SERMON CCLIX.

WARNINGS AFTER CRIME.

FOR THE TENTH SUNDAY AFTER TRINITY.

1 KINGS xxi. 20.

"And Ahab said to Elijah, Hast thou found me, O mine enemy? And he answered, I have found thee: because thou hast sold thyself to work evil in the sight of the LORD."

HERE we see God's providential care even of such a person as Ahab, so utterly given up to all manner of wickedness. It is a very fearful picture, yet full of mercy and encouragement to true repentance. Consider who the persons are, when, and in what circumstances they are met. Represent to yourselves the vineyard of Naboth, hard by Ahab's palace. By false accusation, most likely that very morning, Naboth had been slain, and his vineyard forfeited to the king: and although Ahab himself was not present at the unjust sentence, yet he had his full portion of the guilt of it for when his wife, Jezebel, the wicked contriver of it, told him that it was done, and the vineyard was now at his disposal, he rose up, and went down from his palace into the neighbouring vineyard, no doubt intending to enjoy himself with the sight of what he had so long coveted, and thinking now to enjoy it in peace, and have his own way with it the rest of his days.

These were his wicked and ignorant thoughts, as he was on his way into the vineyard; but when he came there, he found one whom he little expected to see. The word of the LORD had come to Elijah the Tishbite, saying, "Arise, go down to meet Ahab, king of Israel, which is in Samaria; behold, he is in the

vineyard of Naboth, whither he is gone down to possess it." Elijah, who had so often before reproved Ahab, and had not suffered him to be at peace in his sins, shows himself now also suddenly, with that fearful message, "Thus saith the LORD, Hast thou killed, and also taken possession?" And again, “Thus saith the LORD, In the place where dogs licked the blood of Naboth, shall dogs lick thy blood, even thine."

Ahab's answer was that in the text; "Hast thou found me, O mine enemy?" He accounted Elijah his enemy, because he told him the truth: just as some while before, when the Prophet had shown himself to him, at a time when the whole land was in trouble from the long drought, the king's salutation was, "Art thou he that troubleth Israel?" Although Elijah was, in fact, coming to show him how he might prevail with GoD to send rain upon the land.

But so it is usually with men inveterate in wickedness. They want to be left quiet in their sins, and when they are reproved, they call it troublesome; and when the Church lifts up her voice and rebukes them, as her duty is, for wickednesses which have grown bold and common among them, this is to them "troubling of Israel," "turning the world upside down;" or they take it as a personal affront, as an ill-natured, insolent thing; not knowing that all the while it is GoD of whom they are indeed complaining, and of whom they speak such hard words; still less considering that this is His way, to preserve them from utter ruin; that if HE were to leave off troubling, if HE were no longer to show HIMSELF the enemy of their sins, their real enemy would never loose his hold of them for ever.

Such is the scene which the Church sets before us to-daythe awful Prophet and the wicked king meeting one another in the vineyard of Naboth, and such the conversation which passed between them. Had we been present, seeing and hearing them, doubtless we should have gone away in deep thought, both on GOD's ways in warning Ahab, and on his manner of receiving the warning. Let us seriously endeavour to have the same thoughts now. For though we see them not with our bodily eyes, yet their true history in Holy Scripture has made them in a manner present to us: we have been looking in at that vineyard of Jezreel, and have heard the words which were there

spoken, and we know well Who is always watching, to see how we deal with those records of His doings of old; whether we go away and forget them, or think of them as mere curious histories, or whether we apply them in earnest to our own consciences.

First, then, we seem to observe, in GoD's dealings here with Ahab, a great law of His universal Providence; not usually to leave sinners at ease in their sins. The very heathens and unbelievers have observed it in all times; from the

very spring of their earthly and wicked delights there ooze out drops of bitterness, paining and vexing them in the midst of their highest enjoyments. Now this is His great and unspeakable mercy, to those who least seem to deserve it. Left to themselves, they must surely perish; but He does not leave them to themselves.

Recollect the history of the very first wilful sin. Adam and Eve hid themselves from the presence of the LORD GOD, among the trees of Paradise. The LORD came down, and made His presence known in the garden; they knew He was there, and in their shame tried to hide themselves. Had He permitted them so to do, had He passed by, and not called unto Adam, what would have become of them and of us?

The people before the Flood were "eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage," and so they went on to the end; yet God left them not quite at their ease: Noah was for a long while preparing his Ark in their sight, and more or less disturbing them with notions of the wrath to come.

The people of Sodom, in like manner, were first reproved by the presence of Lot, then by two Angels coming expressly to warn them by miracle, before they destroyed the place. Moses in Egypt over and over, almost after each new plague, told Pharaoh what the next plague would be. The night that Babylon was to be overthrown, the king, Belshazzar, in the midst of his idolatrous feasting and blasphemy, saw a hand come out, and write on the wall those words of threatening, "Thou art weighed in the balances, and found wanting." And, in after years, the wicked king Herod could have little or no rest in his profane adulterous way of life, because the holy Baptist was still admonishing him, "It is not lawful for thee to have thy brother's wife."

In short, this was ever the way of GoD, especially with His

own people, sinning again and again. "I sent unto you all My servants the prophets, rising up early, and sending them, saying, O do not this abominable thing which I hate!" Wherever you hear of a wicked Ahab, you hear of a fearless, self-denying Elijah to warn him. If even holy David forget himself, and continue awhile in grievous sin, presently Nathan shall come to him, tell him the case of a like grievous sinner, and say to him, "Thou art the man."

Or, if there be no Prophet to speak, God's Providence will not be silent. Trouble and affliction will do their work; and the man, as he is awake or wanders alone, will be made to bethink himself, "Our iniquities have separated between us and our GOD, and our sins have turned away good things from us."

Thus we read in the book of GOD; and do not men so find it in their daily experience? To begin with things small in comparison; let any one of us look back, and try to remember his childish days; let us recal, as well as we can, (and many of us, I suppose, can do it but too exactly,) the miserable particulars of our first grievous sin in any way: I question not but we shall remember more or fewer hardnesses and discomforts, which we can see now to have been purposely thrown in our way by GoD's good Providence, to prevent us, had we not been obstinate, from going on to harm ourselves wilfully and mortally.

By and by, as men grow older, and deadly sins come on them nearer, and in more fearful sort, the warnings of God's Providence are multiplied accordingly, and brought more and more home to us. How many difficulties commonly occur in men's schemes of deliberate, shameful sin! There are appearances to be observed, the eyes of men to be avoided, persons who might interfere and hinder, to be put out of the way; troubles and expenses and dangers without number must often be incurred beforehand, and when the time comes, some unforeseen event destroys at once all the project, and if they are to win their bad end, they must begin their work over again.

Holy Job speaks of this in certain kinds of wickedness especially; "The murderer rising with the light killeth the poor and needy, and in the day time is as a thief. The eye also of the adulterer waiteth for the twilight, saying, No eye shall see me, and he disguiseth his face. In the dark they dig through houses,

VOL. VIII.

P

which they had marked for themselves in the day time; they know not the light. For the morning is to them even as the shadow of death: if one know them, they are in the terrors of the shadow of death."

In all such cases, every hardship, every peril, doubt, and agony, which the wicked person has to go through, must be taken as a sign of GoD's immediate presence; it is like the Angel of the LORD standing in the way before Balaam, with his sword drawn in his hand; whom Balaam could not see, till his eyes were opened by miracle; neither could he believe in him, because his heart was going after his covetousness: it seemed to him but the stubbornness of the ass he rode on, yet was it not the less true, that the Angel really was there: and so when Christians are setting about any evil work, and wilfully deceiving and blinding their own hearts, and difficulties and hindrances arise, they need not doubt that it is really God and His angels, coming out to withstand them, because of their perverse ways.

Neither need we doubt what His meaning is in so doing. HE wills them to repent; HE would not have them die. The untoward accidents, the unexpected turns, the strange and sudden failures which happen to them, are so many checks from His Fatherly hand, so many calls to a better mind, so many stays in the steep and broad way to hell.

But suppose them, like Ahab, to have succeeded in their evil purpose: imagine them to have "killed, and also taken possession," yet their merciful Corrector forsakes them not. HE sends an Elijah to meet them where they least expected: the object for which they had sinned, and it may be suffered, when they have won it, proves poor and worthless, if not utterly disgusting to them. Their conscience begins to torment and reproach them; and what is conscience, but the direct voice of GOD? They try, perhaps, to stifle this, by sinning on with a higher hand; as a dishonest person, or one who is unkind to his family, may take to drinking, in order to escape his own thoughts: but here God's merciful Providence meets them with something which mars all their false pleasures; some one circumstance which they cannot get over: as Mordecai, sitting in the king's gate, and refusing to honour Haman, took away all the pleasure he had in his pride, and ambition, and worldly greatness; or they