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 L I B RAR.Y 
 
 OF THL 
 
 UNIVLRSITY 
 
 or 1 LLl NOIS
 
 Wf^'^f0%^.^
 
 London : 
 Printed by Spottiswoodb & Co., 
 New-Street-Square.
 
 David's Grief for the Death of A hsalom a 
 Type of God's Feeling for Sinners, 
 
 A SERMON 
 
 PUEACHED BY 
 
 THE LOUD BISHOP OE SALISBURY, 
 
 BEFOKE THE 
 
 CHURCH PENITENTIARY ASSOCIATION, 
 
 AT ST. JAMES'S CHURCH, PICCADILLY, 
 
 THURSDAY, APRIL 23, 1857. 
 
 PUBLISHED BY REQUEST. 
 
 LONDON: 
 
 PRINTED FOR THE ASSOCIATION, 
 BY SPOTTISWOODE & CO., NEW-STREET SQUARE. 
 
 1857.
 
 8 E H M N. 
 
 DAVID'S GRIEF FOR THE DEATH OF ABSALOM 
 A TYPE OF GOD'S FEELING FOR SINNERS. 
 
 2 Samuel, xviii. 33. 
 
 *' O my son Absalom^ mj/ son, my son Absalom I would God I had 
 died for thee, O Absalom, my son, my son ! " 
 
 Such was the piteous cry of agony with which David receivcfl 
 the tidings of tlie death of one of his sons. 
 
 Absah)ui iiad been a murderer, and then had driven his 
 father from his kingd.)m and throne ; and yet when this son 
 fell in battle against his father, the father was overwhelmed 
 with grief, and would have preferred that his son had 
 succeeded in his most unnatural treason, and that himself 
 liad died by the hands of his rebellious subjects. 
 
 The words of the Holy (Ihost are, " The king was much 
 moved, and went to the chamber over the gate, and wei)t; 
 and as he went, thus he said, ' O my son Al)salom, my son, 
 my son Absalom ! would God I had died for thee, O Absalom, 
 my son, my son !' " 
 
 What a most touching and lively account is this, my 
 Brethren, of a parent's grief, who cannot harden his heart 
 against his son, and who finds that the aggravating circum- 
 stances of his son's wickedness only throw o])en with more 
 uncontrollable force the floodgates of his affijctions ! David's 
 affliction would have been great had Absalom been a dutiful 
 and loving child, but the thought that he had been the 
 means of rcmovinij a son iVoin this world in the midst of iiia 
 sins, caused him an intolerable anguish. 
 
 A 2 "^
 
 There was indeed in the death of Absalom everything; to 
 make the cup of David's sorrows more hitter, and the words of 
 the text prove to us that he drank the very dregs of tliat 
 most bitter cup ; that he was in the deepest agony of grief, 
 when upon hearing that Absalom was dead, the immediate 
 language of his heart was, " O my son Absalom, my son, my 
 son Absalom ! would God I had died for thee, O Absalom, 
 my son, my son ! " 
 
 It is not however with the view of dwelling upon Absalom's 
 rebellion and death, or David's great sufferings, that I have 
 taken for my text these words of the First Lesson of this 
 morning's service, but because they open to us a striking 
 view of that most wonderful of all God's attributes, his mercy, 
 and so are well fitted to encourage us to press forward the 
 work, to which the Members of this Association are specially 
 pledged, by assuring our hearts that such labours of love are 
 in most perfect accordance with the good will and pleasure 
 of our Father and our God. 
 
 But have I any right thus to see in David's words, which 
 expi-ess the feelings of his own heart, any expression of the 
 mind and heart of our God ? 
 
 The following statement justifies, I think, my doing so. 
 
 In the beginning man was made iu the image of God, and 
 so all the expressions of his mind and heart were expressions 
 of the image of God. Man represented God. In man you 
 might, as in a mirror, trace the likeness of God. 
 
 But tliis doctrine does not contain the ansAver to the whole 
 question, and for this reason. Sin had broken the mirror, 
 and after the Fall, the reflection of God's perfections could no 
 longer be seen in man. The natural expressions of a sinner's 
 mind and heart were no representation of God — and David 
 was a sinner ; and yet, though the mirror Avas thus broken, 
 the bits into Avhich sin had shivered it did not lose all their 
 lustre ; their smallness and dullness were not such as to make 
 them incapable of reflecting any parts of the features of God. 
 Far from it. The beauty of God's perfections was to be 
 seen partially in many of them. Many of them still remained 
 an index of the feelings of God ; those feelings had come from 
 Him, they were parts of Him, they had been formed and 
 fashioned in His likeness ; and though they had afterwards 
 been deformed, and the truthfulness of their likeness to 
 their Maker grievously impaired by the ravages of sin, they 
 still retained enough of their original condition to point 
 to God as their Author, and to represent to us, as in a 
 picture, the realities which God has revealed to us in His iioly 
 word. 
 
 , UJUC '
 
 Yes, man was once like God, and though that likeness is 
 much impaired, it is still there. What is good in man, 
 *' whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, 
 Avhatsoever things are j ust, whatsoever things are pure, what- 
 soever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report," 
 these all shadow forth to us those glorious perfections which 
 combine to make up the likeness of God. And who can doubt 
 that a parent's feelings are of this character, — are the rem- 
 nants of man's first estate — and that so, in the gushings forth 
 of a parent's heart, may be seen some emblems of the mind 
 of our Heavenly Father; that the natural expressions of 
 parental affection are amongst the largest and brightest 
 fragments of that glass which reflected the very image of 
 God ; that, in short, David's grief, his devotedness to his son, 
 is a guide to us to the knowledge of God ? 
 
 The words then of David, " O my son Absalom, my son, 
 my son Absalom ! would God I had died for thee, O Absalom, 
 my son, my son ! " are, as it were, the echo of the words of 
 the Father of all mercies, are a type to us of His mind, *' Who 
 willeth not the death of a sinner," and Who, in the infinite 
 depths of His mercies, when He saw His people bent upon 
 backsHding from Him and compassing Him about with lies 
 and deceit, still so compassionated His perishing people as to 
 feel for them that deep affection which fills His words, 
 " How shall I give thee up, Ephraim, how shall I deliver 
 thee, Israel, how shall I make thee as Admah, how shall I set 
 thee as Zeboim, mine heart is turned within me, my repent- 
 ings are kindled together ! " and Who, in the fulness of 
 time, gave us, in the death of His only begotten Son, the 
 proof that the words of David about Absalom contained the 
 very feelings of God for us, His rebellious people. 
 
 And now I would point out in a few words what is the 
 great and special value to us of such a text as this. 
 
 In the first place, it is an example of those revelations 
 of God which speak with the greatest distinctness to that 
 man's mind and heart who is taught by the Spirit of God — 
 those revelations I mean of Himself which God has impressed 
 upon the whole work of creation. All created being is one 
 vast parable; evex'ything around us is speaking to us in 
 parabolic language the truths of God's word ; and we men 
 are witnessing to one another these same truths in the same 
 language : the vine tells us of our union to Christ ; a father's 
 feeling tells us of the mercy of our Heavenly Father. 
 
 Secondly. Of all these revelations, none speak more dis- 
 tinctly and more influentially than this one. The feelings 
 of a father, which we arc permitted to look upon as a type
 
 6 
 
 of the affections of our Heavenly Father, are amongst the 
 most j>cvsuasive arguments to a fuller faith and a more child- 
 like confidence. 
 
 To this 1 can bring the witness of my own experience. In 
 ministering to a man who thought he had sinned away all 
 hope of pardon, I found that I could not in any way shake 
 his convictions of despair, till I opened to him the glorious 
 truth that God Himself had made the feelings of a father a 
 type of His own feelings for His children. 
 
 The subject of my ministrations was a father. This father 
 had been sinned against by his own children, and yet had 
 forgiven them ; and when I explained to him fully what I 
 meant, I touched, I found, a chord which vibrated through 
 his whole spiritual being. His heart became (as it were) 
 instinct with the music of Heaven. He seemed to hear the 
 angels' joyous song over the repentant sinner. He had 
 himself dealt very mercifully with prodigal children ; and 
 finding that he was permitted to see in his own affections for 
 his children a type of his Heavenly Father's affection for him, 
 a prodigal child, his soul melted within him, as he realised 
 the blessed truth that our God is a most merciful Father. 
 The sandy foundations of his despair were washed away by 
 penitential tears, and, believing, he built his hopes on the 
 solid rock — the mercies of God in Christ Jesus. 
 
 And, thirdly, such evidence of God's mercy is very precious 
 to us, from the fact that there is so much in the New Tes- 
 tament to convince us that God is to us a consuming fire, 
 and so little to help us to the belief that, for those who have 
 enjoyed the privileges of the Christian and have abused 
 them, there still remaineth a hope of pardon and forgiveness. 
 
 Such, then, are some of the considerations which give 
 such exceeding value to this text. It strikingly opens to us 
 a view of the truth that God's children have to deal with One 
 who delights in mercy. It carries us to the very throne 
 of Grace, and it there reveals to us Him, whose victory over 
 sin and death we are now celebrating, our risen Lord, praying 
 for us to His Almighty Father, pointing to His pierced hands 
 and feet, and pleading for us that our burden has been laid on 
 Him, and that He has borne our iniquities. And, my Brethren, 
 could we but realise such a scene as this, — could we see the 
 Saviour's tears and hear His pleadings, and listen to our 
 Heavenly Father's sorrow for the death of His rebellious 
 children, would it not be an unspeakable comfort to us ? 
 And this we all may do. Faith can travel out of this world, 
 and, piercing the clouds and the firmament of the Heavens, 
 can enter into the Holiest of Holies, and there witness that.
 
 whilst the repentance of the sinner — the homeward journey 
 of the prodigal son^ awakens the sympathies of heaven, 
 the pei'scvering continuance in sin, and the bitter end of such 
 a course in a hardened heart and a hopeless death, cause the 
 angels to veil their faces, and God Himself — Father, Son, 
 and Holy Spirit — to be grieved ; — yea, to mourn and sorrow, 
 and so to give proof that the words of David, " O my son 
 Absalom, my son, my son Absalom ! would God I had died 
 for thee, O Absalom, my son, my son," testify to us our 
 Heavenly Father's willingness to forgive us our sins, and 
 that our impenitence is a contradiction of His purposes of 
 mercy. 
 
 But if this be the v/ondrous truth we reach through 
 these words of David, remember, my Brethren, that God's 
 willingness to pardon the sinner is no encouragement either 
 to a lazy and careless repentance, or to indifference to tlieir 
 state whose hearts are still unmoved by the mercies of their 
 God. The revelation that the death of a sinner is a cause 
 of grief to our God, is a warning to us to turn away from 
 wickedness, and to do that which is lawful and right, and to 
 bring all our brethren to be of this mind. The very letters 
 which spell this revelation, the mystery disclosed to us of the 
 way in wdiich God's attributes of mercy and justice are re- 
 conciled, tell us this. For only consider how it is that God 
 is become to us a Father of mercies instead of an avenging 
 fire. Is it not because His only Son preferred death to our 
 dying ? Is it not because He satisfied the infinite justice of 
 God upon the cross ? Is it not because He pleads His 
 merits ? Is it not because He has placed His Holy Spirit 
 In our hearts, and having engrafted us into the body of His 
 Son, has adopted us as chiklren, that, though we be Ab- 
 alsoms. He feels for us as David did for his rebel son — that, 
 though we have broken our vows, and rebelled against Him, 
 He would not that we should perish, but has given His 
 ministers charge, as David gave his captains cliarge, to spare 
 us, to preserve us, to save us from our sins, and to bring 
 us back to Him in peace and safety ? And can tliey who 
 are thus circumstanced hope that God will not take ven- 
 geance, if we delay our repentance, or engage in it negli- 
 gently ? Impossible — the very guide to repentance is God's 
 goodness ; it leads the willing heart captive to God's will ; 
 and they who build their hcpes of some future repentance 
 on some unfounded views of God's mercy, will find that every 
 appeal God makes by His mercy to their hearts will only 
 aggravate their guilt, and accumulate fresh woes upon tliem 
 if they continue in impenitence.
 
 There arc Indeed many and many tests of our real state. 
 The true penitent is a man of sorrows and yet is no stranger 
 to joy. He is ever looking at his sins, and he weeps. He 
 is ever looking at Jesus, and he is then glad of heart ; he is 
 much in communion with God in prayer and the blessed 
 Sacrament of his Lord's Body and Blood ; his feelings pour 
 themselves out in good works, and in acts of fellowship with 
 his brethren in Christ. But there is one special test we must 
 all apply to our state as a means of self-knowledge, and of 
 ascertaining whether the revelation of mercy has had its 
 right influence on our hearts. 
 
 The test I am speaking of is this — are we endeavouring 
 to persuade those who are as yet strangers to the mercy of 
 God — who have no faith and no love — to look to Jesus, and 
 to seek through Him a share in those riches of grace which 
 are treasured up in Him, the Saviour of the world ? 
 
 If the Spirit of Grace is enabling us to say, " Abba 
 Father," if we are experiencing in our own souls the blessings 
 of adoption, if our hearts are being filled with joy and peace 
 in believing, we cannot but try to make others partakers of 
 those blessings which are ours : the excellency of the gift 
 we possess, the change our hard hearts have gone through, 
 the desire to increase the number of our Lord's living disciples, 
 the glory of His God and our God, all combine to make the 
 conversion of the sinner an object very dear to our hearts. 
 And it is to give effect to such desires, it is to bring into 
 united action the sympathies of Christian brothers and sisters, 
 it is to cast the net of the Gospel around one class at least of 
 sinners, that our Society has been formed. 
 
 It has now existed for some years, and besides the great 
 work of arousing attention to the fearful prevalence of the sins 
 of the flesh, it has helped to found and to carry forward many 
 institutions, which in different parts of our Church are 
 striving to loosen the fearful bonds of lust, with which Satan 
 has held captive so many souls. 
 
 I said that the object of this Association was the deliverance 
 of souls in bondage to one special sin, but perhaps I ought to 
 have said to all sins ; for the special sin against which it 
 carries on its warfare is of that nature that it fosters and 
 cherishes the whole principle of sin, and opens channels, when 
 thus fostered and cherished, for its expansion and develop- 
 ment in every kind of evil doing. 
 
 They who founded this Association well knew this. They 
 had correctly measured the nature and magnitude of the evil, 
 before they marked out the means they thought best for its 
 cure. They knew that no ordinary Christian graces were, to
 
 speak generally, adequate to such a work, and so they made 
 the employment of singular zeal and love in tlie management 
 of these Penitential Institutions a condition of their co-opera- 
 tion. 
 
 That great and holy Bishop, now, we trust, at rest, who 
 first successfully roused the attention of the Church to the 
 claims addressed to her on behalf of fallen women by the 
 Saviour of sinners, had set before him for these sinners for 
 whom he pleaded nothing short of a place at the feet of 
 Jesus. The vision which inspired his soul was the scene in 
 the Pharisee's house. The eye of his loving heart discerned 
 thousands and thousands of women, no better than she had 
 been who was called a sinner, standing behind Jesus weeping, 
 washing His sacred feet with tears, wiping them with the 
 hairs of their heads, kissing them, and anointing them with 
 ointment. But he also well knew that such a triumph over 
 Satan — such a mastering of the lusts of the flesh — such mor- 
 tification of impure desires — such humble, grateful, adoring, 
 ministrations to Jesus, were the issue and rewards of over- 
 flowing zeal and love for souls, and the outacting of the abun- 
 dant indwelling of the sevenfold gifts of the Holy Spirit ; 
 and thus it has been determined that the agency to be em- 
 ployed, the only agency equal to such a work, and at all 
 worthy of such functions, is that of " self-devoted women." 
 
 Nor did the founders of this Association, when they thus 
 testified their value for such services as I have just spoken 
 of, forget that God is pleased to work His work of grace, to 
 apply to the hearts of men the blessings purchased for them 
 by His Son, through special vessels of His own election and 
 appointment. That great truth, which is the one key-note 
 thought of the services of last* Sunday morning and so of 
 this week — the connection, viz., of the remission of sins with 
 the ministry of God's word and sacraments, and the exceeding 
 peril of the neglect of God's ordinance, as witnessed by the 
 Holy Ghost through Mosesj — has been wisely allowed to take 
 its proper place in the regulations of this Association, which, 
 after ruling that the discipline and internal management of 
 each Penitentiary in connection with it shall be carried on 
 through the agency of self-devoted women, has also added 
 this further provision, " Under the guidance as to spiritual 
 matters of a clergyman of the Church of England." 
 
 Benevolence, my Brethren, may do much ; but there are 
 ministrations needful to the sinner's soul, which are beyond 
 the reach of its powers. 
 
 * First Sunday after Easter. t Numbers, xvi. 
 
 B
 
 10 
 
 These are committed to persons who may be very inferior 
 in spiritual attainments, not only to those devoted women 
 whom we try to enlist in this work, but also to other 
 Christians who are themselves far behind these faithful, loving 
 servants of their Lord ; but still they have been entrusted by 
 God with special powers, and they cannot depute to others, 
 who have not that authority our Lord has given to theirii 
 their own proper functions. 
 
 Nor do we find in the exceeding degradation of those to 
 whom we are thus called to minister, and the exceeding 
 blessedness of the change which may be, and often is, wrought 
 in them, our only motives for such care in carrying forward 
 our work. 
 
 In addition to these considerations, there is something in 
 the circumstances, which are often the immediate occasion of 
 these sins, which calls forth special sympathy and deep com- 
 miseration. These are the common lack of parental authority 
 — the demoralising arrangements of the houses in which our 
 poorer brethren are often obliged to live — their exclusion 
 oftentimes, for various causes, from all the proper influences 
 of the laws and ordinances of Christ's Kingdom — the little 
 protection thrown around young women in many families — 
 their exposm-e, when out of place and in distress, to the 
 temptations which evil men are ever ready to place in their 
 way — the low standard by which their sin is conventionally 
 measured — and with this, the high barriers raised against 
 their forsaking sui by those codes of morals which are not 
 based on the creed of the Christian, and so are neither loyal 
 to the strict laws of the King of kings, nor leavened by the 
 consideration and compassionate sympathy He feels for 
 sinners — the despair, in short, and hopelessness which are often 
 made by hard hearts to issue out of such fallings away. 
 Such are some of the circumstances to which I allude, 
 and all these appeal to the mercy of those, who have 
 learnt the gracious lesson that they have themselves no 
 reason to be high-minded, but to fear, and who see in every 
 fallen sister a memorial of what they themselves owe to God's 
 mercy and grace — yea, all these things bid every humble 
 Christian to take part in the blessed work of bringing to re- 
 pentance towards God, and faith in our Lord Jesus Christ, 
 all those who are still walking in the ways that woman, who 
 was '* a sinner," was enabled to forsake. 
 
 There is also another consideration, which suppoi'ts and 
 enforces every such appeal. 
 
 The lack of discipline in the Church has fearfully lowered 
 the estimate of the heinousness of these oft'ences. There was a
 
 11 
 
 time, and that when our Lord had not long left this earth to 
 return to His former glory, when His Church dealt with her 
 children with the same kind of remedial treatment as parents 
 use towards their children. When the members of the 
 Church sinned against their common Head, the Lord Jesus, 
 she chastised them, gave them over for awhile to Satan — 
 cut them off from the comforts of the Christian — suffered 
 them not even to enter her houses of prayer, or to use her 
 Sacraments, till they had publicly confessed their sins, and 
 been reconciled to God. 
 
 Instead of leaving the sinner, as he is now often left, to 
 almost casual and chance treatment, she took pains to make 
 him realise the fact that her Lord had entrusted to her the 
 power of the Keys, and that her bindings and loosings were 
 the means of bringing her children to Heaven. Nothing 
 exemplifies more strikingly the very different state of things 
 than the fact, that her chief duty then was to exclude the 
 unholy from the privileges of the Church ; and that now it is 
 her more special work to persuade people that she has any 
 privileges to give or withhold. 
 
 One effect of all this is, that persons yield to temptation 
 with less fear of the consequences of sin, and realise with less 
 distinctness what is the nature of the separation between an 
 impenitent sinner and a merciful and holy God. 
 
 I need scarcely say that this loss of protection, of which I 
 have spoken, this removal of the fences against sin, not only 
 increases the peril of the sinner, but makes the duty to watch 
 over and guard them, and to keep them within the fold, or to 
 bring them back to it, if they have gone astray, the more 
 clear and distinct. 
 
 I will only add one word in conclusion. Though there is 
 so much in the disadvantages to which these poor fallen 
 women have been often exposed, which determines our duty, 
 and ought to engage our hearts, in this work of blessed mercy, 
 I would rest my appeal to you on the ground on which the 
 words of my text place us. The consideration which has most 
 power to move our wills, and to fix them in zealous endea- 
 vours to carry out the high purposes of this Godly Association, 
 is to be drawn from the fact, that to us it has been re- 
 vealed that " sins as red as scarlet may be made white as snow," 
 and that God mourns to see the death of any of His chil- 
 dren ; that the agonised cry of David, " my son Absalom, 
 my son, my son Absalom ! would God I had died for thee, 
 O Absalom, my son, my son ! " is the tyj)e of the affection of 
 the heart and mind of the Lord of heaven and earth ; and that 
 there is in this revelation that which draws forth from the
 
 12 
 
 sinner tears of Godly sorrow, and inspires every broken- 
 hearted penitent with a good hope that she too may have a 
 place in the mercies of her God, and even be called in due 
 season to the privilege of washing her Saviour's feet, and of 
 making the house in which His presence rests, His holy 
 Church, redolent with the perfume of her good works — the 
 ministrations of a purified and loving heart to the necessities 
 of those who are still in that bondage from which she has 
 been delivered, are still strangers to that freedom which has 
 now become the abiding portion of her body, soul, and spirit. 
 
 THE ENB. 
 
 I 
 
 f f »g London : 
 
 Printed by Spottiswoodb & Co. 
 New-street Square.
 
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