ty of Heaven, and the Father of Mercy; that ever we should be ungrateful to a dying JESUS; that ever we should provoke the patient SPIRIT; that ever we should madly trifle with our souls, and plunge them into such awful condemnation. But have such thoughts ever been harboured in your hearts? are you now desiring to mourn for your iniquities, and do they, in these views, dwell upon your heart as a sore burden too heavy for you to bear? are you sore smitten on the grievous remembrance, and ready, like the Prophet, to wish for a head of waters, and eyes like a fountain of tears, to run down day and night for iniquities which a sea of your own tears would never wash away? Do you know any such sorrow, and is the grief for your sins the bitterest cup you have ever drank of? This is a gracious disposition, for true godly sorrow worketh repentance unto salvation never to be repented of.

2. Repentance implies an abhorrence of sin and ourselves. Behold, says Job, I am vile, therefore I repent, and abhor myself in dust and ashes. It is impossible, where a true sense of sin is upon the heart, this should be wanting; the heart then rises up with indignation, with revenge against itself, as St. Paul expresses it, and cannot bear the view of the past without self-loathing. To think how vilely we have acted, how insolently we have returned all God's kindness with abuse, how we have turned all his blessings into a curse, how we have slighted the love of CHRIST, how we have resisted the HOLY GHOST, in his word, in his providences, in all the methods of grace he hath used with us, in short, how we have sold ourselves as it were to work wickedness; and now to think of returning to the bosom of our God thus polluted and defiled, what vile wretches must we be in our own eyes? and to see ourselves such, is absolutely necessary before we can return. Then, saith the Lord, they shall return, and remember their own evil ways, and their doings which were not good, and shall loathe themselves for all their iniquities, and for all their abominations. Are you conscious of any such self-abhorrence? can you adopt the language of Job's self-loathing, and in the view of your sins find the inward risings of disgust and displeasure against your

self and them? do you appear in your own eyes a monster of ingratitude, and feel your heart detesting sin which hath made: you so, more than you detest the vilest objects in nature? at least is it your desire to hate it more than you do? This is the work of true repentance.

3. Repentance implies a forsaking of sin. We cannot indeed but forsake it if we have groaned under its burden, and felt its odious ingratitude. How shall we think of continuing a moment longer in a state so displeasing to God, so grievous to ourselves? Here the sword of the SPIRIT is lifted up against every darling idol. Repenting we renounce our covenant with sin, and our allegiance to Satan, and burst his bands and break. his cords off from us. No known sin can be any longer habitually indulged; not only the outward sins, whose open nature was more flagrantly rebellious, such as profaneness, passion, lewdness, drunkenness, lying, sabbath-breaking, covetousness, and the like; but the more secret heart-sins will be renounced, vain thoughts and vile affections, as well as actions, must be forsaken; no little sins any longer plead the privilege of custom or necessity. If we are sincere in our repentance, without pitying or sparing, our eye will search every corner of our heart, and wherever we find the traitor we shall bring him forth and slay him before the LORD; and our darling sin will meet with the severest treatment; that we shall lay most violent hands upon, whilst repentance cries, Down with it, down with it even to the ground; a right eye, a right hand, right any thing, however near and dear unto us, away it goes. Repentance makes thorough work. It is not a partial reformation, this is in many where true repentance hath never wrought its effectu al work; and thousands have been undone by the mistake, whilst conscience hath made them part from some sins, and be more restrained and decent than before, but they have still dealt deceitfully with the LORD, their hearts have not been whole with him, and so they have gone no farther than Ahab's humiliation, or Herod's doing many things at John's preaching to him repentance; of whom the one still continued idolatrous, and the other kept his brother Philip's wife. A person may be

very nigh the kingdom of GOD, and yet never enter it; be almost, without being altogether, a Christian; look therefore to your hearts herein, there is no deceiving God: and what a crying sin would it be to come to CHRIST'S Table without a purpose of forsaking whatever is displeasing to him? Do you repent? is it evident from your conduct? Doth not your heart condemn you for any reserve made? Can you appeal to GoD for your sincerity, that you desire to indulge yourself in nothing you know or suspect to be sinful? Particularly, Do you heartily resist and seek to mortify the sin which most easily besets you? And is your repentance for it proved to be real from this, that your sorrow for it is not only your heaviest grief, but that your heart is set most steadily against it, and follows it close, desiring to destroy it root and branch; lest it should make you false to your vows, and like the worm at Jonah's gourd make your fair blossoms of repentance wither, and bring forth no fruit? This will be comfortable, if in the presence of GOD you can claim the proof of such a sincere universal renunciation of sin. It will be then indeed a repentance never to be repented of.

4. Repentance implies a change of mind; this is the exact meaning of the Greek word μslavia: for every real penitent is brought out of a state of nature into a state of grace; and all his aims, apprehensions, views, and principles of action, are as different as you can suppose those of any two different persons ever to have been, so that he is well said in scripture to be born again; old things are passed away, and all things are become new; he is brought out of darkness into marvellous light; he walks not after the fashion of the world, but after Christ; he looks not as before to the things that are seen and are temporal, but to the things that are not seen and are eternal; in short, he is changed into another man, a new man created after Christ Jesus in righteousness and true holiness. Here then is a wide field for inquiry, and most essential to our profitable partaking at the Lord's Table, since none but those who have begun to lead a new life can receive any benefit from attending on the ordinance. You must therefore herein closely examine yourselves. What do you know of this in

ward change?....Is your Understanding changed? whereas you were blind, do you now see? you were once darkness, are you now light in the Lord? Have you a sight of yourself, of God, of CHRIST, of all the things of the SPIRIT, different from what you had before, so that your judgment is altered? Do you now discover the misery of your state and nature, the vanity of earth and time, the bondage of corruption, the great need of salvation, the unspeakable patience of GOD, the amazing love of CHRIST, the greatness of the invisible realities, and the importance of only making one thing needful, even the securing an interest in the kingdom of GOD and his righteousness?....Is your Will also altered in its choice? Have you begun to choose CHRIST for a portion, instead of the world? Do you prefer his service to the service of sin? and instead of the pursuits of this world, the pleasures of sense, and the vanities of time, rejecting these, are you embracing the ways of peace and the paths of holiness, which lead through faith to glory?....And are your Affections changed? Do you love what you hated, and hate what you loved? Is CHRIST now the object of your affection, more than ever your favourite sin hath been? At least is it your desire and prayer that he may be so? Is it your delight to be found engaged in the exercises of devotion? or do you chide your sluggish heart when it goes heavily to the blessed work? Are you become more afraid of offending GOD than the whole world beside? And are your hopes chiefly fixed on the promises of his word, and the expectations he bids you look to in eternity, instead of this present evil world? Is it your joy to see his interest flourish in the world? and is it a more sincere satisfaction to you to help to turn one sinner from the evil of his ways, than to partake in the greatest worldly advantages? In short, is it now become in a measure your meat and drink to do the will of God, and is that which you before loathed, namely, the denial of your own vile heart, and the keeping God's commandments, now become the constant desire of your soul, and the thing that you long for? And doth your whole conversation witness to this change, and prove that you are indeed passed from death unto life? that you walk no more as other unconverted men, in the vanity of their minds, alienated from the life of God

through the ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness of their heart, but as a child of light reprove the works of darkness, and testify against the world that its deeds are evil? and do you purpose to hold on thus doing, walking daily more circumspectly, redeeming the time, and stedfastly pursuing this course of newness of life which God's holy word prescribes to you, whatever difficulties may befal you, and whatever more than you yet see may be your portion, whether of reproach, loss, or persecution for your fidelity in CHRIST'S service? This is that evangelical repentance you are called to. This must be the matter of your examination. If you can see no such change, if you are as you ever used to be, and never knew any time in your life when you were convinced by the SPIRIT of sin, led to him who giveth repentance, converted unto God and born again, (a change in its effects as evident and clear as to rise from the dead, or between a dry tree and one full of leaves, blossoms, and fruit) then I say you have not yet this newness of life, you are still in a natural state, and ought not to think of approaching the Lord's Table till matters are altered with you, and till the great change is begun, and is manifesting itself in your heart and life.

II. You must examine yourself whether you have " a live"ly faith in God's mercies through CHRIST." Observe, a lively faith, not a dead faith, not a mere speculative assent of the head to the truth of religion, but a quickening powerful principle in the heart, a faith energetic, that worketh in us mightily. And this lively faith shews itself in the following ways.

1. In directing us to CHRIST as our alone propitiation. It brings us, burdened as we are with our sins, to the foot of the cross, and there bidding us lay them down, points to the Blood shed for us, and pleads that propitiation with which God is well pleased. In this way, and this only, we must look for salvation before God; renouncing our own righteousness, emptied of all self-sufficiency, confessing our guilt, and only resting on him who is our atonement and our righteousness before GOD. Into CHRIST'S hands, as our advocate, we commit our cause, that