Now, this turning from sin has these properties.
DOCTRINE. Sinners, except they repent, shall perish.
DOCTRINE. Sinners, except they repent, shall perish. This is an except without any exception. Be who they will, if they be sinners, they must repent or perish. All are sinners, and by sin depart from God; and they must come back again to him by repentance, else they are for ever ruined. Be they sinners of a greater or lesser size, they must be penitent sinners, or it had been better for them they had never been born.
In discoursing this doctrine, I shall,
I. Explain the nature of repentance.
II. Apply.
I. I shall explain the nature of repentance. And here we may consider,
1. What it is in its general nature.
2. How it is wrought in the soul.
3. The subject of true repentance.
4. The parts of repentance.
FIRST, We may consider what repentance is in its general nature. It is a saying grace: 2 Tim. 2:25, "In meekness instructing those that oppose themselves; if God peradventure will give them repentance to the acknowledging of the truth." It is a grace given us of God freely, enabling and disposing a soul to all the acts of turning from sin unto God; and it is saying, as in its own nature distinguishing a man from a hypocrite, and having a sure connection with eternal salvation. To unfold this more particularly, consider,
1. It is not a transient action, as Papists and some ignorant creatures imagine, as if a sigh for sin, an act of sorrow for it, a confession of it with a "God be merciful to me a sinner," were repentance. No, no; these may be acts of repentance while they proceed from a truly penitent heart. But repentance itself is not a passing act, but an abiding grace, Zech. 12:10; a continuing frame and disposition of the soul; a principle lying deep in the heart, disposing a man to mourn for and turn from sin on all occasions.
2. It is not a passing work of the first days of one's religion, as some professors take it to be; but a grace in the heart, setting one to an answerable working all the days of his life. It is a spring of waters of sorrow in the heart for sin, which will spring up there while sin is there, though sometimes through hardness of heart it may be stopped for a while. They that look on repentance as the first stage in the way to heaven, and looking back to the sorrowful hours which they had when the Lord first began to deal with them, reckon that they have passed the first stage, are in a dangerous condition. And whoso endeavours not to carry on their repentance, I doubt if they ever at all repented yet. As when Moses had smote the rock in the wilderness, and the waters began to gush out, those waters ran (it is thought, 1 Cor. 10:4.) and followed them while in the wilderness: so the heart first smitten with repentance for sin at the soul's first conversion to God, the wound still bleeds, and is never bound up to bleed no more, till the band of glory be put about it in heaven, Rev. 21:4.
Hence initial and progressive repentance, though the former be the repentance of a sinner, the latter of a saint, are no more different kinds of repentance, than the soul's virgin love to Christ, and their love to him through the course of their spiritual marriage with him; or than faith in its first, and after actings. But as the mid-day and evening sun are the same with the morning sun, so are these; though the rising morning sun may be most noticed by the traveller, who having travelled in the night, was thereby brought from darkness to light.
3. It is not a common grace, but a special saving one. Men may have a repentance for their sin, gnawing their consciences, and tormenting their hearts, which they will carry on in hell through eternity: being only the first movings of the worm in the soul that never dieth: as Judas's repentance seems to have been Simon Magus's and Pharaoh's. They may bitterly rue their sin, as Esau, Gen. 27:34 who never truly repent of it, Heb. 12:17; and the stony heart may be broken in a thousand pieces, while yet every piece remains a stone. They may have a superficial sorrow for sin, and a light joy succeeding it, whose hearts were never pierced to the quick; and therefore the joy goes, as the effects of a scud of rain on the parched ground, Matth. 13:20, 21. But true repentance is a repentance never repented of, kindly working in the soul.
SECONDLY, We may consider how repentance is wrought in the soul. And here two questions must be answered, and two points cleared, namely,
1. Who works repentance, or is the author of it? And that is the sanctifying Spirit of Jesus Christ: Zech. 12:13. "And I will pour upon the house of David, and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the spirit of grace and of supplications, and they shall look upon me whom they have pierced, and they shall mourn for him, as one mourneth for his only son, and shall be in bitterness for him, as one that is in bitterness for his first-born." Sometimes notorious prodigals become true penitents; as a persecuting Saul turned to be a preaching Paul: so that the world is amazed with the change, and are ready to say as in Saul's case, 1 Sam. 10:11. "What is this that is come unto the son of Kish? Is Saul also among the prophets? But that query, ver. 12. "But who is their father?" gives a rational account of the matter. All sort of timber to divine grace is alike easy to hew. And forasmuch as the house of God is ordinarily built of the knottiest wood, publicans and harlots entering into the kingdom of God before Scribes and Pharisees, it may plainly appear, that repentance is not the work of nature, but of grace; not of men's own spirit, but Christ's Spirit.
This is evident from the word, Jer. 13:21, "Can the Ethiopian change his skin, or the leopard his spots? then may ye also do good, that are accustomed to do evil." It is the Lord's own work to "take away the stony heart, and give an heart of flesh," Ezek. 36:26. It is the office of the exalted Mediator to give repentance, in whose hand it is to send the Spirit, Acts 5:31. Ministers may preach repentance, but cannot work in it themselves, and far less in others. They may sow the seed, but cannot make it grow, 1 Cor. 3:6, 7. It is but a peradventure if God give repentance, when they have done their utmost, 2 Tim. 2:25. But if at all their weapons be mighty, it is through God, 2 Cor. 10:4.
2. By what means does the Spirit work repentance? That is by the word, whether read or preached. The word is the channel wherein the influences of the Spirit flow; and from these it has its piercing, melting, and heart-softening virtue, as the pool of Bethesda had its healing virtue from the angel's troubling the water: Acts 11:20, 21. "And some of them were men of Cyprus, and Cyrene, which when they were come to Antioch, spake unto the Grecians, preaching the Lord Jesus. And the hand of the Lord was with them: and a great number believed, and turned unto the Lord." Junius, who was deeply plunged in Athiesm, was brought to repentance by reading John 1. in a New Testament which his father had purposely laid down in his chamber, if perhaps he might take it up and read it. Augustine was converted by reading Rom. 13:13, 14. "Let us walk honestly as in the day; not in rioting and drunkenness, not in chambering and wantonness, not in strife and envying. But put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to fulfil the lusts thereof." Three thousand we find were wrought on by one sermon, Acts 2.
Many and various are the occasions of repentance, which the Lord blesseth for bringing home the word to the soul, and the soul by it unto God. Personal afflictions have been so in the case of many, Hos. 2:7. The sight of strokes on others has been blessed to some. The first occasion of Luther's turning serious was a fright by the violent death of a dear companion of his. Nay, God has made falls into gross sins occasions of repentance unto many, whereof there are several instances, as Achan, the thief on the cross, &c. Flavel gives an account of one, in the case of an attempt of self-murder. Augustine heard a voice, saying, "Take up, and read." Nay, God can make a dream in the night such an occasion, Job 33:15, 16. But these are not properly the means, but the occasions which bring men to consider of the word, which is the true and proper means. And here the Spirit of the Lord makes use of both parts of the word.
1st, The law, to break the hard heart: Jer. 23:29, "Is not my word—like a hammer that breaketh the rock in pieces? saith the Lord" It goes before like John Baptist to prepare the way of the Lord into the heart. And the Spirit of the Lord making use of it in a soul, is called "the Spirit of bondage," Rom. 8:15. And here each part of the law has its proper use.
(1.) The commands of it, to convince the soul of sin: Rom. 7:7, I had not known sin," says the apostle, "but by the law: for I had not known lust, except the law had said, Thou shalt not covet." The commands of the law, held forth to the soul in their spirituality and vast extent, are the looking-glass wherein the sinner is made to see his black face, the sins and sinfulness of his nature, heart, and life, which he must repent of.
(2.) The threatenings of it, to convince the soul of judgment: Gal. 3:10, "As many as are of the works of the law, are under the curse: for it is written, Cursed is every one that continueth not in all things which are written in the book of the law to do them." These carried home on the soul, disturb its rest in sin, and let the man see that he has been sleeping within the sea-mark of divine vengeance, and so give him a frightful wakening. These discover the danger of sin for time and eternity, and tell him that he must turn over a new leaf, else he is ruined.
2dly, The gospel, to melt the hard heart like a fire, Jer. 23:29, "Is not my word like as a fire? saith the Lord; and so to bow and bend it from sin towards God," Zech. 12:10, "And I will pour upon the house of David, and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the spirit of grace and of supplications, and they shall look upon me whom they have pierced, and they shall mourn for him, as one mourneth for his only son, and shall be in bitterness for him, as one that is in bitterness for his first-born." Thus the soul that was driven by the law, is kindly led and drawn by the gospel to repentance. The law serves to make a terrible reel in the conscience and affections: but the gospel is Christ's key to open the heart, and to turn about the will that he may come in, Gal. 3:2. The stormy wind, and earthquake, may go before in the law; but the still small voice of the gospel is that which the Lord is in. This is evident, if ye consider,
(1.) That repentance is the doctrine of the gospel. I do indeed think, that it cannot be denied but that the law requires repentance as a duty, in so far as it binds the apostate sinner to return to God: but in the meantime it gives no hope of mercy to the penitent, seeing its constant voice is, "Cursed is every one that continueth not in all things which are written in the book of the law to do them." But the gospel gives the glad tidings of place for repentance, and shews how the apostate creature returning will be accepted. And there can be no true returning to God, where there is no hope of acceptance.
(2.) Repentance is a promise of the covenant of grace: Ezek. 36:31, "Then shall ye remember your own evil ways, and your doings that were not good, and shall loath yourselves in your own sight, for your iniquities, and for your abominations." It is not only the duty of God's elect, but their privilege, made over to them in Jesus Christ, purchased by his death, and bestowed on them by virtue of his exaltation, Acts 5:31. And hence, as one of the benefits of that covenant, it is sealed in baptism, Mark 1:4.
The sum of what is said on this second head, is, that repentance is an evangelical softness of heart, and bent of spirit to turn away from sin, and to turn to God, wrought in a soul by the Spirit of Christ. The Spirit of holiness being given to Christ without measure, he puts the same Spirit in his elect in the day of his power; who by his grace melts the heart for sin, and bends it away from sin to holiness.
USE 1. Repentance is not a man's taking up himself, in the point of his outward conversation. It is one thing to reform the life, another to reform the heart, by changing the will. The former is within the reach of mere nature, the other is not to be effected but by a supernatural hand, Jer. 31:18. The former may make one a painted sepulchre, the latter makes him a new creature.
2. Legal repentance is no true repentance: and therefore though one have it, he may perish; as Pharaoh, Judas, &c. It makes a fretful restless conscience under the terror of God's wrath but mean while it leaves a hard heart, glued to sin. The law and its terrors coming into a sinful soul, may raise the dust ready to choke the sinner, as in a house when a sweeping; but it will never be made clean, unless the gospel have its efficacy on the heart, as the water which lays that dust. Hence it comes to pass, that sinners sometimes have sharp convictions, but mean while their lusts grow as rampant as ever after.
3. See the folly of delaying repentance, and not striking in with the motions of the Spirit, when one has them. How do people put off repentance from time to time, as if it were wholly in their power to do it at any time! But they that cannot command wind and tide, have need to fall in with them while they serve, least if they go, they be left hopeless. O delay not, lest the Spirit of the Lord be provoked to depart.
4. Lastly, Learn whom ye are to look to for repentance. It is the work of the Lord's Spirit; and unto him ye are to look for his grace to loose the bands of wickedness, to soften the hard heart, and to turn you to himself, Jer. 31:18.
Thirdly, We may consider the subject of true repentance, what it is. It is a convinced believing soul. An unconvinced sinner cannot be a true penitent; for what the eye sees not, the heart rues not. Neither can an unbelieving sinner be so; for without faith the heart may be rent for sin, but not from it.
First, The soul wherein true repentance is wrought, is a convinced soul: Job 36:9, 10, "He showoth them their work, and their transgressions that they have exceeded. He openeth also their ear to discipline, and commandeth that they return from iniquity." Acts 2:37. 38, "Now when they heard this, they were pricked in their heart, and said unto Peter, and to the rest of the Apostles, Men and brethren, what shall we do? Then Peter said unto them, Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ, for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost." The first particular work in the creation was making light; and the letting in a new light by conviction, is the first work in the new creation. God begins his work, where Satan ends his; who having got the soul asleep in the arms of its lusts, shuts the windows, and draws the curtains, that it may sleep sound, till it awaken in bell. But the Spirit of the Lord by conviction opens them, and awakens the sinner ordinarily, if not always, in a fright. Here consider,
1. How this conviction is wrought. It is done by the erecting of a criminal court within the sinner's own breast, which the man cannot absent himself from, more than he can go out of himself. He must stay and answer, unless he prevail with the judge to let fall the process; as, alas! many do by silencing their consciences one way or other to their own ruin. And in this court,
1st, The Spirit of the Lord, awakening the sleepy conscience, sets it upon the bench, so that the man becomes his own judge: John 16:8, "And when he [the Comforter] is come, he will reprove the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment." The man searches and tries his own heart and life, which was before neglected as the sluggard's garden. But now every corner thereof is ransacked, and secret things set in the light.
2dly, The man is convicted as a sinner by the law. His nature, heart, and life brought to the holy law and compared with it, he is found evidently to be guilty and a transgressor. Hence says the apostle, Rom. 7:9, "I was alive without the law once: but when the commandment came, sin revived, and I died." The law as a looking-glass is held before his eyes, and he sees his spots. His own conscience is as a thousand witnesses against him, and he cannot deny the charge. So his mouth is stopped, and his sin at length has found him out, Rom. 3:19.
3dly, The man is sentenced and condemned by his own conscience according to the law, adjudging him liable to death, eternal death, for his sins: Gal. 3:10, "Cursed is every one that continueth not in all things which are written in the book of the law to do them." He is therefore a condemned malefactor in his own eyes, by the sentence of the law pronounced against him. Consider,
2. The effects of this conviction; which are these.
1st, A painful sense of sin, an affecting sight of it, Rom. 7:9. forecited. For now the sore is lanced; and they see those sins, and that in sin, which they saw not before; and their eyes affect their hearts. As when the sun shines into a house, the motes are discovered, which did not before appear: so is it here. And the sin which sat light on them before, becomes a burden too heavy to them to bear; for now they are roused out of their lethargy, and feel their sores. It is a burden on their spirits, which sinks them; on their backs, that bows them down; on their heads, which they are not able to discharge themselves of. Therefore the soul coming to Christ is represented as a man with a burden on him: Psal. 55:22, "Cast thy burden upon the Lord, and he shall sustain thee." Hos. 14:2, "Take with you words, and turn to the Lord, say unto him, Take away all iniquity;" (Heb.) Lift off iniquity as a burden.
2dly, Terror on their hearts: Psal. 9:20, "Put them in fear, O Lord; that the nations may know themselves to be but men." The convinced jailor, a man who wore a sword, falls a-trembling, Acts 16:29: for the terror of God is too high for the stoutest heart, that knows not what it is to fear the face of man. The soul that was fearless before, because blind to its own hazard, now that his eyes are opened, is magor missabib. For what heart can be strong before an angry God, brandishing the sword of a fiery law over the conscience, which awakened, is the tenderest part of the man?
3dly, Legal sorrow for sin: Acts 2:37, "Now when they heard this, they were pricked in their heart." There are stounds of grief that go through their hearts like arrows, Psal. 45:5; and these are very piercing, Prov. 18:14, "The spirit of a man will sustain his infirmity; but a wounded spirit who can bear? The man sees now that he has been murdering his own soul, and he groans out an elegy over his dead self; which is raised the higher, that he thought his soul was alive, when really it was dead. He calls himself fool and beast for doing as he did. But what is very sad, though his heart be rent in pieces for his sin, yet it is not rent from it. What grieves him thus, is purely selfish; his separation from God, without whom he sees he cannot be happy; and his liableness to his wrath and curse, which he sees will ruin him for ever to lie under.
4thly, A racking anxiety how to be delivered out of this state: Acts 2:37, "Now when they heard this, they said,—What shall we do?" And here many times fear and hope take their several turns in his anxious soul; sometimes hoping, sometimes desponding, like Jonah in the whale's belly, Jon. 2:4, "Then I said, I am cast out of thy sight; yet I will look again toward thy holy temple." Conviction of sin will make way for care into the most careless head, and will make folk bestow many thoughts on the neglected salvation, that used not to bestow one serious thought upon the business. And this care will swallow up all others, as that of a drowning man to save his life.
USE 1. The unconvinced sinner is an impenitent sinner. Hearken ye young ones, and old, that have lived at ease, and with a hale heart, in respect of your souls' state, all your days. They may sleep sound indeed, whom the devil is rocking in the cradle of a natural impenitent state. But ye will get a wakening yet, either in time to bring you to repentance, or when time is gone, and there is no more place for repentance, Jer. 48:11, 12, "For except ye repent, ye shall perish." Ah poor sinner, thou wast never yet in the next step to repentance. Thy sore has not been lanced yet, therefore surely the filthy matter is never yet cast out by repentance.
2. Convictions and legal qualms of conscience are not repentance: for they do but qualify the subject for it, and that in part only. These are very necessary things I have spoke of under this head; but they are but like the unripe fruit, which must be ripened by the work of the gospel on the heart, and brought to a perfection by the warm sun of gospel-influences, ere he that has them can be accounted a penitent indeed. Or rather, they are like the blossoms which go before, and differ in kind from the fruit, which often fall off, and no fruit follows at all. Folk may have had these many days and years since, that never repented to this day, Hos. 6:4. The first-fruits of the second death may be mistaken by many for the pangs of the new birth. And therefore ye that have had them consider well what issue they have had; for it is not enough to have been in them, but to have got right out of them. Wrong curing of some diseases, breeds others, that prove mortal to many.
The right issue out of them lies in three things.
1. It lies in self-denial, or unselfing of the soul, when the soul is shaken out of itself for justification and sanctification too: Jer. 31:18, "I have surely heard Ephraim bemoaning himself thus, Thou hast chastised me, and I was chastised, as a bullock unaccustomed to the yoke: turn thou me, and I shall be turned; for thou art the Lord my God." Compared with ver. 19, "Surely after that I was turned, I repented; and after that I was instructed. I smote upon my thigh: I was ashamed, yea, even confounded, because I did bear the reproach of my youth." They see the heinousness of sin, and the corruption of their nature too, so as they conclude themselves utterly unable to help themselves in either of these points, and so come off from themselves.
2. It lies in faith, or believing; in coming to Jesus Christ for all, in point of justification and sactiflcation too: Is. 45:24. "Surely, shall one say, in the Lord have I righteousness and strength." The soul being turned off its own bottom, comes and builds on him for what it wants, and looks to him for his blood and Spirit. Thus "the law is a school-master to bring us unto Christ, that we might be justified by faith," Gal. 3:24. See Jer. 3:22, 23.
3. It lies in repentance, or a kindly melting of the heart for sin, Jer. 31:18. Zech. 12:10 as done against a gracious God, whom the heart is knit to in love. The soul comes from before the throne of justice, where it stood weeping for itself and its own misery, unto the throne of grace, where it stands weeping for having offended such a gracious Father.
They land at this threefold shore, who come rightly out of these depths. But many plunge up and down in them a while, and land again just in the same side they went in at. Some land at the shore.
1. Of formality, or a legal walk, 2 Tim. 3:5. "Having a form of godliness but denying the power thereof." They change their former ways but retain their old heart. They go indeed to religious duties, but they never go out of them to Christ. They act not as they did; but still they have the old principle of action, acting from self, and to self; so that though they change their work, they still work to the old master. And thus many continue in a profession of religion, living on their duties, never coming to Christ. Others land at the shore.
2. Of their former security. They are neither better inwardly nor outwardly; but they come out of their qualms of conscience, as one out of a fever, returning just to their old way of living; as was the case with Felix, Acts 24:25. who said to "Paul, go thy way for this time; when I have a convenient season, I will call for thee." Others land at the shore,
3. Of profanity; turning worse than before: Mat. 12:43, 44, 45, "When the unclean spirit is gone out of a man, he walketh through dry places, seeking rest, and findeth none. Then he saith, I will return into my house from whence I came out; and when he is come, he findeth it empty, swept, and garnished. Then goeth he, and taketh with himself seven other spirits more wicked than himself, and they enter in and dwell there: and the last state of that man is worse than the first." Their lusts dammed up for a while, run with more vigour than ever thereafter.
Secondly, The soul wherein repentence is wrought, is a believing soul. Faith is the spring and sourse of repentance so that though the grace of faith and repentance are given together and at once in respect of time, yet, in the order of nature, faith goes before repentance, and the acting of faith goes before the exercise of repentance. And he that would repent, must first believe in Christ that he may repent. I know that some teach otherwise. But this is the doctrine of the Scriptures and our Catechism. To confirm it, consider,
1. That faith is absolutely the leading grace, and the first breathing of a quickened soul: Heb. 11:6, "Without faith it is impossible to please God;" therefore it is impossible to repent, for that is very pleasing to him, Jer. 31:20. So John 15:5, "Without me," i. e. separate from me, and there is no union with him but by the Spirit of faith, "ye can do nothing" acceptable to God, therefore ye cannot repent.
2. It is particularly the leading grace to repentance: Zech. 12:10, "They shall look upon me whom they have pierced, and they shall mourn for him, as one mourneth for his only son." Thus it is represented in fact, Acts 11:21, "And a great number believed, and turned unto the Lord." If repentance be the emptying of the soul by the dropping of the tears of godly sorrow, it is faith that generates them in the heart. It is faith that melts the hard heart, which droppeth in repentance. The eye of faith fixes on God in Christ, and then the soul turns to him by repentance, Jer. 3:22.
3. The scripture usually proposeth the objects of faith, and promises of grace, for motives to repentance; thereby discovering, that it is by a believing application of these, that a soul is brought to repentance: Jer. 3:14, "Turn, O backsliding children, saith the Lord, for I am married unto you." Ver. 22, "Return, ye backsliding children, and I will heal your backslidings: behold, we come unto thee, for thou art the Lord our God." Joel 2:12, 13, "Therefore also now, saith the Lord, Turn ye even to me with all your heart, and with fasting, and with weeping, and with mourning. And rend your heart and not your garments, and turn unto the Lord your God: for he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness, and repenteth him of the evil." Hos. 6:1, "Come and let us return unto the Lord: for he hath torn, and he will heal us; he hath smitten, and he will bind us up. Chap. 14:1, "O Israel, return unto the Lord thy God, for thou hast fallen by thine iniquity." Nay the very law proclaimed on mount Sinai with so much terror, is graciously prefaced with gospel-grace for faith to work on in the first place; "I am the Lord thy God," &c. And thus the doctrine of the New Testament concerning repentance is proposed to sinners, Matth. 3:2, and 4:17, "Repent ye: for the kingdom of heaven is at hand."
4. Lastly, The nature of repentance plainly teacheth this. It is a cordial turning from sin to God: but is it possible to turn to God, but through Christ? John 14:6, "I am the way, and the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me." And is there any way of coming to Christ, but by faith? The soul then that would turn and go to God again by repentance, must needs take Christ by faith, by the way. The people indeed wept; but did they put away the strange wives, or set to it, till Shechaniah cried, Ezra 10:2, "We have trespassed against our God, and have taken strange wives, of the people of the land: yet now there is hope in Israel concerning this thing?" They must not be only prisoners of fear, but of hope that will turn, Zech. 9:12, "Turn ye to the strong hold, ye prisoners of hope." Repentance is a kindly humiliation and mourning for sin; but the faithless heart may roar under law-horror, will never kindly mourn but under gospel-influences.
OBJECTION. Repentance is placed before faith
OBJECTION. Repentance is placed before faith, Mark 1:15; and sometimes repentance only is mentioned to natural men as the way to salvation, as in our text, and Acts 2:38, and 3:19. ANSWER, (1.) Repentance no doubt is absolutely necessary to salvation; and no man needs pretend to faith, that does not repent, for they are inseparable. But that will no more infer the precedency of repentance to faith, than that, Heb. 12:14, will infer the precedency of holiness to it. Now, this is all our text aims at. (2.) Repentance being the end, and faith the means to that end, no wonder they be so placed: for the end is first in one's intention, yet the means are first in practice. So Mark 1:15. Christ commands sinners to repent; but then in order to repenting, he commands them to believe. So Acts 2:38, believing is implied in the command to be baptized. And therefore, speaking of the result of this work, ver. 44, it is said, "And all that believed," &c. So Acts 3:19, it is implied in being converted; compared with Heb. 3:12, "Take heed, brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief, in departing from the living God," And that this is the true reason of this way of speaking, namely, that repentance is the end, and faith the means, is clear from Acts 20:21, "Testifying—repentance toward God, and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ:" for that Scripture can bear no other meaning, without destroying that fundamental truth, that Christ is the way to the Father. John preached repentance, Mark 1:4, but how did he direct them to it? Acts 19:4, "John verily baptized with the baptism of repentance, saying unto the people, that they should believe on him which should come after him, that is, on Christ Jesus."
USE 1. Then it is not gospel-doctrine, that Christ will receive none but true penitents, or that none but such have a warrant to embrace Christ by faith: Rev. 21:17, "And the Spirit and the bride say, Come. And let him that heareth say, Come. And let him that is athirst, come: and whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely." The evil of this doctrine is, that it sets sinners to spin repentance out of their own bowels, and to fetch it with them to Christ, instead of coming to him by faith to get it. And it hinders sensible sinners from coming to Christ, as keeping them back till they be persuaded that they have true repentance. I say, persuaded; for how can a sinner come to Christ till he be persuaded he has a warrant so to do? If Christ will receive none but such as have true repentance, then none other are invited to come; for surely those that are invited, will be welcome upon their coming: if none other be invited, then impenitent sinners are not bound to come to Christ; for none are bound to come, but those that are invited; "for where there is no law, there is no transgression." However, none are here in Christ by faith, but thereupon they become true penitents; and none but true penitents will see heaven.
2. Then for sensible sinners to think that they dare not and ought not to believe, and embrace Christ, till they be more deeply humbled, and do more thoroughly repent of their sins, and in a word, be more fit to receive him, is but a gilded deceit, and a trick of the false heart, to make the soul stay long in the place of the breaking forth of children, and die there at length. The Scripture holdeth forth quite other doctrine: Rev. 3:20. "Behold, I stand at the door, and knock; if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me." Is. 55:1. "Ho, every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters, and he that hath no money; come ye, buy and eat, yea, come, buy wine and milk without money, and without price." It is one thing what a sinner will do; another, what he may and ought to do. It is very true, there are many who will never come to Christ, if they be not made more sensible of their need of him than they are. But all that hear the gospel may and ought to come, be their case what it will; and those that come not, will be condemned for their not coming, John 3:19. Therefore let every sensible sinner under that temptation think, that he is in the case of a drowning man, who if he stand disputing whether he may catch hold of the rope reached to him to hale him to land, a wave may come and sweep him away; and therefore without disputing he must take hold of it.
3. This shews the true way to deal with a hard heart, to soften it, and bring it to hearty repentance. It is to believe. Ye must do like those fowls, that first fly up, and then come down on their prey; first soar aloft in the way of believing, and then come down in true humiliation: Zech. 12:10.—"They shall look upon me whom they have pierced, and they shall mourn for him." One may otherwise toil long in vain with a hard heart. Unbelief will lock up the heart, as the waters with a hard frost; for hard thoughts of God set the soul at a distance more and more from him, when the believing of the proclaimed pardon touches the rebels' hearts, and makes them come in.
4. Lastly, The more faith the more repentance; as the fuller the spring is, the streams run with the more vigorous current. According to your faith be it unto you, is the rule of the dispensation of grace. For faith is the provisor for all other graces, as being the conduit pipe by which grace comes from the fountain of grace to the soul; so that it failing, all fails; and it moving vigorously, the rest do so too.
QUESTION. How are we to act faith in order to repentance?
ANSWER 1. Firmly believe, that whatever your guilt be, God is reconciled to you in Christ Jesus; that there is hope of your case, if ye can attain to the way laid out for bettering it. You have God's word for this: Is. 1:18. "Come now, and let us reason together, saith the Lord: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool." Ezek. 18:23. "Have I any pleasure at all that the wicked should die? saith the Lord God: and not that he should return from his ways and live?" This will quicken your endeavours after the happiness of your souls. Satan strikes at this foundation, to keep the soul from repentance, many ways. He will tell you, it cannot be thought that God can ever love the like of you. But the Lord saith the contrary: Hos. 14:4. "I will heal their backsliding, I will love them freely: for mine anger is turned away from him." Again, Satan will tell you, that you were not elected, but made for destruction; though God never set him nor you in the secrets of his decrees: Deut. 29:29. "The secret things belong unto the Lord our God: but those things which are revealed belong unto us." But why does he tell you all this, but to make you careless? which being done, he knows you cannot repent.
2. Believe that Jesus Christ is both able and willing to save you from sin and from wrath. You have ground to believe his ability: 1 John 1:7. "The blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin." Heb. 7:25. "He is able to save them to the uttermost, that come unto God by him, seeing he ever liveth to make intercession for them." And you have also ground to believe his willingness: Is. 55:1. Rev. 22:17. both forecited. This will set you a step further on; and truly this being believed by a sensible sinner, the bargain is almost closed. Therefore Satan works against the tossed soul's believing this, to the end he may not come to an anchor or rest, but may plunge up and down in the depths, knowing no landing place. Hence these hellish suggestions, What have you to do with the promises of grace? they will be made out to others, but not to you. But see Acts 2:39. compared with ver. 36. Hence also the suggestion of having sinned the unpardonable sin. But why is that sin unpardonable? not that the physician cannot or will not cure it, Heb. 7:25. John 6:37; but because the sinner will never after desire to come to him, but willfully and maliciously rejects him. Hence also that suggestion, that Christ died not for him. But surely Satan never saw the roll of those whom Christ died for, and knows it no more than we, Deut. 29:29. forecited. We ought not to call that in question, but leave that matter to the Lord. It is plain, that we are commanded to believe, 1 John 3:23. Let us do so, and we shall have evidences that Christ died for us.
3. Christ has given his consent to be yours in his word; believe it; and do you consent to be his, accepting of the covenant, and of Christ therein to be your head and husband. Take him in all his offices as offered; and solemnly lay the whole weight of your soul, for justification and sanctification, on him. Lay over the burden of your guilt on his blood, of your raging lusts on his blood and Spirit; confidently trusting in him for salvation from sin and wrath. You have good ground to do this: Matt. 22:4, "All things are ready: come unto the marriage." Is. 26:3, 4, "Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is staid on thee; because he trusteth in thee. Trust ye in the Lord for ever: for in the Lord Jehovah is everlasting strength." Chap. 44:5, "One shall say, I am the Lord's: and another shall call himself by the name of Jacob: and another shall subscribe with his hand unto the Lord, and surname himself by the name of Israel." Chap. 45:24, "Surely, shall one say, in the Lord have I righteousness and strength." This being done, the bargain is closed for time and eternity; Christ is yours, and ye are his, and God is your God in him. Satan strives against the soul here; for he knows, that if this be done, the person is no more his. Hence are these suggestions, Christ is a hard master there is no living with; though Christ says the contrary, Matt. 11:28, 29, 30. Again, it is over soon for that serious work, Psal. 95. If none of these nor the like will do, then he will tell the person, that it is presumption for him to offer at any such thing. But that is but the devil's doctrine, that it is presumption to do it, since God has commanded it, 1 John 3:23, "This is his commandment, that we should believe on the name of his Son Jesus Christ." And do what ye will, ye cannot please God unless you do it, John 6:29, "This is the work of God, that ye believe on him whom he hath sent." Heb. 11:6, "Without faith it is impossible to please God." Well, if the soul will venture, he is ready to tell him, he had as good let it alone as try it in vain, for Christ will never receive him, nor give his consent to the bargain. But Satan is a liar; for he has given it already: Matt. 22:4, "All things are ready: come unto the marriage. Hos. 2:19, "I will betroth thee unto me for ever, yea, I will betroth thee unto me in righteousness, and in judgment, and in loving-kindness, and in mercies. The soul is like a traveller come to a deep water-side, over which lies a bridge appearing very thin and narrow; it is pouring on rain on this side, it is fair weather on the far side; he would fain be over; and while he is minting to take the bridge, a false friend tells him, that he will never get over, that the bridge will break with him, or that his foot will slip, &c. And thus the poor man stands, sometimes putting on his foot, sometimes drawing it back again, till the flood rising behind him, he sees he must venture or perish. So he ventures with a trembling heart, and gets safe over, and sees that it was an enemy that made him so distrustful of the passage.
4. This being done, believe that Christ is yours, Cant. 2:16; that God is reconciled to you in him; that your sins are pardoned for Christ's sake, and you are no more under condemnation for them, Rom. 8:1; that you are now in a state of peace with God, and safe under the covert of blood. This will effectually melt your hearts into sincere repentance. And the stronger your confidence be in this point, the fire will be the more keen to melt the soul. Satan will oppose you in this also, that raising the dust of doubts and fears, your hands may be feeble that should fight against your lusts, the legs weak and trembling wherewith ye should turn from sin unto God. But the more he weakens that, the more he serves his own purpose against you.
5. Stand upon this shore, and look to your sins, and Saviour, Zech 12:10. When a soul has, by a believing application of the blood of Christ, passed the gulf of condemnation and sees itself safe on the other side, it stands fairest for a hearty melting for sin, and a free and cordial turning from it unto God, Luke 7:37, 38, compared with ver. 47. It is slavish fear that may be greater before, but it is filial relenting that will be greatest then. The waters of sorrow may make greater noise before, but they will come sweeping down with a more full flood then, as when a hearty thaw comes after a long frost.
6. Lastly, Believing the promise of his grace, use the means. There are means of God's appointment to stir up a soul to repentance; namely, serious meditations on the sins of our nature, heart, lip, and life; the evil of it with respect to God, and to ourselves, &c. Rev. 2:5, "Remember from whence thou art fallen, and repent." Psal. 119:50, "I thought on my ways, and turned my feet unto thy testimonies." There are promises of repentance, Ezek. 36:31, "Then shall ye remember your own evil ways, and your doings that were not good, and shall loathe yourselves in your own sight, for your iniquities, and for your abominations." Acts 5:31, "Him hath God exalted with his right hand to be a Prince and a Saviour, for to give repentance to Israel, and forgiveness of sins." To believe the promise without use of the means is presumption; to use the means without believing the promise, is a selfish unsanctified work. What God has joined, either of these puts asunder, and so must be fruitless. God says to us in this case, as unto Moses, Exod. 17:5, 6. "Go on before the people, and take with thee of the elders of Israel: and thy rod wherewith thou smotest the river, take in thine hand, and go. Behold, I will stand before thee, there upon the rock in Horeb; and thou shalt smite the rock, and there shall come water out of it, that the people may drink." The means are as the rook, the faith of the promise the rod of God: the way to get the water was by smiting the rock with the rod.
FOURTHLY, Let as consider the parts of repentance. These are two, namely, humiliation for sin, and turning from sin unto God. These two put together, make up true repentance. Accordingly the Scripture speaks of repenting of sin, 2 Cor. 12:21. "which have not repented of the uncleanness," &c.; and likewise repenting from sin, Heb. 6:1, "Not laying aside the foundation of repentance from dead works, &c. So in the Old Testament repentance is expressed by two words; the one denoting remorse and sorrow, Job 42:6. "Wherefore I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes." Jer. 8:6, "No man repented him of his wickedness, saying, What have I done?" the other denoting the turning of the soul, viz. from sin unto God, Ezek. 18:30. "Repent, and turn yourselves from all your transgressions.
But however these may be distinguished, they cannot be divided in true repentance. The true humiliation issues always in turning; and turning always begins at humiliation. Hence very often the whole of repentance is expressed by returning, and sometimes by humiliation, as Lev. 26:41, "If then their uncircumcised hearts be humbled, and they then accept of the punishment of their iniquity." 2 Chron. 33:12, "And when he was in affliction, he be-sought the Lord his God, and humbled himself greatly before the God of his fathers." We have both together, Joel 2:12, 13, "Therefore also now, saith the Lord, Turn ye even to me with all your heart, and with fasting, and with weeping, and with mourning. And rend your heart and not your garments, and turn unto the Lord your God: for he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness, and repenteth him of the evil."
1st, To begin with humiliation. This leads the van in the sinner's return to God by repentance. There is never a soul comes back to God, but it comes the low way of humiliation. The sinner gone from God, is set up against him: but grace puts down the sinner from that seat, and lays him down at the Lord's footstool, where the Lord takes him up: 1 Pet. 5:6. "Humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God, that he may exalt you in due time." As it was with Benhadad's servants, 1 Kings 20:31. 32; so it is with the convinced sinner: faith teaches them, that the King of Israel is a merciful King; repentance girds sackcloth on their loins, and ropes on their heads, and in that posture brings them to him. Now, in this humiliation of the soul there are these five things.
First, A kindly sense of sin, whereby the soul sees and is deeply affected with its sins against a holy, gracious God. I call it so, to distinguish it from the legal convictions spoken of before, which make a terrible reel in the conscience and affections; whereas this kindly soaks into the heart. The former is at the bottom involuntary, comes in, and is kept on against the sinner's will; because the natural enmity of the heart against God is not broken; and makes the man like one under great pain, who would gladly sleep, but still the new stounds awake him, and keep him awake. The latter is voluntary, it is welcome in, and welcome to stay; because the heart is brought low, and would fain be lower before a holy God. When the light appears at a chink, they would fain draw the curtains, and open the windows, that they may get a better sight of their black face and foul hands, Jer. 3:18, 19. This sense of sin,
1. For the matter of it, is,
1st, A sense of the plague of the heart, or sin of the nature, 1 Kings 8:38; Rom. 7:7, 8. The man that is humbled, sees the corruption of his nature, himself to be a mass of corruption and confusion. He discerns the bias of his heart to the wrong side, the aversion to do good, the proneness to evil, that is interwoven with his very nature. The light of the Lord shining into his soul, gives him the affecting sight of the distortion and pravity that is in all the faculties of his soul, the blindness in his mind, rebellion in his will, and carnality in his affections. The want of this is a flaw in the repentance of many, of whom we may say, as Lev. 13:44, "He is a leprous man, he is unclean: the priest shall pronounce him utterly unclean, his plague is in his head." They never see the corruption of their nature, and so repent not of it.
2dly, A sense of actual sins: Job 36:9, "Then he sheweth them their work, and their transgressions that they have exceeded." These are the poisonous streams flowing from the impoisoned fountain: Mark 7:21, 22, "For from within, out of the heart of men, proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders, thefts, covetousness, wickedness, deceit, lasciviousness, an evil eye, blasphemy, pride, foolishness." Sin now lies at the door; for those things that were buried out of sight, have a resurrection, and stand before him as an exceeding great army which he has mustered against Heaven. Sins committed many years before, will appear more fresh and green than that day they were committed. What he justified before as no faults, he will be now ashamed of; and what were reckoned tolerable follies, will be accounted monstrous impieties.
3dly, A sense of the particular idol of jealousy, which the man has been most apt to be led away with. The soul is never truly humbled, till deeply sensible of its weak side: Hos. 14:3, "Ashur shall not save us, we will not ride upon horses, neither will we say any more to the work of our hands, Ye are our gods." For the penitent will be particularly set against that, as what is particularly offensive to God, Psal. 18:22. This right eye smarts and pains him so exceedingly, that now he would gladly have it plucked out. And as it does especially grieve the Lord's Spirit, it specially grieves his, as what has been the great make-bate betwixt God and him.
4thly, A sense of the numerousness and multitude of their sins; Job 13:23, "How many are mine iniquities and sins? make me to know my transgression and my sin." A true sense of sin will open men's eyes to see innumerable evils compassing them about, countable only by him who telleth the stars, Psal. 19:12. Hence the humbled soul is sensible of a cloud of guilt that it has been wrapt up in; and will see it must plead guilty to every line of the spiritual law: sees itself a mass of iniquity; "from the crown of the head to the sole of the foot, there is no soundness, but wounds, and bruises, and putrifying sores." Is. 64:6, "We are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags," &c.
5thly, A sense of the heinousness of their sins, the aggravating circumstances wherewith they have been attended: Luke 15:18, "I will arise, and go to my father, and will say unto him, Father, I have sinned against heaven, and before thee." Each sin pierces the heart of the penitent. And so it is wonderful to see what a dexterity a repenting sinner has in aggravating his sins, in his prayers and complaints. Time, place, person, and each circumstance, shoots as it were a dart through the liver.
Lastly, A sense of the evil of sin. Men may see sin, that see not the evil of it. Hence professing sin, instead of confessing it; turning to it, instead of turning from it. But if one saw the serpent's sting, he would not take it into his bosom, Luke 23:34. But the Lord's language to the soul whom he is drawing to repentance, is that, Jer. 2:19, "Thine own wickedness shall correct thee, and thy backsliding shall reprove thee: know therefore and see, that it is an evil thing and bitter, that thou hast forsaken the Lord thy God, and that my fear is not in thee, saith the Lord God of hosts." And there is a twofold evil in sin, which the soul is now sensible of.
(1.) The evil of it with respect to themselves. They are sensible of the bitter fruits of sin: Rom. 6:21, "What fruit had ye then in those things, whereof ye are now ashamed? for the end of those things is death." They see now "the vine is the vine of Sodom, the grapes are grapes of gall, the clusters bitter, and their teeth are set on edge." They cry out, as the sons of the prophets in another case, 2 Kings 4:40, "O thou man of God, there is death in the pot." This is the danger of sin, that they are made sensible of. They see the guilt of it, laying the soul open to temporal, spiritual, and eternal strokes: Jer. 14:7, "O Lord, though our iniquities testify against us, do thou it for thy name's sake: for our backslidings are many, we have sinned against thee." Hence "horror takes hold on them, because of God's righteous judgments." They are made to wonder that they are not in hell, drinking the cup of the wrath of God. Their hearts tremble to look back on the ruin that was hanging over their heads in their natural state; that the poisonous cup which they drank has not despatched them. Hence they fear to meddle with sin again, as one would do to take a serpent into his bosom.
(2.) The evil of it with respect to God and Christ; and that in a threefold respect. [1.] As contrary to the holy law of God: 1 John 3:4, "Whosoever committeth sin transgresseth also the law: for sin is the transgression of the law." By sin one breaks over the hedge, yea, breaks it down, and so steps into the devil's ground; what wonder then a serpent do bite him! Now the sinner sees the equity of God's law, and so plainly perceives the evil of transgression: Rom. 7:12, "The law is holy; and the commandment holy, and just, and good." And the breaking over this so glorious a hedge, galls the penitent heart, the ingenuous spirit of an evangelical penitent.
[2.] As contrary to the holy nature of God: Hab. 1:13, "Thou art of purer eyes than to behold evil, and canst not look on iniquity." Sin is the worst of evils in itself, and in the eyes of the penitent. There is nothing so contrary to the chief good, and therefore it is the chief evil. Now, the true penitent loves God, his holy nature and perfections; and therefore his sin is heavy to him, because by it he has walked contrary to him: Lam. 5:16, "Woe unto us that we have sinned."
[3.] As the procuring cause of the sufferings of Christ: Zech. 12:10, "They shall look upon me whom they have pierced, and they shall mourn for him," &c. Mount Calvary is the Bochim to the true penitent; the sufferings of Christ are the commentaries on sin, which the true penitent reads; the groans of a dying Saviour rend their hearts; and by the wounds of a Redeemer they see the ill of sin.
This is the loathsomeness of sin, Is. 30:22; whereby it is not only hated for what attends it, but is abhorred for itself, as a thing which on no terms the soul could any longer digest.
2. For the qualities of it. It is,
1st, A particular and distinct sense of sin, not a general and confused one. No man that hears the gospel, having common understanding, but he confesses himself a sinner; but many nevertheless are blind as to particulars. But this puts one in a capacity to lay his hands on his sores, saying, as Psal. 51:4, "Against thee, thee only have I sinned, and done this evil in thy sight." It shews him his particular transgressions wherein he has exceeded, and the particular ills by which he has exceeded and offended in these. As the vermin appear crawling, when the stone is lifted up, which before lay hid; so the ills of the heart and life appear to the penitent: Rom. 7:9, "I was alive without the law once: but when the commandment came, sin revived, and I died."
2dly, It is real, not imaginary. The Spirit of the Lord realizeth the evil of sin to the soul. And so it goes beyond a merely rational knowledge of sin, as far as the sense of the bitterness of gall got by tasting it, exceeds that got by the bare hearing of it: Jer. 2:19, "Thine own wickedness shall correct thee, and thy backslidings shall reprove thee: know therefore and see, that it is an evil thing and bitter, that thou hast forsaken the Lord thy God, and that my fear is not in thee, saith the Lord God of hosts." There is a spiritual sensation of spiritual things, arising from the new nature, as well as a natural feeling of what is grievous to us another way: 1 Cor. 2:14, 15, "The natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God; for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned. But he that is spiritual judgeth all things."
3dly, It is operative, not dead and idle. The eye of the penitent affects his heart; and the heart being touched, sets all the powers of the soul on work. It is the spiritual physic, that ceaseth not to work till the whole soul be purged; as in the case of Peter's hearers, Acts 2:37, "who were pricked in their heart, and said unto Peter, and to the rest of the apostles, Men and brethren, what shall we do?" There is a sense of sin which vents itself in nothing but in sighing and going backward, or in dry and fruitless complaints. It is like the disturbance which the sluggard meets with on his bed, which never thoroughly awakens him. But this sense of sin is thorough work.
Lastly, It is an abiding sense of sin, not a transient one in a fit, and so away, Lam. 3:49, 50, "Mine eye trickleth down, and ceaseth not, without any intermission; till the Lord look down, and behold from heaven." The humbled soul carries it about with him, as long as he carries the body of sin and death about with him, saying with the apostle, Rom. 7:24, "O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?" For it is not a slight touch, which goes as it comes, very easily. The removal of the stroke carries off Pharaoh's sense of sin; but here the wound is deeper and so more abiding.
USE 1. An insensible sinner is an unhumbled impenitent sinner; as was the case of the church of Laodicea, who said, "she was rich, and increased with goods, and had need of nothing; and knew not that she was wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked, Rev. 3:17. They that never digged deep, are not built on the rock. They that have never got a broad sight of themselves in the sinfulness of their hearts and lives, have never yet got a believing sight of Christ. Consider this, ye that have still lived at ease, strangers to any thorough exercise about your soul's case; though the door is shut, the thief is in the house.
1. This shews how it comes that the pride of people's hearts still remains, though under crying guilt of sin. Though they know their sin, they have no due sense of it. If they had, it would be such a burden on their backs as would soon make them stoop, as Peter's hearers did, Acts 2:37. Insensible sinners may sit high in the seat of the scornful, while they see not what a God they have to do with: but when the Spirit of the Lord opens their eyes, and touches their hearts, to let them see and feel the evil of sin, they will lie low in the dust. They will, with the afflicted man, "put their mouth in the dust, if so be there may be hope," Lam. 3:29.
3. See here a difference betwixt the saint's humiliation, and that of the hypocrite's. An Ahab may humble himself from a sense of the danger of sin; but a true penitent is humbled from the sense of the loathsomness of sin, 1 Kings 21:27, 29. Job 42:5, 6. A slave may bow himself for fear of the whip; but the disposition of a son is to be affected with the offence done to a kind father. Many will seem very low under the rod of God, and the apprehensions of his wrath, who are never touched with his love. They will be cast down under the sense of the evil their sin does to themselves, while the dishonour done to God by it lies far from their hearts.
4. Lastly, Let me exhort you to get and entertain a deep sense of sin on your Spirits. See your sins, and be duly affected with them, and be humbled for them. O how sad is it, that amongst our many thoughts, sin gets so few of them!
For motives to press this exhortation, consider,
1st, That the Lord is anew calling the land by his providence to be sensible of their sins, and to be humbled for them. The Lord took it not long ago as a brand out of the burning; but he is threatening to cast it into the fire again, by a foreign invasion. For though we were delivered, yet the controversy remains still. We have not been thankful for our deliverance; Atheism, profanity, formality, contempt of the gospel, and a spirit of apostacy and declining from the Lord, and his work and way, wofully abound. How can we miss to fall at length!
2dly, Consider the present dispensation of providence towards this congregation, threatening to leave our house desolate. It fills the mouths of many with what is little worth; would to God it might fill your hearts and mine with a serious inquiry into the causes of it before the Lord. It speaks aloud, O that we were taking up the language of the threatening rod. The melancholy state of this congregation, in the time of the last desolation, needs not be forgot. It would become us all very well on this occasion, to consider what a jealous God we have to do with, and what entertainment has been given to the preached gospel; to lay our hands every one on our own mouths, and consider well what we have contributed to the bringing of the matter to this pass. By taking with our sin, and humbling ourselves befor the Lord, way might be made for the acceptance of prayer through Jesus Christ; and them that humble themselves God will exalt.
3dly, Consider, that however lightly your sins may sit on your spirits, they are a burden to the holy Spirit of God: Amos 2:13. "Behold," says the Lord, "I am pressed under you, as a cart is pressed that is full of sheaves." And we may be sure the Lord will ease himself of that burden sooner or later. And if it be not by our repentance and humiliation, it will be by his accomplishing his wrath on us: Is. 1:24. "Ah, I will ease me of mine adversaries, and avenge me of mine enemies." Therefore consider your ways in order to a returning to the Lord. The lighter that sin sits on us, it is the more grieving to the Spirit of the Lord.
Lastly, Consider, that without sense of sin there is no humiliation; that without humiliation there can be no repentance; and that without repentance there can be no escape from the wrath of God. "For except ye repent, ye shall perish." Insensibleness of sin, and the evil of it, locks up the heart in obduration and impenitency; and that will shut up the soul under wrath. But God loves the sensible humbled son: Jer. 31:20. "Is Ephraim my dear son? is he a pleasant child? for since I spake against him, I do earnestly remember him still: therefore my bowels are troubled for him; I will surely have mercy upon him, saith the Lord."
Secondly, In true humiliation there is a kindly sorrow for sin: Zech. 12:10, "I will pour upon the house of David, and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the spirit of grace and of supplications; and they shall look upon me whom they have pierced, and they shall mourn for him as one mourneth for his only son, and shall be in bitterness for him, as one that is in bitterness for his first-born." The soul is not only filled with remorse, but true grief, for offending a holy, gracious God. He grieved the Spirit in committing sin, his spirit is grieved in repenting of it. The hard heart is broken, the adamantine heart dissolved into tears of godly sorrow, the rook is struck by the rod of the gospel, and the waters gush out. The way to Zion lies through the valley of Baca: Jer. 50:4, 5, "In those days, and in that time, saith the Lord, the children of Israel shall come, they and the children of Judah together, going and weeping: they shall go, and seek the Lord their God. They shall ask the way to Zion with their faces thitherward, saying, Come, and let us join ourselves to the Lord, in a perpetual covenant that shall not be forgotten." And it is the mourners for sin whom the Lord comforts with the consolations of his Spirit. This is that brokenness and contrition of heart, which God calls for, and takes so much pleasure in. This is the rending of the heart, which God requires, Joel 2:12, 13. This is godly sorrow, which hath these properties.
1. It is a sorrow for sin as sin; not only for the guilt of it, but the loathsomeness of it; not only for the ill it does to ourselves, but the dishonour and wrong it does to a holy gracious God, Psal. 51:4; Zech. 12:10. The penitent in his sorrow, goes farther than awakened reprobates, who seeing their souls ruined and dead, do put on their mournings. He grieves at the heart, because of the offence done to God, the defacing of his image, transgressing a holy and most just law, furnishing a spear and nails to pierce a Saviour.
2. It is an inward real sorrow. Not the hanging down of the head like a bulrush, Is. 58:5. Not a made sorrow in a disfigured countenance, which lies all in outward appearance. But it is a sorrow soaking into the soul, and piercing the very heart, Is. 61:3. And therefore it follows the man in secret, where no eye sees; making him mourn before the Lord, when the world knows nothing of it. For it ariseth from an inward principle.
3. It is a lively sorrow. The sorrow of the world worketh death. It stupifies a man, and takes heart and hand for duty from him. But the spiritual pangs of godly sorrow for sin quicken a man to his duty: 2 Cor. 7:11, "For behold, this self-same thing that ye sorrowed after a godly sort, what carefulness it wrought in you, yea, what clearing of yourselves, yea, what indignation, yea, what fear, yea, what vehement desire, yea, what zeal, yea, what revenge!" It makes the man active in salvation-work. And the reason is, the one springs from slavish fear, which chills the soul, making it cold and stiff, and unfit for action; the other from love, which warms the heart, and disposeth it for action: Luke 7:47, "Her sins which are many, are forgiven: for she loved much."
4. It is an abiding sorrow. It is not a flash of an affection, which is deceitful, but a "spirit of heaviness," Is. 61:3. The sorrows of many are like a summer-shower, that wets the surface of the ground, but is presently dried up, ere it do any good. But godly sorrow is like that, Eccl. 7:3, "Sorrow is better than laughter: for by the sadness of the countenance the heart is made better." The soul, like Mary, mourns till it find the Lord, Lam. 3:49, 50. forecited. It may indeed remit of its degrees; but while sin abides, the spring of mourning abides too.
5. It is an universal sorrow. The true penitent heartily grieves for his own sin, Psal. 38:18, and for the sin of others, Psal. 119:136. It is like the letting out of waters: it may begin at one sin, but it does not stop there, but goes through all known sin, Psal. 1:5. and unknown too, Psal. 19:12, "Who can understand his errors? cleanse thou me from secret faults." They never truly mourn for one sin, that do not mourn for all: for that which moves sorrow in the repenting heart for one sin, is to be found in all sins, namely, its contrariety to the law and nature of God, the loathsomeness as well as danger of it. And hence, when once the floodgate of godly sorrow is opened, it overflows all; and the sweetest morsel becomes bitter.
6. It is deep sorrow. Peter repenting wept bitterly. He that would have a good crop, ploughs well; and he that would build surely, goes deep with the foundation. It was the want of depth of earth that was the ruin of the stony-ground hearers, Matt. 13:5. And deep digging was the safety of the house founded on a rock, Luke 6:48. This sorrow is a rending of the heart, Joel 2:13; a rending of it as the plough rends the earth, Jer. 4:3; a pricking and piercing of it as with daggers, swords, and spears, Acts 2:37, compared with John 19:34; a cutting it as with a knife, Jer. 4:4.
It is a question, Whether penitential sorrow exceeds all other sorrows for the comforts of this life, or not? If we measure by the moving of the heart and affections, it is evident, that at least always it doth not exceed other sorrows. But if we measure by the settled disposition of the heart, it is as evident that it does exceed them all. As the deepest waters ordinarily make least noise, so men will be more moved in a lesser joy and grief than in a greater; for they are but the lightest joys that move laughter, and oft-times the greatest sorrows are above tears. It settles more firmly, and continues more than any other sorrow whatsoever in the world.
7. Lastly, It is a heart purifying sorrow. It works repentance or forsaking of sin: 2 Cor. 7:10. "Godly sorrow worketh repentance to salvation, not to be repented of." True mourning and turning are inseparable companions; though there is a mourning for sin, that is not deep enough to turn up the love of sin by the root. True sorrow in the heart is a spring, which as it runneth will work out sin, as to the love, habitual practice, and dominion of it, as a spring works out the mud thrown into it.
USE. 1. There is no repenting with a hale heart, and without repentance no salvation. People must either be broken for their sins in a way of mourning, or God will break them for them in a way of judgment. There are many stout hearts in our day, that will boldly outface challenges from the word and their own consciences, without either breaking or bowing. But let such remember, that there is a day coming when God will make the stoutest heart to tremble, and the heart of adamant to fly in a thousand pieces, Psal. 2:9. "Thou shalt break them with a rod of iron, thou shalt dash them in pieces like a potter's vessel."
2. How far must they be from humiliation, that sin deliberately, glory in their shame, and rejoice in ungodly courses and practices! I think providences and ordinances are hardening to many in our day; they are not bettered by them, and therefore they are hardened and made worse under them. Our penny weddings and set drinkings, leaving such a stench behind them, and attended with before unheard of profanity, are speaking evidences of this. Are these Christian methods to help poor people? Will God accept the gift, where such a fat sacrifice is offered to the devil? Is that charity for which drinking must open men's hearts and hands to give? If some methods be not fallen on to prevent these things, they will bring wrath on the congregation. I appeal to the consciences of all sober persons, if it looked not judgment-like, that in that very time when abroad a design was managing to lay the congregation desolate, at home many were met for a set drinking, carried on to a monstrous height of profanity, in the day and in the night. It becomes us all to mourn for this, lest we involve ourselves in the guilt. And particularly I warn all such as were any way partakers of that scandalous riot, to repent, lest wrath break out upon them. For it is a fearful thing to stand exposed to the lash of these threatenings, Hab. 2:15, "Woe unto him that giveth his neighbour drink: that puttest thy bottle to him, and makest him drunken also, that thou mayest look on their nakedness." Is. 22:12, 13, 14, "And in that day did the Lord of hosts call to weeping, and to mourning, and to baldness, and to girding with sackcloth: and behold, joy and gladness, slaying oxen, and killing sheep, eating flesh, and drinking wine; let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we shall die. And it was revealed in mine ears by the Lord of hosts, surely this iniquity shall not be purged from you, till ye die, saith the Lord God of hosts."
3. The sorrow of many for their sins, will tend to no good account before the Lord. Few have any remarkable sorrow for their sins at all; but amongst those whose hearts are really grieved and pained for their sin, how few are there that have any right sorrow? The danger of it, the disadvantage by it, the shame of it before the world, pains them a little; but the dishonour done to God by it touches them not effectually. And so their sorrow will be but the beginning of hell, not of repentance.
4. Lastly, Be exhorted to mourn for sin. Labour to get your hearts affected with this mournful object, and be not strangers to this exercise. The sins and threatened judgments of this day call for it; and it is the way to attain particular safety in common calamity: Ezek. 9:4, "And the Lord said unto him, Go through the midst of the city, through the midst of Jerusalem, and set a mark upon the foreheads of the men that sigh, and that cry for all the abominations that be done in the midst thereof." If we were more in the duty of mourning, we would share more of the gospel-comforts, Matt. 5:4, "Blessed are they that mourn: for they shall be comforted." And the more of the Spirit one has, the more will he be taken up that way.
Thirdly, In true humiliation there is a holy shame upon the account of sin before the Lord: Rom. 6:21, "What fruit had ye in those things, whereof ye are now ashamed? for the end of those things is death." The remembrance of sin fills the penitent with shame and blushing: hence says Ezra, chap. 9:6, "O my God, I am ashamed and blush to lift up my face to thee, my God: for our iniquities are increased over our head, and our trespass is grown up unto the heavens." Shame was never known in the world, till sin entered; yet sometimes sin comes to such a height with sinners, that it quite banishes shame: but the case of such is very desperate, Jer. 3:9. "Thou hadst a whore's forehead, thou refusedst to be ashamed." Shame then is the remains of virtue in a sinner, to which whoso are lost, all are lost to all good, Is. 3:9. "The shew of their countenance doth witness against them, and they declare their sin as Sodom, they hide it not." Now, the grace of God awakens this shame, and sanctifies it in the penitent soul, so that he hangs down his head before the Lord, as ashamed of his way and heart.
There are four things occasion shame, and meet here.
1. Nakedness causeth shame. Hence said Adam to the Lord, Gen. 3:10, "I heard thy voice in the garden: and I was afraid, because I was naked; and I hid myself." Sin strips the sinners of their beautiful garments, takes away the glory of the rational creature, and leaves them without a covering before the eyes of a holy God. The penitent sees this, and is ashamed; and so the publican, cannot lift up his eyes to heaven, but smites on his breast, as if he would wound the breast that sin bred in, which has brought him to this shamful case.
2. Pollution and defilement, for that makes one loathsome to others, Job 9:31, "Thou shalt plunge me in the ditch, and mine own clothes shall abhor me." Sin defiles the soul, takes away and mars all its beauty, and deforms it in the sight of God. And the penitent sees this, and is ashamed, Is. 64:6, "We are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags, and we all do fade as a leaf, and our iniquities, like the wind, have taken us away." Never was a man that had been plunged over head and ears in a mire, more ashamed to come before others in that case, than the penitent is ashamed to shew his face before God.
3. Disappointment of raised expectations, Jer. 2:36, 37. The sinner in his impenitent state, looked for his happiness and satisfaction in sinful courses. But when his heart is touched, he is ashamed; for he finds, that instead of bread expected, he has got a stone; instead of fish, a serpent. He finds, that he has been courting his own death and ruin; and that from the wall he leaned on there has come forth a serpent and bit him. And hence is that reflection, Rom. 6:21, "What fruit had ye in those things, whereof ye are now ashamed? for the end of those things is death.
4. Discovering of one's reproach, Jer. 2:26, "Sin is a reproach to any people." In the impenitent state the soul's reproach is hid to it; but when grace touches the heart, and the Lord brings the sinner's ways to mind, lays his sins in broad-band before him, how can he miss to be ashamed? In a special manner, a conviction of base ingratitude fills one with shame, as to be convicted of designs against him who had saved our life. And thus the goodness of God duly considered, fills the penitent with shame and blushing, while he thinks what an ungrateful wretch he has been: Jer. 3:25, "We lie down in our shame, and our confusion covereth us: for we have sinned against the Lord our God, we and our fathers from our youth even unto this day, and have not obeyed the voice of the Lord our God.
USE. 1. Shamelessness in sin is a badge of impenitency, and therefore a forerunner of destruction, Jer. 6:15. Phil. 3:10. A forehead of brass is a sign the heart is of stone. Impudence in sin argues a filthy heart, an obstinate disposition, and a seared conscience. And such are a stage beyond others from the kingdom of God. What hopes can they have of the glory of heaven, that glory in their shame?
2. We see then that sin will bring shame sooner or later, here or hereafter. As for them that live and die without repentance, their shame is sure, and they will be covered with it, before the great congregation of heaven and earth at the last day, and they shall never recover their countenance: Dan. 12:2, "Many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to shame and everlasting contempt." And if people be recovered by repentance, they will be filled with shame before the Lord, even holy shame. But whatever shame men have, it is no holy shame that keeps them from glorifying God by taking shame to themselves when called thereto; for no grace of God keeps folk back from duty, Josh. 7:19. Common discretion teaches, that one ashamed of an injury done to the honour of another, cannot look him in the face but with shame, till he has done what he can to repair that honour.
3. Lastly, The penitent soul is an ingenuous soul, and heartily at odds with sin. For such an one will be ashamed before God, of what the world cannot tax him with. Many may be sorry for sin before God, because of the terrible consequences of it which they apprehend, who yet are not ashamed before him, because they see not the evil that is in itself. But it argues a child-like disposition, to be heartily ashamed of secret sins before the Lord.
Fourthly, In true humiliation there is self-loathing and abhorrence: Ezek. 36:31, "Then shall ye remember your own evil ways, and your doings that were not good, and shall loathe yourselves in your own sight, for your iniquities, and for your abominations." The penitent not only loathes his sin, but himself for his sin. He cries out with Job, chap. 40:4, "Behold I am vile, what shall I answer thee? I will lay mine hand upon my mouth." Repentance sets a man at variance with himself. He sees his ugly face in the glass of God's law, Christ's sufferings, and the Lord's goodness, and he loathes himself. This self-loathing manifests itself,
1. In the low and mean thoughts the penitent justly entertains of himself. True penitents see such vileness in themselves, as makes them give a very mean account of themselves. Abraham owned himself to be dust and ashes; Jacob, less than all the mercies of God; David, a worm, and not a man; Asaph, as a beast before the Lord; Agur, more brutish than any; the centurion, unworthy that Christ should come under his roof: Paul, one born out of due time, the least of the apostles, nay, less than the least of all saints, nay, the chief of sinners; and the prodigal son, Luke 15:19, reckoned himself no more worthy to be called a son, but to be made a hired servant.
2. In the penitent's being heartily out with himself upon the account of his sin: Job 42:6, "Wherefore I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes." As one cannot with any pleasure touch himself, that has filth thrown on him, but his very heart stands at himself; so it is in spiritual self-loathing. He looks on himself as an ugly spectacle. He not only has nothing to say in defence of himself, but with indignation he rejects all the shifts and excuses for it, which he was satisfied with before: Luke 18:13. "The publican standing afar off, would not lift up so much as his eyes unto heaven, but smote upon his breast, saying, God be merciful to me a sinner."
3. In holy revenge, 2 Cor. 7:11. He that was going on in sin before, is now divided against himself; so that the devil's kingdom of sin in him must needs go to ruin. He acts the part of an accuser, advocate, and judge, against himself; yea in some sort lashes himself for his sinful heart and life. Hence we find the humbled sinner,
1st, Smiting on his breast, Luke 18:13, as it were thereby declaring, that he deserves to be struck at the heart, and die for his transgression; that within him is the cause of all his sin and sorrows, he may thank himself for all; the source and spring of all is the corrupt heart.
2dly, Smiting on his thigh, Jer. 31:19, as if he would thereby declare, that he would be willing to take vengeance on the feet that carried him out of the way of God; that he is filled with indignation against himself, for his unaccountable practices, saying, What have I done? what a wretched sinner have I been?
There are these five things that stir up this self-loathing especially, in the penitent soul.
(1.) The remarkable blots, and signal miscarriages in his way, that deeply wound and defile the conscience: like Peter's denying his Master, which made him weep bitterly, when he came to himself. These in a peculiar manner cover the soul with confusion, and fill it with self-abhorrence. And hence sometimes repentance begins at some such thing, from whence it spreads to the whole body of sin: Acts 2:36, 37, "Let all the house of Israel know assuredly, that God hath made that same Jesus whom ye have crucified, both Lord and Christ. Now when they heard this, they were pricked in their heart, and said, Men and brethren, what shall we do?"
(2.) The fulness of sin seen in the soul: Is. 64:6, "We are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags." The penitent being made sensible of his soul's case, sees the leprosy spread over the whole man, his mind under much darkness, his will rebellious against the will of God, his affections disordered, his whole nature corrupted, the seed of every sin in it; so that he concludes, that his heart is full of iniquity, and that the lusts that are hatched there, their name may be Legion. His life is a loathsome spectacle of the outbreakings and workings of that corruption. So that he sees that "from the sole of the foot to the crown of the head there is no soundness; and therefore he loathes himself."
(3.) The pollution cleaving to his duties: Is. 64:6. forecited. While he sees how the running sore of his natural corruption drops on all his holy things, and defiles them, how can he choose but loath himself? He sees his best works are like a moth-eaten garment, full of holes; never a prayer, nor confession made, but there are provocations against the Lord in them. His mournings for sin must be mourned over, because of the woful defects thereof; while he goes to mend one hole, still he is sure to strike out another. Thus the penitent is in his own eyes like Job, who had not whole fingers to dress his sores with; so he abhors himself.
(4.) The aggravations of sin, Luke 15:18. A sight of these makes sin look like an opened stinking sore, wherein each of them contributes to make it more and more loathsome. When the penitent considers with what bent of affection he has sinned, the light, the many mercies, vows, and resolutions, &c. he has sinned against, he cannot but loath himself as a wretched self-destroyer, as an ungrateful miscreant, and as a beast before the Lord.
(5.) Instability in any thing that is good: Hos. 6:4, "Your goodness is as a morning cloud, and as the early due it goeth away." Wavering hearts, and wavering hands, are very humbling to a soul truly touched. A good frame is a rare hour, and stays but a short while. How often are resolutions fairly taken up, and begin to bud in endeavours for practice, that yet are quickly let fall again? How often do men relapse into the same sins they have sometimes had made very bitter to them? There is nothing more apt than this to stir up self-abhorrence.
USE 1. Self-conceit is a need-nail to a state of impenitency: Rev. 3:17, "Thou [the church of Laodicea] sayest, I am rich, and increased with goods, and have need of nothing; and knowest not that thou art wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked." No repentance can be where there is no humiliation, and there can be no humiliation while people are puffed up with a conceit of themselves. Publicans and harlots will enter into the kingdom of heaven, before such self-conceited professors. Whenever the Spirit of the Lord takes a dealing with such persons, and discovers to them the signal miscarriages in their life, the fulness of sin, &c. that swelling conceit of sweet self will fall away, as ever the snow melts in a sunshine day. They that look on themselves as among the chief of saints, will see themselves the chief of sinners.
2. Look into yourselves, if ye would loathe yourselves and repent. Hence said Isaiah, chap. 6:5, "Wo is me, for I am undone, because I am a man of unclean lips." Things may be going all wrong in the house, and the master not know it, while he is a stranger at home. Many a poor soul is pining away in its iniquity, and running with loathsome spiritual sores, threatening its ruin, while in the mean-time they are mightily in love with themselves, and fond of their own condition, like a miserable man that is happy in a dream. But heavy will the awakening of such be.
3. Lastly, Sin must needs be a very loathsome thing in the eyes of a penitent, since it makes him loath himself. Alas! many times we love that in ourselves, which we loath in others. But when one loathes himself for his sin against a holy, gracious God, it is an argument that that soul is heartily out with sin.
Fifthly, and Lastly, In true humiliation there is a penitent confession of sin. Hence is that exhortation, Jer. 3:13, "Only acknowledge thine iniquity, that thou hast transgressed against the Lord thy God," &c. This is the way that penitent sinners have always sought pardon and ease to their consciences in: Psal. 32:5, "I acknowledged my sin unto thee, and mine iniquity have I not hid: I said, I will confess my transgressions unto the Lord; and thou forgavest the iniquity of my sin." Confession of sin is the vomit of sin, whereby the sweet morsel is cast up again; and it is the vent of real sorrow, shame, and self-abhorrence. And when the heart is loosed to it, the man becomes like the fish that is boiled in the water which it swimmed in.
This confession is to be according to the nature of the offence. If the sin be a secret one, a confession to God in secret is sufficient. If it be a private offence, the confession is to be so too: Jam. 5:16, "Confess your faults one to another." If it be a public offence, giving public scandal, the confession is to be public also: 1 Tim. 5:20, "Them that sin rebuke before all, that others also may fear." So penitent David left his confession on record, for the church's edification. And so did the apostle Paul, 1 Tim. 1:13. And the reason is evident, since by sin God's honour is impaired, and we can repair it no other way, but by confessing it with sorrow, shame, &c. the confession must be according to the nature of the offence, else the wrong done to the honour of God is not repaired by it. And in the private and public confession God is our party, and not men only, as well as in the secret one.
Now, confession is a necessary part of humiliation. If the hard heart be loosed to be truly humblied for sin, it follows of course, that the tongue will be loosed to confess it. Hence confession is put for the whole of humiliation, yea of repentance, Hos. 5:15, "I will go and return to my place, till they acknowledge their offence." 1 John 1:9. "If we confess our sins, he is faithful, and just to forgive our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness." Confession of sin hath two parts.
1. Self-accusing. God has given a law, the sinner has broke it; the penitent confesseth his transgression with shame and sorrow, to the honour of the lawgiver. He cannot hide it, he dares not deny it; his soul is humbled, and therefore he confesseth it: Psal. 51:3. "I acknowledge my transgressions: and my sin is ever before me." He approves of the law as holy, just, and good, and disapproves of the transgression. Thus the morsel that was sweet in the mouth, turning bitter in the belly is vomited up.
2. Self-condemning. Hence said the returning prodigal, Luke 15:18, 19. "Father, I have sinned against heaven, and before thee, and am no more worthy to be called thy son." The penitent looks to the law, and the demerit of his sin, reads his own doom, and passeth sentence on himself. He owns that all the evil he smarts under for the present, is just and righteous with God; Dan. 9:14. "Therefore hath the Lord watched upon the evil, and brought it upon us: for the Lord our God is righteous in all his works which he doth: for we obeyed not his voice." If his broken bones pain him, he will own that it is just. If his sin find him, so that he read it in his punishment, he will acknowledge that it is a just contrivance; and that he deserves to sink under eternal wrath for it, saying with the afflicted church, "It is of the Lord's mercies that we are not consumed, because his compassions fail not," Lam. 3:22. He will say, that God may justly take the filthy garments of his sin, coyer them with brimstone, wrap him up in them, and cast him into the pit, Psal. 51:4.
Now, this confession should be sincere, full, very particular, free, and accompanied with forsaking.
USE. 1. Hiding and covering sin, and refusing to confess it in the way that God calls for a confession, is a sign of an heart not humbled for it: Prov. 28:13. "He that covereth his sins shall not prosper: but whoso confesseth and forsaketh them, shall have mercy." Many in our day, falling into public scandals by their works of darkness, put on a forehead of brass, and refuse to confess them for the glory of God, cheating themselves with that, that they will confess their sins to God but not to men. But little do they consider, that by that means they put a bar in their own way to pardon, while by resolute lying they cover one sin with another, and by refusing to honour God at his call. Nor do they consider the weight of that word standing in the way of their peace with God, while they refuse to remove the scandal, that so they may be reconciled to the church: Matth. 18:17, 18. "If he shall neglect to hear them, tell it unto the church: but if he neglect to hear the church, let him be unto thee as an heathen man, and a publican. Verily I say unto you, Whatsoever ye shall bind on earth, shall be bound in heaven: and whatsoever ye shall loose on earth, shall be loosed in heaven." It is true, it is but a word; yea but it is God's word, that will be more terrible to an awakened conscience than any punishment men can inflict.
2. They that shun to see their sins, that they may confess them, cannot repent of them: Jer. 9:6. 7. "Thine habitation is in the midst of deceit, through deceit they refuse to know me, saith the Lord. Therefore thus saith the Lord of hosts, behold I will melt them, and try them; for how shall I do for the daughter of my people?" It is true, there are sins which we cannot so see in ourselves as to confess them particularly; but in that case the soul does not refuse conviction, as Psal. 19:12. "Who can understand his errors? cleanse thou me from secret faults." But when one keeps the sweet morsel under his tongue, and has no will to see the evil of it, lest he should be obliged to confess it before the Lord, this is quite another case, and speaks a deceit of the heart, holding fast sin, and refusing to let it go.
3. Lastly Labour to be sincere, full, free, &c. in confessing your sins. We are in debt to the justice of God, we cannot pay our debt; let us confess our debt, to prevent a pursuit, and that we may be capable to pray for forgiveness of it, which otherwise we cannot be. O, if we had a due sense and sorrow for our sins, this would, like an overflowing flood, bear down before them all those things which now hamper us in confessing our sins.
Thus far of humiliation, the first part of repentance.
The returning of the soul unto God from sin
2dly, I come now to the second thing, viz. the returning of the soul unto God from sin. This is the completing of repentance.Whatever sense of sin, shame, sorrow, &c. for it one have, if it end not in returning to God, it is naught. It is under this notion that repentance is so often called for in the Old Testament, Return, Turn ye. And it may be well put for the whole of repentance: for,
First, The impenitent sinner is out of himself, out of his wits; but by repentance he returns and comes to himself. Hence we read, that the prodigal, Luke 15:17. came to himself. There is never a soul that is brought to repentance, but there is as great a change upon him, as on a madman that is returned to his sound mind. He has quite other notions of things than he had before; he looks upon his sinful courses as the effects of spiritual frenzy. This is the first part of repentance, namely, humiliation.
Secondly, The impenitent sinner is out of his place, like a wandering bird: Prov. 27:8, "As a bird that wandereth from her nest: so is a man that wandereth from his place." And so the soul is out of its rest, and out of its duty. Adam shook himself and all his race out of their rest, and out of that they wander up and down in the devil's common. Repentance is the sinner's returning to his place again, to take up his place again in God's house among his servants. This is the second part of repentance. And whenever the soul comes to itself, it will come to God again. The grace of God finds the sinner, as the angel found Hagar, Gen. 16:8, 9; and as Paul found Onesimus, Philemon ver. 10, 11, 12. Now, in this returning, according to the two terms,
I. There is a turning from sin: Ezek. 14:6, "Repent, and turn from your idols, and turn away your faces from all your abominations." 2 Tim. 2:19, "Let every one that nameth the name of Christ, depart from iniquity." Psal. 34:14, "Depart from evil." The sinner changes his course, and gives up with his former lusts. The impenitent sinner is a misled traveller, who finding himself wrong, will go no farther on, but leave the wrong way, and seek the right one. To repent of sin, and yet continue in the practice of it, is a contradiction. No; the true penitent ceases from sin, he gives over his work in the service of sin and lusts, Is. 1:16. He forsakes his former ways, chap. 55:7. And though sin remains in him, yet it reigns not as before. If the question be, How the penitent turns from sin, since he is daily offending, and sin abides in him, while he is here? I answer,
1. True penitents turn from it in their heart and affection. There is a bond in the impenitent state, whereby the sinner's heart is knit to his lusts, as ever the sucking child's heart is to the breast, which he can by no means want. Repentance looseth that bond: Rom. 7:24, "O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?" So though sin cleaves to the soul, yet the soul cleaves not to it as formerly. It hangs on him, it is true, but only as the chains on the captive, which are his burden; as the grave-clothes on Lazarus raised, which he is working to put off. Thus repentance makes a change of the heart. And,
1st, His esteem of sin is turned to despite. His judgment is set against it: Is. 2:20, "In that day a man shall cast his idols of silver, and his idols of gold, which they made, each one for himself to worship, to the moles and to the bats." What he approved before, now he condemns; for the scales are turned, and what was highest before is now lowest. Grace and holiness get the ascendant of sin and wickedness in his esteem. Those he counted most happy sometimes, because they took the greatest liberty in sinful courses, he now accounts most miserable, as slaves to sin, and in the road to destruction; and therefore takes up Joshua's resolution, chap. 24:15, "As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord."
2dly, His love of sin is turned to hatred of it: Ezek. 14:6. forecited. Psal. 119:113, "I hate vain thoughts." Ver. 104, "I hate every false way." It was good in his eyes before, better than the favour of God, and communion with him. He knew nothing good or desirable but the world and lusts, and what might satisfy the corrupt cravings of the soul. But repentance turns his soul against it, and he hates it as an evil thing, as the worst of evils, worse than suffering and afflictions. Were he left to his choice without fear of punishment, he would never choose it; for he hates it for itself, its contrariety to God's nature and will.
3dly, His liking of sin is turned to loathing of it. Hence repentance is called a casting away of sin, Ezek. 18:31. as one would do some filthy thing that he cannot endure to have near him. For the penitent looks not only on sin as an ill thing, but as a loathsome thing which his heart stands at, Is. 30:22. And this is the ground of that self-loathing which the penitent is filled with.
Lastly, His cleaving to sin is turned into a longing to be rid of it, Rom. 7:24. The man longs to be free from it, as ever the prisoner for the opening of his prison-doors, the captive for his being set at liberty, and the dropping off of his chains. It is a burden on his back, which he groans under; a sickness to his soul, that he would fain have the cure of. And therefore Christ with all his salvation is lovely in his eyes; his sanctifying Spirit, as well as his justifying blood.
2. They turn from it in their life and conversation. He that stood in the way of sinners before, now leaves it, when once the grace toucheth the heart, Is. 55:7. The penitent not only has a pure heart, but clean hands. Repentance will make a visible change on one's life: for it sets men to mortify the members of the body of death, Rom. 8:13; to refuse compliance with lusts and temptations, Tit. 2:12; to starve the lusts of the flesh, Rom. 13:14; and to nail the body of sin with all its members to the cross of Christ, Gal. 5:24. And,
1st, They turn from the gross pollutions of the outward man, Psal. 24:3, 4. An elect soul before conversion may be a habitual profane person, as well as others: but if he may be so after conversion, where is the difference betwixt Christ's sheep and the devil's goats? It is true, they may make gross slips, as David and Peter did: but they do not lie in them, they recover again by repentance. But a profane life is the mark of an impenitent state, Gal. 5:21. And it is a wonder how men can pretend to repentance, while they live in the habitual practice of drunkenness, swearing, sabbath-breaking, lying, dishonesty, and other gross pollutions of the outward man, where one would think the profane devil is not so much as gone out, far less cast out.
2dly, They become tender with respect to the sins of common infirmity, labouring to make conscience of their words and actions, Acts. 24:16. What others account light of, they will stand at a distance from, as having felt the smart of sin; and that not only before the world, but even in secret where no eye sees but God's. They will stand aloof from temptations, and even from the appearance of evil: and wherein they are overtaken through the frailty of the flesh, they will mourn for it before the Lord.
3. In respect both of heart and life. They turn against sin to oppose and resist it, in the inner and outward man, as taking now the contrary side to the devil, the world, and the flesh. The spiritual combat is begun in the true penitent, Gal. 5:17. The war with sin is proclaimed and begun, which never ends till death. They revolt from, cast off the yoke, and stand up against their old masters, 2 Tim. 2:19.
1st, They resist the motions of sin in their hearts, and endeavour after heart purity, as well as life purity: Psal. 119:113. "I hate vain thoughts: but thy law do I love." The Pharisaical professor may cleanse the outside of the platter, while he is little troubled about its being within full of ravening. But the hardest work a gracious soul has against sin, is with the heart, with what the world neither sees nor can see in him. And the guiding of the heart is the hardest piece of management in his religion.
2dly, They resist the outbreakings of sin in the life: Psal. 18:23. "I was also upright before him: and I kept myself from mine iniquity." They see they are in a world where snares are thick laid; they see their own weakness, and how ready they are to be entrapped, and therefore labour to be on their guard, lest they be carried away with the stream. Hence they are afraid of temptations, and therefore labour to shut their eyes from beholding vanity; sometimes fearing to fall one day by the hand of temptation, and therefore longing to be beyond the reach of sin.
4. And Lastly, Because their turning from sin is never perfect till death, therefore so long they are ay turning, and renewing their repentance, John 13:10, They are not true penitents who look on it as the work of some days or weeks, at the soul's first conversion to God. A true penitent will ay be repenting, as long as he is sinning. He sees that he is often falling into the mire, and therefore must be often washing; daily contracting new debt, therefore must be daily crying for forgiveness. And the more heinous his after miscarriages be, the longer he lies secure, his repentance will be the more bitter when he riseth up again.
Now, this turning from sin has these properties.
1. It is voluntary, as springing from an inward principle set up in the heart against sin: Job 42:6. "I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes." The penitent does not only cast away sin as a live coal out of his bosom, that would burn him, but as some loathsome thing, that would defile him. Some turn from their sins against their will; they part with their sin as Phaltiel did with his unlawful wife Michal, 2 Sam. 3:15. They dwell in the tents of sin, till the rigging-tree break, and there is no abiding longer there for them; they part with their sins, as the covetous man with his riches at death, when, nill he will he, he must let it go. But true repentance is a turning from sin out of choice: and forced reformation neither is sincere nor will last, Psal. 78:34.
2. It is sincere, as being a turning from sin as sin, a turning from it because it is a turning away from God, a turning from it for its contrariety to God's holy nature and law, Luke 15:18. The man leaves his sin, not for the inferior motives only of danger to himself by it, but from the higher motives, namely, because it is offensive to God, dishonours his Son, grieves his Spirit, transgresses his law, and defaces his image. If your turning from sin proceed not from these motives, God will never regard it as acceptable in his sight. It is done for self not for God; and God will never be the reward of that work whereof he is not the end.
Question. What should one do with respect to those sins he has turned from, from these lower motives of self, or those sins that have left him, before he left them? Answer. Do not turn back to them; but do with them as they use to do with those that die by their own hands, bury them disgracefully, and throw stones on their grave. Look on them and loathe them, rise higher in your motives to forsake them than before. Ye left them for your own sake, put them further away for the sake of God's honour. Set them before your eyes again, and see how provoking they have been to a holy God, how dishonouring to his Son, &c. repent and mourn over them on these accounts. And then your turning from them will be sincere.
3. This turning from sin is universal: Psal. 119:104, "I hate every false way." Ezek. 18:31, "Cast away from you all your transgressions." Whoever turns sincerely from one sin, turns from all known sin whatsoever; because the reason that moves the true penitent, is to be found in all as well as any one. Partial reformation is not sincere; for God requires the whole heart, and will not be served by halves. Every sin is a deadly wound to the soul; and therefore though many be cured, if but one remain uncured, the man is a dead man by that one: Matth. 5:29. "If thy right eye offend thee, pluck it out, and cast it from thee: for it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish, and not that thy whole body should be cast into hell." A drop of poison will make a whole cup of good win edeadly, and one sin retained will render all other reformation naught; as Abimelech the son of Jerubbaal's concubine was the death of all his seventy sons by his wives except one.
4. It is speedy, without delays: Psal. 119:60, "I made haste, and delayed not to keep thy commandments." As long as a man is undetermined to turn from his sin, or delays to do it, his repentance is not sincere. It is an evidence that the lance of humiliation has not gone deep enough, when the filthy matter does not presently spring forth. A man whose heart is truly touched with a penitent sense of sin, will delay as long the flinging a burning coal out of his bosom, as the casting away of his sin. No: when it goes to the quick, it must off presently; though it were an offending right hand, it must be cut off presently; though it were an offending right eye, it must be presently plucked out.
5. Lastly, This turning from sin is thorough; it makes complete work evangelically, though not legally. It was a flaw in Judah's repentance, that she turned not unto the Lord with her whole heart, but feignedly. Jer. 3:10; and in Ephraim's that he mixed himself among the people, and was a cake not turned, Hos. 7:8. Men turn thoroughly from sin in these four respects.
1st, The true penitent sticks at no known sin, but turns from all without exception, even those sins that are dearest and nearest to them, and which they have been most easily beset with, Heb. 12:1, "I kept myself from mine iniquity," Psal. 18:23. This turning from sin is never thorough, till it reach the sin that is the sin of one's constitution, the sin that is the sin which most attends his calling, stations, and relations wherein he stands; the sin that he has most frequent and strongest temptations unto. That is the predominant evil which the heart must be loosed from, the right hand and right eye sin, the one thing lacking, which mars all other things, Mark 7:21. Unless there be a turning from, a warring with this, it is all wrong; though indeed they may sometimes lose as well as win in the battle.
2dly, He turns from that which is the ensnaring hook in any of his sins, the handle whereby it caught hold of him, Psal. 131:2. Pharaoh would have been content to let Israel go, so be they would have left their little ones, which he was sure would have brought them back again. And Satan will let people turn from sin for a time, while they retain a reigning love to the bewitching thing that is in a sinful course. For while it is so, the tree is indeed cut, but the root is left in the ground, and will grow again.
3dly, He turns from the occasions of sin, Ezek. 14:6. Wherefore David prays, "Turn away mine eyes from beholding vanity;" and Solomon gives advice in case of drunkenness, Prov. 23:31, "Look not thou upon the wine when it is red, when it giveth his colour in the cup, when it moveth itself aright. It is vain to pretend to repent and turn from sin, while men do not watch against the occasions of it, and wrestle against them, as against the sin itself. They that in a siege mind really to defend the town, they will defend the outworks as long as they can; wilfully to let the enemy in there, speaks treachery. Much lies in this point for reformation: Prov. 4:14, 15, "Enter not into the path of the wicked, and go not in the way of evil men. Avoid it, pass not by it, turn from it, and pass away."
Lastly, He turns from the enjoyment of the fruits of his sin. To pretend to turn from sin, and yet to feed sweetly on the fruits of it, is an absolutely vain pretence. When sin itself is truly quit, the profit of it is given up with. This the prophet teacheth, Is. 33:15, "He that walketh righteously, and speaketh uprightly, he that despiseth the gain of oppressions, that shaketh his hands from holding of bribes, that stoppeth his ears from hearing of blood, and shutteth his eyes from seeing evil," &c. This is so evident, that even Judas in his repentance, such as it was, could no longer brook the reward of his iniquity, Matt. 27:3. A philosopher had bought a pair of shoes, but had not paid the price of them; the tradesman died; the philosopher thought the money was gained; but his conscience caused him bring back the money, and throw it into the shop. "Take it," says he, "thou art alive to me, while dead to all the world besides." Hence two things belong to this part of repentance.
(1.) Restitution, or restoring the thing again, which has been sinfully and wrongously taken away from others. He that can do it, and will not, cannot repent of that sin; for he wilfully feeds on the fruit of his sin; and that is a continuing in it inconsistent with turning from it. And since there is no pardon of that sin which a man does not repent of, it is a maxim in divinity, Non remittitur nisi restituitur, namely, to a person that is able, but unwilling to do it. Hence Zaccheus proves himself a true penitent by restitution, Luke 19:8. And one may as well think a thief may repent in the time he is feeding on what he has stolen from his neighbour, as that one may repent of what in other cases he has unjustly taken from his neighbour, and can, but will not restore. When lovers part, they give back their tokens; and so when a sinner parts with his sin, he restores all that he had unjustly taken from others.
(2.) Reparation as far as may be, in those cases wherein proper restitution cannot be made: as in the case of unjust wounding our neighbour's honour, reputation, peace, quiet, and contentment, &c. Hence is that exhortation, Jam. 5:16, "Confess your faults one to another, and pray one for another, that ye may be healed." One may as well pretend to repent and go on in sin, as wilfully to refuse this and repent of the sin. The like reparation is necessary in those scandalous sins, whereby the honour of God is impaired before the world, religion wounded, and exposed to the contempt and scorn of profane men, and the hearts of the godly saddened. To repent of such sins, and yet wilfully to refuse the way whereby the honour of God, and the credit of religion, might in some measure be repaired, is impossible. One may as well pretend to repent of his wounding a man, while he stands looking on him bleeding to death, and will not, though it is in his power, bind up his wounds.
USE. 1. Hence we may see what is the proper way to follow out the design of our congregational fast; namely, to turn from our sins which have provoked the Lord to wrath against us. For humiliation without reformation can do little service. Let each of us lay our hands to our heart, and consider what has been the coal that we have cast in to raise this flame, and heartily turn from these things. If so, we would readily wear with thankfulness the blessings obtained by prayers.
2. All the trouble, grief, and sorrow that men have for their sin is little worth, if it issue not in turning from sin. For men to be sighing, but still going backward, is not repentance, but of that sort which may be carried on in hell, through eternity. If turning be not joined to mourning for sin, it is unsanctified sorrow, that will neither be acceptable to God, nor profitable to our souls.
3. Turning from sin outwardly, while the heart remains glued to it, is not repentance either. It is an easy thing to reform outwardly; but the great business lies in getting the heart weaned from the world and lusts. If we would be satisfied as to the truth of our repentance, we must likewise examine the motives prevailing with us to turn from sin; for the mean and low motives that rise no higher than ourselves, our own advantage, ease, safety, &c. will never denominate us true penitents.
4. Repentance is not the work of a day or a year, but the work of our whole lives. For so turning from sin is. Sin follows us, while we flee from it; often does it overtake us, and so we must renew our flight. The whole life of a Christian is a war; in that war are many battles, sometimes the Christian gains the day, and sometimes he loses. If he lose, he must renew the battle; if he win, he must pursue the victory, and lay his account with a new engagement. The great comfort is, that though he may lose a battle, yet he shall be victorious in the war: "The God of peace shall bruise Satan under his feet shortly," Rom. 16:20.
5. Lastly, See here the necessity of turning from sin. "Except ye repent," says the text, "ye shall all likewise perish." Now, if ye do not turn from sin, ye do not repent; therefore if ye turn not from it by repentance, ye shall perish. Our sins or out souls must go. Turn, or burn in the fire of God's wrath, is the choice. Let us then return speedily and thoroughly from all our iniquities, so shall they not be our ruin.
II. In repentance there is a returning unto God: Hos. 6:1, "Come, and let us return unto the Lord." This is the term to which the sinner comes back. Sin is a departing form God, repentance is a coming back to him again. It is a coming back, like that of a runaway servant to his master, returning to his place and duty in the family. Sin carried away mankind from God two ways.
1. Sin carried men away from God as a portion wherein to rest. He is all-sufficient to himself and to his creatures, and none but he is so. Sin carried man away from God to the creatures for happiness and satisfaction: hence says Jehovah, Jer. 2:13, "My people have committed two evils: they have forsaken me the fountain of living waters, and hewed them out cisterns, broken cisterns, that can hold no water." There he seeks a rest to his heart. By faith man returns to God as a portion, unites with him again through Christ, and takes up his everlasting rest in him. Thus he returns as the dove to the ark, Is. 60:3, "Who are these that fly as a cloud, and as the doves to their windows?"
2. Sin carried man away from God as a Lord and Master, to whom he owes obedience. In this respect man returns to God by repentance, returning to his duty, Psal. 119:59, "I thought on my ways, and turned my feet unto thy testimonies;" as Hagar was by the angel sent back to Sarah, Gen. 16:9. Men turning from God, turn their backs on his laws, and make their own lusts their laws; but the repenting sinner turns back to the laws of God, Psal. 119:59, forecited. He has slipt his neck out of the yoke of the commands of Christ, but he comes and takes it on again, never to throw it off more, Matth. 11:29. He has gone off the road, the strait way; but he comes back, and bids an eternal farewell to the broad way. And there is here,
1st, A return of the soul to God himself, 1 Kings 18:37, consisting in the heart's turning to the loving and liking of the Lord as a Lord and Master. Sinners departing from God, not only mislike their service, but the Master and his house: Luke 19:14, "His citizens hated him, and sent a message after him, saying, We will not have this man to reign over us." They are filled with prejudices against him, there is a natural aversion in the heart to him, they cannot away with subjection to him. Hence "they say unto God, Depart from us; for we desire not the knowledge of thy ways," Job 21:14. But in repentance that aversion is cured, and the soul inclines and moves towards him in heart and affections. This consists in three things.
(1.) The soul is brought to esteem the Lord worthy to be served and pleased in all things. The name of God is to the penitent a worthy name, Jam. 2:7. The soul sees the transcendent glory and excellency of God, worthy of all adoration and obedience; and so slights and disdains all other masters, as unworthy of the service of an immortal soul.
(2.) The soul chooseth him as its only Lord and Master, saying, as in Is. 26:13, "O Lord our God, other lords besides thee have had dominion over us: but by thee only will we make mention of thy name." This was Joshua's choice, chap. 24:15, "As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord." The enlightened mind beholds his glory, the glory and excellency of himself, his image, laws, ordinances, and service; and the renewed will consents and cleaves to him. It has tried many masters, "serving divers lusts," Tit. 3:3; but could never have satisfaction in the service of any of them, and therefore says, as Hos. 2:7, "I will go and return to my first husband, for then was it better with me than now."
(3.) The soul looks upon the service of God as its great happiness. Hence said the prodigal, when he came to himself, "How many hired servants of my father's have bread enough and to spare, and I perish with hunger? Luke 15:17. And therefore the saints are found declaring them happy who are most employed in his service, as the queen of Sheba said of Solomon's servants: Psal. 65:4, "Blessed is the man whom thou choosest, and causest to approach unto thee, that he may dwell in thy courts." And 84:4, "Blessed are they that dwell in thy house: they will be still praising thee." And till the soul come to this, to account the Lord's service the only true freedom and happiness, though they may take up his service, they will not abide with it, because they do not like their Master.
2dly, There is in this returning a return of the soul to its duty to God. Hence said Saul, "Lord, what wilt thou have me to do?" Acts 9:6. Whoever returns to God, comes home as a servant to enter to work: for idlers about God's house may be nominal servants, but real ones they cannot be. God's servants have higher relations which they stand in to him; but all of them have duty annexed to them. Are they married to Christ? they must bring forth fruit, Rom. 7:4. Are they friends? they must do whatsoever he commands them, John 15:14. See Mal. 1:6. Now, the penitent returns to his duty in these two respects.
(1.) The penitent returns to his duty in his heart. He is (1.) reconciled to the whole law of God, and the whole yoke of Christ, so far as it is known to him to be his law and yoke, Psal. 119:6. "I have respect unto all thy commandments." He has a love and liking of the duties of piety towards God, and righteousness towards men. Though there remain in him a contradicting principle, yet he can say, as Rom. 7:22, "I delight in the law of God, after the inward man." The heart-enmity against the law and the power of godliness is removed, and nothing is so desirable to him as to be holy as God is holy. (2.) He has a full and fixed purpose of new obedience: Psal. 119:57, "O Lord, I have said, that I would keep thy words." Ver. 112, "I have inclined mine ear to perform thy statutes alway, even unto the end." He returns with a purpose never to be what he has been; to pursue holiness, to enter upon, and keep the way of duty, whatever be the hardships and difficulties he may meet with in it. And this purpose is for to-day, not for to-morrow only; not to delay a minute, but presently to fall in with every known duty, as knowing there is no time for delaying.
(2.) The penitent returns to his duty in both heart and life. He is brought to sincere endeavours after new obedience: 2 Cor. 7:11, "Behold, this self-same thing, that ye sorrowed after a godly sort, what carefulness it wrought in you, yea, what clearing of yourselves, yea, what indignation, yea, what fear, yea, what vehement desire, yea, what zeal, yea, what revenge! in all things ye have approved yourselves to be clear in this matter." Purposes without endeavours are but fair blossoms without fruit, which will never prove a penitent. If the lame man be cured, though not perfectly cured, he will rise and walk as he can. It is true, while here we can do nothing perfectly well; but the true penitent will endeavour to do all, and aim at no less than perfection. Hence said Paul, "I press toward the mark, for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus," Phil. 3:14. So the penitent returning to his duty,
[1.] Returns to the practice of every known duty. Hence said David, "I have respect unto all thy commandments," Psal. 119:6. He labours to know what is duty, and is willing to know it; and when known, endeavours to perform it. He puts hand to external and internal obedience; to serve God in heart and life too; to perform his duty to God and to his neighbour; personal and relative, secret, private, and public.
[2.] Returns to spirituality in every duty: Phil. 3:3, "For we are the circumcision, which worship God in the Spirit, and rejoice in Christ Jesus, and have no confidence in the flesh." The true penitent will not sist in the carcase of duties, but will endeavour to get in to those unseen things where lies the life and soul of duties; namely, to have his heart imbued with love to God as the principle of his obedience, touched with regard to the honour of God as his end, raised above selfish ends and designs, and performing all in faith, leaning on the Lord for strength.
Now, this returning to the Lord is,
1. A sincere returning, not feigned and hypocritical, with the whole heart, Jer. 3:10. Hypocrites are said to have a heart and a heart, a divided heart, one for God, and another for their lusts. But the Lord says in this case, If ye take me, let these go away. For no man can serve two masters. It is a returning to him to abide with him for ever, as Onesimus to Philemon, ver. 15. The penitent, like the servant under the law, his ear is nailed to God's door-posts, to serve him for ever. To return for a time is naught.
2. A voluntary return. The penitent comes back with heart and good-will, Psal. 110:3, "Thy people shall be willing in the day of thy power;" as one that is going back to a good and honourable master, and will serve him with gladness: Psal. 100:2, "Serve the Lord with gladness." They that are only driven back to God, by heavy rods or sharp convictions, will come away again; yet people may be driven at first to God, who seeing his glory and excellency, and the desirableness of his service afterwards, do voluntarily and heartily yield themselves to him.
3. A speedy return: Psal. 119:60, "I made haste, and delayed not to keep thy commandments." They that are sincere will not delay for a moment; they will make no truce with sin. The moment wherein true repentance touches the heart, is the precise term of going home to God; for they know that if they delay a moment longer, that moment may be the fatal moment to them.
4. A thorough return. The soul sticks at no known duty, but embraces all, be it ever so hard, and unpleasant to flesh and blood. Hence said the Lord of David, Acts 13:22, "I have found David the son of Jesse; a man after mine own heart, which shall fulfil all my will." The penitent puts a blank in God's hand, saying, "Lord, what wilt thou have me to do? Speak, Lord," says he, "thy servant heareth." He is for the will of God, without disputing. For God is an absolute master, and is therefore to be obeyed without reserve.
USE of this point. It lets us see, that negative reformation is not sufficient for repentance. One must not only turn from sin, but turn unto God. We must not only put away evil, but take in to us the contrary good: Is. 1:16, "Wash ye, make you clean, put away the evil of your doings from before mine eyes, cease to do evil, learn to do well," &c. We must not only give up with such and such lusts, but be endued with the contrary graces. Some people reform from the evils of their life, but they do not go forward to the positive ways of holiness. They satisfy themselves, with the proud Pharisee, that they are not unjust, no extortioners, &c.; but, alas! they do not consider, that when the house which the devil goes out of is empty, he returns with seven spirits more wicked than himself, and so the last state of such a person is worse than the first, Matt. 12:44, 45.