SERMON XXVII.

THE DOCTRINE OF REPENTANCE FURTHER CON

SIDERED.

LUKE XIII. S.

I tell you nay, but except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish.

SUPERSTITION has in all ages, and among all denominations of men, pagans, jews and christians, a strange, and perhaps an unaccountable influence. Whether this originates from our nature, depravity, or some other cause, we shall not now tarry for a philosophical investigation. All people, of all religions, from the most ignorant to the most learned, have fallen into the opinion, that great calamities are sure tokens of atrocious wickedness. Thus, when St. Paul had escaped shipwreck and the dangers of the sea, and the hospitable barbarians had admitted them on their shore, and a fire was kindled for their comfort. Behold, an event of an extraordinary kind took place; a serpent flew from the burning sticks and fastened upon Paul's hand. The whole company was struck with horror and astonishment, and immediately united in the superstitious cry, "No doubt this man. "is a murderer, whom, though he hath escaped the sea, yet ven66 geance suffereth not to live." This was not a peculiar sentiment among these barbarous islanders, but it prevailed among the jews, and has been exceedingly predominant among christians.

Solomon, in ancient times, set himself to correct this superstition, and after pondering the matter in his mind, declares, "No man knoweth love and hatred by all that is before him: all "things come alike to all. There is one event to the righteous "and to the wicked, to the good and to the clean, and to the un"clean; to him that sacrifiseth, and to him that sacrifiseth not; "This is an evil among all things under the sun; that there is one event unto all."

This ought to have corrected this whole system, but still it remained in great vogue in our Saviour's time. Hence, some flew to him with the information, that an awful judgment had fallen upon certain Galileans. Perhaps, as he was a Galilean, they fondly imagined that he would take immediate vengeance for the lives of his countrymen. They seem to inform him in all the hurry of consternation, "That Pilate had mingled their blood with their "sacrifices;" that he had murdered them in the midst of their devotions. Behold the calmness and meekness of our Lord to all this clamor. "Jesus answering, said unto them, suppose ye "that these Galileans were sinners above all the Galileans, be"cause they suffered such things?" Seek not vengeance for the destruction of their persecutors, but rather amidst those direful events, attend to yourselves and your own salvation. These were not sinners above others, but only dreadful events arising into existence in the course of divine providence. Hence your duty and the improvement you should make of the awful calamity, should be a repentance of your sins, and a preparation for death, whether it comes suddenly and violently, or in the more usual and gradual way. "I tell you nay, but except ye repent, "ye shall all likewise perish."

In order to cure them of their ignorance of divine providence, and the folly of their superstitious notions in this matter, he produces another instance of unexpected and untimely death. An event in which wicked men had no hand, as in the case of the unhappy Galileans, therefore, in vain to seek for revenge. It

was perfectly an act of God. "Those eighteen on whom the "tower of Saloam fell, and slew them, think ye that they were "sinners above all men that dwell in Jerusalem ?" Our Lord declares both the one and the other, that which came by the instrumentality of persecuting men, and that which fell out by the immediate hand of heaven, was no evidence that the unhappy sufferers were distinguished sinners above their fellow men. Therefore, he repeats the same sentence, as an equal improvement to the living, of the latter as well as the former case. "I "tell you nay, but except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish." This error, which Solomon and our Lord set themselves to correct, is still prevalent to this day. Sudden and dreadful calamities are still attributed by ignorant mortals and superstitious minds, to a supposition of superior iniquity. This is not a superstition incident to the lower grades of mankind, but you wilk often hear it bubbling from the ranks of better information.

Passing by these things, I proceed to lead your minds to a further attention to the important doctrine of evangelical repentance. You have heard a definition of it, and a concise delineation of the subject, as ascribed to God, to unreformed men, and to those to whom it will be finally beneficial.-Allow me to proceed in my description of evangelical or saving repentance, as it stands distinguished from all legal repentance in this world, and from all that takes place in the tormenting regret of the damned in hell, where repentance eternally reigns.

Repentance, according to the gospel, stands distinguished from all other exercises of that name in three things; its object -subject and formal nature.

Evangelical or saving repentance, is essentially different from every thing that bears that name, in its object. The odious-. ness and dreadful nature of sin comes into view, under a discovery of the amiableness and excellency of God, and the holiness and perfection of the law. Here it may perhaps be said, three

objects are thrown into the view of the mind, God, and the law, and sin. But all these terminate in one. A man, beholding his face in a common mirror, may philosophically consider the glass, the opake body behind it, and a multitude of other things concurrent to the vision, but it is the reflection, his own picture is the great object. In nature he beholds it with pleasure or disgust, according to the trueness of the mirror and his own fancy.

The great object I would wish you to contemplate in the glass of the law and gospel, is your own hearts, and therein you will see no beauty, but deformity and odiousness, and hide your face from the view in the dark shades of shame, and under the black shrouds of mourning.

Evangelical repentance exalts itself in distinction, by the nature of its subject, from every thing that assumes and profanes the name. True repentance has its foundation in a renewed heart. This creates an essential difference between gospel and legal sorrow. It forms a specific difference between the exercises of the one and the other. The regret, relentings, and the feelings of the one are unto death; whereas the views, exercises and experiences of the other are life, and will issue in life eternal.

As the object and subject of evangelical repentance awakens views and exercises, different from many things of this description, so its formal nature draws a line of distinction of peculiar observation. The formal nature of gospel repentance consists in a heart felt sense of the odiousness and vileness of sin, its deformity and turpitude, so that the soul abhors itself, and repents in dust and ashes.

I shall now leave the more abstract consideratious of this theme, and attend to the more common and experimental exercises of the concerned soul..

True repentance involves an hearty concern and distress of mind, and sorrow and anguish of heart, for transgressions of the

divine law, and a departure from God. It is not every concern that is repentance, nor every sorrow which is of godly sort. Many, by a few remonstrances of conscience, reflections of mind, some prayers and goings to church: Oh, what penitents they feel themselves; how reformed and exalted to the favor of God. And upon this flimsy ground, they hope they have passed through the whole process of conviction and conversion, while their exercises set them perhaps at a greater distance from true repentance, than when they began. These things may be stiled sorrow and mourning for sin, while they are only the anguish of a proud and unhumbled heart. A guilty conscience creates horror, pain and dreadful anxiety; but genuine repentance softens and melts the heart.

True repentance, passing by theoretic disquisitions, is an hearty concern and sorrow for sin as offensive to God, a transgression of the law, and ruinous to the soul. This, I conceive, a very simple description, reduced to the lowest experiences, and to the feeblest understanding. A minister, when he speaks plainly, must speak to the mind, experience, and conscience of the weak and unlearned; and surely the strong in mind, the learned and the self-sufficient great, where real ignorance of religion exceedingly abounds, dares not but understand.

Every one in these days of light, will readily acknowledge, it is not every concern, even on account of sin, that can denominate a person truly penitent, or constitute a penitential sorrow, which is, by divine constitution, connected with eternal life. Poor proud mortals, ignorant, and the more ignorant pretenders to knowledge, if they have felt some small remonstrances of conscience, and a little remorse for having sinned, they directly conclude they have repented bitterly, are in favor with God, and none such penitents as they are. These unhappy and deluded creatures, will repent of their repentance, when death and eternity shall detect their fatal mistake. Be not deceived, my