: members, is yet, of necessity, obliged to be satisfied in her requirements with the external acts of penitence; since these are the only means she has of judging of its reality. Further, we are to consider that the discipline of repentance is not always necessary to the acceptableness of penitence with GOD;-the virtue of repentance always. Now, the virtue of repentance is a fruit or effect of Divine grace and the first operation of this grace is to open and illuminate the eye of faith, so as to make known to the soul those truths upon belief of which repentance is built. These are the doctrines of a judgment to come, and the endless torment of sinners; and produce (which is the next step) a salutary fear in our minds. Yet we are to be cautioned against supposing that repentance ensues upon fear. Faith must be further called into action, and conceive both the possibility and means of averting the evil which fear has only represented to the mind in its true colours; and then that perfect love which casteth out fear must be allowed its influence in this work; for as our love fails not till we sin, so we cannot possibly forsake sin unless we first begin to love. Faith, fear, love; these, then, are acts prior to, but leading to a true repentance. The beginning of repentance is when we are enabled to consider our own sin as causing the wrath, and needing the mercy of GOD. From this arises a pensive and corrosive desire that we had not so offended our Almighty FATHER. And this is the feeling which stimulates the soul to action; and the penitent is thus found to realize in himself these three effects; the aversion of the will from sin; submission to GoD in supplication and prayer; the purpose of a new life testified by present works of amendment: three things, from which repentance may be comprised in one definition as a virtue that hateth, bewaileth and showeth a purpose to amend sin: or in three words—we offend God in thought, word, and deed. To thought they make contrition answerable; to word, confession; to deed, works of satisfaction; and we are to take notice as regards contrition, that the principal thing in it is that alteration whereby the will, which was before delighted with sin, doth now detest and shun nothing more. The sum of all which is, that the highest cause of repentance is, grace; and that faith, fear, love, have their proper force and efficiency in producing it; but what properly constitute it are these three-contrition, confession and satisfaction. Were these essentials of the virtue of repentance really complied with, they would undoubtedly suffice to gain the favour of Almighty GOD. And does the penitence of Mary Magdalene come in any point below the spirit of these requisitions? Let us examine this point. "When she knew that JESUS sat at meat in the Pharisee's house" When she knew-her knowledge was then the result of inquiry: she had been thinking of her Great Physician from the time of her miraculous cure. Her thoughts had brought with them gratitude; her gratitude was fast swelling into love. For the SAVIOUR having triumphed over the malice of Satan against this chosen vessel of His mercy, the preventing grace of GoD had now free access to her breast, and had effected a lodgement in her heart she was, in fact, grateful for her release from demoniacal possession. She acknowledged her former subjection to those evil spirits, concerning whose existence in her we have before suggested that she was probably, during the period of possession, unconscious. To acknowledge the fact of their presence in her, and to insinuate to herself the great probability that their indwelling was the consequence of her sins, followed in natural course. Of course this led to the consideration of her past life, and the necessary discovery of its melancholy deficiencies in the sight of GOD; and thus, being free from the delusions of Satan and in her right mind, the awakening principles of a judgment to come and the eternal misery of sinners assailed her soul with their natural force. Laying hold on these, then, with the first feeble attempts of faith, she straightway comes, with trembling, upon the estate of fear. How long this process of renewal was progressing, we have no means of judging, -save that we know that the real nature and hideous deformity of sin is long in manifesting itself to the returning penitent. We so love ourselves, and sinful habits and thoughts so much be come, when indulged, parts of our nature, that we cannot readily divest ourselves of the delusive conviction that when oft we are in deepest error, we yet stand justified in the sight of GOD. In a real and safe repentance light is commonly found to break in upon us slowly, and as one vice is removed and its corresponding virtue realized, so does it help us, as by a freshly acquired power, to discern deformities of whose previous existence we had no suspicion. Thus, then, we come to show how, moved by gracearoused by faith-and alarmed by fear, her grateful feelings to her Benefactor as Man become insensibly merged into love of HIM as the Son of God. She had yet to know herself. Her pride of heart, her stubborn self-will, her own ways of seeing and understanding things; in short, all her self-confidences had yet to be laid bare before her eyes. And here, perhaps, was the turning point of her whole life and character. From this time commences that process in her mind and heart which constitutes her true repentance, and by which sin comes before her as a cause which procureth the wrath and needeth the mercy of GOD." GOD drives away from us our enemies, and by His preventing grace puts us in a condition to resist their future assaults; but this done, it is then we ourselves must act. We must become fellow-workers with HIM, or we are left to perish in our sins. Had Magdalene neglected the present call to self-reflection, devils of a worse cha 1 Hooker, vi. 3. § 3. racter might have taken possession of a soul which, empty and swept of its former tenants, and garnished with the mere semblance of virtues, offered no barriers to oppose their entrance. But reflection on her ways and life and the end of her being, brings the full consciousness of her sinful state before her mind. One evil act haunts her conscience, and another presses quick on the heels of it, and the more she reflects, the more her wretchednesses increase in number, and what appeared before minor faults now before the tribunal of an awakened conscience swell into aggravated sins. Her vain confidences one by one give way. Dislodged from one standing point to another, beaten from all her retreats and strong holds, she at length confesses that indeed all may be wrong, where her pride had heretofore taught her to believe that all was entirely right. So the sense of sin becomes oppressive. But how is she to be relieved of its burden? Who was to forgive sin? Faintly at first, it may be, are whispered to her soul, the pregnant words of S. John the Baptist, with which men's tongues were then rife: "Behold the Lamb of GOD That taketh away the sins of the world." And her perceptions were not so dulled but she would readily conceive hopes that the power of CHRIST was indeed equal to the prophet's word. Had He not confronted the very author of sin himself, and in her own proper person driven him out of his possession? and could HE not remove sin |