SEPTEMBER 13. "For we must needs die, and are as water spilt on the ground, which cannot be gathered up again; neither doth God respect any person: yet doth he devise means, that his banished be not expelled from him."2 Sam. xiv. 14.

JOAB was resolved to reconcile David to Absalom. For which purpose he "sent to Tekoah, and fetched thence a wise woman, and said unto her, I pray thee, feign thyself to be a mourner, and put on now mourning apparel, and anoint not thyself with oil, but be as a woman that had a long time mourned for the dead." Though she is called "wise," she seems very little deserving of the appellation, unless she displayed more wisdom on former occasions than she does in the present instance. For there is scarcely one article in the whole of her long wordy address that pertinently and justly bears on the subject. Joab indeed furnished her with the leading part of her story-for it does not deserve the name of reasoning. But he had an unjustifiable measure to accomplish, and therefore he did as well as he could, to make the worse appear the better cause. He was also aware "that the king's heart was toward Absalom." He knew what tune pleased David, and therefore he depended not on the goodness of the music, but the nature of the effect. And accordingly, weak and irrelevant as the statement was, it succeeded! For, as

"He that's convinced against his will,
Is of the same opinion still;"

So when a man is inclined to a particular course, a little child
lead him.

may

We may here remark, and it is of importance in reading the Scriptures to observe it, that the Holy Ghost does not sanction as righteous, or as true, every thing recorded in them. The sacred writers relate facts as they occurred, leaving us to employ our reason in distinguishing things that differ. We are not to believe all the arguings of Job's friends because they are found in the book of Job; it is obvious that they sometimes laid down wrong principles, and at other times drew unfair inferences from right ones. And in the Ecclesiastes, Solomon more than once utters sentiments not as matters of his own credence, but as the language of worldlings, or libertines, whose objections he would answer.

Let us apply this to the case before us. The woman having by a kind of parable drawn from David a sentence of censure and condemnation, which, as she supposed, affected himself, she makes an application of it-"Let thine handmaid, I pray thee, speak one word unto my lord the king. And he said, Say on. And the woman said, Wherefore then hast thou thought such a thing against the people of God? for the king doth speak this thing as one which is faulty, in that the king doth not fetch home again his banished." And then, to enforce her suit, she adds, "The word of my lord the king shall now be comfortable: for as an angel of God, so is my lord the king to discern good and bad; therefore the Lord thy God will be with thee." She adduces two arguments. The first drawn from man's mortality: "For we must needs die, and are as water spilt on the ground, which cannot be gathered up again; neither doth God respect any person"-As much as to say, Amnon would VOL. II.

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have died if he had not been slain by his brother. Absalom will die, and severity may hasten the event. Thou, David, though a king, art dying, and wilt become as one of the people-This was a poor reason for dispensing with civil justice against a murderer and a fratricide. Yet the argument is true in itself; and there are cases on which it will be found to bear-cases of private and personal injury, and where we are required not to avenge ourselves. Has a fellow-creature offended you? The offender will soon be incapable of receiving forgiveness, ard you will soon be beyond the power of exercising it. Whatsoever therefore thine hand findeth to do, do it with thy might; for there is no work, nor device, knowledge, repentance, or wisdom, in the grave whither thou goest. Remember that anger resteth in the bosom of fools. Let not the sun go down upon your wrath. Especially, let not life close upon you before you are reconciled to your brother. Would you enter the presence of God implacable? Yet there is but a step between you and death-Boast not thyself of to-morrow; for thou knowest not what a day may bring forth.

The second is drawn from God's goodness: "Yet doth he devise means that his banished be not expelled from him"-And therefore, as if she would say, resemble him, and be like him, not only in power, but in clemency and kindness. This again is a poor plea in favour of the impunity of a public malefactor. We are not to spare those who deserve to suffer by the laws of the land because God is merciful and gracious. The minister of God is not to bear the sword in vain. He is set for the punishment of evil-doers, as well as for the praise of them that do well. Yet the argument is true in itself; and applies to cases of private and personal office. There we are required to exercise forgiveness; and it is enforced by this very motive. Hence says the Apostle: "Let all bitterness, and wrath, and anger, and clamour, and evilspeaking, be put away from you, with all malice: and be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ's sake hath forgiven you." To which we add the parable of the Saviour: "Then came Peter to him, and said, Lord, how oft shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? till seven times? Jesus saith unto him, I say not unto thee, Until seven times; but, Until seventy times seven. So likewise shall my heavenly Father do also unto you, if ye from your hearts forgive not every one his brother their trespasses."

SEPTEMBER 14.-" We must needs die, and are as water spilt on the ground, which cannot be gathered up again; neither doth God respect any person."2 Sam. xiv. 14.

HERE we are reminded that we are under a necessity of dying; that the effect is irretrievable; and the stroke without partiality.

"We must needs die." The necessity was not original, but induced by the Fall. It resulted not from nature, but sin-" By one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin, and so death hath passed upon all men, because all have sinned." All creatures die, yet we never speak of a mortal bird or a mortal beast, but only of a mortal man. He only deserves the epithet as a reproach. He

To

only was made immortal, but he degraded himself from the dig nity, and being in honour abode not, but made himself like the beasts that perish. Now it is appointed unto men once to die. It is the present law of their nature and from history, observation, and experience; from the numberless accidents and diseases to which they are exposed; and from the infirmities and decays they feel in their bodies, the living know that they shall die:

-"And be as water spilt on the ground, which cannot be gathered up again." When we see our little family asleep we are not alarmed or concerned, though they are unconscious of our presence, and for the time know not any thing; because we have it in our power to restore the sensibility when we please; yea, nature, if left to itself, will soon recover it. But while suspended over the breathless corpse, in vain we watch to see a movement-we speak in vain-and touch the cold cheek in vain-and we bury our dead out of our sight. We are not denying a future state of existence, but we have no restoration from the grave here. "O spare me," says David, "that I may recover strength before I go hence and am no more." "In the morning," says Job, "ye shall seek me-but I shall not be." Ah! could we re-gather their precious remains, and inspire and revive them; Rachel would no longer "weep for her children, and refuse to be comforted, because they were not;" Jacob would no longer say, "Joseph is not ;" at the domestic table "David's seat" would no longer be "empty;" nor would the lonely friend heave any more at the thought, “we took sweet counsel together, and walked to the house of God in company." But in vain we seek them-They are gone the way whence they shall not return-The places that knew them shall know them no more for

"Neither doth God respect any person." He does not overlook the little, or fear the great. He does not spare the poor from pity or the rich from favour. He is not moved by the venerableness of age or the charms of infancy. He gives the destroyer a universal commission, and orders him to strike impartially as to time, place, and manner. Youth, and beauty, and strength, and learning, and wisdom, and usefulness, lie down equally in the dust. "No man knoweth either love or hatred by all that is before them. All things come alike to all: there is one event to the righteous, and to the wicked; to the good and to the clean, and to the unclean. to him that sacrificeth, and to him that sacrificeth not: as is the good, so is the sinner; and he that sweareth, as he that feareth an oath."

"But the wide difference that remains,
Is endless joy or endless pains."

SEPTEMBER 15.-"He did that which was evil in the sight of the Lord.”— 2 Chron. xxxiii. 2.

MANASSEH, of whom these words are spoken, is a name proverbial for wickedness. This indeed is not invariably a sure rule to go by. A man cannot always be judged of by his infamy, any more than by his fame. Subjects have been called rebels when they

have been only maintaining their lawful rights. Christians, because they were not understood by their calumniators, have been deemed enthusiasts when they have only spoken the words of truth and soberness. A public charity wears the dishonoured name of Magdalene, as if she had been a prostitute of the grossest description before she became a follower of our Lord, and ministered to him of her substance: whereas, however we explain her case as having been dispossessed of seven devils, it imports nothing against her previous virtue-But Manasseh well deserves all the infamy attached to his character. Witness the portrait given us by the pen of inspiration. Witness his oppression and cruelty-" Manasseh shed innocent blood very much, till he had filled Jerusalem from one end to the other." The language is doubtless hyperbolical. But take it in the lowest sense consistent with truth, and how many persons under false pretences must have perished from public or private assassination to gratify his avarice, ambition, or revenge. For it was not the blood of criminals, but innocent blood that he poured out in such torrents: and we have reason to believe that a great portion of the victims suffered for the sake of religion. Early ecclesiastical history asserts, we know not on what foundation, that Isaiah was sawn asunder by his order. Witness his idolatries-"He built again the high places which Hezekiah his father had broken down, and he reared up altars for Baalim, and made groves, and worshipped all the host of heaven, and served them." Witness his superstition-" And he caused his children to pass through the fire in the valley of the son of Hinnom :" that is, he either sacrificed his offspring to Moloch, or dedicated them to the service of the idol, to be employed in the execrable rites of his worship. Witness his infernal alliances-"He observed times, and used enchantments, and used witchcraft, and dealt with a familiar spirit, and with wizards." Witness his open contempt of every thing sacred—“ And he built altars for all the host of heaven in the two courts of the house of the Lord. And he set a carved image, the idol which he had made, in the house of God, of which God had said to David and to Solomon his son, in this house, and in Jerusalem, which I have chosen before all the tribes of Israel, will I put my name for ever." Witness his concern and zeal to corrupt others" So Manasseh made Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem to err, and to do worse than the heathen, whom the Lord had destroyed before the children of Israel." From the parallel passage in the book of kings, it is said, "He seduced them." His example, being in high life, would be very influential; but he exerted himself to lead others astray; and what means and resources could such a man employ? Witness the aggravations of his guilt. He was piously descended. His father was the good Hezekiah. palace in which he had been brought up was none other than the house of God and the gate of heaven. He had been under the care of pious priests and prophets. How much had he to unlearn. But he could not unlearn it; he had therefore to fight with conviction, and to overcome all the remonstrances, and to get rid of all the uneasiness of conscience. He was also divinely warned from time to time this is the meaning-"And the Lord spake to Manasseh,

The

and to his people: but they would not hearken." And this impenitence crowned and confirmed all his iniquity

And now what think you of this representation, on the truth of which we can perfectly rely? Is it not painful and humiliating to reflect upon it? Yet this man was a partaker of our own nature; and if we do not resemble him, are we to glory in ourselves? Yea, ought we not to be thankful? All have not the same opportunities and temptations. Who can tell what we might have been had we encountered the perils in which others have been wrecked? What would any of us have been in a world like this without Divine restraints? "There goes John Bradford, but for the grace of God," would the martyr exclaim when he beheld the transgressor. Our Lord therefore leads us from the effects to the hidden cause, and fixes on the human heart. "Out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies." According to this decision the principles of the blackest crimes in practice lie in the recesses of many a character that appears fair to men. They are not suffered to spring up, but who will not honestly own that he has felt them in their most secret workings? Anger is the germ of malice; lust of sensuality; covetousness of theft. A desire to conceal the excellences of another from ourselves, or from the world, genders false witness. Hard conceptions of God lead to blasphemy. Ah! how little permission of Providence, or encouragement from circumstances, do the evils of our nature require, to bring them into exercise, and to degrade us to a level with the vilest of the vile-Lord, what is man!

And what think you of the pardon and renovation of such a sinner! "Is not this a brand plucked out of the fire ?" Should we not, in reading his history, have expected that he would perish a spectacle to the world, to angels, and to men? But God's thoughts and God's ways are not ours. Where sin abounded grace did much more abound-Manesseh is saved!

When the elder brother heard of the reception of the prodigal, he was angry and would not go in. And such mercy as Manasseh experienced may be offensive to some now, who trust in themselves that they are righteous and despise others. "Of what use are our good breeding and morals? What, are the dregs of depravity to be saved as well as we? and to enter into life with us?" Yes; and if you had the mind of Christ, and if you were like angels, who rejuice when a sinner repenteth, you would gladly hail any of your fellow-creatures who were the subjects of such free and sovereign goodness, and magnify the God that displays it. Every penitent may say with David, when recovered from his fall, They that fear thee will be glad when they see me, because I have hoped in thy truth."

Such mercy may be abused; and it is abused by those who continue in sin that grace may abound; who hope that God, who is so ready to pardon, will not be severe to mark what they do amiss, but that when they can sin no longer, he will, by some extraordinary interposition, subdue their unwillingness, and deliver them from the condition in which they now voluntarily continue. But how dreadful is it to be evil because God is good! Is this likely to gain his