ON PENITENCE

The doctrine concerning repentance is not legal but evangelical; that is, it appertains to the gospel and not to the law, although the law solicits and impels to repentance. 2. The knowledge or confession of sins, sorrow on account of sin and a desire for deliverance, with a resolution to avoid sin, are pleasing to God as the very beginnings of conversion. 3. In propriety of speech, these things are not the mortification itself of the flesh or of sin but necessarily precede it. 4. Repentance is prior to faith in Christ; but it is posterior to that faith by which we believe that God is willing to receive into his favour the penitent sinner. 5. QUERIES. -- Is the repentance of Judas properly called legal? 6. Was the penitence or repentance of the inhabitants of Tyre and Sidon, of which Christ speaks in Matt. xi. 21, dissembled and feigned, or true repentance?