mbers all our wickedness, He means us to
understand that He will exhibit it all. Why did He tell this people that
He remembered all their wickedness? The Scriptures answer that question.
They inform us that He intends to make use of the stores of which memory
is possessed, and that He intends to make this use of them--to hold them
up to the gaze of the universe. They teach us that the conduct of every
individual will be investigated and published. "For God shall bring
every work into judgment, with every secret thing, whether it be good or
whether it be evil." "Every idle word that men shall speak, they shall
give account thereof in the day of judgment." Important purposes will he
answered by this. A declaration will be made of the righteousness of God
in condemning the ungodly. He will hold up to view the nature and extent
of the requirements He made of us, their reasonableness and
beneficialness we shall all acknowledge. He will then make known the
innumerable acts of goodness He bestowed--His forbearance to inflict
punishment, and the various methods He employed to bring us to
repentance. And by the side of all this He will exhibit our conduct
toward Him--our ingratitude, our disobedience, our perverseness. And
with what enormity will these things then appear invested! So guilty
will thy conduct then appear, O sinner, that thou wilt be constrained to
exclaim: "Thou art righteous, O Lord, which art, and wast, and shall be,
because Thou hast judged thus." What an exhibition will he made on that
day!

3. When God says that He remembers all our wickedness, He means us to
understand that He will punish for it all, if it be not repented of. The
maintenance of law and order in the universe require the Divine Being to
display His abhorrence of transgression. And how can that abhorrence be
suitably displayed otherwise than by punishment? And the punishment must
be of a degree to represent the guiltiness of the conduct. It must be
impartial, and be inflicted therefore on every transgressor. The rich
man cannot buy exemption from it. The man of mighty intellect, or
powerful eloquence, cannot persuade himself, not to say the righteous
Judge, into the belief that he ought to be exempt. The man of good
desires and pious resolutions, he who was born of praying parents, and
often bowed his knees at the footstool of his Maker, but delayed to
surrender his heart, cannot escape. No, my friends, the decree of the
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