Bain Discourse IV.

Page 125

DISCOURSE IV.

THE SHAME AND GLORY OF DAVID.

“Because David did that which was right in the eyes of the Lord, and turned not aside from anything that he commanded him all the days of his life, save only in the matter of Uriah the Hittite.”—1 KINGS xv. 5.

---

PERHAPS no character in sacred history has been more misrepresented and maligned than that of the royal and sweet Psalmist of Israel. Everything possible has been made out of his one great crime, painting it in the blackest hue. He has also been charged with vindictiveness and other vicious traits. But among ancient heroes David is, in many respects, without an equal. The vast distance between the depth of his shame, and the height of his glory, is

Page 126

without a parallel in all history. His sad, deep, excuseless, foul fall, God said, by his prophet at that time, would cause “the enemy to blaspheme;” and they have continued it from that day to this. And by this fact we may know his guilt was immeasurable, by finite mind; and its evil influence still flows on. May we not wonder at, adore and praise the infinite mercy that forgave it? For this one criminal act of his life we have no apology to make, no excuse, no palliation; the Word of God has none, but brands it with unqualified displeasure and sore chastisement. We condemn it with as intense feeling as his most malignant enemies; but we may here, at least, learn the truth that it is very hard for human nature to bear power, prosperity, and luxury, without debauchery. Perhaps many of us think no wealth, no position, no luxury, would affect our

Page 127

purity and integrity. Agur had a better knowledge of the heart when he prayed: “Give me neither poverty nor riches; feed me with food convenient for me, lest I be full, and deny thee, and say, Who is the Lord? or lest I be poor, and steal, and take the name of my God in vain.”

David had been victorious against his enemies, had defended and established his kingdom, had attained great wealth and prosperity, had become a king, an absolute monarch;—why should he deny himself any dainty, any desire of his eyes? Therefore he forgot the God that is above, stretched forth his hand to rob and spoil another’s home, and sought to hide his crime in the grave of the murdered! Thus he made himself a sad memento of the frailty of “man at his best estate.” But there are some things concerning this case worthy of notice:

Page 128

1st. It shows the impartiality and faithfulness of Bible writers, in exhibiting and condemning sin. If the authors of the various Books of the Bible were merely uninspired men, they would certainly not have marred their heroes by exposing their most grievous faults;—at least the writers would not expose their own disgrace, which could not otherwise be known. But the naked guilt of Adam and Eve, the murder of Cain, the drunkenness of Noah, the cowardice and falsehood of Abraham, the duplicity and dishonesty of Jacob, and the crime of David, are all uncovered, because the holy God, the author of the Bible, would present fallen, ruined man as he is, and teach us that there is “an end of all perfection here.” Had not the Lord interfered, how effectually might David’s crime have been concealed. Besides the king and his less guilty paramour, no one knew it. Joab

Page 129

could not surely guess why the king sent such directions concerning Uriah. It was safe from human scrutiny, but God would not have it so;—he had caused it to be written down long before, “be sure your sin will find you out,” and David and the world should find this true. He bade Nathan go and open the robbed and despoiled home, and uncover the bloody grave dug with the swords of the Ammonites, and set its murdered victim before the criminal, and declare its punishment before all Israel and the sun! There should be no taint of partiality in covering the guilt of an eminent believer. Let it be condemned.

2d. But David’s speedy, ingenuous, deep repentance is worthy of special notice. No sooner has Nathan set his guilt before him than he exclaims: “I have sinned against the Lord!” And in the 51st Psalm, he pleads and con-

Page 130

fesses with deep humility and penitence; “Have mercy upon me, O, God, according to thy loving-kindness; according to the multitude of thy tender mercies, blot out my transgressions. I acknowledge my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me. Against thee, thee only have I sinned, and done this evil in thy sight. Deliver me from blood-guiltiness, O God, thou God of my salvation!” How full! how open! how poignantly sorrowfully. No reservations, no palliation, no periphrasis, or softening expressions. He calls it his sin, and blood-guiltiness. And though the Lord declared by the prophet his forgiveness, yet he could scarcely forgive himself. Often in after life he breaks out into expressions of deep self-loathing and condemnation, and seems overwhelmed with grief. And his after life is alternately filled with praise to the God of his mercy, and penitent

Page 131

lamentations before him, who being so deeply offended yet forgave him.

His whole after life was most manifestly reformed and exemplary, it was spent in the wise, pious, most generous and assiduous service of God and man, so that his sun went down as gloriously as Solomon’s arose. Never was repentance more sincere and severe, or sorrow more keen, or reformation more real. And yet there are those, some of them also professing to be followers of Christ, who now reproach the Church that accepts David as a pious and exemplary saint, while she refuses fellowship with, and denounces living persons who are guilty of sins less heinous than David’s. But the difference between the king of Israel and these living criminals is—the latter have given no evidence of genuine repentance and reformation. No Christian Church refuses restoration to any penitent. Nay more: Whatever may

Page 132

be any individual’s guilt, the moment there is evidence of true godly penitential sorrow, that moment the gospel requires every Christian, with whole-hearted forgiveness, to embrace the returning prodigal in arms of love, and restore him to the child’s place in the family home. But to the impenitent, whether his crime be more or less heinous, she can offer nothing but her rebuke, and her testimony against him.

But who are these that can find nothing but shameful disgrace in David, which they cannot forgive, while they champion the modern sinners? Are they pinks of propriety? Are they so immaculate, and have they such a holy indignation of soul that they can have no charity for David’s faults? Those most intimately acquainted with them, could perhaps answer these queries. He who does the deed of a villain and with brazen face justifies and defends

Page 133

it, or in stubborn pride refuses to confess, is with some a hero. The “Richardson-M’Farland,” and such ilk, are heroes with some; and the guilty one who turns from his sin with tears of sorrow is a poltroon. The charity that calls the stubborn transgressor tenderly back, but turns away from him who comes with tears of grief, is not the charity of Christ, who says: “If thy brother trespass against thee rebuke him; if he repent forgive. And if he trespass against thee seven times in a day, and seven times in a day turn again to thee saying, I repent; thou shalt forgive him.” “I say not unto thee until seven times; but, until seventy times seven.” But, again, it is said that some excuse their sins and soothe their consciences by saying: “David, whom you call a good man, did worse than I have?” To this I reply, such lovers of sin do not transgress because David did.

Page 134

They sin because they love it. They never purpose to imitate David’s penitent anguish and genuine reformation. However much they make of his crime, they never mention his sorrow.

But it is asked how can you reconcile David’s guilt, with the declaration that he was a man after God’s own heart? Says Hewlet, “The expression is applied to David by way of contrast to the fickle character of wretched, wavering, disobedient Saul.” Another learned author says, “The expression refers to the divine purpose, quite as much as to peculiar favor and affection to an individual.” Says Dr. Chandler, “He was a man after God’s own heart in accomplishing the divine purpose concerning the nation of Israel, and in the proper, original sense of the expression, it may be applied to him.” Says Robinson, “when we consider the depth of his contrition, the strength of his faith, the

Page 135

fervor of his love, the activity of his obedience, we do not fear to assert that ‘he found favor with God, and was a man after his own heart.’ And considering all this, and more, and finding the Lord saying ‘he is a man after my own heart,’ we are willing to admit there is some sense in which it is true.”

But say some, David, from his own confession, in Psalm xxxviii. 3d, 5th and 7th verses, must have been a very bad character. They will have it that David refers to a bodily disease contracted by lechery and uncleanness, and they say this is Dr. Adam Clark’s view. Suppose this was the opinion of that great, but pedantic and conceited scholar, is this infallible proof? But Dr. Clark does not assert this; and whatever his hints may mean, no intelligent reader of Scripture language would accept such an exposition. If a man would even consult Webster he could learn that

Page 136

“sore” in the Scripture means “grief, affliction,” and that “disease” is applied to the mind or soul. Consult Psalm li. 8. Now who believes that God broke David’s bones for his sin with Bathsheba? but by this he expressed his pain of heart. When Isaiah i. 6, describes the Jewish nation in such language as this: “From the sole of the foot even unto the head, there is no soundness in it, but wounds, and bruises, and putrifying sores,” what scholar would attempt to prove from this that every individual in Israel had small-pox, leprosy, or something of the kind! When, in Ezk. xxxvi. 25, God promises “I will cleanse you from all your filthiness;” does he mean to wash their bodies? The next verse explains it: “A new heart also will I give you.” Psalm ciii., 3d verse, what an interpretation to say he expects his sin forgiven, and to be saved from all bodily sickness!

Page 137

It would take too much space to show how often in the Scriptures sin is, in its effects upon the soul, compared to leprosy and other diseases; and grief and sorrow of heart, to the diseases and pain of the body. The New Testament is full of such representations. In Matt. viii. 17, we are told Christ “bore our sickness?” does this mean he took our ague, fevers and rheumatism? Such interpretation would make our Bible a queer book indeed! And they are hard pressed for evidence who resort to such exposition to blacken David’s character.

Again they say; David was vengeful vindictive; and in proof they refer to the language of the Psalms. We cannot accept this as evidence, because not David, but God is responsible for the language of these divine songs; and if they wish to quarrel with the sentence pronounced against such characters as Saul, Judas, and Doeg, the Nena Sahib

Page 138

of that age, who by the cold-blooded slaughter of defenceless men, helpless women and innocent babes, set an example for his successors to follow, near 3,000 years later, in Cawnpore in India, and Fort Pillow in America—I say if they wish to find fault with this sentence, they must quarrel with their Maker, not with the Psalmist. Neither will we take time and space here to disprove the assertion, that the character of God is less lovely and loveable in the Old, than the New Testament.

But we do assert that so far from David’s being vindictive, he was great hearted in magnanimity and forgiveness. If “oppression makes a wise man mad,” what wonder if David had been exasperated to madness by the oppressive persecutions of King Saul. Driven from his home, his wife given to another, his family broken up, banished from his place of worship, and

Page 139

even from his country, hunted upon the mountains like a patridge, made a fugitive and exile among the heathen; yet when in the cave of Engedi he stood over the sleeping, helpless form of his murderous persecutor, with the memory of these bitter wrongs goading his soul; knowing also that as soon as the crown fell from that unworthy, unkingly brow it would rest on his own head;—under this great provocation and royal temptation, what did this vindictive David do? What would you or I have done? Ah, I fear with all the added power of gospel grace as we have it, with all our boasted growth and charity, we should have taken his head—I hope never to be tried thus. But David only cut off the skirt of his robe, and his heart even smote him for this. And when Saul awoke, this fugitive exile showed him the fragment only to prove that he bore no malice against his un-

Page 140

just and misguided king. Such matchless forbearance and generosity touched even stony-hearted King Saul to tears. Read his strong language in 1st Sam. xxiv. 16, 19. But soon he forgot his melting words and penitential tears, and continued his malignant and murderous hunt.

Again at the hill of Hachilah, Saul lay sleeping in the trench, wholly at the mercy of the man he had so causelessly and bitterly wronged; then one of David’s loyal chiefs tried to stir up and justify vengeance at the hands of his Master, and asked permission to smite his enemy there to the earth, saying: “I will not smite him a second time.” Your deep wrongs claim one blow. But no, says the persecuted, but great hearted man: Take the spear and the cruse of water from his pillow and come away! Except Jesus of Nazareth, history furnishes no parallel to this

Page 141

great hearted forbearance and magnanimity towards a foe—and such a malignant, dangerous foe as Saul. David was also a royal, faithful, warm-hearted friend, as is shown by his fidelity to, and affection for, Jonathan. When Jonathan’s soul knit to him and “loved him as his own soul,” it was because there was attraction and power in David’s great heart to draw and bind another to it. And when Jonathan fell a valiant patriot soldier, on the battle-field of his country, David’s mournful elegy over him, has never been excelled for artless pathos and melting tenderness. “I am distressed for thee, my brother Jonathan: very pleasant hast thou been to me: thy love to me was wonderful, passing the love of women!” Again David was a tender, great-hearted Father. His misguided fondness for his unnatural rebellious, but beautiful boy, only proves the intensity of his paternal love. That

Page 142

through all his wickedness, vanity and falsehood, the Father’s heart should cling to him with fondness, is almost incredible. But when on the banks of Jordan, the iron-hearted Joab gathers the loyal followers of the king to give battle to Absalom, all the father’s yearning, torturing fears are awakened, and with moving tenderness he rather pleads with, than commands his stern warriors “to deal gently, deal gently for my sake, with the boy Absalom.” He pleads as his greater Divine Son pleads with the greater Father, “for my sake!” When the conflict is over and the messengers in breathless haste fall on their faces before the king, his first eager question is not for victory, not for his army, but, “Is the young man Absalom, safe?” When the second messenger comes, the same trembling inquiry is first, “Is the young man Absalom safe?” When he learned that

Page 143

his rebellious son was dead, it pierced his aged heart, he could refrain no longer. Entering the chamber over the tower gate, “covering his face with his robe, he poured forth the bitterest cry of parental anguish the world has heard in three thousand years: “O, my son Absalom, my son, my son Absalom! Would God I had died for thee! O, Absalom, my son, my son!” It was the wounded love-cry of a great-hearted father, and O, how the memory of his own great sin intensified the agony of that bitter grief.

But his highest glory shines in heroic faith and sweet resignation to God in the day of trouble. Shakspeare, the dramatist, whose representations are almost equal to Nature’s self, has presented us the picture in Lear, of a fiery old king deposed from his crown and throne and turned out of doors by the ungrateful, rebellious cruelty of his

Page 144

daughters. Being without faith, without resignation, his impetuous passion finds utterance in such bitter profane malediction as this:

“You see me here, you gods, a poor old man,

As full of grief as age; wretched in both.

If it be you that stir these daughters’ hearts

Against their father, fool me not so much

To bear it tamely; touch me with noble anger.

Oh, let not women’s weapons—water drops,

Stain my man’s cheeks. No you unnatural hags,

I will have such revenges on you both

That all the world shall—I will do such things—

What they are yet I know not; but they shall be

The terrors of the earth. You think I’ll weep;

No I’ll not weep.

I have full cause of weeping, but this heart

Shall break into a hundred thousand flaws,

Or, ere I’ll weep. Oh, fool, I shall go mad.

Ingratitude! thou marble hearted fiend,

More hideous when thou showest thee in a child,

Than the sea monster;

How sharper than a serpent’s tooth it is,

To have a thankless child!

The untented woundings of a father’s curse,

Pierce every sense about thee!”

With such profane maledictions, and worse, the natural heart pours out its

Page 145

bitter, rebellious, impotent rage. Contrast this with the conduct of David, under worse conditions. A king, an absolute monarch, living in an age of violence, naturally of an impetuous, fiery disposition, his whole being thrilling with passion, and now when his hair is silvered with age, the buoyant vigor of youth gone, he is driven by a fondly nurtured and petted son from his throne and his beloved capitol city. Turning from the side of Mount Olivet and looking back upon the sacred city, he meekly says: “If I shall find favor in the eyes of the Lord, he shall bring me again. But if he say I have no delight in thee, behold here am I. Let him do to me as seemeth good to him.” Here was the great, deep, sincere penitent bowing under his Father’s rod. But with his few fugitive friends, he pushes on over the dreary, rocky, wild, burnt and blackened ravines between

Page 146

Olivet and the Jordan, until that river is between him and his parricidal son. There, with no royal couch for his aged limbs, but lying on the bare earth, David sleeps, and when he wakes sings this song: “I laid me down and slept, I awaked, for the Lord sustained me; I cried unto the Lord with my voice, and he heard me out of his holy hill; I will not be afraid of ten thousand that have set themselves against me. Salvation belongeth to the Lord. O, God, thou art my God; early will I seek thee. My mouth shall praise thee with joyful lips, when I meditate upon thee in the night watches.” The grand, heroic faith of such an hour, the sweet resignation, the tranquillity and heavenly serenity of soul exhibited, is the brightest crown that ever rested on the brow of man or monarch. David was as far removed from blind, unreasoning rashness on the one hand, as from pusillani-

Page 147

mous poltroonery on the other. He would neither imperil the royal city and sanctuary by madly defying Absalom and his followers, nor by base offers or unmanly despondency encourage the rebellion. He not only bowed meekly under the rod of divine chastisement, but showed a calm, wise judgment in respect to the welfare of his capitol, and the ultimate defeat of the conspirators. The retreat to the Jordan was no cowardly flight, but a strategic movement displaying consummate skill, saving Jerusalem from the ruin of a battle within its walls, and putting the royal forces on a vantage ground against Absalom.

Whether we contemplate David as the shepherd, defending his flock against the lion and the bear, or the dauntless hero meeting Goliath, or the musician and psalmist, or king and captain, his true greatness is unquestionable. In

Page 148

the language of a celebrated writer, it is flagrantly unjust “to consider David only in the light of his guilt. Should he not in common justice be estimated, as all men are, by the main features of his life? Millions have fallen, have sinned as David did; but who ever repented and recovered like him? Revolve his whole life, before the ‘matter of Uriah;’ it is almost one unbroken train of wise, generous, pious and valiant conduct. Revolve his whole life from a short time after that sin, and it is little else than one train of humiliation and repentance before God, and this, too, after assurance of pardon from God himself, by his prophet. If he varied his conduct, it was only from penance to praise, to employ his whole heart and soul to the glory, and in the service of that God who pardoned all his sin and crowned him with loving kindness.”

Page 149

If after all this the Scriptures and believers are to be reviled for extolling his penitence and faith, then what is to be reverenced? None ever fell into sin and crime, who, repenting, excused their guilt by David’s fall; and those who can find little else in David but his great crime, are like vermin and flies that are most delighted to find a rotten place in which to burrow. Christian charity, out of his sore repentance, and his reformed and exemplary life, can weave a veil to hang over his ghastly wound. In the words of an eloquent writer: “If we except the abuse of the paternal and amatory feelings, we have in David a well endowed, well balanced, well harmonized, and almost perfect character. The sum of it is this: David was a true believer, a zealous adorer of God, a teacher of his law and worship, and an inspired writer of his praise; a glorious example, a

Page 150

perpetual and inexhaustible fountain of true piety; a consummate and unequalled hero, a skilful and successful captain; a steady patriot, a wise ruler, a faithful, generous and magnanimous friend; and what is yet rarer, he was a no less generous and magnanimous enemy; a true penitent, a divine musician, ‘a chord of whose harp is found in every choir,’ a sublime poet, and psalmist for eternity, and an inspired prophet; by birth a peasant, by merit a prince, in youth a hero, in manhood a monarch, and in age a saint!” He stands upon the page of sacred history, “an alarming memento of the frailty of man at his best estate,” a warning to the most eminent believer, an example of the most sincere, ingenuous repentance; and of mercy with God for the guiltiest returning transgressor, a noble illustration of faith and piety to the strongest Christian, an illustrious type of his

Page 151

divine Son, whose life, humiliation, exaltation, grace and glory he portrayed in unequalled song, able to build up “any believer in knowledge, faith, holiness, and joyous piety, to the full stature of perfect manhood in Christ.” He is the honored singer of God’s songs—songs that shall remain in the Church to the end of time—matter for praising their eternal author, and an imperishable monument to the immortal singer, who has with the most literal truthfulness declared: “I will sing of the mercies of the Lord forever. With my mouth will I make known thy faithfulness to all generations.”

Now blessed be the Lord our God,

The God of Israel,

For he alone doth wondrous works,

In glory that excel.

And blessed be his glorious name

To all eternity:

The whole earth let his glory fill,

Amen, so let it be.

Advertisement Page

THE

UNITED PRESBYTERIAN

BOARD OF PUBLICATION

AND

BIBLE HOUSE,

PITTSBURGH, PA.

BIBLES,

Family and Pocket, in great variety, very cheap.

PSALM BOOKS,

TESTAMENTS AND PSALMS.

RELIGIOUS BOOKS,

Theological and Sabbath-School.

SABBATH-SCHOOL CARDS,

COLLECTION CARDS,

MEMBERSHIP CARDS,

Blank Certificates of Church Membership.

NEW BOOKS.

THE PRAYER MEETING.

By REV. J. B. JOHNSTON, D.D., St. Clairsville, Ohio. $1.00.

THE SAVIOUR’S CLAIM.

By REV. R. H. POLLOCK, Wooster, O. 40 c.