news, and takes it to himself. The news might be believed and rejoiced in by every guilty sinner, who is terrified with the thoughts of eternal damnation; nor would any degree of penitency be implied in his faith. For as the famished inhabitants of an island would naturally be ravished with the news of corn, so every guilty, impenitent sinner, frightened with the thoughts of hell, would be ravished with the news of such deliverance. But if the news the gospel brings does not consider us merely as in a state of great calamity, but as criminals; and condemns us wherein we are most apt to justify ourselves, and even declares us to be worthy of the eternal pains of hell for that for which we thought ourselves not at all to blame; we shall receive the news as an abuse, and reject it with abhorrence, till our uncircumcised hearts are humbled, and we disposed to take all that blame to ourselves, which it supposes us justly chargeable with. But the gospel brings us news, "that as the divine law, which requires us in our present state to love God with all our hearts and yield a perfect obedience to his will, on pain of eternal woe, is holy, just, and good, a glorious law, worthy to be kept in honor, so the Son of God became incarnate, and died upon the cross to do it honor, that God might be just, and yet the justifier of the sinner that believes in Jesus." The plain import of which is, "That, notwithstanding all our selfjustifying pleas, the God who reigns above, is an infinitely glorious and amiable being, and his law perfect in beauty, without a blemish; and our disaffection and rebellion wholly inexcusable, and infinitely criminal; and we even too bad to be forgiven, unless through the blood of the Son of God." But to believe this with all the heart, and gladly to receive this news for true, is to give up all our sin-extenuating, self-justifying pleas, to acknowledge ourselves infinitely vile and odious, and to loathe and abhor ourselves in the sight of God, and even to look upon it a worthy, and becoming, and godlike deed, in the Most High, to punish eternally in hell such as we. But thus to view God and his law, and the atonement of Christ, and our own character, and with all our hearts to come into these sentiments as the very truth, and even gladly to receive this word, is to be true penitents.

The Jews, through mere disaffection to the divine character and to the divine law, hated Jesus of Nazareth, whose life aud doctrines were the very image of his Father, and did honor to his law; and in their hatred, they cried, "Crucify him, crucify him;" and then they led him forth to Mount Calvary, and nailed him to the cross. Their whole conduct was an expression of mortal enmity to the true God and to his Son. When there

fore Jesus was risen from the dead, and the Spirit poured out on the day of Pentecost, and the guilty Jews, in spite of all their prejudices, by thousands, forced, sore against their wills, to give into it that he was in very deed the Messiah, whom they had murdered, terrified by their horrid crimes, and the fears of eternal wrath, pricked at the heart, as though a sword had been run through their vitals, they cry out in anguish, "What shall we do?" To which Peter gives a very remarkable answer. He does not say, "Do nothing; be passive;" nor does he say, "Believe, O believe your sins are blotted out;" but he says, "Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ, for the remission of sins." As if he had said, "Take all that blame to yourselves which belongs to you. Own the whole truth to God. Let your uncircumcised hearts be humbled. Do not cover, but confess your crinies in his sight, and that in a sense eternal destruction is your due. Look up to the free grace of God through the blood of Christ for pardon; and in token that all your dependence is on his mediation, merits, and atonement, come, be baptized in his name; and your baptism shall be to you an external sign of the remission of sins through his blood." And as many as had their eyes opened by the Spirit of God to view things in this light, gladly received his word, and were baptized; and these, by the apostles, were esteemed true penitents, and true believers, as they thus hearkened to the divine call, "Repent and be baptized in the name of Jesus."

And it is manifest, from the nature of the case, that he who hath his eyes opened to see the glory of the divine nature, the beauty of the divine law, the infinite evil of sin, the need of an infinite atonement; and so to see his need of Christ; and at the same time views God as the supreme, all-sufficient good, ready to receive every sinner that returns to him through Christ, - it is manifest, I say, that every one who is thus taught of God, will repent and return to God as his sovereign Lord and supreme good, and return through Jesus Christ, who is the way to the Father, and the only way in the view of one thus divinely enlightened. For in the clearer light the glory of the divine nature and law is seen, in exact proportion will be the sense of the infinite evil of sin, and the need of Christ's infinite atonement and perfect righteousness; and so repentance toward God, and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ, will be naturally and inseparably connected; yea, they will be necessarily implied in each other. For he who repents in the view of the glory of God, the glory of the law, and of the atonement, will in his repentance look only to free grace through Jesus Christ for

mercy; and he who looks only to free grace through Jesus Christ for mercy, in a view of the glory of God, law, atonement, will, in doing so, take the whole blame of his disaffection to the divine character, as exhibited in the law, and on the cross of Christ, to himself, judge and condemn himself, and in the very aot of faith, repent and be converted. When, therefore, it

is said, "Believe in the Lord Jesus, and thou shalt be saved," the same thing is meant, as when it it is said, "Repent and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out;" for the apostolic faith implies repentance in its own nature, and their repentance implies faith in its nature. Sometimes they only mention faith, and sometimes only repentance, and sometimes both together; but the same thing is always intended; for in their views, repentance and faith were mutually implied in each other. Let all the texts of Scripture in the Old and New Testaments, in which we are called to confess our sins, repent, and turn to God, with a promise of forgiveness, or to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ that we may be saved, be collected and compared together, and they will all jointly unite to confirm us in these sentiments. The penitent Jew brought a bull or a goat to the altar, and all his hope of pardon was in the shedding of blood; for without shedding of blood there was no remission. Or if he were at a distance from the place of sacrifice and atonement, yet in all his prayers he looked toward God's holy temple. So Jonah did in the whale's belly. (Jonah ii. 4.) So Daniel did in Babylon. (Dan. vi. 10.) And it is evident this was the constant practice of all the pious Jews, from the whole tenor of Solomon's prayer in 1 Kings viii. And for a Jew to look toward the holy temple, where God dwelt in the most holy place, over the mercy seat, which covered the ark in which the law was placed in the most honorable situation, while sacrifices were offered without, and incense within, was the same thing as for a penitent Christian to look to the free grace of God through the redemption which is in Jesus Christ, who in his life and death, and now by his intercession in heaven, magnifies the law and makes it honorable. For a Jew to confess his sins, repent, and turn unto the Lord, and pray toward the holy temple, was the same as for one in a Christian country to repent and be converted, and believe in the name of Jesus Christ.

But if any man will still affirm, that we are justified by a faith which is alone, which does not imply repentance and conversion in its nature; it may be boldly asserted, that he contradicts Christ, who sent his apostles to preach, in his name, repentance and remission of sins; and his apostles, who cried, "Repent and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out;

11

"

especially, as Christ doth as expressly declare, that "except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish;" as he does, "he that believeth not shall be damned." *

Thus the point is proved, that repentance is before forgiveness; and thus all objections are answered, and so the way opened for the following remarks:

I. If repentance is before forgiveness, then no man ever was, or ever will be, forgiven, till first he is brought to true repentance. All those therefore are deluded, who, while yet impenitent, believe their sins to be forgiven; and the stronger their belief is, the greater is their delusion.

II. All those definitions of justifying faith, which leave repentance and conversion out of its nature, are definitions of a faith by which no man ever was or ever will be justified; such, for instance, as make faith a thing, in which the mind is merely passive, such a bare belief of the bare truth, as implies no act, exertion, or exercise of the heart, which effectually excludes repentance and conversion; and such as make faith to consist in a belief, that there is forgiveness with God for impenitent sinners, as such; which is evidently to believe a lie; and such as make faith to consist merely in a belief that Christ is mine, and that my sins are forgiven before I repent. These, and all such like definitions of justifying faith, are of no manner of use, but to comfort those impenitent sinners against whom the gospel, as well as the law, reveals the wrath of God. III. All those schemes of religion, the import of which is,

This very same doctrine, that repentance is implied in justifying faith, now asserted in opposition to Antinomians, was, near thirty years ago, asserted and defended in opposition to Arminians, by the late learned Mr. Edwards, in his Sermon on Justification by Faith alone. a sermon worthy to be universally read and, attended to through the British dominions.

+ Mr. Sandeman, speaking of the atonement, says, "All its true friends will readily join in affirming, that Christ came to render impenitent sinners accepted unto everlasting life, by the works which he himself wrought, and thus, by the discovery of preventing goodness, to lead them to repentance." (Letters on Theron, p. 382, edit. 2d.) So then, according to him, neither Moses, nor the prophets, nor Christ, nor the apostles, who all taught that repentance is before forgiveness, were true friends to the atonement; nay, so far from it, that they rendered the atonement, according to Mr. Sandeman, entirely needless; for he affirms, that true penitents may be forgiven without any atonement at all, as was before observed. (Sect. v.) Mr. Sandeman sums up his whole scheme in faith, hope, and charity. His faith is a belief that there is forgiveness with God through the atonement for impenitent sinners, while such; which is a lie. A belief of this lie, is the foundation of his hope that his sins are forgiven. And this false hope, this hope built on falsehood, is the foundation of his love. The whole of his religion "consists in love to that which relieves him;" (Letters to Mr. Pyke;) that is, "in love to the doctrine of forgiveness;" that is, in love to this doctrine, that there is forgiveness with God through the atonement for impenitent sinners, while such; that is, in love to a lie.

that we are not wholly and entirely to blame in not being perfectly conformed to the divine law, and consequently that it does not belong to us to take the whole blame to ourselves and repent, are diametrically opposite to the gospel of Christ; which calls upon us to repent and be converted, as being wholly to blame for not continuing in all things written in the book of the law to do them; yea, infinitely to blame; so that it became the wisdom of God not to forgive us without an infinite atonement. To say, that this law was too severe, and that our blame is not so great as this law supposes, is to declare that it does not belong to us to repent in the sense the gospel calls us to ; and to reject the atonement of Christ, which supposes the whole blame to be in us, as an injurious reflection on our character; and even implicitly to declare Jesus Christ to be an impostor. For as Christ lived and died to do honor to the divine law in all its extent, thereby declaring it to be wholly right, and we in fact as much to blame as that supposes, to say we are not, which is the language of every impenitent heart, is to say that Christ was an impostor. So that impenitence and infidelity are in their own nature inseparably connected, on the one hand, even as repentance toward God and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ, are on the other.

IV. All those schemes of religion, which in pretence grant the divine law to be holy, just, and good, a glorious law, and that repentance is before forgiveness, but yet implicitly deny it by asserting that it is impossible a sinner should be brought to view the law as such, so as cordially to take all the blame to himself and repent, until he knows that his sins are forgiven, are inconsistent with themselves, as well as with the gospel of Christ, which makes such repentance necessary in order to the forgiveness of sins, and calls upon sinners thus to repent, that their sins may be blotted out, and declares that Christ is exalted to give such repentance to Israel. To repent that we have broken a law we hate, is the repentance of an obstinate rebel; and is in its own nature a lie, like that in Ps. lxvi. 3. "Through the greatness of thy power shall thine enemies submit themselves," (or, as it is in the margin, lie) "unto thee."

V. As the whole tenor of the gospel of Christ gives the strongest assurance that no impenitent sinner, remaining such, shall ever be forgiven, so the whole tenor of all false gospels is to persuade impenitent sinners, while such, to believe that their sins are forgiven. Some schemes do this by preaching up a counterfeit repentance, and promising forgiveness to that; meanwhile justifying sinners in their continuing destitute of that