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‘King over His people Israel.’
1Sa_15:1
I. Notice first the singular elements of nobleness which are to be traced in his natural character, so that his moral stature did not altogether belie the stateliness of his outward frame. There is nothing which so often oversets the whole balance of a mind, which brings out faults unsuspected before, as a sudden and abrupt elevation from a very low to a very high position. But Saul gives no token that the change has wrought this mischief in him. The Lord’s anointed, Israel’s king, he bides his time, returns with a true simplicity to humblest offices in his father’s house. He would gladly, and that out of a genuine modesty, hide and withdraw himself from the people’s choice. Slights and offences done to himself he magnanimously overlooks. He ventures his life far for the people whom he rules, as one who has rightly understood that foremost in place and honour means also foremost in peril and toil. Saul is clear from every charge of that sin which left the darkest blot upon David’s life; seems very sparingly to have allowed himself that licence which almost all Oriental monarchs have so largely claimed. There was in him also a true capacity for loving. Of David we are told he ‘loved him greatly.’ Even at his worst, what glimpses of a better mind from time to time appear! The deep discords of his spirit are not incapable of being subdued into harmonies, as sweet bells jangled or out of tune which for an instant, though, alas! but for an instant, recover their sweetness. And, most noticeable of all, the love which he could feel he could also inspire. If then there was a shipwreck here, they were not paltry wares, but treasures of great price, which went down into the deep.
II. The history of Saul brings home to us these facts: (1) That the life we now live is a life of probation; that God takes men and puts them in certain conditions to try them. We are each put upon our trial as certainly as Saul was upon his. (2) All the finer qualities of Saul display themselves at the outset of his career. They gradually fade and fail from him, pride, meanwhile, and caprice, and jealousy, and envy, and an open contempt and defiance of God coming in their room, until at last of all the high qualities which he once owned, only the courage, last gift to forsake a man, often abiding when every other has departed—until this only remains. (3) We learn from Saul not to build on any good thing which we have in ourselves. Let us bring that good thing to God and receive it back from God with that higher consecration which He alone can give.
—
Archbishop Trench.