2. Again, You see the Holy Ghost here could not mention David without terms of honour : 'David, after he had served the will of God in his gene- ration,' &c. Precious to God is both the Hfe and death ^of his saints, Ps. cxvi. 15. The righteous shall be had in everlasting remembrance, Ps. cxii. 6. The name of Josias is as an ointment poured out. So indeed the names of holy men are as ointment poured out ; they sweeten men when they are gone. David's body was buried among them ; but David had a better tomb. He was buried in the best monument : in the hearts and remembrance of God's people, and in the remembrance of God. God wraps him up as a valiant man in his own colours. He mentions not David barely here, but his serving the will of God.
Let wicked men cast what aspersions they will upon the names of God's people, let them eclipse them and cloud them as they please, as their
490 KING David's epitaph.
malice instigates them therein, the names and reputations of God's people are not in their keeping and power. For David shall have a good name, in spite of all the Doegs and Shimeis, when they are rotten, body and name together. We see here, many hundred years after, he is mentioned with titles of honour. It should encourage us, therefore, to serve God as we regard a good name.
Mark here tlie lamjuaije of the llohj Ghost, the laiujuaije of Canaan. When he speaks of a good man, he speaks of him in favoured terms. He doth not say that David, after he had been so long, or lived so long, or reigned and flourished so long, as we see in stories, such a man lived or reigned, &c., so long, and then died; yet this had been true ; after he had lived and reigned so long, he died. But that is not the language of the Holy Ghost ; but after he had ' served God ' so long. The Scripture values men by that that God values them, and not as men do, by their life, and reign, and flourishing in the world, and their esteem with men, but as his carriage hath been to God. David ' served the will of God ' in his generation.
And then, when he speaks of his death, ' he fell asleep ; ' he sweetens the harsh name of death with a sweet term the Scripture puts upon it. It is a comfortable thing to consider the very language of the Scripture ; how savoury and heavenly it is, raising us up to comfortal)le and heavenly thoughts, even from the very manner of the phrase. Ditterent, as I said, is the phrase of Scripture from other histories, that say, such a man lived and reigned so long, and then he died. And indeed a man may say of a wicked man, he was so long in the world ; but if be did no good, a man can scarce say that he lived ; for what is life without doing good but a mere being in the world ? Or if his life be ill, we may say such a man troubled the world so many years, and then went to his own place, as it is said of Judas, Acts i. 25. But this is the epitaph of a hol}'^ man. He served God so long, and then he slept and had happiness of God: another manner of epitaph than other men have when they are gone. This I observe from the very language or phrase. ' David, when he had served the will, or counsel, of God,' as the word is [a).
3. Again, In the third place, observe this in general, that God sets down David here only as he ivas a good man, and jjasseth hij all his injiiinities and breaches, whereas, alas ! David's life was woven with good and ill. There were some ill spots in that excellent garment ; there were some ill parentheses made in that excellent speech ; there was somewhat, by the infirmity of man, that was not so good. But doth God speak of that when he mentions David ? Oh no. But David, after he had served God in his generation, &c. The Spirit of God in St Paul passeth by all that was amiss, and sets down that which is good, to shew us this comfortable point, that God values those that are in Christ (and have repented of their sins), not by what they hare been or have done at sotne time, but by ichat they are, and ichat they resolve to be.
God values them by their better part ; by that that is his in them, by that that is spiritual in them. He judgeth them by the tenor of their lives, and not by a particular flaw in their lives. This is God's infinite mercy ; when he pardons, he pardons absolutely : he forgets as well as forgives. Therefore the phrase of Scripture runs, ' He will cast our sins behind his back, and cast them into the bottom of the sea, that they shall never rise up in remembrance,' Micah vii. 19. When we have once repented of our sins, they are to him as if they had never been done, they are as things