rankled with pride, or malice, or envy, realize that the Lord is good; that his mercy endureth for ever?

Let us endeavour, according to our power, (and if we are willing, God will give us strength,) to bear with patience, fortitude, and Christian resignation, the real troubles and evils of life, well knowing that they are less than we deserve, and are not to be compared with those glories for which they are intended to prepare us.

But if we are bound, as we certainly are, by interest and duty, to be patient and resigned under real afflictions, how sinful and offensive must be the discontent which springs from imaginary evils! How unchristian, how ruinous to the soul, if not to the body, are those needless anxieties, those disordered passions, which arise from perverse humours, from sinful indulgence! Can we, Christian friends, on whom the Lord is daily bestowing such signal blessings, both temporal and spiritual, suffer our minds to be tormented with needless and imaginary troubles? God forbid that the good things which he so mercifully bestows, should avail us nothing, because every thing is not according to our mind. If God be for us, who can be against us?" Let us not go abroad for misery, while he has peace to give within. Think of what you have, rather than of what is denied; for what the Lord gives be duly thankful; if you have food and raiment, be therewith content. But if you abound, "be not high-minded, but fear;" for he who makes you differ from another," "is no respecter of persons." That we may never forget nor abuse his mercies, the same Lord mercifully grant, through Jesus Christ. Amen.

SERMON XXIX.

ON THE CHARACTER OF DAVID.

Acts, xiii. 22.

I have found David the son of Jesse, a man after mine own heart, which shall fulfil all my will.

THESE words of St. Paul, addressed to the Jews of Antioch, refer to the testimony which the Lord gave to the character of David king of Israel. In several places of the holy scriptures do we find this monarch distinguished as a person eminently faithful and religious, and as being highly in favour with God. And yet it is seen in his history, as recorded in the same word of God, that he was far from being faultless; that he was guilty of some great sins.

There has been a double abuse made of this commendation of David's character, when compared with his moral conduct. On the one hand, unbelievers make this an objection to the scriptures, and of course to Christianity; that David, who was a wicked man, is praised as eminently good and perfect. And licentious people, on the other hand, who mock at sin, would justify their own wickedness by David's exr

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ample. If David, they argue, who was guilty of murder and adultery, and often cursed his enemies, was accounted a good man, and was accepted of God, what have I to fear, whose sins are no greater than his? Will God be less merciful to me than he was to David?

It is proposed, therefore, if the Lord permit, to examine these premises, from which infidelity and vice have drawn such pernicious inferences; to view first David's private character, and then examine more particularly in what sense it is said that he was a man after God's own heart.

I. It is very natural and not uncommon, for those who would discredit the holy scriptures, or excuse their own wickedness, to represent the character of this monarch in the most odious light, to hide his virtues, and magnify his faults. That David sinned, especially in the affair of Uriah, the scriptures teach. They teach too, what the wicked are not so ready to notice, that David suffered in this world great punishment in consequence of his sins. Because he killed Uriah with the sword, the sword, while he lived, did not depart from his house. And what David thought of himself as a sinner, and how he humbled himself before God, is seen in his penitential psalms.

And yet, were it necessary, we might apologize for his failings. There are some considerations, which, if they do not, and indeed nothing can wholly excuse his crimes, palliate, or at least account for them. Great allowance should be made for the customs, and morals, and spiritual ignorance of the times in which he lived. Mankind were not then so ci

vilized, nor their manners so refined, nor the duties of life so well understood, as at the present time. The Jews indeed had divine revelation, but nothing like so clear and full as what we now enjoy. Their's was but the twilight of the gospel day; very imperfect was their knowledge of the renovating doctrines of Jesus Christ. And, as St. Paul tells the Athenians, "the times of that ignorance God winked at," and as Christ says, many things were "suffered for the hardness of their hearts," which God never approved, and which, if now done, would be exceedingly sinful. We should further consider what unlimited power was then, and in that country, is still supposed to appertain to kings. They were accustomed to view the world as made for their happiness, and other men to be their vassals. It was not possible for them to view as we do the liberty and rights of man. This is strikingly evident in the deep conviction and remorse of David, when, in Nathan's parable, he saw his guilt. What his feelings then were, we have expressed in the fifty-first Psalm. Who of us can say what abominations we should have committed, what absurdities we should have fallen into, had we lived three thousand years ago? It is of God's great mercy that we know the truth, and are freed from the bondage of sin and superstition which then enslaved the world.

We might say much too, of the uncommon trials to which David was called, beyond the experience of almost any other man. And also of his natural delicacy of feeling, and acuteness of sensibility, which, if it made him more ardent in his religious affections, rendered him also more vulnerable to the fiery shafts

of the wicked. He was like a vessel tossed upon a tempestuous sea; though he was raised oft to the heavens, he was subject also to be plunged amidst the waves, where, as he says, the waters came over his soul. But in every storm he kept his true course; his heart was ever right towards his God.

Among the objections to David's character, we often hear of his cruelty and his imprecations. But what proof have we that he was cruel? Towards his enemies he was uncommonly merciful. What was his conduct towards Saul, his most dangerous and deadly foe, who sought his life through all the country? Repeatedly did Saul fall into David's hands, who might have privately slain him, but though by his best friends urged to do it, and though he knew it would advance himself immediately to the throne, he refused to hurt him; he chose to overcome evil with good. And when afterwards David was king, he did not manifest a vindictive spirit; he did not punish those who had cruelly insulted and persecuted him in adversity; he forgave those who had injured him, and punished those only who had been guilty of crimes against the state.

In the Psalms of David are many expressions in the form of curses or imprecations, but they are far, very far from being the language of private malevolence or resentment; generally, they are solemn and prophetic denunciations of divine displeasure against the enemies of God, and the opposers of religion. In the New Testament we find many of them, by Christ and his apostles so applied. And as such do Christians still repeat them, not as wishing evil, or invoking judgment on any one; but as acknowledging