6. Thus it is, that in the children of God, repentance and faith exactly answer each other. By repentance we feel the sin remaining in our hearts, and cleaving to our words and actions. By faith we receive the power of God in Christ, purifying our hearts and cleansing our hands. By repentance we are still sensible that we deserve punishment for all our tempers and words and actions. By faith we are conscious, that our Advocate with the Father is continually pleading for us, and thereby continually turning aside all condemnation and punishment from us. By repentance we have an abiding conviction, that there is no help in us. By faith we receive not only mercy, but _grace to help_ in every _time of need_. Repentance disclaims the very possibility of any other help. Faith accepts all the help we stand in need of, from him that hath all power in heaven and earth. Repentance says, Without him I can do nothing: faith says, _I can do all things through Christ strengthening me_. Through him I cannot only overcome, but expel all the enemies of my soul. Through him I can _love the Lord_ my _God, with all my heart, mind, soul and strength_: yea and _walk in holiness and righteousness before him all the days of my life_.
III. 1. From what has been said we may easily learn the mischievousness of that opinion, that we are _wholly_ sanctified when we are justified: that our hearts are then cleansed from all sin. It is true, we are then delivered (as was observed before) from the dominion of outward sin: and at the same time the power of inward sin is so broken, that we need no longer follow or be led by it. But it is by no means true, that inward sin is then totally destroyed, that the root of pride, self-will, anger, love of the world is then taken out of the heart, or that the carnal mind and the heart bent to backsliding are entirely extirpated. And to suppose the contrary is not, as some may think an innocent, harmless mistake. No: it does immense harm; it entirely blocks up the way to any farther change. For it is manifest, _they that are whole do not need a physician, but they that are sick_. If therefore we think we are quite made whole already, there is no room to seek any farther healing. On this supposition it is absurd to expect a farther deliverance from sin, whether gradual or instantaneous.
2. On the contrary, a deep conviction that we are not yet whole, that our hearts are not fully purified, that there is yet in us _a carnal mind_, which is still in its nature _enmity against God_; that a whole body of sin remains in our heart, weakened indeed, but not destroyed, shews beyond all possibility of doubt, the absolute necessity of a farther change. We allow, that at the very moment of justification, we are _born again_: in that instant we experience that inward change, from _darkness into marvellous light_; from the image of the brute and the devil, into the image of God, from the earthly, sensual, devilish mind, to the mind which was in Christ Jesus. But are we then _entirely_ changed? Are we _wholly_ transformed into the image of him that created us? Far from it: we still retain a depth of sin: and it is the consciousness of this, which constrains us to groan for a full deliverance, to him that is mighty to save. Hence it is, that those believers who are not convinced of the deep corruption of their hearts, or but slightly and as it were notionally convinced, have little concern about _entire sanctification_. They may possibly hold the opinion, that such a thing is to be, either at death, or some time, they know not when, before it. But they have no great uneasiness for the want of it, and no great hunger or thirst after it. They cannot, until they know themselves better, until they repent in the sense above described, until God unveils the inbred monster’s face, and shews them the real state of their souls. Then only, when they feel the burden, will they groan for deliverance from it. Then and not till then will they cry out, in the agony of their soul,
Break off the yoke of inbred sin And fully set my spirit free! I cannot rest, till pure within, Till I am wholly lost in thee!
3. We may learn from hence, secondly, that a deep conviction of our _demerit_ after we are accepted, (which in one sense may be termed _guilt_) is absolutely necessary, in order to our seeing the true value of the atoning blood; in order to our feeling that we need this as much, after we are justified, as ever we did before. Without this conviction we cannot but account the blood of the covenant _as a common thing_, something of which we have not now any great need, seeing all our past sins are blotted out. Yea, but if both our hearts and lives are thus unclean, there is a kind of guilt which we are contracting every moment, and which of consequence would every moment expose us to fresh condemnation, but that
He ever lives above, For us to intercede, His all-atoning love, His precious blood to plead.