“It repenteth Me that I have set up Saul to be king; for he is turned back from following Me, and hath not performed My commandments.” 1 Sam. xv. 11.
The three chief religious patterns and divine instruments under the first Covenant, have each his complement in the Sacred History, that we may have a warning as well as an instruction. The distinguishing virtue, moral and political, of Abraham, Moses, and David, was their faith; by which I mean an implicit reliance in God’s command and promise, and a zeal for His honour; a surrender and devotion of themselves, and all they had, to Him. At His word they each relinquished the dearest wish of their hearts, Isaac, Canaan, and the Temple; the Temple was not to be built, the land of promise not to be entered, the child of promise not to be retained. All three were tried by the anxieties and discomforts of exile and wandering; all three, and especially Moses and David, were very zealous for the Lord God of Hosts.
2. The faith of Abraham is illustrated in the luke-warmness of Lot, who, though a true servant of God, and a righteous man, chose for his dwelling-place the fertile country of a guilty people. To Moses, who was faithful in all God’s house, is confronted the untrue prophet Balaam, who, gifted from the same Divine Master, and abounding in all knowledge and spiritual discernment, mistook words for works, and fell through love of lucre. The noble self-consuming zeal of David, who was at once ruler of the chosen people, and type of the Messiah, is contrasted with a still more conspicuous and hateful specimen of unbelief, as disclosed to us in the history of Saul. To this history it is proposed now to draw your attention, not indeed with the purpose of surveying it as a whole, but with hope of gaining thence some such indirect illustration, in the way of contrast, of the nature of religious Faith, as it is adapted to supply.
3. It cannot be denied that the designs of Providence towards Saul and David are, at first sight, of a perplexing nature, as implying distinctions in the moral character of the two men, which their history does not clearly warrant. Accordingly, it is usual, with a view of meeting the difficulty, to treat them as mere instruments in the Divine Governance of the Israelites, and to determine their respective virtues and defects, not by a moral, but by a political standard. For instance, the honourable title by which David is distinguished, as “a man after God’s own heart,” is interpreted with reference merely to his activity and success in enforcing the principles of the Mosaic system, no account being taken of the motives which influenced him, or of his general character, or of his conduct in other respects. Now, it is by no means intended here to dispute the truth of such representations, or to deny that the Church, in its political relations, must even treat men with a certain reference to their professions and outward acts, such as it withdraws in its private dealings with them; yet, to consider the difference between Saul and David to be of a moral nature, is more consistent with the practical objects with which we believe Scripture to have been written, and more reverent, moreover, to the memory of one whose lineage the Saviour almost gloried in claiming, and whose devotional writings have edified the Church even to this day. Let us then drop, for the present, the political view of the history which it is here proposed to consider, and attempt to discover the moral lesson intended to be conveyed to us in the character of Saul, the contrast of the zealous David.
4. The unbelief of Balaam discovers itself in a love of secular distinction, and was attended by self-deception. Saul seems to have had no base ends in view; he was not self-deceived; his temptation and his fall consisted in a certain perverseness of mind, founded on some obscure feelings of self-importance, very commonly observable in human nature, and sometimes called pride,—a perverseness which shows itself in a reluctance absolutely to relinquish its own independence of action, in cases where dependence is a duty, and which interferes a little, and alters a little, as if with a view of satisfying its own fancied dignity, though it is afraid altogether to oppose itself to the voice of God. Should this seem, at first sight, to be a trifling fault, it is the more worth while to trace its operation in the history of Saul. If a tree is known by its fruit, it is a great sin.
5. Saul’s character is marked by much that is considered to be the highest moral excellence,—generosity, magnanimity, calmness, energy, and decision. He is introduced to us as “a choice young man, and a goodly,” and as possessed of a striking personal presence, and as a member of a wealthy and powerful family 1.