Page:The Works of Samuel Johnson ... A journey to the Hebrides. The vision of Theodore, the hermit of Teneriffe. The fountains. Prayers and meditations. Sermons.v. 10-11. Parliamentary debates.pdf/336

 divine ideas of rectitude, yet if approved, after honest and diligent inquiries, by our own consciences, will not be condemned by that God, who judges of the heart, weighs every circumstance of our lives, and admits every real extenuation of our failings and transgressions.

Were there not mercy with him, were he not to be reconciled after the commission of a crime, what must be the state of those, who are conscious of having once offended him? A state of gloomy melancholy, or outrageous desperation; a dismal weariness of life, and inexpressible agonies at the thought of death; for what affright or affliction could equal the horrours of that mind, which expected every moment to fall into the hands of implacable Omnipotence?

But the mercy of God extends not only to those who have made his will, in some degree, the rule of their actions, and have only deviated from it by inadvertency, surprise, inattention, or negligence, but even to those that have polluted themselves with studied and premeditated wickedness; that have violated his commands in opposition to conviction, and gone on, from crime to crime, under a sense of the divine disapprobation.

Even these are not for ever excluded from his favour, but have in their hands means, appointed by himself, of reconciliation to him; means by which pardon may be obtained, and by which they may be restored to those hopes of happiness, from which they have fallen by their own fault.

The great duty to the performance of which these benefits are promised, is repentance; a duty, which is of the utmost importance to every man to understand and practise, and which it, therefore, may be necessary to explain and enforce, by showing,


 * What is the true nature of repentance.


 * What are the obligations to an early repentance.


 * What is the true nature of repentance.

The duty of repentance, like most other parts of reli