Sin is a reproach to any people. Proverbs 14:34.
Be not deceived, therefore, with false notions of faith. Where there is true faith, no sin has dominion. A man having no feeling of the desperate wickedness of his heart, may imagine to have faith enough; but being once convinced of that, he soon perceives that it is the hardest thing in the world to believe. It requires the same power by which Christ was raised from the dead. St. Paul most emphatically describes it with six remarkable words. Ephesians 1:19-20. How then can any man think it an easy matter to believe? O the dreadful blindness and security which all the world runs into? May the Lord open their eyes!
Lord, how secure my conscience was,
And felt no inward dread!
I was alive without the law,
And thought my sins were dead.
My hopes of heaven were firm and bright,
But since the precept came
With a convincing power and light,
I find how vile I am.
I’m like a helpless captive sold,
Under the power of sin:
I cannot do the good I would.
Nor keep my conscience clean.
My God, I cry with every breath,
For some kind power to save,
To break the yoke of sin and death.
And thus redeem the slave.