04. Chapter Four
Chapter Four 4. THE NATURE OF TRUE REPENTANCE (2) Ingredient 4: Shame for Sin The fourth ingredient in repentance is shame: “that they may be ashamed of their iniquities” (Ezekiel 43:10). Blushing is the color of virtue. When the heart has been made black with sin, grace makes the face red with blushing: “I am ashamed and blush to lift up my face” (Ezra 9:6). The repenting prodigal was so ashamed of his excess that he thought himself not worthy to be called a son any more (Luke 15:21). Repentance causes a holy bashfulness. If Christ’s blood was not at the sinner’s heart, there would not be so much blood in the sinner’s face. There are nine considerations about sin which may cause shame:
(1) Every sin makes us guilty, and guilt usually breeds shame. Adam never blushed in the time of innocence. While he kept the whiteness of the lily, he did not have the blushing of the rose; but when he had deflowered his soul by sin, he was ashamed. Sin has tainted our blood. We are guilty of high treason against the Crown of heaven. This may cause a holy modesty and blushing.
(2) In every sin there is much unthankfulness, and that is a matter of shame. The one who is upbraided with ingratitude will blush. We have sinned against God when he has given us no cause: “What iniquity have your fathers found in me?” (Jeremiah 2:5). In what has God wearied us, unless his mercies have wearied us? Oh the silver drops that have fallen on us! We have had the finest of the wheat; we have been fed with angels’ food. The golden oil of divine blessing has run down on us from the head of our heavenly Aaron. And to abuse the kindness of so good a God, how this may make us ashamed! Julius Caesar took it unkindly at the hands of Brutus,21 on whom he bestowed so many favors, when he came to stab him: “What, you, my son Brutus?” O ungrateful, to be the worse for mercy! Aelian22 reports that the vulture draws sickness from perfumes. How unworthy it is to contract the disease of pride and luxury from the perfume of God’s mercy; to requite evil for good; to kick against our feeder (Deuteronomy 32:15); to make an arrow of God’s mercies and shoot it at him; to wound him with his own blessing! O horrid ingratitude! Will not this dye our faces a deep scarlet? Unthankfulness is a sin so great that God himself stands amazed at it: “Hear, O heavens, and give ear, O earth: I have nourished and brought up children, and they have rebelled against me” (Isaiah 1:2).
(3) Sin has made us naked, and that may breed shame. Sin has stripped us of our white linen of holiness. It has made us naked and deformed in God’s eye, which may cause blushing. When Hanun had abused David’s servants and cut off their garments so that their nakedness appeared, the text says, “the men were greatly ashamed” (2 Samuel 10:5).
(4) Our sins have put Christ to shame, and should we not be ashamed? The Jews arrayed him in purple; they put a reed in his hand, spat in his face, and in his greatest agonies reviled him. Here was “the shame of the cross;” and that which aggravated the shame was to consider the eminency of his person, as he was the Lamb of God. Did our sins put Christ to shame, and shall they not put us to shame? Did he wear the purple, and shall not our cheeks wear crimson? Who can behold the sun as it was blushing at Christ’s passion, and hiding itself in an eclipse, and yet not blush himself?
(5) Many sins which we commit are by the special instigation of the devil, and should this not cause shame? The devil put it into the heart of Judas to betray Christ (John 13:2). He filled Ananias’ heart to lie (Acts 5:3). He often stirs up our passions (James 3:6). Now, as it is a shame to bring forth a child illegitimately, so too it is a shame to bring forth those sins which may call the devil their father. It is said that the virgin Mary conceived by the power of the Holy Ghost (Luke 1:35); but we often conceive by the power of Satan. When the heart conceives pride, lust, and malice, it is very often by the power of the devil. May not this make us ashamed: to think that many of our sins are committed in copulation with the old serpent?
(6) Sin, like Circe’s enchanting cup, turns men into beasts 23 (Psalms 49:12), and is that not a matter for shame? Sinners are compared to foxes (Luke 13:32), to wolves (Matthew 7:15), to asses (Job 11:12), and to swine (2 Peter 2:22). A sinner is a swine with a man’s head. He who was once little less than the angels in dignity has now become like the beasts. Grace in this life does not wholly obliterate this brutish temper. Agur, that good man, cried out, “Surely I am more brutish than any!” (Proverbs 30:1-2). But common sinners are in a way entirely made into brutes; they do not act rationally but are carried away by the violence of their lusts and passions. How this may make us ashamed who are thus degenerated below our own species? Our sins have taken away that noble, masculine spirit which we once had. The crown has fallen from our head. God’s image is defaced, reason is eclipsed, and conscience is stupefied. We have more in us of the brute than of the angel.
(7) In every sin there is folly (Jeremiah 4:22). A man will be ashamed of his folly. Is he not a fool who labors more for the bread that perishes than for the bread of life? Is he not a fool who for a lust or a trifle will lose heaven, like Tiberius who for a drink forfeited his kingdom?24 Is he not a fool who, to safeguard his body, would injure his soul? Would someone let his arm or head be cut off to save his vest? Naviget antyciram (Horace).25 Is he not a fool who would believe a temptation before he believes a promise? Is he not a fool who minds his recreation more than his salvation? How this may make men ashamed: to think that they inherit not land, but folly (Proverbs 14:18)
(8) What may make us blush is that the sins we commit are far worse than the sins of the heathen. We act against more light. To us have been committed the oracles of God. The sin committed by a Christian is worse than the same sin committed by an Indian because the Christian sins against clearer conviction. This is like the dye added to the wool, or the weight put into the scale: it makes it heavier.
(9) Our sins are worse than the sins of the devils: lapsed angels never sinned against Christ’s blood. Christ did not die for them. The medicine of his merit was never intended to heal them. But we have affronted and disparaged his blood by unbelief. The devils never sinned against God’s patience. As soon as they apostatized, they were damned. God never waited for the angels, but we have spent from the stock of God’s patience. He has pitied our weakness, borne with our frowardness. His Spirit has been repulsed, and yet he has still importuned us and will take no denial. Our conduct has been so provoking as to have tried not only the patience of a Moses but of all the angels. We have put God to it, and made him weary of repenting (Jeremiah 15:6). The devils never sinned against example. They were the first that sinned and they were made the first example. We have seen the angels, those morning stars, fall from their glorious orb; we have seen the old world drowned, Sodom burned, and yet have risked sin. How desperate is that thief who robs in the very place where his fellow hangs in chains. And surely, if we have out-sinned the devils, then it may well make us blush.
Use 1. Is shame an ingredient of repentance? If so, then how far from being penitents are those who have no shame? Many have sinned away shame: “the unjust knows no shame” (Zephaniah 3:5). It is a great shame not to be ashamed. The Lord sets it as a brand upon the Jews: “Were they ashamed when they committed abomination? No, they were not at all ashamed, nor could they blush” (Jeremiah 6:15). The devil has stolen shame from men. When one of the persecutors in Queen Mary’s time was upbraided for his bloodiness toward the martyrs, he replied, “I see nothing to be ashamed of.” Many are no more ashamed of their sin than King Nebuchadnezzar was of being turned to eating grass.26 When men have hearts of stone and foreheads of brass, it is a sign that the devil has taken full possession of them. There is no creature capable of shame but man. The brute beasts are capable of fear and pain, but not of shame. You cannot make a beast blush. Those who cannot blush for sin too much resemble the beasts. There are some so far from this holy blushing that they are proud of their sins. They are proud of their long hair. These are the devil’s Nazarites. “Does not even nature itself teach you, that, if a man has long hair, it is a shame to him?” (1 Corinthians 11:14). It confounds the distinction of the sexes. Others are proud of their black spots. And what if God should turn them into blue spots?
Others are so far from being ashamed of sin that they glory in their sins: “whose glory is in their shame” (Php 3:19). Some are ashamed of what is their glory: they are ashamed to be seen with a good book in their hand. Others glory in what is their shame: they look at sin as a piece of gallantry. The swearer thinks his speech is most graceful when it is interspersed with oaths. The drunkard considers it a glory that he can drink to excess (Isaiah 5:22). But when men are thrown into a fiery furnace, heated seven times hotter by the breath of the Almighty, then let them boast of sin as they see cause.
Use 2. Let us show our penitence by a modest blushing: “O my God, I blush to lift up my face” (Ezra 9:6). “My God” – there was faith; “I blush” – there was repentance. Hypocrites will confidently avouch God to be their God, but they do not know how to blush. O let us take holy shame to ourselves for sin. Be assured, the more we are ashamed of sin now, the less we will be ashamed at Christ’s coming. If the sins of the godly are mentioned at the Day of Judgment, it will not be to shame them, but to magnify the riches of God’s grace in pardoning them. Indeed, the wicked will be ashamed at the last day. They will sneak around and hang down their heads; but the saints will be without spot then (Ephesians 5:27), and without shame; therefore they are bid to lift up their heads (Luke 21:28) Ingredient 5: Hatred of Sin The fifth ingredient in repentance is hatred of sin. The Schoolmen27 distinguished two objects of holy hatred: hatred of abominations, and hatred of enmity.
Firstly, there is a hatred or loathing of abominations: “You shall loathe yourselves for your iniquities” (Ezekiel 36:31). A true penitent is a sin-loather. If a man loathes what makes him sick to his stomach, then he will much more loathe what makes his conscience sick. It is more to loathe sin than to leave it. One may leave sin out of fear, as when the plate and jewels are thrown overboard in a storm; but the nauseating and loathing of sin argues for detesting it. Christ is never loved till sin is loathed. Heaven is never longed for till sin is loathed. When a soul sees an issue of blood flowing, he cries out, “Lord, when will I be freed from this body of death? When will I put off these filthy garments of sin and have the fair crown of glory set upon my head? Let all my self-love be turned into self-loathing” (Zec 3.45). We are never more precious in God’s eyes than when we are lepers in our own.
Secondly, there is a hatred of enmity. There is no better way to discover life than by motion. The eye moves, the pulse beats. So to discover repentance, there is no better sign than by a holy antipathy against sin. Hatred, said Cicero, is anger boiled up to inveteracy. Sound repentance begins in the love of God, and it ends in the hatred of sin.
How may true hatred of sin be known?
1. When a man’s spirit is set against sin The tongue not only complains bitterly against sin, but the heart abhors it; so that however curiously painted sin may appear, it is odious to us. It is like abhorring the picture of someone we mortally hate, even though it may be well-drawn. “I do not love you, Sabidius.”28 Suppose a dish is finely cooked and the sauce is good; if a man detests the meat, he still will not taste it. So even if the devil were to cook and dress sin with pleasure and profit to make it attractive, a true penitent who inwardly abhors it, will be disgusted by it, and will not meddle with it.
2. True hatred of sin is universal True hatred of sin is universal in two ways: in respect to the faculties, and to the object.
(1) Hatred is universal in respect to the faculties; that is, there is a dislike of sin not only in the judgment, but in the will and affections. Many a person is convinced that sin is a vile thing, and in his judgment he is averse to it; yet he tastes its sweetness and he has a secret complacency in it. This is disliking sin in the judgment and embracing it in the affections. In true repentance, the hatred of sin is in all the faculties, and not just in the intellectual part; but mainly it is in the will: “what I hate, that I do” (Romans 7:15). Paul was not free from sin, yet his will was against it.
(2) Hatred is universal in respect to the object. He hates not just one sin, but all sin. Aristotle said, hatred is against the whole kind. The one who hates a serpent hates all serpents: “I hate every false way” (Psalms 119:104). Hypocrites will hate some sins which mar their credit, but a true convert hates all sins, gainful sins, surface sins, even the very stirrings of corruption. Paul hated the motions of sin (Romans 7:23).
3. True hatred against sin is against sin in all forms A holy heart detests sin for its intrinsic pollution. Sin leaves a stain upon the soul. A regenerate person abhors sin not only for the curse but for the contagion. He hates this serpent not only for its sting but for its poison. He hates sin not only for hell, but as hell.
4. True hatred is implacable
It will never be reconciled to sin any more. Anger may be reconciled, but hatred cannot. Sin is like Amalek, which is never to be taken into favor again.29 The war between a child of God and sin is like the war between those two princes: “there was war between Rehoboam and Jeroboam all their days” (1Kng 14.30).
5. Where there is a real hatred, we not only oppose sin in ourselves but in others too The church at Ephesus could not bear with those who were evil (Revelation 2:2). Paul sharply censured Peter for his dissimulation even though he was an apostle. Christ in a holy displeasure whipped the money-changers out of the temple (John 2:15). He would not allow the temple to be made into an exchange. Nehemiah rebuked the nobles for their usury (Nehemiah 5:7) and their Sabbath profanity (Nehemiah 13:17). A sin-hater will not endure wickedness in his family: “The one who works deceit shall not dwell within my house” (Psalms 101:7). What a shame it is when magistrates can show the height of spirit in their passions, but no heroic spirit in suppressing vice. Those who have no antipathy against sin are strangers to repentance. Sin in them is like poison in a serpent, which being natural to it, affords delight.
Those who love sin instead of hating it, are far from repentance! To the godly, sin is a thorn in the eye; to the wicked, it is a crown on the head: “When you do evil, then you rejoice” (Jeremiah 11:15). Loving sin is worse than committing it. A good man may run into a sinful action unaware; but to love sin is desperate. What is it that makes a swine but loving to tumble in the mire? What is it that makes a devil but loving what opposes God? To love sin shows that the will is in sin; and the more of the will there is in a sin, the greater the sin. Willfulness makes it a sin that is not purged by sacrifice (Hebrews 10:26).
O how many there are that love the forbidden fruit! They love their oaths and adulteries; they love the sin and hate the reproof. Solomon speaks of a generation of men: “madness is in their heart while they live” (Ecclesiastes 9:3). So for men to love sin, to hug what will be their death, to sport with damnation, “madness is in their heart.”
Repentance persuades us to show it by our bitter hatred of sin. There is a deadly antipathy between the scorpion and the crocodile; there should be such antipathy between the heart and sin.
Question: What is there in sin that may make a penitent hate it?
Answer: Sin is the cursed thing, the most misshapen monster. The apostle Paul uses a very emphatic word to express it: “that sin might become exceedingly sinful” (Romans 7:13), or as it is in the Greek, “hyperbolically sinful.” That sin is a hyperbolical mischief and deserves hatred will appear if we look at sin as a fourfold conceit:
(1) Look at the origin of sin, where it comes from. It fetches its pedigree from hell: “The one who commits sin is of the devil, for the devil sins from the beginning” (1 John 3:8). Sin is the devil’s proper work. God has a hand in ordering sin, it is true; but Satan has a hand in acting it out. How hateful is it to be doing the special work of the devil, indeed, what makes men devils?
(2) Look upon sin in its nature, and it will appear very hateful. See how Scripture has penciled it out: it dishonors God (Romans 2:23); despises God (1 Samuel 2:30); enrages God (Ezekiel 16:43); wearies God (Isaiah 7:13); breaks the heart of God, just as a loving husband is broken-hearted with the unchaste conduct of his wife “I am broken with their whorish heart” (Ezekiel 6:9). Sin, when acted to its height, crucifies Christ afresh and puts him to open shame (Hebrews 6:6); that is, impudent sinners pierce Christ in his saints, and if he were now upon the earth, they would crucify him again. Behold the odious nature of sin.
(3) Look upon sin in its comparison, and it appears ghastly. Compare sin with affliction and hell, and it is worse than both. It is worse than affliction, sickness, poverty, or death. There is more malignity in a drop of sin than in a sea of affliction, for sin is the cause of affliction, and the cause is more than the effect. The sword of God’s justice lies quiet in the scabbard till sin draws it out. Affliction is good for us: “It is good for me that I have been afflicted” (Psalms 119:71). Affliction causes repentance (2 Chronicles 33:12). The viper, having stricken, throws up its poison. So God’s rod striking us, causes us to spit away the poison of sin. Affliction betters our grace. Gold is purest and juniper is sweetest in the fire. Affliction prevents damnation (1 Corinthians 11:32). Therefore, Maurice the emperor30 prayed to God to punish him in this life so that he might not be punished hereafter. Thus, affliction is in many ways for our good. But there is no good in sin. Manasseh’s affliction brought him to humiliation,31 but Judas’ sin brought him to desperation.
Affliction only reaches the body, but sin goes further: it poisons the imagination, and disorders the affections. Affliction is only corrective; sin is destructive. Affliction can only take away the life; sin takes away the soul (Luke 12:20). A man that is afflicted may have his conscience at peace. When the ark was tossed on the waves, Noah could sing in the ark. When the body is afflicted and tossed, a Christian can “make melody in his heart to the Lord” (Ephesians 5:19). But when a man commits sin, his conscience is terrified. Witness Spira who, upon abjuring the faith, said that he thought the damned spirits did not feel those torments which he inwardly endured.32 In affliction, one may have the love of God (Revelation 3:19). If a man were to throw a bag of money at another man, and hurt the other man a little with it and raised the skin, that other man would not take it unkindly; he would look at it as a fruit of love. So it is when God bruises us with affliction; it is to enrich us with the golden graces and comforts of his Spirit. All is done in love. But when we commit sin, God withdraws his love. When David sinned, he felt nothing but displeasure from God: “Clouds and darkness are round about him” (Psalms 97:2). David found it so. He could see no rainbow, no sunbeam, nothing but clouds and darkness aorund God’s face.
It is evident that sin is worse than affliction because the greatest judgment God lays upon a man in this life is to let him sin without control. When the Lord’s displeasure is most severely kindled against a person, he does not say, ‘I will bring the sword and the plague on this man,’ but, ‘I will let him sin on.’ – “So I gave them up to their own hearts’ rust” (Psalms 81:12). Now, if giving a man up to his sins (in God’s own account) is the most dreadful evil, then sin is far worse than affliction. And if it is so, then how it should be hated by us!
Compare sin with hell, and you will see that sin is worse. Torment has its emphasis in hell, yet there is nothing as bad as sin. Hell is God’s making, but sin is none of his making. Sin is the devil’s creature. The torments of hell are a burden only to the sinner, but sin is a burden to God: “I am pressed under you, as a cart is pressed that is full of sheaves” (Amos 2:13). In the torments of hell, there is something that is good, namely, the execution of divine justice. There is justice to be found in hell, but sin is a piece of the highest injustice. It would rob God of his glory, rob Christ of his purchase, and rob the soul of its happiness. Judge then if sin is not the most hateful thing, even worse than affliction or hell.
(4) Look at sin in the issue and consequence of it, and it will appear hateful. Sin reaches the body. It has exposed it to a variety of miseries. We come into the world with a cry and go out with a groan. As Herodotus33 tells us, it made the Thracians weep on their children’s birthday, to consider the calamities they were to undergo in the world. Sin is the Trojan horse out of which comes a whole army of troubles. I do not need to name them because almost everyone feels them. While we suck the honey we are pricked by the briar. Sin gives a dash of poison in the wine of our comforts; it digs our grave (Romans 5:12).
Sin reaches the soul. By sin we have lost the image of God, which consisted of both our sanctity and our majesty. Adam in his pristine glory was like a herald who wears the coat of arms. Everyone reverences him because he carries the king’s coat of arms. But pull this coat off, and no man regards him. Sin has done this disgrace to us. It has plucked off our coat of innocence. But that is not all. This barbed arrow of sin would strike yet deeper. It would forever separate us from the beautiful vision of God, in whose presence is fullness of joy. If sin is so hyperbolically sinful, it should swell our spleen and stir up our implacable indignation against it. Just as Ammon’s hatred of Tamar was greater than his love for her (2 Samuel 13:15), so we should hate sin infinitely more than we ever loved it.
Ingredient 6: Turning from Sin The sixth ingredient in repentance is a turning from sin. Reformation is left last to bring up the rear of repentance. What if one could, with Niobe, 34 weep himself into a stone if he did not weep out sin? True repentance, like aqua fortis [nitric acid], eats away the iron chain of sin. Therefore, weeping and turning are put together in Joel 2:12. After the cloud of sorrow has dripped in tears, the firmament of the soul is clearer: “Repent, and turn yourselves from your idols; and turn away your faces from all your abominations” (Ezekiel 14:6). This turning from sin is called a forsaking of sin (Isaiah 55:7), just as a man forsakes the company of a thief or sorcerer. It is called “putting sin far away” (Job 11:14), just as Paul put away the viper and shook it into the fire (Acts 28:5). Dying to sin is the life of repentance. The very day a Christian turns from sin, he must commit himself to a perpetual fast. The eye must fast from impure glances. The ear must fast from hearing slanders. The tongue must fast from oaths. The hands must fast from bribes. The feet must fast from the path of the harlot. And the soul must fast from the love of wickedness. This turning from sin implies evident change.
There is a change worked in the heart. The flinty heart has become fleshly. Satan wanted Christ to prove his deity by turning stones into bread. Christ has worked a far greater miracle in making stones become flesh. In repentance, Christ turns a heart of stone into flesh.
There is a change worked in the life. Turning from sin is so visible that others may discern it. Therefore it is called a change from darkness to light (Ephesians 5:8). Paul, after he had seen the heavenly vision, was so turned that all men wondered at the change (Acts 9:21). Repentance turned the jailer into a nurse and physician (Acts 16:33). He took the apostles and washed their wounds and set meat before them. Say a ship is going eastward; a wind comes which turns it westward. Likewise, a man is hell-ward bound before the contrary wind of the Spirit blew, turned his course, and caused him to sail heaven-ward. Chrysostom, speaking of the Ninevites’ repentance, said that if a stranger who had seen Nineveh’s excess had gone into the city after they repented, he would scarcely have believed it was the same city, because it was so metamorphosed and reformed. Repentance makes such a visible change in a person, as if another soul lodged in the same body. A few things are required so that turning from sin is rightly qualified:
1. It must be a turning from sin with the heart The heart is the primum livens, the first thing that lives, and it must be the primum vertens, the first thing that turns. The heart is what the devil strives hardest for. He never strived for the body of Moses as he does for the heart of man. In religion, the heart is everything. If the heart is not turned from sin, it is no better than a lie: “her treacherous sister Judah has not turned to me with her whole heart, but in pretense” (Jeremiah 3:10) or as it is in Hebrew, “in a lie.” Judah made a show of reformation; she was not so grossly idolatrous as the ten tribes. Yet Judah was worse than Israel: she is called “treacherous” Judah. She pretended to be reformed, but it was not in truth. Her heart was not for God: she did not turn with the whole heart.
It is odious to make a show of turning from sin while the heart is still in league with it. I have read of one of our Saxon kings who was baptized, who in the same church had one altar for the Christian religion and another for the heathen. God will have the whole heart turned from sin. True repentance must have no reserves or inmates.
2. It must be a turning from all sin
“Let the wicked forsake his way” (Isaiah 55:7). A real penitent turns off the road of sin. Every sin is abandoned: just as Jehu would have all the priests of Baal slain (1Kng 10.24), so a true convert seeks the destruction of every lust; not one must escape. He knows how dangerous it is to entertain any one sin. Someone who hides one rebel in his house is a traitor to the Crown, and someone who indulges one sin is a traitorous hypocrite.
3. It must be a turning from sin upon a spiritual ground. A man may restrain the acts of sin, and yet not turn from sin in a right manner. Act of sin may be restrained out of fear or design; but a true penitent turns from sin out of a religious principle, namely, love to God. Even if sin did not bear such bitter fruit, even if death did not grow on this tree, a gracious soul would forsake it out of love for God. This is the most kindly turning from sin. When things are frozen and congealed, the best way to separate them is by fire. When men and their sins are congealed together, the best way to separate them is by the fire of love. Three men ask one another what made them leave sin. One says, “I think of the joys of heaven;” another said, “I think of the torments of hell;” but the third said, “I think of the love of God, and that makes me forsake it. How shall I offend the God of love?”
4. It must be such a turning from sin as turns to God. This is in the text, “that they should repent and turn to God” (Acts 26:20). Turning from sin is like pulling the arrow out of the wound; turning to God is like pouring in the balm. We read in Scripture of a repentance from dead works (Hebrews 6:1), and a repentance toward God (Acts 20:21). Unsound hearts pretend to leave old sins, but they do not turn to God or embrace his service. It is not enough to forsake the devil’s quarters; we must get under Christ’s banner and wear his colors. The repenting prodigal not only left his harlots, but he arose and went to his father. It was God’s complaint, “They return, but not to the most High” (Hosea 7:16). In true repentance, the heart points directly to God just as the compass needle points to the North Pole.
5. True turning from sin is such a turn as has no return.
“Ephraim will say, ‘What have I to do any more with idols?’” (Hosea 14:8). Forsaking sin must be like forsaking one’s native soil, never more to return to it. Some have seemed to be converts and seemed to have turned from sin, but they returned to their sins again. This is a returning to folly (Psalms 85:8). It is a fearful sin, for it is against clear light. It may be supposed that someone who left his sin, felt his sin bitterly in the pangs of his conscience. Yet he returned to it again; he therefore sins against the illuminations of the Spirit.
Such a return to sin reproaches God: “What iniquity have your fathers found in me, that they are gone far from me?” (Jeremiah 2:5) Someone who returns to sin, by implication charges God with some evil. If a man puts away his wife, it implies that he knows of some fault by her. To leave God and return to sin is to tacitly asperse the Deity. God, who “hates putting away” (Malachi 2:16), hates that he himself should be put away. To return to sin gives the devil more power over a man than ever. When a man turns from sin, the devil seems to be cast out of him; but when he returns to sin, the devil enters into his house again and takes possession, and “the last state of that man is worse than the first” (Matthew 12:45). When a prisoner has broken out of prison, and the jailer gets him again, he will put stronger irons on him. The one who ends a course of sinning, as it were, breaks out of the devil’s prison. But if Satan takes him again by his returning to sin, Satan will hold him faster and take fuller possession of him than ever. Oh take heed of this! A true turning from sin means divorcing it, so as never to come near it any more. Whoever is thus turned from sin is a blessed person: “God, having raised up his Son Jesus, sent him to bless you, in turning away every one of you from his iniquities” (Acts 3:26).
Use 1. Is turning from sin a necessary ingredient in repentance? If so, then there is little repentance to be found. People are not turned from their sins; they are still the same as they were. They were proud, and so they still are. Like the beasts in Noah’s ark, they went into the ark unclean and came out unclean. Men come to ordinances impure and go away impure. Though men have seen so many changes without, yet there is no change worked within: “the people do not turn to him who strikes” (Isaiah 9:13). How can those who do not turn say they have repented? Have those who still have their leprosy on their forehead washed in the Jordan?35 May not God say to the unreformed, as he once said to Ephraim, “Ephraim is joined to idols: let him alone” (Hosea 4:17)? Likewise, here is a man joined to his drunkenness and uncleanness: let him alone; let him go on in sin. But if there is either justice in heaven or vengeance in hell, he shall not go unpunished.
Use 2. It reproves those who are only half-turned. And who are these? Those who turn in their judgment but not in their practice. They can only acknowledge that sin, like Saturn,36 has a bad influence on them, and they weep for sin, yet they are so bewitched by it that they have no power to leave it. Their corruptions are stronger than their convictions. These are half-turned, “almost Christians” (Acts 26:20). They are like Ephraim, who was a cake baked on one side, but raw dough on the other (Hosea 7:8)
They are half-turned if they turn only from gross sin but have no intrinsic work of grace. They do not prize Christ or love holiness. Those who only act civil are like Jonah: he had a plant to protect him from the heat of the sun and thought he was safe; but a worm quickly appeared and devoured the plant. So men, when they are turned from gross sin, think their civility will be a cover to defend themselves from the wrath of God. But at death, the worm of conscience arises, and strikes this plant, and then their hearts fail, and they begin to despair.
They are half-turned if they turn from many sins, but are unturned from some special sin. There is a harlot in the bosom which they will not let go of. It is as if a man were cured of several diseases, but has a cancer remaining in his breast that kills him. It reprimands those whose turning is as good as no turning, those who expel one devil only to welcome another. They turn from swearing to slandering, from profuseness to covetousness, like a sick man that turns from a tertian fever to a quartan.37 Such turning will turn men to hell.
Use 3. Let us show ourselves penitents by turning from sin to God. There are some persons I have little hope to prevail with. Let the trumpet of the word sound ever so shrill, let threats be thundered out against them, let some flashes of hellfire be thrown in their faces, and they will still have another play at sin. These persons seem to be like the swine in the Gospel, violently carried down into the sea by the devil. They would rather be damned than turn: “they hold fast to deceit, they refuse to return” (Jeremiah 8:5). But if there is any candor or sobriety in us, if our conscience is not in a deep sleep, then let us listen to the voice of the charmer,38 and turn to God our supreme good.
How often does God call upon us to turn to him? He swears, “As I live, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked: turn, turn from your evil ways” (Ezekiel 33:11). God would rather have our repenting tears than our blood.
Turning to God is for our profit. Our repentance does not benefit God, but ourselves. If a man drinks from a fountain he benefits himself, not the fountain. If he beholds the light of the sun, he is the one refreshed by it, not the sun. If we turn from our sins to God, God is not advantaged by it. It is only we ourselves who reap the benefit. In this case, self-love should prevail with us: “If you are wise, you will be wise for yourself” (Proverbs 9:12).
If we turn to God, he will turn to us. He will turn his anger from us, and turn his face to us. It was David’s prayer, “O turn to me, and have mercy upon me” (Psalms 86:16). Our turning will make God turn: “Turn to me, says the Lord, and I will turn to you” (Zechariah 1:3). The one who was an enemy will turn to be our friend. If God turns to us, then the angels are turned to us. We will have their tutelage and guardianship (Psalms 91:11). If God turns to us, all things will turn to our good, both mercies and afflictions; we shall taste honey at the end of the rod.39 Thus we have seen the several ingredients of repentance.