nix. 5. But it may be said, if repentance be what you represent it, a thing of such mighty import, and such impracticable performance, as a change of mind, in what rational way can it be made the subject of a precept or an injunction? you would not call upon the Ethiopian to change his skin-you would not call upon1:he leopard to change his spots; and yet you call upon us to change our minds. You say, "Repent;" and that too in the face of the undeniable doctrine, that man is without strength for the achievement of so mighty an enterprise. Can you tell us any plain and practicable thing that you would have us to perform, and that we may perform to help on this business? This is the very question with which the hearers of John the Baptist came back upon him, after he Kad told them in general terms to repent, and to bring forth fruits meet :fbr repentance. He may not have resolved the difficulty, but he pointed the expectations of his countrymen to a greater than he for the solution ofit. Now that Teacher has already come, and we live under the full and the finished splendour of his revelation. 0 that the greatness and difficulty of the work of repentance, had the effect of shutting you up into the faith of Christ! Repentance is not a paltry, superficial reformation. It reaches deep into the inner man, but not too deep for the searching il}fluences of that Spirit which is at his giving, and which worketh,mightily in the hearts of believers. You should go then under a sense of your difficulty to Him. Seek to be rooted in the Saviour, that you may be nourished out of his fulness, and strengthened by his might. The simple cry for a clean heart, and a right spirit, which is raised from , the mouth of a believer, brings down an answer from on high, which explains all the difficulty and overcomes it. And if what we have said of the extent and magnitude of repentance, should have the effect to give a deeper feeling than before of the wants under which you labour; and shall dispose you to seek after a closer and more habitual union with Him
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