Preface to the Sixth Edition.

MORE than eighteen years having now elapsed, since this discourse was first published; and the Author having in that time had much opportunity of comparing what he had written, both with the Scriptures, and with the state of religion at present; after carefully revising the work, he thinks it incumbent on him to annex to this Sixth Edition, a declaration, that he is more than ever convinced, that the real nature of true repentance is here described; that there can be no saving faith where this repentance is wanting; that many false views of Christianity may be detected by this touchstone; and that the necessity and nature of true repentance are generally too little insisted on, in evangelical instructions.

ASTON SANDFORD, April 19, 1803.

THOMAS SCOTT.

INTRODUCTION.

THE Christian religion, as St. Paul preached it. both to the Jews and Gentiles, consists of "repent"ance towards God, and faith towards our Lord "Jesus Christ," and may, therefore, be properly called the religion of a sinner; for none but sinners need repentance, or faith in a Mediator, or that forgiveness of sins, which through him is preached to all that believe.

This consideration ought carefully to be attended to; Jesus Christ "came not to call the righteous, "but sinners to repentance ;" and if men lose sight of this peculiarity of the Gospel, they will mistake in a fundamental concern; and be offended with those ministers, who alone address them in a scriptural method. Our business, as preachers of the Gospel, is not with men merely as rational agents, but with men as sinners. We must not address them, as if they were newly entered on a state of trial; were as yet free from all blame; and were at last to stand or fall according to their future good or bad behaviour, and only needed to be instructed in their duty, and excited to perform it. This is not the state of the case. Even the most moral, respectable, and amiable of mankind are sinners, condemned sinner

In this light the word of God considers us, and informs us, (not "What good thing we may do to in"herit eternal life," but,)" What we must do to be "saved" from impending ruin; whither a sinner may flee from the wrath to come." And thus must the faithful minister address his hearers, calling upon them as sinners, to repent and believe the Gospel.

"By one man, sin entered into the world, and death "by sin; and so death passed upon all ment." In consequence of the awful sentence, " Dust thou art, "and to dust thou shalt return," millions through successive generations have yielded to the stroke; all the former inhabitants of the earth are swept into the grave by one general execution many are at this moment experiencing the agonies of death; numbers are bewailing their departed and departing friends and relatives. We too feel the consequences of sin in our own personal pains and sickness, which are the forerunners and earnests of our dissolution: we too must have the sentence executed upon us in all its rigour. The wisest cannot elude it, the strongest cannot resist its stroke, nor can the richest purchase exemption from it.

The constant and extensive ravages of death are in themselves extremely affecting to the considerate spectator: but become more so when we reflect, that as certainly as when a malefactor is dragged from prison, and executed on a scaffold, he dies for breaking the laws of the land; so certainly, when a sinner dies, he dies for breaking the law of God.

Rom. v. 12.

Had sin and death been hitherto equally unknown to mankind; and now in our days had sin first made its entrance: immediately upon man's rebellion had we heard the sentence audibly and solemnly denounced; "Dust ye are, and to dust ye shall return :" had fevers, dropsies, palsies, apoplexies, consumptions, and other mortal diseases on the one hand; with earthquakes, famines, and wars on the other, suddenly begun to spread desolation through families, villages, cities, and kingdoms among the guilty alone: should we behold at once multitudes dead, and multitudes in the agonies of death, the rest mourning over their beloved friends, and trembling for themselves; (like Egypt, when there was not a house in which there was not one dead :) the connexion betwixt transgressing the divine law, and being punished with death, might be more affecting but would not be more certain, than it now is; though it is seldom seriously laid to heart.

Or were men in general free from sin; but from time to time one and another transgressed; who immediately upon transgressing, was punished by death, according to the examples of vindictive justice recorded in the Scriptures: the connexion would be more attended to: but not more certain than at present; when, "because sentence against an evil "work is not executed speedily, therefore the heart "of the sons of men is wholly set in them to do " evil*."

But as all have sinned, and all die, and things have gone on so for many generations, death is con

*Eccles. viii. 11.