2. What encouragement have all to seek after God ! [It was not only after David had so grievously trans- gressed, but at the very moment that 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 possible for such a sinner as I ever to be thus highly favoured ? Know ye, that there is no limit, either to the sove- reign exercise of God's grace, or to its influence on the souls
e Rom. viii. 33—39.
^ 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.
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 vs^ill humble himself for his iniquities, and sprinkle on his con- science 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 salvation of yom' souls.]
Ps. Ixiii. 8. My soul foUoioeth hard after Thee : thy right
hand upholdeth me.
IT has been said, that Christian progress is more evinced by desires than by actual attainments. This sentiment is either true or false, according to the ex- planation given of it. If it be meant that there can be any growth in Christianity without attainments in holiness, or that growth in grace is to be measured by any thing but actual attainments in every part of the divine life, it is extremely erroneous : but if it be meant, that our views of a Christian's duty, and our desires after a perfect conformity to the divine will, will increase beyond our actual attainments, it is true : for a divinely enlightened soul has no bounds to its desires : but, alas ! the good that it would, it does not ; and the evil that it would not, that it does : so that, after all its exertions, it is constrained to say, *' O wretched man that I am ! who shall deliver me?" With this the Psalmist's experience was in strict ac- cordance. He speaks in the beginning of this psalm, not as one who was in actual possession of all that he desired, but as one whose appetite for heavenly things was altogether insatiable : " O God, thou art my God : early will I seek thee : my soul thirsteth for thee ; my flesh longeth for thee in a dry and thirsty land, where no water is ; to see thy power and thy glory so as I have seen thee in the sanctuary." So again, in the words of my text, he speaks, not as one who had attained, but as one pressing forward in