prerogative of reproof. He has descended from his footing of unquestioned and uncompromised integrity, and involved himself irretrievably in the very course he should be rebuking. In a word, do we find this pious prince exerting any salutary influence at all over Ahab's manners, or principles, or pursuits? No; but we see him a tool, a dupe, and wellnigh a victim, in the hands of one too crafty and too wily for him to

manage.

And so it must ever be. The very first step a good man takes from the eminence on which he stands apart, as the friend of God and the unflinching enemy of all ungodliness in the world, he compromises his authority, his influence, his right and power of high remonstrance and unsparing testimony against the corrupt lusts and the angry passions of men. He gives up the point of principle, and as to any resistance that he may make in details, men see not what there is left to fight for. If you make concessions to the weak, the wicked, or the worldly, and enter into their plans, and sit down with them in their indulgences, you renounce the advantage which the consciousness of untarnished honour and unimpeached consistency-and that alone

-can give you over them; you put yourself on their level; you are at their mercy; you are one of themselves; and it must be with an ill grace and a feeble effect, that you venture timidly to stand forth either as God's witness or as their reprover. Whatever you gain by conciliation, you lose far more by forfeiting the respect and reverence which firm integrity commands. You may consent to mix with them familiarly on terms of friendship and companionship;-you may thus gain their easy and indolent good-will;-but you

gain something very like their contempt too; and a sort of feeble paralysis coines over you in the very attempt to be faithful. Your voice of censure loses all its commanding energy; your look of disapprobation loses all its keenness; your presence is no longer felt to be a restraint on folly; your severity cannot awe, your tenderness cannot touch; you can but feebly "hint a doubt, and hesitate dislike." To assume a high tone and take high ground now, would but excite ridicule by its absurdity, or anger by its impertinence. Your right to testify-your influence to persuade— your power of rebuke-are all gone.

Is not this the natural, the necessary result of such a conciliatory course? If you condescend to flatter men in their vanities, will they listen to you when you gravely reprove their sins? No; they will laugh you to scorn. If you countenance them in the beginning of their excess, will they patiently bear your authoritative denunciation of its end? No; they will contemptuously reject it as a fond folly, or indignantly resent it as an insult. If you go with them one mile, may they not almost expect you to go two? At least, you have no right to take it very much amiss if they go the two miles themselves.

Settle it, then, in your minds, as a fixed principle, that if you would preserve unimpaired your privilege of testifying for God, and would not be disqualified for discharging a very sacred trust, and performing a very sacred duty, you must beware of a single step in the of such conciliation as Jehoshaphat's. If you would have your influence, your example, your character and conduct, to be of any weight in the world on the side of divine truth and holiness, be very careful,

way

by the

grace of God, to keep yourselves unspotted from

the world.

But, in the second place, Jehoshaphat not only failed to arrest Ahab in his sinful course; he was himself involved in its sinfulness. Instead of reclaiming this wicked prince, he was himself betrayed into a participation in his wickedness. He joined him in his unholy expedition.

And be sure, we say to all professing Christians, that you too, if you try thus artfully to gain the advantage over the world, will find the world too much for you. For Satan, the god of this world, is far more than a match for you in this game of craft, and compromise, and conciliation. Beware how you step out of your own proper sphere, as a separate and peculiar people, to provoke such a trial of skill with Satan or his practised votaries and advocates, and that, too, in their own haunts-the haunts of their own worldly vanities; and on their own ground-the ground of their own worldly modes and maxims. Be sure that they are to the full as able to argue the point with you, as you are to persuade or convince them. They are as likely, at the least, to pervert you as you are to convert them. You may go into their councils and cultivate their friendship, hoping to influence them towards good; but beware lest the tables be turned upon you, and they influence you towards evil. Remember, that from man to man holiness diffuses and spreads its healthful savour far more slowly and less extensively than sin disperses its contagious poison. The contact of your holiness may not sanctify them; the touch of their sin will certainly contaminate you.

You propose, in joining with them, to stop them at a certain point. Are you quite sure that you can stop short at that point yourselves-that you will not, when you come to it, feel yourselves committed, and be easily persuaded that, having gone so far with them, it is needless to scruple about going yet a little farther?

Then go not along with them at all-no, not a single step; for a single step implies tampering, in so far, with your religious and conscientious scruples; and when these are once weakly or wilfully compromised, Satan's battle is gained. The rest is all a question of time and of degree. Your spiritual faith, and your moral principles, are henceforth at the world's disposal. Your safety lies in resisting at the outset, before the world's cold and subtle influence has deadened your hearts and perplexed your understanding. The first prompt decisions of a conscience convinced of sin, and a soul touched with the Saviour's love, will, in most cases, be right; but when you give time for the world to ply you with its manifold considerations of doubtful expediency when you once entertain the world's inquiry, May I? Is it lawful?-ah! then you are already involved in the tide and current that may soon sweep you into the resistless whirlpool, where so many promises and so many professions, once as trustworthy as yours, are day after day engulfed.

Stand fast, then, in your liberty. All things are lawful unto you, but all things are not expedient. Be not yourselves brought under the power of any; and consider what may edify the Church and glorify God. Stand fast in your integrity. Be faithful to Him that calleth and appointeth you to be children in his house;-faithful in that which is least, as well as in

much. Then, and then only, may you expect him to be faithful to you, and to keep your eyes from tears, your feet from falling, and your souls from death.

For, thirdly, see what hazard Jehoshaphat ran. Not only did he sin with Ahab, but he wellnigh perished with him in his sin. Betrayed by his false ally and associate, who could meanly consult his own safety by exposing his friend, Jehoshaphat was saved, but scarcely saved, by faith and prayer, and that only in the last extremity. "And it came to pass, when the captains of the chariots saw Jehoshaphat, that they said, It is the king of Israel. Therefore they compassed about him to fight: but Jehoshaphat cried out, and the Lord helped him; and God moved them to depart from him” (2 Chron. xviii. 31).

And late and seasonable as the interposition was, was it not more than he had any reason to expect? Was it not a deliverance on which he had no right to calculate? It was by his own fault, and against express divine warning, that he was involved in this danger, and he might justly have been left to take the consequences of his own perverseness. His narrow escape was a cause of peculiar thankfulness to himself, but not a warrant of presumptuous confidence to others. It was a signal and special act of most undeserved mercy.

And think not, O Christian! that you may depend upon a similar act of mercy when you tempt the Lord as he did. If you consent to the schemes of vain, wicked, or worldly men, and compromise your devotion to God out of courtesy and complaisance to them, you may be very sure that, as in Jehoshaphat's case, they will take advantage of your easy and ac