THE PROPHET ELIJAH.

THE NINTH SUNDAY AFTER TRINITY.

BY THE

REV. F. D. MAURICE, M.A.,

PROFESSOR OF DIVINITY IN KING'S COLLEGE, LONDON, AND CHAPLAIN OF LINCOLN'S INN.

I. KINGS xix. 11, 12, 13.

And he said, Go forth, and stand upon the mount before the Lord. And, behold, the Lord passed by, and a great and strong wind rent the mountains, and brake in pieces the rocks before the Lord; but the Lord was not in the wind and after the wind an earthquake; but the Lord was not in the earthquake: and after the earthquake a fire; but the Lord was not in the fire: and after the fire a still small voice. And it was so, when Elijah heard it, that he wrapped his face in his mantle, and went out, and stood in the entering in of the cave.

SOME

HOME of you may remember when you first read or heard the chapter from which these words are taken, and the one which precedes it. You can recal, perhaps, a little of the vague awe with which they filled you when you were children; you can think of some picture which was shown to you or which you formed in your own minds of the prophet in the midst of the priests of Baal, standing before the altar built with the twelve stones after the number of the tribes of the children of Israel, and drawing near at the time of evening sacrifice to pray for the fire which came down to consume his offering.

As the lessons were read to-day, it may be that you sighed because the vision had lost so much of its charm; because the prophet's words had become such dead sounds in your ears; because you could not now listen to them as if he was uttering them at whose prayer the heavens were shut up for three years and six months, and then poured forth the rain.

Such reflections and complaints are very natural when we are reading any portion of God's word; for our consciences tell us that there is an awful reality in it, and they tell us as often, that to us it is most unreal. But I do not know when they are more likely to occur to us than when we are listening to the story of Elijah. It is now nearly three thousand years old; all the scenery of it is strange to us; we are dwelling in a world altogether unlike like that in which he dwelt. And yet it seems as fresh as it was the hour it was written down, or the hour in which the events recorded in it took place; we feel instinctively that ages and revolutions, and remoteness of place, do not put us at a distance from it. We can see that the acts and the words have a meaning which belongs to us, and would reach us if our ears were not dull of hearing; we wonder that they do not penetrate through all that dulness.

It would seem as if this prophet were especially connected in Scripture with all great crises; as if we had no pretext for thinking of him,—at least as merely a portion of his own time.

When the history of the old world was to be wound up by the coming of the LORD, of whom it had been prophesying, and for whom it had been preparing the way, one was sent forth in the spirit and power of Elias to turn the hearts of the disobedient to the wisdom of the just; to be a voice crying in the wilder

ness, "Make straight a highway for GOD." The Jews believed that an Elijah would come before the Great King. Our Lord told his disciples that he had already come. And yet the words in which He asserted this title for John the Baptist, the greatest of all the prophets, showed that he was to be the type and specimen of those who should follow him, that every true witness of the Kingdom of Heaven would like him come to prepare the way of the LORD, and, therefore, in his measure, would come, like him, in the spirit and power of Elijah. Nor was there anything in our LORD's language to contradict —much, when it is truly considered, to confirm—the belief which has been general in the Church that the final judgment upon this dispensation, like that upon the last, would be announced by some one corresponding in all essential characteristics to him who foretold the destruction of the house of Ahab, and to him who testified to the Scribes and Pharisees that the axe was laid to the root of the trees, and that all which did not bear good fruit would be hewn down, and cast into the fire.

The Bible and our consciences thus agree in giving a stamp of endurance to the office and preaching of Elijah, which, if we looked merely at the outside of his history, we could scarcely attribute to them. And I think both alike tell us where lay the secret of his power, and of its permanence. If a modern writer were describing Elijah's conflict with the priests of Baal, he would say, probably, that he bore a bold and manful testimony on behalf of the Jewish religion, or the true religion, against the Phonician, or heathen religion, which Jezebel had introduced. into Samaria. But I scarcely need tell you that the Bible uses no words of this kind. It does not speak of a Jewish religion, or even of a true religion. It speaks

of a LIVING GOD; it declares that Elijah bore witness for Him.

The priests of Baal were vigorous defenders of a religion. They clothed their own thoughts and feelings in outward forms, and worshipped them. Elijah spoke of one who is, and was, and is to come-of the LORD GOD of Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, who had made a covenant with their fathers and with them, who had declared that He was their King, and that they were his people. It was this faith which Ahab and the priests had lost; they had become slaves of their senses; nothing was real to them but what they could see and handle; they felt. no real connexion with their fathers; they acknowledged no covenant with an unseen Being; they could not feel any obligation to such a Being; they could not tell how it was possible to fear Him or trust Him. The people which halted between two opinions could not quite give up the words and traditions of their infancy; but they had ceased to have any real power over them. The name of JEHOVAH was a fearful name to them still, but it was only fearful: they did not cleave to it with heart and soul, as the name of the living LORD; the one ground of their life, and of the life of all things; the one bond of their fellowship to each other. Elijah alone believed in the name of the LORD, and could venture every thing upon it. All outward tokens of his presence might be gone. The Temple might be far away at Jerusalem; the king who reigned in Samaria might not be an offspring of David, the elect king, the man after GOD's heart; around him might be high places and altars, the worship of things in the heaven above, and the earth beneath, and the waters under the earth. All else was changed. But Elijah knew that the LORD of all was not changed, that He could not lie, or alter the

thing which had gone out of his lips. He had made a covenant with this people, and He remembered it though they forgot it. Though there might be but one true Israelite left, that one might lay hold of the truth which belonged to his whole nation as well as to himself. He might build the altar with the stones which denoted the twelve tribes; he might draw near to the unseen Presence at the time appointed by the Law which his countrymen had cast off; he might pray that He who alone knew the hearts of the children of men would turn the hearts of his revolted people backwards; he might trust all to the issue: "The LORD which answereth by fire, let Him be GOD."

This was the faith which sustained the prophet who lived among the idolatries of the house of Ahab, and it was the only faith which could have sustained him, or could sustain those who came after him. Outwardly all was most different in the days of John the Baptist. There was no apparent idolatry; the Temple had been carefully rebuilt; the letter of GOD's word was studied and written out with incessant diligence; every thing which had been cast off by the house of Ahab was cherished by the Scribes and Pharisees. And the acts of the new prophet were altogether unlike those of his predecessor; he does not shut up the heaven by his prayers; he challenges no priests to a conflict; he calls no fire from heaven; he simply preaches in the wilderness, saying, "Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand." And yet, brethren, we are told that this man with his raiment of camel's hair and the leathern girdle about his loins came in the spirit and power of Elijah; nor could any other spirit and power have availed him anything. For this seemingly believing age had really as little faith in a living GOD as that which raised altars to Baal. They had notions and