ness of the heart is
presented, so there is no sin known and discerned, but there is an equal
impartial sorrow for it, and indignation against it. As a believer hath
respect to all God's commands, and loves to obey them, so the penitent
soul hath an impartial hatred of all sin, even the dearest and most
beloved idol, and desires unfeignedly to be rid of it. Hence your usual
public confessions of sin are wiped out of the number of true and sincere
confessions, because you pretend to repent of one sin, and in the
meantime, neither do ye know a multitude of other sins that prevail over
you, nor do you mourn for them, nor forsake them. Nay, you do not examine
yourselves that way, to find out the temper of your hearts, or tenor and
course of your ways. You pretend to repent for drunkenness, or such like,
and yet you are ordinary cursers, swearers, liars, railers, neglecters of
prayer, profaners of the Sabbath, and such like, and these you do not
withal mourn for. In sum, he that mourns only for the sin that men
censure, knoweth and confesseth no sin sincerely. If you would indeed
return unto God from some gross evils, you must be divorced in your
affections from all sin.

Then this confession should be perpetuated and continued as long as we are
in this life, for that is imported by comparing this verse with those it
stands between. "If we say we have no sin, if we say at any time, while we
are in this life, if we imagine or dream of any such perfection here," we
lie. Now, what should we do then, since sin is always lodging in our
mortal bodies, during this time of necessary abode beside an ill
neighbour? What should be our exercise? Even this,--confess your sins,
confess, I say, as long as you have them, draw out this the length of
that. Be continually groaning to him under that body of death, and
mourning under your daily infirmities and failings. That stream of
corruption runs continually--let the stream of your contrition and
confession run as incessantly, and there is another stream of Christ's
blood, that runs constantly too, to cleanse you. Now, herein is the
discovery of the vanity and deceitfulness of many of your confessions,
public and private, the current of them soon dries up, there is no
perpetuity or constancy in them, no daily humbling or abasing yourselves,
but all that is, is by fits and starts upon some transient convictions or
outward censures and rebukes, and thus men quickly cover and bury their
sins in