4. Without repentance nothing will avail us
What is seasoned with the bitter herbs of godly sorrow is God's savory meat. When we are pricked at the heart, hearing the word is good, (Act 2.37). Prayer is delightful to God when it ascends from the altar of a broken heart. The publican struck upon his breast saying,
"God be merciful to me, a sinner." This prayer pierced heaven: "he went away justified rather than the other" (Luk 18.14). No prayer touches God's ear except what comes from a heart touched with the sense of sin.
4. Without repentance nothing will avail us Some bless themselves that they have a stock of knowledge; but what is knowledge good for without repentance? It is better to mortify one sin than to understand all mysteries. Impure speculators only resemble Satan transformed into an angel of light. Learning and a bad heart is like a fair face with cancer in the breast. Knowledge without repentance will only be a torch to light men's way to hell.
5. Repenting tears are delicious They may be compared to myrrh which, though bitter, has a sweet smell and refreshes the spirits. So repentance, though it is bitter in itself, yet it is sweet in its effects. It brings inward peace. The soul is never more enlarged and inwardly delighted than when it can kindly melt. Alexander, upon the safe return of his admiral Nearchus from a long voyage, wept for joy.
54 How often the saints fall, weeping for joy!
The Hebrew word for "repent" signifies "to take comfort." There is none so joyful as the penitent! Tears, as the philosopher notes, have four qualities: they are moist, salty, hot, and bitter. This is true of repenting tears. They are hot, to warm a frozen conscience; moist, to soften a hard heart; salty, to season a soul putrefying in sin; bitter, to wean us from the love of the world. And I will add a fifth. They are sweet, in that they make the heart inwardly rejoice: "and sorrow shall be turned into joy" (Job 41.22). Let a man, said Augustine, grieve for his sin and rejoice for his grief. Tears are the best pastry. David, who was the great weeper in Israel, was the sweet singer of Israel. The sorrows of the penitent are like the sorrows of a travailing woman: "A woman when she is in travail has sorrow, but as soon as the child is delivered, she remembers no more the anguish, because of her joy that a man is born into the world" (Joh 16.21). So the sorrows of