house; he will not endure a divided heart, he is heir of all things, there lies no writ of partition in his inheritance, his title is so good that he will never yield to a composition; he will have all the heart or

none.

Again: we should therefore be exhorted (in time of trouble especially) to set about this great work, to fall foul upon our sins, to complain against them to God, as the Achans that trouble Israel, as the corrupters and betrayers of our peace, to set ourselves in God's sight, and not to dare to lie unto his Holy Spirit, by falseness or hypocrisy ; as if we could reserve any one sin unmortified which he should not know of. being in his sight to whom all things are naked and open, to deal in all sincerity, and to hate sin even as he hates it.

But

There are five notable duties which these words, “Take away all iniquity," lead us unto.

The first is, sense of sin, as of a heavy burden, as the prophet David calls it, Psal. xxxviii. 4. Such sense our Saviour requires in true penitents, "Come unto me all ye that are weary and heavy laden," Matt. xi. 28. To conceive them heavier than a millstone, Luke xvii. 2. than the weight of a mountain, Luke xxiii. 30. Oh what apprehension had St. Peter's converts of sin, when they felt the nails wherewith they had crucified Christ sticking fast in their own hearts, and piercing their spirits with torment and horror! Acts ii. 37. Oh what apprehensions had the poor jailer of his sins, when he came as a prisoner before his own prisoners, springing in with monstrous amazement, and consternation of spirit, beseeching them to tell him "what he should do!" Acts xvi. 23. 30.

Consider it in its nature; a universal bruise and sickness, like those diseases which physicians say are

a corruption of the whole substance, from head to foot, Isa. i. 5, 6. And who doth not feel such a universal languor to be a heavy burden? for a man that must needs labour, to have weights hung at his hands; that must needs walk, to have clogs fastened to his feet, how can he avoid crying out with the apostle, wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me?" Rom. vii. 24.

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Consider it in the curse that belongs unto it. A roll written within and without with curses.

Look outward, and behold a curse in the creature ; vanity, emptiness, vexation, disappointments, every creature armed with a sting, to revenge its Maker's quarrel.

Look inward, and behold a curse in the conscience; accusing, witnessing, condemning, haling to the tribunal of vengeance; first defiling with the allowance, and after terrifying with the remembrance, of sin.

Look upward, and behold a curse in the heavens; the wrath of God revealed from thence upon all unrighteousness.

Look downward, and behold a curse in the earth; death ready to put a period to all the pleasures of sin, and like a trap-door to let down into hell, where nothing of sin will remain, but the worm and the fire.

Look into the scriptures, and see the curse there described: an everlasting banishment from the glory of God's presence: an everlasting destruction by the glory of his power, 2 Thes. i. 9. The Lord showing the jealousy of his justice, the unsearchableness of his severity, the inconceivableness of his strength, the bottomless guilt and malignity of sin, in the everlasting destruction of ungodly men, and in the everlasting preserving of them to feel that destruction. "Who knoweth the power of thy anger?" saith Moses;

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even

according to thy fear, so is thy wrath," Psal. xc. 11. It is impossible for the most trembling consciences, or the most jealous fears of a guilty heart, to look, beyond the wrath of God, or to conceive more of it than indeed it is. As in peace of conscience the mercy of God is revealed unto believers, from faith to faith, so in anguish of conscience the wrath of God is revealed, from fear to fear.

A timorous man can fancy vast and terrible fears, fire, sword, tempests, wrecks, furnaces, scalding lead, boiling pitch, running bell-metal; and being kept alive in all these to feel their torment. But these come far short of the wrath of God; for there are bounds set to the hurting power of a creature, the fire can burn, but it cannot drown; the serpent can sting, but he cannot tear in pieces. Likewise the fears of the heart are bounded within those narrow apprehensions which itself can frame of the hurts which may be done. But the wrath of God proceeds from an infinite justice, and is executed by an omnipotent and unbounded power, comprising all the terror of all other creatures (as the sun doth all other light) eminently and excessively in it. It burns, and drowns, and tears, and stings, and bruises, and consumes, and can make nature feel much more than reason is able to comprehend.

O if we could lay these things seriously to heart, (and yet these are but low expressions, of that which cannot be expressed, and cometh as short of the truth itself, as the picture of the sun in a tablet, doth of the greatness and brightness of it in its own orb,) should we not find it necessary to cry out, Take away all iniquity! this sickness out of my soul, this sword, this nail, this poisoned arrow out of my heart; this dagger of Ehud out of my body, this millstone, this

mountain from off my back, these stings and terrors, these flames and furies out of my conscience? Lord, my wounds stink, my lips quiver, my knees tremble, I am feeble, and broken, and roar, and languish; thy wrath lies hard upon me, and thy waves go over my head.

O if we had but a view of sin as it is in its native foulness, and did feel but a touch of that fury which God is ready to pour out upon it, this would stain all the pride of man, and sour all the pleasures of sin, and make a man as fearful to meddle with it, as a guilty woman with the bitter water which caused the curse. Most true was that which Luther spake in this point, If a man could perfectly see his own evils, the sight thereof would be a perfect hell unto him: and this God will bring wicked men unto, "Reprove them, and set their sins in order before them," Psal. 1. 21. Make them take a view of their own hearts and lives, fuller of sins than the firmament of stars, or a furnace of sparks. O consider this, you that forget me, saith the Lord, lest I tear you in picces, and there be none to deliver you.

The second duty is confession; for he that cries to have sin taken away, acknowledges that it lies upon him; a full confession, not of many, but of all sins, either actually committed, or habitually comprised in our body of sin. As he in the comedian, said, that he had invited two guests to dinner, Philocrates and Philocrates, a single man, but a double eater: so in examination of ourselves we shall every one find sins enough in himself to denominate him a double and a treble sinner. A free confession, not as Pharaoh's, extorted upon the rack; nor as that of Judas, squeezed out with anguish and horror; but ingenuous and penitent, arising from the purpose of a pious heart,

that comes like water out of a spring, with a voluntary freeness; not like water out of a still, which is forced with fire.

The third duty is weariness and detestation of all

sin; for we call not to have a thing removed till we be weary of it. Thus we are taught in the scriptures to be ashamed, and confounded; to loathe, and abhor, to judge and condemn ourselves; to throw sin away as a detestable thing, though it be a golden or silver sin. A spiritual judgment looks on all sin as filthy and stinking; shows a man to himself as a vessel full of dung and scum, and makes him out of quiet till he be thoroughly purged. For hatred is against the whole kind of that which we hate.

The fourth duty is an acknowledgment of our own impotence to remove sin from ourselves. We have no more power than a slave in chains has to get out of his bondage till another ransom him, than a dead body in a grave till Christ raise it. Our iniquity takes hold on us, and keeps us down, that we cannot hearken or be subject to the will of God. If sin were not removed by a greater strength than would most certainly sink us into hell.

our own, it

The last duty is an imploring of God's mercy and grace, that what we cannot do ourselves, he would be pleased to do for us. In works of art it is hard to build, but easy to destroy. But in works of sin, though our weakness is able to commit them, yet none but God's power is able to demolish them. None but Christ is strong enough to overcome the strong man. His person only hath strength enough to bear the curse of sin: his sacrifice only merit enough to make expiation for sin. His grace only virtue enough to remove the pollution of sin. Though we should take nitre and much soap, our sin would be marked still;