placency in relation to it. But when it is rightly in- terpreted, it affords to all of us abundant occasion for,
1. Humiliation —
[" Who will say, My heart is clean, I am pure from this sin ? " Who, if an adulteress were now to be stoned to death, would take up the first stone to cast at her ? Who must not retire self-convicted, and self-condemned? If then we would know what ought to be our feelings before God, we have here an image whereby they may be illustrated in the clearest manner. Conceive a woman who has for many years main- tained an honourable character, betrayed at last into a forget- fulness of her marriage vows, and exposed to all the shame which her misconduct has justly brought upon her : how degraded would she be in her own eyes ! how ashamed would she be to appear in the presence of her injured husband! how would she even lothe her own existence, and hate the light which would expose her to public view ! Such consciousness should we feel in the presence of our God, even when our conduct has been most blameless in the sight of men. We should take to ourselves our proper character ; and, knowing what abominations the omniscient God has seen within us, we should humble ourselves before him, and lothe ourselves in dust and ashes. We should put our hands on our mouths, and " our mouths in the dust," " crying. Unclean, unclean!"]
2. Gratitude —
[Many instances there are of persons, who, in former times, have been as moral in their habits as any of us, who yet, through the violence of temptation, have fallen, and brought indelible disgrace upon their names and families. Whence is it, we would ask, that this has not been our lot? Is it that we have never found any disposition to commit the evils which have ruined them ? Is it that we are not actually chai'geable with those very evils in the sight of God, who identifies the desire with the act itself? Or rather, is it not owing to the kind providence of God, who has screened us from temptation, or interposed in some way to break its force and rescue us from its power ? We may perhaps be ready to ascribe our safety to a good education, and other secondary causes : but, if the First Great Cause had not rendered them effectual, they would have been as unavailing for us, as they have been for thousands all around us. Doubtless we have reason to be thankful for the restraints of education, for a dread of public shame, yea even for the laws of the land also : all of these have had tlieir weight, when perhaps other barriers might have been broken down: we have reason therefore to be thankful for them. But especially have we cause to bless our God for the checks