thousand stings. The delinquent hath not power to prevent it. He
cannot drive away thought, and turn off his attention to other
objects.

It is further presumed, that every good man is formed to the habit of
reflection; that he often enters into himself by a serious attention
to his state; considers his temper; review's his conduct, and brings
both to the divine standard, that he may know himself, and reform
whatever is amiss.

A person of David's character, especially circumstanced as he was at
that time, could not possibly have been destitute of considerations.
The society of the woman who had been the occasion of the crimes which
had so maimed his character, must have brought those crimes to his
remembrance, and kept them on his mind. Every time she came into his
presence, or cheered him by her smiles, a group of affecting thoughts
must have rushed in upon him; his first offence, an offence which the
law of his God would have obliged him to punish with death, in a
subject, and his after, and still more enormous sins, which he had
committed to hide the first, and possess the object which he was
forbidden even to covet, would occur to his mind. From the lovely
object in his presence, his mind would naturally revert to her late,
first greatly injured, and then murdered husband; to his faithfulness
and zeal for the honor of his king and country, which had torn him
from the embraces of a lovely partner, and the society of a family
dear to him, and would not even suffer him to visit them when liberty
was given him of his prince; to his careful attention to deliver the
letters, by which he had unsuspectingly borne the mandate for his own
murder; to his heroism when ordered up to the walls of the besieged
city, though not supported by the commander in chief; and his noble
exertions to subdue the enemies of Israel, amidst which he had bravely
fallen! Such reflexions must have filled his mind; nor was it possible
that he should have driven them away.

Neither could he do other than condemn the part which he had acted
and feel pain when he considered it. Surely such considerations must
have racked his guilty soul, and made him tremble and mourn in
bitterness of his spirit before God.

A graceless tyrant who neither fears God, nor regards man, may view,
his subjects as made for him, and think himself entitled to deprive
them at his pleasure, of every comfort, and even life. This hath been
the avowed sentiment of many an eas