day coming when a just discrimination would be made, and the impenitent would be subjected to God's heaviest judgments.
After seeing what stress our blessed Lord laid upon these truths, we cannot be thought uncharitable if we open them to you according to their true import. In order to this we will point out,
I. The nature of repentance —
All are ready to imagine that they know what repentance is ; though, in truth, very few have any just notions respecting it. It consists in,
1. A humiliation before God on account of sin —
[Though this will not be disputed, few are aware what kind of humiliation is required.
It must be deep. It is not a slight superficial sorrow that will suffice. Sin is a dreadful evil, and must be lamented in a way suited to its enormity. Hear in what manner God him- self teaches us to deplore the commission of it : " Be afflicted, and mourn, and weep ; let your laughter be turned into mourning, and your joy into heaviness : humble yourselves under the mighty hand of Goda." Such was the compunction felt by the three thousand on the day of Pentecostb: such also was the overwhelming sense of guilt which David feltc : and such in every view was the contrition of Ezra, when he con- fessed before God his own and his people's iniquities'1. This is the humiliation which God requires ; and every thing that falls short of this will he despise e.
It must be ingenuous. There is a sorrow, like that of Felix or of Judas, arising from convictions of the natural conscience, and ending in despair. But this is in no respect acceptable to God ; for it will consist with a love of sin, and a hatred of God's law ; and the person who is impressed with it would prefer a life of sin, provided only he might be assured of escaping the punishment attendant on it. Our sorrow should resemble that of the Corinthian Church, when they had seen their error, and were humbled for it, with " a sorrow which wrought in them a repentance not to be repented of:" " For behold," says the Apostle, " this self-same thing, that ye sor- rowed after a godly sort, what carefulness it wrought in you, yea, what clearing of yourselves, yea, what indignation, yea, what fear, yea, what vehement desire, yea, what zeal, yea, what revenge ! In all things ye have approved yourselves to
a Jam. iv. 8 — 10. b Acts ii. 37. c Ps. xxxviii. 4. and li. 3. d Ezraix. 5, G. e ps. \\% 17.