Concerning Repentance, Part 2 – Part 4
Motives.
1. The greatness of the harvest: there are great numbers of souls, some whereof stand in need to be converted, others to be edified. The pure Ordinances of God are the glory of a place, 1 Sam. 4.20. in the want or absence whereof, the glory departs away.
How would it pity us, to see many Corn-fields that are ripe, and in danger of shattering, for want of hands to imbarn the corn! So, many have good beginnings of knowledge, but wanting able Teachers to perfect the work, they are in danger to be lost. What endeavours are enough, might a Preacher be instrumental in saving one soul! what then, where there are many souls, not onelyonly of those that pretend to Christ, but also Jews and Heathens!
It's a difficult thing to make one soul lie level upon Christ. Sometimes he is troubled with fears and doubts, for want of comfort: sometimes he falls into spiritual pride, because he hath comfort: sometimes he is tempted both with visible temptations from the world (which, with customs, counsels, perswasions, benefits, and flatteries, strives to seduce) and with invisible, arising from Satans suggestions, and inbred concupiscence. Sometimes he wrestles with an angry God, sometimes with an accusing or scrupulous conscience: sometimes he thinks that all that he hath done is in vain: sometimes he abounds with selffulness; sometimes so large in his profers, that he could let all go for God; anon, he is so cold, that he is nothing so large in his profers. Now if to establish one soul, be such a work; what is it to establish many, where one wants Knowledge, another Comfort; one needs Reprehension, another Direction; one is a babe, and so there must be milk for him; another is a strong man, and there must be meat for him?
2 Fewness of Labourers in such times, as also at other times; one Elijah, one Micaiah, when Iezebel had four hundred false Prophets. Ieremiah was in his time as it were left alone, and ready to give over his Ministery, Ier. 20.8, 9. After Christ's time, there were sometimes so few Pastors, that they were constrained to commend two or three Congregations to one Pastor. Hence came the corrupt custom of Commendams, that is, that one Teacher should have two or three Parishional Benefices.
Love of ease, painfulness of study, the smalness of reward, in many places, for a work of that weight, together with the inability of hearers to put difference betwixt Doctrine and Doctrine, Teacher and Teacher, and conceitedness of unable Speakers, causes that there be but few Labourers; so that persons mostly speak multa, but not multum; many words, but little to purpose.
3 Souls converted and edified, will be the glory of Teachers: they are not onelyonly the seal of their sending for the present, 1 Cor. 9.2. but their Crown hereafter, 1 Thess. 2.19. Dan. 12.3. 1 Pet. 5.1, 2, 3. When Peter comes with three thousand souls gained to God, and Paul comes with his Gentiles, what a shame for thee, that like that unprofitable servant hast hid thy talent! Matth. 25.24. Hence Teachers should put on bowels of compassion: our bowels yern towards them that have no bread, when our selves have plenty; so when we have many blessed Truths in our hearts and papers, shall we not yern that others partake of them? And so much more, in that it redounds to our Crown, Ioh. 4.36. when he that sows and he that reaps shall rejoyce together.
4 The Barrenness of the Lords Vineyard without planters and waterers, 1 Cor. 3.6, 7. How ready is all to run to ruine, in the want or dispersing of such Teachers, experience tells. Where the shepherd hath been smitten the flock hath been scattered, Mat. 16.31. Fields or Vineyards are apt to be over-grown with weeds, if the Husbandman labours not to weed them out: so will the hearts of men be over-run, if there be not a painful Ministery to dig up their corruptions.
Come we to the second thing. The duty commended, viz. Repent.
In opening of which, I shall handle four things:
1 The duty.
2 The exercise of it.
3 The time of it.
4 The evidence of it, as it hath respect to men, in distributive righteousness; where the Question of Restitution is largely handled.
In handling the doctrine of Repentance, I will open
1 The kindes of it.
2 The description of it. Three Uses.
There are two kindes of Repentance:
1 Legal; when a person is brought to the sight of his sins, without beholding any pardon in Christ: so Cain, and Iudas, Mat. 27.3. The Law worketh wrath Rom. 4.15. First it lets us see sin, and then it troubles the conscience for it, by threatning wrath. Moses plenus est Absinthii; the Law is full of Wormwood.
2 Evangelical, or Gospel-repentance; which is a transformation or change of minde and heart, wrought by the holy Ghost, through the power of the Word; whereby a believing sinner is humbled for all sin, and turns away from it in the purpose of his heart, with an hatred of it, that so the image of God may be restored in him.
In which consider,
1 The efficient cause of Repentance is God, who circumcises the heart, Deut. 30.6. takes away the stony heart, Ezek. 36.26. gives repentance to life, Acts 11.18. quickens them that are dead in sins, Eph. 2.1. and grants repentance to sinners, to recover themselves out of Satans snares, 2 Tim. 2.25.
2 The form of Repentance is a transformation, or the changing of the soul into another form, Rom. 12. Be ye transformed by the renewing of your mindes. The word is foreign. He names the minde, because there the change begins, Act. 26.18. Eph. 5.14. Some look upon Repentance, as if it were nothing but a sorrow for sin, with a purpose of new life; yet may a man have many such purposes, yet without a change of minde and heart they will come to nothing.
The similitude or form whereinto repentant souls are changed, is Gods image, foreign, 2 Cor. 3.18. We are transformed into the same image.
3 The matter of Repentance consists
1 In Humiliation,
2 Reformation.
First, Humiliation consists in three things:
1 Sorrow for sin, 2 Sam. 24.10. I have done very foolishly. This is (1) Outward; and that is,
1 In confession of sin: 2 Sam. 12.7. David saith, I have sinned.
2 In aggravation of sin; so Ezra 9.6, 7, 8. Dan. 9.6, 7. Ezra and Daniel aggravate their sins, as if they were the greatest sinners. So David, Psal. 51.1, 2, 3, 4, 5. the Prodigal, Luke 15.18.
Sorrow for sin is (2) Inward, when the heart yerns under what it hath done: Psal. 38.17. I will declare mine iniquity, (meaning in confession) and will be sorry for my sin. Ephraim bemoaned himself, that he had been like an untamed bullock unaccustomed to the yoke, Jer. 31.18.
2 Humiliation consists in Shame, that the soul have an inward blushing upon consideration of former evils: Ier. 31.20. I was ashamed yea even confounded, because I did bear the reproach of my youth. Rom. 6.21. What fruit have ye in those things whereof ye are now ashamed?
3 Humiliation consists in hatred: Isa. 30.22. Thou shalt defile the covering of thy graven images of silver, and the ornaments of thy molten images of gold: thou shalt cast them away as a menstruous cloth: thou shalt say, Away, get thee hence. Hos. 14.8. Ephraim shall say, What have I any more to do with idols? Ezek. 6.9, 20, 43. repentant souls are brought in not onelyonly remembring their spiritual whoredom, and all their evil doings wherein they have been defiled, but also loathing themselves in their own sight for the same.
Secondly: The second thing wherein the matter of Repentance consists is Reformation; which is, that the bent and frame of the heart be against all sin: Prov. 28.13. He that confesseth and forsaketh, shall finde mercy. Isai. 1.16. Wash ye, make ye clean: put away the evil of your doings; cease to do evil. Jon. 3.10. God saw that the Ninevites turned from their evil way. The Corinthians were thus reformed, 1 Cor. 6.10, 11. Such were some of you: but now are ye washed, now are you cleansed. This inward Reformation is wont to shew it self by outward Reformation; as in the Ephesians, who having repented of their Magick, burnt their Conjuring books.
Now for the matter about which Repentance is exercised, it is all sin, both Original, Psal. 51.5. Behold, I was shapen in wickedness, and in sin did my mother conceive me: and also actual sins, vers. 1, 2, 3, 4, 9. But especially it reflects with most indignation upon scandalous sins, 1 Tim. 1.13. and sins against light of nature, Psal. 51.14. deliver me from bloodguiltiness; and sins against knowledge.
For the present, it looks at the prevailing evil of the heart.
For the instrumental cause of Repentance, it is the Word, whether preached or read. Preached; as in Lydia, the Jaylor, who by Paul's preaching were converted: also they, Act. 2.37. by Peter's preaching. So the word read; as Iosiah, who hearing the promises and threats together, was wrought upon, 2 Kings 22.19.
This Word is either the Law, or Gospel. The Law works terrour, and affrights the soul to lie under that curse: Gal. 3.13. Cursed is he that continues not in all things written in the law. The Gospel offers Christ in all his beauty and excellency, and sets forth terms of reconciliation, 2 Cor. 5.19. which the Spirit perswade the soul to accept of.
4. The end, of final cause of Repentance is, that we may go from one measure of grace to another: 2 Cor. 3.18. We are changed into the same image, from glory to glory; that is, from a less degree of glorious graces, to a greater, pressing on as neer as we can to the restitution of that image wherein at first we were created.
I shall now come to make Application of this Point; serving for
1 Reprehension.
2 Information.
3 Caution.
4 Trial.
5 Exhortation.
Ʋse of Reprehension,
1 Of those who think it an easie thing to repent. If the strength of a natural purpose were Repentance, it were an easie matter: but there must be a change of heart: Deut. 5.28, 29. The people have well said in all that they have spoken: but O that there were such an heart in them to keep my commandments always! As if he should say, Their natural purposes are well; but Oh that there were such an heart changed according to these purposes!
2 Of those who begin their Repentance at outward Reformations, never looking for a changed heart. If Repentance were a Moral vertue, perhaps frequencie of actions might produce it: but it is a divine grace must be infused from heaven, Act. 11.18. dispensed at the will and pleasure of God, Ioh. 1.13. & 3.9.
3 Of those who think that every qualm that comes over the Conscience, to be Repentance; as, if they cry out, I have sinned: But so did Cain, Balaam, Saul, Iudas, Pharaoh. Others think a few good words and glorious expressions to be Repentance, especially if spoken on their death-bed. No, no: Psal. 78.34, 35, 36. When he slew them, then they sought him.— But they did but flatter. Thou must cry mightily, as the Ninevites; mugire ad Deum. Get thee into thy closet, and arraign and condemn thy self: Psal. 32.4. When I kept silence, my bones waxed old through my roaring all the day-long. Note, he kept silence, and ye he roared; because, though he cryed out other sins, yet did he not cry out against his adultery and murther, wherein God would have had him to insist in his confessions and aggravation: but it seems he sconced the matter so, that he had such trouble in his spirit, that his moistness was turned into the drought of summer. Now assoon as he had but a purpose to confess his prevailing iniquity, and aggravated the right sin, the Lord forgave the iniquity of his sin.
Ʋse of Information,
That it is our duty to repent. Repent now, or else for ever repent. Wicked men are called to Repentance, Isa. 55.7.8. Ezek. 33.11. Act. 18.22. & 17.30. yea also godly men: for Repentance is not onelyonly a turning, but a returning after relapses; as in Peter, Matth. 27.75.