The Pulpit Commentary — 1 Chronicles — Section 441

belonging to them by which it might ripen. Their life, their home, themselves are all dependent just on mercy, and their hope.~ lie in infinite loving-kindness. .And' it was the same with their fathers before them. To such material and such a history merit cannot find where to attach. V. ITS UNFALTERING APPEAL TO CONSCIOUS INTEGRITY. David disclaims all merit but he claims oonjidently before the all-seeing, the heart-searching One his ow~ "uprightness," i.e. pure motive and sincere zeal. Few things have own~d to more various quality under one face than the profession of zeal for the glory of God. Religious zeal is, no doubt, religious zeal, but nine-tenths of what is named religious zeal is a far different thing. It is the hybrid ecclesiastical zeal. .And ecclesiastical zeal is not merely a thing very inferior always, but often absolutely antagomstio to the ~enuine thing, religious zeal. That David protests his own zeal and heartfelt pleasure m the great work of the temple-building may seem unnecessary, and his object in doing so may seem somewhat obscure. Yet probably all found here is true to nature. First, be could not be wrong in formally dedicating at this time, with expresR rehearsal of it, his own work and his own giving to God. But further, as we shall see, his doing so may have been the suggestion of what he brings next into prominence. That is in reality grafted upon his own enterprise and is best introduced by it. VI. ITS EMPHATIC EXPRESSION OF A DELIGHTED AND UNUSUAL SYMPATHY. Some of the most subtle flattery that the human heart offers to itself, and then most eagerly receives, consists in its very ready assumption of moral and spiritual superiority. 'l'he Pharisee, as portrayed by the master Limner himself of human characters, is never extinct. But in form less gross, in effect more insidious, the essence of the Pharisaic spirit perpetually reappears to some degree or other, and in some form or other. To affect a zeal for the good and the right, an appreciation of them, a sympathy with them far in excess of those of others, is a common foible, ay, a vice of the pseudo-spiritual. Nor are there wanting instances where the spread of knowledge, of presentation of facts, in a word, of legitimate inducement, are suppressed, lest an enthusiasm now confined to one or a very few should become general, and lest an envious distinction should be forfeited, born of singularity alone. Sincerity's death-knell is sounding then most surely. But now, if David recite his own zeal,and appeal to the all-1earching One to seo and try it, he does so in truth to pave the way for delighted and sympathetic celebration of the facts that so many are "like-minded, having the same love, being of one accord, of one mind" (Phil ii. 3). To witness the indications of a right state of heart in others, and to witness them with unaffected joy, mark the life of holy sympathies, and the health of one's own spiritual state. The .Apostle Paul, in hi8 Epistle to the Romans (i. S2), speaks of it as the direst condemnation of certain that they " not only do" things of the worst moral significance (which might possibly be d~ne under the force of ~.trong present temptation), but that they also "have pleasure 1n them that do them. St. Pan! is there stigmatizing certain immoral sympathieH, as marking the depths of deepest degradation. On the other hand, we are prone to slight the value of intense moral sympathiea with goodness. But in fact, the presence of these measures the real strength of a new nature very accurately. And the example of David invites our notice of tbem here. He brings into special prominence the right feeling and the right doing of the people, and utters his own unfeigned joy because of them. VII. ITB APPBOPBUTE AND EARNEST PRAYER. .All will fail if it be not" sanctified by the Word of God and b_v prayer." Feeling, purpose, aspir~tion, an~ the rig~t beginning of doing may yet all fall throui;h. Promise may soon die off, or 1t may die off some- what later. Only it will die off, unless there be given to it from above tbe needed element of :perpetuity. How much there is of the future ?f ourselves, and_ of those unspeakably dear to us, which we relegate to the mere domain of hope, flattermg, fond, frail, false hope/ We do so often with mistaken humility, under t~e impr~ssion that we can do nothing else for the future, that we must not allow excessive an_x1ety about it, that "Sufficient to the day is the evil thereof." But we are then forgetting the force of prayer, and that it is largely of its nature and privilege to "reac~ a hand through time to catch . . . a far-off interest." David offers prayer, and the right prayer. Had his nation but lived by that prayer, their grandeur would have survived, an unparalleled grandeur, to this day. Notice, therefore, in the prayer : 1. How David makes ~his the one burden of it-that the thing of right present appearance and of happy promise may  cu. llll, 1-30.] THE FIRST BOOK OF THE CHRONICLES.