what of a corrupt mixture will be found in every thing we do. There is so much blindness in our understanding, so much per- verseness in our will, and so much sensuality in our affections, that we are imperceptibly drawn aside; our very judgment is deceived ; yea, " our mind and conscience are deliled ;" so that, ' when we would do good, evil is present with us;" and, when we do, as we think, act entirely as unto the Lord, the heart-searching God beholds a mixture of sclj'in our best motives, that serves yet further to vitiate and debase our best actions.
To all this add our actiial tramgressions, by thought, word, and deed, against the holy commands of God. It is still of " secret sins" only that I am speaking, and of such as may justly be called sins of infirmity. But how vast the aggregate of evil which has arisen in our hearts from the secret workings of pride, or worldliness, or impurity, or unbelief, or some other corrupt feel- ing of our fallen nature ! Yet not one of these has been unob- served by God, nor will one be kept out of sight in the final judgment.
Well then may we even in this superficial view of our past errors and deviations say, " Who can understand them ?"J
We need therefore to cry earnestly to God to *' cleanse us from them " —
[The guilt in which they involve the soul is exceeding great : nor can it be purged away but by the atoning blood of Christ. The circumstance of their having been unobserved by us does not lessen the guilt of them, as we imagine ; but only shews how blind and ignorant we are, and how vitiated and debased that soul must be which can harbour such evils unconscious of their malignity, and almost of their very existence. God himself cau- tions us against regarding this as an extenuation, which, if rightly viewed, is rather an aggravation, of our guilt. " Suffer not thy mouth to cause thy flesh to sin ; neither say thou before the Angel, that it was an error : wherefore should God be angry at thy voice, and destroy the work of thine h:inds^?" An atone- ment was offered by the high priests of old " for the errors of the people*^:" and in the atonement of Christ must we seek refuge from all which have been, however inadvertently, committed by us. This is strongly intimated by the offerings which were ap- pointed for all without exception, when they erred ; but which differed according to the degree of criminality which might justly attach to persons, by reason of their advantages for knowing better, and the injury that was likely to accrue from their exam- ple''. But none were excused: the very moment that their error ivas pointed out to them, they were to bring their offering: and through that alone could they obtain absolution from their sin'*.
We
" Eccl. V. 6. ^ Heb. ix.7.
*= Lev. iv. 1-t35. -^ Lev. v. \7—'^9.