s Eccl. ix. t3. ^ Rom. viii. 7.
' Job xl. 4. I' Eph. ii. 3. and Tit. iii. 3.
who implore help and direction from their God with an earnestness at all proportioned to the urgency of their case !
Is it inquired, wherein we have so greatly erred ? Our own acknowledgments contain the most satis- factory reply : " We have foUoxced too much the devices and desi?'es of our own hearts."" How true is this ! Look at all mankind ; see them from infancy to youth, and from youth to old age ; What are they all following ? are they obeying unreservedly the commands of God ? are they, in compliance with his will, mortifying every evil propensity, and doing the things which are pleasing in his sight ? Alas ! nothing is further from their minds than this. Their pursuits indeed vary according to their age, their circumstances, their habits ; but whatever they be, they are no other than the devices and desires of their own hearts : if in any thing they appear to do the will of God, they do not act from a principle of love to him, but from a desire to conform to the cus- toms of their country, and to lay a foundation for self- applause. The whole tenour of our lives is but too justly marked in those following acknowledgments, " We have offended agamst thy holy lazvs : zee have left u7idone those things which we ought to have done ; and have done those things which we ought not to have done." Permit me to ask, which of the laws of God have we not violated times without number ? Shall we say. We have not committed murder or adultery ? How vain the boast, if we interpret the command- ments in their full latitude, and call to mind the declarations of our Lord, that an angry word is murder, and a wanton look adulteryM To go into all our sins of omission and commission, were an end- less task. Suffice it to say, that in ten thousand in- stances " we have sinned, in thought, word, and deed, against the Divine Majesty;" and have habitually neglected the interests of our souls.
Perhaps it may be said, " Our actions indeed have been evil, but our hearts are good." But how does
1 Matt. V. 27, 28.
2000.1 THE churchman's CONFESSION. 411
this accord with that which in our confession forms the summit of the chmax, " There is no health in us ? " Here our Church has taught us to trace all the evils of our life to the fountain-head, a corrupt and wicked heart. In this expression she evidently refers, either to that confession of the Apostle, " In me, that is, in my flesh, dwelleth no good thing'";" or rather to that most humiliating declaration of the prophet, " From the sole of the foot even to the head, there is no soundness in us, but wounds, and bruises, and putrifying sores"." The import of the words is plain : we confess before our God, that we are altogether depraved ; that we are disordered in every member of our body, and in every faculty of our soul ; that our understanding is darkened, our will perverse, our affections sensual, our memory treacherous, our con- science seared, and all our " members instruments of unrighteousness and sin."
Thus far then we are fully vindicated, vindicated too, we trust, in your consciences, in all that we have affirmed respecting the lost estate of man. We do indeed represent the whole human race as in a most deplorable condition : but no member of our establishment can controvert our positions without denying the plainest asseverations of Holy Writ, and contradicting his own most solemn acknowledg- ments.
Let us now turn our attention to the second point which we proposed to notice, namely. The means of our recovery from this state.
We affirm that, in order to obtain salvation, two things are necessary ; " Repentance towards God, and faith in our Lord Jesus Christ°." By repentance, we do not mean that superficial work which consists in saying, ' I am sorry for what I have done ;' but in such a deep sense of our guilt and danger, as leads us with all humility of mind to God, and stirs us up to a most earnest application to him for mercy. We must feel sin to be a burthen to our souls : we must be made to tremble at the wrath of God which we