2 Samuel 17

Glorying is the height of confidence; many a man does make an idol of his wit and parts: he deifies himself: but how often does God take the [reconstructed: Wise] in their own craftiness (Job 5:13). Achitophel had a great wit, his counsel was as the oracle of God, but his wit br…

Achitophel had deep policy (2 Samuel 16:23). The counsel of Achitophel which he counseled, was as if a man had inquired at the oracle of God: but he consulted his own shame, the Lord turned his counsel into foolishness (2 Samuel 17:23). Job 5:13. God takes the wise in their own…

Achitophel had high thoughts of himself, his words were esteemed oracles; and to have his wise counsel rejected, he was not able to bear it. (2 Samuel 17:23) He put his house in order, and hanged himself. 2. Discontent is occasioned from poverty.

Second, faith furnishes itself with a store of promises; the promises are faith's weapons to fight with. Now, as David, by five stones in his sling, wounded Goliath (2 Samuel 17:40), so faith puts the promises, as stones, into its sling: "I will never leave you nor forsake you"…

And thus it was with [reconstructed: Ahithophel], who for wisdom was as the oracle of God: yet because he rebelled against the Lord's anointed, God confounded him in his own wisdom. For when his counsel which he gave against David was not followed, he thought [reconstructed: him…

And indeed it was but meet, that he should eat the fruit of that tree which himself had planted, Esther 7:10 Ahitophel plots against David, and gives counsel like an Oracle, how to procure his fall; and that very counsel, like a surcharged Gun, recoils upon himself, and procures…

Great is the Priviledge to have the Lord of Hosts for us. 1. If the Lord of Hosts be on our side, he can discover the subtil plots of Enemies. Thus he detected the Counsel of Achitophel, 2 Samuel 17:16. And did not the Lord discover the Popish conspirators both in the Powder-Tre…

Trust in the living God, who gives us richly all things to enjoy. To make you more earnest in good works (2 Samuel 17), says David there, I dwell in a house of cedar, and the ark of God within curtains. When you have such kind of reasonings stirred up within you, What do I for G…

If he does but let a spark of his wrath into conscience, and hide his face from them, it's a greater burden to them than all the miseries of the world. David was a man valiant, that had a heart as the heart of a lion (2 Samuel 17:10). He was a man cheerful, called the sweet sing…

You shall find in 2 Samuel 15:12: "The people increased continually with Absalom." A multitude against him, and the rest durst not be for him, their hearts were hovering; and in another place (2 Samuel 17:11): "All Israel gathered to him from Dan to Beersheba." In what a sorry p…

There is no reason of altering our course, and why we should grow remiss, lazy, and changeable in God's service. What is more usual with men than to cast off their first faith (1 Timothy 1:12), and their first love (Revelation 2:4), and their first diligence and obedience (2 Sam…

Whereas a false heart never yet truly turned from his sin, and sincerely humbled; if the venom of God's vengeance give him a vomit, and make him cast out all his [illegible] by confession in his own face, there follows such faint wrestlings of spirit, such restless and [illegibl…

To read at home when the Word is a-preaching, or the sacrament celebrating, is unseasonable — nay sinful. As Hushai said (2 Samuel 17:7): the counsel is not good at this time. One duty is to prepare for another, but not to jostle out another; fruit must put forth seasonably.

(2) We take not heed to the young births of the heart; with the concurrence of the mind, fancy and imagination, there are multitudes of forgeries, clay-pots, and imaginations framed, as a potter devises vessels of earth of many quantities, figures, shapes, great, small, narrow,…

Verse 30: Hoshea smote him, and reigned, [in non-Latin alphabet]. So also (Esther 2:4), (Ecclesiastes 4:15), (2 Samuel 17:25), (Genesis 30:2), (1 Kings 16:10): Zimri reigned, [in non-Latin alphabet] (Ezekiel 16:32). Joseph heard that Archelaus did reign in the room of Herod his…