our Christianity of much the same quality? Too many
of us are doing just what Elijah told the crowds on Carmel that they
were doing, trying to 'shuffle along on both knees.' We would seek God,
but we would like to have an occasional visit to Bethel. It cannot be
done. There must be detachment, if there is to be any real attachment.
And the certain transiency of all creatural objects is a good reason for
not fastening ourselves to them, lest we should share their fate.
'Gilgal shall go into captivity, and Bethel shall come to nought,'
therefore let us join ourselves to the Eternal Love and we shall abide,
as it abides, for ever.

The exhortation is next enforced by presenting the consequences of
neglecting it. To seek Him is life, not to seek Him incurs the danger of
finding Him in unwelcome ways. That is for ever true. We do not get away
from God by forgetting Him, but we run the risk of finding in Him, not
the fire which vitalises, purifies, melts, and gladdens, but that which
consumes. The fire is one, but its effects are twofold. God is for us
either that fire into which it is blessedness to be baptized, or that by
which it is death to be burned up. And what can Bethel, or calves, or
all the world do to quench it or pluck us out of it?

Once more the exhortation is urged, if we link verse 8 with verse 6, and
supply 'Seek ye' at its beginning. Here the enforcement is drawn from
the considerations of God's workings in nature and history. The shepherd
from Tekoa had often gazed up at the silent splendours of the Pleiades
and Orion, as he kept watch over his flocks by night, and had seen the
thick darkness on the wide uplands thinning away as the morning stole op
over the mountains across the Dead Sea, and the day dying as he gathered
his sheep together. He had cowered under the torrential rains which
swept across his exposed homeland, and had heard God's voice summoning
the obedient waters of the sea, that He might pour them down in rain.
But the moral government of the world also calls on men to seek Jehovah.
'He causeth destruction to flash forth on the strong, so that
destruction cometh upon the fortress.' High things attract the
lightning. Godless strength is sure, sooner or later, to be smitten
down, and no fortress is so impregnable that He cannot capture and
overthrow it. Surely wisdom bids us seek Him that does all these
wonders, and make Him our defence and our high tower.

The second part gives a vivid pictu