spirit of Saul her father, only dreamt of earthly glory, cannot participate in this. Abasement before the Lord was incomprehensible to her. She neither understood nor tasted His glory, or the joy of knowing Him as the heart's sole master. That which belongs to Saul can have no share in David's kingdom, nor can it suffer with a despised and rejected one. In short, it is a king devoted to the Lord and to the people, who secures and communicates blessing to the latter; and not as yet a king in the enjoyment above all of established blessing; which is Solomon's condition. Now, the first of these two conditions appears to me to represent Christ, such as He has always been in principle and in right, and especially such as He will be after the destruction of Antichrist, and before the destruction of those enemies who will still oppose themselves to the establishment of His kingdom in peace. His people, all Israel, will be united under Him. The rod of His strength will go out of Zion, and He will rule in the midst of His enemies (Ps. ex); but it will not yet be the fulfilment of Psalm lxxii, nor of Zech. vi. 12, 13. Compare also Ps. ii., in which Christ is looked upon as the Son of God, born upon earth, and in which His universal rights to the possession of the earth, which flow from this, are set forth, acknowledged by God, and proclaimed to the kings of the earth. In Ps. cx., Christ is seated at the right hand of God, waiting until His enemies are made His footstool. In Ps. viii. He is the Son of Man, and all things are put under Him. Under Solomon, all Israel rejoices in all the good things which the Lord had bestowed upon Solomon, as well as upon David. Here, David in his own person provides that which is necessary to feed the people, and deals to every one "a good piece."q He returns to bless his house, for David has his own house, to which he returns after having blessed

Ps. ii. shows us the King set upon the holy hill of Zion, the Son of God, begotten in time (a truth apart from His relationship as Son, one with the Father before the world was; a doctrine taught in John i., Heb. i., Col. i., and elsewhere), owned as such by the Lord, and the kings of the earth charged to submit to Him. Ps. viii. speaks of Him as the Son of Man, to whom all things are subjected, according to the eternal purposes of God. In Ps. cx..

Israel: it is something nearer to him than Israel, Michal, we have seen, could not really belong to it. David finds it a joyful thing to humble himself before the Lord, and he reproves her. How overwhelming was the reply he made her!

Ardently desiring the Lord's glory, David is troubled at dwelling in a house of cedar, while the Lord dwelt within curtains. He wishes to build Him a house. A good desire, yet one which God could not grant. The work of building the temple belonged to the Prince of Peace. As suffering and conquering, David represented Christ, and consequently, not as enjoying the earthly kingdom by undisputed right, and opening to all nations the gates of the temple in which the Lord of Righteousness was to be worshipped. He returns then, so to say, into his own personal position, in which God blessed him in a very peculiar manner. David was more than a type; he was truly the stock of that family from which Christ Himself should spring. This is taught in the beautiful seventh chapter. An elect vessel to maintain the cause of the Lord's people in suffering, and to re-establish among them the glory of the Lord's name (8, 9), the Lord had been with him; and David-most especially honoured in this-was also, in his faithfulness, a vessel of promise of the future peace and prosperity destined for Israel in the counsels of God. But these were yet future things. The perpetuity of the kingdom over Israel is established in his family, which God will chasten if needful, but not cut off. His son shall build the house. At the time of the Exodus, the man in whom was the Spirit, desired to prepare an habitation for the Lord.

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The following are the chief subjects of the revelation made to David, and of his reply:-The sovereign call of God; that which God had done for David; the certainty

He who had been despised and rejected, being seated at the right hand of God, is to rule in the midst of His enemies.

Compare Ps. xxiv. and cii. In the first, He is acknowledged as the Lord of Hosts, the King of glory, after having conquered His enemies; in the second, as the Creator Himself.

r Exodus xv. 2. But the Messiah was needed for this. Till then Israel was a wanderer and God with him.

of future rest for Israel; the establishment, on God's part, of David's house; his son shall be the Son of God, shall build the house; the throne of his son shall be established for ever.

David's first thought—and it is always so when the Spirit of God works-was not to rejoice, but to bless God. These are the striking features of the prayer of thankfulness: he is in peace and freedom before God; he goes in and sits before Him; he acknowledges at the same time his own nothingness, and how unworthy he was of all that God had already done. Yet this was but a small thing in the sight of God, who had declared to him the future glories of his house. It was God, and not the manner of man. What could he say more? God knew him; there lay his confidence and his joy. He acknowledged that God did it in truth and "of His own heart." It was grace to make His servant know it. The effect of all this was to make David recognise the Lord's excellency. There was none beside Him, and none upon earth to be compared to His elect people, whom He went to redeem for a people to Himself, and whom he had now confirmed to Himself, that Israel might be His people for ever, and that He Himself might be their God. The highest kind of prayer is that which does not spring from a sense of need, but from the desires and the intelligence which the revelation of God's purposes produces-purposes which He will fulfil in love to His people and for the glory of Christ. Finally, he asks that his house may be the place of God's own blessing. In a word, he desires that the purposes of God, which had awakened all his affections, may be accomplished by the Lord Himself, who had revealed them unto His servant.

Being entirely delivered from the insurrections of the people, David exercises his power in bringing his enemies into subjection. The Philistines who dwelt within the land of Israel are subjugated. Metheg-Amma signifies, "bridle of the capital." David held the key of power. Moab is subdued and made tributary. At length the outward enemies, the Syrians, also, are either conquered or submit themselves. The Edomites become David's servants, and the Lord preserves David whithersoever he

goes. In all this, we have again the man of faith and the type of the Lord Jesus, King in Zion, who is victorious over the enemies of Israel, and puts Israel in possession of the promised land (Gen. xv. 18), as far as the Euphrates. He dedicates the spoil to the Lord. He reigns over all Israel, and executes judgment and justice unto all his people. The companions of his pilgrimage participate in the glory of his kingdom, a type in all this of the kingdom of Christ.

He acts in grace also towards the humbled remnant of Saul's house; and, if Mephibosheth is not associated with the glory of his kingdom, he enjoys the privilege of the king's table, who shews him kindness, although Mephibosheth belongs to the family of his enemy and persecutor, but at the same time to that little remnant which favoured the king whom God had chosen; being, on that account, hated itself by those in power. He enjoys also the whole of his family's inheritance. This touching and beautiful testimony to David's kindness and faithfulness through grace, appears to me to give us a picture of Christ's relations to the remnant of Israel, or at least that of the spirit of these relations. It was "the kindness of God" which sought out the family of Saul, the enemy of David's crown, and which rests upon the representative of Jonathan, whose history we have read, and who typifies those that will attach themselves to Christ in prospect of the kingdom, to which their thoughts are limited. The remnant enjoys the effect of the establishment of the kingdom, but does not rank among those that surround the throne after having shared the sufferings of the despised and rejected king.

Chapter x., the details of which we pass over, sets before us the general principle of the king's rule in Zion. When grace is despised by those to whom it is manifested, the king's judgment follows. Opposition and rebellion only serve to establish his authority in the very place where resistance is attempted. It is useless to strive against the power of God's chosen king.

The history of David and the wife of Uriah follows. David is no longer acting by faith, in God's service. When the time comes at which kings go forth to war,

he stays at home, at his ease, and sends others in his place to fight the Lord's battles. At ease and in indolence, he falls readily into sin, as was the case when he sought for rest among the Philistines. He was no longer standing by faith.

The nearer David was to God, the more ineffectual were his attempts to conceal his sin. Given up to himself for the time, in chastisement, he adds a second transgression to the first; he completes it, and enjoys its fruit, now that the removal of every obstacle gives a semblance of lawfulness to his course. What a sad history! What unworthiness! He forgets his position as king, and a king from God. Was it reigning in righteousness to take advantage of his royal power to oppress Uriah. He makes himself a slave to this wretched Joab by rendering him accessory to his crime. How degrading! How much happier was he, when, though hunted like a partridge in the mountains, he had a living faith and a good conscience! But, who can shun the eye of God? Accordingly, God who knows and loves him, fails not to visit his sin. This was a very great sin. David committed it in secret; God punishes it in the sight of all Israel. If David knew not how to glorify God, nor—while reigning in his name- -to maintain a true testimony as to the nature of God's kingdom; if he had, on the contrary, falsified its character, God Himself will know how, in the sight of all men, to retrace its features, through the chastisement He will send upon the man who has thus dishonoured Him, and who had taken away the only witness to His government which God had set up before men.

This history shows us how far sin can blind the heart, even while the moral judgment continues sound; it shows also the power of the faithful word of God. God manifests at the same time the sovereignty of His grace; for although He chastened David by the child's death, it is Bath-sheba's second son who was the elect of God, who became king, and the head of the royal family, the man of peace and blessing, the beloved of the Lord. David submits himself under the hand of God, his heart bows under it in the depth of its affections. He understands