are none of them to be despised as useless, or neglected as indifferent. Such a conduct would betray us into fatal mistakes, and lead us into extremes of infinite danger; and therefore, without pretending to model our faith by fancy or humour, let us endeavour, as to fulfil all righteousness, so to have all faith, which we have the means and abilities of acquiring. To this end, it highly imports us to discover and remove the obstacles that stand in our way, and prevent our coming to the knowledge of the truth. If they are no better than what have been suggested, however they may occasion, they can never justify our unbelief. If they are the same, one considerable step is gained, as we have found out the cause of our distemper; and it lies upon ourselves to perfect and complete the cure.

SERMON XII.

2 KINGS V. 11.

But Naaman was wroth, and went away, and said, Behold, I thought, He will surely come out to me, and stand, and call on the name of the Lord his God, and strike his hand over the place, and recover the leper.

YES, he thought so! And because the prophet's behaviour did not answer to what he had previously figured in his own imagination, he turned, and went away in a rage. Naaman was captain of the host of the king of Syria, and a great man with his master; and therefore expected, no doubt, to be received and treated by Elisha with some appearance of pomp and solemnity; such as he imagined suitable to the dignity both of the prophet's character and his own. To be sure, He will come out to me, and stand, and call on the name of the Lord his God, and strike his hand over the place, and, with a good deal of ceremony and show, will recover the leper. But Elisha, without coming out, sent a messenger unto him, saying, Go and wash in Jordan seven times, and thy flesh shall come again to thee, and thou shalt be clean. He had framed in his own fancy a method of recovery, possibly more arduous, but certainly more ostentatious; and the simplicity of this hurt his pride, and provoked his passion; he was wroth, and went away. Deaf however as pride and passion too generally are to the voice of reason, he condescended to hear it even from the mouth of his

servants, when they ventured to represent and reason the case fairly with him. My father, said they, if the prophet had bid thee do some great thing, wouldest thou not have done it? how much rather then, when he saith to thee, Wash and be clean? Then went he down, and dipped himself seven times in Jordan, according to the saying of the man of God: and his flesh came again like unto the flesh of a little child, and he was clean.

We have here the example of a man who was in great danger of defeating his own design, and returning home as great a leper as he came from thence, through his own prejudices or premature imaginations. No injury was done to him, no affront intended; but because things were not ordered as he imagined, and beforehand supposed they would be, he fell into a passion; and in the first transports of it determined to depart without complying with the prophet's direction.

Something like this has been the case of many persons besides Naaman the Syrian. It was in a great measure the case of the Jews in general with regard to their Messiah. No people upon earth ever expected any event with so much eagerness and impatience as they did his coming. And yet, when he did come, you all know how he was received and treated, because he did not appear agreeably to their expectations. The ancient prophecies which went before of him, had spoke of a Sceptrea and a kingdom, of which there should be no end;-had foretold, that God should give unto him the throne of his father David, and that he should reign in

mount Zion for everc. It was clear from other prophecies, which represent him as a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief;-as stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted, and even as cut off out of the land of the living; it was clear, I say, from the prophecies of this order, that the former, concerning the throne and the perpetuity of his kingdom, must be understood in a spiritual sense. Indeed no kingdom but a spiritual kingdom can be absolutely without end. This might have opened their eyes a little, and raised a suspicion at least, that his kingdom was not to be of this world; and, consequently, that he was not to be a great and mighty temporal Prince, going forth conquering and to conquer, binding kings with chains, and nobles with fetters of irone, till he had put all enemies under his feet, and obtained by his victories the heathen for his inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for his possession. It is plain, from the whole subject and series of prophecy, put together and carefully compared, that this is not the true prophetical character of Messiah the Princeh. But this was a character that pleased and flattered the pride and ambition of the Jews. They were now subdued by the Romans; and they wanted to be conquering in their turn. And what time so likely or proper for this purpose as when their Messiah was at their head? That was the time, and he surely was the Person destined by Providence to restore the kingdom to Israel. Full of these ideas and these expectations, when they saw our Lord in all his conduct and carriage act so con

c Micah iv. 7.
f 1 Cor. xv. 25.

d Isaiah liii.
g Psalm ii. 8.

e Psalm cxlix. 8.

h Dan. ix. 25.

trary to them; when, instead of aspiring to the throne, or being impatient to ascend it, they saw him refuse to be king when they would have made him so by force, their very bowels were troubled, and their heart was turned within them. He had then in their eyes no form or comeliness, that they should desire him; but they hid as it were their faces from him; he was despised, and they esteemed him noti. Behold, they thought he will surely come with great pomp and power, to deliver them from their enemies, and from the hand of all that hated them. While they were dreaming of nothing but triumphs and trophies, he talked to them of overcoming the world in a quite different sense; while their minds ran upon the grandeur of earthly sovereignty, and his own chief disciples were aspiring to get the great offices and places under him, he was preaching to them poverty of spirit, humility, selfdenial, and a contempt of all that worldly greatness and glory which was the object of their ambition and pursuit. This disagreement in his character, conduct, and doctrine, with what they had expected and previously apprehended they would be, the great contrariety of these things to their beloved, preconceived notions, provoked them to the greatest disdain of his person and doctrine; and enraged them to that degree, as to make them clamorous for his execution, when the Roman governor, thoroughly sensible of his innocence, was determined to let him go. This is a most tragical instance of the fatal effects of prejudices and preconceived opinions. It has no parallel, and cannot be equalled; but we

i Isaiah liii.

k See Dr. South, vol. iii. p. 352, &c.