'Repentance consists in the abolition of sins': Jeremy Taylor's sermon 'The Invalidity of a Late, or Deathbed Repentance'
For (they are the words of Saint Paul) they that are Christs have crucified the flesh, with the affections and lusts: the work is actually done, and sin is dead, or wounded mortally, before they can in any sense belong to Christ, to be a portion of his inheritance: And He that is in Christ is a new creature. For in Christ Jesus nothing can avail but a new creature: nothing but a Keeping the Commandements of God: Not all our tears, though we should weep like David and his men at Ziklag, till they could weep no more, or the women of Ramah, or like the weeping in the valley of Hinnom, could suffice, if we retain the affection to any one sin, or have any unrepented of, or unmortified. It is true that a contrite and broken heart, God will not despise. No, he will not. For if it be a hearty and permanent sorrow, it is an excellent beginning of repentance; and God will to a timely sorrow give the grace of repentance: He will not give pardon to sorrow alone; but that which ought to be the proper effect of sorrow, that God shall give. He shall then open the gates of mercy, and admit you to a possibility of restitution; so, that you may be within the covenant of repentance, which if you actually perform, you may expect Gods promise. And in this sense Confession will obtain our pardon; and humiliation will be accepted; and our holy purposes, and pious resolutions shall be accounted for; that is, these being the first steps and addresses to that part of repentance, which consists in the abolition of sins, shall be accepted so far, as to procure so much of the pardon, to do so much of the work of restitution, that God will admit the returning man to a further degree of emendation, to a nearer possibility of working out his salvation: but then if this sorrow, and confession, and strong purposes begin then when our life is declined towards the West, and is now ready to set in darknesse and a dismall night; because of themselves they could but procure an admission to repentance, not at all to pardon, and plenary absolution; by shewing that on our death-bed these are too late and ineffectuall, they call upon us to begin betimes, when these imperfect acts may be consummate, and perfected in the actuall performing those parts of holy life, to which they were ordained, in the nature of the thing, and the purposes of God.
Here again we see Taylor's understanding of repentance reflecting that found in Calvin. The Reformer states that "the mortification of our flesh and the old man, and the quickening of the Spirit" are integral to repentance. As Calvin proceeds to further expound this aspect of the definition of repentance, we see the same emphasis as in Taylor's "the abolition of sins":
The prophets, in accommodation to a carnal people, express this in simple and homely terms, but clearly, when they say, “Depart from evil, and do good,” (Ps. 34:14). “Wash you, make you clean, put away the evil of your doings from before mine eyes; cease to do evil; learn to do well; seek judgment; relieve the oppressed,” &c. (Isaiah 1:16, 17). In dissuading us from wickedness they demand the entire destruction of the flesh, which is full of perverseness and malice. It is a most difficult and arduous achievement to renounce ourselves, and lay aside our natural disposition. For the flesh must not be thought to be destroyed unless every thing that we have of our own is abolished. But seeing that all the desires of the flesh are enmity against God (Rom. 8:7), the first step to the obedience of his law is the renouncement of our own nature. Renovation is afterwards manifested by the fruits produced by it—viz. justice, judgment, and mercy. Since it were not sufficient duly to perform such acts, were not the mind and heart previously endued with sentiments of justice, judgment, and mercy this is done when the Holy Spirit, instilling his holiness into our souls, so inspired them with new thoughts and affections, that they may justly be regarded as new.
To be clear, this is not (obviously) to claim that Taylor and Calvin are entirely in agreement on this matter, not least in light of Taylor's distinctly non-Augustinian account of Original Sin. It is, however, to suggest that in this sermon - one of the more controversial of Taylor's sermons - the understanding of repentance largely coheres with Calvin's concerns, not least that repentance must not, in the words of Calvin, be mistaken for a "supine security, as if we had nothing to do with the mortification of the flesh".
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