of Repentance and all that relates to it and have wondered that among all our Excellent Practical Treatises we should hardly have one such sitted for common use among other Reasons of which I believe this may not be the least That 't is one of the most difficult things to write on an easie Subject as t is the hardest to paint Light When I drew the Model of this and had some of the Materials lying by me and ready framed I thought the perfecting and finishing it would not have cost me half the charge and pains and expence that I found it has and most Writers I believe like Builders find this and even afterwards when they have done they see many things they could mend and alter though they care not for being at the cost of pulling down again and building up anew It was only the Strength and Vsefulness and Conveniency I had regard to and it may have those tho' like a House built by parts and not altogether it want all that regular Order and Beauty that should set it off It is to be looked on only as a Popular Discourse to teach an useful Truth in Religion and raise the Affections and Imaginations up to it without that care and exactness that is to be served in closer Writings It will fully answer its end if it can but corvey a cleare and lively an understanding and warm sence of Religion into Mens Minds and free their Thoughts from such Mistakes and their Lives from such Sins as are too prevailing in the World and which like the Sea and its Rivers proceed from and maintain and run into one another For Men's Lusts and Pices make them willing to take up with false and loose Principles in Religion and those Principles feed and promote their Vice and Looseness The Sincerity and Zeal of serving so good an end as I have had my Eye all along upon or at least of endeavouring heartily to do it hath sufficiently armed me against all manner of Censures whatsoever and hath given me more satisfaction then if I had either had the ability or could have vainly promised my self the Applause of writing the Wittiest or Learnedest Book in the World This however mean and imperfect it is as I here put into your Hands So I presume to Dedicate to the Great God and my Blessed Redeemer the best Patrons who will certainly reward those that serve them heartily praying that it it may be Serviceable to their Honour and Glory to the promoting Vertue and Religion the bringing Men off from Sin and Wickedness the Conversion and Salvation of Souls and the Turning of Sinners from the Errors of their ways unto Righteousness that so both they and I may have the Rewards promised to all such THE CONTENTS THE Introduction wherein the Mistakes about Repentance are Noted and a Distribution made of the whole Discourse Page 1 to 11. CHAP. I. Giving a full Account of the Nature of Repentance Sect. 1. Scripture Words for Repentance p. 12. Sect. 2. Kinds and Degrees of Repentance p. 15. Sect. 3. True Notion of Repentance p. 21. Sect. 4. Mental epentance imperfect without Actual p. 34. CHAP. II. The Motives to Repentance Sect. 1. Of the Enticements to Sin p. 48. Sect. 2. Motives to Repentance from Reason and the Nature of the thing p. 62. Sect. 3. Motives to Repentance from the Gospel or pecaliar to Christranity p. 80. Sect. 4. Motives to Repentance from the Consideration of Hell p. 103. Sect. 5. Other Gospel Motives to Repentance p. 122. Sect. 6. Exhortation to Repentance in order to fit and prepare us to dye p. 145. Sect. 7. Of the Fear of Death and how we are delivered from it by Repentance and Religion p. 172. CHAP. III. Whether all Sins are Pardonable and may have the benefit of Repentance p. 193. Sect. 1. Of Apostacy Sins after Baptism Vpon Relapse p. 199. Sect. 2. Of the Sin against the Holy Ghost its Nature and whether Fardonable or no p. 212. Sect. 3. Of Concupiscence the Lustings of the Flesh or struggle between that and the Spirit p. 255. Sect. 4. Of Trouble of Mind or a Wounded Spirit p. 277. CHAP. IV. The ill Consequences drawn from the Priviledge of Repentance Obviated and Prevented p. 294. CHAP. V. Of a Death-Bed Repentance Sect. 1. The Case of the Thief upon the Cross Examined p. 315. Sect. 2. The Pleas and Pretences on behalf of a Death-Bed Repentance Answered p. 336. Sect. 3. The Invalidity of a Death-Bed Repentance shown from the Parable of the wise and foolish Virgins p. 358. Sect. 4. More Positive Proofs against the validity and sufficiency of a Death-Bed Repentance p. 392. CHAP. VI. Rules and Directions concerning the Particular Exercise of this Duty of Repentance p. 442. CHAP. VII How we may know we have repented and are in a Pardoned State p. 471. Sect. 1. Not committing Sin the only sure Mark of a good State p. 478. Sect. 2. The Differences of Sins what are and what are not consistent with a good State p. 508. Sect. 3. The Benefits of Repentance or the happiness of being in such a good State p. 535. The Conclusion p. 553. A Practical Discourse OF Repentance INTRODUCTION REpentance is the great Gospel duty which John the Baptist came Preaching as a Preparation to Christianity Matth. 3.2 Our Saviour also himself began with the same Matth. 4.17 The Disciples chose the same subject to preach on Mark 6.12 They went out and preacht that men should repent St. Peter in his Sermon to the Jews whereby he converted three thousand Souls preaches to them this Duty Acts 2.38 And this was what St. Paul testified to the Jews and to the Greeks repentance towards God and faith towards our Lord Jesus Christ Acts 20.21 as if the whole summe of the Gospel lay in those two Nay our Saviour himself makes this the very end and design both of his Sufferings and of his Resurrection that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in his name Luke 24.46 47. It is a Duty therefore of the greatest moment and importance in Christianity and ought above all to be considered practiced and understood The only Question is Whether it be so proper and necessary to preach it to Christians now as it was at first to Jews and Gentiles The whole World then lay in wickedness and God had concluded all under sin and in a state of great corruption both as to Manners and Worship so that Christ came then as a Physitian to cure the sick and prescribed this Medicine of Repentance as proper to their case and condition at that time and tells us himself that he came not to call the righteous but sinners to repentance Matth. 9.13 But 't is to be hoped that the World is well amended under Christianity that they who have been brought up in the knowledge of that excellent Religion and been devoted to it all their lives and had all the opportunities and advantages as well as obligations
Rubbish is taken away a good Life should be built and all the goodly structure of Christian Vertues should be erected I come now to propose the Motives and Encouragements to perswade us to this great Duty and they are as many and as great as there are obligations to Vertue and Religion and disswasives from Vice and Wickedness For Repentance is but a Return to Vertue and Leaving Sin and tho' the passage from one to the other may not be so pleasant and delightful but like the Israelites we must pass through a Wilderness through a vale of Sorrow and a course of Contrition and Humiliation yet Vertue is the happy Land flowing with delights and all manner of good things and Vice is a more than Egyptian Servitude and Slavery which he is mad that will not get out of or that any way hankers again after it or after the Garlick and Onions the sordid pleasures and enjoyments of it I shall first examine the Temptations and Enticements to Sin and expose the false Reasonings and Arguments by which Men are drawn into that then offer the Motives and greater Arguments to Repentance both from the Nature and Reason of the thing and from the Gospel or Christianity SECT I. Of the Enticements to Sin THe Enticements and temptations to Sin and Wickedness are so great and many that if we should judge of them by the effect and power which they have upon Mankind they are much stronger than the Motives and Arguments to Vertue and a good Life for we see they prevail upon more than the other do Whole crowds follow the one and are drawn by them into the broad way of Vice whilst Vertue has but a small party who walk in her narrow path and are perswaded to keep closely to it Now surely there must be some mighty and powerful charms in Vice that make it so generally take with most Men there must be some secret and prevailing Reasons that bring them over and engage them so firmly on that side and make Vertue so generally forsaken and deserted Men are Rational Creatures and free Agents that have a power to consider and choose what is best for them what tends most to please and delight and make them happy and they must be greatly imposed upon if they choose that which tends only to make them miserable God sets Life and Death before them as Moses before the Jews Deut. 30.15 and it must be great madness to choose the worser part and what one would think it impossible for any man to do if his Reason were not cheated and deceived with false appearances of good in it and it were not represented to him in such a false light and such false colours as made it seem quite otherwise then it is in its own Nature For no Man can choose Evil as Evil naked in it self and with its own ugliness and deformity about it but it must be drest up under the show of Good and painted and decked up in a meretricious dress to hide its Native and abominable Filthiness Mens Imaginations must be deluded and so their Reason deceived and imposed upon by the Temptations to Sin and there must be a great many false reasonings used to entice them to it or else so many who have thoughts about them and who cannot do any thing without thinking some way or other could never be drawn over to consent to it and to commit it Now the chief Delusions and false Reasonings and Perswasions by which Men are drawn into Sin for there must be some such process in their Minds are such as these following 1. They see and feel the present Good of their Sins and the after Evil is so uncertain or so remote that they know not what to think of it and so are not much influenced by it for they think it unreasonable to part with the present Pleasure and the certain Profit which their Sins afford them for an unknown and unseen and unconceived Pleasure and Happiness they know not when or where they find and feel most Vices very grateful to their Natural Appetites and outward Senses and they are not such fools as to be perswaded out of those nor to put a force and restraint upon Nature and its proper enjoyments Vertue tyes them up to such severe and hard and unnatural restraints as they cannot endure its Mortifications and Self-denyals are very uneasie to Flesh and Blood and they look upon its Rules and Precepts as the morose dictates of peevish and melancholly Men who cannot so well enjoy what others do and therefore talk against the liberties and freedoms of Humane Nature and fright Men from the pleasures and enjoyments of Sin here with the terrours of another World and imaginary dangers hereafter Is it then so very certain that Vice is so pleasant here So desirable and comfortable upon the account of present enjoyment and that its punishment hereafter is so unknown and uncertain That 't is not to be taken into consideration nor worth being more minded than it is by these Sinners do they never think of dying or are they possessed with such a frenzy as to hope they shall live alwayes or that three or fourscore years will never be run out though few live so long and they perhaps have lived above half that time and see how quickly it is gone and then will any Man in his wits venture to be miserable for ever for the Pleasures or Profits of Sin which are but for a season were they never so great If there were a much greater uncertainty about another World then there is yet who would run so dreadful a hazard who would put so great a matter to such a dangerous venture Were not the evidence we have of a future state from Nature from Revelation from the Resurrection of Christ nay from the belief of all Mankind so strong as it is so that not only whatever the Jews or the Christians have believed and witnessed down through all Ages must pass for a fable if it be not true but what all Wise Men have ever believed about a God and Religion must be a meer dream and chimaera Yet however no Man can ever be sure but that there is another World he can have no positive proof or demonstration that there is not and were there no more in it but that there may be such a thing which the greatest Atheist or Sceptical Infidel cannot pretend to deny yet this might be enough to keep him from running upon so dreadful though meerly possible danger and exposing himself to such extream but irrecoverable mischief especially for the poor and pitiful temptations of Sin at present For alas however pleasant and delightful they may imagine them yet they are generally mistaken and there is more true pleasure and comfort a thousand times to be found in a Life of Vertue and Religion than in the most tempting Wickedness and the most gustful Sensuality For which yields most present pleasure and comfort of Life
and bruises and putrifying sores i. e. They have been wicked in the general tenor and habit of their Lives and these must be wholly changed the whole mass being corrupted it must be quite altered The whole frame of their Minds and whole course of their Actions must be made quite otherwise like a defiled Body they must be wash'd all over or rather like a dead Carcass they must be raised to life again and restored wholly from their state of Death and Corruption which they were in before There are others who are not so diseased all over but yet have some mortal illness growing in some part upon them who are guilty of some particular Sins some known and wilful Faults that destroy their good state and put them into the rank though not of the greatest Sinners yet of such Sinners as shall not enter into Heaven nor escape Eternal Wrath and Vengeance unless they particularly repent of them and wholly forsake and leave them And thus every one who is conscious to himself that he is or has been ever guilty of any known and great Sin whatever it be though it should be but one such Sin must amend that and must get off that particular illness or else it will prove deadly and mortal if it continue upon him for one such disease or one such wound whilst 't is uncured upon the Soul will kill and destroy it as well as more Though a Man may not be universally depraved nor be wholly prostituted to debauchery and irreligion yet if he will indulge himself in any known Sin or in any particular Lust and Wickedness he is in a lost and undone state till he repents and wholly leaves that Sin And if a Man is in a good state and fall into a wilful and great Sin as we know David did that surely cuts him off for a time from his good state and renders him lyable to Gods Anger here and to Misery hereafter till by a serious and hearty Repentance he recovers himself and is so perfectly recovered from the Sin that he will never commit it again whatever Temptation is offered to him There are other Sins which are of a lower and less heinous Nature which do not destroy our good state nor put us out of the Favour of God nor exclude us out of Heaven and these are such as very good Men are subject to and may not be free from whist they are in this body of Sin and Corruption As the most healthful and best Constitutions may be subject to some smaller illnesses and indispositions of Body though not to great and mortal diseases so some frailties failures and imperfections will stick to the best of Men though not any mortal and wilful Sins and these frailties and infirmities are Sins in a strict sense as coming short of perfect Obedience to the Divine Law and these are in some sense also to be repented of i. e. we are to be sensible of them and sorry for them and we are every day to pray to God to forgive us these our Trespasses and we are to endeavour to overcome them as much as is possible and never let them grow as they may by neglect into wilful Sins but these are all pardonable by the Mercy of God and by vertue of the gracious Covenant which he hath made with us in Christ Jesus upon a general Repentance without a perfect and particular amendment of all of them which is utterly impossible and inconsistent with Humane frailty and infirmity There is therefore a great difference to be made in respect of several kinds of Sins and several sorts of Sinners of this great Duty of Repentance There are some of whom the Scripture sayes that they need no repentance Luke 15.7 i. e. who need not such a Repentance as shall change and alter their Spiritual state who never were in a bad state being early Baptized nor never were guilty in their whole lives of any one such great and wilful and heinous Sin as put them into a damnable state I hope there are not a few who are in this blessed condition and therefore who need not this greater Repentance as I think I may call it who by the blessing of God and by means of a very Vertuous and Religious Education have been early trained up in the wayes of goodness and never departed from them who were set right at first and never wandered or strayed out of the paths of Vertue whose Feet never slipt so far as to take hold of the paths of Death or be caught in the snares of the Devil who never defiled themselves with any great Sin but have preserved their virgin-purity and have had no foul spot to sully the whiteness and beauty of their whole unblemisht Conversation but were alwayes innocent and alwayes safe like Zacharias and Elizabeth were alwayes righteous before God walking in all the commandments and ordinances of the Lord blameless Luke 1.6 I cannot say these are wholly sinless and altogether perfect for so none of the Race of Adam or the Children of Men are except our Blessed Saviour for there are some infirmities and weaknesses and imperfections that belong to these and so they stand in need of that lesser Repentance I before spake of but they never were guilty of the great offence and so need not that greater Repentance which others do And 't is of that I now speak a repentance from dead works as the Apostle calls it Heb. 6.1 A Repentance from wilful and mortal Sins such as put us into an ill state and such as we shall certainly perish except we repent of them Luke 13.3 SECT III. True Notion of Repentance NOw this Repentance I would thus describe answerable to those three words by which it is exprest in Scripture A sorrow for our Sins joyned with change and alteration of Mind and amendment or reformation of Life or such a sense of Mind as makes us leave and forsake or turn away from every Sin or all the Sins we have been guilty of and practice the contrary Vertues or perform those other Duties we have broken or been wanting in Thus where we have been bad Men in any instance and violated our Duty and offended God and broken or transgrest his Laws it will make us become good Men afterwards and perform our Duty and return to God and keep or obey his Commandments in all those cases wherein we have done otherwise before This this alone is such a Repentance as avails to Pardon and Salvation as it takes away every Sin which would damn us and brings us to that Obedience and practice of all Vertue and Holiness without which no man can see God or be saved Repentance I own is a word of an equivocal meaning that signifies several things and has several senses belonging to it as sorrow and trouble of Mind change of Thoughts and the like which are meant by the Latin Paenitentia and Resipiscentia and by the Greek 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉
new and holy Life and be available to his true Conversion and Repentance and I believe this is Gods usual way by which he begins to effect this upon most Sinners by thus bringing them to some serious thinking and considering It is very great Mercy when God thus checks them in their career and calls to them by the loud voice of his Judgments and thus as he generally does puts the first stop to them and makes them bethink themselves and consider but then this method must not only awaken but keep their eyes open and make them see and consider those other Thoughts and Reasons which are the more proper seminal Principles that will be more likely to produce and beget this true Repentance Such as are 2. In the second place a serious reflection and thorough conviction of the Evil that is in Sin and of the real Good of Vertue as the only thing which can make us truly happy for till Men have brought themselves to be fully perswaded and convinced of this and to believe it as firmly as they do any truth in Mathematicks or any other Science they will never be brought truly to Repent that is to dislike and hate and renounce the one and heartily to love and persue and embrace the other for Men will still love their Sins and hanker after them and be ready to comply and close with them upon every occasion if they only fall out with them sometimes as Lovers do with what they like and admire and tho' there may be some bickerings between them and some penitential passions and resentments now and then yet they may still have their Heart if they do not upon wise observations and thorough convictions believe them to be enemies to their Welfare and Happiness to the comfort of their Lives here and their Eternal Salvation hereafter and that they get nothing by them but poor and empty and sickly pleasures but that they bring substantial misery and bitter remorse and anguish of Mind and a thousand mischiefs and inconveniences along with them at present besides the terrible hazards and dangers of another World so that they are by no means to be loved or chosen if we love our selves or choose our own Happiness For we must bring it to this if we would be steddy and certain to the first Principles of Self-preservation and a desire of our own Happiness which lyes at the root of our Nature and what we shall alwayes act upon if we rightly understand it and do not grosly err and mistake about it and a few wise observations and a little sober thinking and considering will easily satisfie us and fully convince us that Vice is the certain cause of misery to us and that Vertue is the only way to be truly easie and happy The Sinner will be convinced of this by his own experience when he reflects upon his past follies and sees how little he has got by his Sins but shame and sorrow and trouble of Mind perhaps a sickly and diseased Body and a wasted Estate and wretched Beggery and every thing that shall make him miserable in this World before he goes to the greater misery of another For do we not dayly see this how one Man brings himself by his Sins to a morsel of bread how he shipwrecks his Fortunes as well as his Conscience by Luxury and Prodigality another consumes his Body as well as his Estate by Debauchery Lust and Intemperance by these they sin as the Apostle remarks against their own Bodies as well as against their Souls they make them bear the scars and marks of their Sins upon them and become Martyrs in the Devils service and endure often more torture of Body for their Sins than other Martyrs have done for their Religion sacrifice their Lives to them and by living too fast as they call it bring an untimely death upon themselves and are in so much hast sometimes to dye that their Bodies often rot before they come into their graves If these mischiefs do not follow all Sins yet some others do and the greatest of all is inseparable from them which is torment and anguish of Conscience and pain and uneasiness of Mind which every Man feels unless his Conscience be stupified and mortified which is a worse state than the other upon the commission of any great Sin and this is ten times greater than any fancied pleasure in it This is a sting a wound a prick upon the most tender part of a Mans Soul a dart struck through his Liver a Worm gnawing upon his Vitals nothing is so close and so cutting a pain and misery as a Man 's own ill Conscience when it is let loose upon him and like a Fury falls upon him with its utmost rage lashes him with its snaky whips and burns him with its fiery torches 't is then a Devil let loose and a Hell kindled within his own bosom They who have felt but a little of it know it is more exquisite pain than any belongs to the Body and what is it then to endure this for ever and lye under that and the further anger of God to all Eternity Oh madness and folly that wants a name that will do this for any Sin whatever Oh the dreadful Evil of Sin that brings all this and so many other mischiefs upon us But 3. Vertue on the contrary has a thousand Comforts Blessings and Goods belonging to it which should make us love it as we do our selves and choose it as heartily and firmly as we do our own Happiness When we rightly understand and consider it we shall find Reason to do so that neither disturbs our Mind nor diseases our Body nor squanders away our Estate nor brings any reproach and discredit along with it as Vice generally does and it takes away no real Good or true Pleasure or proper Enjoyment from us but it allowes us all that we can desire or that our Nature was made for within the due bounds and limits of our Duty and within those we may enjoy as much Vertuously and Innocently as the greatest Liberty and Debauchery can afford the Sinner Vertue does not destroy our Pleasures but refines and purifies them and so makes them sweeter and better and draws them off from the filthiness and sediment and bitterness that lyes alwayes at the bottom of all sinful Pleasures and Enjoyments No Man ever repented of his Vertues or was sorry that he had done a good Action but he finds great comfort and satisfaction within himself when he reflects upon it and it is a prop and stay to his Mind and he rests securely upon it and is chearful confident and erect under all accidents and all dangers and difficulties whatsoever His Heart standeth right and approveth it self to God and to his own thoughts having no ill designs no base and mean ends and purposes but such only as are good and vertuous and this gives him great peace firmness of Mind and bravery of Spirit and
here it would not be brought off from it that will ruine it and make it miserable for ever for if we love any one Sin more than Heaven we must be contented to lose and part with Heaven for it and if any Lust or Vitious Inclination be so dear to us that we are not willing to give it up for the sake of Happiness we give up our Happiness for the sake of that for they two are so inconsistent that we cannot keep both Let not therefore any Sin remain unmortified in thy Soul if thou wouldst put thy self into such a readiness and disposition as shall fit thee to enter upon a happy Future State And 2. Let all Vertuous Habits and Religious Dispositions of Mind be then excited and exercised and increased to the highest perfection 'T is these will fit our Souls for Heaven and be the true Wedding garment for the Marriage-feast and 't is these are meant by that expression in the Parable of having our Lamps burning in order to our waiting for the coming of the Bridegroom Let our Devotion therefore be then kindled into the highest flame and ardour and our Souls expire and ascend up in it to the Regions above Let us raise our Minds to the highest love of God and of our Blessed Saviour and let our Souls be ravished with the thoughts of their wonderful love and kindness to us Let us look up to Heaven and to those joyes which God has there prepared for us and let us desire as soon as God pleases to be translated to them Let us look down upon this World with mean and despicable thoughts and let us consider what a poor and a miserable place it is and be very willing to part with it and let us exercise all Faith and Hope and Trust and Confidence in our Faithful Creator and Merciful Redeemer and be willing to throw our selves wholly and chearfully upon them and to trust them with out Souls when they are going into an unknown place and to the invisible Hades When we believe our Lord is near and coming in a few minutes thus should we wait for him with our Loyns girded up and our Lamps burning as our Saviours expression is and our Minds put into such a Religious frame and disposition that we may be as like Heaven as we can and our Souls may be ready to go in with the Bridegroom and to be admitted to the Marriage-feast of the Lamb for evermore We must not think that these Habits and Religious Dispositions of Mind are to be got on a sudden but we must bring our Minds to them by previous Acts and long Preparations and frequent Exercises before-hand and habituate our selves to these Divine and Religious Duties and Exercises or else we shall find like the foolish Virgins that we want Oyl and have nothing in our Souls that should feed and nourish and kindle and maintain these Heavenly Habits and Dispositions which are the immediate readiness of our Minds But to give the plainest advice I can in so important a matter I shall propose two easie Directions which I would have every one observe that would make himself the most ready for Death and the coming of the Son of Man The 1st is To be doing all the good we can to promote the Honour of God and the Welfare of Men to be as the Parable represents it Mat. 24. at the latter end doing earnestly the business of our Lord and taking all the care we can of his Family and giving them their meat in due season and discharging all that trust faithfully and diligently which our Lord hath committed to us and not smiting our fellow servants or doing any the least injury to others or eating and drinking with the drunken and living carelesly and idly as the evil Servant is said to do Who put away the thoughts of his Lords coming ver 48. Those who do that are apt to be negligent and wicked but he that is alwayes watchful and alwayes waiting for the Lords coming as the Parable describes the good Servant will be faithful and diligent in performing every Duty and every Office that his Lord requires of him and will be contriving and designing to do all the good he can to please his Lord and purchase his Favour for he knows that an idle Servant shall be punished as well as a wicked one and that the omission of a necessary Duty commanded us by our Lord will be as much charged upon us as the commission of any thing that he has forbidden us He will therefore be careful and diligent to do all his Masters Commands to fulfil all his Will to help and relieve his fellow-servants and do all the good he can in his Masters Family encourage others to do their Duty exhort advise reprove and admonish them and prepare them as well as himself for his Lords coming and Blessed is that servant who when his Lord cometh he shall find thus doing and thus employed But 2. He that will be thus ready must never allow himself in any Sin or in the doing of any thing that he knows is unlawful and forbidden by his Lord for if his Lord cometh and findeth him in that He shall cut him asunder and appoint him his portion with the hypocrites there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth Mat. 24.51 There is no hopes for him if he be thus surprized in his Wickedness and Death overtake him in the midst of his Sin like the revenger of Blood before he can get into any City of Refuge He that ventures upon a wilful Sin ventures upon the very brinks of Hell and Damnation and if a sudden Death turn him over he falls in irrecoverably and at best he that suffers himself to live in a bad state i. e. in a course of Sin hangs over the bottomless Pit by no other hold but the weak and brittle thread of Life and if that break or be cut asunder he drops into that dreadful place of horrors No Man therefore who is master of his Wits and knows he is not master of his Life should dare to live one moment in so much peril exposed to such danger and hazard and venture his Soul and his last stake upon so ticklish a cast as this uncertain Life is But he should instantly whilst he has this thought offer'd to his Mind catch himself out of the Fire out of the Eternal Flames of Hell into which so far as he knows he may be just a falling for they surround him and are ready to lay hold upon him as long as he continues in his Sins and the gulph is open and ready to suck him in and swallow him up till he plunges out and rescues himself by a speedy Repentance Let no Man then make one hours one minutes delay who knows not how few hours or minutes he may have II. For in the next place to give some Reasons why we should be thus ready Who knows at what hour the Son of Man
offer 4. Then Such a Repentance as the Gospel makes the condition of Pardon and Salvation is nothing less than a constant Obedience and an entire and universal Goodness of Life at least after a wicked one or after great failures and miscarriages for Repentance as I have often said is to the Soul like a recovery of Health to the Body after some great Sickness or Illness The whole Body or the part ill affected must be made perfectly well and restored to its former strength and soundness or else it cannot be said to be recovered The Disease must be throughly got off the sickly matter must be discharged the illness must be cured and removed and the Patient must get his former strength and be able to perform the proper and vital operations or else we cannot say he is well So a Sinner must wholly get rid of his past Sins must purge them all out by Sorrow and Contrition must have his Mind wholly freed from them and himself brought to such a Spiritual strength and soundness as to perform the Duties and Operations of the new Life or else he is not recovered by Repentance nor brought from a bad state to a good one He may be under a method of Cure indeed as a sick Man is under a course of Physick whilst he is under Sorrow for Sin and Contrition and Compunction and the like which are good means and instruments and beginnings of Repentance and so are mistaken for the thing it self but his Repentance is not finish'd nor is the great work perfect and compleat till from a bad Man in any kind he is become a good one till this is done which God knows is not the most easie nor the most speedy thing in the World but requires long time and great care and pains and labour there is no title that I know of to Pardon by the Terms of the Gospel nor is there any true Gospel Repentance such as we can give any warrant or assurance of remission to by the Covenant of Grace or the known and ordinary Rules of Gods Mercy Were Repentance only a sudden Passion or a transient Act of the Mind were it only an inward Sorrow Trouble and Compunction of Heart it might be quickly performed and no Sinner would be without it but Cain and Herod and Judas might be said to Repent thus far and after this fashion for thus the one repented and said I have sinned Mat. 27.3 4. the second was exceeding sorry for what he had done Matth. 6.26 and the other was so sensible of his Sin that he cryed out My punishment is greater than I can bear Gen. 4.13 But true Repentance is only known and made to be so by an habitual and lasting change both of Mind and Life by an actual amendment and reformation by a turning away from all our evil deeds and all our wickedness whatsoever that we have committed and doing that which is lawful and right which is the clearest and fullest Scripture expression that gives us the true Nature of Repentance which includes constant and actual Obedience and destroyes these foolish and wicked reserves of securing our selves by playing an after-game of Repentance They who design this have no sense of the true worth and excellency of Religion but are only for making use of it for a little turn at the last as Goal-birds learn to read meerly for the sake of their Neck-verse for though they like their Sins much better and would alwayes live in them it is plain if they were left to their choice yet they at last unwillingly bring themselves to part with them as Men throw over their Goods in a Storm for fear they should be lost and Shipwreck'd with them Thus miserably do they mistake and misunderstand the true Nature of Repentance which is a perfect changing the Habit and Temper and Frame of a Mans Mind and bringing other Thoughts and Principles and Inclinations into it which is called in Scripture a new Heart and a new Spirit and this producing an entire and permanent and universal change of the Life and Actions and making a Man become better in every particular and in the whole a very good Man 5. It is observable that Repentance is all along in the Gospel made a Duty previous and antecedent to Christianity and what was supposed to go before Baptism and what was necessary before-hand to fit and prepare Men to become Christians thus they were to repent and be baptized Acts 2.38 John the Baptist who was to prepare the way for Christianity did it by preaching Repentance for this reason Because the Kingdom of Heaven was at hand Matth. 3.2 i. e. Christianity or the state of the Gospel which is agreed by all to be there meant by the kingdom of Heaven was now approaching and our Blessed Saviour upon that Principle and Argument preach'd the same Duty ver 17. From that time he began to preach and to say Repent for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand And the Disciples of Christ preach'd this Duty Mark 6.12 when they were to prepare and dispose Men to receive Christ and to embrace Christianity and when any that were adult were received into the Church and Christianity by Baptism they were supposed to be Penitents before they were Christians It was a Duty and a Condition alwayes implyed and required that they Repented of their past Sins and sincerely promised and resolved upon a new course of Life That they who had their conversation in times past in the lusts of the flesh fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind and were by Nature the children of wrath as the Apostle speaks Eph. 2.3 i. e. in the state they were in before they were Christians for the Gospel considers all Mankind as in a state of Sin and Guilt before they are admitted into Christianity which is a state of Pardon and Salvation that these when they were made Christians were to put off the old man with his deeds Col. 3.9 i. e. all the old Habits and Acts of Sin which they were guilty of in their unchristian state and were to put on the new man which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness Eph. 4.24 and they were to become new creatures in Christ Jesus and were therefore then said to be regenerated and to be born again and are represented in Scripture as dying unto all sin in Baptism that they should not henceforth live any longer therein Rom. 6.2 They are buried with Christ by baptism into his death that like as Christ was raised from the dead even so we also who are baptized into his death should walk in newness of life ver 3. So that after Baptism we should reckon our selves to be dead unto sin but alive unto God through Jesus Christ ver 11. So that the body of sin is then to be put off and destroyed that henceforth we should not serve sin ver 6. Thus though Men were considered as Sinners before their Baptism
Happyness and Salvation Now no Man can in any sense call the Sorrows and Remorses and Repentance of dying Sinners Gospel Obedience but only a trouble and concern for the want of it and for the disobedience of their whole lives There would be no difference between Obedience and Disobedience if this were so No Master or Father would account him an Obedient Servant or Obedient Son who should only confess and be sorry that he had always disobeyed him until upon this his sorrow he showed himself Obedient for the future and did him some faithful Service How long a Man must be Obedient after he hath been Disobedient or how long time is required for a Sinner who repents to come off from his Sins and become a good Man is hard to determine exactly but there must be so much time as shall make a Drunkard sober a Whoremonger chast an unjust Man Righteous a Swearer and Prophane Person Devout and Pious the Covetous Man Just and Charitable and the like for we are assured that whilst Men are such Sinners as any of those they have no inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God Ephes 5.5 and therefore they must so long obey the Laws of God till they are truly become and may be denominated Sober Just Charitable Pure Holy Religious and the like for Heaven is a place only for such Men and such Souls as are thus qualified and who have obeyed Gods Laws so long till they are become thus It shall never be given to those who have been disobedient to God all their lives and can now performe no acts of Obedience to him such can never perform that Indispensable Condition of Salvation required by the Gospel and nothing less then this will do there is no such disjunctive any where in the Bible that I know of to this sense Be Holy and Obedient and lead a Good Life in order to be Fternally happy or else Repent and be Sorry for not doing it when you come to dye but only thus where you have sinned and been disobedient for the time past Repent and be Obedient for the time to come and this shall be accepted as in that known place when the wicked man turneth away from his wickedness which he hath committed and doth that which is lawful and right he shall save his soul alive Ezek. 18.27 'T is his doing that which is lawful and right i. e. his Obedience for the future shall save his soul alive all his transgressions that he hath committed they shall not be mentioned unto him upon his new Obedience or Repentance in his Righteousness that he hath done shall he live ver 22. it must be Righteousness afterwards or his obeying God after his former disobedience shall entitle him to Life and Happyness and be the Condition of it 2. As Obedience is the only term and condition of our Salvation by the Gospel so there is no just reason or good ground to hope that God will in any case abate of the termes of Salvation he hath there lay'd down or be mercyful beyond those for two reasons 1. Because this would be neither consistent with the Holiness of his Nature nor the wisdom of his Government for as he is a Holy and Righteous God he cannot love any but a righteous and good Soul and so cannot make any other happy because a wicked and impure Soul is contrary to his Nature and what he hates and abominates and what can never see or enjoy God neither is it consistent with the Wisdom of God as Governour of the World to reward any but the obedient and the righteous for it would reflect upon his Justice and his Authority if he should suffer Men to go on in their Wickedness and Disobedience all their lives and not punish them for it Mercy indeed and Clemency is the Honour of any Prince and that which commends him to the love and esteem of all but then it must be shown wisely to proper and fit Objects and for good Reasons to bring Men in to their Duty and draw them off from their Disobedience with the promise of a Pardon upon their doing so and returning to their Allegiance But if a Prince shall grant this to all sort of Offenders out of the weakness and softness of his Temper he will loosen his Government and weaken his Authority and make himself cheap and contemptible and as he will encourage Rogues and Rebels so he will injure the Publick and not take due care as becomes a wise Governour of the Common good should God grant a full and absolute pardon to Sinners who have lived never so long in their sins because they are very sorry for them when they come to dye and they can live in them no longer this would encourage Men who love their Sins to continue in 'em all their lives and then Repent at last and so save themselves the trouble as they think it of living a very good life God indeed has promised pardon to all who repent and turn from their sins and live good and holy lives after they have lived bad ones and this is sufficient encouragement to make a wicked Man become a good one with the certain hopes that when he does so God will receive him but to go farther and suppose God to pardon a long wicked life spent altogether in Sin and Disobedience merely for a little sorrow and remorse and trouble when Men come to dye is to open a wide Door to vice and wickedness and to supersede the necessity of Obedience and a good life and therefore should God grant this it would destroy Religion and take off the Obligations to Vertue and make all his Motives to Obedience and Threatnings against Sin to be void empty and ineffectual 2. There is no Reason to think God will abate of the termes of the Gospel and be more merciful than he has there promised to be because as the Gospel seems to contain the utmost Grace and Mercy that God can show to Men so it shall certainly be the Rule of the last judgment and God will then proceed and pronounce judgment according to the Rules and Measures of that 't is the most vain and impudent thing in the World to expect any further Mercy than God has revealed to vs by Jesus Christ He hath in all probability shown the utmost kindness and favour that is possible to Mankind for his sake he has opened the bowels of his Mercy and the Riches of his Grace as the Apostle speaks Eph. 1.7 and has exhausted all the treasures of love and compassion to poor Sinners that a Wise and Just God can possibly show with consistence to his own honour and the honour of his Laws and Government to expect therefore that God should be gracious beyond the Gospel and make farther and greater abatements to us and be more merciful than he hath promised to be by his Son whom he sent with the most full and gratious Message of loving kindness
corrupting an antient Practice and using the Keys of the Church only to unlock the Consciences first and then the Purses of the Laity and is a wretched Corruption of the true Notion of Repentance by making it a light and transient thing and that the least degree of Sorrow by the Power of the Keys is sufficient for Pardon and Salvation From them I doubt not came the first loose and wretched Mistakes about Repentance and these being joyned with the false and unwary Doctrines of others about Justifying and Saving Faith its being a mere fiduciary Relyance upon Christ and his Merits and that we were to be saved by the free Grace of the Gospel without Obedience to its Commands or Performing its Conditions and that God's Grace was so powerful and miraculous in the Conversion of a Sinner that it did its work Instantaneously and Irresistibly these hindred Men from performing that Duty that true Repentance and Obedience which they thought upon some accounts not so necessary or that they expected could be done for them in an instant and so they need not trouble themselves about it all their lives by these Reserves and false Principles and comfortable as they call 'em but deceitful Doctrines they shifted off the difficult task of leaving all their Sins and leading a good life which otherwise must be owned to be the only true way to Salvation and Happiness and when this appears clearly to us as it will if we rightly understand Religion nothing but downright Atheism and disbelieving it will hinder the Power and Efficacy of it upon our lives But as to the Usefulness of those Penitential Austerities and Mortifications and Acts of Humiliation though private Repentance may be without them yet they may be of some good Use and Advantage both as means to promote it and as signs fit to express it Thus fasting especially and abstinence from food is a proper way both of afflicting the Soul and of bringing the body into subjection and as feasting in the Nature of the thing is improper for one Sorrowing Mourning and Repenting as we ought often to be upon serious and sad Reflections made upon our Sins so for many Sins pampering and indulging the Carkass is adding fuel to them and to abate and substract from our Meat and drink is to cut off those Recruits and Nourishments which usually make provision for the flesh and maintain the lusts thereof Now then private prudence and discretion will advise every good Man to make use of that which he finds may be so useful and instrumental to the purposes of Vertue and to the designs of Religion but to enjoyn it further and lay an absolute necessity of it to all Persons and Tempers as of Prayer giving Alms and other Christian Duties this is more than either the Church or the Scripture does ever warrant I speak as to private Repentance which is effectual to every Mans Pardon and Salvation as to publick such as the Publick Fasts commanded by Authority either in the Jewish or Christian Church there the Nature of the thing and Obedience to those who were lawful Governours made it a Duty to comply with their Religious Commands and Designs and to Express our Publick and Solemne Repentance by such signs as are fit and usual on such an occasion and not to keep a Festival when our Governours and our Christian Neighbours and our Sins and the fear of some Judgment call upon us for Fasting and Humiliation but bow long we are then to fast and whether to eat nothing till the Evening and what kind of Meat is what our Health and Constitution and a little degree of Prudence joyned with a good sense of Religion will direct us in without a Confessor He is a Slave to his Appetite and makes a God of his Belly who cannot deny himself a meal now and then upon such an account and he is a weak and Superstitious Creature who thinks Religion lies in some strict and little niceties of performing this without regard to his Health and the more true and proper designs of it Fasting has been alwayes observed by Devout and Pious Penitents in all Ages as an Exercise of penitence and a help to Devotion and Religion and Lent or the Antepaschal Fast is especially of great Usage and Antiquity in the Christian Church but not observed alike in all places as is plain from Irenaeus and others but it was chiefly designed for Publick Penitence of notorious Sinners who were to be restored to the Communion of the Church and Receiving the Sacrament at Easter but it may be of good Use to the private Repentance of every particular Christian who ought to set aside some time for the Examining of himself and the Reflecting upon his past Sins and as long as he lives he ought to Exercise a particular Repentance for all the wilful Sins he ever committed and to have some appointed times to offer up the Sacrifice of a broken and contrite heart and to let his heart bleed afresh and pierce it self very deeply with the remembrance of its past Sins which though God has forgotten so as not to punish yet he ought never to forget so as not to Repent of them I mention not other Bodily penances such as putting on Sackcloth and Ashes which were Eastern Modes of Mourning but do no more oblige us than rending our Garments and pouring out Water which were used by them and as to whipping and going bare-foot which one calls the penance of a Goose Some of those which are in use in the Roman Church are rather Heathenish than Christian Customs like Baals Priests Cutting and Lancing themselves and they are no more proper to Cure Men of their Sins or be Helps to Repentance than the taking a Purge or Vomit which would work as effectually upon their Minds and expel their Vices and Corruptions as well as any of those Penitential Rods and Disciplines upon the backs of Fools who understand not what true Repentance is All such Bodily Exercise profiteth nothing to the freeing from their sins but is only a commuting with God for them and makes them believe that repentance lyes only in such an opus operatum which however severe it seems yet is much easier than to leave their Sins and their beloved Lusts as we find many of our Lovers of Wine rather choose to take Physick now and then to cure their Head-ach than to become sober which would do it much better But true Repentance is not to be known or judged of by such unnatural follies which they call the fruits but are not so much as the shadows of true Repentance nor by any of these External Symptoms or Acts of Penitence which are the most proper Exercises or Attendants of it but by the Change wrought upon our Hearts and Lives and the Effectual Amendment and Reformation of both as we are to judge of the Soundness and Goodness of our Health not by the strength or bitterness of the Physick we
grow common to all others if it had the same temptation to invite and the same opportunity to commit them and 't is only for want of those that it is not universally lewd and wicked and given up to commit all uncleanness with greediness what should hinder or restrain him from all other Sins who gives way to any one plain and great one if he were assaulted by the like temptation in any other place he would yield to it and comply with it even in the grossest manner for he has lost his guard and the security of his Vertue and by such a wide and open breach made in his Conscience all other sins might enter and the whole Legion take possession of him There can be no true Reason to preserve him from any or from all sins who knowingly and wilfully allows himself in any one 7. Any such sin is utterly inconsistent with true sincerity and this we know is absolutely necessary to our good state though perfection of Obedience is not 't is truely and commonly said that God requires not absolute perfection of us but only true sincerity because the best Men cannot attain to the one and he must be a very bad one who hath not the other but there is a perfection of parts and degrees we are not bound to the highest degrees of every Vertue in order to a State of Grace and Goodness but we are to have such a perfection of parts as to performe every Duty and every Vertue required of us and to be without every willful Sin contrary to the Divine Law for less than this will not amount to true sincerity that shall commend us to God and approve us to him who knows our hearts for whilst he sees there any one sin that we love more than we do him which we prize and value above his favour and all that he can give us even Heaven it self he cannot think our hearts are upright towards him or that we sincerely love him for can he sincerely love God who does any wilful thing that he knows is infinitely displeasing to him And can it be consistent with the faithfulness and integrity of friendship to do the most injurious and the most disobliging thing imaginable Can he love his Prince or the Government where he lives who endeavours in any thing to subvert and destroy that Authority by an open standing out and breaking their Laws There may be indeed a Personal Love to an Earthly Prince distinct from Obedience to his Laws and so some would have to God and Christ for he may be capable of receiving other Pledges and Testimonies of it and may be many other ways obliged by us because he may have a Distinct Interest or Inclination different from his laws but this cannot be in God whose Laws are always agreeable to his Nature and the result of his own infinite Wisdom and Reason and he can never be pleased with any that act contrary to them nor is capable of receiving any other grateful or acceptable thing from us but only Obedience to his Commands so that by this only we that are his Creatures can oblige him and testifie the sincerity of our Love to him as St. John says This is the love of God that we keep his commandments 1 John 5.3 There is no other certain sign or expression of our Loving God but obeying him and no sign of Loving him with all our heart and soul and mind but obeying him Universally and not dividing and sharing out our Love to him and our sins and suffering any of our vile Lusts to be his Rivals and Competitors in our Affections Whilst we allow our selves in any known and wilful sin we take part with that which is an Enemy to God we harbour and nourish a known Traytor to him in our breasts and if we will not give it up we break with God and Declare open Enmity against him and will rather part with him and his friendship than part with a Paltry and a Vile Lust whilst we thus indulge any darling Sin and secret Wickedness in our heart as God cannot love us so neither can we sincerely love him but whatever showes and pretences of kindness and respect we may show to him otherwaies whatever Courtship and Honour we may give to him by the Ceremonies of Worship and the External Rights and Offices of Religion yet he will account us only false and treacherous and hypocritical Wretches and not accept of any thing else we offer to him For 8 Allowing our selves in one such darling Sin or beloved Lust spoils all our Religious Duties and makes them both unacceptable to God and us unfit to performe them as we ought He that allows himself in any secret Sin and unlawful Lust how must he be sunk into a sensual State that will keep him from rising to Spiritual Thoughts and Exercises his Mind is taken up with other apprehensions and idea's of different objects which he prefers to all the things of Religion and these sink down his mind and bemire it in flesh and sense that it cannot use its wings or rational faculties and mount upwards to the purer objects of Faith and Religion Those vitious inclinations must quench and put out the fire of Devotion and make the mind move sluggishly and heavily in such an improper work and damp all its Religious Ardors and Affections When a Man out of a Natural Sense of God cannot excuse himself wholly from worshipping and praying to him for I speak not of such as have cast off all Religion but only such as allow themselves in one wicked Lust or unlawful Liberty how must it be a violence to him to pray against a Sin and beg pardon of it and Grace to forsake it when he secretly resolves to keep it and has no true and full design in his mind to leave it What a struggle must there be between his Conscience that is awakened by his Devotion and his sensual Appetite which is so fond of the Sin that nothing can keep him from it and who when he is deploring himself in the holy Offices yet intends to commit it the next opportunity What horrid Mockery and impudent Banter is this with the great and awful Majesty of God And what wretched Hypocrisie to make shows of great Honour and Address to him when our hearts are not right with him and we must know that he well knows they are not so No Man could have the face to be so impudent to another as to come and make great court to him and express great Respect and Reverence and Kindness for him when he knew at the same time that the other also knew that this was all false and hypocritical and that he took all occasions at other times to affront and contemne and disoblige him And yet thus every Man does who under all his Devotion and seeming Piety nourishes a secret sin and an unlawful Lust and demurely covers a vile fraud or injustice or any immorality