ments the best adapted to his purposes. The ravages of the plague or the fury of the earthquake are equally his instruments as the armies of men. He might have overwhelmed the nation by these or other similar means of his Providence, without the semblance of a murmur; and in that which he did employ by the arm of Saul, the seeming lack of his discrimination in the judgment would abundantly and nobly be adjusted in futurity.

But Saul, far from executing it in the mind of God, spared Agag, king of Amalek and "the best of the sheep and oxen; but every thing that was vile and refuse, that he destroyed utterly." He saw nothing of God's design; he entered not into the feeling, by which God would manifest to Israel the tremendous warning-not only that he would not receive or touch aught that had been defiled by the hand of the sinner;-but that they should themselves perish utterly, like Amalek, if their nation were, in any sort, assimilated to them in their vices. "Blessed," he exclaimed to the prophet Samuel, who had given him this commission. "Blessed be thou of the Lord, I have performed the commandment of the Lord."-What meaneth this bleating of the sheep in mine ears, and the lowing of the oxen, which I hear? - is the reply of Samuel. He saw at once the fallacy-nay, the falsehood of the king. He saw the extent of the disobedience; and the wrath, which would be incurred by the nation at the hands of God. He saw that reparation must be made; and that the law must be executed, and the command be obeyed by his hand, which had been so utterly disregarded by the covetousness of Saul.

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His mind knew by inspiration, that thus only could peace ensue to Israel, and God be propitiated by the sacrifice of the guilty. "Bring ye hither to me,' he exclaims, Agag the king of the Amalekites. And Agag came to him delicately, and he said, "Surely the bitterness of death is past." And Samuel said, "As thy sword hath made women childless, so shall thy mother be childless among women." And Samuel hewed Agag in pieces before the Lord in Gilgal."

We have thus cursorily brought up the narrative to this point in its historic form, that the mind may come to a better judgment of the mode in which its real strength lies, from seeing it presented as a whole, than by a running parallel between each part of the transaction as it occurred. The historic inference is sufficiently manifest in the judgment passed upon Amalek, that, a nation of transgressors shall inevitably be rooted out; while at the same time to every state and kingdom, as well as to the Jews, is that voice fearfully proclaimed, "Take heed, lest ye also come into a like condemnation." In its more secret inference-deprived of its external forms and denominations-we still behold in it the one-oft repeated truth of Scripture; - the victory of Christ over Evil; and a demonstration of the mode in which man, like his Redeemer, may obtain the mastery.

Reverting to the former types which have been discussed in regard to the wilderness, we ascribe to the onslaught of Amalek on Israel, the character of the evil properties of our nature, which assault and hurt the soul in its upward and ascending career.

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In other words, they are, in their emblematic form, the devices, crafts and assaults of Satan. Knowing that deliverance was promised to the human race through Christ-whom Moses, it will be remembered, prefigured he comes up with all his powers in forces in array of battle. He endeavoured as his chiefest hope of victory to smite "all that were feeble"-all that were "faint and weary; and feared not God." It is precisely the mode in which the assault is made upon the soul. The weakest are the most exposed to the attack; and most in danger of being cut off. But the strife rolls onwards and strikes at the centre of the armies of the believers. The contest becomes universal. So furious and so terrible is it, that Moses ascends to the top of the Mount with the rod of God in his hand; as Christ subsequently ascended with the power of God. The contest still rages; and at times with unequal results. At one time Amalek prevails ;-at another Israel. The armies of the faithful cannot be conquered; but neither by their own strength can they be victorious. At length, however, by an inspired impulse, Moses raises his hand to Heaven; and while kept in that position, Amalek is routed. When the hand of Moses sinks and is inactive, Israel retreats, and becomes partially inferior in strength to the enemy. Power thus, it will be observed, came or ceased from the Mount;-and Israel prevailed or gave way, as that power was exerted.

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What is this, but a strong and palpable demonstration, in Scripture cypher, of the Power of Christ. over Satan, and the evil principles of the world? When the hand of Moses was uplifted, the enemy

was defeated; and whenever the banner of Christ is displayed, there liberty prevails amongst nations; and in the hearts of individuals, acts, and principles of good, to the destruction of evil and of vice. But when the true religion sinks, the Adversary arises; and evil then prevails by an exact and perfect law of correspondence. The uplifted hand is the outward figure of the soul in earnest desire and conjunction with the Deity; the soul is one with God; --- in unity of will and motive; and then, from every heart as from Israel, the powers of darkness flee away; but when the soul sinks earthwards and loses its hold and conjunction with the Almighty, Satan obtains the mastery, and oppresses the soul which has fallen from the Truth.

Now if this be the true interpretation in regard to the assault of Amalek; it must also be true in regard to that nation in the age of Saul. In that case, we may omit the intervening generations, and apply the same rule to the second contest with the people of Israel, which has been admitted in the first.

But who was Saul? He was the elected king of the people of Israel; - not elected of God; for God Himself had hitherto ruled the nation; and the king whom he conceded to their importunity was not given in favor; but in anger and in wrath. The government, under which, from their first incorporation into a people, they had hitherto existed, was in the strictest sense a Theocracy. God governed the nation through the agency of men chosen by Himself to be his ministers. The same government will revive in the figurative New Jerusalem of the Apocalypse ; -- when human forms of rule shall be for ever

destroyed, and God again, in regard to the nations justified by the blood of Christ, shall be "all in all." The Mosaic dispensation, therefore, in its form of a Theocracy, was an outward figure of the heavenly government; but the people, rejecting this, and desiring a king after the earthly form ("Make us now a king to judge us like all the nations."*)Saul was elected; not, it must be observed, out of the will of God - but of the human will. Hence was it that he turned aside from God's commands; he disobeyed Him; for it was indeed. impossible, in the very nature of things, but that all self-will, - all will that did not originate from God, should invariably tend to evil.

Saul, in this light, as exemplifying man's will, apart or separate from God, stands out to view a fearful and an awful character. From the first moment of his elevation, he falls away from God. As events multiply, he proceeds farther and farther from the divine will. Every year sees him tending unceasingly to his own ruin; and at length in utter despair he meets death from his own sword. He has in truth no principle of resistance ; — for God who alone could have sustained him, has elected him "in wrath."

Now God had determined on the Amalekites, that they should utterly be destroyed. He would have no communion with evil. He would place an eternal bar of separation between the heavenly Israel, and the sinful Amalek. "I will have war with Amalek, from generation to generation." He would have no peace with Satan; - but open war from

* 1 Sam, viii. 5.