On the subject of the ordering of faith and repentance I have not found any answer more satisfying than the one given by Thomas Boston https://www.monergism.com/whether-or-not-repentance-be-necessary-order-obtaining-pardon-sin Boston, of course, is known for his defense of the Marrow, but the answer he gives here can, in substance, be found in many other theologians including Samuel Willard in his section on “Repentance Unto Life”. My thoughts on the Marrow as a whole are too nuanced to spell out here, but I am in basic agreement with the assessment of Stephen Myers on the matter. I will say that I think many defenders of the Marrow made overstatements and I think real disagreement between the parties can be greatly minimized and that we can recognize that both parties had real historic precedent. While I am not at all crazy about the modern defenders of the Marrow who it seems to me go far beyond even the overstatements of some of more uncareful among the Marrow men, if ever I have defended them, it is on this point. Here, on the ordering of faith and repentance, I think the defenders of the Marrow were and are substantially correct and that this should be admitted by all sides.
Following Boston, I defend the following: there is a legal repentance which precedes faith and an evangelical repentance which follows faith. Therefore repentance may be said to either precede or follow faith in different senses. Either expression may be accepted.
There is a legal repentance to which the moral law obligates us (as Maccovius says “the Law does not teach penitence, it nevertheless puts us under the obligation of penitence.”). The moral law supposes a man upright and thus, not formally but virtually, obligates him to turn from his sin to return to the pristine state of uprightness. This repentance must, in ordinary circumstances, precede faith. As Boston puts it: “there is a sort of legal repentance that goes before pardon, I do not deny, which belongs to conviction, and may be in Judas and Cain, and was in those elect ones, Acts 2:37. when they were ‘pricked at the heart;’ whom yet the Apostle calls to true repentance, ver. 38. And this I judge to be necessary by God's appointment, at least in the ordinary way, in the course of God's ordinary dispensation: those persons being first killed by the law whom he minds to revive by the gospel. But this goes before faith; and cannot, but in a very large sense, be reckoned a mean in order to the attaining of remission of sins; seeing it is toto genere different from any special and saving work of the Spirit.” There must, ordinarily, be an act of turning away from sin before one can turn to Christ in all who have the use of actual reason. And I think this is consistent with Alsted who says that "Initial repentance is prior; continued [repentance] is posterior [to faith]." But we must remember that this initial repentance is a distinct repentance from the evangelical repentance which follows faith. If legal repentance may be said to be an antecedent condition of justification, it is in a broader sense than even regeneration is said to be such since the difference is: 1) that justification does not always follow this kind of repentance, 2) nor does this repentance, absolutely speaking, have to precede it, although it ordinarily does (see John Owen Works 5:78-79 [Chapter 1 of his Doctrine of Justification], see also James Renihan's exposition of the 1LBCF, For the Vindication of the Truth, page 139 onwards, and finally, Samuel Willard, Body of Divinity, Repentance Unto Life) but evangelical repentance may properly be said to be a consequent condition of justification. John Owen speaks at length of this legal repentance in Works 5:74-79 and many among the Reformed make the same distinction in substance (e.g. Alting, Bucanus, Trelcatius). Ames Medulla, 128: "Repentance in respect of that carefulnesse, and anxiety, & terror arising from the Law which it hath joyned with it, doth goe before Faith, by order of nature, as a preparing and disposing cause: but in respect of that effectuall and kindly turning away from sin, as God is offended by it, so it followes Faith, and depends upon it as the effect upon his cause, and herein is pro∣per to the faithfull." Boston points out that WLC 75 says that the "seeds of repentance" are put into the heart of man in sanctification. Compare this to my comments here about the other theological virtues being virtually contained in faith, from which it can be concluded that repentance follows faith in order of nature since charity, which is the theological virtue which makes use of repentance, is virtually contained in faith. Repentance is formally facilitated by charity and thus consequent to faith.
I should also add that this seems to follow from the view of faith that I take (along with Voetius and Vermigli) in placing faith, even in its proper act of justifying, as formally in the intellect alone, with repentance being an act of the will.
This legal repentance is certainly often spurred on by sufficient grace revealed through the proclamation of the Gospel, but it must be remembered it is still the type of repentance the law “obligates to” and not that which the Gospel formally commands. One is formally of nature and the other is formally of grace and there is no necessary connection between the two, which had to be stressed against the more pelagianizing papists, mostly among the Jesuits, of the day who held there was some efficacy between such a natural work and grace. For this reason we must always qualify the necessity of legal repentance, making clear it is a condition ordinarily preceding faith, but not absolutely, necessarily, and always, since the orders of nature and grace differ infinitely and nature does not, strictly speaking, prepare for grace. Legal repentance is the repentance of the unregenerate. It is a common preparation for grace and not the fruit of grace itself. In fact, the two are entirely distinguished by their modes because repentance is no theological virtue, but rather a special virtue of natural justice that is modally supernatural in the regenerate and modally nature in the unregenerate. Legal repentance, the unregenrate are capable of, but evangelical repentance, that is, natural repentance "adjusted to grace" (to draw a phrase from Junius) is only possible for the regenerate.
To quote Willard at length:
There are two sorts of repentance mainly taken notice of in Scripture, one whereof is vulgarly called legal, the other evangelical. And we must warily distinguish between these two, else we shall run ourselves into a gross error, and miss in our conceptions of that which is an essential article in the Christian religion.
1. There is a legal repentance, which is so called, because it proceeds from the terrors of the law, and is produced by convictions and terrors of conscience; which makes men sorry for what they have done, and drives them to do some legal works. It produces a worldly sorrow, and often it drives men to an outward reformation of their lives. This is wrought by a common work of the Spirit, who by awakening of the conscience, and putting it into an apprehension of guilt for what he has done, drives it to seek ease by doing something in amends for it; which often makes an observable change in the man’s life. Now though the Spirit of God often begins with the elect in this way, in order to their conversion, by causing of a spirit of bondage to work in them; yet it has not in itself anything that is saving; nor is there any necessary connection between it and saving grace. It therefore has been found sometimes strangely to work in such as have afterwards perished. There was such a repentance in Ahab, 1 Kings 21:27, and yet afterwards he repented of his repentance, or at least returned to his former wicked courses. And the most notorious instance in this kind was Judas; and we are acquainted what fair steps he took, in Mat. 27:1ff. His heart reflected, he yielded to the accusations of his conscience, was sorry for what he had done, confessed his sin, and that openly, restored again what he had unjustly gotten; and yet after all this, in despair he hangs himself, and is gone to his own place.
2. There is an evangelical repentance; so called, because the gospel has a mighty influence into the kindly operations of it. And not only so, but because it is a gospel medium to the obtaining of forgiveness and eternal life; it is therefore connected with remission, Acts 5:31. And for this cause it is called repentance unto life, Acts 11:18. And this therefore is the repentance now under consideration; and for that reason our catechism puts the distinct title upon it. And here let us observe, that though the light of nature tells men that they ought to repent of sin, inasmuch as it is an unreasonable thing for man to sin, and thereby he procures wrath and misery to himself; yet the law left no room to hope to obtain pardon and salvation for his own confessions and reformations; but declared him a transgressor, and accordingly a man of death; whereas the gospel has opened a new covenant, in which God has made true repentance a medium to salvation; so that the right exercise thereof leads unto life: and there is a vast difference between this and the other repentance, as will be seen when we come to consider the description that is given of it. This evangelical repentance, which is wrought in conversion being a saving change produced in the man, whereby he passes from death to life, will come under a threefold consideration...
He goes on at the cited place.
Evangelical repentance is a good work done from a principle of spiritual and supernatural life as one who is regenerate. Legal repentance, while materially good and a common preparation for grace (again, in the large sense, not in a Pelagian sense) is nevertheless still the repentance of one yet unregenerate. Rutherford writes that, "Not any protestant divines I know make true repentance a work of the Law, going before faith in Christ." Repentance (in the relevant sense of evangelical repentance) comes after faith.
The above, I consider certain and rather ubiquitous among the Reformed. The real question, it seems to me, is whether remission of sins (part of justification’s form) immediately follows faith or whether it follows repentance as a condition sine qua non and medium. That is a question I will have to take up at another time, as there is much mateiral to work with on thart question. I have already hinted at this a bit in my post on the best theologians for each locus.
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