our desires after God are so faint, our purposes respecting him so weak, and our expectations from him so contracted. Let us, each for himself, look at om* experience from day to day, and compare it with his ; and let us not rest, till we have attained somewhat at least of that delight in God, which so eminently distinguished that blessed man.]
1. What encouragement have all to seek after God!
[It was not only after David had so grievously trangressed, but at the very moment when God was chastening him for his transgressions, that he was thus favoured of his God^. Can we then with propriety say. This mercy is not for me? it is not pos- sible for such a sinner as I ever to be thus highly favoured ? Know ye, that there is no limit, either to the sovereign exercise of God's grace, or to its influence on the souls of men. His grace often most abounds, where sin has most abounded : and the vilest of us all may yet become the richest monument of God's love and mercy, if only, like David, he will humble himself for his ini- quities, and sprinkle on his conscience the blood of our great sacrifice. O beloved ! know, if you come to God by Christ, you shall never be cast out ; and if you commit yourself in faith entirely to Christ, you shall rejoice in him with joy unspeakable, and receive in due time the great end of your faith, even the sal- vation of your souls.]
' Absalom's incestuous commerce with David's wives was foretold by Nathan, as a part of David's punishment for his sin in taking to him the wife of his friend Uriah.