rather than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for Heb. 11. 25 a season although they were in their growing and ascending morning Repentance vvill not vvorship that Sun in the East It is a very small thing to despise it in the VVest and just a setting to choose Religion when there is nothing to vye vvith it 2. It is not a consideration of heavenly things in their true vvorth but only as recommended by the present necessity For who would not die the Death of the Righteous And have his latter end like his Every man at that time would be glad to find he hath lived well and he that hath lived worst except he be outragious in prophaneness will wish he had lived better Eternity at hand gives value to all Holiness and sense of God in spight of the World and lessens all things else to a nothing and less than nothing imprints a ghastliness and horror upon all Mat. 27. â— wickedness and sensuality The thirty pieces are nothing worth and the innocent blood above all value when men suffer in the agonies of Conscience and fears of the approaching Judge A house full of Silver and Gold will not buy a man to resist God when indeed Nu. 22. 18 he appears to him when the terrible Majesty opens Isai 2. 10. it self what is so precious that men will not fling to the Bats and Moles When the breath is going out of the nostrils how precious is Repentance Faith a pardon in Christ a happy Eternity To those who have heretofore slighted them as the off-scouring of all things But these things are always so rich VVisdom is always so precious that it disdains to borrow esteem from a minute of extremity and therefore it most often falls out that those who would none of its counsel but despised all its reproofe when they come to seek it early cannot find it but it laughs at their calamity as men laugh at the unhappiness of Fools that would not be corrected in their folly till their misery confute their confidence 3. From hence it followes That this Repentance is a choice when there is no other choice if a man loved his sins or the world never so passionately he must leave them if he disliked God and his Holiness and an everlasting abode with him to the utmost yet he is even forced upon them or dashed upon an eternal misery and unhappiness which it is impossible to choose and therefore though he would not choose the holy ways of God if he might still enjoy former vanity yet that being out of his reach and way he must take what is to â—e had The sense therefore is no more than this All these things are good when a man is just a Dying but while he lives and can have the world they are troublesome and unprofitable Death makes them good upon this account only because else there would be something worse and there can no longer be any thing better A man is now willing to offer a Life he hath not to give but Eternal life is not worth any part of that life he thinks in his power to do any thing else with Let us then observe at what rate it is set for to use Tertullian's words in another case we may thus reason n Quale bonum hoc est quod melius est poenâ quod non potest videri bonum nisi peisimo comparaâ—um ut ideo bonum sit resâ—picere quia deterius est ardere Caeterum si per mali collationem cogitur bonum dici non tam bonum est quam genus mali inferioris quod altiori malo obscuratum ad nomen boni impellitur Tertul. De Mono. gamiâ— Chap. 3. VVhat a mean sort of good is this that only excels punishment which needs the vvorst of states for a Foil to it self that it may be thought Good It is good to repent and be saved because vvho can dvvell vvith everlasting burnings But if it must purchase the reputation of being Good from Evil it is not so much a Good as a lovver degree of Evil vvhich vvhile the greater evil ecclipses it is compelled as it vvere to accept the name of a good being driven upon the confines of goodness by the violence of greater evil 4. This Repentance is not the Free but inslaved Judgment and Choice of the Soul as men cast out Goods in a Storm and receive a povver to rule over them that they cannot endure but that it is too strong for them Men are afraid what God will do to them therefore they submit His enemies in heart are found liars to him they flatter him with their mouth as Julian oppressed by the Almightiness of Christ is storied to have cried out Vicisti Galilaee Thou hast overcome me Galilean Thus they are overcome by Death and the apprehension of Judgment In the sight and view of the danger men resolve to part with their sins Let but that remove they call for their sins again as Mariners wish for their goods after the Storm They throw up their lusts in their sickness but drink them in when their trouble is past as the Dog returnes to his vomit In all this there is nothing 2 Pet. 2. 12. of the love of God 5. In this Repentance the Soul of it is generally a pittiful mean Self-love even the meanest kind imaginable wherein a man considers himself as a Creature in being and likely or at least possible to be for ever without any apprehension of himself as a raaional creature made for God the enjoyment of him in conforming with whom his happiness consists and in the resting for ever in his love Of this part he hath no distinct apprehension only he would be happy though he knows not what it is or rather he would not be miserable yet even that he truely understands not But as the Jews said to Christ when he spake to them of the Bread of Life Lord evermore give us this bread and yet were scandalized at his explanation Iohn 6. 14. of himself to be that Bread so far as to leave him And the Pharisees hearing of the Vineyard to be let out to other Husband-men and the Judgment upon themselves Luk. 20. 16. to be executed Cried out God forbid yet run on in the sin that brought it upon them This little point of Self-love into which all is crowded is ennobled with no sight of the excellency of the things themselves or a due estimation of them as the true pleasure and joy of an immortal spirit This is not that allowable love of a mans self which incircles it self within the love of God as the lesser Circle is comprehended by the greater but this either leaves out that love wholly or debases it to basest self Let us now compare both sides together and see how much true Repentance differs from that which is always to be feared lest it should be the height of the Death-Bed and of that which hath
into the narrowness of a humane person by the great care he took That this nature should not be dishonoured abused and torn by it self through that bitter Censoriousness Revenge and Contempt men exercise upon one another even there where Christ is professed So would our Christianity that is now evil spoken of appear as it is in it self Acceptable to God and approved of men if we could unite in those comprehensive Interests of Righteousness Peace Joy in the Holy-Ghost that substantial Christianity Those healing wings of the Sun of Righteousness In the rayes of which our little differences about Meat and Drink would play up and down as smallest Motes of Humane Frailty easily obtaining a mutual pardon and that black and most abhorred Vapor of Irreligion be forced to dislodg at so illustrious a Presence If there be any Interest to keep afoot these Divisions It is an Interest of Dishonour that dares not name it self It is not only 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 It is not barely to serve an opinion much less the Lord Jesus but the Belly 3. But to return from whence I have digressed upon so great a Cause Lastly we may find in the very notion of a Death-Bed Repentance enough to defend the seasonableness of this Discourse notwithstanding spreading Irreligion For it imports a design to dye well and we see very Few and those Few deprived of the common Modesty and Sobriety of mankind and who thereupon become a horrid Story but dye at least in a fair and calm temper towards Religion now if we joyn to this that of many millions for one every one dies as he lives not only as the Tree falls so it lies but as it hath inclined along its growth so it falls How great is the necessity then of living well that we may dye well For this Death-Bed Repentance that rises and sets at the same time generally proves but a falling Star That Repentance only wheels orderly into a higher Orbe that hath given proofe It was a true Light by shining here for some considerable space A good Death receives Being from a holy Life else there is not such a thing in nature no not in Grace except by Miracle of Grace Thus far I have made Apology for the seasonableness of this Discourse In the Discourse it self I am not conscious of having wandred from the universal Doctrine of Divines in this point except it should seem too high a strain to place this Repentance when true among Miracles To justifie that I have the warrant of Sacred Story the Dying Convert which being the only example of such a one in Holy Writ was in the days of the Messias that great period of Miracles singled out upon that greatest occasion viz. To display the power of the dying Mediator to forgive sins not only upon Earth but in his lowest Humiliation His very descent into Hell which argues it a very great Miracle Yet I have not trusted the weight of the Discourse to any thing that looks like a private Opinion but to most avowed Principles and have therefore reserved my particular sense as the Conclusion of the whole I have only to add There is a National late Repentance as appears by the unsuccesfulness of that unparalelled e 2 Kings 23. 26. 24. 3 4. Reformation of Josiah Sincere indeed in him and of full effect but not in the Body of the Jewish Nation as appear'd by their Relapses under the following Kings and therefore notwithstanding that seeming Return the Lord turned not from the fierceness of his wrath wherewith his Anger was kindled against Judah for its guilt in the sins of Manasseh which the Lord would not pardon and therefore would not give a true Repentance of those evils they had so long continued in against all the early Admonitions of the Prophets This is the just Paralel of a Death-Bed Repentance The due application of all these Considerations to every one into whose hands they may fall is the earnest and affectionate Prayer of T. B. ERRATA In the Preface p. 11. r. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 p. 5. l. 1. for power r. pour p. 6. l. 13. for there r. their p. 9. l. 20. r. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 p. 24. l. 12. for these r. the. p. 33. l. 10. r. destruction p. 40. l. 17. r. continues p. 65. l. 24. r. length p. 75. l. 20. blot but they are p. 79. l. 9. for saving r. seeming The General INEFFICACY AND INSINCERITY Of a Death-Bed Repentance Luk. 23. 39 40 41 42 43. And one of the Malefactors that were hanged with him rayled on him saying if thou be the Christ save thy self and us But the other answering said dost thou not fear God Seeing that thou art in the same condemnation And we indeed justly for we receive the due reward of our deeds but this Man hath done nothing amiss And he said unto Jesus Lord remember me when thou comest into thy Kingdom And Jesus said unto him verily I say unto thee this day shalt thou be with me in Paradise THe generality of Men that have been at all acquainted with the name of Repentance and understood in any Measure the importance and signification of the thing acknowledge it beyond all dispute necessary Yet they allow themselves a leisure for the performance of it and such a leisure as swallows the whole time of life and leaves only the last and lowest part of it for the discharge of so great a business so that their repentance if any at all falls out to be a Death-Bed Repentance The inconveniencies of which are unexpressibly great because the lives of men are left naked of that holiness and purity that should adorn them and all over blotted with sin and vanity Their conversation wants that light of good Works that should shine before men and glorifie God in Heaven Their life is without form and void and darkness is upon the face of it And in the end they are cast upon the great Sea of Eternity as in a Vessel of Paper a thin and superficial Repentance It is therefore most necessary to use all means to shew the insufficiency of this Refuge which most of those that live in common under the profession of Christianity designe while they live to flye too when they dye To demolish this House upon the Sand that men may not by hopes of shelter at it conceived long before hand be kept off from laying their Foundation upon a Rock which possibly they would do if these hopes were cut off And because this piece of sacred story hath been generally taken as an instance of great Favour to a late conversion not that it is indeed so but that it seems to be so let it be the Ground of the present Discourse For I observe Divines in their Doctrine concerning the danger of a Dying Repentance are careful to wrest out of the hand of presuming Imagination this example and to allay the
to be thought that when the Soul and Body are ready to cleave asunder and tâ—e Spirit to be unsodered from Fleâ—h that it should make a higher flight towards eternal things The nearer every thing is to its own residence the more vehement is its motion said to be thither So there may very well be quick sallies of the Soul towards eternity before it enters into it when it is so near that everlasting Receptacle of it self Thirdly We may observe in the experience of all times every appearance of the other world hath strange effects of fear and affrightment upon mens minds vvhen any one is entring then into that whole World it may vvell put him upon purifying himself more then they that fall upon Leviathan Iob 41. 25. VVhen men are just upon that Region of Spirits vvhat appalements of mind and strong vvorking of thoughts must there needs be Much more if the Soul have any sense of its approach to the infinite Holiness of God at vvhose rebuke the pillars of Heaven tremble vvhose presence astonishes the Heb. 1â— 22 Isai 6. 5. Iob 42. 6. Dan. 10. 8. purer spirits of Angels and beates dovvn the souâ—s of good men to the Dust as of Moses Iob Isaiah c. in his intervievves vvith them Hovv much more of those that have never thought of God and novv must come near his Seat Nothing so composes the soul to this amazing change of condition and converse as long continued Treaties vvith God through Christ vvhen though men change their place they do not change their company Others vvhen this great light strikes them are in the very terrors of the shaddow of Death and Iob 24. 17 Iob â—3 13 shaken out of their place out of all the security and quiet sensuality they lived in Let us novv take the estimate or avail of these things to true Repentance and vve shall find vvhen the soul lyes thus uncovered to the things of Eternity it hath natural reasons for all it may seem to do like return to God and so that all argue nothing of the true Grace of God but if a man vvere again in his former state he would be the very same he was for first as one thing strikes upon another with a naturâ—l effect Light upon the eye Sound upon the ear so eternal things upon the immortal spirit when there is nothing between to intercept the â— Ioh. 2. 16. stroke Further when the lust of the Elesh the lust of the Eye and the pride of Life are as a Scene removed and a Play at an end and instead of them another World drawing near just as men defeated in all their attempts for riches and honours and beaten of from them to a private life call all these things cheats not out of true reason but because they cannot reach them on the other side they praise retirement and a Cloyster not that they like it but because they must live so which begeâ—s some kind of contentedness so to live Thus and no otherwise do many Dying men call all this World vanity and profess an high estâ—em for all things pertaining to to that to come Cause 3 There is yet a more pressing Account of the most notable motions that were ever found in any of their Repentances viz. The awakenings of Conscience usual at this time because of the sense of a Judgment while common experience tells men It is appointed to all men once to dy and sinking nature gives Heb. 9. 27. notice This is the time Conscience lifts up to the next things After that the judgment Now no man sees judgment a judgment omniscient omnipresent eternal without great shakes of Soul especially that hath done nothing seriously to agree with the adversary in the way Coascience then Luk. i2 18. rising up with the Awe of a Tribunal upon â—t stirs up all the powers to fly from the wrath that is to come by desires of pardon and resolutions of Amendment The very hearing of Judgment made Act. 24. 25 such a one as Foelix tremble When Judgment seems to us at the other end of Heaven all is quiet but when Death brings us to the very seat of it How loud may be the cries for mercy The bewayling the former evils of Life Now men pour on t their complaints for the want of God the misimprovement of former time Now they make large offers of a strict and fevere mortification and devotion to Religion Now they would give the the thousand Rams the Mic. 6. 6 7 ten thousand Rivers of Oyl their first born for their transgression the fruit of their Body for the sin of their Soul And yet all but the eye opened to see the flaming sword of Justice that makes even a Balaam wish Num. 22. 32. c. 23. 10. to dye the death of the Righteous and to have a Latter end Sober Just Religious The very suspition of a Judgment inclines men thus far universally almost that hardly any choose to die in a Rant in a madness but had rather by virtue and Religion be consigned over to another World and have their eyes closed by Mercy and Grace in Christ They would see the Salvation of God and so depart in Peace Object But it may be objected Seeing these Motions are granted to rise from true conviction and not to be dissimulation or counterfeit pretence why may not they have the worth of true Repentance Answ To answer this Let us consider pure conviction and inlighâ—â—ed apprehension and the affections begotten of them are no argument of true Goodness where the light hath noâ— a benign and free operation upon the Judgment an allurement upon the Will an indearment upon the Affections to turn them to a full delight and satisfaction in God and holiness to a dislike and abhorrence of sin For else the Devils I am 2. 19. who believe and tremble must be thought Converts For who have clearer sight of things than they Balaam whose eyes were opened and spoke so great things of God and his people must be concluded a Good Mat. 27. 4. Heb. 12. â—7 Dan. 4. â—7 6. 26. Luk. 6. 20. Act 24. 25 man Esau and Judas who had so sad apprehensions of Sin and their loss by it must be affirmed to be Penitents Nebucadne Zar's and Darius his acknowledgments of God must be taken for true Grace Herod his hearing John Baptist gladly Felix his trembling at Paul's Discourse may be thought evidences of true Repentance Obj. 2 But Secondly it may be supposed because these very convictions and affections are not universal but we see multitudes go out of the World without them carrying little better than a decent and civil Respect to Religion that therefore there is something of God something Heroique in them that have them Answ 2 This indeed may be no other than the wise and good Government of God over the World whereby he takes care there should be testimonies of himself and
vain confidence built upon it Indeed the mistake of it is very fatall seeing if it be duely considered there is nothing more forcible against what it is pretended for than it It is true it is a relation of a dying man returning from great sins to God but so circumstantiated so defended on all hands against boldness upon it that there might have been more reason to hope well of last-breath-penitencies if there had not been a pattern of such a one in all points as much above the imitation of those of our dayes as the Heaven is above the Earth It is such a one as if God had said of it if I accept a dying Repentance behold this consider it every way and take notice Ante mihi fidem latronis ostende tunc tibi latronis beatitudinem pollicere August by it what a one I will have it God putting the Cast and resolving it thus hath given a much more positive determination concerning it that if the Cast had never been put The end therefore I aim at is to make it evident upon general reasons and particularly from this instance That a Death-Bed Repentance is a hazzard so inâ—nitely great that no man can without folly extreamly prodigious commit to so much adventure An affair of so great importance to an eternal condition Hereunto I will raise this Treaty by these degrees 1. By observing the judgement of Divines concerning this case and ballancing the most favorable with the more severe 2. By detecting the Follies that have given a reputation to a Death-Bed Repentance 3. By examining the most hopeful appearances of this kind of Repentance and shewing there are plain causes of them very much below the nature of true Repentance wherewith I will compare them 4. By observing the extraordinaries of which the Repentance of this dying Malefactour was composed because of which it can hardly be drawn into a president To all these I will subjoyn pressing considerations on every side that men should not delay their return to God to the latter times of life Dr. Taylers Invalidity of a late Repentance For the First the judgement of Divines in the point I begin with that severer one yet built upon great piety and reason that asserts it a plainly impossible thing a man on his Death-Bed should repent with that repentance the Scripture so oft discourses of and promises pardon to and threatens the neglect of with perishing and therefore concludes a dying man that hath not already repented must needs fall not into the sin of despair For who is bound to hope that hath not the reasons of his hope given him by God But into the misery of despair For how miserable is he whom God hath left to the boyling Sea of his own horrors and thrown him out no Anchor of hope However this Sentence seem rigorous yet when we consider the ponderous Arguments it uses it may rather amaze us than provoke one Censure For First it is very irre concileable with the Glory of God that men who have had the knowledge of God and been called upon all their lives to give up themselves to him should be accepted when they power out to him the lees and dreggs of life instead of the generous spirits of it That he that hath had in his Flock a male should vow and Sacrifice to the Lord a corrupt thing and yet escape the Curse of the deceiver The expressions of Scripture are innumerable in which God disavows such prostitutions of his Grace as is hereafter to be urged but seales such e're they are aware under hardness of heart and a reprobate sense to destruction 2. It appears impossible there should be a discharge of the duties of Repentance when Men are a dying that they should draw within the hollow of that little span that is also otherwise incumbred the vastness of that action that is necessary to take off the Brawn of a long impenitency That a man should live the life of holiness that is just a dying that the Tree that hath been alwayes barren should bring forth good fruit now it is a hewing down These things are very contradictious how can Repentance plant it self in the Soul and settle Gracious habits there in so short a space Or in an instant by mortification root out those lusts and sinful affections that have been many years eating into the Heart Repentance must have a time for fruits and those fruits for ripening and concoction which a Death-Bed will not afford So that it cannot be that Repentance of the Gospel but at the best only some first strokes of it 3. There must be a living to God before a Man dyes to God It is the supream Law every one must glorify him here on Earth and finish the work he hath given them to do in the World They must work the works of him that sent them while it is day before the night cometh in which no Man can work After this Men are received into the glory of God 4. In Repentance we must be in the same circumstances of Temptation we were in in the time of sinning But it will be hard to find in what the state of a dying Man differs from that of him that is already dead as to this business of Repentance but that he may as well be allowed to repent that is entred into Eternity as he that stands on the very brink of it This censure cannot be injurious to Men living and in there full opportunity suppose in speculation it stretches principles of great weight and truth too far yet it recompences for it self by the wholesomness of it to practise for who can suffer by being necessitated to an early Repentance so much his duty so much his safety Further it is most prophetick most undoubtedly true of most Mens late Repentance That it is too sudden too Mushrome a birth to have any worthiness in it This Repentance almost universally withers afore it growes up and proves an abortion whether it come to the tryal of a longer life wherein it vanishes as a Cloud and former impiety returns or whether it pass immediately into Eternity where it sinks down into misery for attempting the Regions of life and wanting the purity that rises thither It is beaten back with all its pretensions as a foggy exhalation that would climb to Heaven but is forced down and made to rest below so that for the universality of Death-Bed Repentances this judgment is truly calculated If it should seem too cruel to the dying condition to smother Men alive with the second death as Hazael spread upon the dying King a thick cloath dipped in water to stifle and benumn at once all motions towards God let us consider what advice it offers against the stupidities of despaire When we are fallen into so unhappy a condition that the whole weight of Aeternity depends upon a very little moment It perswades men would do all they can in return to God though that
of it I come now to the second Proposal which is to 2. Head make inquiry seeing the case is thus as it every way appears to be how the name or notion of a Death-Bed Repentance as such an universal Refuge came up in the world for it is a new Repentanc◠much like Deut. 32 17. those new-come-up Gods Mosis speaks of that Christianity and the Gospel know not The Scriptures that treat most professedly of Repentance always insist upon it as a reformed course of Life to be undertaken even now while the proposals of Grace and Reconciliation are made to us and only by very silent intimations the track of which is hardly discerned leave it possible that God should by miracle save some very few out of the Fire and pull them as Brands out of the Burning by giving them Repentance at the last Whereas this is now become the only repentance in use and hath devoured the other as if to press men upon it were to torment them before their time and to lessen the validity of this were to take away the mercy of God and deny the Grace that is so free and universal Let us search therefore how this sort of Repentance hath come into such Repute And if we observe we shall find it first rising from the intimate sense the conscience hath of the necessity of Repentance For were it not so clear and evident a Duty a Death-bed Repentance had never been heard of most would choose to go out of the world as they have lived in it not suffering any degree of the trouble of conscience or vexing themselves with reflections upon an unholy and ill-spent life As men have chosen to live freely and uninterruptedly in forgetfulness of God and an Ier. 2. 32. eternal condition days without number so would they choose to dye were there not a Law within that however it hath lyen covered vvith the dust of sensuality yet is novv restored to its authority and urges the soul vvith the terror of punishment for so long disobedience And secondly this necessity of repentance though secretly understood yet vvas not sufficiently considered in the time of Health for had it been equally regarded it had not been novv to begin He that had rightly measured it vvould not for a thousand Worlds so have adjourned it These tvvo things then meeting so oft together viz. The necessity of Repentance and the neglect of it all along our life the necessity it should be performed some time ere men go out of the vvorld and the neglect of it in the freer opportunities of life These I say bring forth hasty motions of it at last For it losing nothing of its necessity by its delay it must be done as vvell as it may be at that time even as the last moments vvherein businesses of great consequence are to be dispatched press for expedition the more earnestly because they must be done then or never though it often falls out the time is so far past they suffer not only much disadvantage but even defeat by the delay The Notion of a Death-bed Repentance then vve may perceive rising from the great indisposition to repent vvhile the pleasures of sin are in their season and flourish and men in health and strength to enjoy them and from the necessities of Repentance falling upon them at the last and vvringing from them sometimes very high acknovvledgments of God and an eternal condition passionate expressions of the folly evil and vanity of former life Desires of mercy professions of strong resolvedness to serve God and if they had many lives to give God they vvould give them all All vvhich being so unusual to hear formerly out of such mouths and coming from Dying men for vvhose sayings vve have a natural regard Charity tovvards them and vvillingness to hope vvell of them gives these semblances the reputation of Repentance To vvhich may be added That those vvho are Guides and Seers in Religion too often errante Clave by too liberal an Absolution open the Kingdom of Heaven to such and taking the instruments of a foolish Shepherd to themselves heal the hurt of their souls slightly so that their Repentance is saincted here and though it miscarry in the other World yet the miscarriage is hid also in that other World From all this hath arisen a dovvn-right opinion of this kind of Repentance as the only 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the prudent expedient that compounds tvvo so different Interests first that of a vvordly conversation to vvhich it gives no hinderance then that of eternal life in appearance because it assumes the promises of mercy to it self especially those gracious assurances in Ezek. 18. and Chap. 33. it reckons as made on purpose for it All vvhich argues a very vile sense of both the justice and mercy of God of his justice as if it had no authority of his mercy as if it had no sense of honour And lastly it is grovvn into a general expectation that hovvever ill and carelesly of God men have lived here yet they should go out of the vvorld vvith good vvords of him and religious professions as an Inbalm to their memory and a Dirge to their souls into the happiness of an everlasting condition Thus they call Repentance and Heaven after their Psal 49. 11 13 14 c. own name This their way is their folly yet their posterity men of like inclinations approve their sayings because such men as they speak go away like Lambs but as the Scripture says like sensless Sheep are laid in the grave and Death feeding upon them the error is not discovered till the morning when the upright have dominion over them that is infinitely excel them and their counterfeit Repentance which cannot stand in judgment nor they in the congregation of sincere penitents Now this account I have given of a Death-Bed Psal 19. Repentance obtaining among us is too comprehensive yet I must acknowledg That there are many whose Judgments are more enlightned and the sentiments of their consciences quicker than to be satisfied at so easie a rate who yet fall into the common unhappiness of not having repented till they come to dy I will therefore inquire further why many who are able to feel before hand the necessities of a speedy Repentance and also to draw their Death so near them as to dy dayly in the sense of death and thereby further perceive those necessities do not yet repent dayly but betray themselves to an Evening or Twilight Repentance The resolution of this lies not only in the immoderate love of sin and its pleasures and the too low apprehension of God and eternal things though these are always present in the case but chiefly it lies in the great confidence such men have in the present time not sensible of the continual waste of it Under the favour of which they put awa◠he evil day far from them and stretch themselves upon this moment Amos
have no certainty are accepted for Repentance Hovv strangely doth Melancholy and oppressions of that transform men vvhich vvhen it falls upon the motions of conscience gives us strong imaginaions of eternal things vvhich yet being nothing but the cast of that Melancholy upon the thoughts vvhen that is removed they are quite of another hue It is evident the Mind sees much through the Body and the representations are coloured by its temper as the Eye sees through yellovv or green Glass differently from the things themselves So the Serenity or Cloudiness of the humours makes a different reflexion of things upon the mind and the liveliness or heaviness of the Spirits incline us to very varying apprehensions Novv vvhat time is more like to be so incumber'd vvith these Clouds and Vapours than a dying Hour When every thing is ready to contribute them and nothing to scatter them If then natural conscience and implanted sense of God together vvith the notions given us from Scripture pass through these they become very impressive and affecting for the time and yet he much mistakes Repentance vvho thinks it no more than a fit of religious Melancholy But let us inquire after some more setled and constant causes of these penitential motions near Death and vve shall find many very likely to be so that are not yet vvorthy of true Repentance and therefore vvhat springs from them is not accepted before God 1. When men find all their Being in the vvorld at an end and feel themselves falling they knovv not vvhither It is no strange thing they should catch at God and that they may take hold of him at Holiness also Seeing ingraffed Principles together vvith general discourse teach every one hovv dear Holiness is to God If God and Goodness vvere no more than imaginary things It vvould be no vvonder if they vvho are tossed off the World and throvvn over board from it should snatch at them if there vvere no more in the case than this that every one hath heard so much speech and talk of them among men For to him that hath nothing in reality even a shadow a phancy are valueable Men that are dropping through the Ayre or sinking under water without consultation offer at everything they meet with In great extremities short of Death they that are bereft of all worldly assistance fly to the Divine succours though as Jonah's Marriners they pray to an Idol instead of the true God and their Devotion is no better than Superstition which is but a phancy in Religion What strange thing then is it for nature to cry out for God and Christ for pardon of sin to be delivered from Hell and to have Heaven for an everlasting Rest when all things else evidently fail as they do in Death and when not only phancy and general opinion but most substantial reason in lightned by the Scripture provoke up a man to iteven for Self-preservation Yet this differs but little from howling upon our Beds â—os 7. 14. for Corn and VVine and Oyle for though the things differ much in their nature yet the esteem men have of them and the desire they have after them is much upon the same ground for these spiritual things appear to that natural sense of Self-preservation as necessary in Death as the other do in Life and Healt But if the approaches of Death happen to be again drawn off the value of spiritual things removes with them and the things of this world with all the sensual and sinful delights of it return to their former price vvhich argues the ineffectualness of this cause of Repentance and the unacceptableness of the Repentance it self to God that flovves from it God disclaims men that have never come to him before their extremity and come then only because Ier. 2. 27. 28. of it In the time of their trouble tâ—ey will say Arise and save us But where are thy Gods that thou madest Let them arise if they can save thee thus to such Dying men crying out to him God saies Let your former lusts and pleasures now be your Happiness Fools and scorners that would not be warned call upon God Pro. 1. 14. in their calamity and seek him early when the whirlwind of their distractions hurries them but cannot make him hear cannot find him 2. Suppose the desires after God and eternal Happiness with all the retinue of those desires rise not so much from the necessities of remove from this Life and sensible supports but immediately from the sight of eternal things themselves yet will not this conclude the Repedntance sincere For we may easily pitch upon several so plain reasons of these quick apprehensions of another world that it is much more strange if any man be not struck with them and they that are are not in greater extasies of these considerations than that most dy in some fair inclinable temper towards them and others are extraordinarily surprized with them yet without true Repentance For First If it were no more but the leisure and uninterestedness of the mind in all worldly things that Death brings It is no wonder that the Action of it should immediately and necessarily flow upon God for it being always in action and motion from its very nature and God having made it for himself and the manner of its living here in the world being a slavery willingly undertaken for the service of the Body and the enjoyment of this present Life in its being fallen from God It is nothing strange that that drudgery being now at an end and the chains wherein it was held just a breaking it should fall upon God and spiritual objects whither the stream of it was prepared to run and which are most truly its own business For the distance being so wide and irreconcileable between man and this earth in Death the very having nothing else to do must carry him upon the future state seeing his foul is such a being as cannot naturally lye still and that state is all that it hath to work upon and further then that it is so nearly allied to it Secondly The very losening and uncementing the Soul from the Body wherein it dwelt and wherein the motions of it were restrained hath been thought very probably to give some men lesser degrees Multi euim quum remisâ—i liberi sunt sutura prospiciunt ex quo intelligitur quales futuri sint quum se plane corporis vinculis relaxaverint Cice. de Senectu Gen. 49. Deut. 32. cap 33. of those advantages near their death which naked and free spirits not inclosed and pent up in bodies have whereby they have been able to make conjectures of future things and to speak prophetically The less the Soul is bound to work by the Body the higher are its operations All extraordinary motions of the Soul are a kind of ravishment from Sense Those great prophetick Blessings of Iacob and Moses were near their Dying It is therefore very easie
been spoken this is the sum True Repentance is the most free election of the Soul inabled by the Grace of God upon a clear and just dictate of the Judgment attended with sincerest affection to give up it self to God through Jesus Christ and when it is most it self not under any irregular fear or constraint and at least would be the same in a time when it hath all the probability that can be to lay hold upon things present The other Repentance arises from a Soul all troubled and discomposed with the throwes of Death the fears of Hell the doubts what will become of it in another World the uproars of a guilty Conscience when it supposes it self necessarily at the full stop of its former courses by being cut off from longer Life in the midst of all which arise vehement resolutions to turn from sin to God and possibly with many fait apparencies but without opportunity to give proofe of themselves Let any one Judge between these two Repentances and accordingly even counsel himself concerning them Yet I must acknowledg this Discourse subject to these follovving limitations 1. That the Arguments I have insisted upon prevail not only against a Death-Bed Repentance but against all Repentances that have no higher spirit to move them than vvhat I have novv represented from hence therefore vve may take the trial of our Repentance in general for though a Death-Bed is most subject to these mistakes yet vvhatever Repentance falls under them is by reason of them invalid and the later any Repentance is or the more it is occasioned by any extremity vvhich it doth not out-live the more subject it is to them 2. What I have said is not at all to be understood of the perfecting and consummating Repentance by higher and fuller acts tovvards God at Death though enforced by the present circumstances of the Case For true Repentance running through the vvhole life takes advantage of every thing much more of so considerable an opportunity to unite all our strength for God as a Death-Bed brings vvith it All that hath been spoken is designed against trusting to the Extreme unction of a Dying Repentance just then begun 3. Hâ—ave before resolved upon that tenderest Doctrine that it is possible among all the unhappy circumstances of a Dying-Bed there yet may be this true Act of the Understanding Will and Affections turning to God and if there be this it vvould be the same and alike hovvever these circumstances alter and then it excels those temporary amendments undertaken in the freest times of life But because it is but possible and so almost impossible so unhappy a Case as not to have repented till just vve dye should fall out so happily the intention of this Discourse stands good notwithstanding 4. I acknowledg the choice of the Soul can never be so free but it must be subject to infinitely the most worthy and preponderating considerations of the love and goodness of God the Redemption of Christ the greatness of eternal Happiness most indearing on one side of the fear terror of the Lord the loss of a Soul everlasting perdition most perswaswe on the other side so that if a man cannot be free in his choice of Religion except he choose it without the force of any such consideration he can never be at all free for these are on all sides of him And further there is always the supreme motion of the Grace of God vvhich does not lessen but steer and exalt the freedom of the Will tovvards God The difference then betvveen true and false Repentance in this particular is the same that is betvveen just and rational consideration of all the motives of Hope and Fear And the hurry of them moving us not intellectually but as a Tempest or vvith the force of a meer Engine 2. Betvveen the highest reasons carrying the chiefest force and leading along vvith them the lovver ones and the lovver doing all vvithout the higher for vvant of vvhich they are Sensual or Hellish 3. Betvveen the government of meer Providence and of the Spirit of God 4. Betvveen the Repentance of â—ain Esau Saul Judas and the Repentance of Daâ—id Manasseh Peter and Paul 5. I acknowledg the first preparations of the Soul by God for himself may be with a great deal of noise and confusion Clouds and Darkness are the Dust of his Feet Storms go before him to prepare his â—ay while these last there cannot be a serene calm Act of the Soul and he that doth not live till he hear that still voice in which God is is in great danger of being lost in the Storm But if out of this darkness and confusion a holy and gracious settlement proceed it is not the worse for being so introduced but is agreeable with the usual method of God The fourth Head I proposed is to weigh the Repentance of the crucified Malefactor against our common Death-Bed Repentances which duely performed will be of great force against presumption rather than minister it any confidence For we shall find so much gathered together and pressed down into it that as Jewels have their riches in a little room so his short life of penitency had an age of Repentance in it It is so composed of extraordinaries that it can give very little encouragment in ordinary Cases except just thus much that Repentance at Death is no absolute impossibility 1. Let us observe how his Repentance look'd to the several parts of repentance for though it had but little time in this World to breath in yet with extraordinary diligence it was busie in all the great and most concerning points Yet I account this of the least remark in the History of his Repentance because it is easily imitable That in which it excelled was the Evidences of sincerity it carried 1. Yet take notice of his sense and acknowledgment of Sin which was not only a confession of Magnum est poenitentiae sig num in poena sua acqulescere Grot. in locum words but of his very soul for ceâ—iberating things in a moment he pronounced himself worthy of the condemnation and punishment he endured I confess this is not so infrequent in those who have forfeited their lives to Justice but how oft is it rather a formality than the inward sense of the mind condecently affected and possibly if we look upon the out-side of things we can find no great difference between him and others Yet it is a necessary part of Repentance The sacrifice of God is a broken and contrite â—sa 51. 17 heart 2. In his Repentance lay a lively Faith in Christ first resting upon the principle and truth of the thing That Christ was a just person that he had a Kingdom and then a particular application to him for mercy Lord remember me when thou comest into thy Kingdom 3. A quick sense of Eternity supplied vigor to his Repentance an evident sight of something be yond this World For what
they know not how soon they may be cast upon a Death-Bed and this patience be at an end With Dying men the case is otherwise who are already in the thickest of the Danger and must work themselves out in that moment or perish for ever without any injury therefore to them the Isa 38. 19. living are thus to be warned Further It is evident all delays of Repentance roll down hither however men propose a stop yet hither the generality come at last so that in effect It is all one whether men are disswaded from trusting to a Dying Repentance or from delaying their Repentance For if they are given to delay It comes to this They repent and dye together But if a man be afraid to venture Eternity upon his last Breath he will repent presently 2. For the difficulty of being sincere in Repentance I place it here because though every man should by drawing the paralel lines of Delusion and mistake upon himself try his Repentance when ever it is yet these errors fall in greatest numbers upon that point of extremity and with least possibility of rectifying them But seeing there are at all times such deceipts in this Case there is nothing so necessary as to repent in a clear light and full leisure 3. For the severity of God in denying his Grace though I acknowledg his indignation condemns many who have dallied with him and their own Souls to be suck'd in again by the whir-pool of their lusts when they would have risen out of them yet this indignation is never so certainly at the height as when men have provoked it as long as they could It is most miserable therefore to make our last motions within the command of such a horrible pit lest they prove only the struggles of sinking men yet this we must do if we are not before got out of it There is much greater hope how bad soever their condition may be to them who Rom. 2. 4. 2 Pet. 3. 9 are yet in the hand of patience lifting and leading them to Repentance and do not despise it but account it Salvation Obj. 6 Objection 6. This Doctrine does not favour enough of the Grace of the Gospel that would have all men come to Repentance Answer Answer To discourse the severities of the Gospel to the ends of the Gospel is most Evangelical Discourse For as the Gospel doth with all clearness declare its own rigors that men might not mistake it for a loose and careless Doctrine and so miâ—s the Salvation of it so have I discovered the great hazard of a Dying Repentance that Living men might be perswaded not to cast themselves upon it and Dying men excited to an action suitable to the extremity of their Case And this is indeed preaching the Gospel and to Heb. 11. 7 be moved upon it with fear to prepare an Ark to the saving our Souls before the floud come is as true an effect of Faith as to be constrained by love to live to 2 Cor. 5. 14. him that hath died for us I say as true and gives us a Title to the inheritance of the Righteousness which is by Faith together with the other For the prudence of Faith makes us apprehensive of the reasons of danger and so to fear even as the gratitude of it ties us with the obligations of love This is not that fear that love casts out but that it self quickens and 1 Ioh. 1. 18 is also both quickned and guarded by it nor is it the bondage but the wisdom of Fear Rom. 8. 15. Iob 28. 28. Obj. 7 Objection 7. But is the general judgment of Divines thus Answer Answer All judicious Divines are very tender of binding the Prerogative of Grace or clipping off the action of men towards God even at this time See besides the concurring judgment of the Antients Bishop Andrews Sermons of Repentance Dr. Hammond and D. Taylor in their Treatises of this point Bolton Dyke c. in observation whereof I have desired to be cautious herein also But in their cautions against presumption their expressions amount to the utmost I have spoken But setting aside the whole danger of a Death-bed Repentance Let me now lastly thus reason and thus expostulate Why should we desire to repent so late it is good to be betimes doing that which is most comporting with our truest happiness Reconciliation with God Return to Him his Favour to obey Him these are the truest freedom and peace of a man at all times Great peace have they which love thy Law and nothing shall offend them He lives in Psalm 119. 60. the least pain that lives holiest I made haste therefore and delayed not to keep thy Commandement I seized Psalm 119. 60. upon so great an enjoyment assoon as I could afraid to be kept off from it too long To fear God and keep his Commandements is the whole of man When a man considers Life and that he Eccl. 12. 13 hath but a moment of it and that therefore he would live that moment as much as may be he shall find the highest of life the top of life to be Godliness which hath all the promises of this life and of that which 1 Tim. 4. 8. is to come To pursue this World and the vanities of it is not only with greatest folly and impertinency to launch our selves in a great vessel the greatness of our affection and with solemn preparations our strongest Action into the low water the shallow of Life which because it cannot carry so great a bulk increases the toyl and vexation as well as enhanses the vanity and folly But worse than this It is the loading our selves with guilt under a delusion of pleasure that gives us secret disquiet and torment while we are laying it on and cannot be laid down as we please but with more sensible and industrious anguish then we heap'd it upon us I mean the sense of our misdoings and contrition for them so necessary to work Repentance To conclude Seeing to dye is the end of all men Eccl 7. 2. Repentance is to be chosen while we live that we may dye with the greatest quiet without those agonies of Conscience those cold sweats those sinking eyes and fainting spirits for he dies with most ease that most surveyes Death and looks into all the retirements of it beforehand that knows it perfectly and all its strength such an one governs himself in it as in a most important Action with Decency and Freedom He is not hal'd by Death but received by Luk. 23. 46. it Into thy hands I commend my spirit he lays himself orderly into the shade of Death Whereas so long adherence to the pleasures of sin gives Death a violence It makes men both unwilling and afraid to Luk 12. 20. dye This night thy soul shall be required Life is exacted of a Sensualist and torn from him that is resign'd by a Spiritual and Mortified man Good men dye in an active sense they know how to dye others dye passively they are forced to dye This great difference prefers to us dying dayly before that forcible dying at once The wisdom of dying was accounted by Heathens one of the worthy businesses and imployments of Life and that required much study Christianity gives us the true Rules of it and they lye in waiting 1 Cor. 7. 29. till our change come Time is short they therefore that use this World should not use it down to the Bran sensually but only take the advantages of it to a higher Life Else being met on the sudden by Death they are like those that fall off from Life with violence that is Headlong but they that live in the sense of God and an eternal Condition alight with care and ease It is therefore not only greatest Safety but truest Frugality and Improvement of Life to Repent betimes and when we come to dye the easiest and sweetest vvay of dying Not indeed a dying but a translation into Immortality and Blessedness FINIS