of God that he would enable you to " understand your errors 3'" (for who without Divine instruction can understand them ?) and that he would " cleanse you " from them ; and that he would " keep you back" from every presumptuous sin : for though every presumptuous sin is not the unpardonable transgression, yet, I must say, that presumptuous sin, continued in after warnings and exhortations to depart from it, hardens the heart, and sears the conscience, and endangers the being given up by God to final impenitence.]
Application—
Be prevailed upon, Brethren,
1 . To regard sin as the greatest of all evils —
[Such indeed it is, whether ye will believe it or not. You may be ready to think that suffering is the greatest : but suffer- ing may tend to good : it may, like the furnace, purify us from our dross, and prepare us, under God's gracious care, as vessels of honour for our Master's use. But sin defiles, debases, and destroys the soul. " Fools may make a mock at it ;" but it will *' sling like a serpent, and bite like an adder :" it may be sweet in the mouth, but it will be gall in the stomach. See, Brethren, from what a mass of guilt and corruption you need to be deli- vered ! See also what judgments are hanging over your devoted heads ! O that I could see you in earnest in fleeing from the wrath to come, and in laying hold on eternal life ! Be ye not like that perverse and daring people, who, \vhen remonstrated with by the prophet, replied, " As for the word tliat thou hast spoken unto us in the name of the Lord, we will not hearken unto thee : but we will certainly do whatsoever thing goeth forth out of our own mouth "." Neither deceive yourselves by endea- vouring to vindicate yourselves before God : for, whatever you may say to extenuate your guilt, your sins even of infirmity need forgiveness ; and your sins of presumption, if not repented of and forgiven, will plunge you into remediless and endless ruin.]
2. To improve the present moment in order to obtain deliverance from it —
[Now you can offer the prayer of David : but how long that privilege will be continued to you, you know not. This however you know, that your views of sin uill soon be changed, either in this world or in the world to come. Conceive of a prehumj)tuous sinner, dying in his iniquity, and first having his eves opened in the eternal world : What does he then think of all his past excuses, on which he once placed such confident reliance ? What, if he were permitted to address you from his abode of misery, would be the scope of his admonitions ? Can you doubt ? and, if not,
will
" Jer. xliv. 16, 1/.