carnal heart is depicted ; " Tush ! God sliall not see ; neither M-ill the Almighty regard it." We have a general notion about God's mercy : and from the very hope that he will forbear to execute the award of justice, we are encouraged to proceed in our career of sin ; thus " turning the very grace of God into licentiousness," and "continuing in sin with tlie hope that grace will abound." And what an ascendant these sins will gain over us may be daily seen, not only in the impieties of those who never knew any thing of God, but in the degeneracy of many, who once gave promises of better things. The gradations of such persons' departure from God are strongly marked by the Psalmist : they first " ivalk (transiently) in the counsel of the un- godly, (who from their want of real piety are dangerous ad- visers ;) they then learn to stand (deliberately) in the way (and habits) of the wicked j and then come to sit (habitually and at their ease) in the seat of the scornful^." And this is no other than what every presumptuous sinner has reason to expect: for God is indignant against him, in proportion as his transgressions partake of this horrid aggravation. Of the heathen it is said, *' They liked not to retain God in their knowledge ; therefore God gave them over to a reprobate mind'^:" and even of his own people Israel themselves, God says, " Israel would none of me: so 1 gave them up'*." What wonder then if he should say of us also, " They are joined to idols : let them alone'?" If instead of crying mightily to God to " keep us back" from presumptuous sins, we yield ourselves willingly to the commission of them, we can expect nothing, but that they should " have the entire do- minion over us," and constrain God to *^ swear in his wrath, that we shall never enter into his rest." This, I say, we may well expect : for God has declared, that]
If not delivered from them in time, we shall suffer the punishment of them to all eternity —
[How heinous they are in the sight of God may be known from hence ; that, though sacrifices were appointed for sins of infirmity, none were prescribed for any presumptuous sin whatever : the offender was to be cut off without mercy from the people of
the Lord'' The servant that knew not his Lord's will and
did things contrary to it, was yet accounted worthy of some punishment : but he who knowingly violated his Lord's com- mands, was " beaten with many stripes'." And Capernaum's doom, we are told, shall be more severe than that of Sodom and Gomorrah, because of the deeper malignity v/hich her supe- rior advantages infused into all her sins'".
Let me then intreat you to adopt the prayer in our text : beg
of
M's. i. 1. ^Rom.i. 8. " Ps. Ixxxi. 1 1 , 12. 'H0s.iv.i7.
'' Numb. XV. 27 — 31. ' Luke >.ii. 47, 4S.
'" Matt. xi. 23, 24.