The whole life of an open sinner is the judicial procession of a high criminal to the bar. It has the pomp and solemnity of death about it. The Church casts him forth from her altars and from her tribunals. Judgment issues against him by a common instinct. Even before the sentence of formal excommunication, he is visibly cut off from the mystical body of the Lord Jesus. And what is bound on earth is bound in heaven. It is the forerunner and visible symbol of the last great award. Such were the sins of apostates and of presumptuous sinners in the flesh or spirit, and of the authors of heresies and schisms. The whole history of the Church is marked by a line of open and barefaced offenders, who have lifted up their heel against the Lord, and crucified Him afresh unto themselves. In the great conflict of good and evil, they seem to bear a special office; so that the manifestation of sin is one of the collateral mysteries of the regeneration and perfection of saints. Moreover, we see it at this day. The visible Church holds still within its outward pale thousands whose lives are their own condemnation: as in Philippi, "Many walk, of whom I have told you often, and now tell you even weeping, that they are the enemies of the Cross of Christ." These are they whose "sins are open beforehand;" they need no penetrating scrutiny, no process of conviction. Their sins go before to judgment; sent forward to prepare a place on the left hand of the Judge in that great day. "And some men they follow after." That is to say, there are men all fair without, but within full of disguised and deadly evil. Though in their life they be never put to shame, yet in the sight of Him whose eyes are as a flame of fire, they are haunted and beset with guilt. Secret lusts, long cherished, often indulged, stealthily ventured upon; deep subtil intentions, pursued under a cloak of some high profession ; positive and completed sins, so mixed up with the actings of common life as to escape detection. But it does not apply only to these grosser forms of sin. There are men who pass for faithful Christians, who have free access to the sanctities of the Church; to its offices of worship, its sacraments and benedictions. They mix in the fellowship of the devout and penitent; they kneel at the altar; they join in acts of highest communion. They seem fair and blameless; there is no brand, not so much as a spot visible upon them. To our eyes they are not " far from the kingdom of God." As they grow old, they grow in reputation. They die in honour, and are in high esteem among the faithful. They go to meet their Judge; but their sins "follow after." All through life there has followed them unseen a throng of sins, concealed, unrepented, or forgotten. The sins of childhood, boyhood, youth, and manhood, follow on, gathering in number, guilt, intensity; every age bringing in its measure of characteristic sins; every year its transgressions, every day its provocation; - sins of deed and thought, of desire and imagination, of casual self-indulgence and habitual neglect; sins against conscience and light, against pleadings of grace, and stirrings of the Spirit; breaches of resolutions; contradictions of solemn confessions before God; relapses after partial repentance; all these mounting up, till from their bulk they spread beyond the field of sight, and from their magnitude become invisible. This, perhaps, may seem to be an extreme case. Would to God it were so. Will it be believed that this is no uncommon instance, not only in people who live without God in the world, but also in those whose character is in many ways religious? Every one confesses it to be true of hypocrites or clandestine sinners; but we are now speaking of higher and more hopeful cases. What I have described will, on being analysed, be found to be more or less the case of multitudes. For instance, this is really the state of thousands who have never suspected the possibility of their being in such a condition. They have fallen into it, because they never suspected it to be possible. There is nothing we are more apt to take for granted, than the theory of our acceptance before God. It is disagreeable to think ill of ourselves ; we are conscious of good intentions; we feel to desire the highest and holiest state; sin is both fearful and painful to us; after sinning, we cannot be easy so long as we remember it; our conscience as well as our pride is hurt; and we comfort ourselves as soon as we can, by thoughts of repentance, and by turning to the better side of our character. In this way people get into a habit of consoling themselves. They shrink from sterner and deeper truths; shun all high standards; keep aloof from the light; and never suspect-as, indeed, how can they? - the existence of the evil of which they are unconscious. They believe themselves to be, what they know they desire. What they are able to discern, they take to be their whole state before God. Although at times particular faults distress them, yet their habitual consciousness is of the favourable interpretation which men put upon their outward life. What they are in God's sight they have never suspected, because they have no standard to ascertain, no tests to detect it. Or, to take another example. This is also the state of those who have never, since they came to the full power of reflection, made a real examination of their past life. The sins of our early years are but imperfectly perceived at the time. It is only by retrospect, and in the fuller light of a matured conscience, that their true character is duly estimated. The sinfulness of sin consists not only in the specific evil of each particular act, but in the whole of our case before God; in our relation to Him, His holiness, compassion, and long-suffering; in His dealings with us, and our ingratitude, coldness, insensibility, in return. Truly to know what we are before God, we must take our whole life, with its context, and read it in the light of God's love and providential care. Guilt is a complex thing; a balance of many particulars on God's part and on ours. It is our sins multiplied by His mercies; our transgressions by His gifts of light and grace. As another example, we may take those who live without daily self-examination. It is impossible for such persons to escape self-deception. They become simply and sincerely ignorant of themselves. It is perfectly impossible to carry in mind the long unbalanced, unexamined account of many years, or even of one year alone. It is true in every thing, that neglect in detail is confusion in the whole. Sins that are not noted at the |