II. THE GAINS OF FRIENDSHIP. The prime gain of friendship is just the knowledge of a noble soul. That was what Jonathan felt. It is the man who has most in himself to give who gives most, not the man who has most of what is external to give. No counter gifts can altogether balance those which an opulent nature bestows when it gives itself. That, then, is the first gain of friendship, simply to know a noble nature.

2. The second gain of friendship is that it develops the powers of those engaged in it. History contains many striking instances of how friends have stimulated one another to the highest intellectual attainment. For instance, Goethe and Schiller, the two greatest chiefs of German literature, though differing widely in genius and disposition, both produced their grandest works when living in the same town and daily enjoying each other's conversation. And German history has a still more striking example. Just as Goethe and Schiller lived together at Weimar, so Martin Luther and Philip Melancthon lived together at Wittenburg, and their friendship did a great deal to stamp its character on the Reformation. It is perfectly delightful to hear Luther and Melancthon speaking about each other. For instance, Luther says on one occasion, "Philip is a wonder to us all. If the Lord will, he will beat many Martins as the mightiest enemy to the devil and scholasticism. I am the rough woodman who has to make a path; but Philip goes quietly and peaceably along it, builds and plants, sows and waters." On the other hand, the younger man said on one occasion, "Luther supplies the place of all my friends. He is greater and more admirable in my sight than I dare express."

3. Then a third gain of friendship is that a friend can often speak a good word for his friend, and otherwise promote his advantage. Flattery is the poison of friendship, because it is false, and it has always been counted one of the greatest gains of friendship that cane friend can, without offence, tell the other his faults. An ancient Chinese philosopher says about this close friendship, "The heaven-ordained relationship, on which depends the correction of one's character"; and a very ancient Indian poet expresses this still more beautifully in these words:

The words which from a stranger's lips offend

Are honey-sweet if spoken by a friend,

As when the smoke of common wood we spurn,

But call it perfume sweet when fragrant aloes burn;

and the Scripture clinches this matter by saying, "Faithful are the wounds of a friend."

III. THE QUALIFICATIONS FOR FRIENDSHIP. Philosophers are too apt to speak as if friendship were possible only to philosophers, or men of genius. Thus Sir Thomas Browne says, "This noble affection falls not on vulgar or common constituents, but on such as are marked for virtue." La Bruyere, the French philosopher, says, "Pure friendship is something which men of an inferior nature can never taste"; and Charles Kingsley says, "It is only the great-hearted who can be true friends; the mean and cowardly can never know what true friendship means." If a man only be genuine he is quite fit for this relationship, and if in addition he be tender and unselfish he can give the highest pleasure in this relationship. It was part of the low estimate of women universal in the ancient world that the ancient philosophers deny that women could be friends. Christianity, however, has corrected this, as so much else, and we know that women are not only as capable as men of being friends to one another, but of being friends to men. I might quote such historical examples as St. Francis and St. Clara, or as between the poet Cowper and Mrs. Unwin. Is the highest friendship possible without religion? One of the most obvious and inalienable qualities of friendship is this, that friends talk confidentially to each other on important subjects. They exchange with each other their deepest subjects. Now, if the deepest subject of all is excluded — if religion is kept out of the conversation — must we not pronounce the friendship to be imperfect and mutilated? The most elementary dictate about friendship is that one friend must do the other as much good as he can.

(J. Stalker, D. D.)

1. All boys have a natural tendency towards forming friendships. Such friendships tend to bring out the character; without them the powers of a boy will very often lie dormant and undeveloped through his future life. Up to a certain age a youth, though full of affection towards those who are the relations of his life, may be unconscious of them. For his friend at school, in connection with whom none of those relationships exist he is able to realise love and regard, and in connection with him first becomes conscious of the power of love at all. The knowledge of this fact alone expands and invigorates the whole disposition.

2. The friendship of youth frequently ends in important results of usefulness in after life. There is something striking in the altered circumstances which in turn affected the sons of Kish and Jesse; and it was in these very adversities that each was so invaluable to the other. It is very hard to tell what our lot may be in future life. Vicissitudes, as untoward as that which lost Jonathan his throne, may affect us in our onward career; and fortune, as unexpected as that which fell to David's lot, may fall to our share. Many a boy is flushed with high birth or illustrious parentage, or has some bright promise of future position, which will elevate him above his fellows; but the possibility of a future change in the position of boyhood is strongly brought to mind by the story of Jonathan and David. But while this covenant was thus acted upon in after days, the covenant itself was a very striking and beautiful circumstance. Two young men, each of them full of high energies; ambitious, brave, and noble; were, nevertheless, so deeply conscious of their dependence upon God and the necessity of serving Him, as to bind themselves by an agreement of a distinctly religious character; thus evincing their piety and showing that the claims of God infinitely transcend the highest earthly employment. Such a thing is rare.

3. And again, there is something very grand in the long pause in the personal communications between David and Jonathan. They loved each other as boys and as youths. When David walked forth fresh and ruddy from the wilderness of Bethlehem, and Jonathan shone in all the lustre of the son of a great king, the prince and the shepherd boy loved each other. They took delight in telling their love one for the other, and made their covenant before God in the field of Ezel, and their souls were satisfied. They saw each other no more in the passage of years. Indeed, David's eye rested not on the countenance of his friend until it was brought a corpse from the streets of Bethsban. Trouble of all kinds marked the interval. Nevertheless, all this sufficed not to shake the foundations of Jonathan's love for David. It is a very poor and narrow view, to imagine that real friendship should need constant expression. It is a deep, wide, lasting thing, whose seed is sown, as in some cases, in the period of boyhood, and may spring up into a plant which may shadow a long-after day, though the interval that elapses between the ratification of that friendship and the hour of death, may be marked by a long suspension of intercourse: aye! and even by circumstances.

4. Another lesson that we learn from the friendship of these two youths is, that true friendship exists in a desire to discover points of beauty and nobility in everything, however otherwise defective or polluted. Through the outward circumstance of a lineage opposed to the present and future interest of David, he was able to perceive, to value, end to love the noble qualities of Jonathan. While in the shepherd boy, whose destiny had been already declared by an unerring voice to be one which would finally eclipse the house of Saul, Jonathan was able to see the lustre of those qualities which eventually made David "the sweet psalmist of Israel" and "the man after God's own heart;" and seeing them, he had the disinterestedness to love them, and to ally himself to them.

(E. Monro.)

I. FRIENDSHIP THROUGH RESPECT. Love blazed up towards David very suddenly. Still, it was love, founded on respect. With some love may be more slowly kindled, but may die very hardly. Love at first sight is a possibility, and a constantly-renewed experience in this old world. Thank God that romance is not yet banished from the earth. In some nations affections are more kept under control than in England; marriages are made to depend on the amount of the dowry. Harmony of taste and principle characterised the friendship of the son of Saul and the son of Jesse. There was true piety in both. There is little prospect of happiness in any union without piety. First impressions are not always right. We may not always follow them. Reciprocal was the affection between Israel's prince and its future "sweet singer." Sometimes a man may care for one who cares nothing for him. Many a maiden, too, has given affection to one who may not really have had a serious thought about returning it. Imagination can throw round another a glamour of qualities he or she may not possess. People do not always meet with a return of affection. And yet some are as greedy of it as the eucalyptus is of water. Affection should beget affection, but it is not always successful in the transfer. Even when Christ loved with an infinite and Divine love it has not always found a response in souls.

II. DISCRIMINATING FRIENDSHIP. Seneca tells of a distinguished citizen of Rome who introduced the fashion of separating his visitors. Some were left in hall or court, others were admitted to the antechamber, and others were led into the boudoir of privacy and rest. Today some are acquaintances of the street, others of the church, and others of the home. A sensible man will know how to discriminate. He will not carry his "heart on his sleeve." He will not be like bill distributors who thrust their papers into anybody's hands. He will find an intensified interest in the special affection he has for one of like mind to himself.

1. Unreservedness and unsuspiciousness will be found in a true friendship. A Jonathan will pour out his admiration and affection to a David. He will have nothing to hide. There will be free interchange of feeling. When danger threatens one the other will be alive to it. Faithfulness in a friend is promoted by absolute trust. But let me here say that this absolute trust should not lead to presumings. Some are always ready to act as if the surest signs of friendship were found in free comments on conduct.

2. Disinterested and ready to bestow will be the attitude of a true friend. A Jonathan gives his bow and his robes to David. For him he foregoes his claim to a kingdom. He esteems the friendship of David of greater worth than a crown. How suggestive of that Divine love that gave up majesty, glory, heaven's rest, for reviling, rejection, mocking, scourging, loneliness, and death, even the death of the cross for sinners such as ourselves.

3. Unchangeable and unwavering to the end will a true friendship be. Some friendships are like the strings of musical instruments that snap so easily when there is an alteration in the temperature.

III. THE TEST OF FRIENDSHIP. Adversity is a test of faithfulness. When a man is prosperous he will have many friends. They will flock around, bend heads, and bow bodies. Let the tide of prosperity, however, turn, and many will rapidly fade from vision, having wind and tide in their favour as they speed away. One said, "Early fruits rot soon," so friendships too rapidly ripened. Gushing protestations are often followed by tantalising flirtations and bitter and cruel estrangements. Trifling is the death of friendship. Not so was it with David and Jonathan. What misery can be wrought into hearts and homes by those who are unfaithful, and who are not worthy the sacred name of friend! Such bitter experiences were unknown to David and Jonathan. They were faithful to each other right to the end. David would have readily died for Jonathan if he could.

(F. Hastings.)

I. CONSIDER THE QUALITIES OF THIS FRIEND whom Jehovah chose for the moulding of the character of his beloved; and then be prepared to surrender to his care the choice of your most intimate associates. He knows what your temperament needs, and where to find the companion who shall strengthen you when weak, and develop latent unknown qualities.

1. He was every inch a man. In true friendship there must be a similarity of tastes and interests. The prime condition of two men walking together is that they should be agreed. And the bond of a common manliness knit these twin souls from the first. Jonathan was every inch a man; as dexterous with the bow as his friend with the sling.

2. He was withal very sensitive and tender. It is the fashion in some quarters to emphasise the qualities supposed to be specially characteristic of men — those of strength, courage, endurance — to the undervaluing of the tenderer graces more often associated with women. But in every true man there must be a touch of woman, as there was in the ideal Man, the Lord Jesus. There should be strength and sweetness, courage and sympathy; the oak and the vine, the rock and the moss that covers it with its soft green mantle.

3. Jonathan had a marvellous power of affection. He loved David as himself; he was prepared to surrender without a pang his succession to his father's throne, if only he might be next to his friend; his was the love that expresses itself in tender embraces and tears, that must have response from the object of its choice. We judge a man by his friends, and the admiration he excites in them. Much is said of the union of opposites, and it is well when one is rich where the other is poor; but the deepest love must be between those whose natures are close akin.

4. He was distinctly religious. He must be strong who would strengthen another; he must have God, and be in God, who would give the consolations of God to his brother; and we can easily understand how the anguish of Jonathan's soul, torn before filial devotion to his father and his love to his friend, must have driven him back to those resources of the Divine nature, which are the only solace of men whose lives have been cast in the same fiery crucible.

II. CONSIDER THE CONFLICT OF JONATHAN'S LIFE. He was devoted to his father. He was always found associated with that strange dark character, melancholy to madness, the prey of evil spirits, and yet so keenly susceptible to music, and so quick to respond to the appeal of chivalry, patriotism, and generous feeling; resembling some mountain lake, alternately mirroring mountains and skies, and swept by dark storms. Father and son were together in life, as they were "undivided in death." When he woke up to find how truly he loved David, a new difficulty entered his life. Not outwardly, because, though Saul eyed David with jealousy, there was no open rupture. David went in and out of the palace, was in a position of trust, and was constantly at hand for the intercourse for which each yearned. But when the flames of hostility, long smouldering in Saul's heart, broke forth, the true anguish of his life began. On the one hand, his duty as son and subject held him to his father, though he knew his father was doomed, and that union with him meant disaster to himself; on the other hand, all his heart cried out for David. His love for David made him eager to promote reconciliation between his father and his friend. It was only when repeated failure had proved the fruitlessness of his dream that he abandoned it; and then the thought must have suggested itself to him: Why not extricate yourself from this sinking ship while there is time? Why not join your fortunes with his whom God hath chosen? The new fair kingdom of the future is growing up around him — identify yourself with it, though it, be against your father. The temptation was specious and masterful, but it fell blunt and ineffectual at his feet. Stronger than the ties of human love were those of duty, sonship, loyalty to God's anointed king; and in some supreme moment he turned his back on the appeal of his heart, and elected to stand beside his father. From that choice be never flinched. When David departed whither he would, Jonathan went back to the city. It was one of the grandest exhibitions of the triumph of principle over passion, of duty over inclination, that the annals of history record. Jonathan died as a hero; not only because of his prowess in battle with his country's foes, but because of his victory over the strongest passion of the human heart, the love of a strong man, in which were blended the strands of a common religion, a common enthusiasm for all that was good and right.

(F. B. Meyer, B. A.)

II. THE ADMIRATION OF JONATHAN TERMINATED in his affection for David, but the affection became mutual. The friendship of the world, in its best form, seems to be rather favouritism or partiality, than mutual and equal attachment, something more like parental regard or patronage, than that which the word friendship properly expresses. This one-sided regard, this favouritism, has in it none of the advantages of friendship. He who has a friend, as old writers say, has got a second self, doubled powers, for good or for evil. In friendships, and we speak only of religious friendships, how many advantages arise to both parties! Their equality and freedom lead to the communication and increase of piety; to the correction of errors in judgment, and errors of infirmity in moral disposition and practice; to a greater facility of approach to God, and a steadier advance through life to his kingdom.

III. IT WILL BE WELL TO THINE A LITTLE ON THE MEANS USED FOR ITS PRESERVATION AND PERMANENCE. These were pious exercises. Thus we read, that Jonathan and David entered into a solemn league and covenant of friendship, with every appeal to heaven to bless their mutual regard, and promote its effects to the advantage of their descendants.

IV. THERE IS ONE FRIEND TO BE FOUND, ONE TRUE HEART, ONE FAITHFUL SOUL, WELL TRIED IN THE FURNACE OF AFFLICTIONS AND TEMPTATIONS, WHOSE PROFFERED REGARD, WITH ALL ITS ENDURING AND IMPERISHABLE BENEFITS AND EXCELLENCES, MEN TOO FREQUENTLY OVERLOOK. That friend, who, in Scripture language, is said to stick closer than a brother, and is a brother born for adversity, you anticipate me by naming, the Lord Jesus Christ.

1. Jonathan, captivated with David, stripped himself of all his robes of honour, in order to array him with these, as a proof of his affection — the overture of a covenant attachment, never to be violated. So did Christ.

2. Again we are prompted to consider from this narrative the abiding mercies of the Redeemer. Our first acquaintance with Him (if we possess any) arose from His own gracious condescension.

3. On every occasion of intimacy we read that Jonathan failed not "to encourage David's hand in God." This was the part of a holy friend, one who saw the value of better things than this world contained, and knew the value of such consolations and encouragements as religion — the true religion alone can give in our times of weakness, and depression, and suffering. Has it not ever been so between Christ and the believer?

4. Finally, we learn that it was never in David's power to requite the fidelity of Jonathan, save only in the person of his child, Mephibosheth. Yet him he sought out diligently, and to him repaid, as far as possible, the kindness of his departed friend. Oh! is not this a stirring appeal to us in behalf of Christian gratitude and Christian benevolence. Our friend is removed from us, departed to make way for our inheritance to kingly honour. We cannot even pour out our tears upon his grave, or embalm his sacred remains with ceremonious sorrow. Nevertheless his children are amongst us, the poor ones of his flock — the despised and forgotten of the world. Seek them out, feed them, clothe them, comfort them, cheer them; this tribute, and this tribute only, will be accepted. "Inasmuch as ye have done it to the least of these, My brethren, ye have done it unto Me."

(C. M. Fleury, A. M.)

1. The friendships are few that survive years of separation; the shock of conflicting interests; the drain made on our old affections by new claims; the trials they are put to by infirmities of temper, by plain dealing with faults, by a manly independence, by requests refused, by favours unrequited, by the rivalries of business, by the partisanship that springs from creeds or politics, and by a thousand other nameless circumstances. Fragile as the flowers the winter frost traces on our windows, there are friendships that a breath will melt away. It may be very wrong and very pitiful, but, as the wise man says, "a whisper separateth chief friends;" and who lives long lives to see so many, like leaves the frost has nipped, fall off, and the ties which friendship had formed, so often and sometimes so easily dissolved, that he comes to read with little astonishment, and no great sense of exaggeration, the words of one who, describing his relationships, said, "Though the church would not hold my acquaintances, the pulpit is large enough to bold all my friends." Happily, there are friendships that stand the test of time and the severest strain; but among these, what poet or panegyrist has recorded with glowing pen one to be compared with Jonathan's? It is quite unique; remarkable as his father's stature. The words of the poet may be justly applied to Jonathan —None but himself could be his parallel.For example, men will praise their friends, but how few are generous enough without jealousy to hear others praise them, at their expense, in eulogiums they feel to be disparaging to themselves.

2. Then see what severe trials this friendship endured; and enduring, triumphed over. Saul's gloomy eye fixed on David, the javelin he hurled to pin him to the wall, the cry of his soldiers echoing from the rocks as they hunted the fugitive from cave to cave, and hill to hill, not more illustrating the words, "Jealousy is cruel as the grave; the coals thereof are coals of fire," than the friendship of Jonathan did those which follow, "Many waters cannot quench love, neither can the floods drown it." The reed that bends its head to a breath of wind, and the old grey rock which withstands the hurricane that strews the plain with trees and the foaming shore with wrecks, are not more unlike than Jonathan where his own interests, and the same Jonathan where David's interests were concerned. Such was the depth and power of his affection for his friend. Here neither Saul's entreaties, nor anger, nor violence could move him. He would part with life to please his father, but not with his love for David.

3. If piety is shown by a regard to God and a Child-like submission to His sovereign will, by taking up our cross and denying ourselves daily that we may follow Christ, by saying, like Jesus Himself, as He book the bitter cup of our sorrows from His Father's hand, "Father, not My wilt, but Thine be done," what finer example of this grace than Jonathan? David is to supplant him; David is to enter on the honours and fortune he expected to enjoy; and out of the ruins of Saul's house, David is to build his own; yet Jonathan ceases not to regard him with unabated and the tenderest affection. Tender as a woman, and yet true as steel, overflowing with generous kindness, utterly devoid of selfishness, trusting as much as he wad trusted, with a heart that reflected David's as face answereth to face in water, Jonathan was the paragon and perfect pattern of a friend.

4. To make some practical use of this matter, I remark —(1). Everyone should seek and cultivate friendships. Man has no room in his heart to accommodate many friends; but, as God said in Eden, it is not good that man should be alone. Isolation breeds selfishness, moroseness; and these are apt to run into misanthropy. So necessary, however, is it for the happiness of man and the complete development of his nature, that kings, who are often required by policy to stand aloof on their cold, unenviable elevation from their highest nobles, have raised servants into favourites, and sought the pleasures of friendship in the confidence and company of menials. There is a touching story of a captive, cut off from human society and long immured in a lonely dungeon of the Bastille, whose heart, craving some object of friendship, found it in a spider be had tamed, and which his brutal jailer cruelly destroyed.(2) In choosing friends, we should select such as promise, by the tone of their conversation, and by their moral and religious character, to prove friends indeed — such as we can trust in the hour of adversity, and would like to see by our dying bed. Acquaintances are one thing, but friends another.(3) We should seek a friend in Jesus Christ — the best, truest, kindest, surest friend man ever had. Everliving, everloving, and everlasting. Like summer birds which come and go with the sun, like our shadow which deserts us when his face is clouded, like fair flowers that close their leaves as soon as rain begins to fall or cold winds to blow, earthly friends may desert us when we most need their sympathy and support — at the time, and in the circumstances, expressed in the well-known adage, "A friend in need is a friend indeed." But such a friend is Jesus Christ. One of the old Fathers tells a parable, which, with a slight alteration, illustrates this subject; and, in view of an hour of death, and a day of judgment, may well recommend to our acceptance and confidence and peace and joy the friendship of the Friend of sinners. A man summoned to answer for his crimes, and called in question for his life, sought help of three friends he had. The first agreed to bear him company for a part of the way; the second would lend him some money for his journey; while the third undertook to go all the way with him, to appear in court, and plead his cause. So runs the story. In this man, the representative of a lost and guilty race, we see ourselves: and in the three friends whose help he sought, we see the flesh, or our fellow creatures, the world with its wealth, and Christ, the sinner's Friend.

(T. Guthrie, D. D.)

I. THEIRS WAS THE FRIENDSHIP OF GODLY MEN. Enter into no friendship that is displeasing to Christ and that is incompatible with friendship with Him. And in reference to that closest of earthly attachments — which unites for good or ill two lives "till death them do part," let young Christian people see to it that they "walk circumspectly, not as fools but as wise."

II. UNSELFISH WAS THE FRIENDSHIP BETWEEN DAVID AND JONATHAN. The favour of princes has too often been secured by the designing and depraved; men who pandered to vice, and made more tempting "the primrose path" to perdition. Unsought, unselfish, was Jonathan's friendship to David. Here is a valid test for friendship. Is it unselfish? Free from rivalry? Able to rejoice at the growing prosperity of the other even while adversity is darkening round itself? Cheerfully willing to pass down from first to second that the other may pass up from second to first? How much of Jonathan's spirit is in it? The friendship that claims congratulations but is slow to congratulate, that looks for sympathy, but is reluctant to sympathise, or falls away altogether from the friend in his "dark and cloudy day" — such may be the friendship of the world. But how unlike the virtue that ennobled Jonathan, the memory of which keeps his name green and beautiful from age to age.

III. SEVERELY TESTED BY ADVERSITY WAS THE FRIENDSHIP BETWEEN DAVID AND JONATHAN. True friendship can stand the test of adversity. It can not only live in the sunshine but can also illumine our darkness. When sorrows come; when all things seem against us; when men speak evil of us falsely, then we need a friend. A brother is born for adversity; and such a friend as David called "my brother Jonathan."

IV. MUTUALLY VALUABLE WAS THE FRIENDSHIP BETWEEN DAVID AND JONATHAN.

(G. T. Coster.)

1. Put asunder by Saul's malignant envy, yet I suppose that the remembrance of that great surpassing love of Jonathan's must have been a presence and a power to David. There is no influence on a feeling mind stronger than the sense of being loved; nothing more elevating, more securing to the inner life. We are dearer to ourselves when we are dear to someone else. Danger, of a very subtle and fatal kind, lurks in the feeling, "No man careth for my soul." This is, indeed, the fruitful source of suicide. Youths are steadied when away from home by the confidence they have of a mighty love felt for them by their mothers. Is it not Jeremy Taylor who says, "He who loves is happy, but he who is loved is safe!" See how in the constitution of the family, in marriage, in children, in friendship, God has provided a shield for our weakness in the love borne to us. Jonathan saw himself magnified and improved in David, who was his better self. Read the fourteenth chapter to discern the valorous soul of Jonathan. Look at him, with one attendant likeminded with himself, "climbing up upon his hands and upon his feet" into the garrison of the Philistines. "And they fell before Jonathan," and there was trembling in the host: "and that first slaughter, which Jonathan and his armour bearer made, was about twenty men, within as it were an half acre of land, which a yoke of oxen might plough." Here was David's adventurous spirit: Jonathan had seen Goliath for forty days defying Israel, and had not dared to meet him, but he saw David kill him. He loved that which went beyond his own spirit, yet was of the same heroic order. He saw in David a higher and greater Jonathan, the ideal of his own actual life, himself transfigured and perfected. What he had dreamt he might be, he beheld in David.

2. Now, let us turn to the father. Was Saul ever like his son? David, in his song, unites them in a very beautiful harmony: "Saul and Jonathan were lovely and pleasant in their lives, and in their death they were not divided: they were swifter than eagles, they were stronger than lions." And when we look at Saul's early history, there gleams on us a ray of his son's noble spirit. When "the children of Belial said, How shall this man save us? And they despised him, and brought him no presents," it is added, "but he held his peace." That faculty of self-control stands in terrible contrast with the utter loss of self-respect and self-government which he afterwards evinced. Moreover, the grief of Samuel at the Divine rejection of Saul ("it grieved Samuel, and he cried unto the Lord all night") is a touching proof of the truth that Saul was lovely in the early part of his career. Here was a noble nature ruined; but we must confess that his was a situation of such extraordinary difficulty that, while he could have retained his uprightness had he remained in favour with God, yet when we think of his constitutional malady, and of the human and almost necessary vexation which the song of the women must have occasioned; when we think that the praise of higher prowess was bestowed on one who was known to be the aspirant to the throne, as we learn from Jonathan's words to David, we cannot wonder that jealousy caused his ruin.There is no habit so easily acquired, so hardly cast off, as jealousy or envy.

1. We may safely affirm that, if you prize communion with God as your greatest blessing, you will be a stranger to envy. It is the presence of God with us which shuts out the base passions, or keeps them from having dominion over us. And let this be a touchstone to us all. When we feel the rising of envious emotion, let us alarm ourselves, let us be sure we are going back; we are descending to a lower level of the Christian life; we are satisfied to pass the day without a hearty effort to realise God's presence, and therefore has this evil come upon us. Cleave to the Lord, and all virtue, all goodness, all excellence in people whom you meet will be dear to you, because they are His gifts whom you prize higher than all gifts. Envy the gifts! How is that possible when the Giver is yours. Of the Giver "of every good and perfect gift," you can say, "He is my God."

2. This is the first great rule to show us how we may shun envy.

3. But, after this, get into the way of admiring worth, independence, and all moral excellence in whomsoever you see it. Love it in an enemy, and then you cannot have one. Sometimes we are slow to recognise high qualities in people who differ from us; but rid yourselves of this meanness, and delight yourselves in the discovery of nobleness, of generosity, of moral worth in books or men. Wordsworth says —

"My heart leaps up when I behold

A rainbow in the sky;"

but what is God's bow in the clouds for beauty compared to God's gift of genius, of wisdom, of disinterestedness, of charity, when in our human life they arch heaven and earth with a glory "that fadeth not away?" The nobility of Jonathan's character cannot easily be over-estimated.

(B. Kent, M. A.)

1. Friendships spring up often, we can hardly explain why, but they are most real, most helpful, very precious, and frequently lasting. It is an unspeakably blessed thing to have a true friend in whose wisdom you can confide, in whose strength you can shelter your weakness, whose sympathy understands the ever-varying moods of your soul.

2. Advice as to how to obtain and to retain friendship could not be more forcibly given than in the words, "A man that hath friends must show himself friendly." All expressions of confidence and affection are not to be on one side only; they must be mutual.

3. Our companionships bear testimony to our natures end our convictions. For friendship as I understand it does not consist in the perpetual interchange of compliments and sweet flatteries, but in the endeavour to increase the goodness and the happiness of each other, and sometimes this can be done only by gentle reproof and warning. It is a delicate task, and not unfrequently a most painful and hazardous one. Yet, as one truly says, the best of friends are "they that deny themselves of pleasure for the sake of making me better; they that incur the risk of anger and dislocation of friendship for the sake of telling me a truth that nobody else dares to tell me, and that I die for the want of hearing; they that are more choice of my soul's interior and essential good than they are of my satisfaction with the pride and the vanities of life, and seek to be physician of my soul, they are my best friends."

4. The other characteristics of friendships are expressions of love and faithfulness in adversity. Do not, expect to get all and give nothing — to have affection and confidence lavished upon you as though it were your right, and return none. Not so will you acquire and keep friendship.

II. SOCIAL ACQUAINTANCES. "Let every one of us please his neighbour for his good to edification." (Romans 15:2.) Beyond those dear and gracious ties we form with souls with whom ours are knit we are compelled to enlarge the circle of our associations, and we make acquaintances in a variety of ways, who never become our friends. Either because we know little about them, or are unattracted by what we do know, our intercourse is limited to those few occasions when we meet in social life, our conversation to those superficial topics which may be called the useful but not valuable counters that serve instead of anything more real or worthy. How many of such acquaintances most people can boast. We are familiar with their names, with some facts of their history, and we encounter them at houses where we visit, or are on tolerable visiting terms with them, but they never show us their hearts, and we are equally reserved. That is not altogether unnatural or undesirable. We cannot, take the oaths of true friendship with everybody. The society in which we move is not to be lowered in its tone by our laxity in fashion or in speech. We are not to descend to the level of the standards which satisfy irreligious people, and sometimes are accepted by those who profess to be religious, but we must follow what is right even if it looks ideal. Those around us are gathering from our conduct what is true and pure and good. We mingle amongst various people, and our influence may be felt. What is wanted is a more intelligent conviction of the duties we owe to society, of its need of a constant purifying influence, and that we Christian men and women have a mission to raise its tone and elevate its life. It will be of little avail to stand sway in isolated carelessness, or in a spirit of indignant asceticism from the world's life, raising an angry protest against its evil; we must resolutely carry the influence of our own principles into its life, and strive by all means in our power to transform and regenerate it. We are to be "in the world," — as salt to save it from corruption, as light to guide, to beautify, to increase the true joy of it — yet we may not be of the world.

(W. Braden.)

     5689   friendlessness
     5781   affection
     5895   intimacy

1 Samuel 18:1-2

     5086   David, rise of

1 Samuel 18:1-3

     5691   friends, good

1 Samuel 18:1-4

     7032   unity, God's people

War! War! War!
At the present crisis, the minds of men are exceedingly agitated with direful prospects of a terrible struggle. We know not whereunto this matter may grow. The signs of the times are dark and direful. We fear that the vials of God's wrath are about to be poured out, and that the earth will be deluged with blood. As long as there remains a hope, let us pray for peace, nay, even in the time of war let us still beseech the throne of God, crying, that he would "send us peace in our days." The war will …
Charles Haddon Spurgeon—Spurgeon's Sermons Volume 5: 1859

And V the Kingdom Undivided and the Kingdom Divided
THE HISTORICAL BOOKS: I and II Samuel. I and II Kings. I and II Chronicles. NOTE.--As these three pairs of books are so closely related in their historical contents, it is deemed best to study them together, though they overlap the two divisions of IV and V. I. CHARTS Chart A. General Contents +--+ " I AND II SAMUEL " +-------------+-----+------+ "Samuel "Saul "David " +-------------+-----+------+----------+ " " " " I AND II KINGS "NOTE.--Biblical …
Frank Nelson Palmer—A Bird's-Eye View of the Bible

The Exile.
David's first years at the court of Saul in Gibeah do not appear to have produced any psalms which still survive. "The sweetest songs are those Which tell of saddest thought." It was natural, then, that a period full of novelty and of prosperous activity, very unlike the quiet days at Bethlehem, should rather accumulate materials for future use than be fruitful in actual production. The old life shut to behind him for ever, like some enchanted door in a hill-side, and an unexplored land lay beckoning …
Alexander Maclaren—The Life of David

Salvation Published from the Mountains
O Zion, that bringest good tidings, get thee up into the high mountain; O Jerusalem, that bringest good tidings, lift up thy voice with strength; lift it up, be not afraid: say unto the cities of Judah, Behold your God! I t would be improper to propose an alteration, though a slight one, in the reading of a text, without bearing my testimony to the great value of our English version, which I believe, in point of simplicity, strength, and fidelity, is not likely to be excelled by a new translation …
John Newton—Messiah Vol. 1

How the Poor and the Rich Should be Admonished.
(Admonition 3.) Differently to be admonished are the poor and the rich: for to the former we ought to offer the solace of comfort against tribulation, but in the latter to induce fear as against elation. For to the poor one it is said by the Lord through the prophet, Fear not, for thou shalt not be confounded (Isai. liv. 4). And not long after, soothing her, He says, O thou poor little one, tossed with tempest (Ibid. 11). And again He comforts her, saying, I have chosen thee in the furnace of …
Leo the Great—Writings of Leo the Great

The Publication of the Gospel
The Lord gave the word: great was the company of those that published it [or of the preachers] P erhaps no one Psalm has given greater exercise to the skill and patience of commentators and critics, than the sixty-eighth. I suppose the difficulties do not properly belong to the Psalm, but arise from our ignorance of various circumstances to which the Psalmist alludes; which probably were, at that time, generally known and understood. The first verse is the same with the stated form of benediction …
John Newton—Messiah Vol. 2

Ramah. Ramathaim Zophim. Gibeah.
There was a certain Ramah, in the tribe of Benjamin, Joshua 18:25, and that within sight of Jerusalem, as it seems, Judges 19:13; where it is named with Gibeah:--and elsewhere, Hosea 5:8; which towns were not much distant. See 1 Samuel 22:6; "Saul sat in Gibeah, under a grove in Ramah." Here the Gemarists trifle: "Whence is it (say they) that Ramah is placed near Gibea? To hint to you, that the speech of Samuel of Ramah was the cause, why Saul remained two years and a half in Gibeah." They blindly …
John Lightfoot—From the Talmud and Hebraica

The Sixth Commandment
Thou shalt not kill.' Exod 20: 13. In this commandment is a sin forbidden, which is murder, Thou shalt not kill,' and a duty implied, which is, to preserve our own life, and the life of others. The sin forbidden is murder: Thou shalt not kill.' Here two things are to be understood, the not injuring another, nor ourselves. I. The not injuring another. [1] We must not injure another in his name. A good name is a precious balsam.' It is a great cruelty to murder a man in his name. We injure others in …
Thomas Watson—The Ten Commandments

Samuel
Alike from the literary and the historical point of view, the book[1] of Samuel stands midway between the book of Judges and the book of Kings. As we have already seen, the Deuteronomic book of Judges in all probability ran into Samuel and ended in ch. xii.; while the story of David, begun in Samuel, embraces the first two chapters of the first book of Kings. The book of Samuel is not very happily named, as much of it is devoted to Saul and the greater part to David; yet it is not altogether inappropriate, …
John Edgar McFadyen—Introduction to the Old Testament