in the exercise of all holy duties, and heavenly af- fections. At no period of his life was grace more in exercise within him, as appears from the spirit which he manifested under his afflictions. To exhibit this spirit in its true colours, and to make a suitable im- provement of it for our own souls, is the scope and object of our present discourse.
I. Mark his spirit and conduct under his afflictions —
To two points in particular the text calls our at- tention :
1. His reverence for God —
[David ha\ing suddenly fled from Jerusalem in order to escape from the sword of Absalom, Zadok and the Levites brought forth the ark to David, that he might be able in this emergency to consult it. But David ordered Zadok to carry it back : for, though nothing in the world was so desirable to him as the presence of God, he regarded this measure as highly inexpedient.
It was unautliorized ; and therefore wrong. That sacred symbol of the Deity was not to be moved about according to the wishes or conceits of men. In the wilderness it had never moved, but as the piUar and the cloud, in which the Deity resided, led the way. And to dispose of it in this manner, without any direction from God, was such an act of impious presumption as he dared not to commit. He well remembered the rebuke which he himself had met with, when, vdth the best intentions, he had moved the ark without attending to the forms prescribed by God himself; suffering it to be drawn in a cart by oxen, instead of carrying it on the shoulders of the Levites: for the smiting of Uzzah was a testimony of God's displeasure against him for his inattention, no less than against Uzzah himself for his presumption^. He remembered too the judgments inflicted on above fifty thousand men of Bethshemesh for daring to look into the ark^: and therefore he trembled at the thought of acting towards it wdth irre- verence or indiscretion.
It was also unnecessary. He knew by experience that God's presence was not confined to the ark ; but that he was accessible to his people at all times, and in all places. Often had he, when driven out from Jerusalem by Saul, made known his requests in prayer to God, and obtained from him the most gracious answers : and therefore he doubted not but that God would still continue to him his gracious communications in the
^ 1 Chron. xv. 13. "^ 1 Sam. vi. 19.