(10) В¶ And the Philistines fought, and Israel was smitten, and they fled every man into his tent: and there was a very great slaughter; for there fell of Israel thirty thousand footmen. (11) And the ark of God was taken; and the two sons of Eli, Hophni and Phinehas, were slain.
The awful event of the captivity of the ark of the covenant of the Lord of hosts which dwelleth between the cherubim, furnisheth for solemn contemplation such an interesting subject as must not be hastily passed over. The Psalmist hath recorded this sad history in the after ages of the church, and assigned at the same time the causes of it. Israel provoked God to anger with their high places, and moved him to jealousy with their graven images. Wherefore the Lord greatly abhorred Israel, and delivered his strength into captivity, and his glory into the enemies hand. Psalms 78:58-64. This passage throws a light upon our present subject. No wonder the Lord forsook Shiloh, when the ark in Shiloh was profaned, and both priests and people had forsaken the Lord in Shiloh. No wonder that the Lord in the correction of his people should suffer the enemy to triumph so far, when his love could not triumph in the recovering of them. Is it not time when mercies cannot reclaim, that severities shall be used'? Reader! let you and I pause over this history. Doth not the Lord speak in it and by it, to all his backsliding children in the language of his prophet: Go ye now unto my place which was in Shiloh, where I set my name at the first, and see what I did to it, for the wickedness of my people Israel. Jeremiah 7:12. But while we awfully attend to this dark side of the subject, let us not forget to view the bright side also. Though God did remove or cause to be removed, the ark which was a symbol of his divine presence, he did not remove himself which that ark represented. Though the church in that age or any other age of corruption like it, may lose the ordinances of Jesus; blessed be his holy name, his church cannot lose him. If Shiloh be without the ark, the church of the Lord of Shiloh shall never be without its Lord. Lo! I am with you always, (saith our Jesus) even unto the end of the world. This is a refreshing thought to my soul, Reader, in the present moment of writing. God in mercy grant, if it be his holy will, that the golden candlestick of the gospel may never be taken out of its place. But if his wisdom hath so appointed, the candlestick is but a moveable in his house, the house itself like mount Zion standeth fast forever. The church of our Jesus shall remain; where his name shall be known, and where his praise shall be sung, as long as the sun and moon endureth, from one generation to another. Psalms 72:5-17.