and to prophesy in spite of Amaziah, the priest of Bethel, who falsely accused Amos to Jeroboam, for conspiring against him; adding "that the land was not able to bear all his words:" as if a true zeal for God, had been rebellion against the king.

The prophet Jeremy once thought to leave off prophesying, when he saw the word of the Lord made a reproach, and a derision daily; but he was not able to continue silent, as he himself confesses. “I said, I will not make mention of him, nor speak any more in his name: but his word was in my heart, as a burning fire shut up in my bones: I was weary with forbearing, and I could not stay.

The prophet Micah was very powerfully moved, and assisted, and cries out, "truly I am full of power by the spirit of the Lord, and of judgment, and of might, to declare unto Jacob his transgression, and to Israel his sin ;" and that assistance of God's spirit made him wonderfully successful; insomuch that king Hezekiah was so wrought on by Micah's words, "that he feared the Lord, and besought the Lord, and the Lord repented him of the evil which he had pronounced against them."

Happy was it for the king, that he so devoutly attended to the prophet; happy was it for the prophet, that he had the opportunity of preaching to the king himself. Had he preached these severe, though necessary truths, in another congregation, where a sort of men, such as the Psalmist complains of, came "on purpose to wrest his words, and with thoughts against him for evil," what tragical relations had been made of his sermon? But the prophet was safe under the king's gracious protection,

1 Micah iii. 8.

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and in having the king himself for his auditor; "who being like an angel of God," liked the preacher the better, for the conscientious discharge of his prophetic duty.

But though the prophet preached to the church, to the reformed church of Judah, and to all degrees of men in it; to the people, to the priests, to the court, and to the king himself; yet the words I have chosen to discourse on, are to be appropriated to the penitent part only of this reformed church; because that reliance on God's mercy, and that sense of their own guilt which is here expressed, is applicable only to them; and to them only, the character here given can fully agree.

You all know, that the whole church of Judah was by Hezekiah reformed from idolatry, and had the true worship of God restored, and all sorts of people seemed with great readiness to contribute to that reformation; not only the priests, but the people, and the princes, all shewed a vigorous zeal in all the cities of Judah, breaking down the images, and cutting down the groves, and throwing down the high places and altars, and offering very liberally to the service of the temple. But even in this good king's days, though they were reformed in their faith, and in the public worship, the generality of them were still unreformed in their lives. And yet as wicked as they were, they thought themselves very secure from God's anger. A strange stupidity had possessed them to that degree, that "they leaned upon the Lord and said, is not the Lord among us? no evil can come upon us." Of all this the prophet frequently in this prophecy, and in this very chapter, sadly complains, lamenting the universal

corruption of manners, which he saw in the people, in the princes, in the priests, in all orders of men, and threatening very sore judgments to their impenitence.

Yet still, by the great goodness of God, there was in this, and in the following reigns, which were all wicked and irreligious, except that of Josias, among a great number of apostates to idolatry, a remnant left. There were some gleanings of good men, who took warning from the prophet, and from the captivity of the ten tribes, who wisely learned repentance from the woful experience of their captive neighbours, and kept alive that reformation, which had been so happily begun. The prophet saw, that on such as these his sermons had their desired effect; and professes, that "his words did good to him that walked uprightly 1;" and it is of such as these, it is of this penitent remnant of the reformed church of Judah, the prophet here speaks," rejoice not against me," &c.

It is easy to observe, that the prophet in these words, draws three several pictures of reformed Judah and he draws her in three distinct postures, like a captive, like a penitent, and like a conqueror. He draws her calamity, in the first; her behaviour under it, in the second; and her deliverance from it, in the third.

1. He draws her first like a captive, like a captive woman sitting in the dust, in a disconsolate, forlorn condition bewailing her captivity. And the particulars out of which this mournful idea is composed is couched in these expressions, "her enemy, her enemy rejoicing, her fall, her sitting in darkness, and the indignation of the Lord."

If you please then to listen to the lamentations of

1 Micah ii. 7.

captive Judah, you will hear her begin them with "O mine enemy:" and great reason she had so to do. For her enemy, or rather enemies, the singular being here put for the plural, were very numerous, and in all respects very formidable; more nations than one were immediately combined in her ruin, and particularly the Babylonians, and the Edomites, who are chiefly remarked in holy scripture.

The Babylonians were a mighty nation, whose quiver was as an open sepulchre; and they were all mighty men, who would eat up all the harvest, the flocks and the herds, the vines and the fig-trees, and impoverish all the fenced cities wherein Judah trusted, with the sword. They were cruel, and would show no mercy; a bitter and hasty nation, terrible and dreadful, and very heavily laid their yoke on God's people. I need say no more of them than this, that St. John when he was to draw a prophetic description of the great Antichrist under the Gospel, was directed by the Spirit of God, to make Babylon the type, and to paint spiritual Babylon in the colours of the temporal; as if no nation under heaven were infamous and wicked enough, to furnish him with idolatry, and pride, and uncleanness, and covetousness, and cruelty, and impiety, in full perfection, fit to resemble the man of sin, but only the Babylonian.

The Edomites were the children of Esau, and originally of the same blood, and of the same religion with Judah, though they revolted from the church of God., And these seemed to have derived from Esau their father, his perverseness, which he remarkably shewed to his aged mother: insomuch that Josephus gives them this character, "that they were a turbulent and unruly nation, always prone to

commotions, and rejoicing in changes'." But their animosity against Judah seemed to be hereditary; the loss of the birth-right, and of the blessing in their father, entailed revenge on all his posterity. And they were all along the natural enemies of the children of Jacob. And when they saw Judah assaulted by the Babylonians, they sided with Judah's enemies, and thirsted to have a share in the destruction of God's church. "They had a perpetual hatred, and shed the blood of the children of Israel by the force of the sword, in the time of their calamity. Edom pursued his brother with the sword, and did cast off all pity, and his anger did tear perpetually, and he kept his wrath for ever." The prophet Obadiah spends his whole prophecy on " Edom, for his violence to his brother, for standing in the cross-way to cut off those that did escape, and for delivering those that did remain in the day of distress." So that the Edomite was an enemy as merciless, and as implacable, as the very Babylonian.

Such were the enemies of afflicted Judah; and God in his just indignation against Judah's sins, gave both these enemies their desired success; success that was able to satiate the most impetuous and revengeful cruelty. For they did not only make a complete conquest over Judah; but when she was conquered, and prostrate at their feet, and past all possibility of the least resistance, they insolently insulted over the conquered; they rejoiced against her. This cut captive Judah to the heart, and gored her soul with a multitude of new sorrows. It was a grievous calamity to be conquered; but all her miseries

1 De Bell. Jud. 1. 4. c. 6.