if some Men were more afraid of Death than they are and as I am sure they have all reason to be that so they might be brought off from their evil wayes and not run headlong upon those dangers which are very near them though they are not sensible of them The sword hangs over their head though they do not see it and nothing but the thin thread of Life keeps it from falling upon them they walk blindfold upon the brinks of Hell and Damnation and it would be well of Fear would open their Eyes and make them recover themselves before Death makes it too late Nothing can truly and throughly arm us against the Fears of Death but Repentance and a good Life To those who have lived in the practice of them Death is a very harmless thing 't is but lying down to sleep closing the eyes and going to rest the Bodies being sensless a while till it awakes at the great day of Judgment and passing a longer night in the Grave till it arises more fresh and lively in the morning of the Resurrection and as for the Soul 't is a short and quick passage from Earth to Heaven and therefore such have no reason to be afraid of it when it approaches them never so near But then 2. Let the true Penitent quicken his Faith at that time and raise that to the highest and strongest pitch that so he may then look beyond the grave and see and believe and desire those happy and glorious things which God has prepared for him in another World If we believed those as we ought we should never be so afraid to dye if we were so affected with those pleasures that are above and that are at Gods Right-hand for evermore we should not be so loth to part with the Pleasures shall I say rather with the Troubles and the Miseries of this Life Did we think as we ought of that perfect peace and joy and satisfaction which is not to be had here but to be met with only in Heaven we should not be so fond to abide in this Valley of Tears and not go up to those Mansions above where is full Joy and Contentment Let us fix our thoughts and set our hearts upon those happy Regions of Bliss and Glory and we shall not fear to pass through the shadow of Death to come to them tho' the way to that Heavenly Canaan is through a Wilderness through the dark and unknown Region of Death through which a thousand wandering Souls are alwayes passing yet we shall be conducted safely through it by Angels who will bring us to the Palace of the great King where we shall be received by our blessed Master and Saviour and by all the Saints and holy Souls that are gone before us who as they rejoyce at a Sinners Repentance will now welcome him to his Fathers house and we shall then as much wonder at our selves for fearing to dye as we are now willing to live If the account which Scripture gives us of those invisible Regions be true and we do fully believe that Joy that Glory that Blessedness that unspeakable Happiness which is there revealed to us this our Faith joyn'd with our Repentance should overcome the Fears of Death and make us not only not afraid but desire to be dissolved and to be willing to lay down this load and luggage of Flesh because we know that if our earthly house oâ— this tabernacle were dissolved we have a building of God an house not made with hands eternal in the heavens And there shall be no more Sin nor Sorrow nor Repentance but the blessed Penitent now he is safely arrived at his happy Port shall look back upon the past hazards and dangers he was in and comfortably remember how his Sins like so many Rocks had like to have split and shipwreck'd and swallowed him up in the gulph of Perdition and how by the wonderful Grace of God he hath happily escaped them and is come safe to Heaven and therefore will now offer Eternal Thanksgivings and pay his Vows of Praise to his great Deliverer and rejoyce evermore in his Glorious and Heavenly Salvation CHAP. III. Whether all Sins are Pardonable and may have the benefit of Repentance I Am next to consider Whether all Sins are Pardonable and may have this benefit of Repentance This has been denyed by a great many and particularly by the Novatians who would not allow Pardon and Absolution to wilful and great Sins committed after Baptism and this is charged upon Smalcius and other Socinians that they deny the same to heinous and habitual Sins of Relapse into which any shall fall after they have once Repented and been freed from them And there are some places of Scripture that seem very much to favour these hard Opinions as Heb. 6.4 5 6. For it is impossible for those who were once inlightened and have tasted of the heavenly gift and were made partakers of the Holy Ghost and have tasted the good word of God and the powers of the world to come if they shall fall away to renew them again unto Repentance And Heb. 10.26 For if we sin wilfully after that we have received the knowledge of the truth there remaineth no more sacrifice for sins And 2 Pet. 2.20 21 22. For if after they have escaped the pollutions of the world through the knowledge of the Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ they are again intangled therein and overcome the latter end is worse with them than the beginning For it had been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness then after they have known it to turn from the holy commandment delivered unto them But it is happened unto them according to the true proverb The dog is returned to his own vomit and the sow that was washed to her wallowing in the mire And in other places the Scripture speaks of a Sin unto Death 1 John 5.16 as of a more malignant and deadly Nature and different from all other Sins which are Mortal and Sins also unto Death without Repentance And our Saviour sayes expresly of the Sin against the Holy Ghost that it is unpardonable and shall not be forgiven neither in this world nor the world to come Luke 12.20 Matth. 12.32 i. e. as St. Mark expresses it It hath never forgiveness but is in danger of eternal damnation Mark 3.29 And what that is is not fully agreed on by Divines and so there may be fear if not danger of a Christians falling into it and so into an unpardonable state by the Holy Ghosts being so many wayes concerned in his Salvation and he having so many wayes to Sin against him This gives therefore great trouble to a great many Minds and if one particular Sin or any sorts of Sin be unpardonable by the Gospel they will be very fearful and can hardly be satisfied but that they have committed that Sin and so are cut off from all hopes by it and they will
necessarily be miserable with them in another World It can sometimes avoid those inward pains and torments here because it has the gratifications of its Sins and other enjoyments and entertainments to bear it up and yet they will often get in and disturb it even amidst all its pleasures and jollities but in its separate Estate hereafter it will be wholly without those and so for ever subject to the inward misery and uneasiness which Sin ever causes in its own thoughts 5 Allowing Salvation to a meer dying Repentance as it seems contrary to all plain Notions and certain Principles in Religion namely that none but Vertuous and good Men can go to Heaven and that Obedience and a good Life is the only way thither and that Vice while it continues upon the Mind will necessarily make it miserable and the like which I have largely insisted upon So Lastly The consequences of it seem plainly to destroy all Religion For 1. It sets by all those general commands which are often given to Christians of Walking worthy of their vocation adorning their profession and letting their conversation be as it becometh the gospel Letting their light so shine before men that others may see their good works and so glorifie their Father which is in Heaven Doing all to the Glory of God and promoting that and Religion as much and as far as they can in the World Learning of Christ and following his Example and showing they are his Disciples by bearing much fruit Doing all the good they can to others and being useful in their places improving their Talents and not being unprofitable Servants Redeeming the time and taking all opportunities of serving the great ends of Religion Growing in Grace and being perfect as their Father which is in Heaven is perfect These are general Commands given to Christians and such as they are all obliged to though not in the highest degrees yet in such measures as God who knows our frame and our circumstances intended we should come up to They are not only Counsels of Perfection and Romantick unpracticable Directions of some Acts of Supererogation but they are strict Rules of necessary Duty and Christian practice which every good Christian is bound to live up to and if they wholly fail in doing so and do no way make them good in their Lives but act contrary to them they are not good Christians at present nor shall be rewarded as such hereafter but shall be condemned and punished eternally for being otherwise Now a notorious wretched Sinner who hath been so far from having any regard to these Christian obligations that he hath lived all his Life in direct opposition against them and now only Repents when he is a dying he must be wholly excused from all these they must be all set aside and signifie nothing in his case if he can go to Heaven not only without observing them in any sort or any tolerable manner but living wholly opposite and reverse to them for He instead of adorning his Profession and letting his Conversation be such as becometh the Gospel hath been the greatest shame and reproach to it and been unworthy the name of it and shall he now then share in the noblest rewards of it Instead of letting his Light shine before Men he hath been an example of the greatest Wickedness and dishonoured God in the highest manner all his days and shall he now be rewarded and honoured by him Instead of learning of Christ and living up to the example he set us he hath learn'd of the Devil and liv'd like a Bruit and practiced all sort of Diabolical and Bestial Wickedness and shall he now reign with Christ and be taken up into Paradise with him Instead of doing any good he hath done all the mischief imaginable in corrupting and debauching others and tempting them to all manner of lewdness and instead of promoting Religion he hath served the cause of Atheism and Irreligion and done all he can to make others disbelieve the truth of all Religion if not by lewd Principles yet by lewd Practices that are the greatest contradiction to it and shall he now partake of its Glorious Promises which he hardly believed and would never seek after all his Life Instead of improving his Talents in his Masters Service he hath wholly wasted and consumed them in Luxury and Prodigality and spent all the Blessings God had intrusted him with to quite other purposes than he gave them Instead of growing in Grace he hath grown to the utmost perfection almost of Sin and Wickedness and is become a Sinner of the highest rate and hath dayly improved in it Instead of redeeming the time he hath squandered it all away in folly and madness and took all opportunities to gratifie his Lusts and spent his whole Life in the persuit of sinful pleasures and now indeed he would redeem the time in a wonderful manner and do all the business of Life very compendiously and very concisely in a few days or hours before he is to dye And when he hath followed none of these Christian Rules and Directions but acted altogether against them yet he would have God set them all by and make them all have no meaning or be to no purpose but only a little dying Sorrow and Repentance to serve instead of all of them 2. As those general Commands must be set aside by this priviledge of a dying Repentance so must also those particular Commands which oblige us to the practice of several Vertues such as Piety and Devotion Sobriety and Temperance Purity and Chastity Self-denyal Heavenlymindedness overcoming the World governing our Passions and Appetites mortifying the Flesh with the Affections and Lusts and the like For 't is too late sure to begin to practice those when a Man is just upon dying if he has neglected it all his Life Shall he begin then to mortifie the Flesh which he hath gratified alwayes before with the most unlawful Lusts and forbidden Pleasures but now Sickness mortifies it indeed and Death will do so something more and he would have this Vertue as much in his Coffin or his Grave when he lyes cold there as he can pretend to it now his Lusts do then dye with his Body as a Candle goes out when all the nourishment is spent that should maintain it Is he now to govern his Passions and Appetites when both the causes and the objects of them are removed Is he to provide against the heat of the Sun when it is just Night or Winter with him and make a bank to stop the current when the water is all dryed up Is he to overcome the World when he is leaving it with an odd sort of Parthian victory Is he then to be Heavenly minded when he never minded Heaven before but now 't is the next thing when he can mind the Earth no longer Is he then to practice Self-denyal when he never denyed himself any Worldly Interest or Sensual Pleasure before on the score
imperfection of our Nature gratifying a low passion a foolish humour a silly custom acting in opposition to Reason and doing things quite contrary to our own wise and calm thoughts but by rashness and inconsideration doing that which we shall afterwards repent of and condemn our selves for and wish we had never done and what we know will tend more to our mischief and prejudice than any real good to us only it pleases our fancy and tickles our senses and is a little grateful to us at present so that 't is a sort of Childishness and want of Understanding and of Manly and Rational Government of our selves to yield to it and be overcome by it this it must appear to any thinking Man to a Heathen and Philosopher that considered the nature of things and the difference of Good and Evil that arose from thence and therefore that to repent of it was as necessary as for a Man to act wisely and reasonably not to do what is weak and foolish below the Nature and the Reason of a Man but now Christ besides all this has represented Sin in more ugly and frightful characters by the Gospel as that which had thrown all Mankind into the most miserable and lost condition as the work of the Devil which he came to destroy as the device and stratagem of evil and malicious Spirits to destroy us so that whenever we are drawn into Sin we are drawn in by the Devil and used as tools by cunning infernal Fiends who this way over-reach us and sport themselves in our ruine and destruction so that when we think we are enjoying our Pleasures and gratifying our Lusts and using the freedoms and liberties of Humane Nature we are but inveigled by those Devils with the baits they lay for us and the snares they every where set to entrap us and are meer slaves and properties to their cunning and cursed designs upon us so that Christ came to rescue us from those by calling us to Repentance to rescue us from the snares of the Devil and redeem us from that servitude and slavery whereby we are led captive by him Christianity better acquaints us also with the Nature of Sin and the Evils of it than Nature could by showing us the ruins it had made upon Mankind and the cost and expences Heaven was at to repair Humane Nature by letting us see the wretched and miserable estate the Sins of Mankind had thrown them into irrecoverably without a Saviour Our Salvation by that stupendous and mysterious way makes the greatness of our danger and the mischief of our Sins more evidently known to us and the whole scheme and contrivance of it contains other considerations against Sin than Natural Religion could ever have known or suggested for by this Sin appears further to be so malignant and hateful to God so detestable and odious in his sight and so contrary to his wise Government of the World that he would not pardon it without the Blood of his own Son shed as an atonement for it nor forgive it to Mankind without such a valuable compensation and satisfaction made for it as that was Now this demonstrates to us above any thing its abominable and displeasing Nature to God and that according to the wise Rules and Maximes of his Government by which he manages the World it must suffer and be severely punished and that there was no escaping of this but by an extraordinary contrivance of Divine Wisdom and Mercy which found out a way by Jesus Christ to save Sinners by Repentance Sin is a greater debt a more deep provocation to Heaven a more horrid affront to Divine Power and Authority a more considerable injury to the good of the World and to the Justice and Holiness of God than to be easily forgiven and passed by as we find by the mystery of our Redemption and the dispensation of Christianity which shows us above any thing the Nature and Evil of it and consequently the great Reasons of our Repenting from it 5. As the Nature and Evil of Sin fo the Consequences and Punishments of it are greater by Christianity and Christ by the threatning of those greater Judgments upon it has called us more loudly to Repentance Nature and the light of Reason taught all Mankind the present and Natural Evils that were like so many Curses cleaving to Sin like Hercules his poysoned shirt clinging to it and sticking fast about it God had annexed a world of evils and mischievous effects to Vice and Wickedness by the original settlement and fundamental constitution of things it was a disease to the Mind and a torment to the Conscience and very often a disease to the Body and rottenness to the Bones a wound to a Mans Credit and a blemish to his good Name and an enemy to all his Interests and to all his Happiness in this World These plain and necessary effects of Sin Mankind could not but observe as so many bitter Fruits naturally growing out of it as from a proper Root and like so many plagues sent from Heaven steeming out of this Pandora's box And these Natural Punishments of Sin and the other as Natural Goods and Rewards of Vertue were the true sanction of the Law of Nature But besides all these there are a thousand times greater and more additional evils superadded to our Sins by Christianity if we do not in time Repent of them there are the positive and eternal evils of Sin in another World for I can by no means call the Torments of Hell Natural which God has revealed to us by the Gospel How little these were known to the World before I might show from the odd fancies of the wisest Heathens about the transmigration of Souls and the revolution of all things within such a period of years and whatever guess they had rather than belief of Punishments for Sin in another World yet that they should be so great as the Scripture now represents them and that they should be Eternal which is the most dreadful part of them this can only be known from the Revelation and Will of God who may continue our being and lengthen or shorten our duration to what time he pleases and therefore as Christ has brought Life and Immortality to light by the gospel 2 Tim. 1.10 so in like manner he has brought Hell and Damnation and revealed such intolerable and greater Punishments to Sin than the World knew before as cannot but fright the most daring Sinner and make the fondest Sensualist part with his Lusts when he considers that all their tempting charms and enticing gayety and momentany pleasures shall end in nothing but Hellish torments unquenchable flames and eternal howlings and gnashings of teeth which must be owned to be a thousand times greater than all the known and visible and Natural Evils of Sin SECT IV. Motives to Repentance from the Consideration of Hell NOW because this is the greatest determent from Sin imaginable and consequently the
all the Corruptions and Imperfections of Humane Nature to conquer all those Sins that are thought never so difficult or even insuperable to Flesh and Blood and to practice all those Vertues that are most contrary to our Natural Temper or Sensual Inclinations Be there never so many Arguments to the doing of a thing and never so much danger in not doing it be it never so great and important or never so necessary yet if after all a Man be without power and without ability to do it they will be all in vain and to no more purpose than to perswade a blind Man to see by the conveniency of that Sense or a lame Man to run by the danger he may otherwise be in or a Man tumbling from a precipice to stop before he falls to the bottom 't is only to mock and deride us with Motives and Arguments to a thing if it be wholly out of our power to effect it and therefore there is no such Motive to the doing a thing that we are otherwise perswaded is of great moment and importance as to be assured of sufficient power to enable us to go through with it without which all our Vigour will be dampt and all the sinews of Industry cut and all our Endeavours blasted by which we should set about it and we shall run the Censure of those foolish undertakers our Saviour speaks of Luke 14. who would make War or build a Tower without power to go on with it God has therefore given us the greatest Encouragement by the Gospel that can be to set upon the practice as of all other Duties so especially of this hard one of Repentance when he thereby assures us that his Grace shall be sufficient for us that he worketh in us both to will and to do that his Spirit shall be given us and abide with us for ever and that we shall be mightily strengthened by it in the inner man so that a new and strong and vital Principle shall be added to Humane Nature to strengthen its weakness repair its decayes recruit its forces support its feeble powers raise its sunk state and restore it to the Vertue and Perfection it had lost by its Sins How weak and decayed how corrupted and degenerated Humane Nature was of its self both Scripture and our own Experience do sufficiently teach us how strong and violent our Passions are and how weak our Reason to master and govern them how prone the Will is to consent to what is evil be it but a little grateful to Flesh and Blood and what strong proclivities and inclinations are in us to many Sins The Heathens were very sensible of this corruption and decay of Humane Nature and into what a low and degenerate state it was sunk and therefore they complained very often of the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of the Souls being sunk into Matter and a Terrestrial State its wings being molted and its powers being drooping and sickly and what should raise and restore it and be a Cure to this Disease they could not find out they felt how strong were the propensions to Vice and how the Mind 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Hierocles speaks was carried by its Passions like so many weights hanging upon it and inclining it to Sin and what should ballance these what should turn and counterpoize those propensities and inclinations what should bear up against all the Corruptions from within and the Temptations from without and relieve and succour the weak forces of decayed Nature that was so strongly besieged and so little able to hold out of it self this they could not know for 't is only by the Gospel and Christianity that we have the Promise of Gods Grace and Holy Spirit to be given to us when we ask it and to belong as a right to all Christians by vertue of the New Covenant and be a standing Principle to prevent and restrain us from Sin and work Holiness and Vertue in our Minds And now by vertue of this we have the greatest incouragement to Repent and Leave our Sins which is a Power to do so We have a new Principle of Life conveyed into our Souls and a fresh and Heavenly and almost a miraculous Power given to us by which the Lame may walk and the Lepers be cleansed i. e. by which those who are Naturally Impotent may be enabled to do their Duty and the greatest Sinners may be cured of their foulest Sins All the Excuses which were more reasonable and plausible heretofore of the weakness and impotency of our Nature of the strength and power of our Corruptions of the necessity and unavoidableness of our sinful Actions are now quite taken away by this Divine Grace and Assistance of the Holy Ghost which the Gospel promises and bestowes upon us By this the greatest Sin may be conquered the strongest Lust and Temptation overcome and the longest Habit and Custom changed and broken so that no Sinner should be discouraged from breaking off his Sins by Repentance by reason of the difficulty or impossibility of it since no Sin is too strong for the Grace of God but we can in every thing be more than conquerours through him which strengtheneth us and greater is he that is in us than he that is in the world than the Devil or any Sin that we shall be in danger of which can never take such possession of any Soul as not to be cast out by the Power and Spirit of Christ However hard it is to overcome a long Custom and root out an ill Disposition and to restrain and check an unbridled Lust and Appetite that has too long had the reins thrown upon its neck yet a firm Resolution strengthened with the Divine Grace and Assistance of Heaven will be able even to quicken and raise those who are dead in trespasses and sins to create them again in Christ Jesus unto good works and to renew them again unto Repentance Heb. 6.6 That Lust which we thought was so violent that all the force of Reason could not stand against it that Temptation which we called irresistible that Custom and Habit which we imagined incurable that Vice which we counted too hard for Flesh and Blood to deny these may all be certainly not to say easily overcome by the Divine Grace if we will make use of it Let the greatest Sinner therefore with the Power of Christ and the auxillary forces of Heaven set upon his strongest Sins let him but boldly and resolutely fall upon them and he shall find they will give ground and in a little time their power will abate and he will by the help of God and his own constant endeavours obtain a full and a perfect victory over them God will not indeed without our own endeavours and cooperation do the whole work for us nor will his Spirit work upon us as if we were Machines and had not internal powers and principles of action within our selves by
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
future Misery and his Punishment shall be much lessened by it This is a very great thing if we duely consider it and worth all his most earnest Prayers and deepest Sorrow and Compunction and all he can do to save him from those highest and extremest degrees of Misery Hell indeed is a general word for future Misery in Scripture as Heaven is for Happyness but they consist not in one and the same indivisible thing but are Two States of very various and different and unequal degrees according to the Deserts and Capacities of those who are in them As there are several degrees of Good and Bad Men here upon Earth so there will be of happy and miserable Souls in Heaven and Hell some are very imperfectly but yet sincerely good and are far from such Obedience and perfection as Human Nature might come up to and those being without any wilful and deliberate and great Sin shall be in the lowest place in Heaven and lower than this the Scripture allows none to go thither they who live in any such one known and habitual sin and wickedness are such Sinners as are expresly excluded from thence They have another place and state allotted to them in the other World for there being no third or middle state revealed by Scripture but only those two of Heaven and Hell they must necessarily go to the latter and there according to the Nature or Quality or Degrees of their Sin be punisht with many or fewer stripes and be in a state of greater or lesser Misery according as their Lives and their Deserts have been The Valley of Hinnom from whence comes Gehenna which we translate Hell was a deep Valley near Hierusalem where the Canaanites burnt their Children alive to Moloch and used all direful noises to hinder their cries and lamentations from being heard and afterwards the Jews say that Josias turned it into the place of publick Executions and that all Carkasses and Dung and filthy things were thrown there to prevent the noysomness of which there was a perpetual fire always burning in that place that was never put out at any time The Scripture has made this the chiefest image and representation of Hell and from thence describes the Misery of it by fire and burnings which give one of the most general and sensible ideas of Pain and torment Both the Spiritual Happyness of Heaven and Misery of Hell must be thus represented to the gross Thoughts of Mankind by the most delightful and most painful things known to their Senses that they are best acquainted with in this World and which will make the strongest impression upon them though they may be in themselves of another Nature fitted chiefly to the Souls and Spirits and Rational faculties of Men in their separate state and the happyness or misery of those is chiefly designed by them God we know is a Consuming fire to the wicked but he will very differently punish them though fire seems to carry one equal idea of pain and torment yet as our Saviour says that it shall be more tolerable for Sodom and Gomorrah in the day of Judgment and they are set forth for an example in Scripture suffering the vengeance of eternal fire Jude 7. then for that City who rejected the Gospel Matth. 10.15 so it shall be more tolerable for such wicked Men who have been so in a lesser degree in their Lives and at their Deaths have been as penitent as they could be then for Sinners of an higher order and a more daring and impenitent sort Heaven and Hell being taken for Places rather than States seem to our Imaginations to imply and signifie one equal and indivisible perfect and complete and same idea of Happyness or Misery that shall belong to all alike who are sentenced to either of those but there are very great Differences and Degrees in them a thousand times more than there is in the different States of Happiness or Misery among Men in this World where in the same place and upon the same Globe we see some in very happy circumstances and mighty enjoyments others in great Pain and Misery and a most pitiable Condition this here is only a Tryal of them and not according to their deserts but it shall be so exactly in another Wold the great day of Recompence and Retribution Then they who have done most Evil and committed most sins and not repented of them in time but gon on to provoke and disobey God and despise and neglect Religion all their lives these shall suffer the sad and utmost Vengeance of God's Anger and of Eternal fire All other wicked Men of what sort soever whether they were Sinners above others or only lived in some sins without Repentance and Amendment these shall be for ever in a very bad state a state of Misery and loss of true happiness and their Misery shall be exactly proportioned to their sins and be in the same degrees and measures that those were which are all known to the infinitely wise and Just God who without respect of persons will then render to all according to their works and with an equal and impartial Justice distribute-those Rewards and Punishments to them They then who have served God best in their lives shall be best rewarded by him they who have suffered with Christ shall then reign with him they who endured any afflictions for his sake and the Gospels shall have the greater Glory which those are not to be compared to they shall receive a hundred fold for all they have done or suffered for Christ not only for suffering Persecution though Martyrdom has always had a brighter and a weightier Crown assigned to it but for denying any present Interest or worldly gain or unlawful pleasure and sensual Inclination for the sake of Vertue and Religion then those who have best improved their Talents to Gods Glory and the good of others and the Service of Religion shall have more gifts and rewards from their great Lord they who have turned many unto Righteousness shall shine as the stars in Glory in several Orbs and different degrees of Light and Lustre for as the Apostle says one star differeth from another in glory 1 Cor. 15.41 and So likewise shall it be at the Resurrection and in another World there shall be different degrees of happyness and glory for Good Men both in their Bodies and Souls according to their different degrees of Goodness Service and Obedience to God in this life There being but two places or rather two States in another World appointed for all rational beings that ever were created as seems plain by the Scripture Revelation where so far as it describes or gives us a Map of that Invisible and unknown World it divides it only into two Mighty Kingdoms or vast Regions an upper and a lower parted from one another by unknown bounds and inhabited by Good and Bad Spirits where the one are very happy and the other very miserable there being but
unlawfully had it power and opportunity for those first Motions and Inclinations are necessary and unavoidable arising from the frame and constitution of our Nature and the Mechanism of our Body Blood and Spirits so that we can no more help or prevent them than we can the senses of Pain and Pleasure or the Appetites of Thirst or Hunger or the Motions and Impressions of outward Objects made upon our Senses and therefore they are not simply evil but good in themselves so far as they are Natural and intended by God to serve the good of the World and of particular Persons and the wise ends of Providence but as they are irregular and inordinate excessive and immoderate and destroy those ends for which God intended them so far they are sinful and when any of those Natural Appetites or Sensual Inclinations grow too strong and unruly and are not kept under the government of Reason or within the bounds of Vertue and Religion then they carry Men to all loosness and wickedness and make them commit Sin and Uncleanness with greediness A good Man may with St. Paul be very sensible and complain of this body of sin and of death and of the law of sin that is in his members of many irregular Appetites and undue Passions and weak and foolish imaginations and unreasonable desires and inclinations of too quick gusts of Sensual things and too much deadness of Spiritual of having too many thoughts and designs for Earthly and present things and too little zeal and affection for things Heavenly that are a thousand times more valuable These are imperfections that are in the best of us and we see that they are so and are very sensible and complain of them but yet we cannot wholly avoid them but after all our thoughts and all our care they still return upon us and the Flesh will lust against the Spirit and there will be a perpetual war and struggle between them but if the Spirit do so far prevail by the helps of Grace and considerations of Religion that it do never yield to any wilful Sin it shall then be rewarded as a Conquerour which though it did not wholly subdue and drive out that homebred enemy yet kept it alwayes under and made it submit to its Government and not keep up an open Rebellion against it Of this I have largely discoursed in the Third Section of the Third Chapter I proceed now to those Sins which are known wilful and presumptuous habitual and reigning in us any one of which is inconsistent with a good State and excludes us out of Gods Favour here and Heaven hereafter such as the Psalmist in the forequoted place prayes against Keep back thy servant also from presumptuous sins lest they get the dominion over me All known and wilful Sins are presumptuous as being done in defiance of a Divine Authority that we know has forbid them and in contempt of God and his Laws to whom we owe all Honour and Obedience and notwithstanding all those threatnings and severe punishments that God has denounced against them He that sins wilfully after he has received the knowledge of the truth of these things there remains nothing for him but a certain fearful looking for of judgment and fiery indignation which shall devour the adversaries This is despising the Law of God thus wittingly and wilfully to break it and is sinning with a high hand and a most presumptuous boldness when we choose to do that which we know is most highly displeasing to Heaven and which God has laid all the obligations he possibly can upon us not to do When any such Sin gets dominion over us so that it becomes customary and habitual to us it makes us the Devils slaves and captives at his Will and shows that he is our Master and that we are the Servants of Sin and overcome by that and brought in bondage to it that it prevails upon our Minds above all the Power of Reason and Principles of Religion and that we choose it above all the great things of Heaven and another World that Religion offers to us and think it more desirable than any of those and had rather gratifie a paltry Lust and a foolish Inclination than save our Souls and have all the favour of God that we prefer it before any other good and let it have the ascendant in our Love and Affections above all other things for it is utterly inconsistent with any Love of God or any due regard to him and banishes all Principles of Religion out of our Minds and destroyes all sincerity and uprightness of Heart towards God and abandons us to a state of enmity with him and everlasting destruction hereafter This I have shown is true of every wilful and chosen and known Sin I shall now from the distinction I have given you of these Sins from those of Infirmity Ignorance and Inadvertency make the following Inferences and Remarks 1. That those Sins of Infirmity are to be Repented of i. e. we are to be sorry for them and pray God to forgive them Though they do not destroy our good state nor deprive us of Gods Favour here or Heaven hereafter yet they are such as are to be matter of Trouble and Sorrow and Humiliation to us and we are dayly to pray God to forgive us our Trespasses as Christ has taught us in the Lords Prayer and the Psalmist in the place before mentioned prayes God to cleanse him from his secret faults as well as to keep him back from presumptuous Sins For 2. These are true and proper Sins and though they are not charged upon us to our Condemnation yet this is by the great Favour and Mercy of God and by Vertue of the Gracious Covenant made in Christ with Mankind for otherwise God in Rigour and Justice might punish and condemn us for them The Papists hold a distinction between Sins Mortal and Venial in their own Nature i. e. that some Sins are in themselves damnable and others not which the Protestants have generally opposed for this Reason because all Sin is in it self Mortal and in its own Nature deserves Death as being 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a breach and transgression of a Divine Law whose sanction is Death but it is pardonable only by Gods Mercy on the account of its circumstances which make it more excusable with a good and merciful God but that it is not of it self venial or so little as not to deserve Punishment they prove from hence that we are bound to pray God to forgive it Now it is pure Grace and Favour for God to forgive and what he is not obliged to and if he is not obliged to pardon it he may punish it were it not for his Mercy and Goodness and the Gracious Covenant he has made with us in the Gospel This should therefore 3. Make us very sensible of Gods infinite Mercy and kind dealing with us by the Covenant of Grace How many innumerable Sins and