saucy in our Language and irreverent in our Addresses to him But by what hath been said I think it is apparent that bodily Worship is of so much Account and Necessity in Religion that to neglect it is a Piece of great Injustice to God and an high Affront to his Majesty whereunto we owe the lowliest Homage and Adoration But after all it must be acknowledged that unless our bodily Worship be attended with an inward lively Sense of God with great and worthy Thoughts of him and suitable Affections towards him it is all but a perfect Pageantry which tho' it makes a goodly Shew hath nothing of Substance or Reality in it Nay if by those external Reverences we render him we do not express the inward Veneration of our Souls while we pretend to worship him we mock him to his Face and by offering him a Shell which hath no Kernel in it we only seek to put a Trick upon him to make him believe we honour and adore him when in reality we do but more demurely flout him and with our Mock-Obeysances affront him with greater Ceremony If therefore we do not bow our Hearts before him as well as our Knees in our most solemn Addresses to him we are but so many liveless Images of Prayer that like our Grandfathers Statues on their Tombs have our Hands and Eyes lift up to Heaven but no Soul to animate our Devotions But God expects that those that worship Him should approach him with pure and humble Minds with their Wills inspired with divine Affections and their Souls touched with an over-awing Sense of his Majesty without which he accounts all our bodily Adorations to be nothing but demure Scorns and complemental Mockeries and therefore upon this very Account God denounced most fearful Judgments against Israel because they drew near him with their mouths and with their lips did honour him when their hearts were removed far from him Isa. xxix 13. Sixthly and lastly Another sort of bodily Exercise that is of some tho' but little Account in Religion is a mere outward Form or Round of Religious Duties such as saying of our Prayers hearing the Word of God and receiving of Sacraments and the like which are all of them expresly enjoined by the Christian Religion as the Means by which we are to purge our Minds from all Impurity and Wickedness and to acquire those divine Habits of Piety and Vertue which are necessary to qualify us for eternal Life And without all doubt such Means they are as if rightly used will by the Blessing of God and their own natural Efficacy exceedingly â—onduce to those great and worthy Ends for which they were ordained For what Means can be more conducive to our Reformation and Amendment than constant and diligent Prayer for besides that hereby we move God to enable us to our Duty by his own Grace and Assistance by these our solemn Addresses to him we take an effectual Course to abstract our Minds from carnal and sensitive Things to excite and raise our Affections towards God and inspire our Souls with an awful Sense of his Majesty which are the most rational Antidotes we can take against the venomous Temptations of Sin How necessary is it to make us throughly good that we should seriously and diligently attend upon the Preaching and publick Ministries of God's Word the great End of which is to state and describe the Bounds of Christian Duty and to explain and enforce those mighty Motives which Christianity urges to oblige us to it both which are indispensably necessary to our Reformation because a Man cannot be good unless he knows his Duty and when he knows it he will not be good unless he be perswaded to it What can be more conducive to our Growth and Progress in all Christian Grace and Virtue than frequent Receiving of the Holy Sacrament which besides as it is a Channel and Conveyance of the Divine Grace and Assistance to all worthy Communicants doth sensibly represent to us one of the mightiest Arguments to Obedience in all the Christian Religion viz. the Death and Sacrifice of our blessed Redeemer For here we see his bloody Tragedy acted before our Eyes the breaking of his Body and the pouring out of his Blood for us being visibly represented to us which dismal Spectacle if we have any Remains of Ingenuity in us cannot but affect us both with Love to Him who suffered so deeply for us and with Horror against our Sins which brought those Sufferings upon Him and being thus affected how can we forbear vowing Revenge upon our Sins and perpetual Obedience to our most loving Redeemer which is one great End of this sacred Festival So that these outward Duties are not only necessary as they are enjoined by our Religion but also as they are effectual Means and Instruments of that internal Piety and Virtue which our Religion doth principally require and design and therefore doubtless it cannot but be a great Sin for any Christian to live in the ordinary Neglect of these instrumental Duties because in so doing he doth not only affront the Authority of that holy Religion to which he hath vowed Submission and Obedience but also rejects the Means of his own Recovery and Reformation and so doth openly declare himself a reckless profligate Creature one that neither is good nor ever intends to be so But yet after all it must be acknowledged that he that only prays and hears and receives Sacraments and places all his Religion in a perpetual Round of these outward Performances hath nothing of the Life and Spirit of true Religion in him For as I have already observed to you these Duties are intended only for Means and Instruments of that internal Purity of Mind and those Divine and Godlike Dispositions of Soul wherein the Life and Substance of Religion doth consist Now you know it is not barely the using of Means that either is or doth Good but the using them to some good End or Purpose as for instance Books are Means and Instruments of Learning but it is not barely the using of Books or turning over the Leaves of them that will make Men wise or learned but the using them so as to understand the Contents of them and acquaint our selves with the Things and Notions contained in them Thus Prayer and Hearing the Word of God and Receiving of Sacraments are doubtless excellent Means to make Men good and virtuous but barely to use them without any farther Intention is to do a thing that signifies nothing that neither is good in it self nor will do any good to us If we would use them to any Purpose we must use them to the End they are designed for or else we had as good not use them at all For we may as soon become good Scholars barely by turning over the Leaves of learned Books as we shall good Christians barely by praying and hearing and receiving If we do not pray to the End we may be
this Reason he that hath said do not commit adultery said also do not kill James 2. 10 11. i. e. it is the same Authority that forbids the one as well as the other and therefore tho' thou dost not the one yet if thou dost the other thou sinnest against the Authority of both Seeing therefore we are not accounted universally righteous by the Law of Christ unless we do universally obey it a partial Resolution to obey can never constitute us Righteous because such a Resolution will never make us universally obedient Then shall I not be ashamed saith David when I have respect unto all thy Commandments Psal. 119. 6. So that to make our Resolution a Christian Principle of Righteousness it is necessary that it should be universal i. e. of equal extent with that Law which is the Measure of our Righteousness that like a fruitful Womb it should be pregnant with every good Work and vertually contain in it every Particular that our Religion hath made our Duty 5. It must be a prevailing Resolution a Resolution of such Force as doth engage us to do what we resolve and actually prevails over all Temptations to the contrary For all the Vertue of a good Resolution consists in its Relation to Action because if that we resolve to do be not necessary it is indifferent whether we resolve to do it or no but if it be it must be done otherwise we had been as good never to have resolved to do it The goodness of our Resolution therefore consists in this that it is an Engagement to practise what we resolve and consequently if our Resolution to obey God be not prevalent enough to engage us to obey him it is so far from being a true Principle of Christian Righteousness that it is a meer insignificant Cypher For as that can be no Cause which produces no Effect so that can be no Principle of Righteousness which is not productive of it and if to make it a Principle of Righteousness it is necessary that it should be a prevalent Engagement to a righteous Life then it follows that when it ceases to be prevalent it ceases to be a Principle of Righteousness and consequently that whenever we do commit any Sin that is inconsistent with a prevailing Resolution to obey God we do for that Time cease to be righteous Men. But there are no Sins inconsistent with a prevailing Resolution to obey God but such as do prevail against it and actually over-power it and therefore as for those Weaknesses Surreptions and Surprizes which for Distinction-sake we call Sins of Infirmity either we do not consent to them and consequently they are so far from over-powering our good Resolution that they do not at all contest with it or if we do consent to them it is unawares before we can oppose our Resolution against them So that tho' upon Surprize they do win our Consent yet they do not win it from our good Resolution which in this suddain Hurry of Thoughts had not time to canvas for it but had Power enough to have obtained it had it had but Opportunity to prefer its Claim and therefore as for such Sins as these they may fairly comport with a prevailing Resolution of Obedience But then there are Sins of Wilfulness which proceed either from wilful Habits or from deliberate Choice and these are no more consistent with such a Resolution than one Contrary is with another in the same Degree For he who sins wilfully is prevalently resolved to sin and to be so and at the same time prevalently resolved to obey God is a Contradiction in Terms Whilst therefore Sin hath the Prevalence in us we are so long Servants of Sin and do so long cease to be Servants of Righteousness 'T is true there are Degrees of Wickedness and the longer a Man continues wicked the worse he will be but still he is a wicked Man who is more prevalently resolved to sin than to obey God and he who is so tho' but for an Hour or a Day is so long wicked as well as he who continues so for a Month or a Year He is not wicked indeed to so high a Degree and so may far more easily recover but from the Time that we deliberately consent to any known Sin to the Time that we repent of it we are wilful Sinners If we repent immediately we immediately recover into that good Estate from whence we were fallen and so our Wound is cured almost as soon as it is made For the proper Repentance of single Acts of wilful Sin is either to resolve not to repeat them or where it can be done to undo them again by Restitution But when our baffled Resolution to obey God is thus recover'd into a prevalent Engagement to obey him it revives into a living Principle of Righteousness but yet before we can reasonably conclude it is such we must make some Tryal of it for as it is certain that until it be Prevalent it is not a true Principle of Righteousness so it is certain that till for some time it hath actually prevailed we cannot be secure that it is prevalent That is not to be called a prevalent Resolution that for a Day or a Week puts us into a Fit of Religion and so expires such flashy Purposes are so far from being thorough Cures that they are only so many Intermissions of our Disease that always leave us as bad or worse than they found us But if upon sufficient Tryal we find that our Resolution doth hold against all Temptations and actually engage us to our Duty in despite of all Sollicitations to the contrary we may then safely conclude that it is that very vital Principle which in the Judgment of our holy Religion doth constitute us Righteous Men. And accordingly Matth. 21. 28 29 30. our Saviour compares those who might but did not enter into the Kingdom of Heaven to a Son that first resolved to go whither his Father commanded him but afterwards cooled and did not obey implying that the great Fault which spoiled his Resolution and rendred it insignificant was this that it was not firm and prevalent which had it been it had actually entered him in the Kingdom of Heaven 6. And lastly It must be a Resolution to obey God springing out of our Belief of the Christian Religion and this it is which renders it strictly and properly a Christian Principle of Righteousness 'T is true indeed if either we never heard of Christianity or it had never been proposed to us with sufficient Motives of Credibility our Infidelity would have been only our Misery but not our Crime and if upon a through Consideration of the Arguments of natural Religion and of the Good and Evil which naturally springs out of good and evil Actions we were effectually resolved to study the Will of God and so far as we understood it to obey it it had been no criminal Defect in our Resolution not to be founded upon
Iohannes Scott S. T. P. PRACTICAL DISCOURSES Upon several Subjects Vol. I. By IOHN SCOTT D. D. late Rector of St. Giles's in the Fields LONDON Printed for Walter Kettilby at the Bishop's Head in S. Paul's Church-yard and Samuel Manship at the Ship near the Royal Exchange in Cornhil 1697. To the Honorable WILLIAM MOUNTAGUE Esq THE following Discourses do breath the Spirit of the Author who being dead yet speaketh For they Carry in them a very sensible Concern for the honor of God and for that in which that honor has chiefly displayed it self to us the good of Mankind For it will be no hard Matter for a considering Reader to be Convinced that Misery whether here or hereafter is the fatal Consequence of wickedness and that to make our selves happy we must make our selves Good And therefore it is hoped that the seasonable publication of them may by God's blessing and by the sweet and forcible insinuations of that Candor Zeal and Reason with which they are inculcated at least assist a vitious Age to Recollect it self and may so far do so as to be a means to reclaim some of those who have blotted it with that Character And this hope is so much the greater because as we may rationally expect God's blessing upon our good Endeavors so we may the more firmly do so when such our Endeavors are warm and hearty The Good and Merciful God accompany the design of the Author with his Grace and extend that Grace to the utmost extent of the publication and by making both effectual turn our hopes into prophesie Sir The Relations of the deceased Author having observed your great respect and kindness to him and your diligent attendance upon his Ministry hope the Dedication of these excellent Reliques of his will be acceptable to you as they are like to be of singular use profit and advantage to all pious and good Christians The CONTENTS A Discourse concerning Bodily Exercise in Religion upon 1 Tim. 4 6. Page 1. A Discourse of the Necessity of a Publick National Repentance upon Ezek. 18. 30. P. 77. A Discourse concerning the meet Fruits of Repentance and the necessity of bringing forth such Fruits upon Matth. 3. 8. P. 140. A Discourse concerning a Death-bed Repentance upon Matth. 25. 10. P. 189. A Discourse concerning the great Evil of deferring Repentance upon Rev. 2. 21. P. 230. A Discourse of Submission to the Will of God upon Luke 22. 42. P. 268. A Discourse concerning Self-denyal upon Matth. 16 24. P. 305. A Resolution of that grand Case How a Man may know whether he be in a state of Grace and Favour with God upon 1 John 3. 7. P. 357. A Discourse concerning the Nature of Wilful Sins shewing how incessant they are with a good State or our being born of God upon 1 Joh. 3. 9. P. 384. A Discourse of the Excellency of the Christian Religion to procure Peace and Satisfaction of Mind upon John 14. 27. P. 415. A Discourse shewing that when Mens Minds are divided between God and their Lusts they must lead very anxious and unstable Lives upon James 1. 8. P. 454. 1 TIMOTHY IV. 6. Bodily exercise profiteth little but godliness is profitable unto all things having promise of the life that now is and of that which is to come THE great Design of Christianity being to promote our future Happiness and qualify us for it Things are more or less valuable in its esteem as they more or less conduce to this great and excellent End And hence the Apostle tells us that of all the Virtues Christianity obliges us to Charity is the greatest 1 Cor. xiii 13. that is a sincere Love of God and an universal good Will to Men and the greatest it is upon this account because of all Virtues it is most congenial to the Heavenly State that being a State of endless Love and pure Friendship and all other Virtues are valued more or less proportionably as they partake of this Virtue of Charity To give Worth to our Faith it is necessary it should work by Love Galat. v. 6. To make our Knowledge acceptable it is necessary it should run into Love 1 Cor. viii 2 3. yea without Charity the Gift of Miracles Alms-giving and Martyrdom it self are Things of no value in the accounts of Christianity 1 Cor. xiii 1 2 3. Nay so much is this great Virtue designed by the Christian Religion that the Apostle tells us that the end of the Commandment is Charity 1 Tim. l. 5. that is all the Duties which the Commandment enjoyns are designed only as Means to advance and perfect our Love to God and Men And all Means you know are more or less excellent proportionably as they conduce to the Ends they are designed for Wherefore since our future Happiness is the ultimate End of Christianity and universal Love our most necessary Qualification for it it necessarily follows that the Goodness of all Religious Means consists in their Aptitude to abstract and purify our Affections to exalt and sublimate our Love and to propagate in us that godlike and heavenly Temper which is so necessary to qualify us for the Enjoyment of God and Heaven But alas how ordinary is it for Men to mistake their Means for their Ends and to value themselves upon doing those Things which if they be not directed to a farther End are altogether insignificant accounting those Things to be absolutely good which are but relatively so and which unless they conduce to that which is good are perfectly indifferent Of which we have too many sad Instances among our selves for how many are there who though they have nothing else to prize themselves for but only of their keeping of Fasts and looking sourly on a Sunday their hearing so many Sermons and numbering so many Prayers are yet bloated with as high Conceits of their own Sanctity and Godliness as if they had commenced Saints and were arrived to the highest degrees of Perfection And tho Pride and Malice Covetousness and Ambition are the only Graces they are eminent in yet shall you see these empty wretched Things pearched upon the Pinacle of Self-Conceit and from thence looking down upon poor moral Mortals as if they were Things of an inferior Species not worthy to be reckoned in the same Class of Beings with themselves Such flaunting Hypocrites it seems there have always been and in these later Times it is foretold they should abound for so the Apostle tells us 1 Tim. iv 1. that the Spirit speaketh expresly that in the later Ages there should arise a sort of People who departing from the Faith should give heed to seducing spirits and doctrines of devils who should forbid marriage and command Abstinence from Meats vers 3. that is as I suppose should place all their Religion in outward and bodily Severities which at best are only Means and Instruments of Religion and that in these they should pride themselves as if they were the only Saints of
more humble and heavenly-minded if we do not hear and receive Sacraments to the End we may be more just and charitable and meek and temperate we take a great deal of Pains to no purpose For tho' a Hammer and a File are excellent Tools to make a Watch or a Clock or any such curious Machin yet doubtless you would account that Man extremely impertinent that should reckon himself a skilful Mechanick meerly because he knocks and files with them And by the same Rule tho' Prayers and Sacraments are excellent Instruments of Christian Piety and Virtue yet it is a ridiculous Vanity for a Man to esteem himself a good Christian meerly because he prays and communicates because as the Art of the Mechanick consists not barely in using his Tools but in using them so as to perfect and accomplish his Work with them so the Virtue of a Christian consists not barely in Praying Hearing and Receiving but in using these Duties with that Religious Art and Skill as is necessary to render them effectually subservient to the Ends of Piety and Virtue and unless we use them to these Ends we were as good not use them at all for any Benefit we are likely to reap from them For what doth it signify for a Man to confess his Sins to God if he only go round in a Circle of confessing and sinning and sinning and confessing again Is it any Pleasure to the Almighty do we think to hear us read over with tragical Looks and woful Tones the odious Catalogue of our uncancelled Guilts is he so fond of the Affronts and Injuries we do him as to take delight in hearing them recounted No doubtless it is impossible 'T is true he hath commanded us to confess our Sins to him but why hath he done so why that our Confession might be instrumental to our Reformation that it might affect us with Shame and Sorrow for our Sins and Horror and Indignation against them and if this be not the Effect of it we do but blazon our Shame when we confess our Sins and prefer a Bill of Indictment against our selves To what purpose do we daily offer up our Prayers unto God if we do not endeavour by our Lives to please him Can we imagine him so easie a Soveraign as to be soothed and flattered with the humble Petitions and Intreaties of open and avowed Rebels Certainly if we do we are infinitely mistaken he bids us pray to him indeed but why why that by our constant Addresses to him we might be always affected with so deep a Sense of his Soveraignty over us and our own Dependance upon him as might keep us continually in Awe of Him and if this be not the Effect of our Prayers we only talk to the Air and spend our Breath to no purpose To what End do we praise God and make Rhetorical Acknowledgments of his Glory and Goodness if we do not imitate him in those Perfections for which we admire and laud him Do we think so wise so great a Being can ever be pleased and tickled to hear himself extolled and commended by a little of that fading Breath which himself gave being to alas no he needs not our poor Praises to emblazon and magnify him being infinitely glorious in his own Perfections and a sufficient Stage and Theatre to Himself 'T is true he bids us praise him but why why that he might provoke us to imitate what we do commend and to transcribe into our own selves those adorable Perfections which we laud and admire in Him and if this be not the Effect of our praising him all the Good we say of him is nothing but Flattery and Complement To what purpose do we come to Church to hear Sermons and pious Exhortations if we do not live them too Do we think to please God by meeting together to gratify our Ears or Curiosity with some new Notions or quaint Piece of Oratory If we do we are much mistaken He hath commanded us indeed diligently to attend the publick Preaching and Ministers of Religion and why hath he done so but only that we might learn his Will and be instructed in the Motives to Obedience And if this be not the Effect of our Hearing we had as good spend our time in hearing the whistling of the Wind or the roaring of the Sea In a word to what End do we receive the holy Sacrament if we do not improve in Virtue by it Do you think to please an All-wise God by eating a little Bread and drinking a little Wine in a devout and humble Posture Is it likely that so wise a Being should be taken with such an insignificant Trifle 'T is true He hath instituted this holy Solemnity for a perpetual Memory of our Saviour's Passion but is this all do you think Has he commanded us to meet and eat and drink together only to remember that a great while ago the blessed Iesus was crucified at Ierusalem no doubtless that which he ultimately designed by this solemn Memorial was to inflame our Love to confirm our Faith and strengthen our Resolutions of Obedience and if this be not the Effect of it our receiving the Sacrament is of no more Account in Religion than if we should eat and drink only to satisfy our Hunger and Thirst. This I have the longer insisted upon because it is so ordinary for Men to place all their Religion in these instrumental Duties and to believe themselves highly in favour with God meerly because they pray very often and hear a great many Sermons and are constant Communicants at the Lord's Table when God knows all this is only the Religion of the Means and is good only as it tends farther to produce in us a divine Temper of Mind and to make us sober and righteous and godly in this present World which if it doth not effect it doth nothing at all but is altogether vain and insignificant Wherefore as you would not deceive and ruin your own Souls beware of mistaking the Means of Godliness for Godliness it self and of taking up your Rest there where you should only bait in order to a farther Progress lest falling short of your Duty you fall short of the Reward of it and in the End receive your Portion with Hypocrites in the Lake that burns with Fire and Brimstone 2. Having shewed what that bodily Exercise is which profits something in Religion tho' compared with Godliness it self but very little I now proceed to the second thing proposed which was to shew you in what Respects it is that this bodily Exercise doth profit but little In general it profits but little in respect of those great and noble Ends which Religion doth most principally aim at for there are four great Advantages which Religion doth principally design and intend us 1. To reconcile us unto God 2. To perfect our Natures 3. To intitle us to Heaven 4. To qualify us for Heaven And to each of these these kinds of
by using these Means by cutting the Wood and carving the Stone without any farther Aim or Intention he will find himself extreamly mistaken so he that would be godly must use the Means of Godliness he must profess the true Religion and pray and hear and receive Sacraments but he that thinks he is godly meerly because he uses these Means tho' he doth not at all concern himself to direct them unto the great End for which they were designed doth but deceive and abuse his own Soul For for God's sake what doth it signify for a Man to pray in his Family and afterwards to go and cheat in his Shop to keep the Lord's Day strictly and play the Knave all the Week after What doth it avail for a Man to hear the Word of God if he make no Conscience of obeying it to receive the Sacrament of Charity if he still retain Hatred and Ill-will to his Neighbour Do we think that God is so fond of these instrumental Duties of Religion as for their sakes to dispense with these gross and fulsome Immoralities No no these are things only fit to cheat Children and Fools withal But let us not imagine that the wise and holy God will be so imposed upon that when he hath ordained these Duties only as the Means of acquiring that universal Purity and Goodness which he principally intends and requires he will be contented barely with your using these Means whether the great Ends for which he designed them be ever obtained by you or no. If you should enjoin your Servant to copy out such a Letter or Manuscript and for that End should require him to use Pen Ink and Paper would you not think him extreamly absurd or insolent should he come and shew you a large insignificant Scribble and tell you that according to your Command he had used the Pen Ink and Paper tho' indeed he had not transcribed one Word with them of what you did command and enjoin him And yet thus rudely and insolently do you deal by God who place all your Religion in the instrumental Duties of it God doth require of you that you should copy out his Iustice Purity and Goodness and transcribe them into your own Natures and in order to your doing of this he hath prescribed you certain Means and Instruments such as Prayer and Hearing and receiving of Sacraments and when you come to give him an account of that mighty Task he hath enjoined you you shew him an insignificant Flourish of Religion and have nothing to say for your selves but that according to his Appointment you have prayed and heard and received Sacraments but you must confess that with all these you have not transcribed one Tittle or Iota of that Purity and Holiness which he required at your hands Is this a proper account do you think to be given to the wise and holy Soveraign of the World Would you be thus mocked by your own Servants and dare you presume thus to mock the great God between whom and you there is infinitely a greater distance than between you and the meanest Vassal about you In the Name of God for what End do you pray Is it to please him with a fine Speech or an humble and eloquent Address or is it to persmade him by your fawning Submissions to befriend you in all your Wickedness and Rebellion against him If either of these be your Aims I must plainly tell you you were as good save your Breath for some other purpose but if you pray to him upon a sincere Design to affect your Minds with an awful Sense of God and to obtain of him Grace to enable you to repent and amend and for Pardon and Mercy upon your unfeigned Repentance then your Prayer must necessarily make you more meek and humble and industrious to please him by a free and generous Obedience To what purpose do you come to hear the Word of God Do you think it gratifies the Almighty that you will please to give him the Hearing or that you meet in the publick Assemblies to furnish your Heads with Notions and your Tongues with Discourse If this be your Opinion I must needs tell you you have very mean Apprehensions of God to think him a Being capable to be pleased with such a mean and inconsiderable Trifle but if you come with humble honest and teachable Minds to learn the Will of God in order to your obeying it your hearing will necessarily lead you to the Practice of all those excellent Virtues which God requires at your hands What do you design when you receive the Sacrament is it to please God with offering Vows to him which you do not mean to perform to pacify him with a short Pang of religious Passion with shedding a few Tears over your bleeding Saviour or to get your Pardon sealed with the Blood of the Covenant without Repentance and Reformation If so I must needs tell you you receive the Sacrament to no other purpose but only to deceive and abuse your own Souls But if you come with an honest Design to remember the great things that your Saviour hath done for you to excite your Love to him with the Spectacle of his Passion and to renew your Communion with the Saints and your Vows of Obedience unto God you will then infallibly be made better by it and be more and more accomplish'd in every part of true and real Goodness So that unless we perform this outward and bodily Religion to the Purposes of true Godliness we perform it to no purpose at all Let me therefore beseech you even for God's sake and your own Souls do not rest in this bodily Religion think not that you have done enough when you have fasted and prayed heard and received Sacraments for if you do you are short of your Duty and will infallibly fall short of the Reward of it These Things indeed we must by no means neglect they being the necessary Means and Instruments of our Reformation but if we do not use them as such we take a great deal of Pains to no purpose if they do not render us more humble and charitable more sober and heavenly-minded we have spent all our Labour in vain and in the End shall have no other Reward for it but the Portion of Hypocrites in the Lake of Fire and Brimstone EZEKIEL XVIII 30. Repent and turn your selves from all your Transgressions so Iniquity shall not be your Ruin THE great Design of this Chapter is to answer an Objection which the Iews were wont to make against the Righteousness of God's Procedure with them viz. That he punished them not only for their own but for their Fathers Sins Which Objection tho it did not at all impeach the Righteousness of God it being no Injustice in Him to inflict temporal Evils upon the Children for their Fathers Sins yet that they might urge it no more as a Pretence of Gods unrighteous dealing with them God assures them by his
now inquiring must be such a Repentance as begins in the prospect of a near-approaching Death and to which that Death doth very suddenly follow Concerning which I shall enquire these three things 1. How far it is possible for such a Repentance to be effectual 2. How extreamly hazardous it is whether it ever actually prove effectual to our Happiness or no. 3. If it should prove so yet how impossible it is in an ordinary way for us to attain any comfortable Assurance of it 1. How far it is possible for such a Repentance to be effectual And here I dare not pronounce it to be absolutely and universally Ineffectual though I confess I am horribly afraid that it very rarely proves otherwise For the Repentance on which Salvation is entailed necessarily includes a through Change of Soul that is a new prevailing Iudgment and Resolution and for certain wheresoever this really is there is true Repentance For the very Life of Repentance consists in the universal Subjection of our Souls to God and this Subjection consists in such a firm Resolution of Soul to obey him as whensoever occasion is offered will render us actually obedient I know there are some who place this Subjection of our Souls to God in an universal Habit of Obedience but surely they do not consider that an Habit of Obedience which consistsin an inherent Aptness and Facility of obeying is not attainable under a long progress in Religion and that in our first Entrance into the religious State we are so far from being habituated to obey God that we generally obey with a greatdeal of Difficulty and while we do so 't is a Contradiction to say that we are habituated to Obedience So that by placing the Souls Subjection to God in such a Habit we undermine the Comfort of all Beginners in Religion and exclude all those from being faithful Servants who have not conquered the Difficulties of obeying And therefore I think it much more safe to place our first Subjection to God in a hearty Resolution of obeying for as Choice and Resolution is the principle of all our voluntary Actions so it is of our Subjection to God which being a moral Action must be voluntary and so begin in Choice or Resolution from whence if it hath opportunity it will proceed into Action and that being often repeated will gradually improve into an Habit and so in time render it natural and easie to us But if Death should intervene and deprive the Man who is thus sincerely resolved on all opportunities of actual Obedience that being accidental makes no change in his main State the Frame and Temper of his Soul remains the same it goes into Eternity a faithful Subject to God and had it continued longer here would have expressed its Subjection in all the necessary Acts of Homage and Obedience And far be it from us to imagine the condition of such a Soul to be desperate for though it is true that a holy Life is the indispensable Condition of Salvation yet it is also true that a holy Life is necessarily included in this Subjection of our Souls to God That Man doth live a holy Life who sincerely submits his Soul to God and is firmly resolved as occasion offers to express his submission in all the external Acts of Homage and Obedience 'T is true the Death-bed Penitent hath not opportunity to exercise himself in all the parts of Obedience he cannot practise Chastity and Temperance nor any other Vertue to whose contrary Vice his Sickness hath utterly disabled him but what of that neither hath the healthful Penitent always opportunity to practise every Vertue which God injoyns If he be poor or single he can no more give Alms or provide for his Children than the sick Man can be chaste or temperate and yet he lives a holy Life I hope though he hath no occasion or opportunity to practise either of these Duties Why then may not the sick Penitent that practises his Duty so far as he hath opportunity that heartily mourns for his sin and patiently submits to Gods correction that practises Humility and Devotion is charitable in forgiving Offences just in making Restitution for Injuries why may not such a one be as well said to live a holy Life when he doth all this out of a hearty Subjection of his Soul to God though he should have no opportunity to practise some other Vertues For he who is sincerely resolved to submit to the Laws of Temperance and Chastity is chast and temperate though he never have opportunity to practise them and all the difference between him and one that lives to practise what he resolves is only this that the latter will practise it and the former would and in Gods account who sees the Issues of all our Resolutions he is as really temperate who would be so if he had opportunity as he who is so when he hath so that though his Repentance be not strictly the same with the others yet it being to the same purpose we cannot imagine that the good God will damn him only for a punctilio If therefore it be possible for the Death-bed Penitent to reduce himself to a firm prevailing Resolution of obeying God I see no reason to conclude his Condition to be absolutely desperate for being so resolved he is a holy Man though very imperfectly I confess and if he go into Eternity with that Resolution with him that will dispose him for some degree of Happiness For if his Resolution be such as would have prevailed if he had continued in this Life it will as well prevail in the other and if it so prevail there as to render him actually obedient it will be necessary consequence render him in some measure a happy and blessed Spirit Obedience to God being as natural a Cause of Happiness as the Sun is of Light or the Fire of Heat and Burning All the Difficulty therefore is this not whether God will accept of such a Resolution as whether a Death-bed Repentance can be so far improved as to rise to such a Resolution And here I must needs confess and shall hereafter make it evident that the Difficulty of perfecting such a Repentance into such a Resolution is so exceeding great that it is the greatest madness in the World for any Man to promise himself success before hand whilst he is in Health and hath so many better opportunities of Repentance in his hand But that it is absolutely impossible I dare not say for these following Reasons 1. Because de facto we sometimes find that the Resolutions of a sick Bed have proved effectual We know there have been some Men who in a Fit of Sickness when they have looked on themselves as abandoned of all Hopes have yet betaken themselves to serious Resolutions which when they have recovered to their former Health have visibly proved effectual I confess these Sick-bed Resolutions do most commonly die when the Man recovers and he usually