32Ó TILE AGCfAVATIONSOF BACKSLIDING. V. It may be there has been much dishonour brought to the name of God by it. My name has been continu- ally blasphemed by you, saith the Lord, among all na- tions : yet he will heal, he will recover them, he will restore them again, and bring them near to himself. The Third thing I proposed, in order to discover the greatness of this sin of backsliding, was to shew how God beholds it. I have seen his wags, ¿'c. L He beholds our sins in all their number, more than we can see, imagine, or conceive of them. There is not a man upon earth that lives and sins not, and there is not a man upon earth that lives and knows all his sins; every thought, every word, every action, that has neither a direct, nor remote tendency to the glory of God, is written down as a sin in the book of God ; who then knows his errors ? but the Lord beholds them all ; he knows our sinful thoughts afar off, before they are formed into purposes of sin ; yet, saith he, I have seen them all, and I will heal them ; his sins are many indeed, but I have a pardon for every one of them. I, even I am he that blotteth out thy iniquities for my own name's sake. II. God sees sin in the full evil of its nature, and yet he resolves to pardon, to recover, to restore, and heal them. Now this is what we can never do, for we can never fully discover the greatness of the distance there is betwixt God and the creature; we can never know fully the greatness of that honour and glory that is violated by every sin ; we cannot fully know the nature of God. Now every sin has a tendency to strike at the' natureof God as well as against his law ; though God beholds the iniquity that is in every one of their depar- tures from him, yet, saith he, I behold, and I will heal. One would think he should say, I will revenge, ,, they are so great, but his thoughts are not as man's thoughts, nor his words as man's words. Again, III. God sees our backslidings with all their compli- cated aggravations. He seeth that light against which we have sinned, and yet he resolves that he w.ilI pardon the wilful sinner. He sees all those methods of recovery, which he has used in order to recover us, and through' which we have broken, yet still he resolves he will use other means that shall be available. He will bind us with bands of love, though other bands of love were
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