all pretensions to a justifying righteousness of their own, and instead of making God their debtor, be saved by grace, in common with the rest of mankind. They must, and it is happy for us that all may be so saved; and that there is a sufficiency of grace and merit in Christ for the worst of men, if they will but lay hold on it: " For this is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners."

From all this it is evident, that, let the case of any be ever so bad, their being sinners does not exclude them from the hope of salvation; but is the very reason why they should come to Christ for it, as to save them was the very end of his coming into the world; and David here says, that we might say it after him, "Thou forgavest the wickedness of my sin." You see he lays a heavy load upon himself, and adds one word to another to express the sense he had of the guilt of sin, and the greatness of his own. One, who has less sincerity then he, would have been content to say, "Thou forgavest my sin;" but this was not enough for him; like all God's children, he had a piercing sight of the abominable nature of sin, and would not diminish one jot from the horrible guilt of his own; observe, he says, the wickedness of my sin.' Well, then, your sin too may be forgiven, whatever it is, with all its guilt and wickedness; and when your fears rise up against you, the text stands up on your side, and unless God is a respecter of persons, you may plead it as his own, word for the mercy of your forgiveness. If you are a Christian, you know how this forgiveness comes to every soul of man, and have great cause to be thankful that you live at a time when Jesus, the Saviour of sinners, has been manifested to the world in all the power of his name, and all the riches of his grace. Blessed be God, the Bible is our birthright; and you would think it your estate of inheritance, and greatest earthly treasure, if

you did but consider what glad tidings it brings you, and that it tells you of what no other book, no man upon earth, ever could, remission of sins, full discharge from condemnation, and peace with God through Jesus Christ our Lord. Oh! how happy might you be, what comfort would you find in your souls, what pleasant lives would you lead, if you were rooted and grounded in the belief of God's love to lost mankind! And think, on the other hand, that if you are not seeking after the great blessing of forgiveness by Christ, nor rejoice to hear it preached, nor live to God in the faith of it, you perish for ever.

But, then, it is not your baptism, nor Christian name and appearance, that can afford you any assurance in the point. The text I am going to open has weighty instruction for you, which must not be lightly regarded. Your sin must be known; the guilt of it must be discovered to you; the burden of it must be felt in such a measure as to bring you sorrowing to Christ, and make deliverance from it the most welcome news you ever heard, You all know you want forgiveness, and think you trust in him for it, and have no other hope; but if you have no ground for this belief in yourselves, no heartfelt sense of the accursed nature of sin, and of your own sinfulness, no experience of the misery of your condition without Christ, you delude yourselves with a vain fancy, and are utter strangers to a work of the Spirit: for if ever he brings you to Christ, it must be in the way of repentance, self-knowledge, and fulness of confession. then, is the point which the text leads me to speak to. It is a hard one, and so the psalmist found it to be; for he tells us he was brought very low, because he dealt deceitfully with God, and did not search himself to the bottom: but, nevertheless, there is no other help for it; the method he took to come at his relief must be submitted to by all; and here it is set up as our guide to

This,

God's peace, and to Christ the purchaser of it."I will acknowledge my sin unto thee, and mine unrighteousness have I not hid: I said, I will confess my sins unto the Lord;" that is, fully, without reserve, and without guile, which for a time, he did not. I shall, therefore, with God's help,

I. Show that the confession of our sins must be 'full and hearty, without disguise, reserve, or exception. II. Consider what helps and means we are to make use of for this

purpose.

I. The confession of our sins must be full, sincere, and hearty, of all and every one, as sins against God, And to this purpose let us observe what David here says of himself in the verses immediately before the text; "While I held my tongue, my bones consumed away through my daily complaining; for thy hand is heavy upon me day and night, and my moisture is like the drought in summer." Whether it was trouble of mind, or, what is most probable, pain and wasting in his body, occasioned by the inward vexation and sorrow of his mind on account of sin, he found no relief from it; and he tells us why he did not; he says, " I held my tongue;" that is, though I was burdened with my sin, pined, and mourned, and complained incessantly because of it, yet I did not take the way to be eased of my complaints, by going to the root of my disorder. He was neither ignorant nor insensible of his sin, nor unconcerned about it; he was sorely grieved and afflicted, and knew that the hand of God was heavy upon him for it, and, therefore, made some acknowledgment of it: but still he was held under his trouble, because he was deceitful in the matter, and did not lay open all his sin before God, in a full and free confession of it; which, to all the intents and purposes of

a pardon, was the same thing as if he had held his tongue, or said never a word of his sin to God.

Now you are not to conclude from hence that God deals exactly in the same manner with all, or that there is no way of coming to a thorough sense and acknowledgement of sin but by being first brought into great bodily trouble and affliction, or even to death's door, as the psalmist was. It may, or may not be so, as God pleases, who knows best what every man's particular case requires. And what is here said should be a caution' to you, when you see any greatly afflicted, and pining away under a sense of their sins, not to bestow your foolish unmeaning pity upon them, or to judge rashly of what you are ignorant; for it is the way which God takes with some, to bring them home to himself, and none can so feelingly rejoice in God their Saviour, or are so well fitted for the service which he has for them to do in the world, as those who have been deeply troubled, and smarted severely for sin. But this all are to take notice of from the passage before us, and conclude certainly, that so long as they deal deceitfully with God and themselves in this matter of sin; if they will not go to the bottom of the sore; if they hold their tongues, or are guilty of concealment; if they would plead for, or have a thought of retaining one sin, they are not in the way of their relief; and if they can by some means or other make their conscience easy the meanwhile, yet assuredly there is no hope of their pardon.

We have a lively picture in Adam and Eve, of what men are naturally apt to do in the case of sin. When they knew that they were naked, naked in sin, and could not help seeing, in some measure, what they had done, they sewed fig-leaves together, to cover up their sin and shame from themselves as well as they could. When they found the Lord God was coming near to them, their next

attempt was to hide themselves from his presence amongst the trees of the garden, And, when they were brought to their examination, they both endeavoured to shift off the guilt of what they had done from themselves, she to the serpent, and he to the woman. So we, truly their children in this respect, stand out against God as long as we can; we would hide our sin from ourselves, and from him too if we could, and turn ourselves into all shapes to avoid coming to a full confession of it. Some part of it we cannot deny, and may be willing to own, especially when conscience, enlightened by the word of God, begins to be troublesome, and tells us of our danger; then we cannot be wholly silent before him, nor satisfy ourselves, without saying something to him of our sin. But, verily, we are here told that this is doing nothing at all, and just the same thing as if we altogether held our tongues. I do not suppose we are so foolish, or ignorant of the nature of sin, and of what God requires of us, as to think we can be entitled to pardon without some kind of confession: but if we confess some sins, why not all? Or who gave us a license to except any? Surely not God; for all sin is alike to him; and the will to retain any, shows plainly that we dislike and repent of none upon true grounds, because it is sin, and brings us under the guilt of stubbornness and rebellion against God.

It is true, our sins are so many that it may not be in our power to make a distinct mention of them all; which is a very good reason why we should be as careful as possible to avoid them in the whole course of our lives, because they cannot be called back by a particular remembrance; but none at all for shuffling with God and our consciences, or concealing and making a reserve of any that we do know. If you do, it is at the peril of your souls; and the point before us is this, if you hide, or keep back, or excuse any one known sin, you cannot be