SERMON V.
"//e crcd agolnst thc oltor in the word of the Lord, ond so;d, 0 altar, alt«r, thus solth the Lord, Bchoht, a child shall be born unto the bouse of 1)avid, Joslah by naine; and upo thee holl he offer the pricsts of the hOh places that bm'n intense.upon thee, and men's bones shall be b«rnt «Ton thee."
I[ESE words are parts of a narrative which we hear read once a year in the Sunday Service, but which can scarcely be understood without some attention to the history which precedes if. If is a prophecy against the form of worship set up in the kingdom of Israel; let us consider what this kingdom and this worslfip were, and how this woe came fo be uttemd by a pvphet of God. Vhen Solomon fell into idol,try, he broke what may be called his covnation oath, and af once forfeited God's f,vour. The essential duty of a king of the chosen people was fo act as God's representative, to govern for Him. David was called a man after God's heart, because he was thus faithful; he fulfilled his trust.. Solomon tailed, failed in the very one duty which, as king of Israel, he was bound to t)erform.
In consequence, a message came filom Ahnighty God, revealing what the punishment of his sin vofld be. He might be considered as having forfeited his kingdom, for himself and his posterity. For David's sake, however, this extreme sentence was hot pronounced upon him. First, since the promise had been ruade to:David that his son should reigl after hiln, thongh tlmt son was the very transgressor, yet hc was spared the impendilg evil on account of the promise. As an honour to Iavid, Solomon's reign closed without any open infliction of divine vengeance; only with the presage of if. " Forasmuch as this is done of thee, I will surely rend the kingdom ff'oto thee, and will give it to thy servant. Notwithstanding in thy days I will hot do it, for David thy father's sake: but I will rend it out of the hand of thy son. " A still further mitgation of punishlnent was granted, still for I)tvid's sake. It had been promised Iavid, " I will set up thy seed after thee, and I will stablih the throne of his kingdom for ever...... If he commit iniquity, I will chasten him with the rod of men; but My me'cy shall hot depart away froln him, as I took it from Saul, whom I put away before thee."" Accordingly, when Solomon lmd sinned, and the kingdom was rent from him, still holy David's seed was not utterly put away before a new king, as the family of Saul had fallen before David; part of the kingdom was sti]l left to the descendants of the /ithflfl khg. "tIowbeit, I will not rend away all the kingdom; but will give one tribe fo thy son," Solomom's son, "for D«id My scrïant's sakc." This 1 Kings xi. 11, 12. 2 Sain. vil. 12-15.
one tribe was the tribe of Judah, David's own tribe; towhich partof P, enjamin was added, as being in the ncighbourhood. And this kingdom, over which David's line reigned for four hundred years after him, is cal]ed the kingdom of Judah.—But with this kiugdom of Judah we are hot now coucerned; butwith th,t larger porton of the tribcs, which was rent away front ]}avid's house, and firlns what is callcd the kingdom of Israel. Thcse were the circumstances undcr which the division of the kingdom was nmde. Solomon seems to have allowed himself in tyrannical conduct towards his subjects, as wcll as in idolatry. On his death the people came to his son lehoboam, af Shechem, and said, "Thy father ruade out yoke grievous; now therefore make thou the grievous service of thy father and his hea T yoke w]liC]l he putupon us lighter, and we wil] serve thee." Rehoboam was rash enough fo answer, after three days' deliberation, ":My father ruade your yoke heavy, aud I will add to your yoke; my father also chastised you with whips, butI wil] chastise you with scorpions. '' Now every olle secs that Rehoboam hcre acted very wrongly, and Solomon too, as I have sa.id, had sinned grievously before him. His oppression of the people was a sin; yet, you will observe, the people had no right to complain. They had brought this evil on themselves; they had obstinately courted and stru«-led after it. They would have "a king like the nations," a despotic king; and now they had one, they were discontented. S,muel had hOt only earnestly and solemnly protested against this measure, as 1 Kings xii. 4, 14.
an offence against their Almighty Governor, but had actually forewarned them of the evils which despotic power would introduce among them. "He will take your sons and al»point them for himself, for his chariots, and to be his horsemen; he will set them to car his ground and to reap his harvest and to make his instruments of war. He will take your daughters to be confectionaries, and to be cooks, and to be bakers. And he will take your fields, and your vineyards, and your oliveyards, and give them to his servants." The varning ends thus: " And ye shall cry out in that day, bccause of yor l'ig «hich yc sl«dl havc choscn yo, and the Lord vill hOt hear you in that day. ''1 These were Samuel's words beforehand, iNow all this h,d corne upon them: as they had sown, so had they reaped. And, as matters stood, their best course vould have been contentmeut, resignation; if was their duty fo bear the punishment of their national self-will. ]3ut one sin was uot enough for them. They proceeded, as men commonly do, fo menti (as they cousidered) their first sin, by a fresh one;—they rebelled against their king. "What portion have ve in David?" they said, "neither h,ve we inheritance in the son of Jesse. To your tents, O Israel—now sec to thine own house, David." Teu tribes out of twelve revolted from their king in that d,y. Here they were quite inexcusable. Even putting it out of the question that they had brought the evil on themselves, still, independently of this, their king's tya'anny did hOt justify their sudden, unhesitating, violent rebellion. He was acting aga.inst 1 Sain. viii. 11-18. 1 Kings xi. 16.
no engagement or stilmlt.ion. Because their king did hot do his duty to them, this was no reason fley should not do their duty to him. Say that he vas cruel and rapacious, st.ill they might have safely trusted the miraculous providence of (lod, to have restrained the king by I[is prphets, and to have brought them safely throug. This would have been the way of fail]; but they took the mat.ter into tiroir own hands, and got into further dillieulty. And I wish you to observe, that all the evil arose from this original fault, worked crut in its eonsequenees t.hrough eenturies, viz., their having a king af all. So nmeh, then, for their fit sin, and their second sin. To continue fm'ther the histo of their downward come, we lmlSt look to the man whom they ruade leader of their rebellion. This was Jeroboam. Jeroboa.m, the son of Nebat, had been, during Solomon's life-time, app,-,inted to collect the tribute from the tribe of Ephraim, te most powerful of the ten tribes; a situation whieh gave him influence and authority in that part of the country. The king appointed him, "seeing the young man that he was mdntnt us. We are told, too, that he was "a mighty man of valom'." Thus honoured by Sol,raton, he a.bused Ms trust, even in the " kmg s life-time, by rebelling against Mm. "' Jeroboam, Sololnon's servant, evên he lift up his hand aga.inst the king." When Solomon, in eonsequenee, "sought to k him," he fled to Eypt, where Shishak, the king, shêltered hhn. On Solomon's death he returned to his country, and at the invitation of the revolting tribes, 1 ngs xi. 28.
7erooam. 6 5 headed their rebel]ion. " If came fo pass when ai1 Israel (i.e. the ten tribes) heard that Jeroboam was corne again, that they sent and called him unto the congregation, and ruade him king over ail Israel" there was none that followed the house of David, but the tribe of Judah only." 1 lgow, that Jeroboam was an instrument in God's hand to chastise Solomon's sin is plain; and there is no difficulty in conceiving how a wicked man, without its being any excuse to him, still m,y bring about the Divine purposes. But in Jeroboam's particular case there/s this difficulty at first sight; tlmt Almighty Goal had seemed to sanction his act by l»'omising him, in Solomon's life-time, the kingdom of the ten tribes. The prophet Ahijah had met him, and delivered to him a message from "the Lord, the God of Israel." "I will rend the kingdom out of the hand of Solomon, and will give ten tribes to thce." And if was on account of this 1)rophecy that Jeroboam "lifted up his hand against the -king." On a little consideration, however, we sha]l find no difficulty here: for though Almighty God promised him the -ldngdom, He did hot tel] him to gain it for himsclf; and, if we must hot do evfl that good may corne, surely we may not do evfl that a pronfise may be fulfiiled; a.nd to "rebel ag'ainst his lord" (in the words of Scripture) was a plain indisputable sin. God, who ruade the promise, could of course fulfil if in His own rime. He did not require man's crime to bring it about. It was, of course, an insult to His holiness and power fo suppose He did. Jeroboam ought fo have waited 1 Kings xii. 20. [i] .
patiently God's time; this would have been the part of true faith. But it had always been, as on this occasion, the sin of the Israelites, fo outrun God's providence; and even wheu they chose to pursue His ends, fo wish to work them out in their own way. They never wonld "be still and know that t[e was God," watt Ilis word and follow Ilis guidance. Thus, when they first took possession of the promised land, they were told to cast the nations out, and utterly destroy all that did not leave the country. They soon became weary of this, and thought they had tbund out a better way. They thonght it wiser to spare their enemies, and form alliances with them and put then under tribute. This brought them first into idolatry, then into captixdty. Wheu Samuel rescued them, and their hopes revived, their first act was to choose a king like the nations, contrary to God's will. And Jeroboam, in this instance, as a special emblem of the whole people in the rebellion itself, had hot patience fo watt, and faith to trust God, that " what He had promised He was able also to perform." That it was a trial to Jeroboam we need hot deny; of course it was. He was tried and round wanting. Had he withstood the temptation, and refi'ained himself till lawfully ealled to reign, untold blessings might have been showered on him and on his people, who, in the actual history, were all eut off for their sins. He was hot the t3rst lnan who had thus been tried. David had been I)romised Saul's kingdom, and anointed thereunto by Salnuel, years before he came into possession; yet, though he was persecuted by Saul, and had his liïe several times in his power, still he would not lift up his hand against his king. He had the faith of his forefather Abraham, who, though promised the land he dwelt in, wandered in it as a pilgriln, without daring to occupy it; wandered on with a band of trained servants at his command, who might bave gained for him a territory had he desired it, as certainly as they smote Chedorlomer and recovered Lot and his goods. David inherited this patient faith, and through it "obtained the promise," and founded a throne in righteousness and truth. Ilad Jeroboam followed it, he, too, might have been the father of a line of kings; he might have been the instrument and object of God's pronfised favour towards the house of Joseph; satisfying, in his own person, the prophecies which Jacob and Moses x had delivered, and which Joshua, himself an:Ephraimite, had begun to fulfil, and founding a dominion hot inferior in glory to that of Judah and Jerusalem. Jeroboam, then, is hot excused, though Ahijuh prophesied; but, next, let us inquire how did he act when at length seuted on the throne? It is hot surprising, tfter such a beginning, that he sinned further and more grievously. When a man begins to do wrong, he cannot answer for himself how far he may be carried on. He does hot see beforelmud, he cannot know where he shall find himself after the sin is coinmitted. One false step forces him to another, for retreat is impossible. This, which occurs every day, is instanced, first, in the history of the whole people, and then, in the history of Jeroboum. For awhile, indeed, 1 Gen. xlix. 22-.06; Deut. xxxiii. 13-17; cf. 1 K_n xi. 38.
he seemed fo prosper. 12,ehoboam, Solomon's son, brought an extraordinary force of chosen men against him; but Ahnighty God, willing there slmtfld be no llood shed, designing fo punisl Solomon's idolatry, and intending fo leave Jeroboam fo limself, to work trot the fruit of lis rebellion, and then to judge and mite him with IIis own ann, would not allow the war. Tlm lm@et Shemaiah was sent to 12,ehoboam fo put an end fo if, and lelmbçam obeyed. Tlms Jeroboam seemed to bave everything his own way; but soon a difficulty arose which he lad thought light of, if he thought of if af all. The Jewish nation was hot only a kingdom, but a clmrel, a religions as well as a political body; and Jeroboam found, belote long, that h setting up a new kingdom in Israel, he nmst set up a new relion too. It was ordered in tlae Law of Ioses, tlmt all tlae men througlmut Israel should go up fo Jerusalem to worslip three rimes a year; but Jerusalem was, af this rime, tle capital of the kingdom of Judah, tlae rival -kingdom; and Jeroboam clearly saw that if lfis new subjects were allowed fo go up thither, tley could not remaha his subjects long, but wotfld retm'n fo their former allegianee. Here, tl,en, a second false step was neeessary to complete the firs; for a false step that must bave been which, as it wotfld seem, required for its protection a violation of the Law of hIoses. He, doubtless, aNued tlmt he was obliged fo do what lac did, that he could hot help laimself. If is truc;—sin /s a hard naster; once sold over to it, we cannot break our chain; one evfl concession recluires another.
"Jeroboam said in his heart,.Now shall the kingdom return to the bouse of David: if this people go up to do sacrifice in the house of the Lord af Jerusalem, then shall the heart of this people turn gain unto their lord, even unto Rehoboam, king of Judah, and they shall kill me, and go again fo ehoboam, king of Judah. Whereupon the kiug took counsel. '' A melancholy counsel it was: he resolved fo select places for religious worship in his own kingdom- This was against the Law, of course; but what he did was worse than this. He could not build a Temple like Sololnon's, and yet he needed SOlne visible sign of the presence of God. Almighty God had bid the Israelites take to themselves no sign of His presence, no likeness of Him; but Jeroboam thought he could hot do better than set up two figures of gold, one at each end of his country, hot, indeed, as representations (he would argue), but as emblems and melnorials of the true God, and as marking the established place of vorship. If is probable that the age of Solomon, a season of peace, when the arts were cttltivated and an intercourse opened with foreign nations, was a season also of a peculiar religions corruption, such as had never occmxed before. All through their history, indeed, the Isriites had opposed God's will; but by this rime they had learned fo defend their disobedience by rgument, and to transess upon a system. Jeroboam's sins, in regard to religious worship, were hot single, or inconsistent with each other, but depended on this principle—that there is no need to attend fo the positive lavs and the outward 1 Kings.xii. 26-28.
forms and ceremonies of religion, so that we attend to the substance.:In setting up these figures of gold, was ftr from his intention to oppose the worship of the One True (od, the Maker of heaven and earth, the Saviour of Israel; tle words he used on the occasion, and the course of the history, show lhis. He thought he was only altering the discipline of the Church, as we should now call it, and he night plausibly ask, Vhat did that marrer? tle was but putting another emblem of God in the place of the Cherubim. ruade nmrely such alterations as change of circumstances and the course of events rendered indispensable. He was in difi]culties, and had fo consider, hot what was best, or what he himself should choose, had he to choose, but what was practicable. The figure he adolted, as a memorial of Almighty God, was in the shape of an ox or calf, the saine which the Israelites had set up in the wi]derness. It is hardly known what is the meaning of the emblem, which, doubtless, came from Egypt. The ox is thought to be the emblem of lire or strength; and, being set up as a religious monument, might be intended to signify (od's creative power, l,ut, however, this might be, was, af any rate, a direct and open transgTession of the second Commandment. "The king took counsel, and ruade two calves of gold, and said unto the people, It is too much for you fo go np fo Jerusalem; behold thy gods, 0 Israel, which brought thee up out of the land of Egypt. And he set the one in ]3ethel, and the other put he in Dan." Even this open idolatrous worship, hot merely tolerated, but established, even this was not the last sin of this unhappy man, 'ho had begun a course of wickedness upon system, and then left if as an inheritaace for others more abaadoned than himself fo perfect. The tribe of Levi, who were especial]y consecrated to religious purposes, had thcir possessions not in one place, but scattered up and down the country. It was not to be supposed that they, who executed judgment upou the sin of the calf in the wflderness, would tamely surfer this renewal of the ancient offcnce fi a more heinous shape. They refused to countenaace the idolttrous worship, and Jeroboam, led on by hard necessity, cast them out of the country, got possession of their cities and lands, and put in priests of his own making in their stead. "He ruade a house of high places," and "he and his sons cast off the Levites from executing the priest's oce unto the Lord, and he ordained him priests for the high places, and for the devils, and for the calves which he had ruade; priests of the lowest of the people, which were not of the sons of Levi. '' And he clmnged the solemn feast days, and dared to offer incense, himself intruding first, for example's sake, into the sacred oce. In consequence of these impious proceedings, not only "the priests and Levites, that were in al] Israel," left his kingdom and retired to Judea, but also, "after them, out of al] the" other «tribes, such as set their hearts to seek the Lord God of Israel, came fo Jerusalem to sacrifice unto the Lord God of their fathers." 1 Kings xii. 31; 2 Chron. xi. 14, 15.
Truly this was an ill-omened commencement of his reign. He had ruade it impossil,le for pious Isruelites to romain in the couut W. The irreligious alone held by him. Jevboam ruled in a comt W given up, as it seemed, to evil spirits. So true is it, in a kindred sense to that in which the words were used by Salnucl, that «rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft, and stubbornness is as iniquity and idolatw. ''1:Now, then, we corne to the concludiug scene of this course of crime, perpetrated by one man—the transaction to which the text belongs. It was on the new feast day "which he had devised of his own heart," and at ]3ethel where the idol was set up. The people were collected from all palS of the country, and the king "offered upon the altar and burnt incense." Such wts the formal inauguration of the false religion in God's own hallowed country, answeriug to that sacred solenmity when Solomon offered the prayer of dedication in the Temple. The glory of God had corne doa on that chosen place iu token of His favour, and now at Bethel, xvhich He had once specially visited in an earlier age, He suffered not the heathen act to pass without an indication of His a'ath. One of His prophets was sent froln Judah to attend the festival; but, as if he were entering a country infected by the pestilence, he was bid go into no house, nor eat nor drink whfle he was in it, nay, he was hot even to returl to his hoirie the saine way by which he came, as if his feet must hot touch the polluted earth twice. 1 Sain. xv. 23.
When the prophet came, he uttered his message before the apostate king. If was a lrophecy; a prophecy set up as a witness against the complicatcd sins of the people, the destiny of that rcbellious and idolatrous kingdom stamped upon if in the day of ifs nativity. The lnan of God addressed the altar, as not deigning to speak fo Jeroboam, and foretold ifs fate. He announced that, after no long rime, the idolatrous power should be destroyed, and that very altar should last long enough to see its fall; for upon if, fragrant as it now was with incense, the impious priests should be sacrificed, and men's bones burned; moreover, that all this shotùd be done by a prince of the house of Judah; thus intimating that David's royal line would outlive the revolting kingdom of Israel. "0 altar, altar, thus saith the Lol, ]3ehold, a child shall be born unto the house of David, Josiah by naine; and upon thee shall he offer the priests of the high places that burn incense upon thee, and men's bones shall be burnt upon thee." To show his Divine commission, the prophet gave the word, and the altar was miraculously rent in twain, and the ashes of the sacrifice scattered on the ground.:Nothing could be more public than a judgnlent like this, denounced from God Himself, after Rehoboam, Solomon's son, had not been allowed fo take the marrer into his own hands. And fo make the occurrence still more impressive, two futher signs were added. Jeroboam stretched forth his hand fo seize the prophet; it was instantly shrivelled up, so that he could not pull it fo hhu again. Af the prophet's prayer, it was restored. The second miracle was still more awflfl. The prophet, wearied with his journey, was, on his return, persuaded by a bad man to eat a.nd drink, agaiust the express word of God declared t.o him. An immediate judgment followed. As he zat at ta.ble, his seducer was constrained to declare to him his punishment—that lais body should hot corne into the sepulchre of lais fathers; and az he went home, a lion, God's second instrument for its infliction, met and slew him, yet did not devour him, nor touch the ass he rode on, nor lnolest other psengers he met, but, fixëd to the spot by miracle, he stood over the prophet's body, a sie'n, more truly than the idols at Da.n and Bethel, of God's power, holiness, and severe justice, and suggesting, throughout all Israel, the fearful argument" If God so punish lais own children, what will be the final, though delayed, punishment of the wicked? If the righteous scrcely be saved, where slmll the ungodly and the sinner appear? "1 As for Jeroboam, in spire of all this, "after this thing he returned hot from his evfl way, but ruade again of the lowest of the people priests of the high places; whosoever would, he consecrated him, and he became one of the priests of the high places. ''e Such was lais life. At the close of lais reign, he lost even his earthly prosperity. " The Lord struck hira, and he died." Such was lais end. His family was soon cut off from the throne; and after all his wise counsels and bold plans he bas left 1 Pet. iv. 18. 1 Kings xiii. 33.
but his naine and title to posterity, "Jeroboam the son of Nebat who caused Israel fo sin." Such is his memorial. "Cursed be the man that trusteth in nmn, and maketh flesh his arm, and whose heart departeth from the Lord. ]?or he shall be like the heath in the desert, and shall not see when good cometh, but shall inhabit the parched places in the wilderness, in a salt land, and not inhabited." 1 It requires but a very few words to show the application of this history fo the circumstances in which we find ourselves. So strongly does it pourtray to us the existing disorders and schisms in the Christiaa Church —the profane and tyrannical usage whieh it meets with from the world—that the only question which can possibly arise in the mind is, whether it is allowable to apply if, and whether, as the events are alike, their respective character and their issue are like each other also. This, I say, is the only question, whether we may, without blame, judge of what we see by the light of what we read in the history of Israel; and I wish all readers would clearly understand that this is the only question. If the deeds of Israel and Jeroboam may be taken as types of what has been acted under the Gospel for centuries past, can we doubt that schism, innovation in doctrine, a counterfeit priesthood, sacrilege, and violence, are sins so heinous and crying, that there is no judgment too great for them, no woe which we may hOt expect will ultimately fall on the systems which have been born in them, and the lineage of their Jer. xvii. 5, 6.
perpetrators? What other lesson can we draw from the history bnt this? but that we ought fo draw a lesson, is plain from the rcpeated declaration of St. l'aul:—"Whatsoever things were written aforetime, were written for our teaclnng. these things lmppened unto them as t)es, and they are written for out admonition, upon whom the ends of the wofld are corne." "All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profita] »le fi»r teaching, for reproof, for " " t. Peter c»rrection, for instruction in nghousness, g also and St. Jude ekpressly apply occurrences in the Old TeStament to parallels under the Gospel. Nay God give us the wi and the power to realize to out minds this most serious truth, and fairly to follow it out in its neeessary eonsequencesl And may He of His mercy have pity npon our poor dist.racd Curch, rescue if from the domiNon of the heathen, and grant that "the world's course may be so peaeeably ordered by His governance, that" if and all branches of the One Church Cathode "may joyfully serve Him in a godly qtfietness " om. xv. ; 1 fr, x. 11; 2Tim.. 16; 2Pet. ri.l-15; Jude 5 -11.