even uprightness in freedom from deliberate or mortal fin, and to admit of another fort of tranfgreffions, in which upright men flip fometimes. Nor does the Pfalmift here only affert venial fins; but he seems to me to fuggeft the fprings and fources of them, namely, fome fecret difpofitions in our nature to folly and error, which he prays God to cleanse and free him from more and more; Cleanfe thou me from fecret faults. The word fault is not in the original; but fomething of that kind must be fupplied to render the fense intire in our language. The words of Solomon, Prov. xx. 9. feem to relate to this corruption lurking in us, and never utterly to be extirpated; Who can fay I have made my heart clean, I am pure from my fin? For if this fhould be applied to mortal fin, every one fees, that it will contradict a hundred places in fcripture, which attribute to righteous men, purity of heart, and deliverance from fin. Laftly, James iii. 2. we are told plainly, that in many things we offend all, oper anas, not finners only, but righteous and upright men, have their defects and flips. And accordingly there is not any life which we have the hiftory of in fcripture, how excellent foever the perfon be, but we meet with fome of these recorded; as will appear from thofe feveral inftan त ces ces I fhall produce, when I come to defcribe the nature of these fins. And certainly, when David fays of himself, My fins are more in number than the hairs of my head: he that fhall interpret this place of mortal or prefumptuous fins, will both contradict the fcriptures, which acquit him, except in the matter of Uriah, and highly wrong the memory of David, making him a prodigy of wickednefs, inftead of a faint. Nor does that make any thing against me, which he adds in the next words, My heart fails me; of that in the foregoing verfe, Mine iniquities have taken hold upon me, fo that I am not able to look up. For I do not affirm that the Pfalmift here has regard only to fins of infirmity exclufively of others: no; he reckons all together, and fo difcerns the one aggravated by the other; and the guilt of all together very far enhanced. Nor do I, fecondly, intereft myfelf here in that difpute between proteftants and papists, whether fins of Infirmity are not damnable in their own nature, though not imputed under the covenant of grace? Nor do I, laftly, examine what a vast heap of fins of Infirmity may amount to, though the guilt of this or that alone were not fo fatal. I have then, I think, proved the matter in queftion; having fhewed, both from the experience of mankind and the fcripture, that the beft men have their infirmities and defects; and that these may properly enough be called fins. I think it fuperfluous to prove, that they confift with a state of falvation; fince 'tis not by any, that I know of, denied ; and may be eafily enough made out, from what I have already faid. I am now to enquire, §. 2. What these fins be; and how dif tinguished from mortal or damnable ones. To this purpose we may diftinguifh human actions (under which I comprife both internal and external) into three forts; voluntary, involuntary, and mixt. §. 1. There are actions properly and truly voluntary; fuch are those deliberate tranfgreffions of a divine law, which man commits in oppofition to the direct remonftrances of confcience; he knows the action is forbid; he fees the turpitude and obliquity of it; he is not ignorant of the punishment denounced against it, and yet he ventures upon it: this is plainly mortal, damnable fin; and I cannot think, that any circumftance or pretence whatever can render it venial. And therefore I must be pardoned, if I cannot be of their opinion, who fuppofe, that the smallness of the matter, the reluctancy of conscience, or the length and force of a temptation, can so soften and miti gate gate a voluntary tranfgreffion, as to diminifh it into a fin of Infirmity. 1. As to the smallness of the matter. Some cannot but think thofe tranfgreffions venial, which are, for the matter of them, fo flight and infignificant, that they seem to be attended by no mifchievous confequence, nor to offer any dishonour to God, nor injuftice to man. But I doubt this notion of venial fin has no folidity in it; for either men perform fuch actions deliberately, or indeliberately; knowing them to be finful, or believing them to be innocent. Now, if we perform any action deliberately, and knowing it to be finful, we never ought to look upon this as a little fin, much lefs a venial one. The reafon of this is plain. The first notion that every man has of fin, is, that it is forbidden by, and difpleafing to God; and then to do that deliberately, which we know will provoke God, is an argument of a fearless and irreligious heart, a heart deftitute of the love of God, the love of righteousness, and heaven. But if a man tranfgrefs in a trifling inftance indeliberately; this alters the cafe; for the matter not being of importance enough to excite the intention and application of the mind; and there being confequently no malignity of the will in an action, where there was no concurrence of the judgment, I cannot cannot but think, this may very notice |