"Repent ye, and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out;" Acts iii. 19; that is, repent of the sin of crucifying Christ, which is what Peter had been charging them with, and acknowledge Christ as the Messiah, and externally reform, " that your sins may be blotted out ;" which " blotting out," intends no other than the removing or averting the threatened and impending judgments, or deliverance from national ruin; and general calamity, which would be terrible times to the unbelieving, and impenitent Jews. See Matt. xxiv. 21; Dan. ix. 26. And previous to this, Judas had repented himself of his perfidious transgression, and in remorse, shame, and despair, went and hanged himself; and went to his own place. Matt xxvii. 35. Acts. i. 25. Christ said to Pilate, " He that delivered me unto thee, hath the greater sin." John xix. 11. Judas's sin was the vilest of all; therefore he was the first who fell a prey to divine justice, and the power of satan, and his own inbred corruptions, and violent hands. Oh, how awful to think, that when man for his wickedness, is given up of God, and left to himself and satan, how soon he falls a prey even to his own wicked hands, or the judgments of God. The Jews, as a nation, had forty years allowed them, wherein they might repent of their crucifying Christ, and believe in him, by the miracles and preaching of the apostles; but they would not believe, though one should rise from the dead, Luke xvi. 31, which Christ did, but they were still impenitent and unbelieving. Therefore, "Thou shalt break them with a rod of iron, thou shalt dash them in pieces like a potter's vessel." Psa. ii. 9. Oh, how awfully true and certain! "The wicked shall be driven away in his wickedness." Pro v. iv. 32. Oh, to be delivered from satan, depraved self, sin, and sinners! How needful the prayer, "Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil." "If sinners entice thee consent thou not." Prov. i. 10. "For the wicked shall be cut off from the earth, and the transgressors shall be rooted out of it." Prov. ii. 22. “To me belongeth vengance, and recompence; for the day of calamity is at hand, and the things that shall come upon them make haste." Deut. xxii. 35.
" Thus God beheld, and from his throne,
Marks out the men that hate his Son ;
The hand that raised him from the dead,
Shall pour due vengance on the-r head."
