2. As divinely commissioned —
[No created power could have authorized Abraham to slay his son, or Israel to plunder Egypt, and extirpate the inha- bitants of Canaan : nor could any human being have executed such things of his own mind, without contracting very heinous guilt. But God is not bound by the rules which he has
imposed on us : he may act towards his creatures as he sees best, and may employ instruments in any way that he pleases : nor would even an angel contract defilement in executing any commission that God had given him. An angel slew in one night all the first-born in the land of Egypt ; and on another occasion, a hundred and eighty-five thousand Assyrians : yet no one thinks of imputing guilt to him on that account : — so Ehud, if appointed to the work by God, might innocently effect it in the way he did. Jehu was commissioned by God to dethrone Ahab, and destroy his family: and, though he was punished afterwards because he was not actuated by a becom- ing zeal for the glory of God, yet for the action itself he was rewarded even to the fourth generation. Precisely thus may Ehud at this moment be receiving a reward from God for that act of his, which, under other circumstances, would have been highly sinful. And there is reason to believe that he was directed by God in that action ; since not only were his wisdom, courage, and success, beyond all that could have been expected in a merely human enterprise, but we are expressly told that " God raised up this man to be the deliverer of his people^."
We must not however imagine, that liis conduct is to be fol- lowed as a precedent : for no man can dare to follow it, unless he have infallible evidence that he is called of God to do so : but, as no man can expect such a call at this time, no man can without the deepest criminality presume to imitate his example.]
Having thrown what light we can on the dubious conduct of Ehud, we proceed to suggest, —
II. Some reflections arising from it —
Supposing Ehud to have been divinely commis- sioned, he might well say to Eglon, " I have a mes- sage from God to thee." At all events his language leads us to observe,
1. That God does send messages to mortal men —
[The whole creation is delivering to us, as it were, a message from God, and conveying to us the knowledge of his
perfections'^ Every providential dispensation also has
some important lesson to communicate : the mercies of God declare his goodness to us, and invite us to repentance '^, and his judgments are intended to discover to us some truths which we did not prcAdously discern : " Hear ye the rod," saith the prophet, "and Him that hath appointed it''." But it is in liis word more especially that God comes down to commune
^ ver. 15. iJ Rom. i. 20. Ps. xix. 1 — 4.
c Rom, ii. 4. ^ Mic. vi. 9.