7o Of Repentance. SE R Al. to be of our fpecies. But, particularly, in III determining charaters and qualities of men, we have always a recourfe to their behaviour. Thus we diftinguifh between a wife man and a fool, between juft and unjuft, be- tween grateful and ungrateful, between a friend and an enemy ; for thefe are never confidered as, nor indeed are they in their own nature, idle, unaEtive qualities, reling in the mind. Difpofitions are in order to action, and have a neceßàry relation to it, particular difpofitions to particular courfes of action, and without them, are to all intents and purpofes to be confidered as if they had no being. After the fame manner let us judge of re- pentance, confidered as a difpofition in the mind. To what is it a difpofition ? furely to obedience, to the expreffions of love and gratitude to God and hatred of fin, to a courfe of action oppofite to the former which is now repented of. Without that obe- dience, therefore, thofe expreffions of love and gratitude to God, and hatred of fin, and without that change of our courfe of action, it muff be accounted empty and void. The firmer very well knows how his former dif= pofitions, he now pretends to repent of, and to have changed, exerted themfelves ; they were
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