therefore they could not properly be placed in different classes; nor would it be natural so to place them but offences which escape the sinner's own notice at the time, may certainly be distinguished from those which are committed with a high hand, with a full knowledge of the guilt, and defiance of the consequences; and that is, as I believe, the distinction here intended: and the one the Psalmist called his secret faults, the other his presumptuous sins. Upon the whole, therefore, I conclude, that the secret sins against which the Psalmist prayed, were sins secret to himself.

But here, therefore, comes the principal question- How there can be any sins of this sort? how that can be a sin, which is neither observed, nor known to be so by the person who commits it? And then there comes also a second consideration, which is; if there be such, what ought to be done with respect to them? Now, as well upon the authority of the text, as upon what is the real case with human nature, when that case is rightly under

stood, I contend, first, that there are many violations of God's laws, which the men who are guilty of them, are not sensible of at the time: and yet, secondly, such, as that their want of being sensible of them, does not excuse, or make them cease to be sins. All this, in truth, is no other than the regular effect of sinful habits. Such is the power of custom over our consciences, that there is, perhaps, hardly any bad action which a man is capable of committing, that he may not commit so often, as to become unconscious of its guilt, as much as of the most indifferent thing which he does.. If some very great and atrocious crimes may be thought exceptions to this observation, and that no habit or custom can by any possibility reconcile them to the human conscience; it is only because they are such as cannot, from their very nature, be repeated so often by the same person, as to become familiar and habitual: if they could, the consequence would be the same; they would be no more thought of by the sinner himself, than other habitual sins are. But great outrageous crimes, against life, for

instance, and property, and public safety, may be laid out of the question, as not falling, I trust and believe, within the case of any one who hears me; and as in no case whatever capable of being so common, as to be fair experiments of the strength of our observation. These are not what compose our account with God. A man may be (as indeed most men are) quite free from the crimes of murder, robbery, and the like, and yet be far from the kingdom of God. I fear it may be said of most of us, that the class of sins which compose our account with God, are habitual sins; habitual omissions, and habitual commissions. Now it is true of both these, that we may have continued in them so long, they may have become so familiar to us by repetition, that we think nothing at all of them. We may neglect any duty, till we forget that it is one: we may neglect our prayers; we may neglect our devotion; we may neglect every duty towards God, till we become so unaccustomed and unused to them, as to be insensible that we are incurring any omission, or contracting, from that omission, any guilt which

can hurt; and yet we may be, in truth, all the while "treasuring up wrath against the day of wrath." How many thousands, for instance, by omitting to attend the sacrament, have come not to know, that it forms any part of Christian obligation : and long disuse and discontinuance would have the same effect upon any other duty, however plain might be the proof of it, when the matter came to be considered.

It is not less so with sins of commission. Serious minds are shocked with observing with what complete unconcern and indifference many forbidden things are practised. The persons who are guilty of them, do not, by any mark or symptom whatever, appear to feel the smallest rebuke of conscience, or to have the least sense of either guilt, or danger, or shame, in what they do: and it not only appears to be so, but it is so. They are, in fact, without any notice, consciousness, or compunction upon the subject. These sins, therefore, if they be such, are secret sins to them. But are they not therefore sins? That becomes the next great question. We must allow, because fact

proves it, that habit and custom can destroy the sense and perception of sin. Does the act then, in that person, cease to be any longer a sin? This must be asserted by those who argue, that nothing can be a sin but what is known and understood, and also felt and perceived, to be so, by the sinner himself at the time; and who, consequently, deny that there are any secret sins, in our sense of that expression. Now mark the consequences which would follow from such an opinion. It is then the timorous beginner in wicked courses who alone is to be brought to account. Can such a doctrine be maintained? Sinners are called upon by preachers of the Gospel, and over and over again called upon, to compare themselves with themselves; themselves at one time with themselves at another; their former selves, when they first entered upon sinful allowances, and their present selves, since they have been confirmed in them. With what fear, and scruple, and reluctance, what sense and acknowledgment of wrong, what apprehension of danger, against what remonstrance of reason, and with what opposition