let us only dig and lay bare the foundation! "All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction and for instruction in righteousness." 1 Our meditation of this day is distinguished by three titles: ELISHA'S PRAYER; THE SYRIANS IN SAMARIA; AND ISRAEL'S GLORIFICATION.

I.

We now return again to Dothan. There we meet with a scene to-day, which forms a remarkable contrast to the one immediately preceding. If in that, as you may remember, closed eyes were miraculously opened, we here find open eyes no less mysteriously closed. If there a faint-hearted one suddenly found himself surrounded by a mountain of fiery chariots, here an army of sure ones find themselves equally as unexpectedly exposed to the most inevitable dangers. If there a single unarmed man appeared to be threatened by thousands of armed men, here we behold the thousands in the power of the same one unarmed individual. You perceive that the previous history becomes repeated, only under opposite circumstances, but not less to God's glory.

Elisha has just abandoned with his boy the lofty dwelling, and descends the mountain in fresh and elevated feeling. The helmets and spears beneath shine in dazzling brightness in the rays of the sun. If there depends only the man of God's own preservation and that of his attendant, he may proceed securely onwards; the fiery guard of defence which accompanies him, forces

1 2 Tim. iii. 16.

a safe path for him through the forest of lances. Elisha doubts it not; but it was never his object to make himself the centre point of the divine miracles. His soul, consecrated to God, moved throughout in circles of more exalted views and desires. The glorification of his Lord was everywhere his inward solicitude, and the aim of his action. In the present case, he is himself only secondary; all his thoughts are directed to the one object, how, out of the miraculous event which he has just experienced, may be raised a crown of honour to his God and master in the face of the heathen. O magnanimous feeling! in such a position as that in which Elisha found himself placed, to forget in the anxiety for the glorification of the Lord, all of self, and to be able to make one's own preservation yield to the more exalted consideration, that the name of Jehovah may be rendered great and glorious by the issue! How must we not blush before that man,we, with whom, in moments when threatened with danger, self-preservation is not only the first, but the only question, and who are scarcely in a condition to form any idea, how in such moments, in the poor heart of man, any thing but selfish claims upon the divine aid can find room! And hence it is that we experience so few of the miracles. Were we, in our solicitations, sincerely desirous of making self-interest subservient to the honour of God, how much more frequently should we behold the glory of the Lord.

To the sincere desire, success never fails. Whilst Elisha is considering how the miraculous assistance intended for him may glorify the name of the Lord in the most brilliant manner, a happy thought is presented to

his heart. "Smite this people, I pray Thee," sighs he, "with blindness!" Whoever thinks to perceive a prayer of jealousy and revenge under these words, is in error. It is a request breathing love, and contemplating Jehovah's honour and the salvation of the Syrians, and because it is such, the divine amen is not withheld from him. The Syrians are struck with blindness. They see; but they no longer behold objects in their true forms. They at one moment behold in men, trees; and at another in cities, forests. And does this circumstance create surprise? Wherefore should it? A similar thing has happened a thousand times. If you believe in a God who formed the eye, why should he not be also the master of the eye, and direct it according to His pleasure? It is strange to acknowledge the greater as decided truth, and yet wish to reject the lesser. But I fear that you are deceived in your so-called faith. A great injustice you would assuredly call it, if we were to charge you with denying the existence of a personal and living God, of divine providence, and his government of the world; and yet you meet with no individual case of the immediate agency of God in human destiny and life, without immediately feeling a secret objection rise within you. The miracles of Scripture,-these outflowings of providence,-these natural intimations of a living God, do not merely take you by surprise; they astonish and make you stagger. But this sceptical and head-shaking (incredulity only too surely condemns your whole professed alleged faith as merely pretended and imagined. O! there is an infinitely greater degree of atheism in human nature than might be supposed from the appearance and expressions of people. Between "theory" and that which the Bible terms faith,

a gulf is fixed as wide as heaven from earth. Faith, childlike, simple, confiding, and its consequent application to the universal principle of historical events, individual and particular, grows not in human nature. It is a divine work; a gift of the Holy Spirit. It is only found in the path of regeneration; nowhere else.

The Syrians were already preparing to summon the town to surrender into their hands the person of the pursued prophet, and if not done forthwith, to storm and take possession of the place. At this moment, however, there appeared descending from the height, having at his side a young boy and advancing towards their camp, an aged and venerable man. Who is this stranger? Aye, did they but know that! But they suspected nothing. Singular scene! They, an armed host, about to storm the town, and he, the object against whom the whole expedition is designed, without arms, but nevertheless in a most strong and powerful state of defence, placing himself in their very centre! How manifoldly significant of present circumstances. We also are waylaid unceasingly by a mass of embittered opponents; but with no better success than those heathens towards the prophet. They dispute the philosophical soundness of our cause, and fancy, that as soon as they have proved how this and that lies beyond the sphere of rational comprehension and development according to nature, they shall have already succeeded in forcing us from the citadel of our faith. O, what madness! As if we believed in the Gospel as a human system of doctrine only, and on no other grounds than because we considered it a cause to be explained by deductions of reason, or by the general laws of nature! There is then again the lance raised against a Dothan, where

we are no longer. To such a philosophical soundness of faith we readily give up all claim; and whilst astonished at the madness of our enemies, as if they were the sconce of the bridge against which we had cast defiance, we willingly allow them to cool their little courage, and, free and unharmed, we smilingly behold, from far different bulwarks, their useless, futile storming. They call in question the form and language of the Holy Scriptures." Behold," they exclaim, "how human is this and that!-how childishly adapted, how popular, and here how primer-shaped and be-pictured!" and they fancy, that with our faith in revelation they have cast us properly. And assuredly, if we were kept bound by the presumption that a divine revelation must draw itself along, like the clouds, in I know not what abstracted or highflown and sublime phrases, then the artillery would be well planted. But now they fire off their charges at a camp long since abandoned. We have learnt to apply other rules to the form of the divine word. The simplicity of this form makes us not err in our faith, but rather strengthens us therein; and the opposite declamations against it gain for us only a cheerful appearance. As against the language, so they turn their weapons against the history of the Bible. They are anxious to represent, how in the records of Scripture neither the one nor the other agrees with the statements of the profane scribes, consequently, to the former the stamp of a true revelation of God is deficient. And this "consequently" is the cord with which they fancy they have strangled us; but here again is prepared a futile assault against a vacant Dothan. If we wanted testimony to the truth of the sacred history from other quarters than the Spirit in our hearts, and the confirma