Page:Sermons preached in the African Protestant Episcopal Church of St. Thomas', Philadelphia.djvu/225

Rh lead. There is no way, however, of escape for man, unless he alter his position, unless a radical change take place in his moral character. Hence the exhortation in the text—"" As man's distance from the moral image of God is particularly alluded to, so to draw nigh to Him, is to advance progressively towards his divine image, and likeness. We draw nigh to God:—

1. By repentance. Repentance properly speaking comprehends three things, viz.: conviction of sin, sorrow on account of it, and the forsaking of it. The searching light of heaven first discloses to the sinner the sad reality that his "whole head is sick," and his "whole heart faint;" that, "from the sole of the foot even unto the head there is no soundness in it, but wounds, and bruises, and putrifying sores:" that "have not been closed, neither bound up, neither mollified with ointment." This view of native depravity, this conviction