Let no swine trample it under his feet!

(Robert Bolton, "Comfortable Walking with God")

You may object,
"Of the pardonableness of my other sins—I could be reasonably well persuaded of God's forgiveness. But, alas! there is one sin above all the rest, which I find to be so full of hellish poison—of such a deep and damnable die—to have struck so desperately in the days of my lewdness at the very face of God Himself—and far deeper into the heart of Jesus Christ than the spear that pierced Him while bleeding upon the cross! This sin now stares in the eye of my newly awakened and wounded conscience with such horror and gristliness—that I fear that divine justice will think it fitter to have this most loathsome inexpiable stain—burned out of my soul with everlasting flames (if it were possible that eternal fire could expiate the sinful stains of any impenitent damned soul), than to be fully washed away with His blood, whom I so cruelly and cursedly pierced with it!"

"Oh! this is what lies now upon my heart like a mountain of lead, and enchains it with inexplicable terror! This alone stings desperately—and keeps me from Christ, and cuts me off from all hope of heaven. I am afraid that my willful wallowing in sin heretofore, has so reprobated my mind, seared my conscience, and hardened my heart—that I shall never be able to repent with any hope of pardon!"


But I answer you, Is this sin of yours greater than wicked King Manasseh's, who "sacrificed his own son in the fire, practiced witchcraft and  divination, and consulted mediums and spiritists"? (2 Kings 21:2-7)

Is this sin of yours greater than Paul's drinking up the blood of saints?

Is this sin of yours greater than any of theirs in that black bill, (1 Corinthians 6:9-11,) who, notwithstanding, were afterward given repentance—and washed, sanctified, and justified in the name of the Lord Jesus?

Is this sin of yours greater than that horrible sin of killing Christ Jesus? And yet the murderers of that Just and Holy One, upon their true repentance of heart, were saved by that precious blood which they had cruelly spilled, as water upon the ground!

But however heinous your sin may be—a scarlet sin, a crimson sin, a crying sin—and add unto it Satan's malicious aggravations, and all that horror which the dejectedness of your present afflicted spirit, and darkness of your melancholy imagination can add upon it—yetPaul's precious antidote holds triumphantly sovereign as well against the heinousness of any one sin—as the confluence of all sins!"Where sin abounded—grace over-abounded!" (Romans 5:20)

Indeed, your case is a very heavy one, and to be deplored even with tears of blood—that you should ever have so highly dishonored your gracious God with such horrible sinfulness in the days of your vanity; and you ought, rather to choose to be torn in pieces by wild horses—than commit it again!

Yet if your heart, now truly wounded with horror and hate of your sin—will but cleave to the truth and tender-heartedness of Jesus Christ in His promises, and fall into His blessed and bleeding arms, which are stretched out most lovingly to ease and refresh you—as theheinousness of your sin has abounded heretofore—so His grace will now over-abound to the same proportion, and much more!

Nay, I will show you an astonishing truth! God's mercies shall be extraordinarily honored in pardoning such heinous provocation; because His mercies are thereby, as it were, manifested in all their dearness, sweetness, and infiniteness—to the greatest height and excellency! And the blood of Christ is manifested more orient and illustrious; and its honor and preciousness is advanced—by washing away such a heinous, hellish spot!

If we bring broken, believing hearts to His mercy-seat, it is the Lord's 'Name' to forgive all sorts of offences, iniquities, transgressions and sins! It is His 'covenant promise', to sprinkle clean water upon us that we may be clean, and to cleanse us 'from all our filthiness, and all our idols,' —even from idolatry, the highest villainy against the majesty of Heaven! So that even a Papist, upon repentance, may be saved!

It is His promise not only to pardon common sins—but those also which are as deep as scarlet, and blood-red as crimson. It is His free compassion to cast all our sins into the depth of the sea! (Micah 7:19). Now, the sea, by reason of its vastness, can as easily drownmountains, as it can drown mole-hills! Just so—the boundless ocean of God's mercies—can easily swallow up our mightiest sins!

It is His merciful power to blot out our sins as a cloud. Now the strength of the summer's sun is able to scatter the thickest fog, as well as the thinnest mist—more, to drive away the darkest night! Just so, the irresistible heat of God's free love, shining through the Sun of Righteousness upon a penitent soul—can far more easily dissolve into nothing—the vilest works of darkness, and most horrible sins!

But this mystery of mercy, and miracle of God's free love—is a jewel only for truly humbled souls. Let no stranger to the life of godliness meddle with it! Let no swine trample it under his feet!


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