heaven. It was the only doctrine the prophets preached to prepare the world for the reception of our Saviour; and we may justly believe that his coming was the longer deferred, by the little growth that doctrine had in the hearts of men; and it was the principal doctrine he chose to preach himself after he was come, to make his coming effectual, and to make way for Christianity, of which they were otherwise incapable. There is not, it may be, a consideration in the whole history of the life and death of our Saviour, upon the ground and end of his being born, and all the circumstances of his living and dying, which ought to affect us more with sorrow and amazement, than that this precious antidote, which can only expel that poison which must otherwise destroy us, that this sovereign repentance is so little thought of, so little considered, so little understood, what it is, and what it is not, that it is no wonder that it is so little practised. It is wonderful with some horror, that there is not one Christian in the world, how different soever in other opinions, who doth profess to have any hope of salvation without repentance, and yet that there are so few who take any pains to be informed of it, or know how to practise it. It is almost the only point of faith upon which there is no controversy; as if there were a general conspiracy to make no words of it, lest it should suppress all other discords and contentions. It were to be wished therefore that all particular persons, who have any sense of conscience, or so much as a desire to live innocently for the future, that they may die comfortably, would seriously apply themselves to weigh well what that repentance in truth is, which