I notice in the February number of the Gospel Messenger that Elder Mitchell has turned over a request to some of the brethren to answer, mentioning my name, and thus rather especially turning the matter over to me.   

When the word is written in their hearts then they will obey. A broken-hearted, repentant sinner, crying for mercy, is a character about whom we need not be in doubt. He is recognized everywhere in the scriptures, both Old Testament and New, as a subject of God's grace.

In one of those last interviews between the Master and his disciples, it was announced that repentance should be preached in his name; and that remission of sins should be preached in his name. The preaching or proclaiming of things is of the character of an announcement that those things do exist, setting them forth, etc. So this New Testament, or will of our Heavenly Father, has among its bequests this gift of repentance. Those who are called by God to the work proclaim the gift and designate the heirs. I remember my early life having heard much about preaching repentance. It was charged against those who continued to walk in the old paths, that they did not preach repentance. 

The complainers of course claimed that they did preach it and that all others ought to. With them preaching repentance was simply telling sinners to repent. Asserting that repentance was the act of the sinner, resulting from his own volition, and that he -could, by his own resolve, repent at any time. Hence, urgent appeals were made, and entreaties and expostulatious resorted to, in order to induce sinners to repent. They were told that this was a condition of salvation and that by fulfilling this condition they would secure the great reward. We can but wonder at men who are supposed to possess ordinary intelligence, that they would ever countenance such gross absurdities. 

Men know better naturally. They know that in regard to the most trivial natural things, men do not repent of anything of their own volition, nor of the persuasion of others. Except they were blinded by the god of this world, they would understand that people do not repent of anything while they love and enjoy it. If those who are engaged in advocating this kind of repentance were to go about among their neighbors, telling them that they must repent of the work in which they were engaged — building houses, planting orchards and vineyards, cultivating cornfields, &c, and go to scolding and threatening them if they did not repent of what they were doing, while as yet they could see no reason why, such men would be sent to a lunatic asylum. They would be accounted insane, and unsafe men to be at large. 

Suppose they were to go to our statesmen, or political leaders, and appeal to them to repent of the principles they are advocating and devoting their lives and all their energies to maintain, would they not be arrested and sent to a madhouse? This peculiar fanaticism is a feature of the religion of our times, and absurd as it is, it has thousands of advocates. Repentance is a development of divine life and of the love and fear of God. It is always a result or effect produced by the subject of it being enlightened and led to see and feel differently. Gospel repentance is the result of divine teaching and is one of the fruits of the Holy Spirit. The Lord Jesus is exalted by the right hand of Jehovah to give repentance to Israel, &o. God granted unto the Gentiles repentance unto life. — See Acts v, 31 and xi, 18. Repentance towards God results from a knowledge of God and love for him. This knowledge and love he himself imparts. 

Those who repent, see and feel the evil of sin, and the evil of their own hearts. Their minds have been illuminated,, the love of God shed abroad in their hearts, and repentance is there as an effect produced, and will always remain there. It is not the fear of perdition, neither is it produced by that fear. As men begin to live in the Spirit, and in the fear of God, repentance for sin and from all their former dead works must necessarily result. But so far from people repenting of their dead works, of their own volition, it would be impossible for you or I to convince them that dead works were not just as good as any. This repentance is preached among all nations for a witness. Christ preached it in the sermon on the Mount. He identified the mourner, and the poor in spirit; the pure in heart, and those who hunger and thirst after righteousness. 

And again at Nazareth, he spake gracious words to the meek, to the broken hearted, to the captives, and those that mourn in Zion. His gospel comes to bind up, to heal, and to comfort. Without this repentance, all must perish in their sins. It is a God-given grace, and its fruit shows it to be in itself a deliverance from the dominion and love of sin. This is preached and set forth as flowing to us in and through the name of the Lord. Any repentance that is preached in the name of sinners or as the work of sinners, is really setting true repentance at naught, and bearing false witness against Christ. It is despising the word and the work of the Holy One. A preached gospel, while it shows the way of life and salvation, exposes in the light of truth every error and false way, and condemns idolatry, and will worship, empty forms and hypocritical pretensions; and in this way calls upon all wrongdoers to repent. "He that hath an ear to hear let him hear." 

When the word is written in their hearts then they will obey. A broken-hearted, repentant sinner, crying for mercy, is a character about whom we need not be in doubt. He is recognized everywhere in the scriptures, both Old Testament and New, as a subject of God's grace. It should be the aim and ambition of gospel ministers, as the great object of their calling, to point out clearly this godly sorrow and repentance, which is unto life, so that the oil of joy may take the place of mourning, and the garment of praise that of the spirit of heaviness. 

The above is respectfully submitted. 

Yours in the shadows,