56 FORGIVENESS OF SIN. the evil of the least sin committed : for all good is due on another account, though no guilt were incurred. As the payment of money that a man has borrowed makes no satisfaction for what he has stolen ; no more will our duties compensate for our sins. Nor is there any good action of a sinner but it has evil and guilt enough attending it to render itself unacceptable ; so that men may well cease from thoughts of supereroga- tion, or doing more than duty requires. Besides, where there is any one sin, if all the good in the world might be supposed to be in the same person, yet, in the indis- pensable order of our dependance on God, nothing of that good could come into consideration till the guilt of that sin were answered for to the utmost. The pen- alty of every sin being the eternal ruin of the sinner, all his supposed good can avail him nothing. And for the law itself, it is an issue of the holiness, and righ- teousness, and wisdom of God; so that there is not any evil, great or small, but is forbidden and condemned by it. "Enter not into judgment with thy servant, for in thy sight shall no man living be justified." Psalm 143 : 2. That is, if things are to be tried and determined by the law, no sinner can be acquitted. Rom. 3 : 20. Gal. 2 : 16. But yet, 4. It may be, the sentence of the law is not so fierce and dreadful, but that, though guilt be found, there may be yet a way of escape. But the law speaks not one word on this side death to an offender. There is a greatness and an eternity of wrath in the sentence of it; and it is God himself who hath undertaken to see the ven- geance of it executed. So that, on all these accounts, the conclusion mentioned must be fixed in the soul of a sinner that entertains thoughts of drawing nigh to God. Though what has been spoken maybe of general use to sinners of all classes, whether called home to God,
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