So says God in this matter, I desire no sacrifices, nor legal righteousness to make thee acceptable to me, only acknowledge and confess thine iniquity that thou hast transgressed against me. (Jer 3:12,13) And though this by some may be thought to be a very easy way to come at, and partake of, the mercy of God; yet let the sensible sinner try it, and he shall find it one of the hardest things in the world. And there are two things, to which man is prone, that makes confession hard.
I. There is a great incidency in us to be partial, and not thorough and plain in our confessions. We are apt to make half confessions; to confess some, and hide some; or else to make feigned confessions, flattering both ourselves, and also God, while we make confession unto him; or else to confess sin as our own fancies apprehend, and not as the word descries them. These things we are very incident to: Men can confess little sins, while they hide great ones. Men can feign themselves sorry for sin, when they are not, or else in their confessions forget to judge of sin by the word. Hence it is said, They turned to God, not with their whole heart, but as it were feignedly. They spake not aright, saying, what have I done? They flatter him with their lips, and lie unto him with their tongues, and do their wickedness in the dark, and sin against him with a high hand, and then come to him and cover the altar with their tears. These things therefore, demonstrate the difficulty of sincere confession of sin; and that to do it as it should, is no such easy thing.
To right confession of sin, several things must go. As,
1. There must be found conviction for sin upon the spirit: for before a man shall be convinced of the nature, aggravation, and evil of sin, how shall he make godly confession of it? Now to convince the soul of sin, the law must be set home upon the conscience by the Spirit of God; "For by the law is the knowledge of sin." (Rom 3:20) And again, "I had not known sin except the law had said, Thou shalt not covet." (Rom 7:7) This law, now, when it effectually ministereth conviction of sin to the conscience, doth it by putting of life, and strength, and terror into sin. By its working on the conscience, it makes sin revive, "and the strength of sin is the law." (1 Cor 15:56) It also increaseth and multiplieth sin, both by the revelation of God's anger against the soul; and also by mustering up, and calling to view sins committed, and forgotten time out of mind. Sin seen in the glass of the law is a terrible thing, no man can behold it and live. "When the commandment came, sin revived, and I died"; when it came from God to my conscience, as managed by an almighty arm, "then it slew me." And now is the time to confess sin, because now a soul knows what it is, and sees what it is, both in the nature and consequence of it.
2. To right confession of sin, there must be sound knowledge of God, especially as to his justice, holiness, righteousness, and purity; wherefore the Publican here begins his confession by calling upon, or by the acknowledgement of his majesty: "God be merciful to me a sinner." As if he should say, God, O God, O great God, O sin-revenging God, I have sinned against thee, I have broken thy law, I have opposed thy holiness, thy justice, thy law, and thy righteous will. O consuming fire! for our God is a consuming fire, I have justly provoked thee to wrath, and to take vengeance of me for my transgressions. But, alas! how few, that make confession of sin, have right apprehension of God, unto whom confession of sin doth belong! Alas, 'tis easy for men to entertain such apprehensions of God as shall please their own humours, and as will admit them without dying, to bear up under their sense of sin, and that shall make their confession rather facile, and fantastical, than solid and heart-breaking. The sight and knowledge of the great God is to the sinful man the most dreadful thing in the world; and is that which makes confession of sin so rare and wonderful a thing. Most men confess their sins behind God's back, but few to his face; and you know there is ofttimes a vast difference in one thus doing among men.
3. To right confession of sin, there must be a deep conviction of the certainty and terribleness of the day of judgment. This John the Baptist inserts, where he insinuates, that the Pharisees' want of sense of, and the true confession of sin, was because they had not been warned, or had not taken the alarm, to flee from the wrath to come. What dread, terror, or frightful apprehension can there be put into a revelation of sin, where there is no sense of a day of judgment, and of our giving there unto God an account for it. (Matt 3:7, Luke 3:7)
I say therefore, to right confession of sin there must be,
(1.) A deep conviction of the certainty of the day of judgment; namely, that such a day is coming, that such a day shall be. This the apostle insinuates, where he saith, "God commandeth all men every where to repent; Because he hath appointed a day, in the which he will judge the world in righteousness by that man whom he hath ordained; whereof he hath given assurance unto all men, in that he hath raised him from the dead." (Acts 17:30,31)
This will give a sense of what the soul must expect at that day for sin, and so will drive to an hearty acknowledgment of it, and strong cries for deliverance from it. For thus will the soul argue that expecteth the judgment day, and that believes that he must count for all there. O my heart! It is in vain now to dissemble, or to hide, or to lessen transgressions; for there is a judgment to come, a day in which God will judge "the secrets of men by his Son," and at that day he will bring to light "the hidden things of darkness, and will make manifest the counsel of the heart." If it must be so then, to what boot32 will it be now to seek to dissemble, or to lessen in this matter. (1 Cor 4:5) This also is in the Old Testament urged as an argument to cause youth, and persons of all sizes to recall themselves to sobriety, and so to confession of their sin to God; where the Holy Ghost saith ironically, "Rejoice, O young man, in thy youth; and let thy heart cheer thee in the days of thy youth, and walk in the ways of thine heart, and in the sight of thine eyes: but know thou, that for all these things God will bring thee into judgment." (Eccl 11:9) So again, "God shall bring every work into judgment, with every secret thing, whether good, or whether evil." (Eccl 12:14)
The certainty of this, I say, must go to the producing of a sincere confession of sin, and this is intimated by the Publican, who, with his confession, addeth a hearty crave for mercy, "God be merciful to me a sinner." As if he should say, if thou art not merciful to me, by thy judgment when thou comest I shall be swallowed up; without thy mercy I shall not stand, but fall by the judgment which thou hast appointed.