A SERMON OF REPENTANCE. 329 on the face, the Arabic here perverts the sense by turning all to negatives ye shall not, &c., yet in c. xx. 43. he turns it by the tearingof the face. I have purposely chosen a text that needs no long explication, that, in obedience to the foreseen straits of time, I may be excused from that part, and be more on the more neces- sary. This observation contains the meaning of the text, which, by God's assistance, I shall now insist on, viz. The remembering of their own iniquities, and loathing them- selves for them, is the sign of a repenting people and the prognos- tic of their restoration, so far as deliverance may be here expected. For the opening of which, observe these things following 2. It is not all kind of remembering that will prove you peni- tent. The impenitent remember their sin, that they may commit it; they remember it with love, desire, and delight: the heart of the worldling goeth after his airy or earthen idol. The heart bf the ambitious feedeth on his vain glory, and the people's breath; and the filthy fornicator is delighted in the thoughts of the object and exercise of his lust. But it is a remembering, (1.) from a deep conviction of the evil and odiousness of 'sin. (2.) And with abhorrence and self-loathing. (a.) That leadeth to a resolv- ed and vigilant forsaking, that is the proof of true repentance, and the prognostic 6f a people's restoration. . 3. And it is not all self -loathing that will signify true repenting, for there is a self - loathingof the desperate, and the damned soul that abhorreth itself, and teareth and tormenteth itself, and cannot be restrained from self -revenge, when it finds that it bath willfully, foolishly, and obstinately, been its own destroyer. But the self- loathing of the truly penitent bath these following properties : (1.) It groceedeth from the predominant love, of God, whom aehave abused and offended. The more we love him, the more we _ loathe what is contrary to him. (2.) It is much excited by the observation and sense of his ex- ceeding mercies, and is conjunct with gratitude. (3.) It continueth and increaseth under the greatest assurance of forgiveness, and sense of love, and dieth not when we think we are out of danger. (4.) It containeth a loathingof sin as-sin, and a love of holi- ness as such, and not only a love of ease and peace, and a loath- ing of sin, as the cause of suffering. (5.) It resolveth the soul against returning to its former course, and resolveth it for an entire devotedness to God for the time to come. (6.) It deeply engageth the penitent in a conflict against the flesh, and maketh him victorious, and setteth him to work in a life of holiness, as his trade and principal business in the world. VOL. II. 42
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