the Lord Jesus Christ. Bepentanoe like this is the characteristic of all true Christiaiis.
The necessity of repentance to salvation will be evident to all who search the Scriptnres, and consider the nature of the subject. — Without it there is no forgiveness ot sins. There never was a pardoned man who was not also a penitent. There never was one washed in the blood of Christ who did not feel, and moum, and confess, and hate his own sins.-^Without it there can be no meetness for heaven. We could not be happy if we reached the ^kingdom of glory with a heart loving sin. The company •of saints and angels would give us no pleasure. Our minds would not be in tune for an eternity of holiness. Let these things sink down into our hearts. We must «epent as wdl as beUeve, if we hope to be saved.
Let us leave the subject with the solemn inquiry, — Have we ourselves repented? We live in a Christian land. We belong to a Christian Church. We have Omstian ordinances and means of grace. We have heard of repentance with the hearing of the ear, and .that hundreds of times. But hasve we ever repented P Do we sreHUy know our own sinMness P Do our sins cause us any sorrow P Have we cried to God about our sins, and sought foi^veness at the throne of grace P Have we ceased to do evil, and broken off from our bad habits P Do we cordially and heartily hate everything that isevilP These are serious questions. They deserve serious consideration. The subject before us is no light matter. Nothing less than Ufe— etemid life— is at stake ! If we die impenitent, and without a new heieurt, we had better .never have been bom.
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LT7KE, CHAP. XIII. VER. 1 — 5. Ill
If wB never yet repented, let ns begin without delay. For this we are accountable. " Bepent ye, and be oon- Terted/' were the words of Peter to the Jews who had oracified our Lord. (Acts iii. 19.) "Repent and pray," was flie charge addressed to Simon Magus when he was in the "gall of bitterness and bond of iniquity.'* (Acts ▼iii. 22.) There is everything to encourage us to begin. CSirist invites us. Promises of Scripture are held out to ns* Glorious declarations of God's willingness to receive us abound throughout the word. "There is joy in heaven over one sinner that repenteth.'' Then let us arise and call upon God. Let us repent without delay.
If we have already repented in time past, let us go on repenting to the end of our lives. There will always be sins to confess and infirmities to deplore, so long as we aie in the body. Let us repent more deeply, and humble ourselves more thoroughly, every year. Let every Tetoming birthday find us hating sin more, and loving CSirist more. He was a wise old saint who said, "I hope to cany my repentance to the very gate of heaven."
KoTBs. Li7K« xni. 1—6.
1. — [The OaUlaans, whose bloody do.] We know nothing about the event here mentioned. Josephus speaks of the slaughter of certain Samaritans by Pilate upon mount Gerizim. But they seem to hare been rebels and fanatics, and to have died in battle. It is far more probable that the case reported to our Lord was that of certain Galiiaeans who had come up to Jerusalem to worship, and were slain by Pilate's soldiers in some popular tumult.
3. — [Suppose ye,., sinner 8 above all, de.j It is evident that our Lord's informants were filled with the vulgar opinion that sudden deaths were special judgments, and that if a man died suddenly, he must^have committed some special sin. Our Lord bids them understand that this opinion was a mere baseless delusion. We have no right whatever to conclude that God is angry with a man because He removes him suddenly from the world.