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I.]

THE PROPHET'S SORROW.

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which would convert those depravities and misdoings into arguments and evidences of God's abiding and eternal dominion.

Samuel could see little of these good things, which lay hidden in the womb of time, to be brought forth in their appointed season. He could only walk in the dark by faith not sight, slowly coming to understand so much of the divine precept as enabled him to obey it. His after life is full of melancholy yet consolatory instruction. He goes into obscurity as a good man should, when he feels that his main work is done. He comes forth whenever there is need for him, showing that the power which he once possessed is as real as ever, though it has another and safer dwelling than with the temporary and earthly steward of it. His last years are years of sorrow. The king whom he has anointed has too faithfully fulfilled all his fears and prognostics. Yet there lies in the dim distance the hope of one, then a fugitive and an outlaw, who might become a true shepherd of the people, the author of a progeny which should rule and bless the nations.

But as I intimated at the beginning of this sermon, the meaning of his life is not exhausted in himself. He too is to be the beginner of a race, though not of one which is to be propagated like that of the kings. It was a race which would include like the other a number of evil and degenerate children, who would turn their gifts to worse uses, who would more directly blaspheme the source of their gifts, than the civil rulers were able to do. There is no charm in any ordinance whatever, in the succession of son to father, or of pupil to teacher, to prevent such results as these. If there were, we should fall down and worship institutions and arrangements, instead of worshiping God. He pours contempt

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THE SEED OF THE PROPHET.

[Serm. upon the best devices, upon those which bear most the stamp of His own wisdom, when they exalt themselves against Him. The wise father has not to shed more bitter tears over the foolish son, than the godly self-sacrificing teacher has over the disciple who turns his truest words into falsehoods, his most faithful acts into excuses for sin. But under the guidance of a living God, the seed of the prophets became the blessed counteracter of the evil, the interpreter of the good which was to come from the seed of the kings. As the first of them trampled upon the hereditary charm of the priesthood that he might assert the glory of Him who had appointed the priests, so his successors were to break through the hereditary charm and tradition of royalty, that they might declare that covenant which was the foundation of royalty, the Giver of the covenant from whom royalty derived its primary sanction, His continual claim upon the obedience of His subjects. This work was never to become extinct, till it had obtained its perfect fulfilment-no, not to become extinct then, for the revelation of a perfect Prophet, a perfect Priest, a perfect King, would be but the commencement of a new and universal society, grounded upon the fact of His appearance, as all previous society had been upon the belief of His reality and the hope of his manifestation.

How prophets and kings accomplished their respective missions, how each explained the mission of the other, how much was learned by their errors and imperfections because there was a higher ruler and teacher than either, I may, if God permit, consider in future sermons. We may find that the great ultimate objects which the divine ministers were to keep in sight do not in the least prevent them from suggesting to us innumerable hints and discovering the deepest principles for our guidance in the commonest transactions of

I.]

THE LESSON FOR ALL TIMES.

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our lives. The more earnestly we desire to understand God's ways to us, and how we may walk in His ways, the more light will these records afford us.

One glimpse of such light, I think, you may have obtained from the subject which has occupied us this afternoon. You may have seen how possible it is in our dealings with our fellow creatures to fight too obstinately with their wilfulness, because we do not thoroughly appreciate the evil of it. We fancy that we can resist it by strengthening certain mud banks which had a real worth when they were formed, but which were intended for a purpose that has been fulfilled. If we saw how mighty the flood was, what it was likely to sweep away, we should feel that we needed some diviner and more permanent defence. That we may bring forth deep and eternal principles into fuller manifestation, we should not scruple to concede that for which we have a strong personal affection; we should acknowledge that the sins of rulers must lead to changes we cannot contemplate without fear; we should even adopt names and titles of which we have a reasonable dread. Our best maxims, our dearest heirlooms are worthless and dead if they do not bear witness of the Living God. He may sanctify and consecrate that which seems most opposed to them. This lesson I think is one of frequent and various application in our individual and national experience. There is another still more precious, that we should never despair when a people appears to be most bent on mischief-not even when all powers, civil and spiritual, are conspiring with it. Samuel had, more than once or twice in his life, an excuse for thinking that all these influences were leading to the ruin of his land. Yet deliverance came through the very acts which these evils made necessary.

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SELF WILL AND GOD'S WILL.

[Serm. I. And this was one of a series of instances in which selfwill was found to serve the purposes of a high and gracious Will. The last of that series explained the meaning of all that went before. "Of a truth, Lord," said the little band of disciples who were gathered in the upper room of Jerusalem "Of a truth, Lord, against thy holy child Jesus, were gathered together both Herod and Pontius Pilate, and all the people of the Jews; to do what thy hand and thy counsel had prepared before to be done." Oh, that while we lay to heart this consolation we may also join in the prayer which followed it. "And now, Lord, grant that thy servants may with all boldness speak thy word, and that signs and wonders may be done in the name of thy holy child Jesus."

SERMON II.

THE LIFE OF SAUL.

LINCOLN'S INN, 23RD SUNDAY AFTER TRINITY.-Nov. 23, 1851.

1 SAMUEL, XIX. 24.

Wherefore they say, "Is Saul also among the Prophets?"

THIS question, which became proverbial, is referred in the Book of Samuel to two different incidents in the life of Saul. He is said to have met a troop of prophets before he was chosen king, when he was known only as the son of Kish the Benjamite, and to have been suddenly seized with their Spirit. He is said in the latter and degenerate period of his reign, when he was persecuting David, to have gone down to Ramah in search of his son-in-law, "and the Spirit of God came on him and he went on and prophesied until he came to Naioth in Ramah.' It is the fashion of our times to suppose that these must be two versions of the same fact preserved by different chroniclers, and brought together by some careless compiler. I venture to think that that solution of the difficulty is not a necessary one, not even the most probable one. I believe that there occur

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