Confession

I desire to call attention to portions of Ezekiel, Daniel, Ezra, and Nehemiah; namely, the ninth chapters of each of these books. Humiliation is ours on account of failure -manifold, multiplied failure: confession naturally flows from a humbled people; these portions strikingly show the acceptability to God of confession from such: They also show, each one of them, some truth peculiar to itself, in addition to the point common to them all.
After looking at them, we may turn, a little more generally, to the testimony of Scripture upon this subject. It is one, I conceive, which is very closely connected with the glory of God, as with the peace and safety of our own souls in such a day as this. If walking with God and led by the Spirit of Christ, in a day of profession great and wide-spread, consciousness of our own failure in testimony for God ought to have humbled us, and demands confession from us.