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 mfirmity, none were prescribed for any presumptuous sin whatever : the offender was to be cut off witliout 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 commands, was " beaten with many stripes ^" And Capernaum's doom, we are told, shall be more severe than that of Sodom and Gomorrha, because of the deeper malignity which her superior advantages infused into all her sins™.
Let me then entreat you to adopt the prayer in our text : beg of God that he would enable you to " understand yovxr errors ; " (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 tlie unpardonable trans- gression, 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 suffering 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 at last it will " sting 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 delivered ! 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, when remonstrated with by the prophet, replied, " As for the word that 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
k Numb. XV. 27— 31 . ^ Luke xii. 47, 48.
^ Matt. xi. 23, 24. " Jer. xliv. 16, 17.