ABIJAH.

We forget Abijah’s character in his eloquence. He carries a spell with

him. Judging from his speech, one would suppose him faultless--entirely

noble in every aspiration and impulse and sublimely religious and

unselfish.

The whole Abijah is not here. This is but the ideal Abijah. Who ever

shows himself wholly upon any one occasion? Who does not sometimes go

forth in his best clothing?

We must read the account of Abijah which is given in the Book of Kings

before we can correctly estimate the Abijah who talks in the Book of

Chronicles.

It is, perhaps, encouraging that while men are upon the Earth they should

not be so dazzlingly good as to blind their fellow men. Yet it is pitiful

to observe how men can be religious for the occasion. Nearly all men are

religious at a funeral; but few men are religious at a wedding.

Abijah has a great cause to serve, and he addresses himself to it not

only with the skill of a rhetorician but with the piety of a mind that

never tenanted a worldly thought. God knows the whole character--how

bright we are in points, how dark in many places; how lofty, how

low. Knowing all, He judges correctly, and His mercy is His delight.

Neither God nor man is to be judged by one aspect, or one attribute, or

one quality. We must comprehend, so far as we may be able, the whole

circuit of character and purpose before we can come to a large and true

conclusion.

But as we have to do with the ideal Abijah, let us hear what he has to

say in his ideal capacity. We will forget his faults while we listen to

the music of his religious eloquence.

Abijah comes before us like a man who has a good cause to plead. He fixes

his feet upon a mountain as upon a natural throne, and from its summit

he addresses a king and a nation, and he addresses his auditors in the

sacred name of “the Lord God of Israel.” He will not begin the argument

at a superficial point, or take it as starting from yesterday’s new raw

history--history hardly settled into form. He will go back, and with

great sweep of historical reference he will establish his claim to be

heard. In II. Chronicles, thirteenth chapter and fifth verse, Abijah asks:

“Ought ye not to know that the Lord God of Israel gave the kingdom over

Israel to David for ever, even to him and to his sons by a covenant of

salt?”

The binding covenant--the covenant that even pagans would not break.

If you have eaten salt with a man you can never speak evil of him with

an honest heart. You must forget your criticism in the remembrance of

the salt. You are at liberty to decline intercourse and fellowship and

confidence; you are perfectly at liberty to say: “I will have nothing

to do with thee in any association whatsoever.” But you can not be both

friend and enemy. You can not eat salt with a man and smite him in the

face, or wound him in the heel, or hurt him in any way, at any time, in

any line or point.

That was pagan morality.

We are fallen a long way behind it in many cases, for what Christian is

there who could not eat all the salt a man has, and then go out and speak

about him with bitterness, plunder him, frustrate his plans, anticipate

him in some business venture, and laugh at him over his misplaced

confidence?

Abijah recognized the perpetuity of the covenant. The kingdom was given

to David for ever--if not in words, yet in spirit; if chapter and verse

can not be quoted, yet the whole spirit of the divine communion with

David meant eternity of election and honor. It is right to hold up the

ideal covenant; it is right that even men who themselves have broken

covenants should insist that covenants are right. We must never forget

the ideal. Our prayers must express our better selves. A dying thief may

pray. Again and again we have to fall back upon the holy doctrine that a

man is not to be judged in his character by the prayers which he offers,

inasmuch as his prayers represent what he would be if he could.

Abijah, having to deal with a perpetual covenant, charges Jeroboam with

breaking it:

“Yet Jeroboam, the son of Nebat, the servant of Solomon, the son of

David, is risen up, and hath rebelled against his Lord.”

All rebellion is wrong, unless it arises from a sense of injustice,

untruthfulness or dishonesty. No man has a right to dissent from the

national Church unless his dissent be founded upon conscience, a right

conception of the nature of the Kingdom of Christ upon the Earth, which

leads him to say to certain men: “Stand off.”

No part of the empire has a right to arise against the central authority,

of which itself constitutes a part, merely for the sake of expressing

political prejudice or selfish design. Every rebellion must be put down

that can not justify itself by the very spirit and genius of justice.

Separation becomes schism when it but expresses a whim, an aversion, of

a superficial or technical kind; and every rebellion is wickedness, is

born of the spirit of the pit, that can not justify itself by appeals to

justice, nobleness, liberty and God.

Yet our rebellions have made our history.

We should have been in slavery but for rebellion. The rebels are the

heretics that have created orthodoxy. We owe nothing to the indifferent,

the languid, the selfish, the calculating, the let-alone people who

simply want to eat and drink and sleep and die. That they were ever born

is either an affront to nature or is the supreme mystery of human life.

Abijah, therefore, is perfectly right when he insists upon mere rebellion

being put down; but when rebellion expresses the spirit of justice

and the spirit of progress--the new revelation, the new day--all the

Abijahs that ever addressed the world can only keep back the issue for a

measurable period.

The accusation of Abijah was that Jeroboam had “gathered unto him

vain men, the children of Belial.” For “vain men” read “sons of

worthlessness”--empty fellows, who will join any mob that pays best; men

who will cheer any speaker for a half-crown an hour, and put out anybody

on any plea on any side for extra remuneration.

Where do these men come from? Whose language do they speak? Whose image

and superscription do they bear?

They are in every country; they worship in the sanctuary of mischief

and bow down at the altar of selfishness. They know not what they

do. They will make a cross for a day’s wages. Evil company follows

evil men. Worthless fellows are soon dissatisfied with the company of

righteousness; the intercourse becomes monotonous and suffocating. A bad

man could not live in Heaven. It is not in the power of mercy to save men

from hell, for they carry hell with them; they are perdition.

Who can wonder if desecration followed in the steps of worthlessness?

Abijah asks:

“Have ye not cast out the priests of the Lord, the sons of Aaron and the

Levites, and have made you priests after the manner of the nations of

other lands, so that whosoever cometh to consecrate himself with a young

bullock and seven rams, the same may be a priest of them that are no

gods?”

Let them bring the offering, and then they may become priests and do what

they please at altars that have no foundations, the incense of which is

a cloud that Heaven will not absorb. William Rufus declared that church

bread was sweet bread. How many men have eaten church bread who ought

to have died of hunger! What responsibility attaches to some people in

this matter! Church bread ought never to be given away--ought never to be

dishonored with the name of a “living.” No man should be in the Church

who could not make five times the money out of it that he ever made

in it. It should be felt that if he put forth all his power--both his

hands, his whole mind and strength--he could be the greatest man in the

commonwealth.

Jeroboam would admit any one to the altar; he would make room if there

was none; he would cast out a priest of the Lord to make room for a

priest of Belial. This is the accusation which Abijah brings against

Jeroboam and his company of rebels.

Now Abijah turns to state his own case. He tells us what he and his

people are:

“But as for us, the Lord is our God, and we have not forsaken Him;

and the priests, which minister unto the Lord, are the sons of Aaron,

and the Levites wait upon their business. And they burn unto the Lord

every morning and every evening burnt sacrifices and sweet incense;

the shew-bread also set they in order upon the pure table; and the

candlestick of gold with the lamps thereof, to burn every evening; for

we keep the charge of the Lord our God; but ye have forsaken Him.”

What a character Abijah gives himself!

Let us remember that we are dealing with an ideal man, and not with the

real personality.

Take this, however, as an ideal representation, and how perfect it is in

every line! “The Lord is our God.” We have a sound and vital theology; we

have a clear upward look, and no cloud conceals the face divine; no idols

have we--no images of wood, no pillars, no groves, no high places where

idolatry may be performed as an entertainment.

The man reasons well. He insists upon having corner stones in any edifice

or argument he puts up. When he accuses, he goes back to the covenant of

salt; when he claims a right position, he claims that it is a theological

one. He holds the right God. Losing the right theology, we lose all the

detail with it. When the conception of God is wrong, no other conception

can be right. It is only bold because it is true to say that if a man has

not the right desire after the right God he can not keep correct weights

and scales. The custom house, the inland revenue, the excise--call it

what you please--may to some extent keep him up to the right mark, but

in his soul he takes in every customer that comes near him; if he does

not, he loses sleep. This applies to the so-called heathen as well as to

the Christian. It is not necessary that a man should have a clear and

perfect revelation of God, but that in his heart he feels that he is a

creature, not a creator; a subject, not a sovereign; that he is under

responsibility, and not above it. In that proportion only can he deal

righteously and nobly with his fellow men.

“And the priests, which minister unto the Lord, are the sons of Aaron,

and the Levites wait upon their business.”

Here is apostolic succession before the time of the invention of the

term. Here is an excellent pedigree, a most complete genealogy. Our

priests are in the Aaronic line, and the Levites know their business and

keep to it; every thing is in order in our Church.

That is beautiful, and that is right. We need not shrink from adding,

that is necessary. We must have nothing to do with men who are not in

the Aaronic and apostolic succession; they must not occupy our pulpits,

nor be allowed to make pulpits of their own; no man must sell them wood

or stone with which to construct a pulpit; they must be forbidden by the

genius of law from ever preaching or attempting to preach.

When we let go the doctrine of apostolic succession we let go a vital

treasure and blessing.

We may differ as to our definition of “apostolic succession,” but surely

there can be no difference among frank and enlightened hearts and minds

as to what apostolic succession is. No man is in the apostolic succession

who is not in the apostolic spirit, and no man is out of the apostolic

succession who is animated by the spirit of the apostles. That is not a

spirit which is conferred by the tips of any fingers; that is the gift of

God.

Do you see your calling, brethren? God has chosen you. What a Church

is God’s! Not a Church of wax-works, all made at one factory, and all

charged for in one invoice; but living men, characterized by innumerable

individualities--some broad as the firmament, others beautiful and tender

as little flowers that can only grow in the fullest sun-warmth; some

military in argument and in discipline, others persuasive in pathos,

sympathy and tenderness.

There is no monotony in God. One star differeth from another in glory;

no two blades of grass are microscopically identical. There is a common

likeness in the worlds and in the sub-economies of Nature, but the more

penetrating our vision is made by mechanical and scientific aids the more

wondrous in difference are discovered to be the very things which are

supposed to be identical.

We must never allow the apostolic succession to be handed about without

its being accompanied by the apostolic spirit. Every man is in the

apostolic succession who believes in the apostles, who follows them as

they followed Christ, and who would know nothing among men but Jesus

Christ and Him crucified.

“And they burn unto the Lord every morning and every evening burnt

sacrifices and sweet incense; the shew-bread also set they in order upon

the pure table; and the candlestick of gold with the lamps thereof, to

burn every evening.”

At that time piety was mechanical. It could not be otherwise. God never

forces history. The days come, each with its own burden and its own

blessing, its own dawn and its own apocalypse. We can not have today what

is due tomorrow. God’s seasons move in measured revolution, and come

to us in orderly and timely procession; and no man can hasten them by

lighting his camp fire, or striking his matches, or kindling his little

inflammable powder.

We can not imitate the Sun.

Some have tried to mimic the stars; but where is the image of the Sun

that the Sun has not obliterated by one mid-day look?

The time came when all these ordinances were set aside. There was to

be no more burning; there was to be no morning sacrifice and evening

sacrifice and sweet incense, or shew-bread and candlestick of gold and

lamps thereof for evening burning.

“Ye are not come unto the mount that might be touched, and that burned

with fire, nor unto blackness, and darkness, and tempest, and the sound

of a trumpet, and the voice of words; which voice they that heard

intreated that the word should not be spoken to them any more; but ye are

come unto Mount Sion, and unto the city of the living God, the heavenly

Jerusalem, and to an innumerable company of angels, to the general

assembly and church of the first-born, which are written in Heaven, and

to God the Judge of all, and to the spirits of just men made perfect,

and to Jesus the Mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood of

sprinkling, that speaketh better things than that of Abel.”

So we may misuse history by going back and making that necessary which

has already been abrogated. We may thus ill-treat the day of rest, by

measuring it and weighing it in Jewish scales. We may cast a cloud over

the day of jubilee that comes every week, by measuring its beginning and

its ending by Jewish arithmetic; we may make the whole week sabbatic by

Christian consecration. There will always be ordinances, because while

man is in the body he needs external helps, collateral assistances and

auxiliaries. He is not always equally awake; he is not always equally

spiritual. He needs the communion of saints, the coming together in holy

fellowship, all the associations of a sacred time and a sacred place, and

through the active yet subtle ministry of these he comes to feel that he

is in touch with God. “Here in the body pent” we need such aids as can

penetrate our prison and minister to the liberty of the soul.

Now Abijah says, as a kind of climax:

“And, behold, God himself is with us for our captain, and His priests

with sounding trumpets to cry alarm against you. O children of Israel,

fight ye not against the Lord God of your fathers; for ye shall not

prosper.”

How steadfastly Abijah abides by the altar! He can not be tempted

one step from the throne of God. His appeal is sublime because it is

religious. It is historically religious. “The Lord God of your fathers.”

It would seem to be a solemn thing to cut off oneself from all the

currents of history--to bury our fathers over again in a deeper grave;

yea, to bury them at night-time, so that when the morning came we could

not tell where they were interred.

Abijah will have a historic line. He maintains the doctrine of

philosophic and personal heredity and organic unity. He will insist upon

it that the men of his day represented the men of dead generations, and

were to do what they would have done had they then lived. Not only was it

historically religious, but it was religion accentuated by motives, such

as act most powerfully upon human conduct--“for ye shall not prosper.”

That appeal they could understand.

The double appeal constitutes God’s address to men. He is bound to point

out consequences, though He would not have life built upon them. There

is no other way of getting at certain people than by telling them that

if they believe not they shall be damned. They are so curiously and

fearfully made that only hell can excite their attention. The preacher

does not declare this doctrine of fire, or mere penalty, for the sake of

revealing God and acting upon human thought and conduct. He knows it is

an appeal more or less tinctured with possible selfishness. He can not

but despise the man who asks for Heaven simply because he has smelt the

fire of hell.

But the Christian preacher will begin where he can. He has to do with

all classes and conditions of men. All men do not occupy the highest

point of thought--do not approach the Kingdom of Heaven from the noblest

considerations--and he is the wise pastor, he has the great shepherd

heart, who receives men by night, by day, through the gate of fear,

through the portals of love; who keeps the door ajar for men, not knowing

when they may come home.

He is but a poor preacher, and he knows it, who bids people come to God

that they may get to Heaven; but he is aware that some people can only

understand through the medium of such terms, if ever; and he really hopes

for them that by experience they may eventually rise to a nobler level,

and desire God for God’s own sake. He only is in the Spirit of Christ who

would pray as much, give as much, suffer as much, if he knew he had to

die this night, and be blotted out for ever, as he would do and give if

he knew he were this night going into everlasting glory.

To be good in order to buy Heaven is not to be good. To be religious in

order to escape hell is not to be religious.

Yet we must always so judge human nature as to provide for people who

can only act through fear, and through love and hope of reward. Their

education will be continued and completed, and some day they will look

back upon their infantile beginning and pity themselves.

The great thing, however, is to begin. If we are afraid of hell, let us

ask great questions. If we are in hope of Heaven, let us begin to do

great services. Hell and Heaven have nothing to do with it in reality,

but they have to do a great deal with it initially, instrumentally and

educationally.

What was the upshot of the war? Who needs to inquire? When Omnipotence

goes forth to war, what can be the issue of the battle? God takes out His

glittering sword, and His hand lays heavy in judgment; can grasshoppers

stand before Him? Oppose a wooden fence to a boundless conflagration, and

you may act almost rationally--most rationally--as compared with those

who set a grasshopper to oppose the march of God.

The writer in the Book of Kings takes a much worse view of Abijah’s

character than we find in the Book of Chronicles. From the first Book of

Kings we learn that Abijah endeavored to recover the kingdom of the Ten

Tribes, and made war on Jeroboam. No details are given, but we are also

informed that he walked in all the sins of Rehoboam--idolatry and its

attendant immoralities--and that his heart “was not perfect before God,

as the heart of David, his father.”

In the second Book of Chronicles Abijah’s war upon Jeroboam is more

minutely described, and he makes a speech to the men of Israel,

reproaching them for breaking their allegiance to the house of David,

for worshiping the golden calves, and substituting unauthorized priests

for the sons of Aaron and the Levites. He was successful in the battle

against Jeroboam, and took the cities of Bethel, Jeshanah and Ephraim,

with their dependent villages. Nothing is said by the writer in

Chronicles of the sins of Abijah, but we are told that after his victory

he “waxed mighty, and married fourteen wives”--whence we may well infer

that he was elated with prosperity, and like Solomon, his grandfather,

fell during the last two years of his life into wickedness, as described

in Kings. Both records inform us that he reigned only for the period of

three years.