---

I. ALL MEN MUST APPEAR BEFORE GOD, AND ANSWER ALL THAT THEY ARE CHARGED WITHAL, WHEN HE COMES TO JUDGMENT.

1. That God by His power can enforce and draw all men before Him, and to confess Him too, no man can deny (Romans 14:11).

2. Besides, it is fit that God should do it, for the clearing of His justice, both in rewarding His own and punishing the wicked and ungodly, when every man's work is manifest, and it appears that every man receives according to his deeds (Romans 2:8). Of this truth there can be no clearer evidence than the observation of that judgment which passeth upon every man in the private consistory of his own conscience, from which none can fly nor silence his own thoughts, bearing witness for him, or against him, no, not those which have no knowledge of God or His law (Romans 2:15).

II. ALL MEN BY NATURE ARE APT TO COLOUR AND CONCEAL ALL THAT THEY CAN AND THAT EVEN FROM GOD HIMSELF.

1. Because all men desire to justify themselves, and are by nature liars (Romans 3:4), and therefore easily fall into that evil to which their nature inclines them.

2. The want of the full apprehension of God's Providence.

III. ONE SIN COMMONLY DRAWS ON ANOTHER.

1. Any sin committed weakens the heart, and consequently leaves it the more unable to withstand a second assault — as a castle is the more easily taken when the breach is once made.

2. And sins are usually fastened one to another, like the links of a chain; so that he who takes hold of one of them necessarily draws on all the rest.

3. And God in justice may punish one sin with another, and to that end both withdraw His restraining grace from wicked men, that being delivered over to the lusts of their own hearts they may run on to all excess of riot, that they may fill up the measure of their sin, that God's wrath may come upon them to the uttermost, and many times for a while withholds the power of His sanctifying grace from His own children.

IV. GOD'S WORD IS TERRIBLE TO A GUILTY CONSCIENCE.

V. IT IS A HARD MATTER TO BRING MEN TO CONFESS ANY MORE THAN IS EVIDENT IN ITSELF.

VI. MEN MAY BE BROUGHT MORE EASILY TO ACKNOWLEDGE ANYTHING THAN THEIR SIN.

VII. NO MEANS CAN WORK ANY FARTHER THAN THEY ARE ACTED AND CARRIED ON BY GOD HIMSELF.

(J. White, M. A.)

---

---

KJV: And the LORD God called unto Adam, and said unto him, Where art thou?

WEB: Yahweh God called to the man, and said to him, "Where are you?"