13' FORGIVENESS OF SIN. solemn representation of a thing, wherein lay their chief, their eternal concern, and suffer them to feed upon ashes 1 Let men take heed that they mock not God ; for, of a truth, God mocketh not men, until he be finally rejected by them. For four thousand years, then, did God declare by sacrifices, that there is forgiveness with him, and lead his people by them to make a public re- presentation of it in the face of the world. III. God's prescribing REPENTANCE to sinners reveals that there is forgiveness with him. After the angels had sinned God never once called them to repentance. He would not deceive them, but let them know what they were to look for at his hands ; be had no forgive- ness for them, and therefore would require no repent- ance of them. Their eternal anguish about sin com- mitted has nothing of repentance in it. The appoint- ment, then, of repentance, is a revelation of forgiveness. God would not call upon a sinful creature to humble itself, and bewail its sin, if there were no way of reco- very or relief; and the only way of recovery from the guilt of sin is pardon ; so Job, 33 : 27, 28. " He looketh on men, and if any say, I have sinned, and perverted that which was right, and it profited me not ; he will de- liver his soul from going into the pit, and his life shall see the light." In the foregoing verses he declares the various ways that God used to bring men to repentance. He did it by dreams, ver. 15, 16; by afflictions, ver. 19 by the preaching of the word, ver. 23. What then is God's design in all these various ways of teaching 1 It is to cause man to say, I have sinned, and perverted that which was right. It is to bring him to repentance. What now, if God's design is gained and man comes to re- pentance'? Why, then there is forgiveness for him, as is declared, ver. 28. To improve this evidence, I shall con- firm, by some considerations, these two things : First,
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