II. To suggest some reflections arising out of it —
Who that duly considers it must not see,
1 . What ground we all have for humiliation before God—
[I will suppose that we have never committed any enormous sin, and that in respect of the letter of the law we have been as blameless as ever Paul was previous to his con- version : still, are we not sinners ? There has been no doubt on any of our minds whether we had occasion for the ac- knowledged duties of repentance, faith, and obedience : but have we diligently performed these duties ? Have we from day to day humbled ourselves before God, and wept in dust and ashes ? Have we laboured to find out all our past trans- gressions, to spread them before God with penitential sorrow, and to implore with all earnestness the remission of them ? -— — - — Have we fled to the Lord Jesus Christ for refuge, as to the hope that is set before us ? Have we pleaded before God the merit of his sacrifice, and sprinkled our souls with his all-atoning blood ? Is this the daily habit of our minds ; and
the only source of peace to our souls ? And have we
given up ourselves to God without reserve, to fulfil his every command, and to live altogether to his glory ? Do we for this end study his blessed word with all diligence, that we may know his mind ? and do we labour incessantly to " stand per- fect and complete in all the will of God ?" We have known these things to be right; but have we done them? Can we appeal to the heart-searching God, that this has been, and yet is, the daily tenor of our lives ? Must we not rather acknow- ledge, that no one day of our lives has been so occupied with these duties as it ought to have been ? Then we are sinners, " sinners before the Lord exceedingly " :" and, if we turn not to God in newness of life, we shall speedily become monuments of his wrath and fiery indignation.]
1. The folly of seeking salvation by any righteous- ness of our own —
[I will not only grant, as before, that we are free from any gross sins, but I will admit, that we have done a great deal that was good and praise-worthy. But how shall we get rid of this immense load of guilt which we have contracted by our wilful and habitual neglects ? Our good deeds, admitting that we have performed some, have been only occasional : whereas our neglects have been continual, from the first moment that we began to be capable of acting. Our good deeds have all been marred with imperfections ; but our neglects have had
in
" Gen. xiii. IS.