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sheep and ye shall be his servants. And ye shall cry out in that day, because of your king which ye shall have chosen you; and the Lord will not hear you in that day.'

The conditions of regal power thus described are, and always have been, so familiar to the oriental mind, that we know not anything which gives to ourselves a stronger and more distinct idea of the immunities and peculiar privileges which the Israelites practically enjoyed, than the fact that the prophet knew the condition in which they lived to be so different from that which he described, as not to be without hope that the picture which he drew might have some effect in changing their purpose, especially when they were also aware that the course they were taking was not regarded with favour by their Divine King. In this reasonable expectation the prophet was disappointed. They had, it seems, counted the cost, and were willing to pay it; or rather, the love of change blinded their eyes, and they thought that the advantages which they imagined themselves to perceive in the kingly government, especially as to their standing among the nations, would more than counterbalance the disadvantages the prophet set before them. Their answer therefore was: 'Nay: but we WILL have a king over us, that we also may be like all the nations: and that our king may judge us, and go out before us to fight our battles.'

On this, Samuel sorrowfully dismissed them to their homes, that he might have time to take the necessary measures for effecting this great change. But although the people thus, with criminal disregard of their rights as men, and their privileges as the Lord's peculiar people, declared their willingness to bend their necks to the yoke of regal despotism-instead of waiting until the Lord should arrange the matter for them in unison with their rights and his own laws-it was not the wish of the prophet to leave them to all the consequences of their infatuation. With wise and noble patriotism, it was henceforth his solicitude, while accomplishing their wishes, to save them as far as possible from the consequences they declared themselves willing to incur. And if, in the result, we find the Hebrew monarchy less absolute than it generally has been among

eastern nations-if the people retained possession of more of their natural and social rights than in other eastern kingdoms -and if the strong exertion of kingly power was in after ages resented by them as a wrong, instead of being recognised as a just prerogative, it is entirely owing to the sagacious care and forethought of Samuel, acting under divine direction, in securing from utter destruction at the outset, the liberties which the people so wilfully cast into the fire. In fact, the more deeply we contemplate the character of Samuel, the more its greatness grows upon us, and the more distinctly we recognise the most truly illustrious character in Hebrew history since Moses.

There is a sentiment running through the foregoing remarks of Dr Kitto which seems to me to be not merely wrong in itself, but exceedingly dangerous in its theological and philosophical tendencies. One paragraph especially strikes me as appearing at least to embody grave error in regard to God's providence. Referring to the demand of the Israelites for a king, it is said, 'From the indications furnished, we may venture to think, that had the matter been left, as it should have been, entirely in the Lord's hands, the monarchical government would still have been established, and that David would have been the first king. How, we know not, but the crown was eventually secured to him through greater difficulties than needed to have occurred, had not the monarchy been prematurely established. Then, again, in supposing a possible way of bringing this about, it is said, ‘And as this would have been in accordance with the purposes of God, David would have become king,' etc.

These singular remarks seem to imply that the divine plan for the temporal government of the Jewish nation was deranged by human acts; or, in other words, that the Almighty had, in his infinite wisdom, laid down a definite course of action to be carried out in the after history of the Jewish nation, but that, by the premature demand for a king, this course was broken in upon, and that then a new and imperfect, or less perfect, arrangement had to be made by the divine Ruler. The same idea manifestly pervades the other sections of this day's reading.

It is an exceedingly delicate thing to speculate in any way on such a subject as this. The connection of the divine foreknowledge, involving, as it must do, fore-ordination, with human action,

the bearing of God's eternal decrees upon the freedom of man's will, and upon his responsibility for all his acts, is one of those profound problems which the creature, in his present state of imperfection, can never fully fathom. Yet there are general principles, certain and eternal, which must ever control and regulate our theories and speculations. These, in my opinion, have been here overlooked by Dr Kitto.

It is a fundamental truth, that God, being omniscient-the present, the past, and the future being alike to Him-did foresee and foreknow all things that would take place: all physical changes in the universe; all actions, good or bad, voluntary or involuntary, in the whole history of mankind; and all thoughts and dispositions of the human mind. Nothing, therefore, did or could arise in human history new to Him, or unprovided for in the scheme of his providence. Again, it is a fundamental truth, that God is the Author and Supreme Ruler of the universe both of matter and mind. The laws which regulate it are his. They are under the control of his supreme and sovereign will, and they extend to and embrace within their sphere every event or change which takes place. Consequently nothing can ever arise, whether in the physical or spiritual world, whether as the result of material or moral convulsion, to derange the divine plan of government, or to call forth, as it were, a new arrangement of providential dealing. Further, it is a fundamental truth, that God, in the full and sovereign exercise of his infinite wisdom and power, so directs and controls the acts of free agents, as, on the one hand, not to coerce the nature of the agent so as to destroy or interfere with his accountability; and yet, on the other hand, infallibly to determine all things in accordance with his eternal purpose and decree. The way in which this is done we cannot explain. Like many another problem in the natural and spiritual world, it is beyond the limits of thought. But that it is done we know; and we further know, that it is done in a way consistent alike with the divine perfections and the moral constitution of the creature. Consequently, to speculate about what God would have done, or how He would have conducted his providential government, had man acted differently from what he did, is to speculate about an impossibility. To speak also of an act or event in the history of the past not having been left in God's hands, or having been prematurely brought about by human agency, seems to involve a limitation of divine power, and a virtual denial of God's absolute and universal government.

Thirtieth Week-Fourth Day.

TALLNESS.-I SAMUEL IX. 2.

IF, as we have ventured to infer from facts and circumstances, it was the divine plan that a monarchy should be established in Israel, and that it was in any case to be established in the person and family of David; and if, as we also suppose, this intermediate action of the people did not retard or hasten the accomplishment of that design for one hour, it follows that the king whom God gave in his anger had the function merely of filling up the interval to the time appointed for the son of Jesse to take the throne. Under these circumstances, it was necessary that the king to be appointed should, on the one hand, possess such qualities as would recommend him to the choice and admiration of the people; and that, on the other hand, his career should manifest such dispositions as would gradually alienate from him their respect and confidence, and lead them so to repent of the step they had taken, that they would acquiesce with pleasure in his dynasty being eventually set aside for that of David. This was precisely the case with Saul, the first king of Israel; and the view we have taken completely meets the doubt which some have ventured to express, whether the Lord did really concur in the appointment of Saul, seeing that He, to whom all hearts and dispositions are open, must have known from the first how unfit Saul was to reign. But the Scripture distinctly states, that the Lord did concur in the selection of this particular man; and, according to our view, the unfitness which his career at length developed, and which disqualified him from establishing a permanent dynasty upon the throne of Israel, constituted, in conjunction with his apparent qualifications, his peculiar fitness.

This person was Saul the son of Kish, a man of some consideration in the tribe of Benjamin, for he is described as 'a mighty man of power,' from which we must take the correct impression concerning this family; the humble designations

which Saul himself afterwards applied to it being obviously such expressions of formal humility as Orientals are wont to use. Saul himself was a choice young man, and a goodly. There was not among the children of Israel a goodlier person than he. From his shoulders and upward he was higher than any of the people;' by which it would appear that he could not have been much less than seven feet high. Great stress is laid upon this, because this distinguished stature, with the impression of bodily prowess which it conveyed, helped much to recommend him to the choice of the people. When, after

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a long peace, there was no man of distinguished renown among them; and when in battle much less depended upon military skill than upon the bodily prowess of the chief in single combats, or in the partial actions with which most battles commenced, it was natural enough that the people should take pride in the gigantic proportions of their leader, as calculated to strike terror into the enemy, and to inspire confidence into his followers; besides that, it was no mean advantage that the crest of the leader should, from his tallness, be seen from afar by his people. The prevalence of this feeling of regard for personal bulk and stature is seen in the sculptures of ancient

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