In the next place, this discovery of the holiness of God cannot fail to produce a sense of our own unworthiness. It is in his light that we see light. It is by the apprehension of his excellence that we learn our own vileness. And as no man can be aware that he appears vile in the sight of others, without a sense of shame, we find that this emotion is described as being one of the most uniform attendants upon repentance. Thus Ezra, in his penitential prayer, says, O my God! I am ashamed and blush to lift up my face to thee my God; for our iniquities are increased over our head, and our trespass is grown up unto the heavens.⁹ Daniel expresses the same feeling when he says, O Lord, righteousness belongeth unto thee, but unto us confusion of face, as at this day.¹⁰ And God when describing the restoration of his people, even when assuring them of pardon, says, Thou shalt know that I am the Lord, that thou mayest be confounded and never open thy mouth any more because of thy shame, when I am pacified towards thee, for all that thou hast done, saith the Lord God.¹¹

As the consciousness of unworthiness when we think of others, produces shame, so, when we think of ourselves, it produces self-abhorrence. This latter feeling, therefore, also enters into the nature of true repentance. In the strong language of the suffering patriarch already quoted, the sinner abhors himself and repents in dust and ashes. In another passage the same distinguished servant of God says, Behold I am vile; what shall I answer thee? I will lay my hand upon my mouth.¹² And the prophet describing the repentance of the people says, Ye shall remember your ways and all your doings, wherein ye have been defiled; and ye shall loathe yourselves in your own sight, for all the evil that ye have committed.¹³ It is not the strength, but the nature of these feelings, which determines the character of our repentance. Their nature is the same in all true penitents; their strength varies in every particular case. In all, however, the sense of sin destroys that self-complacency with which sinners soothe themselves, thanking God they are not as other men. It humbles them before God, and places them in the position which he would have them occupy. To this man will I look, saith the Lord, even to him that is poor and of a contrite spirit and trembleth at my word.¹⁴ With such a soul God condescends to take up his abode. For thus saith the High and Lofty One who inhabiteth eternity, whose name is Holy; I dwell in the high and holy place, with him also who is of a contrite and humble spirit, to revive the spirit of the humble, and to revive the heart of the contrite ones.¹⁵

This humbling sense of our unworthiness, which produces true contrition and self-abasement, is essential to repentance. Most men are willing to acknowledge themselves to be sinners; but they are at the same time disposed to extenuate their guilt; to think they are as good as could be reasonably expected; that the law of God demands too much of beings so frail as man, and that it would be unjust to visit their deficiencies with any severe punishment. The change which constitutes repentance destroys this disposition to self-justification. The soul bows down before God under the consciousness of inexcusable guilt. It stands self-condemned, and, instead of regarding God as a hard master, it acknowledges that he is righteous in all his demands, and in all his judgments. Such were the feelings of David, when he said, I acknowledge my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me. Against thee, thee only have I sinned, and done this evil in thy sight, that thou mightest be justified when thou speakest, and clear when thou judgest.¹⁶ The same feeling is expressed by Ezra, O Lord God of Israel thou art righteous … . behold we are before thee in our trespasses, for we cannot stand before thee because of this.¹⁷ And Nehemiah uses language to the same effect; Thou art just in all that is brought upon us; for thou hast done right, but we have done wickedly.¹⁸ There can, therefore, be no true repentance without this contrite spirit of self-condemnation and abasement.

The confession of sin, on which the Scriptures lay so much stress, is the outward expression of this inward sense of ill-desert. It is not enough that we should secretly condemn ourselves. God requires a full and ingenuous confession of our sins. And this our own hearts will prompt us to make. As there is no desire in the penitent to extenuate his guilt, so there is no disposition to conceal it. On the contrary, the soul is anxious to acknowledge every thing; to take shame to itself, and to justify God. We accordingly find that a large part of the penitential portions of the Scriptures is taken up in recording the confessions of the people of God. When I kept silence, said the Psalmist, my bones waxed old through my roaring all the day long. For day and night thy hand was heavy upon me; my moisture was turned into the drought of summer. I acknowledged my sin unto thee, and mine iniquity have I not hid. I said I will confess my transgressions unto the Lord; and thou forgavest the iniquity of my sin.¹⁹ So long as he attempted to conceal his guilt, he found no relief; the hand of God continued to press heavily upon him; but when he acknowledged his transgressions he obtained forgiveness. The wise man therefore says, He that covereth his sins shall not prosper; but whoso confesseth and forsaketh them, shall find mercy.²⁰ The New Testament is equally explicit as to this part of our duty. If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.²¹

This confession must be made to the person against whom we have sinned. If we have sinned against our fellow men, we must confess to them. If we have sinned against the church, we must confess to the church; and if we have sinned against God, our confession must be made to God. The Old Testament, in commanding restitution in case of injury done to our neighbour, thereby commanded acknowledgement to be made to the injured party. And in the New Testament we are required to confess our faults one to another.²² As, however, the great majority of our sins are committed against God, it is to him that our confessions are to be principally made. And even in those cases in which we sin against men, we, in a still higher sense, sin against God. Our sense of guilt in his sight, therefore, will prevail over the sense of our injustice to those whom we have offended. Thus David, though he had, in the most grievous manner, sinned against his neighbour, was so affected with the enormity of his sin as committed against God, that he said, Against thee, thee only have I sinned and done this evil in thy sight.²³ In the inspired records of penitential sorrow, we accordingly find that confession is constantly made to God. Let thine ear now, said Nehemiah, be attentive and thine eyes open, that thou mayest hear the prayer of thy servant which I pray before thee, now day and night, for the children of Israel thy servants, and confess the sins of the children of Israel which we have sinned against thee; both I and my father’s house have sinned, and have dealt very corruptly against thee, have not kept the commandments or the statutes, nor the judgments which thou commandest thy servant Moses. Indeed the greater portion of the remarkable prayers of Daniel, Ezra, and Nehemiah, which form the most authentic record of the exercises of genuine repentance, is taken up with confessions of sin; which shows how essential such confession is to the proper discharge of this duty. No man, therefore, whose heart does not lead him freely, fully and humbly to acknowledge his sin before God, can have any satisfactory evidence that he truly repents.

There is indeed a confession which remorse extorts from the lips of those whose hearts know nothing of that godly sorrow which is unto life. Thus Judas went to his accomplices in treachery and said, I have sinned in that I have betrayed the innocent blood; and then went and hanged himself. This, however, is very different from that ingenuous acknowledgment of sin which flows from a broken spirit, and which is the more full and free, the stronger the assurance of forgiveness.

Though the Scriptures plainly teach that in all true repentance there is a sense of sin, self-loathing, self-condemnation, sorrow and confession, yet such is the poverty of human language, that these very terms may be, nay, must be, employed to express the exercises of those who do not truly repent. It is said of Judas that he repented; and we cannot doubt that his repentance included a conviction of guilt, sorrow, self-abhorrence and confession. Yet all this was nothing more than the operation of that impenitent remorse which often drives men to despair, and which serves to feed the fire that never shall be quenched. Although we are forced to describe the exercises which attend the sorrow of the world, and those which accompany the sorrow which is of God, by the same terms, they are nevertheless essentially different in their nature. There is a gleam of hope and a glow of love pervading the exercises of the true penitent, which impart to all his exercises a peculiarity of character, and cause them to produce effects specifically different from those which flow from despairing remorse, or the agitations of an awakened conscience. His views of the justice and holiness of God produce, not only a conviction of sin and sorrow for having committed it; but also an earnest desire to be delivered from it as the greatest of all evils, and an anxious longing after conformity to the image of God, as the greatest of all blessings. The repentance of the ungodly consists in the operations of conscience combined with fear; the repentance of the godly, of the operations of conscience combined with love. The one is the sorrow of the malefactor; the other the sorrow of a child. The one tends to despair and opposition to God; the other to hope and a desire after his favour. Both may lead to obedience; but the obedience in the one case is slavish; in the other, filial. In the one case it is mere penance; in the other it is repentance.

The circumstance which, perhaps, most perceptibly distinguishes true repentance from mere conviction and remorse, is, that the former flows from the apprehension of the mercy of God. There is no hope in the repentance of the ungodly. They may see by the light of conscience and of the divine law, that their sins are exceedingly great. They may be filled with terror from the apprehension of divine justice, and even humbled and confounded under a view of the infinite holiness of God and of their own vileness, but there is no sense of forgiving mercy, no apprehension of the divine favour. Instead, therefore, of turning towards God, they turn from him. After the example of Adam, they would gladly hide themselves from his presence. And so terrible, at times, is that presence, that they madly seek a refuge from it in the darkness of the grave, or call upon the rocks and the mountains to cover them. This is the sorrow which worketh death. But in every case of real turning unto God, there is more or less distinct apprehension of his mercy. This may be so feeble as only to enable the soul to say, ‘Though he slay me, yet I will trust in him; or, Who knoweth if he will return and repent and leave a blessing behind him?²⁴ or, to adopt the language of David, If I shall find favour in the eyes of the Lord, he will bring me again. But if he thus say, I have no pleasure in him; behold here am I, let him do to me as seemeth good unto him.²⁵ This, however, is sufficient to turn fear into hope, and rebellion into submission.

It may be that the hope which saves the soul from sinking into despair and which prevents it from turning from God in aggravated opposition, is at times, nothing more than a conviction that he is merciful, without any distinct apprehension of the way in which his mercy can be exercised, or any confident persuasion of our own acceptance. Still the soul believes that he is the Lord, the Lord God, merciful and gracious, long-suffering and abundant in goodness and truth.²⁶ It has courage to adopt the language of the Psalmist: Thou God art good and ready to forgive; and plenteous in mercy to all those that call upon thee.²⁷ In all the records of penitence, therefore, contained in the Scriptures, we find the recognition of the divine goodness as the great operative principle in turning the soul unto God. Thus Nehemiah says, Thou art a God ready to pardon, gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness.²⁸ And the prophet presents this consideration as the great motive to those whom he calls to repentance; Rend your hearts and not your garments, and turn unto the Lord your God; for he is gracious and repenteth him of evil.²⁹

But inasmuch as there can be no confidence of forgiving mercy, which is not founded on the revelation of the purpose of God; and as there is no revelation of a purpose to pardon except through the mediation of Jesus Christ, so however indistinct may be, at times, the view which the soul takes of the plan of salvation, there must still be a reference to the Saviour in all authorized expectations of mercy. The penitent may not know how God can be just and yet the justifier of sinners, and yet be persuaded not only that he is merciful, but that he has found a ransom and can consistently save us from going down into the pit. Doubtless, however, under the light of the gospel, it is far more common that the soul sees all that it discovers of the mercy of God and of the possibility of pardon in the face of Jesus Christ. It is in him that God has revealed himself as reconciled unto the world, not imputing unto men their trespasses. It is because he was made sin for us, that we can be made the righteousness of God in him. All evangelical hope rests on the assurance that though we have sinned we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous, who is the propitiation for our sins. This is the hope which is effectual in winning the soul back to God. It is the discovery of the love of God in giving his own Son that whosoever believes on him, should not perish but have eternal life. It is this that breaks the hard heart, revealing to it the exceeding turpitude of its sins, and at the same time disclosing the readiness of God freely to forgive those who come to him through Christ. It is therefore not so much the threatenings of the law, as the apprehension of the love of God, which turns the sinner from his rebellion, and draws him back to submission and obedience. All repentance without this is legal and slavish. It is such as that of Pharaoh, or Judas, or of the thousands whom an awakened conscience and fear of wrath drive from their former sins, and force to walk in clanking chains along a mistaken road in search of heaven. This is the only repentance which conscience and the apprehension of divine justice can produce. A soul cannot approach an unreconciled God, any more than it can embrace a consuming fire. A sense of the favour of God, or a hope in his mercy, is essential to our returning to him with confidence and love.

There is indeed a belief in the mercy of God which, instead of leading men to repentance, encourages them to continue in sin. This is a belief which arises out of ignorance. It is founded on a misapprehension of the character of God. It is easy for those who know nothing of the divine holiness and justice and who look upon sin as a misfortune or a trifle, to believe that God will not be severe to mark iniquity. To such persons the mercy of God seems a matter of course; restricting its offers to no class of men, but covering with its mantle the sins of the penitent and of the reprobate. As they see no reason why God should not forgive, they easily hope in his mercy. But when their eyes are opened to his immaculate purity which forbids his looking on sin with allowance; to his justice which forbids him to spare the guilty; to the strictness of his law and to the fearfulness of its penalty; when conscience is aroused and adds its sanction to the judgment of God, in a voice whose authority and power can neither be questioned nor evaded, then these hopes of mercy are seen to be as the spider’s web. They are swept away in a moment, and the difficulty now is, to believe that pardon, once thought so certain, is even possible. Hence the assurances that God is plenteous in mercy and ready to forgive are so numerous and earnest in the Scriptures. Hence the way in which mercy can be exercised, consistently with those attributes which are seen to enter into the essential excellence of God, is so clearly set forth. Hence the invitations, the promises, yea, even the oath of God, are given to beget hope in the mind of the convinced and humbled sinner. It is not the whole, but the sick, who need the physician; and it is not for the careless, who feel no need of pardon, but for the anxious, who fear that there is scarcely room for mercy, that these assurances are given.

It is not, therefore, that hope of mercy which springs from ignorance and indifference, which is operative in the work of repentance, but that which is founded upon the promises of God embraced by faith. It is an enlightened hope. The soul in entertaining it, knows something of the difficulties in the way of pardon, and something of the method in which mercy can be consistently exercised. Such a hope is not a matter of course; nor is it an easy attainment. The sense of sin, the testimony of conscience, the holiness of God, the honour of his law, are all apparently opposed to any reasonable expectation of forgiveness. And, therefore, although the declarations of Scripture are so explicit on the subject, it often happens that the awakened sinner feels that though these declarations may be true in reference to others, they cannot be true as it regards himself. And when the goodness of God is revealed to him; when he sees the divine love surmounting all difficulties, no shipwrecked mariner surrounded by darkness and tossed by tempests, hails with greater joy the break of day than does such a soul the revelation of divine mercy. It is not joy merely; it is wonder, gratitude and love that take possession of his soul and fill him with the purpose of living devoted to God his Redeemer. It is this hope which gives new life to the soul, and accomplishes its return from the service of sin to the service of God.

Hope in the mercy of God being thus important, it is the great design of the Bible to reveal the love of God to sinners, in order to bring them back from their apostasy. The sacred volume is full of instruction on this important subject. Every command to repent, implies a readiness on the part of God to forgive. Every institution of divine worship implies that God is willing to receive those who return to him. Every instance of pardon mentioned in the Bible is left on record to show that there is forgiveness with God that he may be feared. With the same view he has given those declarations of his mercy, long-suffering and love, with which the Scriptures abound. And above all, for this purpose has he set forth his Son as a propitiation for our sins, that we may see not only that he is merciful, but how he can be merciful and yet just. These offers of mercy are made to all who hear the gospel, even to those whose sins are as scarlet, or red like crimson; and none lose the benefit of them who do not voluntarily and wickedly reject them; either carelessly supposing that they need no forgiveness, or unbelievingly refusing to accept of pardon on the only terms on which it can be granted.

That repentance, therefore, which is unto life, is a turning; not a being driven away from sin by fear and stress of conscience, but a forsaking it as evil and hateful, with sincere sorrow, humility and confession; and a returning unto God, because he is good and willing to forgive, with a determination to live in obedience to his commandments.

There are but two ways in which we can judge of the genuineness of this change. The one is the comparison of our inward experience with the word of God; the other the observation of its effects. As every man is conscious of his own feelings, attention and comparison will generally enable him to ascertain their character. He may tell whether he has had such views of the justice and holiness of God as to produce a conviction of his own sinfulness and ill-desert; whether he has been forced to give up his self-complacency and to feel that disapprobation of his character and conduct, which leads the soul to confess with shame and sorrow its guilt and pollution in the sight of God. He may tell whether he has had such apprehensions of the mercy of God in Jesus Christ as to induce him to return to his heavenly Father, with a strong desire after his favour, and with a firm determination to live to his glory. These are the exercises which constitute repentance, and he who is conscious of them may know that he is turned from death unto life.

As, however, true self-knowledge is the most difficult of all attainments; and as the feelings, unless unusually strong, are hard to be detected in their true nature, the surest test of the character of any supposed change of heart is to be found in its permanent effects. By their fruits ye shall know them, is a declaration as applicable to the right method of judging of ourselves as of others. Whatever, therefore, may have been our inward experience; whatever joy or sorrow we may have felt, unless we bring forth fruits meet for repentance, our experience will profit us nothing. Our repentance needs to be repented of, unless it leads us to confession and restitution in cases of private injury; unless it causes us to forsake not merely outward sins, which attract the notice of others, but those which lie concealed in the heart; unless it makes us choose the service of God, as that which is right and congenial, and causes us to live not for ourselves but for him who loved us and gave himself for us.

There is no duty the necessity of which is either more obvious in itself, or more frequently asserted in the word of God, than that of repentance. Nature itself teaches us that when we have done wrong, we should be sorry for it, and turn away from the evil. Every man feels that this is a reasonable expectation in regard to those who have offended him. Every parent especially looks with anxiety for the repentance of a disobedient child; and he considers nothing worthy of the name, but sincere sorrow and a return to affectionate obedience. No man need wonder, therefore, that God who requires nothing but what is right and who can require nothing less, commands all men every where to repent. The salvation offered in the gospel, though it be a salvation of sinners, is also a salvation from sin. The heaven which it promises is a heaven of holiness. The rivers of pleasure which flow from the right hand of God, are filled with the pure waters of life. No man, therefore, can be saved, who does not, by repentance, forsake his sins. This is itself a great part of salvation. The inward change of heart from the love and service of sin, to the love and service of God, is the great end of the death of Christ, who gave himself for his church, that he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water, by the word, that he might present it to himself a glorious church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing; but that it should be holy and without blemish. A salvation for sinners, therefore, without repentance, is a contradiction.

Hence it is that repentance is the burden of evangelical preaching. Our Saviour himself when he began to preach, said, Repent, for the kingdom of God is at hand.³⁰ And when he came into Galilee preaching the gospel, he said, The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand, repent ye and believe the gospel.³¹ The commission which he gave his apostles was, That repentance and remission of sins should be preached in his name among all nations.³² In the execution of this commission his disciples went forth and preached, Repent ye and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out, when the times of refreshing come from the presence of the Lord.³³ Paul, in the account which he gave Agrippa of his preaching, said that he showed first unto them in Damascus, and at Jerusalem, and throughout all the coasts of Judea, and then unto the Gentiles, that they should repent and turn unto God, and do works meet for repentance.³⁴ And he called upon the elders at Ephesus to bear witness that he had taught publicly and from house to house, testifying both to the Jews and to the Greeks, repentance towards God and faith towards our Lord Jesus Christ.³⁵

Repentance then is the great, immediate and pressing duty of all who hear the gospel. They are called upon to forsake their sins and to return unto God through Jesus Christ. The neglect of this duty, is the rejection of salvation. For, as we have seen, unless we repent we must perish. It is because repentance is thus indispensably necessary, that God reveals so clearly not only the evil of sin, and the terrors of his law, but his infinite compassion and love; that he calls upon us to turn unto him and live, assuring us that he is the Lord, the Lord God merciful and gracious, long-suffering, and abundant in goodness and truth. This call to repentance commonly follows men from the cradle to the grave. It is one of the first sounds which wakes the infant’s ear; it is one of the last which falls on the failing senses of the dying sinner. Every thing in this world is vocal with the voice of mercy. All joy and all sorrow are calls to return unto God with whom are the issues of life. Every opening grave, every church, every page of the Bible, is an admonition or an invitation. Every serious thought or anxious foreboding is the voice of God, saying, Turn ye, for why will ye die? It is through all these admonitions that men force their way to death. They perish, because they deliberately reject salvation.

It is one of the mysteries of redemption, that under the economy of mercy, all duties are graces. Though repentance is our duty, it is not less the gift of God. Those who wrest the Scriptures to their own destruction, gladly seize on such truths either as an excuse for delay, under pretence of waiting God’s time, or as a palliation of the guilt of a hard and impenitent heart. But those who feel the greatness of the work required of them, rejoice in the truth, and rouse themselves with new energy to their duty, no longer a hopeless task, and with all earnestness work out their own salvation, because it is God that worketh in them to will and to do, according to his own pleasure.

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← Chapter VI. Faith · Contents · Chapter VIII. Profession of Religion →

Footnotes

1. Ps. cxix. 59. ↩

2. Ezek. xviii. 27. ↩

3. Is. lv. 7. ↩

4. 1 Kings, viii. 47, 49. ↩

5. Job xlii. 5, 6. ↩

6. Ps. lv. 5. ↩

7. Ibid. lxxxviii. 15, 16. ↩

8. Ibid. xxxviii. 3. ↩

9. Ezra ix. 6. ↩

10. Dan. ix. 7. ↩

11. Ezek. xvi 63. ↩

12. Job xl. 4. ↩

13. Ezek. xx. 43. ↩

14. Is. lxvi. 2. ↩

15. Is. lvii. 15. ↩

16. Ps. li. 4. ↩

17. Ezra ix. 15. ↩

18. Neh. ix. 33. ↩

19. Ps. xxxii. 3. ↩

20. Prov. xxviii. 13. ↩

21. 1 John i. 8, 9. ↩

22. James v. 16. ↩

23. Ps. li. 4. ↩

24. Joel ii. 14. ↩

25. 2 Sam. xv. 25, 26. ↩

26. Ex. xxxiv. 6. ↩

27. Ps. lxxxvi. 5. ↩

28. Neh. ix. 17. ↩

29. Joel ii. 13. ↩

30. Matt. iv. 17. ↩

31. Mark i. 15. ↩

32. Luke xxiv. 47. ↩

33. Acts iii. 19. ↩

34. Acts xxvi. 20. ↩

35. Acts xx. 21. ↩