it was not lawful for man to utter. "It doth not yet appear what we shall be." Thus much only we know, that of the various trials and probationary states in which we are placed, this is the last and crowning one. With our death there is an end of growth. Habituation is the business of this life. Here we may learn to love God. As our love is perfected either towards God, or the world, so shall we depart either into everlasting punishment, or everlasting life. He who is infinite is the only adequate object of the love which is to be eternal, and "eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither hath it entered into the heart of man to conceive, the things which God hath prepared for them that love Him."

What then is the conclusion to which we are led? It is that to which the language of Holy Scripture continually directs us, from which the mistaken guidance of a false philosophy would as continually divert us,- that "this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments ;"-His commandments and His example descend to the details of our common life. There let us work, while it is yet day.

Let every effort of duty be sanctified by daily, fervent, unintermitted prayer. Let every prayer display itself in watchful, eager, humble efforts to do our duty. And with the Holy Spirit of God to strengthen and support us, with the Son of God to hold before us the ensample of a perfect life

the love of God shall surely grow up within our souls, and we shall be the blessed of our Father, and receive the kingdom which has been prepared for us from the beginning of the world.

SERMON XII.

THE DISOBEDIENT PROPHET.

1 KINGS Xiii. 20, 21, 22.

"And it came to pass, as they sat at the table, that the word of the Lord came unto the prophet that brought him back;

"And he cried unto the man of God that came from Judah, saying, Thus saith the Lord, Forasmuch as thou hast disobeyed the mouth of the Lord, and hast not kept the commandment which the Lord thy God commanded thee,

"But camest back, and hast eaten bread, and drunk water in the place, of the which the Lord did say to thee, Eat no bread, nor drink water; thy carcase shall not come unto the sepulchre of thy fathers."

THE chapter, from which these verses are taken, is one which, being read in the course of the Sunday lessons, is well known to all Christians who go to Church; and if I mistake not, is commonly thought to contain considerable difficulty. Certainly, from the brevity and incompleteness of the story as told in the Bible, it is not unlikely to be obscure. So

that the instruction derivable from it is not so visible as it becomes upon a little study and explanation.

A man of God, that is, a Prophet, was sent by express command of God, as it appears, from Judah to Bethel, where Jeroboam had set up an altar to make Israel to sin. His commission seems to have been quite distinct and intelligible. He was ordered to go to Bethel, declare God's word against the altar, and deliver a prophecy, that a future king of Judah should burn men's bones upon it. Then he was to return, not by the same way that he came, and to eat no bread nor drink water in that place.

Accordingly, he went to Bethel. He delivered the commission with which he was entrusted. When the king, incensed at his prediction, put forth his hand to seize him, God interfered miraculously to preserve him. The king's hand withered, so that he could not pull it in again to him, and the altar was rent, and the ashes poured out from it. The man of God refused the king's request that he would go home with him, and refresh himself, and receive a reward. Then he went another way, and returned not by the way that he came to Bethel.

In all this, he appears to have fulfilled his commission precisely. He is on his road home. The dangers, if dangers there were, in his undertaking, seem all overpassed. He has resisted the

king's invitation, and gone away from the scene of temptation by another road, according to the command of God. But then comes the strange and somewhat difficult portion of the history, which stands thus in the text of Holy Scripture:

Now there dwelt an old prophet in Bethel: and his sons came and told him all the works that the man of God had done that day in Bethel: the words also which he had spoken unto the king, them they told also to their father. And their father said unto them, What way went he? For his sons had seen what way the man of God went which came from Judah. And he said unto his sons, Saddle me the ass. So they saddled him the ass, and he rode thereon, and went after the man of God, and found him sitting under an oak: and he said unto him, Art thou the man of God that camest from Judah? And he said, I am. Then he said unto him, Come home with me and eat bread. And he said, I may not return with thee, nor go in with thee: neither will I eat bread nor drink water with thee in this place. For it was said to me, by the word of the Lord, Thou shalt eat no bread nor drink water there, nor turn again to go by the way that thou camest. He said unto him, I am a prophet also as thou art and an angel spake unto me by the word of the Lord saying, Bring him back with thee into thine house, that he may eat bread and drink water. But he lied unto him. And it came to pass as they sat at the table, that the word

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