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Monday, June 29, 2009

Particular Repentance

Westminster Confession of Faith, Chap. 15 (Of Repentance unto Life):

V. Men ought not to content themselves with a general repentance, but it is every man's duty to endeavour to repent of his particular sins, particularly.(k)

(k) Ps. 19:13; Luke 19:8; I Tim. 1:13, 15.

Lewis Stuckley, A Gospel Glass, pp. 89-90:

Secondly, How have we failed when we have entered upon the duty [of prayer]? And that in invocation, in confession, in petition, and in thanksgiving?
...
2. In our confessions of sin: we are not full, and free, and ingenuous; we sit with Rachel upon some idols; we do not "declare our ways unto him," but rather cover our transgressions as Adam. Few can clear themselves as Job did. You will perhaps confess, "We have erred and strayed from thy ways like lost sheep. We have left undone," &c., but still in generals. David was in this graveled, "When I kept silence, my bones waxed old, through my roaring all the day long." But you descend not to particulars, or if to particulars, yet the Benjamin is reserved, loath to let Benjamin go, loath to confess envy, pride, breach of vows, want of love to saints, loving the rich only, neglecting the poor. You will confess what every man knows you are guilty of, or what every man is addicted to; but you shame not yourselves by instancing in the particular neglects and commissions, by which you chiefly provoke the Lord; the Agags are not brought to execution, the best of the cattle are kept back, one wedge is hid in the tent. Or if you confess most particularly, yet it is without hatred of the sins confessed; you confess sin, yet hug it, bosom it, plead for it, within one quarter of an hour; you confess sin, but without self-abhorrence; you loath it not, as the plague of your hearts. "I abhor myself," saith Job. This implies a dislike, an hatred, an indignation against an utter alienation from, and an opposition against, sin. God knows how little of this is mixed with the confessions of most professors.

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