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expect an undaunted constancy from flesh and blood, when Elijah fails! The strongest and holiest saint upon earth is subject to some qualms of fear and infirmity: to be always and unchangeably good, is proper only to the glorious spirits in heaven. Thus the wise and holy God will have his power perfected in our weakness. It is in vain for us, while we carry this flesh about us, to hope for so exact health, as not to be cast down sometimes with fits of spiritual distemper. It is no new thing for holy men to wish for death: who can either marvel at, or blame the desire of advantage? for the weary traveller to long for rest, the prisoner for liberty, the banished for home, it is so natural, that the contrary disposition were monstrous. The benefit of the change is a just motive to our appetition; but to call for death out of a satiety of life, out of an impatience of suffering, is a weakness unbeseeming a saint. It is not enough, O Elijah, God hath more work yet for thee; thy God hath more honoured thee than thy fathers, and thou shalt live to honour him.

Toil and sorrow have lulled the prophet asleep under this juniper-tree; that wholesome shade was well chosen for his repose while death was called for, the cozen of death comes unbidden; the angel of God waits on him in that hard lodg ing. No wilderness is too solitary for the attendance of those blessed spirits. As he is guarded, so is he awaked by that messenger of God, and stirred up from his rest to his repast; while he slept, his breakfast is made ready for him by those spiritual hands; "There was a cake baked on the coals, and a cruise of water at his head." O the never-ceasing care and providence of the Almighty, not to be barred by any place, by any condition! When means are wanting to us, when we are wanting to ourselves, when to God, even then doth he follow us with his mercy, and cast favours upon us, beyond, against expectation! What variety of purveyance doth he make for his servant! One while the ravens, then the Sareptan, now the angel shall be his caterer; none of them without a miracle: those other provided for him waking, this sleeping. O God! the eye of thy providence is not dimmer, the hand of thy power is not shorter; only teach thou us to serve thee, to trust thee.

Needs must the prophet eat, and drink, and sleep, with much comfort, while he saw that he had such a guardian, attendance, purveyor; and now the second time is he raised, by that

happy touch, to his meal, and his way: "Arise, and eat, because the journey is too great for thee." What needed he to travel further, since that divine power could as well protect him in the wilderness, as in Horeb? what needed he to eat, since he, that meant to sustain him forty days with one meal, might as well have sustained him without it? God is a most free agent, neither will he be tied to the terms of human regularities. It is enough that he knows and approves the reasons of his own choice and commands: once in forty days and nights shall Elijah eat, to teach us what God can do with little means; and but once, to teach us what he can do without means. Once shall the prophet eat-" Man lives by bread;" and but once-" Man lives not by bread only, but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God." Moses, Elijah, our Saviour, fasted each of them forty days and forty nights: the three great fasters met gloriously in Tabor. I find not where God ever honoured any man for feasting. It is abstinence, not fulness, that makes a man capable of heavenly visions, of divine glory.

The journey was not of itself so long; the prophet took those ways, those hours which his heart gave him. In the very same mount where Moses first saw God, shall Elijah see him: one and the same cave, as is very probable, was the receptacle to both. It could not but be a great confirmation of Elijah, to renew the sight of those sensible monuments of God's favour and protection, to his faithful predecessor. Moses came to see God in the bush of Horeb. God came to find Elijah in the cave of Horeb. What dost thou here, Elijah? The place was directed by a providence, not by a command. He is hid sure enough from Jezebel; he cannot be hid from the all-seeing eye of God. "Whither shall I go from thy Spirit? or, whither shall I fly from thy presence? If I ascend up into heaven, thou art there; if I make my bed in hell, behold, thou art there. If I take the wings of the morning, and dwell in the utmost part of the sea, even there shall thine hand find me and thy right hand shall hold me." Twice hath God propounded the same question to Elijah: once in the heart, once in the mouth of the cave. Twice doth the prophet answer in the same words. Had the first answer satisfied, the question had not been re-demanded. Now, that sullen answer, which Elijah gave in the darkness of the cave, is challenged into the light, not without an awful preface. The Lord first passeth

by him with the terrible demonstrations of his power. A great and strong wind rent the mountains, and brake the rocks in pieces that tearing blast was from God-God was not in it; so was he in it as in his other extraordinary works; not so in it, as by it to impart himself to Elijah: it was the usher, not the carriage of God. After the wind came an earthquake more fearful than it: that did but move the air, this the earth; that beat upon some prominences of earth, this shook it from the centre. After the earthquake came a fire more fearful than either. The other affected the ear, the feeling; but this lets in horror into the soul, by the eye, the quickest and most apprehensive of the senses. Elijah shall see God's mighty power in the earth, air, fire, before he hear him in the soft voice; all these are but boisterous harbingers of a meek and still word. In that God was! behold, in that gentle and mild breath there was omnipotency; there was but powerfulness in those fierce representations: there is not always the greatest efficacy, where is the greatest noise. God loves to make way for himself by terror, but he conveys himself to us in sweetness. It is happy for us, if, after the gusts and flashes of the law, we have heard the soft voice of evangelical mercy.

In this very mount, with the same horror, God had delivered his law to Moses and Israel. It is no marvel if Elijah wrapt his face in his mantle: his obedience draws him forth to the mouth of the cave, his fear still hides his head. Had there not been much courage in the prophet's faith, he had not stood out these affrightful forerunners of the divine presence, though with his face covered. The very angels do no less, before that all-glorious Majesty, than vail themselves with their wings. Far be it from us, once to think of that infinite and omnipotent Deity, without an humble awfulness.

Fear changes not the tenor of Elijah's answer: he hath not left one word behind him in the cave. "I have been very jealous for the Lord God of hosts, because the children of Israel have forsaken thy covenant, thrown down thine altars, and slain thy prophets with the sword, and I, even I only, am left, and they seek my life to take it away." I hear not a direct answer from the prophet to the demand of God; then he had said, I run away from the threats of Jezebel, and here I hide my head from her malicious pursuit. His guiltiness would not let him speak out all: he had rather say, "I have been more jealous for the Lord God of hosts," than I was

fearful of Jezebel. We are all willing to make the best of our own case; but what he wants of his own accusation, he spends upon the complaint of Israel. Neither doth he more bemoan himself than exclaim against them, as apostates from God's covenant, violaters of his altars, murderers of his prophets. It must needs be a desperate condition of Israel, that drives Elijah to indict them before the throne of God. That tongue of his was used to plead for them, to sue for their pardon; it could not be but a forcible wickedness that makes it their accuser. Those idolatrous Israelites were well forward to reformation: the fire and rain from heaven, at the prayers of Elijah, had won them to a scorn of Baal; only the violence of Jezebel turned the stream, and now they are re-settled in impiety, and persecute him for an enemy, whom they almost adored for a benefactor, otherwise Elijah had not complained of what they had been. Who would think it? Jezebel can do more than Elijah. No miracle is so prevalent with the vulgar as the sway of authority, whether to good or evil.

Thou art deceived, O Elijah, thou art not left alone; neither is all Israel tainted. God hath children and prophets in Israel, though thou see them not; those clear eyes of the seer discern not the secret store of God; they looked not into Obadiah's caves, they looked not into the closets of the religious Israelites. He, that sees the heart, can say, "I have left me seven thousand in Israel," all the knees which have not bowed to Baal, and every mouth which hath not kissed him. According to the fashion of the wealthy, God pleaseth himself in hidden treasures; it is enough that his own eyes behold his riches. Never did he, never will he leave himself unfurnished with holy clients, in the midst of the foulest depravations of his church. The sight of his faithful ones hath sometimes been lost, never the being. Do your worst, O ye gates of hell, God will have his own. He, that could have more, will have some: that foundation is sure, "God knoweth who are his."

It was a true cordial for Elijah's solitariness, that he had seven thousand invisible abettors; neither is it a small comfort to our weakness, to have companions in good. For the wickedness of Israel God hath another receipt, the oil of royal and prophetic unction; Elijah must anoint Hazael king of Syria, Jehu king of Israel, Elisha for his successor. All these shall revenge the quarrels of God, and him; one shall begin, the

other shall prosecute, the third shall perfect the vengeance upon Israel.

A prophet shall avenge the wrongs done to a prophet, Elisha is found, not in his study, but in the field; not with a book in his hand, but a plough. His father Shaphat was a rich farmer in Abel-meholah, himself was a good husbandman, trained up, not in the schools of the prophets, but in the thrifty trade of tillage; and, behold, this was the man whom God will pick out of all Israel for a prophet: God seeth not as man seeth; neither doth he choose men because they are fit, but therefore fits them, because he hath chosen. them his call is above all earthly institution.

I hear not of ought that Elijah said; only he casts his cloak upon Elisha in the passage: that mantle, that act was vocal. Together with this sign, God's instinct teacheth this amazed son of Shaphat, that he was designed to an higher work, to break up the fallow-ground of Israel by his prophetical function. He finds a strange virtue in that robe; and, as if his heart were changed with that habit, forgets his team, and runs after Elijah; and sues for the leave of a farewell to his parents, ere he had any but a dumb command to follow. The secret call of God offers an inward force to the heart, and insensibly draws us beyond the power of our resistance. Grace is no enemy to good nature: well may the respects to our earthly parents stand with our duties to our Father in heaven. I do not see Elisha wring his hands, and deplore his condition, that he shall leave the world and follow a prophet, but for the joy of that change he makes a feast: those oxen, those utensils of husbandry, whereon his former labours had been bestowed, shall now be glady devoted to the celebration of that happy day, wherein he is honoured with so blessed an employment. If with desire, if with cheerfulness, we do not enter into the works of our heavenly Master, they are not like to prosper in our hands. He is not worthy of this spiritual station, who holds not the service of God his highest, his richest preferment.

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