Prov. xx. 8. _A King that sitteth in the Throne of Judgment, scattereth away all Evil with his Eyes._ Prov. xxv. 5. _Take away the Wicked from before the King, and his Throne shall be established in Righteousness._ GLASGOW Printed for George Paton, and are to be Sold at his Shop in _Linlithgow_, and other Booksellers in Town and Country. 1741. THE NATIONAL COVENANTS CORONATION SERMON AT SCONE.[15] _BY ROBERT DOUGLAS._ And he brought forth the king's son, and put the crown upon him; and gave him the testimony, and they made him king and anointed him, and they clapped their hands, and said, God save the king. And Jehoiada made a covenant between the Lord, and the king, and the people, that they should he the Lord's people; between the king also, and the people.--_2 Kings_ xi, 12, 17. In this text of Scripture you have the solemn enthronizing of Joash, a young king, and that in a very troublesome time; for Athaliah, the mother of Ahaziah, had cruelly murdered the royal seed, and usurped the kingdom by the space of six years. Only this young prince was preserved by Jehosheba, the sister of Ahaziah, and wife to Jehoiada, the high priest, being hid with her in the house of the Lord, all that time. Good interpreters do conjecture, though Joash be called the son of Ahaziah, that he was not his son by nature, but by succession to the crown. They say, that the race of Solomon ceased here, and the kingdom came to the posterity of Nathan, the son of David, because, 'tis said, "the house of Ahaziah had no power to keep still the kingdom;" which they conceive to be for the want of children in that house, and because of the absurdity and unnaturalness of the fact, that Athaliah, the grandmother, should have cut off her son's children. I shall not stand on the matter, only I may say, if they were Ahaziah's own children, it was a most unnatural and cruel act for Athaliah to cut off her own posterity. For the usurpation, there might have been two motives. _First_, It seemeth when Ahaziah went to battle, Athaliah was left to govern the kingdom, and, her son Ahaziah being slain before his return, she thought the government sweet, and could not part with it, and because the royal seed stood in her way, she cruelly destroyed them, that she might reign with the greater freedom. _Secondly_, She was earnest to set up a false worship, even the worship of Baal, which she thought could not be so well done, as by cutting off the royal race, and getting the sole power in her hand, that she might do what she pleased.