nor no excuse to make for himself who has neglected and despised all the means of Grace that were offered to him and who would not be perswaded to any true Repentance before it was too late and therefore he must now Repent in vain for ever Who can express the bitter thoughts the fears the horrours the agonies of such a Soul at that time and who would ever feel them who has now power and opportunity to avoid them Death carries something of terrour in it to all Men as it is a punishment of Sin and a dark passage to the unknown Regions that are below and it may be either great presumption or great stupidity to have no Fear of it A good Man may not overcome all the Natural Fear of Death but the wicked has all reason to be scared and terrified with it when it comes near him or he thinks of it I shall therefore in the last place consider the Terrour of Death and how we are only freed from this by Repentance and Religion by the hopes and assurances of Christianity and our having sincerely Repented of all our Sins and so as I have shown fitted and prepared our selves thereby for Death SECT VII Of the Fear of Death and how we are delivered from it by Repentance and Religion THere is no Natural Evil so great as Death the King of Terrors and the chief of those dreadful things that Humane Nature is afraid of Skin for skin and all that a man hath will he give for his life Job 2.4 He is willing to part with every thing that he may compound with it nay what will not he not give to purchase a short reprieve from Death and the Grave that he may but set them back a while and gain a little more time to live How is the poor Man willing to endure any thing to linger out a miserable Life a little longer though in the midst of pains and aches and greater torments of Body perhaps then he would feel in Death it self How patiently will he submit to the most tedious penance and severest discipline that his Physician shall lay upon him and swallow down the most loathsome and bitter draughts that the more bitter cup of Death may pass from him How will he endure the utmost cruelties of Surgery and bear a living Martyrdom rather than dye have his Body burnt and scarified his Flesh cut and mangled to the Bone his Limbs cut off or sawn asunder that so he may dye by piece-meals and out-live some part of himself and escape out of the hands of Death though it be never so narrowly and run away from it though he leave a Leg or an Arm behind him This shows how Natural the love of Life is and how willing most Men are to preserve and purchase it at any rate and with what abhorrence they look at Death and how it frights and startles them when it comes near them when they behold its pale look and its terrible visage and see the ghastly monster laying hands on them and ready to lay them prostrate at its feet how does it then appalle and terrifie them and make their Blood chill and their Spirits cold and clammy and their Hearts dye within them when they think how their once brisk and sprightly bodies that have been long enjoying all the sweet Pleasures of Life and Sense shall in a moments time be deprived of all those and become only a heavy clod and a cold and senseless lump of Flesh laid out upon its once warm Bed and then lock'd up in its little Cabin and so laid in the proper place of Rottenness and Putrefaction where it is to molder into Dust and to be as clean forgotten in a little time as if it had never been This is a very mortifying and a very melancholly Consideration to most Men and when they consider that in a little time this must certainly be their own case and their own fatal condition this must keep them in perpetual fear and bondage if there were no provision against this Natural Fear of Death if Religion did not afford us some helps and assistances against it and there were not something to take off and abate its Natural Terrour and to support and strengthen and encourage the Mind of a good Man against it Death as it is the Punishment of Sin and was for that end ordained by God and brought into the World for by sin entered death as the Apostle sayes Rom. 1.12 carries some marks of his Anger and so must necessarily have some degree of Fear accompany it but Christ who was to deliver Mankind from the greatest Punishments which our first Parents drew upon themselves and their Posterity by their Transgressions and was to free us from the saddest effects of theirs and our own Sins he has tho' not quite taken away this Punishment no more than he has the other temporal ones occasioned by the Fall for we must still dye and still have some fear of Death yet the worst effects of Death and for which it was most to be dreaded those Christ has delivered us from and it was one great reason why he became a Man and why he took part of the same flesh and blood of which we are partakers and which makes us subject to Death That through death he might destroy him that had the power of death that is the Devil and deliver them who through fear of death were all their life time subject to bondage as the divine Author of the Epistle to the Hebrews assures us Heb. 2.15 Now the wayes by which Christ and Christianity do this are chiefly these two I. By assuring us of another Life II. By taking away the sting of Death which is Sin upon our true Repentance I shall 1. Show this Then 2. Enquire whether a true Penitent and good Man ought to have no Fear of Death 3. Give some Directions about thus overcoming the Fear of Death that so we may not be too much terrified with it when it approaches I. Christ and Christianity free us from the Fears of Death by assuring us of another Life and of a Glorious Immortality after Death Death would be very terrible indeed if it took away our Being and made an end of us when it came and put us into a state of Annihilation If the Grave were to swallow us up and we were to pass into the dark abyss of Non-Entity when we went out of the World If when we expired our last Breath our Souls were to pass with it into the soft Air and we were to be no more after we went off the stage of this World Nothing can be so close so desirable as our being which is the foundation of all Happiness and Enjoyment to us which some have thought so considerable that they have supposed it more eligible to be miserable than not to be at all though I can by no means be of their mind and think being only in order to be miserable to
he goes to a Glorious and Blessed Immortality and this will take away if not all Fear of Death yet such a troublesome and tormenting one as fills us with perplexity and confusion whenever we think of it and makes us all our life time subject to bondage as Scripture speaks And this will help to resolve that Question I proposed in the second place namely 2. Whether a true Penitent or good Christian ought to have no Fear of Death I Answer He ought to have no such Fear as makes him all his life time subject to bondage such a base slavish immoderate Fear as makes him not enjoy himself but sinks down his Spirit and depresses his Mind to that degree that he is alwayes uneasie and perplexed and disturbed at the thoughts of it Such as has been storied of some that they would not have the word Death named in their hearing for the very naming and thinking of it made such an impression upon them and struck them with such a panick Fear that like the Hand-writing upon the Wall to Belshazzar Dan. 5.6 in the midst of their jollity it would make their countenance change and their thoughts trouble them so that the joynts of their loins were loosed and their knees smote one against another But above all such a Fear of Death as makes a Man think it a greater Evil than Sin and so to avoid that will deny his Saviour and renounce his Religion or do any thing whatever is necessary to escape a present Fear of Death This makes him a slave to every one that has power to kill him and to save his Life he will deliver up his Conscience his Soul his Saviour his Religion and all those things which ought to be a thousand times more dear to us and which we should be much more unwilling to part with than our lives These are unreasonable and unlawful Fears of Death but there is still a Natural Fear of Death which may belong to a penitent good Christian and which it is not necessary he should wholly overcome as it is a Natural Evil as it is a Punishment of Sin as it is a going to our last great and terrible Tryal before the Bar of Heaven a Tryal upon which our Souls and their Eternal Fate of Happiness or Damnation does depend This may cause some Fear in a true Penitent or a very good Christian and I do not know that God has any where forbid it or that he has promised such a full assurance to every true Penitent and good Man as wholly to take away all kind of Fear of Death or that this is any want of saving Faith in him In some extraordinary cases God may give it as in cases of Suffering and Persecution when an extraordinary assistance of Gods Spirit and an extraordinary assurance of their Salvation took away all Fears of Death and made them go to the Flames and to the Gibbet rejoycing and triumphing but that this is ordinary and constant I see no Reason nor no Scripture to believe The Fear of Death is a Natural and Invincible Infirmity to many a true Penitent and good and humble and timorous Christian who though his Conscience accuse him not of any great and ill things yet may magnifie every little fault and imperfection and not forgive it himself tho' God does nor be at peace in his own Mind though he be with God 'T is a great perfection to conquer the Fears of Death if it be done upon good grounds for some have no Fear of Death out of a sensless stupidness because they have no sense of what follows after Death And we find the greatest part of Men who have most reason to be afraid of it to be the least so out of meer Natural courage and hardiness and for want of thinking or believing or considering the things of Religion and another World others from false Principles and Mistakes by thinking a Pardon or Absolution sets them right in the Court of Heaven and that they may boldly appear there with some such security or those that have low thoughts of Religion and think a little Sorrow for their Sins and a few Sighs and some Prayers when they come to dye will carry them to Heaven as well as if they had lived never so Holily and Righteously and Godly Now if Mens Confidence and Fearlesness arises from such Mistakes as these 't is like the hope of the Hypocrite that shall perish Job 8.13 and such presumptuous persons only rush into Hell with their eyes shut and see not their danger before they are in it On the contrary a modest and humble penitent Christian may be afraid where no Fear is may judge too hardly of himself and may be though quite out of danger yet not out of all Fear for after all God will not judge us by our own Fears or Hopes or Opinion of our selves which may be all groundless and mistaken but he will judge Righteous Judgment and correct the Errors by which we may pass Judgment of our selves and the Terms of the Gospel and not our own Thoughts shall be the Rule by which we shall be judged at the last day But to take off the Fear of Death as much as we can and to free our selves from a slavish and immoderate degree of it the best Directions that can be are these two 1. What hath been already given duly to prepare and fit our selves for it by a timely and thorough Repentance 2. To joyn the liveliest Act of Faith with this our Habitual Repentance and exert that at the time when Death is near us 1. To perfect our Repentance and so to live in the habit of that and of all goodness that we may be the best prepared to dye that we can be Dye we know we must Death if it be not now near us and yet we do not know but it may be dogging us at the heels yet will certainly in a little time come up to us and fright and startle us when it does if we do not take great care to be ready and prepared for it Since we must therefore necessarily encounter this great Monster this terrible Enemy which there is no escaping but we must certainly grapple with him let us all our lives prepare for the battle let us arm our selves with the whole armour of God and Religion with a careful and pious and good life with a timely and thorough Repentance of all our evil ways with a sincere and upright and good Conscience and with avoiding every thing that we know is sinful and unlawful and which will make Death terrible to us whenever it comes Let us not be such desperate Bravoes in Sin as to venture upon that with a false Courage which will make us the worst of Cowards when we come to dye but let us be so wisely afraid of Death now as to live with that care and exactness that we may not be afraid of it when we come to it It were well
Heaven though it be a gift is a reward too and shall be exactly proportioned in the degrees of it to the deservings and actions and behaviours of Men. The main foundation then of this Doctrine of the Efficacy or Sufficiency of a Death-Bed Repentance must be the case of the Thief upon the Cross i. e. the History or Relation of a Man who dyed as a Malefactor and yet certainly went to Heaven for that is the whole of it Now I doubt not but many hundred such Malefactors have gone to Heaven and many Thousand Sinners that were once bad Men but yet had they never Repented till they came to dye I do as verily believe that not one of them had gone thither but to another place where Men shall for ever repent at the same rate that most Men do who have not done so before that time To Ground and Establish this Doctrine upon this Historical Case and 't is I believe the only Doctrine that has such a foundation we must examine whether it certainly and exactly comes up in all the Particulars and Circumstances of it to the case of a wicked Mans living a very ill life till he comes to dye and then only repenting of it We must then enquire whether it plainly and certainly appears from the account the Scripture gives us of it 1. Whether he were a very ill Man in the whole or general course of his Life 2. Whether we are sure he did not Repent long before he came to dye for if these two are not certainly known nor do appear from Scripture the case may be very different and no way suit or answer the late and dying Repentance of a very wicked Man And 3. Supposing those two yet how can we tell whether this might not be an extraordinary case and such as belongs to no other Sinner whatsoever 1. Whether it do appear from the account Scripture gives us of him that he was a very ill Man in the whole or general course of his life The reason of which inquiry is this that a general habit of irreligion and wickedness through the whole course of a Mans life puts him into a more wretched and dangerous and deplorable state than any particular Act of Sin or then any one sin whatsoever for that like a Leprosie spreads over and corrupts the whole Mind lays the whole Conscience waste and roots up all the Principles of Religion and puts Men in the number of those who have no fear of God before their eyes and who live without God in the World but a Man may not be so far gone not be a Sinner of so high a rate but may be an imperfectly good Man and yet fall into a wilful sin by the suddenness or greatness of the Temptation by Surprize and Inconsideration and laxness of Thoughts by a remissness in Religion and not being duely upon his Guard and by the struggle that is in his mind between the Flesh and the Spirit between this World and another which makes the one now and then get the better of the other such an one is a kind of borderer upon Vertue and lives between the confines of that and wickedness and sometimes he is governed and brought under the power of one and sometimes is overcome and made a prey by the other Now though such an one is not fit for the Kingdom of Heaven till he comes wholly off from every wilful sin and is more under the power of Religion yet he is nearer to the Kingdom of Heaven and may sooner by Repentance and becoming a good Man fit himself for it and so enter into it It does not at all appear in Scripture from the History of this Penitent Theif whether he had been a very ill Man or no in the general course of his Life only that he was a Thief which was enough to denominate him 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and suffered as he himself owns justly and received the due reward of his deeds Luke 23.41 But who knows what abatements his sin might have either by extream necessity or some other circumstances which God might fairly consider and allow for though he was brought to an infamous Death here by the severity of Humane Laws Even a good Man who is so in the general course and habit of his Life may fall into a particular act of wilful sin as we see in David Moses and St. Peter and let him that standeth take heed lest he fall as the Apostle advises 1 Cor. 10.12 For no Man is perfectly out of danger whilst he is in this state of probation and infirmity and though every such Sin breaks a Mans good State and puts him into an ill one till he recovers himself by Repentance and Amendment for Mens States of Grace and Damnation are no way fixt here but are alterable in this World according to the temper of their minds and behaviour of their lives yet 't is more easie to recover from a single act than a long habit as 't is to cure a green wound than an old Ulcer or a Chronical Disease And where there is an habitual soundness within where the Mind is not vitiated with habitual Corruptions and evil Principles and irreligious Habits and Customs but has a pretty good Sense of Religion though it happens to be over-powred with a temptation there it will sooner recover it self and throw off the Disease and the Corrupt Matter by its own inward Strength and the assistance of the Divine Grace There the inward Sense and the Principles of Religion will unfold and expand themselves by the power of Restitution since though they have been prest down and overpowred yet they have not been quite broken and destroyed the Religious and Vertuous Sense will revive again in the Mind which was not wholly extinguished though very much Damped and Choaked and weakned and thus they plainly seem to be in thus penitent Thief by his Carriage to our Saviour which I shall consider by and by by his rebuking the other Thief who was railing at Christ with that most sober Reprimand Dost thou not fear God seeing thou art in the same condemnation ver 40. and by the firm belief and full perswasion he had of the happyness of another State and his Devout and Religious Prayer to Christ to remember him when he came into his Kingdom These make it very probable that he was not a very profligate or ill Man in the general course of his Life but rather such a good one who lived not in the habit of many great sins but fell into a particular Act by a Temptation that might greatly lessen it before God though it made him an Example before Men But 2. Whatever his Sin was however great and however sinful a Man he had been yet who knows how long he had repented and how sincerely and what fruits he had shown of his Repentance We know not when the theft was committed and whether he did not immediately Repent of it and make
and the folly of it is so visible and so amazing that no Man of common Prudence no Man in his wits one would think should neglect to do it 'T is so important so weighty so absolutely necessary a Duty that our Saviour most earnestly presses it in several Discourses and proposes it in two or three Parables that it may make a more strong and lively impression upon our Minds In the Parable of the wise and foolish Virgins Mat. 25. at the beginning where the coming of the Son of Man is compared to the unexpected coming of the Bridegroom at midnight ver 6. in others to a Masters surprizing his Servants unaware at the second or third watch Luke 12.38 Matth. 24. at the latter end and in both the Evangelists to a Thief stealing upon a Man at an unknown and uncertain hour of the night The design of all which is to press this great Duty upon us of being alwayes watchful and alwayes doing our Duty and alwayes prepared for our Lords coming This is the Inference which Christ draws from all those Parables and Discourses Be ye therefore ready for the Son of man cometh at an hour when ye think not Luke 12.40 Christ often calls himself the Son of Man and as such he is to be our Judge and as a Judge he is said to come when ever he passes Judgment upon us and therefore St. James represents the nearness of his Judgment by that phrase Behold the judge standeth before the door Jam. 5.9 and his executing Judgment and Destruction upon Jerusalem was called his coming Matth. 24.3 And as his final publick Judgment of all the World at the last day is called his coming 1 Cor. 15.23 and several times in that Chapter of St. Matthew so his private Judging of us at our Death is his coming also meant by these several Parables and for that coming of his we ought to be always ready i. e. always prepared for dying Here I shall show I. That this Readiness or Preparation consists only in Repentance and a holy Life as the fruit and perfection of it II. The great obligations we have to be alwayes thus ready and prepared for Death I. This Readiness or Preparation for Death consists only in Repentance and a good Life as the fruit of it For nothing else can fit us to dye but to Repent and live well neither can there be any other readiness and preparation for Death but only that For we must not imagine that we can be ready on a sudden and that though we were utterly unprepared before that at a few days or hours warning we can make our selves ready and fit to dye No our whole Life at least a considerable part of it is to be spent in making our selves ready for we must not think that our Souls can like our Bodies be drest in a few moments or that we can be fit to meet the Bridegroom when he calls us in hast and on a sudden Vertuous habits are not put on in a moment nor can vitious ones be so easily and quickly cast off as our cloaths are no rather like Diseases that are chronical and have by long time been growing upon us they require long time and great care and much pains and many remedies and a timely course before they can be cured and got off and before we can be well and so ready to meet the Lord. 'T is not a few penitential tears upon a Death-bed will wash away the filth of a wicked Life or cleanse a guilty and polluted Soul that has been many years contracting an habitual uncleanness whose Sins stick to it like an old Leprosie and have eat like rust or a canker into the very heart and substance of it and yet they must be all got out by Repentance and the Soul must be made sound and clear and recover it self into a vertuous and good habit before it can be ready for another World and duly prepared for a Future State Indeed there is a great difference to be made according to the past course of Mens lives there may be a great many such happy Souls who by a very careful Education and the good Example of their Parents and others and by a Vertuous disposition and inclination in themselves and above all by the Grace and Providence of God have been alwayes kept from great and mortal Sins and so never fell into a bad and damnable state all their lives but were alwayes vertuous and innocent as to any such offences as should forfeit and endanger their Salvation by the terms of the Gospel and the Covenant of Grace without that we were all in a damnable state and the Scripture hath concluded all under sin without that Gal. 3.22 For we have all sinned and come short of the glory of God and of that strict and exact Obedience which we owe to the Law of God so that if he should enter into Judgment with us and be severe and rigorous in demanding his utmost right over us we could not contend with him nor answer him one of a thousand as Job sayes Job 9.3 and no Man can upon these terms be just with God as he there sayes for so in his sight shall no man living be justified Psal 143.2 but by the Grace and Mercy of the Gospel according to which God will now deal with Mankind many I doubt not have been so justified that through their whole lives they never were in a state of Damnation for nothing puts us into that under Christianity but a great and known and wilful Sin or rather a course and habit of such Sins and though no Man liveth without Sin that is without some Frailties and Imperfections and lesser Sins which come not up to the perfection of the Divine Law for which he ought to beg pardon and say God forgive us our trespasses yet God forbid that those should put us into an ill state for then no Man in the World would be ever out of it But oh thrice happy are those Souls who have not defiled themselves with any great and damnable Sins who have alwayes kept to their first Love and preserved their first Vertue unstained and unspotted and have been so trained up in the wayes of Religion and Goodness that they never wandered or went astray from them nor never stept into the paths of wilful Sin so that their steps should at any time take hold of Death who never past out of that line which divides the two states of Grace and Damnation nor ever approached so near to the brink of Hell as to be in danger of falling into it These have reason to give thanks to God all their lives who has thus kept them out of the snare of the Devil and secured them from the jawes of Death and Destruction and whilst they persevere and go on in this good state and condition and pass from strength to strength and from one degree of grace to another and grow up in all manner of
cometh Who that is unprepared knows what time he shall have to prepare himself Who can tell whether the next moment shall be his own and how little time he may have for so great a work And who would loyter any part of his time who knows how much that work will take up for 't is not a few spare hours or dying minutes will put the Soul into a readiness will change its temper and purge out its Sins and dispose and fit it for another World And who can set back Death but a few hours when it gives a short warning and is ready to strike us or perhaps without any warning seizes and hurries us to the other World It is every day making up to us and approaches nearer us every hour and with quick and undiscerned steps it dogs and follows us and may overtake us before we are aware of it A sudden Feaver may set the strongest Body on fire and presently flare out the Lamp of Life A Convulsion may seize in a moment the main fort of Life and surprize us in our greatest strength An Apoplexy or a Deliquium may stop the nimble wheels of Life that moved vigorously and strongly just before and make all the Vital Faculties stand still immediately Besides a thousand accidents from without make us in the midst of Life to be in Death so that we can never be secure but we may be a dying and every time we expire it may be so far as we know our last breath Who would not be then ready who may thus be called on a sudden who may have the Son of Man come in an hour when he thinketh not Come he certainly will but we cannot tell whether in the third or fourth watch of the night let us then watch the whole night that is be ready alwayes If we knew the time of his coming we might be careless and sleep and drowze perhaps till he was near us but since we are alwayes to expect him at an uncertain hour let us put our selves into a posture and readiness to receive him at his own time We can never be ready too soon though he come late but if we are too late before we are ready we lose an opportunity we can never regain and we slip that time which we shall bewail to all Eternity Let us think 2. Upon the certainty of his coming If there were any hopes that he would never come if there were any probability that we should never dye if any Man could be so foolish as to perswade himself to doubt of that he might have some reason to neglect the other but no Man can be Sceptical as to that point nor be so vain as to dispute himself out of the belief of it but he knows and is convinced of that fatal Truth that he must once dye and be laid in the same place of darkness where he has seen so many others laid before him why should he not then prepare and provide for that which will dertainly happen it can never be in vain or to no purpose to do this it can be no lost labour no unnecessary work but all must confess it ought to be done one time or other Why do we not then do that which we own to be necessary Why that it is indeed sayes the foolish Sinner but it may be done hereafter and at a more convenient season Would you not think a Man mad that should talk thus when he was in danger of drowning and would not take hold of the rope was thrown out to him till his last and third rising but let go what he had in his hand in hope to catch it again afterwards or he that was like to fall down a precipice and would not save himself when he might but trust to a twig that was near the bottom He deserves to perish that will not be willing to be saved till he is just perishing And he that allowes himself to live in a sinful state at present with hopes to get out of it hereafter is but like him that stabs himself with a design of being cured or swallows down a deadly Poyson upon presumption of taking an Antidote after he has done it the one is certainly strong enough to kill him and the other may not be strong enough to save him or he may be dead before he can take it Mens resolutions to Repent hereafter are alwayes insincere for if they were not they would Repent at present And besides what a sad state are they in till they do this they are like Prisoners lying under a sentence of Death and Condemnation who hope to procure a Pardon but will not endeavour to do it till they are called to Execution and it be too late Their unrepented Sins do put them into as damnable a state as if Heaven had past sentence upon them and though they know this yet they are willing to continue so till their state is desperate and they are never like to be otherwise For he has no reason to think he shall be ever ready who is not willing to make himself ready at present Let us not therefore delay one minute this great work of Repentance but let us set about it immediately and resolve to go through with it and to live in such a constant habit and practice of Repentance and a good Life as shall make us duly ready and prepared to dye For 3. Let 's consider how terrible Death must be to a wicked impenitent Sinner and what concern he will be in at the approach of it when he must leave all the pleasures of his Sins and the remembrance of them fills him only with terrour and astonishment when all their false charms and meretricious looks whereby they before pleased and enchanted him go off and they now look gastly and frightful and stare him in the face with a scaring appearance and with the sad apprehensions of what they are like to end in when a dreadful Eternity presents it self before him and is like to swallow him up in an horrid abyss of Misery when he comes so nigh to the other World that he can look as it were over to it and see the sad reception he is like to have there when he sees Hell open before him the bottomless Pit gaping to receive him and some of the Flames of it flashing as it were out upon him when Death like an Executioner comes to seize and apprehend him and hurry him before the dreadful Tribunal where all his past Actions must be examined all his secret Sins laid open and a dreadful Sentence shall be immediately pronounced upon him The thoughts of this is enough to make a good Man afraid and the best of us must tremble when we come before this Judgment-seat and are to have our everlasting Fates decreed and determined but the Wicked must be filled with terrour and amazement who can have no hopes no refuge to fly to who has no plea for any Mercy or Pardon
if some Men were more afraid of Death than they are and as I am sure they have all reason to be that so they might be brought off from their evil wayes and not run headlong upon those dangers which are very near them though they are not sensible of them The sword hangs over their head though they do not see it and nothing but the thin thread of Life keeps it from falling upon them they walk blindfold upon the brinks of Hell and Damnation and it would be well of Fear would open their Eyes and make them recover themselves before Death makes it too late Nothing can truly and throughly arm us against the Fears of Death but Repentance and a good Life To those who have lived in the practice of them Death is a very harmless thing 't is but lying down to sleep closing the eyes and going to rest the Bodies being sensless a while till it awakes at the great day of Judgment and passing a longer night in the Grave till it arises more fresh and lively in the morning of the Resurrection and as for the Soul 't is a short and quick passage from Earth to Heaven and therefore such have no reason to be afraid of it when it approaches them never so near But then 2. Let the true Penitent quicken his Faith at that time and raise that to the highest and strongest pitch that so he may then look beyond the grave and see and believe and desire those happy and glorious things which God has prepared for him in another World If we believed those as we ought we should never be so afraid to dye if we were so affected with those pleasures that are above and that are at Gods Right-hand for evermore we should not be so loth to part with the Pleasures shall I say rather with the Troubles and the Miseries of this Life Did we think as we ought of that perfect peace and joy and satisfaction which is not to be had here but to be met with only in Heaven we should not be so fond to abide in this Valley of Tears and not go up to those Mansions above where is full Joy and Contentment Let us fix our thoughts and set our hearts upon those happy Regions of Bliss and Glory and we shall not fear to pass through the shadow of Death to come to them tho' the way to that Heavenly Canaan is through a Wilderness through the dark and unknown Region of Death through which a thousand wandering Souls are alwayes passing yet we shall be conducted safely through it by Angels who will bring us to the Palace of the great King where we shall be received by our blessed Master and Saviour and by all the Saints and holy Souls that are gone before us who as they rejoyce at a Sinners Repentance will now welcome him to his Fathers house and we shall then as much wonder at our selves for fearing to dye as we are now willing to live If the account which Scripture gives us of those invisible Regions be true and we do fully believe that Joy that Glory that Blessedness that unspeakable Happiness which is there revealed to us this our Faith joyn'd with our Repentance should overcome the Fears of Death and make us not only not afraid but desire to be dissolved and to be willing to lay down this load and luggage of Flesh because we know that if our earthly house oâ— this tabernacle were dissolved we have a building of God an house not made with hands eternal in the heavens And there shall be no more Sin nor Sorrow nor Repentance but the blessed Penitent now he is safely arrived at his happy Port shall look back upon the past hazards and dangers he was in and comfortably remember how his Sins like so many Rocks had like to have split and shipwreck'd and swallowed him up in the gulph of Perdition and how by the wonderful Grace of God he hath happily escaped them and is come safe to Heaven and therefore will now offer Eternal Thanksgivings and pay his Vows of Praise to his great Deliverer and rejoyce evermore in his Glorious and Heavenly Salvation CHAP. III. Whether all Sins are Pardonable and may have the benefit of Repentance I Am next to consider Whether all Sins are Pardonable and may have this benefit of Repentance This has been denyed by a great many and particularly by the Novatians who would not allow Pardon and Absolution to wilful and great Sins committed after Baptism and this is charged upon Smalcius and other Socinians that they deny the same to heinous and habitual Sins of Relapse into which any shall fall after they have once Repented and been freed from them And there are some places of Scripture that seem very much to favour these hard Opinions as Heb. 6.4 5 6. For it is impossible for those who were once inlightened and have tasted of the heavenly gift and were made partakers of the Holy Ghost and have tasted the good word of God and the powers of the world to come if they shall fall away to renew them again unto Repentance And Heb. 10.26 For if we sin wilfully after that we have received the knowledge of the truth there remaineth no more sacrifice for sins And 2 Pet. 2.20 21 22. For if after they have escaped the pollutions of the world through the knowledge of the Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ they are again intangled therein and overcome the latter end is worse with them than the beginning For it had been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness then after they have known it to turn from the holy commandment delivered unto them But it is happened unto them according to the true proverb The dog is returned to his own vomit and the sow that was washed to her wallowing in the mire And in other places the Scripture speaks of a Sin unto Death 1 John 5.16 as of a more malignant and deadly Nature and different from all other Sins which are Mortal and Sins also unto Death without Repentance And our Saviour sayes expresly of the Sin against the Holy Ghost that it is unpardonable and shall not be forgiven neither in this world nor the world to come Luke 12.20 Matth. 12.32 i. e. as St. Mark expresses it It hath never forgiveness but is in danger of eternal damnation Mark 3.29 And what that is is not fully agreed on by Divines and so there may be fear if not danger of a Christians falling into it and so into an unpardonable state by the Holy Ghosts being so many wayes concerned in his Salvation and he having so many wayes to Sin against him This gives therefore great trouble to a great many Minds and if one particular Sin or any sorts of Sin be unpardonable by the Gospel they will be very fearful and can hardly be satisfied but that they have committed that Sin and so are cut off from all hopes by it and they will
of them which would defeat and destroy all the Gospel and all the necessity of Obedience and a Holy Life and keeping Gods Commandments and God must then alter those Terms and alter even his own Judgment at the Last Day and not judge us by our Works nor by what we have done in the flesh whether it be good or evil but only by the sincerity of our dying Repentance which I no where find mentioned nor is this dis-junctive any where in the Gospel Leave thy sins and live well and keep my Commands or else Repent and be sorry for not doing all these things at the last and that shall be as well But I shall by and by give my positive Arguments more fully against this mischievous mistake 3ly The next difficulty and the next plea for a Death-Bed Repentance is this That God may on a sudden so powerfully alter a Mans Mind and so work upon his Heart by his Spirit as to change and convert him and make him another Man in a very little time or just before he dyes I answer God may do this if he pleases to exert his utmost force and power upon us and so he may raise us again after we are dead and make us live a new Life upon Earth but we are not I suppose ordinarily to expect this no more are we the other which is as contrary to the ordinary Methods of his Grace as the other of his Providence God does not use a miraculous and extraordinary power in either and for any Man to depend upon this is a downright tempting of God and by neglecting the common means which he has put into his hands to call for a Miracle which God will not grant to the careless and idle when there is no need of it God has given us all sufficient Means sufficient Motives and Arguments sufficient Grace and Assistance to Repent and leave our Sins and if we will not make use of these but abuse the Talents he has committed to us he will not for that reason give us a double number when we come to dye and dispense the more to us for our having been idle and prodigal all our lives The habits of sin and wickedness which we have been contracting all our Lives will not be changed on a sudden when we come to dye when we have complained so long and often of our sins as being so hard to be overcome and so impossible to be left off shall we expect all of a sudden to have it become so easie a matter and so sudden a business to get rid of them when we have suffered them to run so long upon us and have not thought 'em curable by all the Methods of Grace and Religion shall we think to meet with a sudden Charme and Amulet for them that shall cure them we know not how Some Men talk of infused habits without being able to reconcile them either to Sense or to Nature and of instantaneous Conversion without being able to give any one example of any such thing from all the Scripture some indeed were suddenly and miraculously converted to Christianity as St. Paul and the Goaler and a Man may be brought to believe otherwise than he did by such a strong Argument as a Revelation which shall immediately turn his Judgment and Understanding but to have him that has been along while accustomed to do evil in an instant do good is without president in Scripture and no way reconcileable with that known place of Jerem. 13.23 A Man cannot suddenly step out of the wayes of Vice into those of Vertue they do not lye near but contrary to one another so that a Man must go back and undo his vitious habits and unravel all his sinful customs by degrees before he can attain to the contrary Vertuous ones which are not to be acquired without great pains and time and long care and watchfulness To root out Vice and make Grace grow in the heart is not an easie nor a sudden work we find how much it costs us to mortifie a lust to conquer a passion to master an ill inclination and what pains we must take with our selves to do this and can we think all this may be done on a sudden by a Man who has all his days lived loosely and given the reins to all these that he can be made that in a moment which he could not be made all his Life God may indeed give him a New Soul and that a very Vertuous one and Annihilate his Old one that was so habitually vitious but to make that good in a moment is more difficult than the other more contrary to Nature and what is as little to be expected so far as I know from God The summe is none but a good Man can go to Heaven and none can be made such on a sudden without a Miracle and no Man can expect to be saved by that but by the ordinary Means and Grace of the Gospel Those Graces and Vertuous habits which can alone qualifie and make us meet for Heaven cannot be brought into our Souls on a sudden nor can any sudden Convictions or sudden Thoughts and sudden Passions change and alter a Mans mind so as to renew it and put it in another frame and make it inwardly Holy and Righteous when it was habitually bad before without so much time and so many Acts of Obedience as shall change its Principles Thoughts Inclinations Affections Temper Disposition and the like In vain had God commanded us so many Vertues and so many Acts of Obedience as Qualifications and Conditions to fit our Minds for Eternal happyness if without living in those and performing them any time our Souls might be disposed and fitted for it There cannot be a sufficient change of the Mind for this purpose without change of Life and Actions To talk of inward Principles of Grace in the heart without vital Acts of Holyness and Obedience in the Life and that an old Sinner by such a new Principle infused into him is a kind of Embrio Saint just conceived though not formed as he should be nor able to performe any Acts of Obedience is to strain a Metaphor and depend upon a Similitude without rightly understanding the thing Every Christian hath this inward Principle of Grace infused into him by vertue of his Baptisme and Christianity and it exerts it self with his own will and endeavours all his Life unless hindred by him and it is never perfectly taken away from any perhaps or at least only from the most Vile and Profligate of Sinners in this World but it will and doth stir and move even in very wicked Minds but this is all ineffectual and to no purpose unless it produce Acts of Vertue and Obedience and a Good Life without which it neither Sanctifies nor Regenerates nor makes us good Men nor fit for Heaven and without those which are the Vital Motions and Effectual Operations of this Grace of the Gospel which is given us by our Baptisme he who may be supposed to have this inward Principle infused into him and stirring with his fears at the time of his Death yet for all that is but an Abortive Christian and hath neither the new Birth or Regeneration nor the Divine Life in
which we can never enjoy the true Happiness we were made for and to which our Minds are fitted Vertue alone can give that and all the Pleasure Peace and Joy that result from it whereas Wickedness will necessarily not only corrupt and impair the Mind and spoil its Faculties but disorder and wound and corrode it and make it very painful and uneasie and a Hell and Torment to it self 2. As none but good Men shall enter into Heaven so none can be made good on a sudden Those Vertuous and Holy Habits and Dispositions of Mind are not to be had or attained immediately in a little time and on a sudden hurry as is intimated here by the Virgins wanting Oyl and not being able to procure or buy it in their present distress when the Bridegroom was a coming We must be prepared and provided with those things that are necessary for our Future Happiness before Death comes and puts us on a sudden hurry and alarums us with its unexpected approach or else we shall be sadly disappointed and unprovided if we expect to procure or attain them then If we think to borrow of anothers Vertues and Merits to help out our own defects and wants at that time as they of the Church of Rome imagine something like these foolish Virgins or as others that the Bridegroom himself shall supply them in an extraordinary manner out of his stock though they have no Oyl at all in their own Vessels no Righteousness of their own All these vain hopes and expectations of idle and careless and foolish Sinners will then deceive and disappoint them and make them miserable If Men have not attained to the Vertues and Graces of Religion nor any degrees of Holiness and Goodness all their Lives and think to acquire them now on a sudden when they are near dying they may as well hope that a Tree that has bore no Fruit all the Year should on a sudden when it is just to be cut down and the Axe is laid to the root of it sprout and bud and blossom and bring forth Fruit. This would be a strange Miracle and it must be as great and unaccountable to have a wicked Man on a sudden become a good one and bring forth the Fruits of Vertue and Repentance All our Vertues are owing to the Grace of God as the growth of all Plants and Trees is to the Rain and warmth and influence of the Heavens but to think that Gods Grace which could not work upon a Man all his Life before will now in such an extraordinary manner change and convert him on a sudden as to make him immediately become a good Man is to suppose a Saint made as Adam was in full growth and perfect flature the first day he lived without passing through the degrees of Youth and Childhood as God thinks not fit to make Mankind so now but produces them by the ordinary and appointed way of his Providence so he makes good Men by the ordinary methods of his Grace and influences of Religion and the New Creature is formed by degrees and growes into a perfect Man and increases in Wisdom and Goodness till it comes to the measure of the stature of the fulness in Christ Jesus The Spirit worketh upon our Mind agreably to their Nature in a manner indiscernable from its own proper operation enlighteneth the Understanding and inclineth the will gently and kindly by the thoughts and considerations of Religion offering them clearly and imprinting them strongly upon the Soul and so in a rational way begetting right apprehensions and affections in it and so altering the temper and disposition of the Mind and by frequent acts and repeated practices bringing a Man to new habits and thus converting him from bad to good not in an instant but by long strivings and gradual operations upon him No very bad Man was ever made a good one on a sudden nor can any more be so by the Grace of the Gospel than a Child over night become a Man the next morning by the course of Nature and Providence or Seed sown in the ground spring up and ripen and bear Fruit in a few hours Such Mushroon Converts and Penitents have no good root but dye away and wither as suddenly and instantaneously as they came up with the first heat and tryal of a Temptation till Religion shoots deeper into their Hearts and gets better rooting in their Souls like the Seed that fell on stony ground it is quickly gone and does not grow at all nor bring forth fruit with patience as the Scripture emphatically speaks i. e. with due continuance Good Purposes and Resolutions and such like good Principles of Action must continue some time upon the Mind and exert their power and efficacy upon it by proper acts and tryals and experiments or else they are but like false conceptions that produce nothing like Clouds without Rain Blossoms without Fruit and abortive causes without any effects A sudden Sorrow upon a wicked Mind will no more make it good nor bring forth the worthy fruits of Repentance than a sudden shower upon the Sands of Arabia or Rocks of Caucasus will make them become fertile and good ground there must be long cultivation and great labour and pains taken with such barren ground before it will be a fruitful Soil and bring forth any thing by all the showers and influences of Heaven upon it A hardened Sinner who hath lived many years in the wretched courses and habits of Wickedness must by long time and great care and many methods of Gods Grace and Goodness have his Heart changed and his Life mended and his old Vicious Habits plucked up and new Vertuous ones planted in their place and these take root and grow up and bear Fruit in his Life before he can become such a good Man as is fitted for Heaven Such an one can never be made so in a little time just before Death but it must require at least a good part of his Life to become such and it should be indeed the business of our whole Lives to make our selves such as shall be thus fit for Heaven To think that great work can be done at the latter end when we are just a dying and may be dispatched in a very little time all on a sudden is as idle and unreasonable as for a Man that has a good dayes journey to take to lye loytering and never mind it till the Sun is near down and night is coming upon him and then to set out and think to reach it by a sudden start or by some unaccountable wayes to fly thither or be Magically transported and set down he knows not how at his journeys end Or rather to make the Case more exactly parallel to an old Sinner like one who hath travelled almost all the day in a wrong way and spurred and driven on very furiously in his vicious courses and is now to turn back and begin to take the right way when
of Religion and now he denyes those and his Life both alike because he cannot keep them Is he now to begin to practice the Vertues of Chastity and Temperance and Sobriety which he never did before then he hath put them off to a very convenient season when his Vices have quite left him and so if Vertues will come of themselves like guests uninvited there is no other company to hinder them but he was as vertuous and sober almost half his Life I mean when he was asleep as he can be now when he is as incapable of the contrary acts as he was then and is only like the Enthusiast cured of seeing vanity when he lost his Eyes but perhaps not of being vain for the ghosts and spirits of his departed Sins may still haunt and possess him If these Christian Vertues are necessary to be practiced in order to our Eternal Salvation a dying Repentance cannot be sufficient without them if it be then those particular Precepts and Commands must be set aside by it as well as the other general ones I mentioned for 't is certain he can no more practice these Vertues now than he could in his Mothers Womb and they might be as well infused into him then as they can be now without any practice and something better because there were then no contrary Habits to hinder them But the Doctrine of infused Habits is like the Hypothesis of Transfusion of Blood contrary to Nature and Experience and the dying Man may as well depend upon one for his Body as the other for his Soul 3. The salvability and sufficiency of a meer dying Repentance as it sets by and discharges us from all those general and particular Commands of Christianity so also from the whole Christian engagement and Baptismal Covenant For can that then be any way made good or performed in any measure when a Man has violated it all his Life and notoriously broken it in all the parts that belong to it Can he then sufficiently renounce the Devil and all his works when he hath hitherto complyed with them the pomps and vanities of this wicked World when he has minded nothing else and the sinful Lufts of the Flesh when he has followed them and been led by them all his dayes Can he then keep Gods Commandments who hath broken most of them and walk in the same all the dayes of his Life who hath walked all his days in the ways of Sin and the paths of Unrighteousness and never left them till just now he is at his journeys end and can live no longer Surely this Baptismal Covenant is made only pro formâ and is but a modish and mannerly Ceremony at our entring into Christianity if we are not more obliged to stand to it and make it good and expect the benefits of Christianity upon our so doing in some further and better manner of performance than a wicked Christian can do when he comes to dye If his meer Sorrows and Purposes and Resolutions will serve instead of all that is expresly or implicitely meant by it it is void and null in all the other parts of it and the Church has unfaithfully and unsincerely drawn it up in other words of a different sense and meaning that signifie nothing and the Scripture hath exprest it as odly and unfitly when it speaks of our dying to Sin and rising unto Righteousness by our Baptism That we are symbolically buried with Christ by baptism unto death that like as Christ was raised up by the glory of the Father even so we also should walk in newness of life Rom. 6.4 For if we have been planted together in the likeness of his death we shall be also in the likness of his resurrection Knowing this that our old man is crucified with him that the body of sin might be destroyed that henceforth we should not serve sin for he that is dead is free from sin ver 5 6 7. Likewise reckon ye also your selves to be dead indeed unto sin but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord ver 11. Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body that ye should obey it in the lusts thereof Neither yield ye your members as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin but yield your selves unto God as those that are alive from the dead and your members as instruments of righteousness unto God ver 12.13 Here is enough to give us the plain meaning of Baptism and the great obligation of it to renounce Sin and live a good and holy Life And we are then said to put on Christ and to put on the new man which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness Eph. 4.24 and to put off concerning the former conversation the old man which is corrupt according to the deceitful lusts ver 22. and to be regenerated and born again and have a Spiritual Principle of Life and Holiness communicated to our Souls and we then voluntarily consent to the terms of Christianity and solemnly engage and undertake to live according to them now all this which is very great and very obliging one would think is made very little and very easily took off and abated and dispensed with if when it has been utterly neglected and disregarded violated and broken all our lives a mere short and Dying Repentance will make it up and supply all the failures and the whole non-performance of it I own that true and timely Repentance will relieve us against the many failures and breaches of it by bringing us to performe it better afterwards sincerely endeavouring to make it good when we have broken it by any wilful sin and upon our performance of it though not with perfect exactness yet with sincere integrity depends our Title to all the Priviledges of Christianity But now to have no regard to it or take any care to observe it nor make it any way good in our lives but to live loosely and wickedly as if we had no such strict Engagement and Obligation upon us and to allow our selves in notorious Sins and unlawful Liberties expresly contrary to our Baptismal Covenant and yet think to salve all and have the whole benefit of it by a short Sorrow and Repentance when we come to dye this is either to make it have no meaning at all or that we are not obliged to the performance of it but let us not deceive our selves whosoever doth not make good his Baptismal Covenant in his Life which a wicked Man cannot at his Death as he is false to Christ and breaks his own most solemn and voluntary engagements so he forfeits all the benefits of his Christianity all that Pardon and Salvation which Christ hath purchased and proposed to him Thus all the Obligations to Christian Holiness and Obedience layd upon us either by our own Baptismal Vows and Promises or by the particular or general Commands of God and our Saviour are all taken away and dissolved by this loose Doctrine of
and a speedy Repentance from all our Sins because upon our doing this we have the Blood of Christ and the Sacrifice of the Lamb of God to deliver us from all Sin That which the World was so anxiously so concernedly and yet so vainly seeking after before that is only to be had and only made known by the Gospel Revelation the full and perfect and certain Expiation of Guilt which is the greatest Argument and Encouragement to Repentance for without that 't is not all our Repentance will take away our past Guilt 't is not our greatest sorrow or most penitent tears will wash away the stains and guilt of our Sins unless they are mixt with and have all their vertue from the Blood of Christ and 't is not they indeed or any thing we can do that has any proper vertue or efficacy to do this but only the Sacrifice of Christ Repentance is a necessary disposition and qualification in us without which no Sacrifice can be available to us if it does not as the Scripture speaks Purge our Consciences and so purifie as well as atone which is a strong Consideration to enforce this Duty because without it we lose all the benefit of this Sacrifice but 't is not our Repentance that can either purchase or procure or pay for our Pardon or that can any way challenge or upon any account merit or pretend a right to it be it never so exact for by what rules of Justice does it discharge our past arrears of wickedness though we stop now and run no further on in the score What do we more by leaving our Sins and becoming good now than we ought always to have done and always were obliged to or how shall we make that which is past and done to be undone as it were and the old account to be blotted out and the past Guilt done away 'T is only the Meritorious Sacrifice of Christ can do this and whether God could do this without any Sacrifice I will not dispute because I know not the Measures of the Divine Government nor the Secrets of his Wisdom and Counsel but by a Sacrifice it is much better obtained and assured to us as being granted upon the account of something that was given in stead of it and that is worth it indeed in fair Justice for so was the Blood of the Son of God of equal value to the Souls of all Mankind tho' I acknowledge it depends upon the free pleasure of the Governour to accept or refuse such a satisfaction and compensation as was made by that or by any Sacrifice yet all this being transacted in such a Method being granted upon a valuable Consideration and being made over to us by a formal Covenant and standing Agreement ratified and sealed by the Blood of Christ as well as a bare Promise So that by all these immutable things in which it was impossible for God to lye we might have strong consolation Heb. 6.18 we have hereby the greatest comfort the highest satisfaction and assurance in the World given us of that which we can never be too much assured of and which is of the nearest and closest concern to us in the World the Pardon of our Sins and the Expiation of all our Guilt which is only to be had and only fully discovered by the Gospel and 't is indeed the greatest thing in which the Gospel consists as 't is different from Natural Religion 3. From hence namely from the Sacrifice and Death of Christ arise new Motives and fresh and most endearing Obligations to perfwade all Christians to repent and leave their Sins The very Nature of a Sacrifice carries these in it and was designed to offer the strongest Motives against Sin at the same time that it procures Pardon for it It is the wisest expedient that could ever be thought of to show Justice and Severity and yet Mercy and Clemency at the fame time to put a Governour into those two different Capacities both at once to forgive and yet to punish the same person and to show him to be neither too easie nor yet implacable but by an admirable temper and mixture of two Vertues and two Passions that seem contrary to one another it finds out a way to spare the Man and yet show the greatest displeasure to his Sin neither to suffer the Guilty to perish nor yet the Guilt to be unpunished so that hereby the greatness of the Guilt and the greatness of Gods Anger is as visible against the Sin in the sufferings of the Sacrifice as if the offender himself had suffered and we have Reasons to dread it the more even because it is forgiven us but we have stronger Reasons I think to do this out of gratitude to that dear Person who was pleased to become a Sacrifice for us and from the consideration of his Love and what he has done for us we have most particular and strong engagements to leave our Sins For 't is the highest ingratitude and the most disobliging thing to him that can be to continue in them who suffered for this very end that he might redeem us from all iniquity and cleanse us from all our sins 't is a spoiling all his great undertaking for us making void his Passion in effect and making his Blood to be but like common Water spilt upon the ground and yet 't is a renewing his Passion at the same time A crucifying to our selves the Son of God afresh and putting him to an open shame Heb. 6.6 'T is like running the Spear again into his Side making new Wounds in his Breast and pricking him to the very Heart 't is doing that which is more displeasing to him than his very Cross which he willingly underwent rather than we should live and dye in our Sins Look then O unworthy and impenitent Christian upon thy Saviour offering up himself a Sacrifice for thee and consider what a mighty Argument his Death is to perswade thee to Repent Do not thy Sins look terrible when thou seest them through the Blood of Christ and canst thou have any hopes that God who spared not his own Son will spare thee if thou continuest in them And how great are the Characters of his Love which are there written in his own Blood and will not so much Love prevail upon thee to leave thy Sins were there nothing else How does thy dying Saviour with his expanded Arms and his Head hanging down beseech and intreat thee and speak to thee as it were from every gaping Wound in his broken Body to forsake and renounce those Sins which crucified him and for which he dyed And if with the belief of a Christian thou hast but the Passions of a Man this cannot but strongly affect and move thee 4. Christianity and the Gospel set forth and shew us the true Nature and Evil of our Sins in a better light and by greater considerations than Mankind had before Sin was alwayes known to be a weakness and
Grace and Goodness tho' they have not already attained neither are already perfect as the Apostle speaks of himself Phil. 3.12 yet they are alwayes safe and alwayes ready for the coming of the Son of Man and their whole Life is a most sure a most comfortable preparation for Death But these are very few I doubt not only to the general number of Mankind but even to good Men for most of the good Men we read of in Scripture were some time or other guilty of great and wilful Faults as Noah and Abraham and David and St. Peter and St. Paul and Mary Magdalene and whilst they were so and before they had recovered themselves by Repentance I cannot but think them in a bad state for Mens states are not fixt and certain in this Life but are alterable and changed according to their outward actions and the inward temper of their Minds and when ever a wilful and a known Sin breaks the course of Vertue and destroys the habit of Goodness in their Souls it breaks their good state and destroys their comfortable condition As when a Disease strikes the Vitals of our Body and overcomes the Strength and Health of our Constitution unless we get it off it will certainly bring Death along with it God indeed has prescribed us a certain Remedy and an infallible Cure for all Mortal Sins and the greatest Spiritual Maladies and Diseases that would otherwise destroy us and bring Death upon us and that is Repentance which for the sake of Christ and his Merits and by the Mercy and Promise of God shall recover us out of that miserable and mortal state into which every wilful Sin had cast us This shall set us right again in the Court of Heaven where we were cast and condemned before and this shall bring us to a state of Life and Grace who were before struck with the sentence of Death And blessed be God who has thus graciously provided for poor and otherwise lost Sinners by Jesus Christ But Repentance alas though it be a sure Remedy yet is not so easie a one as we imagine 't is a very bitter dose that must not only go down very unpleasantly but must work strongly and powerfully upon our Minds it must not only make us sick and sorrowful contrite and troubled at the very Heart for every Transgression but it must purge out of our Souls every Sin and carry off every vile Lust and wicked Inclination It must not only work upon the peccant humours and so put the Soul into great trouble and disorder but it must perfectly heal and cure it and to do that it must take away the root of the disease it must search to the bottom of the Heart it must touch us to the quick in the tenderest part of us in the most darling Sin and most beloved Lust and it must cut and launce so deep that no secret corruption remain within and no fomes Morbi be left behind In a word it must perfectly cure the Soul and whatever disease it laboured under it must quite remove it so that it never return again upon it for 't is but a palliating a counterfeit or an imperfect cure till this be done And till the Mind be perfectly restored and amended and made better it has not truly repented and therefore the Scripture requires in Repentance not only a broken Heart which is the most significant phrase in the World for the deepest trouble of Mind for our past Sins but it requires a new Heart and a new Soul and a new Creature and a new Man to make up true Repentance and not only that we be renewed in the Spirit of our Minds but that we bring forth fruits worthy of Repentance and that we turn from every evil way and leave and forsake every Sin that we have ever been guilty of as I have more largely shown before We must do all this before we can be said truly to Repent and before we can have any good grounds to expect Pardon of any wilful Sin we ever committed in our whole lives we must thus Repent of it And though we are as sure of forgiveness if we do so as if we had never committed it which is the greatest favour in the World yet how will a poor penitent be alwayes afraid that he has not been sufficiently sorrowful and fully repented of his Sins how will his former Guilt affright him when it stares him in the face and how will the sad load of all his Sins lye heavy upon his Conscience when he is brought to a due sense of them and how must he be contented to lose a great deal of that comfort in his Mind here though he may be safe hereafter and though his Repentance may put him into a good condition yet it will make his Heart sorrowful and the remembrance of his Sins will make it often bleed afresh within him And when he looks back upon his past danger he must tremble at it tho' he has reason to hope he has escaped it and it must keep him alwayes humble and not over-confident of himself and though he has his Pardon in his hand yet he must still look upon it with tears in his eyes Nothing can truly satisfie a Man that he has repented of his Sins but that he has left them out of Religious Grounds and Principles and has had so much tryal of himself as to know he would not commit them though he were in the same circumstances and temptations that he was in before And thus when a bad Man is become a good one when he that was careless and irreligious is become pious and devout when he that was vitious and debauch'd is become sober and vertuous when he that was unjust becomes just and righteous and besides restitution for all past injustice would not commit one act of it to gain all the World when he that stole steals no more and he that was given to drunkenness or uncleanness or any other Sin wholly leaves and forsakes it and is brought by Religion to be quite another Man than he was before then and not till then is his Repentance such as may make him hope for Pardon when he lives and prepare him to dye with comfort For to proceed a little further in this great concern to make a Soul fit and ready for its immediate entering upon another state it must have these two qualifications at that time 1. It must be thoroughly purged from every Vitious Habit or else it is neither meet to be partaker of the inheritance of the Saints in light nor capable of the Pure and Spiritual and Heavenly Happiness As the Tree falls so it lyes sayes the Wise Man Ecclesiastes 11.3 And the same habit and temper as to the main which the Soul carries out of this World will abide with it in the other If any one habitual Wickedness remain upon it or the love of any one Sin be so rooted in it that if it lived
Restitution for it even before he was apprehended and before the thoughts and terrours of Death frighted him into it and herein may lye a mighty difference for if a Man upon the reflection of his Sin and a wicked Life and the serious consideration of the great danger he is in thereby shall by the Grace of God setting these things home upon his Mind strongly fixing and exciting these thoughts in him shall be brought to good purposes and resolutions of becoming better and do strengthen and make good these by his Actions and thus begins to be good and ceases to be wicked not from a sudden fright and fear of Death but from the Convictions of Religion from the free and full perswasion of his own mind which is like to remain and continue with him this puts him into a much better State and Condition and is more truely Repentance than that which arises in Men when they come to dye when they have a force put upon them which almost takes away the true freedom and liberty of their Wills and therefore what they do then is owing wholly to that and ceases generally when that is removed As to the Thief we know not what his case was and therefore 't is meer conjecture to suppose he did not Repent till he came to dye and 't is the most groundless thing i' the World to apply his Case to that of a wicked Man who repents not till he finds he must quickly dye when so far as we know his was perfectly different that he was neither a very wicked Man in the general Course of his Life and as for that single Act of Wickedness which is recorded of him that he might repent of it as soon as he committed it and that might be many years before he suffered for it We have no certain knowledge of any of these things and therefore we can make no certain judgment by it much less raise a Doctrine from it which supposes those two things which so far as we know may be both false and then who would venture his Soul upon such a mere uncertainty as that another Man whom he knows very little of did not repent till he came to dye and lived very ill all the while before neither of which may be true but if they were yet 3. How can he tell but this may be an extraordinary Case and such as no way belongs to him nor to any other Sinner whatsoever What if Christ to show the wonderful and miraculous Power of his Cross towards the Salvation of Sinners was pleased to give an uncommon and extraordinary instance of it at that time such as no other Sinner should ever expect the like unless Christ should again come down and dye upon the Cross with him What if God who will have Mercy on whom he will have Mercy was pleased to let this penitent Thief be a singular Example of his unlimited Power and Prerogative to save beyond all ordinary Rules because of his dying at that time with Christ This does no more make it to be a standing and certain measure of his dealing with others than a Princes showing some extraordinary Act of Mercy to a few Persons when he comes first to his Crown and releasing all Prisoners at his Inauguration declares that this shall be the constant Rule of his Government or that his Subjects shall have reason to expect this at other times from him Thus the Case might be extraordinary as to God but I rather lay it as such upon the account of the Person himself for 't is certain he was an extraordinary Person who had the honour not only to dye with Christ and to bear him company upon the Cross but to confess and own him there in the face of all his enemies who were then flouting and reviling him when this good Man was owning him to be the Messiah calling him Lord and praying him to remember him when he came into his Kingdom So that he declared the most illustrious Act of Faith in him that could be greater than his own Disciples then had for they did not so clearly believe and understand his Kingdom not to be of this World and they all forsook him and fled when this Man alone bore witness to him before the scoffing Jews and all his barbarous Crucifiers which was being a Martyr to him though not for him a confessing him in his Death though not by it And he that did thus confess Christ before men and was not ashamed to do it when he was in his lowest and most contemptible state and who probably was for this treated with more insulting mockery if not worser usage by Christ and his own Crucifiers is it any wonder that Christ according to his Promise Matth. 10.32 should confess such an one before his Father in Heaven And that he who suffered with him and so eminently believed in him should reign with him and be saved and received into his Kingdom Can a wicked and careless Sinner who has denyed Christ by his Life who has affronted disobeyed and contemned him who in the language of Scripture has crucified to himself the Son of God afresh and put him to an open shame Heb. 6.6 by Apostatizing from his Baptism and by an unchristian Life can such an one expect to have the same treatment and usage from our Saviour for a few dying Sorrows and empty Vows and little Remorses as this Famous Convert this Great Confessor this Eminent Martyr this Apostle of Christ as I may call him who preached him upon the Cross before his greatest enemies and sealed his Illustrious Faith in him with his dying words and his last breath No surely the case must be very different between him and an ordinary and profligate Sinner a wicked and vile Christian I do not think any far fetched Notion necessary to salve this matter of the Thieves Salvation by supposing him with a late Author to have the benefit of Baptism the Baptismus Sanguinis and then that Baptism will save a Man without Obedience and a good Life For I deny that Baptism has any such Grace or Benefit as without those to save a wicked Man tho' he should be Baptized in articulo Mortis when he was just a dying For if a newly Baptized Person be not actually a good Man in such a degree as God will accept by the Terms of the Gospel his Baptism shall not save him though it puts him into a state of Salvation if he be so but not otherwise as is plain by Simon Magus for the conditions of Salvation are not specifically different before Baptism and after but only gradually If they were a Man would defer his Baptism till near his Death as some did of old upon this mistaken Notion of such a Baptismal Grace as saves a Man by an outward without an inward Regeneration and real Holiness the actual proof and signs of which the Primitive Church required in the Adult before they admitted them to
like but hate Without this our Tears run wast and our Sorrow is but as an empty Cloud or Rain upon barren Ground without any Fruit and all our bitter Cryes and Lamentations are but as the mournings of the Ephesian Matron when we can strike up again immediately with our Sins and take the causes of our Sorrow and the murderers of our beloved Joy immediately into our Hearts and our Embraces 3. Humiliations Bodily Austerities and Mortifications and especially Fasting make up this Duty of Penitence or Exercise of Repentance For thus the Penitents of old put on Sackcloth and spread Ashes upon their Heads lay prostrate upon the ground and rent their Clothes in the Eastern Countries and fasted and denyed themselves their ordinary Food and afflicted their Souls with these severities upon their Bodies For Sin being committed chiefly by the Body as not only the Instrument but the Tempter to it and the Flesh and its Carnal gratifications being the strongest and commonest allurements to it therefore to show their anger and displeasure against it they revenged it upon their Bodies and chastized those servants of unrighteousness and used such a discipline upon them as might punish them for what was past and be a means to prevent their sinning for the future And to show the sense they had of their own vileness and unworthiness for having offended God they exprest and testified it by all acts of humiliation and lowly submission to his Power and Greatness which they had formerly opposed withstood and disobeyed Now these Acts or Exercises of Repentance were so acceptable to God when they were the signs and effects of a true penitent Heart that we find in Scripture how it prevailed with God so far to pardon Sin as to remove the Temporal Judgments he had denounced against it Thus Niniveh was saved from destruction Jonah 3. when they proclaimed a fast and put on sackcloth and decreed that neither man nor beast should taste any thing but be covered with sackcloth and ashes ver 7.8 And Josiah when he thus humbled himself and rent his Clothes upon his hearing the destruction of Jerusalem denounced by the Prophetess had it defer'd till after his Death 2 Kings 22.19 And even wicked Ahab had Gods Judgment respited and took off from himself because when he heard it He rent his clothes and put sackcloth upon his flesh and fasted 1 Kin. 21.27 God himself assigning this as a Reason to the Prophet Seest thou how Ahab humbleth himself before me because he humbleth himself before me I will not bring the evil in his days ver 29. And we find these Acts of Humiliation and this Discipline of Fasting joyned with Repentance not only in the Jewish Church but also in the Christian in the first and best Ages when this Penitential Discipline was most strictly observed by all Penitents Now the Question is 1. Whether these are necessary as proper acts or parts of Repentance or whether internal Repentance without these outward Exercises of it may not be sufficient 2. Whether if they be not necessary they are not useful and proper to promote or at least to express it Now as to the first Question The necessity of these we must make a difference between publick and private Repentance In publick Repentance as that of a Nation or City when they would remove or avert a Judgment and deprecate Gods Anger due to their Sins and exercise a solemn and publick Repentance for them this ought to be done by outward Humiliations and Fastings and such signs and expressions as are proper and usual to testifie great concern and trouble and mourning and humiliation that so they may make the best acknowledgment and satisfaction to God for their Sins and the best reparation to his injured Honour and Authority and may beget in others and propagate over the whole Kingdom or Nation the same penitential sense and concern for their Sins in order to avoid the danger and the judgment due upon them And thus in the publick Exercises of Penitence in the Christian Church when any had by a notorious and scandalous Sin brought a reproach and infamy upon the Church and their Religion the Governours were concerned for its Honour and Credit to take notice and turn them out of their Communion and put them in a state of publick Penitence for their grievous faults And here it was necessary for such Persons to satisfie the Church by their outward Acts of Repentance Mourning and humiliation that they were truly and inwardly penitent and were likely to live better and become other Men before they received them again into their Communion and this though it was but a Prudential Method and an External Discipline of the Church yet was excellently fitted for the reclaiming and reforming great and open Offenders by thus shaming them out of their sins and keeping the Rod over them and shutting them out of the Church by the power of the Keys till they were fit to be admitted and received in again upon the probable signs of a True Repentance and this our Church has good reason to wish for again and ought to restore it did not the state and circumstances we are in unavoidably hinder it but it is utterly impracticable under great Schisms and Divisions from the Church and great Looseness and Contempt of Religion which make it impossible for the Church to exercise this Discipline which were otherwise its Duty but this is at most but an Useful Discipline not a necessary or Essential part of Repentance to go through those penitential courses of Humiliation and Mortification which the ancient Penitents did all that is strictly necessary and all that the Scripture commands as a duty is an Internal Penitence towards God transacted between him and our own Souls wherein we humble our selves before him under a sense of our own vileness and unworthiness and with the greatest submission of our Souls bow down our selves and own his Power and Right to punish us and beseech him for Christ's sake not to use it i. e. to pardon and forgive us Now this I doubt not with sincerity of mind at present and Amendment of Life afterwards is a sufficient Exercise of this Duty to private and particular persons without all the other Solemnities and performaces of a publick Penitence for the design of those is hereby fully attained as to the Person himself which was to amend him and to recover him and to make him more careful not to offend for the future by his shame and sufferings for what is past The Church of Rome has turned this Discipline of Publick Penitence used in the Primitive Church into Auricular Confession and Private Penance which besides the folly of giving Absolution first and supposing some of the guilt and punishment remaining after the Sin is pardoned and making the Eternal Punishment easier to be got off than than the Temporal and imposing trifling and ridiculous penances and making them properly satisfactory is a shameful
unlawfully had it power and opportunity for those first Motions and Inclinations are necessary and unavoidable arising from the frame and constitution of our Nature and the Mechanism of our Body Blood and Spirits so that we can no more help or prevent them than we can the senses of Pain and Pleasure or the Appetites of Thirst or Hunger or the Motions and Impressions of outward Objects made upon our Senses and therefore they are not simply evil but good in themselves so far as they are Natural and intended by God to serve the good of the World and of particular Persons and the wise ends of Providence but as they are irregular and inordinate excessive and immoderate and destroy those ends for which God intended them so far they are sinful and when any of those Natural Appetites or Sensual Inclinations grow too strong and unruly and are not kept under the government of Reason or within the bounds of Vertue and Religion then they carry Men to all loosness and wickedness and make them commit Sin and Uncleanness with greediness A good Man may with St. Paul be very sensible and complain of this body of sin and of death and of the law of sin that is in his members of many irregular Appetites and undue Passions and weak and foolish imaginations and unreasonable desires and inclinations of too quick gusts of Sensual things and too much deadness of Spiritual of having too many thoughts and designs for Earthly and present things and too little zeal and affection for things Heavenly that are a thousand times more valuable These are imperfections that are in the best of us and we see that they are so and are very sensible and complain of them but yet we cannot wholly avoid them but after all our thoughts and all our care they still return upon us and the Flesh will lust against the Spirit and there will be a perpetual war and struggle between them but if the Spirit do so far prevail by the helps of Grace and considerations of Religion that it do never yield to any wilful Sin it shall then be rewarded as a Conquerour which though it did not wholly subdue and drive out that homebred enemy yet kept it alwayes under and made it submit to its Government and not keep up an open Rebellion against it Of this I have largely discoursed in the Third Section of the Third Chapter I proceed now to those Sins which are known wilful and presumptuous habitual and reigning in us any one of which is inconsistent with a good State and excludes us out of Gods Favour here and Heaven hereafter such as the Psalmist in the forequoted place prayes against Keep back thy servant also from presumptuous sins lest they get the dominion over me All known and wilful Sins are presumptuous as being done in defiance of a Divine Authority that we know has forbid them and in contempt of God and his Laws to whom we owe all Honour and Obedience and notwithstanding all those threatnings and severe punishments that God has denounced against them He that sins wilfully after he has received the knowledge of the truth of these things there remains nothing for him but a certain fearful looking for of judgment and fiery indignation which shall devour the adversaries This is despising the Law of God thus wittingly and wilfully to break it and is sinning with a high hand and a most presumptuous boldness when we choose to do that which we know is most highly displeasing to Heaven and which God has laid all the obligations he possibly can upon us not to do When any such Sin gets dominion over us so that it becomes customary and habitual to us it makes us the Devils slaves and captives at his Will and shows that he is our Master and that we are the Servants of Sin and overcome by that and brought in bondage to it that it prevails upon our Minds above all the Power of Reason and Principles of Religion and that we choose it above all the great things of Heaven and another World that Religion offers to us and think it more desirable than any of those and had rather gratifie a paltry Lust and a foolish Inclination than save our Souls and have all the favour of God that we prefer it before any other good and let it have the ascendant in our Love and Affections above all other things for it is utterly inconsistent with any Love of God or any due regard to him and banishes all Principles of Religion out of our Minds and destroyes all sincerity and uprightness of Heart towards God and abandons us to a state of enmity with him and everlasting destruction hereafter This I have shown is true of every wilful and chosen and known Sin I shall now from the distinction I have given you of these Sins from those of Infirmity Ignorance and Inadvertency make the following Inferences and Remarks 1. That those Sins of Infirmity are to be Repented of i. e. we are to be sorry for them and pray God to forgive them Though they do not destroy our good state nor deprive us of Gods Favour here or Heaven hereafter yet they are such as are to be matter of Trouble and Sorrow and Humiliation to us and we are dayly to pray God to forgive us our Trespasses as Christ has taught us in the Lords Prayer and the Psalmist in the place before mentioned prayes God to cleanse him from his secret faults as well as to keep him back from presumptuous Sins For 2. These are true and proper Sins and though they are not charged upon us to our Condemnation yet this is by the great Favour and Mercy of God and by Vertue of the Gracious Covenant made in Christ with Mankind for otherwise God in Rigour and Justice might punish and condemn us for them The Papists hold a distinction between Sins Mortal and Venial in their own Nature i. e. that some Sins are in themselves damnable and others not which the Protestants have generally opposed for this Reason because all Sin is in it self Mortal and in its own Nature deserves Death as being 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a breach and transgression of a Divine Law whose sanction is Death but it is pardonable only by Gods Mercy on the account of its circumstances which make it more excusable with a good and merciful God but that it is not of it self venial or so little as not to deserve Punishment they prove from hence that we are bound to pray God to forgive it Now it is pure Grace and Favour for God to forgive and what he is not obliged to and if he is not obliged to pardon it he may punish it were it not for his Mercy and Goodness and the Gracious Covenant he has made with us in the Gospel This should therefore 3. Make us very sensible of Gods infinite Mercy and kind dealing with us by the Covenant of Grace How many innumerable Sins and
laughs at them sometimes and would seem in his highest mirth to have courage enough to make a jest of them to others yet he fears them in good earnest and trembles at the thoughts of them when he is alone and when Death brings them nearer to him he is scared and terrified and has sufficient proof of their Reality in his own mind What a wretched and miserable Condition is he then in when the terrors of Death and the greater terrours of Hell are set before him when all about him is horror and misery and the blackness of darkness when he has nothing to look back upon but the bitter memory of his past sins and no prospect before him but the unknown and unconceivable torments of another World when Gods Anger lyes heavy upon him and sinks him into the deepest gulph of despair and the Grave and the bottomless pit are ready to swallow him up and to devour him both Soul and Body what an instance of Misery is here what a Picture of Hell nay what a real and sensible Hell is there then before us Who that stands by the Bed of such a dying Wretch and draws the Curtains and sees the Agonies and hears the doleful expressions of such a miserable Creature would not be deeply affected with such a sad state as he sees a Man put into by sin and impenitence Who would not then think Vertue and Religion very comfortable and very desirable things and much to be preferred to sinful looseness and extravagance Who would not then give all the World either that he had not sin'd or that he had Repented in time and so not brought himself into that remediless state of present and future torment Repentance if it be true and sincere will prevent a Sinners coming to this which will otherwise certainly be his Portion and he can never escape it in this World if he be not stupid but to be sure not in the next Now who that knows he must dye in a little time and that then at furthest this will be his case if he go on in his sins and be not timely brought off from them would ever madly continue in them and not break them off by Repentance when he is all the while exposed to this dreadful danger and lyes open to the fears and miseries of another World How comfortable is it to be delivered from those and to live in such a state that a Man has no reason to be afraid of Death nor to be scared with the thoughts of another World But whenever it comes he can welcome it chearfully or at least submit to it patiently without horror and distraction and have reasonable and well-grounded hopes that it shall be well with him hereafter full assurance he may never have without all manner of fears but he will have chearful and rational hopes according to the certainty and evidence of his Repentance and the sincerity of his Vertue and Obedience such a conditional assurance every one has by a Faith truly Divine that if he thus repents he shall be saved this is founded on a proposition that is Divinely revealed and so is matter of Faith but that I have so repented is not matter of Faith but only of private Judgment and Opinion of my self but I have no reason to doubt or be afraid if I know upon examining my self that I have forsaken every wilful sin and have left the ill course of life I was in and would not for any profit or pleasure commit a wilful Sin though I were never so much tempted to it and it were never so much in my power and that I have thus endeavoured to live and to do my Duty sincerely to God and Man though with great imperfections and infirmities still upon me this will give us a Rational and a Moral assurance of our Salvation which is all we can have without a particular Revelation how will this cheer and support a Man when he comes to dye how will it take out the sting and allay the bitterness of Death in great measure and be the best Cordial to keep up his Spirits in his last Agonies and Extremities being conscious to himself of his own sincerity and his conscience not condemning him as to any wilful Sin He will have confidence towards God and can assure his heart before him 1 John 3.19 He can then safely trust and rely upon the Mercy of God in and thorough Christ for the pardon of all his sins because he has truely and in time repented of them and 't is not a mere presumptuous and ungrounded confidenee which like the hope of the hypocrite shall perish Job 8.13 but he has a sure Title to it by the Gospel and the spirit of God beareth witness with his spirit and by the joynt testimony of that and his Conscience agreeing with the Rules and Measures of the Gospel for otherwise 't is but deceit and delusion he hath great inward comfort and chearful hopes of Heaven and hath no reason to fear but it shall be well with him in another world 'T is very happy to live in such a state as this where we are provided against not only all the evils of this World and the worst that can happen to us here but against Death and all the evils of another and may chearfully enjoy the blessings of Providence at present and rejoyce in the hopes of a much greater happiness hereafter so that we may as the wise Man says Eat our bread with joy and drink our wine with a merry heart for God now accepteth our works Eccles 9.7 but a state of sin and impenitence is a dreadful and a hazardous state exposed to the Terrors of Death and the amazing Evils of another World so that if a Man consider'd it as he ought he could not enjoy himself one moment nor would ever live under the fears and dangers of it for all the World and what if he thinks not of it which is all the relief he has against it Yet it is never the less in it self nor never the farther from him but though he is now never so stupid or in the deepest Lethargie yet Death and Hell will awaken him or however the flames there may be ready to catch hold of him while he is asleep and in the most sensless state 3. Repentance puts us into a very blessed and happy state as it reconciles us to God and restores us to his favour who was before angry and displeased with us We are enemies to God by our wicked works and alienated from him Coloss 1.21 Our iniquities have separated between us and our God and our sins have hid his face from us Isa 59.2 'T is they make the only breach and separation between God and his Creatures and provoke him who is Love and Goodness to put on Wrath and Anger and become even a consuming fire so that his anger is said to be kindled against sinners and wax hot against them and he poureth
out the fierceness of his anger upon them and they drink of the cup of his fury and feel his wrath and indignation many a sinner has done this and cryed out in the Anguish of his Soul Thy wrath lyeth hard upon me Psal 88.7 Thy fierce wrath goeth over me thy terrors have cut me off ver 16. Fearfulness and trembling are come upon me and horror hath overwhelmed me Psal 55.5 Thine arrows stick fast in me and thy hand presseth me sore Psal 38.2 Who knoweth the power of thine anger even according to thy fear so is thy wrath Psal 90.11 For we are consumed by thine anger and by thy wrath are we troubled ver 7. God who is a Spirit as he can convey secret and unspeakable comfort into our Souls so he can impress intolerable and unspeakable horrors upon them and who is able to bear the weight of his Anger or endure the sense of his Wrath and Indignation In his Pleasure and Favour is Life and in his Anger is a double Death to the Soul The inward Sensation and Perception of Gods Love is the ohiefest joy and happyness to a Soul either in this World or the other and the Sense and Perception of his Anger is the greatest Misery God the fountain of all Happiness doth diffuse and communicate such a Peace Joy Comfort to good Souls such an inward Taste and Relish of Spiritual Pleasure and Delight as is unspeakable past understanding called joy in the holy Ghost and is no doubt the sweetest and most affecting pleasure a Soul is capable of this the Angels and blessed Spirits above enjoy and are transported with the most ravishing Sense and Rapturous Impressions of it and 't is what makes Heaven to them and a little foretaste of it when God lifts up the light of his countenance upon us when a pious Soul tasts and sees how good and gracious God is this puts more gladness in the heart than Corn and wine and oyl and all worldly enjoyments now on the contrary when God hides his face and withdraws his loving-kindness and imprints a strong sense of his Wrath and Anger upon the Mind this is the utmost and the deepest Misery this gives the bitterest sense of Evil fills it with the greatest horrors sinks it into the deepest gulph the bottomless Pit of Misery and is the very Punishment and Hell of the damned How happy is it then to be Reconciled to God by Repentance whom we had angred and provoked by our sins before we feel any of this and before his Wrath and Anger is poured out upon us it will certainly fall upon every Sinner some time or other unless he Repents for God though he defers his Anger for some time that his Goodness and long-suffering may lead us to Repentance yet his abused Love Patience and Mercy will turn to greater Wrath and Fury if we persist in our sins and in a course of impenitency As 't is a very terrible thing to have the great God our Enemy and he certainly is so whilst we are in a state of Sin so 't is the comfortablest thought in the World and what will alone make us happy to be Assured that he is our Friend and that we are in a State of Favour with him upon our Repentance THE CONCLVSION To Conclude As all general Christian Duties are meant by Repentance so all general Christian-Priviledges and Benefits belong to it and are the Rewards of it for as Repentance is the same thing in Scripture with Conversion Regeneration the New Birth the New Creature the New Man and the like those different words and figurative expressions denoting only the same duty importing the great Change and Alteration made upon the Mind and Life of a Sinner by the power of Grace and Religion So all the benefits and priviledges of Christianity such as Election Adoption Pardon Justification at present and Glorification afterwards which are free and gratuitous acts in God granting and bestowing those Favours upon us for Christs sake upon our being duely qualified and fitted to receive them These all belong to those who have truly Repented and become good Men and to none else For God hath only Chosen Adopted Pardoned Justified and will Glorifie such and no other and till we have Repented we have no good claim or title to any of those Our being in a good State towards God which is the thing meant by all those Phrases under some different considerations is on our side wholly owing to our true Repentance and Obedience and it is all lost and forfeited by our Impenitency and Disobedience which on the contrary make us the Children of Wrath the Children of the Devil and Heirs of Damnation put us into the worst Spiritual State of Reprobation Obduration and Excecation according to the degrees of our Sins and Impenitence and into that of Condemnation it self which is the word that directly answers to that of Justification All those Scriptural Phrases and Expressions of a good State belong to Repentance and to the true Christian Penitent and all those which signifie a bad one belong as truly to Wickedness and Impenitence for though without the Free-Grace and Mercy of God in and thorough Christ we could not be put into any such good State nor have a title to any such Priviledges meerly by vertue of our Repentance or any thing we could do yet to suppose that God will put us into those states without any regard to our own Actions or not upon the account of them is to destroy all Religion all Divine Government all Future Judgment and all Rewards and Punishments in another World I might clear and illustrate and enlarge upon these had not this Discourse already swelled upon my hands into too great a bulk and did they not run into something of Controversie which I would carefully avoid I shall therefore only give this last Advice to the Penitent who hath brought himself by the Grace of God into this Good and Happy State that when he is thus got out of the Paths of Death and of Sin into those of Life and Vertue that he would go on and proceed in the new and right way he is in and make a speedy and further progress in all Piety and Goodness that like St. Paul forgetting those things which are behind and reaching unto those which are before he may follow and apprehend them and so press forward towards the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus Phil. 3.13 14. that now he is become a Christian in good earnest he would more zealously promote that Religion which he opposed and was an enemy to before and show he is a true Convert by his zeal and earnestness against Vice and Irreligion that he would make all amends he can for his past miscarriages by doing the greatest good he is able by serving God and his Glory more heartily and thus loving much because much is forgiven him so that where sin abounded grace