conscious of great indecision, conscious of many inconsistencies, conscious of having too often performed the very part which, in his case, was accompanied with so much peril. "The good which we would, we do not; and the evil which we would not, that we do." And this, alas! is so much our tendency, that we are constrained to come before God every day of our lives, and make the same confession each day: "We have left undone those things which we ought to have done, and we have done those things which we ought not to have done." Accordingly, convinced as we are that Christ has died for man, and that He has sent His Spirit to guide man, we feel deeply anxious to be assured that one as weak and wayward as ourselves has been pardoned, guided and saved. This history assures us that such is the case. Jehoshaphat has been saved and pardoned by One whom he knew not. Jehoshaphat has been guided and strengthened by a mighty and potent Spirit, of whose Name he never heard. After each fall he has been lifted up; after each backsliding, helped forward; and at length, out of weakness made strong.

Such, I believe, brethren, is the secret of our interest in this history. The early part of it is so true a sketch of ourselves, that we cannot repress our curiosity to know what was the end. Better were it for us, far better, not to have fallen into great sins; better to have no broken vows, no neglected obligations, no despised warnings, of which to accuse our

selves and repent; better to

tranquil and consistent career.

pass, like Josiah, a But if this is not so,

it is still well to retrace our steps, to struggle against our sins, as did Jehoshaphat, and, through Christ's pardoning love, to find peace at the last-a peace which the world, with all its alliances, and compromises, and apologies for sin, cannot give a peace which, blessed be God, it is powerless to take away.

I have only one word more. Perhaps some one may hear me who has lamented his indecision; who has felt in himself a yearning for better things, but has never realized better things; who has gone on, week after week, and month after month, and year after year, in courses which his better judgment disapproves. Is such a person to have hope, because Jehoshaphat was saved? No, brethren, he cannot hope, unless he resembles that king, not merely in his self-reproach, but in, after every fall, his renewed efforts for firmness; unless, when reminded of God, he prays to Him, and, though late, consults Him; unless, when conscious that he has dishonoured his holy calling, he lays himself out to honour it; unless, when rebuked for sin, he is penitent and humble; unless, when solicited to renew his sin, he has the courage to say, "The Lord being my helper, I will not." Then, indeed, he may take hope; then Jehoshaphat's history has been both written for him, and written not in vain. Amen.

JEHORAM.

See I Kings xxii. 50. 2 Kings viii. 16—24. 2 Chron. xxi.

JEHOSHAPHAT was succeeded on the throne by Jehoram (or Joram),1 whom he had already, for some time, associated with himself in the government. He was his eldest son, a circumstance to which he appears to have owed an advancement by no means due to any eminence of character. His bad qualities had probably been kept in check during Jehoshaphat's lifetime, but no sooner is that good but weak king gone down to his grave, than he commences a course of violence and idolatry. This, indeed, might have been expected from his having Athaliah, the daughter of Ahab, to wife. He had six brothers, whom Jehoshaphat had endowed with gifts of wealth and of fenced cities. All of these Jehoram remorselessly put to death, and with them divers also of the chief men of the nation. His other atrocities are not mentioned

1 The similarity of names in the reigning houses of Israel and Judah, caused doubtless by the family alliance between Ahab and Jehoshaphat, produces some confusion. To obviate this as far as possible, in one of the cases, I have limited the name Joram to the King of Israel, Jehoram to the King of Judah.

in detail, but it is said of him, generally, that "he wrought that which was evil in the eyes of the Lord." It is even declared that it was only "because of the covenant that the Lord had made with David, and as He had promised to give a light (or lamp) to him and his sons for ever," that the whole royal house was not condemned to destruction. But signal punishments befell him. First, the Edomites who had since David's time been subject to the kings of Judah, under a deputy or viceroy, revolted. Jehoram took up arms against them, but though he gained some success in a night battle, he was unable to reconquer them. They set up an independent kingdom, and even Elath (or Eloth), the port on the Red Sea, which was essential to the commerce of his subjects, was lost to Judah until the days of Uzziah. Thus that ancient prophecy was fulfilled, by which Esau had long ago been comforted in reference to the fortunes of his descendants: "It shall come to pass when thou shalt have the dominion that thou shalt break his yoke from off thy neck." That it was fulfilled at this particular time, and that Libnah,' one of the king's most important fortresses, revolted simultaneously, was, we are told. expressly, "because Jehoram had forsaken the Lord God of his fathers." His personal sins included

1 Perhaps it was the simultaneous revolt of Libnah which prevented Jehoram from following up his victory over the Edomites. No other probable cause can be assigned for his neglect of such an opportunity.

whatever the kings of Israel and the house of Ahab had imagined, and among them, as we may well believe, the making Baal-worship the court religion. And he did not confine his idolatry to mere example. "He made high places in the mountains of Judah, and caused the inhabitants of Jerusalem to commit fornication, and compelled Judah thereto." But loss of dominion and influence was not to be his only punishment. His sins were so foul and unnatural that an utterance issued even from the unseen world to denounce further woes that should ensue upon them. Elijah had been long removed from the earth. But, in some mysterious manner there came a Writing from that prophet to Jehoram. Whether this Writing was sent by direct supernatural agency—or whether having been indited by divine revelation, before Elijah's departure, it was conveyed to the king by Elisha, or by some other messenger, we are not informed-but to Jehoram it came, as distinct and as intelligibly seen by him as was the writing on the wall at Babylon, by Belshazzar. Its import was this "Thus saith the Lord God of David thy father, Because thou hast not walked in the ways of Jehoshaphat thy father, nor in the ways of Asa king of Judah, but hast walked in the way of the kings of Israel, and hast made Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem to go a whoring, like to the whoredoms of the house of Ahab, and also hast slain thy brethren of thy father's house, which were better than thyself: behold, with a great