Check we, then, brethren, our wandering fancies, by the thought that we are to know only in part; and that the only part which we are to know is, that which concerns our duty, and hopes, and fears; and our intelligent service and worship of Him. There is no better sacrifice to God than that of curbed idle curiosity. There is no better discipline than that which requires us to trust in what we can only imperfectly comprehend. There is no surer test of our earnestness about salvation, than the ready renunciation of unnecessary inquiry, and the steady, concentrated effort to understand that which was revealed to be understood.
SERMON VI.
CONFESSION.
Proverbs, xxviii., 13.
“He that covereth his sins shall not prosper.”
Sin unconfessed is sin unforgiven. He who has not brought himself to the approved publican’s mind, and with that publican’s deep, heartfelt humiliation and self-abhorrence, poured out the contrite entreaty, “God be merciful to me a sinner;” he who, as he stands or kneels before the throne of grace, is not emptied of self-justification—is not convinced that mercy alone can save him—is not eager to embrace the only proffered propitiation of rebels and outcasts (that afforded by the Son of obedience and love), is still in the depths of iniquity—still under the condemnation of the law: “The soul that sinneth, it shall die.” Nor even if he has this general sense (and confesses it) of sinfulness and unworthiness, is he much nearer to pardon and justification unless, besides, by diligent self-searching he has found out wherein he is a sinner and unworthy, and, like penitent David, makes mention before God of every ascertained act, and word, and thought of offence; every omission, every transgression, and prays for power to know himself better, that he may confess himself the more fully.
I need not stay to prove to you that all this is required. There are many precepts and many examples in the Bible, which set forth clearly the necessity of both general acknowledgment of sinfulness, and also special confession of particular sins to God, as preliminary to pardon.
And we may easily see why it is so. All things are indeed naked and open unto the eyes of Him with whom we have to do; and He, therefore, needs no informing of our circumstances, our wants and feelings, our griefs and burthens. But, by a rule of His own establishing, He does not bless us in providence or grace, unless we ask for the blessing, and assure Him that we should appreciate it. When of His free love He had designed to bestow great things on the Israelites, and had even commissioned His prophets to make known the intention, He, nevertheless, restrained the flow of His bounty by the condition, “I will yet for this be inquired of by the house of Israel, to do it for them.” [65] He would have men realise that they wanted the blessing; and He would have them acknowledge their dependence on Him for the bestowal of it.
And if this feeling, this acknowledgment and supplication were required even when, if I may so speak, He longed to confer the gift, and was standing with it ready in His stretched out hand, how much more requisite must they be when His face is averted, and His heart displeased; when it is His wrath, rather than His love, which is made ready to reveal itself, and will presently reveal itself, unless it is deprecated and propitiated, and His love won back? Yes, surely, in such a case, we must arise and go to Him, like the prodigal, acknowledging that we are not worthy to be called His children. We must smite upon our breasts, like the publican, and cry out of our distress, “God be merciful to me a sinner.” We must win His general sympathy by the manifestation of our contrition; we must tell Him, one by one, of the items of offence which, of His mercy in Christ, we would have Him blot out of the great book of His remembrance; and not visit with His threatened vengeance.
We can have little fear of His offended justice, if we do not thus guard against every particular exercise of it. We can have but little appreciation of His pardoning grace, if we will not be at the trouble of telling Him when and for what we want it. And we can have but little sense of His awful holiness, if—all unclean, and able only to be cleansed by Him in answer to our entreaty, and on the showing of our stains—we yet approach Him, and expect to be tolerated in His presence, unconcernedly defiled, and in filthy rags. “Ask, and ye shall have.” “He that covereth his sins shall not prosper.” “When I kept silence, my bones waxed old through my roaring all the day long. For day and night Thy hand was heavy upon me. . . . I acknowledged my sin unto Thee, and mine iniquity have I not hid. I said, I will confess my transgressions unto the Lord; and Thou forgavest the iniquity of my sin. For this shall every one that is godly pray unto Thee in a time when Thou mayest be found.” [67]
And there is a gracious purpose, a merciful regard for the sinner’s best interests, in this imposed law of general and particular confession. The offering of frequent confession will keep a man mindful of his state before God. It will lead him to consider what he has to confess; and so, through self-searching, he will come to self-knowledge: and the act of describing each sin to God will operate in representing that sin faithfully to the sinner; so that the very ordinance, which is properly the acknowledgment before God of sins realised, regretted, and forsaken, will often serve to show the sinner, for the first time, the sin which he has to repent of and forsake.
And one other benefit will surely arise from this exercise, namely, that the sinner will be deterred from a fresh commission of that confessed sin; that, having ascertained what are his evil propensities, what are the weak points in which Satan successfully assails him, he will be more on his guard against lapses, and wanderings, and defeats. He will nerve himself, and fight more certainly; “not as one that beateth the air.” He will seek to be better covered with the armour of God, and grasp more resolutely the sword of the Spirit. He will go forth conquering and to conquer.