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given a fufficient Evidence of all Things which we are concerned to know, there is no room to expect or hope for fuch kinds of Admonition. He sent the greatest Person of the other World to us, his own Son, and fent him too from the Dead: He has come himself down to us in Signs and Wonders and mighty Works: And why he should fend a Man from the Dead to tell you, what is legible in the Book of Nature, what He, his Son, his Apoftles and Prophets have already told you, you that can give the Reason, give it.

DISCOURSE

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DISCOURSE III.

PSALM Xix. 12.

Who can understand his Errors? Cleanfe thou me from fecret Faults.

HE only Method of coming to the distinct Knowledge of our Sins, and to a due Senfe of them, is Self-examination; and therefore it is, that you are fo frequently exhorted to enter into yourselves, to converse with your own Hearts, and to fearch out the Evil which is in them. But often it happens that this Method, after the fincereft and moft laborious Inquiry, leaves Men under great Diffatisfaction of Mind, and fubject to the frequent Returns of Doubts and Misgivings of Heart; left fomething very bad may have escaped their Search, and,

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for want of being expiated by Sorrow and Repentance, should remain a Debt upon their Souls at the great Day of Account. As in temporal Concerns, Men often know, that by a long Course of Prodigality, and many expenfive Vanities, they have contracted a great Debt upon their Eftates, and have brought themselves to the very Brink of Poverty and Distress, and yet, when they try to think and confider of their Condition, find themselves utterly unable to ftate their Accounts, or to fet forth the Particulars of the Debt they labour under; but the more they endeavour to recollect, the more they are convinced that they are mere Strangers at home, and ignorant of their own Affairs: So in fpiritual Concerns likewife, Men who have been long acquainted with Vice, and long Strangers to Thought and Reflection, when they come to be fenfible of the Danger of their Condition, and to set themselves ferioufly to repent, know in general that they have a heavy Weight of Sin and Guilt upon their Souls; but yet the Particulars, though many and heinous, which they are able to recollect and charge themselves with distinctly, fall very short of the Sense they have of their Condition, and do by no means fill up.

that which they know to be the Measure of their Iniquities. And hence it is, that after the most careful Examination of themselves, and the most folemn Repentance for all their known Sins, they do not always enjoy that Peace and Tranquillity of Soul which they expected, and had promised themselves, as the blessed Fruits of Contrition; but fuffer extremely under uncertain Hopes and Fears, not being able to fatisfy themselves that their Repentance was perfect, which they know was formed upon a Knowledge of their Sins that was very imperfect.

The holy Pfalmift had this Sense of his Condition, and felt how unable he was fufficiently to acknowledge his own Guilt before God, when he broke forth into the Complaint with which the Text begins, Who can understand his Errors? or, as it runs in the Tranflation which is more familiar to us, Who can tell how oft be offendeth? In this Distress his only Refuge was to the Mercy of God, confeffing, with the greateft Humility of Heart, that his Tranfgreffions were not only more than he could bear, but even more than he could understand: Cleanfe thou me from my fecret Faults. Whenever Men entertain Doubts of their own Sincerity and due Performance of reli