February 5

Secondly, the issue was tragical. For while the parties were having this intercourse, a man named Doeg happened to be there "detained before the Lord." This wretch, instead of minding his devotion, observed them, and resolved to ingratiate himself with his master Saul by an impeachment of Ahimelech. And so it fell out. "Then answered Doeg the Edomite, which was set over the servants of Saul, and said, I saw the son of Jesse coming to Nob, to Ahimelech the son of Ahitub. And he inquired of the Lord for him, and gave him victuals, and gave him the sword of Goliath the Philistine." Behold, first, the deceitfulness of this villain. Like other slanderers, he does the business by a mixture of fact and falsehood. He ought to have told Saul that David had deceived Ahimelech, and made him believe that he was acting for the king; and therefore that what Ahimelech did was really in honour of the king. The whole truth would have entirely exculpated the high priest, but Doeg suppresses the most essential part of it. And behold, secondly, the cruelty as well as falseness of this informer. "And the king said, Thou shalt surely die, Ahimelech, thou, and all thy father's house." There was something venerable in the character and office of a priest, and as Ahimelech and his brethren stood dressed in their sacred robes, Saul's footmen shrunk back from slaying them. "And the king said to Doeg, Turn thou, and fall upon the priests. And Doeg the Edomite turned, and he fell upon the priests, and slew on that day fourscore and five persons that did wear a linen ephod. And Nob, the city of the priests, smote he with the edge of the sword, both men and women, children and sucklings, and oxen and asses, and sheep, with the edge of the sword."

But see upon what little occurrences surprising coincidences and great consequences often depend. The word of the Lord had denounced the house of Eli: but the threatening could not be fulfilled without the destruction of these priests: but these priests would not have been destroyed but for the malice of Saul: Saul's malice would not have been excited but for the infamy of Doeg; and Doeg would not have informed against Ahimelech had he not been detained at the tabernacle the day when David entered it. All this seemed accidental; but it was not. All parties acted freely, yet necessarily too. What was unjust in Doeg was righteous in God. He knew how to accomplish his word by human falsehood and cruelty, and yet he was of purer eyes than to behold iniquity. Nothing was more certain as well as important than the death of Christ, and he was delivered according to the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God; yet by wicked hands the Jews crucified him. Ask me not for a solution. I only know the fact. I see the two ends of the chain, but the middle is under water: yet the connexion is as real as it is invisible. By-and-by it will be drawn up. In the mean while, we must walk by faith, and not by sight. Judge nothing before the time. We know that Messiah cometh which is called Christ: when he is come, he will tell us all things.

FEBRUARY 5.—"WHEN I AM WEAK, then am I strong"—2 Corinthians 12:10.

CHRISTIANITY is not only mysterious with regard to doctrine, but also experience. Christians are men wondered at. They are a Vol. I. 8

peculiar people; and the world knoweth them not. Some of the effects and advantages of their religion indeed, may be palpable to others; but its principles and resources are among the deep things of God, which the natural man knoweth not, because they are spiritually discerned. How strange to many must the language of Paul appear—"I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me." "Most gladly will I glory in infirmity, that the power of Christ may rest upon me—I take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in necessities, in persecutions, in distresses for Christ's sake: FOR WHEN I AM WEAK, THEN AM I STRONG."

As this expresses his experience not only or principally as he was an Apostle, but a Christian, let us in this exercise consider the weaknesses to which he refers; and in the next see how it becomes an accession of strength.

The weakness is spiritual. But we must distinguish between the reality of it, and the apprehension. The fall has deprived us not only of righteousness, but of strength; and by nature we are weak, as to all the purposes of the divine life. But all are not sensible of this. In general, men are far from believing it; and will sooner acknowledge their guilt than their inability. They will confess that they have not been what they ought to have been, or done what they ought to have done; but they always presume upon their competency for these things; and resolve by-and-by to accomplish them. But Paul speaks of the apprehension of our weakness. This is effected by the Holy Spirit; who convinces men of sin, and makes them acquainted with their true character and state before God. But the sense of their weakness is increased by observation and experience. They hear of many falling around them who once seemed much more likely to stand than themselves; and each of these declensions cries, "Let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall." And when they read the Scriptures, they see the falls of good men there, and men whose grace was very superior to their own: and can they help fearing for themselves, when they find Abraham betrayed into dissimulation by unbelief; Moses speaking unadvisedly with his lips; Job cursing the day of his birth; Solomon playing the fool; and Peter acting the coward? The events of life also enlarge their self-acquaintance. Who knows what he is till he is tried, and till he meets with his own trial? For every one is not discovered in the same way: and as Joab adhered to David in the rebellion of Absalom, yet turned aside after Adonijah; so we may be firm in one peril, and fail in another. Afflictions are frequently called temptations, because they try and prove us: and where is the Christian who, in consequence of these experiments, has not been led, if not to question the reality of his religion, to mourn over the deficiencies of it? Thus fresh and painful secrets are constantly coming to light; and the knowledge of their depravity, which they could not have borne at once, is produced by little and little. "And where," says the Christian, often appalled, "where will the mystery end? Who can understand his errors? Who can say, I have made my heart clean, I am pure from my sin?" Thus he often seems worse, because he is wiser. There is not more in him of unbelief, and impatience, and vain thought; but he sees and feels more of them