But then, "if any man sin," what is to be done? The inspired apostle furnishes a full and most blessed answer,--"If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness." (1 John i. 9.) Confession is the mode in which the conscience is to be kept free. The apostle does not say, If we pray for pardon, He is gracious and merciful to forgive us. No doubt it is ever happy for a child to breathe the sense of need into his father's ear--to tell him of feebleness, to confess folly, infirmity, and failure. All this is most true; and, moreover, it is equally true that our Father is most gracious and merciful to meet His children in all their weakness and ignorance; but, while all this is true, the Holy Ghost declares, by the apostle, that "if we _confess_," God is "_faithful_ and _just_ to forgive." Confession, therefore, is the divine mode. A Christian, having erred, in thought, word, or deed, might pray for pardon for days and months together, and not have any assurance, from 1 John i. 9, that he was forgiven; whereas the moment he truly confesses his sin before God, it is a simple matter of faith to know that he is perfectly forgiven and perfectly cleansed. There is an immense moral difference between praying for forgiveness and confessing our sins, whether we look at it in reference to the character of God, the sacrifice of Christ, or the condition of the soul. It is quite possible that a person's prayer may involve the confession of his sin, whatever it may happen to be, and thus come to the same thing; but then it is always well to keep close to Scripture in what we think and say and do. It must be evident that when the Holy Ghost speaks of _confession_, He does not mean _praying_; and it is equally evident that He knows there are moral elements in, and practical results flowing out of, confession, which do not belong to prayer. In point of fact, one has often found that a habit of importuning God for the forgiveness of sins displayed ignorance as to the way in which God has revealed Himself in the Person and work of Christ, as to the relation in which the sacrifice of Christ has set the believer, and as to the divine mode of getting the conscience relieved from the burden and purified from the soil of sin.