What cloak for your sin will you find when he shall call you to account? Will you plead a want of instruction, evidence, warning, or encouragement? Know that in that day you will be speechless™. Your love of sin and hatred of the light are the true causes of your rejecting Christ", and this will be the ground of a more aggravated condemnation0.]
2. Those who desire to attain the saving know- ledge of him —
[It is a great mercy to have such a desire formed in the heart ; but beware of cloking or extenuating your sin. Re- member that awful yet encouraging declaration p — Confess your sin with all its aggravations. There is a virtue in the blood of Jesus to cleanse you from it allq.]
m Matt. xxii. 12. n John v. 40. o j0im m 19.
P Prov. xxviii. 13. 1 1 John i. 7.
John xv. 23. He that hateth me hateth my Father also.
MEN are ever disposed to palliate their sins, and, by representing them under some specious name, to conceal their real enormity ; but God calls every sin by its proper name, and speaks of it with just abhor- rence. Covetousness in his eyes is not prudence, but idolatry a : a disregard of his presence is not mere inadvertence, but a denial of his most essential attri- butes15 : and a contempt of his Gospel is not a venial ignorance or inattention, but an absolute hatred both of Christ and of the Father. To confirm this truth we will endeavour to shew, I. Who they are that hate Christ —
It may be thought that none but Jews can be guilty of hating Christ, and that the bearing of his name is a sufficient testimony of our regard for him. But there are too many who, notwithstanding they have been baptized into his name, are yet " enemies to him in their minds." Certainly we must number among his enemies,
a Eph, v. 5. b ps. x. n} 13>