He did not think so deeply and penitently of his past at the beginning
of his career, true and deep as his repentance, and valid and genuine as
his conversion were. But as he advanced in the love of Jesus Christ, his
former active hostility became more monstrous to him, and the higher he
rose, the clearer was his vision of the depth from which he had
struggled; for growth in Christian holiness deepens the conviction of
prior imperfection.
If God has forgiven my sin the more need for me to remember it. 'Thou
shalt be ashamed and confounded, and never open thy mouth any more
because of thy transgressions, when I am pacified towards thee for all
that thou hast done.' If you, my brother, have any real and genuine hold
of God's pardoning mercy, it will bow you down the more completely on
your knees in the recognition of your own sin. The man who, as soon as
the pressure of guilt and danger which is laid upon him seems to him to
be lifted off, springs up like some elastic figure of indiarubber, and
goes on his way in jaunty forgetfulness of his past evil, needs to ask
himself whether he has ever passed from death unto life. Not to remember
the old sin is to be blind. The surest sign that we are pardoned is the
depth of our habitual penitence. Try yourselves, you Christian people
who are so sure of your forgiveness, try yourselves by that test, and if
you find that you are thinking less of your past evil, be doubtful
whether you have ever entered into the genuine possession of the
forgiving mercy of your God.
And then, still further, this penitent retrospect is the direct result
of advancement in Christian characteristics. We are drawn to begin some
study or enterprise by the illusion that there is but a little way to
go. 'Alps upon alps arise' when once we have climbed a short distance up
the hill, and it has become as difficult to go back as to go forward.
So it is in the Christian life--the sign of growing perfection is the
growing consciousness of imperfection. A spot upon a clean palm is more
conspicuous than a diffuse griminess over all the hand. One stain upon
a white robe spoils it which would not be noticed upon one less
lustrously clean. And so the more we grow towards God in Christ, and the
more we appropriate and make our own His righteousness, the more we
shall be conscious of our deficiencies, and the less we shall be
prepared to assert virtues for ourselves.
Thus it comes to pass that conscience is least sensitive when it is most
needed, and most swift to act when it has least to do. So it comes to
pass, too, that no man's acquittal of himself can be accepted as
sufficient; and that he is a fool in self-knowledge who says, 'I am not
conscious of guilt, therefore I am innocent.' 'I know nothing against
myself, yet am I not hereby justified: but He that judgeth me is the
Lord.' The more you become like Christ the more you will find out your
unlikeness to Him.