We are truly thankful for the awakening that appears in many quarters concerning this subject, and we hope the same will produce fruitful and glorious results for eternity. We have suffered great loss, we are persuaded, because there has been lack of wisdom and exercise in giving repentance its right place; and the wonder now is that so many of us have in measure neglected it, when the Word of truth gives it so prominent a place, and leaves us in no uncertain way as to the order of proclaiming it. Whether in the past or present dispensations,-before law, under law, or now under grace-ever since the fall of man (Gen. 3), men have become a prey to sin. All like sheep have followed their own way, but God's call has been loud and long to men on every hand. The light of His word, wherever it penetrates, leads distinctly, and with no uncertain sound it cries, "Repent, repent!"This was the voice of the Spirit in the prophets of old; it was the special mission of John the 'Baptist; and when the Saviour Himself appeared, His call to men was, "Repent ye, and believe the gospel " (Mark i:15). Later on when He sent out the twelve, they went -out and preached that men should repent (Mark 6:12); and His answer to those who spoke to Him concerning the dreadful end of the Galileans was, '' Except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish " (Luke 13:1-5).

Now let us note the order in which the Holy Spirit presents that truth to us. "Repent ye, and believe the gospel," was the divine order in which the Lord Himself presented it; and if Scripture is closely
followed, this is the divine order always. At the thresh hold of this subject let us state however that repentance is not the gospel. We need to distinguish with care, yet not separate the two themes. We verily believe that this is where mistakes have been made; many true servants have thereby been greatly trammeled, and the deep, searching, penetrating effect of the word of God has been hindered and clouded; all this by not rightly understanding and giving repentance its true place in preaching.

Repentance is the loud and faithful call of a righteous God to His disobedient and sinful creatures- responsible creatures. He has entrusted the preaching of it to the evangelist as he goes forth among the masses of mankind. It is a message sent to sinners:"I am not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance" (Matt. 9:13). This is where God's work begins in souls, and is that breakdown of the sinner which prepares the heart and the conscience to receive the gospel,-on the same principle as the plough prepares the ground for the seed. The one precedes the other, and the same hand that holds the plough also sows the precious seed which produces new life with its golden harvest. The plough and the seed basket are not one and the same thing. They are to be rightly distinguished, but not separated. To use one without the other would be fatal; there would be no harvest. The ploughman keeps the sowing in view; the sower, the harvest.

As is God's order in nature, so, we believe, is also His order in spiritual things. Repentance comes first; that the work be solid and abiding, and that souls be not deceived or led into too free a way of confessing Christ, the conscience must be plowed. We have often heard the expression, "I believe in the Lord," and with yet no apparent conscience about sin. Of this danger we would be warned, and seek also to warn others. We would warn everyone who preaches the Word, as also Sunday-school teachers and parents-look for exercise of heart and conscience in every case of professed conversion, because it is written, "God commandeth all men everywhere to repent" (Acts 17:30).

Repentance, let us repeat it, is the work of the Holy Spirit in sinners. It may be deeper with some than with others; it will grow deeper in all as they go on with God, but let us accept nothing as genuine apart from manifest repentance.

But what is repentance ? We have already quoted from the words of the Lord Himself that it is sinners who are called to it, hence it is a work of the Spirit of God with sinners. It is the breakdown of the responsible man before God, and the confession of what he is, as very strikingly illustrated in the case ' of the publican in the temple (Luke 18:13). When man is brought into God's presence by the Spirit of God, and gets a right view of himself and his sins, there will be conviction, and confession too,-the soul gives in, and is conquered. This is repentance; and now is seen the great struggle with the enemy of souls who ever seeks to hinder men from it. It is the time when the preacher needs to be especially alive,-needs to be of a specially prayerful spirit. When the cry is heard, "I have sinned," the answer is readily given, "Deliver him from going down to the pit; I have found a ransom " (Job 33:24). New birth now introduces the soul into a new relationship with God; the man is no more a sinner, but a child of God; forgiveness of sins and salvation are his. God, who is sovereign in all His works, may use various means to produce this-to reach the conscience and heart of man-but whatever means He uses, all can be said to be His goodness, for it is '' the goodness of God that leadeth thee to repentance. " It maybe an earnest warning of the judgment to come, an appeal as from God's love, the holding up of the cross and the work wrought there by the Son of God, the second coming of the Lord, or any other part of the truth, to subdue man's spirit. Whatever it may be, the Spirit uses it as He wills, but all to get at the heart and conscience of man, and lead him to repentance.

The soul is thus made ready for the good seed of the gospel; and when this gospel message is received by faith into the heart, life-new life-and salvation follow. Hence the Scripture order is repentance first, and remission of sins second (Luke 24:47); repentance and conversion (Acts 3:19); repentance unto life (Acts 11:18); repentance towards God and faith towards our Lord Jesus Christ (Acts 20:21); also repentance to salvation (2 Cor. 7:10). Repentance is a divine work, and must not be confounded with divine life. Repentance is connected with the conviction of sin, divine life with new birth. One is the closing up, or the end, of the old life and history ; the other, the beginning of the new. In every soul where God works we must not separate those two important truths, though we must carefully distinguish.

Oh that we were everywhere alive to the necessity of such work as this! A servant of Christ remarked sometime ago, after this truth of repentance had been preached, '' I see my mistake. I have preached the gospel, but it has been like sowing seed upon the unbroken soil of the prairie. I have not been using the plough, and there has been no breaking up-hence no fruit." Let these words carry weight. Let us, in all our service, be definite, and more decided in our appeals to men. Let us yearn over sinners, plead with them, and warn them. Let the compassions of Christ fill our hearts. Let His tears run from our eyes, His love constrain us, and remember in this earnest work that preaching is not teaching, nor mere expositions of Scripture, but, with the Scriptures in hand, a heart-to-heart contact with men. When souls are broken down it is an easy matter to unfold the gospel; the heart is ready then, the soil is prepared, and the precious seed of the gospel has but to be sown, when life- new life, birth-new birth, follows.

The need of man is twofold-life and forgiveness; for the sinner is dead in trespasses and in sins. If dead, then life is needed; if sinners, then forgiveness is needed. But moral death, like the natural, is not the extinction of the responsible man, but a condition of separation or alienation from God:into this condition man fell when he sinned (Gen. 3). When the soul is brought under conviction on account of sin, and the cry for deliverance is heard, "What must I do to be saved?" the plow has wrought in that dead sinner; it has prepared the soil. The heart is ready for the good news, "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved." This gospel is the incorruptible seed, the word of God (i Pet. i:23), which, received into the heart by faith, imparts, through the power of the Holy Spirit, the new life-spiritual, eternal life (John 20:31). All that belongs to the new creation is on the principle of faith (Gal. 3:2-5 and 26). This stage of God's work in the soul being reached, we find not a divine work merely (for conviction is a divine work) but a divine life as well; the soul is born anew. Eternal life is the possession of all that are born of God. Relationship as a child in the Father's family is established, and established forever. But this is only one side of the twofold need which is met-life, by new birth, given to one previously dead. But they were not merely dead; they were dead in sins:hence forgiveness was needed also. Can we imagine a soul born again, a child in God's family, a possessor of this new life, and yet not forgiven, not yet cleansed by the blood ? We can readily understand how one, brought thus far, born again, quickened by the Word and the Spirit, not yet having the intelligence of these blessings, and needing the light of Scripture to enter into the conscious enjoyment of what is given them; but the fact itself, that is, God's forgiveness being the portion of every soul born of God, who can question it ? (Acts 13:38, 39; i John 2:12.) The water (that is, the Word) cleanses from our defiled state, and gives new life; the blood cleanses us from all sin-removes all guilt. The blood of atonement removes all that was against us-puts our guilt forever away (i John 1:7).

But return to the other side again:What is it that is given to us ? What is imparted to those who are forgiven ? What is the positive side of our turning to God, as well as the negative side ? The negative side gives us what is put away from the person. The positive side gives us what the person has received. We repeat, every soul who receives the word of life by faith is born of God, is forgiven, is a child in God's family, and hence possesses eternal life. The knowledge of these things will surely, as with any other beginning, at first be very limited, the apprehension more or less vague. Growth, development, intelligence, will all follow; and grace, relationship, our privileges and responsibilities, will all be better understood as the soul goes on with God, and searches the Word of Truth. We are all babes at first, young men in time, and fathers when we become matured Christians ; but our relationship with God is established at new birth; for eternal life is what every one born of God receives in the new birth.

We believe this wonderful truth of new birth, with all the blessedness of its relationships, the endearment and the nearness to the Father's heart and to every one that bears the marks of it, has been greatly undervalued, misunderstood, and misrepresented. Some sign of exercise or conviction about sin has been placed at times as a substitute for it. This degrades new birth, and deceives the subject. We read in Scripture, as God's order, "Repent ye, and believe the gospel." It is guilty sinners who are to repent, and repenting sinners who are to believe the gospel. Again, "Repentance and remission of sins." It is evident that repentance is not remission of sins, but prepares for it. Further, "Repent, and be converted." Repentance, therefore, is not conversion, but precedes it. Again, "Repentance unto life." We see here how these two things are distinguished. Repentance is not from life possessed, but "unto life" needed. Again, "Repentance toward God, and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ." Here is a clear distinction between repentance and faith. Repentance, to use the words of another, "is the soul's view of self, confessed to God; faith, the soul's view of Christ." Once more, "Repentance unto salvation." Here again, repentance first, salvation following. In all these references from the Scriptures, the order is always the same.

"Repent! " is the preacher's loud trumpet-call to careless, thoughtless, sinful men-not his message to anxious inquirers. Christ came "not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance," and "there is joy in heaven over one sinner that repenteth, more than over ninety and nine just persons, which need no repentance."

We verily believe this responsibility which God has laid upon all men, upon sinners, has been sadly overlooked; chiefly by two classes:First, those who are indifferent as to the value of immortal souls (oh that we were everywhere stirred from this sloth and slumber!); second, those who shape everything by schools of doctrine and preconceived ideas. For instance, we are frequently met, when man's responsibility is presented, with the question, "But you wouldn't ask sinners, dead in trespasses and sins, to repent, would you ?" To this we readily answer, "Decidedly we should, for this is the very reason why we call upon men to repent, and warn them of the fearful danger in which they are." "For God has commanded all men, everywhere, to repent." Death, the state of the unconverted, does not mean that they are not living, responsible creatures. It does not mean that they are mummies. No! they are active in sin, though dead in their affections toward God. We are more and more impressed with the thought that many of us have let men off easily in our preaching, and do not seek enough to break up the fallow ground with the loud call of God to men on account of their sins, and in view of their eternal doom. Death here means moral separation from God-the condition Adam fell into in Gen. 3, and in which all are now by natural birth. Hence, as the child grows, it is as natural for it to do what is wrong as it is for the sun to shine. It is natural for the born sinner to sin, and hence God says, " Dead in sins." Similarly, physical death is also separation- separation of the soul from the body, for "the body without the spirit is dead." Then, again, the lake of fire is declared to be " the second death "-separation from God forever. In no case can death be interpreted to mean the extinction of man or his responsibility. With God's responsible creature- man-death is never a state of irresponsibility, wherever applied. It is a separation in the relations which had existed.

Now here is where the evangelist finds his material; this is where he meets his subjects; and from the word of the eternal God he presses their condition-he himself being a subject of grace, who has been delivered from the pit. Awful are the dread realities of eternity for the lost! With this before his heart and mind, and the value of precious souls, he goes abroad with a heart filled with love, and the glory of God in the salvation of men, both upon his heart. He preaches to men:his preaching may vary according as he believes the need calls. At one time he declares '' God is light," and all that it means for men; at another, he declares that "God is love," and what that means for men. At one moment he uses the plow to prepare the soil; at another, he is unfolding the gospel, telling of God's love and righteousness bound up in that gospel. In every case the object in view is to reach the conscience and heart of men, in order to win them for the Lord:if careless, to reach their conscience and lead to conviction and repentance; if under conviction, to show them the way of life and salvation.

Let us all consider this part of divine truth more earnestly, and let us look, as the apostle did, for "works meet for repentance" in those who profess conversion. That is the true evidence and sign that the conscience has been reached, that sin has been judged, and proof given of a new life received. A mother once said to me that all her boys were the Lord's. I asked what were her reasons for thinking so. Her answer was, "They all say they believe." "But," I continued,'' have you ever discerned any exercise about their sins ?" " Why, no," she answered. I then stated that children may learn as parrots to say, "I believe." Reader, be not deceived about such a vital question, and do not deceive others:the devils believe and tremble, but they do not repent and believe. Let parents, teachers, Christian workers, one and all, be more alive to a thorough work in people's souls about the issues of eternity!

" Except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish," said our Lord when here on the earth. This work, we grant, is deeper in some than in others. By some the sense of sin is more keenly felt, and more fully judged before God. With others there may not be the same apprehension, and hence not the same depth; but we insist that the fact itself must be there. Where rock bottom has not been reached in the soul, or the fallow ground has not been turned over, there may be professions; but, like the stony-ground hearers, they will wither away, because there is no root (Luke 8). In the 8th of Acts, Simon affords us a serious lesson in this respect. Three things are said of him:First, "himself believed"; second, "was baptized"; third, "continued with Philip"; but the after verses show us how far the man was from God and His truth.

John the Baptist, the man who so powerfully brought men's consciences into God's presence, is the man who preached repentance. His ministry of repentance preceded that of the Lord-a necessary work to prepare men's hearts for the Saviour whose characteristic theme was the glad tidings; for it is the gospel itself which is "the power of God unto salvation."

We thoroughly believe we are in the time when God is giving His last call to those in Christendom who have been so long privileged with light. His word to Sardis is, "Repent " (Rev. 3). The coming of the Lord draweth nigh! Souls are asleep everywhere, and many are deceived by a false profession. We need a general awakening among all classes, and we need the Spirit to begin with us, as God's people. The first love of many Christians has departed; and the Lord, who is ever true, speaks, '' I have somewhat against thee. . . . Repent, and do the first works " (Rev. 2). When Christians are thus in the freshness and power of God's things individually and collectively, God will be true to what is of Himself, and we shall have abundance of rain, even if it is "'the latter rain." The gospel spirit will fill our hearts, and we will go forth with the old-time warmth and joy. The Lord's words in Mark 1, "Repent ye, and believe the gospel," will be the burden of our message to the world; " Feed My sheep . . . Feed My lambs," will take the place of scattering them, and loving pastoral care over those saved by the Word of Truth will bless our assemblies. Are we ready for His call ? Are we ready to arise ? Are we ready to say, " Here am I, Lord; send me"? Thus we shall grow according to God's mind and purpose. As the new-born child grows in every way, so shall we; the sense and hatefulness of sin will deepen; self-judgment will become characteristic of the whole life; the indwelling Spirit will unfold through the Word the beauties and perfections of Christ, His person, His work, and His glories:as these things are taken in, all in and around us that is not according to God will be mortified, judged, and the graces, the heavenly graces, of Christ be manifested in our daily life.
A. E. B.