it not make an entire renovation of mind absolutely needful? or can any one be absurd enough to suppose that the guilt of withholding all esteem, desire, and affection from God, is in a manner cancelled by an amiable deportment to brothers or sisters, relations or friends? If a sense of your obligations to God as your Creator, Redeemer, and Sanctifier, has no share in directing your pursuits and modelling your tempers; the difference with respect to God must be of very little account, whether your reigning self-love be gratified in a way more reputable amongst men, rather than in one which would expose you as well to shame here, as to the wrath of God hereafter. In one case as well as the other, there is no sense of God, no practice of your duty towards him; and therefore unless true repentance takes place, you still remain an apostate creature, involved in all the capital guilt and misery of the fall: you remain a creature setting up your own will above the law of God, consequently if you die under the power of such a spirit, you must perish for

ever.

Equally vain and frivolous is it (though so deplorably frequent) for men to confide in the fidelity and justice with which they trade, or in the general benevolence of their character, as if this were to supersede in their case the necessity of repentance. For you may detest every species of dishonesty and villany, of cruel and oppressive deportment, whilst pride and self-sufficiency reign undisturbed in your soul; whilst every temper by which due homage is paid to God, is a stranger to your heart. Honesty and benevolence, upon whatever principle they are exercised, are sure to be applauded by selfish men, yet must these dispositions be the offspring of an humble heart, before they can find acceptance with God. Though I give all my goods to the poor, unless this love of my neighbour spring from love to God (which before true repentance can have no place in my heart) it profiteth me nothing; it will not be found a virtue, when weighed in the balance of the sanctuary. So far indeed is the practice of social duties from rendering godly sorrow, humiliation for sin, and absolute dependence upon the blood of Christ unnecessary; that the haughty profane imagination of its doing so, as much needs mercy to pardon it, as the grossest act

of injustice towards men: since it proves the whole head and heart, which could give place to such a thought, utterly depraved.

You have now been instructed in the nature of true repentance, and the indispensable necessity there is that every fallen creature should experience that entire change of judgment, practice, and affections, which true repentance implies: I would flatter myself therefore that your conscience is now in some degree awakened; I would flatter myself that you have an earnest desire to be informed what course you must take to be brought into a state of true repentance: if this be your desire, instead of multiplying directions, it will suffice to press you to observe the few following.

First, Frequently read the Scripture with seriousness and unfeigned submission to it, as the method prescribed by God himself for your recovery, and let your thoughts dwell on what immediately respects your own case, that is, the nature and workings of true repentance. The fiftyfirst Psalm will unfold to you the heart of the penitent contrite David; and the fifteenth of St. Luke, the affecting return of a sinner in your own condition to his much injured father. The same inward and entire change of heart is described at large in the fifth chapter of the Ephesians, and in the sixth also to the 17th verse. Upon these and similar portions of Scripture you must carefully meditate. Whilst thus employed, you are in the way to receive some enlivening communications, to find desires after God spring up in your soul, to feel the working of those very dispositions towards him, which, as you have learned from his own word, denote true repentance.

Secondly, Consider the corruption of your nature, and the many sins you have actually committed. Only commune with your own heart, and you will immediately find your inclinations strongly bent to many things, which your conscience tells you ought not to be done: and that you have a great aversion to other things which are in themselves excellent, and ought to be done by you; you will observe a miserable confusion and inconsistency in your thoughts, a perverseness in your will, and a prevailing sensuality in your affections.

The fruit of this universal depravity you must also care

fully observe, as it has appeared in the multitude of your transgressions. Think of the several places you have lived in, and what, in each of these, your sins have been: take an account of your offences against those with whom you have dealt in a way of trade, or conversed with intimacy and friendship, or those on whom you should have had compassion and exercised the most tender love: mark those sins which have arisen from your outward circumstances; and above all reflect deeply on what is, strictly speaking, your own iniquity, the sin to which you are most enslaved, whether passion, envy, unclean desire, pride and self-conceit, lying, the love of money or of esteem: take notice in how many instances it has broken out, so as to leave uneasy impressions on your mind, and yet has been again and again repeated: after this, think how often you have stifled convictions; how often turned away from the offers of grace and calls to repentance: think of your sins against a Redeemer; reflect how long you have willingly lived in ignorance of his undertaking, have disregarded his obedience, though the righteousness of God, and his sacrifice, though that of the Son of God: think of the despite you have done against the Holy Spirit, resisting his motions, and excusing yourself from a compliance with his secret suggestions. And then at the end of all, reckon up the several aggravations of your sin, the judgments and afflictions, the mercies and deliverances, the counsels and reproofs, the light and knowledge, the vows and promises against which you have sinned.

Thirdly, You must pray to the God of all grace, to give you repentance unto life. Naturally you suppose that you have it in your own power to repent, just when you please; at least you suppose the alarming circumstances of sickness and approaching death will of themselves induce you to repent. But this is a vain and proud opinion, which experience daily proclaims to be without foundation, and which the Bible exposes as false to every attentive reader, by calling repentance "the gift of God." For to produce in the heart an abiding sense and detestation of our own vileness, with confidence in the pardoning mercy of God through Christ, with a zeal for his glory expressing itself in newness of life, (which alone is what the Bible means

by repentance,) to produce a change of this nature belongeth only to the effectual working of God's Holy Spirit. Self-love and pride with all their force withstand the charge of sinfulness; every natural inclination of the soul rises up in arms, and opposes with all its might true humiliation. At the same time it is impossible, without divine light and supernatural teaching, to discover any such loveliness in a just and sin-hating God, or in obedience to his law, as to create abhorrence of sinful lusts, too long cherished and indulged as the sources of gratification and pleasure. Therefore it is from the grace of God alone, the fountain of every good and perfect gift, that you must receive repentance unto life. It is your part, as a reasonable and immortal creature, to hear the command of God to repent; and, as a helpless sinner, insufficient to every good work, to pray for his almighty Spirit, that you may be obedient to it. It is your part meekly to confess your own inability to glorify God by true repentance, and to beg of him, in whose hands are the hearts of all men, that you may be turned to him, seeing and bewailing the sin of your nature as well as of your practice, of your heart as well as of your life, and desiring grace to approve yourself to God, in newness of spirit, a sincere penitent.

*

CHAPTER XXI.

THE DISPOSITIONS OF A CHRISTIAN TOWARDS GOD.

As God is altogether lovely in himself, and in his benefits towards us inexpressibly great, so nothing can be more evident than that he ought to reign in our affections without a rival. But to yield this most rightful worship to his Creator, man is naturally averse: and it is owing only to the peculiar doctrines of the gospel, enforced by the power of the Holy Spirit, that the Christian renounces his natural disaffection to his Creator, and glorifies him as God.

"The grace of God," saith the Scripture, "which * See Prayer the 8th.

bringeth salvation, hath appeared to all men;" not merely enjoining them by the force of a command, but teaching them," that is, by the communication of divine knowledge," to deny ungodliness and worldly lusts;" to loathe the very thought of insulting any more their adorable Benefactor by rebellion or of dishonouring him by neglect. The doctrines of grace, like an affectionate tutor, form men to obedience; and when clearly manifested to the understanding and cordially embraced, they make every duty we owe to our Creator appear both rational and easy. They give us a heart, a hand, and sufficient ability to exercise ourselves unto universal godliness.

Having therefore already explained and established those doctrines of grace, which constitute the divine knowledge peculiar and essential to a Christian, I now proceed to a particular delineation of that most excellent practice, by which he differs from the enslaved multitude of unbelieving sinners;-that practice which he esteems his bounden duty, and by which he shews forth the praises of his God and Saviour, who hath called him out of darkness into his marvellous light.

We begin with those various dispositions towards the ever-blessed God, of which the habitual exercise is to be found in the heart of every real Christian.

1. The first disposition of this kind is fear. This is one of those great springs of action by which rational creatures are influenced. It is of the highest importance therefore to have this affection exercised upon some just object, so that the mind may, on the one hand, be armed against vain terrors, and, on the other, be duly impressed by those things which ought to be dreaded. In this excellent manner the affection of fear is regulated in the Christian's breast. Temporal evils of every kind he discerns to be nothing more than instruments in the hand of God, wholly subserving his pleasure, and unable to affect man's most important interest. Therefore he "sanctifies the Lord God in his heart," and regards as "his fear and his dread," Him who is too wise to be deceived, too just to be biased, too mighty to be resisted, and too majestic to be contemplated without reverence and self-abasement. Very different is his fear of the Most High from the terror of a slave, that uneasy feeling