And for his outward calling. (There is a double calling wherein we * serve' God as Christians, our general and our particular calling, wherein we are to deal with men.) What an excellent man was he ! 'He served the will of God,' as a governor of a family. We see in Ps. ci. 2, how he carried himself in the midst of his house to all his servants. A bar should not abide in his house. You have a direction there how to guide your families. You see how he served the will of God as a governor. Yet there was a fault to him in that respect, he was too indulgent to Absalom and Adoniah. A man may be a good man, and yet be to blame in some particulars ; but when his heart is right, God pardons the rest.
You see how he carried himself as a king. He was an excellent king, the delight of Israel. He carried himself every way as a king should do. He tempered mercy and judgment together : ' I will sing of mercy and judgment,' Ps. ci. 1. So he did in his whole carriage sweetly temper mercy and justice ; he dispensed these two. And as a king must not only ' serve' God, so his care was to establish the worship of God, as you find in the story. David, when he saw all in peace and quiet, then he begins to take care for the ark, 2 Sam. vii. 2 : ' I dwell in a house of cedar ; but the ark of the Lord remains under curtains.' Therefore he took a course for that. So governors should do, when God hath settled them in their government quietly, to begin to think of God's house ; for they rule not well, they ' serve not the will of God,' except, besides their own service, they call others to serve him. A magistrate must be the keeper of both tables himself, and cause others to do it ; he must lay down his crown at the feet of Christ, as it is in Isaiah xlix. 7. Thus David was a nursing father to the church of God ; he served God in his particular calling.
Now, to make use of another division, the will of God it is either in things to be done or to be suffered ; and obedience answerable to that is either active or passive ; as David ' served' God in doing, so he yielded obedience, and ' served the will of God' in his passive obedience ; wherein he did deny himself exceedingly, as much as ever man did, next to Christ. You see how he denied himself in his carriage toward Saul, 1 Sam. xxlv. : in matter of revenge, how he overcame himself, because he knew that revenge was God's, and that God was his, and therefore would right him well enough. And in Shimei, ' God hath bid him rail.' He would not revenge. And other notable examples we have, how he submitted to God's will, as in 1 Sam. xxx. 6, when he was in extremity, he encouraged himself in the Lord his God. There he stayed himself in extremity ; and in 2 Sam. xv. 25, there is a notable place how he submitted himself to God. ' The king said. Carry back the ark of God : if I have found favour in the eyes of God, he will bring me again ; but if God say thus, I have no delight in him, behold here I am, let him do as seems good to him.' Here was a resigna-
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tion of himself to the will of himself- in serving of him. So in Ps. xxxix. 1, ' I held my tongue, Lord, because thou didst it.' Thus you see how he ' served' the will of God, in the inward service of God, and in the outward to God and man; in both callings, as a good man, and a good governor, in his family ; every way he ' served' the will of God.
Use. And wherefore is all this ? Here is a pattern for us that we should serve the will of God : to serve the will of God immediately, to labour to bring our hearts to trust in him ; to fear him above all ; to delight in him above all ; and to express it in our outward service of him, and in doing duties to men from inward respect to God ; in conscience of our duty, to serve God when we serve men : to carry ourselves in our general calling, as Christians, and in our particular place, not only to be good men, but good in our callings ; good students, good law3'ers, &c. Let us shew our religion there, as David did. This is to serve the will of God. That is not religion that is left behind in the church : as Lactantius saith, that is no religion that we leave behind when we come to the church door (/). But that is rehgion when we learn our duty here, and carry it in our breasts to practise it every day in the week ; when we shew it in our places. That is the service of God. There- fore let this holy man be an example to us. Wherefore are these particular things recorded of him in the Scriptures, but that we should transform our- selves to this blessed pattern.