There have been, and yet are, persons in the Church of Christ who boast of sinless perfection. But they are awfully deluded. In order to maintain their favourite system, they reduce exceedingly the requirements of God's law; they deny many things to be sin, which most assuredly are sin ; and, after all, they shut their eyes against many things which they know to be sinful in their own hearts and lives, but which they will not acknowledge to be sinful, lest they should overturn the system which they are anxious to defend. But it is a certain truth, that no man is sinless in this world. And this appears,
1. From express declarations of Holy Writ — [Both tlie Old Testament and the New concur to establish
this truth. Solomon, at his dedication of the temple, expressly asserted, that " there was no man that lived and sinned not^:" and more strongly does he elsewhere affirm, that " there is not a just man upon earth, that doeth good, and sinneth not''." To this agree also the testimonies of the inspired Apostles : St. John says, that "if we say we have no sin, we deceive our- selves, and the truth is not in us*^:" and St. James says, that "in many things we offend all*^." The whole Scripture uni- formly attests this awful truth.]
2. From such instances as are undeniable — [Among the most distinguished of God's people, were
Abraham, and Moses, and Hezekiah, and Paul : yet all of these, even when they had arrived at the summit of human excellence, fell into sin. Abraham, purely through fear, twice denied his own wife, and thereby subjected her and others to temptations, which might have issued in the everlasting destruc- tion of their souls. Moses, the meekest man upon the face of the earth, gave way to wrath, whereby he provoked God to exclude him from the earthly Canaan. Hezekiah, than whom no man upon the whole ever more honoured God, yet yielded to pride and creature-confidence, when he shewed all his trea- sures to the ambassadors of the king of Babylon. And Paul, after he had preached for twenty years, and attained an emi- nence in the divine life, not inferior to that of any of the children of men, was so carried away by his own spirit under a sudden trial and temptation, that he reviled God's High Priest, which he himself acknowledged to be a violation of an express com- mand. Who then, after viewing these, will " say, that he is pure from sin?"]
^ 1 Kings viii. 46. ^ Eccl. vii. 20.
•^ 1 John i. 8 — 10. «' Jam. iii. 2.