Note 222 — Quest. LXXVI.
Reading edition
It has been, perhaps correctly, asserted that repentance is neither a duty discoverable by the law of nature, nor the written law of God; because it is unfit, that a law, appointing death for the violation of its precept, should also discover to the culprit a way of escape from its own penalty incurred.
But there existed purposes of mercy before the law was made; these have been revealed by a gracious Sovereign; the condition of men, as prisoners of hope possessing competent evidence of the compassion of the Lawgiver, points to repentance. Sacrifices in former ages discover not only a consciousness of guilt, but a glimmering hope at least, of pardon. It is possible that these were the offspring of tradition among the Gentiles, rather than the deductions of the light of nature. But in either way, sorrow for sin is a duty founded on the will of God.
It is therefore a duty, perfectly reasonable, and expressly revealed on the sacred page. The strength to perform it is from the King of Providence and Grace.
There is necessary in its production a discovery of guilt, liability to misery, and entire helplessness. The general belief, or profession of these truths, does not prove in event to be a cause adequate to produce a total change in a man’s views, pursuits, desires, aversions, labours, joys, and sorrows. There is necessary some deep sense, or strong conviction of guilt. This, with respect to its proximate cause, may originate in various ways; by reflecting on the Divine Sovereignty and Majesty; by a solemn contemplation of the excellency and loveliness of the moral perfection of Deity; by an affecting sight of his goodness and mercy to the individual in particular; by attending to the awful subject of Divine Justice, seen in the sufferings of Christ, or anticipated in the future judgment, and final sufferings of the damned. Such convictions are produced in great mercy to the individual, how dearly soever they cost him, whether the prostrated idols, on which the sensual affections were fastened, were companions, friends, relations, honour or wealth. Disease, approaching death, or any thing which shall dissolve the unhallowed attachment to earth, may by the Divine blessing produce this change, the glory of which will always really belong to Divine grace, which works unseen.
The bitterness of such sorrows is sometimes extreme, when he who wounded alone can cure. The effects of it are subsequently salutary, both to deter from sin and to strengthen the party’s faith.
The degrees of penitential sorrow are extremely various in different converts. He who has been convinced of gospel truths step by step, and has been in the same manner brought to the love and fear of God, and to a universal conscientiousness, may have grounds of peace and comfort equally safe, as he whose convictions have been the most sensible; for not their height but their fruits prove them to be genuine.