Abernathy - Houston-Packer Collection BX9178.A33 S4 1748 v.1

Of Repentance. S9 grinding their faces by oppreflion, but SE x M. dealing their bread to the hungry, and cloath- 111. ing the naked II: in fhort, exercifing themfelves univerfally in the works of true piety and righteoufnefs. Sorrow for fin, and what is called contrition, humiliation for having of- fended God, and perverted that which is right; the confeflïng of our iniquities with fhame and grief, and pious virtuous inclina- tions, a delire to become holy as God is holy; all thefe are necefläry to repentance, but it is a fatal mif'take to imagine, that it effentially confif}s, and is compleated in any, or all of them ; or, that any thing will be accepted without what I have already men- tioned, a thorough and effectual forfaking all fin, and turning to God, and to the practice of our duty, univerfally. Thefe prepara- tory exercifes and difpofitions of the mind, arife from the reafon of things, and the very frame of our nature. As repentance is the rational exercife of the foul, wherein its in- tellectual and attive powers are deliberately employed, what firft and naturally occurs to the reflecting thoughts of a penitent, is, his former conduct ; and he cannot review it otherwife than with an ingenuous remorfe and felf- abhorrence. When a Man confi li Ifa. lviii. 7. ders

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