judge him; but if a man sin against the Lord, who shall intreat for him?

This kind parental reproof would have suited one of the good fathers of the present day but this was not obeying the commandment of God; it was not fulfilling the duty of a judge of Israel. There was, therefore, a severe denunciation of wrath against Eli, for this mistaken tenderness to his sons; and the reward of disobedience overwhelmed himself, and his whole family, in one dreadful day. (1 Sam. ii. and iv.)

Very remarkable also was the punishment of disobedience in the case of Saul. At a time when he was at war with a formidable enemy, the prophet Samuel sent him forward to Gilgal, and promised to follow him, in the space of seven days, to offer burnt offerings and peace offerings to the Lord. (1 Sam. x. 8.) He waited the seven days, but the prophet was not come. The enemy in the mean time were advancing to attack him, with thirty thousand chariots, six thousand horsemen, and people as the sand which is on the sea shore in multitude. When the men of Israel saw this, they were in a strait; for the people were distressed, and hid

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themselves in caves, and in thickets, and in rocks, and in high places, and in pits, and some of them fled over Jordan. As for Saul, he was yet in Gilgal, and all that remained of his army followed him trembling. The time appointed had elapsed: the prophet was not come. The enemy was surrounding him, and his own forces were dispersing on every side.

In this distress he began to deliberate, and took the resolution to offer a burnt offering. Under such circumstances, this decision of private judgment must surely be deemed venial, if private judgment can ever be allowed to decide in opposition to a sacred ordinance. But no sooner was the act perpetrated, than the prophet came, and denounced to Saul the forfeiture of his kingdom, as a punishment of his disobedi ence, and of his presumption, in taking upon himself the exercise of a sacred office to which he had not been appointed.

On another occasion, the same prince is sent, by the command of the Lord, utterly to destroy the Amalekites. Here, again, he deliberates in the execution of his charge, and saves the king of Amalek alive. He

also brings back the best of the flocks and herds, to sacrifice unto the Lord. But he is thus reproved by the prophet:-Hath the Lord as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices, as in obeying the voice of the Lord? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to hearken than the fat of rams. For rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft, and stubbornness is as iniquity and idolatry's Because thou hast rejected the word of the Lord, he hath also rejected thee from being king. (1 Sam. xv. 22, 23.)

Obedience to the divine command is, then, a duty which no palliative circumstance, no right of private judgment, can set aside; excepting in cases of omission, at such timest when a ritual ordinance happens to interfere with a moral duty.

The punishment of Uzza is another example, which proves that no plausible excuse, or favourable circumstance, can justify an act of disobedience. We read, that when David was conveying the ark of the Lord to its place, in a new cart, this Israelite put forth his hand to the ark of God, and took hold of it, because the oxen shook it. And the anger of the Lord was

kindled against Uzza, and God smote him there, for his error, and there he died, by the ark of God. (2 Sam. vi. 6, 7.) The Lord had committed his ark to the charge of the priests, and had commanded that none of the people should touch any holy thing, on pain of death. The act of Uzza was a transgression of this law; and neither his mistaken zeal, nor even his pious intention, could atone for his disobedience.

Again; it was an ordinance of God, that his prophets should be treated with honour and respect, in consideration of the sacred character which they bore. (Numb. xii. 8, 9.) When, therefore, Ahaziah's officers, contemning this law, came in an irreverent manner to summon Elijah into the presence of their master, the prophet commanded, and fire came down from heaven, and consumed them and their companies. (2 Kings, i. 10, &c.) And when another prophet was mocked, even by little children, who met him as he was going up into Bethel, he cursed them in the name of the Lord, and two bears came out of the wood, and tore forty and two of them. (2 Kings, ii. 23, 24.)

By men of greater presumption than

piety, these and similar passages have been adduced, as furnishing the most shocking proof of the cruelty and inhumanity of the ancient prophets. But is it not the part of a right judgment to advance one step further, to take a higher ground, where it must be perceived that prophets were not distinguished from other men by any power inherent in themselves; that the miracles which confirmed their word were not performed by human means, but by the spirit of God; and, therefore, that these miracles, as acts of the Almighty, must have been essentially right, and must be acknowledged as examples of the displeasure of God, at the sin of disobedience and contempt of his laws? But it will be objected by others, that these examples occurred under the rigour of the Mosaic dispensation, and, consequently, that they are altogether foreign to the merciful economy of the Gospel.

Such language is not uncommon. It is, however, a dreadful mistake, to suppose that the Gospel shews more indulgence to sin than the law of Moses; or that it de nounces on the offence of disobedience a