SERMON XX.

DEATH UNAVOIDABLE.

2 SAMUEL, xiv. 14.

14. For we must needs die, and are as water spilt on the ground, which cannot be gathered up again; neither doth God respect any person: yet doth he devise means, that his banished be not expelled from him.

THE circumstances in which these words were uttered, as well as the remote, but direct cause whence these circumstances flowed, must be considered, in order to see and to feel the weight and importance of the maxims laid down in

the text.

In the eleventh chapter of this book, the inspired writer, 1st. Gives us a very circumstantial account of David's transgression with Bathsheba, the wife of one of his captains, and the criminal means he used to hide his transgression, which, as intended, brought about the death of this brave man. 2. The notice taken of those criminal acts by the God of justice and purity, in chap. xii., and the divine threatening relative to the judgments which God would send, or permit to fall on himself and family, as proofs of the depth of his guilt, and of the high and just displeasure of that sovereign Lord, whose authority he had despised, and whose laws he had broken.

The message of God was sent to David by the prophet Nathan, and was delivered in a few, simple, but dreadfully appalling words. Wherefore hast thou despised the com

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mandment of the Lord, to do evil in His sight? Thou hast killed Uriah the Hittite, with the sword, and hast taken his wife to be thy wife, and hast slain him with the sword of the children of Ammon. Now, therefore, the sword shall never depart from thine house:-I will raise up evil against thee, out of thine own house :-for thou didst it secretly: but I will do this thing before all Israel, and before the sun." See ch. xii. 7-12.

The fearful and appalling effects of David's double crime, and the denounced judgments of the Almighty, we shall soon see fulfilled in the horrible rape of Amnon, on his half-sister; in the fratricide of Absalom, who treacherously murdered the ravisher of Tamar, who was his full sister; the expulsion of the murderer from the favour of his father, and his banishment from the Israelitish court; and subsequently, the rebellion of this wicked brother, and unnatural son, against his own father; the total overthrow of the thoughtless multitude which he had drawn into the vortex of his rebellion; and his own tragical death, when fleeing from the battle in which he was defeated.

On these subjects, too awful and revolting in their nature and circumstances, it would be improper to dwell; to mention them in connexion with the fact on which the text is founded, is quite sufficient: and from them we shall draw this inference only, that while they shew the horrible depravity of the human heart, and the long suffering, just judgment, and unmerited mercy of Jehovah, their detail in the Sacred Writings is an illustrious proof of the truth of those divine records: for who, that intended to deceive, by fabricating a religion which he designed to father on the purity of God, would have in serted such an account of one of its most zealous advocates, and previously its brightest ornament! God alone, whose character is impartiality, has done it, to shew that His religion, the truth of which is demonstrated by its own intrinsic and influential purity and excellence, will ever stand independently of the conduct of its professors.

It was during the time of Absalom's banishment from the Israelitish court, that the transactions mentioned in this chapter took place. Absalom, plotting deep designs of treason and rebellion against his too fond parent, saw that unless he was reinstated in his favour, and brought back to court, he

could not possibly execute them; applied to Joab, the generalissimo of his father's forces, to use his influence with the king, to effect his restoration:-after a great deal of reluctance, evidenced on the part of the general, he at last undertook the negociation. And, that he might appear as little in it as possible, employed a sensible widow of Tekoa, (a little city in the tribe of Judah, about twelve miles from Jerusalem,) to use the prominent features of her own case, and embellish them according to the circumstances of the case which she was instructed by him to represent to the king-in order that he might, without knowing her design, or in the least suspecting her cunning, pronounce a solemn decision, which would, by fair construction, apply to the case of Absalom, and thus oblige David to recal his son from banishment.

Being admitted to the king's presence, she uttered a cry of distress, Help, O king! and being encouraged to open her case, made, in substance, the following statement :—“ I am a desolate widow; and my husband at his death left two sons: these in an unfortunate disagreement quarrelled, and one was slain. My late husband's family rose up and demanded the slayer to be delivered up to them, that he might pay with his life, the life of his brother whom he had slain; as the law had provided that the nearest a-kin to him who was. slain, should avenge his death, by slaying the murderer. This being my

only son, and the sole heir and representative of the family, if he be destroyed, the inheritance is lost, and to my deceased husband, there shall not be either name or posterity left in Israel."

The king, affected with the case, told her that he would give orders to the proper officers to consider her appeal. As, in such a case, delay would be most likely to bring about discovery, and thus defeat the whole design, the widow affecting to be much alarmed for the safety of her remaining son, and seeing that David hesitated to decide, and promise to save the life of her son, supposing that he did so lest the not bringing the offender to the assigned punishment might appear to reflect on the administration of justice in the land;to remove all such scruples from his mind, she very cunningly, and with great address, cried out, "Let the iniquity of rescuing him from the death that I allow he has deserved, be visited on me, and my father's house, and the king and his

throne be guiltless, if this should be found to be a case to which the royal clemency should not have been extended." To pacify her, the king told her, that if the next of kin still continued to urge his claim, founded on the law, to bring him before him, and he would so settle the matter, that he would in future relinquish his claim. The widow, seeing that this would not bring the business to such a bearing that it would issue in the conclusion she wished, affected the greatest alarm, lest the avenger of blood should instantly avail himself of the authority of the law to slay the murderer, prayed the king to issue his mandate to prevent this, and to give her his solemn promise that all proceedings relative to this affair might be stopped.

The king, increasingly affected with the case, and the widow's importunity, instantly pronounced her son's pardon, and confirmed it by a solemn oath-As the Lord liveth, there shall not one hair of thy son fall to the earth!

The widow having now taken all the preliminary steps she had projected, and having arrived at that conclusion with the king that she wished for, thus discloses her purpose, and applies and enforces her request with what is called the argumentum ad hominem, (a mode of reasoning by which a man is pressed with consequences drawn from his own principles or concessions, to admit what his opponent contends for,) which she expands in the following manner :-" Is not the king himself blameable? Does he act a consistent part? He is willing to pardon the meanest of his subjects, the murder of a brother, at the instance of a poor desolate widow; and he is not willing to pardon his son Absalom, whose restoration to favour is the desire of the whole nation! Is that clemency to be refused to the king's son, the hope of the nation and apparent heir to the throne, which is shewed to a private individual, whose death or life can be of consequence only to one family ?"- "Why, therefore, dost not thou recal thy banished child?"—Whatsoever there is done, should be done quickly all must die; God has not exempted any one from this common lot :—though Amnon be dead, the death of Absalom cannot bring him to life, nor repair this loss. Besides, Amnon for his crime justly deserved to die, and thou in his case didst not administer justice. Horrible as this fratricide is, is it not a pardonable case? Was not the crime

of Amnon the most flagitious?—and the offence to Absalom, (the ruin of his beloved sister,) indescribably great? Seeing then that the thing is so, and that Amnon can no more be recalled to life, than water spilt upon the ground can be gathered up again; and that God, whose vicegerent thou art, and whose example of clemency as well as justice, thou art called to imitate, devises means that those who are banished from Him by transgression and sin, may not be finally expelled from His mercy and His kingdom :-remember, then, the Lord thy God, restore thy son to favour; pardon his crime, as thou hast promised to restore my son, and the Lord thy God will be with thee; He will shew thee His mercy, and grant thee His salvation.

That such argumentation was conclusive and successful, need not be stated; Absalom was recalled; but while mercy triumphed, justice had its claims, and was respected: though the legal guilt of his crime was pardoned, he was permitted to return to Jerusalem, and yet his father very properly refused to admit him either to his confidence or presence, till he should have more proof of his humiliation; and therefore he was ordered to go to his own house :-for the king said, let him return to his own house; and let him not see my face, ver. 24.

Though the argument in the text is as elegant as it was well timed, artfully conducted, and successful, yet we must lose sight of it as referring to the case of Absalom, and consider it as containing indisputable maxims applicable to occurrences which are in continual train, and to facts which are universal, and which concern and should interest every human being. In this general way the widow of Tekoa herself uses it :-For we must needs die, and are as water spilt on the ground, which cannot be gathered up again; neither doth God respect any person: yet doth he devise means, that his banished be not expelled from him.

From these assertions I shall,

I. Draw the general conclusion, that death is unavoidable, for the reasons which I shall adduce.

II. That no state or condition of man can exempt him from it.

III. That all men are in a state of exile or banishment from God.