" constrained by love," we must endeavour to " persuade them by the terrors of the Lord."
God declared to his people of old, that, if they would not serve him with joyfulness and gladness of heart for the abun- dance of all things which he had so liberally bestowed upon them, they should endure all the curses denounced in his law''. With how much greater force does this threatening come to us, if we neglect to praise him for the infinitely greater benefits he has conferred on us ! We ourselves feel indignant if great and acknowledged virtues be despised, or eminent favours be disregarded. And shall God ever look with complacency on those who are blind to his excellencies, and insensible of his mercies? Whatever we may imagine to the contrary, none shall ever join the choir above, whose hearts have not been timed to sing God's praise below.]
<J Deut. xxviii. 45, 47.
Ps. xxxiv. 6. This poor man cried ; and the Lord heard him, and saved him out of all his troubles.
IT is of great advantage to have transmitted to us the experience of God's saints ; because in them we see exhibited, as it were, before our eyes, what we ourselves are authorized to expect. David, in this psalm, records his deliverance from the hands of Achish, king of Gath ; who, there was every reason to fear, would have either put him to death or delivered him into the hands of Saul, if God had not mercifully interposed to prevent it. As for the means which David had recourse to, in order to deceive Achish, I am not prepared either to justify or condemn them^ To feign himself mad before Achish, was doubtless a very humiliating measure. But, whether it was strictly correct or not, God was pleased to make use of it for the deliverance of his faithful servant from the danger to which, by fleeing to Gath, he had ex- posed himself: and David, in this psalm, commemo- rates this gracious interposition, and records it for the benefit of the Church in all future ages.
Let us consider the text,
a 1 Sam. xxi. 13 — 15.