SERMON XXXIII.

The Appearance of Samuel to Saul at En-dor.

I SAM. XXViii. 15, 16.

And Samuel said to Saul, Why hast thou disquieted me, to bring me up? And Saul answered, I am sore distressed; for the Philistines make war against me, and God is departed from me, and answereth me no more, neither by prophets, nor by dreams: therefore I have called thee, that thou mayest make known unto me what I shall do. Then said Samuel, Wherefore then dost thou ask of me, seeing the Lord is departed from thee, and is become thine enemy?

THIS chapter contains a most remarkable passage of sacred story: melancholy indeed it is, but entertaining withal, and, when considered in all its views, highly instructive. King Saul is here introduced, not in his glory and splendor, as when first called to the throne of Israel, but in his decline of life, and his most deplorable circumstances, which his many and grievous transgressions had brought him into. Vengeance, which had long hovered and waited, now advanced with large and quick strides, and his fate drew on apace. He perceived it, and was very sensibly affected with it. One cannot express, nor indeed conceive, the pains and agonies he must then have felt in his mind. He had abandoned God for some time, and he was now sadly sensible that God had abandoned him: yet he had a great desire to consult him once again, and to obtain a kind answer from him in his day of dis

tress. He put on the outward garb of a devotee, while his heart was still hard as ever, and his mind not changed. His present fears, rather than any thing of true penitence, roused him up, and made him have recourse to God; prepared at the same time, if God should not answer, to make his next resort to a sorceress, and by her to come at Samuel's ghost.

But first he applies to God. The Philistines bore hard upon him at that time with a formidable army, and so near to him that there was but a valley between them and him; whereupon he was greatly distressed. In such pressing exigency, he attempted every method he could think of (by dream, or by Urim, or by prophecy) to obtain some instructive answer from God: but God would not hear him, nor take the least notice of him, knowing him still to be the same wicked man as before; afflicted indeed, but not more humble; sorrowful, but not penitent, nor at all changed in the inward man.

Saul, thus finding himself repulsed and rejected, like a distracted man resolved to struggle with his fate to the utmost, and to run any lengths of madness. Though God had deserted him, yet he was weak enough to imagine that Samuel however (that is, the ghost of Samuel; for he had been dead about four years before) might be prevailed upon to listen to him, and to return him a kind answer. But in order to come at Samuel, he repairs to a sorceress, a woman of En-dor, skilled in magic art, and famed for conjuring up ghosts (as the world believed) by her sorceries or enchantments. It is not material here to inquire into the mysteries of that art, or whether it ever hath, or can perform so much as it pretends to. It is sufficient that fame so reported of that woman, and Saul believed it; and the woman, trusting to her art, undertook the thing: but God himself, as it seems, interposed, and both conducted and governed the whole transaction. There hath been great variety of sentiments among the learned, and very different accounts have been given, of this famed adventure.

I. I will therefore endeavour to settle what I take to have been the truth of the case. And,

II. Proceed to the practical use and application of it.

I.

Some have thought that there was nothing more in it than trick and legerdemain, whereby a cunning woman imposed upon Saul's credulity; making him believe that she saw an apparition, when she really saw none; at the same time contriving that a voice should be heard speaking unto Saul in such manner, and in such words, as are related in that chapter.

But this opinion is highly improbable. For if the woman had the sole conducting of that affair, intending only to impose upon Saul, she would most undoubtedly have contrived to make the pretended Samuel's answer as agreeable and pleasing to the king as possible, and that for her own sake especially; for fear of offending Saul, and to save her own life, as well as to procure from him the larger gratuity. She would never have told him, (she durst not have told him,) that he himself should be shortly slain, and his sons with him, and that the host of Israel should be delivered into the hand of the Philistines; as we read verse the 19th. Indeed, the whole turn of Samuel's speech, in this chapter, is too rough and ungrateful, too grave and solemn, I may add also, too full of truth and reality, to have been owing only to her contrivance or invention.

For it must be observed farther, that what was here spoken as from Samuel was really prophetic, and was punctually fulfilled a few days after. Here were things foretold, which neither the woman herself, nor even her familiar spirit could certainly have foreseen. None but God himself could have revealed the secret. And how unlikely is it that God should make use of this sorceress as a prophetess, and should give her the honour of revealing his counsels; at the same time concurring with her in the imposition put upon Saul, making him believe that

Samuel appeared and talked, when there was no Samuel there.

For these reasons, we may presume to think and judge, that the matter here related was not all a mere juggle or contrivance of an artful woman, but something more. There was most certainly an apparition in the case, either of Samuel's ghost, or of some other spirit personating Samuel. And here again critics are much divided, which to choose. Upon considering this matter very carefully, with the reasons offered on both sides, I incline to think that Samuel really appeared, that is, Samuel's ghost; not by any power of enchantment, but by God's direction and appointment, for a rebuke to Saul, and in the way of punishment to him for his great presumption in doing what he did. For the message, thus brought him, was exceeding rough and severe, greatly added to the load of his misfortunes, and enhanced the weight of his troubles. The reasons for this interpretation are as follow.

1. This method of proceeding is very conformable to what God had been pleased to do before, in other cases of like nature. As when King Balak had recourse to sorceries and divinations, in hopes to procure some relief or fair promises at least from them, God himself interposed, and so overruled Balaam, and all his divinations, that King Balak could obtain no favourable answer from them, but quite the reverse a.

In like manner, when King Ahaziah had sent to consult Baalzebub, the demon of Ekron, to know whether he should recover of the sickness he then lay under, hoping, no doubt, to obtain a favourable answer there, as probably he might have done; God himself took care to anticipate the answer by Elijah the Prophet, who assured the messengers, meeting them by the way, that their master Ahaziah should not recover, but should surely die b.

Thus probably was it in the case of Saul: when he b 2 Kings i.

Numb. xxiii.

was in hopes of a kind answer from Samuel, and, it is likely, would have had a very favourable one from some pretended Samuel, some demon in his shape, if the wretched woman could have raised such a one by her sorceries ; God was pleased to disappoint both the sorceress and him, by sending the true Samuel with a true and faithful message, and quite contrary to what the woman or Saul had expected; which so confounded and disordered him, that he instantly fell down into a swoon, and could no longer bear up against the bitter agonies of his mind.

2. This interpretation is plain and natural, and least forced of any, agreeing well with the words of the text. The story is here told in such a way as one would expect to find, upon the supposition it really was Samuel. It is said, that "the woman saw Samuel, she cried out," &c.c and that "Saul perceived that it was Samueld." How could he perceive it, if it was not so? Or why is it said, that he perceived it, rather than that he imagined, or supposed so? In the sequel of the narrative, it is added, " Samuel said "unto Saule;" and again, "Then said Samuel f;" which would not be true, if it were only a personated Samuel, a familiar in Samuel's shape: and it is strange that the text should thus word it, if Samuel were not really there. It is as plainly said here, that Samuel appeared and talked 8, as it is elsewhere said that Moses and Elias appeared and talked with our blessed Saviour h. So that if we consider the letter of the text, and the most obvious and natural construction of it, (which we should not depart from without the greatest necessity,) we shall be obliged to confess, that the apparition was really Samuel, and no other.

3. This construction is very ancient, the most ancient of any; and seems indeed to have been the general persuasion of the Jewish church, long before the coming of Christ.

The author of the Book of Ecclesiasticus lived about

< 1 Sam. xxviii. 12. f Verse 16.

d Verse 14.

• Verse 15.

* Ver. 12, 14, 15, 16.

h Matt. xvii. 3.