The fountain opened, or, The great gospel privilege of having Christ exhibited to sinful…The fountain opened, or, The great gospel priviledge of having Christ exhibited to sinfull…

7. For the right exerting of these Graces, there is the exercise of a Spirit of Mourning, and of Supplication. There is a principle of this, or there is such a Spirit habitually put into the man when he is new made, but the improvement of it is in the practising of Faith and Repentance. Here then,

1. For the exerting of true Repentance, he draws ⟨p. 136⟩out a Spirit of mourning. In Repentance we turn from sin to God, in which turning, there is not only an abstinence from the outward acts, but a cordial renouncing and forsaking of those sins which we rightly repent of; and for that end we must be made to see them to be evil and mischievous, and that we have foolishly turned from God to them; the genuine effect whereof upon the heart, is to bemoan our selves by reason of them: and hence the Scripture annexeth mourning unto Repentance, as an inseparable concomitant of • hence that in, Jer. 31. 18. I have surely heard Ephraim bemoaning of himself, &c. And for the producing of this mourning, God offers the conviction of the evil and bitterness then is in our sins, Jer. 2 19. Know and see that it is an evil thing and bitter that thou hast forsaken the Lord thy God, &c. Now there are two passages to be observed in this mourning.

1. He bewails all his Sins. Godly Sorrow is for Sin: that is the procuring cause of all the sorrows that poor man is exposed unto, and is therefore that which peculiarly calls for our mourning; and this belongs to that sorrow which the Apostle tells us is so serviceable to true Repentance,