tifully described in the history of the prophet Elijah, when he fled from the face of Jezebel, and went a day’s journey into the wilderness, and sat down under a juniper tree, and requested for himself that he might die. (1 Kings xix.) The angel touching him on the occasion is a striking figure also of the protection still afforded by the Lord through the angelic ministry in a similar state, as is likewise the cake baked on the coals, and the cruse of water at his head. It is remarkable that the angel touched the prophet twice, and on the first occasion is called simply an angel, but on the second the angel of Jehovah, denoting, that protection and deliverance in states of spiritual exercise is twofold, viz. from truth and from good, and that the deliverance is not complete until the conjunction of those two principles is effected. It is then that the soul is enabled, like Elijah, to go in the strength of that meat forty days and forty nights, until it comes unto Horeb, the mount of God; for then it is gifted with the power of a divine patience to endure the whole process of the temptation, by which it is conducted to the full regeneration, or the full conjunction of heavenly love and heavenly wisdom.
69. Adonijah, in asking for a wife, excited his brother’s resentment, and lost his life, (1 Kings ii. 13–26,) and so it frequently comes to pass at this day, that the pursuit of a favourite gratification, if not grounded in deep submission to the Divine will, proves the destruction of spiritual and eternal life.
70. There is no power in heaven or earth which
