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write unto you, little children," saith St. John, "because your sins are forgiven you for his name's sake."

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We perceive that in order to obtain forgiveness of our sins, we must acknowledge them, and must confess them before God with brokenness of heart; not merely saying with our lips that we "are miserable sinners," but bewailing our sins with real contrition, and earnestly praying unto God in such words as these, Wash me thoroughly from my wickedness and cleanse me from my sin. If we truly repent, we shall acknowledge our transgressions and faults, and our sins will be ever before us, as a blot and a stain, or as a hand-writing, a bill of indictment. We shall pray that, for Christ's sake, he would blot out this hand-writing which is against us, and would take it away, nailing it, as it were, to the cross of our gracious Redeemer. If we are real penitents, we shall also acknowledge the justice of God in his sentence against sin; and attentively surveying our lives we shall be constrained to say, with respect to many things; Against THEE, THEE only, have I sinned, and done this and that evil in thy sight, so that thou wilt be justified when

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thou speakest, and clear when thou judgest. If however we are humbled for our sins, and truly repent of them, we may hope to find mercy with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. "If we confess our sins, God is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness." He has opened a fountain of mercy which never ceases to flow, and in this we may wash and be clean. May "the blood of Christ therefore, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without spot to God, purge our conscience from dead works to serve the living God."'

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SERMON II.

HUMAN DEPRAVITY, OR THE DOCTRINE OF

ORIGINAL SIN.

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PSALM LI. 5, 6.

Behold, I was shapen in iniquity; and in sin my mother conceive me.

Behold, thou desirest truth in the inward parts ; and in the hidden part thou shalt make me to know wisdom.

THE Royal Penitent having confessed and bewailed his great transgressions in the four preceding Verses of this Psalm, which we have lately investigated, proceeds here to lay open the original taint and corruption of his nature. He traces his sins to their first source, that is, the depravity of his heart; and this he does, not with a view of lessening their heniousness, as a palliation or excuse, but with unfeigned sorrow, as an additional proof of his sinfulness

and guilt. He introduces this confession with the word Behold, 'Alas! this is evident, it cannot be denied, that I have followed the propensities of an evil nature, in committing these sins, and prone as I was to fall, I ought to have watched over my heart with more diligent care; and sensible of my great weakness and depravity, I ought to have committed my ways unto the Lord who would have kept

me from falling.

me.

Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity; and in sin did my mother conceive Behold thou desirest truth in the inward parts, and thou shalt make me to know wisdom secretly.I purpose briefly to explain these Two Verses and then to consider more at large the important Doctrine which is contained in the first of them.

We know from the sacred History that David was sprung in an honourable manner from his Parents; that he was born in wedlock, which is an estate that the Creator himself had sanctioned and recommended, the purity of which he had also guarded by an express law. In confessing his sinfulness, therefore, he intended to cast no blame on his lawful parents, nor on that institution which is honourable among all men. His language conveys the idea that his nature was originally corrupt and

tainted with sin; that he was the degenerate offspring of parents who were also in a fallen and corrupt condition; that even from his birth and conception, the seeds of evil might be found within him.

Behold, I was shapen, or rather, brought forth in iniquity; in a state of depravity, with a nature perverse, and defiled, and inclined to evil. And in sin did my mother conceive me.--Though his father and mother might be pious and holy, they could not convey their piety and holiness to their children, but, according to the law of nature, they communicated their own sinful and corrupt affections, a mortal body, and disordered soul, ever prone to go astray. Behold, thou requirest truth in the inward parts, and in the hidden part thou shalt make me to know wisdom. his proneness to evil was no excuse, and that God did not desist from his just requirements on account of the depravity of human nature; and that his piercing eyes discover every latent evil, every tendency to sin; and are too pure to behold iniquity with any allowance, but require uprightness of principle, and the love of truth in the inward part. David had secretly yielded to a sinful suggestion, and had foolishly and ignorantly presumed, that God

Here he implies that

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