13 SERMON II. ON REPENTANCE. MATT. IV. 17. "From that time Jesus began to preach, and to say, Repent: for the kingdom of heaven is at hand." It requires no laboured arguments to prove, that repentance is essential to the very existence of Christianity in the heart of man. It was the first and leading doctrine insisted on by the inspired messenger who went before the face of our Lord to prepare the way before him. He urged it so constantly and emphatically, that it is frequently put forward as the substance and summary of all his instructions. Three of the Evangelists concur in testifying that John baptized and preached the baptism of repentance for the remission of sins. When this illustrious messenger closed his mission, by pointing out Jesus as "the Lamb of God, who taketh away the sin of the world," and when our blessed Lord entered on his public ministry, He immediately took up the same doctrine; for "from that time Jesus began to preach, and to say-Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand." When the apostles, after their Lord's ascension, had received the Holy Ghost, arming them with miraculous power, and inspiring them with divine wisdom and supernatural gifts to instruct all nations, "baptizing in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost," repentance was the first thing they insisted on, as the necessary attendant and infallible criterion of saving faith. In the first public and solemn address of St. Peter to the assembled nation of the Jews, this is the grand conclusion which he presses upon them"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 * John i. 19. + Matt. iv. 17. the Holy Ghost."* Again, when next he addressed the people after healing the lame man at the Beautiful gate of the temple, he urges the same topic-" Repent ye, therefore, and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out, when the times of refreshing shall come from the presence of the Lord." And further, when he describes the blessedness of the Gospel, which he offered to their acceptance, repentance is the indispensable requisite to obtain and secure it. "Unto you first, God having raised up his Son Jesus, sent him to bless you, in turning away every one of you from his iniquities."‡ Thus indispensable is repentance to the first reception of Christian principles, and the first formation of the Christian character. Yet, if we view the conduct of professing Christians, where shall we find any prevailing sense of its necessity, any clear idea of its nature; and, above all, any proofs of its real practical existence? I speak not now of the profligate, the licentious, the profane, who, with impious hardihood, make a mock of sin. I speak of that more grave and sober description of mankind, who profess to shun all impiety and vice; who profess to believe the divine origin of the Gospel, and to revere its laws; who, in consistence with these professions, frequently resort to our places of public worship, and constantly show themselves anxious to defend that church establishment to which they belong. These men, indeed, join in the admirable form of our church liturgy. They each Sabbath day acknowledge from the word of God, that "if we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us." They hear it declared by the minister of God, "that it is necessary we should not dissemble, nor cloak our manifold sins and wickedness before our heavenly Father, but confess them with an humble, lowly, penitent, and obedient heart." And they, with us, immediately proceed to acknowledge that "we have erred and strayed from the ways of God, and offended against his holy laws; that we are miserable sinners, and that there is no health in us;" no adequate principle of religious vigour and soundness; but that our moral and religious constitution is diseased and enfeebled, requiring new strength from heaven to ⚫ Acts ii. 38. † Acts iii. 19. + Acts iii. 26. restore it, and a new regimen, with uninterrupted watchfulness and self-control on our part, to preserve it when restored. But, my fellow Christians, let me intreat you to observe the general language and conduct of others; nay, let me implore you to examine your own hearts, and from your own feelings and your own conduct, judge whether these declarations of repentance are not too often mere words of course, empty sounds, pronounced without any serious meaning, exciting no corresponding sentiment; acknowledgments of guilt without any attendant feeling of sorrow or of shame; prayers for pardon, without any heartfelt apprehension of condemnation or punishment; and promises to amend and reform, without the slightest consequent alteration of conduct, the least apparent care to avoid the offences, whose past perpetration you deplore; or to cultivate those virtues, the want of which you lament. If these things are so, it is most highly necessary to awaken your attention to this solemn, this awful subject; to explain to you the nature and character of true repentance, convince you of its necessity, and animate you to pursue the conduct it requires. What then is the first and leading characteristic of true repentance? Undoubtedly a deep sense of shame and sorrow for those various omissions of known duty, and perpetrations of positive guilt which have polluted our nature, injured our fellow creature, and outraged our God; a sense of shame and sorrow, not arising from the disgrace attached to the offences we have committed, or the temporal losses they have entailed, but from a heartfelt conviction of their loathsomeness in the sight of God, and their inconsistency with the sacred obligations of our Christian profession. Indeed, if we seriously consider the evil of sin, how must we deplore the share we bear in it! Hence the world has been overrun with misery, from the creation to this hour; hence prisons, and chains, and tortures, and executions; hence wars, and fightings, and fraud, and treachery; hence private wretchedness and public calamity. Even the evils of nature, which we view with horror-famine and pestilence, disease and death,— are in truth the mere attendants upon guilt; the restraints and chastisements by which divine justice confines the diffusion, represses the audacity, and corrects the malignity of human vice. Were men perfectly innocent, earth would assimilate to paradise. Were this earth a paradise, vice uncontrolled would change it into a hell. But each man thinks his own proportion of this aggregate sum of human guilt, and human misery, too slight to be seriously weighed. The deceitfulness of sin constantly suggests to us, that our offences have arisen from negligence and thoughtlessness, rather than from deliberate wrong intention; and that mere negligence and thoughtlessness cannot be so seriously criminal or dangerous. Or, if we have deliberately offended, we still plead that passion has overpowered, and temptation seduced us. But to show, in a word, the presumption of such pleas, let it be remembered, that thus every crime that can debase human nature, or disturb society, would find an adequate apology. The worldly-minded man, who never offers up a prayer to heaven, who never opens the Scripture, who never attends public worship, or attends coldly and reluctantly, will impute all this, and perhaps impute it truly, to mere negligence ; for to stifle reflection is to extinguish piety. That man who, at once extravagant and unfeeling, sees his brother pining in misery, but passes heedless on, to squander his wealth in the first frivolous or sensual pursuit which appetite or fashion recommend, will tell you he is only negligent. The common swearer, whose language is blasphemy; the habitual drunkard, whose life is a continued fever of intemperance, plead, that their better intentions are defeated by the mere force of habit overcoming the weakness of resolution. In crimes of a deeper dye, each man, according to the greatness of his guilt, will plead that he was impelled by proportionably more powerful temptations, more deeply rooted prejudices, more furious passions, a more urgent necessity. But, in seriousness and simplicity of mind, who can believe, that these various offences against all laws, human and divine, which corrupt the individual, disturb society, and outrage the majesty of heaven;-who can believe such offences can be excused by such vain and idle pleas? To say, negligence has betrayed, passion overpowered, and temptation seduced us, is not to apologize for our crimes, but merely to state their origin and progress. Our guilt consists in this very thing, that we have been negligent of our duty, and careless of the approbation of our God; that we have suffered every vicious passion to acquire unlimited dominion in our breasts without making any resistance, and have forfeited our virtue, our religion, and our God, to indulge in indolence, sensuality, and selfishness, or to gratify pride, ambition, and revenge. And surely such pleas as these can never excuse our crimes, or shelter us from condemnation and punishment; except it were true, that beings such as man could never merit punishment from a just and righteous God. Thus these impious pleas terminate in audacious impiety, blaspheming the attributes of God on the one side, and, on the other, sanctioning uncontrolled licentiousness. Be assured, my friends, they who have ever thought thus to apologize for their crimes, must repent, not only of the offences which they have committed, but of the false and impious excuses by which they have dared to justify them. They must repent of their irreligious principles, as well as their unholy deeds. Until they feel they are inexcusable and guilty sinners, without any hope of pardon, but from the free mercy of God, obtained for the truly penitent by the mediation of their Redeemer, they have not yet begun to repent. Until they feel their hearts smitten with shame and sorrow, not puffed up with such false and irreligious principles, as apologies like these imply, they can never hope to be forgiven. In truth, the best and wisest of the sons of men, in every age, have ever been the most ready to acknowledge and lament their depravity, and its pernicious effects. But to Christians, there are some considerations of awful importance, well worthy your serious attention. Consider the light against which you have sinned. How plain are the instructions of the Gospel on every point of duty-how solemn the precepts which you have violated-how sacred the authority from which they proceeded, and which you have despised; the authority of your Saviour and your Judge-how ungratefully have you slighted the law, neglected the example, disgraced the religion, and, as far as in you lay, trampled on the cross of Christ! And in this view how do they deceive themselves, who excuse their offences by the general practice of the world, even VOL. IV. C |