[1] Repentance _qualifies_ a man for pardon but does not,
cannot _entitle_ him to it. It is one of the most
elementary and obvious truths of morality, that the
performance of one duty cannot be any compensation for
neglect to perform another duty. But when a sinner is
penitent for his sins, he is merely doing what, _as a
sinner,_ he ought to do; and his feelings of contrition do
no more to absolve him from his guilt than the gratitude a
man feels to a doctor who has cured him from a dangerous
illness does to discharge the doctor's bill. As in this
case there ought to be both gratitude and payment, so in
the case of the sinner there must be both penitence and
atonement. The sinner's sorrow for his sin, while in itself
a proper thing, is no more an atonement for his sin than is
the remorse that fills the breasts of most murderers any
atonement for the murders they have committed. Judas was
sorry, profoundly and intensely sorry, for having betrayed
our Lord Jesus Christ, but did _that_ do away with the
guilt of that betrayal? Was Peter not to be blamed for his
denial of his Master, because afterwards "he went out and
wept bitterly"? Did the tears he shed give him any right to
say in after years--"Yes, I denied my Lord, but I was sorry
for it, and so made it straight"? Do you think that just as
with soap and water you can wash the dirt off your hands,
you can with a few tears, or with many tears, wash the
guilt of sin from off your soul? No delusion could be more
groundless. Oh no! You have the real fact and the true
philosophy of the matter in the well-known verse--
"Not the labours of my hands
Can fulfil Thy law's demands.
Could my zeal no respite know,
_Could my tears for ever flow,_
All for sin could not atone:
THOU must save, and THOU alone."