2 Kings 1:1-6 Then Moab rebelled against Israel after the death of Ahab.… The 5th of February 1685 witnessed a sad scene in the palace of Whitehall. The second Charles lay in the last agony, while, amid the courtly circle around his bed, stood Sancroft, Archbishop of Canterbury, and Ken, the Bishop of Bath and Wells. "The king is really and truly a Catholic," whispers the Duchess of Portsmouth to the French ambassador; "and yet his bed-chamber is full of Protestant clergymen." The fact had been long suspected, and gave additional earnestness to the holy men who desired to prepare the dying monarch for his inevitable and solemn change. "It is time to speak out, sir," exclaims Sancroft; "for you are about to appear before a Judge who is no respecter of persons." "Will you not die in the communion of the Church of England?" anxiously asks Ken; the king gives no response. "Will you receive the sacrament?" continues the bishop.; the king replies, "There is no hurry, and I am too weak." "Do you wish pardon of sin?" rejoins the favourite prelate, whose hymns are still sung in our Christian churches; the dying man carelessly adds, "It can do me no hurt" — on which, says Macaulay, "the bishop put forth all his eloquence, till his pathetic exhortation awed and melted the bystanders to such a degree, that some among them believed him to be filled with the same spirit which in the old time, had, by the mouths of Nathan and Elias, called sinful princes to repentance." To complete the parallel we propose, we must notice another incident in this dying scene. "If it costs me my life," exclaims the Duke of York, afterwards James II., "I will fetch a priest." With some difficulty he is found, He is smuggled into the royal presence, and the chamber of death. "He is welcome," says Charles. The monarch who refused to listen to Sancroft and Ken, had an open ear for Father Huddleston. The monarch who was unwilling to die in the Church of England, is perfectly willing to die in the Church of Rome, For three-quarters of an hour he "confesses," adores the "crucifix," receives the mysterious virtues of "extreme unction," and at length, with an apology to his attendants that he has been "a most unconscionable time dying," he breathes his last, an apostate from the faith inseparable from England's throne, and for his abandonment of which his own successor died an exile on the charity of a foreign land. Let Ahaziah take the place of Charles II.; let his idolatry be represented in the Popery of the British monarch; let the application to the god of Ekron be symbolised in the welcome given to the Romish monk; and, last of all, let Elijah by the bedside of the King of Israel, dealing faithfully with the soul departing there, be the type of good Sancroft and Ken by that other couch, using all their entreaties to make the sufferer think of his approaching end — and the parallel is well-nigh complete. The mention of Ekron and Baal-zebub introduces the subject of the heathen oracles, which played such an important part in all the nations of antiquity. Even among the Jews, it is believed by many, a true oracle existed — namely, the Urim and Thummim ("lights and perfections," as the words denote), on the high priest's breastplate; and that, when the Divine response was to be given, it was manifested either in an audible voice from the twelve precious stones, or in their appearance changing in keeping with the answer — brighter for an affirmative, and duller for a negative reply. What are usually known, however, as the heathen oracula were very different. They were also very numerous: the small province of Boeotia, in Greece, having twenty-five, and the Peloponnesus as many; but the most celebrated were Delphi, Dodona, and Jupiter Ammon in the deserts of Lybia. We get a glimpse of one of the oracular priestesses in the life of Paul, where the reference, we think, abundantly proves that the heathen oracles were under Satanic control. Such being admitted, we need not add they were only a system of imposture and falsehood, a "lying in wait to deceive," "cunningly devised fables," as Peter expresses it, where the allusion is unmistakable. There was more than mere fury about the Pythia; and it may be that the commonplace expression about there being "method in madness" has been literally borrowed from her. Never did ambiguity find itself of such use as on the consecrated tripod, or beneath the decayed oak-tree. Croesus., King of Lydia, asks what will be the issue of a war with Persia, and he receives as reply, "If you war with them, you will destroy a great kingdom." Pyrrhus, King of Epirus, desires to know what will be the result, if he assists the Tarentines against the Romans, and the response may either mean that he is to conquer the Romans, or that the Romans are to conquer him. In both instances, Croesus and Pyrrhus were defeated and ruined, but of course the oracle was right, and its credit maintained. Many lessons might be drawn from that darkened chamber, where lies the son of Ahab, arrayed in the last robe he will ever need. We mention only one — the folly of men when they forsake the ways of God to pay homage to idols of any kind, or in hopeless attempt to unveil the future. As to the former all the Ekrons of earth — whether pride of reason, or personal merit, or the general mercy of God — are only vanity and a snare; there is but one Rock of hope, security, and strength, "and that Rock is Christ." As to the latter — the attempt to unveil the future, we know what Saul made of it in his visit to Endor, and we have seen what Ahaziah made of it in his proposed message to Ekron. "Just men made perfect" have other occupation than to be the tools of the clairvoyant; and lost spirits, we may be sure, are in no mood for such work. Away with your mediums, their bandaged eyes and pencilled messages, hands waving in the air, and all the dark arts of this latest charlatanry, the most wretched and profane of all modern shams. "God is His own interpreter"; and neither to shrines at Ekron nor Boston, neither to Baal-zebub nor Daniel Home, will He give the power of unlocking the destinies of men. (H. T. Howat.) Parallel Verses KJV: Then Moab rebelled against Israel after the death of Ahab. |
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