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