6o Of Repentance. S E R M. ders that he has done wrong, it is impoffible III. to avoid a deep concern ; for it is the higheft pleafure to be juftified to ourfelves, and the reproaches of a felf-accufing heart are molt painful ; and this is the belt and moll effec- tual prefervative from a relapfe into former follies. * Sorrow after a godly fort, as the apofile fays, is naturally productive of fear, and zeal, and earefulnefi ; fear of offending God for the future, a zeal and care to pleafe him in all things. And as this is the true foun- dation of repentance, that it may be firm and (table, nothing is more neceffary for us to attend to, than that our forrow be of the kind I juft now mentioned, after a godly fort. There may be a grief even for fin, which is of another character ; that is, when the penal and pernicious conf quences of it only are confidered, efpecially, the difgrace and the miferies to which it expofes finners in this world. Such a forrow is really no more than a painful fenfe of natural evil or unhappinefs ; and if fin is only confidered, as the occafion of that, without entering into its moral deformity, we can never imagine that forrow arifing thence, has any thing in it of that ingenuous remorfe which is accept- able to God ; or that it will produce, or in- * 2 Cor. vii. deed
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