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Nabal was under an obligation which ought in justice to have moved him to a hearty compliance. But as uneducated or low-minded rich man is almost proverbially insolent. Associate wealth with ignorance, and the likelihood is, that you make a rude and an overbearing character. Money in the possession of a rustic or clown will too often give him nothing but opportunity to exhibit at his ease the ruggedness of his disposition. Now, we desire to fix your attention chiefly on the fact, that David held it as a matter for devout thanksgiving, that he had been withheld from avenging himself on the insolent Nabal. And the great truth to be evolved from this is, that the being prevented from sinning is one of the greatest mercies which can be vouchsafed by God to man whilst on earth.

I. WE SHOULD LIKE YOU TO EXAMINE THIS WITH REFERENCE TO THOSE WHO REMAIN UNCONVERTED, NOW, we believe it to be witnessed by the experience of all ages, that the mischief of a sinful act lies as much' in the increased facility which it gives to future like acts as in the exact penalties which it entails on the perpetrator. The yielding to a temptation will occasion comparatively only slight injury, if after yielding once the man were as well equipped as ever for resistance; but the fearful thing is, that the first yielding just makes way for a second, and a second for a third, and a third for a fourth, it being impossible to commit sin without deadening in a degree the remonstrances of conscience, or at least without rendering oneself less sensitive to the appeal. You must be wonderfully unobservant of the testimony of your own experience, as well as ignorant of that given by the history of men, if you do not know that familiarity with sin will rapidly destroy all repugnance to its commission, and that as ye go on complying with an imperious desire there will be ever an augmenting facility of compliance. There is a very accurate correspondence between our physical constitution and our moral: the great pain in a surgical operation is at first, when the knife is near the surface; the sensitiveness decreases as the instrument descends: thus also with moral sensitiveness; we shrink from the first contact with any form of evil, but if once we overcome our repugnance the almost certainty is that we shall soon cordially embrace it; and if every act of wickedness smooth the way for its repetition, you must see at once of what worth is that preventing grace of God by which a man is withheld from yielding to some potent temptation. If, then, when plied, like David, with a mighty temptation, soliciting to an act, which, if performed, must sear and deaden his moral sensibilities, if preventing grace be mercifully vouchsafed, strengthening him to resist, there will be no Divine interference in his behalf which shall more powerfully constrain him to burst into the exclamation — "Blessed be the Lord God of Israel"? Indeed, I know what you may say. "The unconverted man may live to be converted; if he do, then preventing grace deprives him of a present pleasure, the guiltiness of which would be ultimately forgiven, and thus the injuriousness destroyed. Is this a benefit?" we will not go at length into the hundred answers which might be fairly given to this question. You cannot commit a sin, without introducing into the soul a certain degree of hardness, and an aptness to continue in that sin. This truth is finely expressed by an old writer, when he says, "Every act of sin strangely transforms and works over the soul to its own likeness, sin in this being to the soul like fire to combustible matter; it assimilates, before it destroys it. One visit is enough to begin an acquaintance, and this point is gained by it, that when the visitor comes again, he is no more a stranger." You go upon the supposition, that one year will be just as suitable for repentance as another — a supposition which, even if it involve not a long line of falsehoods, marks forgetfulness of the fact, that repentance is God's gift, and not man's achievement; and though it be a glorious truth, that God hath promised forgiveness to everyone who repents, it is equally a truth, and that too of the most solemn import, that God hath not promised to give everyone at every time grace to repent. Observe the diminished probability of any attempt after salvation, whilst every moral feeling grows more and more torpid. Remember that forasmuch as sin provokes and grieves the Holy Spirit, the very acts which make a sinner more need repentance make him more in danger of never obtaining it. And can you deny that of all the gifts which God pours down on an unconverted man there is none which can exceed preventing grace in its worth?

II. But let us now examine THE CAUSE FOR THANKFULNESS WHICH PREVENTING GRACE FURNISHES TO THE CONVERTED. We have already allowed, that in the ease of David there was a certainty that the sin, if committed, would have been pardoned; and we must equally confess, that those who are justified through faith in Christ Jesus are sure of finding their every offence forgiven at the last. It becomes, then, a question, though no great labour will be required for its answer, in what degree and in what respects a prevented sin has the advantage over a pardoned sin — why, that is, David, secure of forgiveness, had he gratified his passion, was bound to utter praises for having been withheld from the gratification. Now, whatever the likelihood, on a mere human calculation, that a man who feels himself safe for eternity will be careless of his practice, there is nothing more certain than that Scriptural belief in our own election will cause us to spurn the thought of continuing in sin that grace may abound. We do not deny that there may be equal safety, so far as the eternal state is concerned, whether the sin be committed and then pardoned, or whether it be prevented, so that forgiveness is not needed. But it is not possible that, there should be equal assurance of safety; it is not possible that the Christian yielding to a temptation should have that, clear proof of his calling which he had when enabled by grace to overcome that, temptation. The proof, the only real proof, lies in the growing holiness; and undoubtedly, whenever evil gains the upper hand, there is so palpable an interruption to the sanctification of our nature, that there must be a suspension of the proofs of election; for there must, you should observe, be necessarily this great difference between preventing grace and pardoning grace — we may be quite sure of the application of the one in our own case, but not of the other. If I have been restrained from the commission of a sin to which I was tempted, I possess a proof not to be withstood, that I have been the subject of God's preventing grace; but if I yield to the temptation and commit the sin, I cannot, pretend to an equally strong proof that I have been the subject of God's pardoning grace. We thus argue, and the argument we think, will be responded to by the feeling of every true Christian, that pardon is not to be compared with prevention, on the simple principle, that a sin if committed, will, though pardoned, impair our evidence of justification, whereas, if prevented, it will rather enlarge and strengthen that evidence. Oh! we think quite wrongly, if we think that sin ever goes unpunished to the people of God. And then, again, there is such a thing as the temporal punishment of a sin, as well as the eternal, and though the eternal be remitted, the temporal may be exacted. It is certain that faith in Christ does not put away from us the temporal consequences of sin, although it undoubtedly does the eternal. Conversion, for instance, will not repair the broken constitution of the debauchee; he must endure through the years of his godliness diseases of which he sowed the seeds in the years of his dissoluteness, it is the same in other particulars. If serenity of mind and repose of condition be in any degree precious — if the clear ministerings of God's favour be preferable to the tokens and actings of his anger — if, for such may often be the fact, the paying through long years the penalties of sin, in the tossings of a disturbed mind, the unkindnesses of friends, the bankruptcy of circumstances, the ingratitude of children, the wastings of sickness — if these be less to be chosen than the spending those years in comparative calmness, surrounded by the bounties of mercy, in the full expectation and in the rich foretaste of joys laid up at God's right hand, then, though pardon be a great, an unspeakably great privilege, prevention vastly outdoes it in magnitude. Such are the applications which we would make of the truths which appear involved in the narrative of David's being intercepted by Abigail. We have only, in conclusion, to exhort earnestly all classes among you, that they never think lightly of sin, as though under any circumstances whatsoever it might be committed with impunity.

(H. Melvill, D. D.)

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KJV: And David said to Abigail, Blessed be the LORD God of Israel, which sent thee this day to meet me:

WEB: David said to Abigail, "Blessed is Yahweh, the God of Israel, who sent you this day to meet me!