3. Those who are far advanced in hfe —
[Say whether Barzillai's conduct do not well become you ? You feel infirmities ; you know that in the course of nature you have but a short time to live : let earthly things then be regarded by you with indifference, and heavenly things increasingly occupy your minds. Famiharize yourselves with the thoughts of death and judgment; and " press forward" with ever-increasing alacrity to secure " the prize of your high calling."
At every period of life, but especially in old age, should we pray with David, " Lord, make me to know my end, and the measure of my days, what it is ; that I may know how frail I am^:" " So teach me to number my days, that I may apply my heart unto wisdom^."]
e Ps. xxxix. 4. f Ps. xc. 12.
2 Sam. xxi. I. Then there was a famine in the days of David three years, year after year ; and David inquired of the Lord. And the Lord ansivered. It is for Saul, and for his bloody house, because he slew the Gibeo7iites.
THE reign of David was full of troubles occa- sioned by his own sin: but here we view him and his people afflicted for the sins of others. Saul, his predecessor in the government, had grievously op- pressed the Gibeonites, whom Joshua, at his first entrance into Canaan, had pledged the nation, by covenant and by oath, to protect. This breach of covenant God overlooked, as it were, at the time, but now punished by three successive years of famine.
The history teaches us,
L In what light we should view public calamities —
[The Scripture uniformly represents them as punishments inflicted on account of sin. Personal troubles may be sent for the purpose of calling into action the grace that has been be- stowed, and for the advancing of God's glory in the exercise of that graced But the troubles of a nation are judgments sent
^ This was the case with respect to Job.