over; that
Christ would shortly accomplish the number of his elect, and hasten
his kingdom, that we, with all those who are departed in the true
faith of his holy name, may rest in peace for ever from sin and
sinners.

Not that I mean that some of these very people, in spite of all
their inconsistency, will not be among that number. God forbid!
How do we know that? How do we know that they are one whit worse
than we should be in their place? How do we know, above all, that
to have been found out may not be the very best thing that has
happened to them since the day that they were born? How do we know
that it may not be God's gracious medicine to enable them to find
themselves out; to make them see themselves in their true colours;
to purge them of all their play-acting; and begin all over again,
crying to God, not with the lips only, but out of the depth of an
honest and a noble shame, as David did of old--Behold I was shapen
in wickedness, conceived in sin, and I have found it out at last.
But thou requirest truth in the inward parts, in the very root and
ground of the heart, and not merely truth in the head, in the lips,
and in the outward behaviour. Make me a clean heart, O God, and
renew a right spirit within me. Thou desirest no sacrifice, else
would I give it thee: but thou delightest not in burnt-offerings.
The sacrifice of God is a broken spirit, as mine is now. A broken
and a contrite heart, ground down by the shame of its own sin, that,
O God, thou wilt not despise.

And then--when that prayer has gone up in earnest, and has been
answered by the gift of a clean heart, and of a right spirit, which
desires nothing but to be made clean and made right, to learn its
duty and to do it--then, I say, that man may go back safely and
freely, to such forms and ceremonies, as he has been accustomed to,
and have been consecrated by the piety and wisdom of his
forefathers. For, says David, though forms and ceremonies,
sacrifice and burnt-offering cannot make any peace with God, yet I
am not going to give up forms and ceremonies, sacrifice and burnt-
offerings. No. When my peace is made, when the broken and the
contrite heart has put me in my true place again, and my heart is
clean, and my spirit right once more; then, he says, will God be
pleased with my sacrifices, with my burnt-offerings and oblations;
because they will be the sacrifice of righteousness, of a righteous
man desiring to shew honour to that G