above. He now pours forth liis prayers and praises at such intervals as the infirmity of liis nature will admit of; and he soon shall engage in praising God, without infu'mity or inter- ruption, to all eternity.]
David's love to god's ordinances.
Ps. xxvii. 4. One thing have I desired of the Lord, that will I seek after ; that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to hehold the beauty of the Lord, and to inqtiire in his temple.
MOST of the saints recorded in the Holy Scrip- tures were eminent for some particular grace. In Abraham, faith was chiefly conspicuous ; in Job, patience : in Moses, meekness ; in Elijah, faithful- ness and intrepidity. In respect of devotion, David seems to have surpassed all others. Of none have we such ample and minute accounts, in relation to this matter, as we have of him. His public ad- dresses to the Deity, his private communion with him, the inmost recesses of his heart when in his closet or upon his bed, are all laid open to us. On this account the Psalms are pre-eminently useful to all who wish to cultivate a devout spirit, and to maintain a close walk with God. The expression before us may serve as a specimen of the whole. In discoursing upon it, I will,
I. Set before you the example of David —
The one object of his desire was to enjoy the or- dinances of his God —
[David was not of the tribe to which the priesthood exclusively belonged : yet would he gladly have possessed the privilege of the priests, in having his stated residence as near as possible to the tabernacle of his God. But though this could not be, he determined, by the constancy of his attend- ance there, to make it, as it were, his residence and habitation. This indeed was " the one object of his desire;" and in com- parison of it there was nothing in the world that he \\'ished for. To this he made every thing subservient: even the affairs of state were not suffered so to occupy his mind as to divert his attention from the service of the sanctuary. This one object he sought, and " determined to seek it" " to the latest hour of
537.] David's love to god's ordinances. 181
his life." He " sought it of the Lord" too, entreating him so to order and overrule every thing, that he might not be forced away from Jerusalem, or, whilst there, be kept away from the ordinances of his God. If at any time he was, by the efforts of his enemies, prevented from waiting upon God, he mourned over it, and " panted after the return of those blessed seasons, even as the hunted deer panteth after the water-brooks ^" On some occasions, his enemies, knowing how painful to him his absence from the tabernacle was, exulted over him, and said, " Where is now thy God ? " And so distressing to him were these impious taunts, that " tears were his meat night and day on account of them*^," and they were even " as a sword in his bones ''." At those seasons he envied the swallows, that were able to build their nests in the courts of God's house : he envied them, I say, their proximity to the altar of his God*^. Every day that was spent at a distance from that, seemed, as it were, to be lost to his life ; so entirely was his soul wrapped up in the enjoyment of divine ordinances, and in cultivating commu- nion with his God.]
And this desire was founded on the benefit he had derived from them —
[There " he beheld the beauty of the Lord ;" and there " he inquired of the Lord," spreading before him, from day to day, his every want, his every wish. He looked through the various sacrifices that were offered there from day to day, and beheld in them the perfections of his God. En the death of all the victims he saw the desert of sin, and the justice of God, which had denounced death as the punishment of sin. In the acceptance of those sacrifices he saw the goodness and mercy of God, who had appointed such offerings as means of leading the people to that Great Sacrifice, which should in due time be offered for the sins of the whole world. In the sprinklings and ablutions that were practised, he beheld the holiness of God, who would accept no sinner who should not be purged from his iniquities, and be made holy after the divine image. In the whole of the services altogether he saw "mercy and truth met together, and righteousness and peace kissing each other ^."