Hath GOD favoured me with such an astonishing deliverance? Hath he manifested his goodness and loving-kindness in withdrawing his chastising hand, pardoning my guilt, and sparing me and my people from utter destruction? Surely, then, I will not grudge, the trifling expence of erecting, upon this spot, a monument of his love. Surely I will not accept of the labours of another, or testify my gratitude by burnt-offerings and sacrifices at another's expence. The least I can do is, to make such an acknowledgment, and in such a manner, as will best evidence my sense of the obligation, and the honour that is due to my Almighty Deliverer. Those who look beyond the letter and the outward history, will readily discern the state of David's mind. They will readily discern this outward action of his, though adapted to the outward dispensation under which he lived, to be highly expressive of that great and fundamental principle, which every dispensation of Truth, from the fall of man down to this very day, hath strongly inculcated, viz. that true religion is an inward life, that cannot rest in external appearances, but manifests itself in an absolute unlimited surrender of the whole man to his Creator. This can never be accomplished without considerable cost and expence on the part of the creature, inasmuch as his will and affections must first be drawn off from all that variety of imaginations, desires and enjoyments, to which his fallen nature strongly allures, and deeply enslaves him. Hence it is, that our BLESSED LORD makes the very first duty of discipleship to consist in "denying ourselves, taking up our cross, and following him:" that is to say, in bearing, with meekness, the necessary evils of our fallen life, resisting and overcoming its sinful suggestions, and humbly waiting for and co-operating with his Spirit revealed in our hearts. This is the spiritual warfare, the struggle betwixt the "law in the members," and the "law of the mind;" the fighting "not only against flesh and blood, but against principalities and powers," in which we are all summoned to engage. The whole burnt-offering and sacrifice, the whole price which this must cost us, is nothing less than the turning our wills, with the whole tide of our affections, from the evil to the good principle within us. And that GOD through CHRIST hath given us ability to do this, will appear from the following considerations: The will of man, as coming forth from the Eternal Will of GOD, must be eternally and essentially free. The will of the fallen angels in hell, was as free as that of the highest archangel now in heaven: Freely they stood, who stood; and fell, who fell. The whole difference betwixt them consists in this, that the will of those who fell, is freely turned to evil; the will of those who stood, is freely turned to GOD and Goodness.