soul testifies how the Spirit can point to the burning pit of hell,-bid him look down there, and see what is prepared for them who walk the broad road, and mingle among its careless multitudes.

(e.) For this great work of convincing of sin, we want the Holy Spirit. Some intellectual perceptions of heavenly things may be gained by parental or pastoral teaching, without the Spirit; but they are feeble, cold, and lifeless as moonlight; they do not reach the evil; they leave men still "walking in the vanity of their mind," "because of the blindness of their heart." A clear intellect which perceives the truth, and a blind heart that disrelishes and perverts it, explain the phenomenon of our barren ministrations. With faithful and untiring hand, we may "hold forth the word of life;" but it is "light shining in darkness, and the darkness comprehendeth it not." The illumination of the Holy Ghost is wanted-the "Spirit of wisdom and understanding." He quickens and concentrates the thoughts upon the things of God; throws a new, and powerful, and personal meaning into the warnings and promises of Scripture; gives a keen insight into the mind of the Lord; opens the eyes of the understanding;

"Lights up every dark recess
Of the heart's ungodliness;"

makes eternal things so real and so near, that, amazed at the new world of truth which has burst upon his vision, the sinner exclaims with wonder at himself, "One thing I know, that whereas I was blind, now I see."

This, then, is the first business of the minister of Christ; knowing God's testimony concerning man, he must appeal to men's judgments, reasoning with them out of Scripture about God and the soul and eternity, seeking to bring them to the light that their deeds may be reproved. It ought to be the prayer of every believer, "Lord, forgive their feebleness, and make them more and more skilful and mighty to win souls." But repentance is a change in the moral feelings as well as the intellectual perceptions.

(a.) Convinced of sin by the Spirit of Christ, self-satisfaction is at an end. The strong anxiety of the awakened soul is to know what God thinks of him. Other considerations are subordinate. How does God look on me now? This is implied in the expression,-" repentance towards God." now, that his eyes are opened to see the glory of God, his repentance is deepened by increasing acquaintance with God. He knows more and more what God thinks of him. He knows, too, what he thinks of God. "He sees his sins in the light of His countenance." He feels how grievously he has wronged the Best of beings. He has listened to Satan's misrepresen

tations, instead of learning the Father from "the faithful and true witness" who alone is able to "declare Him." "No man knoweth the Father save the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son will reveal Him." He sees his error. "Now mine eye seeth thee; wherefore I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes." Other views of God's character have their influence, but it is prominently the "goodness of God that leadeth to repentance," His abounding goodness in Providence, and His more abounding goodness in Grace. For, His goodness is seen conspicuously, as in a glass, in the person and redeeming work of Christ. It is this which gave the charm and power to His own ministry, when Christ himself, the Revealer of the Father, the express Image of His character, stood upon this world of sin, and commanded men to repent,-the strongest motive to repentance was to be called upon by Him who, at such a cost, came to bring men to repentance, and then to make their repentance acceptable.

Some may undervalue it as an old-fashioned method of dealing with souls; but to us those cases of conversion seem the most sound and satisfactory, when the fear of God's displeasure against sin troubles solemnly the conscience. Like Lot, we would linger among the world's abominations, even till the storm of destruction begins to fall; but God sends these alarming fears of coming wrath, like angels taking the sinner violently by the hand, and speaking in his ears, Escape for thy life, get thee to the mountains, lest thou be consumed." These terrors of the Lord make the tidings of the gospel all the more precious. And Christ is the more welcome to the mourner in Zion, when thus he feels the burden fallen off at the foot of the Cross, and exchanges "beauty for ashes, and the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness."

(b.) But besides this sense of God's displeasure, strong and deep and alarming as it is, the repenting sinner feels an unfeigned sorrow about sin. His heart is full. He must weep; he does weep. The more he thinks of himself and his past conduct towards God, the more occasion he has to weep. The Holy Ghost has laid his burden upon the conscience. Sin is no slight sorrow now. The Spirit is in him as the "Spirit of mourning." And "godly sorrow worketh repentance." This sorrow is no slight, passing thing; it is deep, abiding, effective. It has a work to do on the soul; and it does that work. "It worketh repentance." It makes the sinner more solemnly alive to his guilty state before God; he confesses that he has done the evils with which God charges him; he bewails the estrangement of heart from God; that his sins have separated between God and himself; he feels himself an exile far from the Father's house, and deserves to be exiled. It is under this process of sorrow he is brought to see that he has destroyed

himself; but now he is more than willing to receive the welcome tidings that "with the Lord there is mercy, and with Him is plenteous redemption."

(c.) We attempt to lay down no rules as to the degree or manifestations of sorrow for sin. They depend much upon temperament and other causes. Tears often flow freely when the heart is but slightly punctured. A man may be sorry without godly sorrow that worketh repentance. King Saul was sorry when Samuel told him the Lord had rejected him, but he had no true repentance. Herod was sorry when John the Baptist's head was demanded, but Herod was not a penitent. Felix trembled, but he returned to his sin and perished. Sickness, peril, or the fear of dying, will extort tears from worldly men; but it is only the sorrow of the world, and, like breath on the surface of the mirror, it passes away and leaves no trace behind.

(d.) Here, again, the sorrow of a true penitent has respect to God. It was the thought of his Father, his Father's house, and his Father's surpassing goodness even to the hired servants, that broke the Prodigal down. It is the contrast between His perfect goodness and my wretched sins and ingratitude that makes me weep. And above all, when we meditate upon the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ in His love to men, and when we turn our eyes to the cross of Christ, and think of the untold agonies of that scene, the amazing love there illustrated, the everlasting evils averted and the everlasting blessings gained,-when the soul is brought to see the mystery of that finished redemption, and the kingdom of Heaven which He opened,-then do we heartily bewail our manifold sins and iniquities, and feel the burden of them to be intolerable. It is not so much by looking at sin itself, nor at the wrath of God revealed against it, that godly sorrow is deepened; but when men look on Him whom they pierced, and see something of the mystery of Eternal love, then it is they mourn with inconsolable distress as one that is in bitterness for his first-born."

(e.) Some people mourn because they cannot mourn. The work is often mistaken. The very hardness of their heart, its dull, senseless apathy under divine dealings, is to many their phase of spiritual anxiety. Many offer the prayer,

"Grant me my sins to feel,

And then the load remove;

Wound, and pour in my wounds to heal

The balm of pardoning love."

It may be rather by feeling your hard insensibility, than by floods of tears, that you may be taught the need of Christ. "More are drawn to Christ," says Thomas Shepherd,

"under sense of a dead, blind heart, than by sorrows, humiliations, and terrors." What you call insensibility, in fact, is your experience of sin's hardening power. Mourn over it. Condemn it before God. Make it the urgent business on which you must go to Christ, and beg of Him, for His mercy's sake, to "take away that heart of stone, and give you a heart of flesh."

(f) We might add a few words on the error of seeking to shape all cases of soul-trouble according to the same mould. All the operations of the Spirit upon the soul agree in their main elements, but vary in circumstances. All God's people undergo this change of mind,-all are convinced of sin,-all have godly sorrow,-all are led by the Spirit to Christ,-but all are not led through the same process. It varies immensely. God the Spirit works in His own way. We are not to bend God's rules to make them fit in with man'si deas. We are not to pronounce too hastily, that this seed is not growing out of good ground; or that it has no depth of earth, and will in time of trial fall away. We must wait. And in applying Scripture instances, we should be wise. Lydia at Philippi, and the treasurer of Candace, say some, showed no sorrow for sin. not know that. Every detail of spiritual work is not recorded. Unless Lydia had experienced the change of mind which constitutes repentance, and known what godly sorrow means, St. Paul would hardly have "counted her faithful;" nor would Philip have baptized the treasurer, unless he discerned in that interesting convert both repentance towards God and faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.

We do

III. Repentance is also change of will, or of conscience controlling the will. Left to himself, the impenitent sinner is a proud, self-important creature. He boasts to himself, and often to others, that he can go anywhere and do anything. He stands and prays thus with himself: "God, I thank thee that I am not as other men are." Nothing is more marked than the alteration which repentance makes in this respect. The backbone of his self-righteous pride is broken. He is disabled, prostrate, without strength. This humiliation before God, this sense of poverty, this trembling at the word of God, bringing down and laying low, even with the dust, is ascribed to the law applied by the Spirit. "I, through the law, am dead to the law, that I might live unto God." In what way the law works death, we stop not now to say. But, we are afraid that much of the transient repentance which is prevalent arises from the want of a sound work of humiliation on the conscience; the root of pride is not destroyed; the man retains a latent impression that there is still some good thing in him. He is not thoroughly humbled; not brought to selfdespair; he has still some confidence in the flesh. He would

come to Christ, but with measured, stately steps, bringing something in his hand. He would bow before the Lord, but he would make some conditions about bowing also in the house of Rimmon. In true repentance all this is at an end. The soul is silent, contrite, abased; he is poor in spirit; has no proud looks; presumes not to propose terms to the Lord; offers no self-defence; makes no apology for this sin, or pleads for that sin to be spared; no complaining of God's ways, as if they were severe, or His sayings as hard; he is not offended in Christ, but willing to part with right eyes and right hands; he comes before the Lord as the citizens of Calais to Edward III., with ropes round their necks, ready to die if he so appoint. "The Lord is righteous, but I am vile; let Him do with me what seems good in His sight." If I perish, I perish. Lord, do with me as Thou wilt. I have no claim but on Thy compassion. I have no argument but from Thy mercy. I have no hope but in Thy gracious promises; but this is my hope, my argument, my claim-"God is in Christ reconciling the world unto Himself, not imputing their iniquities unto them." I throw myself on Thy blessed promise, "Him that cometh unto me I will in no wise cast out."

We add a few words on the position which repentance occupies in God's method of grace.

No;

1. We have no sympathy with those who represent repentance as a stage of spiritual experience, through which the soul passes, and then it is left behind,-done with,-as a school-boy leaves his Delectus when he begins to read Virgil. it is more like his grammar; he may not say much about it, but he is daily entering more deeply into its meaning, and intuitively applies it to all he reads. We believe that repentance is one of the fruits of the Spirit, which grows to richer maturity in the higher elevations of spiritual experience. The Holy Spirit will go on to give a right judgment in all things, to bring the affections and desires into complete harmony with the will of Christ; so that we love that which He commands, and desire that which He promises. And, if the will abased,-subdued,-turned from pride and self and sin to do the Lord's will,-if this be an element in repentance, no sincere Christian will desire to outlive his repentance. It is, in fact, the work of God's Spirit upon the soul of man, shown in one special aspect. Faith is the work of the Spirit in another aspect. Adoption in another. Glorification in another. Faith is the sinner looking at the cross. Repentance is the sinner lying prostrate before the cross, looking at himself, and, as he looks, he weeps bitterly.

2. Faith in Christ has very much to do with bringing the soul to such repentance as is here described. We cannot