gs;" and it was, indeed, to manifest this
more fully that God permitted him thus to act. God "left him," says
the inspired writer, "to try him, that he might know all that was in
his heart[4]." Let us take David as another instance of the great
danger of prosperity; he, too, will exemplify the unsatisfactory nature
of temporal goods; for which, think you, was the happier, the lowly
shepherd or the king of Israel? Observe his simple reliance on God and
his composure, when advancing against Goliath: "The Lord," he says,
"that delivered me out of the paw of the lion and out of the paw of the
bear, He will deliver me out of the hand of this Philistine[5]." And
compare this with his grievous sins, his continual errors, his
weaknesses, inconsistencies, and then his troubles and mortifications
after coming to the throne of Israel; and who will not say that his
advancement was the occasion of both sorrow and sin, which, humanly
speaking, he would have escaped, had he died amid the sheepfolds of
Jesse? He was indeed most wonderfully sustained by Divine grace, and
died in the fear of God; yet what rightminded and consistent Christian
but must shrink from the bare notion of possessing a worldly greatness
so corrupting and seducing as David's kingly power was shown to be in
the instance of so great a Saint? The case of Solomon is still more
striking; his falling away even surpasses our anticipation of what our
Saviour calls "the deceitfulness of riches." He may indeed, for what
we know, have repented; but at least the history tells us nothing of
it. All we are told is, that "King Solomon loved many strange
women . . . and it came to pass when Solomon was old, that his wives
turned away his heart after other gods; and his heart was not perfect
with the Lord his God, as was the heart of David his father. For
Solomon went after Ashtaroth, the goddess of the Sidonians, and after
Milcom, the abomination of the Ammonites[6]." Yet this was he who had
offered up that most sublime and affecting prayer at the Dedication of
the Temple, and who, on a former occasion, when the Almighty gave him
the choice of any blessing he should ask, had preferred an
understanding heart to long life, and honour, and riches.

So dangerous, indeed, is the possession of the goods of this world,
that, to judge from the Scripture history, seldom has God given unmixed
prosperity to any one whom He loves. "Blessed is the man," says the
Psalmist, "whom Tho