waxen fat-they shine! Yea, they overpass the deeds of the wicked. They judge not the cause of the fatherless, yet they prosper; and the cause of the needy do they not judge. These are the men who devise mischief, and give wicked counsel in the state."

"Behold the princes of Israel! every one within thee are set to shed blood. In the midst of thee have they dealt by oppression. In thes are men who carry tales to shed blood. In thee they have taken gifts; and thou hast greedily gained of thy neighbours by extortion. Thy princes are like wolves ravening for prey. The people of the land have used oppression, and exercised robbery; and have vexed the poor and needy."

"Hear this, O priests! Hearken, ye house of Israel! and give ear, O house of the king! execute judgment in the gates.'

"Hear this, ye that swallow up the needy, even to make the poor of the earth fail. Woe to the bloody city! it is full of lies and robbery: the prey departeth not. The princes within. her, are roaring lions: her judges are ravening wolves. Spoiling and violence are before me; and there are that raise up strife and contention. Therefore, the law is slacked, and judgment doth never go forth, for the wicked doth compass the righteous. The prince demandeth, and the judge asketh for reward; and the great

man

man uttereth his mischievous desire: so they wrap it up among them! none calleth for justice, nor any pleadeth for truth. They trust in vanity, and speak lies. They conceive mischief, and bring forth iniquity. The act of violence is in their hands. Their feet run to evil, and they make haste to shed innocent blood. Their thoughts are thoughts of iniquity; wasting and destruction are in their paths. The way of peace they know not. Therefore is judgment far from us; neither doth justice overtake us. We wait for light, but behold, obscurity; for brightness, but we walk in darkness. We roar all like bears; and mourn sore like doves: We look for judgment, but there is none for deliverance, but it is far from us. Judgment is turned away backwards, and justice standeth afar off; truth is fallen in the street, and equity cannot enter. Yea, truth faileth; and he who departeth from evil, is accounted mad. And the Lord saw it; and it displeased him that there was no judgment.”

The scenes exhibited in these few passages, are equally affecting and instructive. They present us with a melancholy picture of the depravity of rulers, and the abuses of government: and at the same time, they clearly prove both the right and duty of the teachers of religion to reprove their tyranny, oppression, and cruelty; and display the integrity and boldness with which that duty was discharged.

Taking it for granted, that they are sufficient for these purposes, I shall now proceed one step further, and shew, that by virtue of their office, they are likewise to enforce the abolition of these oppressions, penalties and pains, which former governments have inflicted, and still continue in force.

"Touching the house of the king of Judah, say, hear ye the word of the Lord, O house of David; thus saith the Lord, execute judgment in the morning, remove your exactions from my people, and deliver him that is spoiled out of the hands of the oppressor; lest my fury go out like fire, and burn that none can quench it, because of the evil of your doings."

"Thus saith the Lord go down to the king of Judah and say; hear the word of the Lord, O king of Judah, thou, and thy servants, and thy people execute judgment and righteousness, and deliver the spoiled out of the hand of the oppressor: do no wrong, nor violence, nor shed innocent blood."

These sayings were addressed, not to the rulers only, but to the people also; plainly shew-. ing that they had a right, and that it was their duty to interfere in behalf of the oppressed; and on the hardest supposition, to petition for their relief. And as the indolence of the people, and the fear of incurring difficulties, frequent

ly prevent their doing right, and induce them to plead ignorance, in excuse for their neglect, the following passage may be quoted with great propriety. "If thou forbear to deliver them that are drawn unto death, and those that are ready to be slain: If thou say, behold! we knew it not: doth not he, who knoweth the heart, consider it: And he who keepeth the soul, doth he not know it? And shall he not render to every one according to his deeds?"

The following examples extend farther stillthey go to prove the interference of the teachers of religion, by the command of God, not only with the conduct of rulers in respect to the people; but the conduct of kings and kingdoms to each other..

Rehoboam, having raised an hundred and eighty thousand men, to make war against Jeroboam, to whom the ten tribes had revolted, was prevented by the interference of Shemaiah a prophet.

Three years afterwards, Shishak, king of Egypt, marched against Jerusalem, with a prodigious army; and, as the sacred historian informs us," because they had transgressed." Shemaiah again interposed, and charged the king and princes with their iniquities; on which they reformed and Judah was saved from destruction.

Asa

Asa, king of Judah, bribed Benhadad of Syria to break a league with the king of Israel, for which Hanani, the Seer, severely rebuked him, and charged him with foolishness.

Jehoshaphat, king of Judah, reproved and instructed by Jehu son of Hanani, visited his kingdom, reformed his government, and charged the judges of the land to avoid partiality and oppression. The principle on which he enforced the charge, deserves particular attention. "Take heed" says he, "what ye do; for ye judge, not for man, but for the Lord, who is present in the judgment."

Eliezer reproved Jehoshaphat, for joining with Ahaziah, king of Israel, in an unjust war against Tarshish.

Amaziah, king of Judah, hired an hundred thousand mercenaries, for which he paid an hundred talents of silver, (about 26,000.1) to make war against the Edomites: but on the remonstrance of a prophet, he dismissed the sangui nary hirelings, and forfeited the money.

And when Israel, having prévailed over Judah in an oppressive war, took two hundred thousand women and children captives, and purposed to keep them in slavery; Oded, a prophet of the Lord, thus addressed them: "The Lord God of your fathers was wroth with Judah, and hath delivered them into your hands;

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