"Then hath God also to the Gentiles granted repentance unto life" (Acts 11:18).

Repentance unto life " does not mean that repentance precedes life; "your fruit unto holiness" (Rom. 6:) does not mean that fruit precedes holiness. The fruit is holiness; they go together-so repentance and life go together.

God grants repentance, therefore it is His work, just as He gives life. Repentance is a manifestation of life that occurs at once when the new birth takes place, as the track of a foot shows there has been a footpath as some one has said. It cannot be said that one precedes the other. They come together; the one occurs and the other exists necessarily at the same moment.

The moment I repent, I believe; and the moment I believe, I repent. I bow to God's testimony as to myself a sinner and as to Christ a Saviour of sinners, though there may be a space between believing, between repenting and the soul finding rest by appropriating to myself what Christ has done for me.

I am born again, I believe, I repent, I am saved, I have eternal life, I am converted-what are these but different expressions of what occurs at the same moment in the soul of the believer?

Repentance is a most excellent fruit of divine life wrought by the Spirit, and deepened in after experience to the end. " Repent and believe the gospel" is simply that I repent and believe at the same moment:that is the two go together.

The prodigal "coming to himself," suggests the beginning of life working in the soul. His first thought is of grace, "how many hired servants of my father have bread enough and to spare." Then he adds:" I will arise and go to my father,"-this is grace and faith ; "and I will say to him, father I have sinned,"-this the expression of repentance. Surely grace was apprehended; faith was working and repentance had place at once and together, the soul was born again and accepted of God, whatever time might elapse before all was realized in his soul, as suggested by the father's kiss and welcome. How beautiful and becoming to the sinner is repentance, and how beautiful the joy of welcome! "There is joy in heaven over one sinner that repenteth."

Repentance is an acceptable sign of life-a work of God like that when it was said, "Let there be light." The word of truth by which we are begotten of God, goes forth to men "to open their eyes" that they might see themselves in His presence, and by that word in the Spirit's power, repent.

How blessed is a "broken spirit," instead of the hardness of a proud heart! The Christian who will not repent, who will not humble himself to say, "I was wrong, I have sinned " has become for the time being, a "captive" to Satan (2 Tim. 2:25); he is a wanderer, exposed on every side to further dishonor. He has become a hindrance and not a help to his brethren, no longer able to "keep rank." The men who could "keep rank" were those who "came with a perfect heart to Hebron to make David king over all Israel " (i Chron. 12:38). There is a divine harmony in a broken spirit. "Against Thee only have I sinned and done this evil in Thy sight." All hearts are touched, and held in awe, by the utterance of a broken spirit.
Every heart reposes confidence in such, and the state of soul of the repentant one is the far opposite to that which exists when the Holy Spirit of God is grieved. Now the heart is filled with an in expressible sense of the tender love of God. The skies are no longer as brass ; and the heart, no longer hard, goes out in joy to God and to all those who are His; the soul is girded afresh with strength for the battle and is sanctified, and furnished to go forth, and help those who are in need, and to rejoice in fellowship with those who rejoice and worship God.

Confession, repentance, is the door of escape out of every prison-house of Satan. Our God is glorified, the soul is set free, and God's people rejoice with the joy of the Lord. E. S. L.