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Or how shall a man be able to give to others a satisfactory account of his unfeigned subjection to the gospel, that yet abides in his impenitency? Wherefore repentance is here joined with faith, in the way of receiving the gospel. Faith is that without which it cannot be received at all; and repentance that without which it cannot be received unfeignedly.
For the first, the words here used is not that which signifieth blushing through modesty, but it signifieth shame for that which is indeed shameful, filthy, and abominable, so that it were impenitency and an aggravation of the fault not to be ashamed for it.
Or how shall a man be able to give to others a satisfactory account of his unfeigned subjection to the gospel, that yet abides in his impenitency? Wherefore repentance is here joined with faith in the way of receiving the gospel. Faith is that without which it cannot be received at all; and repentance that without which it cannot be received unfeignedly.
None are excluded the benefit of the great and precious salvation procured and finished by the Lord Jesus Christ, but they, who by perverseness, unbelief, and impenitency, exclude themselves. Ryland and Mason.
"And it repented the Lord that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him at his heart." Wherefore, it is man, not God, that turns. Which that we may know, those shall one day feel that shall continue in final impenitency. Therefore, God speaking to their capacity, he tells them, he hath repented of doing them good.
If many will have cause to mourn upon that day because they have resisted and grieved Him by their wilful impenitency and wickedness, what a multitude, greater than any man can number, will adore Him for the spiritual ignorance in the ways of God which He dispelled, the all-sufficient strength for duty and trial, for life and death, which He imparted, the holy love which He shed abroad upon their hearts, the good fruit which by His aid they produced in their lives, the calm peace which He gave to their consciences, the prayers heard and answered by God which He prompted, and the joy unspeakable to which He often raised their souls!
But while this is so, and is an encouragement to the penitent, it must ever be remembered that unless there is some genuine sorrow in the human soul, there can be no manifestation of the Divine forgiveness within it. Man cannot beat the air, and God cannot forgive impenitency.
When men reject the mercy and ways of God, they cast themselves under his wrath and displeasure; which, because it is executed according to the nature of his justice and the severity of his law, they miss of the mercy promised before; which that we may know, those shall one day feel that shall continue in final impenitency.
Thirdly, I found that those he there intended were for ever shut up of God, both in blindness, hardness, and impenitency: it is impossible they should be renewed again unto repentance. By all these particulars, I found, to God's everlasting praise, my sin was not the sin in this place intended.
Longevity never cures impenitency. All the pictures of Time represent him with a scythe to cut, but I never saw any picture of Time with a case of medicines to heal. Seneca says that Nero for the first five years of his public life was set up for an example of clemency and kindness, but his path all the way descended until at sixty-eight he became a suicide.
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