2 Samuel 15

REFLECTIONS UPON CHAP. XV.**—Indulged children often become the plague, if not the murderers of parents. Young fools are fond of making a pompous figure in the world. And they who are least fit to rule are ordinarily the most ambitious of it. Zeal for the public welfare, and care to redress grievances, are the ordinary cloaks of the vilest ambition and treachery. Nor is the most upright administration able to escape the malignant aspersions of a discontented faction. But none are more apt to play the tyrant, when they have obtained power, than those who have paved their way to it by the basest condescensions. Gracious parents easily credit their children’s pretences to reformation and devotion. But the vilest designs are ordinarily masked with a cloak of pretended religion: and they never want carnal prudence who have the devil to be their director. Slippery and tottering are the exalted stations and honours of this world. Our fortified abodes may soon become too weak or too hot for us, whilst our intimates, yea, almost all beside, go over to our enemy. Our severest strokes often come from hands which we least suspected; and fear of God’s wrath, in our sufferings, sinks the spirits, and makes men cowards. In suffering times, 40 42. large families are great incumbrances: and, though terrible revolutions are great trials for young converts, yet strangers are often more faithful than our kindred and countrymen: and, the more distressful our case, they cleave to us the more resolutely. So let us, sinners of the Gentiles, cleave to David’s Lord. Let neither the trials of life, nor the torments of death, separate us from him. The Lord’s ministers ought to be patterns of fidelity when others are inclined to rebel against their rightful sovereigns. It is hard for gracious persons to bear at once the stings of conscience, the base rebellion of children, and a want of the public ordinances of God: such, if any, require our deepest sympathy and fellowship in grief. Bitter grief for our sin, and resignation to God’s addicting hand, must be attended with the diligent use of proper means for our relief: but none that trust in the Lord shall perish. Often our friends, and especially our Jesus, helps us most when unseen. It is not the craft of politicians, but the God of heaven, that governs the world. He can easily turn the counsels of the crafty into foolishness, and cause the traitors to be betrayed. Let us commit our way to God, and he will bring it to pass. 4 K