Ahitophel’s Prudent Advice Providentially Rejected by Absalom

    Nothing could be more prudent than the advice of Ahitophel. The advice of Hushai is sophistical declamation. Yet Absalom rejects the counsel that was wise, and follows that which was for his ruin. The thing has happened a thousand times, and no doubt for a similar reason. "And Absalom and all the men of Israel said, The counsel of Hushai, the Archite, is better than the counsel of Ahitophel. For the Lord had appointed to defeat the good counsel of Ahitophel, to the intent that the Lord might bring evil upon Absalom." The rejection of Ahitophel's counsel was the free action of Absalom and his friends; yet God appointed this free choice to effect his own purpose. Can human intellect conceive how God could appoint the choice of a voluntary agent? Millions of volumes of incomprehensible nonsense have been written to explain these mysterious ways of God. But it is an attempt to fathom the abyss of infinity. That the thing is so, we know, because God declares it. How it is so, we cannot know, because the manner of it is not declared. We may as well attempt to fathom the incomprehensible nature of God, as to fathom his equally incomprehensible ways.

    In the fact here presented to our view, we have a key put into our hands by which we may open the events of the history of nations. Why does folly often prevail over wisdom in the counsels of princes, and in houses of legislators? God has appointed the rejection of good counsel in order to bring on nations that vengeance that their crimes call down from heaven. God rules the world by Providence, not by miracle. See that grave senator. He rises and pours forth wisdom. But if God has determined to punish the nation, some prating speculatist will impose his sophisms on the most sagacious assembly.