friends to him,
"the worse I am." "The best saints are the most sensible of sin," wrote
Samuel Rutherford. And, again he wrote, "Sin rages far more in the godly
than ever it does in the ungodly." And you dare not deny but that Samuel
Rutherford was one of the holiest men that ever lived, or that in saying
all that he was speaking of himself. And Newman: "Every one who tries to
do God's will"--and that also is Newman himself--"will feel himself to be
full of all imperfection and sin; and the more he succeeds in regulating
his heart, the more will he discern its original bitterness and guilt."
As our own hymn has it:

"They who fain would serve Thee best
Are conscious most of wrong within."

Without knowing it, Mrs. Timorous's runaway father was speaking the same
language as the chief of the saints. Only he said, "Therefore I have
turned back," whereas, first Christian, and then Christiana his widow,
said, "Yet I must venture!"

And so say you. Say, I must and I will venture! Say it; clench your
teeth and your hands and say it. Say that you are determined to go on
towards heaven where the holy are--absolutely determined, though you are
quite well aware that you are carrying up with you the blackest, the
wickedest, the most corrupt, and the most abominable heart either out of
hell or in it. Say that, say all that, and still venture. Say all that
and all the more venture. Venture upon God of whom such reassuring
things are said. Venture upon the Son of God of whom His Father is
represented as saying such inviting things. Venture upon the cross.
Survey the wondrous cross and then make a bold venture upon it. Think
who that is who is bleeding to death upon the cross, and why? Look at
Him till you never afterwards can see anything else. Look at God's
Eternal, Divine, Well-pleasing Son with all the wages of sin dealt out to
Him, body and soul, on that tree to the uttermost farthing. And, devil
incarnate though you indeed are, yet, say, if that spectacle does not
satisfy you, and encourage you, and carry your cowardice captive.
Venture! I say, venture! And if you find at last that you have ventured
too far--if you have sinned and corrupted yourself beyond redemption--then
it will be some consolation and distinction to you in hell that you had
out-sinned the infinite grace of God, and had seen the end of the
unsearchable riches of Christ. Timid sinner, I but mock thee, therefore
venture! Fearful sinn