you could suppose them all to have been crowded into the space of one day, and yesterday to have been the day in which they were all committed, what a monster would you appear in your own eyes ! Yet, admitting the enormity of each sin to have been precisely such as it was at the moment of its com- mission, and such as it exists at present, such is the light in which you are viewed by God. Turn not away yo.ur eyes from this painful sight : you must behold it sooner or later : if you delay to look at it, the black catalogue of crimes will still increase, and the sight of them be yet more terrible. In the name of God then, I entreat you all, " Consider your
2. Seek to have your sins blotted out from the book of God's remembrance —
[It has already been observed, that this may be done. Though you neither have, nor can have, any thing to merit such a favour, God is willing to bestow it for his own name's sake : his word to you is, " I, even I, am he that blotteth out thy transgressions for mine own sake, and will not remember thy sins0. He even promises to "cast them into the very depths of the seap," from whence they shall never be brought against you: yea, he " covenants" to efface them, as it were from his own memory ; and says, " I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more'1" And will you not seek this mercy ? Is it too soon yet awhile for you to enjoy it ? Will you not be happier in the possession of it, than in the con- tinuance of your sins ? Think how such a proposal would be received by those who are now reflecting upon their ways in hell : would they need to be urged a second time to ask for mercy ? O seek it instantly ; seek it with all importunity ; seek it in the adorable name of Jesus ; seek it after the ex- ample of the saints of oldr: and then, " though your sins have been as scarlet, they shall be white as snow ; though they have been red like crimson, they shall be white as wool."]
3. Endeavour to walk as in the presence of God —
[A sense of the Divine presence will be an excellent pre- servative from sin. We know how careful we are of our conduct in the presence of any one whose good opinion we value : let us " set the Lord always before uss," in order that our circum- spection may be increased, and that we 'may be kept as much from secret as from open sin, from sin in the heart as well as sin in the life. Let us " commune much with our own hearts
n Hagg. i. 5, 7. ° Isai. xliii. 25. P Mic. vii. 19.
i Jer. xxxi. 34. r Ps. xxv. 7. and lxxix. 8.
s Ps. xvi. 8, 9. and li. 1, 2, 7.