Ver. 8.-The stain of blood. We distinctly read here, as also in the stricter parallel of this place (eh. xxviii. 3), that it was because David had" shed blood abundantly'' had" shed much blood on the earth" in the sight of God, had "made great wars" th;t the word of the Lord came to him, saying, "Thou shalt not build an house 'to my Name." After the death of David we find Solomon-so far as we may go by his language-seeming to put a somewhat different shade of interpretation on the matter. He does not, indeed, say anything different from the truth, or necessarily inconsistent with it; but perhaps moved by a son's filial dutifulness, he purposes to omit those aspects which were the more painful aspects, and grievous to a son's lip to enlarge upon. He says (1 Kings v. 3), "Thou knowest how that David my father could not build an house unto the Name of the Lord his God for the wars which were about him on every side, until the Lord put them under the soles of his feet." '!'his version is also quite consistent with the indications of our compiler (eh, xvii. 1), and with those of 2 Sam. vii. 1. With one fuller, however, and more plain-spoken, from the honest lip of the father himself to his son, not of the son to the outer world, we have here to do. And we are taught- L THAT AS SUliELY AS JUDGMENT IS GoD'S STRANGE WORK, BO SURELY WOULD HE THAT THAT WORST JUDGME1'"T, WAB, AND THE SHEDDING OF FELLOW-MAN'S BLOOD SHOULD BE THE STRANGE WORK OF HIS PEOPLE. If there be times wheµ these be necessary, yet are they intrinsically "strange work,'' and are emphatically by the Divine will to be so regarded. The man who has been but the bare instrument of this kind of thing among his fellow-men on earth, shall not be the man whose hands shall be honoured to rear the temple of God, the Church of love and peace, and of the perfecter brotherhood of humanity. II. THAT THE PREVA.ll.ING BENT on HABIT, OR MERE OCCUPATION OF OUR PREVIOUS LIFE, WILL NOT UNFBEQUENTLY AT SOME CRITIOAL MOMEN'l', AND ONE WHIC'II WE MAY IMAGINE TO BE OF SUPREME IMPORT, DECIDE THE LOT THAT SHALL FALL TO US, OB DE FORFEITED FOR EVEB. Sin may be forgiven, the tyranny of evil habit may be broken, the usurper of the heart's throne may be dethroned, circumstance may have been almost revolutionized; but in hard fact, the things that have been cannot be made as though they had not been, nor shall we be counted as though they had not been. Some stains are very stubborn things. And they are not superstitiously but legitimately regarded such. The stain of blood is notoriously of this description. Two such contrasts as Cain and David attest it. Contrasts violent as the savage sacrifices of heathendom through unnumbered acres and those of revelation illustrate it. But the tremendous d•nnonstration .i,!self may be held to come from the mark, the sprinkling, the efficacy of that blood of which they once cried out, let it "be on us and on our children." On these both the dreadful stain of it, and the infinite virtue of it, have been from time to time, and still are, and shall be. Yet how many impo1tant and solemn illustrations of the same principle there are which shall fall very far short of those that bloodshed 0tfers, David's habit in this sort, nevertheless, our typical warning all the while I The element of doubtfulness in your profession, your business, your tactics, your line ol. well-known conduct awhile, may prove to lie just in this, the irresistible suspicion which they shall inevitably engender in the better part of human nature, in its higher instincts-in a word, in the humaner portion of humanity. That suspicion need be voted no freak of caprice, of superstition, of mock purity. It is a suspicion of the kiud i;afe to incur itself. And it may be distinctly noted that it is incurred: 1. By the unwelcome, unsavoury nature of the actual deeds a.~ked or involved. 'l'hough haply it be necessary that these be done, yet in good men's minds there ehall be a veiled revulsion frum the touch of the hand that is the minister of them. 2. JJy the guaUty ,if cha- ,•..,,cter, which they are plainly calculat(d to beyet or to /osier. One that may betoken on. x:w. 1-l!J.] THE FIRST IlOOK OF TRE CHRONICLES. 859
dispo.ra.gement of thought, of feeling, of human inalienable rights, which should be held ever sacred. 3. By their resolute owning to the endowment of an unavoidable tenacity of life. They have e. name to live, though not. an enviable name. They will make their name to be heard when their doer would heartily wish 1hey had never lived at all. They insist on rea.ppearing, and brighten out to vision at times the most inopportune. Ill. THAT HE WHO NOW REFUSES THE NOBLER SERVICE OF DAVID, THOUGH ACCEPTING THE PURPOSE OF ms HEART, 18 HE SOME OF WHOSE MIGiiTIEST TITLES SOUND OF BATTLE AND VICTORY. The force of the lessons suggested to us by this passage certainly suffer no loss when we note an inconsistency which justifies itself in the very speaking of it. Vengeance, retribution, ultimate punishment, human blood, human life, lie all specially within the one supreme jurisdiction. And though doubtless God devolves the execution of these into the hands of others, the right of them he does not devolve. For David, for kings, for statesmen, for every ma.a, the danger is that he encroach a. hair's breadth upon such a right. Now the Lord of hosts, the God of armies, the mighty Man of war, the Captain, the Avenger, the glorious Victor, is he alone to whom could safely attach the vast trust of hwnan life and destiny, and the prerogative of the unquestioned dispo- sition of them. It is he who, those titles of his own notwithstanding, pronounces the word that David shall not be the honoured builder of the temple, that olden type of the Church. Not because the object was not a good one, not because tbe purpose of David's heart was an impure or mingled one, but because it had fallen so often to David to pour on the ground the life-blood of his fellows which the Church comes to save, there- fore was the prohibition peremptory. Nor is any respite of allowance granted to the indisputable fact, that many of David's wars had been under Divine sanction and by Divine command. Yet is there herein no mystery of Divine sovereignty to be pondered, no inscrutableness of" the things hidden" to be adored. For human feeling, humar. instinct, reason's convictions and calmest utterances justify and approve the verdict.