Now, he who has seriously "reasoned together" with God, respecting his
own character, is far better prepared to find God in the forgiveness of
sins, than he is who has merely brooded over his own unhappiness, without
any reference to the qualities and claims of his Judge. It has been a
plain and personal matter throughout, and having now come to a clear and
settled conviction that he is a guilty sinner, he turns directly to the
great and good Being who stands immediately before him, and prays to be
forgiven, and _is_ forgiven. One reason why the soul so often gropes days
and months without finding a sin-pardoning God lies in the fact, that its
thoughts and feelings respecting religious subjects, and particularly
respecting the state of the heart, have been too vague and indistinct.
They have not had an immediate and close reference to that one single
Being who is most directly concerned, and who alone can minister to a
mind diseased. The soul is wretched, and there may be some sense of sin,
but there is no one to go to,--no one to address with an appealing cry.
"Oh that I knew where I might find him," is its language. "Oh that I
might come even to his seat. Behold I go forward, but he is not there;
and backward, but I cannot perceive him." But this groping would cease
were there a clear view of God. There might not be peace and a sense of
reconciliation immediately; but there would be a distinct conception of
_the one thing needful_ in order to salvation. This would banish all
other subjects and objects. The eye would be fixed upon the single fact
of sin, and the simple fact that none but God can forgive it. The whole
inward experience would thus be narrowed down to a focus. Simplicity and
intensity would be introduced into the mental state, instead of the
previous confusion and vagueness. Soliloquy would end, and prayer,
importunate, agonizing prayer, would begin. That morbid and useless
self-brooding would cease, and those strong cryings and wrestlings till
day-break would commence, and the kingdom of heaven would suffer this
violence, and the violent would take it by force. "When I _kept silence_;
my bones waxed old, through my roaring all the day long. For day and
night thy hand was heavy upon me; my moisture was turned into the drought
of summer. I _acknowledged_ my sin unto thee, and mine iniquity I no
longer _hid_. I said, I will _confess_ my transgressions unto the Lord;
and thou forgavest the iniquity of my sin.