123.]
them to acknowledge a departure from the ways of God ? Is society in such a state, that all which we see and hear will stand the test, if tried by the requisitions of God's holy law ?
Yet where are the consciences that are burthened with guilt ? Where are the penitents applying to the blood of atonement ? Are not the great mass of mankind, whether rulers or subjects, whether ministers or people, blessing themselves as having but little, if any, occasion to repent ? Ah ! well might David say, and happy would it be for us if it were the language also of our hearts, " Lord, who can understand his errors? cleanse thou me from my secret faults1!" And let none think that his ignorance is any excuse for him before God : for our ignorance arises only from inconsideration : and God expressly warns us, that that plea shall avail us nothing™.]
3. The moment we see that we have sinned, we should seek for mercy in God's appointed way —
[As soon as the fault or error was discovered under the law, the proper offering (whether sin, or trespass, offering) was to be brought : and, if the offender refused to bring his offer- ing, his sin became presumptuous ; and he subjected himself to the penalty of death n. To infinitely sorer punishment shall we expose ourselves, if we neglect to seek for mercy through the atoning blood of Christ °. The declaration of God is this ; " He that covereth his sins, shall not prosper ; but whoso con- fesseth and forsaketh them shall have mercy p."
But let us beware of one delusion which proves fatal to thousands : we are apt to content ourselves with general acknowledgments that we are sinners, instead of searching out our particular sins, and humbling ourselves for them. Doubt- less it is right to bewail the whole state of our souls : but he who never has seen any individual evils to lament, will have but very faint conceptions of his general depravity. We should therefore " search and try our ways ;" and not only say with Achan, " I have sinned against the Lord God of Israel," but proceed with him to add, " Thus and thus have I doneq." This is the particular instruction given in our text : the person who had transgressed any law of God, whether ceremonial or moral, was, as soon as he discovered it, to " confess, that he had sinned in that particular thing." O that we were more ready to humble ourselves thus ! But we love not the work of self- examination : and the evils which we cannot altogether hide from ourselves, we endeavour to banish from our minds ; and hence it is that so many of us are " hardened through the deceitfulness of sin."]
1 Ps. xix. 12. See also Ps. cxxxix. 23, 24. m Eccl. v. 6.
n Compare Numb. xv. 27 — 31. with Heb. x. 28.
0 Heb. x. 29. P Prov. xxviii. 13. <J Josh. vii. 20.