that if we work out our own salvation he will work in us to will and to do Philip. 2. 12. and that he will give the holy Spirit unto every one that asks him Luke 11. 13. Since I say God hath thus intailed his Grace upon our Endeavours Repentance is within our Power so long as that Grace is so by which if we do our Endeavour we shall be enabled to it He who can repent by the Grace of God is able to repent so long as he is able to obtain his Grace to assist and concur with his Endeavours but if he once withdraw his Grace and give us over to our own Hearts Lusts then are we no more able to repent by our own natural Strength and Power than a Clod of Earth is to mount up to Heaven and fix it self a glorious Star in the Firmament But all the time we do delay our Repentance we are wearying out the Grace of God which whilst we are running away from God and our Duty follows us with Importunities to return but instead of complying with it we still defer to listen to its Sollicitations and put it off from time to time with false and empty Promises what can be expected but that after so many defeats and disappointments it should at last abandon us to our selves and leave us to the miserable Fate of our own Folly and Madness and if once it doth so farewel to all the Hopes of our Recovery Consider therefore O thou vain Man that sayst thou wilt repent hereafter must thou command God to wait thy leisure or fasten his Grace with such adamantine Chains as that it should never be able to get loose from thee art thou sure it will be always at thy Beck or that notwithstanding thy long Provocations it will be ready to come in to thy aid whensoever thou callest for its Assistance for by promising to repent hereafter thou dost not only promise for thy self but for the Grace of God too whose Assistance is as necessary to thy Repentance as thy own Endeavour and methinks 't is a strange piece of Confidence in thee to promise for that which thou hast so much disobliged and which upon that account thou hast so little reason to trust to 'T is true God hath promised you his Grace but I beseech you where hath he promised that you shall have it when you please or that after all his Tenders and your scornful Refusal of it it shall be still at your Choice whether you will at last accept of or again refuse it for unless you can produce some such Promise as this you can have no reason to expect that God will still continue his Grace to you how long soever you refuse and reject it And if he should at last deal by you as you have dealt by him this will be the final Issue because when he hath called you have refused when he hath stretched out his hand you have not regarded but have set all his Counsels at naught and would not hearken to his Importunities therefore when you call he will not answer when you seek he will not be found but will even laugh at your Necessity and mock when your last Extremity comes upon you And should things be reduc'd once to this sad Issue woe be to us that ever we were born 4. And lastly Every Delay of our Repentance drives us nearer to the last Extremity which is that of a Death-bed Repentance and how great a one that is I have already shewed you at large and given you evident Proof that tho' it be not absolutely desperate yet it is most fearfully hazardous and comfortless and yet this is the common Center to which all our Delays do naturally tend We venture to sin on because we know that if we do repent God will have Mercy upon us and so we do resolve upon both that is to sin now and to repent hereafter And by this Train the Devil touls us on through all the Stages of Sin and Life till we come to our Death-bed and then when our Time and Strength is spent we shall have all the Business of our Life to do and being reduc'd to this Extremity what a woful Condition shall we be in when we shall feel our selves departing into a long Eternity of Weal or Woe and have nothing to bear us company thither but our Sins and Guilts which if they be not cancelled in an instant will consign us immediately to endless Misery and whether we look either within without or above us shall be able to see nothing but a black and dismal Cloud hanging over us and Causes of Fear surrounding us on every side how will our Heart sink within us and our Soul quiver on our Lips to think how naked and harbourless she is left having no other Refuge to fly to now the Avengers of Blood are at her heels but only that wronged and affronted Mercy which all her Life time she spurned and trampled on When we shall consider what a vast Work we have to do how little Time we have to do it in how our own Strength is spent and what little Reason we have to expect that God should strengthen us by a Miracle in what a Tumult will our Souls be how shall we quake and tremble to think whither we are going and what will become of us for ever Surely if we die in our Wits and are not Atheists or Sots it will be impossible for us to reflect on our selves and the fearful Risque we are running without extream Horror and Amazement For we must be strangely stupified if when we perceive our selves upon the Confines of Eternity within a very few Moments of being Happy or Miserable for ever we do not awake from our Security and if we do the vastness of the Work that lies upon our Hands the number of the Guilts that will stare us in the Face and the little Time and Power we have to perform the one and expiate the other must needs put our guilty Consciences into a fearful Agony and unchain and let loose all its Terrors upon us And then how miserable will our Condition be when we shall look about for Comfort and see nothing but God's everlasting Threats ready to be fired and discharged upon us and not one Promise opening a Door of Hope nor any Arm of Mercy held forth to catch us now we are leaping down into Eternity but Hell gaping for us as wide as our Grave and both ready to receive a part of us and our selves ready to divide our selves into those Two sad Habitations O then shall we sigh and lament our Folly and curse our lingring Delays and wish a Thousand and a Thousand Times we had begun our Repentance sooner This is the sad Extremity whereunto we are driving in every Delay of our Repentance and considering all these Things methinks these mighty Dangers whereunto our Delays expose us should be enough to frighten the most resolute Sinner
all those Duties he requires at our hands is to dress and prepare our Souls for Heaven and make us meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the Saints in light 'T is by these that he carves and pollishes our Natures cuts off the Roughnesses and Unevennesses of our Temper and squares us into fit Materials for the heavenly Building For this is the will of God saith the Apostle even our sanctification 1 Thess. 4. 3. That is the purging our Nature from all its Aversion and Repugnancy to the Blessedness of Heaven and the inlaying it with all those divine Dispositions wherein our Conformity with Heaven consists for so our Saviour explains it Io. 12. 50 I know that his commandment is life everlasting that is that what he commands is the Seed and Principle of everlasting Blessedness That it is the Charity and Humility the Righteousness and Temperance and Self-resignation which he commands which do attemper our Minds to the heavenly State and by which we are to relish the Joys and Pleasures of it for ever For it is these Virtues that do reconcile our Appetites to Heaven and without these our Souls can no more relish the Joys of it than our Palate can Sweet-meats while is is over-flowed with Gall. Unless therefore we will deny our corrupt Will and Affections and submit our selves to God it is Nonsense for us to talk of going to Heaven for Heaven it self without a heavenly Disposition to relish it is a tastless and insipid Thing and it is as possible to please a blind Man with the Beauty of Colours and a deaf Man with a Consort of Musick as to gratifie a vicious Mind with its divine and spiritual Enjoyments 4. And lastly It is to be considered that the essential Acts and Ingredients of our Happiness are not what we will but what God wills It is a great mistake to imagine that the Happiness of Man consists in external Possessions or in being seized of a great Plenty of outward Goods of any kind whatsoever whether they be earthly or heavenly It is not the possessing the outward Goods of this World but the enjoying them that makes any Man happy and if I had all the World in my Possession no more of it could go into my Happiness than just what I enjoy all the rest would be like the Possession of a great Mountain of Sand which I could neither eat nor drink nor apply to any of my Needs or Conveniencies So that the Possession of outward Goods is good only as it is in Order to the Enjoyment of them abstracted from which it is altogether indifferent whether I am possessed of them or no. But now 't is by our own Actions that we do enjoy the Goods we are possessed of by applying them to the Needs and Conveniencies of our Nature and by the Content and Satisfaction we take in the Application So that in short our Happiness is not in the Goods that are without us but in the Enjoyment of them that is within us that is in those Acts of Fruition by which we feel and perceive them And thus if we were possessed of all those outward Goods that Heaven abounds with they could signifie nothing to our Happiness unless we had an inward Enjoyment of them and by proper Acts of Fruition did taste and perceive their Beauty and Delightfulness So that all the Happiness you see that Heaven or Earth can afford us is immediately lodged in our own Acts of Enjoyment without which neither the Possession of Wealth and Honour upon Earth nor of the Presence of God and Saints and Angels in Heaven can make us in the least degree happy Since therefore our Happiness is so immediately lodg'd in our own Acts it will hence necessarily follow that those Acts by which the Goods of Heaven are to be enjoyed are the Acts of our future Happiness Now the chiefest Goods of Heaven being God and Saints and Angels and our Selves the chiefest Happiness of Heaven must consist in those Acts by which God and Saints and Angels and our Selves are enjoyed and by what Acts can these be enjoyed but by Godly Saintly and Angelical Ones 'T is by Worship and Contemplation by Love and Imitation by Dependance and Subjection that God is to be enjoyed by us 't is by Charity and Righteousness by Modesty and Peaceableness by Submission and Condescention that Saints and Angels are to be enjoyed by us 't is by Prudence and Moderation by Fortitude Temperance and Humility that we our selves are to be enjoyed by us And therefore if when we go into Eternity we carry with us a Mind and Will habituated to these beatifick Actions these Acts are the Sum and Substance of God's Will and Law Whilst therefore we take Part with our own Will against God's we act quite counter to our own Happiness and go contrary to all the Acts of our heavenly Fruition and Enjoyment For that which God designs in all his Commands is to educate and train up our Nature for Heaven to discipline and exercise it in the beatifical Acts of the heavenly Life that so when it is advanced from this School of Probation to the University of Happiness it may be instructed in the Language and naturalized to the Exercise of it that it may be predisposed and habituated to Love and Dependance to Charity and Righteousness and all those beatifical Acts by which Heaven is enjoyed So that while we follow his Will we are learning to enjoy Heaven and perfecting our selves in the Acts of our everlasting Fruition that so when we go from hence to take Possession of the Goods above we may be perfectly vers'd in the Enjoyment of them and have the Skill and Ability to make a happy Use of them for ever Whereas on the contrary while we follow our own corrupt Will and Inclinations we do not only not learn these blessed Acts of Fruition but we learn the quite contraries Instead of learning to enjoy God by Love and Adoration we learn how to divide our selves eternally from him by contracting Enmity to him and a profane Contempt of his Majesty Instead of learning to enjoy Saints and Angels by Charity and Righteousness we learn how to banish our selves from their Society by contracting malicious and dishonest Inclinations in a Word instead of learning to enjoy our selves by Humility and Temperance we learn how to be our own Devils and Tormentors by contracting Pride and an unlimited Propension to bodily Pleasures by which means we shall at last render our Nature not only impotent but also irreconcilable to all those blessed Acts of our future Happiness and so utterly disable our selves from enjoying Heaven that it would be a real Grievance to us to be forc'd to endure it For when by thus following my own wicked Will I have contracted a deep and inveterate Aversion to all those beatifical Acts by which Heaven is enjoyed I have an Antipathy against Heaven in my Nature and so long as this
joyns hands with the Devil in Rebellion against his Maker And whilst a Man's Soul doth thus clasp Wills with the Devil and conspires with him in his Rebellion against Heaven what impudent Hypocrisie is it for him to pretend to Religion Wherefore either let us be so modest for the future as not to pretend to Religion or any of those blessed Hopes it sets before us or let us resolve to be so honest to our Pretensions as to deny our selves and resign up our Wills to God For while our Will and God's are divided and separated and do in any Instance tread Antipodes to each other all our Pretence of Religion is a shameless Cheat which when it comes to be examined at the Tribunal of God will be found a meer Paint and artificial Complection dawb'd upon a black and devilish Nature 3. Consider that upon our denying our selves and resigning our Wills to God depends all our Safety and Security For if God be against us all the Powers of Heaven and Earth can't secure us because his Will hath an infinite Power conjoyned with it that like an irresistible Torrent bears down all Oppositions and sweeps every Thing before it that stands in its way To what purpose then should such impotent Things as we set up our Wills against his Can you ever hope to prevail against him or to force his Almighty Will into a Compliance with yours Gird up your selves like Men and I will demand of you in the Name of God have you an Arm like God or can you thunder with a Voice like him are ye able to withstand the Whirlwind of his Power or to shelter your Heads against the Storms of his Vengeance alas no a Feather in the Air may sooner stop a Thunder-bolt that comes roaring down from the Clouds than you can the Course of that Almighty Will which doth whatever it pleases both in Heaven and Earth And if so with what safety can you oppose your impotent Will to it or how can you expect to prosper in such an unequal Contention Since therefore God doth so infinitely out-match you and 't is infallibly certain that first or last he will be too hard for you all that is left to your Choice is whether you will do his Will or suffer it whether you will obey his Commands or endure his Inflictions for one of these you must do but which of the Two is left to your own Election If you think it more eligible to obey what God hath enjoyned than to endure what he will inflict you may by choosing the former eternally secure your selves from the latter For besides that such is the generous Goodness of God's Nature as it will not permit him to trample upon the Prostrate nor to deny fair Quarter to such as lay down their Arms and freely surrender themselves to his Will and Disposal besides this I say upon the Satisfaction which his own Son hath made for the Sins of the World he hath obliged himself by a publick Grant and Promise of Mercy to receive us into his Favour and Protection upon our unfaigned Submission to him and to treat us graciously notwithstanding all our past Rebellions as if we had been for ever perfectly loyal to him and had neither in Thought nor Word nor Deed offended him So that if now if we will heartily submit our Wills to him he cannot let loose his Power on us without forfeiting his Truth and doing Violence to the Perfections of his own Nature But notwithstanding all the Goodness of his own Nature and all the Vertue of that Propitiation that he hath made for our Sins this is a Law which he will never dispense with I will see that my Creatures shall obey me or feel me that they shall conform to my Will or sink under my Vengeance and if they will be so desperate as to refuse the former all the Powers of Heaven and Earth shall not secure them from the latter If therefore you are so abandoned of all Reason as to think it more eligible to suffer the Will of God than to obey it you must e'en take what follows for as sure as God is in Heaven and you upon Earth you shall one Day feel the Weight of his Arm if you do not freely surrender your selves to his Will and Disposal But before you do so for your Souls sake consider once more what a terrible Election you are making that 't is the unquenchable Wrath of the everliving God that you are throwing your selves upon a Wrath that will imprint it self upon every Faculty of your Nature and be dropping like burning Sulphur upon your Souls for ever And if after you have considered this you will still adhere to your desperate Option the Lord have Mercy upon your Souls 4. And lastly Consider that if there were no Obligation to this Duty or no Danger in the contrary yet in thus denying our selves and resigning our Wills to God we do the most effectually consult our own Interest For God being infinitely happy in his own Perfections and deriving all possible Satisfaction from his own Self-Sufficiency cannot be supposed to desire any Thing for himself without himself and being perfectly exempted from all Want and Indigence by the infinite Fulness of his Being he can have nothing of Envy or Malice in his Nature which are weak and impotent Passions that do always spring out of a sense of Need and Insufficiency and are utterly inconsistent with a State of perfect Fulness and Beatitude Since therefore in his outward Administrations he can have no Self-Ends to serve upon his Creatures and since he can have no Principle of Envy or Malice towards them in his Nature it hence necessarily follows that in ruling and governing them he can have no other Design upon them but to do them good and make them like himself i. e. perfectly good and perfectly happy So that God's End and ours is always the same we would be happy and God would have us so too and we our selves cannot aim at our Happiness more heartily and sincerely than he does all the Difference therefore between him and us is about the Means and Way to our Happiness We are for one Way and he is for another we think the Way to our Happiness is to live in all Ungodliness and worldly Lusts and he thinks the Way to it is to live soberly righteously and godly in this present World So that the whole Dispute between God and us so far as Reason is concerned in it depends upon this whether God be in the right or our selves whether we are not deceived in chusing this Way or God be not deceived in prescribing the contrary If we have any Reason to think that we are wiser than God or do better understand the Way to our own Happiness then it must be acknowledged that in refusing God's Way and chusing our own we do advisedly consult our own Interest but this is such a Supposal as I believe never entered
opened to us a safe Retreat within our own Breasts viz. that of a quiet and serene Conscience whereinto we may easily retire and house our selves when we are persecuted with Storms and Tempests from without 2. Another Principle of Peace and Satisfaction of Mind wherewith our Saviour hath furnished us is this that as he sacrificed himself for us when he was upon Earth so now he is in Heaven he hath the Ordering and Disposal of every Thing that concerns or befalls us For now he is in Heaven he intercedes for us in Vertue of that Sacrifice which he offered on Earth and in the Vertue of this his meritorious Intercession all Power is given him in Heaven and Earth And indeed herein consists the Royalty of his Priesthood viz. that by interceding for us as a Priest and continuing so to do he first obtained and still continues vested with a kingly Power and Authority to bestow upon us all those heavenly Blessings he intercedes for And hence all the Graces and Favours of God are in Scripture said to be derived to us in or by or through Iesus Christ implying that as it is from God the Father originally that all our Mercies flow so it is through God the Son immediately that they are handed and derived to us and that interceding for us as he doth and always hath done in Vertue of the powerful Oratory of his Sacrifice he was first constituted and is still continued the royal Distributer of all his Father's Graces and Favours to Man-kind So that now we are assured there is nothing can happen to us good or bad but by his merciful Disposal and can we think any thing bad that comes from his hand who hath evidenced himself so much our Friend as to die for us He who loved us to such a stupendous Degree as to come down from Heaven and assume our Natures and therewith all our innocent Infirmities and Miseries and at last to suffer for us the most grievous and infamous Death can he be unkind to us now he is our King and hath the ordering and disposal of all our Affairs Whenever therefore any calamitous Accident befals us and we begin to grieve or repine at it let us remember that it is through his Permission or Appointment who was so much our Friend while he was upon Earth that he tendred our Welfare far beyond his own Life and if this doth not set our Hearts at rest and reconcile us to the worst of Things that can happen to us we are beyond the Reach and Influence of Reason and Discourse For how can we suspect any thing to be hurtful to us that is sent us down from our merciful Redeemer in Heaven who when he was upon Earth never thought any thing no not his own Life and Blood too much or too dear for us How grievous soever therefore any present Accident may appear to us the Hand it came from speaks and declares it to be a Token of Love since to be sure nothing but Love can proceed from that Hand whose Heart alway loved us far above its own Ease and Joy and Life 3. Another Principle of Peace and Satisfaction of Mind wherewith our Saviour hath supplyed us is this that he hath procured for us a Futurity sufficient to make us infinite Amends for the worst of Evils that can befal us here for he hath not only purchased for us Life and Immortality at the Price of his Blood but hath also clearly discovered and brought it to light by his Gospel the joyous Prospect of which is abundantly sufficient to support our Spirits under the most direful Accidents For now when any melancholy Apprehensions begin to invade my Mind this blessed Theme furnishes me with such a mighty Force of joyous Considerations as are abundantly sufficient to dispel and scatter them and cause them to fly away like the Morning Mists before the rising Sun Hold out O my Faith and Patience it is but a very little while that I have to suffer This woful Dream that now lies hovering over my Imagination will vanish as soon as I awake in Eternity and be as if it had never been at all There all these sad Remembrances shall in one Moment be for ever lost and swallowed up in one continued everlasting Joy there I shall unload my self at once of all my present Sighs and Griefs and in their room take up eternal Songs of Praise and Hallelujahs there I shall be placed far above all these Clouds and Storms in a calm and quiet Region where there is nothing but Light and Harmony nothing but Peace and Ioy and Love from thence I shall e'er long look down upon this dark unquiet Atmosphere and remember with Joy all the foul tempestuous Weather I here endured and have now surmounted and the glad Remembrance of what is past will then serve only as a Foil or Shadow to set off that blessed State of Things and render it more charming and illustrious Why then art thou cast down O my Soul under the Sense of these short-liv'd transitory Evils of which within these very few Moments thou shalt be sure to take leave for ever Tho' this Night be dark it is but short and then will follow an everlasting Day Tho' thy Voyage be foul it is not long 't is only a short days Sail to a blessed Eternity from whose happy Shores thou wilt a little while hence be looking back upon this boisterous Sea and blessing those angry Storms and Waves that drove and hastned thee to that happy Port where every Moments Injoyment will be sufficient to recompense thee a thousand-fold for all the Hardships under which thou art now suffering and complaining Such Thoughts as these that blessed Futurity our Saviour hath purchased for us do naturally suggest to our Minds which mingling with the utmost Griefs and Anxieties that any Evil from without can raise within us are abundantly sufficient to compose and calm them and to create a happy Serenity in our own Breasts while all without us is stormy and tempestuous For what outward Evil is there weighty enough to sink a Mind that hath the hope of an everlasting Heaven to support it 4. Another Principle of Peace and Satisfaction of Mind wherewith our Saviour hath supplyed us is this that he hath established this happy Futurity upon such Terms and Conditions as are within the Reach of our own Power that is upon Faith in Christ and Repentance from dead Works which tho' in this degenerate State of our Nature it be not immediately in our Power to perform yet mediately it is by those Helps and Assistances which God hath promised to us and inseparably annexed to our making a good Use of our own natural Power For since God by his own free Promise hath entailed the Assistances of his Grace upon our honest Endeavour his Grace is as much at our devotion as our own Faculties and it is as much in our Power to perform what we
to us God hath therefore promised it to us upon certain Terms and Conditions that so we might have a sure Foundation to build our Hope upon that we might know upon what Grounds we are to expect that blessed Reward which we could never have done had God left himself free to with-hold or bestow it upon us according to the arbitrary and to us uncertain Determinations of his Will and not bequeathed it to us upon such Conditions by his own irrevocable Promise That therefore which gives us a Right to Heaven and is the only true Ground of our Hopes of it is our performing the Condition upon which it is promised to us and the Condition upon which it is promised to us is nothing less than true and universal Godliness And hence the Apostle tells us that without holiness no man shall see the Lord Heb. xii 14. and our Saviour in Matth. v. restrains the Beatitudes of the other World to those that are poor in Spirit and pure in Heart that are benign and merciful that hunger and thirst after Righteousness and that endure the unjust Persecutions of the World with Christian Patience and Courage and Constancy And the Promise of eternal Life is limited by the Apostle to those who by patient continuance in well-doing seek for glory and honour and immortality Rom. ii 7. And if Godliness be the sole Condition of eternal Life then it necessarily follows that all our bodily Exercises in Religion do no farther conduce to entitle us to it than as they conduce to make us godly and vertuous which if they do not effect they give us no more Right to Heaven or Ground to hope for it than the most indifferent Actions in the World Hence our Saviour hath told us before hand that we may know what to trust to Not every one that saith unto me Lord Lord shall enter into the kingdom of heaven but he that doth the will of my Father which is in heaven Matth. vii 21. that is not every one that professes my Name and acknowledges me for his Lord and Master and makes solemn Prayers and Addresses to me shall be admitted into the Kingdom of Happiness such outward bodily Exercises as these will never entitle any Man unto that blessed Condition Tho' you should profess my Name never so solemnly and pray to me with never so much Fervor and Earnestness yet do not think I will be brib'd by such Trifles to connive at your Sins and admit you into Heaven notwithstanding all your Impieties no no I do assure you before hand that you may know what to trust to that there is nothing but your sincere Submission unto the Will of my Father shall ever perswade me to receive you into his heavenly Kingdom Let us not therefore flatter our selves any longer with vain Expectances of Heaven upon the account of our bodily Religion for unless our Natures are chang'd and our Minds reformed and better'd by it we may as well lay claim to Heaven because we eat and drink and sleep as because we pray and hear and receive Sacraments For tho' these bodily Exercises are profitable Means to entitle us to Heaven yet it is only upon this Account because they are Means to make us good but if they do not effect this they are all but so many insignificant Cyphers He therefore that builds his Hope of Heaven meerly upon bodily Religion builds upon a sandy Foundation which if he finally trust to will sink under him and bury him in eternal Ruins 4. And lastly Bodily Exercise profits but little in comparison with Godliness as to the qualifying us for Heaven which is a distinct Consideration from the former For supposing we could have a Right to Heaven without being disposed and qualify'd for it it would be no Advantage at all to us for before we can enjoy Heaven our Minds must be reconciled to the Pleasures and Delights of it or else it is impossible they should be Pleasures to us Now in the Temper of every wicked Mind there is a natural Antipathy unto all those pure and spiritual Joys wherewith the heavenly State abounds which being pure and chaste and refined can never agree with the vitiated Palate of a base degenerate Soul For what Concord can there be between spiteful and devilish Spirits and the Fountain of all Love and Goodness between sensual and carnalized Souls that understand no other Pleasures but only those of the Flesh and those pure and virgin Spirits that never eat nor drink but live for ever upon Wisdom and Holiness and Love and Contemplation How could I be happy in seeing that God whom I cannot love in conversing with those Spirits whose Genius and Temper I abhor and in being for ever employed in those heavenly Exercises to which I have the greatest Aversation no no till I am of the same Disposition with those celestial Inhabitants and my Mind is contempered to the heavenly State it is impossible that Heaven and I should ever agree and I may as well see without Eyes or hear without Ears as enjoy Heaven without a Heavenly Disposition For as to the main we shall be of the same Temper of Mind when we come into the other World as we are of while we continue in this it being unimaginable how our Disposition should be totally changed meerly by passing out of one World into another and therefore as in this World it is Likeness that doth congregate and associate Beings together so doubtless it is in the other too so that if we carry thither with us our wicked devilish Dispositions as we shall doubtless do unless we subdue and mortify them here there will be no Company fit for us to asscciate with but only the Devils and damned Ghosts of wicked Men with whom our wretched Spirits being already joined by a Likeness of Nature will be forced to congregate as soon as ever they are excommunicated from the Society of Mortals For whither should they flock but to the Birds of their own Feather Where should they join Society but with those malignant Spirits to whom they are joined already by a Community of Natures For supposing that when they are landed in Eternity it were left to their own Liberty to go either to Heaven or Hell yet Heaven would be no Place for them the Air of that bright Empire of eternal Day would never agree with their black and hellish Natures for alas what should they do among those blessed Souls that inhabit it to whose Godlike Natures divine Conversations and heavenly Employments they have the greatest Repugnancy and Aversation From hence therefore it is apparent that to our comfortable Possession of Heaven it is not only necessary we should have a Right to it but also that we should be prepared and qualified for it and as to this all our bodily Exercises in Religion are no farther profitable than as they are effectual Means of true substantial Godliness For when the Soul goes out of this Body
Danger and to run away from it that so he may not surprize us into ruine for the end of his long-suffering is to lead us to Repentance but when upon this Consideration we take encouragement to delay we do not only defeat his Goodness but so far as in us lies render it injurious to him For we war against him under the Protection of his kindness to us and fortifie our selves in our Rebellion in that very Goodness and Long-suffering with which he seeks to conquer and subdue us O barbarous Ingratitude that we should fetch Arguments from his mercy to offend him and maintain Enmity against him out of the Revenue of his own Indulgence would you not look on that Malefactor as a Monster that should rob his Iudge meerly because he reprieved him and use him with all the Despite and Ignominy because he knew him to be a merciful Man and will be loath to hang him the next Sessions and is it not altogether as monstrous for us to abuse God because he is kind to us and to take Encouragement to rob him of our Duty because we know he is unwilling to ruine us but tho' every Man hath not Impudence enough to assign this Reason yet it is plain this lies at the bottom of all their Delays Because Sentence against an evil Work is not executed speedily faith the Wise Man therefore the Heart of the Sons of Men is fully set in 'em to do Evil Eccles. 8. 11. But what horrid Baseness is this to urge his Goodness against himself and fetch Motives from his Mercy to affront his Authority it seems if he were worse to us we would be better to him if he were less kind we would be more dutiful O Wretches that we are I had almost said 't is even pity that we have a God to deal with that we are not under the Government of some Fury that would watch for our halting and catch at all Opportunities to plague and punish us and we were best have a care we do not presume too much upon God for tho' he bears long he will not bear always and there is nothing can sooner provoke him than to see us conduct our Rebellions against him under the Banners of his own Goodness This is such an intolerable Provocation as is sufficient to inrage a Soul of Patience and turn the most boundless Mercy into Fury and if once his Wrath be kindled against us he will make us rue for ever in our Abuses of his Goodness 5. And lastly To defer our Repentance when God gives us space for it is an arrogant Defiance of his Displeasure for God hath sufficiently declared to us the Displeasure he takes in the Delays of our Repentance Thus in his holy Word he hath given us fair warning of it thus Rom. 2. 4. despisest thou the Riches of his Goodness and Forbearance and Long-suffering not knowing that the Goodness of God leadeth thee to Repentance From whence I argue 1. that the Goodness of God is a Motive to Repentance 2. That not to be persuaded by it is to despise his Goodness 3. That this despising his Goodness by delaying our Repentance is treasuring up Wrath against the Day of Wrath. So also Rev. 2. 5. remember from whence thou art faln and repent and do thy first Works or else I will come unto thee quickly and will remove thy Candlestick out of its place except thou repent Where he plainly declares that if our Repentance be not very quickly his Judgments will be too quick for us by which he plainly signifies how much he is displeased with our Delays how importunately they urge and provoke him to overwhelm us with a speedy Destruction And accordingly we see by Experience how he takes some away in their early sins and gives them no respite and he who hath made it Damnation to some for not repenting instantly hath made it damnable to all The Earth doth not open and swallow up all Rebels in the Day of their Mutiny but it did so once and thereby God hath sufficiently signified to all Ages his Displeasure against Rebellion And so it is in deferring Repentance for that some have smarted for it eternally is a sufficient Manifestation that God is displeased with every one that defers it Whilst therefore we delay our Repentance from time to time we sit down quietly under the divine Displeasure as if it were altogether indifferent whether the Almighty be pleased or displeased with us we do as good as say Lord we know well enough thou wouldst have us repent immediately and that if we do not thou wilt be angry with us but be thou never so angry we will not repent us yet we must enjoy our Lusts a little longer and if thou wilt be displeased we will run the venture We had rather endure thy Frowns a while than part with our sins for ever and think it much more tolerable to be hated by the Fountain of all Love and Goodness than abandoned of all our sinful Pleasures This is such Language perhaps as the boldest Sinner would hardly be able to pronounce without trembling but yet such as it is it is the natural Sense of every Mans Actions who delays and puts off his Repentance he knows that God is displeased with him but regards it not and as if he were ambitious of being a Heroe in Wickedness he defies Heaven and dallies with its Thunder-bolts and runs into the Mouth of its Canon whilst they are spitting Fire and roaring out Destruction upon him And thus you see the monstrous Wickedness of Mens delaying their Repentance which is such as had we not seared our Consciences and stifled our natural Sense of God we could never be able to reflect on without Horror and Agonies And so I pass to the Second Head of Discourse the great Absurdity of delaying our Repentance which I shall endeavour to demonstrate in these following particulars 1. It is putting off a Work that must be done to the most unfitting Season of doing it 2. It is putting it off upon no other Reason but what will hereafter be more prevalent than now 3. It deprives us of the Satisfaction of having done what we must do at last and prolongs the Pain and Trouble of doing it 4. It defers the doing it upon no other Presumption but that it shall one Day dearly repent of its own Neglect 1. To delay our Repentance is to put off a Work that must be done to the most unfitting Season of doing it That Repentance is indispensibly necessary to the Recovery and Happiness of a Sinner is a Principle wherein all the reasonable World are agreed and since it must be done it is highly reasonable we should take the best Opportunity of doing it and for a Man to say I must do such a thing and am resolved to do it but however I will take the most improper Season to do it in is the most absurd and ridiculous Thing in the World But
which is the reason of that Civil War there is between the Law in its Mind and the Law in its Members that is between its Reason and Conscience and its corrupt Lusts and Inclinations because while its Will takes Part against God it sides with its Lusts against its Reason and whilst it doth so it will be so far from being happy that it will be continually at War with its self and its Will and its Conscience will be perpetually clashing with one another For so long as a Man goes against his Reason his Reason must necessarily go against him and be continually reproaching and upbraiding him and vexing his Mind with severe and angry Reflections And how can a Man enjoy himself whilst he is thus divided or how can he enjoy the Happiness of a rational Nature whilst he is thus divided from his Reason and lives in perpetual Variance with it A Body may as soon be at Ease whilst its Bones are out of Joint as a Soul whilst its Faculties are thus broken and divided If ever we would be happy with our Reason about us we must be all of a piece with our Reason that is our Will must be rational our Affections must be rational and our Actions must be rational if they are not our Reason will be as much against them as they are against it and so there will be an everlasting Broil and Mutiny within us Till therefore we are throughout perfectly rational that is till all our Faculties are intirely compliant with our Reason it is impossible we can ever be perfectly happy and tho' we had Power enough to defend our selves from all hurtful Impressions from without and to ward off the Blows not only of Devils and Men but even of God himself yet so long as our Reason and our Will are at Variance our Will will be a spightful Devil to us and our Reason an angry God So that while we are imperfect you see we cannot be happy and while we follow our own Will against God we cannot be perfect For to follow God and Right Reason saith the Philosopher is the same thing and to present our selves saith a far greater Author a living sacrifice holy and acceptable unto God is our reasonable service Rom. 12. 1. For the Will of God being invariably determined in all its Choices and Refusals by the infinite Wisdom and Goodness of his Nature must be the most perfectly rational Will in the World and as such the Standard and Pattern of all other Wills and therefore so far forth as our Will doth deflect from his it must necessarily be imperfect and irrational But while I govern my Will by his and do choose and refuse by his Commands and Prohibitions I follow the Pattern of my Perfection and while I follow his Will which is a most perfect Transcript of his Nature I transcribe his Perfections into my own For while I am copying his Will I am imitating his Nature and while I am imitating his Nature I am growing into his Likeness and Resemblance And when once my Will is all god-like and its Affections and Inclinations are perfectly conformable to God's then I am perfectly rational and shall be perfectly happy For now as I resemble God in his Perfections I shall resemble him in his self-enjoyment my Reason will be perfectly satisfied with my Will even as God's Reason is with his and my Nature will be a fair and beautiful Prospect to my Understanding even as God's Nature is to his I shall contemplate my own Graces with a transcendent Pleasure and Delight and while I alternately turn my Eyes upon God and my self and compare Grace with Grace and Beauty with Beauty I shall feel as he doth a Heaven of Content and Joy springing up in my Bosom Thus by denying our own Will you see and submitting to God's which is the Standard of our Perfection we naturally grow up into Blessedness whereas by following our own Wills in Opposition to God's we fatally sink our selves into Wretchedness and Misery 3. It is also to be considered that the Conformity of our Nature to our Happiness consists not in what we will but in what God wills To make us blessed it is not only necessary that there should be blisful Objects for us to enjoy but that our Minds should agree with and be contempered to them for unless we are affected suitably to the Worth and Excellency of them all the Objects of Heaven cannot make us happy For as Delicacies are grateful only to delicate Palats and Musick to musical Ears so the glorious Entertainments of the World to come are a Heaven only to heavenly Minds For to dwell with a God whom I do not love and to be confined to a Society of Spirits whose Tempers I am averse to to be put upon Exercises against which I have an Antipathy would be a tedious Constraint instead of a free Enjoyment so that before ever Heaven can be a Heaven to me my Mind must be tuned and adapted to its Joys and Beatitudes And this is not to be effected by following our own Will but God's for our Will as it stands in Opposition to God's is either a sensual or a devilish one or both and 't is either Covetousness or Luxury which are the Lusts of the Flesh or Pride or Malice which are the Lusts of the Spirit that sway and determine it in all its Choices and Refusals both which are as repugnant to the heavenly Enjoyments as Light is to Darkness or one Contrary to to another For between a spiritual Heaven and a carnal Mind a divine Heaven and a devilish Mind there is an irreconcilable Distance and for such a Mind to live happily upon such a Heaven is as impossible in the nature of the Thing as it is for a hungry Wolf to fill his Belly with Syllogisms or to satisfy its Appetite upon a Lecture of Philosophy Whilst therefore we give way to our corrupt Will and Inclination we do contract an Antipathy to Heaven and do what in us lies to prepossess our own Minds with an implacable Aversion to all its Joys and Beatitudes We take an effectual Course to antidote our Souls against true Happiness and to secure our Minds from being ever touch'd and affected with the divine and spiritual Pleasures of the World to come So that if we are still resolved to take part with our own wicked Will against God we were best take our Pleasure while we may have it while we live among these sensitive Enjoyments that suit with our brutish Appetites and Affections for when we go hence into the Spiritual World that will be like a barren Wilderness to us where we shall find nothing to live upon but be forced to pine away a long Eternity under a desperate Hunger and Dissatisfaction But if we heartily resign up our selves to God and prostrate our Wills to his we shall thereby quickly acquire a heavenly Frame and Disposition For the proper Business of
continues Heaven must be a Torment to me instead of a Fruition and if when I go from hence into Eternity I should be admitted into Heaven with this prevailing Aversion to the beatifical Acts of it I should be so far from enjoying it that I should loath it and rather choose to banish my self from it for ever than to be confined to a Condition so unsuitable to my Nature Whilst therefore I am running from God after my own Will I am running from Heaven and if I do not stop the sooner shall run my self to a Distance from it as immense and irreconcilable as that which separated Dives from Abraham's Bosom And thus you see how indispensibly necessary upon all these Accounts Self-denyal is in order to our future Happiness Hence then let us all be perswaded to renounce our corrupt Will and Affections and resign up our selves to the Government of God And further to move you hereunto I beseech you briefly to consider with me these Four Things 1. That in its self this is the most just and equitable Thing you can do 2. That in this consists the Life and Substance of all your Religion 3. That this is the great Hinge upon which your Safety and Security depends 4. That in this you do the most effectually consult your own Interest 1. That to deny your own Wills and resign up your selves to the Government of God is in it self the most just and equitable Thing you can do For all your Powers and Faculties are Gods by an unalienable Right and Property your Understanding is his and your Will is his and all your Powers of Action are the Births and Products of his fruitful Will and Almighty Goodness And if it be thus we must necessarily be obliged to subject our selves to him and prostrate our Wills and all our Powers of Action at his feet If then we are his as we must be if we are made by him what have we to do to dispose of our selves contrary to his Will and Pleasure with what Colour of Iustice can I choose what He commands me to refuse when my Power of choosing is his and he hath a far more undoubted Right to it than I have to the Cloaths on my Back when he is the supream Proprietor of that Will wherewith I choose with what Conscience can I vote with it against him or give away any of my Choices and Elections from him What is this but to embezzle my Masters Goods and alienate his Property from his Use and Service Remember O Man in every wicked Choice that thou makest thou givest away thy self from thy right Owner and dost sacrilegiously rob God of the Fruits of his own Creation and must one Day expect to render a dreadful Account to him for every Choice thou hast given away from him and for every Thought and Word and Action which thou hast presumed to dispose of contrary to his Orders For thou hast no more Right to give away thy self or any of thy Choices and Actions from God and canst no more justifie thy self for so doing than thou hast to sell away thy Landlords Fee-simple or to entail his Inheritance on thy Children And before you make too bold with God's Property or presume to dispose of his Goods at your Pleasure you were best consider seriously whom you have to deal with that you have not to do with a Being that is to be hector'd out of his Rights or born down with Might and Violence but with a God that is sufficiently sensible of your unjust Usurpations and abundantly able to revenge them that is jealous of his own Rights and Properties has a deep Resentment of all your injurious Invasions of them and an Almighty Arm to assert and vindicate them And when you have considered this then alienate your Choices from him if you dare but in the mean Time as you will answer the Injustice of it at the Tribunal of God have a Care how you dispose of your selves contrary to his Orders lest as a just Retribution he should one Day dispose of you contrary to your Wills to everlasting Misery and Despair 2. Consider that in this denying and resigning our selves to God consists the Life and Substance of all our Religion For what is Religion but a 〈◊〉 a Tying or Binding fast Mens Minds and 〈◊〉 to God It is the Bond of our Allegiance to the Throne of Heaven by which we oblige our selves to be God's Subjects and do resign up our Wills and all our Powers of Action to his Government and in this as I shew'd you consists Self-denyal For when once we have master'd our own Self-Will and conquer'd its Obstinacy and persuaded it to yield up it self to the Will of God then is his glorious Empire set up in our Souls then he is crowned our Soveraign Lord his Kingdom is come into us and we may cry Hallelujah for the Lord God Omnipotent reigneth But till once our Religion hath tied our Souls to God and obliged our Will to renounce all other Lords and submit to his Empire it is only a Name an empty Shew and Formality of Religion 't is a Religion without a Religion or a Bond without a Tye that is 't is down right Nonsense and a Contradiction to it self And what Shews or Professions soever we may make of Religion how zealous or forward soever we may be in the external Acts of it it will all signifie nothing to us unless there be a prostrate Will and a resigned Heart at the bottom For this is the Alpha and Omega the Corner and the Top-Stone of Religion and to pretend Religion without this is to pretend Loyalty in open Acts of Rebellion And indeed could Religion consist with a rebellious Will the Devil himself might very fairly pretend to it for that which makes him a Devil is nothing but his own boisterous Self-Will that is continually struggling and lifting up it self against God And hence Belial is the Devil's Name which signifies without Yoak and accordingly the Children of Belial are described to be such as do altogether break the Yoak and burst the Bonds of the Lord. Jer. 5. 5. and called Children of Disobedience Eph. 2. 2. because like their Father Belial they are impatient of Restraint and will hearken to no Law but that of their own boundless Self-will So far are those Men from being truly Religious whose Wills are divided from God's that they are in Belial's Predicament unyoak'd from the Divine Government and their Wills are in a strict Confederacy with the Devil And hence the Prophet Samuel speaking of Saul's Rebellion against God tells him that Rebellion is as the Sin of Witchcraft 1 Sam. 15. 23. that is Rebellion against God is an implicite Confederacy with the Devil even as Witchcraft is an explicite one For the Devil being the Prince and Ring-leader of the Rebel-Creation whoever sets up his Will against God does thereby renounce his Allegiance to Heaven and like a false Recreant
that which is its Grace and Perfection begins at the wrong End of himself forgets his Iewels and estimates his Estate by his Lumber in so much that one would think it impossible did not too many woful Expeperiments daily evince the contrary that any Creature owning and believing a rational and immortal Spirit to be a Part of its Being should be so ridiculous as to value it self by such little trifling Advantages as a well-coloured Skin a Suit of fine Cloaths a Puff of Popular Applause a Bag of red or white Earth and yet God help us these are the only Things almost by which we difference our selves from one another You are a much better Man than your Neighbour who is a very poor contemptible Wretch a little creeping despicable Animal not worthy to be taken notice of by such a one as you Why in the name of God Sir what 's the matter Where is this mighty Difference between you and him Hath he not a Soul as well as you a Soul that is capable to live as long and be as happy as yours Yes that is true indeed but notwithstanding that you thank God for it you are another guize Man than he for you have a much bandsomer Body your Apparel is finer and more fashionable you live in a more splendid Equipage and have a larger Purse to maintain it and to your great Comfort your Name is more in Vogue and makes a far greater Rattle in the World And is this all the Difference then between your mighty Self and your poor Neighbour Alas a few Days more will put an End to all this and when your rich Attires are reduced to a Winding-sheet and all your vast Possessions to six Foot of Earth what will become of all these little Trifles by which you value your selves so highly Where now will be the Beauty the Wealth the Port and Garb of which you are so conceited Alas now that lovely Body will look as pale and gastly that lofty Soul will be left as bare as poor and naked as your despised Neighbours and should you now meet his wandring Ghost in the vast World of Spirits what will you have left to boast of more than he now that your Beauty is withered your Wealth vanished and all your outward Pomp and Splendor buried in a silent Grave Now you will have nothing left to distinguish you from the most Contemptible unless you have wiser and better Souls which are the only Preheminencies above other Men that will survive our Funerals and distinguish us from base and abject Souls for ever If we are now more pious and humble and just and charitable than other Men this will stick by us when our Heads are laid and to all Eternity render us glorious and happy And indeed when once we have thrown off our Body and all our bodily Passions and Necessities the only Goods we shall be capable of enjoying are God our selves and the Society of blessed Spirits and these are no otherwise enjoyable but only by Acts of Piety and Vertue It is only by our Contemplation and Worship our Love and Imitation of God that we can enjoy him it is only by our Prudence and Moderation our Temperance and Humility that we can enjoy our selves it is only by our Charity and Iustice our Modesty peaceable and mutual Submission and Condescention to one another that we can enjoy the glorious Society of blessed Spirits but if our unbodied Spirits carry with them these divine Graces into the other World we shall by them be possessed of every Thing our utmost Wishes can propose of a good God a god-like joyous and contented Mind a peaceful kind and righteous Neighbourhood and so all above within and without us will be a pure and perfect Heaven So that if when I go from hence to seek my fortune in the World of Spirits God should thus bespeak me O man seeing thou art now leaving all the Enjoyments of sense consult what will do thee good and thou shalt have whatever thou wilt ask to carry with thee into the spiritual State I say should God thus offer me I am sure the utmost Good I could wisely crave would be this Lord give me a Heart inflamed with Love and winged with Duty to thee that thereby I may but enjoy thee give me a sober and a temperate Mind that thereby I may enjoy my self give me a kind and peaceable and righteous Temper that thereby I may enjoy the sweet Society of blessed Spirits O give me but these blessed Things and thou hast crowned all my Wishes and to Eternity I will never ask any other Favour for my self but only this that I may continue a holy and a righteous Soul for ever for so long as I continue so I am sure I shall enjoy all spiritual Goods and be as happy as Heaven can make me What a prodigious Piece of Folly therefore is it for Men to value themselves more upon these outward Advantages of which ere long they must be stript than upon the Graces and Vertues of their own Minds on which they must subsist for ever Suppose now that you were a Merchant in a far Country where you were allowed for a short uncertain Time the Benefit of free Trade and Commerce in order to your gaining a good Estate to maintain you in your own Native Country when ever you are forced to return would you be so indiscreet as to lay out all the Product of your Merchandize in building fine Houses and purchasing great Farms when you know not how soon you may be commanded to depart and leave all these immoveable Goods behind you Or rather would you not think your selves obliged by all the Rules of Interest and Discretion to convert all your Gain into portable Wealth into Mony or Jewels or other such moveable Commodities as when ever you are forced to depart you might carry Home along with you and there maintain your selves with them in many years Ease and Plenty Do but think then and think it often that while you live here you are but Strangers and Foreign Merchants that you came hither from another World to which you know not how soon you may be forced to return that all the Wealth the Lands and Houses you gain by your present Commerce are immoveable Goods which you must leave behind you when you go from hence and that there is nothing portable of all that you can gain in this World but only the Graces and Vertues of your Minds and that therefore while you have Opportunity it concerns you above all Things to store and treasure up a plentiful Portion of these that so whenever you are shipt off into the eternal World you may carry such an Estate of them thither with you as may suffice to maintain you there in Glory and Happiness for ever which God of his infinite Mercy grant 1 JOHN III. 9. Whosoever is born of God doth not commit sin for his seed remaineth in him and he
for more and then the Tenure of all is so insecure that the Accession of more doth only increase our Fear of losing what we have So that our Mind must be perpetually ground between these Two restless Mill-stones the Desire of getting more and the Fear of losing what we enjoy and therefore seeing it is impossible for us to alter the Nature of these outward Goods or to render them either more secure or more satisfying the only way for us to be truly happy is to alter the Temper of our own Minds to wean them from this World and determin them to an Happiness that is more Solid and Substantial and within our own Disposal and such a Happiness is that which Christianity proposes to us an Happiness that depends upon our own free Acts and grows out of the Graces and Vertues of our own Mind For so that everlasting Heaven which the Gospel proposes to us is inseparably annexed to the right and good Use of our natural Liberty and consequently is as much within our Power as our own Resolutions and voluntary Motions Whilst therefore we are under the Government of this Christian Happiness we are Masters of our own Fortunes and do live independently on Chance and the Wills of Men and it is within our own Power to be happy without asking leave of any but God and our selves Now we are no longer Tenants at Will to the little Casualties and Accidents of the World no longer liable to be turned out of our Happiness by Storms or Fires or Invasions by the Contingencies of Providence or the Knaveries and Cruelties of Men no more exposed like miserable Vagrants to beg our Happiness from Door to Door to creep and cringe and fawn to the Humours of an inconstant World to court its Smiles or tremble at its Frowns For if Heaven be the Happiness we depend on there is nothing can deprive us of it but our own free Acts and it is as much in our Power not to be miserable as not to be wicked and our Happiness being all imbarked in the same bottom with our Piety and Vertüe they must both of them run the same Fate and eitherswim or sink together If therefore we would be at Peace within our selves we must put our selves under the Government of the Happiness of Christians which is the only one that we can be sure of there being no other within our own Power and Disposal for till this is done we are like Men in a Crowd encompassed about with so many cross rancountring Accidents as will never let us be at rest but be perpetually shoving and jostling us to and fro and still as we get free from one another will be pressing upon us and that which thrusts on this will still be thrust on by another without any Pause or Intermission and so our miserable Minds will be always hurried about and never want Causes of Disquiet But when once we have fix'd upon that Happiness above we shall be so much above these little Accidents below and their Force will be so broken before they can reach us that we shall scarce be sensible of their saint Impressions and so we shall pass on as quietly and undisturbedly through them as we do now through those Crowds of Motes that are always dancing in the Air about us And so I have dispatched the first Thing 〈◊〉 proposed which was to shew that our blessed Lord in order to his giving us his Peace hath removed from us all Causes of Disquiet 2. I now proceed to the Second which is to shew that he hath also taken Care to supply us with the most effectual Principles of Peace and Satisfaction of Mind and they are these following 1. That by the Sacrifice of himself he hath purged away our Guilts and thereby given us the most certain Ground of Peace of Conscience 2. That as he sacrificed himself for us while he was upon Earth so now he is in Heaven he hath the Ordering and Disposal of every Thing that concerns or befals us 3. That he hath procured for us a Futurity sufficiently happy to make us infinite amends for the worst Evils that can befal us here 4. That he hath established this happy Futurity upon such Terms and Conditions as are within the reach of our own Power 5. That he hath taken Care in his Absence to provide for us such Supports as are proportionable to every Burthen he will lay upon us 1. One Principle of Peace and Satisfaction of Mind wherewith our Saviour hath supplied us is this that by the Sacrifice of himself he hath fully purged away our Guilts and thereby given us the most certain Ground of Peace of Conscience For he declared that he died in our Persons and stead and that all those miserable Things he endured upon the Cross were in lieu of that Punishment that was due to God for our sins that the Blood he spilt there was designed by him for the Price of our Redemption and that the Life he laid down there was in exchange for the forfeited Lives of our Souls And to manifest God's Acceptance of it as an Equivalent for our Punishment he rose from the dead and was actually discharged from the Prison of the Grave by which he gave us an Acquittance under God's own Hand purporting that he had graciously accepted his Son's Death in lieu of our Punishment and that if now we would heartily repent and amend all our past Guilts and Obligations to Punishment should in Consideration thereof be for ever dissolved Who then can lay any thing to the Charge of God's Elect seeing it is Christ that hath died and thereby tendred a full Ransom for us to God yea rather that is risen again and thereby certified us that the Father of Mercies hath graciously accepted and allowed of it So that if now we repent we are as certain of our Pardon as we are of the Death and Resurrection of our Saviour which are such Facts of which we have as plain Demonstration as the Nature of Things will bear And having so certain a Ground of Peace of Conscience before us what can be more conducive to the Ease and Satisfaction of our Minds For a quiet Conscience is a Paradise within a Wilderness whereinto a Man may retire when he can find nothing else to live upon and live chearfully and merrily in despite of all Misfortunes which like Showers of Hail falling upon the Tiles of a Musick-House are not able with all their Clattering and Noise to disturb the grateful Harmony within As therefore when all is smooth and prosperous without a Man may shelter himself there from the Persecutions of his Conscience so when all is calm and serene within he may shelter himself there from the Persecutions of the World but when both are bestormed he hath no Refuge to fly to And therefore that we may never be left utterly forsaken and abandoned our blessed Saviour by washing away our Guilt in his own Blood hath