1 Samuel 30:31

REFLECTIONS

THE Holy Ghost hath evidently much instruction to convey to his Church, in what is here related of David's calamity; and I would charge it upon the Reader's soul, and my own, to enquire very humbly, what the will and mind of the Lord is.

My Brother! when like David, our want of faith, and the slenderness of our trust in God, tempts us to go out of the path of duty, and a shyness takes place between the Lord and our hearts; is it not a blessed mark of grace, that the Lord doth not leave us to ourselves, and to eat the fruit of our own devices? Doth he not mean everything gracious, when he hedgeth up our way with thorns on purpose that we shall not find our lovers; but that our minds, being prepared by his secret workings, may be constrained to say; I will return again to my first love, my first husband; for then was it better with me than now?

If then, my Brother, after going out at any time full, we are made to return empty: if our house, which we left in peace, we find disordered, as David and his men did Ziklag, at our coming home: if the Lord takes away the desire of our eyes with a stroke; removes our creature comforts; breaks down our creature confidences; makes a sorrow to grow out of the very root which we had planted for ourselves, and promised the sure fruit of enjoyment: what shall I say? If nothing but some severe dispensation will bring us back, when all the milder methods of his love have failed: will you not count that love, nay infinite love, and wisdom too, which administereth the medicine, however nauseous to our proud, and too much pampered stomachs, because nothing but physic will reach our case?

Oh! gracious, long suffering, long forgotten Saviour, in every view, and at every direction, how doth thy tenderness meet our ingratitude! How oft, like David, have I said; I shall one day perish by the hand of one or another! And even in the midst of deliverances have feared the issue? And how oft like him, have I ran to Philistine confederacies, and an arm of flesh, have forgotten the Lord my Maker, and feared continually every day, because of the fury of the oppressor, as if he were ready to destroy; and where is the fury of the oppressor? And hadst thou, dearest Lord! justly, as thou mightest have done, given me up to the pursuit of my own ways, and to the fruit of my own devices; where would have been my portion? But, oh! thou most gracious Jesus! precious Saviour, how thou hast called me home; allured me, and brought me into some wilderness dispensation; and there hast caused the wilderness and the solitary place to be glad; and even the desert to rejoice, and to blossom as the rose. Go on, heavenly Teacher, graciously go on, nor spare the rod of affliction, when the wayward conduct of thy poor, ignorant, and ungrateful child makes it necessary. Only, dearest Lord, come thyself with, and in the affliction, that it may be fully blessed, and sanctified, in bringing back my heart to thee; that when, like David, I have wept till I can weep no more; and sorrows, like a flood, poured over me from within and without, and everything like the threatened stoning of the people, oppress me on every side, like him, I may still find grace and faith to encourage myself in the Lord my God.