FORGIVENESS OF SIN. though it be truth, is a fruit of force and torture, not of any ingenuousness of mind. So is it with merely con- vinced persons ; they come not to the acknowledgment of sin with any more freedom; and the reason is, be- cause all sin has shame ! and for men to be free to shame is naturally impossible, shame being nature's shrinking from itself. But now the returning soul has never more freedom, liberty and aptitude of spirit, than when he is in the acknowledgment of those things whereof he is most ashamed. And this is no small evidence that it proceeds from the Spirit, which is attended with liberty ; for "where the Spirit of God is, there is liberty." 2 Cor. 3 17. When David was delivered from his silence, he expresses this spirit in the performance of this duty " I acknowledged my sin, and mine iniquity I have not hid : I said, I will confess my transgression." Psalm 32 : 5. His mouth is now open and his heart enlarged ; and he multiplies one expression upon another, to mani- fest his enlargement. So cloth a soul, rising out of its depths, in the beginning of this address to God. Having the true sense of sin wrought in him by the Holy Ghost, his heart is made free, and enlarged unto an ingenuous acknowledgment of his sin before the Lord. He pours out his soul unto God ; and bath not more freedom in any thing than in confessing that of which he is most ashamed. 2. This acknowledgment must also be full. Reserves ruin conversion. If the soul have any secret thought of rolling a sweet morsel under its tongue, as bowing in the house of Rimmon, it is like part of the price kept hack, which makes the whole a robbery instead of an oíTering. If there be remaining a bitter root of favoring any one lust or sin, or any occasion of or temptation to sin, let a man be as open, free and earnest as can be imagined in the acknowledgment of all other sins, the whole duty is rendered abominable. Some persons, when
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