with the circumstances of the repenting sinner. What can be more dissimilar than penitence and innocence? What can be more incongruous than the acknowledgment of iniquity and the claim of conscious or imaginary merit?

There is, however, an intimate and inseparable connexion between Repentance and salvation. It is a connexion established by an economy of pure and sovereign grace. True Repentance is in every instance, "Repentance unto life." It has, for the present world, the promise of forgiveness; and for the world to come, the assurance of eternal salvation. In the cheering and animating injunctions which the Lord Jesus gave to his disciples after he had risen from the dead, the connexion is exhibited under circumstances of peculiar encouragement. He directed that " Repentance and remission of sins should be preached among all nations, beginning at Jerusalem." In full accordance with his Master's will, the Apostle Peter, on the day of Pentecost, thus replied to the anxious inquiry," What shall we do?"-" Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ, for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost. For the promise is unto you and to your children, and to all that are afar off, even as many as the Lord our God shall call." In the same strain, the same Apostle addressed the people of Israel at the gate

of the Temple, on the occasion to which our text refers:-" Repent ye therefore, and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out."

It cannot then admit of a doubt, that every sinner, who truly repents, attains the blessedness of the man" whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered, and to whom the Lord imputeth not iniquity." He is then blessed indeed! He enters on the enjoyment of the purest and most permanent delight. "He shall never come into condemnation: he is passed from death unto life," and he is an authorised expectant of the felicity of that world, "where there is fulness of joy; where there are pleasures for evermore." Has such a state of security and of privilege no attractions for you? In any other state on earth, can there be happiness which deserves the name? Can guilty man be happy without the hope of forgiveness; or can he, without most pitiable infatuation, entertain that hope, in the absence of true Repentance?

But are there no instances, it may be asked, in which Repentance is disconnected with salvation? Not one,-it may be replied, with firmest confidence. No exception can be alleged, even with regard to the sin pronounced unpardonable. It is said of those who, by the righteous determination of God, are excluded from forgiveness, that" it is impossible to renew them again unto

Repentance;" but it is by no means said, that Repentance, were it exercised, would be unavailing. No, the tremendous state of such is, that by the just judgment of God, they are left to the awful effects of their own obduracy and impenitence. Were it possible that they should repent, it is certain that on repenting they would be forgiven. Think, then, how great is the encouragement arising from the fixed and invariable connexion which the God of all grace has established between Repentance and salvation. Let it only appear that you have, in your hearts and lives, the evidences of true Repentance, and you are warranted to yield yourselves to the bliss-inspiring persuasion that your sins are forgiven, and that your souls shall be eternally saved.

SIXTHLY, The grace necessary to the production of true Repentance, God is ever ready to bestow.

"I admit," some one may be disposed to say, "that Repentance is a duty binding upon all men, and unquestionably imperative upon me. I feel that I am daily contracting additional guilt, by remaining in impenitency and unbelief; but how shall I be able to exercise that Repentance which needeth not to be repented of? You tell me, and I believe and feel it to be true, that my nature is depraved, and that my heart is both obdurate and deceitful; how then shall I repent ?"

It is my happiness to remind you, that the Lord Jesus Christ, who "died for our offences, and was raised again for our justification," is "exalted by the right hand of God to be a Prince and a Saviour, for to give Repentance" in order to "the remission of sins." This part of his mediatorial undertaking precisely meets your case, and corresponds with your most pressing exigence. He communicates the grace necessary to that exercise of Repentance, which his word requires, by giving his Holy Spirit to effect deep conviction of sin, and true contrition of heart. He thus fulfils that gracious promise of a former dispensation :-" A new heart will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you; and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you a heart of flesh; and I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes, and ye shall keep my judgments and do them."-" 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." If then you have discovered the guilt and danger of continuing in impenitence, and if you deeply lament the hardness and coldness of your hearts towards God, you will attach to

these encouraging promises the highest value; you will plead them most earnestly and perseveringly at the throne of grace; and certain it is that you will not thus plead in vain. He who never gave encouragement to an unfounded expectation, has said--" Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you: for, if ye, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children; how much more shall your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask him!"

SEVENTHLY, The Repentance of a sinner is the occasion of benevolent rejoicing both on earth and in heaven.

To christian friends, and christian parents, and christian ministers, well may it be an occasion of joy and praise, if they," over whose souls they have watched," in the prospect of giving an account, present indications of true Repentance. Well may they rejoice on finding, that they have not " laboured in vain, nor spent their strength for nought;" that they have been honoured as "workers together with God," or rather that their feeble instrumentality has been crowned with divine efficiency; and that, when they have addressed the ear, the Spirit of God has opened the heart, and renewed the mind; imparting to the intellect the light of life, and diffusing through the soul the fire of love. Well may