The life of doctrine is in application. Nathan might have been long enough in his narration, in his invective, ere David would have been touched with his own guiltiness; but now that the prophet brings the word home to his bosom, he cannot but be affected. We may take pleasure to hear men speak in the clouds, we never take profit till we find a propriety in the exhortation or reproof. There was not more cunning in the parable, than courage in the application; 66 Thou art the man." If David be a king, he may not look not to hear of his faults; God's messages may be no other than impartial. It is a treacherous flattery in divine errands to regard greatness. If prophets must be mannerly in the form, yet in the matter of reproof resolute: the words are not their own; they are but the heralds of the King of heaven, "Thus saith the Lord God of Israel."

How thunder-stricken do we think David did now stand! how did the change of his colour betray the confusion in his soul, while his conscience said the same within, which the prophet sounded in his ear! And now, lest aught should be wanting to his humiliation, all God's former favours shall be laid before his eyes, by way of exprobation. He is worthy to be upbraided with mercies, that hath abused mercies unto wantonness. While we do well, God gives and says nothing: when we do ill, he lays his benefits in our dish, and casts them in our teeth, that our shame may be so much the more by how much our obligations have been greater. The blessings of God, in our unworthy carriage, prove but the aggravations of sin, and additions to judgment.

I see all God's children falling into sin, some of them lying in sin, none of them maintaining their sin; David cannot have the heart, or the face, to stand out against the message of God; but now, as a man confounded and condemned in himself, he cries out in the bitterness of a wounded soul, "I have sinned against the Lord." It was a short word, but

passionate; and such as came from the bottom of a contrite heart. The greatest griefs are not most verbal. Saul confessed his sin more largely, less effectually. God cares not for phrases, but for affections. The first piece of our amends to God for sinning is the acknowledgment of sin; he can do little that, in a just offence, cannot accuse himself. If we cannot be so good as we would, it is reason we should do God so much right, as to say how evil we are. And why was not this done sooner? It is strange to see how easily sin gets into the heart, how hardly it gets out of the mouth; is it because sin, like unto Satan, where it hath got possession, is desirous to hold it, and knows that it is fully ejected by a free confession? or because, in a guiltiness of deformity, it hides itself in the breast where it is once entertained, and hates the light? or, because the tongue is so fee'd with self-love, that it is loth to be drawn unto any verdict against the heart or hands? or is it out of an idle misprision of shame, which, while it should be placed in offending, is misplaced in disclosing of our offence?

However, sure I am, that God hath need even of racks to draw out confessions, and scarce in death itself are we wrought to a discovery of our errors.

There is no one thing wherein our folly shows itself more than in these hurtful concealments. Contrary to the proceedings of human justice, it is with God, "Confess and live;" no sooner can David say, "I have sinned," than Nathan infers, "The Lord also hath put away thy sin. He that hides his sins shall not prosper; but he that confesseth and forsaketh them shall find mercy." Who would not ac

cuse himself, to be acquitted of God? O God, who would not tell his wickedness to thee that knowest it better than his own heart, that his heart may be eased of that wickedness, which, being not told, killeth? Since we have sinned, why should we be niggardly of that action wherein we may at once give glory to thee, and relief to our souls?

David had sworn, in a zeal of justice, that the rich oppressor, for but taking his poor neighbour's lamb, should die the death; God, by Nathan, is more favourable to David than to take him at his word, "Thou shalt not die." Oh the marvellous power of repentance! Besides adultery, David had shed the blood of innocent Uriah. The strict law was, "Eye for eye, tooth for tooth. He that smiteth with the sword, shall perish with the sword;" yet as if a penitent confession had dispensed with the rigour of justice, now God says, "Thou shalt not die." David was the voice of the law, awarding death unto sin; Nathan was the voice of the gospel, awarding life unto the repentance for sin. Whatsoever the sore be, never any soul applied this remedy and died; never any soul escaped death that applied it not.

David himself shall not die for this fact: but his misbegotten child shall die for him. He that said, "The Lord hath put away thy sin," yet said also, "The sword shall not depart from thine house."

The same mouth, with one breath, pronounces the sentence both of absolution and death; absolution to the person, death to the issue. Pardon may well stand with temporal afflictions. Where God hath forgiven, though he doth not punish, yet he may chastise, and that unto blood; neither doth he always forbear correction, where he remits revenge. So long as he smites us not as an angry judge, we may endure to smart from him as a loving father.

Yet even this rod did David deprecate with tears: how fain would he shake off so easy a load! The child is stricken; the father fasts, and prays, and weeps, and lies all night upon the earth, and abhors the noise of comfort: that child, which was the fruit and monument of his odious adultery, whom he could never have looked upon without recognition of his sin, in whose face he could not but have still read the records of his own shame, is thus mourned for, thus sued for: it is easy to observe that good

man over-passionately affected to his children. Who would not have thought, that David might have held himself well appaid, that his soul escaped an eternal death; his body a violent; though God should punish his sin in that child in whom he sinned: yet even against this cross he bends his prayers, as if nothing had been forgiven him. There is no child that would be scourged, if he might escape for crying; no affliction is for the time other than grievous; neither is therefore yielded unto, without some kind of reluctation. Far yet was it from the heart of David to make any opposition to the will of God; he sued, he struggled not; there is no impatience in entreaties ; he well knew that the threats of temporal evils ran commonly with a secret condition, and therefore might perhaps be avoided by humble importunity: if any means under heaven can avert judgments, it is our

prayers.

God could not choose but like well the boldness of David's faith, who, after the apprehension of so heavy a displeasure, is so far from doubting of the forgiveness of his sin, that he dares become a suitor unto God for his sick child. Sin doth not make us more strange, than faith confident.

But it is not in the power of the strongest faith to preserve us from all afflictions; after all David's prayers and tears, the child must die. The careful servants dare but whisper this sad news; they who had found their master so averse from the motion of comfort in the sickness of the child, feared him incapable of comfort in his death.

Suspicion is quick-witted. Every occasion makes us misdoubt that event which we fear. This secrecy proclaims that which they were so loth to utter. David perceives his child dead, and now he rises up from the earth whereon he lay, and washes himself, and changeth his apparel, and goes first into God's house to worship, and into his own to eat; now he refuses no comfort, who before would take none.

The issue of things doth more fully show the will of God than the prediction; God never did any thing but what he would; he hath sometimes foretold that for trial, which his secret will intended not; he would foretel it, he would not effect it; because he would therefore foretel it, that he might not effect it. His predictions of outward evils are not always absolute, his actions are. David well sees, by the event, what the decree of God was concerning his child, which now he could not strive against without a vain impatience. Till we know the determinations of the Almighty, it is free for us to strive in our prayers, to strive with him, not against him; when once we know them, it is our duty to sit down in a silent contentation.

"While the child was yet alive, I fasted and wept; for I said, Who can tell whether the Lord will be gracious to me, that the child may live? but now he is dead, wherefore should I fast? can I bring him back again?"

The grief that goes before an evil for remedy, can hardly be too much; but that which follows an evil past remedy, cannot be too little. Even in the saddest accident, death, we may yield something to nature, nothing to impatience: immoderation of sorrow for losses past hope of recovery, is more sullen than useful; our stomach may be bewrayed by it, not our wisdom.

CONTEMPLATION VI.

AMNON AND TAMAR.

It is not possible that any word of God should fall to the ground. David is not more sure of forgiveness than smart. Three main sins passed him in this business of Uriah: adultery, murder, dissimulation; for all which he receives present payment: for adultery, in the deflowering of his daughter Tamar ;