02. Chapter Two
Chapter Two 2. COUNTERFEIT REPENTANCE To discover what true repentance is, I will first show what it is not. There are several deceits of repentance which might occasion that saying of Augustine that “repentance damns many.” He meant a false repentance: a person may delude himself with counterfeit repentance.
1. The first deceit of repentance is legal terror
Say a man has gone on in sin a long time. At last God arrests him, shows him what desperate hazard he has run, and he is filled with anguish. In a while the tempest of conscience is blown over, and he is quiet again. Then he concludes that he is a true penitent because he has felt some bitterness in sin. Do not be deceived; this is not repentance. Ahab and Judas had troubled minds. It is one thing to be a terrified sinner, and another to be a repenting sinner. Sense of guilt is enough to breed terror. Infusion of grace breeds repentance. If pain and trouble were sufficient for repentance, then the damned in hell would be the most penitent, for they are most in anguish. Repentance depends upon a change of heart. There may be terror and yet no change of heart.
2. Another deceit about repentance is resolution against sin A person may resolve and make vows, and yet not be penitent. “You said, I will not transgress” (Jeremiah 2:20). Here was a resolution, but see what follows: “you wander under every green tree, playing the harlot.” Notwithstanding her solemn engagements, she played fast and loose with God and ran after her idols. We see by experience what protestations a person will make when he is on his sickbed, if only God would allow him to recover; yet he is as bad as ever. He shows his old heart in a new temptation.
Resolutions against sin may arise, (1) from present extremity; not because sin is sinful, but because it is painful. This resolution will vanish.
(2) from fear of future evil, an apprehension of death and hell: “I looked, and behold a pale horse: and his name that sat on him was Death, and Hell followed with him” (Revelation 6:8). What will a sinner not do, what vows will he not make, when he knows he must die and stand before the judgment-seat? Self-love raises a sickbed vow, and love of sin will prevail against it. Do not trust to a passionate resolution; it is raised in a storm and it will die in a calm.
3. The third deceit about repentance is leaving many sinful ways alone
It is a great matter, I confess, to leave sin. So dear is sin to a man that he would rather part with a child than with a lust: “Shall I give the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?” (Micah 6:7). Sin may be parted with, yet without repentance.
(1) A man may part with some sins and keep others, just as Herod reformed many things that were amiss but could not leave his incest.
(2) An old sin may be left in order to entertain a new one, just as you dismiss an old servant to take another. This is exchanging a sin. Sin may be exchanged and yet the heart remain unchanged. One who was a prodigal in his youth becomes a usurer in his old age. A slave is sold to a Jew; the Jew sells him to a Turk. Here the master is changed, but he is still a slave. So a man moves from one vice to another but still remains a sinner.
(3) A sin may be left not so such from strength of grace as from reasons of prudence. A man sees that although such a sin is for his pleasure, it is not for his interest. It will eclipse his credit, prejudice his health, and impair his estate. Therefore, for prudential reasons, he dismisses it.
True leaving of sin is when the acts of sin cease because of the infusion of a principle of grace, just as it ceases to be dark when there is an infusion of light.