CONFESSION OF SIN
OF THE SECOND PART OF PRAYER, WHICH IS, CONFESSION OF SIN, COMPLAINTS OF OURSELVES, AND HUMBLE PROFESSIONS OF REPENTANCE
Having given glory to God, which is His due, we must next take shame to ourselves, which is our due, and humble ourselves before Him in the sense of our own sinfulness and vileness; and herein also we must give glory to Him, as our judge, by whom we deserve to be condemned, and yet hope, through Christ, to be acquitted and absolved. Joshua 7:19.
IN THIS PART OF OUR WORK, WE MUST ACKNOWLEDGE THE GREAT REASON WE HAVE TO LIE VERY LOW BEFORE GOD, AND TO BE ASHAMED OF OURSELVES WHEN WE COME INTO HIS PRESENCE, AND TO BE AFRAID OF HIS WRATH, HAVING MADE OURSELVES BOTH ODIOUS TO HIS HOLINESS, AND OBNOXIOUS TO HIS JUSTICE
OUR God, we are ashamed and blush to lift up our faces before thee, our God; for our iniquities are increased over our head, and our trespass is grown up unto the heavens. Ezra 9:6.
To us belongs shame and confusion of face, because we have sinned against thee. Daniel 9:8.
Behold we are vile, what shall we answer thee? we will lay our hand upon our mouth, and put our mouth in the dust, if so be there may be hope; crying with the convicted leper under the law, Unclean, unclean. Job 40:4. Lamentations 3:29. Leviticus 13:45.
Thou puttest no trust in thy saints, and the heavens are not clean in thy sight: How much more abominable and filthy is man, who drinketh iniquity like waters! Job 15:15, 16.
When our eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts, we have reason to cry out, Woe unto us, for we are undone. Isaiah 6:5.
Dominion and fear are with thee, thou makest peace in thy high places: There is not any number of thine armies, and upon whom doth not thy light arise? How then can man be justified with God, or how can he be clean that is born of a woman? Job 25:2, 3, 4.
Thou, even thou art to be feared, and who may stand in thy sight, when once thou art angry? Even thou, our God, art a consuming fire, and who knows the power of thine anger? Psalm 76:7. Hebrews 12:29. Psalm 90:11.
If we justify ourselves, our own mouths shall condemn us, if we say we are perfect, that also shall prove us perverse; for if thou contend with us, we are not able to answer thee for one of a thousand. Job 9:20, 3.
If we knew nothing by ourselves, yet were we not thereby justified, for he that judgeth us is the Lord; who is greater than our hearts, and knows all things. But we ourselves know that we have sinned, Father, against heaven, and before thee, and are no more worthy to be called thy children. 1 Corinthians 4:4. 1 John 3:20. Luke 15:21.
WE MUST TAKE HOLD OF THE GREAT ENCOURAGEMENT GOD HATH GIVEN US TO HUMBLE OURSELVES BEFORE HIM WITH SORROW AND SHAME, AND TO CONFESS OUR SINS
IF thou, Lord, shouldest mark iniquities, 0 Lord, who should stand? But there is forgiveness with thee that thou mayest be feared; with thee there is mercy, yea with our God there is plenteous redemption, and he shall redeem Israel from all his iniquities. Psalm 130:3, 4, 7, 8.
Thy sacrifices, 0 God, are a broken spirit; a broken and a contrite heart, 0 God, thou wilt not despise: Nay, though thou art the high and lofty 0ne that inhabitest eternity, whose name is Holy; though the heaven be thy throne, and the earth thy footstool, yet to this man wilt thou look, that is poor and humble, of a broken and a contrite spirit, and that trembleth at thy word, to revive the spirit of the humble, and to revive the heart of the contrite ones. Psalm 51:17. Isaiah 57:15. Isaiah 66:1, 2. Isaiah 57:15.
Thou hast graciously assured us, that though they that cover their sins shall not prosper, yet those that confess and forsake them shall find mercy. And when a poor penitent said, I will confess my transgression unto the Lord, thou forgavest the iniquity of his sin, and for this shall every one that is godly in like manner pray unto thee, in a time when thou mayest be found. Proverbs 28:13. Psalm 32:5, 6.
We know that if we say, We have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us; but thou hast said that if we confess our sins, thou art faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. 1 John 1:8, 9.
WE MUST THEREFORE CONFESS AND BEWAIL OUR ORIGINAL CORRUPTION IN THE FIRST PLACE, THAT WE ARE THE CHILDREN OF APOSTATE AND REBELLIOUS PARENTS, AND THE NATURE OF MAN IS DEPRAVED,AND WRETCHEDLY DEGENERATED FROM ITS PRIMITIVE PURITY AND RECTITUDE, AND OUR NATURE IS SO
LORD, thou madest man upright, but they have sought out many inventions; And being in honour did not understand, and therefore abode not, but became like the beasts that perish. Ecclesiastes 7:29. Psalm 49:12, 20.
By one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin, and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned; By that one man's disobedience many were made sinners, and we among the rest. Romans 5:12, 19.
We are a seed of evil doers; our father was an Amorite, and our mother a Hittite, and we ourselves were called (and not miscalled) transgressors from the womb, and thou knewest we would deal very treacherously. Isaiah 1:4. Ezekiel 16:3. Isaiah 48:8.
The nature of man was planted a choice and noble vine, wholly a right seed, but it is become the degenerate plant of a strange vine; producing the grapes of Sodom, and the clusters of Gomorrah. How is the gold become dim, and the most fine gold changed! Jeremiah 2:21. Deuteronomy 32:32. Lamentations 4:1.
Behold we were shapen in iniquity, and in sin did our mothers conceive us. For who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean? Not one. We are by nature children of wrath, because children of disobedience, even as others. Psalm 51:5. Job 14:4. Ephesians 2:3, 2.
All flesh hath corrupted their way, we are all gone aside, we are all together become filthy, there is none that doth good, no, no not one. Genesis 6:12. Psalm 14:3.
WE MUST LAMENT OUR PRESENT CORRUPT DISPOSITIONS TO THAT WHICH IS EVIL, AND OUR INDISPOSEDNESS TO AND IMPOTENCY IN THAT WHICH IS GOOD. WE MUST LOOK INTO OUR OWN HEARTS, AND CONFESS WITH HOLY BLUSHING
1. The blindness of our understandings, and their unaptness to admit the rays of the divine light.
BY nature our understandings are darkened, being alienated from the life of God through the ignorance that is in us, because of the blindness of our hearts Ephesians 4:18.
The things of the Spirit of God are foolishness, to the natural man, neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned. 1 Corinthians 2:14.
We are wise to do evil, but to do good we have no knowledge. We know not, neither do we understand, we walk on in darkness. Jeremiah 4:22. Psalm 82:5.
God speaketh once, yea twice, but we perceive it not; but hearing we hear, and do not understand, and we see men as trees walking. Job 33:14. Matthew 13:14. Mark 8:24.
2. The stubbornness of our wills, and their unaptness to submit to the rules of the divine law.
We have within us a carnal mind, which is enmity against God, and is not in subjection to the law of God, neither indeed can be. Romans 8:7.
Thou hast written to us the great things of thy law, but they have been accounted by us as a strange thing, and our corrupt hearts have been sometimes ready to say, What is the Almighty that we should serve him? And that we would certainly do whatsoever thing goes forth out of our own mouth. For we have walked in the way of our own heart, and in the sight of our eyes, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind. Hosea 8:12. Job 21:15. Jeremiah 44:17. Ecclesiastes 11:9. Ephesians 2:3.
Our neck hath been an iron sinew, and we have made our heart as an adamant; we have refused to hearken, have pulled away the shoulder, and stopped our ears, like the deaf adder, that will not hearken to the voice of the charmer, charm he never so wisely. Isaiah 48:4. Zechariah 7:12, 11. Psalm 58:4, 5.
How have we hated instruction, and our heart despised reproof, and have not obeyed the voice of our teachers, nor inclined our ear to them that instructed us? Proverbs 5:12, 13.
3. The vanity of our thoughts, their neglect of those things which they ought to be conversant with, and dwelling upon those things that are unworthy of them, and tend to corrupt our minds.
Every imagination of the thought of our heart is evil, only evil, and that continually, and it has been so from our youth. Genesis 6:5. Genesis 8:21.
O how long have those vain thoughts lodged within us! those thoughts of foolishness which are sin. From within out of the heart proceed evil thoughts; which devise mischief upon the bed, and carry the heart with the fool's eyes into the ends of the earth. Jeremiah 4:14. Proverbs 24:9. Matthew 15:19. Micah 2:1. Proverbs 17:24.
But God is not in all our thoughts, it is well if he be in any: Of the Rock that begat us we have been unmindful, and have forgotten the God that formed us: We have forgotten him days without number, and our hearts have walked after vanity, and become vain. Their inward thought having been that our houses should continue for ever; this our way is our folly. Psalm 10:4. Deuteronomy 32:18. Jeremiah 2:32, 5. Psalm 49:11, 13.
4. The carnality of our affections, their being placed upon wrong objects, and carried beyond due bounds.
We have set those affections on things beneath, which should have been set on things above, where our treasure is, and where Christ sits on the right hand of God, the things which we should seek. Colossians 3:2, 1. Matthew 6:21.
We have followed after lying vanities, and forsaken our own mercies; have forsaken the fountain of living waters, for cisterns, broken cisterns that can hold no water. Jonah 2:8. Jeremiah 2:13.
We have panted after the dust of the earth, and have been full of care what we shall eat, and what we shall drink, and wherewithal we shall be clothed, the things after which the Gentiles seek, but have neglected the kingdom of God and the righteousness thereof. Amos 2:7. Matthew 6:31, 32, 33.
We have lifted up our souls unto vanity, and set our eyes upon that which is not, have looked at the things that are seen which are temporal, but the things that are not seen that are eternal, have been forgotten and postponed. Psalm 24:4. Proverbs 23:5. 2 Corinthians 4:18.
5. The corruption of the whole man: irregular appetites towards those things that are pleasing to sense, and inordinate passions against those things that are displeasing, and an alienation of the mind from the principles, powers and pleasures of the spiritual and divine life.
We are born of the flesh, and we are flesh: Dust we are: We have borne the image of the earthly; and in us, that is, in our flesh, there dwells no good thing: For if to will is present to us, yet how to perform that which is good we find not; for the good that we would do we do it not, and the evil which we would not do that we do. John 3:6. Genesis 3:19. 1 Corinthians 15:49. Romans 7:18, 19.
We have a law in our members warring against the law of our mind, and bringing us into captivity to the law of sin that is in our members: So that when we would do good, evil is present with us, and most easily besets us. Romans 7:23, 21. Hebrews 12:1.
The whole head is sick, the whole heart faint, from the sole of the foot even unto the head there is no soundness in us, but wounds and bruises, and putrifying sores. Isaiah 1:5, 6.
There is in us a bent to backslide from the living God: Our hearts are deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked; who can know them? They start aside like a broken bow. Hosea 11:7. Jeremiah 17:9. Hosea 7:16.
WE MUST LAMENT AND CONFESS OUR OMISSIONS OF OUR DUTY, OUR NEGLECT OF IT, AND TRIFLINGS IN IT, AND THAT WE HAVE DONE SO LITTLE SINCE
WE CAME INTO THE WORLD OF THE GREAT WORK WE WERE SENT INTO THE WORLD ABOUT, SO VERY LITTLE TO ANSWER THE END EITHER OF OUR CREATION OR OF OUR REDEMPTION,OF OUR BIRTH OR OF OUR BAPTISM, AND THAT WE HAVE PROFITED NO MORE BY THE MEANS OF GRACE
WE have been as fig-trees planted in the vineyard, and thou hast come many years seeking fruit from us, but hast found none; and therefore we might justly have been cut down and cast into the fire for cumbering the ground: Thou hast come looking for grapes, but behold wild grapes; or we have been empty vines, bringing forth fruit unto ourselves. Luke 13:6, 7. Matthew 3:10. Isaiah 5:4. Hosea 10:1.
We have known to do good, but have not done it: We have hid our Lord's money, and therefore deserve the doom of the wicked and slothful servant. James 4:17. Matthew 25:18, 26.
We have been unfaithful stewards, that have wasted our Lord's goods; for one sinner destroys much good. Luke