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DISCOURSE XXXV.

PSALM Xix. 12.

Who can understand his errors? Cleanfe thou me from fecret faults.

THE only method of coming to the diftin&t

knowledge of our fins, and to a due sense of them, is felf-examination; and therefore it is, that you are fo frequently exhorted to enter into yourselves, to converse with your own hearts, and to search out the evil which is in them. But often it happens that this method, after the fincereft and moft laborious inquiry, leaves men under great diffatisfaction of mind, and fubject to the frequent returns of doubts and mifgivings of heart; left fomething very bad may have escaped their fearch, and, for want of being expiated by forrow and repentance, fhould remain a debt upon their fouls at the great day of account. As in temporal concerns, men often know, that by a long courfe of prodigality, and many expenfive vanities, they have contracted a great debt upon their eftates, and have brought themselves to the very brink of poverty and diftrefs, and yet, when they try to think and confider of their condition, find themselves utterly unable to state their

accounts, or to set forth the particulars of the debt they labour under; but the more they endeavour to recollect, the more they are convinced that they are mere strangers at home, and ignorant of their own affairs: so in spiritual concerns likewise, men who have been long acquainted with vice, and long ftrangers to thought and reflection, when they come to be fenfible of the danger of their condition, and to set themselves feriously to repent, know in general that they have a heavy weight of fin and guilt upon their fouls; but yet the particulars, though many and heinous, which they are able to recollect and charge themselves with diftinctly, fall very short of the sense they have of their condition, and do by no means fill up that which they know to be the measure of their iniquities. And hence it is, that after the most careful examination of themselves, and the moft folemn repentance for all their known fins, they do not always enjoy that peace and tranquillity of foul which they expected, and had promised themselves, as the bleffed fruits of contrition; but fuffer extremely under uncertain hopes and fears, not being able to fatisfy themselves that their repentance was perfect, which they know was formed upon a knowledge of their fins that was very imperfect.

The holy Pfalmift had this sense of his condition, and felt how unable he was fufficiently to acknowledge his own guilt before God, when he broke forth into the complaint with which the text begins, Who can understand his errors? or, as it runs in the tranflation which is more familiar to us, Who can tell how oft he offendeth? In this distress his only refuge

was to the mercy of God, confeffing, with the greateft humility of heart, that his tranfgreffions were not only more than he could bear, but even more than he could understand: Cleanfe thou me from my fecret faults. Whenever men entertain doubts of their own fincerity and due performance of religious acts, it is extremely difficult to reason with their fears and fcruples, and to difpoffefs them of the misapprehenfions they have of their own state and condition. Such fuggeftions as bring eafe and comfort to their minds come fufpected, as proceeding from their own or their friends' partiality; and they are afraid to hope, left even to hope, in their deplorable condition, should prove to be presumption, and affuming to themfelves more than in reafon or juftice belongs to them. But when we can fhew them men of approved virtue and holiness, whose praise is in the book of life, who have ftruggled with the fame fears, and waded through even the worst of their apprehenfions to the peaceful fruits of righteousness; it helps to quicken both their spirits and their understanding, and at once to adminifter knowledge and confolation. And for this reafon we can never fufficiently admire the wifdom of God, in fetting before us the examples of good men in their lowest and most imperfect ftate. Had they been fhewn to us only in the brightest part of their character, despair of attaining to their perfection might incline us to give over the purfuit, by throwing a damp upon our beft refolutions: but when we see them rifing to virtue and holiness from the fame wretched condition which we are in, and labouring

under the fame difficulties, the fame anxieties and torments of mind; when we fee their very fouls convulfed with the pangs of repentance, and their faith almost finking under the doubtfulness of their condition; when we hear them cry to God in the words of anguish, not knowing how to pray, or in what terms to lament their fins; when we fee this nakednefs of their fouls, and find that they are like one of us, what fecret comfort muft it give to an afflicted fpirit, what fupport to a mind oppreffed with the sense of guilt, to find in these great examples what heavenly joy and peace often spring from the loweft depths of forrow and woe!

And there is indeed, with respect to the comfort and security of a finner, a great difference between arguments drawn from general reafonings and reflections, and those which are fuggefted from the experience and practice of holy men. In the case before us, if we confider the words of the text without regard had to the perfon who spoke them, we may raise many reflections from the great variety of human actions, and the complicated nature of them, from the fhort-fightedness of the understanding, and the weakness and imperfection of the faculties, to fhew how very hard it is, and almoft impoffible, for any one perfectly to underftand his errors whence might be deduced the reasonableness of the petition, Cleanfe thou me from fecret faults ; because where we cannot in particular recollect, we can only in general lament, our iniquities: beyond this probability we cannot go to determine the method in which God will deal with finners. take the words as spoken by David, of the fincerity

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