'Now these be the last words of David. David the son of Jesse said, and
the man who was raised up on high, the anointed of the God of Jacob,
and the sweet psalmist of Israel, said, 2. The Spirit of the Lord spake
by me, and His word was in my tongue. 3. The God of Israel said, the
Rock of Israel spake to me, He that ruleth over men must be just,
ruling in the fear of God. 4. And he shall be as the light of the
morning, when the sun riseth, even a morning without clouds; as the
tender grass springing out of the earth by clear shining after rain. 5.
Although my house be not so with God; yet He hath made with me an
everlasting covenant, ordered in all things, and sure: for this is all
my salvation, and all my desire, although He make it not to grow. 6.
But the sons of Belial shall be all of them as thorns thrust away,
because they cannot be taken with hands: 7. But the man that shall
touch them must be fenced with iron and the staff of a spear; and they
shall be utterly burned with fire in the same place.'--2 SAMUEL xxiii,
1-7.
It was fitting that 'the last words of David' should be a prophecy of
the true King, whom his own failures and sins, no less than his
consecration and victories, had taught him to expect. His dying eyes
see on the horizon of the far-off future the form of Him who is to be a
just and perfect Ruler, before the brightness of whose presence and the
refreshing of whose influence, verdure and beauty shall clothe the
world. As the shades gather round the dying monarch, the radiant glory
to come brightens. He departs in peace, having seen the salvation from
afar, and stretched out longing hands of greeting toward it. Then his
harp is silent, as if the rapture which thrilled the trembling strings
had snapped them.
1. We have first a prelude extending to the middle of verse 3. In it
there is first a fourfold designation of the personality of the
Psalmist-prophet, and then a fourfold designation of the divine oracle
spoken through him. The word rendered in verse 1 'saith' is really a
noun, and usually employed with 'the Lord' following, as in the
familiar phrase 'saith the Lord.' It is used, as here, with the
genitive of the human recipient, in Balaam's prophecy, on which this is
evidently modelled. It distinctly claims a divine source for the oracle
following, and declares, at the outset, that these last words of David
were really the faithful sayings of Jehovah. The human and divine
elements are smelted together. Note the description of the human
personality. First, the natural 'David the son of Jesse,' like 'Balaam
the son of Beor' in the earlier oracle. The aged king looks back with
adoring thankfulness to his early days and humble birth, as if he were
saying, 'Unto me, who am less than the least of all saints, is this
grace given, that I should proclaim the coming King.' Then follow three
clauses descriptive of what 'the son of Jesse' had been made by the
grace of God, in that he had been raised on high from his low condition
of a shepherd boy, and anointed as ruler, not only by Samuel and the
people, but by the God of their great ancestor, whose career had
presented so many points of resemblance to his own, the God who still
wrought among the nation which bore the patriarch's name, as He had
wrought of old; and that, besides his royalty, he had been taught to
sing the sweet songs which already were the heritage of the nation.
This last designation shows what David counted God's chief gift to
him,--not his crown, but his harp. It further shows that he regarded
his psalms as divinely inspired, and it proves that already they had
become the property of the nation. This first verse heightens the
importance of the subsequent oracle by dwelling on the claims of the
recipient of the revelation to be heard and heeded.
Similarly, the fourfold designation of the divine source has the same
purpose, and corresponds with the four clauses of verse 1, 'The Spirit
of the Lord spake in [or "into"] me.' That gives the Psalmist's
consciousness that in his prophecy he was but the recipient of a
message. It wonderfully describes the penetrating power of that inward
voice which clearly came to him from without, and as clearly spoke to
him within. Words could not more plainly declare the prophetic
consciousness of the distinction between himself and the Voice which he
heard in the depths of his spirit. It spoke in him before he spoke his
lyric prophecy. 'His word was upon my tongue.' There we have the
utterance succeeding the inward voice, and the guarantee that the
Psalmist's word was a true transcript of the inward voice. 'The God of
Israel said,' and therefore Israel is concerned in the divine word,
which is not of private reference, but meant for all. 'The Rock of
Israel spake,' and therefore Israel may trust the Word, which rests on
His immutable faithfulness and eternal being.
II. The divine oracle thus solemnly introduced and guaranteed must be
worthy of such a prelude. Abruptly, and in clauses without verbs, the
picture of the righteous Ruler is divinely flashed before the seer's
inward eye. The broken construction may perhaps indicate that he is
describing what he beholds in vision. There is no need for any
supplement such as 'There shall be,' which, however true in meaning,
mars the vividness of the presentation of the Ruler to the prophet's
sight. David sees him painted on the else blank wall of the future.
When and where the realisation may be he knows not. What are the
majestic outlines? A universal sovereign over collective humanity,
righteous and God-fearing. In the same manner as he described the
vision of the King, David goes on, as a man on some height telling what
he saw to the people below, and paints the blessed issues of the King's
coming.
It had been night before He came,--the night of ignorance, sorrow, and
sin,--but His coming is like one of these glorious Eastern sunrises
without a cloud, when everything laughs in the early beams, and, with
tropical swiftness, the tender herbage bursts from the ground, as born
from the dazzling brightness and the fertilising rain. So all things
shall rejoice in the reign of the King, and humanity be productive,
under His glad and quickening influences, of growths of beauty and
fruitfulness impossible to it without these.
The abrupt form of the prophecy has led some interpreters to construe
it as, 'When a king over men is righteous... then it is as a morning,'
etc. But surely such a platitude is not worthy of being David's last
word, nor did it need divine inspiration to disclose to him that a just
king is a great blessing. The only worthy meaning is that which sees
here, in words so solemnly marked as a special revelation closing the
life of David, 'the vision of the future and all the wonder that should
be,' when a real Person should thus reign over men. The explanation
that we have here simply the ideal of the collective Davidic monarchy
is a lame attempt to escape from the recognition of prophecy properly
so called. It is the work of poetry to paint ideals, of prophecy to
foretell, with God's authority, their realisation. The picture here is
too radiant to be realised in any mere human king, and, as a matter of
fact, never was so in any of David's successors, or in the whole of
them put together. It either swings _in vacuo,_ a dream unrealised, or
it is a distinct prophecy from God of the reign of the coming Messiah,
of whom David and all his sons, as anointed kings, were living
prophecies. 'The Messianic idea entered on a new stage of development
with the monarchy, and that not as if the history stimulated men's
imaginations, but that God used the history as a means of further
revelation by His prophetic Spirit.
III. The difficult verse 5, whether its first and last clauses be taken
interrogatively or negatively, in its central part bases the assurance
of the coming of the king on God's covenant (2 Samuel vii.), which is
glorified as being everlasting, provided with all requisites for its
realisation, and therefore 'sure,' or perhaps 'preserved,' as if
guarded by God's inviolable sanctity and faithfulness. The fulfilment
of the dying saint's hopes depends on God's truth. Whatever sense might
say, or doubt whisper, he silences them by gazing on that great Word.
So we all have to do. If we found our hopes and forecasts on it, we can
go down to the grave calmly, though they be not fulfilled, sure that
'no good thing can fail us of all that He hath spoken.' Living or
dying, faith and hope must stay themselves on God's word. Happy they
whose closing eyes see the form of the King, and whose last thoughts
are of God's faithful promise! Happy they whose forecasts of the
future, nearer or more remote, are shaped by His word! Happy they who,
in the triumphant energy of such a faith, can with dying lips proclaim
that His promises overlap, and contain, all their salvation and all
their desire!
If we read the first and last clauses negatively, with Revised Version
and others, they, as it were, surround the kernel of clear-eyed faith,
in the middle of the verse, with a husk, not of doubt, but of
consciousness how far the present is from fulfilling the great promise.
The poor dying king looks back on the scandals of his later reign, on
his own sin, on his children's lust, rebellion, and tragic deaths, and
feels how far from the ideal he and they have been. He sees little
token of growth toward realisation of that promise; but yet in spite of
a stained past and a wintry present, he holds fast his confidence. That
is the true temper of faith, which calls things that are not as though
they were, and is hindered by no sense of unworthiness nor by any
discouragements born of sense, from grasping with full assurance the
promise of God. But the consensus of the most careful expositors
inclines to take both clauses as questions, and then the meaning would
be, 'Does not my house stand in such a relation to God that the
righteous king will spring from it? It is, in this view, a triumphant
question, expressing the strongest assurance, and the next clause would
then lay bare the foundation of that relation of David's house as not
its goodness, but God's covenant ('_for_ He hath made'). Similarly the
last clause would be a triumphant question of certainty, asserting in
the strongest manner that God would cause that future salvation for the
world, which was wrapped up in the coming of the king, and in which the
dying man was sure that he should somehow have a share, dead though he
were, to blossom and grow, though he had to die as in the winter,
before the buds began to swell. The assurance of immortality, and of a
share in all the blessings to come, bursts from the lips that are so
soon to be silent.
IV. But the oracle cannot end with painting only blessings as flowing
from the king's reign. If he is to rule in righteousness and the fear
of the Lord, then he must fight against evil. If his coming causes the
tender grass to spring, it will quicken ugly growths too. The former
representation is only half the truth; and the threatening of
destruction for the evil is as much a part of the divine oracle as the
other. Strictly, it is 'wickedness'--the abstract quality rather than
the concrete persons who embody it--which is spoken of. May we recall
the old distinction that God loves the sinner while He hates the sin?
The picture is vivid. The wicked--and all the enemies of this King are
wicked, in the prophet's view--are like some of these thorn-brakes,
that cannot be laid hold of, even to root them out, but need to be
attacked with sharp pruning-hooks on long shafts, or burned where they
grow. There is a destructive side to the coming of the King, shadowed
in every prophecy of him, and brought emphatically to prominence in his
own descriptions of his reign and its final issues. It is a poor
kindness to suppress that side of the truth. Thorns as well as tender
grass spring up in the quickening beams; and the best commentary on the
solemn words which close David's closing song is the saying of the King
himself: 'In the time of the harvest I will say to the reapers, Gather
up first the tares, and bind them in bundles to burn them.'
THE ROYAL JUBILEE [Footnote: Preached on the occasion of Queen
Victoria's Diamond Jubilee.]
'... He that ruleth over men must be just, ruling in the fear of God.
4. And he shall be as the light of the morning, when the sun riseth,
even a morning without clouds; as the tender grass springing out of the
earth, by clear shining after rain.'--2 SAMUEL xxiii. 3, 4.
One of the Psalms ascribed to David sounds like the resolves of a new
monarch on his accession. In it the Psalmist draws the ideal of a king,
and says such things as, 'I will behave myself wisely, in a perfect
way. I will set no wicked thing before mine eyes. I hate the work of
them that turn aside. Mine eyes shall be upon the faithful of the land,
that they may dwell with me.' That psalm we may regard as the first
words of the king when, after long, weary years, the promise of
Samuel's anointing was fulfilled, and he sat on the throne.
My text comes from what purports to be the last words of the same king.
He looks back, and again the ideal of a monarch rises before him. The
psalm, for it is a psalm, though it is not in the Psalter, is
compressed to the verge of obscurity; and there may be many questions
raised about its translation and its bearing. These do not need to
occupy us now, but the words which I have selected for my text may,
perhaps, best be represented to an English reader in some such sentence
as this--'If (or when) one rules over men justly, ruling in the fear of
God, then it shall be as the light of the morning when the sun riseth,
even a morning without clouds.' With such a monarch all the interests
of his people will prosper. His reign will be like the radiant dawn of
a cloudless day, and his land like the spring pastures when the fresh,
green grass is wooed out of the baked earth by the combined influence
of rain and sunshine. David's little kingdom was surrounded by giant
empires, in which brute force, wielded by despotic will, ground men
down, or squandered their lives recklessly. But the King of Israel had
learned, partly by the experience of his own reign, and partly by
divine inspiration, that such rulers are not true types of a monarch
after God's own heart. This ideal king is neither a warrior nor a
despot. Two qualities mark him, Justice and Godliness. Pharaoh and his
like, oppressors, were as the lightning which blasts and scorches. The
true king was to be as the sunshine that vitalises and gladdens. 'He
shall come down like rain upon the mown grass, and as showers that
water the earth.'
We do not need to ask the question here, though it might be very
relevant on another occasion, whether this portraiture is a mere ideal,
floating _in vacuo,_ or whether it is a direct prophecy of that
expected Messianic king who was to realise the divine ideal of
sovereignty. At all events we know that, in its highest and deepest
significance, the picture of my text has lived and breathed human
breath, in Jesus Christ, who both in His character and in His influence
on the world, fulfilled the ideal that floated before the eyes of the
aged king.
I do not need to follow the course of thought in this psalm any
farther. You will have anticipated my motive for selecting this text
now. It seems to me to gather up, in vivid and picturesque form, the
thoughts and feelings which to-day are thrilling through an Empire, to
which the most extended dominion of these warrior kings of old was but
a speck. On such an occasion as this I need not make any apology, I am
sure, for diverging from the ordinary topics of pulpit address, and
associating ourselves with the many millions who to-day are giving
thanks for Queen Victoria.
My text suggests two lines along which the course of our thoughts may
run. The one is the personal character of this ideal monarch; the other
is its effects on his subjects.
I. Now, with regard to the former, the pulpit is, in my judgment, not
the place either for the discussion of current events or the
pronouncing of personal eulogiums. But I shall not be wandering beyond
my legitimate province, if I venture to try to gather into a few words
the reasons, in the character and public life of our Queen, for the
thankfulness of this day. Our text brings out, as I have said, two
great qualities as those on which a throne is to be established,
Justice and Godliness. Now, the ancient type of monarch was the
fountain of justice, in a very direct sense; inasmuch as it was his
office, not only to pronounce sentence on criminals, but to give
decisions on disputed questions of right. These functions have long
ceased to be exercised by our monarchs, but there is still room for
both of those qualities--the Justice which holds an even balance
between parties and strifes, the Righteousness which has supreme regard
to the primary duties that press alike upon prince and pauper, and the
Godliness which, as I believe, is the root from which all
righteousness, as between man and man, and as between prince and
subject, must ever flow. Morality is the garb of religion; religion is
the root of morality. He, and only he, will hold an even balance and
discharge his obligations to man, whose life is rooted in, and his acts
under the continual influence of, the fear of God which has in it no
torment, but is the parent of all things good.
We shall not be flatterers if we thankfully recognise in our Sovereign
Lady the presence of both these qualities. I have spoken of the first
inaugural words of the King of Israel, and the resolutions that he
made. It is recorded that when, to the child of eleven years of age,
the announcement was made that she stood near in the line of succession
to the throne, the tremulous young lips answered, 'It is a great
responsibility; but I will be good.' And all round the world to-day her
subjects attest that the aged monarch has kept the little maiden's vow.
Contrast that life with the lives of the other women who have sat on
the throne of England. Think of the brilliant Queen, whose glories our
greatest poets were not ashamed to sing, with the Tudor masterfulness
in her, and not a little of the Tudor grossness and passion, and
remember the blots that stained her glories. Think of her sister, the
morbidly melancholy tool of priests, who goes down the ages branded
with an epithet only too sadly earned. Think of another woman that
ruled over England in name, the weak instrument of base intrigues. And
then turn to this life which we are looking upon to-day. Think of the
nameless scandals, the hideous immorality of the reigns that preceded
hers, and you will not wonder that every decent man and every modest
woman was thankful that, with the young girl, there came a breath of
purer air into the foul atmosphere. I am old enough to remember
hearing, as a boy, the talk of my elders as to the probabilities of
insurrection if, instead of our Queen, there had come to the throne the
brother of her two predecessors. The hopes of those early days have
been more than fulfilled.
It is not for us to determine the religious character of others, and
that is too sacred a region for us to enter; but this we may say, that
in all these sixty years of diversified trial, there has been no act
known to us outsiders inconsistent with the highest motive, the fear of
the Lord; and some of us who have worshipped in the humble Highland
church where she has bowed have felt that on the throne of Britain sat
a Christian.
Nor need we forget how, from that root of fear of God, there has come
that wondrous patience and faithfulness to duty, the form of 'Justice'
which is possible for a constitutional monarch. We have little notion
of how pressing and numerous and continual the royal duties must
necessarily be. They have been discharged, even when the blow that
struck all sunshine out of life left an irrepressible shrinking from
pageantry and pomp. Joys come; joys go. Duties abide, and they have
been done.
Nor can we forget, either, how the very difficult position of a
constitutional monarch, with the semblance of power and the reality of
narrow restrictions, has been filled. Our Sovereign has never set
herself against the will of the people, expressed by its legitimate
representatives, even when that will may have imposed upon her the
sanction of changes which she did not approve. And that is much to say.
We have seen young despots whose self-will has threatened to wreck a
nation's prosperity.
Nor can we forget how all the immense influence of position and
personality has been thrown on the side of purity and righteousness.
Even we outsiders know how, more than once or twice, she has
steadfastly set her face against the admission to her presence of men
and women of evil repute, and has in effect repeated David's
proclamation against vice and immorality at his accession: 'He that
worketh wickedness shall not dwell within my house.'
Nor must we forget, either, the simplicity, the beauty, the tenderness
of her wedded and family life, her love of rural quiet, and of
wholesome communion with Nature, and her eagerness to take her people
into her confidence, as set forth in the book which, whatever its
literary merits, speaks of her earnest appreciation of Nature and her
wish for the sympathy of her subjects.
Then came the bolt from the blue, that sudden crash that wrecked the
happiness of a life. Many of us, I have no doubt, remember that dreary
December Sunday morning when, while the nation was standing in
expectation of another calamity from across the Atlantic, there flashed
through the land the news of the Prince's death; thrilling all hearts,
and bringing all nearer to her, the lonely widow, than they had ever
been in her days of radiant happiness. How pathetically, silently,
nobly, devoutly, that sorrow has been borne, it is not for us to speak.
She has become one of the great company of sad and lonely hearts, and
in her sadness has shown an eager desire to send messages of sympathy
to all whom she could reach, who were in like darkness and sorrow.
Brethren, I have ventured to diverge so far from the ordinary run of
pulpit ministrations because I feel that to-day all of us, whatever may
be our political or ecclesiastical relationships and proclivities, are
one in thanking God for the monarch whose life has been without a
stain, and her reign without a blot.
II. Now let me say a word as to the other line of thought which my text
suggests, the effect of such a reign on the condition of the subject.
Now, of course, in the narrowly limited domain of that strange
creation, a constitutional monarchy, there is far less opportunity for
the Sovereign's direct influence on the Subject than there was in the
ancient kingdoms of which David was thinking in his psalm. The
marvellous progress of Britain during these sixty years is due, not to
our Sovereign, but to a multitude of strenuous workers and earnest
thinkers in a hundred different departments, as well as to the
evolution of the gifts that come down to us from our ancient
inheritance of freedom. But we shall much mistake if, for that reason,
we set aside the monarch's character and influence as of no account in
the progress,
A supposition, which is a violent one, may be made which will set this
matter in clearer light. Suppose that during these sixty years we had
had a king on the throne of England like some of the kings we have had.
The sentiment of loyalty is not now of such a character as that it will
survive a vicious sovereign. If we had had such a monarch as I have
hinted at, the loyalty of the good would for all these years have been
suffering a severe strain, and the forces that make for evil would have
been disastrously strengthened. Dangers escaped are unnoticed, but one
twelvemonth of the reign of a profligate would shake the foundations of
the monarchy, and would open the floodgates of vice; and we should then
know how much the nation owed to the Queen whose life was pure, and who
cast all her influence on the side of 'things that are lovely and of
good report.'
Take another supposition. Suppose that during these years of wonderful
transition, when the whole aspect of English politics and society has
been transformed, we had had a king like George III., who set his
opinion against the nation's will constitutionally expressed. Then no
man knows with what storm and tumult, with what strife and injury, the
inevitable transition would have been effected. Be sure of this, that
the wise self-effacement of our Sovereign during these critical years
of change is largely the reason why they have been years of peace, in
which the new has mingled itself with the old without revolution or
disturbance. It is due to her in a very large degree that
'Freedom broadens slowly down
From precedent to precedent.'
I need not dilate on the changed Britain that she looks out upon and
rules to-day. I need not speak--there will be many voices to do that,
in not altogether agreeable notes, for there will be a dash of too much
self-complacency in them--about progress in material wealth, colonial
expansion, the increase of education, the gentler manners, the new life
that has been breathed over art and literature, the achievements in
science and philosophy, the drawing together of classes, the bridging
over of the great gulf between rich and poor by some incipient and
tentative attempts at sympathy and brotherhood.
Nor need I dwell upon the ecclesiastical signs of the times, in which,
mingled as they are, there is at least this one great good, that never
since the early days have so large a proportion of Christian men been
'seeking after the things that make for peace,' and realising the
oneness of all believers who hold the Headship of Christ.
All this review falls more properly into other hands than mine. Only I
would put in a caution--do not let us mingle self-conceit with our
congratulations; and, above all, do not let us 'rest and be thankful.'
There is much to be done yet. Listening ears can catch on every side
vague sounds that tell of unrest and of the stirrings into wakefulness
of
'The spirit of the years to come,
Yearning to mix itself with life.'
I seem to hear all around me the rushing in the dark of a mighty
current that is bearing down upon us. Great social questions are
rapidly coming to the front--the questions of distribution of wealth,
abolition of privilege, the relations of labour and capital, and many
others are clamant to be dealt with at least, if not solved. There Is
much to be done before Jesus Christ is throned as King of England. War
has to be frowned down; the brotherhood of man has to be realised,
temperance has to be much more largely practised than it is.
I need not go over the catalogue of _desiderata,_ of _agenda_--things
that have to be done--in the near future. Only this I would
say--Christian men and women are the last people who should be ready to
'rest and be thankful,' for the principles of the Gospel that we
profess, which have never been applied to the life of nations as they
ought to be, will solve the questions which make the despair of so many
in this generation. We shall best express our thankfulness for these
past sixty years by each of us taking our part in the great movement
which, in the inevitable drift of things to democracy, is going to
'cast the kingdom old into another mould,' and which will, I pray, make
our people more of what John Milton long ago called them, 'God's
Englishmen.' We have taught the nations many things. Our Parliament is
called the Mother of Parliaments. Ours is
'The land where, girt with friends or foes,
A man may say the thing he will.'
It has taught the nations a tempered freedom, and that a monarchy may
be a true republic. May we rise to the height of our privileges and
responsibilities, and teach our subject peoples, not only mechanics,
science, law, free trade, but a loftier morality, and the name of Him
by whom kings reign and princes decree justice!
We, members of the free Churches of England, come seldom under the
notice of royalty, and have little acquaintance with courts, but we
yield to none in our recognition of the virtues and in our sympathy
with the sorrows of the Sovereign Lady, the good woman, who rules these
lands, and we all heartily thank God for her to-day, and pray that for
long years still to come the familiar letters V.R. may stand, as they
have stood to two generations, as the symbol of womanly purity and of
the faithful discharge of queenly duty.