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SERMON XIV.

JOB'S CONFESSION OF REPENTANCE.

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"I hope it will be more and more effected, that the strictnesses of a holy life be thought necessary, and that repentance may be no more that trifling little piece of duty, to which the errors of the late schools of learning, and the desires of men to be deceived in this article, have reduced it.”—Jer. Taylor.

"Nothing makes a sin venial, but repentance, and that makes every sin to be so."-Ibid.

"When a sinner is gay and intemperately merry upon Shrove Tuesday, and resolves to mourn upon Ash Wednesday; his sorrow hath in it more of the theatre than of the temple, and is not at all to be relied upon by him that resolves to take severe accounts of himself.”—Ibid.

Deus propitius esto mihi peccatori!

JOB xlii. 5, 6.

"I have heard of thee by the hearing of the ear: but now mine eye seeth thee. Wherefore I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes."

THE like to the confession which is here made by holy Job, will some time or another, by the grace of God, be made by every true penitent Christian. The scales will fall from his eyes, and his deaf ears will be unstopped. He will see the wondrous things of His land, who is King of kings, and Lord of lords, and will hear the ravishing tidings of evangelical peace, such as this world hath not, and cannot give.

But man that is born of woman, and is a transgressor from the womb, greedy of iniquity, and slow to understand righteousness, much less to live the life of the righteous, is long before he comes to the knowledge of this truth. It is a lesson to be learned, and full often to be learned in the school of adversity, and under a chastening rod. For when all is

bright and fair, and the gaieties of youth are uppermost, and the spirits are buoyant, and the heart sanguine, and pleasures tempt, and the snake is not seen in the grass,-when trouble is not known, and the sorrows of others, for very thoughtlessness, but little heeded,-when we have heard of grief, but have not felt its smart,-when the pitiful cry of those in captivity has reached us but as a tale that is told; -in a word, when the world seems made for us, and we for the world, we little think that the fashion of it passeth away, that death is hard at hand, and that

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we must all appear before the judgment-seat of Christ; that every one may receive the things done in his body, according to that he hath done, whether it be good or bad." Such, but too often, is the state of wayward youth, heedless of the solemn warning, "Prepare to meet thy God?" It hears "with the hearing of the ear," of weeping, fasting, and praying, of holy solemnities, and sacred vigils, of contrition, and of penitence, but the inward eye seeth not the necessity of so bringing the flesh into subjection, and deadening the force of desire. It lacks that meekness of heart which bewails and laments a sinful life, -acknowledges and confesses offences,-seeks to bring forth worthy fruits of penance.

But let life be spared, and its harder realities will burst in upon us. The evil days will come, aud the years (as saith the Preacher,) will draw nigh, in which

12 Cor. v. 10.

2 Amos iv. 18.

a man shall say, "I have no pleasure in them." Yea, let time advance, and it is even as the Bible assures us: "The keepers of the house shall tremble, and the strong men shall bow themselves, and the grinders cease because they are few, and those that look out of the windows shall be darkened. And the doors shall be shut in the street, when the sound of the grinding is low, and he shall rise up at the voice of the bird, and all the daughters of music shall be brought low; also when they shall be afraid of that which is high, and fears shall be in the way, and the almond tree shall flourish, and the grasshopper shall be a burden, and desire shall fail"." Yes, Christian brethren, eld will bring with it these signs of weakness, "or ever the silver cord be loosed, or the golden bowl be broken, or the pitcher be broken at the fountain, or the wheel broken at the cistern." And when decay shall have advanced thus far, "man goeth to his long home, and the mourners go about the streets +." "Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was: and the spirit shall return unto God who gave it 5"

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These are solemn thoughts, thoughts to deaden levity, and chasten the heart. But, as I said, they are such as younger hearts flee from. Till we are awakened to our state and condition here, till we know that we are but pilgrims and sojourners, and that we have to render an account to God, the Judge of

3 Eccles. xii. 3-5.

4 Ibid. 5.

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" Ibid. 7.

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