4. Will not the account be dreadful if he should require sin ?
[No heart can conceive the terrors of the final judgment. Who, in his right mind, would risk the loss of heaven, and the suffering of hell?]
5. Can any power or policy of men prevent his re- quiring sin ?
[Let us first avert death from our bodies, or provide an answer to Job's question"; "Who hath hardened himself against God and prospered ?" Not earth and hell combined can prevent the punishment of one sinner °.]
Application —
[Let us see how deeply we have been involved in this guilt. If our outward actions have been correct, still have we, to an incalculable amount, committed sin by our very thoughts.
0 let us flee for refuge to the hope set before us ! Happy am
1 to declare that there is a way wherein a person may not only think this in his heart, but express it with his lips. If we
' 1 Sam. ii. 30. Rom. ii. 4. i^ 1 Cor. vi. 9. John iii. 3.
1 Numb, xxiii. 19. 2 Tim. ii. 13. ™ Jude, ver. 6. and 7. » Job ix. 4. 0 Prov. xi. 21.
believe in Christ, God will never require sin at our hands p ; and to express it, so far from pouring contempt on God, will greatly honour him. God is not more honoured by any thing than the humble confidence of a believer i. Let us all there- fore lay our sins on the head of the true scape-goat, so shall they never be required of us in the day of judgment ^]
P Acts xiii. 39. i Rom. iv. 20. ^ Mic. vii. 19.