ISRAEL. 15

the guilt of man. A new antagonist, National Apostasy, was rising, like the Evil Spirit from the abyss;
but the combat was to be changeful and terrible, before its hour was come to overshadow the land.

The division of the kingdom of David under Rehoboam, threatened the total ruin of religion in the
new kingdom of Israel. The erection of the two idol temples at Bethel and Dan, for the express
purpose of preventing the intercourse of the people with Jerusalem, the general flight or expulsion of the
Levites, and the universal degradation of the priesthood, by the appointment of "priests of the lowest of
the people, which were not of the sons of Levi,"1 the change of the established feast of tabernacles, and
the king's own assumption of the priestly office when " he offered upon the altar, and burnt incense," had
evidently extinguished the habitual means of religious knowledge. To the subjects of Jeroboam, Jerusalem,
with all its sacred influences, existed no more.—The Temple, the priesthood of Aaron, the teaching of
the law, and all the solemn and touching remembrances of the religion of their fathers, had vanished
in the mystic and corrupting ceremonial of an Egyptian altar, to which they saw their king leading the
worship, and to which they were allured, at once, by royal example, the pride of national independence,
and the dazzling captivations which paganism in all ages offers to the vanity and the passions of man.
Yet it was in this fearful emergency, that we find a new developement of the exhaustless resources
of the Divine wisdom. All appeal to the memory of the pure religion was obviously at an end; and
the force of arms was distinctly prohibited,2 if force could ever be a legitimate ground of conviction.
But a form of national appeal was suddenly brought into action, unexampled in its comprehensiveness,
in the nature of its objects, and in the variety, vigour, and constant applicability, of its power.

From the close of the Settlement in Canaan, Prophecy and Miracle had almost wholly ceased; in
the Conquest their office was completed; and, with a few occasional exceptions,3 the people, for the
long period of four hundred years, were left to the ordinary guidance of human faculties.

But it was in the declining days of the national history; when the kingdom of David was not only
shorn of its beams, but seemed sinking into night by the course of nature; that a sacred and astonishing
splendour was to rise, and, for a time, fill the horizon. For the direct purpose, at once of rebuking the
national crimes, and leading the way to national restoration; of declaring the Divine judgments ao-ainst
the haughtiness of kings and people, and administering the hopes of mercy by an authority altogether
above the diadem; a race of men were summoned, to whom none similar had existed in the history of
the Gentile world, or even of Judaism. In the earlier ages, the prophetic spirit had been given only
to individuals holding a memorable rank, and on memorable occasions : thus Jacob, on his death-bed,
prophesied the fortunes of the twelve tribes; and thus Moses, within sight of death, prophesied the
fortunes of the nation. But the inspired power was now to take a new form and a new extension.
The prophets of the kingdoms of Judah and Israel were to be called from every rank of life : some
from the royal household, some from the schools of the prophets, and some even from the sheepfold
and the plough. Their appeals were to be as varied as their origin, yet all eloquent and glowing; some
pouring out the sternest strains of scorn and condemnation; some pathetic and solemn, soliciting " Judah
to be saved," and Israel to return to its King and its Father; all uttering a language which mankind had
never heard before, which has never since been heard, but from inspiration, and which, in all ages, by its
boldness, its majesty, and its truth, has vindicated the lips which spoke it, as touched with fire from heaven.
Among all the conceptions which human pride has laboured to form of human capability, nothing has

1 1 Kings xii. 28—33. 2 1 Kings xii. 24. ' The birth of Samson, the calling of Samuel, the prophecy of the division, &c.

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