[This is one of the most decisive evidences of true repent- ance. Nothing but real contrition can ever produce this. We may submit to afflictive dispensations with a considerable degree of patience and resignation, even though we have no just view of our guilt before God: hut we can never be thankful for them, till we see that sin is the greatest of all evils, and that even' thing is a mercy which leads us to repent of sin. Till we are brought to this, we can never be truly said to " accept the punishment of our iniquity." We must accept it as a fatherly chastisement, a token of love, a blessing in disguise : we must say from our hearts, " It is good for me that I have been afflicted" ]
These marks sufficiently characterize the repentance which God requires. We now proceed to mark,
II. The connexion between that and the exercise of mercy —
It is strange that any should imagine repentance to be meritorious in the sight of God. Our blessed Lord has told us, that obedience itself can lay no claim to merit; and that " when we have done all that is commanded us, we should confess ourselves unprofitable servants." Who does not see that an acknowledgment of a debt is a very different thing from a discharge of that debt; and that, if a con- demned criminal be ever so sorry for his offences, and acknowledge ever so sincerely his desert of punishment, his sorrow cannot cancel the debt which he owes to the laws of his country; much less can it give him a claim to great rewards? It is not then on a ground of merit, that God pardons a repenting sinner. Nevertheless there is a connexion between re- pentance and pardon : there is a meetness and suitable- ness in the exercise of mercy towards the penitent;
1. On God's part —
[Repentance glorifies God, as much as any action of a creature can glorify him. It expresses an approbation of his law, and of the penalties annexed to it : it exalts the goodness and mercy of God, by the hope which it entertains of ultimate acceptance with him. There is not any perfection of the Deity
which repentance does not honour — Hence Joshua said
to Achan, " My son, give glory to the Lord God of Israel, and make confession unto hime."]
e Josh. vii. 19. VOL. I. Y Y