of mind under all his trials; but he committed himself to God in prayer, and looked for deliverance from him alone '\
Thus, however great and complicated our trials be, we should take no hasty step', but " commit ourselves to God as a faith- ful Creator '^," and expect assuredly the final accomplishment of all his promises^ ]
^ The 57th Psalm was written on this very occasion. See the title, and ver, 1 — 6. In ver. G. he seems to refer to the very event in our text : Saul came to destroy David, and inadvertently exposed him- self to be destroyed by David.
i Isai. xxviii. 16. ^ 1 Pet. iv. 19. ' Ps. xxxvii. 5, 6.
1 Sam. XXV. 32, 33. And David said to Abigail, Blessed he the Lord God of Israel, which sent thee this day to meet me : and Messed he thy advice, and Messed he thou, ivhich hast kept me this day from coming to shed blood, and from avenging myself tvith mine own hand.
THE fidelity of the sacred historians is observable in every part of the divine records. A partial friend, or a person w^ho was unduly concerned about the honour of religion, would have cast a veil over the facts which are contained in this chapter. They are, it must be confessed, extremely humiliating, and constrain us to exclaim, " Lord, what is man ! " In the general we behold " the man after God's heart" acting with a holy consistency, and meriting the character of a most exalted saint : but here we see him rushing to commit the most horrid iniquities, and restrained only by the special intervention of God's providence.
In contemplating the history before us, we shall see,
I. What evils men would commit if left to them- selves—
We wonder not at the churlishness of Nabal : such
characters are common; men, who, in point of temper,
.are " such sons of Belial, that a man cannot even
speak to them^;" and whose every act constrains you
to associate with their names the idea of folly ^ They
a ver. 17. ^ ver. 25.