[April 20th, 1856.]
I. Happiness is an element of life. It is one of the conditions for the healthy development of our nature. This is an important principle in education, even in the training of animals.
II. Sorrow of the world worketh death.
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The sorrow of the world is that sorrow which worldly men experience, whether from ordinary calamities or on account of their sins.
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Such sorrow works death. a. It has no tendency to make men better. This is often overlooked. Men look to suffering as a means of sanctification. b. It makes men worse. It makes them rebellious. It exasperates. It hardens. The proof of this is in experience, and in what the Scriptures teach of fallen angels and of the lost. The death which the sorrow of the world produces is spiritual and eternal. It is moral and physical. It makes worse and it makes miserable.
III. The sorrow, (kata Theon,) is godly sorrow. It is the form which sorrow assumes in a pious mind, and which, in its causes, measure and exercises, is agreeable to the will of God.
The effects of this sorrow are,
- Repentance. 2. Salvation. By repentance is meant a turning from sin to God. Salvation is its consequence. What brings us to God, brings us to salvation, for our life is fellowship with God.
IV. Effects and evidences of repentance. These are the same in a community as in an individual. Paul is here describing the effects of repentance in a congregation for the offense of one of its members and for their own remissness and neglect of discipline. But what he says is applicable to the experience of every penitent. The eleventh verse enumerates six particulars, after the general one, as effects of godly repentance; but they are reduced to three, as two are in each case united.
The first and most general effect of repentance is (spoude), solicitous concern as opposed to listless indifference, which the unregenerated manifest. Sin is nothing to them. But to the penitent, it is a matter which awakens solicitude and attention. This, however, is not all.
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(apologia) and (aganaktesis). That is, apology and indignation. The former does not mean palliation or excusing one’s self, but the effort to rid one’s self of the guilt and turpitude of sin. The latter means the indignation which we feel against ourselves for our sins, the contempt which the folly and wickedness of sin excite.
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(phobos) and (epipothesis), fear and vehement desire. Fear of God’s displeasure or of any falling into sin. Earnest desire after God’s presence and favor.
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(zelos) and (ekdikesis), zeal and revenge; zeal against our sins, and a desire to destroy them.
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