Confession of Sin--A Sermon With Seven Texts


                              January 18, 1857
                                     by
                               C. H. SPURGEON
                                 (1834-1892)


My sermon this morning will have seven texts, and yet I pledge myself that 
there shall be but three different words in the whole of them; for it so 
happens that the seven texts are all alike, occurring in seven different 
portions of God's holy Word. I shall require, however, to use the whole of 
them to exemplify different cases; and I must request those of you who have 
brought your Bibles with you to refer to the texts as I shall mention them.

The subject of this morning's discourse will be this--CONFESSION OF 
SIN. We know that this is absolutely necessary to salvation. Unless there be 
a true and hearty confession of our sins to God, we have no promise that we 
shall find mercy through the blood of the Redeemer. "Whosoever 
confesseth his sins and forsaketh them shall find mercy." But there is no 
promise in the Bible to the man who will not confess his sins. Yet, as upon 
every point of Scripture there is a liability of being deceived, so more 
especially in the matter of confession of sin. There be many who make a 
confession, and a confession before God, who notwithstanding, receive no 
blessing, because their confession has not in it certain marks which are 
required by God to prove it genuine and sincere, and which demonstrate it 
to be the work of the Holy Spirit. My text this morning consists of three 
words, "I have sinned." And you will see how these words, in the lips of 
different men, indicate very different feelings. While one says, "I have 
sinned," and receives forgiveness; another we shall meet with says, "I have 
sinned," and goes his way to blacken himself with worse crimes than before, 
and dive into greater depths of sin than heretofore he had discovered.

                            The Hardened Sinner. 
                   PHARAOH--"I have sinned."--Exodus 9:27.

I. The first case I shall bring before you is that of the HARDENED 
SINNER, who, when under terror, says, "I have sinned." And you will find 
the text in the book of Exodus, the 9th chap. and 27th verse: "And Pharaoh 
sent, and called for Moses and Aaron, and said unto them, I have sinned this 
time: the Lord is righteous, and I and my people are wicked."

But why this confession from the lips of the haughty tyrant? He was not 
often wont to humble himself before Jehovah. Why doth the proud one bow 
himself? You will judge of the value of his confession when you hear the 
circumstances under which it was made. "And Moses stretched forth his rod 
toward heaven; and the Lord sent thunder and hail, and the fire ran along 
upon the ground; and the Lord rained hail upon the land of Egypt. So that 
there was hail, and fire mingled with the hail, very grievous, such as there 
was none like it in all the land of Egypt since it became a nation." "Now," 
says Pharaoh, whilst the thunder is rolling through the sky, while the 
lightning-flashes are setting the very ground on fire, and while the hail is 
descending in big lumps of ice, now, says he, "I have sinned." He is but a 
type and specimen of multitudes of the same class. How many a hardened 
rebel on shipboard, when the timbers are strained and creaking, when the 
mast is broken, and the ship is drifting before the gale, when the hungry 
waves are opening their mouths to swallow the ship up alive and quick as 
those that go into the pit--how many a hardened sailor has then bowed his 
knee, with tears in his eyes, and cried, "I have sinned!" But of what avail 
and of what value was his confession? The repentance that was born in the 
storm died in the calm; that repentance of his that was begotten amidst the 
thunder and the lightning, ceased so soon as all was hushed in quiet, and the 
man who was a pious mariner when on board ship, became the most wicked 
and abominable of sailors when he placed his foot on terra firma. How 
often, too, have we seen this in a storm of thunder and lightning? Many a 
man's cheek is blanched when he hears the thunder rolling; the tears start to 
his eyes, and lie cries, "O God, I have sinned!" while the rafters of his 
house are shaking, and the very ground beneath him reeling at the voice of 
God which is full of majesty. But alas, for such a repentance! When the sun 
again shines, and the black clouds are withdrawn, sin comes again upon the 
man, and he becomes worse than before. How many of the same sort of 
confessions, too, have we seen in times of cholera, and fever, and 
pestilence! Then our churches have been crammed with hearers, who, 
because so many funerals have passed their doors, or so many have died in 
the street, could not refrain from going up to God's house to confess their 
sins. And under that visitation, when one, two, and three have been lying 
dead in the house, or next door, how many have thought they would really 
turn to God! But, alas! when the pestilence had done its work, conviction 
ceased; and when the bell had tolled the last time for a death caused by 
cholera, then their hearts ceased to beat with penitence, and their tears did 
flow no more.

Have I any such here this morning? I doubt not I have hardened persons 
who would scorn the very idea of religion, who would count me a cant and 
hypocrite if I should endeavour to press it home upon them, but who know 
right well that religion is true, and who feel it in their times of terror! 
If I have such here this morning, let me solemnly say to them, "Sirs, you 
have forgotten the feelings you had in your hours of alarm; but, remember, 
God has not forgotten the vows you then made." Sailor, you said if God would 
spare you to see the land again, you would be his servant; you are not so, 
you have lied against God, you have made him a false promise, for you 
have never kept the vow which your lips did utter. You said, on a bed of 
sickness, that if he would spare your life you would never again sin as you 
did before; but here you are, and this week's sins shall speak for themselves. 
You are no better than you were before your sickness. Couldst thou lie to 
thy fellow-man, and yet go unreproved? And thinkest thou that thou wilt lie 
against God, and yet go unpunished? No; the vow, however rashly made, is 
registered in heaven; and though it be a vow which man cannot perform, 
yet, as it is a vow which he has made himself, and made voluntarily too, he 
shall be punished for the non-keeping it; and God shall execute vengeance 
upon him at last, because he said be would turn from his ways, and then 
when the blow was removed he did it not. A great outcry has been raised of 
late against tickets-of-leave; I have no doubt there are some men here, who 
before high heaven stand in the same position as the ticket-of-leave men 
stand to our government. They were about to die, as they thought; they 
promised good behaviour if they might be spared, and they are here to-day 
on ticket-of-leave in this world: and how have they fulfilled their promise? 
Justice might raise the same outcry against them as they do against the 
burglars so constantly let loose upon us. The avenging angel might say, "O 
God, these men said, if they were spared they would be so much better; if 
anything they are worse. How have they violated their promise, and how 
have they brought down divine wrath upon their heads!" This is the first 
style of penitence; and it is a style I hope none of you will imitate, for it 
is utterly worthless. It is of no use for you to say, "I have sinned," merely 
under the influence of terror, and then to forget it afterwards.

                           The Double-minded Man. 
                  BALAAM--"I have sinned."--Numbers 22:34.

II. Now for a second text. I beg to introduce to you another character--the 
double-minded man, who says, "I have sinned," and feels that he has, and 
feels it deeply too, but who is so worldly-minded that he "loves the wages 
of unrighteousness." The character I have chosen to illustrate this, is that 
of Balaam. Turn to the book of Numbers, the 22nd chap. and the 34th verse: 
"And Balaam said unto the angel of the Lord, I have sinned."

"I have sinned," said Balaam; but yet he went on with his sin afterwards. 
One of the strangest characters of the whole world is Balaam. I have often 
marvelled at that man; he seems really in another sense to have come up to 
the lines of Ralph Erskine--

                        "To good and evil equal bent,
                       And both a devil and a saint."

For he did seem to be so. At times no man could speak more eloquently and 
more truthfully, and at other times he exhibited the most mean and sordid 
covetousness that could disgrace human nature. Think you see Balaam; he 
stands upon the brow of the hill, and there lie the multitudes of Israel at 
his feet; he is bidden to curse them, and he cries, "How shall I curse whom 
God hath not cursed?" And God opening his eyes, he begins to tell even about 
the coming of Christ, and he says, "I shall see him, but not now. I shall 
behold him, but not nigh." And then he winds up his oration by saying--"Let 
me die the death of the righteous, and let my last end be like his!" And ye 
will say of that man, he is a hopeful character. Wait till he has come off the 
brow of the hill, and ye will hear him give the most diabolical advice to the 
king of Moab which it was even possible for Satan himself to suggest. Said 
he to the king, " You cannot overthrow these people in battle, for God is 
with them; try and entice them from their God." And ye know how with 
wanton lusts they of Moab tried to entice the children of Israel from 
allegiance to Jehovah; so that this man seemed to have the voice of an angel 
at one time, and yet the very soul of a devil in his bowels. He was a terrible 
character; be was a man of two things, a man who went all the way with two 
things to a very great extent. I know the Scripture says, "No man can serve 
two masters." Now this is often misunderstood. Some read it, "No man can 
serve two masters." Yes he can; he can serve three or four. The way to read 
it is this: "No man can serve two masters," They cannot both be masters. He 
can serve two, but they cannot both be his master. A man can serve two who 
are not his masters, or twenty either; he may live for twenty different 
purposes, but he cannot live for more than one master purpose--there can 
only be one master purpose in his soul. But Balaam laboured to serve two; it 
was like the people of whom it was said, "They feared the Lord, and served 
other gods." Or like Rufus, who was a loaf of the same leaven; for you 
know our old king Rufus painted God on one side of his shield, and the 
devil on the other, and had underneath, the motto: "Ready for both; catch 
who can." There are many such, who are ready for both. They meet a 
minister, and how pious and holy they are; on the Sabbath they are the most 
respectable and upright people in the world, as you would think; indeed 
they effect a drawling in their speech, which they think to be eminently 
religious. But on a week day, if you want to find the greatest rogues and 
cheats, they are some of those men who are so sanctimonious in their piety. 
Now, rest assured, my hearers, that no confession of sin can be genuine, 
unless it be a whole hearted one. It is of no use for you to say, "I have 
sinned," and then keep on sinning. "I have sinned," say you, and it is a fair, 
fair face you show; but, alas! alas! for the sin you will go away and commit. 
Some men seem to be born with two characters. I remarked when in the 
library at Trinity College, Cambridge, a very fine statue of Lord Byron. The 
librarian said to me, "Stand here, sir." I looked, and I said, "What a fine 
intellectual countenance! What a grand genius he was!" "Come here," he 
said, "to the other side." "Ah! what a demon! There stands the man that 
could defy the deity." He seemed to have such a scowl and such a dreadful 
leer in his face; even as Milton would have painted Satan when he said--
"Better to reign in hell than serve in heaven." I turned away and said to the 
librarian, "Do you think the artist designed this?" "Yes," he said, "he wished 
to picture the two characters--the great, the grand, the almost superhuman 
genius that he possessed, and yet the enormous mass of sin that was in his 
soul." There are some men here of the same sort. I dare say, like Balaam, 
they would overthrow everything in argument with their enchantments; they 
could work miracles; and yet at the same time there is something about 
them which betrays a horrid character of sin, as great as that which would 
appear to be their character for righteousness. Balaam, you know, offered 
sacrifices to God upon the altar of Baal: that was just the type of his 
character. So many do; they offer sacrifices to God on the shrine of 
Mammon; and whilst they will give to the building of a church, and 
distribute to the poor, they will at the other door of their counting-house 
grind the poor for bread, and press the very blood out of the widow, that 
they may enrich themselves. Ah! it is idle and useless for you to say, "I have 
sinned," unless you mean it from your heart. That double minded man's 
confession is of no avail.

                             The Insincere Man. 
                   SAUL--"I have sinned."--1 Samuel 15:24.

III. And now a third character, and a third text. In the first book of Samuel, 
the 15th chap. and 24th verse: "And Saul said unto Samuel, I have sinned."

Here is the insincere man--the man who is not like Balaam, to a certain 
extent sincere in two things; but the man who is just the opposite--who has 
no prominent point in his character at all, but is moulded everlastingly by 
the circumstances that are passing over his head. Such a man was Saul. 
Samuel reproved him, and he said, "I have sinned." But he did not mean 
what he said: for if you read the whole verse you will find him saying, "I 
have sinned: for I have transgressed the commandment of the Lord, and thy 
words; because I feared the people:" which was a lying excuse. Saul never 
feared anybody; he was always ready enough to do his own will--he was the 
despot. And just before he had pleaded another excuse, that he had saved 
the bullocks and lambs to offer to Jehovah, and therefore both excuses 
could not have been true. You remember, my friends, that the most 
prominent feature in the character of Saul. was his insincerity. One day he 
fetched David from his bed, as bethought, to put him to death in his house. 
Another time he declares, "God forbid that I should do aught against thee, 
my son David." One day, because David saved his life, he said, "Thou art 
more righteous than I; I will do so no more." The day before he had gone 
out to fight against his own son-in-law, in order to slay him. Sometimes 
Saul was among the prophets, easily turned into a prophet, and then 
afterwards among the witches; sometimes in one place, and then another, 
and insincere in everything. How many such we have in every Christian 
assembly; men who are very easily moulded! Say what you please to them, 
they always agree with you. They have affectionate dispositions, very likely 
a tender conscience; but then the conscience is so remarkably tender, that 
when touched it seems to give, and you are afraid to probe deeper,--it heals 
as soon it is wounded. I think I used the very singular comparison once 
before, which I must use again: there are some men who seem to have india-
rubber hearts. If you do but touch them, there is an impression made at 
once; but then it is of no use, it soon restores itself to its original 
character. You may press them whatever way you wish, they are so elastic you 
can always effect your purpose; but then they are not fixed in their 
character, and soon return to be what they were before. O sirs, too many of 
you have done the same; you have bowed your heads in church, and said, "We 
have erred and strayed from thy ways;" and you did not mean what you said. 
You have come to your minister; you have said, "I repent of my sins;" you did 
not then feel you were a sinner; you only said it to please him. And now you 
attend the house of God; no one more impressible than you; the tear will run 
down your cheek in a moment, but yet. notwithstanding all that, the tear is 
dried as quickly as it is brought forth, and you remain to all intents and 
purposes the same as you were before. To say, "I have sinned," in an 
unmeaning manner, is worse than worthless, for it is a mockery of God thus 
to confess with insincerity of heart.

I have been brief upon this character; for it seemed to touch upon that of 
Balaam; though any thinking man will at once see there was a real contrast 
between Saul and Balaam, even though there is an affinity between the two. 
Balaam was the great bad man, great in all he did; Saul was little in 
everything except in stature, little in his good and little in his vice; and 
he was too much of a fool to be desperately bad, though too wicked to be at 
any time good: while Balaam was great in both: the man who could at one 
time defy Jehovah, and yet at another time could say, "If Balak would give 
me his house full of silver and gold, I cannot go beyond the word of the 
Lord my God, to do less or more."

                           The Doubtful Penitent. 
                    ACHAN--"I have sinned."--Joshua 7:20.

IV. And now I have to introduce to you a very interesting case; it is the case 
of the doubtful penitent, the case of Achan, in the book of Joshua, the 7th 
chap. and the 20th verse:--"And Achan answered Joshua, indeed I have 
sinned."

You know that Achan stole some of the prey from the city of Jericho--that 
he was discovered by lot, and put to death. I have singled this case out as 
the representative of some whose characters are doubtful on their death 
beds; who do repent apparently, but of whom the most we can say is, that 
we hope their souls are saved at last, but indeed we cannot tell. Achan, you 
are aware, was stoned with stones, for defiling Israel. But I find in the 
Mishna, an old Jewish exposition of the Bible, these words, "Joshua said to 
Achan, the Lord shall trouble thee this day." And the note upon it is--He 
said this day, implying that he was only to be troubled in this life, by being 
stoned to death, but that God would have mercy on his soul, seeing that he 
had made a full confession of his sin." And I, too, am inclined, from reading 
the chapter, to concur in the idea of my venerable and now glorified 
predecessor, Dr. Gill, in believing that Achan really was saved, although he 
was put to death for the crime, as an example. For you will observe how 
kindly Joshua spoke to him. He said, "My son, give, I pray thee, glory to the 
Lord God of Israel, and make confession unto him; and tell me now what 
thou hast done; hide it not from me." And you find Achan making a very 
full confession. He says, "Indeed I have sinned against the Lord God of 
Israel, and thus and thus have I done. When I saw among the spoils a goodly 
Babylonish garment, and two hundred shekels of silver, and a wedge of 
gold of fifty shekels weight, then I coveted them, and took them; and, 
behold, they are hid in the earth in the midst of my tent, and the silver 
under it." It seems so full a confession, that if I might be allowed to 
judge, I should say, "I hope to meet Achan the sinner, before the throne of 
God." But I find Matthew Henry has no such opinion; and many other expositors 
consider that as his body was destroyed, so was his soul. I have, therefore, 
selected his case, as being one of doubtful repentance. Ah! dear friends, it 
has been my lot to stand by many a death-bed, and to see many such a 
repentance as this; I have seen the man, when worn to a skeleton, sustained 
by pillows in his bed; and he has said, when I have talked to him of 
judgment to come, "Sir, I feel I have been guilty, but Christ is good; I trust 
in him." And I have said within myself, " I believe the man's soul is safe." 
But I have always come away with the melancholy reflection that I had no 
proof of it, beyond his own words; for it needs proof in acts and in future 
life, in order to sustain any firm conviction of a man's salvation. You know 
that great fact, that a physician once kept a record of a thousand persons 
who thought they were dying, and whom he thought were penitents; he 
wrote their names down in a book as those, who, if they had died, would go 
to heaven; they did not die, they lived; and he says that out of the whole 
thousand he had not three persons who turned out well afterwards, but they 
returned to their sins again, and were as bad as ever. Ah! dear friends, I 
hope none of you will have such a death-bed repentance as that; I hope your 
minister or your parents will not have to stand by your bedside, and then go 
away and say, "Poor fellow, I hope he is saved. But alas! death-bed 
repentances are such flimsy things; such poor, such trivial grounds of hope, 
that I am afraid, after all, his soul may be lost." Oh! to die with a full 
assurance; oh! to die with an abundant entrance, leaving a testimony behind 
that we have departed this life in peace! That is a far happier way than to 
die in a doubtful manner, lying sick, hovering between two worlds, and 
neither ourselves nor yet our friends knowing to which of the two worlds we 
are going. May God grant us grace to give in our lives evidences of true 
conversion, that our case may not be doubtful!

                         The Repentance of Despair. 
                   JUDAS--"I have sinned."--Matthew 27:4.

V. I shall not detain you too long, I trust, but I must now give you another 
bad case; the worst of all. It is the REPENTANCE OF DESPAIR. Will you 
turn to the 27th chap. of Matthew, and the 4th verse? There you have a 
dreadful case of the repentance of despair. You will recognize the character 
the moment I read the verse: "And Judas said, I have sinned." Yes, Judas the 
traitor, who had betrayed his Master, when be saw that his Master was 
condemned, "repented, and brought again the thirty pieces of silver to the 
chief priests and elders, saying, I have sinned, in that I have betrayed 
innocent blood, and cast down the pieces in the temple, and went" and 
what?--" and hanged himself." Here is the worst kind of repentance of all; in 
fact, I know not that I am justified in calling it repentance; it must be 
called remorse of conscience. But Judas did confess his sin, and then went 
and hanged himself. Oh! that dreadful, that terrible, that hideous confession 
of despair. Have you never seen it? If you never have, then bless God that 
you never were called to see such a sight. I have seen it once in my life, I 
pray God I may never see it again,--the repentance of the man who sees death 
staring him in the face, and who says, "I have sinned." You tell him that 
Christ has died for sinners; and he answers, "There is no hope for me; I have 
cursed God to his face; I have defied him; my day of grace I know is past; 
my conscience is seared with a hot iron; I am dying, and I know I shall be 
lost!" Such a case as that happened long ago, you know, and is on record--
the case of Francis Spira--the most dreadful ease, perhaps, except that of 
Judas, which is upon record in the memory of man. Oh! my hearers, will 
any of you have such a repentance? If you do, it will be a beacon to all 
persons who sin in future; if you have such a repentance as that, it will be a 
warning to generations yet to come. In the life of Benjamin Keach--and he 
also was once of my predecessors--I find the case of a man who had been a 
professor of religion, but had departed from the profession, and had gone 
into awful sin. When he came to die, Keach, with many other friends, went 
to see him, but they could never stay with him above five minutes at a time; 
for he said, "Get ye gone; it is of no use your coming to me; I have sinned 
away the Holy Ghost; I am like Esau, I have sold my birthright, and though 
I seek it carefully with tears, I can never find it again." And then he would 
repeat dreadful words, like these: `My mouth is filled with gravel stones, 
and I drink wormwood day and night. Tell me not tell me not of Christ! I 
know he is a Saviour, but I hate him and he hates me. I know I must die; I 
know I must perish!" And then followed doleful cries, and hideous noises, 
such as none could bear. They returned again in his placid moments only to 
stir him up once more, and make him cry out in his despair, "I am lost ! I am 
lost ! It is of no use your telling me anything about it!" Ah! I there may be 
a man here who may have such a death as that; let me warn him, ere he come 
to it ; and may God the Holy Spirit grant that that man may be turned unto 
God, and made a true penitent, and then he need not have any more fear; for 
he who has had his sins washed away in a Saviour's blood, need not have 
any remorse for his sins, for they are pardoned through the Redeemer.

                        The Repentance of the Saint. 
                       JOB--"I have sinned."--Job 7:20

VI. And now I come into daylight. I have been taking you through dark and 
dreary confessions; I shall detain you there no longer, but bring you out to 
the two good confessions which I have to read to you. The first is that of Job 
in 7th chap., at the 20th verse: "I have sinned; what shall I do unto thee, O 
thou preserver of men?" This is the repentance of the saint. Job was a saint, 
but he sinned. This is the repentance of the man who is a child of God 
already, an acceptable repentance before God. But as I intend to dwell upon 
this in the evening, I shall now leave it, for fear of wearying you. David was 
a specimen of this kind of repentance, and I would have you carefully study 
his penitential psalms, the language of which is ever full of weeping 
humility and earnest penitence.

                           The Blessed Confession. 
                 THE PRODIGAL--"I have sinned."--Luke 15:18.

VII. I come now to the last instance, which I shall mention; it is the case of 
the prodigal. In Luke xv. 18, we find the prodigal says: "Father I have 
sinned." Oh, here is a blessed confession! Here is that which proves a man 
to be a regenerate character--" Father, I have sinned." Let me picture the 
scene. There is the prodigal; he has run away from a good home and a kind 
father, and he has spent all his money with harlots, and now he has none 
left. He goes to his old companions, and asks them for relief. They laugh 
him to scorn. "Oh," says he, "you have drunk my wine many a day; I have 
always stood paymaster to you in all our revelries; will you not help me?" 
"Get you gone" they say; and he is turned out of doors. He goes to all his 
friends with whom he had associated, but no man gives him anything. At 
last a certain citizen of the country said,--"You want something to do, do 
you? Well go and feed my swine." The poor prodigal, the son of a rich 
landowner, who had a great fortune of his own, has to go out to feed swine; 
and he a Jew too!--the worst employment (to his mind,) to which he could 
be put. See him there, in squalid rags, feeding swine; and what are his 
wages? Why, so little, that he "would fain have filled his belly with the 
husks the swine eat, but no man gave to him." Look, there he is, with the 
fellow commoners of the sty, in all his mire and filthiness. Suddenly a 
thought put there by the good Spirit, strikes his mind. "How is it," says he, 
"that in my father's house there is bread enough and to spare, and I perish 
with hunger? I will arise and go to my father, and will say unto him, Father, 
I have sinned against heaven and before thee, and am no more worthy to be 
called thy son: make me as one of thy hired servants." Off he goes. He begs 
his way from town to town. Sometimes he gets a lift on a coach, perhaps, 
but at other times he goes trudging his way up barren hills and down 
desolate vales, all alone. And now at last he comes to the hill outside the 
village, and sees his father's house down below. There it is; the old poplar 
tree against it, and there are the stacks round which he and his brother used 
to run and play; and at the sight of the old homestead all the feelings and 
associations of his former life rush upon him, and tears run down his 
cheeks, and he is almost ready to run away again. He says "I wonder 
whether father's dead? I dare say mother broke her heart when I went away; 
I always was her favorite. And if they are either of them alive, they will 
never see me again; they will shut the door in my face. What am I to do? I 
cannot go back, I am afraid to go forward." And while he was thus 
deliberating, his father had been walking on the housetop, looking out for 
his son; and though he could not see his father, his father could see him. 
Well, the father comes down stairs with all his might, runs up to him, and 
whilst he is thinking of running away, his father's arms are round his neck, 
and he falls-to kissing him, like a loving father indeed, and then the son 
begins,--"Father, I have sinned against heaven and in thy sight, and am no 
more worthy to be called thy son," and he was going to say, "Make me as 
one of thy hired servants." But his father puts his hand on his mouth. "No 
more of that," says he; "I forgive you all; you shall not say anything about 
being a hired servant--I will have none of that. Come along," says he, "come 
in, poor prodigal. Ho!" says he to the servants, "bring hither the best robe, 
and put it on him, and put shoes on his poor bleeding feet; and bring hither 
the fatted calf and kill it; and let us eat and be merry: For this my son was 
dead, and is alive again; he was lost and is found. And they began to be 
merry." Oh, what a precious reception for one of the chief of sinners! Good 
Matthew Henry says--" His father saw him, there were eyes of mercy; he 
ran to meet him, there were legs of mercy; he put his arms round his neck, 
there were arms of mercy; he kissed him, there were kisses of mercy; he 
said to him--there were words of mercy,--Bring hither the best robe, there 
were deeds of mercy, wonders of mercy--all mercy. Oh, what a God of 
mercy he is."

Now, prodigal, you do the same. Has God put it into your heart? There are 
many who have been running away a long time now. Does God say 
"return?" Oh, I bid you return, then, for as surely as ever thou dost return 
he will take thee in. There never was a poor sinner yet who came to Christ, 
whom Christ turned away. If he turns you away, you will be the first. Oh, if 
you could but try him! "Ah, sir, I am so black, so filthy, so vile." Well come 
along with you--you cannot be blacker than the prodigal. Come to your 
Father's house, and as surely as he is God he will keep his word--"Him that 
cometh unto me I will in no wise cast out."

Oh, if I might hear that some had come to Christ this morning, I would 
indeed bless God! I must tell here for the honor of God and Christ, one 
remarkable circumstance, and then I have done. You will remember that one 
morning I mentioned the case of an infidel who had been a scorner and 
scoffer, but who, through reading one of my printed sermons, had been 
brought to God's house and then to God's feet. Well, last Christmas day, the 
same infidel gathered together all his books, and went into the market-place 
at Norwich, and there made a public recantation of all his errors, and a 
profession of Christ, and then taking up all his books which he had written, 
and had in his house, on evil subjects, burned them in the sight of the 
people. I have blessed God for such a wonder of grace as that, and pray that 
there may be many more such, who, though they be born prodigal will yet 
return home, saying, "I have sinned."


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