A SERMON OF REPENTANCE. EZEK. xxxvi, 31. THEN SHALL YE REMEMBER YOUR OWN EVIL WAYS, AND YOUR DOINGS THAT WERE NOT GOOD, AND SHALL LOATHE YOURSELVES IN YOUR OWN SIGHT, FOR YOUR INIQUITIES, AND FOR YOUR ABOMINATIONS. THE words are a part of God's prognostics of the Jews' resto- ration, whose dejection he had before described. Their disease began within, and there God promiseth to work the cure. Their captivity was but the fruit of their voluntary captivity to sin, and their grief of heart was but the fruit of their hardness of heart, . and their sharpest sufferingof their foul pollutions; and, therefore, God promisetha methodical cure, even to take away their old and stony heart, and cleanse them from their filthiness, and so to ease them by the removing of the cause.. How far, and when, this promise was to be made good tq the Jews, as nationally.consider- ed, is a matter that requires a longer disposition than my limited hour will allow.; and the decision of that case is needless, as to my present end and work.. That this is part of the gospel covenant, and applicable to us believers now,,the Holy Ghost, in the Epistle to the Hebrews, hath assured us. The, text is the description of the repentance of the people, in which the beginningof their recovery -doth consist, and by which the rest must be attained. The evil which they repent ofis, in general, all their iniquities, but especially their idolatry, calledtheir abominations. Their repentance is foretold, as it is in the undgr- standing and thoughts, and as, in the will and affections. In the former, it is called " remembering their own evil ways." I'n the latter, it is called " loathing themselves in their own sight, for their iniquities and abominations." Montanus translates it reprobabitis in vos ; but in c. 20, v. 43, fastidietis vos. The same sense is in- tended by the other versions. When the Septuagint translates it by displeasure, and the Chaldee by groaning, and the Syriac by the wrinkling of the face, and the Sept. in c. xx. 43, by smiting
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