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by a humiliating correction, which, at the same time, wondrously works his deliverance. He is dismissed from the Philistine host smarting under the painful suspicion and charge of insincerity in his new professions and associations; but, at the same time, he is most opportunely saved from the sin of lifting his hand against his own people, and brought back into the path of a straightforward and unequivocal obedience. He returns, feeling that it is better to trust in the Lord, than to put any confidence in princes; and that though the heart of a man "deviseth his way," and ponders much on the skilful application of human wisdom to his circumstances, yet the Lord directeth his steps.'

No wisdom or prudence of this wise and prudent man saved him. Divine benevolence only wrought through channels independent of him, the natural and ready suspicions of other men, and thrust him forth corrected and humiliated, into safety. The man of God, in the abounding of human infirmity, errs, and errs deeply, but the aspect of God's providence is kind and gracious both in the punishment of the error and in the bringing back the wanderer to the path of duty. David appearing most improperly as the willing ally of the Philistines, must be cast out with contempt even by the unbelievers, whose association he unwisely sought; but at the same time he must be cast back upon the right course, and learn in the hour of his disgrace another proof of that loving-kindness which never fails.

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The whole benignity of God's providence towards his people in this instance will only be fully seen when it is viewed in contrast with the sad and darkening aspect of Saul's last hours-the close of his melancholy apostacy. Every gaze into the gloom that envelopes the fallen monarch's end, serves to show more plainly, after a certain time, the adverse character of God's providence towards one who had in heart abandoned the way of righteousness.

At the very moment when God's gracious superintendence is delivering David, involuntarily as to himself, from the consequences of his own errors, the events that occurred to Saul are those which seem naturally to draw him onward by inevitable entanglement to final ruin. So true, in a particular crisis of a sinner's apostacy, is the awful assertion, “He hath compassion on whom he will have compassion, and whom he will he hardeneth.' Man, in the natural course of events, independent of any judicial dealing with him, hardens his own heart against God; and then at length the time of retribution comes, when the meshes of a retributive entanglement shut him up to a final punish

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Saul had good reason to know from the faithful testimony of Samuel that God had rent the kingdom of Israel from him, and that such a rejection from the sovereignty implied at least a solemn warning lest it should be followed by a final rejection from the divine favour. Yet even at that time Saul aggravates the evil of his case by not asking pity and pardon for his transgression, but by compromising the matter with the prophet, for a little outward respect to his royal station while it was continued to him. "I have sinned, yet honour me now I pray

thee, before the elders of my people, and before Israel, and turn again with me that I may worship the Lord thy God." He is satisfied if the continuance of the prophet's external attentions to the regal office shall conceal from the multitude the awful character of his fall.

But observe how evil thickens around him in his last hours. Samuel, the faithful adviser, dies. David, an honest servant, is totally alienated from him by his own groundless enmity and suspicion: and the attachment of Jonathan his own son, though it prevails to the willing sacrifice of life in a father's cause, yet had been evidently diminished by his great injustice to David. When, therefore, the Philistines gathered themselves together for battle, Saul found himself alone, without an adviser. There is something painfully desolate in the heart of him who has wandered, and who, in the hour of commencing correction, has to look his trials in the face in solitary and unsustained and unalleviated agony.

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When Saul saw the host of the Philistines, he was afraid, and his heart greatly trembled."

And here appears the turning point of retributive visitationthe crisis at which the adverse aspect of God's providence frowns the impenitent king into further abandonment of the way of righteousness and peace. "Saul inquired of the Lord," not in sincere penitence, but that in a crisis of distress he would gladly fly to any means of help and escape. The utter want of a true devotion is evident enough by the result.

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The Lord answered him not, neither by dreams, nor by Urim, nor by prophets."

Now, to ask counsel or comfort of God in a time of trial, and to feel that it is not given, is most distressing.

And such experience will ever be the turning point in a case of backsliding. To acquiesce in it, to let it remain so, to take no ulterior step adequate to the threatening evil, not to move heaven and earth with the bitter wailings of despairing entreaty, is to put the seal to the deed of final separation. God may yet hide himself only that he may be sought and ultimately found; but if he do so hide himself, and the endeavour to seek a withdrawing God is abandoned, then the last ray of hope departs. It was at this very time, just after Saul, in virtue of his regal office, had put away witchcraft out of the land, that in the absence of better comfort he said to his servants,

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Seek me a woman that hath a familiar spirit, that I may go to her, and enquire of her." Knowing the evil, for he had prohibited it, he turned from the throne of grace where anger frowned upon his access, to unjustifiable and unholy expedients. God's chastening was not corrective and remedial. It was penal. It was retributive. It was hardening. It threw the unhumbled and prayerless man aside.

It is not necessary, with a view to the moral influence of the scene, to enter into the question of the real extent of the witch's power, or the reality of the appearance of Samuel. We have only to consider here the way in which a particular course of voluntary procedure is overruled to accomplish a particular result. Saul gives this as the reason of his conduct. "I am sore distressed; for the Philistines make war against me, and God is departed from me, and answereth me no more.' " And this wretched admission of his reasons for such a humiliating inconsistency is not followed out on the part of the speaker in the vision, whoever it may be, with wholesome

and strenuous advice to seek the Lord ere it be too late, but by a further and more overwhelming communication: "Wherefore dost thou ask of me, seeing the Lord is departed from thee, and is become thine enemy;" and this is accom. panied by the prophetic announcement of his death on the morrow.

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While the gratuitous interference of Providence is bringing David back from his wanderings, how every succeeding step of Saul's experience goes to complete his alienation! The awful announcement of the enmity of God breaks his lofty spirit, but does not soften his heart. In his distress he had fasted through the day and the night; and now his natural firmness failed him, and the ponderous frame of the gigantic warrior "fell all along upon the earth." He was sore afraid. For a time he refused to be comforted; but it is sad to see how the apostate mind can be gradually assimilated to its melancholy circumstances. short time only sees this poor creature abandoned by God, and thus manifestly abandoning him, sitting down in the cave of unholy superstition, to share with his few obscure and nameless servants and the proscribed practiser with familiar spirits, the feast which she had prepared for him. A bitter and incurable woe had rent his spirit. A doom most melancholy both for this world and that to come hung directly over him. Another sunset would close his strange and wayward career. He had been told without reserve the true character of his case; but every additional step in the developement had only hastened on the final evil-the persevering impenitence the penal visitation. Yet there sits the unhappy subject of a doom so imminent and so awful,

feasting on the fatted calf, and the warm unleavened bread.

How it reminds one of the "comfortable breakfast," detailed with such scrupulous accuracy, "partaken of" by some notorious criminal at the foot of his scaffold! The soul that has fallen from God can look calmly into a dark eternity -dark with a forfeited and perished birthright-and can turn from it to the low gratification of a mess of pottage; can indulge the lower appetites of an all but disorganised frame at the moment of impending dissolution. Oh how debased is that rational and immortal being, who, disregarding all the corrective dispensations of God's providence, remains, in defiance of them all, a persevering rebel against his mercy and truth, and finds refuge from the last lingering warnings of his gracious Spirit in the lowest and most sensual gifts that yet remain to him.

The contrast in these two cases, and in God's treatment of them, is surely very striking and instructive. Both these men had erred; but the errors of David were yet not absolutely inconsistent with the existence of essential piety in the heart. The faults of Saul were those of a permanently irreligious mind. The course of David, with all its deviations, was a sincere struggle onwards toward God and holiness. That of Saul was a rapidly increasing retirement from all that he had ever known or felt in better days. And we trace as distinctly the line of treatment by infinite wisdom towards both. "Truly God is good to Israel, even to such as are of a clean heart," while "if I regard iniquity in my heart the Lord will not hear me." God's own faithful servant may fall into error; yet mercy shall compass him about." His

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own way shall reprove, humble, and correct him, till at length he walks with greater circumspection; and the blessed result of all his vicissitudes, is a deeper and more substantial holiness, a more thorough and universally influential humility, and a louder and warmer song of praise.

But when a man, in the sleep of his moral nature, has really taken his stand against God and his own sanctification, when the real state of the soul is resistance and rejection of proffered mercy, then, rich as is the grace of the atonement for sin, so that where sin hath abounded there doth grace much more abound; yet the aspect of God's providence becomes severe ;

"statutes that are not good," and entangling providences invest the way of a voluntary rebellion, and he who will fall shall fall-beaten down not more by his own strong and dominant passions, than by the whelming tide of God's angry judgments. "Upon the wicked he shall rain snares;" and even those visitations which wear on their front the aspect of expostulatory and inviting mercy, shall only be bitter elements in the portion of their cup, aggravating their sorrow, confirming their rebellion, and completing their meetness for that outer darkness where holiness, and peace, and love, never come.

LATIMER.

ORIGINAL CORRESPONDENCE.

FROM THE AUTHOR OF "CHRISTIAN RETIREMENT."

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NO. VIII.

MY DEAR FRIEND,-Your kind letter created a mingled emotion of joy and sorrow. The trials you have lately undergone in the loss of earthly friends, I doubt not, through grace, have been greatly sanctified to you. The Lord gave and the Lord hath taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord." This is the language of faith; but, ah! how difficult, at the trying moment, to resolve our whole will into the sovereign and righteous Will of God! This is truly a work far too great for fallen, rebellious man to perform without the almighty energy of the Divine Spirit. The conversion of a sinner principally consists in subjugating the stubborn will, and giving it a new bias to that which is holy and

heavenly. And after conversion, the Almighty carries on the blessed work by his wise dispensations, till the wills of his people are entirely swallowed up in his own! Is it not our daily petition? happy, indeed, were it our daily practice!

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Thy will be done on earth, as it is in heaven." Oh! what a mercy when the Lord, in covenant love, will not suffer us to wander from him; but, like a tender parent, watches our wayward steps, and gently applies the chastisement to bring us back again into the paths of peace. David calls it," a loving correction," and St. Paul, in the 12th chap. to the Hebrews, declares

"that whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth.'

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There cannot be a more awful state than that of a man's living in wilful sin, and yet feeling no compunction of conscience-no fear of God-no dread of future punishment! "Let him alone," is a most tremendous sentence and devoutly to be dreaded. It is the very seal of eternal perdition. My constant prayer is that the Lord Iwould not suffer me to rest satisfied with but the "peace of any God," that solid and substantial peace which flows from faith and love in Jesus Christ. Being justified by faith, we have peace with God." Great peace have they which love thy law." There is, as my dear friend well knows, such a thing as a false peacecrying peace, peace, where there is no peace. Awful delusion! Is it not a bed on which thousands rest, till roused by the everlasting burning? It is a dreadful lethargy of soul, which the Lord in righteous judgment, suffers to take place in backsliding professors; and if not rescued out of it by sovereign grace, perdition must inevitably ensue. Oh, then what need we have to lay our foundation upon a Rock-the Rock of Ages-the adorable Jesus; and to build upon it gold, silver, and precious stones, if we wish to have rejoicing in the day of trial. The mere stubble of outward profession will avail nothing, if the sterling grace of love be wanting. True religion is an inward work, "the kingdom of God is within,"

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a kingdom of righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost." The strongest actings of grace are invisible to mortal eyes, and known only to him who maintains them in the soul. When the apostle commands us "to pray without ceasing," no doubt he means the constant exercise of mental prayer and praise, which prevents no business, and may be carried on even

in the unavoidable hurries of a busy life.

But, ah! my dear friend, how apt are things temporal to shut out the thoughts of things that are eternal. Temporal things press so much upon the senses, as too often to captivate the affections even of pious persons before they are aware. On this account it is, that the Almighty takes away the idol and causes the gourd to wither. How privileged is the true believer, to be always under the guidance and protection of infinite wisdom and redeeming love. Our heavenly Father, as Burkitt expresses it, "would rather see his children bleed than burn," for this reason he purgeth the living branches in his vineyard, that they may bring forth more fruit.

The Lord brings his people into the furnace for many reasons: To purify them, to wean their affections from the world, to show them the vanity of earthly pleasures and pursuits, to increase their faith in eternal realities, to enable them to taste the sweetness of the promises, to manifest his power in their weakness, to prove the strength of their hope in him, and to shew to an unbelieving world the power and consolations of true religion, in supporting the soul under the greatest sufferings, and making his people even more than conquerors over all their afflictions, through him that loved them and gave himself for them. We gain, also, a deeper insight into our own hearts, and obtain a more experimental knowledge of the love of Christ, and the sweet influences of his Spirit. Under this view David might well say: 'it is good for me that I have been afflicted.". "He hath done all things well.” Yours very affectionately, T. S. B. READE. Leeds, 27th August, 1810.

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