16 FORGIVENESS OF SIN. voting of that son and his posterity to destruction, ver. 24, 25; all which, joined with the sense of God's just indignation, from whom he had newly received that tremendously miraculous deliverance, must overwhelm himwith sorrow and anxiety of spirit. The matter is more clear in David. Under the Old Testament, none loved God more than he, and none was loved of God more than he. The paths of faith and love wherein he walked are, to the most of us, like the way of an eagle in the air, too high and hard for us; yet to this very day do the cries of this man after God's own heart sound in our ears. Sometimes he complains of Lroken bones, sometimes of drowning deeps, sometimes of waves and water- spouts, sometimes of wounds and diseases, sometimes of wrath and the sorrows of hell- every where of his sins, the burden and trouble of them. Some of the occasions of his depths, darkness, entan- glements and distresses we all know. As no man had more grace than he, so none is a greater instance of the power of sin, and the effects of its guilt upon the con- science. But instances of this kind are obvious, and oc- cur to the thoughts of all, so that they need not be re- peated. I shall show, then, What is intended by the depths into which gracious souls, after much communion with God, may fall. Whence it comes to pass that they may so fall; and What sins usually bring them into great spiritual dis- tresses, with some aggravations of those sins. I. WHAT ARE some of the depths into which believers may fall. 1. Loss of the sense of the love of God, which the soul formerly enjoyed. There is a twofold sense of the love of God, of which believers in this world may be made partakers. There is the transient acting of the heart by the Holy Ghost, with ravishing joys, in apprehension
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