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Types and emblems: a collection of sermons
Types and emblems a collection of sermons Author:Charles Haddon Spurgeon Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: " And he shall be as the light of the morning, when the sun riseth, even a morning without clouds; as the tender grass springing out of the earth by clear s... more »hining after rain."—2 Samuel xxiii. 4. ASTERN despots fleece their subjects to an enormous extent. Even at the present day one would hardly wish to be subjected to the demands of an Oriental government; but in David's time a bad king was a continual pestilence, plague, and famine— a bane to the lives of his subjects, who were under his caprice; and spoliation to their fields, which he perpetually swept clean to enrich himself with the produce thereof. Hence, a good king was a rara avis in those days, and could never be too highly prized. So soon as he mounted the throne, his subjects began to feel the beneficent influence of his sway. He was to them "as when the sun riseth." The confusion which had existed under weak governors gave place to settled order, while the rapacity which had continually emptied the coffers of the rich, and filched the earnings of the poor, gave place to a regular system of assessment, and men knew how to go about their business with some degree of certainty. It was to them" a morning without clouds." Forthwith, trade began to flourish; persons who had emigrated to avoid the exactions of the tyrant came back again; fields which had fallsn out of tillage, because they would not pay the farmer to cultivate them, began to be sown; and the new ruler was to the land as " clear shining after rain, which makes the tender grass spring up." I fear we do not value, as we should, the constitutional government which it is our privilege as Britons to enjoy. Let us look where we may—we need not say to the east only but to the west also—we would not wish to change the government under which we live so happi...« less