[3] I see no reason to call in question the truth and sincerity of that man's repentance who hates sin and forsakes, and returns to God and his duty, though he cannot shed tears, and express the bitterness of his soul by the same significations that a mother does in the loss of her only son. He that cannot weep like a child may resolve like a man, and that undoubtedly will find acceptance with God. Two persons walking together espy a serpent; the one shrieks and cries out at the sight of it, the other kills it. So it is with sorrow for sin; some express it by great lamentations and tears, and vehement transports of passion; others by greater and more real effects of detestation--by forsaking their sins, by mortifying and subduing their lusts; but he that kills it doth certainly best express his inward enmity against it.--_Tillotson,_ 1630-1694. [4] Oh who can read of a _Manasseh,_ a _Magdalene,_ a _Saul,_ yes, an _Adam,_ who undid himself and a whole world with him, in the roll of pardoned sinners, and yet turn away from the promise, out of a fear that there is not mercy fit in it to serve his turn? These are landmarks that show what large boundaries mercy hath set for itself, and how far it hath gone, even to take into its arms the greatest sinners that make not themselves incapable thereof by final impenitency. It were a healthful walk, poor doubting Christian, for thy soul go to this circuit, and oft see where the utmost stone is laid and boundary set by God's pardoning mercy, beyond which He will not go.--_Gurnall,_ 1617-1679. SIN AND GRACE. i. 18. _Come now, and let us reason together, saith the Lord; Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool._ For an exposition of the symbolism of this verse, see note.[1]