TRACTS FOR THE TIMES.
BISHOP WILSON'S FORM OF RECEIVING PENITENTS.
Brother,
The Church being a society of persons professing to live in the fear of God, and expecting the judgments of God to fall upon them, if His laws are broken without calling the offenders to account; it is reasonable that every member of this society who has been guilty of any scandalous offence, should either openly confess his sins, and promise reformation for the time to come; or else should be cut off from the body of Christ, which is the Church.
Now, to awaken you to a true sense of your condition, I will set before you the Word of God; that you may certainly know what will be the end of a wicked life; and that knowing the terror of the Lord, you may speedily turn unto Him and make your peace.
Hear then what the Apostle St. Paul saith of great offenders:
Be not deceived: neither fornicators, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall inherit the kingdom of God[1].
Hear also what the same Apostle saith:
Now the works of the flesh are these, adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies, envyings, murders, drunkenness, revellings, and such like: of the which I tell you before, as I have also told you in time past, that they which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God[2].
It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God,
