340 A SERMON OF REPENTANCE. and whenGod will restore a, punished people upon their repent- ance, he bringeth them to this loathing of themselves. 1. AA converted soul bath a new and heavenly light to help him to see those matters'of humbling use which others see not. 2. More particularly, he háth the knowledgeof sinand of him- self. He seeth the odious face of sin, and seeth how much his heart and life, in his sinful days, abounded with it, and how great á measure yet remains. 3. He bath seen by faith the Lord himself; the majesty, the holiness, the jealousy, the goodness of the eternal God whom hé hath offended, and therefore mustneeds abhor himself; Job xlii. 6. 4. He bath tasted of God's displeasure against him for his sin, already. 'God himself bath set it home, and awakened his con- science, and held it on, till he bath made him understand that the consuming fire is pot to be jested with. 5. He hath seen Christ crucified, and mourned over him. This is the glass that doth most clearly show the . ugliness of sin ; and here he bath learned to abhor himself. 6. He bath foreseen, by faith, the end of sin, and the doleful recompensé of. the ungodly: his faith beholdeth the misery of damned souls, and the glory which sinners cast away. He heareth them beforehand, repenting, and lamenting, and crying out of their former folly, and wishing in vain that all this were to do again, and that theymight once snore be tried with another life, and re- solving then how holily, how self-denyingly they would'.live ! He knows that if sin had had its way, he had been plunged 'into this hellish misery himself; and therefore he must needsloathe himself for his iniquities. 7. Moreover, the true convert bath had the liveliest taste of mercy, of the blood of Christ, of the 'offers and covenant of grace, of reprieving mercy, of pardoning mercy, of healing and preserving mercy, ,and of the unspeakable mercy contained in the promise of everlasting life ; and to find that he hath sinned against all this mercy, Both constrain him to abhor himself. S. And it is'only the true convert that bath a new and holy na- ture, contrary to sin ; and; therefore, as' a man that háth the lep- rosy doth loathe himself because his nature is contrary to his disease, so is it (though operating in a freer way) with aconverted soul as to the leprosy of sin. O, how he loathes the remnants of his pride and 'passion ; his excessive cares, desires, and fears ; the backwardness of bis soul to God and heaven ! Sin is to the new nature of every tine believer as the food ofa swine to the, stomach of 'a man ; if he have eaten it, he bath no rest until he bath vom- ited it up ; and then, when he looketh on his vomit, he loatheth himself to think how long he kept, such filth within him ; and that yet in the bottom there is some remains.
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