well fill me with alarm and terror." As for love to God, you know not what it means : and for confidence in him you have not the smallest ground : no, nor have you any access to him in the hour of necessity. Hence you are a prey to your ene- mies, and " are led captive by the devil at his will." Unhappy creatures ! You may go on your appointed time, and may hide yourselves from the danger to which you are exposed : but your state is only the more pitiable in proportion as you are lulled in fatal security. If they are right who resemble the Psalmist, you can have no clearer evidence that you your- selves are out of the way of peace and salvation. And were there no future state of existence, your loss would be great even in this world ; but when we take eternity into the account, your prospect is terrible indeed : for, if you do not love God now, you cannot love him when you go hence : if you do not possess an interest in him here, you can have no interest in him hereafter: if you do not live nigh to him in prayer in this world, you never can unite with the heavenly hosts in their songs of praise to him in the eternal world.]
BESETTINCx SINS.
Ps. xviii. 23. I kept myself from mine iniquity.
NOTHING is a richer source of comfort to any man than the testimony of his own conscience that he has acted right : for, if our own heart condemn us not, then have we confidence towards God. St. Paul en- joyed this in a pre-eminent degree : " Our rejoicing/' says he, " is this, the testimony of our conscience, that in simplicity and godly sincerity, not with fleshly wisdom, but by the grace of God, we have had our conversation in the world ^" And, in the whole of his conduct towards Saul, David could appeal to God himself, that he had demeaned himself as a loyal sub- ject, and had rendered nothing but good for all the evil that he had received at his hands. '' They," Saul and his followers, " prevented me in the day of my calamity : but the Lord was my stay. He brought me forth also into a large place : he delivered me, because he delighted in me. The Lord rewarded
a 2 Cor. i. 12.