salvation from us. Whosoever keeps a covetous heart for the world, or a sensual heart for the flesh, or a proud heart for the devil, is unworthy of Heaven by his own election, and would not go in thither, if the door were wide open: he would not find there any fuel for these his lusts, any Nabal, or Cozbi, or Diotrephes to converse withal. And surely, he that hath any one wickedness with allowance, in God's construction is habitually guilty of all ". any "Are Therefore in this case, as Samuel said to Jesse', here all thy children? if any be left, we will not sit down till he come;"-so we must conceive in our confessions and renunciations of sin, that Christ asketh us, "Are here all? if be reserved, I will not take possession, till that be cast out." There must not a hoof* be left in Egypt, if God be to be served. God's law, as well as man's, disallows inmates in the same house; he will not endure a divided heart1; he is heir of all things; there lies no writ of partition in his inheritance; his title is so good, that he will never yield to a composition; he will have all the heart or none. 4. We should therefore be exhorted (in time of trouble especially) to set about this great work, to fall foul upon our sins, to complain against them to God, as the Achans that trouble Israel, as the corrupters and betrayers of our peace; to set ourselves in God's eye, and not to dare to lie unto his Holy Spirit, by falseness or hypocrisy; as if we could reserve any one sin unmortified, which he should not know of. But being in his sight, "to whom all things are naked and open "," to deal in all sincerity", and to hate sin even as he hates it." SECT. 11. There are five notable duties which these three words, Omnem tolle iniquitatem,' do lead us unto. 1. Sense of sin, as of a heavy burden,' as the prophet David calls it. Such sense our Saviour requires in true penitents, "Come unto me, all ye that are weary and heavy laden;" to conceive them heavier than a millstone, than 8 Qui uno peccavit, omnium reus est, peccans contra caritatem, à qua pendent omnia: Aug. ep. 29.-Si pauca simulacra circumferat, in una idololatria est; si unam thensam trahat, Jovis tamen plaustrum est. Tert.-Vide Sen. de Benef. 1. 4. c. 26, 27. 1. 5. e. 15. h James ii. 10. Luke xvi. 10. Ezek. xviii. 10, 13. i 1 Sam. xvi. 11. k Exod. x. 26. 1 Psalm xii. 2. James i. 8. Psalm cxix. 10. n Gen. xvii. 1. 2 Cor. ii. 17. m Heb. iv. 13. o Psalm xxxviii. 5. P Matth. xi. 28. 9 Luke xvii. 2. the weight of a mountain'. O! what apprehension had St. Peter's converts of sin, when they felt the nails wherewith they had crucified Christ, sticking fast in their own hearts, and piercing their spirits with torment and horror! O! what apprehensions had the poor gaoler of his sins, when he came as a prisoner before his own prisoners, springing in with monstrous amazement and consternation of spirit, beseeching them to tell him, "What he should do?" Consider it in its nature: a universal bruise and sickness, like those diseases which, physicians say, are 'Corruptio totius substantia,' from head to foot" and who doth not feel such a universal languor to be a heavy bur den? for a man that must needs labour, to have weights hung at his hands; that must needs walk, to have clogs fastened to his feet;-how can he choose but cry out with the apostle, "O wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me?” Consider it in the curse that belongs unto it; "a roll written within and without "," with curses. Look outward; and behold a curse in the creature, vanity, emptiness, vexation, disappointments; every creature armed with a sting, to revenge its Maker's quarrel. Look inward; and behold a curse in the conscience, accusing, witnessing, condemning, haling to the tribunal of vengeance; first, defiling with the allowance, and after, terrifying with the remembrance of sin. Look upward; and behold a curse in the heavens, the wrath of God revealed from thence upon all unrighteous ness. Look downward; and behold a curse in the earth death ready to put a period to all the pleasures of sin, and, like a trap-door, to let down into hell, where nothing of sin will remain, but the worm and the fire. Look into the Scripture, and see the curse there described; an 'everlasting banishment' from the glory of. God's presence: an everlasting destruction' by the glory of his power. The Lord showing the jealousy of his justice, the unsearchableness of his severity, the unconceivableness of his strength, the bottomless guilt and malignity of Luke xxiii. 30. ■ Rom. vii. 24. s Acts ii. 37. y Ezek. ii. 10 t Acts xvi, 23, 30. u Isai. i. 5, 6. a 2 Thess. i. 9. sín, in the everlasting destruction of ungodly men, and in the everlasting preserving of them to feel that destruction". "Who knoweth the power of thy anger?" saith Moses; "even according to thy fear, so is thy wrath." It is impossible for the most trembling consciences, or the most jealous fears of a guilty heart, to look beyond the wrath of God, or to conceive more of it than indeed it is. As in peace of conscience, the mercy of God is revealed unto believers from faith to faith; so, in anguish of conscience, the wrath of God is revealed from fear to fear. A timorous man can fancy vast and terrible fears, fire, sword, tempests, racks, furnaces, scalding lead, boiling pitch, running bell-metal, and being kept alive in all these to feel their torment; but these come far short of the wrath of God for first, There are bounds set to the hurting power of a creature; the fire can burn, but it cannot drown; the serpent can sting, but he cannot tear in pieces. Secondly, The fears of the heart are bounded within those narrow apprehensions, which itself can frame of the hurts which may be done. But the wrath of God proceeds from an infinite justice, and is executed by an omnipotent and unbounded power, comprising all the terror of all other creatures (as the sun doth all other light) eminently and excessively in it: it burns, and drowns, and tears, and stings, and bruises, and consumes, and can nature feel much more than reason is able to comprehend. O! if we could lay these things seriously to heart, (and yet these are but low expressions of that which cannot be expressed; and cometh as short of the truth itself, as the picture of the sun, in a table, doth of the greatness and brightness of it in its own orb,) should we not find it necessary to cry out," Take away all iniquity?" this sickness out of my soul,-this sword, this nail, this poisoned arrow, out of my heart, this dagger of Ehud out of my belly,-this millstone, this mountain: from off my back,-these stings and terrors, these flames and furies out of my conscience? Lord, my wounds stink, my lips quiver, my knees tremble, my belly rots; I am feeble, and broken, and roar, and lan b Anima in corpore erit non vivendi causa, sed dolendi. Aug. de Civ. Dei, 1. 13. e. 2. Prima mors animam nolentem pellit à corpore; secunda nolentem retinet in corpore. Ibid. 1. 21. c. 3. • Psalm xc. 11. guish; thy wrath lies hard upon me, and thy waves go over my head. O! if we had but a view of sin as it is in its native foulness, and did feel but a touch of that fury that God is ready to pour out upon it; this would stain all the pride of man, and sour all the pleasures of sin, and make a man as fearful to meddle with it, as a guilty woman with the bitter water which caused the curse. Most true was that which Luther spake in this point, "If a man could perfectly see his own evils, the sight thereof would be a perfect hell unto him :”— and this God will bring wicked men unto; "Reprove them, and set their sins in order before them "," make them take a view of their own hearts and lives, fuller of sins than the firmament of stars, or a furnace of sparks. "O consider this, ye that forget me," saith the Lord, "lest I tear you in pieces, and there be none to deliver you." SECT. 12. The second duty is, Confession; for he that cries to have sin taken away, acknowledgeth that it lies upon him. A full confession, not of many, but of all sins, either actually committed, or habitually comprised in our body of sin. As he in the Comedian said, that he had invited two guests to dinner, Philocrates, and Philocrates,—a single man, but a double eater ;-so, in examination of ourselves, we shall every one find sins enough in himself to denominate him a double and a treble sinner. A free confession, not as Pharaoh's, extorted upon the rack; nor as that of Judas, squeezed out with anguish and horror; but ingenuous and penitent, arising from the purpose of a pious heart, that cometh like water out of a spring, with a voluntary freeness; not like water out of a still, which is forced with fire. The third duty is, Weariness and detestation of all sin; for we call not to have a thing removed, till we be weary of it. Thus we are taught in the Scripture to be ashamed and confounded, to loathe and abhor, to judge and condemn ourselves; to throw sin away as a detestable thing, though it be a golden or silver sin. A spiritual judgement looks on all sin as filthy and stinking; showeth a man to himself as a vessel full of dung, scum, excrements; and makes him out d Psalm 1. 31. • Athenæus 1. i. f Psalm xxxviii. 2. Ezek. xvi. 63. Ezek. vi. 9, 20, 43. 1 Cor. xi. 31. Isai. xxx. 22. Psalm xiv. 3. 2 Cor. vii. of quiet, till he be thoroughly purged. For hatred is pos Tà ye, against the whole kind of that which we hate. g The fourth duty is, an Acknowledgment of our own impotency to remove sin from ourselves. We have no more power than a slave in chains hath to get out of his bondage, till another ransom him; than a dead body in a grave, till Christ raise it. Our iniquity takes hold on us, and keeps us down, that we cannot hearken or be subject to the will of God. If sin were not removed by a greater strength than our own, it would most certainly sink us into hell. The last duty is, An imploring of God's mercy and grace, that what we cannot do ourselves, he would be pleased to do for us. In works of art", it is hard to build, but easy to destroy but in works of sin, though our weakness is able to commit them, yet none but God's power is able to demolish them. None but Christ is strong enough to overcome the strong mani; his person only hath strength enough to bear the curse of sin; his sacrifice only merit enough to make expiation for sin; his grace only virtue enough to remove the pollution of sin. Though we should take ‘nitre and much soap,' our sin would be marked still; but he cometh with 'refiner's fire, and with fuller's soap',' and can wash out all. It was his only business of coming into the world, to destroy the works of the devil m' Now the things which we pray for in this petition, are these three: First, For remission, that God would take away the condemnation of sin from us, by not imputing the guilt thereof unto us; but would cause it to pass over on Christ, on whom he hath laid the iniquity of his people". Such an expression the Holy Ghost useth, arn, the Lord hath caused thy sinto pass over' from thee to Christ°: which being obtained, all other judgements are, ipso facto,' removed too, so far as they import proper and vindictive pu nishment ". Secondly, For sanctification, that the virtue of Christ's Ephes. ii. 1, 5. vi. 10. Rom. viii. 7. Rom. v. 6, 7.vi. 24. 2 Cor. iii. 5. Jer. Cor Psalm xl. 12. h Facile est momento quo quis velit, cedere possessione magnæ fortunæ facere et parare cum difficile atque arduum. Liv. ii. 24. pora lente augescunt, citò exstinguuntur. Tacit. Vit. Agric.-Arbores magnas diu crescere, unâ horâ exstirpari. Quint. Curt. 1. 7. ¡ Luke xi. 21. * Jer. ii. 22. 1 Mal. iii. 3. m 1 John iii. 8. |