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Let it not be said that repentance is difficult. Things that are excellent deserve labour. Will not a man dig for gold in the ore though it makes him sweat? It is better to go with difficulty to heaven, than with ease to hell.
In Adam we all suffered shipwreck, and repentance is the only plank left us after shipwreck to swim to heaven.
Repentance is a grace required under the gospel. Some think it legal; but the first sermon that Christ preached, indeed, the first word of his sermon, was 'Repent' (Matt. 4.17).
It is one thing to be a terrified sinner and another to be a repenting sinner. Sense of guilt is enough to breed terror. Infusion of grace breeds repentance. If pain and trouble were sufficient to repentance, then the damned in hell should be most penitent, for they are most in anguish. Repentance depends upon a change of heart. There may be terror, yet with no change of heart.
It is a great matter, I confess, to leave sin. So dear is sin to a man that he will rather part with a child than with a lust:
True leaving of sin is when the acts of sin cease from the infusion of a principle of grace, as the air ceases to be dark from the infusion of light.
Repentance is a grace of God's Spirit whereby a sinner is inwardly humbled and visibly reformed.
Before a man can come to Christ he must first come to himself.
A man must first recognize and consider what his sin is, and know the plague of his heart before he can be duly humbled for it.
The first creature God made was light. So the first thing in a penitent is illumination:
The Hebrew word 'to be sorrowful' signifies 'to have the soul, as it were, crucified'.
He that can believe without doubting, suspect his faith; and he that can repent without sorrowing, suspect his repentance.
A man may be sorry, yet not repent, as a thief is sorry when he is taken, not because he stole, but because he has to pay the penalty. Hypocrites grieve only for the bitter consequence of sin.
Godly sorrow shows itself to be ingenuous because when a Christian knows that he is out of the gun-shot of hell and shall never be damned, yet still he grieves for sinning against that free grace which has pardoned him.
We are to find as much bitterness in weeping for sin as ever we found sweetness in committing it. Surely David found more bitterness in repentance than ever he found comfort in Bathsheba.
Our sorrow for sin must be such as makes us willing to let go of those sins which brought in the greatest income of profit or delight.
The more bitterness we taste in sin, the more sweetness we shall taste in Christ.
Confession is self-accusing: 'Lo, I have sinned' (2 Sam. 24.17).
And the truth is that by this self-accusing we prevent Satan's accusing.
But if we do not confess all, how should we expect that God will pardon all?
When men commit sin they are the devil's servants; when they plead for it they are the devil's attorneys, and he will give them a fee.
That which may make us blush is that the sins we commit are far worse than the sins of the heathen. We act against more light. To us have been committed the oracles of God. The sin committed by a Christian is worse than the same sin committed by an Indian because the Christian sins against clearer conviction, which is like the dye to the wool or the weight put into the scale that makes it weigh heavier.
Our sins are worse than the sins of the devils: the lapsed angels never sinned against Christ's blood. Christ died not for them.
So let the devil cook and dress sin with pleasure and profit, yet a true penitent with a secret abhorrence of it is disgusted by it and will not meddle with it.
He that returns to sin by implication charges God with some evil. If a man puts away his wife, it implies he knows some fault by her. To leave God and return to sin is tacitly to asperse the Deity.
If a man drinks of a fountain he benefits himself, not the fountain. If he beholds the light of the sun, he himself is refreshed by it, not the sun. If we turn from our sins to God, God is not advantaged by it. It is only we ourselves who reap the - benefit.
It is not falling into water that drowns, but lying in it. It is not falling into sin that damns, but lying in it without repentance:
The sins of leaders are leading sins, therefore they of all others have need to repent.
The hypocrite is a saint in jest. He makes a magnificent show, like an ape clothed in ermine or purple. The hypocrite is like a house with a beautiful façade, but every room within is dark. He is a rotten post fairly gilded. Under his mask of profession he hides his plague-sores. The hypocrite is against painting of faces, but he paints holiness. He is seemingly good so that he may be really bad.
Indeed, if prayer does not make a man leave sin, sin will make him leave prayer.
Repentance unravels sin and makes it as if it had never been.
is not so much the sins we have committed that so provoke and grieve Christ as that we refuse the physic of repentance which he prescribes.
No man is so bad but he purposes to amend, but he adjourns and prorogues so long, until at last all his purposes prove abortive.
How dangerous then is it to adjourn repenting when death may so suddenly make a thrust at us.
Say not that you will repent tomorrow. Remember that speech of Aquinas: God who pardons him that repents has not promised to give him tomorrow to repent in.
The soul belongs to God. He lays a double claim to it: it is his by creation and by purchase.
The next sin you commit God may clap you up prisoner among the damned. You who gallop on in sin, it is a question whether God will spare your life a day longer or give you a heart to repent, so that you are desperate even to frenzy.
Sin is a spiritual sickness. One man is sick of pride, another of lust, another of malice. It is with a sinner as it is with a sick patient: his palate is distempered, and the sweetest things taste bitter to him.
