_SAMUEL'S VINDICATION OF HIMSELF._
1 SAMUEL xii. 1-5.
It was a different audience that Samuel had to address at Gilgal from
either that which came to him to Ramah to ask for a king, or that which
assembled at Mizpeh to elect one. To both of these assemblies he had
solemnly conveyed his warning against the act of distrust in God implied
in their wishing for a king at all, and against any disposition they
might feel, when they got a king, to pay less attention than before to
God's will and covenant. The present audience represented the army,
undoubtedly a great multitude, that had gone forth with Saul to relieve
Jabesh-Gilead, and that now came with Samuel to Gilgal to renew the
kingdom. As the audience now seems to have been larger, so it very
probably represented more fully the whole of the twelve tribes of
Israel. This may explain to us why Samuel not only returned to the
subject on which he had spoken so earnestly before, but enlarged on it
at greater length, and appealed with more fulness to his own past life
as giving weight to the counsels which he pressed upon them. Besides
this, the recognition of Saul as king at Gilgal was more formal, more
hearty, and more unanimous than at Mizpeh, and the institution of
royalty was now more an established and settled affair. No doubt, too,
Samuel felt that, after the victory at Jabesh-Gilead, he had the people
in a much more impressible condition than they had been in before; and
while their minds were thus so open to impression, it was his duty to
urge on them to the very uttermost the truths that bore on their most
vital well-being.
The address of Samuel on this occasion bore on three things: 1 his own
personal relations to them in the past (vers. 1-5); 2 the mode of God's
dealing with their fathers, and its bearing on the step now taken (vers.
6-12); and 3 the way in which God's judgments might be averted and His
favour and friendship secured to the nation in all time coming (vers.
13-25).
1. The reason why Samuel makes such explicit reference to his past life
and such a strong appeal to the people as to its blameless character is,
that he may establish a powerful claim for the favourable consideration
of the advice which he is about to give them. The value of an advice no
doubt depends simply on its own intrinsic excellence, but the _effect_
of an advice depends partly on other things; it depends, to a great
extent, on the disposition of people to think favourably of the person
by whom the advice is given. If you have reason to suspect an adviser of
a selfish purpose, if you know him to be a man who can plausibly
represent that the course which he urges will be a great benefit to you,
while in reality he has no real regard for any interest but his own,
then, let him argue as he pleases, you do not allow yourselves to be
moved by anything he may say. But if you have good cause to know that he
is a disinterested man, if he has never shown himself to be selfish, but
uniformly devoted to the interests of others, and especially of
yourselves, you feel that what such a man urges comes home to you with
extraordinary weight. Now, the great object of Samuel in his reference
to his past life was to bring the weight of this consideration to bear
in favour of the advice he was to give to the people. For he could
appeal to them with the greatest confidence as to his absolute
disinterestedness. He could show that, with ever so many opportunities
of acting a selfish part, no man could accuse him of having ever been
guilty of crooked conduct in all his relations to the people. He could
establish from their own mouths the position that he was as thoroughly
devoted to the interests of the nation as any man could be. And
therefore he called on them to give their most favourable and their most
earnest attention to the advice which he was about to press on them, the
more so that he was most profoundly convinced that the very existence of
the nation in days to come depended on its being complied with.
The first consideration he urged was, that he had listened to their
voice in making them a king. He had not obstructed nor baulked them in
their strong feeling, though he might reasonably enough have done so. He
had felt the proposal keenly as a reflection on himself, but he had
waived that objection and gone on. He had regarded it as a slur on the
Almighty, but the Almighty Himself had been pleased to forgive it, and
he had transacted with Him on their behalf in the same way as before.
Nothing that he had done in this matter could have an unfriendly aspect
put on it. He had made the best of an objectionable proposal; and now
they had not only got their wish, but along with it, objectionable
though it was, a measure of the sanction of God. "And now, behold, the
king walketh before you."
In the next place, Samuel adverts to his age. "I am old and grey-headed;
and, behold, my sons are with you, and I have walked before you from my
childhood unto this day." You have had abundant opportunities to know
me, and my manner of life. You know how I began, and you know how I have
gone on, till now the circle of my years is nearly completed; a new
generation has grown up; my sons are your contemporaries; I am old and
grey-headed. You know how my childhood was spent in God's house in
Shiloh, how God called me to be His prophet, and how I have gone on in
that exalted office, trying ever to be faithful to Him that called me.
What Samuel delicately points to here is the uniformity of his life. He
had not begun on one line, then changed to another. He had not seesawed
nor zigzagged, one thing at one time, another at another; but from
infancy to grey hairs he had kept steadfastly to the same course, he had
ever served the same Master. Such steadiness and uniformity throughout a
long life genders a wonderful weight of character. The man that has
borne an honoured name through all the changes and temptations of life,
through youth and middle age, and even to hoar hairs, that has served
all that time under the same banner and never brought discredit on it,
has earned a title to no ordinary esteem. It is this that forms the true
glory of old age. Men instinctively pay honour to the hoary head when it
represents a career of uniform and consistent integrity; and Christian
men honour it all the more when it represents a lifetime of Christian
activity and self-denial. Examine the ground of this reverence, and you
will find it to be this: such a mature and consistent character could
never have been attained but for many a struggle, in early life, of duty
against inclination, and many a victory of the higher principle over
the lower, till at length the habit of well-doing was so established,
that further struggles were hardly ever needed. Men think of him as one
who has silently but steadily yielded up the baser desires of his nature
all through his life to give effect to the higher and the nobler. They
think of him as one who has sought all through life to give that honour
to the will of God in which possibly they have felt themselves sadly
deficient, and to encourage among their fellow-men, at much cost of
self-denial, those ways of life which inflict no damage on our nature
and bring a serene peace and satisfaction. Of such a mode of life,
Samuel was an admirable representative. Men of that stamp are the true
nobles of a community. Loyal to God and faithful to man; denying
themselves and labouring to diffuse the spirit of all true happiness and
prosperity; visiting the fatherless and the widows in their affliction,
and keeping themselves unspotted by the world--happy the community whose
quiver is full of them! Happy the Church, happy the country, that
abounds in such worthies!--men, as Thomas Carlyle said of his peasant
Christian father, of whom one should be prouder in one's pedigree than
of dukes or kings, for what is the glory of mere rank or accidental
station compared to the glory of Godlike qualities, and of a character
which reflects the image of God Himself?
The third point to which Samuel adverts is his freedom from all acts of
unjust exaction or oppression, and from all those corrupt practices in
the administration of justice which were so common in Eastern countries.
"Behold, here I am; witness against me before the Lord and before His
anointed; whose ox have I taken? or whose ass have I taken? or whom
have I defrauded? whom have I oppressed? or of whose hand have I
received any bribe to blind mine eyes therewith? and I will restore it
to you." It was no small matter to be able to make this challenge, which
is as fearless in tone as it is comprehensive in range, in the very
midst of such a sea of corruption as the neighbouring kingdoms of the
East presented. It would seem as if, down to this day, the people in
most of these despotic countries had never known any other _regime_ but
one of unjust exaction and oppression. We have seen, in an earlier
chapter of this book, how shamefully the very priests abused the
privilege of their sacred office to appropriate to themselves the
offerings of God. In the days of our Lord and John the Baptist, what was
it that rendered "the publicans" so odious but that their exactions went
beyond the limits of justice and decency alike? Even to this day, the
same system prevails as corrupt as ever. I have heard from an excellent
American missionary a tale of a court of justice that came within his
experience, even at a conspicuous place like Beirut, that shows that
without bribery it is hardly possible to get a decision on the proper
side. A claim had been made to a piece of land which he had purchased
for his mission, and as he refused to pay what on the very face of it
was obviously unjust, he was summoned before the magistrate. The delays
that took place in dealing with the case were alike needless and
vexatious, but the explanation came in a message from the authorities,
slily conveyed to him, that the wheels of justice would move much faster
if they were duly oiled with a little American gold. To such a proposal
he would not listen for a moment, and it was only by threatening an
exposure before the higher powers that the decision was at last given
where really there was not the shadow of a claim against him. From the
same source I got an illustration of the exactions that are made to this
day in the payment of taxes. The law provides that of the produce of the
land one tenth shall belong to the Government for the public service.
There is an officer whose duty it is to examine the produce of every
farm, and carry off the share that the Government are entitled to. The
farmer is not allowed to do anything with his produce till this officer
has obtained the Government share. After harvest the farmers of a
district will send word to the officer that their produce is ready, and
invite him to come and take his tenth. The officer will return word that
he is very busy, and will not be able to come for a month. The delay of
a month would entail incalculable loss and inconvenience on the farmers.
They know the situation well; and they send a deputation of their number
to say that if he will only come at once, they are willing to give him
two tenths instead of one, the second tenth being for his own use. But
this too they are assured that he cannot do. And there is nothing for
them but to remain with him higgling and bargaining, till at last
perhaps, in utter despair, they promise him a proportion which will
leave no more than the half available for themselves.
And these are not exceptional instances--they are the common experiences
of Eastern countries, at least in the Turkish empire. When such
dishonest practices prevail on every side, it often happens that even
good men are carried away with them, and seem to imagine that, being
universal, it is necessary for them to fall in with them too. It was a
rare thing that Samuel was able to do to look round on that vast
assembly and demand whether one act of that kind had ever been
committed by him, whether he had ever deviated even an hairbreadth from
the rule of strict integrity and absolute honesty in all his dealings
with them. Observe that Samuel was not like one of many, banded together
to be true and upright, and supporting each other by mutual example and
encouragement in that course. As far as appears, he was alone, like the
seraph Abdiel, "faithful found among the faithless, faithful only he."
What a regard he must have had for the law and authority of God! How
rigidly he must have trained himself in public as in private life to
make the will of God the one rule of his actions! What was it to him
that slight peccadilloes would be thought nothing of by the public? What
was it to him that men would have counted it only natural that of the
money that passed through his hands a little should stick to his
fingers, provided he was faithful in the main? What was it to him that
this good man and that good man were in the way of doing it, so that,
after all, he would be no worse than they? All such considerations would
have been absolutely tossed aside. "Get thee behind me, Satan," would
have been his answer to all such proposals. Unbending integrity,
absolute honesty, unswerving truth, was his rule on every occasion. "How
can I do this wickedness," would have been his question--"How can I do
this great wickedness, _and sin against God_?"
Is there nothing here for us to ponder in these days of intense
competition in business and questionable methods of securing gain?
Surely the rule of unbending integrity, absolute honesty, and unswerving
truth is as binding on the Christian merchant as it was on the Hebrew
judge. Is the Christian merchant entitled to make use of the plea of
general corruption around him in business any more than Samuel was?
Some say, How else are we to make a living? We answer, No man is
entitled even to make a living on terms which shut him out from using
the Lord's Prayer,--from saying, "Give us this day our daily bread." Who
would dare to say that bread obtained by dishonesty or deceit is
God-given bread? Who could ask God to bless any enterprise or
transaction which had not truth and honesty for its foundation? Better
let bread perish than get it by unlawful means. For "man doth not live
by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of
God." "The blessing of the Lord, it maketh rich, and He addeth no sorrow
with it." Instead of Christian men accepting the questionable ways of
the world for pushing business, let them stand out as those who never
can demean themselves by anything so unprincipled. No doubt Samuel was a
poor man, though he might have been rich had he followed the example of
heathen rulers. But who does not honour him in his poverty, with his
incorruptible integrity and most scrupulous truthfulness, as no man
would or could have honoured him had he accumulated the wealth of a
Cardinal Wolsey and lived in splendour rivalling royalty itself? After
all, it is the true rule, "Seek first the kingdom of God and His
righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you."
But ere we pass from the contemplation of Samuel's character, it is
right that we should very specially take note of the root of this
remarkable integrity and truthfulness of his toward men. For we live in
times when it is often alleged that religion and morality have no vital
connection with each other, and that there may be found an "independent
morality" altogether separate from religious profession. Let it be
granted that this divorce from morality may be true of religions of an
external character, where Divine service is supposed to consist of
ritual observances and bodily attitudes and attendances, performed in
strict accordance with a very rigid rule. Wherever such performances are
looked on as the end of religion, they may be utterly dissociated from
morality, and one may be, at one and the same time, strictly religious
and glaringly immoral. Nay, further, where religion is held to be in the
main the acceptance of a system of doctrine, where the reception of the
doctrines of grace is regarded as the distinguishing mark of the
Christian, and fidelity to these doctrines the most important duty of
discipleship, you may again have a religion dissociated from moral life.
You may find men who glory in the doctrine of justification by faith and
look with infinite pity on those who are vainly seeking to be accepted
by their works, and who deem themselves very safe from punishment
because of the doctrine they hold, but who have no right sense of the
intrinsic evil of sin, and who are neither honest, nor truthful, nor
worthy of trust in the common relations of life. But wherever religion
is spiritual and penetrating, wherever sin is seen in its true
character, wherever men feel the curse and pollution of sin in their
hearts and lives, another spirit rules. The great desire now is to be
delivered from sin, not merely in its punishment, but in its pollution
and power. The end of religion is to establish a gracious relation
through Jesus Christ between the sinner and God, whereby not only shall
God's favour be restored, but the soul shall be renewed after God's
image, and the rule of life shall be to do all in the name of the Lord
Jesus. Now we say, You cannot have such a religion without moral
reformation. And, on the other hand, you cannot rely on moral
reformation being accomplished without a religion like this. But alas!
the love of sinful things is very deeply grained in the fallen nature of
man.
Godlessness and selfishness are frightfully powerful in unregenerate
hearts. The will of God is a terrible rule of life to the natural man--a
rule against which he rebels as unreasonable, impracticable, terrible.
How then are men brought to pay supreme and constant regard to that
will? How was Samuel brought to do this, and how are men led to do it
now? In both cases, it is through the influence of gracious, Divine
love. Samuel was a member of a nation that God had chosen as His own,
that God had redeemed from bondage, that God dwelt among, protected,
restored, guided, and blessed beyond all example. The heart of Samuel
was moved by God's goodness to the nation. More than that, Samuel
personally had been the object of God's redeeming love; and though the
hundred-and-third Psalm was not yet written, he could doubtless say,
"Bless the Lord, O my soul, and all that is within me, bless His holy
name. Who forgiveth all thine iniquities, who healeth all thy diseases,
who redeemeth thy life from destruction, who crowneth thee with
loving-kindness and tender mercies, who satisfieth thy mouth with good
things, so that thy youth is renewed like the eagle's." It is the same
gracious Divine action, the same experience of redeeming grace and
mercy, that under the Christian dispensation draws men's hearts to the
will of God; only a new light has been thrown on these Divine qualities
by the Cross of Christ. The forgiving grace and love of God have been
placed in a new setting, and when it is felt that God spared not His own
Son, but delivered Him up for us all, a new sense of His infinite
kindness takes possession of the soul. Little truly does any one know of
religion, in the true sense of the term, who has not got this view of
God in Christ, and has not felt his obligations to the Son of God, who
loved him and gave Himself for him. And when this experience comes to be
known, it becomes the delight of the soul to do the will of God. "For
the grace of God that bringeth salvation hath appeared unto all men,
teaching us that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live
soberly, righteously, and godly in this present world; looking for that
blessed hope and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour
Jesus Christ, who gave Himself for us that He might redeem us from all
iniquity, and purify to Himself a peculiar people, zealous of good
works."