If in this instance God pardoned, and gave a sense of pardon, to so heinous an offender, without a moment intervening sense of guilt, and evidence of pardon and peace, it must have been a very singular divine treatment of so vile a sinner! And if David, after having been long eminent for piety, lived a year of stupid unconcern, under such enormous guilt, it must have been a very strange event! A phenomenon in the history of man, unequalled in the annals of the world! Whether there is evidence to justify so strange a conclusion, judge ye. If we have not mistaken our subject, this affair gives no countenance to those who pretend religion to be a thing of nought--that it doth not change the heart and life, turning men from sin to holiness. Good people may be seduced into sin, but they are soon renewed by repentance--soon turn again to the Lord in the way of duty, confessing their sins and renewing their purposes and engagements to serve the Lord--"That which I know not teach thou me; and wherein I have done iniquity, I will do no more." Neither doth this affair yield comfort and hope to those, who while they call themselves saints, live like sinners. If _here_, they find no comfort and support, where will they find it? The only example thought to have been found in "the footsteps of the flock," fails them; and we are left to conclude that sanctification is the principal evidence of justification--"that by their fruits we are to know men." It is a dark omen when professors paliate their errors and deviations from duty, by pleading those of saints of old. Those saints erred; but they did not long continue in sin--"When they thought on their ways they turned by repentance." Neither did they flatter themselves in allowed wickedness. If any allege the sins of former saints in excuse for their own, they allege not that which distinguished them as saints, but that which they retained as sinners--not that which they possessed of the image of God, but that which remained to them of the image of Satan. This they may have in full, and yet be of their father the Devil. And such is the sad state of those who allowed serve sin, under whatever pretence. Those who are born of God, favor the thing which are of God. Sin is odious in their view. They long for freedom from it--"Oh wretched man that I am! Who shall deliver me from the body of this death?" The saints wish for heaven, not only that they may see "their father who is in heaven," and the divine Redeemer, "who loved them and gave himself for them;" but because there "the spirits of the just are made perfect"--because there they expect to be holy as God is holy-- because there, to be "satisfied with God's likeness, and rejoice always before him." May God give us this temper, and keep us to his kingdom, for his mercy's sake in Christ. Amen. * * * * * * SERMON XI. General Character of Christians. Galatians v. 24.