the mourning that exists among men, is on account of sin, although sin is the cause of all the evils on account of which they mourn, and ought, therefore, to excite a permanent sorrow, and when, moreover, sin is the only thing for which it is profitable to indulge sorrow. We speak of the benefits of affliction generally; but they are confined to that affliction which is on account of sin; and other affliction is beneficial, only as it may conduce to this. And let me ask you here, for I would interweave rather than append an application, has sin ever caused you sorrow? Other evils have afflicted you; but has this greatest, this elemental evil, that thou hast sinned against God, that thou hast broken his law, rebelled against his authority, insulted his throne, and cast his favors back upon him? Hast thou gone to the root of the matter, where the evil originated, and sorrowed there?

But will every species of sorrow for sin suffice? Is it enough that sin be the cause of the sorrow? No. Judas sorrowed sincerely and deeply, and sin was the cause of his sorrow, "I have sinned," said he, "in that I have betrayed innocent blood;" but his sorrow wrought only death. To mere sorrow on account of sin the Scriptures make no promise; on it they set no value. Nor should they; we do not. It is involuntary; no one supposes that mere regret for having done a wrong thing, without regard to the particular considerations which inspire the regret, has any virtue in it. Judas was no better for that kind of repentance which he exercised. It was but a bitter foretaste of that remorseful repentance, which

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is a part of his punishment, a pang of hell on earth. In the original language of the New Testament, as you doubtless remember to have often heard, there is a word appropriated to this exercise, a word expressive of simple sorrow for sin; and it is quite a different word from that which is used, when repentance is enjoined as a duty, or spoken in connection with salvation, although, through the poverty of our language, both are translated repentance. The former word signifies literally, a care or concern after a thing, regret. The latter, a change of mind. They are both used in this chapter; the first in verse 8, "I do not repent, though I did repent ;" and in the text, not to be repented of," that is, not to be regretted. The other is used in verse 9, and also in the text, "godly sorrow worketh repentance," not regret merely, but a change of mind and consequently of conduct. The first word is employed to denote the repentance of Judas, the other that of Peter. The latter kind of repentance is voluntary, and the subject of command and promise, but the former is involuntary. It is a part of the entail of sin. It is or will be universal. It often precedes and attends true and saving repentance; and in the case of all those who die without true repentance, it will be a part of their endless portion. It is the product of prisons and punishments; and in view of this kind of repentance, that establishment yonder may be well called a penitentiary, though I fear, it nurses but little of the other species of repentance. The distinction is clear, and it is important, and it is so familiar, that perhaps I have needlessly dwelt upon it; we recog

nize it in the judgments we form of others, though we cannot often apply it. But is it not often overlooked when we sit in judgment on ourselves? Do we distinguish, as we ought, between the sorrow that is according to God, and the sorrow of the world; between the regret and the change of mind? And do not many satisfy themselves with this, that they have felt the mere regret? When one of you is asked if you have repented, do you not understand the interrogator as enquiring simply whether you have felt sorry for having done wrong? And if you can say, "oh ! yes, I have repented, I do repent, I never did wrong, but I was afterwards sorry for it," do you not feel as if you had satisfactorily answered the inquiry? But you have not. All that you affirm of yourself may be true, and yet you may be as utter a stranger to available repentance, as he is, who was never invited to the exercise of it. I know you have felt sorry. I do not wish you to tell me that you have. It is nature to feel sorry. It requires no grace to feel sorry. You cannot help feeling sorry, there is no virtue, for there is no voluntariness in it. The question is not whether you have felt sorry, but what has made you feel sorry, whether you have been made sorry after a godly manner, and what your feeling sorry has made you, what has produced your sorrow, and what your sorrow has produced. The point is not settled, when it is ascertained that you have experienced sorrow on account of sin. Both the cause and the effect of that sorrow are to be investigated, and it is upon the result of this investigation that the decision turns against, or

in favor of you. Your sorrow may be that of the world. It must be of a godly sort, or it is not to salRely not then on the bare fact of your

vation.

sorrow.

But to describe with some particularity that peculiar sorrow, which is called godly or according to God, because it is such as he requires, and because it has a special regard to him. To sorrow after a godly manner, or to repent truly is,

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1. To feel sorrow for sin as offending God, rather than as injuring ourselves or others. The true penitent views sin in its every aspect, but chiefly as it looketh towards God. He grieves because of the mischief it does himself and may do others, but he grieves chiefly because of the injury it offers to God. It displeases, it dishonors, its tendency is to dethrone God. His boundless goodness it maltreats, his supreme authority it insults, and his infinite power it defies. It is conduct unworthy of a creature, a subject, a ward, a beneficiary, a child. "I have sinned," was the confession of Judas; he says not "against God." But hear the confession of the penitent prodigal. "Father, I have sinned against heaven, and in thy sight;" hear another's, "against thee, thee only have I sinned and done this evil in thy sight;" and still another's, "mine eye seeth thee, wherefore I abhor myself and repent in dust and ashes." Mark the difference. In the first case, see the sorrow of the world; in the other instances, be-. hold the sorrow according to God; hence,

2. It is to feel sorrow for sin as an evil in itself, and not merely, nor yet principally in its conse

quences. The effects of sin are evil, but sin itself is more evil, and it would be evil, though it produced no effects. There is harm from it, but there is still more harm in it. The grand evil of sin consists in its moral character, not in its physical consequences. That the will of an infinitely perfect being should be contravened or murmured at by one of his intelligent creation, that his high and rightful authority should be disregarded, and a law dictated by his wisdom and transcribed from his attributes broken and broken again, that such a sovereign should be rebelled against, such a benefactor ungratefully treated, and such a father dishonored, disobeyed and even hated, that then is the evil of sin. These are the views of the true penitent, and these views call forth mourning from him. His sorrow is according to God. And, hence, he recognizes no class of sins as trivial, as unworthy of sorrow, or as deserving only a very low degree of sorrow. How can he, when every sin, equally with every other, is a contravention of the same supreme will, a breach of the same good and holy law, an act of rebellion against the same heavenly sovereign. For the least heinous of all sins, he sorrows, and sorrows deeply, and can never think that he has sorrowed enough. But it deserves to be made a distinct observation,

3. That to repent truly is to feel sorrow for all sin. If true repentance regards sin as an evil in itself, then, as every sin is an evil in itself, it must have respect to all sin. Does the genuine penitent view sin as having God for its object? and does he sorrow for it on that account? and is not God the object of