Chapter 14: The Resolving of a Question

SOme may propound a question, Whether must our Repentance and sorrow be alwaies alike?

A. Though Repentance must be alwaies kept alive in the soul, yet there are two special times in which we must renew our Repentance in an extraordinary manner.

1. Before the receiving of the Lords Supper. This spiritual Passeover is to be eaten with bitter herbs. Now our eyes should be fresh broached with tears, and the stream of sorrow overflow. A repenting frame is a sacramental frame. A broken heart, and a broken Christ, do well agree. The more bitterness we taste in sin, the more sweetness we shall taste in Christ. When Jacob wept, he found God; And he called the name of the place Peniel, for I have seen God face to face, Genesis 32, 30. The way to find Christ comfortably in the Sacrament, is to go weeping thither. Christ will say to an humble penitent, as to Thomas, Reachhither your hand, and thrust it into my side, and let those bleeding wounds of mine heal you.

Another time of extraordinary Repentance is, at the hour of death. This should be [illegible], a weeping season. Now is our last work to be done for Heaven, and our best wine of tears should be kept against such a time. We should repent now, that we have sinned so much, and wept so little that Gods bag has been so full, and his bottle so empty. We should repent now, that we repented no sooner: that the garrisons of our hearts, held out so long against God, ere they were levelled by Repentance. We should repent now, that we have loved Christ no more; that we have fetched no more virtue from him, and brought no more glory to him. It should be our grief on our death-bed, that our lives have had so many blanks and blots in them; that our duties have been so fly-blown with sin; that our obedience has been so imperfect, and we have gone so lame in the waies of God. When the soul is going out of the body, it should swim to Heaven in a Sea of tears.