word is sent; nor can fail of it, save by its own unbelief and wilful rejection of the way of mercy. But what is sin, wilful sin, the fool's laughingstock, after this? What is sin in those who hear the Gospel? Is wilful continuance in it anything else but wilful rejection of the Saviour? or anything else, but choosing Satan before the Lord? Does not everybody know that Christ gave himself for us, on purpose to redeem us from all iniquity; and does not, in fact, every habitual sinner, as far as in him lies, put God and Christ out of all his thoughts, saying to the Lord, Depart from me, for I desire not the knowledge of thy ways? Can he bear to think of God? To hear of him; to read of him; to search after him; to pray to him? Is he not, on the contrary, alienated from him; set against him in the whole spirit of his mind? Can he make light of sin, and not make light of salvation also? And what, I beseech you, is to come of this? * "He that despised Moses' law died without mercy under two or three witnesses: of how much sorer punishment, suppose ye, shall he be thought worthy who hath trodden under foot the Son of God, and hath counted the blood of the covenant wherewith he was sanctified an unholy thing, and hath done despite to the Spirit of grace?"

* Heb. x. 28, 29.

This, I suppose, was another consideration which affected David's mind, for he knew Christ, as typified and promised, though he was not actually come; and others might have known him also. At all events, we know him.

**

3. And therefore I may put the question, how ought sin in all reason to be regarded; and how ought men's minds to be affected, when they see their brethren guilty of it? Doubtless, different people are, in fact, affected in different ways. Ham, the son of Noah, had no grief of spirit, when he beheld his own father disgraced and exposed by drunkenness; and when the sin of Judas had found him out, and in bitter agony he cast down the wages of his iniquity, saying, "I have betrayed the innocent blood;" "What is that to us?" cry his hypocritical tempters and accomplices, "see thou to that." But "horror hath taken hold upon me,” saith David, "because of the wicked that keep not thy law :"+ and, • If ye will not hear it," says Jeremiah,

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my soul shall weep, in secret places, for your pride, and mine eyes shall weep sore, and run down with tears, because the Lord's flock is carried away captive."§ It grieved Samuel || for the H sin of Saul, and he cried unto the Lord all night: and Paul¶ had great heaviness and continual

Matt. xxvii. 4.

* Gen. ix. 22. § Jer. xiii. 17.

1 Sam. xv. 11.

Psalm cxix. 53. ¶ Rom. ix. 2.

sorrow in his heart for Israel. And so had He, above all, who alone knoweth perfectly what evil there is in sin; and what sinners forfeit of glory, and incur of misery. "For when he was come to Jerusalem, he beheld the city, and wept over it, saying, If thou hadst known, even thou, in this thy day, the things which belong unto thy peace; but now they are hid from thine eyes, for the days shall come upon thee that thine enemies shall cast a trench about thee, and compass thee round and keep thee in on every side, and shall lay thee even with the dust, and thy children within thee: and they shall not leave in thee one stone upon another, because thou knewest not the day of thy visitation.”* And should not the same mind be in us, which was also in Christ Jesus, and in those whom he has owned for his; and should not he that saith he believeth in him, walk as he walked, do as he did, feel as he felt, the case and circumstances being the very same? Sinners, I mean, being as ignorant and regardless of the day of grace now as formerly; and rushing, therefore, upon that eternal condemnation, of which Jerusalem's destruction was a type? Or supposing that we had no recorded example of this sort at all, how could we, what has been stated being considered, possibly be in doubt? Is not this *Luke xix. 41, 44.

"the first, the great commandment-Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart?" and is not the second like unto it-" Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself."* But can a man love God, and yet enter not at all into the feelings of Elijah, when he says, "I have been very jealous for the Lord God of hosts: for the children of Israel have forsaken thy covenant, and thrown down thine altars?" Can he be indifferent to it, that God is provoked every day? Or can he regard man, and without concern see him going blindfold down to hell; and when there is a way of escape for him, heaping up unto himself wrath against the day of wrath, and revelation of the righteous judgment of God; and, if not, can he that is not grieved at the sight of sin and infidelity in others, by any possibility be himself a Christian? That question, I think, has been answered for you by Saint Paul. "Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels; though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries, and all knowledge; and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains; and though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor; and though I give my body to be burned, and have not charity, it profiteth me nothing."‡

This may suffice for exposition of David's conduct. It has been shown, I hope, that in being

* Matt. xxii. 38, 39. † 1 Kings xix. 10. 1 Cor. xiii. 1, &c.

affected, as he was, with bitter sorrow at the sight of his neighbour's sin, his mind and behaviour was that of a reasonable and good man; such as will ever be the fruit of true faith and christian concern for the honour of God, and the best interests of mankind and such, therefore, as ought to be our own mind and behaviour in like circumstances, and ever will be, if we are what we call ourselves.

II. I come now to address, as I proposed, a few words of admonition and exhortation to the different sorts of persons respectively whom the doctrine of my text concerns.

1. And first it concerns those of whom, I fear, there may be some amongst us, who are not of David's mind; in whom, I mean, the sight of sin in their brethren awakens no feeling of sorrow and deep concern; who, beholding it, care not for it, and who jest at it, even if they do not, in that particular instance, copy it; and, if they do not directly encourage it, at least look on, and do nothing to prevent or stop it.

This is very common, brethren, and if it is, assuredly it is very evil. Some persons have a practice of taking God's name in vain-cursing and swearing and blaspheming-sometimes for the mere indulgence of their humour, as if it showed wit and spirit-sometimes in giving utterance to the spite and passion of their hearts.