ignorance, be put to the account; all the smallest deviations and defects which the penetrating eye of God has seen, (all of which he has noted in the book of his remembrance,) and surely we shall feel the force of that question that was put to Job, " Is not thy wickedness great ? are not thine iniquities infinite1*?" If we bring every thing to the touchstone of God's law, we shall see, that " there is not a just man upon earth who liveth and sinneth notc ;" and that " in many things we all offend d ;" so that there is but too much reason for every one of us to exclaim with the Psalmist, " Who can under- stand his errors ? O cleanse thou me from my secret faults e ! " Let none of us then extenuate our guilt, or think it sufficient to say, " It was an error f :" but let us rather humble ourselves as altogether filthy and abominable s, as a mass of corruption11, a living body of sin1.]
2. How awful must be the state of those who live in presumptuous sins !
[The evil of sins committed ignorantly, and without design, is so great, that it cannot be expiated but by the blood of atonement : what then shall we say of presumptuous sins ? how heinous must they be ! Let us attend to the voice of God, who has himself compared the guilt contracted by unin- tentional, and by presumptuous sin ; and who declares that, though provision was made under the law for the forgiveness of the former, there was no remedy whatever for the latter : the offender was to be put to death, and to be consigned over to endless perdition k. Let none then think it a light matter to violate the dictates of conscience, and the commands of God ; for, in so doing, they pour contempt upon God's law, yea, and upon God himself also1: and the time is quickly coming, when God shall repay them to their face m ; and shall beat them, not like the ignorant offender, with few stripes, but, as the wilful delinquent, with many stripes". Let this consideration make us cry to God in those words of the Psalmist, " Keep thy servant from presumptuous sins ; let them not have dominion over me ; so shall I be undefiled and innocent from the great offence0."]
3. How desperate is the condition of those who make light of Christ's atonement!
[Under the law, there was no remission even of the smallest error, but through the blood of atonement. Nor can any sin
u Job xxii. 5. c Eccl. vii. 20. * Jam. Hi. 2. Prov. xxiv. 1G.
« Ps. xix. 12. f Eccl. v. G. 8 Ps. xiv. 3.
11 Rom. vii. 18. Isai. i. 5, G. * Rom. vii. 14, 24.
k Numb. xv. 27—31. ! Numb. xv. 27—31.
m Deut. vii. 10. Eccl. xi. 9. n Luke xii. 48. ° Ps. xix. 13.