years after his death. Jeremiah's words are explicit on this point,"I will appoint unto them four kinds, saith the Lord: the sword to slay, and the dogs to tear, and the fowls of the heaven, and the beasts of the earth, to devour and destroy. And I will cause them to be removed into all kingdoms of the earth, because of Manasseh, the son of Hezekiah, king of Judah, for that which he did in Jerusalem." Manasseh had his kingdom restored. Something he could not have restored to him—the conscience unstained by sin; the liberty of doing good, without being suspected of hypocrisy; the respect which a consistent career obtains for a man from his fellows. His life, from that day forward, was a course of prayer, of contrition, of conviction of weakness, of endeavours after restitution, of failures in many of his attempts to effect restitution. And besides, from the nature of moral habits, it was scarcely to be expected that evil tendencies, so thoroughly matured as his had been, should be eradicated without a struggle, and that struggle a severe one. And then, as to the next world, the evil of his example remained germinating long after his death, and during his life he had led many astray. Could God, who bringeth every work to judgment, though of His great mercy in Christ He bestowed on him personal salvation, allot the same rank in heaven to him who is but a penitent, and to him who has walked up

1 Jer. xv. 3, 4.

rightly? That were to negative His own words; to say that he who has made his brother to offend, and he who has turned him to righteousness, shall receive the same portion of reward.

Let us, dear brethren, so many of us as the subject concerns, (and whom, indeed, does it not concern?) regard repentance as it is set forth in Scripture: not as a thing impossible; this would induce us, from sheer despair, to continue recklessly in sin: nor again as easy, and as placing us exactly where we should have been had we not sinned; this would induce us to sin on, and delay seeking repentance; would bid us obey Mammon and Belial in our days of strength, and reserve to God the days when active sin has become unpalatable, (if, indeed, we are spared to see such days). Repentance is, something possible on the one hand, something remedial1 on the other. And let us not think scorn of the word remedial. Prevention is indeed better than cure. To have been kept out of danger, is better than to have fallen into. it, and borne the anxiety, the suspense, the agony, both of looking for deliverance, and of enduring the process by which deliverance is brought about. But then how great a blessing is cure! What a cause of thankfulness is deliverance! Apply this to the matter before us. When placed in juxtaposition with the

1 Of course, it is not meant that repentance is remedial in the sense in which the Atonement of our blessed Lord is.

state of Josiah, Manasseh's repentaħt state may seem to lack much that is desirable; but placed beside that of Ahaz, how, after all its drawbacks, does it savour both of the good things of earth, and also of those of heaven! Manasseh must have said even here he must be saying now in the separate statehe will say on the morning of the resurrection-“‘A day in Thy courts is better than a thousand. I had rather be a door-keeper in the house of my God, than to dwell in the tents of wickedness.' It is not, as the evil spirit whom I served would fain have persuaded me,

'Better to reign in hell, than serve in heaven.'

No; far, very far from it. The faintest glance from God's eye, the most distant gleam of His favour, the standing in His presence at all, though it be at a great distance off, the kissing the hem of Christ's garment, though unworthy to lie in His bosom, who shall venture to put these into comparison with the miseries of the lost, with the worm undying, the flame unquenched and unquenchable? To those, though he be a prince, the very prince of lost spirits is exposed as much as the lost sons of men. Let me rather invert his words. It is, as my kindlier angel always whispered,

'Better to serve in heaven, than reign in hell.'”

A MON.

See KINGS xxi. 18-26. 2 CHRON. Xxxiii. 20-25.

THE short and miserable reign of Amon may be given almost in the words of Scripture.

Amon was two and twenty years old when he began to reign, and reigned two years in Jerusalem. But he did that which was evil in the sight of the Lord, as did Manasseh his father: for Amon sacrificed unto all the carved images which Manasseh his father had made, and served them; and humbled not himself before the Lord, as Manasseh his father had humbled himself; but Amon trespassed more and more. And his servants conspired against him and slew him in his own house. But the people of the land slew all them that had conspired against king Amon; and the people of the land made Josiah his son king in his stead. And he was buried in his sepulchre in the garden of Uzza.

LECTURE X.

JOSIAH; OR, THE CONSISTENT CAREER.

2 CHRON. XXXIV. I—3. (1)

Josiah was eight years old when he began to reign, and he reigneď in Jerusalem one and thirty years.

And he did that which was right in the sight of the Lord, and walked in the ways of David his father, and declined neither to the right hand nor to the left.

For in the eighth year of his reign, while he was yet young, he began to seek after the God of David his father; and in the twelfth year, he began to purge Judah and Jerusalem.

It is curious, and, at first sight, somewhat perplexing, to find such different men as King Hezekiah and King Josiah described in very similar terms. It is said of Hezekiah, "He trusted in the Lord God of Israel; so that after him was none like him among all

With this Lecture the following chapters should be read: 1 Kings xii. xiii.; 2 Kings xxii. xxiii. ; 2 Chron. xxxiv. xxxv. ; Zech. xii. 11, and, for a short yet glowing character of Josiah, the notice of him in the apocryphal Book of Ecclesiasticus, xlix. 1-4.