[1] There is no contradiction between these statements and the
command to repent. Whoever considers what repentance
is,--that it is a change of mind toward sin, so that what
once was loved is viewed with disgust, and what was pursued
with eagerness is shunned with abhorrence,--will perceive
at once that it can only be wrought in us by a Divine
power. Man's natural tendencies are toward evil; and a
river could as easily arrest itself on its way to the
ocean, and climb to the sources whence it sprang, as can
man without the help of the Holy Spirit learn to hate sin
because of what it is. "Can the Ethiopian change his skin,
or the leopard his spots? then may ye also do good that are
accustomed to do evil." The polluted fountain of our heart
will never cleanse itself. Repentance, like every other
gift, must come from the Father of lights.
But "God works in us to will and to do of His good
pleasure." By His Holy Spirit He strives in every human
soul, awakening desires after a better and purer life. By
His longsuffering, by messages from His Word, by the
monitions of His providence, He strives to lead us to
repentance. But _we_ must repent. As while the earth cannot
bear fruit unless the sun shine upon it, it is still the
part of the earth to be fertile; so while we cannot repent
unless God aid us, it is our part to turn from evil.
Repentance cannot be exercised _for_ us; it must be
exercised _by_ us.
God commands you to repent, just as to the apostles, when
five thousand hungry men, besides women and children,
surrounded them, and their whole store was five loaves and
two fishes, Christ said, "Give ye them to eat." The task is
as much beyond your unaided power as that was above theirs;
but address yourself to it as they did, in obedience to the
Divine behest, and you will receive power from on high to
accomplish not only it, but other tasks higher yet.
[2] The Gospel supposeth a power going along with it, and that
the Holy Spirit works upon the minds of men, to quicken,
excite, and assist them in their duty. If it were not so,
the exhortations of preachers would be nothing else but a
cruel and bitter mocking of sinners, and an ironical
insulting over the misery and weakness of poor creatures,
and for ministers to preach, or people to hear sermons,
upon any other terms, would be the vainest expense of time
and the idlest thing we do all the week; and all our
dissuasives from sin, and exhortations to holiness and a
good life, and vehement persuasions of men to strive to get
to heaven, and to escape hell, would be just as if one
should urge a blind man, by many reasons and arguments,
taken from the advantages and comfort of that sense, and
the beauty of external objects, by all means to open his
eyes, and to behold the delights of nature, to see his way,
and to look to his steps, and should upbraid him, and be
very angry with him, for not doing so.--_Tillotson,_
1630-1694.
[3] Rooting up the large weeds of a garden loosens the earth,
and renders the extraction of the lesser ones comparatively
easy.--_Elisa Cook._
[4] There is an antipathy between sinning and praying. The
child that hath misspent the whole day in playing abroad,
steals to bed at night for fear of a chiding from his
father. Sin and prayer are such contraries, that it is
impossible at a stride to step from one to another. Prayer
will either make you leave off sinning, or sinning will
make you leave off prayer.--_Gurnall,_ 1617-1679.
The first true sign of spiritual life, prayer is also the
means of maintaining it. Man can as well live physically
without breathing, as spiritually without praying. There is
a class of animals--the cetaceous, neither fish nor
sea-fowl, that inhabit the deep. It is their home; they
never leave it for the shore; yet, though swimming beneath
its waves and sounding its darkest depths, they have ever
and anon to rise to the surface that they may breathe the
air. Without that these monarchs of the deep could not
exist in the dense element in which they live, and move,
and have their being. And something like what is imposed on
them by a physical necessity, the Christian has to do by a
spiritual one. It is by ever and anon ascending up to God,
by rising through prayer into a loftier purer region for
supplies of Divine grace, that he maintains his spiritual
life. Prevent these animals from rising to the surface, and
they die for want of breath; prevent him from rising to
God, and he dies for want of prayer. "Give me children,"
cried Rachel, "or else I die." Let me breathe, says a man
gasping, or else I die. Let me pray, says the Christian, or
else I die.--_Guthrie._
[5] Get some Christian friend (whom thou mayest trust above
others) to be thy faithful monitor. Or, that man hath a
great help for the maintaining the power of godliness that
has an open-hearted friend that dare speak his heart to
him. A stander-by sees more sometimes by a man than the
_actor_ can do by himself, and is more fit to judge of his
actions than he of his own; sometimes self-love blinds us
in our own cause, that we are over-suspicious of the worst
by ourselves, which makes us appear to ourselves worse than
we are. Now, that thou mayest not deprive thyself of so
great help from thy friend, be more to keep thy heart ready
with meekness to receive, yes, with thankfulness embrace a
reproof from his mouth. Those that cannot bear
plain-dealing hurt themselves most; for by this they seldom
hear the truth.--_Gurnalt,_ 1617-1679.
[6] The more we defer, the more difficult and painful our work
must needs prove; every day will both enlarge our task and
diminish our ability to perform it. Sin is never at a stay;
if we do not retreat from it, we shall advance in it, and
the further on we go, the more we have to come back; every
step we take forward (even before we can return hither,
into the state wherein we are at present) must be repeated;
all the web we spin must be unravelled.
Vice, as it groweth in age, so it improveth in stature and
strength; from a puny child it soon waxeth a lusty
striping, then riseth to be a sturdy man, and after awhile
becometh a massy giant, whom we shall scarce dare to
encounter, whom we shall be very hardly able to vanquish;
especially seeing that as it groweth taller and stouter, so
we shall dwindle and prove more impotent, for it feedeth
upon our vitals, and thriveth by our decay; it waxeth
mighty by stripping us of our best forces, by enfeebling
our reason, by perverting our will, by corrupting our
temper, by debasing our courage, by seducing all our
appetites and passions to a treacherous compliance with
itself: every day our mind groweth more blind, our will
more resty, our spirit more faint, our passions more
headstrong and untamable; the power and empire of sin do
strangely by degrees encroach, and continually get ground
upon us, till it hath quite subdued and enthralled us.
First we learn to bear it; then we come to like it; by and
by we contract a friendship with it; then we dote upon it;
at last we become enslaved to it in a bondage, which we
shall hardly be able, or willing, to shake off; when not
only our necks are fitted to the yoke, our hands are
manacled, and our feet shackled thereby, but our heads and
hearts do conspire in a base submission thereto, when vice
hath made such impression on us, when this pernicious weed
hath take so deep root in our mind, will, and affection, it
will demand an extremely toilsome labour to extirpate
it.--_Barrow,_ 1630-1677.
Repentance is entirely in God's disposal. This grace is in
the soul from God, as light is in the air from the sun, by
continual emanation; so that God may shut or open His
hands, contract or diffuse, set forth or suspend the
influences of it as He pleases. And if God gives not
repenting grace, there will be a hard heart and a dry eye,
maugre all the poor frustraneous endeavours of nature. A
piece of brass may as easily melt, or a flint bewater
itself, as the heart of man, by any innate power of its
own, resolve itself into a penitential humiliation. If God
does not, by an immediate blow of His omnipotence, strike
the rock, these waters will never gush out. The Spirit
blows where it listeth, and if that blows not, these
showers can never fall.
And now, if the matter stands so, how does the impenitent
sinner know but that God, being provoked by his present
impenitence, may irrevocably propose within Himself to seal
up these fountains, and shut him up under hardness of heart
and reprobation of sense? And then farewell all thoughts of
repentance for ever.--_South,_ 1633-1716.