LECTURE II.

ON THE POWER OF REPENTANCE FOR THE REMISSION OF SIN.

LECT.

II.

EZEKIEL Xviii. 20—23.

The righteousness of the righteous shall be upon him, and the wickedness of the wicked shall be upon him. But if the wicked will turn from all his sins that he hath committed, and keep all My statutes, and do that which is lawful and right, he shall surely live, he shall not die. All his transgressions that he hath committed, they shall not be mentioned unto him: in his righteousness that he hath done he shall live. Have I any pleasure at all that the wicked should die? saith the Lord God: and not that he should return from his ways, and live?

1. SIN is a fearful thing, and unrighteousness is the sorest ailment of the soul, secretly sapping its sinews, and exposing aurižo it to eternal fire; a self-chosen evil, the offspring of a man's gog set purpose of mind. For that of our own purpose we sin, σεως. the Prophet says plainly in one place. I planted thee a

στον

Jer. 2,

21.

7, 29.

noble vine, wholly a right seed: how then art thou turned into the degenerate plant of a strange vine unto Me? The planting is good, the fruit evil: and that evil is from our purpose of mind. The planter is blameless, but the vine shall be burnt with fire: for it was planted for good, yet hath Eccles. of its own purpose borne fruit to evil. For God, according to the Preacher, hath made man upright; but they have sought Eph. 2, out many inventions. And the Apostle says, We are His workmanship, created unto good works. The Creator then, being good, created for good works: but the creature, of its own set purpose, turned to wickedness. Sin, then, is a fearful evil, as was said, but not an incurable one; fearful to him who clings to it, but quite admitting of a cure when a man through penitence puts it off. For suppose a man holding fire in his

10.

Sin is from within and from the devil.

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hand: while he holds the live coal, he is certainly on fire; but were he to put it away, he would also rid himself of that which was burning him. And if any think that while sinning, he is not on fire, to him saith the Scripture, Can a man take Prov. 6, fire in his bosom, and his clothes not be burned? For sin 27. burns the sinews of the soul.

2. But some one will say, What can sin be? Is it a living (2.) thing—an angel-an evil spirit? What is this which works in us? It is no foe from without, O man, wrestling against thee: but a shoot of evil taking its increase from thyself. Let thine eyes look right on, and lust does not exist; keep Prov. 4, thine own, and take not another's, and a stop is put to 25. robbery; remember the Judgment, and neither fornication, nor adultery, nor murder, nor any unrighteousness shall prevail in thee. But when thou forgettest God, forthwith thou beginnest to devise wickedness, and to accomplish unrighte

ousness.

10, 4.

3. However, nature is not the sole cause of this evil; there is another, who miserably prompts to it, the devil. He prompts all, yet he prevails only over those who listen to him. Therefore saith the Preacher, If a spirit of the powerful rise up Eccles. against thee, leave not thy place. Shut thy door, and keep him far from thee, and he shall not hurt thee. But if thou indulgently admit the thought of lust, through thine imaginations, it will strike its roots into thee, and enthral thy mind, and drag thee down into a pit of evils. But perhaps thou sayest, I am a Believer; lust does not gain the ascendant over me, even though my mind dwells on the objects of it: knowest thou not that even a rock is cleft at length by a root which for a long while adheres to it? Admit not the seed, for it will break in pieces thy faith: root out the mischief, ere it blossom, lest by being idle at the beginning, thou have the trouble of axes and fire afterwards. When thine eyes first ail, attend to them in time, lest after thou art blinded thou begin to seek the physician.

4. The devil then is the chief author of sin, and the parent (3.) of evils; and this hath the Lord said, not I: The devil sinneth 1 John from the beginning; before him sinned no one. But he sinned, 3, 8. not as having received by necessity of nature the principle of sin; (else the blame of sin returns to Him who thus framed

16 No extent of sin is beyond the power of repentance.

LECT. him;) but having been framed good, he became a devil from II. his own purpose of mind, and received his name from his

12-17.

conduct. For being an Archangel, he was called devil, or slanderer, from his slandering; and from a good servant of God, he became Satan fitly so named; for Satan means an Adversary. These doctrines are not mine, but the inspired prophet Ezekiel's. For he, taking up a lamentation against him, says, Ez. 28, Thou sealest up the sum, full of wisdom, and perfect in beauty, thou hast been in Eden, the garden of God; and soon after, Thou wast perfect in thy ways, from the day that thou wast created, till iniquity was found in thee. Very rightly hath he said, was found in thee; for it was not brought in from without, but thou thyself didst beget evil. And the reason he assigns afterwards: thine heart was lifted up, because of thy beauty; I will cast thee as profane out of the mountain of God, I will cast thee to the ground. Parallel to this, is what the Lord says in the Gospel, I beheld Satan as lightning fallen from heaven. Thou seest the harmony of the Old Testament with the New. He, on his falling, drew many away with him. He puts lusts into those who listen to him from him is adultery, fornication, and all evil: through him our forefather Adam was cast out, and exchanged a paradise of wonderful and spontaneous fruits, for this earth with its thorns and thistles.

(4.)

5. What then? some one will say. We have been seduced and are lost; is there no chance of salvation? We have fallen; cannot we rise? We have been blinded; cannot we recover our sight? We have been crippled; cannot our feet become straight again? In a word, we are dead; is there no resurrection? Shall not He, O man, who woke Lazarus, a corpse of four days, which stank, shall not He much more easily raise up thee, a living man? He who shed His precious blood for us, the same shall rescue us from sin. Let us not give sentence against ourselves, brethren; let us not abandon our case as hopeless: not to believe there is hope in penitence, is dreadful indeed. For he who is without expectation of salvation, spares not to increase the evil; but he who hopes for a cure, is easily induced to spare himself. Thus the robber who expects no mercy runs into recklessness; but if he hopes for pardon, often betakes himself

Instances of Adam, Cain, and the Antediluvians.

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to repentance. Nay does the serpent strip himself of old age, and shall not we cast the slough of wickedness? Does thorny ground by good tillage become fruitful, and is salvation to us irrecoverable? Nature then admits of salvation; all that is wanting is the purpose of mind.

6. God is loving to man, and that not a little. For say (5.) not, "I have committed whoredom and adultery: fearful things have been done by me, nor once only but often; will He forgive, will He forget?" Hear what the Psalmist says; Ps. 31, O how plentiful is Thy goodness, O Lord. Thy accumulated 20. sins surpass not the multitude of the mercies of God; thy wounds baffle not the skill of the chief Physician. Only give thyself to Him in faith: tell the Physician thine ailment; say thou also as David did; I said, I will confess my Ps. 32, sins unto the Lord: and what he says next shall also be 5. fufilled in thee; And so Thou forgavest the wickedness of my sin.

7. Wouldest thou see the loving-kindness of God, O thou that art lately come to the Catechising? wouldest thou see the loving-kindness of God, and the abundance of His longsuffering? Hear thou concerning Adam. Adam disobeyed, the first whom God created; might He not at once have visited him with death? But see what the Lord does, in His great love towards man: though He casts him out of Paradise, his sin making him unfit to continue there, yet He places him opposite to Paradise, that seeing what he had arivavforfeited, and what a downfall he had suffered, he thenceforth T παραδεί might be saved by repentance. Cain, the first born man, u. Gen. became a fratricide, a deviser of evils, the cause of mur- Septuag. ders, and the first who envied; yet when he had slain his vers. brother, to what is he doomed? a fugitive and a vagabond Gen. 4, shalt thou be in the earth. How great the sin, how light the doom!

8. This then in very deed is loving-kindness in God, yet it is small compared with what follows: for consider, I pray, the history of Noe. The giants sinned, and lawlessness was there lavishly poured out upon the earth; and in consequence the deluge was ordained to come upon it. In his five hundredth year God puts forth the threat, and in his six hundredth He brought the deluge on the earth. Seest thou

C

τι τοῦ

3, 24.

12.

II.

18 Instance of Rahab an encouragement to penitent sinners.

LECT. the breadth of God's loving-kindness, extending over the space of a hundred years? what He did then after the hundred years, could He not have done at once? but on purpose did He extend it, to give room for repentance. Seest thou the goodness of God? And had those men repented, they would not have come short of His loving-kindness.

(6.)

9. Let us proceed to others, who have been saved by repentance. Perchance some among the women will say, "I have committed whoredom and adultery, I have defiled my body with excesses; is there salvation?" Cast thine eyes, O woman, to Rahab, and do thou also expect salvation; for if she who openly and publicly committed whoredom was saved through repentance, shall not she, who has committed one such act before the gift of grace, be saved through penitence and by fastings? For enquire how she was saved: this only said Josh.11, she, The Lord your God, He is God in heaven above, and in earth beneath. Your God, for she dared not call Him her own, on account of her unchastity. And if thou wouldest receive a written witness that she was saved, thou hast it Ps. 87, recorded in the Psalms, I will think upon Rahab and Babylon with them that know me. Oh the great loving-mercy of God, which makes mention even of harlots in the Scriptures: and not simply I will think upon Rahab and Babylon, but with this added, with them that know me. On men therefore, and likewise on women, is salvation, viz. that which is secured to us through repentance.

11.

4.

Exod.

32, 4.

Vid. Is.

10. And though the people sin as one body, it does not surpass God's loving-kindness. The people made a calf, yet did not God give over His loving-kindness. Men denied God, but God denied not Himself. These are thy gods, O Israel,

they said; yet again, as was His wont, The God of Israel 63, 8. became their Saviour. And not only did the people sin, but Deut. 9, Aaron too the high-priest. For it is Moses who says, And upon Aaron came the wrath of the Lord; and I entreated,

20.

a In the Psalm referred to, Rahab stands for Egypt. Vid. Ps. 89, 10. Isai. 51, 9. S. Jerome, in Ps. 87, 4. considers Rahab a type of the Gentile Church called out of Jericho, the world. Egypt in the Psalm is a type of the same. Penitent Rahab then may as naturally stand for

a type of penitent Egypt, as the abandoned woman in the Revelations for impenitent Babylon. And as what is said of Hagar in Gen. 21, 10. is meant of Jerusalem, so Rahab may really be named in this Psalm, yet Egypt meant as its scope, and beyond that the Gentile Church.