Page:The rock of wisdom.djvu/93

 their cannons levelled against the fort of the dark army, and at the report, the armies of the aliens have to give back, down comes the walls, like unto Joshua, march in and take the city. Sec. 12. The Second Book of Kings. "Then Moab rebelleth against Israel after the death of Ahab." "Now therefore, thus saith the Lord, thou shalt not come down from that bed on which thou art gone up, but shalt surely die. And Elijah departed."

It appears after Elijah was departed the King sent for him, while he was sitting on the top of a hill, "and Elijah answered and said to the captain of fifty, if I be a man of God, then let fire come down from heaven." Elijah was inspired to call for fire from heaven upon these captains who came to apprehend him—not out of a desire to gratify any private passion—but to punish the insult offered to religion to confirm his mission, and to show how vain are the efforts of men against God and his servants, whom he has a mind to protect. Thus we see that Elijah was protected, even in his last moments, in this life, and then taken away in a charriot of fire, to heaven. This heaven here is meant the air, the lowest of the heavenly regions, as some wise men say, but let that be as it may, I believe that he is secure in that region where sorrow never can enter. The sons of the prophet; that is, the disciples of the prophets, who seem to have had their schools like colleges or communities in Bethel, Jericho, and other places in the days of Elijah and Elisha. When Elijah was about to be taken away, that Elisha requested of him a "double portion of thy spirit upon me." 2d Kings 2: 8 A double portion of thy spirit as thy eldest son: and here, or thy spirit which is double in comparison of that which God usually imparteth to his prophets. When the son of the prophets which were to visit at Jericho saw him, they said the spirit of Elijah doth rest upon Elisha, and they came to meet him and bowed themselves to the ground before him, and I believed they worshipped him as a fervent of the living God, with an inferior, yet religious veneration, not for any temporal, but spiritual excellence; and he turned back and looked on them, and cursed them in the name of the Lord. 2d Kings 10: 24. This curse, which was followed by so visible a judgement,