some transgresssors severely, is, that "all Israel might hear, and fear, and do no such thing." In the infancy of the Jewish church, he consumed Nadab and Abihu with fire, Lev. x. 2. compared with ver. 9. In the infancy of the Christian church, Ananias and Sapphira were struck dead for a lie. Why all this, but to be a warning to all that should come after? 2. Thereby we may see how dangerous a thing sin is to be harboured; and if we will look inward, we may ever see, that there is sin in us also against the God of Israel. If we saw one stung by a serpent which he had taken up, would not we quickly throw away one which we had taken up too, lest we should fare no better? How can we think to prosper in that way, where we see it goes so very ill with others? USE 1. We may see that none go on impenitently in a sinful course, but over the belly of thousands of calls from Providence to repent, besides all those they have from the word. Look abroad into the world, O sinner, and consider how many have fallen into ruin, and are still falling by their iniquity. As many as there are of these, so many mouths are there calling thee to repent, and turn from thy sin. "Who did ever harden himself against God, and prosper?" And dost thou think, that thy case shall be an exception to the general rule? No; so many witnesses give their testimony to thee, that "except thou repent, thou shalt likewise perish." 2. Impenitency under the gospel cannot have the least shadow of excuse. The calls of Providence common to the whole world, are sufficient to leave the very heathens without excuse, Rom. i. 20: how much more shall the calls of the word and Providence too make us inexcusable, if we do not repent? Sinners make many shifts for themselves, to preserve the life of their lusts, and to keep themselves from this unpleasant exercise: but they will be but figleaf covers before the Lord. 3. How much more do strokes from the hand of the Lord on ourselves call us to repent? Hos. ii. 6, 7, "Therefore behold, I will hedge up thy way with thorns, and make a wall, that she shall not find her paths. And she shall follow after her lovers, but she shall not overtake them; and she shall seek them, but shall not find them then shall she say, I will go and return to my first husband, for then was it better with me than now." What Absalom's design was in burning Joab's corn-field, is the design of afflicting providences. And therefore impenitency and hardness of heart under the strokes of the Lord's hand, is highly aggravated, Jer. v. 3. Every cross that we meet with, is a charge from heaven to turn from our sinful course, and from the particular ills of our way. I come now to the principal doctrine of the text. DOCTRINE. Sinners, except they repent, shall perish. This is an except without any exception. Be who they will, if they be sinners, they must repent or perish. All are sinners, and by sin depart from God; and they must come back again to him by repentance, else they are for ever ruined. Be they sinners of a greater or lesser size, they must be penitent sinners, or it had been better for them they had never been born. In discoursing this doctrine, I shall, I. Explain the nature of repentance. I. I shall explain the nature of repentance. And here we may consider, 1. What it is in its general nature. 2. How it is wrought in the soul. 3. The subject of true repentance. FIRST, We may consider what repentance is in its general nature. It is a saving grace: 2 Tim. ii. 25, "In meekness instructing those that oppose themselves; if God peradventure will give them repentance to the acknowledging of the truth." It is a grace given us of God freely, enabling and disposing a soul to all the acts of turning from sin unto God; and it is saving, as in its own nature distinguishing a man from a hypocrite, and having a sure connection with eternal salvation. To unfold this more particularly, consider, 1. It is not a transient action, as Papists and some ignorant creatures imagine, as if a sigh for sin, an act of sorrow for it, a confession of it with a "God be merciful to me a sinner," were repentance. No, no; these may be acts of repentance while they proceed from a truly penitent heart. But repentance itself is not a passing act, but an abiding grace, Zech. xii. 10; a continuing frame and disposition of the soul; a principle lying deep in the heart, disposing a man to mourn for and turn from sin on all occasions. 2. It is not a passing work of the first days of one's religion, as some professors take it to be; but a grace in the heart, setting one to an answerable working all the days of his life. It is a spring of waters of sorrow in the heart for sin, which will spring up there while sin is there, though sometimes through hardness of heart it may be stopped for a while. They that look on repentance as the first stage in the way to heaven, and looking back to the sorrow ful hours which they had when the Lord first began to deal with them, reckon that they have passed the first stage, are in a dangerous condition. And whoso endeavours not to carry on their repentance, I doubt if they ever at all repented yet. As when Moses had smote the rock in the wilderness, and the waters began to gush out, those waters ran (it is thought, 1 Cor. x. 4.) and followed them while in the wilderness: so the heart first smitten with repentance for sin at the soul's first conversion to God, the wound still bleeds, and is never bound up to bleed no more, till the band of glory be put about it in heaven, Rev. xxi. 4. Hence initial and progressive repentance, though the former be the repentance of a sinner, the latter of a saint, are no more different kinds of repentance, than the soul's virgin love to Christ, and their love to him through the course of their spiritual marriage with him; or than faith in its first, and after actings. But as the midday and evening sun are the same with the morning sun, so are these; though the rising morning sun may be most noticed by the traveller, who having travelled in the night, was thereby brought from darkness to light. : 3. It is not a common grace, but a special saving one. Men may have a repentance for their sin, gnawing their consciences, and tormenting their hearts, which they will carry on in hell through eternity being only the first movings of the worm in the soul that never dieth as Judas's repentance seems to have been Simon Magus's and Pharaoh's. They may bitterly rue their sin, as Esau, Gen. xxvii. 34. who never truly repent of it, Heb. xii. 17; and the stony heart may be broken in a thousand pieces, while yet every piece remains a stone. They may have a superficial sorrow for sin, and a light joy succeeding it, whose hearts were never pierced to the quick; and therefore the joy goes, as the effects of a scud of rain on the parched ground, Matth. xiii. 20, 21. But true repentance is a repentance never repented of, kindly working in the soul. SECONDLY, We may consider how repentance is wrought in the soul. And here two questions must be answered, and two points cleared, namely, 1. Who works repentance, or is the author of it? And that is the sanctifying Spirit of Jesus Christ: Zech. xii. 13. “And I will pour upon the house of David, and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the spirit of grace and of supplications, and they shall look upon me whom they have pierced, and they shall mourn for him, as one mourneth for his only son, and shall be in bitterness for him, as one that is in bitterness for his first-born." Sometimes notorious prodigals become true penitents; as a persecuting Saul turned to be a preaching Paul: so that the world is amazed with the change, and are ready to say as in Saul's case, 1 Sam. x. 11. “What is this that is come unto the son of Kish? Is Saul also among the prophets? But that query, ver. 12. "But who is their father?" gives a rational account of the matter. All sort of timber to divine grace is alike easy to hew. And forasmuch as the house of God is ordinarily built of the knottiest wood, publicans and harlots entering into the kingdom of God before Scribes and Pharisees, it may plainly appear, that repentance is not the work of nature, but of grace; not of men's own spirit, but Christ's Spirit. This is evident from the word, Jer. xiii. 21, "Can the Ethiopian change his skin, or the leopard his spots? then may ye also do good, that are accustomed to do evil." It is the Lord's own work to "take away the stony heart, and give an heart of flesh," Ezek. xxxvi. 26. It is the office of the exalted Mediator to give repentance, in whose hand it is to send the Spirit, Acts v. 31. Ministers may preach repentance, but cannot work in it themselves, and far less in others. They may sow the seed, but cannot make it grow, 1 Cor. iii. 6, 7. It is but a peradventure if God give repentance, when they have done their utmost, 2 Tim. ii. 25. But if at all their weapons be mighty, it is through God, 2 Cor. x. 4. 2. By what means does the Spirit work repentance? That is by the word, whether read or preached. The word is the channel wherein the influences of the Spirit flow; and from these it has its piercing, melting, and heart-softening virtue, as the pool of Bethesda had its healing virtue from the angel's troubling the water: Acts xi. 20, 21. "And some of them were men of Cyprus, and Cyrene, which when they were come to Antioch, spake unto the Grecians, preaching the Lord Jesus. And the hand of the Lord was with them and a great number believed, and turned unto the Lord." Junius, who was deeply plunged in Athiesm, was brought to repentance by reading John i. in a New Testament which his father had purposely laid down in his chamber, if perhaps he might take it up and read it. Augustine was converted by reading Rom. xiii. 13, 14. "Let us walk honestly as in the day; not in rioting and drunkenness, not in chambering and wantonness, not in strife and envying. But put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to fulfil the lusts thereof." Three thousand we find were wrought on by one sermon, Acts ii. Many and various are the occasions of repentance, which the Lord blesseth for bringing home the word to the soul, and the soul by it unto God. Personal afflictions have been so in the case of many, Hos. ii. 7. The sight of strokes on others has been blessed to some. The first occasion of Luther's turning serious was a fright by the violent death of a dear companion of his. Nay, God has made falls into gross sins occasions of repentance unto many, whereof there are several instances, as Achan, the thief on the cross, &c. Flavel gives an account of one, in the case of an attempt of self-murder. Augustine heard a voice, saying, "Take up, and read." Nay, God can make a dream in the night such an occasion, Job xxxiii. 15, 16. But these are not properly the means, but the occasions which bring men to consider of the word, which is the true and proper means. And here the Spirit of the Lord makes use of both parts of the word. 1st, The law, to break the hard heart: Jer. xxiii. 29, "Is not my word-like a hammer that breaketh the rock in pieces? saith the Lord." It goes before like John Baptist to prepare the way of the Lord into the heart. And the Spirit of the Lord making use of it in a soul, is called "the Spirit of bondage," Rom. viii. 15. And here each part of the law has its proper use. (1.) The commands of it, to convince the soul of sin: Rom. vii. 7, I had not known sin," says the apostle, "but by the law: for I had not known lust, except the law had said, Thou shalt not covet." The commands of the law, held forth to the soul in their spirituality and vast extent, are the looking-glass wherein the sinner is made to see his black face, the sins and sinfulness of his nature, heart, and life, which he must repent of. (2.) The threatenings of it, to convince the soul of judgment: Gal. iii. 10, “As many as are of the works of the law, are under the curse for it is written, Cursed is every one that continueth not in all things which are written in the book of the law to do them." These carried home on the soul, disturb its rest in sin, and let the man see that he has been sleeping within the sea-mark of divine vengeance, and so give him a frightful wakening. These discover the danger of sin for time and eternity, and tell him that he must turn over a new leaf, else he is ruined. 2dly, The gospel, to melt the hard heart like a fire, Jer. xxiii. 29, "Is not my word like as a fire? saith the Lord; and so to bow and bend it from sin towards God," Zech. xii. 10, " And I will pour upon the house of David, and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the spirit of grace and of supplications, and they shall look upon me whom they have pierced, and they shall mourn for him, as one mourneth for his only son, and shall be in bitterness for him, as one that is in bitterness for his first-born." Thus the soul that was driven by the law, is kindly led and drawn by the gospel to repent |