Chapter I: THE SUMMONS TO REPENT.--John has a ministry with all men. In other

words, he represents a phase of teaching and influence through which we must needs pass if we are properly to discover and appreciate the grace of Christ. With us, too, a preparatory work has to be done. There are mountains and hills of pride and self-will that have to be levelled; crooked and devious ways that have to be straightened; ruggednesses that have to be smoothed--before we can fully behold the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. In proportion to the thoroughness and permanence of our repentance will be our glad realization of the fulness and glory of the Lamb of God.

But we must guard ourselves here, lest it be supposed that repentance is a species of good work which must be performed in order that we may merit the grace of Christ. It must be made equally clear, that repentance must not be viewed apart from faith in the Saviour, which is an integral part of it. It is also certain that, though "God commandeth all men everywhere to repent," yet Jesus is exalted "to give repentance and the remission of sins."

Repentance, according to the literal rendering of the Greek word, is "a change of mind." Perhaps we should rather say, it is a change in the attitude of the will. The unrepentant soul chooses its own way and will, regardless of the law of God. "The mind of the flesh is enmity against God, for it is not subject to the law of God, neither, indeed, can it be; and they that are in the flesh cannot please God." But in repentance the soul changes its attitude. It no longer refuses the yoke of God's will, like a restive heifer, but yields to it, or is willing to yield. There is a compunction, a sense of the hollowness of all created things, a relenting, a wistful yearning after the true life, and ultimately a turning from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan unto God. The habits may rebel; the inclinations and emotions may shrink back; the consciousness of peace and joy may yet be far away--but the will has made its secret decision, and has begun to turn to God: as, in the revolution of the earth, the place where we live reaches its furthest point from the sunlight, passes it, and begins slowly to return towards its warm smiles and embrace.

It cannot be too strongly emphasized that repentance is an act of the _will_. In its beginning there may be no sense of gladness or reconciliation with God: but just the consciousness that certain ways of life are wrong, mistaken, hurtful, and grieving to God; and the desire, which becomes the determination, to turn from them, to seek Him who formed the mountains and created the wind, that maketh the morning darkness and treadeth upon the high places of the earth.

Repentance may be accounted as the other side of faith. They are the two sides of the same coin: the two aspects of the same act. If the act of the soul which brings it into right relation with God is described as a turning round, to go in the reverse direction to that in which it had been travelling, then _repentance_ stands for its desire and choice to turn from sin, and _faith_ for its desire and choice to turn to God. We must be willing to turn from sin and our own righteousness--that is _repentance_; we must be willing to be saved by God, in his own way, and must come to Him for that purpose--that is _faith_.

We need to turn from our own righteousnesses as well as from our sins. Augustine spoke of his efforts after righteousness as splendid sins; and Paul distinctly disavows all those attempts to stand right with God which he made before he saw the face of the risen Christ looking out from heaven upon his conscience-stricken spirit. You must turn away from your own efforts to save yourself. These are, in the words of the prophet, but "filthy rags." Nothing, apart from the Saviour and his work, can avail the soul, which must meet the scrutiny of eternal justice and purity.

Repentance is produced sometimes and specially by the presentation of the claims of Christ. We suddenly awake to realize what He is, how He loves, how much we are missing, the gross ingratitude with which we respond to his agony and bloody sweat, his cross and suffering, the beauty of his character, the strength of his claims.

At other times repentance is wrought by the preaching of John the Baptist. Then we hear of the axe laid at the root of the trees, and the unquenchable fire for the consuming of the chaff: and the heart trembles. Then we are led to the brink of the precipice, and compelled to see the point at which the primrose-path we are travelling ends in the fatal abyss. Then our faith in our hereditary position and privilege is shattered by the iconoclasm of the preacher; and we are levelled to the position of stones which are lapped by the Jordan, but are insensible to its touch. It is at such a time as this that the soul sees the entire fabric of its vain confidences and hopes crumbling like a cloud-palace, and turns from it all--as Mary from the sepulchre, where her hopes lay entombed, to find Jesus standing with the resurrection glory on his face and radiant love in his eyes.

For purposes of clear thinking it is well to discriminate in our use of the words Repentance and Penitence, using the former of the first act of the will, when, energized and quickened by the Spirit of God, it turns from dead works to serve the living and true God; and the latter, of the emotions which are powerfully wrought upon, as the years pass, by the Spirit's presentation of all the pain and grief which our sin has caused, and is causing, to our blessed Lord. We repent once, but are penitents always. We repent in the will; we are penitent in the heart. We repent, and believe the Gospel; we believe the Gospel of the Son of Man, and as we look on Him, whom our sins have pierced, we mourn. We repent when we obey his call to come unto Him and live; we are penitent as we stand behind Him weeping, and begin to wash his feet with our tears, and to wipe them with the hair of our head.

If John the Baptist has never wrought his work in you, be sure to open your heart to his piercing voice. Let him fulfil his ministry. See that you do not reject the counsel of God, as it proceeds from his lips; but expose your soul to its searching scrutiny, and allow it to have free and uninterrupted course. He comes to prepare the way of the Lord, and to make through the desert of our nature a highway for our God. Of course, if, from the earliest you have been under the nurture of pious parents, and your young heart turned to God in the early dawn of consciousness, you will not pass through these experiences as those must who have spent years in the service of Satan. For these there is but one word--Repent! They must, in a moment of time, take up an entirely different attitude to God and holiness, to Christ and his salvation.