Forgive me of any SINS !

[VERMAURICE BROWN]

Forgive me of any sins !

Romans 3:23 "For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God."

All, and therefore you, my listeners and readers, and myself. We have sinned; that is, we have broken God's law; for 'There is none righteous, no, not one' (Rom. 3:10). There is none that has kept the law of God. We have transgressed every knowledge or unknowingly of His moral law, either in act, word, or evil desire. The charge is heavy, but the verdict is true. Let us consider the case, earnestly entreating God to enlighten our minds. Take the ten commandments into your hand, and read. We have broken the first commandment, by trusting in and loving other things more than God. "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart" (Matt. 22:37). In this we have come short. The second respects the manner in which God is to be worshiped, not with outward form and ceremony, but in spirit and truth. Alas! how deficient have we been in that serious attention, that inward reverence, and that devout affection, which His worship required! God is a jealous God. You say you have never been guilty of profane cursing and swearing, and so think you have kept the third; but have you never in prayer, and in reading the sacred Scriptures, suffered the holy name of God to pass through your lips without an awful sense of what you were doing, or even without thought? "the Lord will not hold him guiltless that taketh his name in vain" (Ex. 20:7). Have you always employed the whole Sabbath in those religious exercises which the fourth commandment enjoins; and performed those exercises in such a devout manner, that the law has nothing to charge you with, in thought, word, or deed? Sinner, lay your hand upon your mouth, and plead guilty. Need I go through the second table? Dost thou love thy neighbor as thyself? Hast thou done unto all men as thou wouldst they should do unto thee?

Have you never been guilty of disobedience to your parents? Know ye not that every rising of causless anger is murder? (Matt. 5:22) that every unchaste desire is adultery? (Matt. 5:28) that every secret fraud and neglect of affording that succour to the poor which is in your power, is theft? That every uncharitable thought is a breach of the ninth, and every covetous wish a transgression of the 
tenth commandment? Surely all have sinned, in doing that which the law forbids, and in not doing that which the law commands. What have I then done; and what have I not done? All have sinned. What is my state? A state of sinfulness and misery. Why have I not felt it till now? Because sin hath blinded my eyes against the light of truth.