111. THl!l NEXT DOWNWARD B'l'EP WHICH AHAZ TOOK WAB HIS PLUNDERING THE JIOUBB OF GoD. (Vere. 8, 9, 17, 18.) Abaz paid dear for bis alliance with the King of Assyria. He bad already disobeyed and dishonoured God by bis idolatry. He had already dishonoured God by refusing to heed the warnings which Isaiah gave him. But now he commits a still more flagrant act of defiance and desecration. In order to reward the Assyrian king for his help, and to retain his friendship, he actually takes the silver and gold that was found in the house of the Lord, and sends it for a present to the King of Assyria. The world's friendships are often dearly bought. We pay for them, in peace of mind, in peace of conscience, in loss of money, in loss of time, a greater price than they are worth. Sooner or later the crisis must come in every man's life when he must choose between the friendship of God and the friendship of the world. What choice are you making? What choice would you make if you were put to the test now? Perhaps you are being put to the test in your daily life. Perhaps you are being tempted, for the sake of worldly friendship, for the sake of your business, for the sake of popularity, to sacrifice some principle, to trample on some command of God, to neglect some plain duty which conscience and the Word of God alike point out. Business! The great business of your life, of every man's life, is to fear God and keep his commandroeuts. "Man's chief end is to gbrify God, and enjoy him for ever," Oh what a/earful thing it is to talcefrom God that which rightfully belongs to him! It is a crime against law, against morality, to take from our fellow- creatures, without their permission, that which belongs to them. Bnt how much more guilty is he who would take from God that which is his! We condemn Ahaz for his impiety and sacrilege in taking from the temple those things which had been consecrated to God. But let us look into 011,r own hearts and lives. Are we giving God that which is his due? Are we keeping back nothing from him? Has he no greater claim on our daily thoughts than a hurried prayer at morning or evening, or none at all? Has he no greater claim on our money than the few shillings, or, it may be, few pounds we give to him every year? Let us measure our service of God much less by what others do and give, and much more by our own responsibilities, by our own overflowing cup of mercies, by the relation of our own soul to God. IV. THE NEXT DOWNWARD STEP OF AHAZ WAS TO SET UP A HEATHEN ALTAR IN THE BOUSE OF TBE LORD. (Vers. 10-17.) Ahaz had gone to Damascus to meet the King of Assyria. While there he saw an altar used in the worship of the heathen gods. Its work- manship may perhaps have pleased him. Ho sent to Urijah the priest a description, perhaps a drawing of it, and Urijah, influenced more by the fear of the king than by the fear of God, caused a similar altar to be erected in the temple at Jerusalem. When Ahaz returned, he substituted this altar for the altar of the Lord, although God himself had given the pattern of that altar to Moses and to David. But all the idols and sacrifices of Ahaz did not benefit him much. He thought the gods of the heathen wo11ld be! p him; but, says the writer in 2 Chronicles, "They were the ruin of him anrl of Israel." So in everyday experience many a man finds, when he forsakes the gospel of Christ, and turns his back upon the Law of God, to follow worldly gain or pleasure, or society, or dissipation, that these things are the ruin of him. " There is a way which seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death."-C. H. I.
Vers. 1-20.-A people's king and priest; or, kinghood and priesthood. "In the seventeenth year of Pekab," etc. Throughout a.11 lands, almost throuahout all times, two functionaries have been at the head of the peoples, too often° trea,liug them down by oppression, and fattening on them by their greed. One of these functionaries was not, among the Jews, of Divine ordination; for the Almighty is represented as saying, "They have set up kings, but not by me: they have made princes, and I knew it not." Let us notice each functionary as presented in this chapter-the king and &he priest-the one named Ahaz, the other Urijah. I. THE 11:mGHoon. It is said, "In the seventeenth year of Pekah the son or Remaliah Ahaz the son of Jotham King of Judah began to reign. Twenty ye,1rs old was Aho.z when he began to reign, and reigned sixteen years in Jerusalem, and did not that which was right in the eight of the Lord his God, like David his father." Here we learn that Ahaz, who was the son of J otham, began to reign over Judah in his twentieth year, and that his reign continued for sixteen years. Elsewhere we are told that THE SECOND BOOK OF THE KINGS. [OR. XVI. 1-200