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to godly sorrow for his sin. But if any, like Abigail, 1 Sam. xxv. 32, 33, shall, in wisdom and love, admonish him, he blesses God that sent him or her; he blesses and makes good use of the admonition, and blesses the admonisher, and takes it for a special kindness. Thus David, a man according to God's own heart, as he displayed human frailties in his many and great falls; so he gave clear proof of his uprightness, sooner or later, by his behaviour after his falls. He could say, and his repentance did prove it, that though, to his grief and shame, sometimes he departed from God; yet he did not wickedly depart from God, Psa. xviii. 21. Though upright men be transgressors, yet they are not wicked transgressors, Psa. lix. 5; there is a great difference between these two. And though there be evil in their actions, yea, in some of them filthiness, and grievous iniquity, yet in their filthiness is not lewdness, Ezek. xxiv. 13, as God complains of Judah, that is, they are not obstinate and rebellious, standing out against the means of purging and reclaiming them. For when God does correct them by his word or providence, they are willing to reform whatever is discovered to be amiss, Job xlii. 6. Moreover, although the upright man may be often drawn into a way that is not good, and often, through his weakness and heedlessness, falls into a state that is not good; yet he does not set himself in a way which is not good, Psa. xxxvi. 2 - 4, nor yet, like the swine, delight to wallow and lie in it. When an upright man is fallen, and has recovered out of his spiritual swoon, when he is come to himself, he is like a man sensible of his bones broken or out of joint; he is not well, nor at quiet, nor his own man, until he has confessed his sin, repented of it, asked pardon and grace, and renewed his peace with God. An upright man is likewise like the needle of the mariner's compass, which may, by violent motion, sometimes swerve to the west, or to the east; but stands steady no way but towards the north, and if it be truly touched with a loadstone, has no rest but in that one point; so an upright man may, through boisterous temptations, and