Vol 01 - Chapter 03 - Of Repentance.

Chapter 03 - Of Repentance
1. THE Lord, whose mercy is infinite, will by no means seek our destruction, but our life and salvation. He best knows the deplorable condition we are fallen into by sin; and is at the same greatly desirous to secure the interest of our souls, by reclaiming us from so dangerous a state. It is for this reason he so earnestly invites us to a sincere and unfeigned repentance; this being the only and never-failing means of our help and safety.
2. To repent, is to feel and acknowledge the natural blindness, corruption, and detestable impurity festering within us, as the very source of all sin, whereby we depart from GOD, the supreme and eternal Good, and deserve, besides temporal punishments, his everlasting wrath in the inextinguishable flames of hell. It is to lament, and from the bottom of our hearts to bewail, the deplorable crookedness of our nature; and this from an inward sense of the heinousness of our provocations, offered to so merciful a Father. We may then rely on the favor of GOD, and sure remission of sins in CHRIST Jesus; which will be attended with a serious amendment of life, a constant purification of our hearts by faith, a mortification of our evil desires, a conquering our rebellious and disobedient spirit, a renouncing our own will, opposite to thatt of GOD, and a new life acceptable unto God.
3. But seeing by nature we are so far blinded as to be utterly unable to discover our own fall and wretchedness; God has been pleased to afford means for bringing us to a knowledge of ourselves, viz. his iVord and Sacraments; which being duly used, will be accompanied always by his own grace and Spirit. By these the Father draws, allures, and calls us to himself, as so many lost and wandering sheep. " For it is God which worketh in us both to will and to do of his good pleasure."
4. As soon as the Lord awakens us by the use of these means, and invites us to repentance, it is then our part not to withstand his grace and Spirit; (""To-day if ye will hear his voice, harden not your hearts;") but to acknowledge the sin which he begins to reprove in us, and by no means make light of the grace offered us in the gospel; and then God will assuredly have mercy upon us, as he himself declares: " Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts; and let him return unto the Lord, and he will have mercy upon him; and to our GOD, for he will abundantly pardon."
5. And upon this account the work of conversion, though it be entirely a free gift of GOD, is yet in one respect ascribed to us, viz. inasmuch as we give up ourselves to the Lord and his operations, not resisting willfully his Spirit; or, as the apostle expresses it, "not putting his Word from us," nor " stopping our ears" against it, as the Jews of old did. We ought therefore most fervently to implore the Lord not to withdraw from us his gracious assistance, without which we must certainly go astray. For since the old nature is so deeply woven into our flesh and blood, we have need of daily, yea, hourly, supplies of grace, for repressing sin, and nourishing the life of God. For as the life of the body, bereft of the air, must needs be extinguished; so the inward life will speedily languish, without a daily support of the grace of God. For this reason prayed Solomon, " The Lord our God be with us; let him not leave us, nor forsake us; that he may incline our hearts unto him, tck walk in all his ways."
6. Let us now consider the manner of our returning to God: cc With all the heart, (says the prophet,) with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning." Wretched mortals can weep floods of tears for empty and perishing goods, whilst they remain unmoved at the miserable state of their souls, and the loss of eternal goods! being therein altogether unlike David, who sets a shining pattern o f sincere repentance before us. " For the Lord looks on the heart, and trieth the heart and reins."
7. If we truly repent of our sins, the Lord " repenteth him of the evil:" which is as if he should say, It is the nature of God to punish with reluctance; and when he-is even constrained thereto, " it is not for our destruction, but salvation; that we may not be condemned with the world." He then does "his strange work," [of punishment,] "that he may bring to pass his own work," [of mercy.] Thus he repented of the evil he had designed against Nineveh. And therefore " it is good that a man should both hope, and quietly wait for the salvation of the Lord. For the Lord will not cast off for ever. But though he cause grief, yet will he have compassion, according to the multitude of his mercies; for he does not afflict the children of men," This boundless mercy is the sabre at this day, and will con tinue so for ever to returning sinners. Go therefore, O man, and answer this flowing mercy of God with suitable returns of love and repentance!
8. There are four fruits of true repentance. The first is for a man to account himself unworthy of all the mercies of God. A person truly humble and penitent, thinks himself unworthy of any of God's benefits; and even of the daily food and refreshment by which he is sustained. And this after the example of CHRIST himself; who, parched with thirst upon the cross, and having vinegar presented to him, only said, " It is finished." This was the reason also why those, who under the Old Testament seriously entered upon the work of reformation, did judge themselves entirely unworthy of any good; and putting sackdoes on their skin, sat in the dust, and satisfied their hunger only with bread defiled with ashes, and their thirst with water mingled with tears, for a testimony they did not deserve any more dainty food, but merited rather to eat and to drink, together with their food, the tears plentifully trickling down upon it.
9. So does the prodigal son,, after his happy return, express his sorrowful mind to his father, " Father, I am no more worthy to be called thy son; make me as one of thy hired servants." And the woman of Canaan was even content to be called a dog, if she were permitted to "eat -of, the crumbs falling from the Master's table." So the apostle Peter, " Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord;" that is, unworthy with whom you should have any converse. And the centurion of Capernaum was of the same mind: " Lord," says he, " I am not worthy that you should come under my roof." And if the heart of a Christian be brought to this sense of its own vileness, then it is truly contrite and humble, and fit to be made a living sacrifice to God.
10. A second fruit of true repentance is, to grieve at nothing so much as at the offences offered to God. It is certain that God must needs be offended with every sin committed by men; since the nature of sin is directly opposite to the nature of God. Thus, by unrighteousness, the righteousness of God is offended, he being Righteousness itself. By lying, the truth of God is offended, he being Truth itself. By hatred, the love of God is offended, he being Charity itself. In a word, since God is the perfection of all virtue and goodness, it can be no less than diabolical malice to offend such an infinite Goodness. Had he at any time injured us, it would be no great, wonder if we did offend him again in our turn; but now., when he gives its nothing but what is good-soul, body, and life itself-when he feeds and clothes us;-yea, pardons our sins, when we pour out our souls to him;-when he has given us his only Son, with the Holy Spirit, and adopted us for his sons;-after he has done all this for men-to offend him, to oppose, to hate him, shows an impudence, a madness, and a malice, altogether unaccountable and monstrous.
11. Would it not be highly horrid and impious, to kill him who gave thee life; to wound him who kindly cherished thee in his bosom; to insult and affront him who heaped honors upon thee; and to disown him who had chosen thee for his son Behold all these, and far greater injuries and indignities, you offerest to thy heavenly Father, to the supreme, the righteous, the holy GOD, whom angels trembling adore, and whom seraphim worship with the acclamations of " Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory!"
12. The third property of repentance is contained in these words, 11Iy clays are like a shadow that declineth; and I art withered litre grass. A heart truly penitent, is deeply sensible of its own weakness. It entirely despairs of its own strength, knowing itself to be as destitute of life and power as the very shadow; and as empty of spirit and moisture as the grass that fades away. The same is affirmed in another psalm, "Behold you have made my days as an hand-breadth, and mine age is as nothing before (lice; verily every mall in his best state is altogether vanity." O how noble a step would it be towards true wisdom, were man but sensible of his own nothingness Man is as great a nothing as a shadow itself. As a shadow is without substance, without life, and without motion of itself, and vanishes at the departure of the sun; so is man, whenever the Lord withdraws the light of life from him. And it is worthy of observation, that the nigher the sun is, the lesser are the shadows observed to be. And, on the contrary, The farther the sun removes from us, the larger do the shadows appear. The same happens to a man. The more of God and of his gifts is present with a pious man, the less he esteemeth himself, the less he boasteth of himself, and of what he calls his. On the contrary, The farther a man is from GOD, the more he swells with a high conceit of himself, the more is he puffed up with his parts and. abilities, the more he extends the bounds of pride and haughtiness,, and the less he knows how to keep within compass.
13. Again, As shadows at the setting of the sun are greatest, yet even then just ready to disappear, their. greatness being but a forerunner of their approaching end: so is it with the shadows of this world, and the whole train of vain pomps and pleasures which commonly then post away on a sudden, when we are most lifted up by them; it being generally a sign of imminent destruction, when a person comes to rely on the shadowy appearances of perishing grandeur. For as the shadows vanish upon the withdrawing of the sun; so, when empty man becometh great in his own eyes, the Divine sun setteth upon him unawares, and he returns to his nothing. Moreover, as the shadow has no life of itself, but entirely moveth with the motion of the sun; so man, of his own nature, is destitute of life and motion; and it is God alone who is able to put life and motion in hind. And the hour of death will fully declare,' that a man's " days on the earth are as a shadow;" nay, " as grass which grows up," but soon withereth when it is mown down: so does our life fade away immediately, when it is cut down by the fatal scythe of death. Lo! thus are our days consumed into smoke, and we are " gone like the shadow when it declineth."
14. The fourth fruit of true repentance is our union with GOD, implied in' these words, But You, O Lord, shall endure for ever; and thy remembrance unto all generations. As if the prophet had said, "Though I am like a perishing shadow, and wither like the grass here, yet in thee I shall abide for ever, as you thyself art an eternal Good." As by sin a man is divorced from God; so, by true conversion, he is again united to him. As the person of CHRIST is indivisible, notwithstanding his two natures, and as the Eternal Deity united the human nature in CHRIST Jesus with itself in so firm a bond, as is not to be. dissolved by death itself; the humanity of CHRIST remaining in perpetual union with the Divinity, and being filled with the glory residing therein; so, in the work of a true conversion unto GOD, penitent and believing souls are so closely united to GOD, that neither life nor death can separate them from him; for he that is joined to the Lord is "one spirit," God betrothing us unto himself for ever.
15. In a word; CHRIST himself is of this a most sufficient witness to us, and in us; and he is that Book of Life wherein we are plainly taught, that, as his human nature abideth eternally united with the Divine; so all those that continue faithful to him, shall be eternally united with their Lord and Head. For as God is eternal, and CHRIST is eternal, so the promises of God in CHRIST are also eternal; he having made with us a covenant of everlasting grace. So that, how much soever we may be forsaken of the world, how much soever vexed and tormented by sin and the devil; nay, if even our flesh and our heart should fail, yet is God the " strength of,our heart, and our portion for ever."