SERMON XII.

REMEMBRANCE OF SIN.

EZEKEIL XVI. 63. That thou mayest remember, and be confounded, and never open thy mouth any more because of thy shame, when I am pacified toward thee for all that thou hast done.

AMONG the various points of difference between good men and bad, none is more clearly revealed in the Scriptures, and none more observable in Christian experience, than that a good man remembers his sinfulness, and a bad man forgets it. Wicked men may, from time to time, have severe compunctions of conscience; there may be periods in their history, and events in the providence of God, which fill them with alarm; but these terrors are occasional, and their sense of sin soon passes away. They try to forget it, and do forget it. Though the day is coming when the remembrance of it will be revived and imbittered, for the most part, they are too successful in their efforts to obliterate all such impressions. It is not so with a good man. He never lives in this state of spiritual death. Day after day, week after week, month after month, year after year, do not pass away, and find him dead, torpid, and senseless. Not only is it impossible for him to live at ease in present sin, but it is impossible for him to live without frequently calling to mind the sins that are past. Men who do not feel, and act thus, give no evidence that they are good men; but, on the other

hand, evidence that ought to be startling to their own hopes, that they are in the gall of bitterness and bonds. of iniquity. A good man may have strong and precious hopes that his sins are pardoned; but his inward peace, so far from destroying, or diminishing his sense of his own sinfulness, is but a new incentive to remember it, and "be confounded, and never open his mouth any more because of his shame, when God is pacified toward him for all that he has done." It falls in with all the feelings of his renewed nature to feel thus. His hope in the divine mercy does not make him thoughtless; it does not lead him to forget what is past, nor ever dismiss the remembrance of his great sinfulness. In illustrating these general thoughts, I observe,

I. In the first place, Good men are incited to the remembrance of sin by their love of God.

It is characteristic of a good man, that he does not "live without God in the world." God is much in his thoughts, and has the first place in his heart. "My meditation of him," says the Psalmist, “shall be sweet; I will be glad in the Lord." Elsewhere he says, "My soul shall be satisfied with marrow and fatness; my mouth shall praise thee with joyful lips, when I remember thee upon my bed, when I meditate on thee in the night-watches." The remembrance of God is very apt to bring with it the remembrance of sin. The mind even of a wicked man could not long be fixed upon God without being perplexed and embarrassed by the thought of his own sinfulness. Much more does a devout mind feel this. "I have heard of thee, by the hearing of the ear," exclaimed Job, "but now mine eye seeth thee; wherefore, I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes." He is the One we have

lightly esteemed; the forgotten, dishonored, and injured One, who, because he is "pacified toward us," is the more worthy of unoffending, unsinning love. His goodness leaves us without excuse, and makes our sins appear exceeding sinful. And it is just in this light, that good men wish and seek to view them. The clearer their conceptions of God, the more impressive is their remembrance of their own sinful, guilty, and odious conduct. Men make light of sin, only when they make light of God. They have low and mean thoughts of sin, only when they have low and mean thoughts of God. They forget sin, only when, like an atheistic world, they utterly forget God.

II. Good men are induced to the remembrance of sin, in the second place, by their attachment to the government and law which God has established.

It is characteristic of a good man, that he is a friend to the divine government and law. He feels himself to be the subject of the King of kings, and Lord of lords; whose supremacy gives him the throne, and who lives and reigns "God over all blessed for evermore." Good men on the earth have, in every age, been distinguished for their attachment to the rightful authority of their divine Prince. The power, the grandeur, the riches of their great Sovereign; his glories, his favor, his resistless and universal dominion, have ever been the source of heartfelt gratulation and delight to those who have ceased to be rebels, and become loyal subjects. "O how love I thy law!" says the devout Psalmist. And again he says, "The Lord God Omnipotent reigneth, let the earth rejoice!" These, and thoughts like these, often dwell upon the lips of the children of God. And they are thoughts in their own nature adapted to

bring with them the remembrance of their own sinfulness. "By the law is the knowledge of sin." Sin is the transgression of the law." "Sin, by the commandment, becomes exceedingly sinful." To require what is right, and forbid what is wrong, in deed, word, thought, and on pains and penalties which interminable ages show are commensurate with the transgressor's ill desert, is that which every good man knows the Deity must do, or be undeified, and no longer God. Wherever sin exists, therefore, it is the same odious and ill-deserving thing. It is transgression of the law; it is the curse of the universe; it is the abhorrence of the divine mind. It is not less hateful, nor less hated of God, in any man, because he is a Christian; but rather more hateful, and more hated. Nor is his vivid and keen remembrance of his iniquity at all abated, by the hope that the Holy Lawgiver is pacified toward such a sinner as himself. How can it be, in view of that law which he has so dishonored, and which his Saviour has so magnified and made honorable? Never can he lose sight of the criminality and turpitude of his transgressions, and never can they cease to be burdensome and loathsome. Just as natural objects appear differently by the light in which they are seen, are the sins of men exhibited in true light by the law of God. Though committed in bygone years, they no longer appear at a distance; and though they once seemed small, they are now exhibited in truer magnitude. The heart bleeds at such a retrospect. Memory sinks the sin deep. And though atoning blood may give peace, it obliterates not the remembrance of the sin.

III. Good men are induced to the remembrance of sin, in the third place, by their love of the Divine Saviour. It is characteristic of every good man, that he is a sincere lover of Christ and his Gospel. His love of Christ is his ruling passion. He has forsaken all for Christ. He has cheerfully renounced every opposing and rival claim, and taken up his cross, that he might follow Christ. If not his earliest, Christ now has his first and best, love. There are no attachments he cannot renounce for the sake of Christ; no wealth which he cannot relinquish for the unsearchable riches of Christ; no honors he cannot forego for the honor which cometh from God only; no power he cannot disclaim in order to live for Christ, and reign with him; no knowledge he does not count as loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Jesus Christ his Lord. His presence is his highest joy; his Gospel the theme of his wondrous thoughts and admiring praise; his blood, is his purity and peace; his righteousness, his title to the heavenly inheritance. And therefore it is, that such a man remembers his iniquities, even when others forget them. His fondest love of Christ, and his most unclouded hopes, are immingled with many a bitter and touching recollection of his own vileness. Pardoned as he is, he feels deeply and tenderly what it is to be a pardoned sinner. The thought is often present to his mind, at what an amazing sacrifice this immunity was procured; by whose sorrows, he is happy; by whose tears, he smiles; by whose death, he lives; by whose cross, he expects to reign. The vain fancy has fled, that there is some reason in himself why he should be the object of the divine favor. All that he hopes for is in defiance of his own unworthiness and ill desert. The