I gave to your fathers; and ye shall be my people, and I will be your God. I will also save you from all your uncleannesses: and I will call for the corn, and will increase it, and lay no famine upon you. And I will multiply the fruit of the tree, and the increase of the field, that ye shall receive no more reproach of famine among the heathen." And then, even at this season of returning peace and plenty, at this season, which so often misleads and intoxicates the mind of man, "Then shall ye remember your own evil ways, and your doings that were not good, and shall loathe yourselves in your own sight, for your iniquities and for your abominations." THE account which we have of these penitents furnisheth us with some very important instructions with regard to the nature of true repentance, which I propose, in the first place, to illustrate; and then to recommend their example to your imitation. And the

but had also profaned the name of God among the heathen whither they went, and continued to do so, until He whom they had offended had pity on them for his own name's sake, and gave them a new heart and a new spirit, having taken away the stony heart out of their flesh, and given them a heart of flesh. A

2d Instruction which we derive from this passage is, That the grief and selfloathing of true penitents, do not flow so much from their feeling that sin is hurtful to themselves, as from the consideration of its own base nature, and especially of the ingratitude which it carries in it towards a kind and merciful God: For when were the Jews to remember their own evil ways? When were they to loathe themselves in their own sight for their iniquities and their abominations? Was it when they felt the rod, and lay under the feet of their cruel oppressors? No; it was when they should be delivered out of their hands, brought back to their own country, and enriched with the multiplied fruits of their trees, and the increase of their fields. Then were their sins to rise

1st Instruction which we obtain from this passage is, That true repentance is the gift of God, and the peculiar effect of his Holy Spirit. The course of Providence is indeed admirably adapted to re-up in their remembrance, filling them with claim the sinner from the error of his ways. grief and shame, for having offended a Bitterness is written as with a sunbeam Being of such transcendant goodness, and on the line of folly; and certain degrees unmerited condescension. of misery never fail to accompany our deviations from the path of duty. Yet so dead are men naturally in trespasses and sins, that nothing less than a divine power can render the best means of reformation effectual. Without this, judgments will harden rather than humble or reclaim the transgressor. We read of Ahaz, king of Judah, that in the time of his distress, he did trespass yet more against the Lord. And we are told in the book of Revelation, that the vials of wrath, which the angels shall pour out upon the men who have the mark of the beast, instead of leading them to repent and give glory to God, shall only cause them to blaspheme the name of God, who hath power over these plagues, and to curse the God of heaven, because of their pains and their sores. The calamities with which the Jews were visited in their captivity to the king of Babylon, were in like manner unproductive of any genuine repentance in that stiff-necked people. They had not only polluted their own land,

Times of calamity do indeed often produce a temporary humiliation and repentance, which for a time resemble the real feelings of penitence; but self-love alone is at the bottom of the appearance. The man is wearied of the inconvenience, but not weaned from the love of sin. But true penitence hath its source in a nobler principle, and is rather the child of love than of fear. It is the melting of the soul at the fire of divine love; it is the relenting of the prodigal son, when his injured father runs forth to meet him; it is the tear of gratitude, which bursts from the condemned criminal, when a pardon from his offended sovereign is put into his hands. It appears, in the

3d place, from this passage, That the soul's conversion to God is the great introductory blessing which renders all other blessings valuable. This is evident from the order in which God arrangeth his promises to his captive people. He first engageth himself to take away the

II. Thing proposed, which was to recommend the example of these penitents described in the texts to your imitation.

provoking cause of his anger, and then | found, and to call upon him while he is to put away his indignation, to receive near, having the certain assurance that he them graciously, and to love them freely. never said to any of the seed of Jacob, The disease began within, and the cure seek ye my face in vain. And this leads must begin there likewise. Their captiv- me to the ity by men was the fruit of their voluntary captivity to sin, and therefore deliverance from sin must precede their deliverance from the hands of men. This God In the undertakes to perform by the powerful agency of his Holy Spirit. A new heart," saith he, "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," verses 26, 27. After which he gives the promise of temporal deliverance in the verses immediately preceding my text. And to show that this was no accidental arrangement, he declares with great solemnity, at the 33d verse, that in this very order he had meditated to dispense his mercy. "Thus saith the Lord God, in the day that I shall have cleansed you from all your iniquities, I will also cause you to dwell in the cities, and the wastes shall be builded."

These are the instructions which we may derive from this passage with regard to the nature of true repentance; and it is only to be added, although not expressly contained in the text, that as this great and valuable blessing cometh down from the Father of lights, who is the author of every good and perfect gift, it is therefore to be sought by our humble supplications and prayers: "For thus saith the Lord God," at the 37th verse of this chapter, "I will yet for this be inquired of by the house of Israel, to do it for them.” God indeed is often found of those who seek him not. His powerful grace sometimes arrests the sinner in his mad career, while he is equally unmindful of God and of himself. But let none despise the use of means, because He who is almighty at times acts without them. It is our part to place ourselves in the way of his mercy, and to wait patiently at the pool until the angel trouble the waters, and communicate to them a healing virtue. It is our part to seek the Lord while he may be

1st place, then, Let me call upon you to remember your ways. The neglect of serious consideration is the ruin of almost every soul that perisheth eternally. Hence it is that we continue in our sins, and that we relapse after having forsaken them; that we decline from our religious attainments, and being again entangled in the pollutions of this world, that our last state becomes worse than our first. All these evils flow from a thoughtless unreflecting life. A great part of mankind pass their days in a course of perpetual dissipation, without once reflecting on their actions, until the near view of an eternal world awakens them from this fatal security. Then, indeed, the case is extremely altered-then the remembrance of his ways forceth itself upon the sinner-then he sees his error, and laments his folly, and prays for mercy, and even asks the prayers of those whom once he derided as precise and fanatical. He would not reflect upon the great truths of religion while he might have done it to a good purpose. Now he reflects, and reflects at leisure; but it is a cruel leisure, for the fruits of it are perplexity and dismay.

God is represented, by the prophet Jeremiah, as putting this question, " Why is the people of Jerusalem slidden back with a perpetual backsliding? They hold fast deceit, they refuse to return." Jer. viii. 5. The answer is given in the following verse, "I hearkened and heard, but they spake not aright; no man repented him of his wickedness, saying, What have I done? The consequence of which was,

Every one turned to his course, as the horse rusheth into the battle." Whereas, did we seriously ask ourselves that important question, What have we done? we would soon discover so much guilt in our doings as to be compelled to ask ourselves another question, What shall I do to be saved?

and even he could pay it in no other way than by suffering the penalty which thou hadst incurred. O how hateful doth sin appear when viewed in this light! Adam's expulsion from paradise, the deluge of the ancient world, the burning of Sodom and Gomorrah, loudly proclaim its pernicious nature and heinous demerit. We feel it to be hurtful in the natural evils of sickness and pain to which it hath subjected us. Death, which is its wages, is an awful monitor of its malignant effects. It appears terrible in the worm that never dieth, and in that fire that is not quenched. But no where doth it appear so deformed and odious as in the sufferings and death of Christ; for how deep must that stain have been, which nothing could wash away but the blood of the Son of God! How deadly that disease which no other medicine could cure!

Let me then prevail with you seriously and impartially to examine your past conduct. Consider what hath been the prevailing course of your life; and rest not satisfied with a general conviction that it hath been wrong, but labor to recollect as many passages of it as you can. Review all its different periods since you came to the years of understanding. Consider the various relations in which you have been placed, the special duties which arose from those relations, and the manner in which you have performed them. This will be a task displeasing indeed to the flesh, and mortifying to the natural pride of your hearts. But you must not hearken to these pernicious counsellors. The more they cry out, Forbear, the more resolutely must you persist. Charge your consciences with it as a religious duty, and implore the Holy Spirit of God to assist your endeavors. When by such means you have discovered your own evil ways, then proceed to consider attentively the nature and degree of that evil which is in them. Let it not suffice to know that you have been sinners, without pondering the dreadful malignity and demerit of sin. View it in its natural turpitude and de- Have not many of your transgressions formity, as the plague and leprosy of the been committed with knowledge and desoul, which renders you loathsome and liberation, nay, with artifice and cunning? abominable in the sight of your Maker. Have they not cost you no small degrees View it as a daring act of rebellion against of study, before those desires which lust the most righteous authority, as the trans-conceived were accomplished in actual gression of a law which is in all respects sin? Have you not courted temptation, holy, just, and good; the precepts of which and wearied yourselves with committing are not only reasonable in themselves, iniquity? Consider what degrees of rebut also most kind and salutary to us. View it as the basest ingratitude towards your best and most unwearied benefactor. View it, above all, in the severity of the punishment which it deserves, exemplified in those mysterious and inconceivable sufferings which the Son of God underwent to expiate its guilt.

But as these considerations are applicable to all sins in common, it will be necessary, in order to your forming a just estimate of your own evil ways, to look more narrowly into the aggravating circumstances with which they have been attended.

sistance from your own minds you have vanquished; what obstacles in Providence you have overcome; what strivings of the Holy Spirit you have defeated in the course of your transgressions. Nay, have not some of your sins been still more aggravated by the breach of express vows and resolutions against them, often reSee here, O sinner, the awful demerit peated with the greatest solemnity? Hide of thy transgressions. Thou wast doomed not your eyes from any of these aggrato the wrath of God, and to everlasting vating circumstances which have attended banishment from his presence; and thou your offences. Every sin which you wil wast not only incapable to deliver thyself fully cover, or extenuate, will thereby by any works or sufferings of thy own, gain an invincible addition of strength. but all the angels in heaven could not Every lust which you conceal in your have offered a price that would have ransomed thy perishing soul. None else could pay thy debt but the Son of God,

bosom, will become a viper which one day will sting you to the heart. Every good disposition, which you magnify, shall lan

guish and pine away; and those treasures of grace, with which the humble are enriched, shall be of no advantage to you, till you feel your poverty and wretchedness. Let me therefore call on you to exercise the

seem to loathe both himself and his sins, he doth neither truly, and there is nothing genuine or promising in this kind of remorse. If the world would be reconciled to him, he would soon be reconciled himself; for at bottom he hath no other quarrel with his sins, but that they happen to be disgraceful in the eyes of those whose

2d Branch of repentance, which is here exemplified to us, viz. Loathing your selves in your own sight, for your iniqui-esteem he would wish to preserve. ties and your abominations. And say, O sinner, is there not cause for this? Dost thou loathe that which is deformed and filthy? "We are all," saith the prophet Isaiah, as an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags. The whole head is sick, and the whole heart faint. From the sole of the foot, even unto the head, there is no soundness in us, but wounds, and bruises, and putrefying sores." Thou art displeased with thine enemies who seek to injure thee; but where is there such an enemy as thou art to thyself? Men may wrong thee in thy temporal interests, but no man, nay, no created being, can ruin thy soul without thine own concurrence. It is thou, and none else, that hast wounded thy conscience, and thrown away thy peace, and exposed thy soul to everlasting misery. Thou abhorrest him who hath killed thy dearest friend; but where hadst thou ever such a friend as the Lord Jesus Christ, whom, by thy sins, thou hast crucified and slain? Thy sins brought him down from heaven to earth; thy sins subjected him to poverty, persecution, and reproach; thy sins involved him in conflicts dreadful and unutterable, nailed him to the cross, and laid him low in the grave. By thy sins thou hast often trampled on his blood, crucified him afresh, and put him to an open shame. Is there not cause then to loathe thyself in thy own sight for thine iniquities and for thine abominations? But as there are several counterfeits of this penitent disposition, it may be proper to mention a few of them, that you may have a clearer view of that self-loathing which I am desirous of recommending to you.

In like manner a natural conscience, irritated by some flagrant violation of the law of God, may severely sting the offender with shame and remorse. Yet when narrowly examined, this shame amounts to no more than a proud vexation, that he cannot think so well of himself as he would wish to do. If the exchange could be made, he would rather part with that conscience which gives him uneasiness, than with those sins which occasion its reproofs; and his only motive in condemning his sins is, that he may pacify that awful monitor. Nay, a man may advance a step farther, and make still nearer approaches to the gracious temper described in the text, without fully attaining it. see the baseness and deformity of sin, and be deeply afflicted at the remembrance of his multiplied transgressions, and yet, through ignorance of the inbred corruption of his nature, he may be far from loathing himself in the spirit of true penitence.

A man who, by his base, unworthy behavior, has forfeited the esteem of the world, may feel much inward shame and uneasiness on that account, which may be mistaken by others, and even by himself, for true humiliation. And yet, though he

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He may

What a beast was I, may he say, to act in a manner so reproachful to my facul-ties? Had I not reason to direct me? Could I not have governed my will and affections? Was I not master of my own heart and ways? Thus he may complain, and seemingly condemn himself; but this self-condemning language is in truth the expression of reigning pride, even as none are more severe in blaming themselves for misconduct in their worldly affairs, than those who have the highest opinion of their ability to manage them aright.

In opposition to this, the truly convinced sinner sees himself to be all guilt, pollution, and weakness, destitute equally of righteousness and strength. He is led to see that corrupt fountain of inward enmity to God, which is manifested in the issues of his outward conduct. He is made sensible, that he "was conceived in sin, and brought forth in iniquity, and. that in him, that is in his flesh, dwelleth