each of us have to learn how very secondary is that which has called forth our most hearty energy in the service of the Lord, (and well is it that it has been, and is in our hearts to serve Him,) to that "covenant, ordered in all things and sure," by which God secures us. But see David again before the Lord. After Nathan had rehearsed to him all God's goodness and grace, with the blessed addition, "Also the Lord telleth thee that He will make thee an house." "Then went in king David and sat before the Lord, and he said, Who am I, O Lord God? and what is my house, that Thou hast brought me hitherto? And this was yet a small thing in Thy sight, O Lord God; but Thou hast spoken also of Thy servant's house for a great while to come. And is this the manner of man, O Lord God?"

It is not the manner of man; for man has always the idolatrous thought in his heart, that God is to be served by men's hands, as though He needed something. It requires some training in the school of Christ to keep down this thought. The saint of God is only, and always a recipient, and if he does any thing for God, it is of the ability which God Himself giveth. And blessedly did David learn this truth, and enunciate it at the close of his career. "But who am I, and what is my people, that we should be able to offer so willingly after this sort? for all things come of Thee and of Thine own have we given Thee." (1 Chron. xxix. 14.)

Blessed close of an eventful career, when giving most liberally from his "affection to the house of his God," which his eyes never saw, to lose the sense of his own liberality in the more overwhelming sense of

the grace of God. But ere reaching that close, David had learnt a most humbling and bitter lesson under the strong hand of God. Disgrace in his own eyes, and in the sight of others, exile from his own city, and the unnatural rebellion of his own son, followed the fearful sins of adultery and murder, as the chastening of God for David's sin, when even that sin had been forgiven, in order that God might do him good in his latter end. But was not David's fall into these foul sins preceded by David's having got away from the presence of the Lord? Then it was David tarried at Jerusalem, while the host of Israel and the ark were in tents, and encamped in the open field. (2 Sam. xi. 11.) David, who could not rest till the ark was brought to Jerusalem, is now content to be far from it. He had willingly lost the opportunity of being before the Lord, preferring ease to conflict. And are we ever in greater danger than when we are "at ease," ceasing to watch and to pray, as if we were secure from all temptation? "The lust of the eye" leads David first to commit adultery, then to practice deceit, and failing in that, to commit murder; and the consequence was that he was hardened through the deceitfulness of sin, and gave speedy evidence of the distance into which he had departed from God, by his keen perception of the wrong of others. How often does righteous indignation burst forth from the heart which is unjudged before God. David's anger was greatly kindled against the man; and he said to Nathan, As the Lord liveth, the man that hath done this thing shall surely die; and he shall restore the lamb fourfold, because he did this thing, and because he had no pity." (2 Sam. xii. 5, 6.) We have to

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watch in ourselves the motives even of apparent honest indignation, lest in passing sentence on another, we, as David did, pass sentence on ourselves. There is One who "in righteousness doth judge and make war." And how often, when before Him, do we find righteous indignation against others turned against ourselves, the effect of "godly sorrow." (2 Cor. vii. 11.) David confesses his sin, and his sin is pardoned; but nothing will satisfy David short of conscious nearness to God, "the restoration of the joy of His salvation." (Ps. li. 12.) And by God's grace abounding over David's sin, he was brought into that nearness to God which he craved, or even into deeper consciousness of being before the Lord, than ever he had known before. In the fifty-first Psalm, we find David again before the Lord, and so before Him, that David could only see Him, and himself as in His sight. He saw himself before God, and his sin before himself; and how was the sense of his sin aggravated by seeing it in the light of God's presence. "Against Thee, Thee only have I sinned, and done this evil in Thy sight, that Thou mightest be justified when Thou speakest, and be clear when Thou judgest." It may be that David was never so truly before the Lord, as on this occasion. When he went in solemn yet joyous procession before the ark of the Lord, or when he sat before the Lord after the Lord Himself had rehearsed to him His own gracious dealings with him, there was room for the entrance in of some natural, yet allowable, elements of human joy. But now there was no room for such kind of joy; nothing could be joy to David, till he knew again the joy of God's salvation. And this could only be known

under the deep and searching touch of Him before "whom all things are naked and open." And not till now had David been laid naked and bare before his own eyes. "Behold, I was shapen in iniquity; and in sin did my mother conceive me." We accept the doctrine of original sin, but it is only before God that we learn what it really is to be born a sinner. He who will "judge the secrets of men by Jesus Christ in that day," judges those secrets now, in those who are exercised before Him, and makes them learn, that God "desires truth in the inward parts;" and that there has been inward declension from Him before we have been suffered to fall grievously. It may be comparatively easy to gather sufficient wisdom by observation, and experience, and imitation, to walk in a measure blameless before men. But it is "in the hidden part that God makes us to know wisdom," and often, as in David's case, this wisdom is dearly purchased by some sad and grievous failure on our part. What depth of wisdom did David learn before the Lord, to enable him to say, "Thou desirest not sacrifice, else would I give it: Thou delightest not in burnt-offering."

All outward demonstrations of penitence, to which one at a distance from God would have recourse, are seen to be vain by him who stands before God in confession of sin. "The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and a contrite heart, O God, Thou wilt not despise!" But how despicable in the eyes of men is this sacrifice of God. It is in the hidden part that this wisdom is learnt of what, under special circumstances, is pleasing to God. David, before the Lord, had learnt this so deeply, that he submissively bows

his head under the unrighteous cursing of Shimei, and accepts it as part of God's discipline on himself. (2 Sam. xvi. 5-11.) And he knew how to check the indignation of Abishai, who would have resented this insult on David; for nothing, however keenly felt, and unjust in itself, at the hand of man, will be regarded by one confessing his sin before God apart from the righteous discipline of God. Happy wisdom, only to be learnt in one school, to be able to overlook the unrighteousness of man, by so deeply perceiving the righteousness of God. How abject and mean would all that passed between David and God appear in the eyes of men. Man would have looked at David's outrage and injury against Uriah, and punished him accordingly; and in his honest indignation against such grievous sin, would have overlooked his own sinfulness. David, for many a long year subsequently, was made to know in his own exile, and the unnatural rebellion of his son against himself, that it was indeed an evil and bitter thing to depart from God as he had departed. But it was not this that broke his spirit and gave him the contrite heart, and taught him to know in his inward part that this was the sacrifice of God. The broken heart and contrite spirit had been produced by seeing sin in God's sight in all its hatefulness and blackness, and in seeing God's grace abounding over it. We are never Antinomians before God. To learn before Him that where sin has abounded, grace has superabounded, is indeed wisdom. And how growingly precious is the cross of Christ to him who is consciously brought by it into God's presence. He learns his need of it to maintain him in God's presence, as