FORMS OF PRAYER. S57 In that profoundly self-abasing prayer of David, after the commission of the two black offences which' disgraced his otherwise exemplary life ; though he deeply felt his barbarous treatment of his brave general, in first dishonouring his wife, andthen exposinghim tomeet inevit- able death in the fore-front of the hottest battle-yet, in praying to be delivered from this blood-guiltiness, he bequeathed an important lesson to posterity, when in his lowly prostration at the throne of God, his first cry was, " Against Thee, Thee only, have I sinned, and done this evil in Thy sight," plainly declaring, that all sin is, in the first instance, a sin against God. While the most worldly are ready enoughto exclaim against notorious sins, or against any sins carried to the greatest excess, to smaller offences they contrive to be tolerably reconciled. They think the commission of these not inconsistent with the profitable use of prayer in their formal way of using this customary exercise.
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