Line 69. "He turneth the desert." This beautiful imagery is finely expanded by Isaiah. I quote the pas sage from Bishop Lowth's version. "The poor and the needy seek for water and there is none; Their tongue is parched with thirst: 1, Jehovah, will answer them; The God of Israel, I will not forsake them. I will open in the high places, rivers, And in the midst of the valleys, fountains. I will make the desert, a standing pool, And the dry ground, streams of water." Line 76. "He doth not dimi nish." That is he exceedingly increaseth; an instance of the figure which rhetoricians call Litotes; see Glassii Philol. Sac. p. 801. For a Lines 73-6.] This quatrain won- similar instance of the same figure, ISAIAH xli. 17, 18. See Matt. ii. 6. And thou, Bethle hem, art by no means the least, &c." -that is, art assuredly the greatest. Line 79. He poureth contempt, &c." See Daniel iv. 24-33. Line 80,"Pathless waste."] The word in the original ( Tohu) is expressive of extreme desolation; it is the same used Gen. i. 2. in the description of primeval chaos. Bishop Lowth most justly observes, that the meaning and spirit of the images in Hebrew poetry, very freqmently depend on a relationship, and, as it were, a familiarity, which certain words have contracted with tertain things. See the conclusion of his eighth prælection. With respect to imagery drawn from the chaos, see particularly the Bishop's ninth Lecture, first four pages. He there most happily quotes Isaiah "And he shall stretch over her the line of devastation, And the plummet of emptiness. .בהו and תהו It The very words of the divine historian, Gen. i. 2. may perhaps appear no fanciful conjecture, that these five quatrains have a connected, and chronologically progressive reference to sacred history; and it appears that the topics respectively close with the close of each stanza. The first, seems to refer to the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, which is actually introduced into the text of the Chaldee Parapbrast. The second, to the passage through the wilderness, and introduction to the promised land. The third, to the set tlement, and growing prosperity of the Israelites when completely established in that land. The fourth, to their sufferings during the Babylo nish captivity, with the divine retribution visited upon their oppressors. And the last, to their re-establish ment in Judea. CHUST, OBSERV. No. 97. J. J. FAMILY SERMONS. No. XIII. Mark i. 15.-Repent ye. WHEN John the Baptist came to prepare mankind to receive the Messiah, the main subject of his preaching was repentance; “Repent ye, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand:" in other words, for the Gospel dispensation is about to commence. John having thus prepared the way, Jesus of Nazareth at length began his ministry with declaring, that the kingdom, which John had told them of, was now come. "The time," saith he, "is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand." I am come to lay its foundations, and to settle it in the world. And having said this, he informed them of the duties they must perform, or rather of the qualifications they must possess, in order to their being admitted into this kingdom. One of these is the same of which John had told them," Repent ye." The other was new to them, "Believe the Gospel:" that is, believe the glad tidings which I bring of pardon and salvation through my blood. "Repent, and believe the Gospel" The first thing which our blessed Saviour here enjoins us to do, is to repent. This is the first command which he ever laid upon us. How much, then, doth it behove us to consider it with care, lest we should be mistaken as to its true meaning; especially as our Saviour hath not only commanded us to repent, but hath told us in the plainest terms, that " except we repent; we shall all likewise perish." The word in the Greek, which is translated repentance, properly signifies a change of mind, and that from bad to good. It may also be understood to signify the recovery of the mind from infatuation or madness. And thus it is that our Saviour, speaks of the repentance of the prodigal son: "He came to himself." He had been, as it were, B beside himself, but he had now come to his right mind. Repentance, therefore, is seated wholly within us. It is the recovery of the mind from its former sin and folly; from its distraction about worldly things, and its aver sion to holiness and to God; to such a frame and disposition as are wholly averse from sin, and inclined only to God and goodness. It is that grace of the soul, by which, under a deep and affecting sense of the divine mercy, we are made to see, and bewail, and hate our sin; to turn wholly from sin unto God; and to resolve and endeavour to serve and obey him faithfully for the time to come. But to be more par ticular. 1. If we would obey this first command of our Saviour, our minds must de possessed with a deep sense, not only of the sinfulness of our nature, and of the innumerable sins of our past lives, but of the guilt which we have thereby contracted, and of the punishment to which we have made ourselves liable. It is not enough that we should in words acknowledge ourselves to be "miserable sinners:" we must feel ourselves to be so. We must feel not only that we are sinners in general, but we must be sensible of our particular breaches of the divine law; whether they are sins of ignorance and surprise, or sins wilfully and deliberately committed; whether they consist in the neglect of our duty, or in acts of rebellion against God; whether they are open or secret sins; sins in thought, as well as in word and in act. 2. When our sins have thus been marshalled before our eyes, and we reflect how grievously we have by them offended our gracious God, broken his righteous law, abused his mercies, and incurred his wrath, we should be affected with deep sorrow and hearty contrition. The sense of our ingratitude should press upon our spirits. The remem brance of our sins should be griev unto us, and the burden of them intolerable, that we should be rea to sink under it, but for the con deration of the mercies of that G and the merits of that Savio against whom our sins have be committed. 3. Here, however, it may be pr per to caution you against measu ing the depth and sincerity of yo sorrow for sin, by the outward e pression of that sorrow. For it ma and of en does happen, that th mind is overwhelmed with gri when there appear none of thos outward signs which generally ad company it. We are not even t regard the acuteness of our feeling as a sure proof of our sincerity Persons are differently affected in this respect, according to their bodily constitution. The only deci sive proof that our sorrow is of the right sort is this; that we had rather suffer the severest affliction than wilfully commit the least sin. We must, therefore, not only see and bewail our sins: we must, also, hate and forsake them; we must be stedfastly resolved to sin no more: we must detest the very thought of what we know to be contrary to the law of God, and turn from it with abhorrence. Whatever comes short of this, how specious and plausible soever it may appear, not true scriptural repentance. For true repentance consists in nothing less than a sincere forsaking of all known sin unto the utmost of our power. Both Scripture and expe rience prove to us that men may convinced of their sins, and in some degree humbled for them, who yet do not truly repent: for remember that repentance is the changing of our minds from evil to good, from sin to holiness, from this world to God. And of this kind must be our repentance, if we would ever taste the happiness of heaven. We must not be content with being a little grieved now and then, with being affected, even to tears, for our sins be is everal the fountain, and the streams will soon run clear. I do not deny in deed, that one great step to inward purity, is to abstain outwardly from whatever is sinfu!; and I would most earnestly exhort you to this course. My object is not, as you will easily believe, to make you think lightly of outward sins, or of the importance of abstaining from them. My object is, to warn you against resting here; against stopping short in the work of reformation; against deluding yourself with the notion of your having completed the work of reformation, when in truth you have scarcely be gun it. Never, therefore, fancy, that you have repented of any sin, merely because you do not commit it now, as you used formerly to do t but rather consider which way your heart is inclined, and whether it is so changed that you hate and abhor the sin now, as much as ever you loved and desired it before, and that you would now be as much grieved, as you ever were pleased. to commit it. Until you experience such a change of heart as this, let no change in your outward conduct delude you into a belief that you have repented; for in fact you have not. if we would truly repent, we must bate and abandon our most beloved sins: we must be as averse from them as ever we were inclined to them before: for the very essence of true repentance consists in this; that our minds are taken off, as it were, from sin, and fixed on Ged. If, then, the view I have taken of this subject be just, it may follow, that a man may leave off the practice of many of those sins in which he formerly indulged, and yet not truly repent of them. Repentance, let it be remembered, has its place in the mind: unless that be changed, though there be a change in the outward life and conversation, there can be no true repentance. It will not necessarily follow, because we no longer commit outwardly certain sins, that those inward lusts and corruptions which gave birth to those sins, are at all mortified and subdued. How many motives, for example, may unite to deter a man from the outward commission of those sins of impurity to which he may formerly have been addicted, while his heart continues to be the seat of impure affections? Suppose, also, a person to have acquired a large fortune by dishonest means; it would surely be no proof of his repentance, that be had at length relinquished his dishonest practices. His heart may be still the same; and he may only want the same occasion, and the me temptation, as before, to lead him to commit again the same frauds. Let me, therefore, caution you against self-deceit in this matter; against believing that you have repented, when in truth you have not. for, however changed may be your estward conduct, unless your hearts be changed too, I should be unfathful to your souls if I did not you that you have not repented a. Your chief care, therefore, be to get your hearts and afchons changed and renewed: then the reformation of your lives will bow of course. Do but cleanse tall But here it will be proper a little to qualify what I have said, al though I feel that I shall be treading on tender ground. What I wish to observe is, that, in order to prove the sincerity of a man's repentance, it is not necessary that he should never fall into sin: for then, what man who ever lived could be proved to be a true penitent? While we continue in this imperfect state, subject to the assaults of the world, the flesh, and the devil, it is not to be wondered at, if we should sometimes be overcome by these enemies of our souls. But the true penitent, though he may be surprized into sin through inadvertency, or overpowered by the force of temptation, yet rests not in this state. His mind is set on God and holiness: with grief of heart he con templates his fall, and bewails the dishonour done to his Saviour; he renews his penitence; he applies with increased earnestness to the Throne of grace for mercy to pardon, and grace to help him. If he sin, he sins not wilfully, or deliberately, or habitually. The main bent and inclination of his soul are towards God; and his greatest grief and burden are, that he should be so far from acting up to what he feels to be his duty, his interest, his happiness, as ever to stray for one moment from the ways of God. The grand decisive mark of true repentance, I repeat it, is this; that our minds are changed from what they were, so that we now truly hate the sin which once we loved, and truly love the goodness which once we disregarded. If we be truly penitent, we shall not only not commit any known sin, but we shall not willingly omit any known duty; we will not omit to perform any of those acts of service, to cultivate any of those heavenly tempers, to cberish any of those devout affections, which God requires of us. We will not only forsake every evil way; but we will labour, in the strength of divine grace, to do whatever God would have us to do, and to be whatever God would have us to be. This is true, genuine, scriptural repentance; that repent ance which needeth not to be repented of; and with any thing short of this, as we value our immortal souls, we ought not to rest satisfied for a single moment. Having thus explained the nature of repentance, I would say a few words on its necessity. And here, surely, that single expression of our Saviour, Except ye repent ye shall all likewise perish," is sulli. cient to silence every cavil. Some persons there are in the world, who please themselves with I know not hat notion of pardon and accept ance, who yet make little account of that grand work of repentance ou which I have insisted. They would represent the painful, heart-search. ing, self-denying process, which I have stated to be so necessary, as lessening the freeness of the divine grace and mercy in our salvation But is not repentance also the gift of God, the fruit of his love, the purchase of the Redeemer's blood, the work, the sole work, of his Spirit? For what is repentance but the conversion of the soul; its resurrection from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan to God; its renewal in the Saviour's image? And is not this as much the effect of divine grace; as much the free, unmerited gift of God; as that pardon and acceptance which are promised to the believing penitent, and to him only? I say, to him only; for we can have no ground to expect pardon unless we repent: and though it is not on account of our repentance that we are pardoned, yet we shall never be pardoned without it. There is, it is true, no virtue in our tears, or in our penitence, to wash away either the guilt or the pollution of pur sins. Nothing but the blood of Christ can do this. And yet the blood of Christ will never do it, unless we repent:-not that our repentance can add any virtue or efficacy to the blood of Christ; but because he himself hath determined that the virtue of his precious blood shall neither be imparted nor imputed to any but the penitent. And now, why need I use any other arguments to persuade you to repent? Surely there is not one person present who is not conscious to himself that he has committed many and great transgressions against God; and thus provoked the divine wrath, and made himself liable to all its tremendous consequences. If so, if you perceive. your danger on account of sin, surely you will desire nothing so much as to be delivered from it, as to have your sins pardoned and your guilt taken away. And let me tell you, for your comfort, that, however numerous and however great your former sins may have been, yet in and through Christ |