SERMON XII.

1 KINGS XXII. 8.

There is yet one man, Micaiah the son of Imlah, by whom we may inquire of the Lord: but I hate him; for he doth not prophesy good concerning me, but evil.

SEVERAL of the portions of Scripture appointed for the Sunday-morning-Lessons relate to the history of Ahab, the deluded and wicked king of Israel,—his sins,—the warnings he received and failed to profit by,-and his final ruin. Seduced by his idolatrous queen, he in turn seduced his people into the worship of false gods,-abused his power with the most tyrannical cruelty,—and, at length, brought down heavy judgments on his corrupted subjects, and destruction on himself and his whole family.

This record of his life may serve as an instructive warning to all men. For though the system of temporal judgments and temporal rewards under which the Israelites lived, was in great measure peculiar to that nation, and is not to be looked for now, we may be sure that impenitent sinners will not escape divine judgments in the next world, though they may in this. Our Lord would not permit the mistaken zeal of his Apostles to call down fire from heaven on those who rejected Him; saying, "Ye know not what manner of spirit ye* are of:" but He declares that in the next world those will not escape who should be deaf to the higher promises and more awful threats of the Gospel, when announced by those very Apostles: "Verily, I say unto you, it shall be more tolerable for Sodom and Gomorrah” (cities, we should remember, which were destroyed by fire from heaven) the day of judgment, than for them."

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But the circumstance in Ahab's history, to which I wish now to call your especial attention, is, his being angry with the prophets who

* Ὑμεῖς.

warned him of God's judgments; and seeming to attribute to them,-the messengers sent to him, the evils he was bringing on himself.

He finds fault with one prophet who had foretold the famine brought on the land through the sins he had occasioned; saying, "Art thou he that troubleth Israel?" Again, to the prophet who rebukes him for his murder and robbery of Naboth, he says, "Hast thou found me, O mine ?" enemy And, finally, when the prophet Micaiah has been made the divine messenger of woes to come, he hates and reviles and punishes him, for prophesying evil and not good concerning him.

The whole of this transaction now before us is one of the strangest, and, in itself, most improbable that is any where to be found. I say, improbable in itself, because the conduct of Ahab is so utterly inconsistent and absurd, that one is at a loss to account for it; and yet if we look around us, and judge from experience, we shall find that a like conduct is not at all uncommon; and therefore,-unreasonable and extravagant as it was,-is no wise hard to be believed.

Ahab, we are told, had formed a design, in conjunction with Jehoshaphat king of Judah, his ally, of attacking his enemies the Syrians, at Ramoth-Gilead, a place which they had taken from the Israelites. And at the suggestion of Jehoshaphat (who though the ally of this wicked king, was in other respects faithful to the true God), Ahab calls together and consults on the occasion the prophets, or pretended prophets, of the Lord; all of whom assure him that his expedition will prosper, and that the Lord will deliver the place into his hands. Jehoshaphat however is not quite satisfied with their declaration; having probably some suspicion that these prophets of Ahab" (for so they are called in the 22d and 23d verses) might not be truly inspired by the Lord; and inquires whether there" is not here a prophet of the Lord besides, that we might inquire of him?" And the answer to this inquiry strikes one at first sight as truly extraordinary. There was, it seems, another prophet, whom Ahab did not like to consult, because he "prophesied not good, but evil, concerning him;" and whom (doubtless for that reason) he had, we are told, imprisoned. We are not

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expressly informed in Scripture of this prophet Micaiah having formerly prophesied against Ahab; but we find mention (in the latter part of the 20th chapter) of a certain prophet, who is not there named, foretelling evil to Ahab and his people, on account of his having suffered to escape Benhadad, king of Syria, whom he had been appointed (as it appears) to destroy. There is no mention of any punishment inflicted by the king on this man; only we are told that he was displeased with him. Now it appears from the Jewish historian Josephus, to have been an undoubted tradition among the Jews, that this prophet was no other than this very Micaiah here spoken of; and though such a tradition would not be allowed to have any decisive authority, it is in itself so probable, and agrees so well with the whole of the Scripture history, that there seems no reason to question the truth of it. For his unfavourable prophecy then, whatever it was, Micaiah was out of favour with the king of Israel, so that he was unwilling to consult him.

The strange part of the transaction is, that he did not seem to question the reality of his prophetic character; for he tells Jehoshaphat,