p. 110 | ANCIENT ISRAEL by Jos. Clarke.

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Sep 28, 1869

ANCIENT ISRAEL.

By Jos. Clarke.

What a comment upon the weakness of human nature is the history of God's covenant people. Established in Canaan after a long experience of good and evil fortune, intended to impress upon their minds the importance of correct and pure morality, and the proper mode of worship, we find, after all their advantages, a strange tendency to plunge downward into idolatry and vice. At one time the nation seem all engaged in the practice of goodness and virtue, and the smile of Heaven seems to immediately reward their good conduct. In a few years, being lifted up with prosperity, they forget God, neglect his Sabbath, his law, and worship, fall into idolatry, and sink, it would seem, into ruin. Again a merciful God calls them back to him; offers them his favor on condition of repentance. Being in trouble, God's calls are heard, and again the nation is re-instated in the favor of God, and prosperity follows, and with it a recurrence of the same troubles.

As we read the history of this highly-favored people, with what interest we approach the time of their final rejection of God. How we cling to the mild and prosperous reign of good Hezekiah, who seemed to stay the impending wrath of God, and we mourn that they had not all, with him, fully returned to God. What a pleasing employment it is to think of the passover he held, which surpassed all previous passovers in its interest and spiritual power. How we wish that this good king could have transmitted his good qualities to his posterity. But, alas! it was not so. Then just before Israel made the final terrible leap into idolatry and sin, arose good Josiah, whose name is still sweeter than Hezekiah's, and the passover held by him a greater revival of hope, but followed by a more hopeless apostasy. Here we must pause, as we witness the almost complete ruin of this beloved people. Jos. Clarke.