DISCOURSE ON SECOND SAMUEL XIII. 37. By the late GEORGE LAWSON, D.D., Selkirk. FROM the days of the first man who lived in this sinful world, mourning, lamentation and woe, have been the lot of many of our race. Lamentation and bitter weeping have been often heard from parents, mourning over the fruit of their bodies, snatched from them by an untimely death. But few have felt in a higher degree the sorrows of the loss of children than David, although he was one of the holiest men that ever lived. Many days did he mourn for the murder of Amnon, who was the beginning of his strength, the apparent heir of his throne; and he had afterwards reason to lament still more bitterly, the fate of Absalom, by whom Amnon had been killed. It may be useful to us to consider what particular reasons David had to lament the death of Amnon, and the length of time which was given to his sorrows. I. Let us consider what special reasons David had to lament over the unhappy fate of Amnon. If he had died in his bed, of some fatal distemper, David would have mourned for him. Besides the loss of a son, of a first-born and beloved son, he might justly have supposed that his death was a just judgment upon him for his unnatural wickedness. He had pretended to be sick that he might have an opportunity of abusing his father's fondness, and making him the unhappy instrument of an indelible disgrace to his pleasant and dutiful daughter Tamar, and what was greatly worse, of a most detestable crime to Amnon himself. And in the case supposed, the punishment would have been suitable to the crime. Pretended sickness was the means used for accomplishing a most abominable wickedness, and real sickness would have been the means of accomplishing the divine displeasure. Yet the punishment in that case would have been less afflictive to his good father than the more awful vengeance allotted to him by a righteous Providence, which permitted the passions roused in the breast of an offended brother, by the irreparable injury done to their sister, to inflict the fatal blow. Far be it from us to justify or to excuse Absalom. But true and righteous was the judgment of God in bringing the ruin of Amnon out of his transgression. He no doubt thought that he might escape punishment from his offended father through the remaining influence of paternal affection, and that he would be in no danger from the resentment of Tamar, who was too feeble to lift her arm against him. But in the blindness and fury of his unrestrained passion, he forgot that Tamar had a high-spirited brother who might severely avenge her quarrel. We may therefore, in the first place, consider the plain indications of the awful judgment of God upon Amnon, as one great cause of David's grief. If, even after his crime, he had died the common death of men, his father's soul would have been pierced with sorrow. But how bitter was the grief of the good man when his beloved son was so unexpectedly summoned to appear at the divine tribunal, by the agency of his own brother, when nothing of such a nature was expected by him, when he thought that length of time had greatly abated, if not effaced, the remembrance of the injury done to Absalom, in the person of his sister, and when a reconciliation appeared to him to be effected to such a degree that he was invited to a feast in his brother's house. Infatuation is often a judgment inflicted by God on bold offenders, and it is often the introduction to other judgments, if possible more fatal in their nature. Both Amnon himself seems to have been in some degree infatuated, and his father David, when they placed so much reliance on the professions of Absalom. The known pride of his heart, and the bitter resentment which he had not been at pains to conceal, might well have set them both on their guard. Why did David consent to the meeting of the brothers? Why did Amnon trust in the professions of a haughty brother on whom he had inflicted a painful wound that was incapable of cure? When a man, governed by his passions, speaks fair, he is not to be believed, for there are seven abominations in his heart. Amnon might have learned from his own base artifices for the gratification of his lust, to distrust a brother who was likely to spare no artifices, however base, for the gratification of his revenge. But God left him to his own counsels, that he might reap the fruit of his ways, and be filled with his own devices. And his father, David, was long oppressed with grief at the sight of such plain proofs of God's displeasure gone forth against his house. flesh," he says, "trembleth for fear of thee, and I am afraid of thy judgments." If the sight of God's judgments even on strangers filled him with awe, what must he have felt, when a son, whom he greatly loved and pitied, notwithstanding of his crime, became a monument of the divine displeasure! "My But one 2. The consideration of the unhappy agent in this awful transaction must have given a very deep wound to his spirit. On another occasion, he says, It was not an enemy that reproached me, then I could have borne it; neither was it he that hated me that did magnify himself against me then I would have hid myself from him. But it was thou, a man mine equal, my guide, and mine acquaintance. far dearer to him than any friend out of his own family-his own beloved son Absalom, was the man that chased his poor brother out of the world, probably with the load of his crime upon him, which roused Absalom's resentment, and of all his other crimes. Nor was he merciless to his brother only, but to his poor father, whose heart was likely to be broken by the cruel disaster. "A wise son maketh a glad father, but a foolish son is the heaviness of his mother." But never since the days of Cain did a wicked son give a deadlier wound to a father's heart than Absalom. No son was ever more beloved by a father, but no enemy could have inflicted more deadly wounds than the ungrateful son, who returned hatred for love, and death for life. 3. His grief must have been very great from the consideration of the future state of his unhappy son. That which, above almost every thing else, afflicts or consoles a pious father, when his son dies, is the hope or fear concerning that state of being into which death conveyed him. What is the loss that we sustain by the death of our children? It may be very severely felt when it is considered apart from other objects of greater concern, but it is trifling when compared with the consequences of death to themselves. Their space of preparation for another world is for ever at an end. If they are not admitted into the heavenly sanctuary, no hope remains that they can ever obtain admission into it. He who is filthy when he dies, must be filthy still. He who is consigned to the regions of misery, where hope never comes, must dwell for ever with devouring fire. And David might fear that such was the miserable fate of his beloved son, who had provoked God by his atrocious crimes, to inflict signal vengeance on him even in this world. Far be it from us to pronounce sentence on Amnon. We are not told that ever he repented of his crying transgressions; but the silence of scripture is no proof that he continued impenitent. Who knows but his bitter remorse; the testimonies of his father's sore displeasure; the hatred or contempt he had brought upon himself, might have a happy effect in awakening him to the consideration of his ways? His father, no doubt, prayed earnestly for him, and who knows that his prayers were not heard? Yet, after all, David might well be solicitous about the final state of his son. It is not every mark of repentance that will satisfy one who is deeply interested in the eternal welfare of an offender. There is a repentance not unto life, as well as that genuine repentance by which the heart is turned from all sin to God. What if my poor son should now be suffering sorer vengeance in another world than his barbarous brother could inflict upon him in this? What if I should not meet with him in that region of felicity to which I hope to go when I am called out of this world? If his repentance was not accepted of God, all farther space of repentance is for ever cut off from him." Such might be the mournful reflections of the holy man. And a thousand deaths are not so dreadful, if there is hope in the latter end, as a single death of one who is cut off in his sins. He goes down to the grave with his bones full of the sins of his youth, and must hear the awful sentence of the last day," Depart from me thou cursed, into everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels." 4. David mourned sore from the consideration of his own behaviour, to which he might in part attribute the disaster that had happened to Amnon. We have no reason to think that David neglected to educate his children in the knowledge and fear of the Lord. He solemnly vowed to the Lord that he would walk in his house with a perfect heart, and that he would endure no wicked thing before his eyes. It would be very injurious to the memory of the good man to suppose that he did not endeavour, according to the best of his judgment and abilities, to perform his vows. He was penetrated with gratitude to God for the promise of the kingdom to his posterity; and he certainly endeavoured to train up the apparent heir of his crown for the performance of those high services to God, and his people, to which he was likely one day to be called. We know how careful he was to train up Solomon in the fear of the Lord; and his love both to God and to his children would gave not suffer him to be negligent in that most important part of religion, the care of his family. Yet after all when, in the time of his affliction, he took a review of his conduct, he probably saw too good reason to find fault with himself for too much lenity in his behaviour to his children, when they deserved severe correction and rebuke. We are told that he had never said to Adonijah, why hast thou done so? It is possible that he had too seldom spoken such words to Amnon in the earlier part of his life. He indeed expressed sore displeasure against Amnon when he forced his sister. He did not give him such a cold reproof as Eli to his sons; yet he imitated Eli in one part of his conduct. He did not punish Amnon with due severity, according to his own declared resolution, that he would early destroy all the wicked of the land. The law of God, in the case of incest committed with a sister, was, that the guilty persons should be cut off in the sight of their people. But Amnon's crime was aggravated by circumstances of enormity that cried for vengeance beyond that of ordinary criminals. When David neglected to execute that law against his own son, which he would certainly have executed against an offender of any other family, it was a righteous thing with the sovereign of the world, to whom kings and peasants are equal, to inflict the sentence pronounced by his own word, that all Israel might hear and fear, and do no more wickedly. It is probable, too, that David would reflect with grief upon his behaviour to Absalom, in other instances than the permission given to Amnon to partake of his feast. It is not probable that he would be hardened to such a degree in wickedness as he already was, if his father had, in his earlier days, taken due care to bridle his passions. "Fool ishness is bound up in the heart of a child, but the rod of correction will drive it far from him." Beware, parents, of omitting or doing what you may sorely repent in some future time, of omitting or doing. Defer not these reproofs or corrections which ought to be administered at present, lest you should find too good reasons for severe animadversions, the unhappy consequences of your aversion to the painful duty. II. Let us say something of the constancy of the good man's grief. He mourned for his son, not one day, or two, but very many. He mourned for his son every day, for a long space of time; till, after about two years, we are told, that he was comforted concerning his son Amnon, seeing he was dead. When he lost that child who was the fruit of his unlawful intercourse with Bethsheba, he banished from his heart that sorrow which had taken fast hold of it, on account of the divine displeasure manifested in the sentence of death passed upon it. He assumed an air of cheerfulness. He went to the sanctuary and performed his devotions, and called for bread, and told his servants that there was now no more occasion for such fasting and mourning as they had seen him employed in for seven days past, because the sentence was now executed, and could not be recalled. "I shall go to him, but he shall not return unto me." But now he gave full scope to the bitterness of his soul, although he was sure that no prayers, nor fastings, nor tears, were to recall his son to life. This consideration seemed now to have a contrary effect to fear concerning that state of being into which death conveyed him. What is the loss that we sustain by the death of our children? It may be very severely felt when it is considered apart from other objects of greater concern, but it is trifling when compared with the consequences of death to themselves. Their space of preparation for another world is for ever at an end. If they are not admitted into the heavenly sanctuary, no hope remains that they can ever obtain admission into it. He who is filthy when he dies, must be filthy still. He who is consigned to the regions of misery, where hope never comes, must dwell for ever with devouring fire. And David might fear that such was the miserable fate of his beloved son, who had provoked God by his atrocious crimes, to inflict signal vengeance on him even in this world. Far be it from us to pronounce sentence on Amnon. We are not told that ever he repented of his crying transgressions; but the silence of scripture is no proof that he continued impenitent. Who knows but his bitter remorse; the testimonies of his father's sore displeasure; the hatred or contempt he had brought upon himself, might have a happy effect in awakening him to the consideration of his ways? His father, no doubt, prayed earnestly for him, and who knows that his prayers were not heard? Yet, after all, David might well be solicitous about the final state of his son. It is not every mark of repentance that will satisfy one who is deeply interested in the eternal welfare of an offender. There is a repentance not unto life, as well as that genuine repentance by which the heart is turned from all sin to God. "What if my poor son should now be suffering sorer vengeance in another world than his barbarous brother could inflict upon him in this? What if I should not meet with him in that region of felicity to which I hope to go when I am called out of this world? If his repentance was not accepted of God, all farther space of repentance is for ever cut off from him." Such might be the mournful reflections of the holy man. And a thousand deaths are not so dreadful, if there is hope in the latter end, as a single death of one who is cut off in his sins. He goes down to the grave with his bones full of the sins of his youth, and must hear the awful sentence of the last day, "Depart from me thou cursed, into everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels." 4. David mourned sore from the consideration of his own behaviour, to which he might in part attribute the disaster that had happened to Amnon. We have no reason to think that David neglected to educate his children in the knowledge and fear of the Lord. He solemnly vowed to the Lord that he would walk in his house with a perfect heart, and that he would endure no wicked thing before his eyes. It would be very injurious to the memory of the good man to suppose that he did not endeavour, according to the best of his judgment and abilities, to perform his vows. He was penetrated with gratitude to God for the promise of the kingdom to his posterity; and he certainly endeavoured to train up the apparent heir of his crown for the performance of those high services to God, and his people, to which he was likely one day to be called. We know how careful he was to train up Solomon in the fear of the Lord; and his love both to God and to his children would |