“Now I rejoice, not that ye were made sorry, but that ye sorrowed to repentance:  for ye were made sorry after a godly manner, that ye might receive damage by us in nothing.  For godly sorrow worketh repentance to salvation not to be repented of:  but the sorrow of the world worketh death.”—­2 Corinthians vii. 9, 10.

 That which is chiefly insisted on in this verse, is the distinction
 between sorrow and repentance.  To grieve over sin is one thing, to
 repent of it is another.

The apostle rejoiced, not that the Corinthians sorrowed, but that they sorrowed unto repentance.  Sorrow has two results; it may end in spiritual life, or in spiritual death; and in themselves, one of these is as natural as the other.  Sorrow may produce two kinds of reformation—­a transient, or a permanent one—­an alteration in habits, which originating in emotion, will last so long as that emotion continues, and then after a few fruitless efforts, be given up,—­a repentance which will be repented of; or again, a permanent change, which will be reversed by no after thought—­a repentance not to be repented of.  Sorrow is in itself, therefore, a thing neither good nor bad:  its value depends on the spirit of the person on whom it falls.  Fire will inflame straw, soften iron, or harden clay; its effects are determined by the object with which it comes in contact.  Warmth developes the energies of life, or helps the progress of decay.  It is a great power in the hot-house, a great power also in the coffin; it expands the leaf, matures the fruit, adds precocious vigour to vegetable life:  and warmth too developes, with tenfold rapidity, the weltering process of dissolution.  So too with sorrow.  There are spirits in which it developes the seminal principle of life; there are others in which it prematurely hastens the consummation of irreparable decay.  Our subject therefore is the twofold power of sorrow.

    I. The fatal power of the sorrow of the world. 
   II.  The life-giving power of the sorrow that is after God.

The simplest way in which the sorrow of the world works death, is seen in the effect of mere regret for worldly loss.  There are certain advantages with which we come into the world.  Youth, health, friends, and sometimes property.  So long as these are continued we are happy; and because happy, fancy ourselves very grateful to God.  We bask in the sunshine of His gifts, and this pleasant sensation of sunning ourselves in life we call religion; that state in which we all are before sorrow comes, to test the temper of the metal of which our souls are made, when the spirits are unbroken and the heart buoyant, when a fresh morning is to a young heart what it is to the skylark.  The exuberant burst of joy seems a spontaneous hymn to the Father of all blessing, like the matin carol of the bird; but this is not religion:  it is the instinctive utterance of happy feeling, having as little of moral character