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  WRITINGS OF JOHN COLQUHOUN
  by John Colquhoun
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A collection of theological writings, sermons, and essays by John Colquhoun,
compiled for study and devotional reading.

  Chapters: 11

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  TABLE OF CONTENTS
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    1. 01.00. Evangelical Repentance
    2. 01.01.     The Sources of True Repentance
    3. 01.02.     The Nature and Import of True Repentance
    4. 01.03.     The Necessity of True Repentance
    5. 01.04.     Difference Between True & Counterfeit Repentance
    6. 01.05.     The Fruits and Evidences of True Repentance
    7. 01.06.     Priority of Acting of Saving Faith
    8. 01.07.     Priority of Justification
    9. 01.08.     Objections Answered
   10. S. Fruit and Evidences of True Repentance
   11. S. Use of the Gospel and Law in Subservience to the Gospel

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  CHAPTER 1: 01.00. EVANGELICAL REPENTANCE
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Evangelical Repentance by John Colquhoun (pronounced "co-hoon") Biographical
Introduction - by John Murray

Introduction 1. The Sources of True Repentance 2. The Nature and Import of True
Repentance 3. The Necessity of True Repentance 4. The Difference Between True
and Counterfeit Repentance 5. The Fruits and Evidences of True Repentance 6. The
Priority of the Acting of Saving Faith to the Exercise of True Repentance 7. The
Priority of Justification to the First Exercise of True Repentance 8. Objections
Answered Biographical Introduction by John Murray

While on a walking tour through Scotland during a College vacation, Alexander
Moody Stuart spent a weekend at a country inn on the road between Glasgow and
Edinburgh. His interest was aroused in two lads who arrived at the inn late on
the Saturday evening. After spending the night there they left early next
morning and returned to the inn again that evening. He discovered that they were
working lads from Glasgow who, on coming under spiritual concern, had sought for
a minister that preached the Gospel fully. They eventually found a preacher to
their mind in Edinburgh and were determined to wait on his ministry. That
preacher was Dr. John Colquhoun of the New Church in South Leith. Such value did
they set upon Colquhoun’s preaching that they were willing to walk about a
hundred miles each weekend to hear him and be back at their work at 6 o’clock on
Monday morning.

These young Christians were typical of many in Scotland at the beginning of last
century who had felt the power of the Word and therefore highly prized the full
Gospel ministry at South Leith. With much of the Church of Scotland lying under
the blight of unbelieving moderatism, ministries like that of Colquhoun and his
contemporaries Dr. John Love of Glasgow and Dr. MacDonald of Ferintosh were
oasis in the desert.

John Colquhoun was born at Luss in Dunbartonshire on 1st January 1748. The son
of a small farmer, he received his elementary education at the local SPCK
school. The teacher, a Christian, not only instructed the minds of his pupils
but sought to impress the truth upon their hearts. It was to his explanation and
application of the Shorter Catechism question, "What is effectual calling?" that
Colquhoun afterwards traced his conversion. On feeling led to devote himself to
the ministry he entered Glasgow University in 1768, where he pursued his studies
for ten years. The Presbytery of Glasgow licensed him to preach in 1780, and the
following year he was ordained to what proved to be his only pastoral charge-the
New Church in South Leith. There he exercised an effective ministry until forced
to give up through ill-health a year before his death in 1827.

Shortly after his conversion John Colquhoun had walked all the way from Luss to
Glasgow, a distance in all of about fifty miles, to buy a copy of Thomas
Boston’s Fourfold State . This book had a moulding influence on his early
Christian life. He came to esteem it next to his Bible. The influence of
Boston’s teaching was later to permeate his ministry and writings.

Thomas Boston’s remains had been laid to rest in the beautiful churchyard of
Ettrick sixteen years before Colquhoun was born, but few if any of his followers
bore such marks of his influence as the minister of South Leith. Although a
minister of the Established Church, Colquhoun was regarded as one of the ablest
exponents of "Marrow" theology. By an Act of Assembly on 20 May 1720 his Church
had condemned the book, The Marrow of Modern Divinity, because it maintained
that there was a universal call and offer of the Gospel to sinners. Defenders of
the free offer-nicknamed "Marrowmen"-foremost of whom were Thomas Boston and the
Erskine brothers, were forced to secede from the Church in 1722. Later, however,
as we find in the case of John Colquhoun, upholders of "Marrow" teaching
continued to exercise their ministry within the Establishment.

How Colquhoun reconciled his respect for an Act of the General Assembly with his
uncompromising maintenance of "Marrow" theology is illustrated in some advice he
is reported to have given to the students who sought his counsel. "Noo, ye ken,"
he would say to them in his colloquial tongue, "I daurna advise ye to read the
`Marrow’ for the Assembly condemned it; but though they condemned the `Marrow’
they didna condemn Tammes Boston’s notes on the `Marrow,’ and that’s a book that
ye should read."

It is not surprising that one of the great characteristics of Colquhoun’s
ministry was the emphasis on the duty and necessity of sinners complying with
the offers and invitations of the Gospel. At the same time he dwelt much on the
danger of hypocrisy. The depth of his own spiritual experience, his
discriminating views of truth and his aptitude for religious conversation made
him of great use to those in spiritual distress.

Retired and unassuming by nature, he sought no place of distinction in the
Church. Indeed, it was in his mature years that he began his career as an
author. He wrote seven treatises, all of which are closely related in theme and
manner of presentation. The first to appear was on Spiritual Comfort in 1813. It
was followed by Law and Gospel (1815), The Covenant of Grace (1818), The
Covenant of Works (1822), Saving Faith (1824), The Promises (1825), and
Evangelical Repentance (1826).

It was in his writing perhaps more than anything else that Colquhoun came
nearest to Boston. They were both at their best in expounding the grand central
themes of salvation, and so thoroughly had Colquhoun imbibed The Fourfold State
that in cast of thought, mode of development and turn of expression his own
writings bear striking similarities to it. Above all, the works of both are
thoroughly experimental and practical. They preached and wrote for the common
people, and it was the common people of Scotland for many generations following
that loved and valued their works. The present work was originally published
under the title, "A View of Evangelical Repentance from the Sacred Records," but
it is popularly known as "Evangelical Repentance."

Evangelical Repentance by John Colquhoun

Introduction The Lord Jesus came not to call the righteous, but sinners to
repentance. True repentance, accordingly, forms a part of the religion, not of
an innocent person, but of a sinner. It is produced by the Spirit of Christ in
the regeneration and sanctification of a sinner, and is absolutely essential to
the character of a true Christian. As the Christian is daily sinning, he ought
to be daily repenting of sin. Tertullian says, "I was born for nothing but
repentance."

Repentance is natural, or legal, or evangelical.

Natural repentance is that natural feeling of sorrow and self-condemnation, of
which a man is conscious for having done that which he sees he ought not have
done, and which arises from a discovery of the impropriety of it, or from
reflecting on the disagreeable consequences of it to others, and especially to
himself. This feeling of regret frequently occurs. When a man, especially a
proud and vain man, is convinced of his having been guilty of some glaring
instance of improper conduct, either against, or in the presence of a
fellow-creature, it is sometimes very keen and painful.

Legal repentance is a feeling of regret produced in a legalist by the fear that
his violations of the Divine law and especially his gross sins do expose him to
eternal punishment. This regret is increased by his desire to be exempted on the
ground of it from the dreadful punishment to which he knows he is condemned for
them. He is extremely sorry, not that he has transgressed the law, but that the
law and justice of God are so very strict that they cannot leave him at liberty
to sin with impunity. His love of sin and his hatred of holiness continue in all
their vigour. And yet under the dominion of his legal temper he presumes to
expect that such repentance as this will in some measure atone for all his
crimes against the infinite Majesty of heaven.

Evangelical repentance is altogether different from either of these. It is a
gracious principle and habit implanted in the soul by the Spirit of Christ, in
the exercise of which a regenerate and believing sinner, deeply sensible of the
exceeding sinfulness and just demerit of his innumerable sins is truly humbled
and grieved before the Lord, on account of the sinfulness and hurtfulness of
them. He feels bitter remorse, unfeigned sorrow, and deep self-abhorrence for
the aggravated transgressions of his life, and the deep depravity of his nature;
chiefly, because by all his innumerable provocations he has dishonoured an
infinitely holy and gracious God, transgressed a law which is "holy, and just,
and good," and defiled, deformed, and even destroyed his own precious soul. This
godly sorrow for sin and this holy abhorrence of it arise from a spiritual
discovery of pardoning mercy with God in Christ, and from the exercise of
trusting in His mercy. And these feelings and exercises are always accompanied
by an unfeigned love of universal holiness, and by fixed resolutions and
endeavours to turn from all iniquity to God and to walk before him in newness of
life. Such, in general is the nature of that evangelical repentance, to the
habit and exercise of which the Lord Jesus calls sinners who hear the Gospel. To
understand spiritually and distinctly the proper place of true repentance in the
covenant of grace, as well as the duty and necessity, the grace and exercise of
it, is of inexpressible importance to the faith, holiness, and comfort of the
Christian. It is due in a higher degree than is commonly believed, to their want
of such views of it that multitudes in the visible church mistake a counterfeit
for a true repentance and so flatter themselves that they are true penitents and
their salvation is sure. It is because many convinced sinners have not a
distinct discernment of its place in the new covenant that they apprehend that
Christ will receive none but the true penitent, or that none else is warranted
to trust in Him for salvation. Hence, they dare not attempt coming to the
gracious Redeemer till they are first satisfied that their repentance is of the
true kind, until they can bring it as a price in their hand to procure their
welcome. Instead of this, they ought without a moment’s delay to come to Christ
for true repentance. It is no less owing to their ignorance of its due place
among the other blessings of salvation that many believe it to be the federal
condition of the pardon of sin in justification, and persuade themselves that in
the Gospel this pardon is offered only to the penitent. And is it not because of
their gross ignorance of the nature and use of true repentance that many can
persuade themselves that their repentance will even atone for their crimes, that
it will make satisfaction to the insulted justice of the Most High, and
reinstate them in His favour? It is in a high degree owing to their ignorance of
the nature and design of evangelical repentance and of its place in the new
covenant that many true converts do, even for years, make their exercise of
repentance a part of their warrant to renew the acting of their trust in the
Lord Jesus Christ for salvation. And doubtless if others who appear to be real
Christians had attained correct and distinct views of the grace, duty, and
necessity of true repentance, they would not have imagined, as they seem to have
done, that the exercise of it was over with their first conversion; nor would
they have presumed to look back on that exercise as a ground of right to apply
to themselves the unlimited offers and absolute promises of the glorious Gospel.
As it is then of the utmost consequence both to sinners and to saints that they
attain just and distinct views of the nature and the place of true repentance,
and they be deeply affected with the high importance and absolute necessity of
it to their eternal welfare, I shall endeavour, in humble dependence on the
Spirit of truth, to assist such of them as will read this treatise to attain
those views. And in order the more effectually to do this, I shall consider
first, the sources of true repentance; secondly, the nature and import of it;
thirdly, the necessity of it; fourthly, the difference between a true and a
counterfeit repentance; fifthly, the fruits or evidences of true repentance;
sixthly, the priority of the acting of genuine faith to the exercise of
evangelical repentance; seventhly, the priority of justification to the first
exercise of true repentance; and in the last place, I shall answer some
objections.

Reformatted for e-Sword by Stored on <http://www.davidcox.com.mx/>


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  CHAPTER 2: 01.01.     THE SOURCES OF TRUE REPENTANCE
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1. The Sources of True Repentance In the first place, I am to consider the
sources or springs of true repentance.

1. The exercise of true or evangelical repentance flows from the work of the
Holy Spirit in regeneration and sanctification.

God has exalted Christ "with his right hand to be a Prince and a Saviour, for to
give repentance to Israel, and forgiveness of sins" (Acts 5:31). The Holy
Spirit, as the Spirit of Christ, implants the principle of it in the heart in
regeneration and converts this principle into a habit in sanctification. True
repentance is not the work of nature but of grace; not of a man’s own spirit but
of the Spirit of Christ. As it is the office of the Mediator to give repentance,
so He gives it to his elect by performing these promises to them: "I will take
away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you an heart of flesh"
(Eze 36:26); "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" (Zec 12:10). True
repentance, which is an evangelical contrition of heart and a fixed resolution
of spirit to turn from all sin to God, is wrought in the soul by the Spirit of
Christ. The Spirit being given without measure to Christ, He, in the day of His
power, communicates the same Spirit to His elect, who by His almighty operation
breaks their hearts from and for sin, and converts them from sin to holiness.
This is the primary source from which spring a true penitent’s views of the
malignity of sin, and his feelings of regret for it. They all result from the
gracious influences of the Holy Spirit. It is His peculiar province as the
Convincer of sin and misery, and the gracious Comforter to implant in the soul
that holy principle, and to excite and regulate all its exercise. In producing
and strengthening the habit, and in directing the exercise of this grace, the
Holy Spirit commonly employs His blessed Word. He makes use of His law to break
the hard heart, and of His Gospel as a fire to melt it into godly sorrow for
sin. "Is not my word like as a fire? saith the Lord; and like a hammer that
breaketh the rock in pieces?" (Jer 23:29). Thus, the awakened sinner is on the
one hand driven by the law, and on the other kindly drawn by the Gospel to the
exercise of sincere repentance.

2. Meditation on or consideration of such subjects as tend by the Holy Spirit to
produce and increase in the heart evangelical repentance is one of the springs
of it.

Multitudes remain impenitent for want of consideration. The Lord says, "I
hearkened and heard, but they spake not aright: no man repented him of his
wickedness, saying, What have I done?" (Jer 8:6). Impenitence is in a great
degree the effect of the extenuating notion of the exceeding sinfulness of sin.
Repentance, therefore, must spring from a deep consideration and a true sense of
its infinite malignity and demerit. It flows from deep and affecting meditation
on the majesty and glory, the holiness and justice, the authority and law, the
threatenings and judgments of God, and on His just severity against the angels
who sinned, against Adam and all his posterity, against Sodom and Gomorrah, the
nations of Canaan, and the Jews, in the final destruction of their city and
temple, and in the continued dispersion of their nation. These awful examples of
His inexorable justice and tremendous fury show us what is His judgment of the
exceeding sinfulness of sin, and of the dreadful punishment which awaits the
impenitent sinner. And they are left on record that they may direct us to judge
of the sin of our nature and of the transgressions of our life, as God judges.
And we may be sure "that the judgment of God is according to truth" (Rom 2:2).
The exercise of true repentance flows in an eminent degree from a deep and
affecting meditation on the doleful anguish and amazing death of the Lord Jesus,
our adorable Surety. When we seriously consider who He was, for whom He
suffered, and what He endured, we cannot but perceive God’s infinite and
irreconcilable abhorrence of all iniquity. Here we see that, rather than leave
sin unpunished, or permit angels and men to be ignorant of His infinite
detestation of that abominable thing, He would deliver up His only begotten Son,
in whom His soul delighted, to the most direful anguish, agony, and death. Here
we perceive that the fiery indignation of God against sin does not proceed from
the smallest defect of love to sinners as His creatures, but from that infinite
abhorrence of sin, which arises from a full view of its infinite malignity, and
contrariety to the holiness of His nature and law. It is, then, from spiritual
and heart-affecting views of the Lamb of God bearing our sins and carrying our
sorrows that the exercise of evangelical repentance immediately flows. We behold
in the glass of the holy and righteous law, and especially in that of the
Redeemer’s unparelleled sufferings, what an evil thing and bitter sin is (Jer
2:19). It is not only their love of sin, but their false apprehensions of the
evil and demerit of it that make sinners persist in cleaving to it. Were they to
contemplate, under the enlightening influences of the Holy Spirit, the infinite
malignity and desert of the sin of their nature, and of the aggravated
transgressions of their life, they would flee from them with horror. Were
convinced sinners but to consider seriously the heinousness of their innumerable
sins, the afflictions and warnings, the counsels and reproofs, the mercies and
deliverances, the light and knowledge, the obligations and vows, against which
they have sinned, their eye would affect their heart, and their repentings would
be kindled together (Hos 11:8).

3. The exercise of evangelical repentance springs from a true sense of sin. A
genuine sense of sin consists of an affecting sight, and a painful feeling, not
only of the hurtfulness and danger, but also of the deformity and hatefulness of
sin (Eze 36:31). When the Holy Spirit strikes home the doctrine of the law upon
the conscience, the consequence is that the sinner is instructed, and then he
smites upon his thigh (Jer 31:19). A true sense of sin includes an affecting
sight or discernment of it by the enlightened mind. "My sin," says the Psalmist,
"is ever before me" (Psa 51:3). No sooner are the eyes of a sinner’s
understanding opened than he begins to see the exceeding sinfulness of sin in
his heart and life. He sees his innumerable provocations, and discerns that
malignity in sin which he never saw before. He sees, and is deeply affected with
the sight of his great transgressions against an infinitely holy and gracious
God. The holy law as a looking-glass is held before his eyes, and he therein
discerns his pollution and deformity. And now that he has begun to see, he
searches every corner of his heart, and every period of his life, which were
before neglected as the sluggard’s garden, and multitudes of secret abominations
are set in the light. His mouth is stopped, and his sins at length have found
him out (Num 32:23). A true sense of sin also includes such a consciousness or
conviction, as is a painful feeling of it. Now that the sinner is spiritually
alive he has not only spiritual sight, but spiritual feeling. He begins to feel
the sores of his diseased nature. The sin which sat lightly on him before
becomes now a burden too heavy for him (Psa 38:4). It is such a burden on his
spirits, as sinks them; on his head, as it is impossible for him to discharge;
and on his back, as bows it down. "I am bowed down greatly," says the Psalmist,
"I go mourning all the day long" (Psa 38:6). Accordingly, when the awakened
sinner is coming to Christ, he is described as one who has a heavy burden upon
him (Mat 11:28). "Take with you words, and turn to the Lord: say unto him, Take
away all iniquity"- Hebrew : "Lift off all iniquity as a burden" (Hos 14:2). A
true sense of sin is an affecting sight and feeling, especially of the exceeding
sinfulness or malignity of sin. It is a sense not only of our evil doings but of
the evil of our doings; not only of our sin but of the exceeding sinfulness of
our sin; and not merely of things which are in themselves sinful but of the
iniquity even of our holy things. The true penitent has a deep and affecting
sense of the evil that cleaves even to his best performances (Isa 64:6). Of all
evils, he concludes that sin is the greatest, and of all sinners, he often
thinks that he himself is the chief. He sees and feels that the innumerable
evils which compass him about are the weightiest of burdens, the heaviest of
debts, the foulest of stains, and the worst of enemies. He has a true sense of
the evil of sin in reference to himself (Rom 6:21), and of the evil of it with
respect to God. He sees that it is the very opposite of the infinitely holy and
amiable nature of God in Christ (Hab 1:13). The true penitent loves God
supremely, and therefore his sins are a heavy burden to him. He loathes himself
because he has walked contrary to the holy Lord God, and thereby insulted,
reproached, and provoked Him (Lam 5:16). He sees also that sin is contrary to
that law of God which is holy, to that commandment which "is holy, and just, and
good" (Rom 7:12). Discerning the perfect equity and purity of God’s law, the
penitent sees the great evil of every transgression of it (1Jn 3:4). He sees the
sinfulness of sin likewise, with respect to Jesus Christ. He has an affecting
discovery of it as the procuring cause of the unparalleled sufferings of his
Redeemer (Zec 12:10). The doleful anguish and excruciating death of the Lamb of
God are comments on the evil and demerit of sin, which the penitent reads with
deep attention. The dying agonies and groans of that Saviour who loved him and
gave Himself for him rend his heart, and afford him the most affecting view of
the evil of sin. Hence, he has such a true sense of the sinfulness of his sin,
as is an abiding source of evangelical repentance.

4. A spiritual apprehension of the pardoning mercy of God in Christ is one of
the springs of true repentance.

Without the exercise of saving faith, or the apprehension of the mercy of God in
Christ, there may be a sense of sin but not a true sense: there may be a sense
of sin as hurtful to the sinner himself (Gen 4:13), but not a sense of it as
hateful to an holy God (Hab 1:13). To apprehend the mercy of God in Christ, is
to exercise the faith of His pardoning mercy. It is to rely by faith on the
surety-righteousness of Jesus Christ for a right to pardon and acceptance as
righteous in the sight of God, and to trust in His redeeming mercy. Accordingly
the Psalmist says, "I have trusted in thy mercy" (Psa 13:5). And, again, "I
trust in the mercy of God for ever and ever" (Psa 52:8). Such a knowledge of sin
as is produced only by the law may result in slavish fear and worldly sorrow but
it is the faith of redeeming mercy alone, as revealed and offered in the Gospel,
that paints iniquity in such hateful colours as to make the penitent ashamed and
confounded. A deep sense of sin, indeed, may proceed from the faith of the law,
but a true sense of it must arise from the faith both of the law and of the
Gospel. The faith of redeeming mercy is a spring of true repentance, and that by
which the exercise of it is influenced and regulated. Though the graces of faith
and repentance are, in respect of time, implanted together and at once; yet in
order of nature, the acting of faith goes before the exercise of true
repentance. The sinner then must cordially believe or trust in Christ for
pardon, in order to exercise evangelical mourning for sin, and turning from it
unto God. True repentance is very pleasing to God, "but without faith it is
impossible to please him" (Heb 11:6). To trust firmly in the Lord Jesus, both
for pardon and purification, is that which, under the sanctifying influences of
the Holy Spirit, will be most effectual to melt down the heart into repentance.
It is when sin is contemplated by the believer as a base and criminal outrage
against the Father of mercies, and his own God and Father, that a sense of the
malignity of it is deeply impressed on his heart. And it is this affecting
persuasion that, by his innumerable sins, he in particular pierced the dear
Redeemer; or, that the Redeemer was wounded for his transgressions, and bruised
for his iniquities-it is this, I say, that melts his heart into godly sorrow and
penitential mourning for his aggravated crimes (Zec 12:10). It is evident then
that the exercise of true repentance flows from the acting of unfeigned faith in
a crucified Redeemer, and in the mercy of God through Him, and that, in
proportion as the acting of faith is frequent and lively, the exercise of
repentance will be deep and spiritual.

These things, though they do not merit evangelical repentance, yet are the
springs from which the exercise of it flows. Is a true sense of sin one of the
springs of evangelical repentance? Then it is manifest that the unconvinced
sinner is not only an impenitent, but an unregenerate sinner. Reader, if ever
the Holy Spirit has regenerated you, He has given you a spiritual sight and
painful feeling of the sin of your nature and of the transgressions of your
life. He has brought home to your conscience the precept and penalty of the
Divine law as a broken covenant. The consequence has undoubtedly been that you
have been truly convinced, not only of your sin, but of the malignity of your
sin; not only of your evil doings, but of the evil of your doings; not merely of
doings which are in themselves sinful, but of the iniquity even of your holy
things; and not only of their desert of punishment, but of everlasting
punishment. If you never had in any degree this sense of sin, you have never
exercised true repentance. Perhaps you have been trying to wash away your sins
with the tears of a legal repentance, but without this sense of sin you have not
exercised that repentance which is the consequence of having washed them away in
the blood of the Lamb.

Hence also it is plain that legal convictions of sin, and legal terrors of
conscience, are not true repentance. They are sometimes introductory to the
exercise of it, but they form no part of that exercise. These are but like
unripe fruits. They must be ripened by the warm sun of Gospel-influence, before
he who has them can exercise in the smallest degree evangelical repentance. Or
rather, they may be compared to the blossoms which appear before, and differ in
kind from the fruit. They often fall off, or go up as dust, and no fruit of true
repentance follows. The first fruits of the second death are, alas! often
mistaken by many for the pangs of the second birth. And therefore, if the reader
has ever had them, he should examine well whether he has experienced a
deliverance out of them; if his soul has renounced itself for justification and
for sanctification; if he has come to the Lord Jesus Christ and Him only, both
for justifying righteousness, and for sanctifying grace (Isa 45:24); and if his
heart has been melted and grieved for his innumerable sins, because they have
been committed against God in Christ, as a gracious God and Father (Jer 31:18).
This is the harbour at which they arrive, who come rightly out of those
frightful depths. But alas! many plunge to and fro in them for a time, and land
again on the same side at which they went in. Does the exercise of evangelical
repentance spring from the faith of pardoning mercy? The proper way then of
dealing with the hard heart to bring it to true repentance is to press the
sinner to believe in Jesus Christ for pardoning mercy and sanctifying grace.
This, under the influences of the Holy Spirit, is the way to soften and melt the
heart and to dispose it willingly to exercise genuine repentance. The impenitent
sinner should be exhorted to imitate those fowls, which first fly up, and then
dart down upon their prey; first, to soar aloft, by trusting in the redeeming
mercy of God in Christ, and then, to come down in the exercise of evangelical
humiliation. "They shall look upon me whom they have pierced, and they shall
mourn for him" (Zec 12:10). Unbelief or distrust of pardoning mercy hardens the
heart, and removes it farther and farther from God; whereas the spiritual faith
of pardon touches the rebel’s heart and makes it relent. From what has been
said, we may learn what a true sense of sin is. It is such a spiritual sight and
feeling of sin as arises from the faith of pardoning mercy; and is such a sense
of the malignity and deformity of sin as makes the penitent conclude that of all
evils it is the greatest. He sees the evil of sin not only with respect to
himself but with regard to God, and Christ, and the Holy Spirit. It is a
distinct sense of the particular evils of the heart and life. "Against thee,
thee only have I sinned," says David, "and done this evil in thy sight" (Psa
51:4). It is a real, and not an imaginary sense of sin; and so it surpasses a
merely rational conviction of sin, as far as that sense of the bitterness of
gall, which is attained by tasting it, goes beyond that which is got by the bare
report of it (Jer 2:19). It is also an abiding, a permanent sense of iniquity,
"Mine eye," says the afflicted church, "trickleth down, and ceaseth not, without
any intermission" (Lam 3:49). The removal of a plague put an end to Pharaoh’s
consciousness of sin, but in the true penitent the wound is deep, and so the
sense is abiding. In a word, it is lively and operative. The eye of the true
penitent affects his heart, and when the heart is suitably affected, it excites
all the powers of the soul to action. There is a sense of sin, which discovers
itself in nothing but indolent wishes, and fruitless complaints. But a true
sense of it stimulates the penitent to immediate and diligent endeavours.

Hence also it is evident that it is the duty of every sinner to attain without
delay a true sense of sin. For this purpose meditate frequently on such subjects
as tend to beget and increase in your heart a deep sense of the odiousness and
demerit of sin. Impenitence is greatly the effect of extenuating notions of the
infinite malignity of transgression; whereas repentance flows from a true sense
of its malignity and odiousness. Meditate also on the dreadful anguish and
ignominious death of the Lamb of God, when he made Himself an offering for sin.
In these you may see plainly that God’s abhorrence of sin is so inexpressibly
great, that He would sooner deliver up His only begotten Son, in whom His soul
delighted, to the most dreadful agony and excruciating death, than leave it
unpunished. To contemplate Gethsemane and Golgotha is, under the influences of
the Holy Spirit, eminently conducive to evangelical repentance. Consider, too,
that how light soever your crimes may sit on your spirit, they are a heavy
burden to the Spirit of God. "Behold," says Jehovah, "I am pressed under you, as
a cart is pressed that is full of sheaves" (Amo 2:13). The lighter that your sin
lies upon your mind, the more grievous it is to the Holy Spirit of God. And if
you do not sincerely repent of it, He will ease Himself of that burden, by
pouring out upon you the fury of His great indignation (Isa 1:24). Consider, I
entreat you, that without an affecting sense of the hatefulness of sin, there is
no humiliation; that without humiliation, there is no true repentance; and that
without such repentance, it will be impossible for you to escape the wrath to
come (Luk 13:3). Study then in dependence on promised grace, and that without
delay, to obtain a true and a deep sense of the exceeding sinfulness of your sin
(Rom 7:13). From what has been said it is obvious that you ought also to use all
the appointed means of attaining evangelical repentance. The Lord has appointed
various means, and commanded you to use them. Employ them all, therefore, and
instead of depending on them, or relying on your use of them, trust that the
Lord Jesus will render them effectual. If you sincerely desire to repent, you
will manifest your sincerity by using with diligence all appointed means.

Meditate seriously then on the sin of your nature, heart, and life, and
especially on the exceeding sinfulness of it. "Remember from whence thou art
fallen, and repent" (Rev 2:5). Consider your ways. "I thought on my ways," says
David, "and turned my feet unto thy testimonies" (Psa 119:59). Survey minutely
your inclinations and thoughts, your words and actions, even from your earliest
years. Put to yourself seriously such questions as these: What have I been
intending and pursuing all my days? What has been the rule of my conduct? the
maxims of men, or the Word of God? the customs of the world, or the example of
Christ? What has the supreme love of my heart been fixed on? Have I given to
Christ, or to the world, my strongest desires and warmest attachments? Has it
been my habitual intention to please God, or to please myself? Has it been His
glory that I have aimed at in every pursuit, or my own gratification, wealth or
honour? Is it in heaven or upon earth that I have chiefly been aiming, to lay up
treasures for myself? Has God in Christ been the delightful subject of my
frequent meditation and conversation? or have I regarded religious thoughts and
converse as insipid and wearisome? Have I been out of my element when employed
in the delightful work of prayer and praise, of reading and hearing the glorious
Gospel? And have I found more pleasure in licentious mirth and trifling
conversation? Have I kept the Sabbath, and with holy reverence frequented the
sanctuary of the Lord? or have I profaned His Sabbath, and poured contempt on
His ordinances? And have I relied for all my right to eternal life on the
surety-righteousness of Jesus Christ, and trusted cordially in Him for all His
salvation? or have I relied for a title to life partly on my own works, and
trusted in Him for a part only of His salvation?

Propose with impartiality these questions to yourself, and suffer conscience to
return a faithful answer, in order that you may so discern your self-deformity,
as to abhor yourself, and repent in dust and ashes. When you use the means,
believe the promises of true repentance (Eze 36:31; Psa 22:27). Upon the warrant
of their being directed in offer to you, apply and trust and plead them. To
believe the promises and yet not to use the means is presumption; and to use the
other means and yet not to employ the principal mean of trusting Christ and the
promise is self-righteousness. When you are employing the means of evangelical
repentance, be constantly on your guard against every hindrance to the exercise
of it. Inconsiderateness, the not apprehending the mercy of God in Christ,
slothfulness, the love and cares of the world, prejudices against the exercise
of faith and the practice of holiness, and presumptuous confidence, are some of
them. As these are powerful obstructions to the habit and exercise of true
repentance, be always on your guard against yielding to any of them. In the
faith of the promise, and with importunate supplication for the Spirit of grace,
labour to mortify them. In conclusion, it may justly be inferred from what has
been advanced that it is not sound doctrine to teach that Christ will receive
none but the true penitent, or that none else is warranted to come by faith to
Him for salvation. The regenerated sinner must first by faith embrace Christ,
and apprehend the pardoning mercy of God in him before he can exercise true
repentance. Accordingly, the invitations of the Gospel to every sinner who hears
it are these: "Let him that is athirst, come. And whosoever will, let him take
the water of life freely" (Rev 22:17). "Come ye, buy and eat; yea, come, buy
wine and milk without money and without price" (Isa 55:1). The evil of that
doctrine is that it sets needy sinners on spinning repentance, as it were, out
of their own bowels, and on bringing it with them to Christ, instead of coming
to Him by faith to receive it from Him. It also tends to prevent convinced
sinners from attempting to come to Christ, as it teaches them to keep aloof from
Him, till they be assured that they have true repentance to bring with them. For
a sinner cannot lawfully come to the Saviour till he is sure that he has a
present warrant to do so. If Christ will receive none but him who is satisfied
that he has genuine repentance, then no one else is invited or commanded to
believe in him; for surely, he who is invited and commanded to come to Christ
will be welcome to Him. Besides, if none be invited but the true penitent, then
impenitent sinners are not bound to come to Christ; for none is warranted or
bound to come to Him, but he who is invited. And if a sinner who is not invited
nor commanded does not come, he cannot be justly blamed for not coming; for
where no law is, there is no transgression. The truth is that every sinner who
hears the Gospel is both invited and commanded to believe in the compassionate
Saviour, and every one who cordially believes in Him will, in consequence,
exercise evangelical repentance as a part of that salvation for which he trusts
in Him.te Saviour, and every one who cordially believes in Him will, in
consequence, exercise evangelical repentance as a part of that salvation for
which he trusts in Him.


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  CHAPTER 3: 01.02.     THE NATURE AND IMPORT OF TRUE REPENTANCE
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2. The Nature and Import of True Repentance The original words in the New
Testament, which in the Authorised Version of the Bible are translated
repentance, are metamellomai and metanoia. The former of these words signifies
"an after carefulness," or an uneasy feeling of regret and dissatisfaction for
what has been done, without regard either to duration or to effects. It denotes
a mere change of feeling, whether it be for the better or for the worse; such a
sorrow as is not productive of a real change of conduct, and does not imply it.
It does not imply a consideration either of goodness or badness, but merely of
change from whatever motive or cause. It is therefore the word which is usually
employed by the sacred writers to express repentance of any sort. And indeed,
according to the common acceptation of the term with us, a man may as properly
be said to repent of a good, as of a bad action. A covetous man will repent of
the alms which a transient fit of compassion may have incited him to bestow. The
original word then signifies remorse or dissatisfaction with one’s self, for
what one has done. On the other hand, the latter of those words signifies "a
change of mind," of judgment, of disposition, of purpose, and of conduct. It
denotes properly a change for the better; a change of mind that is not
transitory, but durable, and productive of good conduct. It implies not only
sorrow and remorse for what is past, but a change of disposition and of conduct
for the future. When John the Baptist, our Lord, and His Apostles inculcate this
change of mind as a duty, or mention the necessity of it as a doctrine of
Christianity, metanoia and metanoeo are the terms which they invariably employ.
One or other of these is the word commonly used to express the habit and
exercise of that repentance which is evangelical and abiding, and not to be
repented of. The repentance then which is in the New Testament required of
sinners is such an entire change of mind, or of views and sentiments respecting
sin and salvation, as discovers itself by a genuine sorrow for sin, a firm
resolution to hate and forsake it, and a sincere endeavour so to return to God
in Christ as to walk with Him in newness of life: the sincerity of which is to
be evidenced by fruits meet for repentance. This, as was hinted above is true
repentance. And as it is the gift of God, the purchase of Christ, and the work
of the Holy Spirit, it is a saving grace. Implanted by the Spirit at
regeneration, it is so inseparably connected with salvation, as to constitute an
essential part of it. In the Scriptures it is called, "repentance to salvation,"
and "repentance unto life" (Acts 11:18); as it proceeds from, and evidences
spiritual life in the soul, and as it prepares for, and issues in the perfection
of life eternal; as also to distinguish it from the sorrow of the world which
works death (2Co 7:10) it is also styled, "repentance toward God," because in
the exercise of it a sinner turns from all known sin, to the love and the
service of God (Acts 20:21).

True repentance is not a transient act, as if a sigh or a pang of sorrow for sin
amounted to it. No, these may indeed be acts of true repentance, while they
issue from a heart sincerely penitent: but repentance itself, instead of being a
passing act, is an abiding principle, a lasting disposition of soul, a gracious
principle lying deep in the heart, disposing a man at all times to mourn for and
turn from sin (Zec 12:10). The waters of godly sorrow for sin in the renewed
heart will continue to spring up there while sin is there, though they may,
through remaining hardness of heart, be much obstructed for a time. After the
heart has, at the sinner’s first conversion, been smitten with evangelical
repentance, the wound still bleeds, and will continue more or less to bleed
until the band of glory be put about it in the holy place on high. If,
therefore, a man regards repentance only as the first stage in the way to
heaven, and instead of renewing daily his exercise of it, satisfies himself with
concluding that he has passed the first stage, the truth of his repentance is
very questionable. The man who does not see his need of exercising repentance
daily may have a counterfeit, but cannot have a true repentance. He may have a
superficial sorrow for his sins, and even such remorse gnawing his conscience as
may be the first moving of the worm that shall never die, as that of Judas was,
and yet be a total stranger to that evangelical repentance, which is both a
saving grace and an abiding principle. In the heart of the true penitent, a
wonderful and permanent change has been graciously effected. He is irresistibly
constrained to abandon his former views of sin, of salvation from sin, and of
the pleasantness and beauty of holiness, and to embrace sentiments altogether
opposite. Such a change is produced in his inclinations and affections that he
no longer takes pleasure in unrighteousness, but delights in the law of God and
in obedience to it after the inward man. And the more pleasure he takes in
holiness, the more deep, and even delicious will his sorrow for sin be, and the
more vigorous will his endeavours be to turn from all sin to God. And yet, so
far is he from meriting any blessing from God by his exercise of true
repentance, that he is laid under fresh obligations to Him for having granted to
him the inestimable blessing of repentance unto life. The more of it he receives
from God, the more he is bound to honour Him by a lively and frequent exercise
of it.

Having thus glanced at the formal nature of evangelical repentance, I now
proceed to consider, what the exercise of it includes.

1. True repentance imports deep humiliation of soul before the Lord.

It is by the high way of pride that sinners depart from God; and it is by the
low way of humiliation that they return to Him. The grace of Christ brings elect
sinners down from their high conceit of themselves and lays them low at the
footstool of a gracious God. It makes them humble themselves under the mighty
hand of God that He may exalt them in due time (1Pe 5:6). As it was with
Benhadad’s servants (1Ki 20:31-32), so it is with true penitents. By faith, they
understand that the King of Israel is a merciful King; by repentance, they put
sackcloth on their loins, and ropes on their heads, and in that humble posture,
they come to Him. Evangelical humiliation is the immediate consequence of a true
sense of sin, and of a spiritual apprehension of pardoning mercy. It consists in
lowliness, or self-abasement of mind before God, and esteeming others better
than ourselves; in having low thoughts of ourselves, and a deep sense of our
extreme meanness, hatefulness, weakness, and unworthiness in the sight of God.
It is the sense that a true Christian has of his own despicableness, odiousness
on account of sin, and utter inability for the least good thought, word, or
work, and that with a suitable frame of heart. In true humiliation the believing
sinner sees the hatefulness of his iniquity, and the inexpressible odiousness of
his heart and life because of sin; and he has an answerable frame of spirit, a
disposition to abhor and abase himself as a sinner, to exalt Christ alone, and
voluntarily to deny and renounce himself. The hypocritical or legal penitent is
lifted up with an high opinion of his humiliation, and is ostentatious of it;
whereas the true penitent is deeply humbled for the pride of his heart. He
accounts himself one of the least of saints, and is disposed to think others
better than himself (Php 2:3). He sees that his humiliation is very small in
comparison of what it ought to be, and that his pride is very great and
exceeding sinful. He is a thousand times more quick-sighted in discerning his
pride and self-righteous temper than his humility. On the contrary, the
hypocrite is blind to nothing so much as to his pride, and quick-sighted to
nothing so much as to his show of humility. Evangelical humiliation then is a
principal part of the exercise of true repentance. The sincere penitent so
discerns and feels the plague of his own heart as to think less favourably of
himself than he can do of others, or they of him.

2.The exercise of true repentance includes godly sorrow for sin. The remorse of
the evangelical penitent is a sorrowful remorse, a deep contrition of heart, not
so much for the punishment to which he has exposed himself, as for the indignity
he has done to a holy, a gracious, and a merciful God. The apostle Paul styles
it, "Sorrow according to God," or "godly sorrow" (2Co 7:10), not only to
distinguish it from the sorrow of the world which works death, but to shew that
it is grief for sin because it is sin; because it is an infinite offence given,
and an infinite dishonour done, to a holy, a good, and a gracious God, a
transgressing of His holy and righteous law, a defacing of His moral image, a
piercing of His dear Son, and a grieving of His Holy Spirit. Trusting that the
spotless Lamb of God was pierced for his iniquities, the true penitent mourns,
not so much for himself as for Him (Zec 12:10). And so real, so deep is his
penitential sorrow that though there were no conscience to accuse, no judge to
condemn, no devil to affright, no hell to torment, yet he would mourn and be in
bitterness for having offended that God who has loved him, pierced that Saviour
who died for him, and grieved that Spirit who sanctifies and comforts him.
"Against thee, thee only have I sinned," says the Psalmist, "and done this evil
in thy sight" (Psa 51:4). His penitential sorrow springs not only from a true
sense of the infinite hatefulness of his innumerable sins, but also from the
faith of redeeming mercy, and from his love of God and of His holy law. His
godly sorrow springs likewise from his views of the infinite majesty,
excellence, holiness, and amiableness of that transcendently glorious God whom
he has insulted; of the injustice and base ingratitude of which he has been
guilty; and of the infinite obligations to obedience which he has violated. Now
that his views of sin are changed, he feels deep regret, bitter remorse, and
intense sorrow for what he has done against his gracious God and Father. His
iniquities appear to his mind inexpressibly odious, and they become a heavy
burden, too heavy for him. He mourns bitterly for them, and still mourns that he
cannot mourn more. His heart is broken, and as it were melted when he considers
the odiousness and the multitude of his crimes against that gracious God, who
all the time was full of infinite love to him. He grieved the Holy Spirit by
committing sin, and he himself is now grieved in repenting of it. The adamantine
heart is dissolved into tears of godly sorrow; the rock is struck by the rod of
evangelical truth, and the waters gush out. This is that rending of the heart,
which the Lord requires (Joe 2:12-13). The sorrow of evangelical repentance is
inward and real sorrow. It is not a bowing down of the head as a bulrush (Isa
58:5), nor a disfigured countenance. It rises from inward principles of faith
and love; and so it makes the man mourn in secret before the Lord. It is deep
sorrow, sorrow which descends deeply into the heart. To dig deep was the
security of the house that was founded upon a rock (Luk 6:48). Penitential
sorrow is a prickling or piercing of the heart as with spears and swords, or a
compunction of heart (Acts 2:37). But is godly sorrow deeper in the heart than
the deepest grief on any worldly account? If we calculate merely feeling, or by
the moving of the affections, it is plain that it does not always appear deeper
than other sorrows. But if we compute by the fixed disposition of the heart, it
is evident that it is deeper than them all, and exceeds the greatest of them.
Persons are usually moved more sensibly by a less degree of sorrow than by a
greater. The greatest grief is often above tears. Penitential sorrow settles
more deeply, and continues more firm than any other grief.

It is also a lively sorrow, a grief that quickens the soul. The sorrow of the
world works death; it indisposes a man for activity in duty. But godly sorrow,
quickens a man to the spiritual performance of duty (2Co 7:11). The former
arises from slavish dread, which chills and stiffens the soul, and so renders it
unfit for action, the latter from faith and love, which warm the heart, and
dispose it to be ardent and active (Luk 7:47).

It is a universal sorrow. The evangelical penitent is grieved in heart not only
for his own iniquities but for those of others (Psa 119:136). He never mourns
sincerely for any one sin who does not mourn for all; and he never grieves
aright for the iniquities of his life who does not bewail bitterly the sin of
his nature.

It is moreover an operative sorrow. It "worketh repentance to salvation, not to
be repented of" (2Co 7:10). Godly sorrow and turning to God are inseparable.
Evangelical sorrow in the heart is a spring which, as it runs, works out the
love, power, and practice of sin. In a word, it is sorrow which continues in the
heart as long as sin remains in it. The grief of the legal penitent is like a
summer-flood, which is soon over, but the sorrow of the evangelical penitent is
like a living spring, which, in a greater or lesser measure, always sends forth
water.

3. Another ingredient in the exercise of true repentance is hatred of all sin,
accompanied by self-loathing.

True hatred of sin, under the sanctifying influences of the Holy Spirit, flows
from faith working by love to God; and it is a holy abhorrence of every sin as
infinitely hateful to Him. This hatred is universal against all sin, whether it
be known or unknown. "I hate," says the Psalmist, "every false way" (Psa
119:104). It is irreconcilable to any known sin. "I hate the work of them that
turn aside," says the Psalmist again, "it shall not cleave to me" (Psa 101:3).
It is constant without intermission. It is a hearty detestation, an utter
abhorrence of all sin as sin, and of every appearance of sin; an utter
abhorrence of it as peculiarly odious, as inexpressibly abominable; a
detestation of it in its nature as the greatest of all evils, the worst of all
enemies, as the most inveterate enemy, not only of the precious soul, but of
that God whose nature is infinitely lovely and loving. The more the true
penitent is enabled to trust that Jesus was wounded for his transgressions and
was bruised for his iniquities, the more he abhors them. In the sufferings and
death of the Lamb of God, he sees what infinite wrath, what tremendous
punishment he as a sinner deserves. And when he cordially trusts that the Lord
Jesus so loved him, as willingly to endure all that punishment for him, his
iniquities appear inexpressibly hateful in his view, and he longs to be able to
hate them with perfect hatred. He abhors sin as the worst of all evils, worse
even than the evil of suffering: and were he left to his choice, without fear of
ever being called to account, he would not choose sin; for he abhors it, because
of its contrariety to the holy nature and law of God.

True hatred of sin is accompanied by self-loathing. "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" (Eze 36:31).
The true penitent loathes, not only the sin which dwells in him, and the
innumerable transgressions which have been committed by him, but he loathes
himself as a sinner. Seeing in the glass of the loving-kindness, sparing mercy,
and holy law of God, and of the agony and anguish of his Redeemer, the
unutterable deformity, odiousness and demerit of his sins, he abhors himself for
his iniquities and abominations. "Wherefore I abhor myself," says Job, "and
repent in dust and ashes" (Job 42:6). He does not indeed loathe himself as a
creature, but he loathes himself as a sinner. He looks on himself as a most
deformed, a most polluted object. He now rejects with holy indignation all the
vain excuses for sin which he used formerly to make, and with which he satisfied
his conscience. He accuses, judges, and condemns himself. He is accordingly
represented as smiting on his breast (Luk 18:13); thereby declaring that he
considers his depraved heart within to be the source of all his other
abominations, and that he justly deserves to be struck at the heart and to die
for his innumerable and aggravated crimes. He sees now that his heart and his
life are a most loathsome spectacle; all as an unclean thing, and that all his
righteousnesses are as filthy rags. He loathes himself, therefore, and renounces
all confidence in himself.

4. The exercise of true repentance includes shame and confusion of face before
the Lord. The remembrance of his innumerable, and heinous provocations fills the
true penitent with holy shame and blushing before God. "O my God," says Ezra, "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" (Ezr
9:6). Shame was never felt in the world till our first parents had lost their
reputation by sinning against God. It is in consequence of a true sense of sin,
and of a fiducial apprehension of pardoning mercy that the true penitent is
filled with shame before a holy and gracious God, for the deep depravity of his
nature and the aggravated transgressions of his life.

Spiritual nakedness also occasions shame. Accordingly Adam, after he had sinned,
said to the Lord, "I heard thy voice in the garden; and I was afraid, because I
was naked, and I hid myself" (Gen 3:10). Sin has taken away the comeliness of
human nature. It has stripped the sinner of his beautiful garments, so that the
shame of his nakedness appears. The believing sinner sees that, and has this
great promise fulfilled to him: "That thou mayest remember, and be confounded,
and never open thy mouth any more because of thy shame, when I am pacified
toward thee for all that thou hast done, saith the Lord God" (Eze 16:63).
Reproach causes shame. "Sin is a reproach to any people" (Pro 14:34). That
knowledge of sin which is by the law may produce worldly sorrow, but it is the
province of the gospel only to paint sin in such colours as to make the true
penitent ashamed, yea, even confounded because he bears the reproach of his
youth (Jer 31:19). A true sense especially of base ingratitude, when it is
accompanied by the faith of redeeming mercy fills him with shame: "We lie down
in our shame, and our confusion covereth us; for we have sinned against the Lord
our God" (Jer 3:25). The disappointment also of his former hopes from sin fills
the penitent with holy shame. During his unregenerate state he expected
satisfaction and happiness in a course of disobedience, but now that his views
of sin are changed, he sees that he was all the time procuring for himself
nothing but present misery and endless destruction. His reflection upon this
often fills him with shame. Accordingly, the apostle Paul puts this question:
"What fruit had ye then in those things whereof ye are now ashamed? for the end
of those things is death" (Rom 6:21). A spiritual discovery also of the
pollution of his sin fills the penitent with shame. Sin defiles as well as
deforms the soul in the sight of God. The true penitent sees this and is
ashamed. "We are all as an unclean thing," says the church, "and all our
righteousnesses are as filthy rags" (Isa 64:6). And Daniel explains, "O Lord,
righteousness belongeth unto thee, but unto us, confusion of faces, as at this
day" (Dan 9:7).

5. The exercise of true repentance implies ingenuous and unreserved confession
of sin to the glory of that God who has been dishonoured by it.

Thus Joshua exhorted Achan, "My son, give glory to the Lord God of Israel, and
make confession unto him" (Jos 7:19). This is the way in which the true penitent
vents his godly sorrow, self-loathing, and shame. "I acknowledged my sin unto
thee," says the Psalmist, "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" (Psa 32:5). If the sin has been committed in secret, confession to God in
secret will suffice. If it has been a private offence, given not only to God but
to a fellow-creature, the confession is to be made not merely to God, but to
that fellow-creature in private (Jas 5:16). If it has been a public offence, the
confession should be public likewise (1Ti 5:20). Accordingly, David published
his confession to the church (Psa 51:1), and so did Paul (1Ti 1:13). As the
secret confession is to be made to God only, so the private and public
confessions, are to be made to him chiefly. Ingenuous confession of sin is so
necessary in the exercise of true repentance that in Scripture it is put for the
whole of repentance. Thus saith the lord, "I will go and return to my place,
till they acknowledge their offence" (Hos 5:15). The true penitent by his
unreserved confession of his crimes accuses himself. With sorrow and shame he
confesses to the honour of his God and Father, that times without number he has
transgressed His holy and righteous law. "I acknowledge my transgressions,"says
David; "and my sin is ever before me" (Psa 51:3). He also condemns himself. When
he looks into the holy law and considers the infinite malignity and demerit of
his innumerable crimes, he reads his doom and passes sentence on himself.
"Father," said the returning prodigal, "I have sinned against heaven and before
thee, and am no more worthy to be called thy son" (Luk 15:18-19). He sees and
confesses that he deserves for his great and aggravated provocations to sink
throughout eternity under the overwhelming wrath of almighty God. And he says
with the afflicted church, "It is of the Lord’s mercies that I am not consumed"
(Lam 3:22). He sees that it would have been just with God to have punished him,
considered as in himself, with everlasting destruction. Instead of covering his
transgression as Adam, the true penitent knows not where to find expressions
strong enough to set forth the extreme malignity of the very least of his
crimes. He lays his hand upon his mouth, and his mouth in the dust, as being
unable to declare either the multitude of his iniquities or the greatness of
their aggravations. His confession, accordingly, is free, sincere, particular,
and habitual.

6. The exercise of evangelical repentance, includes the sinner’s turning from
all sin to God in Christ. This is the formal nature of true repentance, or that
which completes it. It is under this notion of it that evangelical repentance,
is, in the Old Testament, often styled "returning" or "conversion." In the
exercise of this repentance the convinced sinner returns and comes to himself
(Luk 15:17); and then he turns from all sin to God. Whenever he comes to
himself, he will come to Christ by faith, and to God in Him by repentance.

(1) True penitents turn from all sin. "Repent, and turn from your idols, and
turn away your faces from all your abominations (Eze 14:6). To continue in the
practice of sin is inconsistent with the exercise of true repentance. Sincere
penitents cease from sin. Though sin remains in them, yet it does not reign as
formerly. Though they cannot shake themselves loose of the remains of sin, yet
they turn from it, both in their heart and in their life.

They turn from all sin in heart and affection. Although iniquity still cleaves
to them, yet they no longer cleave to it as formerly, but detest and loathe it
(Rom 7:24). Sin still hangs on them, but it is only as chains on the captive,
which are his grievous burden; or, as the grave-clothes on Lazarus, when he was
raised from the dead, which he was trying to shake off. Their esteem and love of
sin are changed into hatred of it. "I hate vain thoughts," says the Psalmist
(Psa 119:113). And again, "I hate every false way" (Psa 119:104). In the
exercise of true repentance their hearts are turned against all iniquity, and
they abhor it as the worst of evils-worse than even the most exquisite
suffering. Instead of taking pleasure in sin as formerly, they now loathe it.
Hence the exercise of such repentance is styled, a casting away of all their
transgressions (Eze 18:31); as one would cast away some very loathsome thing,
which he cannot endure to be near him. "Thou shalt cast them away as a
menstruous cloth; thou shalt say unto it, Get thee hence" (Isa 30:22). In a
word, their cleaving to sin is turned into an ardent and increasing desire to be
free from it. Though formerly sin was dear to them as the apple of the eye; yet
now that their heart is rent from it, as well for it, they long vehemently to be
delivered from it. Thus they turn from the love of all sin in their heart.

True penitents turn also from all sin in their life, or external conduct. They
study to have clean hands as well as a pure heart. In the exercise of repentance
they refuse compliance with the corrupt desires of the flesh and of the mind;
and so, they through the Spirit mortify the members and deeds of the body of sin
(Rom 8:13). They turn from gross sins, or outward abominations. They may indeed
be left on some occasion to fall into a gross sin, as David and Peter were, but
they are not suffered, as the impenitent are, to lie in it. They are raised
again by repentance. "A just man falleth seven times, and riseth up again" (Pro
24:16). They watch habitually against all temptations to sin (Psa 18:23), and
all occasions of it (Pro 4:14-15); and in proportion to the degree of their
sanctification, they abstain even from all appearance of evil.

They not only turn from the practice of open and gross sin, but they strive
daily against the sins of common infirmity. They exercise themselves, "to have
always a conscience void of offence toward God, and toward men" (Acts 24:16).
Their conscience is tender with respect to secret as well as to open sins; and
therefore they are as deeply concerned to resist motions of sin, and temptations
to it in secret before the Lord, as to strive against sinful words and actions
openly before the world. And when through infirmity any of them is overtaken in
a fault, he, under the sanctifying influences of the Holy Spirit, renews his
exercise of faith and repentance, and so he is always departing from iniquity.
True penitents will always be repenting as long as sin remains in them and
prevails against them. They who consider turning from sin as the work only of a
few days or weeks at a man’s first conversion are not true penitents. As
evangelical repentance is included in sanctification, and as turning from sin
both in heart and life is the same as dying to sin, the evangelical penitent is,
in principle and practice, constantly turning from sin.

(2) True penitents turn from all sin to God in Christ. They departed from God by
sin: they return to Him by repentance. "Come, and let us return unto the Lord"
(Hos 6:1). This is the term to which sinners turn in evangelical repentance.
Many who profess repentance turn from one sin to another and never to God: "They
return, but not to the most High" (Hos 7:16). But when the Holy Spirit enables
sinners to trust in Christ for that salvation of which pardon of sin and
repentance are essential parts, He thereby turns them from all sin to God; and
when they are thus turned, they turn to Him. "Turn thou me, and I shall be
turned... Surely after that I was turned, I repented" (Jer 31:18-19). By faith
sinners return to God as their God and their portion, and through Christ take up
their everlasting rest in Him as the strength of their heart, and their portion
for ever. But by repentance they return to the love of Him as their Lord or
Master, and to their duty to Him as such. In the exercise of evangelical
repentance they turn to the love of God as their Lord and Master. "O Lord our
God, other lords besides thee have had dominion over us; but by thee only will
we make mention of thy name" (Isa 26:13). They account Him infinitely worthy to
be obeyed, and served, and pleased in all things. They see the transcendent
glory, and amiableness of God in Christ, and therefore they count Him infinitely
worthy of all the love of their hearts, and of all the worship and obedience of
their lives (Jas 2:7). They testify their supreme love of Him by a deliberate
and cordial choice of Him as their only Lord. "Then shall she say, I will go and
return to my first husband; for then was it better with me than now" (Hos 2:7).
They discern the excellence and amiableness, not only of the Lord God Himself,
but also of His laws and ordinances, His image and service; and, therefore, they
firmly resolve to cleave to Him and serve Him. They also testify their love of
Him, by regarding His service as the greatest freedom, the highest honour, and
the truest happiness. When the prodigal came to himself, he said, "How many
hired servants of my father’s have bread enough and to spare!" (Luk 15:17). To
the same purpose the Psalmist says, "Blessed are they that dwell in thy house:
they will be still praising thee" (Psa 84:4). All true penitents consider the
service of sin as the greatest bondage, the deepest misery, but the service of
God in Christ as the truest freedom, the sweetest happiness. Their minds have
been enlightened to see the deformity of sin and the beauty of holiness, and
therefore their hearts abhor the one, and delight in practising the other.

True penitents turn also to their duty to God as their Lord and Master. When
Saul of Tarsus became a penitent, he said, "Lord what wilt thou have me to do?"
(Acts 9:6). All who return to God come home as servants to do His work. All who
become His friends do whatsoever he commands them (John 15:14). They "delight in
His commandments. As it is with their whole heart that they return to the love
and practice of their duty, so they have a full and fixed purpose of heart in
dependence to God. "O Lord, I have said that I would keep thy words." "I have
inclined my heart to perform thy statutes alway, even unto the end" (Psa 119:57,
Psa 119:112). They return to their duty, with a full purpose to enter upon and
keep the way of duty; to pursue and practise holiness in all manner of
conversation. This full purpose is a sincere resolution to return to the
practice of every known duty. True penitents study to know what is duty in every
situation, and when it is known, to perform it. They endeavour to serve the Lord
cheerfully and diligently in heart and in life.

It is also a purpose to return to spirituality in every duty. "We are the
circumcision,"says the apostle, "which worship God in the spirit" (Php 3:3).
Sincere penitents resolve through grace to have their hearts as well as their
hands engaged in their duties; to perform them from union with Christ, faith,
and love as the principles; from the grace of God and the love of Christ as the
motives; in the strength of the grace of Christ, and with the whole heart as the
manner; and to the glory of God in Christ as the ultimate end of them. This
resolution is usually called a full purpose because it is a resolution which is
put in execution without delay. "I made haste," says the Psalmist, "and delayed
not, to keep thy commandments" (Psa 119:60). It is so called also because a
sincere endeavour after new obedience is inseparably connected with it. Although
true penitents are sensible that they cannot in their own strength perform new
obedience, yet they habitually aim at it, and even at perfection in it (Php
3:14). The obedience which they purpose and endeavour to yield is styled new
obedience because the principles, the motives, the rule, the manner, and the end
of it are all new. The true penitent’s turning from all sin to God is voluntary.
Some turn from their sins sore against their will. They part from their darling
sins with great reluctance, as the covetous man from his possessions at death,
when he is forced to let them go. The true penitent, on the contrary, turns from
all iniquity with willingness, or by choice. In the same manner does he turn to
God. He voluntarily and heartily yields himself to Him to serve Him. "Thy people
shall be willing in the day of thy power (Psa 110:3). His turning from all sin
is also sincere. He turns from iniquity, not so much because it is hurtful, but
because it is hateful to him. He departs from it because it offends an
infinitely holy and gracious God, dishonours His dear Son, grieves His Holy
Spirit, violates His law, and defaces His image. His return to God in Christ is
sincere. He turns to Him, not feignedly but with his whole heart (Jer 3:10).
Hypocrites have a divided heart, one part for God and another for sin. But "no
man can serve two masters." Moreover, he turns speedily from sin to God. As long
as a man delays to turn from all sin his repentance is feigned. A true penitent
will no more delay, than a man would to snatch a burning coal from his bosom. He
will not delay a moment. He will make no truce with sin. He knows that if he
delay a single moment longer it may prove fatal to him. He therefore imitates
the Psalmist, who says, "I made haste, and delayed not, to keep thy commandments
(Psa 119:60). His turning from sin is also universal. Whoever turns sincerely
from any sin turns from all sin. Accordingly, Jehovah gave this command to the
house of Israel: "Cast away from you all your transgressions" (Eze 18:31). One
sin retained would render all his exercise of repentance vain; just as
Abimelech, the son of Jerubbaal’s concubine, was the death of all his seventy
sons by his wives, except one (Jdg 8:29; Jdg 9:5). The true penitent, therefore,
abstains from all appearance of evil, and carefully avoids every avenue of
temptation. Every sin as such is the object of his deep abhorrence. And if any
iniquity has prevailed against him more than another, if any sin has easily
beset him, this he resolutely and cheerfully foregoes, and with unreluctant mind
abandons. He so abandons every known sin as to return to the love, and to the
spiritual performance of every known duty. He not only yields new obedience, but
attempts the performance of it in all its parts. So much for the nature and
import of true repentance. From what has been said it may justly be inferred
that there is no exercise of true repentance without a heart broken from and for
sin. Sinners either must be broken-hearted for their sins, and be mourners in
Zion, or God will break them with the rod of His fiercest indignation. They
either must be of a contrite, that is, of a bruised or crushed spirit for the
unnumbered sins of their heart and life, or God will crush them under the
overwhelming weight of His unsupportable wrath. They will either mourn and be in
bitterness for their great transgressions, in time, or they shall weep and wail
under the punishment of them, through eternity. Alas! there are multitudes of
sinners at this day who are stout-hearted, who boldly outface reproofs, both
from the Word of God and their consciences, with hearts that neither break nor
bow. O that such would seriously reflect that a day shall come in which God will
make the stoutest heart to tremble, and the hardest heart to fly as in a
thousand pieces! Thou shalt break them with a rod of iron," says the Psalmist:
"Thou shalt dash them in pieces like a potter’s vessel" (Psa 2:9). "Who knoweth
the power of thine anger?" (Psa 90:11). Some secure sinner will say, "I daily
repent of my sins." Well would it be with you if you did so indeed. But no one
is so ready to pretend that he has true repentance as he who is yet an utter
stranger to it. If some regret for your sins and a transient wish for mercy were
true repentance, it were easy work. But it is far, very far from being so. You
cannot repent evangelically or acceptably without a new heart, a broken and
contrite spirit, a heart broken from and for all your iniquity. Neither can you
do so without cordial trust in the pardoning mercy of God in Christ. Be
exhorted, O impenitent sinner, to exercise that godly sorrow for sin which is a
fruit of saving faith, and which worketh repentance to salvation. Be no longer a
stranger to the exercise of evangelical mourning for the innumerable evils of
your heart and life. "Blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted"
(Mat 5:4).

It is also evident from what has been stated that sin will be followed by shame,
either in this world or in that which is to come. If a sinner live and die
without true repentance, his shame in the eternal world is certain. He shall be
covered with shame before all the armies of heaven and all the generations of
the children of Adam at the last day, and with the most overwhelming shame in
the place of torment for ever and ever. "Many of them that sleep in the dust of
the earth, shall awake... some to shame and everlasting contempt" (Dan 12:2).
And if the sinner is enabled, before it is too late, to exercise repentance unto
life, he will be covered with holy shame and blushing before the Lord. He will
glorify God by taking shame to himself for the loathsome deformity and pollution
of his unholy nature and life. If by the eye of faith he discerns that mercies
and forgivenesses belong to the Lord, he will surely confess that to himself
belongs confusion of face. If he is enabled to trust cordially that the Lord is
pacified toward him for all that he has done, he will remember and be confounded
and never open his mouth any more, because of his shame (Eze 16:63). He will in
secret before God be ashamed even of that which no fellow-creature could ever
witness. He will be as much ashamed of secret, as of open abominations.

We may hence infer also that shamelessness in sinning is a sure mark of
impenitence; and is therefore a forerunner of everlasting shame (Jer 6:15; Php
3:19). Impudence in committing sin reveals a hard and impenitent heart, and a
seared conscience. Ah! what well-grounded hope of heavenly glory can that man
have who glories in his shame, and who, instead of being ashamed of having
sinned, would be ashamed of appearing penitent?

Sin must surely be a very loathsome object in the eyes of the true penitent,
since the sight of it makes him loathe himself. No man truly abhors his sins but
he who loathes and abhors himself as a sinner. An impenitent sinner usually
loves that in himself which he appears to loathe in others, but the true
penitent loathes sin in himself even more than he does in others. And when he
loathes himself in his own sight for having sinned against an infinitely holy
and gracious God, it is at once a part and an evidence of his being a true
penitent; an argument that his love of sin is turned into hatred of it. If a
person, then, wishes to attain true self-loathing, let him in the faith of
illuminating and renewing influences, look narrowly into himself. Let him
closely and frequently inspect the inexpressible malignity and deformity of the
sin that dwells in him and of the innumerable abominations that are committed by
him. Many a poor sinner is pining away in his iniquity and in all the
loathsomeness of inbred corruption, threatening his eternal perdition, whilst in
the mean time he is fond of his condition and is dreaming of happiness. But, if
sovereign mercy prevent it not, dreadful shall be his surprise when he awakes in
the place of torment. O let no sinner remain a stranger to the exceeding
sinfulness of his heart and life! Let every one consider seriously and
frequently the infinite odiousness and demerit of his transgressions and his
extreme need of union and communion with the Lord Jesus Christ. Does evangelical
repentance include confession of sin? Let the reader, then, study to be sincere,
free, full, and particular in confessing his iniquities to the Lord. Your debt
by nature and practice to the law and the justice of God is boundless. You can
accumulate, but you cannot pay the immense sum. You are utterly insolvent. If
you be not found in Christ as Jehovah our Righteousness, you owe to the holy law
as a covenant of works a debt of perfect obedience for life, and of infinite
satisfaction for sin. Confess then the infinite sum. Confess it to the Lord in
order to prevent a legal pursuit, and to be capable of praying consistently for
a remission of it, which otherwise you cannot be. O if you had a spiritual sense
of your aggravated sins and godly sorrow for them, these like an overflowing
torrent would bear down before them all those things which now indispose you for
a free and particular confession of them. Is evangelical repentance a turning
from all sin to God in Christ? Let the reader then examine himself, whether he
has, in heart and affection, turned from all iniquity. Is your esteem of all sin
turned into contempt and dislike of it? Is your love of every sin turned into
abhorrence of it, and into self-loathing because of it? Is your cleaving to any
darling, any predominant lust, changed into a longing to be perfectly and
eternally freed from it? Have you turned from all known sin in your external
conduct? Have you forsaken all gross pollutions? Are you habitually on your
guard against all sins even of common infirmity, abstaining from all appearances
of evil? Do you labour, in dependence on promised grace, to resist the motions
of sin in your heart, and to refuse compliance with them in your life? Is your
turning from all sin, voluntary and sincere? Have you returned to God in Christ?
Instead of turning from one sin to another, have you returned from all iniquity
to the Lord? Do you esteem Him worthy to be obeyed, served, and pleased in all
things? Do you choose Him as your only Lord, and regard His service as your
greatest happiness, your highest honour? Have you with your heart returned to
your duty to Him? Is your heart reconciled to the whole law of God, the whole
yoke of Christ? Have you in your heart a deliberate and full purpose of new
obedience? Have you returned to the cheerful practice of every known duty, and
to spirituality in all? Have you returned to the performance of every duty,
voluntarily, sincerely, and without delay? Is it in the faith of pardoning mercy
and of sanctifying grace that you endeavour to perform all your duties? If you
have been enabled in any measure to do so, you may be satisfied that you are a
true penitent. And though your consciousness of being such is no part of your
warrant for renewing your actings of faith in the Lord Jesus, yet it will be an
encouragement to you to renew them upon the warrant afforded you in the glorious
Gospel. But if you are still not satisfied that you are a true penitent, come as
a sinner to Him who is exalted to give repentance, and trust in Him for that
evangelical repentance which is a substantial part of spiritual life, of that
life which is founded on justification, carried on by sanctification, and
completed in glorification. Is repentance a turning of the heart from all sin?
It plainly follows that turning from sin outwardly, while the heart still
cleaves to it, is far from being true repentance. It is easy indeed to reform
outwardly, but the great business consists in getting the heart, by justifying
and regenerating grace, broken from and for all manner of sin. If you would be
satisfied, that your repentance is not counterfeit but true, you must examine
the motives which excite you to turn from iniquity. For the low and legal
motives which rise no higher than yourself, your own safety and welfare, will
never evidence you to be a true penitent.

Many, alas! cease from certain acts of sin merely because sin ceases from them.
They have not left sin, but some particular sin has quit them. Many an old
sinner thinks himself a true penitent because he is not disposed as formerly to
wallow in the mire of youthful lusts. Some forsake certain sins, but not from
the evangelical principles of saving faith in the great Redeemer, union with
Him, love to Him, and hatred of all sin as sin. They do not love supremely the
holy nature of God in Christ, and therefore they do not hate the nature of sin.
But they can never begin to exercise evangelical repentance till they hate the
very nature of all iniquity, and begin to turn from it with holy abhorrence
because it is hateful not only to God but to themselves. Every sin is, in its
very nature, most detestable to the true penitent.

It follows also that merely negative reformation is not true repentance. A man
must not only turn from all sin, but turn to God. The evangelical penitent not
only ceases to do evil but learns to do well (Isa 1:16-17). He not only abhors
that which is evil but cleaves to that which is good (Rom 12:9). He not only
mortifies his corrupt inclinations and affections, but he possesses and
exercises the contrary graces. Many reform externally from the evils of their
past life, but they do not go forward to the ways of faith and holiness. Like
the proud Pharisee, who went up to the temple to pray, they satisfy themselves
with being not unjust, not extortioners, not adulterers. But they do not
consider that no sooner is the house from which the unclean spirit is gone out,
empty, than he returns with seven other spirits more wicked than himself, and
they enter in and dwell there; and so the last state of that man is worse than
the first (Mat 12:44-45). In evangelical repentance, the regenerate and
believing sinner returns from the love and practice of sin to the love and
enjoyment of God, and to that new obedience to him which flows from faith and
love. Turning to God in Christ is the essence of evangelical repentance. In
conclusion, the exercise of repentance must be the work of our whole lives, for
so our turning from sin and returning to God will be, if we are true penitents.
While the sincere penitent is fleeing from sin, it follows him. It often
overtakes him, and therefore he must renew his flight often. New provocations
require a renewed exercise of repentance; nay, old sins are not to be forgotten.
"Remember," said Moses to Israel, "and forget not, how thou provokedst the Lord
thy God to wrath in the wilderness" (Deu 9:7). And the Psalmist prayed thus:
"Remember not the sins of my youth, nor my transgressions" (Psa 25:7). The whole
life of the true penitent is a continual warfare. During this warfare he must
fight many battles. Sometimes he gains the victory and sometimes he loses. If he
loses he must renew the fight: if he gains, he must pursue the victory and
prepare for a new encounter. But he should always be of good courage and
maintain his conflicts resolutely, for though he may lose a particular battle,
yet he shall be more than a conqueror at last (Rom 8:37).


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  CHAPTER 4: 01.03.     THE NECESSITY OF TRUE REPENTANCE
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3. The Necessity of True Repentance By the necessity of repentance is meant the
need that a sinner has of it, as that which is indispensably requisite for him.
A sinner must either repent or perish. He acts most unjustly, as well as
unreasonably, if he continue impenitent. Besides, he is under infinite
obligations to repent. Now true repentance is necessary, or indispensably
requisite, chiefly on the following accounts:

1. It is necessary because the Lord in His holy law has peremptorily required
it.

It is one of the duties required in the first commandment of the moral law.* It
is more expressly commanded, both in the Old Testament and in the New. "Thus
saith the Lord God, Repent and turn yourselves from your idols; and turn away
your faces from all your abominations" (Eze 14:6). God now commandeth all men
every where to repent (Acts 17:30). True repentance then is necessary for it is
peremptorily commanded by the Lord. It is a duty from the performance of which
no individual can plead an exemption; an exercise which on no account whatever
can be dispensed with. All are commanded to repent, and therefore all are bound,
in obedience to the Divine command, to exercise true repentance. This high
command was often repeated, not only by the ancient prophets and John the
Baptist, but by our Lord Jesus Himself and His apostles.

2. True repentance is indispensably requisite because all have sinned.

All men are sinners, and therefore all need repentance. A sinner cannot be saved
from the love, power, and practice of sin in any other way than by being enabled
to repent of sin. He cannot serve the Lord acceptably, except he turn from all
iniquity to Him. Nor can he have communion with Him but in proportion to the
degree of his repentance for having sinned against Him. The law as a covenant of
works condemns every sinner who is under it; and consequently it can justify no
one who has but in a single instance transgressed it. The unnumbered multitude
of a sinner’s transgressions, though it cannot add to the certainty, yet will
add to the greatness of his condemnation, and should therefore add to the depth
of his repentance. Could a man be found who had but in a single instance failed
to yield perfect obedience, even such a man would need repentance. He could not
be saved without it. How necessary then is repentance for that sinner whose
iniquities are more in number than the sand on the sea-shore!

3. To repent of sin is needful, because all the children of Adam have destroyed
themselves by sin.

"O Israel, thou hast destroyed thyself" (Hos 13:9). "Return unto the Lord thy
God; for thou hast fallen by thine iniquity" (Hos 14:1). The dreadful curse of
the violated law is denounced against the impenitent sinner. "The wrath of God
abideth on him" (2Pe 2:3). Death in all its extent closely pursues him.
Everlasting destruction awaits him. His judgment lingereth not, and his
damnation slumbereth not (John 3:36). That great and terrible God, whom he has
times and ways without number insulted, is at once the Witness, the Judge, and
the Avenger of all his crimes. The sinner cannot hide so much as one of his
transgressions from God’s omniscient eye. He cannot resist His infinite power,
nor endure His fiery indignation. Can his hands be strong, or can his heart
endure when this most tremendous sentence shall sound in his ears: "Depart from
me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels"
(Mat 25:41)? These are the words of Him who hath said, "Heaven and earth shall
pass away, but my words shall not pass away." Now except the sinner repent, he
shall inevitably and eternally perish under the endless execution of that
unspeakably dreadful sentence. After his hard and impenitent heart he treasures
up unto himself wrath against the day of wrath (Rom 2:5). Ah! secure sinner, you
have departed far from the Lord; your soul is pledged that you will return to
Him by repentance. But if you return not, your precious pledge is
lost-irrecoverably lost. The all-important matter is brought to this
point-Repent, or perish for ever. How shall you be able to grapple through all
eternity with almighty vengeance, with overwhelming wrath, not only of God, but
of the Lamb (Isa 33:14)? This gracious and compassionate call is now addressed
to you, "Repent, and turn from all your transgressions; so iniquity shall not be
your ruin" (Eze 18:30).

4. True repentance is necessary because God has pledged his faithfulness, that
He will execute the tremendous sentence of His violated law upon all who live
and die impenitent.

"Except ye repent," says the Lord Jesus, "ye shall all perish." Without
evangelical repentance, salvation is impossible; damnation is inevitable. "God
is angry with the wicked every day. If he turn not, he will whet his sword; he
hath bent his bow and made it ready" (Psa 7:11-12 & Psa 9:17). "Hath he said and
shall he not do it? or hath he spoken, and shall he not make it good" (Num
23:19)? If the sinner then do not turn from his sins by sincere repentance, God
has pledged His faithfulness that he shall perish. Either his iniquities or his
soul must go. To turn to the Lord or to burn in the fire of His fierce
indignation are the awful alternatives. Happy should the impenitent sinner be if
his transgressions would part from him at the grave, but they shall lie down
with him in the dust (Job 20:11). Happy would he be if they should lie down with
him there and never rise again. But God has said that He "shall bring every work
into judgment, with every secret thing" (Ecc 12:14). Nothing can be hid from the
omniscient Judge. Nor is He capable of forgetting the least insult that the
impenitent sinner ever offered to His glorious majesty. As God is true and
cannot lie, the finally impentitent sinner shall spend all eternity, in "the
lake which burneth with fire and brimstone." "The smoke of his torment, shall
ascend up for ever and ever." If there is any meaning in words, if any idea of
eternal torments can be conveyed by human language, then the wicked "shall go
away into everlasting punishment" (Mat 25:46). "Consider this, ye that forget
God, lest he tear you in pieces, and there be none to deliver" (Psa 50:22).

5. To repent of sin is indispensably requisite because God’s determination to
execute upon impenitent sinners the awful sentence of His violated law is highly
just and reasonable.

Every sin, because it is committed against the infinite Majesty of heaven, is
objectively an infinite evil. But an infinite moral evil justly deserves an
infinite natural evil, or in other words, an infinite punishment. And as a
finite creature is incapable of suffering an infinite punishment, except in an
infinite, or which is the same, an eternal duration, it is just, it is
reasonable that the punishment of the finally impenitent should be eternal.
God’s resolution then to execute this most dreadful punishment upon such a
sinner is most equitable and reasonable. Besides, every sinner who persists in
impenitence excuses himself, and by excusing himself, he condemns God. "Wilt
thou," said the Lord to Job, "disannul my judgment? Wilt thou condemn me, that
thou mayest be righteous" (Job 40:8). Why does the sinner transgress the law of
God, if he does not account it too strict? Does he say that he has not
transgressed it deliberately, but only through inadvertence? Then why does he
not repent? His vindication of his continuance in sin implies at once an unjust
censure of the law of God, as incompatible with his happiness, and an injurious
censure of the justice of God in condemning sinners to eternal punishment. Now,
should the Lord save the sinner who thus persists in condemning Him, He would
seem to plead guilty to the charge. Every hope which a sinner cherishes of
salvation in impenitence proceeds on the blasphemous supposition that God, in
order to favour an impenitent rebel, will consent to His own dishonour. Except a
sinner then in the exercise of true repentance be disposed from his heart to say
with Daniel, "O Lord, righteousness belongeth unto thee; but unto us confusion
of faces... because we have sinned against thee" (Dan 9:7), he must become a
sacrifice to the injured honour of the law and the justice of God. Nothing can
be more equitable, nothing more reasonable.

6. True repentance is needful as an evidence of saving and justifying faith in
the heart. The exercise of evangelical repentance is one of the fruits, and
therefore one of the evidences, of that faith which purifies the heart, and
works by love. Although the principle of faith and the principle of repentance
are in the moment of regeneration implanted in the soul together and at once,
yet the exercise of faith in the order of nature, goes before the exercise of
true repentance. "They shall look upon me whom they have pierced, and they shall
mourn for him" (Zec 12:10). It is true, none begins to exercise saving faith,
but a penitent sinner; that is, one who has the principle of true repentance, as
well as that of saving faith, in his heart. Still, however, the exercise of
faith, which is a cordial trust in redeeming mercy, precedes the exercise of
that repentance which is spiritual and acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.
The latter is one of the native fruits and evidences of the former; and
therefore it is necessary as such. The exercise of true repentance always
follows the acting of true faith.

7. Evangelical repentance is necessary also as a means of attaining a
comfortable sense of judicial pardon of sin, and as an evidence of having
received it.

Saving faith, from which all true repentance proceeds, completes in its first
exercise our union with Christ, in whom we cannot but be justified. Although the
first exercise of true repentance, then, is not in order of nature prior to the
pardon of sin in justification, yet that exercise is indispensably requisite to
the comfortable sense of this pardon. It is necessary also as an evidence of a
man’s having received this forgiveness of sin. If he is not exercising
evangelical repentance, his pretensions to faith and to justification by faith
are vain. He can have no true sense, no real intimation of the forgiveness of
his sins; nor can he have any sure evidence of his being in a state of
justification. "I will sprinkle clean water upon you, and ye shall be clean:
from all your filthiness, and from all your idols, will I cleanse you" (Eze
36:25). "That thou mayest remember, and be confounded, and never open thy mouth
any more because of thy shame, when I am pacified toward thee for all that thou
hast done, saith the Lord God" (Eze 16:63).

8. The exercise of true repentance is indispensably requisite in order to
receive God’s paternal pardon, and so to be delivered from His chastisement for
sin. By paternal pardon is not meant that forgiveness of all sin which forms a
part of justification, but that fatherly pardon which consists in a believer’s
deliverance from the guilt which he is daily contracting, by sinning against God
as his God and Father, namely, the guilt which renders him liable to the painful
effects of paternal displeasure. Now, the frequent exercise of true repentance,
as well as of faith, is necessary to his reception of this pardon; and
therefore, it must precede his reception of it. As the believer is, by his sins
of infirmity, daily contracting this guilt, so the daily exercise of faith and
repentance, is necessary to the daily removal of it. For although faith and
repentance do not give the smallest title to deliverance from this guilt; yet
the frequent exercise of them is a necessary means of that deliverance. If the
true Christian does not exercise them daily, he suffers this guilt to accumulate
upon him; which will expose him to some of the dreadful effects of paternal
displeasure. Accordingly, the Lord gave this invitation to His ancient people:
"Return, thou backsliding Israel, saith the Lord, and I will not cause mine
anger to fall upon you; for I am merciful, saith the Lord, and I will not keep
anger for ever. Only acknowledge thine iniquity, that thou hast transgressed
against the Lord thy God" (Jer 3:12-13). The apostle John also says, "If we
confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse
us from all unrighteousness" (1Jn 1:9).

9. The exercise of true repentance is necessary, in token of gratitude for the
spiritual blessings and temporal good things bestowed on believers.

All blessings whether spiritual or temporal, have been forfeited by sin, and yet
the Lord daily loads His people with benefits. These mercies and the gracious
manner of conferring them, are strong ties and powerful inducements to the daily
exercise of evangelical repentance. "Despisest thou," says the apostle, "the
riches of his goodness and forbearance and longsuffering; not knowing that the
goodness of God leadeth thee to repentance?" (Rom 2:4). The multiplied favours
which God vouchsafes to the unregenerate, and those especially which He daily
confers on believers, tend to melt their hearts into ingenuous sorrow and
contrition for their innumerable sins against Him, and by His grace to constrain
them, to turn to love and obedience. All true believers are grateful to the Lord
for the gifts of His bounty, and above all, for the blessings of His grace; and
in proportion as they are so, they are impelled to the exercise of that
repentance which arises from faith working by love.

10. Such repentance is indispensably requisite for it is an essential part of
that great salvation, which the Lord Jesus has bought and dispenses to His
people.

Instead of being a condition upon which salvation is suspended it is a part of
salvation; of that whole salvation, which is bestowed as an absolutely free gift
on sinners infinitely unworthy of it. It is an essential ingredient in that
everlasting salvation with which Israel shall be saved in the Lord Jesus; and at
the same time an appointed means of bringing that salvation to perfection. It is
a necessary part of true holiness in its commencement and progress in the soul,
and a necessary mean of attaining its consummation. Hence it is called
"repentance to salvation not to be repented of" (2Co 7:10), and "repentance unto
life" (Acts 11:18). Without it as a part of salvation from the power and
practice of sin, or as a branch of evangelical holiness, no man shall see the
Lord (Heb 12:14). According to the Westminster Larger Catechism it is included
in sanctification (Question 75). Indeed it is absolutely impossible for adult
persons ever to die to sin in sanctification without a true sense of sin, godly
sorrow for it, hatred of it, and self-loathing because of it. Equally impossible
is it for them to live to righteousness otherwise than by turning sincerely from
the love and practice of all iniquity to the love and practice of universal
holiness. Without the exercise of true repentance, then, a man can have no sure
evidence, either of regeneration or of sanctification. All who are sanctified
exercise evangelical repentance daily in proportion to the degree of their
sanctification. And they exercise it, not that it may give them the smallest
title to salvation, but that, being itself a part of salvation, it may be an
evidence to their consciences that their salvation is begun and gradually
advancing. So much for the necessity of evangelical repentance. From what has
now been stated it is plain that impenitence under the gospel is absolutely
inexcusable. It cannot admit the smallest shadow of excuse. If the works of
creation and the dispensations of providence to mankind in general are
sufficient to leave the very heathens without excuse (Rom 1:20), how much more
shall the calls and warnings, not only of creation and providence, but of the
express Word of God render sinners who hear the Gospel inexcusable if they
repent not! Sinner, whatever expedients you may employ for preserving the life
of your lusts, and for keeping yourself from the unpleasant exercise of
repentance, they will be but figleaf-coverings before the omniscient and
righteous Judge of the world. If you say, "I am not able to repent," this will
be no excuse; for true repentance is a part of salvation, offered and promised
in the Gospel, and the offer and promise are directed to you (1Jn 5:11; Pro
1:23; Acts 2:38-39). If you say, "I cannot believe those offers and promises
with application to myself," neither will this be accepted as an excuse, for the
offer and promise of faith to believe them are also addressed to you (Rev 22:17;
Mat 12:21; Heb 4:1). Trust in Christ Jesus then, upon the ground of the offer,
for the grace of true repentance; and in the faith of the promise, attempt
frequently the exercise of it. Does my reader say, "I see, at least in my own
case, no need of repentance?" Ah! you seem to be one of that generation "that
are pure in their own eyes, and yet is not washed from their filthiness" (Pro
30:12). You deny your crimes, instead of bewailing and confessing them, saying,
"I have done no wickedness" (Pro 30:20). If you had but once, and that in the
smallest instance, failed to yield perfect obedience to the holy law of God you
could not but need repentance. It would be your duty, and without it your
salvation would be impossible. How needful then must repentance be for you whose
iniquities are in number more than the hairs of your head! I do not imagine that
it is only those whose abominations are exposed to every eye that need
repentance. It may be you have been restrained from doing things which are
accounted base in the sight of men; and possibly, you so overrate the external
regularity of your conduct as to suppose that you have no cause for godly sorrow
or self-loathing, and that you are injured much by being called to the exercise
of true repentance. Or perhaps self-pleasing thoughts of your own supposed
rectitude hold such firm possession of your mind that you cannot believe it to
be proper for one of your fair character to feel shame and sorrow for his sins,
or to seek for such a change of heart as is requisite to the exercise of true
repentance. But consider, I intreat you, that a charge of great and aggravated
disobedience stands in full force against you. The Scripture has concluded all
under sin, and you in particular. True repentance, therefore, is as needful for
you as if your iniquities were open and glaring. It is as necessary for you as
it was for the self-righteous Pharisee in the parable (Luk 18:11-12).

You are a sinner, and therefore, except you repent, you shall perish. The sinner
who lives and dies impenitent shall surely be punished with everlasting
destruction. Though signal judgments of a temporal nature do not pursue every
impenitent sinner, yet eternal punishment will. Let him be who he will, if he is
a sinner, he must either repent or perish. Be he a greater or a lesser sinner,
he must be a penitent sinner, else it had been good for him if he had never been
born. Either his sin or his soul must yield. Either he must turn from all
iniquity or burn through all eternity in the fire of God’s fierce indignation.
He has it from the mouth of the Saviour Himself, in most plain and peremptory
terms that except he repent, he shall perish (Luk 13:3-5). Heaven and earth
shall pass away, but His words shall not pass away. The finally impenitent
sinner, then, shall certainly continue through all eternity in the lake that
burns with fire and brimstone. The Lord has established as sure a connection
between true repentance and life eternal, as between impenitence and eternal
death. This is His gracious invitation to sinners, "Repent, and turn from all
your transgressions; so iniquity shall not be your ruin" (Eze 18:30). All
denunciations of Divine wrath are summonses to repent; and they have always this
clause implied in them, "Except ye repent." It is not falling occasionally into
sins of infirmity, but continuing impenitent in sin, that ruins multitudes to
whom the Gospel is preached (John 3:19). God in Christ is now on a throne of
mercy. He stretches out His golden sceptre of peace and invites the chief of
sinners to come near and touch it. And should not the revelation of mercy, and
the offer of an indemnity, touch the heart of rebels and constrain them to
relent? Should not bowels of mercy, and offers of pardon draw them? If they
cordially believe, and by faith receive out of the fulness of Christ the grace
of evangelical repentance, they shall certainly be saved. No true penitents
shall go to hell. Heaven will be the place of their eternal abode. They who turn
from all their iniquities, and return to God now, shall for ever be with Him in
His holy place on high.\ Are all unregenerate sinners commanded to repent? It is
then the law as a covenant of works, or as the law of creation, under which they
are, that requires true repentance, from them. It is true that the law in its
federal form knows no place for repentance and makes no provision for exercising
it acceptably. It contains no promise of strength with which it may be
exercised. But as, supposing the revelation and offer of a Saviour in the
Gospel, the law as a covenant obliges sinners to believe in him; so, supposing
the descendants of Adam to have sinned, the same law obliges them to repent or
turn to the Lord (It requires them to repent or return to God; but not to seek
life by their repentance). The law as a covenant indeed does not expressly and
absolutely call for true repentance; yet hypothetically and virtually it calls
for it. It commands all unregenerate sinners to repent; and as a rule of duty,
it enjoins all true believers to renew the exercise of repentance. The
repentance of a believer is called evangelical repentance because it flows from
faith in Jesus Christ as offered in the Gospel, and because it is exercised
under the influence of the covenant of grace, and according to the law as a rule
of life.

What has been stated requires me to exhort the unregenerate sinner speedily to
repent. You have sinned against the Lord, times and ways innumerable. O repent
then, and turn from all your iniquities to Him. Repent without delay. To-day,
whilst you hear His voice, harden not your heart. Persist no longer, go on no
further in your impenitence. One step more may set you beyond a probability of
ever returning to the Lord (Luk 14:24). If you delay but an hour longer, the
great and terrible God whom you presume to insult by your continuance in sin may
lay you under judicial strokes, and swear in His wrath that you shall never
enter into His rest (Pro 29:1). If you put God off to-day, He may put you off
to-morrow. God has promised everlasting salvation to the penitent; but he has
not promised so much as tomorrow to the negligent. If you fail to improve the
present hour of grace, He may refuse to favour you with another. If you turn off
His hand of mercy to-day, His hand of avenging justice may seize you before
to-morrow. You have no absolute certainty of enjoying even the shortest time to
come. Consider, O secure sinner, that your innumerable provocations must be
viewed, either with tears of penitential sorrow, or in endless torments. If you
have committed but a single sin, and die without evangelical repentance, your
precious soul is lost for ever. O attempt, before it be too late, the exercise
of true repentance. Attempt it in the way of trusting in the Lord Jesus for
righteousness and strength. Look unto Him, and be saved from your inability to
repent. To enforce this exhortation, consider seriously what sin is, and what
punishment it deserves. Consider also the command of God, which obliges you, and
His multiplied mercies bestowed on you, which bind you in point of gratitude to
repent. Remember that you must die, you know not how soon. Your death is
certain, and true repentance is necessary that you may die well. Consider the
judgment seat of Christ, before which you must appear. There your state for
eternity shall be determined according to your deeds done in the body. Knowing
then the terror of the Lord, be persuaded to repent. "God shall bring every work
into judgment, with every secret thing, whether it be good, or whether it be
evil" (Ecc 12:14). Your aggravated sins may drop out of your memory, but none of
them can be erased from the book of God’s remembrance (Hos 13:12). Think on the
wrong which you have done to God by your great transgressions. You have wronged
Him by acting in opposition to His nature and His will, by despising His dear
Son, by grieving His Holy Spirit, and by trampling on the Divine authority of
His holy law.

Consider seriously the dreadful sufferings of the Lamb of God, and see how
loudly they call upon you to repent. How tremendous must be that indignation of
God against sin, which is written with the blood of His dear Son shed for the
remission of the sins of many! Will you continue any longer in sin, when such
dreadful indignation against it appears? How terrible did sin appear on Calvary,
where the inexorable justice of God seized and pierced His dearly beloved Son
with the sword of infinite vengeance! There our adorable Surety was set up as a
mark for the arrows of Divine indignation. Amazing spectacle! The infinite
darling of the Father enduring the awful fierceness of His infinite wrath! Do
you ask, What was the cause of this? It was the iniquities of the elect imputed
to Him. O will you not then abhor and forsake sin? When the Lord Jesus, was
enduring the infinite punishment due for sin, the earth quaked, the rocks rent,
the graves were opened, and the sun was darkened; and will you remain unmoved,
and impenitent? Behold, how He loved you! He so loved you as with infinite
willingness to lay down His life for you. And will you not so love Him, as to
hate and bewail, and forsake your sins for Him? O pray that His great love in
dying for you may constrain you to die to sin. Is true repentance so necessary,
as has been shown? It is inexpressibly dangerous, then, to delay it even for a
moment. To delay repentance is infinitely perilous; for the present moment may
be your last. Your continuance in sin is a re-acting of all your former crimes,
with new aggravations. It strengthens the corruption of your nature, hardens
your heart, and so renders evangelical repentance the more difficult. It
provokes the Lord to deny you grace to repent. During four thousand years,
Scripture records but a single instance of true repentance in dying moments.
Consider that the longer you continue impenitent, the more is spiritual death
advancing upon you. Every sin alienates you more from the life of God, and
removes you a step further from Him. And in what can this terminate but in
eternal separation from Him? A state of sin is a state of wrath, in which
destruction compasses a man about on every side. "He that believeth not the Son
shall not see life; but the wrath of God abideth on him" (John 3:36). To have
remained in Sodom on the day in which it was to be consumed would have been
dangerous; but to remain a moment longer in the state of wrath is much more
perilous. Who would not leave without delay the house that is already on fire?
And will you venture to remain another hour in the state of impenitence? Whilst
you continue in this inexpressibly dreadful state, there is but a step between
you and eternal death. All the security that you have in this condition is but
the brittle thread of life, which may be broken by the slightest touch; and then
your precious soul shall drop into the place of unutterable and endless torment.
"The wicked shall be turned into hell" (Psa 9:17). The least postponement of
true repentance is a risking of eternal happiness or misery on the continuance
of a life which may in a moment be taken from you, truly a self-destructive
course. It is directly contrary to the calls of the Gospel, which are not for
tomorrow but for today. "Today, if ye will hear his voice, harden not your
hearts" (Heb 3:7-8). The calls of the Gospel to faith and repentance require
immediate compliance. They do not allow you time to deliberate whether you will
believe and repent or not. To delay compliance is to refuse it; and to refuse it
is inexpressibly dangerous. "Behold, now is the accepted time; behold, now is
the day of salvation" (2Co 3:2).

How lamentable is the condition of that sinner who delays true repentance! Ah!
sinner, you are under a spiritual distemper of the most inveterate kind, and are
in imminent danger of eternal death. The compassionate Physician comes to you ,
offers you an effectual remedy, and intreats you to receive it. You do not
peremptorily refuse; but you delay. In the meantime your disease is increasing,
and eternal death is advancing with sure steps. "Your judgment lingereth not,
and your damnation slumbereth not." Yet you still delay. Ah, deep infatuation!
Ah, destructive madness! Tears of blood are not sufficient to bewail it. Poor
slothful sinner! You do not consider the amiable excellence of Christ, the value
of your immortal soul, the worth of precious time, the weight of infinite and
endless wrath, nor how very near your destruction may be. Destruction is ready
at your side. You are exposed to the most dreadful surprise. And oh, how
horrible, how overwhelming must it be to be past hope, before you begin to
fear!-never to awake from your sinful security till you begin to lift up your
despairing eyes in torment! Alas! you do not consider how utterly unable you are
to ward off the impending, the fatal blow. Can you, a worm of the dust, stand
before the omnipotent Jehovah, whose vengeance is intolerable, whose indignation
will burn to the lowest hell, and whose patience may wear out, ere you awake
from your lethargy? "Can thine heart endure, or can thine hands be strong, in
the days that I shall deal with thee? I the Lord have spoken it, and will do it"
(Eze 22:14). Ah! you do not consider that if patience retire from the field,
avenging justice will succeed in its room; and then, you security shall issue in
unutterable and eternal torment. Ah! the folly, the sinfulness, the danger, of
delaying repentance toward God!

What has been said, respecting the necessity of evangelical repentance
administers reproof to those believers who suffer themselves on any pretence to
delay the renewed exercise of it. As spiritual sloth remains in a great measure
in believers, so it is productive of delays. When their graces are not in
exercise, and communion with God in their duties is not enjoyed, sloth so
prevails in them as to make them put off from time to time, the direct exercise
of faith and repentance (Song of Solomon 5:2-3). Often do they resolve to try
the state of their souls and to search what evidences of union with Christ they
have, but still the sluggish heart draws back and the solemn trial is delayed.
Sometimes the believer delays resolutely to forsake some secret idol that mars
his communion with God. Again and again he resolves to renounce and mortify it,
but he delays from one time to another to execute his purpose (Psa 66:18). And
thus he suffers it to lie as a corroding worm at the root of his fruitfulness
and comfort. He delays also some particular duty which he is persuaded the Lord
calls him to perform. He often resolves to attempt it, but still one thing or
another interposes, and the performance of it is put off till a more convenient
time. In a word, he is convinced that it is far from being an easy thing to die
well. He resolves therefore through grace to labour to attain actual preparation
for that solemn event. But like the foolish virgins, who, while the bridegroom
tarried, all slumbered and slept (Mat 25:5), he delays till some future
opportunity the all-important work. Now to such a dilatory Christian I must say,
"What meanest thou, O sleeper? arise, call upon thy God, if so be that God will
think upon you that you perish not" (Jon 1:6). The longer you delay, do you not
find yourself the farther from your purpose? Does not your backwardness to
spiritual exercise increase upon you the more? Is not that the way to come to
poverty? Shall not the idle soul suffer hunger? Have not you sometimes awaked
like Samson, and found your spiritual strength gone when you had most occasion
for it? May not opportunities of doing good soon be taken from you, or you from
them? And will not the work of actual preparation for death be the harder, the
longer it is delayed? When death is approaching, you shall have less ability,
greater opposition, and yet more work to do, than otherwise you should have. Are
not you then much to be blamed for deferring any of your duties, and especially
the frequent exercise of faith and repentance?

It administers reproof also to the unregenerate sinner who delays repentance.
How much are you, O secure sinner, to be blamed for deferring work so necessary
as that of repentance to salvation! You are under the dreadful curse of the
violated law. The wrath of that great and terrible God, whom you have times
without number insulted, abides on you. The wrath to come is ready to seize and
overwhelm you and yet you delay repentance. You continue still in the love and
practice of sin. "How long wilt thou sleep, O sluggard? When wilt thou arise out
of thy sleep?" Your answer apparently will be, "Yet a little sleep, a little
slumber, a little folding of the hands to sleep" (Pro 6:9-10). But why do you
sleep securely in impenitence, when you know not what a day may bring forth? Why
do you not begin without the least delay to prepare by true repentance for happy
eternity?

It may be you resolve to repent when you shall have more leisure than now, or
when you shall be old. But how can you be certain that you shall attain old age?
Is it not as likely that the Lord, whose wrath you are continuing to provoke,
may say, "Thou fool, this night thy soul shall be required of thee" (Luk 12:20).
The time of your life is but as a day-a short day-and you have much work to do.
A great part of your day is past already; and will you sleep on, till the night
come when no man can work? Will you thus risk the salvation of your immortal
soul upon an absolute uncertainty? Is it old age, the very dregs of your time,
that you resolve to devote to God? But ah! what certainty can you have that an
infinitely holy God will accept these at your hand? "If ye offer the blind for
sacrifice, is it not evil? and if ye offer the lame and sick, is it not evil?
offer it now unto thy governor; will he be pleased with thee, or accept thy
person? saith the Lord of hosts" (Mal 1:8). Suppose you should be spared till
you become old; there are few, very few, who get grace to repent acceptably when
they grow old. Some indeed, as is represented in one of our Lord’s parables,
were called effectually at the eleventh hour (Mat 20:6). But these were not the
same persons that were standing idle either at the third, or sixth, or ninth
hour. Be not emboldened then to delay true repentance, because some were called
at the eleventh hour.

If men, from their earliest years, live under a pure dispensation of the gospel,
and yet spend their best days in the love and service of sin, it is God’s usual
way to leave them, when they are old, under blindness of mind and hardness of
heart. "His bones are full of the sin of his youth, which shall lie down with
him in the dust" (Job 20:11). The Lord may, indeed, in the case of few
individuals, depart from the usual tenor of his procedure. But ah! it is a
desperate adventure for a sinner to presume upon this. I intreat you, then, to
trust without delay in the great Redeemer for grace to repent; and in the faith
of pardoning mercy, as well as of renovating grace, resolutely to attempt the
exercise of it. O delay it not a moment longer lest you sleep the sleep of
death, of eternal death. "Evil pursueth sinners." If it overtake you in unbelief
and impenitence, the smoke of your torment shall ascend up for ever and ever
(Rev 14:11). The Father of mercies, the God of all grace, who hath spared you
till now, with infinite compassion still invites you; and the Lord Jesus stands
with open arms ready to embrace you. He complains that you will not come to Him,
that you may have life; affirms with an oath, that He hath no pleasure in the
death of a sinner; and with the tenderest compassion adds, "Turn ye, turn ye,
why will ye die?" O! do not disregard such admonitions, such compassions, such
invitations, such expostulations; but upon the warrant of the Gospel-offer,
trust in the Lord Jesus for that repentance to salvation, and that forgiveness
of sins, which He is exalted to give to all who cordially trust in Him (Acts
5:31). The following directions how to attain evangelical repentance I would now
offer to the impenitent sinner.

1. Look upon it as the gift of Christ, and trust that your iniquities were laid
on Him, and that He was pierced for them (Zec 12:10). Trust also in Him for true
repentance, and in God through Him, for pardoning mercy and renewing grace. You
should attempt believing, in order to the exercise of evangelical repentance,
and should rely on the grace of God in Christ for the renovating influences of
His Holy Spirit.

2. Choose God in Christ for your covenant-God and portion, and then you will be
both disposed and encouraged to return to Him. To return to God as the Lord your
God is the essence of evangelical repentance.

3. Be frequent and importunate in prayer to Him for the gift of true repentance,
saying with Ephraim, "Turn thou me, and I shall be turned; for thou art the Lord
my God" (Jer 31:18). Pray in faith for the performance of this absolute promise
to you; "A new heart will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you;
and I will give you an heart of flesh" (Eze 36:26).

4. Endeavour to see sin in its own hateful colours, to see what an evil and
bitter thing it is (Jer 2:19). To see the sin of your heart and life in its
exceeding sinfulness and odiousness would be a means of making you flee from it
with deep abhorrence. And if you would discern spiritually the hateful deformity
of sin, consider the infinite majesty and holiness of God which are insulted by
sin, the good things which impenitent continuance in sin deprives you of, the
dreadful evils to which it exposes you, the infinite wrath of God which awaits
you if you live and die impenitent, and the infinite obligation under which you
lie to keep all His commandments.

5. Study to see and to be suitably affected with the deep depravity or sin of
your nature, as well as with the innumerable transgressions of your life; and
call yourself every day to a strict account for your sins of omission and
commission on that day; and that, in order to see what great reason you have to
repent of them.

6. Meditate frequently and attentively on the awful anguish, and astonishing
death of the Lord Jesus, that you may see the exceeding sinfulness of sin, and
the everlasting punishment which the sinner deserves.

7. Dwell much on the thoughts of death and of judgment to come. Consider
seriously how uncertain is the continuance of your life in this world. Be
assured that if death surprise you in unbelief and impenitence, you are for ever
undone. Think also of the awful tribunal of that righteous and inexorable Judge,
whose eyes are as a flame of fire, before which you must appear; where every
finally impenitent sinner shall, according to the demerits of his deeds done in
the body, be sentenced to everlasting punishment. O! how tremendous, how
overwhelming will be the sentence pronounced on the impenitent: "Depart from me,
ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels" (Mat
25:41)! O consider this, and by faith and repentance flee speedily from the
wrath to come.


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  CHAPTER 5: 01.04.     DIFFERENCE BETWEEN TRUE & COUNTERFEIT REPENTANCE
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4. The Difference Between True and Counterfeit Repentance

It is a truth clearly revealed and often inculcated in Scripture that without
repentance a man cannot attain eternal life in heaven. The most of men,
therefore, who read and hear the Gospel admit that repentance is necessary to
their future safety and felicity. But while they believe that it cannot be well
with them except they repent, they resolve with a fatal precipitance to call
something by this name which bears only a faint resemblance to it; and then they
flatter themselves that this base counterfeit will not only be acceptable to God
but will even recommend them to His favour. Persuading themselves that they have
already repented, they compose themselves to sleep on the pillow of carnal
security; and they will not believe that any of the dreadful threatenings
denounced in Scripture against impenitent sinners belongs to them. Thus many "go
down to the grave with a lie in their right hand." They obstinately refuse to be
convinced of their fatal mistake till they begin to lift up their despairing
eyes in torment. That my reader may, not through ignorance, deceive himself with
a repentance which must be repented of, I shall endeavour to show him the
difference between a true and a counterfeit repentance, as distinctly and
plainly as I can, under the following particulars:

1. False repentance flows from a counterfeit faith of the law as a covenant of
works; but true repentance follows a true faith both of the law and of the
gospel.

False repentance arises from a counterfeit faith of the violated law in its
covenant form. Hence it is often styled legal repentance, and the conviction of
sin which excites it, legal conviction. It flows from that temporary faith of
the commands and curses of the broken law, which a legalist, when his conscience
is at any time alarmed, reluctantly exercises. When the holy law strikes his
conscience, he is forced to believe that it requires from him perfect obedience
as the condition of life, and that its tremendous curse for innumerable
instances of disobedience is pronounced against him (Gal 3:10). The righteous
law claims perfect obedience as due from him and condemns him for his
disobedience. His awakened conscience concurs with the precept and curse of the
law, so that he begins to be greatly alarmed. The only refuge from the curse of
the law to which he has recourse in order to pacify his guilty conscience, to
satisfy Divine justice, and to lay a foundation of hope, is resolutions,
reformations, duties, and other self-righteous schemes. The defects of his
endeavours and attainments create new fears; these fears excite new endeavours;
and thus the legal penitent goes on, without attaining to the law of
righteousness, because he "seeks it not by faith, but as it were by the works of
the law" (Rom 9:31-32). As he may at the same time have a temporary faith of the
Gospel, he may pretend some regard to Christ in this his legal progress. He may
hope that God, for the sake of Christ, will accept his repentance and forgive
his sins. And what is this but a secret hope that the redemption of Jesus Christ
will impart such merit to his tears, reformations, and works, as will make them
effectual to atone for his sins, and to purchase the favour of God? He cannot
trust that God will shew mercy to him, till, by his penitence and reformation,
he recommend himself to His favour. On the other hand, the characters of true
repentance are directly opposite to those now mentioned. It follows a sincere, a
spiritual faith, both of the law and of the Gospel. Whilst a true conviction of
sin and misery flows from a spiritual belief of the law with application to
oneself, a true sense of sin, from which genuine repentance springs, arises from
a sincere faith, both of the law and of the gospel. It is the immediate
consequence of a sincere faith of pardoning mercy. "There is forgiveness with
thee," says the Psalmist, "that thou mayest be feared" (Psa 130:4). Godly sorrow
for sin, and turning from the love and practice of sin to the love and practice
of holiness, flow, as was stated above, from reliance on the righteousness of
Jesus Christ for all our title to pardon and sanctification, and from trusting
in Him for pardoning mercy and sanctifying grace. Hence it is called evangelical
repentance. The acting of true faith produces, in order of nature, the exercise
of this repentance. He who would repent acceptable must first believe in Christ
that he may so repent (Heb 11:6; Acts 11:21). He must believe that there is
safety in entrusting his guilty soul to Christ before he can, with sincerity and
good courage, turn from all sin to God in Him. He must be united to Christ by
faith, as the branch to the vine, before he can bring forth such fruit as is
meet for repentance. Accordingly, the true penitent approaches to a gracious God
with deep convictions of his guilt and of his desert of eternal rejection from
Him; but then, he comes before a mercy-seat. He relies on the blood of Jesus
Christ for purification from his innumerable sins; and from that he takes
encouragement to mourn before the Lord, and to express himself in the language
of the royal penitent, "Wash me throughly from mine iniquity, and cleanse me
from my sin...Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within
me" (Psa 51:2, Psa 51:10). That is the prospect which both encourages and
invigorates his humble supplications for mercy and grace. That is it which
embitters all his sins to him, which makes him loathe them and long earnestly
for complete deliverance from the love and practice of them.

Here, the attentive reader cannot but discern the difference, nay contrariety,
between a guilty flight from God, like that of Adam after his fall, and a
humbling, self-condemning approach to His pardoning mercy, like that of the
prodigal when returning to his father’s house; between slavish and proud
endeavours to atone for our sins, and to make our peace with God by our own
righteousness, and resorting solely to the blood of Christ for cleansing from
all sin. Similarly he sees the difference between mourning for our own danger by
sin, and mourning for our sins themselves as the basest injuries done to God and
Christ, and to the mercy and love which were displayed to us in Christ. And
again, he sees the difference between attempting a new life by the strength of
our own resolutions and endeavours, and trusting only in the mercy of the Lord
Jesus for sanctifying as well as for justifying grace.

2. Counterfeit repentance proceeds only from a sense of danger and a dread of
wrath; but true repentance is a sincere mourning for sin, a loathing of
ourselves in our own sight for it, and an earnest desire of deliverance from the
power and practice of it. In false repentance the sinner is most affected with
the dreadful consequences of his transgression (Isa 59:9-12); but in evangelical
or true repentance the believer is chiefly affected with the malignity and
odiousness of sin itself as contrary to the holy nature and law of God (Luk
15:21). In false repentance the conscience of the sinner is alarmed by a sense
of his dreadful guilt and danger; and then it cannot but remonstrate loudly
against those sins which threaten him with intolerable and eternal torment.
Hence those terrors which are frequently found among awakened sinners under
apprehensions of approaching death. At such times their innumerable sins stare
them in the face, and their high aggravations are remembered with bitter
remorse. Conscience draws up the indictment and brings home the charge against
them. The violated law condemns them without mercy. And what have they now in
prospect? What but a certain fearful looking for of judgment and fiery
indignation to devour them? Now, with what deep distress will they cry out and
howl upon their beds because of the heinousness and demerit of their sins! With
what amazement will they expect the tremendous outcome of their sinful course!
how ready will they now be to make resolutions of beginning a humble, a
circumspect, a holy life! Under this their terror, conscience like a flaming
sword keeps them from their former course of impiety and sensuality. And what is
all this repentance, but the fear of the worm that never dies, and of the fire
that shall never be quenched? Let conscience but be pacified, and the tempest of
the troubled mind allayed, and these false penitents will return with the dog to
his vomit (2Pe 2:22), until some new alarm revive their convictions of sin and
danger, and with them, the same process of repentance. Thus many sin and repent,
and repent and sin, all their lives. Or it may be, distress of conscience makes
a deeper impression, and fixes such an abiding dread of some particular sins
that a visible reformation appears. Yet in this case the sinner’s lusts are only
damned up by his fears, and were the dam but broken down, they would immediately
run again in their former channel with increasing force. It is true, this legal
terror is, in many of the elect, a preparative to evangelical repentance. Many
true penitents were, sometime, in the same distressing circumstances and at
first began from no better principle than self-love to flee from the wrath to
come.

It was said that false repentance proceeds only from a sense of danger and a
dread of impending wrath. The character of true repentance is the very reverse.
Sin itself becomes the heaviest burden, and the object of the greatest
abhorrence and dread, to the sincere penitent. As evangelical repentance flows
from the faith of pardoning mercy, the fear of hell, though it may sometimes
accompany godly sorrow for sin, yet forms no part of this repentance. Godly
sorrow springs from an affecting and humbling sense of the dishonour and injury
which the true penitent sees he has done to a gracious God by his transgression
in the first Adam, by the sin of his nature, and the innumerable evils of his
life. This is the grievance, this the distress, of every true penitent. His
language runs like this: -"I acknowledge my transgressions: and my sin is ever
before me." "Mine iniquities are gone over mine head: as an heavy burden they
are too heavy for me." "Deliver me from all my transgressions." "Let not any
iniquity have dominion over me." "Innumerable evils have compassed me about:
mine iniquities have taken hold upon me, so that I am not able to look up; they
are more than the hairs of mine head: therefore my heart faileth me. Be pleased,
O Lord, to deliver me: O Lord, make haste to help me" (Psa 51:3; Psa 38:4; Psa
39:8; Psa 119:133; Psalms 40:12-13). Here we see that the sincere penitent
mourns for and abhors all his lusts, whether of the flesh or of the mind, and
longs to be completely delivered from them. He is willing that none should be
spared, no, not even a right hand or a right eye.

How great and obvious, then, is the difference between being struck with dread,
restrained by terror, or driven from a course of sinning by the lashes of an
awakened conscience; between this, I say, and loathing ourselves in our own
sight for our iniquities and abominations, and vehemently desiring grace to
mortify our corruption that we may be freed from the power of sin! The former is
merely the fruit of self-love which urges the soul to flee from danger; the
latter is the exercise of a vital principle which separates the soul from sin,
and engages the whole man in a persevering opposition to it.

3. In false penitence the sinner is chiefly affected with his gross and open
sins; whereas in true repentance, the believer is more deeply affected with the
secret and darling sins which he formerly delighted to commit. In counterfeit
repentance the sinner is affected chiefly with his gross and open abominations,
and with the connection of endless punishment with them. It is the recollection
of his gross and scandalous crimes that fills him with remorse and dread; and it
is not so much his view of these abominations themselves that fills with regret
and distress, as his prospect of punishment for them both in time and in
eternity. It is their connection with present reproach and with future torment
that usually fills his mind with the keenest anguish. Such was the repentance of
Cain. After his murder of his brother Abel, he said, "My punishment is greater
than I can bear": or rather as in the margin,-"Mine iniquity is greater than
that it may be forgiven" (Gen 4:13). He did not say, My iniquities, the
innumerable sins of which I have hitherto been guilty; but, "my iniquity," the
crime of murder only. Such also was the repentance of Judas the traitor. He said
to the chief priests and elders, "I have sinned in that I have betrayed the
innocent blood" (Mat 27:4). It was not for his covetousness, hypocrisy, and
other innumerable sins that he appeared to feel remorse, but only for his having
betrayed the innocent blood. It was for this most atrocious crime, and this
only, together with the sure prospect of endless punishment, that he felt such
anguish of mind as was insupportable, for "he went and hanged himself." Of the
same character is the repentance of multitudes at this day. On the other hand,
in true repentance the believer is ordinarily most affected with a spiritual
view of his secret evils; the sin of his nature in general, and the unbelief and
legal temper of his heart in particular. And of all his actual transgressions,
the remembrance of none usually affects him so deeply as that of his own
iniquity, his constitution-sin, the sin which in times past most easily beset
him, and most frequently enslaved him. He is affected with sorrow and
self-loathing for all his actual sins; but it is a spiritual view of this sin
that commonly fills him with the deepest abasement and the keenest contrition.
And whilst, with holy abhorrence of all iniquity, he turns from it to God, he
sets himself with peculiar vigilance and diligence against this sin (Psa 51:5-7;
Rom 7:23-24; Heb 12:1).

4. Counterfeit penitence has no true connection with the pardon of sin in
justification; but true repentance is a necessary consequence of that act of
pardon.

Legal repentance is not connected with the judicial pardon of sin; for it is the
repentance of one who is under the curse of the law as a covenant of works, and
therefore under the dominion of sin. It is the repentance of a man who is under
the condemning sentence of the broken law, which is the strength of sin; and
therefore it is far from being spiritually good and acceptable to God. It is the
repentance of an unbeliever, and "without faith it is impossible to please God"
(Heb 11:6). In brief, it is the repentance of a man whose sins are not pardoned,
and whose person is not accepted as righteous before God in justification. And
as acceptance, according to the covenant of grace, must begin at the person, and
then go on to his performances, so, that repentance which does not flow from
justification is counterfeit: it has nothing in it that is spiritually good and
acceptable to God (Acts 2:37; Rom 7:8-13). On the other hand, true repentance is
a necessary fruit of pardon and acceptance as righteous in justification; and
therefore the exercise of it is spiritually good and acceptable to the Lord. The
believer is freely pardoned, and made accepted in the Beloved (Eph 1:6); and
therefore Divine acceptance proceeds from his person to his exercise of
repentance. Because he himself is accepted as righteous, his repentance is
accepted as sincere. It is a necessary consequence and evidence of God’s
judicial pardon of sin in the act of justification; and it is an appointed mean
of the renewed intimations of it, and also of fatherly pardon, or the removal of
paternal chastisement for sin. "I have blotted out," says Jehovah, "as a thick
cloud, thy transgressions, and as a cloud, thy sins: return unto me, for I have
redeemed thee" (Isa 44:22). And again, "Return, ye backsliding children, and I
will heal your backslidings" (Jer 3:22); -I as a Father will forgive them, and
restore your souls. Although the exercise of evangelical repentance is
impossible under legal guilt, which tends to the destruction of the sinner, and
binds him under the dominion of sin (1Co 15:56; Rom 7:6-8), yet it frequently
exists under that guilt which exposes the believer to God’s fatherly anger,
which anger implies love to his person, and tends to his advancement in the love
and practice of holiness (Jer 31:18-20; Heb 12:6-11; Rev 3:19).

5. False penitence commonly issues from discouragement and despondency, but true
repentance from encouraging hope.

Many legal penitents, indeed, by their external reformation do pacify their
alarmed consciences, settle upon their lees, and cry, Peace, peace to their
souls; and so, their discouragement and repentance both come to an end. But
while their anxious concern remains, their desponding fear is the very life of
it. Their innumerable and heinous crimes appear dreadful to their alarmed
consciences, as they cannot but know that they frequently violate their promises
of new and universal obedience. They are therefore afraid that God will never
pardon and accept such perfidious rebels as they have been. And though they dare
not neglect religious duties, yet they come with horror into the presence of the
Lord, as into that of an inexorable judge, an infinite enemy. Thus they have
nothing to keep them from sinking into absolute despair but their good
resolutions and endeavours, which yet are too defective to be a ground of
comfortable hope. Now what is all this but, with base ingratitude, to undervalue
the spotless righteousness of Jesus Christ, to limit the boundless grace and
mercy of God, and implicitly to deny the truth of the blessed gospel? They flee
from the mercy of God our Saviour, while they pretend to flee to it. On the
other hand, though the true penitent has a deeper sense of the atrociousness of
his sins, and of the greatness of his guilt, than any false penitent can have,
yet he dares not yield to despairing thoughts of redeeming mercy. He is enabled
to trust in the mercy of God his Saviour; and his exercise of faith opens the
door of hope, and therefore the door of repentance. It is granted that he may
labour for a time under many discouraging fears, but these are his infirmity,
not his repentance. He exercises a living hope, and that gives life and activity
to every other grace, and to repentance in particular.

Here it may be observed that, though a fear and jealousy of one’s own sincerity
may be consistent with the exercise of true repentance, yet all doubts of the
freeness of gospel-offers and of the faithfulness of gospel-promises, all fears
of his not being elected, of his having sinned away the day of grace, or of his
having sinned against the Holy Spirit, all apprehensions that his sins are so
aggravated, so atrocious, as not to admit of pardoning mercy-these are
inconsistent with, and destructive of the exercise of it. The evangelical
penitent looks over the highest mountains that are raised before him-the
greatness of his transgressions, the plagues of his heart, the temptations of
Satan-to infinite mercy. Thither he will fly. In that he will hope, though his
case seem ever so dark, and though every thing appear to turn against him. And
the more lively his hope is, the more humbled and grieved he is for his
iniquities, and the more vigorous his endeavours are after new obedience.

Since true repentance is a hatred of, and a departure from all sin, it must
surely be an abhorrence of, and a flight from unbelief and despair, the greatest
of all sins. It is not, therefore, sufficient for the true penitent to believe
that God is infinitely gracious and merciful, that the righteousness of Christ
is infinitely meritorious, that there is forgiveness with God for the worst of
sinners, and that Christ with His righteousness and fulness is freely offered in
the Gospel to sinners in common. He must believe all this with application to
himself. And in order to his approaching to God as a Father, in order to his
being in love with the ways of God, and to his serving Him with cheerfulness and
delight, he must likewise trust in the Lord Jesus for his whole salvation. This
firm trust in the mercy of God his Saviour is not only requisite in order to the
first exercise of true repentance, but the sincere penitent will invariably
find, that when he at any time yields to a despondent frame, he is hereby
rendered incapable of godly sorrow for sin, of delight in God, and of the
spiritual performance of any duty. The sincere penitent should, indeed, be
jealous and distrustful of himself, but he must not distrust the compassionate
Saviour, nor despond, if he would maintain the exercise of evangelical
repentance, or of any other spiritual grace. The difference, then, between a
false and a true repentance is as great as between desponding fear and
encouraging hope; as between being affrighted by a sight of our sins from
trusting in God, and from serving Him with delight, and our being allured by His
infinite mercy to seek His face, to expect forgiveness through the blood of His
dear Son, and to serve Him with the dispositions of children.

6. Counterfeit repentance springs from enmity to God and to His holy law, but
true repentance from love to both. The grief and terror which legal penitents
often feel arise from dreadful apprehensions of God and of His inflexible
justice. They know that they have greatly provoked Him. They are afraid of His
infinite wrath, and therefore are eager to obtain a covert from it. Previously
it may be, they have had some pleasing apprehensions of God, while they
considered Him as all mercy, and while, though yet living in their sins, they
entertained a hope of pardon. But now that they have alarming apprehensions of
His infinite holiness and justice, and because he appears an infinite enemy to
them, they are contriving some way to make peace with Him; for they are afraid
that, if the controversy proceed, it will issue in their eternal destructio


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  CHAPTER 6: 01.05.     THE FRUITS AND EVIDENCES OF TRUE REPENTANCE
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5. The Fruits and Evidences of True Repentance When John the Baptist saw many of
the Pharisees and Sadducees coming to His Baptism, he said to them, "Bring forth
fruits meet for repentance" (Mat 3:8). What he styles fruits the apostle Paul
calls works, meet for repentance (Acts 26:20). The fruits of true repentance,
then, are in general the good works which every evangelical penitent endeavours,
through grace, diligently to perform; the spiritual and acceptable works, or
"fruits of righteousness, which are by Jesus Christ, to the glory and praise of
God." They are styled fruits, and fruits of repentance, for they spring from the
incorruptible seed of evangelical repentance in the heart, implanted there at
regeneration. Such works, are "fruits meet for repentance." They are suitable to
it, and they evince the genuineness of it. As a tree is known by its fruit, so
repentance is known by good works. These are effects of it, and therefore are
proofs or evidences to men of the sincerity of it. The root of true repentance
is in the heart. But in vain does a man pretend to have it there, if the fruit
of spiritual exercises and of holy performances does not appear in the life.
Even though Cain’s terror, Pharoah’s fair promises, Ahab’s humiliation, Herod’s
reverencing the prophet, hearing him gladly, and doing many things, Judas’
confession, the stony-ground hearers’ joy, the tongues of men and of angels, the
gifts of miracles and of prophecy, and the knowledge of all mysteries, were all
concentrated in one man, they would not prove him to be a true penitent. Nothing
can evince this except the genuine fruits of evangelical repentance. The chief
of these I shall now consider briefly, under the following particulars:

1. Carefulness or vigilance is one of the fruits of true repentance.

"Behold," said the apostle to the Corinthians, "this self-same thing, that ye
sorrowed after a godly sort, what carefulness it wrought in you!" (2Co 7:11).
The exercise of their godly sorrow produced in them a holy thoughtfulness and
care to comply with the apostle’s injunctions with respect to the incestuous
person, and to approve themselves to God by rectifying what was amiss. It
rendered them careful to remove him from visible communion with them, of which
they had been negligent before, and to sin after this fashion no more; and
solicitous also to perform good works in general, as well as not to displease
the Lord. Carefulness about the one thing needful, that good part which shall
not be taken away, is both a fruit and an evidence of evangelical repentance.
The true penitent is careful to keep himself from his iniquity, and to "walk
worthy of the Lord to all pleasing."

2. Another of the fruits of true repentance is the penitent’s clearing of
himself. Our apostle, in the passage already cited, adds, "Yea, what clearing of
yourselves!" as if he had said, "Your godly sorrow influenced you to take such
measures with respect to the incestuous person, as might furnish a plea against
any accusation of connivance with him in his guilt." The believers in Corinth
cleared themselves, not by denying the fact, or defending it, but by confessing
their culpable neglect, declaring that they did not approve of the sin, but
abhorred it, and that they complied willingly with the apostle’s directions.
Every sincere penitent, by relying only on the surety-righteousness of Jesus
Christ for his title to the justification of life, clears himself in the sight
of God from all the guilt of his own sins (Isa 45:24); and by refusing to
countenance sinful principles and practices around him, he clears himself from
being partaker of other men’s sins. He studies also to clear his character from
slanderous imputations of evil, or even of doubtful conduct.

3. Holy indignation against sin is a fruit and evidence of evangelical
repentance. The apostle in the fore-cited passage adds, "Yea, what indignation!"
The godly sorrow of the saints in Corinth raised in their souls a holy
indignation, a lively resentment, against their own iniquities, and against the
sin of that delinquent who had publicly dishonoured the name of Christ, and had
both defiled and troubled the church. It excited indignation in them, not
against the person of the offender, but against his heinous sin, and not his
only, but their own also, in not excluding him from their communion sooner. The
heart of every true penitent is filled with indignation against his iniquities,
as striking immediately against the honour of his God and Saviour (Psa 51:4; Psa
119:104). Godly sorrow for sin makes the heart of the penitent rise and swell
with indignation at sin, and at himself as a sinner. The more he is enabled to
trust that God for Christ’s sake forgives him, the less able is he to forgive
himself. He is angry and sins not, when he is angry at nothing but sin, and
angry with himself only because he has sinned.

4. Another consequence and evidence of true repentance, according to the
apostle, is fear, a filial and reverential fear of God, which causes the soul to
stand in awe of God, and holds it back from that which would offend and
dishonour Him (Gen 39:9). The penitential sorrow of the Corinthians wrought in
them, not a slavish fear of hell, but a filial fear of God; a fear of sinning
against Him, and of grieving His Spirit and His ministers; a fear lest, as the
apostle had suggested, the contagion should spread in the church; a jealous and
cautious fear, lest any accursed thing should still be found with them, or lest,
by the force of temptation, they should fall into a similar or any other
abomination, to provoke the Lord to anger. The true penitent fears lest he
offend; and that he may not offend, he exercises a holy and filial fear of God,
and a humble and jealous fear of himself. There arises in his heart a
reverential fear from an awful apprehension of the infinite majesty and holiness
of the Lord; and also a fear which makes him vigilant, disposing him to watch
and war against sin, that it may not, in time to come, surprise and prevail
against him.

5. Vehement or ardent desire, is one of the fruits of evangelical repentance.
When the believers in Corinth sorrowed to repentance, it produced in them, as
the Apostle says, "vehement desire." It excited in them fervent desire after a
thorough reformation, by putting away from among them that wicked person and
every evil thing (1Co 5:13), and by doing what would be well-pleasing to God
through Jesus Christ. It raised in them an ardent desire to give the apostle
full satisfaction, and to honour God for the future by a holy and exemplary
conduct. True repentance, in whomsoever it is, produces not merely desire, but
vehement desire to depart from all iniquity, to exercise all spiritual graces,
and to perform all commanded duties, as well as to advance daily in conformity
to Jesus Christ, and in communion with him (Psa 27:4). A false penitent may pray
in secret, but the true penitent must. His vehement desire cannot be shut up
within him. It must have a vent; and it cannot vent itself otherwise than by the
prayer of faith. Happy are they who are thus necessitated to wrestle daily with
the Lord in secret!

6. The apostle informs us, in the passage already cited, that godly sorrow
produces zeal.

Under the influences of the Holy Spirit, it inflamed the hearts of the saints in
Corinth with ardent zeal for the manifested glory of God in Christ; for
restoring the discipline, peace, and order of the church; for the doctrines of
grace, and the ordinances of the gospel; and for defending the character of the
apostle against the slanders of the false teachers. Wherever evangelical
repentance exists it produces that sacred zeal which is according to knowledge,
an enlightened zeal for the glory of God and the interest of Christ in the world
(Psa 137:5-6). This holy zeal is an affection compounded of love and anger. It
is enlightened and prudent eagerness of spirit to honour God, to promote true
holiness, and to oppose error and wickedness (Num 25:13). The zealous penitent,
from a tender regard to the honour of God his Saviour, burns with holy anger
against all corruptions of His truth and transgressions of His law, exerts
himself to advance His glory among men, and to transmit to the latest posterity,
entire and uncorrupted, the doctrines and ordinances of His glorious Gospel. He
may be compared to the burning bush. It was sharp indeed and prickly, but was so
in the midst of light and heat. He sees transgressors and is grieved. He loves
the Lord, and therefore hates evil. It is not the persons of transgressors that
he abhors, but their sins. His zeal begins at home. He diligently strives
against, and suppresses, those sins in himself against which he declares in
others around him. He remembers that, as the snuffers in the temple were of pure
gold, so they who would be zealous for pure religion in others, ought to be pure
themselves. Having turned to the love and practice of a new obedience, he is
zealous for good works, and careful to maintain them.

7. Another of the fruits of true repentance is revenge on sin. Our apostle in
the fore-cited passage says that the godly sorrow of the Corinthians wrought
revenge in them. It disposed them to take a sort of holy vengeance upon
themselves, like men who know not how to forgive themselves, when they reflected
on the malignity and heinousness of their own sins; and it made them determined
to inflict deserved punishment on the scandalous delinquent by casting him out
of the church. It produced in them, not revenge on persons in a private way, for
such vengeance belongs to God, but a readiness to revenge, by the infliction of
church-censures, all disobedience, particularly that of the unhappy offender
among them, which was shown in the punishment inflicted on him by many. Godly
sorrow and self-loathing reveal themselves by holy revenge; such revenge,
especially on the body of sin in the heart, as aims at the complete destruction
of it. How great was that revenge on the body of sin, which the apostle Paul
felt, when he exclaimed, "O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from
the body of this death?" (Rom 7:24). He who formerly delighted in sin is now
divided against himself. He now acts the part of an accuser, advocate, and
judge, against himself: yea, he, as it were, inflicts punishment on himself for
the exceeding sinfulness of his heart and life. Accordingly, the humble penitent
is represented as smiting on his thigh (Jer 31:19), as if he thereby declared
that he would willingly take vengeance on the legs that carried him forward in
the ways of sin; and that he would be filled with holy resentment against
himself for the innumerable injuries which, by his unaccountable crimes, he did
to the honour of his God and Saviour. When he repents of his wickedness, he
says, "What have I done?" (Jer 8:6). What an ungrateful, what a vile, what a
loathsome, what a wretched sinner, have I been!

8. The penitent’s making ample restitution of what he borrowed or fraudulently
took from others is a fruit and evidence of true repentance.

According to the ceremonial law, the trespass-offering was to be accompanied by
restitution to the party who had been injured (Lev 6:1-5). Zacchaeus,
accordingly, proved himself a true penitent by making ample restitution. Every
sincere penitent will likewise, with self-loathing, make haste to rid himself of
dishonest gain. He will shake his hands from holding of bribes (Isa 33:15). He
will obey scrupulously the charge of Solomon, "Withhold not good from them to
whom it is due, when it is in the power of thine hand to do it" (Pro 3:27). With
diligence he will make search for every remainder of that accursed thing. With
interest, he will restore it to the injured party if he can; if not, to their
relations; and failing them, to the poor. And if he be not able, it will
occasion much uneasiness and distress of mind to him. He who has injured his
neighbour, and refuses, though he has ability, to make restitution, is an
unrighteous man; and "the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God" (1Co
6:9). All appearances of repentance without this are hypocritical. Whatever
profession of repentance such a man makes, his religion is vain. He refuses to
do to others as he would that they should do to him. To pretend to have turned
from iniquity with bitter remorse, and yet to feed sweetly on the fruits of it,
is vain. This is so obvious that even Judas in his repentance, counterfeit as it
was, was impelled to restore the reward of iniquity. An ancient philosopher at
Athens, having, at a shop there, obtained a pair of shoes with promise to pay
for them at a later date, and having afterwards heard that the tradesman was
dead, at first was glad to think that the debt was now paid. But recollecting
himself, he brought the money and threw it into the shop, saying, "Take it; thou
art alive to me, while dead to all the world besides." What, then, are we to
think of many professed Christians who see their creditors struggling with those
difficulties into which their extravagance has plunged them, while they
themselves are in easy, perhaps in affluent circumstances, and so are well able,
if they choose to retrench superfluous expenses, to make them restitution in
whole or in part, but will not, because not compelled by law? Such persons shew
themselves to be destitute of true repentance, for they prefer wealth,
indulgence, and the pride of life, to rendering "to all their dues," to owing no
man any thing, but to love him (Rom 13:7-8). They who can restore that which
they owe their neighbour, but will not, surely do not turn from that sin, for
they deliberately continue to enjoy the fruit of it.

9. Another of the fruits and evidences of evangelical repentance is the
reparation of injuries in cases in which proper restitution cannot be made:

Such as injuries done to persons in their reputation, in their influence and
usefulness, in their families or connections, in their peace of mind, in their
contentment, and in many other instances.

Hence is this exhortation: "Confess your faults one to another" (Jas 5:16). The
evangelical penitent, though he cannot undo what he has done yet will study to
counteract the evil arising from the injury, by stooping even to the humblest
submissions, and the most ingenuous confessions, how contrary soever to the
pride and self-love remaining in his heart. If he was formerly guilty of such
scandalous offences as impaired the honour of God before the world, exposed
religion to the scorn of profane men, and grieved or stumbled the hearts of the
godly he will endeavour diligently to counteract the tendency of his former evil
conduct. Or if he formerly propagated errors respecting either doctrine or duty,
he will now retract them, and exert himself to undo that part of his conduct.
And as far as his arguments, his persuasions, his influence and example can
reach, he will diligently endeavour to stop the further progress of the
mischief. In these and various other instances, true repentance, under the
almighty agency of the Holy Spirit, disposes a man to employ every proper means
of counteracting the tendency of his former bad conduct. Indeed, to repent
sincerely of such injuries, and yet wilfully to refuse the conduct by which the
honour of God and the credit of religion may in some measure be restored, is
impossible. A man may as well pretend to repent of his having wounded a person,
whilst he sees him bleeding to death, and yet refuses, though he has it in his
power, to bind up his wounds. Multitudes, alas! flatter themselves that they
have sincerely repented of their sins, who yet will on no account condescend to
make the smallest reparation for the injuries they have done. This indeed shows
that their penitence is no better than that of Ahab, who humbled himself, but
neither restored Naboth’s vineyard, nor turned from any of his other
abominations.

10. Once more, diligence in the spiritual performance of our duties is one of
the fruits of true repentance. To be diligent is to be bent on activity,
constant in application, and persevering in endeavour. The evangelical penitent,
under the sanctifying influences of the Holy Spirit, and in proportion to the
degree of his repentance, performs all his duties with speed, activity, and
perseverance. When he remembers, with sorrow and self-abasement, how diligent he
was in the service of sin and Satan, how he did evil with both hands earnestly
(Mic 7:3), he is powerfully urged to serve now with holy diligence his God and
Saviour. And especially when he considers how diligent his adorable Redeemer was
in obeying the law as a covenant, for his justification, he is irresistibly
constrained to give all diligence in yielding obedience to it as a rule, for his
glory. He is commanded, not only to keep the commandments of this holy law as
the rule of his duty, but to keep them diligently. "Ye shall diligently keep the
commandments of the Lord your God" (Deu 6:17). And again, "Thou hast commanded
us to keep thy precepts diligently" (Psa 119:4). The true penitent, accordingly,
is diligent in all his duties, not only in all the various duties of his civil
calling, but in the exercises of devotion in all their variety. In the latter he
is even more diligent than in the former. As the shekel of the sanctuary was the
double of the common shekel, so, in the affairs of eternity, he doubles the
diligence that he uses in the business of time. Like Solomon, he first builds
the house of God, and then his own house. He looks upon the salvation of his
soul, in subservience to the manifested glory of God, as the most interesting
employment of life. And therefore he not only gives diligence, but all
diligence, in adding "to his faith, virtue; and to virtue, knowledge; and to
knowledge, temperance; and to temperance, patience; and to patience, godliness;
and to godliness, brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness, charity" (2Pe
1:5-7). So much for the principal fruits and evidences of true repentance.

Reader, have you in any degree brought forth these fruits of evangelical
repentance? If you have, they are so many evidences of your having the grace of
true repentance. They are signs of your having that repentance to salvation
which is not to be repented of. They are so many proofs that you have in
regeneration received the principle of this repentance, and that in progressive
sanctification you have attained the habit and exercise of it. They are,
therefore, great encouragements to you to continue and advance in the daily
exercise of it, and by faith to receive more and more of it out of the fulness
of Christ. But although they serve to encourage you to these, yet they form no
part of your warrant to trust in Christ for that great salvation, of which
evangelical repentance is an essential part. Your warrant to renew the exercise
of trusting in Jesus Christ for His whole salvation, lies in His word of grace,
and not in either your heart or your life (Psa 22:27). And therefore, if you
make your evidences of grace your warrant or ground of right, either in whole or
in part, to renew the acting of faith in Christ, you will provoke Him to hide
His face, and to cover them with a cloud in His anger. They are fruits, not only
of repentance, but of faith; but if you presume to make them grounds of faith,
your faith and repentance will quickly decline. See that your exercise of faith,
then, be always grounded on faithfulness in the Word, and never on feelings in
the heart. True repentance is offered and promised to you in the blessed Gospel.
Trust in the Lord Jesus for it, on the warrant of the unlimited offer and
promise. Trust also and plead this precious and absolute promise: "All the ends
of the world shall remember and turn unto the Lord" (Psa 22:27). Place at all
times the confidence of your heart in Jesus Christ, and rely with firm trust on
His faithfulness in that promise, for the performance of it to you; and
according to your faith it will be unto you. He will make you advance daily in
the habit and exercise of repentance unto life.

Let every reader endeavour diligently to repent, and to bring forth fruits
worthy of true repentance. Advance daily in those holy tempers, and in the
performance of those good works, which are the fruits of evangelical repentance.
Since the genuine fruits of evangelical repentance are at the same time works of
faith and labours of love, it will be necessary that you exercise faith and love
in order to produce them. The exercise of unfeigned faith and love is
pre-requisite to true repentance, and to all the genuine fruits of it. As these
fruits are fruits also "of righteousness, which are by Jesus Christ, to the
glory and praise of God," it will be no less necessary for their production,
that you be united to Christ, that you have His righteousness imputed to you,
and His Spirit as a Spirit of holiness put within you. And as they are fruit
unto God, you must be dead to the law as a covenant of works, as well as united
to Christ, in order to produce even the smallest measure of them. Paul addressed
the believers in Rome thus: "Ye also are become dead to the law by the body of
Christ; that ye should be married to another, even to him who is raised from the
dead, that we should bring forth fruit unto God" (Rom 7:4). To be united in a
conjugal relation to Christ, the Head and Husband of His church, and to be
delivered in justification from the law as a covenant of works, are necessary to
your bringing forth fruit unto God, or your serving Him in newness of spirit. O
consider, then, that it will be impossible for you either to exercise true
repentance, or to bring forth any of its fruits, unless, in order to do so, you
are a believer in Jesus Christ, united to Him by faith, justified by His
righteousness imputed to you, and dead to the law as a covenant. All these are
necessary to the least exercise of evangelical repentance and to the production
of any of its fruits. Come to Christ, then, for grace and strength to exercise
true repentance. Believe on Him in order to repent sincerely. The more you
cordially trust in him for the grace of repentance, the more you will repent of
all your sins; and the more you sincerely repent of them, the more of the fruits
of repentance will you produce. Your exercise of repentance will be according to
your acting of faith.


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  CHAPTER 7: 01.06.     PRIORITY OF ACTING OF SAVING FAITH
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6. The Priority of the Acting of Saving Faith to the Exercise of True Repentance
In the moment of regeneration the Holy Spirit implants all spiritual and saving
graces in the heart of the elect sinner, and among others, faith and repentance.
He implants at the same instant the root or principle of saving faith and of
true repentance. He gives these two graces together and at once in respect of
time; and therefore, though in our conception of them, they are to be
distinguished, yet they are never to be separated from each other. The principle
of faith in the regenerate soul, that is, the capacity of acting faith, is not
in point of time before that of repentance, nor is the principle of repentance
before that of faith. Every true believer in principle is at the same time a
true penitent, and every true penitent in respect of principle is a genuine
believer. An impenitent believer, and a penitent unbeliever, are characters
which have no existence but in the vain imaginations of some men.

But, though the principle of saving faith does not in respect of time precede
that of true repentance, yet in order of nature, the acting of that faith
precedes the exercise of this repentance (Zec 12:10). The regenerate sinner is
enabled cordially to apprehend or trust in the pardoning mercy of God in Christ,
in order to exercise true repentance (Psa 13:5). For he cannot begin to exercise
that repentance which is spiritual and acceptable to God until he first begin to
trust cordially in Jesus Christ for mercy and grace. The exercise of true
repentance, as already observed, flows from that of justifying and saving faith.
A legal and counterfeit repentance, indeed, often goes before the first acting
of true faith; but the exercise of evangelical or true repentance never goes
before, but always springs from it and follows it. The exercise of true faith is
the instrument or means of attaining, through grace, the habit and exercise of
evangelical repentance. The first acting of saving faith in conversion is the
means of attaining the first exercise of that repentance; and the renewed
actings of that precious faith are the means of being enabled to renew the
exercise of it.

Seeing the priority of the acting of unfeigned faith to the exercise of true
repentance is of immense importance to the holiness and comfort of believers, in
subordination to the glory of God I shall endeavour to evince the reality of it
by the following arguments:

1. Faith is the principal grace, and the acting of it is the first breathing,
the first vital motion of the regenerate soul. No sooner is the dead sinner
quickened than he begins to act spiritually, and his first activity is that of
believing. His true belief of the law with application to himself issues in true
conviction of his sinfulness of heart and life, and also in something resembling
legal repentance; and his saving faith of the gospel with application to himself
issues in union and communion with Christ, and so in evangelical repentance.
Without faith it is impossible to please God (Heb 11:6); and therefore it is
impossible, without the previous exercise of it, so to repent as to please Him
(Jer 31:19-20). "Without me," says the Lord Jesus, "ye can do nothing" (John
15:5). If, separate from Christ or without vital union with Him by faith, a man
can do nothing that is spiritually good, we may be sure that without it he
cannot exercise spiritual repentance. Such repentance is usually styled
evangelical, because the exercise of it is attained by faith in Jesus Christ as
exhibited to sinners in the Gospel. Though the law, in the hand of the Spirit,
serves in a good degree to reveal the inexpressible malignity, odiousness, and
demerit of sin, yet the glorious Gospel affords brighter and more affecting
discoveries of these. It is in this glass that the true penitent attains the
most humbling and heart-melting views of the exceeding sinfulness of sin; such
views of it as, under the influences of the Holy Spirit, will bring godly sorrow
to the heart and the tears of evangelical repentance to the eyes. It is the eye
of faith, contemplating sin in the cross of the adorable Redeemer, that affects
the heart with bitter repentance and with true abhorrence of all iniquity.

2. Saving faith is the leading grace, especially to the exercise of true
repentance. The acting of the former is in order to the exercise of the latter.
Accordingly we read in the Scripture, that "a great number believed, and turned
unto the Lord" (Acts 11:21) and that the house of David, and the inhabitants of
Jerusalem shall look upon Him whom they have pierced, and shall mourn for Him
(Zec 12:10). The tears of godly sorrow drop as it were from the eye of faith. It
is the exercise of faith in the crucified Redeemer that melts the hard heart
into penitential mourning, and that produces the tears which run down in
repentance. The eye of faith fixes on God in Christ as a God of love, mercy, and
grace; and then by repentance the heart turns to Him, and to the love and
practice of true holiness (Jer 3:22). A godly minister, accordingly, gives us
this admonition: "When you go to mourn for sin, begin aloft with Christ; and do
not think to begin below with sin, and so to come up to Christ; but being aloft
with Christ, and fall down upon your sin." True repentance is our turning to
God. But if the exercise of this repentance were before that of faith, sinners
might return to God without coming by Christ as the only way to Him, contrary to
this declaration of Christ respecting Himself: "I am the way...no man cometh
unto the Father but by me" (John 14:6). Evangelical repentance cannot otherwise
be attained than by faith, receiving it from the Lord Jesus, who is exalted to
give it (Acts 5:31).

3. The exercise of true repentance flows immediately from unfeigned love to
Christ, and to God in Him; but such love to Him springs from the exercise of
true faith on Him. The exercise of evangelical repentance, I say, flows
immediately from genuine love to Jesus Christ, and to God in Him. The believing
sinner exercises godly sorrow for his sins, because he pierced Christ, his dear
Redeemer by them. But this he could not do unless he loved Christ with a supreme
and tender love. It is his ardent love of the Redeemer that, under the infinite
agency of the Holy Spirit, disposes and impels him to mourn and be in bitterness
for having pierced and put Him to grief.

Also he forsakes with deep abhorrence all his iniquities, because they are
infinitely hateful to God, and because he has thereby insulted and reproached
His glorious Majesty. But he could not on these accounts hate sin, if he did not
love Christ and God in Christ supremely, and if he did not love sincerely the
holiness of His nature and His law. Moreover, he turns to God, and to a diligent
endeavour after new obedience to Him. This, however, arises from superlative
esteem of Him, and from ardent affection to Him. The exercise of true
repentance, then, springs immediately from sincere love to Christ and to God in
Him, as an infinitely holy and gracious God. This love flows from the exercise
of unfeigned faith. It is "faith which worketh by love." By faith the believer
spiritually apprehends the love or good will of God to him. "We have known and
believed," says the apostle John, "the love that God hath to us: God is love"
(1Jn 4:16). Calvin’s remark on this passage appears to be just. "We have known
and believed," or, that is, says he, "We have known by believing. In a preceding
verse, the apostle represented faith as our believing that Jesus is the Son of
God; but here he says: By faith we know the love of God toward us." When a man
cordially believes the love of God to him, he in the same degree loves God,
because God first loved him (1Jn 4:19). He believes or trusts that God loves him
with a love of good will, and so, he is powerfully and sweetly constrained to
love Him in return. It is not the secret love of God in election, nor the secret
operation of it in regeneration, that is more directly intended by the phrase,
"He first loved us"; but the public manifestation of His love in the gift of
Christ as exhibited in the Gospel; even that discovery of His love which is the
object of the direct exercise of faith. This view of the apostle’s assertion is
confirmed by the fact that he uses this most sublime expression, "GOD IS LOVE"
(1Jn 4:16). Here he intimates that God, as the object of faith, is love; and
also that a convinced sinner cannot sincerely love Him, till he first believes
that, in Jesus Christ His dear Son, HE IS LOVE even to him. The special love of
God to the believer may, indeed, be concluded from his unfeigned love to God.
But it does not follow that there is no apprehension at all of the loveliness
and love of God to him, at his first exercise of love to God. The love of God in
Christ, apprehended by the direct acting of faith, may well begin and promote
that exercise. The believer’s love to God, which is excited by the faith of
God’s love to him, is no more a mercenary, or a sinful self-love, than that of
the Psalmist, when he loved Jehovah as his strength, his rock, his fortress and
deliverer, his God, the horn of his salvation, and his high tower (Psa 18:1-2).
Nor is it any more a self-love than that of Paul and the believers at Corinth,
when the love of Christ, manifested in His dying for them, constrained them to
live not to themselves but to Him. The Psalmist, by saying to the Lord, "Whom
have I in heaven but thee? and there is none upon earth that I desire besides
thee," expresses his exercise of supreme love to Him. But he attained this
exercise of love by the acting of his faith, expressed thus in the immediately
preceding verse: "Thou shalt guide me with thy counsel, and afterward receive me
to glory" (Psa 73:24-25). It is evident, then, that the exercise of true
repentance proceeds from supreme love to God, and that this love springs from
the exercise of unfeigned faith. The acting of this faith therefore precedes the
exercise of that repentance.

4. The exercise of genuine repentance supposes true conviction of sin and
misery, and this proceeds from a true faith of the law.

Legal repentance, which is exercised by many unregenerate persons, springs from
legal conviction and legal terror. But the exercise of evangelical repentance
arises from that true and thorough conviction which is a consequence of that
true faith of the law, implanted by the Holy Spirit at regeneration. Arising
from such conviction of sin as follows upon the faith of the law, it may well be
said to spring from this faith, as well as from the saving faith of the gospel.
The subject of true repentance is a convinced sinner. "He sheweth them their
work, and their transgressions that they have exceeded. He openeth also their
ear to discipline, and commandeth that they return from iniquity" (Job 36:9-10;
cf Acts 2:37-38). As soon as a sinner is regenerated, and has true faith
implanted in his heart, he believes the doctrine of the law, with particular
application to himself. Hence arises true conviction of sin, and this is
followed by the saving faith of the Gospel. The exercise of true repentance,
then, in the order of nature, springs both from the true faith of the law and
from the saving faith of the Gospel. If it follow that faith of the Gospel, it
must of course follow that faith of the law from which true conviction proceeds.
This faith and this conviction, therefore, are previously necessary to that
exercise.

5. Evangelical repentance is included in sanctification, and the means or
instrument of sanctification, is justifying and saving faith. As the exercise of
saving faith is, according to the covenant of grace, previously necessary to
sanctification, so is it to the exercise of that repentance which is comprised
in sanctification. That evangelical repentance is included in sanctification is
evident. No man can repent unless he hate sin and love holiness. None can hate
sin and turn from it, except he be sanctified: and none can be sanctified unless
he have that saving faith, by the acting of which a man is vitally united to
Christ, the head of sanctifying influence. In actual sanctification, the
believer dies more and more to sin, and lives to righteousness. Now, what is it
to die to sin, but to exercise godly sorrow for it, and holy abhorrence of it?
And what is it to live to righteousness, but to turn to God from the love and
practice of all iniquity, and to the love and practice of universal holiness?
The habitual sanctification, and the exercise of it is included in actual
sanctification. The habit and the exercise of true repentance, then, have their
place in habitual and actual sanctification. The principle of true repentance,
indeed, as previously observed, is infused at regeneration; but the habit and
exercise of it are not introduced but in sanctification. Now saving faith is the
means or instrument of sanctification. Accordingly we read in Scripture that
they who are sanctified, "are sanctified by faith" (Acts 26:18). The first
acting of that faith must be before the first exercise of this repentance, as
the means are before, and in order to the end.

6. If the exercise of true repentance be previously requisite, or preparatory,
to the first acting of saving faith, the convinced sinner must be satisfied that
his repentance is true, before he begin to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ for
salvation. Were it true that Jesus and His great salvation are, in the Gospel,
offered to none but the true penitent, and that none else is warranted to
receive the offer, it would follow that no sinner could warrantably embrace the
offer till he were previously satisfied that his repentance was not counterfeit,
but true; or, that he could not without sin attempt to come to Christ, or to
trust in Him for salvation, until it was certified to his conscience that his
repentance had all the discriminating characters of a true repentance. And
seeing the exercise of genuine repentance springs from unfeigned love to God, he
must be satisfied too, that he loves God sincerely, not only while he apprehends
God to be his infinite enemy, but while He is indeed his enemy. The apostle Paul
says: "Whatsoever is not of faith is sin" (Rom 14:23); that is, "Whatsoever is
done in doubt of conscience, whether God has commanded it or not, is sin." And
it is plain from the context, that by faith here, the apostle means the faith of
God’s command. If, then, the exercise of true repentance be a qualification
previously necessary to the first acting of saving faith, and if the convinced
sinner cannot be satisfied that his repentance is of the true kind, or that God
commands him in particular to believe in Christ, how can he, so long as he
doubts whether the command affording him a warrant for believing be addressed to
him, attempt to believe in the Saviour? He may be sure that his attempting an
act of faith, whilst he doubts his warrant for it, is his sin. No wonder that
the convinced and affrighted sinner doubts if he be a true penitent, and that he
is ready to conclude he is not! But until he be satisfied that his repentance is
of the true kind, he must not, according to that doctrine, presume to trust in
the Saviour for salvation. If the Lord invites none to share in the provisions
of His house but the true penitent, then he that doubteth is condemned if he
eat. As the sinner cannot see anything that is spiritually good in himself
before, but only in, or after, his first exercise of faith, it will be
impossible for him ever to act faith on Christ warrantably; because true
repentance, supposing him to have the principle of it, cannot be seen by him
before his first acting of faith. Consequently no sinner in the world could ever
begin lawfully to trust in the Saviour for salvation. For none must presume to
trust in Christ until he see that he is a true penitent; and this cannot be
discerned till he have already begun to believe or trust in Him. But is it true
that the offers of the Gospel, and commandment to believe in Jesus Christ, are
addressed to none but true penitents? Far from it. Christ with His righteousness
and salvation is in the Gospel offered to sinners of mankind in common-to
sinners as such; and sinners as such are invited and commanded to believe on His
name (1Jn 3:23), "Whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely" (Rev
22:17). "Whosoever believeth in him shall not perish, but have everlasting life"
(John 3:16). The error which has now been adverted to, is most injurious to such
as are seeking Jesus, and fighting against unbelief; for it tends greatly to
discourage, and even to obstruct, all their attempts to trust in Him for
salvation from sin and wrath. Although they apprehend the wrath of God denounced
against them for their innumerable transgressions, and hear of a free salvation
offered in the Gospel, yet it still appears to be forbidden fruit to them,
because they are far from being certain that they have exercised true
repentance. For they consider the exercise of true repentance to be a
pre-requisite qualification for the acting of unfeigned faith. Hence the offers
of a compassionate Saviour, and the promises of a great salvation, do but
torment them the more; while they falsely persuade themselves that none but the
true penitent has a right to apply and trust them. As they cannot be satisfied
before the first acting of faith that their exercise of repentance is genuine,
and as they cannot attain deliverance from their perplexing fears, nor victory
over the least of their spiritual enemies, but by the exercise of faith in the
almighty Redeemer, their souls are ensnared, and obstructed in faith, in
holiness, and in comfort. So long as they adhere to this false persuasion, it
will effectually deter them from coming as sinners to Christ, and from trusting
in Him, so as to be filled "with all joy and peace in believing." ARE YOU
ENTANGLED IN THIS PERPLEXING SNARE? Do you persuade yourself that the exercise
of true repentance, and a consciousness of this exercise, are previously
necessary to the acting of unfeigned faith? Do you postpone the act of trusting
in the Lord Jesus for all His salvation, till you first sit down and mourn
awhile for your sins, or till your heart be so humbled that you may be welcome
to Him, and so have from your own resources a warrant for trusting in Him? Do
you object against coming to Christ because you are not certain that your
conviction of sin and your repentance are of the right sort? Do you apply
yourself to the exercise of repentance in order to be qualified for believing in
Christ, or do you apply your conscience to the commands and curses of the broken
law, in order so to repent as to be entitled to trust in Him? Know, I entreat
you, that this preposterous and self-righteous course will but sink you the
deeper in unbelief, impenitence, and enmity to God the longer you try in this
manner to seek for evangelical repentance in your heart or life, the farther you
will be from finding it. But perhaps you will reply, Can any man who is not a
true penitent exercise a saving faith in Christ? I answer, No, he cannot. But
though no man can act a saving faith without having the principle of true
repentance, or a disposition to exercise it, implanted by the Holy Spirit in his
heart, yet multitudes have believed, and do believe to the saving of the soul,
without having previously seen that they had that principle, and without any
previous exercise of it. To have it is necessary to the acting of true faith;
but to know that you have it, is not necessary. To have the capacity or
disposition to exercise true repentance is indispensably requisite; but the
actual exercise of it, and your consciousness of that exercise, are not
previously necessary. Study then, in dependence on the grace of the promise, and
study resolutely, to believe in order to repent; to come as an unworthy and
undone sinner, and, believing cordially that the offers of the gospel are
directed to you in particular, to trust firmly in Jesus Christ for all His
salvation, and for true repentance as an essential part of it. So shall you be
enabled to exercise that evangelical repentance which will not need to be
repented of. Do not try to wash yourself clean in order to come to the open
fountain of redeeming blood; but come to it as you are, and, by the immediate
exercise of direct confidence in the Lord Jesus, wash away all your sins (Eze
36:25).

7. The exercise of true repentance itself shews plainly that the acting of
saving faith is prior to it.

Such repentance is a sinner’s turning cordially from all sin to God. But it is
impossible to turn to God except through Christ. "I am the way [said Jesus]...no
man cometh unto the Father but by me" (John 14:6). It is impossible to come to
Christ and walk in Him, but by the acting of faith (John 6:35). The sinner,
then, who would turn and come to God by true repentance, must needs take Christ
by faith as his way to Him. He must believe or trust in Christ in order to
return and come to God by Christ. The exercise of faith, therefore, is, in order
of nature, before that of repentance.

Repentance is, indeed, in Scripture, placed sometimes before faith. But the
reason seems to be that repentance is the end, and faith the means of attaining
to that end. The end is first in intention, and therefore is mentioned first;
but the means are first in practice. Thus in Mark 1:15 our Lord commands sinners
to repent; and in order to their exercise of repentance, he enjoins them to
believe the Gospel as the means of attaining that important end. The apostle
Paul, said to the elders of the church at Ephesus, that he had testified to
them, "repentance toward God, and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ" (Acts
20:21) -repentance toward God as the end, and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ
as the means of attaining that end. Hence it is obvious that, if faith toward
our Lord Jesus Christ be not the means of attaining repentance toward God, the
fundamental truth, that no man comes to the Father but by Christ, is overturned
(John 14:6). Were the exercise of true repentance before the acting of genuine
faith, sinners might return to God without coming by Christ, the only way to
Him. But according to the Scriptures, the exercise of evangelical repentance is
not otherwise to be attained than by faith, by which we look upon Him whom we
have pierced (Zec 12:10), and by which we receive out of His fulness grace to
repent. It is the cordial exercise of particular trust in the Redeemer, that,
through grace, it powerfully withdraws the affections from all iniquity and
sweetly attaches them to the holy and blessed God. After Ezra had prayed and
confessed, the people indeed wept; but they did not attempt to put away their
strange wives, until Shechaniah had cried, "We have trespassed against our
God...yet now there is hope in Israel concerning this thing" (Ezr 10:2). They
who will turn must not only be prisoners of fear, but "prisoners of hope" (Zec
9:12).

8. Once more, the Scriptures set forth the blessed Object of faith, and the
precious promises of grace, as powerful motives to the exercise of true
repentance. By this it is evident that it must be by a faith-view of that
glorious Object, brought near in the offers and promises, that a convinced
sinner is incited and enabled, to exercise evangelical repentance. Various
passages of Scripture, such as the following, set forth the exceeding riches of
the grace of God, in order to excite and encourage sinners to the exercise of
true repentance. "Turn, O backsliding children, saith the LORD; for I am married
unto you...Return, ye backsliding children, and I will heal your backslidings.
Behold, we come unto thee; for thou art the LORD our God" (Jer 3:14, Jer 3:22).
"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...O Israel, return unto the LORD thy
God; for thou hast fallen by thine iniquity" (Hos 6:1; Hos 14:1). "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" (Joe 2:12-13). The moral law of Sinai, which
requires true repentance, is prefaced by this most gracious declaration to
encourage the Israelite to obedience: "I am the LORD thy God" (Exo 20:2). And in
the New Testament, sinners are exhorted to repentance thus: "Repent ye: for the
kingdom of heaven is at hand" (Mat 3:2; Mat 4:17).

Now if the exercise of true repentance precedes that of saving faith, such
passages tend to deceive us. For, by the most natural construction of them, we
are induced to believe that it is by means of a previous apprehension by faith
of the mercy and grace of God in Christ, that sinners are brought to the
exercise of evangelical repentance. Such passages, especially when compared,
show plainly that it is by a believing application of the offers and promises of
the blessed Gospel, and by a cordial trust in the Lord Jesus for mercy and
grace, that convinced sinners are disposed to exercise true repentance. By the
arguments here advanced, it is, I trust, evident to the impartial reader that
the acting of true or saving faith is, in order of nature, previous to the
exercise of evangelical repentance. Is the first act of justifying and saving
faith previous, in order of nature, to the first exercise of evangelical
repentance, and is the renewed acting of the former before the renewed exercise
of the latter? Then the believing sinner should, in repenting of his sins, begin
with the sin of unbelief. He ought, in the faith of pardoning mercy, to repent
of his unbelief and distrust of the faithful Redeemer, in order to repent of all
his other sins. As faith, with respect to its office in the new covenant, is the
principal, the leading grace, so unbelief is the radical, the leading sin.
Accordingly, when the Holy Spirit convinces an elect sinner of sin, He convinces
him particularly of his unbelief (John 16:8-9). He shews him the exceeding
sinfulness, hatefulness, and demerit of all his iniquities, and especially of
his disbelief, and distrust of the Divine Redeemer. The exercise of evangelical
repentance, therefore, has respect chiefly to this radical sin, which is the
root of every other abomination. All other iniquities are but so many malignant
streams issuing from the unbelief as their fountain. The legal penitent, as he
is never truly convinced of the strength and sinfulness of his unbelief, so he
never sincerely repents of it; and because he never truly repents of that sin,
he cannot repent evangelically of any other. His pretending to repent of his
other transgressions is vain, so long as he does not repent of his unbelief, the
corrupt fountain from which they all flow. The evangelical penitent, on the
contrary, shows that his repentance is true, by repenting of all the polluted
streams of his iniquities, not only in themselves but in their fountain. And if
at any time, in his exercise of repentance, he overlooks his remaining unbelief,
or distrust of the Saviour, he will find that his exercise of it will languish,
and that hardness and impenitence of heart will prevail against him. The
stronger his faith is, and the more frequently he exercises it, the more deeply
he will repent of his remaining unbelief, and of all the innumerable crimes
which proceed from it.

Reader, see that you believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, in order to exercise true
repentance, and that you repent of your unbelief, in order to repent spiritually
of all your other sins. For it is in proportion as you turn from your unbelief,
that root of bitterness, that you turn in an acceptable manner from any other of
your iniquities.


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  CHAPTER 8: 01.07.     PRIORITY OF JUSTIFICATION
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7. The Priority of Justification to the First Exercise of True Repentance

Before I advance arguments to prove that justification in the sight of God
precedes the first exercise of true repentance, it will be necessary, in order
to prevent any misconstruction of what is to be stated, that the following
remarks be premised:

(1) Justification, considered as an immanent act of God, or as the eternal and
unchangeable will of God to justify His elect upon the ground of a righteousness
fulfilled by Christ and imputed to them, has been by judicious divines called
active justification (Witsius, The Economy of the Covenants , Book 2, Chap. 7).
But justification, viewed as terminating on the persons and in the consciences
of believers, has been styled passive justification. The former precedes both
the principle and the first acting of true repentance. The latter takes place
after regeneration, when the principle of repentance takes root in the soul but
before that repentance is actually exercised. This last is the justification,
which is often mentioned in Scripture as the privilege of believers, and which
is brought to pass by the instrumentality of faith (Rom 3:28; Gal 2:16). It is
justification in this sense only that I am to consider, in its connection with
the exercise of true repentance.

(2) The pardon of sin is a part of justification. When God is said to pardon the
sins of believers, it is to be understood, first, of the act of His free grace
in bringing them into an unalterable state of justification by means of faith
(Col 3:13); secondly, of the intimations, or the encouraging sense, which the
Lord graciously affords them of their state of justification (Psa 32:5); and
thirdly, it is to be understood of the removal of that guilt which binds them
over to those chastisements for sin which are the effects of fatherly anger. The
first is included in justification, and it goes before the first exercise of
evangelical repentance. The second and third do not go before, but they follow
after that exercise. The first exercise of true repentance follows the
forgiveness of sin in the first sense; but it goes before it in the second and
third.

(3) Repentance, as has been already stated, must always be the sinner’s duty. To
deny that it is his duty to sorrow for sin, and to turn from it, would be to
vindicate rebellion against the Most High. The Lord Jesus has not only said,
"Repent" (Rev 3:19), but has said again and again, "Except ye repent, ye shall
perish" (Luk 13:3-5).

(4) The exercise of true repentance is indispensably requisite, in all who are
capable of it, as a means, without which none may expect the comfortable
enjoyment of communion with God either in time or in eternity. It is a necessary
means of spiritual consolation, and also of preparation for the perfection of
eternal life.

(5) The word repentance, in the Scripture, sometimes expresses the whole of that
change which takes place in the conversion of a sinner to God. In this sense it
includes faith in Jesus Christ as well as godly sorrow for sin, and sincere
endeavours to yield new obedience. It would therefore be wrong to say of
repentance in this its large acceptation, that the first exercise of it is
either after faith or justification. It is only of the first exercise of true
repentance, taken in its strict sense, as distinct from faith and consequent
upon it, that I am to speak.

(6) When I say that the first exercise of true repentance is after
justification, I speak not of the order of time, but only of the order of
nature; for no justified person is, or can be impenitent.

(7) It is not of the seed or principle of evangelical repentance that I am to
treat, but only of the exercise of it. The seed, root, or principle of true
repentance, implanted at regeneration, is before justification, or the judicial
pardon of sin; but the formal exercise of that repentance is, as will be shewn,
after it.

(8) The exercise of repentance is either legal or evangelical. It is either
under the influence of the law as a covenant of works, and the domination of a
legal spirit; or under the influence of the covenant of grace, and of an
evangelical spirit. It is readily granted that legal repentance is exercised
before justification; but not that which is evangelical. The first exercise of
evangelical repentance does not in order of nature go before, but comes after,
justification or the judicial pardon of sin. This doctrine being understood
according to these positions, I now proceed to evince the truth and importance
of it by the following arguments:

1. The first exercise of true repentance is not prior to justification in the
sight of God; because there can be no acceptable performance of any good work,
before this justification. The exercise of evangelical repentance is evidently a
good work, a work which is formally as well as materially good. The description
of a good work in Scripture plainly agrees to it. A good work is a work that
pleases God. But the exercise of true repentance is a work which highly pleases
Him. When Ephraim thus repented, Jehovah said of him, "Is Ephraim my dear son?
is he a pleasant child?" (Jer 31:20). And says the Psalmist, "The sacrifices of
God are a broken spirit: a broken and a contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not
despise" (Psa 51:17). It may be called an evangelical work, not indeed as if it
were not required in the moral law, but as it, and every other good work, is
performed in reliance on the righteousness and grace of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Now good works do not go before, but follow justification in the sight of God.
The members of the Synod of Dort, in the 24th Article of their Confession, say,
"We are justified by faith in Christ, and that before we do good works:
otherwise they could not be good works, any more than the fruit of a tree can be
good before the tree itself be good." The Westminster Confession of Faith says,
"Good works are fruits and evidences of a true and lively faith." "The persons
of believers being accepted through Christ, their good works are also accepted
in Him." The truth of this position is evident, by observing that, according to
the covenant of grace, Divine acceptance begins with the person of the believer,
and then goes on to his performances. God’s acceptance of this person as
righteous, in the act of justification, is, in order of nature, before His
acceptance of any of his works. The first exercise of true repentance is a work
spiritually good and acceptable to God; and therefore, it must follow the
acceptance of the person as righteous, in justification. We read that, "The Lord
had respect unto Abel and to his offering" (Gen 4:4) -first, unto Abel himself,
and then to his offering. The same order is abundantly evident from these words
of our apostle: "Wherefore, my brethren, ye also are become dead to the law by
the body of Christ; that ye should be married to another...that we should bring
forth fruit unto God" (Rom 7:4).

Now the first, as well as the progressive, exercise of true repentance, is
doubtless included in bringing forth fruit unto God. But our spiritual marriage
to Christ is necessary to our bringing forth fruit unto God. In this spiritual
marriage, we are dead to the law by the body of Christ; that is, we are
justified, and so are delivered from the law as a covenant, by virtue of the
righteousness which Christ fulfilled in our nature received by faith. Previous
to this blessed change of state, the only fruit that we bring forth, is "fruit
unto death"; the only repentance that we exercise is that selfish, slavish,
legal repentance, to which we are impelled by the terrors of the law and the
dominion of a legal temper. The same order is also evident from the following
words: "Sin shall not have dominion over you; for ye are not under the law, but
under grace" (Rom 6:14). From these words we see that, while a man is under the
law as a covenant of works, that is, while he is not brought into a state of
justification, he is under the dominion of sin; and therefore he is utterly
incapable of doing any work which is acceptable to God. According to this
delightful passage, a man must not be under the law as a covenant, but under
grace; that is, he must be justified freely by the grace of God, in order to the
first exercise of that repentance which is spiritually good and acceptable to
God.

2. This notion that the exercise of true repentance is previously necessary to
the reception of pardon in justification, detracts from the grace of God as
manifested in the offers and promises of the glorious Gospel. In the Gospel,
pardon of sin through Christ is freely offered to sinners indiscriminately, and
is promised immediately to those who believe. "Through his name whosoever
believeth in him shall receive remission of sins" (Acts 10:43). Some have
insisted that sinners should not come empty-handed to Christ, but that they
should bring something with them, especially the exercise of true repentance, if
they would obtain the pardon of sin. But how are they to attain the exercise of
true repentance, before the forgiveness of sin? They have no power of themselves
to repent sincerely. Surely, while they are viewing themselves as still excluded
from the pardoning mercy of God, they have not the smallest ground to expect
that He will give them grace to exercise such repentance as will be acceptable
to Him. From what quarter can they hope for grace to repent, whilst as yet their
iniquities are unpardoned, and God is viewed as their enemy? The gospel teaches
needy sinners to come as sinners, to come empty-handed to the market of free
grace for the remission of sins and all the other blessings of a free salvation
(Isa 55:1; Rev 22:17; Acts 16:31). But he is far from coming empty-handed who
brings the exercise of true repentance with him. If any say that faith, which he
is understood to bring with him, is still something; it must be observed that,
in the affair of justification, faith is not considered either as an inherent
quality, or as a work, but only as the sinner’s receiving the gift of that
surety-righteousness, by which he is justified. "Therefore it is of faith," says
our apostle, "that it might be by grace; to the end the promise might be sure to
all the seed" (Rom 4:16). Repentance is in this respect very different. There is
no spiritual grace which has more of the nature of giving, than true repentance,
for it is a turning of the whole man from the love and practice of sin to the
love and practice of holiness. There is nothing, therefore, to which a convinced
sinner should be farther from allowing any place, among the means of his
justification in the sight of God. The abettors of the opinion in question would
do well to consider whether, instead of the covenant of grace, they are not
taking up with a sort of covenant of works, the tenor of which is, "Do this:
turn sincerely from all sin to God, though thou canst not turn perfectly, and
thou shalt live in His favour." This scheme is evidently of the same nature as
that of the covenant of works; for in both, doing is the previous condition of
acceptance with God. The difference between the doing in the one, and the doing
in the other, as to the degree of obedience, makes no difference in the nature
of the two schemes. The one is manifestly a covenant of works, as well as the
other. The learned Samuel Rutherford, accordingly, says, "We would beware of Mr
B.’s order of setting repentance, and works of new obedience, before
justification; which is indeed a new covenant of works." The blessed Gospel
affords an ample warrant to any sinner of mankind who hears it, to receive the
free offer which it makes of pardon in and through Christ, immediately upon
hearing and understanding the import of it. But according to the false doctrine
in question, no man can have a warrant for doing so, till he is satisfied that
he has attained the exercise of true repentance. It is laid down by the apostle
Paul, as an established maxim, that "whatsoever is not of faith is sin" (Rom
14:23); that is, if we do any thing, whilst we doubt in our conscience whether
it be agreeable to the will of God or not, it is sin. It is evident from the
context that the apostle speaks there of the faith of God’s command. Suppose,
then, that a convinced sinner believes the pardon of sin to be offered in the
Gospel to none but the true penitent; and, suppose that he is doubting of
himself, whether he be such an one or not; he cannot, in that case, without sin,
embrace the offered pardon. To him it is forbidden fruit. Nay, before he so much
as attempts to receive it, his conscience must be satisfied that his repentance
has all the marks which distinguish a true and evangelical repentance from a
false and legal repentance. And as it is impossible for a man to discern any
thing spiritually good in himself, previous to his first acts of saving faith,
he will never be able, according to the self-righteous opinion in question, to
find his way to the offered pardon. But how can this consist with the Gospel of
Christ which represents justification and eternal life as gifts of immensely
free grace, and declares that whosoever will is welcome to take the water of
life freely (Rev 22:17)? In the gospel the sinner is directed, first to attempt
the immediate acting of true faith in order to attain the exercise of
evangelical repentance, but not to attempt the exercise of this repentance in
order to warrant the acting of that faith. Justifying and saving faith is the
mean of true repentance, and this repentance is not the mean, but the end of
that faith.

If any should try to counter this argument, and say that, whilst I hold faith to
be the only mean of receiving pardon, a man’s assurance of the reality of his
faith is as necessary, in order to his embracing of the Gospel-offer, as his
assurance of the truth of his repentance, on the scheme in question: I would
answer by remarking that there is a vast difference between the priority of the
exercise of true repentance to pardon, on that scheme, and the priority of the
acting of faith, as the mean of receiving pardon. In the former case, the
exercise of true repentance is required as a previous qualification, distinct
from the reception of the Gospel-offer of pardon; and therefore it must be
sinful for a man to attempt embracing this offer, until he be satisfied that he
has attained that qualification. But in the latter case, true faith is not a
qualification previously required, in order to the embracing of the offer of
pardon, but is itself the very act of embracing this offer. It is a receiving of
pardon, as it is a receiving of Jesus Christ and His righteousness, exhibited in
the Gospel-offer. Here, the previous consciousness that we have believed cannot
be held necessary, in order to the reception of pardon; unless we would think
and speak so absurdly as to say that the consciousness of our having already
received a benefit is necessary in order to our act of receiving it.

3. The first exercise of true repentance is not before justification in the
sight of God, because it is not previous to the first acting of justifying
faith.

It will not be necessary to say much in illustrating this argument, as it was
explained and confirmed in a preceeding chapter.

If the exercise of true repentance be not before that of justifying faith, it is
not before the pardon of sin in justification. For faith, and justification in
the sight of God, are so immediately and closely connected that no other
spiritual grace or holy exercise can be considered as coming between them. But
if the exercise of true repentance were, in order of nature, after that of
justifying faith, and yet before justification, then the exercise of true
repentance would come in between faith and justification. It might then be said,
in opposition to the apostle Paul, that a man is justified by repentance rather
than by faith, as in that case, repentance would be connected more immediately
with justification than with faith. Then it might be affirmed that, as
repentance is the nearest mean of justification, it should be regarded as the
most important and noble one. For it is highly reasonable to prefer the
immediate and nearest mean, before the one which is intermediate and remote.
Hence it would come to pass that, in the pardon of sin, the exercise of
repentance should be considered as the more noble and important mean. Should a
convinced and alarmed sinner say that he attempts to believe, and to rely
immediately on Jesus Christ for pardon, this question, according to that self
righteous scheme, must be put to him: Do you repent sincerely of all your sins?
Your acting of faith cannot obtain pardon, without the exercise of genuine
repentance. Thus, then, the exercise of true repentance, as a mean of attaining
the pardon of sin, is preferable to the acting of faith; since without it, faith
can do nothing. How absurd is all this, and how far from being the doctrine of
the Gospel!

Again, the first exercise of evangelical repentance, as it is distinguished from
that of justifying faith, comes necessarily in order of nature after it. It is
true, as has been remarked already, that the word repentance in Scripture
sometimes expresses the whole of that change which takes place in the conversion
of a sinner to God. In this sense it includes faith in Jesus Christ. Now it
would be improper to say of repentance in this view, that it is after the acting
of faith in Christ. Yet it remains true, that the exercise of true repentance
taken in a strict sense, as denoting godly sorrow for sin and sincere endeavours
after new obedience, is distinct from the acting of justifying faith, and in
order of nature follows it. And although, in this sense, repentance is implied
in faith, as an effect is implied in its cause, yet it cannot from this be
inferred, that the exercise of the former is not, in order of nature, after that
of the latter. The fruit of a tree may be said to have always been seminally, or
as to its principles, in the tree; yet none, on that account, will hesitate to
say that the fruit, as to its natural order, is after the tree. To pretend that
we may exercise true repentance before the first acting of faith in Jesus
Christ, is contrary to all those passages of Scripture which assert the
necessity of faith in order to our living, standing, or walking in a spiritual
manner; or in order to our performing any other duty in a manner acceptable to
God (Gal 2:20; 2Co 1:24; 2Co 5:7; Heb 11:6; John 15:4-5). It is true, as already
hinted, that repentance is, in some passages, mentioned before faith (Mark 1:15;
Acts 20:21). But things are not mentioned in Scripture, always according to the
order of nature. For instance, it is not according to that order that, in 2Pe
1:10, the calling of believers is put before their election; and that, in the
apostolic benediction, 2Co 13:14, the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ is put
before the love of the Father. So in the places in which repentance is mentioned
before faith, what is intended is not to shew the natural order; but rather,
first to propose repentance as the end, and then faith, as the instituted means
of compassing that end.

I conclude, then, that as the first exercise of true repentance is after the
first acting of faith in Christ, so it is after the pardon of sin in
justification, which is received by faith only.

4. The first exercise of evangelical repentance is not before the pardon of sin
in the act of justification, because it is not before the exercise of supreme
love to God in Christ. That the exercise of true repentance is not prior to the
exercise of love to God, but on the contrary, springs from this exercise,
appears from the example of the penitent woman, recorded in Luk 7:37-48. Whilst
Jesus was sitting at meat in a Pharisee’s house, a woman who was a sinner "stood
at his feet behind him weeping, and began to wash his feet with tears, and did
wipe them with the hairs of her head, and kissed his feet, and anointed them
with the ointment." Her tears were tears of godly sorrow for her many sins; and
our Lord, whose judgment is always according to truth, said that they flowed
from love. She loved much; and her tears, as well as the several instances of
her singular attention to our Lord at that time, sprang from love to Him. The
exercise of true repentance, then, proceed from unfeigned love to God; and so,
in order of nature, is posterior to it. Hence is this injunction of the
Psalmist, "Ye that love the Lord hate evil" (Psa 97:10). Hatred of evil, which
is a part of evangelical repentance, is a consequence and a sure proof of
genuine love to the Lord. No sorrow for sin, nor hatred of it, nor turning from
it, belongs to true repentance, but that which proceeds from, and follows,
unfeigned love to Christ and to God in Him.

Now, while the exercise of true repentance flows from supreme love to God, the
exercise of this love proceeds, under the sanctifying influences of the Holy
Spirit, from the forgiveness of sins in justification. That it does so is
evident from our Lord’s parable of the two debtors, in the place already
referred to. For, by this parable He shews plainly that, as an effect is still
according to its cause so our love to God will be according to the forgiveness
of our sins, received by faith. In this sense we are to understand what our Lord
said to the Pharisee respecting the woman: "I say unto thee, Her sins, which are
many, are forgiven; for she loved much." The conjunction, for , does not always
denote the cause of a thing, but sometimes the effect and evidence of it (`That
the woman’s love,’ says Ames, `is here pointed out as the effect of the pardon
of her sins, is evident from the whole discourse.’); as when we say, "The spring
is come, for the plants begin to bud," so the Lord Jesus said to His disciples,
"the Father himself loveth you, because ye have loved me" (John 16:27), that is,
your love to me is an effect and evidence of the Father’s love to you. Our
Lord’s meaning in the parable is plainly this: the person who is forgiven most
will love most. But that poor woman, and not Simon the Pharisee, loves most.
Therefore she is the person who is forgiven most. Her love is a full proof that
her sins, how many soever they have been, are all graciously forgiven. As to the
mean or instrument by which this woman received the forgiveness of her sins, our
Lord informs us what it was, when He said to her, "Thy faith hath saved
thee,"-thy faith, not thy repentance, nor thy tears. Chemnitius, commenting on
the story, says well: `From the fruits of love, our Lord shows that the sins of
this woman were forgiven. When He had said, "Her sins are forgiven; for she
loved much," he immediately adds (to prevent the mistake of His meaning, with
regard to the order of cause and effect), "But to whom little is forgiven, the
same loveth little." He declares again and again that remission of sin goes
before, and that love follows. Having said, "The creditor frankly forgave them
both," He adds, "Which of them will love him most?" Here it is observable, that
the expression, will love him , is in the future tense; whereas the expression,
he forgave them , is in the preterite or past tense; intimating that a person’s
love to God follows the remission of sins, as the future follows the past. Here
Christ shows us whence true love to Him springs... Hence it is, that unless the
gospel, which proclaims a free grant of the forgiveness of sins, be received by
faith, the true love of God can neither enter into, nor abide in any soul.’

Although a man does not begin to exercise true repentance before the pardon of
his sins in justification, yet he may begin the exercise of it before he attains
a distinct sense of his being already in a justified state. The influence of
pardoning mercy, apprehended by faith, will produce true love to God, and the
exercise of evangelical repentance, not indeed before the sinner has been
justified, but before he has attained a comfortable sense of his justification.
Thus the woman’s repentance, above mentioned, which followed the forgiveness of
her sins, was before the comfortable sense of this forgiveness, arising from our
Lord’s intimation of it (Luk 7:48), by saying to her, "Thy sins are forgiven";
and by adding, "Thy faith hath saved thee; go in peace."

Thus it is plain that unfeigned love to God is a fruit of the forgiveness of sin
in justification, and therefore follows it; but the first exercise of true
repentance flows from that love, and so, in order of nature, is after it.
Therefore the first exercise of true repentance follows the pardon of sin in the
act of justification. The former is an inseparable consequence of the latter.
Justifying faith works by love, and love produces the exercise of evangelical
repentance.

5. That the pardon of sin in justification goes before the first exercise of
evangelical repentance is most agreeable to the order in which God has promised
to bestow these inestimable blessings upon His people. His promises of them run
thus: "I have blotted out, as a thick cloud, thy transgressions, and as a cloud
thy sins: return unto me; for I have redeemed thee" (Isa 44:22). "I will
establish my covenant with thee...That thou mayest remember, and be confounded,
and never open thy mouth any more because of thy shame, when I am pacified
toward thee for all that thou hast done, saith the Lord God" (Eze 16:62-63). "I
will sprinkle clean water upon you," that is, the blood of Messiah, for the
remission of sins, and "ye shall be clean," judicially absolved from every
charge of guilt.* "A new heart also will I give you...I will put my spirit
within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes, and ye shall keep my
judgments, and do them" (Eze 36:26-27). "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" (Eze 36:31). "I will
heal their backsliding: Ephraim shall say, What have I to do any more with
idols?" (Hos 14:4, Hos 14:8). No exercise of repentance is described in these
passages, but what follows is the forgiveness of sin. This is the native order
of these blessings; and none should attempt to disturb or invert it.

*Eze 36:25. It is proper to understand this as a promise of the remission of
sin; as being a blessing distinct from regeneration and sanctification promised
in the two verses immediately following. The argument from these passages is,
not only that the state of justification is mentioned before the exercise of
true repentance; but that the latter is represented as the native effect of the
former. The grace of Jehovah toward Israel, manifested in His being pacified
toward them for all that they have done, fills them with penitential shame and
self-loathing. Ephraim’s resolution to have no more to do with idols is the
native consequence or effect of the healing of his backsliding. The consequence
of Jehovah’s sprinkling of clean water upon them, and making them clean, is that
they remember their own evil ways, and their doings that were not good, and
loathe themselves in their own sight. That a legal repentance, proceeding from
legal convictions and a dread of Divine judgments, goes before justification is
readily granted. But that any exercise of evangelical repentance, of that
spiritual repentance which the Lord secures to His people in those promises,
goes before it, has never been proved. From these arguments it is evident that,
in order of nature, justification in the sight of God, or forgiveness of sin in
justification, precedes the first exercise of true repentance. But seeing the
principle of evangelical repentance is implanted in the soul before
justification, none is justified in the sight of God, but he who, in this sense,
is already a true penitent. It is only the habit and the exercise of true
repentance that follow the act of justification. Is it true, then, that no
sinner is pardoned but the penitent sinner, the sinner who has the principle of
true repentance already in his heart? It plainly follows that no pardoned sinner
can continue impenitent. He has already the root or principle of true
repentance; and when he so believes as to be justified by faith, this principle
will, under the sanctifying influences of the Holy Spirit, become a habit, and
be excited to immediate exercise. Every man who is justified is entitled to
sanctification, of which the habit and exercise of true repentance are essential
parts. A pardoned sinner, then, cannot but exercise, and advance in the exercise
of evangelical repentance. From what has been said, the candid reader may see
the meaning of this assertion of the apostle Paul, "[God] justifieth the
ungodly" (Rom 4:5). The meaning cannot be that He justifies an unregenerate
sinner. By the ungodly here is not meant the unregenerate, but the regenerate
sinner, who has no legal godliness, no righteousness of his own pleadable in
law, as a ground of justification in the sight of God. If this were not the
meaning, it would follow that justification is before regeneration; contrary to
the order mentioned by our apostle (Rom 8:30), and to that in the Shorter
Catechism. A legal ungodliness is in the regenerate sinner before justification
by faith. He sees that he has no godliness, no righteousness of his own to rely
on, as a ground of justification. That man is to be deemed ungodly who has no
godliness that the omniscient Judge can admit as a ground of title to
justification. Because he has not, before the righteousness of Jesus Christ be
imputed to him, a perfect righteousness for justification, in the eye of the law
he is ungodly, have what he will. If the sentence should pass upon him, on the
ground of his principles of holiness, the Judge could not but find him, in the
eye of the law, ungodly, and as such condemn him. Besides, God justifies him who
hitherto was ungodly. The sense of the words may be the same as when our Lord
said, "The blind see," and "the deaf hear" (Luk 7:22). His meaning cannot be
that those persons were actually blind when they saw, or deaf when they heard;
but that having been once so, they now saw and heard. In legal reckoning, that
man is ungodly who has broken any of the commands of God’s law. That the ungodly
should be justified by his own righteousness is therefore a contradiction in the
eye of the law; as much as if we should say that the same individual has at once
broken the law, and perfectly kept it. For if he is in himself ungodly, where
are his works of perfect righteousness? This view of the text under
consideration is most agreeable to the apostle’s design, which is, to guard the
doctrine of justification by the free grace of God, against the errors of legal
teachers.

Hence also it is manifest that the convinced sinner should attempt to believe
that Christ died for the remission of his sins, in order to repent of them. No
sinner can, in the exercise of true repentance, return to God, but by Christ the
way; and none can return by Christ, otherwise than by believing in Him. The
convinced sinner, then, should believe or trust that Jesus Christ died to take
away his sins, in order to turn from them to God. He should rely on the
consummate righteousness of Christ for the pardon of them, in order to hate and
forsake them. It is only when he is enabled cordially to trust, that God puts
away his iniquities from him, by remission, and that he is inclined and
resolved, through grace, to put them away from himself, by evangelical
repentance. "Let them that will," says a godly and judicious writer, "repent,
that Christ may do for them; I shall desire always to believe what Christ hath
done for me, that I may repent; not doubting but that the being instructed
therein is the plain way to smiting on the thigh, and saying, What have I done?"
No sin is truly repented of, till it be pardoned; nor is the sinner ever melted
so much into godly sorrow, as when he knows that his iniquities are forgiven.
The faith of pardon melts the adamantine heart, makes the head waters, and the
eyes a fountain of tears. It is by viewing our sins, by an appropriating faith,
as laid upon the Lamb of God, and Him as pierced for them, that we attain the
lively exercise of evangelical repentance. The more our hearts are enabled to
trust that the Lord Jesus "was wounded for our transgressions, and was bruised
for our iniquities," the more will we abhor them, and turn from the love and
practice of them. From what has been advanced it clearly appears that it is the
immediate duty of every sinner who hears the Gospel to trust in Christ and His
righteousness for justification. When he sincerely attempts this first duty, the
exercise of true repentance will necessarily follow. When he believes in the
Lord Jesus for justification, at the same time he trusts in Him for
sanctification, for grace to enable him to repent of all his sins. And according
to his faith it is unto him. The design of his justification is not to lay a
foundation for his continuance in sin, but that he may "go and sin no more." It
will be absolutely impossible for him to exercise evangelical repentance, till
his sins be pardoned; for till they be forgiven, God is a consuming fire to him.
The curse of the law abides on him, and intercepts the communication of that
grace which is necessary to produce the exercise of true repentance. Was he wont
to trust in himself, and in his own works? In order to exercise repentance unto
life, his heart must turn to Jesus Christ for a better righteousness, and
thereby for eternal life. It must turn from every false ground of hope, and rely
only on Christ, looking not to his own penitential tears, nor to his own graces
or duties; but "looking for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal
life" (Jude 1:21).

Let no sinner conclude that his exercise of repentance atones for his crimes, or
entitles him in the smallest degree to the favour of God and the felicity of
heaven. He must receive by faith the atonement made by the Lord Jesus, and have
his sins all forgiven on the ground of it, before he can begin to exercise the
least true repentance. He must receive also the gift of righteousness, and in
justification be accepted as righteous, and so be entitled to the happiness of
heaven, before he can begin the exercise of that repentance which is acceptable
to God.

How then can his repentance atone for his iniquities, or entitle him to the
favour of God and to the happiness of heaven? How can that evangelical
repentance, which he is incapable of exercising till after his sins be all
forgiven on the ground of an infinite atonement imputed to him, make atonement
for them? How can that true repentance, which he cannot exercise until in
justification he be already entitled to eternal life, entitle him to eternal
life? Does not the consummate righteousness of Jesus Christ, imputed for
justification, entitle the believer fully to it? What need is there, then, that
his repentance should entitle him? How can that exercise of repentance which is
the consequence of pardon, afford a previous title to pardon? or that which is a
part of eternal life be a ground of right to eternal life? As to that legal
repentance which an alarmed sinner is supposed to exercise before faith and
justification, and which is an abomination to the Lord-how can that which is
itself sin, satisfy Divine justice for sin? How is it possible that that which
merits eternal death, should at the same time merit for the sinner eternal life?
How can that proud, that pharisaical penitence, on which the sinner depends for
pardon of sin and a right to life, procure for him either the one or the other?
O sinner, believe and repent, and that without delay; but do not in the least
depend on your exercise of them, either for pardon of sin, or for a title to the
smallest blessing from the Lord. Your immediate duty is, by the acting of faith,
to receive Christ as Jehovah your Righteousness for justification, and to
receive from His fulness that evangelical repentance which is included in
sanctification. So shall you repent in such a manner as will please God. From
what has been said it is plain that the exercise of true repentance is
necessary, in order to a believer’s attaining the comfortable sense of pardon in
justification. It is an evidence of his having received judicial pardon and so,
is a mean of his attaining the assurance that he is already in a state of
pardon. Although the exercise of true repentance is not requisite to the
obtaining judicial remission, seeing faith alone is the instrument of receiving
this, yet it is necessary if a man is to attain the assurance of Gospel
blessings. It usually precedes a satisfying sense of judicial pardon. It was not
till after the woman who washed our Lord’s feet with tears, and wiped them with
the hairs of her head, had thereby expressed that love and penitence which were
the consequences of the pardon of her sins, that He intimated her pardon to her.
He said to her, after her sins had been forgiven, and after she had exercised
that repentance which was the evidence of her state of pardon, "Thy sins are
forgiven... Thy faith hath saved thee; go in peace" (Luk 7:48-50). Would you
then, believer, who are oppressed with doubts and fears respecting the remission
of your sins, attain joyful intimations that they are all forgiven? O renew, and
frequently renew, not only the acting of humble confidence in your adorable
Redeemer for all His salvation, but also the exercise of evangelical repentance.
Godly sorrow is sweet, is delicious sorrow. It is often attended by a delightful
sense of redeeming love and of justifying grace. Whilst, with tears of sorrow
and of gratitude, you praise a forgiving God and a bleeding Saviour, you realize
this paradox: "sorrowful, yet always rejoicing." Your melting seasons of
penitential sorrow will usually pave the way for your strongest and sweetest
consolations.

It is manifest also from what has been argued, that when the Lord inflicts upon
believers fatherly chastisement for their sins against Him, it is not commonly
removed, till they renew, with deep concern, the exercise of faith and
repentance. The exercise of true repentance, as well as of faith, is necessary
to the believer’s attainment of fatherly pardon, or of deliverance from the
painful effects of his having provoked the anger of his heavenly Father. The
reason of this is plain. The Lord’s design in inflicting paternal strokes is
that He may correct His disobedient child, or lead him to spiritual,
evangelical, deep repentance. When, therefore, the Lord has inflicted fatherly
strokes upon the believer for his offences, He will not remove them until, by
the exercise of faith and repentance, the Christian amends his ways and his
doings (Jer 7:3), and so answers His gracious design in inflicting them (Isa
27:9). When one sort prevails not, the Lord inflicts another, and perhaps a
third, until, in the hand of His Holy Spirit, they become effectual. Not that
the sin, upon the exercise of repentance, is immediately pardoned, and the
chastisement removed. For the Lord, by inflicting paternal chastisements, has
other designs to accomplish besides the repentance of the believer. For example,
He intends that His injured honour should be vindicated, and that others may see
and fear and do no more wickedly.

Believer, is it your desire to be in any degree exempted from the painful
infliction of paternal chastisements? Be always on your guard, then, against the
commission of any known sin, and the omission, even for once, of any known duty.
Exercise frequently faith and repentance. Study to perform every duty, as well
as to exercise every grace, with increasing spirituality. Thus you will "walk
worthy of the Lord to all pleasing." In conclusion: It may justly be inferred
from what has been stated that faith and repentance are parts, as well as means
of salvation. Faith, in one view of it, is the mean or instrument of vital union
with Christ, and of communion with Him, in His righteousness and salvation. True
repentance also, in one view, is an instituted mean of attaining the perfection
of salvation; or rather, it is our walking in the way to the perfection of it.
Faith and repentance, then, are doubtless to be urged on the hearers of the
Gospel, as internal means of salvation. They are to be inculcated on believers
as the means of advancing in holiness, and of attaining in due time to the
perfection of holiness and happiness. In this view, the frequent exercise of
them is required in the law. The more the true Christian uses these internal
means of salvation, and the less he depends on his use of them, the more
speedily will he advance toward perfection.

True faith and repentance, in another point of view, are essential parts of
salvation. In the Gospel they are both promised as parts of eternal life or
salvation. They are spiritual graces, implanted in the soul of an elect sinner
at regeneration; and so they are parts of salvation in its commencement and
progress in the soul. The more a believer makes progress in the habit and
exercise of faith and repentance, the more does he advance in salvation from the
power and practice of all sin. These spiritual graces are parts of salvation, or
they are parts of true holiness, which is eternal life begun and advancing in
the soul. Holiness is the happiness of the rational creature. To conceive of
happiness without it would be a contradiction, seeing it is the main ingredient
in all true happiness. To bring sinners to holiness, therefore, was, in
subordination to the glory of God, the great design of Christ’s undertaking. To
press holiness upon sinners, merely as the mean or way of attaining happiness,
will lead them blindly to imagine that happiness is something distinct from
holiness, and is to be procured by it. If holiness which includes faith and
repentance be urged upon sinners, merely as the way or mean of attaining
salvation, and never as the leading part of salvation, nor as the end to be
aimed at, it will have a native tendency to put them upon doing for life, and
not doing from life. It will encourage them to seek and to expect salvation
according to a covenant of works, or to depend on their supposed faith,
repentance, and holiness, as grounds of title to future happiness. Surely, there
can be no impropriety or absurdity, in considering the same thing as a mean in
one respect, and as an end in another. Holiness in this world is a mean of
attaining to the perfection of it in heaven, as the end; and in this view it is
distinct from the end. But then it is no less clear that it is not of a
different nature from the perfect holiness or happiness of the saints in heaven,
but is different from it only in degree. It is, therefore, in itself to be
regarded as an end which every sinner ought to compass by appointed means,
especially by the diligent exercise of faith and repentance.


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  CHAPTER 9: 01.08.     OBJECTIONS ANSWERED
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8. Objections Answered

Various objections have been keenly urged against the teaching that faith, and
the pardon of sin in justification, precede the first exercise of true
repentance. I shall here endeavour to return answers to such of them as are the
most plausible.

1. It has been objected, "that there are several passages of Scripture, such as
Luk 3:3 and Luk 24:47, and Acts 5:31, in which repentance is mentioned before
the forgiveness of sins." With regard to these and similar passages, it may be
proper to recollect what has been said already concerning the mention of
repentance before faith; namely, that the order in which things are mentioned in
Scripture is not, in every instance, the order of nature. Repentance or a
turning from sin to God, being a duty required by the dictates even of a natural
conscience, may well be first preached to sinners, in order to convince them at
once of the necessity of it, and of their natural inability to exercise it; and
then will properly follow the doctrine and offer of the forgiveness of sins, the
faith of which is the principal means of attaining the exercise of that
repentance. In this view, repentance might be preached by John the Baptist and
the apostles of Christ, before the doctrine of forgiveness. Besides, the word
repentance , appears to be sometimes used to express the relinquishing of wrong
opinions.

Accordingly, when John exhorted the Jews to repent, he may be understood as
inviting them to relinquish the error of the Pharisees about a temporal Messiah,
and about justification in the sight of God by the works of the law; and that of
the Sadducees concerning the resurrection. When Peter told them that they had
crucified Him whom God now glorified, he showed them how they came to commit
that most atrocious crime: "through ignorance ye did it, as did also your
rulers" (Acts 3:17). He then corrects their mistake, informing them that,
according to the prophecies respecting Messiah, He was to suffer the very things
which they had inflicted upon Jesus of Nazareth (Acts 3:18). Hence he urges them
to change their mind, to relinquish the destructive error with respect to
Messiah into which they had fallen, and to turn to the Lord by embracing his
Gospel (Acts 3:19).

One reason for not understanding the word repent here to mean evangelical
repentance, is that this repentance is evidently included in the next phrase,
"be converted." But were it granted that the term repent here might signify
evangelical repentance, yet this passage would not prove such repentance to be
prior to the forgiveness of sins in justification. For "the blotting out of
sins" here may signify, not the formal pardon of them in the act of
justification, but the manifestation of that pardon. For in Scripture a thing is
often said to be done, when it is manifested. By "the times of refreshing from
the presence of the Lord," Calvin, Beza, Piscator, Aretius, and other judicious
commentators, understand the day of judgment, when the saints shall be refreshed
by the most public and honourable declaration of their state of pardon (Acts
3:20-21). For the time here referred to is "the time of restitution of all
things," when Christ shall be sent from heaven to judge the world.

Now the apostle’s teaching, that repentance is before the glorious declaration
of pardon at the last day, is surely no proof that the exercise of true
repentance goes before the act of pardon itself. In a word, repentance is
sometimes put for the whole of conversion to God, including both faith and
turning from sin to Him. This seems to be the meaning of it in the words, "Then
hath God also to the Gentiles granted repentance unto life" (Acts 11:18).
Repentance in this its large acceptation may be said to be both before and after
the pardon of sin in justification; before it, in respect of faith receiving
Christ as "Jehovah our Righteousness," and after it, in respect of godly sorrow
for sin and turning from it to God. As to the expression in Luk 3:3, "John first
declares," says Calvin on the place, "that the kingdom of heaven is at hand; and
having thus proposed the grace of God to his hearers, he thence exhorts them to
repent. Hence it appears that the mercy of God, by which he restores the lost,
is the ground upon which repentance proceeds. In this sense, Mark and Luke say
that John preached the baptism of repentance for the remission of sins; not to
intimate, as some ignorantly suppose, that repentance is the cause of the
remission of sins; but to teach us that, as the free love of God is first in
embracing poor sinners, not imputing their sins unto them, so this pardon of
sins is granted us in Christ; not that God may indulge us in our sins, but that
He may heal us and deliver us from them." Piscator on the same place says, "The
baptism of repentance means that this ordinance was used to testify and profess
repentance. The words, for the remission of sins , depend immediately not on the
word preached , nor on the word repentance , but on the word baptism ; and the
import of the exhortation is, that baptism serves to signify and seal the
remission of sins."

2. Some have objected to the doctrine above stated, "that in Acts 2:38 and Acts
8:22, the exhortations to the exercise of repentance are prefixed to the
attaining of pardon, intimating that, if sinners do not repent, they have no
ground to expect the remission of their sins. The exercise of true repentance,
therefore, must precede the pardon of sin in justification." In answer to this,
let it be observed that in those passages, the whole way of a sinner’s returning
to God is in general proposed. On this position, Calvin expresses himself thus,
"Truly I am not ignorant that, under the name of repentance, is comprehended the
whole turning to God, whereof faith is not the least part" (Institutes , Book
III, Chap 3, Sec 5). If, before a sinner can be pardoned, it is requisite that
he exercise faith and repentance and walk in good works, then repentance and
good works are made equal with faith as the means of justification; for it is
clear that obedience rendered by the regenerate man is comprehended in the whole
import of returning to God. Now unless our whole turning to God more generally
be an instituted mean of our attaining the remission of sins, the passages
alleged prove nothing to the purpose. As to the first of them, "Repent and be
baptized... for the remission of sins" (Acts 2:38), who does not see that the
command to be baptized is prefixed to the remission of sins, as well as the
command to repent? Must it then follow that baptism is a necessary mean in order
to attain the remission of sins? The argument is of as much force for baptism as
it is for repentance. Mention is indeed made of remission, but not by way of
promise. Nay, nothing is said here of a formal reception of remission. For, as
Piscator well observes, "These words, for the remission of sins , do not depend
on the word repent , but on the words be baptized ." The meaning, then, of the
apostle’s exhortation to those convinced sinners, is that they should repent,
that is, should turn to God in Christ by faith and repentance; and that they
should receive baptism, not as a mean of obtaining the remission of sins, but as
a testimony of their receiving that, and every other spiritual blessing in
Christ, by means of faith in Him. It is manifest, from the connection denoted by
the causal particle for , in Acts 2:39, that the apostle there exhibits the
promise of pardon and salvation as the ground upon which he calls them to
repent; as if he had said, "I exhort you to repent; and in order that you may do
so in a spiritual and acceptable manner, believe that the promise is to you. You
are pricked in your heart, but do not despond; for the promise of the Spirit,
and of a free salvation, is graciously directed in offer to you. Therefore turn
wholly to God, by faith, repentance, and new obedience; and for assurance of the
remission of your sins, receive baptism as the sign and seal of the covenant."
As to the last passage alleged (Acts 8:22), it is plain that the apostle
prefixes the command to pray, to what he says of forgiveness, as well as the
command to repent; yet surely it cannot hence be concluded, that acceptable
prayer goes before the forgiveness of sin in justification. But here, as before,
repentance is put for the whole way of turning to the Lord.

3. Some have argued for the priority of the exercise of true repentance to the
pardon of sin in justification, from these words of our Lord to Saul of Tarsus,
"I send thee to open their eyes, and to turn them from darkness to light, and
from the power of Satan unto God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins, and
inheritance among them which are sanctified by faith that is in me" (Acts
26:17-18). In answer, let it be observed that here our blessed Lord first shows
how He works faith in the hearts of sinners by means of the Gospel: namely, by
opening their eyes, and turning them from darkness to light, and from the power
of Satan unto God. He next declares that, by means of faith thus wrought, they
receive forgiveness of sins, and inheritance among them who are sanctified by
faith that is in Him. It is urged that this clause, "to turn them from the power
of Satan unto God," may signify the exercise of true repentance. I answer, that
as these words, "to turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of
Satan unto God," plainly describe the work of the Spirit of Christ by means of
the Gospel, they are to be understood of regeneration, which is attributed to
the Gospel as a mean of it (Jas 1:18; 1Pe 1:23). The turning here mentioned is
the work of the Spirit of Christ, in which sinners are passive. The first
expression, "to open their eyes," is used to describe the work of Christ (Isa
42:7); but it is nowhere said to be the sinner’s act. The next phrase, "to turn
them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan unto God," is of the
same meaning with bringing out the prisoners from the prison, and them that sit
in darkness out of the prison-house; a work which, in the same passage, is also
ascribed to Christ, but nowhere in Scripture to the sinner himself.

Hence the expressions in question cannot be understood of the exercise of true
repentance; for this is the exercise or work of a regenerate sinner. But the
following expression, "that they may receive," may be connected with these words
at the end of the verse, "by faith that is in me"; and may well be understood of
the sinner’s act of receiving forgiveness and the inheritance of eternal life by
faith, which is necessarily followed by the exercise of evangelical repentance.
Thus the words of the Lord Jesus in this passage represent a sinner’s receiving
by faith the forgiveness of sins, and not the exercise of true repentance, as
the first or most immediate effect of regeneration; and so, they serve much to
confirm the priority of pardon to the first exercise of that repentance.

If the expression, "by faith that is in me," be understood to be immediately
connected with the word "sanctified," it will be a further confirmation of the
same doctrine. For thus the faith, which receives forgiveness of sins, is
declared to be the means of sanctification. But if that faith be the means of
sanctification, it is of course the means of attaining the exercise of true
repentance; for this repentance, as has been already stated, is included in
sanctification. The first act of justifying and saving faith, therefore, is
before the first exercise of true repentance, as the means are, in order of
nature, prior to the end.

4. Some have maintained "that the following texts prove the first exercise of
evangelical repentance to be prior to the forgiveness of sins in justification:
Luk 13:3-5; Pro 28:13; Jer 4:1-4; Eze 33:11; and Isa 55:7." To this it may be
answered, that the passage in Luk 13:3-5 does not hold forth a connection
between repentance and forgiveness, but merely between impenitence and
perishing. The difference between these two connections is great. Let the
argument be this: Except ye repent, ye shall perish. Therefore if ye do repent,
ye shall live. Here, as Thomas Boston well observes, "The consequent is true,
but the consequence is naught." It is no better reasoning than it would be to
say: Our evil works will damn us, therefore our good works will save us; or, as
if we should say, if we do not pray, we shall perish; therefore if we do pray,
we shall live. When the Papists argued that men must be justified by their good
works, because they are condemned for the want of them, Calvin’s answer to them
was to this purpose: The contraries here are not equal; for one deviation,
however, small, from the perfect rule of God’s law, renders a person
unrighteous, and liable to eternal death (Jas 2:10). But it is not one or a few
good works, but an unremitted course of obedience, without the smallest defect,
that will constitute a person righteous in the sight of God. And it is a maxim,
with respect to a particular action, that it is not morally good unless it have
all the requisites of a good work. The want but of one of them renders it evil.
In like manner, not repenting simply or of itself, is sufficient to make us
perish; but who will say that repentance of itself is, even in the way of means,
sufficient to save us? There is indeed no salvation without repentance. But if
every thing without which men shall perish must go before a state of
justification, as a mean of attaining to it, then a holy life, and perseverance
in it until death, must go before justification; and then it will follow, that
justification in the sight of God is not to be attained before death. For the
Scriptures plainly declare, that without holiness and enduring to the end, as
well as without repentance, men shall undoubtedly perish (Heb 10:39 and Heb
12:14). They also declare, "That all who believe, are justified from all
things," and that to them there is no condemnation (Acts 13:39; Rom 8:1). Here
we learn that, as soon as a sinner begins cordially to believe in Him who is
Jehovah our Righteousness, his justification before God is, at that instant,
complete and irrevocable. As to Pro 28:13, it serves clearly to teach us that
none evidences himself to be a sharer in the pardoning mercy of God in Christ,
but he who sincerely confesses and forsakes his sins. To affirm that he whom the
Holy Spirit brings to this exercise shall have mercy during the after course of
his life (Psa 23:6), and at the day of judgment (2Ti 1:18), is perfectly
consistent with asserting that the mercy of a state of pardon is, in order of
nature, prior to that exercise. Samuel Rutherford commenting on the passage,
observes that the Holy Ghost is not here speaking about order, as if penitent
confession, and forsaking of all sin, must go before forgiveness; but the Lord
designs the person pardoned, that they must be such as forsake their sins (Psa
23:6). There is much reason for this; because many who cover their sins, and do
not forsake them, will yet pretend to share in pardoning mercy. Such have much
need to be undeceived. Besides, it should be observed that the expression in
this text may include the confession of open and scandalous sins before men, and
their exercise of mercy toward such sinners; and it may also include the
practice of good works in general, as is evident from the import of forsaking
sin (Mat 5:7; Pro 14:21). Now, will any Protestant deliberately say that the
practice of good works in general is the previous condition of justification in
the sight of God? With respect to Jer 4:1-4 and Eze 33:11, it may be remarked,
that, in these texts repentance is either taken in its large sense, for the
whole conversion, in which faith in Jesus Christ, and receiving the remission of
sins, as well as repentance strictly taken, is comprehended; or the duty is
simply required; while the right manner of performing it, and the connection of
it with privileges and with other duties, are to be learned by comparing other
passages of Scripture on the same subject. Such commands are given to persons,
both before justification, for conviction, and after it, for direction, with
declarations of a certain connection between true repentance and life, and that
in perfect consistency with the priority of pardon in justification to the
exercise of such repentance. No texts of Scripture have ever been or can be
produced, which teach that God has either brought sinners to the exercise of
evangelical repentance, or has promised to do so, before the faith of His
pardoning mercy. As to Isa 55:11, it is evidently the design of this remarkable
passage to set before the sinner the pardoning mercy of God in Christ that he
may first believe or trust in it for pardon, and for grace to return to God; and
then, that by this faith or trust, he may begin the exercise of true repentance,
in turning from his wicked way and thoughts. "Here," says Calvin upon the text,
"the context is to be carefully attended to: for the prophet shews that men must
have the previous faith or confidence of pardon, otherwise they cannot be
brought unto the exercise of repentance. The doctrine of the Popish doctors on
the nature of repentance is indeed egregious trifling. But even though they were
to teach the true nature of it, it would still be unprofitable while they omit
what is the foundation of all right exercise of repentance, the doctrine of free
forgiveness of sin, by which alone true peace of conscience can ever be
attained. And, indeed, while the sinner is a stranger to this peace of
conscience, and views God only as a Judge dragging him to His tribunal to give
an account of his ill-spent life, he will flee from God, instead of returning to
Him, with godly fear and filial obedience." As the exercise of true repentance
is the end, and faith the means of attaining this end, so the sinner is first
called to forsake his evil way and his thoughts, and return unto the Lord; and
then the absolute promise of pardoning mercy is set before him, that, by
applying and trusting it, he may return to the Lord in a spiritual and
acceptable manner.

5. The following objection has been urged against our doctrine: "God declares to
the Israelites that after they should become truly penitent, then he would
forgive them: `If they shall confess their iniquity, and the iniquity of their
fathers... if then their uncircumcised hearts be humbled, and they then accept
of the punishment of their iniquity: Then will I remember my covenant with
Jacob’" (Lev 26:40-42). In Eze 36:25, Eze 36:33, God declares concerning the
Jews in Babylon, that He will first bring them to repentance, and then restore
them to their land. Solomon, in his prayer in the dedication of the temple,
expressly and repeatedly holds forth this doctrine, that repentance is before
forgiveness. The temple was a type of the Son of God incarnate. And in all their
prayers the penitent Jews looked toward the holy temple, and then God heard in
heaven His dwelling place. "When heaven is shut up, and there is no rain,
because they have sinned against thee; if they pray toward this place, and
confess thy name, and turn from their sin... Then hear thou in heaven, and
forgive the sin of thy servants" (1Ki 8:35-36).

Answer: It cannot be proved that the forgiveness mentioned in these passages is
necessarily to be understood of that pardon which is included in the act of
justification, and consequently, that all the exercise which is prior to this
forgiveness must be before the first acting of faith. For the exercises which
preceded this forgiveness, such as prayer and confession of sin, evidently
implied the true faith of those who were sincerely engaged in them. To look
toward God’s holy temple may well be regarded as an Old Testament phrase
expressive of believing in God’s Holy One. Therefore, as they whose exercise is
described in those passages had faith in Messiah before the forgiveness there
mentioned, it follows that they were in a state of justification before that
exercise.

Forgiveness of sin, as has been observed already, sometimes signifies the
manifestation of God’s favour toward His people, in the removal of temporal
calamities from them. In this sense I am led to understand forgiveness in the
passages under consideration, and particularly in the deliverance of the Jewish
church from her captivity. If it be granted that true believers in that church
were, by the sentence of justification before God, already exempted from eternal
wrath, it will not follow that the forgiveness there mentioned is to be
understood of this justifying sentence, and not of the removal of temporal
calamities. For the deliverance of believers from temporal strokes, the effects
of paternal anger, doubtless may be, and often is, a token to them, of the
sentence of their justification, which may have taken place long before. "It is
clear," says Thomas Boston, "that in such passages, the people are considered in
their national capacity, under national strokes for national sins, for the
removal of which, repentance of the same kind is required. And though, in such a
general repentance of a people, they who believe are spiritually and
theologically serious, and with a removal of the common calamity from the
society of which they are members, get God’s countenance to shine on their
souls; yet the generality are never evangelically penitent. But moral
seriousness in such a case, according to the Lord’s dealing with nations, is a
mean of getting these temporal strokes removed, as may be seen in the case of
the Ninevites, and many times in the case of the Jews. It is generally allowed
that there is a twofold being under the covenant of grace, the one external, the
other internal. The same person may be under the covenant of works and the
covenant of grace; under the former in respect of his soul’s state, with God’s
curse upon him; under the latter, as externally partaking of the external
privileges, protections, deliverances, &c. given to the visible church." Thus
God might be said to remember His covenant for the afflicted Israelites, when
they as a nation humbled themselves and confessed their sins, and at the same
time He might deliver them from the temporal judgments under which they had
lain. It is usually upon national repentance that national calamities are
removed. But this does not at all concern the point in hand, the question being
of the means previously necessary to the pardon of sin, in the act of
justification before God; between which, and the subsequent repeated
forgivenesses, as has been stated above, there is a vast difference.

6. It has been urged "that, in token of repentance as what must precede
forgiveness, the High Priest under the law was, on the great day of atonement,
to lay both his hands on the head of a live goat, and confess over him all the
iniquities of the children of Israel, and all their transgressions, in all their
sins, and thus put them upon the head of the goat, to be sent away into the
wilderness. As this was to be done on that solemn occasion, in relation to the
iniquities of the children of Israel in general; so, if any particular man at
any time committed a sin, he was to bring his bullock, and, in token of
confession and repentance, to lay his hand upon its head, and substitute it to
die in his room. And if he had not only sinned against God, but in his sin
injured his neighbour, he must first, as became a true penitent, make
restitution before the sacrifice was offered." A short answer to this must
suffice. The act of the Israelites in the cases now mentioned, in laying their
hands on the head of the devoted sacrifice, was a profession of their faith in
Messiah as the true antitypical sacrifice, and was a token that they trusted in
Him for the remission of all their sins. In consequence of that act, supposing
it to have been unfeigned, they were actually in a state of pardon, as all true
believers are; and therefore, as that act was before the public confession of
their sins, so it evidenced their state of pardon to have been before that
confession, before that restitution, and the other tokens of their repentance.
This, then, is an additional proof of the priority of pardon in justification to
the first exercise of true repentance. And that which followed the confession of
iniquities in the offering of the sacrifice, namely, the sprinkling of the blood
and the sending away of the live goat, corresponded to those comfortable
intimations of pardon which the blessed Spirit affords to believers in and after
their exercise of evangelical repentance, by means of Gospel-ordinances.

7. That which is chiefly urged against the priority of justification by faith to
the first exercise of true repentance, is "the supposed tendency of it to
derogate from the necessity and importance of such repentance." This is the old
hackneyed objection which has always been urged by legal teachers against the
doctrine of a sinner’s justification by faith alone; and the solid answers which
were given by the apostle Paul to the Judaizing teachers, and by our Reformers
to the Papists, in that case, are abundantly sufficient in this. They include
the following points: When we receive the righteousness of Jesus Christ as the
ground of our justification, we receive it also as the meritorious and procuring
cause of true repentance. The Holy Spirit works repentance in us at the same
time in which He works that faith by which we receive the righteousness of
Christ for our justification. So that, though justification is before
repentance, in order of nature, yet the one cannot be said, at least in the case
of adults, to be before the other, in order of time. A believer cannot have the
comfortable sense or evidence of his state of pardon without the exercise of
true repentance. The negligence of believers in not exercising repentance for
particular sins particularly, will bring upon them most heavy corrections in the
present life. All who live and die without repentance, shall inevitably perish.
It is not a true repentance, or a godly sorrow for sin, to which the pardoning
mercy of God and the redeeming love of Christ, apprehended by faith, are not
constraining motives.

8. Once more, it has been said that "if the necessity of repentance in order to
forgiveness, be given up, we shall not be in the practice of urging it on the
unconverted. We shall imagine that it will be leading souls astray, to press it
before, and in order to believing; and afterward it will be thought unnecessary,
as all that is wanted will come of itself." To this ignorant, perverse, and
malicious cavil, a short answer must suffice. The objector seems to insinuate
that he does not know how sinners can be urged to repentance, and to works
worthy of repentance, without representing them as necessary in order to
justification. But might not sinners be urged to consider seriously that, while
they continue impenitent and unholy, they evidence themselves to be in a state
of condemnation, and in the broad way that leads to destruction? Might not they
be warned, and pressed to consider, that impenitence obstinately persisted in,
will terminate in everlasting destruction? Might not the necessity of true
repentance be pressed upon sinners as a motive to their believing in Christ,
because such repentance cannot be attained otherwise than by believing in Him?
Nay, is not this the only suitable and profitable way of urging sinners to
evangelical repentance? Is it not as preposterous and unreasonable to press upon
poor sinners the necessity of repentance, without pointing out to them the only
means by which the exercise of it may be attained, as it would be to say much to
a sick man, in order to persuade him to cure himself, whilst he neither himself
knows, nor is informed by any other, by what means he may be cured? Has not this
unskillful way of urging sinners to the exercise of repentance the most
destructive tendency? Does it not lead them to take up with a sort of legal
repentance, which fills them with a pharisaical pride, and with such conceit of
self-righteousness, as, more than all the gross irregularities of which they
pretend to have repented, hardens them in their enmity and opposition to the
doctrine of grace? With respect to true believers, our denying that the first
exercise of evangelical repentance precedes justification, is far from rendering
it unnecessary to urge even them, to the daily exercise of this repentance.
Although believers have in them the principle and habit of true repentance, and
of all other spiritual graces, yet they need, by the admonitions and
exhortations of the Word, to be frequently stirred up to the exercise of them.
These are necessary, especially in the case of true repentance, because of the
deceitful and powerful workings of indwelling sin, and on account of that
spiritual sluggishness which is a part of remaining depravity, and which calls
for frequent reproof and correction. Hence the exercise of spiritual graces, and
the fruits meet for repentance, are commonly as little to be expected even from
believers, without the use of means, both internal and external, as the
production of a good crop, even in the most fruitful soil, without due
cultivation. Accordingly, it appears to be the main design of a great part of
Scripture, to excite believers to the lively and daily exercise of evangelical
repentance. They are sometimes represented, as wise virgins who slumber and
sleep with the foolish, and as having left their first love; and, therefore,
they are exhorted to remember from whence they are fallen, and to repent, and do
the first works.

*What has now been advanced constrains me to exhort my reader to mortify,
through the Spirit, his unbelief, legal temper, and enmity to God and to the
method of salvation by Jesus Christ. These are the principal sources of all the
objections that have ever been raised against the truth that the exercise of
true repentance comes after faith and justification. O my dear reader! look unto
the Lord Jesus Christ, and be you saved from those, and all the other,
inveterate corruptions of your nature. Look to Him for that supernatural faith
of the law, as a violated covenant of works, which issues in deep and thorough
conviction of the sin of your nature and life, and especially of the exceeding
sinfulness of your unbelief. Look to Him also for that saving faith of the
glorious gospel, which is a cordial belief of the offers, invitations, and
absolute promises of it, with particular application of them; which is the
confidence of the heart in Him, for all His salvation to yourself in particular;
which is a renunciation of your own righteousness, in the affair of
justification, and a reliance only on His; and which works by love to God, to
Christ, to the Holy Spirit, to the honour of the law, and the glory of the
gospel, and to the absolute freeness of Christ’s great salvation. By means of
the frequent exercise of this holy faith, you will receive the sanctifying
Spirit of Christ, to mortify your legal tempter and your natural enmity to the
absolute freeness of Christ’s salvation. And in proportion as these are
mortified, you will cease from objecting against true repentance as a part of
that salvation, which Jesus Christ merited for His elect by fulfilling all
righteousness for them. You will no longer be disposed to argue against faith,
and justification by faith, as previous in order of nature to the first exercise
of evangelical repentance. On the contrary, you will spiritually discern,
approve, admire, and love the comely order of these, as unalterably fixed by
infinite wisdom and love, in the counsel of peace and covenant of grace.

It may be, you have begun already to "believe to the saving of the soul"; and
yet, you are disposed to object against the priority of faith, and of
justification, to the first exercise of true repentance. If this be the present
frame of your mind, study through grace, I entreat you, to attain more
spiritual, clear, and correct views of the truth as it is in Jesus, and to
advance quickly in the exercise of spiritual understanding, faith, and love. The
more you know, believe, and love the truth, the sooner, will you detect your
errors, and with holy abhorrence relinquish them; and the more will you receive
the love of the truth, and of the due order of all its parts. The more will you
love, not only every particular doctrine or blessing of the glorious Gospel,
but, the peculiar plan of each in the covenant of grace. In conclusion: If any
of my readers has not yet repented of his innumerable and aggravated sins, I
must, before I take my leave of him, again exhort and beseech him to repent
without delay. The great and terrible God commands you, in the most peremptory
manner, to repent of all your transgressions of His holy law. He "now commandeth
all men everywhere to repent: Because he hath appointed a day, in which he will
judge the world in righteousness by that man whom he hath ordained; whereof he
hath given assurance unto all men, in that he hath raised him from the dead"
(Acts 17:30-31). Here the apostle Paul declares that God commands all men to
repent. And the powerful motive by which he enforces obedience to the Divine
command is this: God "hath appointed a day, in which he will judge the world in
righteousness by that man whom he hath ordained." Believe then, and consider the
certainty of that great and terrible day. By raising Christ from the dead, God
has given assurance of that day to all men; and therefore, if any man still
doubts of the judgement to come, it will be at his peril. The God of truth has
not only said, but sworn, that there shall be a day of judgment: "we shall all
stand before the judgment-seat of Christ. For it is written, As I live, saith
the Lord, every knee shall bow to me, and every tongue shall confess to God"
(Rom 14:10-11). At that awful day, the Lord Jesus will come in the clouds of
heaven, with power and great glory, in the glory of His Father, and with His
holy angels. At His coming, as the Judge of the quick and the dead, all the sons
and daughters of Adam shall, by the sound of the last trumpet, be summoned to
appear before His tribunal. The sound of this trumpet will be so loud, as not
only to be heard at once in all places of the earth and all depths of the sea,
but to awake all who sleep in the dust, and raise them from death. Then the
righteous and omniscient Judge, "Shall sit on the throne of his glory," His
"great white throne" (Rev 20:11), that throne which, as Daniel says, will be
"like the fiery flame" (Dan 7:9). His throne of judgment shall not only be a
great, but a white and a fiery throne, white as the snow, and fiery as the
flame; white, because no judgment shall proceed from it, but what will be most
pure and impartial; and fiery, for it will be inexpressibly terrible to every
one who lives and dies impenitent.

Reflect seriously, O impenitent sinner, that after your hardness and impenitent
heart, you are treasuring up to yourself wrath against the day of wrath and
revelation of the righteous judgement of God. Oh! If death surprise you in your
impenitence, the righteous Judge in that day will, with terrible majesty, and
the most appalling frown, pronounce on you and all the impenitent this
tremendous sentence: "Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared
for the devil and his angels" (Mat 25:41). Dreadful doom! To be sentenced to
dwell in fire-in fire prepared for the devil and his angels-in everlasting fire,
how horrible, how amazing! To be damned by Him who came to save sinners from sin
and hell, must be double damnation. But thus it shall be. The Lamb of God shall,
in that awful day, roar as a lion against you, and by an irreversible sentence
from the throne, adjudge you to the most exquisite, the most direful torment,
and to the society of devils for ever and ever. No sooner shall the sentence be
passed, than it shall be executed: "these shall go away into everlasting
punishment" (Mat 25:46). "Knowing therefore the terror of the Lord," I earnestly
intreat you to return by true repentance to the God of all grace.

O be persuaded, while it is called to-day, to repent and turn from all your
transgressions; so iniquity shall not be your ruin. "As I live, saith the Lord
God, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked; but that the wicked turn
from his way and live: turn ye, turn ye from your evil ways; for why will ye
die" (Eze 33:11). "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" (Joe 2:12-13). O comply with these compassionate, and tender
invitations! And if you would return to the Lord by true repentance, believe in
order to repent. Believe, with application to yourself, the commands and curses
of the law as a violated covenant of works, in order to obtain true conviction
of your sin and misery. And then believe with particular application the
declarations, offers, and promises of the blessed gospel; in order to obtain
such a faith-view of the mercy of God in Christ, as will dispose and encourage
you to exercise that evangelical repentance which will be acceptable to Him.
Trust in the Redeemer, that exalted Prince and Saviour, for repentance unto
life; and pray in His name to the God of all grace for "the Spirit of grace and
of supplications," to enable you to look upon Him whom you have pierced, and to
mourn for Him.

*For most of the arguments in the immediately preceding chapter, and the answers
to objections in this, I gladly acknowledge myself indebted to Thomas Boston’s
Miscellaneous Questions , and also to an accurate and able vindication of some
points of gospel doctrine, entitled Precious Truth , by the Rev. John Anderson
of North America. I have freely availed myself of these two excellent
publications. They are far from being so well known as they deserve to be.


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  CHAPTER 10: S. FRUIT AND EVIDENCES OF TRUE REPENTANCE
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Fruit and Evidences of True Repentance by John Colquhoun WHEN JOHN THE BAPTIST
SAW MANY OF THE PHARISEES and Sadducees coming to his Baptism, he said to them,
‘Bring forth fruits meet for repentance.’1 What he styles fruits the apostle
Paul calls works, meet for repentance.2 The fruits of true repentance, then, are
in general the good works which every evangelical penitent endeavours, through
grace, diligently to perform; the spiritual and acceptable works, or ‘fruits of
righteousness, which are by Jesus Christ, to the glory and praise of God.’ They
are styled fruits, and fruits of repentance, for they spring from the
incorruptible seed of evangelical repentance in the heart, implanted there at
regeneration. Such works, are ‘fruits meet for repentance.’ They are suitable to
it, and they evince the genuineness of it. As a tree is known by its fruit, so
repentance is known by good works. These are effects of it, and therefore are
proofs or evidences to men of the sincerity of it. The root of true repentance
is in the heart. But in vain does a man pretend to have it there, if the fruit
of spiritual exercises and of holy performances does not appear in the life.
Even though Cain’s terror, Pharaoh’s fair promises, Ahab’s humiliation, Herod’s
reverencing the prophet, hearing him gladly, and doing many things, Judas’
confession, the stony-ground hearers’ joy, the tongues of men and of angels, the
gifts of miracles and of prophecy, and the knowledge of all mysteries, were all
concentrated in one man, they would not prove him to be a true penitent. Nothing
can evince this except the genuine fruits of evangelical repentance. The chief
of these I shall now consider briefly, under the following particulars:

1. Carefulness or vigilance is one of the fruits of it. ‘Behold,’ said the
apostle to the Corinthians, ‘this self-same thing, that ye sorrowed after a
godly sort, what carefulness it wrought in you!’3 The exercise of their godly
sorrow produced in them a holy thoughtfulness and care to comply with the
apostle’s injunctions with respect to the incestuous person, and to approve
themselves to God by rectifying what was amiss. It rendered them careful to
remove him from visible communion with them, of which they had been negligent
before, and to sin after this fashion no more; and solicitous also to perform
good works in general, as well as not to displease the Lord. Carefulness about
the one thing needful, that good part which shall not be taken away, is both a
fruit and an evidence of evangelical repentance. The true penitent is careful to
keep himself from his iniquity, and to ‘walk worthy of the Lord to all
pleasing.’

2. Another of the fruits of true repentance is the penitent’s clearing of
himself. Our apostle, in the passage already cited, adds, ‘Yea, what clearing of
yourselves!’ as if he had said, ‘Your godly sorrow influenced you to take such
measures with respect to the incestuous person, as might furnish a plea against
any accusation of connivance with him in his guilt’. The believers in Corinth
cleared themselves, not by denying the fact, or defending it, but by confessing
their culpable neglect, declaring that they did not approve of the sin, but
abhorred it, and that they complied willingly with the apostle’s directions.
Every sincere penitent, by relying only on the surety-righteousness of Jesus
Christ for his title to the justification of life, clears himself in the sight
of God from all the guilt of his own sins;4 and by refusing to countenance
sinful principles and practices around him, he clears himself from being
partaker of other men’s sins. He studies also to clear his character from
slanderous imputations of evil, or even of doubtful conduct.

3. Holy indignation against sin is a fruit and evidence of evangelical
repentance. The apostle in the fore-cited passage adds, ‘Yea, what indignation!’
The godly sorrow of the saints in Corinth raised in their souls a holy
indignation, a lively resentment, against their own iniquities, and against the
sin of that delinquent who had publicly dishonoured the name of Christ, and had
both defiled and troubled the church. It excited indignation in them, not
against the person of the offender, but against his heinous sin, and not his
only, but their own also, in not excluding him from their communion sooner. The
heart of every true penitent is filled with indignation against his iniquities,
as striking immediately against the honour of his God and Saviour.5 Godly sorrow
for sin makes the heart of the penitent rise and swell with indignation at sin,
and at himself as a sinner. The more he is enabled to trust that God for
Christ’s sake forgives him, the less able is he to forgive himself. He is angry
and sins not, when he is angry at nothing but sin, and angry with himself only
because he has sinned.

4. Another consequence and evidence of true repentance, according to the
apostle, is fear, a filial and reverential fear of God, which causes the soul to
stand in awe of God, and holds it back from that which would offend and
dishonour Him.6 The penitential sorrow of the Corinthians wrought in them, not a
slavish fear of hell, but a filial fear of God; a fear of sinning against Him,
and of grieving His Spirit and His ministers; a fear lest, as the apostle had
suggested, the contagion should spread in the church; a jealous and cautious
fear, lest any accursed thing should still be found with them, or lest, by the
force of temptation, they should fall into a similar or any other abomination,
to provoke the Lord to anger. The true penitent fears lest he offend; and that
he may not offend, he exercises a holy and filial fear of God, and a humble and
jealous fear of himself. There arises in his heart a reverential fear from an
awful apprehension of the infinite majesty and holiness of the Lord; and also a
fear which makes him vigilant, disposing him to watch and war against sin, that
it may not, in time to come, surprise and prevail against him.

5. Vehement or ardent desire, is one of the fruits of evangelical repentance.
When the believers in Corinth sorrowed to repentance, it produced in them, as
the Apostle says, ‘vehement desire.’ It excited in them fervent desire after a
thorough reformation, by putting away from among them that wicked person and
every evil thing,7 and by doing what would be well-pleasing to God through Jesus
Christ. It raised in them an ardent desire to give the apostle full
satisfaction, and to honour God for the future by a holy and exemplary conduct.
True repentance, in whomsoever it is, produces not merely desire, but vehement
desire to depart from all iniquity, to exercise all spiritual graces, and to
perform all commanded duties, as well as to advance daily in conformity to Jesus
Christ, and in communion with him.8 A false penitent may pray in secret, but the
true penitent must. His vehement desire cannot be shut up within him. It must
have a vent; and it cannot vent itself otherwise than by the prayer of faith.
Happy are they who are thus necessitated to wrestle daily with the Lord in
secret!

6. The apostle informs us, in the passage already cited, that godly sorrow
produces zeal. Under the influences of the Holy Spirit, it inflamed the hearts
of the saints in Corinth with ardent zeal for the manifested glory of God in
Christ; for restoring the discipline, peace, and order of the church; for the
doctrines of grace, and the ordinances of the gospel; and for defending the
character of the apostle against the slanders of the false teachers. Wherever
evangelical repentance exists it produces that sacred zeal which is according to
knowledge, an enlightened zeal for the glory of God and the interest of Christ
in the world.9 This holy zeal is an affection compounded of love and anger. It
is an enlightened and prudent eagerness of spirit to honour God. to promote true
holiness, and to oppose error and wickedness.10 The zealous penitent, from a
tender regard to the honour of God his Saviour, burns with holy anger against
all corruptions of His truth and transgressions of His law, exerts himself to
advance His glory among men, and to transmit to the latest posterity, entire and
uncorrupted, the doctines and ordinances of His glorious Gospel. He may be
compared to the burning bush. It was sharp indeed and prickly, but was so in the
midst of light and heat. He sees transgressors and is grieved. He loves the
Lord, and therefore hates evil. It is not the persons of transgressors that he
abhors, but their sins. His zeal begins at home. He diligently strives against,
and suppresses, those sins in himself against which he declares in others around
him. He remembers that, as the snuffers in the temple were of pure gold, so they
who would be zealous for pure religion in others, ought to be pure themselves.
Having turned to the love and practice of a new obedience, he is zealous for
good works, and careful to maintain them.

7. Another of the fruits of true repentance is revenge on sin. Our apostle in
the fore-cited passage says that the godly sorrow of the Corinthians wrought
revenge in them. It disposed them to take a sort of holy vengeance upon
themselves, like men who know not how to forgive themselves, when they reflected
on the malignity and heinousness of their own sins; and it made them determined
to inflict deserved punishment on the scandalous delinquent by casting him out
of the church. It produced in them, not revenge on persons in a private way, for
such vengeance belongs to God, but a readiness to revenge, by the infliction of
church-censures, all disobedience, particularly that of the unhappy offender
among them, which was shown in the punishment inflicted on him by many. Godly
sorrow and self-loathing reveal themselves by holy revenge; such revenge,
especially on the body of sin in the heart, as aims at the complete destruction
of it. How great was that revenge on the body of sin, which the apostle Paul
felt, when he exclaimed, ‘O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from
the body of this death?’11 He who formerly delighted in sin is now divided
against himself. He now acts the part of an accuser, advocate, and judge,
against himself: yea, he, as it were, inflicts punishment on himself for the
exceeding sinfulness of his heart and life. Accordingly, the humble penitent is
represented as smiting on his thigh,12 as if he thereby declared that he would
willingly take vengeance on the legs that carried him forward in the ways of
sin; and that he would be filled with holy resentment against himself for the
innumerable injuries which, by his unaccountable crimes, he did to the honour of
his God and Saviour. When he repents of his wickedness, he says, ‘What have I
done?’13 What an ungrateful, what a vile, what a loathsome, what a wretched
sinner, have I been!

8. The penitent’s making ample restitution of what he borrowed or fraudulently
took from others is a fruit and evidence of true repentance. According to the
ceremonial law, the trespass-offering was to be accompanied by restitution to
the party who had been injured.14 Zacchaeus, accordingly, proved himself a true
penitent by making ample restitution. Every sincere penitent will likewise, with
self-loathing, make haste to rid himself of dishonest gain. He will shake his
hands from holding of bribes.15 He will obey scrupulously the charge of Solomon,
‘Withhold not good from them to whom it is due, when it is in the power of thine
hand to do it.’16 With diligence he will make search for every remainder of that
accursed thing. With interest, he will restore it to the injured party if he
can; if not, to their relations; and failing them, to the poor. And if he be not
able, it will occasion much uneasiness and distress of mind to him. He who has
injured his neighbour, and refuses, though he has ability, to make restitution,
is an unrighteous man; and ‘the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of
God.’17 All appearances of repentance without this are hypocritical. Whatever
profession of repentance such a man makes, his religion is vain. He refuses to
do to others as he would that they should do to him. To pretend to have turned
from iniquity with bitter remorse, and yet to feed sweetly on the fruits of it,
is vain. This is so obvious that even Judas in his repentance, counterfeit as it
was, was impelled to restore the reward of iniquity. An ancient philosopher at
Athens, having, at a shop there, obtained a pair of shoes with promise to pay
for them at a later date, and having afterwards heard that the tradesman was
dead, at first was glad to think that the debt was now paid. But recollecting
himself, he brought the money and threw it into the shop, saying, ‘Take it; thou
art alive to me, while dead to all the world besides.’ What, then, are we to
think of many professed Christians who see their creditors struggling with those
difficulties into which their extravagance has plunged them, while they
themselves are in easy, perhaps in affluent circumstances, and so are well able,
if they choose to retrench superfluous expenses, to make them restitution in
whole or in part, but will not, because not compelled by law? Such persons shew
themselves to be destitute of true repentance, for they prefer wealth,
indulgence, and the pride of life, to rendering ‘to all their dues,’ to owing no
man any thing, but to love him.18 They who can restore that which they owe their
neighbour, but will not, surely do not turn from that sin, for they deliberately
continue to enjoy the fruit of it.

9. Another of the fruits and evidences of evangelical repentance is the
reparation of injuries in cases in which proper restitution cannot be made; such
as injuries done to persons in their reputation, in their influence and
usefulness, in their families or connections, in their peace of mind, in their
contentment, and in many other instances. Hence is this exhortation: ‘Confess
your faults one to another.’19 The evangelical penitent, though he cannot undo
what he has done yet will study to counteract the evil arising from the injury,
by stooping even to the humblest submissions, and the most ingenuous
confessions, how contrary soever to the pride and self-love remaining in his
heart. If he was formerly guilty of such scandalous offences as impaired the
honour of God before the world, exposed religion to the scorn of profane men,
and grieved or stumbled the hearts of the godly he will endeavour diligently to
counteract the tendency of his former evil conduct. Or if he formerly propagated
errors respecting either doctrine or duty, he will now retract them, and exert
himself to undo that part of his conduct. And as far as his arguments, his
persuasions, his influence and example can reach, he will diligently endeavour
to stop the further progress of the mischief. In these and various other
instances, true repentance, under the almighty agency of the Holy Spirit,
disposes a man to employ every proper means of counteracting the tendency of his
former bad conduct. Indeed, to repent sincerely of such injuries, and yet
wilfully to refuse the conduct by which the honour of God and the credit of
religion may in some measure be restored, is impossible. A man may as well
pretend to repent of his having wounded a person, whilst he sees him bleeding to
death, and yet refuses, though he has it in his power, to bind up his wounds.
Multitudes, alas! flatter themselves that they have sincerely repented of their
sins, who yet will on no account condescend to make the smallest reparation for
the injuries they have done. This indeed shows that their penitence is no better
than that of Ahab, who humbled himself, but neither restored Naboth’s vineyard,
nor turned from any of his other abominations.

10. Once more, diligence in the spiritual performance of all our duties is one
of the fruits of true repentance. To be diligent is to be bent on activity,
constant in application, and persevering in endeavour. The evangelical penitent,
under the sanctifying influences of the Holy Spirit, and in proportion to the
degree of his repentance, performs all his duties with speed, activity, and
perseverance. When he remembers, with sorrow and self-abasement, how diligent he
was in the service of sin and Satan, how he did evil with both hands
earnestly,20 he is powerfully urged to serve now with holy diligence his God and
Saviour. And especially when he considers how diligent his adorable Redeemer was
in obeying the law as a covenant, for his justification, he is irresistibly
constrained to give all diligence in yielding obedience to it as a rule, for His
glory. He is commanded, not only to keep the commandments of this holy law as
the rule of his duty, but to keep them diligently. ‘Ye shall diligently keep the
commandments of the Lord your God.’21 And again, ‘Thou hast commanded us to keep
thy precepts diligently.’22 The true penitent, accordingly, is diligent in all
his duties, not only in all the various duties of his civil calling, but in the
exercises of devotion in all their variety. In the latter he is even more
diligent than in the former. As the shekel of the sanctuary was the double of
the common shekel, so, in the affairs of eternity, he doubles the diligence that
he uses in the business of time. Like Solomon, he first builds the house of God,
and then his own house. He looks upon the salvation of his soul, in subservience
to the manifested glory of God, as the most interesting employment of life. And
therefore he not only gives diligence, but all diligence, in adding ‘to his
faith, virtue; and to virtue, knowledge; and to knowledge, temperance; and to
temperance, patience; and to patience, godliness; and to godliness, brotherly
kindness; and to brotherly kindness, charity.’23 So much for the principal
fruits and evidences of true repentance.

* * * * *

Reader, have you in any degree brought forth these fruits of evangelical
repentance? If you have, they are so many evidences of your having the grace of
true repentance. They are signs of your having that repentance to salvation
which is not to be repented of. They are so many proofs that you have in
regeneration received the principle of this repentance, and that in progressive
sanctification you have attained the habit and exercise of it. They are,
therefore, great encouragements to you to continue and advance in the daily
exercise of it, and by faith to receive more and more of it out of the fulness
of Christ. But, although they serve to encourage you to these, yet they form no
part of your warrant to trust in Christ for that great salvation, of which
evangelical repentance is an essential part. Your warrant to renew the exercise
of trusting in Jesus Christ for His whole salvation, lies in His word of grace,
and not in either your heart or your life.24 And therefore, if you make your
evidences of grace your warrant or ground of right, either in whole or in part,
to renew the acting of faith in Christ, you will provoke Him to hide His face,
and to cover them with a cloud in His anger. They are fruits, not only of
repentance, but of faith; but if you presume to make them grounds of faith, your
faith and repentance will quickly decline. See that your exercise of faith,
then, be always grounded on faithfulness in the Word, and never on feelings in
the heart. True repentance is offered and promised to you in the blessed Gospel.
Trust in the Lord Jesus for it, on the warrant of the unlimited offer and
promise. Trust also and plead this precious and absolute promise: ‘All the ends
of the world shall remember and turn unto the Lord.’25 Place at all times the
confidence of your heart in Jesus Christ, and rely with firm trust on His
faithfulness in that promise, for the performance of it to you; and according to
your faith it will be unto you. He will make you advance daily in the habit and
exercise of repentance unto life.

Let every reader endeavour diligently to repent, and to bring forth fruits
worthy of true repentance. Advance daily in those holy tempers, and in the
performance of those good works, which are the fruits of evangelical repentance.
Since the genuine fruits of evangelical repentance are at the same time works of
faith and labours of love, it will be necessary that you exercise faith and love
in order to produce them. The exercise of unfeigned faith and love is
pre-requisite to true repentance, and to all the genuine fruits of it. As these
fruits are fruits also ‘of righteousness, which are by Jesus Christ, to the
glory and praise of God’, it will be no less necessary for their production,
that you be united to Christ, that you have His righteousness imputed to you,
and His Spirit as a Spirit of holiness put within you. And as they are fruit
unto God, you must be dead to the law as a covenant of works, as well as united
to Christ, in order to produce even the smallest measure of them. Paul addressed
the believers in Rome thus: ‘Ye also are become dead to the law by the body of
Christ; that ye should be married to another, even to him who is raised from the
dead, that we should bring forth fruit unto God.’26 To be united in a conjugal
relation to Christ, the Head and Husband of His church, and to be delivered in
justification from the law as a covenant of works, are necessary to your
bringing forth fruit unto God, or your serving Him in newness of spirit. O
consider, then, that it will be impossible for you, either to exercise true
repentance, or to bring forth any of its fruits, unless, in order to do so, you
are a believer in Jesus Christ, united to Him by faith, justified by His
righteousness imputed to you, and dead to the law as a covenant. All these are
necessary to the least exercise of evangelical repentance and to the production
of any of its fruits. Come to Christ, then, for grace and strength to exercise
true repentance. Believe on Him in order to repent sincerely. The more you
cordially trust in Him for the grace of repentance, the more you will repent of
all your sins; and the more you sincerely repent of them, the more of the fruits
of repentance will you produce. Your exercise of repentance will be according to
your acting of faith.

Notes 1.Mat 3:8 2.Acts 26:20 3.2Co 7:11 4.Isa 45:24 5.Psa 51:4 with Psa 119:104
6.Gen 39:9 7.1Co 5:13 8.Psa 27:4 9.Psa 137:5-6 10.Num 25:13 11.Rom 7:24 12.Jer
31:19 13.Jer 8:6 14.Lev 6:1-5 15.Isa 33:15 16.Pro 3:27 17.1Co 6:9 18.Rom 13:7-8
19.Jas 5:16 20.Mic 7:3 21.Deu 6:17 22.Psa 119:4 23.2Pe 1:5-7 24.John 3:27 25.Psa
22:27 26.Rom 1:4


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  CHAPTER 11: S. USE OF THE GOSPEL AND LAW IN SUBSERVIENCE TO THE GOSPEL
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Use of the Gospel and Law in Subservience to the Gospel by John Colquhoun The
gospel, in its strict and proper sense, is of great and manifold use to both
sinners and to saints.

Section 1. The Principal Uses of the Gospel The gospel in its strict acceptation
is, in the hand of the Holy Spirit, of special use:

1. To reveal Christ and God in Him as reconciled, and as reconciling sinners of
mankind to Himself. The great use of the gospel is to make Christ known to lost
sinners as the only and the all-sufficient Savior; to reveal Him to them in His
infinitely glorious person as God-man and Mediator; in His surety-righteousness
for their justification before God; in His immeasurable fullness of the Spirit
for their sanctification and consolation, and in His saving offices and
endearing relations to all who believe in Him. It serves to represent to them
how Jesus has loved them, what He has done and suffered for them, and what
blessings of salvation He has purchased for them and is ready to dispense to
them (1Co 1:24 and 1Co 2:2; 1Ti 3:16). It is of use also to reveal to them God
as reconciled in the Son, and as reconciling elect sinners to Himself (2Co 4:3-6
and 2Co 5:18-20). Hence the manifold doctrines, offers, and promises of the
gospel are in Scripture called “the manifold wisdom of God” (Eph 3:10). They
clearly show that God has devised the scheme of our redemption with such
astonishing wisdom; that our salvation is all of grace and all of merit, all of
mercy and all of justice; that our iniquities are forgiven, and yet the
punishment due for them is inflicted; that the ungodly who believe are justified
and yet ungodliness is condemned; and that salvation is freely bestowed and,
after all, the demands of law and justice are fully answered.

2. It is the gospel which also discloses to sinners the covenant of grace into
which the Father, and the Son as last Adam, with the infinite approbation of the
Holy Spirit, have entered for the salvation of such sinners as believe. Sinful
men cannot be otherwise saved than by being enabled to take hold of that
everlasting covenant by faith as to come into the bond of it. This, however,
they cannot do unless they are made so to know it as to discern spiritually the
reality, glory, and suitableness of it to their miserable condition as lost
sinners. But it is the gospel only, coming to them “in demonstration of the
Spirit and of power,” that reveals this gracious covenant to them, and that
shows them how they may be so instated in it as to possess and enjoy the
blessings of salvation. They could never, according to the plan established in
the counsel of peace, have known that eternal contract but by the revelation of
it in the everlasting gospel. It is by the gospel, accompanied with the
illuminating influences of His Holy Spirit, that the Lord Jesus, the Messenger
of the covenant, shows elect sinners His covenant (Psa 25:14).

3. It serves, likewise, the highly important purpose of revealing to sinners
their warrant to trust in Christ Jesus for complete salvation. In the blessed
gospel, Christ, and God in Christ, are freely offered to sinful men, and men are
graciously invited as sinners to receive the offer and to entrust the whole
affair of their salvation to Christ, and to God in Him (John 6:32; Isa 55:1-4).
By the gospel, they are informed that the Lord Jesus offers Himself with all the
inestimable blessings of the everlasting covenant to them, and that He
graciously invites and urges them as sinners to accept Him as their
all-sufficient Savior, and to place the confidence of their hearts in Him for
salvation from sin and wrath. Were they to not know that a divine warrant is
thereby afforded them to receive and trust in the Savior for their salvation, it
would be as great presumption in any of them as it would be in a fallen angel to
attempt trusting that He would save him. But by the declarations, offers, calls,
and promises of the word of grace, an ample warrant is afforded them as sinners
of mankind to trust in the divine Savior, and so to take possession of His great
salvation. And it is by the gospel, accompanied by the illuminating grace of the
Holy Spirit, that their warrant is revealed, that their full right of access to
the compassionate Savior is disclosed to them, and that He manifests Himself to
be so near them as to be within their reach (Rom 10:6-8). Oh, how great is the
importance and utility of the gracious offers and invitations of the blessed
gospel to convinced and despondent sinners! By these, under the illuminating
influences of the adorable Spirit, they see that it is lawful and warrantable
for them to come as sinners, and to entrust, with humble and strong confidence,
the eternal salvation of their souls to the Lord Jesus.

4. The gospel is the means which the Holy Spirit employs for communicating the
grace of Christ to elect sinners, in order to produce that change of their state
and of their nature to which they have been chosen. It is by means of the gospel
that, in the moment of regeneration, the Spirit of Christ and His grace enter
and take possession of the hearts of God’s elect. Sinners who are born again
“are born not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the Word of God,
which liveth and abideth forever” (1Pe 1:23). Hence the Psalmist, directing his
speech to the Messiah, says, “The Lord shall send the rod of thy strength out of
Zion; rule Thou in the midst of Thine enemies. Thy people shall be willing in
the day of Thy power” (Psa 110:2-3). The gospel, accordingly, is called “the
spirit which giveth life” (2Co 3:6), “the grace of God that bringeth salvation”
(Tit 2:11), and “the power of God unto salvation” (Rom 1:16). By the gospel, God
exerts the exceeding greatness of His power in quickening and converting sinners
to Himself. It is by means of it that He enlightens their minds, renews their
wills, rectifies and sanctifies their affections, and so makes them partakers of
a new and holy nature. Hence the Apostle Paul calls it “the law of the Spirit of
life in Christ Jesus,” which made him “free from the law of sin and death” (Rom
8:2).

5. The gospel is also the instrument by which the Holy Spirit implants the
principle and habit of true faith in the hearts of elect sinners. “Faith cometh
by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God” (Rom 10:17). The Spirit renders the
reading and, especially, the hearing of the gospel effectual means of working
faith in the hearts of sinners, by which they believe with application the
gracious offers of Christ, and of His righteousness and fullness, and trust in
Him for salvation to themselves in particular. It is by means of the gospel,
which the Apostle Paul calls “the word of faith” (Rom 10:8), that the Spirit of
Christ implants and increases precious faith in the souls of His elect (John
20:31). Is it then the believer’s desire that he may make swift progress in the
habit and exercise of that living faith by which he gives glory to God and
receives grace and glory from Him? Let him, in humble reliance on the promise,
and on the Spirit of faith, read, hear, and meditate frequently on the glorious
gospel.

6. It is by means of the gospel that the Holy Spirit continues to apply Christ,
with His righteousness and fullness, to the hearts of believers for increasing
their sanctification and consolation. They are said in Scripture to be
“sanctified through the truth” (John 17:17-19), to be clean through the word
which Christ has spoken to them (John 15:3), and to have their hearts purified
by faith (Acts 15:9). The Apostle Paul presented this prayer for the saints at
Ephesus: “That Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith, that ye may be filled
with all the fullness of God” (Eph 3:17-19). And he informed them that they were
“built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets” (Eph 2:20-22). It is in
proportion, then, as the saints are enabled to believe with application to
themselves the offers and promises of the gospel, and to trust in Jesus Christ
for salvation, that they advance in holiness and comfort. And it is in the unity
of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, that they all come unto a
perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ (Eph
4:13).

7. The gospel is a means of increasing the knowledge, of restraining the
depravity, and of reforming the external conduct of many unregenerate sinners;
and so of qualifying them for being, in various respects, serviceable to the
people of God around them. It is often a means, under the restraining influence
of the Holy Spirit, of rendering many unregenerate men less hurtful and more
useful to the saints of God than otherwise they would be. As the gospel is a
special means of the renewing influences of the Spirit in holy men, so is it of
His restraining influence on hypocrites and wicked men (Mat 13:20-22; 2Pe 2:20;
Heb 6:4-5). Now this restraining or providential influence is of inexpressible
importance to the saints. For as no saint could continue to live in communion
with Christ and with other saints without sanctifying grace, and that daily
communicated to him, so neither could he live among sinners unless restraining
influences were afforded to them. He ought, therefore, in a very high degree, to
esteem and love the gospel not only because it is the means of special grace to
himself, but because it is the vehicle of common influence to the unregenerate
around him.

8. Last, it is by means of the gospel that the glory of Christ, and of God in
Him, is manifested to men and angels. It is in and by the gospel that the
brightest displays “of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ” are
graciously afforded (2Co 4:4-7). In the gospel, as in a mirror, the glory of the
Lord Jesus, and of all the divine perfections, as harmonizing and mingling their
refulgent beams in the redemption of sinners by Him, is seen, contemplated, and
adored (2Co 3:18). It is the gospel strictly taken that, under the illuminating
influences of the blessed Spirit, serves to discover to the eye of faith “the
glory of the only begotten of the Father, the brightness of His glory, and the
express image of His person.” There the glory of the great Redeemer’s person and
work shines forth in the view of holy angels and redeemed men with the most
resplendent luster. Hence the gospel is called “the glorious gospel of Christ,
who is the image of God” (2Co 4:4), and “the glorious gospel of the blessed God”
(1Ti 1:11). While the Lord affords far more illustrious displays of His infinite
glory in redemption than in any other of His works, all the transcendant
displays of it in redemption which He makes are in and by the gospel.

Section 2. The Uses of the Moral Law in its Subservience to the Gospel The law,
both as a covenant of works and as a rule of life, is, in the hand of the Holy
Spirit, of special use, and that both to sinners and to saints. Though
righteousness and eternal life cannot, since the Fall, be obtained by a man’s
own obedience to the moral law, because “by the works of the law shall no flesh
be justified” (Gal 2:16), yet it is of manifold use to men. “The law is good,”
says the Apostle Paul, “if a man use it lawfully” (1Ti 1:8), that is, if he uses
it suitably, to the design for which it is given him, and to the state in which
he is, either as an unbeliever or as a believer — or, in other words, if he
improves it as a covenant for urging him to receive Jesus Christ, and improve it
as a rule for directing him how to walk in Christ. The law is of use to men in
general:

1. To reveal to them the holy nature and will of God, or to show them the
infinite holiness and rectitude of His nature and will. Jehovah said to the
Israelites in the wilderness, “I am the Lord your God; ye shall therefore
sanctify yourselves, and ye shall be holy; for I am holy” (Lev 11:44). “The law
is holy,” says the Apostle Paul, “and the commandment holy, and just, and good”
(Rom 7:12).

2. It serves to inform them of their duty to God, to themselves, and to others
around them; and to oblige them, by His sovereign authority, to perform it. “He
hath showed thee, O man, what is good; and what doth the Lord require of thee,
but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God” (Mic 6:8)?

3. It is of use, likewise, to restrain men from much sin. By its peremptory
commands and awful threatenings, it serves in some measure to keep them in awe,
and to frighten them from committing many external acts of sin in which they
otherwise would freely indulge themselves. It is of use, by its terrible
denunciations, to curb those who, destitute of every good principle, would rush
forward to all manner of sin, and to deter them, through fear of punishment,
from many gross enormities. In this view, it serves as a curb to hold sinners
within the limits of external decency, and to prevent the world from becoming a
scene of robbery and blood. Accordingly our apostle says, that the law is not
made for a righteous man, but for the lawless and disobedient, for the ungodly
and for sinners, for unholy and profane, for murderers of fathers, and murderers
of mothers (1Ti 1:9-10).

4. The law conduces also to excite and encourage sinners to the practice of
virtue, from the consideration that even the external resemblance of true virtue
will often be rewarded with exemption from many outward calamities, and with the
possession of many outward advantages (Isa 1:19). Nay, it tends to impel sinners
to virtuous actions, even from the consideration that, in the event of their
performance of them, and afterward of their dying in an unregenerate state,
their punishment in hell will be more tolerable than if they had not performed
them. Although sinners cannot, by their obedience to the law, procure for
themselves a title to heaven; yea, and though they should never be driven by the
law from themselves to Christ for righteousness and salvation, but should die
under condemnation; yet the more external obedience they yield to the law, the
lighter will their punishment be (Luk 12:47-48). They cannot, by their obedience
to the law, merit even the lowest place in heaven; but they can by it obtain for
themselves an exemption from the lowest place in hell.

5. Moreover, it is of special use to convince sinners of their sinfulness and
misery, and also of their utter inability by any righteousness and strength of
their own, to recover themselves from their state of sin and misery. “What
things soever the law saith, it saith to them who are under the law; that every
mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God. Therefore
by the works of the law, there shall no flesh be justified in His sight; for by
the law is the knowledge of sin” (Rom 3:19-20). And again, “But sin, that it
might appear sin, working death in me by that which is good; that sin by the
commandment, might become exceeding sinful” (Rom 7:13). The precepts of the law
serve to convince men of their sins of omission, and the prohibitions of it to
convince them of their sins of commission. There are various evils which men
would never have known to be sins unless the holy law of God had revealed the
sinfulness of them. Accordingly our apostle says, “I had not known sin but by
the law: for I had not known lust except the law had said, ‘Thou shalt not
covet’ “ (Rom 7:7). While the precepts of the law are of use to convince sinners
of the reality and sinfulness of their sins, the threatenings of it are employed
to discover to them the tremendous wrath and curse of God due to them for their
transgressions (Gal 3:10). And by disclosing to them the deep depravity of their
nature, the precepts and threatenings of the law serve, in the hand of the
Spirit, to convince them of their utter inability to recover themselves, and so
to humble them under a painful sense of their sinfulness and misery (Rom 3:9).

6. Last, the law serves to show them their extreme need of Christ, and of His
righteousness and salvation. “Wherefore then serveth the law?” asks our apostle,
“It was added because of transgressions, till the seed should come to whom the
promise was made” (Gal 3:19). It awakens their consciences to a conviction of
their guilt, and to a dread of everlasting punishment, and so discovers to them
their absolute need of Christ and His perfect righteousness for their
justification in the sight of God (Gal 3:24; Rom 10:4). Thus the moral law is of
use to men in general.

7. It is of special use to unregenerate sinners. Under the awakening influences
of the Holy Spirit, it serves as a covenant of works to convince them of sin,
and to show them that as they are sinners, and so cannot perform perfect
obedience to entitle them to life, it is absolutely impossible for them ever to
attain to justification and salvation by their own performances. “By the deeds
of the law,” says the Apostle Paul, “there shall no flesh be justified in His
sight; for by the law is the knowledge of sin” (Rom 3:20). “I was alive without
the law once; but when the commandment came, sin revived, and I died” (Rom 7:9).

It reveals the wrath of God against them for their innumerable transgressions of
it, and so impresses them with fear of eternal punishment. “The law worketh
wrath” (Rom 4:15). It condemns every sinner who is under it to death in all its
direful extent, and so it awakens his conscience to expect infinite and
insupportable wrath as the just recompense of disobedience to its righteous
precepts. Hence the law, in this point of view, is called “the ministration of
condemnation” (2Co 3:7). Thus, as a scourge, it troubles and torments the
consciences of impenitent sinners, and renders them uneasy in a course of sin.
The law is of use, likewise, to urge or drive them to Jesus Christ, the only
Savior of lost sinners. Seeing it is the means of convincing sinners of their
sinfulness, misery, and utter inability to recover themselves, it drives them
from confidence in themselves to the Lord Jesus for righteousness and strength.
And thus it is their “schoolmaster to bring them unto Christ, that they may be
justified by faith” (Gal 3:24). By demanding perfect holiness of nature, perfect
obedience of life, and complete satisfaction for sin, which none of the children
of Adam is able to afford, the law shuts them up to see their need of Christ,
who has fully answered all these demands for those who believe in Him (Rom
10:4). It serves as a looking glass in which they may contemplate the exceeding
sinfulness, and demerit of their sins in order that, despairing of life by their
own works, they may be necessitated to flee speedily to Jesus Christ, who has
fulfilled a perfect righteousness for their justification.

It serves, at the same time, to convince them that they have those characters of
sinfulness and misery under which the offers and invitations of the gospel are
addressed to men. The offers and calls of the gospel are addressed to men as
unjust, ungodly, as sinners, enemies, and persons without strength; as lost,
dead in trespasses and sins, simple ones, scorners, fools, stout-hearted and far
from righteousness; as backsliders and prisoners, as laboring and heavy laden,
thirsting for happiness of any kind, spending their money for that which is not
bread, and their labor for that which satisfies not, disobedient, gainsaying,
and rebellious. Now the law, under the illuminating influences of the Holy
Spirit, is of use to show sinners that these are their very characters, and
therefore that they are the very persons to whom the Savior is offered, and whom
are invited and commanded to receive Him with His righteousness and salvation.
In this view, it is eminently subservient to the gospel.

Last, the law serves to render those of them inexcusable who, turning a deaf ear
to its dictates respecting their sinfulness and misery, refuse to accept the
offer of a Savior, and of salvation by Him (Rom 1:20 with Rom 2:15). And it not
only leaves all who reject the divine Redeemer without excuse and under its
dreadful curse, but it dooms them to greater, to redoubled condemnation. “He
that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life; and he that believeth not the
Son shall not see life; but the wrath of God abideth on him” (John 3:36). “He
that despised Moses’ law died without mercy under two or three witnesses; of how
much sorer punishment, suppose ye, shall he be thought worthy who hath trodden
under foot the Son of God, and hath counted the blood of the covenant, wherewith
he was sanctified, an unholy thing, and hath done despite unto the Spirit of
grace? For we know Him that hath said, ‘Vengeance belongeth unto Me. I will
recompense,’ saith the Lord” (Heb 10:28-30).

8. The law is of special use, likewise, to regenerate persons or true believers,
and that both as a covenant of works and as a rule of duty. In its covenant
form, it serves to show them what Christ, the second Adam, did and suffered in
their stead. By requiring from all who are under it perfect holiness of nature
and perfect obedience of life, with complete satisfaction for sin, as the
conditions of eternal life, it teaches believers what the Lord Jesus, in the
greatness of His astonishing love, condescended to become, to do, and to suffer
for them. They may see in it as in a glass that He did infinitely more for them
than any mere man or angel could ever have done (Rom 8:3-4; Php 2:8; Gal
3:13-14). Thus the law, in subservience to the gospel, teaches believers
indirectly what the gospel teaches them in direct terms. It is of use also to
show them under what infinite obligations they lie to the Lord Jesus for having
fulfilled all the righteousness of it in their stead, Though they are not under
the law in its covenant form to be either justified or condemned by it, yet it
is of special use to them how much they are bound to love and serve Christ who,
by obeying the precepts, and enduring the penalties of it in their stead, has
brought in everlasting righteousness for their justification. And so it is a
means of exciting their gratitude to Christ, and also to God, who so loved them
as to send Him to answer all its demands for them (2Co 9:15; Col 1:12-14). The
law as a rule of life is also of great use to believers. For although, as I
already observed, they are not under it as a covenant of works, either to be
justified by it for their obedience or to be condemned by it for their
disobedience, yet they are under it as the rule of their new obedience, and they
count it their exalted privilege and pleasure to be so (1Co 9:21). Now in this
point of view, it serves, under the illuminating influences of the Holy Spirit:

(1) To show them how far they are from perfection of holiness. In order to
render them more humble and contrite, to cause them to renounce, in a higher
degree, all confidence in their own wisdom, righteousness, and strength, and to
trust constantly and only in the Lord Jesus for all their salvation, the law
discovers to them the sin that dwells in them, and that cleaves to all their
thoughts, words, and actions. It is of great use to teach them the need that
they have to be more humble, penitent, and holy. And so it serves, in a high
degree, to promote their sanctification, and their desire to attain perfection
of holiness (Php 3:10-14; Rom 7:22-24). As it requires them to be holy in a
perfect degree (Mat 5:48), it shows them that their want of perfect conformity
to it is, every moment, their sin, and that they ought continually to press on
toward perfection, and long for heaven, where their holiness and happiness will
be perfect (2Co 5:2-4; Php 1:23).

(2) It serves, under the witnessing of the Spirit, to evidence to their
consciences the reality of their sanctification. The holy law serves as a
touchstone by which believers may try, and so discover, their begun conformity
to the image of the Son of God, the first-born among many brethren. Comparing
their hearts and lives with that standard, they sometimes perceive that, though
they are far from having a perfection of the degrees, yet they have a perfection
of the parts of sanctification; and so the law as a rule conduces, in the hand
of the Holy Spirit, to promote their comfort as well as their holiness. “Our
rejoicing is this,” says an apostle, “the testimony of our conscience, that in
simplicity and godly sincerity, not with fleshly wisdom, but by the grace of
God, we have had our conversation in the world” (2Co 1:12). As a covenant of
works, the law is the instrument of the Spirit, as a spirit of bondage, for
convincing and alarming secure sinners; but as a rule of life in the hand of the
blessed Mediator, it is a means employed by the Spirit, as a Spirit of adoption,
for comforting and encouraging true saints. Their habitual desire and endeavor
from faith and love, and for the glory of God, to keep all the commandments of
it are a good evidence to them that they are the children of God, and are
conformed to the image of His Son.

(3) It is of great use to show believers what duty they owe to their God and
Redeemer, and to direct them how to perform it. Christ, whom the Father has
given for a leader and commander to the people, gives to believers that law to
be the rule of their obedience, to inform them what grateful service, what holy
obedience, they owe to Him, and to God in Him, and to direct them in the course
of their obedience. Accordingly, the holy Psalmist says, “Through Thy precepts I
get understanding: therefore I hate every false way. Thy word is a lamp unto my
feet, and a light unto my path” (Psa 119:104-5). The law as a rule directs them
how to express their gratitude to the Lord Jesus for fulfilling it for them in
its covenant form (Rom 8:3-5). It enjoins them to show their love and
thankfulness to Him by a growing conformity of heart and life to it as the rule
of their obedience (John 14:15; 1Ti 1:5; Rom 12:1-2). While it shows them what
is good and what is evil, what they ought to do and what they ought to forbear,
it guides them in the exercise of their graces and in the performance of their
duties. No sooner does the law as a covenant urge men to Christ for deliverance
from the dominion of it in that form than Christ leads them back to the law as a
rule for the regulation of their heart and conduct, in order that they may
express their gratitude to Him for His perfect obedience to it as a covenant in
their stead, by their stead, by their sincere obedience to it as a rule (John
14:15).

(4) Finally, it serves the highly important purpose of binding or obliging the
saints to all their various duties. The law as a rule of life to believers comes
invested with infinite authority, and therefore lays them under infinite
obligations, even to perfect obedience. Seeing they do not cease to be creatures
by becoming new creatures, they are, and ever will be, obliged to yield personal
obedience to the moral law as a rule of life, and that by the sovereign
authority of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, their Creator. But this
divine authority, as was hinted above, issues to them from the Lord Jesus, the
great Mediator, who has created as well as redeemed them, and who has “all the
fullness of the Godhead, dwelling in Him bodily.” They therefore receive the law
at His mouth. And surely the law can lose nothing of its original authority by
being conveyed to them in such a glorious channel as the hand of Christ: for not
only is He Himself God over all, but all the sovereignty and authority of the
infinitely glorious Godhead are in Him as Mediator (Exo 23:21). The Lord Jesus,
therefore, instead of dissolving or in the smallest degree weakening the moral
law, greatly strengthens the original obligation of it ( Confession of Faith
XIX:V). Indeed, it is only to God as in Christ, only according to the law as in
the hand of Christ, and only by a real believer in Christ that the smallest
acceptable obedience can be performed. The law as a rule in the hand of Christ,
then, is of special utility to believers inasmuch as it shows them how high
their obligations are to the love and practice of holiness. And thus it
eminently subserves the gospel, that “doctrine which is according to godliness.”
From the foregoing detail it will be obvious to the devout reader that the law
as a covenant is of standing use in the effectual vocation of sinners to Christ.
The Holy Spirit makes the offers and calls of the gospel effectual to no sinner
without setting home the law as a covenant of works to their minds and
consciences. Sinners may be drawn to the Savior by a discovery of His redeeming
love (Hos 11:4), and so may be effectually called without legal terrors; but no
man is persuaded and enabled to come to Him without a true conviction of sin and
of the want of righteousness. But it is by the law in its covenant form that
sinners are convinced of sin, and of their need of a perfect righteousness to
free them from eternal death. Thus the law is of standing use to them to show
them their extreme need of the compassionate Savior, and of His perfect
righteousness, and so to “break up the fallow ground” of their hearts. In this
way, the fiery law continues, by the almighty agency of the Spirit, to subserve
the merciful design of the blessed gospel.

Hence we may also learn how much conviction of sin and of righteousness by the
law is requisite to true conversion. Such a measure of it in adult persons is
necessary as will suffice to make them sensible that they are sinners in heart
and in life; that they are already undone, and that their misery under the curse
of the law is inexpressible; that they have no righteousness to answer the just
demands of the broken law; and that they are so dead in sin as to be totally
unable to save themselves, or so much as to prepare themselves for salvation.
Such a measure as this is requisite because, without it, they would not see
their absolute need of the Lord Jesus to save them either from their sin or
their misery, nor would they desire above all things a personal interest in Him
and His great salvation. Not that it is requisite as a federal condition of
their being graciously received by Christ, but only as an excitement to urge
them to flee speedily for refuge to Him. From what has been said, we may also
infer that a minister of the gospel may often preach the law to his hearers and
yet not deserve to be called a legal preacher. He cannot preach the gospel
faithfully and successfully unless he preaches the law in subservience to it. If
he is a faithful and able minister of the New Testament, he will preach the law
as a covenant of works, and will press it upon the consciences of secure sinners
and self-righteous formalists. He will denounce the tremendous curse of it on
those who continue under it, and who rely securely on their own works for a
title to eternal life in order to tear away every pillow of carnal security on
which they repose themselves, and to show them the vanity of every lying refuge.
In proportion also as he is faithful, satisfaction for sin as well as perfect
obedience? Or does it demand from every unregenerate sinner perfection of
suffering as well as of doing? Then, though a descendant of fallen Adam could
say that he never had, in his own person, transgressed the law, and that he
would to the end of his life “continue in all things which are written in it, to
do them,” yet even this perfect obedience of his would not suffice to fulfil the
law, and so to entitle him to eternal life according to the covenant of works.
For the law as a covenant would still demand from him full satisfaction for the
sin that he committed in the first Adam: and satisfaction for sin cannot be
given by obeying the precept, but by suffering the penalty of the law in that
form. Ever since the fall, the law and the justice of God demand not only full
payment of the original debt of perfect obedience, but complete payment,
likewise, of the debt of infinite satisfaction for the offense given by sin to
the infinite Majesty of heaven (Gen 2:17). Nay, in the order of law and justice,
the debt of full satisfaction ought to be discharged previous to that of perfect
obedience. The infinitely righteous Jehovah will first be pacified by a complete
satisfaction to His justice for the infinite insult offered to His glorious
Majesty by transgression before He can consistently, with the honor of His
character and government, be pleased with any degree of obedience from the
sinner. If a sinner, then, hopes for eternal life on the ground of his own
righteousness, he must first give infinite satisfaction for all his innumerable
crimes, and then begin and complete a course of perfect obedience as the
condition of life. He must first of all make complete satisfaction to the
penalty of the righteous law before his obedience to the precept can be
acceptable to God. But is this possible? Is it possible for one who is to
continue through all eternity to be a sinner as well as a sufferer? Is it
possible for a sinner, first, to endure the whole of infinite punishment or
eternal wrath, and after endless torments shall have been completely endured to
return, and, under the dominion of sin, to perform perfect obedience as the
condition of eternal life? Oh, that self-righteous and secure sinners would
consider before it is too late how impossible it will be for them ever to obtain
eternal life by their own righteousness; and that they would, by faith, submit
themselves to the righteousness of Jesus Christ by which He has magnified the
law and made it honorable!

Moreover, it appears from what has been said that when our apostle asserts, in
his epistles to the Romans and Galatians, that no man can be justified before
God by the works of the law, he does not mean the law merely as promulgated from
Sinai, or the law of Moses as such; for those churches consisted chiefly of
Gentile converts who had no concern with the law of Moses merely as such. Before
their conversion they were heathens; they were under the law not as delivered
from Sinai, but as the law of nature and as a covenant of works made with Adam,
and with them in him. As therefore no Jews can be justified by the works of the
moral law as a covenant displayed on Mount Sinai, so no Gentiles can be
justified by the works of the moral law as a covenant made with Adam. They among
the Gentiles who have been redeemed are said to have been redeemed from the
curse of the law (Gal 3:13), that is, of the moral law in its covenant form as
given to Adam.

Once more, is it by the law as a covenant that sinners are convinced of misery
as well as of sin? Then how great is the misery, and how intolerable will the
punishment be, especially of those under the gospel who obstinately continue in
their unbelief and impenitence! While the violated law continues in all its
binding force against them, their condemnation will be inconceivably more
dreadful than if they had never heard the gracious offers of the gospel. “This
is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness
rather than light because their deeds were evil” (John 3:19). “Whosoever shall
fall upon that stone shall be broken; but on whomsoever it shall fall, it will
grind him to powder” (Luk 20:18). Impenitent sinners under the gospel shall be
punished not only for their innumerable transgressions of the law, but for
hating and stifling their convictions of sin and misery by it; and their
punishment for condemning and rejecting the great Redeemer offered to them in
the gospel will be far more tremendous and intolerable than if they had never
heard of His name. No punishment of sinners will be as dreadful as that of those
who hear of an only Savior and yet refuse to believe in Him. Suppose that He is
offered, and that sinners reject the gracious offer a thousand times; they are a
thousand times greater sinners than they were when He began to be offered to
them — and according to the greatness of their sin will their punishment be. Oh,
that the secure sinner under the gospel would now begin to consider the
heinousness of his sin, and the horrible depth of the misery which awaits him in
the place of torment! You are under the law as a broken covenant, and obnoxious
to its dreadful curse. You believe not on the Son of God for His salvation, and
therefore the wrath of God abides on you. Can you imagine that the omniscient
and righteous Judge of all the earth will take no notice of you; or that He who
is of purer eyes than to behold evil, and who cannot look on iniquity but with
infinite abhorrence will suffer you to sin against Him with impugnity? Oh, how
inexpressibly dreadful will your condition be if you remain asleep in your
sinfulness and misery till everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his
angels, awakens you! Alarmed by the terrors of the fiery law, let your heart be
won to the compassionate Savior by the mild accents of the blessed gospel. In
the glorious gospel, Jesus, with His meritorious righteousness and His great
salvation, is freely, wholly, and particularly offered to you as a lost sinner
of mankind; and the unlimited and authentic offer affords you a right to receive
and trust in Him for complete salvation. Oh, do not any longer despise this
unspeakable, this inestimably precious gift! Come to the Lord Jesus, and He will
in no wise cast you out. Believe in the dear Redeemer and you shall never
perish, but have eternal life.

Author

John Colquhoun was born in Scotland in January 1748. His early education was
from the local school supported by the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge
(SPCK). At the age of 20, Colquhoun began his studies at the University of
Glasgow. Once his pastoral ministry began, he labored faithfully for almost 50
years, and died in 1827. He was one of the greatest of Scottish preachers and
writers. His works, include: A Treatise on the Covenant of Grace, A Catechism
for the Instruction and Direction of Young Communicants, A View of Saving Faith,
A Collection of the Promises of the Gospel, A View of Evangelical Repentance,
Spiritual Comfort, and a collection of sermons entitled Sermons, Chiefly on
Doctrinal Subjects.


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