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
Baptism And therefore to suppose a Man may be saved upon Baptism though he is not a good Man is not allowable but if he dye just upon it God will judge him according to the present temper of his Mind and the past course of his Actions allowing him the Gracious Termes of the Gospel which he has now a right to by his Baptism but to think he can be saved without any Actual Goodness in his Mind and in his Life is I think very false though a less degree may save him that knows not Baptism or Christianity than him that does But as for the Baptism of Blood or allowing Martyrdom the priviledge of Baptism this is not founded upon ordinary right but presumptive equity and Salvation is allowed to them because no Man but must be presumed to be a very good Man and have a high degree of actual Vertue and Holiness who dyes a Martyr and prefers Religion before every thing in this World even his very Life And without this in some higher measure than meer Purposes and Resolutions and meer Sorrow and Repentance for not having it I deny that any Baptism or any thing else will save a Man This I say to prevent an Objection that it would not otherwise be easie to Answer which is this That if the Grace of Baptism will send a wicked and unqualified Soul to Heaven by vertue of a meer dying Repentance without any degrees of Actual Holiness without which the Scripture tells us no man shall see the Lord why may not the Grace of the Eucharist do the same by the like dying Repentance Or according to the Roman Principles the Grace of Penance and Absolution or of Extreme Unction which have all the same superstitious Error at the bottom SECT II. The Pleas and Pretences on behalf of a Death-Bed Repentance Answered HAving showed that there is nothing in the case of the Thief upon the Cross to support or justifie the validity and efficacy of a Death-Bed Repentance I shall now examine the other Pleas and Pretences which are brought for it and show how weak and ungrounded they are so that no Man may believe such a dangerous and mistaken Doctrine nor venture his Soul not only upon such an uncertain hazard but such a certain danger and inevitable ruine as that will bring upon him if he presume upon it and trust to it I shall consider and rectifie the common prejudices that are about it which are chiefly these following First That at whatsoever time a Sinner repenteth he shall find Mercy Secondly That if a Man do so heartily and sincerely resolve upon a good Life that God sees if he should live he would make this good then this Will shall be taken for the Deed. Thirdly That God may turn and change a Mans Heart on a sudden Fourthly That by denying the efficacy of a Death-Bed Repentance we throw Men into despair and take away the Arguments that should perswade them then to Repent and limit Gods Mercy and restrain his Grace and the like First That Expression Whensoever or at what time soever a Sinner repenteth he shall find mercy Now this though it be not express and in so many words in Scripture and therefore when the words in the Original would not fully bear such a Translation Ezek. 18.21 and some were offended at it as giving too much encouragement to the Doctrine I am opposing it was left out of the Sentences beginning our Morning-Prayer yet if we allow it to be true in the utmost and fullest sense and there is no great difference between when and whensoever or at what time soever yet it no way avails to the maintaining the efficacy of a late or Death-Bed Repentance for all that a Man can then do does not come up to true Repentance such a Repentance as has Pardon and Salvation promised to it by the Terms of the Gospel A Man may then be very sorry for his Sins and heartily troubled and concerned for them but this Sorrow alone were it upon never so good Reasons is not Repentance but that which may bring us to Repentance as St. Paul sayes Godly sorrow worketh Repentance 2 Cor. 7.10 and therefore it is not the thing it self We may as well suppose that feeling the smart of a Wound is healing it as meer Sorrow for Sin is true Repentance Few Sinners and few Malefactors but are thus sorrowful when they come near the place of Punishment and Execution They are sorry they must suffer for their Sins and the terrour of their Sufferings makes Sin very bitter to them but if that were removed they would love them and commit them perhaps as much as ever If Sorrow alone for Sin though never so deep and grievous were true Repentance then Cain and Judas were as great Penitents as any and so will all the damned be to all Eternity who will thus sorrow and thus repent for ever of their Sins but without any amendment and they will wish also a thousand times that they had been wiser and lived better and had not by their foolish and wicked courses brought themselves into such a miserable and wretched condition and would God but let them live over their Lives again oh how much better would they be how much otherwise would they live and how heartily would they purpose and resolve to leave all their Sins and lead a very good Life would God but give them opportunity and space and try them once more This is the language of Sinners both in this World and the next too when the day of Grace and the time of Tryal is over when it is too late to do all this which they now wish they had done but would not do it when God gave them time and so they have lost the only opportunity which it is impossible to retrieve Would God grant either the Sinner that is damned or the Sinner that is a dying opportunity to live again they would both be better perhaps but since he does not he will judge them not according to what they would be but what they have been not according to what they wish and resolve to do but what they actually have done since the Scripture no where tells us that Men shall receive according to their Wishes their Purposes and Resolutions but according to their Works and Actions whether they have been good or evil And therefore 2ly I believe there is no ground for that determination which has been often given about a Death-Bed Repentance n that if a Mans Purposes are then so sincere that he would make them good if he lived that then they may be sufficient to his Salvation Had God given him time to make them good and from a bad Man to have become a good one which is the only true Notion I know of Repentance then indeed he had fallen under the promises and the measures of the Gospel where God has declared Pardon to all Men that Repent and Amend but no where that I know
ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who hold the truth in unrighteousness Rom. 1.18 And when the Lord Jesus shall be revealed from Heaven with his mighty Angels he will take vengeance on all them that obey not his gospel who shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord 2 Thess 1.8 9. And those Christians who do any such works of the Flesh as are mentioned Gal. 5.19 21. shall not inherit the Kingdom of God but for the sake of those the wrath of God cometh on the children of disobedience Colos 3.6 These things are as clear as if they were writ with a Sun-beam so that none one would think who reads the Gospel should suppose Faith alone without Obedience should justifie and save us or that Christ is a Saviour to any but those who obey him Heb. 5.9 since blessed are they who do his commandments for they only have right to the tree of life Rev. 22.14 From all which it is plain that Obedience to the Laws of the Gospel is the only and the indispensable Condition of our Salvation And indeed this is the very design of Christs giving us such excellent Laws that we should obey them and be happy for ever by doing so and if we do not but live wickedly we must be eternally miserable It had been in vain for God to have given us any Laws or commanded us any thing if he had not given them such a Sanction and obliged us to them by such Rewards and Penalties and therefore if Mens heads were not bewildred with odd schemes and disputes about decrees and strange methods of Salvation this would be the first and plainest Principle in all Religion as 't is the truest and there would never be any dispute about it that if Men live well here they shall be for ever happy if ill for ever miserable However ignorant Men call this a Legal Condition of Salvation and would have no such in the Gospel yet as I have shown Christianity requires it so does also the very Nature of Religion and of Divine Government and the belief of a Future Judgment and of Rewards and Punishments in another World do all suppose it For what are those Rewards for but for those who live Vertuously and those Punishments but for those who live Wickedly And what is a Future Judgment but to reward all Men according to their works where God as a Just and Impartial Judge shall without respect of persons judge according to every mans work 1 Pet. 1.17 And every one shall receive the things done in his body according to that he hath done whether it be good or bad 2 Cor. 5.10 For when the Son of Man shall come in the glory of his Father with his Angels then he shall reward every man according to his works Matth. 16.27 In the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God he will render to every man according to his deeds Rom. 2.6 To them who by patient continuance in well doing seek for glory and honour and immortality eternal life But unto them that obey not the truth but obey unrighteousness tribulation and anguish upon every soul of man that doth evil ver 8 9. Nothing can be plainer than this in the whole Gospel that Men must expect to receive hereafter according to the goodness or badness of their Lives here and that the only Condition of their Salvation is Obedience to the Laws of the Gospel 'T is a wretched misunderstanding and a total destroying of Christianity to set up any loose Principles of Faith and Free-Grace or the like which are not consistent with this and to delude our selves with hopes of Salvation by Christ upon any other Condition or by any other Means than this of Obedience God indeed hath granted us this favour and priviledge by the Gospel that though we have disobeyed him sometime and some part of our lives yet if we come off from this Disobedience and return to our Duty in time and performe Obedience to him for the future that then he will forgive our former Disobedience and not charge it upon us nor punish us for it but graciously pardon it for the sake of Christ and his meritorious sufferings and that he will receive us again into his favour and reward us for our new Obedience as if we had never done otherwise but had been always obedient and never transgrest his Commandments This is the great grace and favour and priviledge of the Gospel and this is what we call Repentance for Repentance is the same thing with Obedience only it comes after Disobedience 't is a Mans living well after he has lived otherwise which takes in Obedience and a good Life though after a bad one 't is like a Mans setting up again after he had once broke when after his kind Creditor has been pleased to compound with him and instead of his whole Debt to wit an entire and Universal Obedience all his Life to accept of such a partial and broken one he may again thrive and grow rich and so get free from his former poverty or as I have often represented the Nature of Repentance 't is like a Mans recovering health and strength and soundness of body after he has been weak and ill or distempered in the whole or any part Health and Strength is the same to him that it was before though he had once lost it as Riches is to the other now he hath got them again after he was broke so 't is the same vertue of Mind which we ought always to have have had that Repentance restores us to and 't is the same Obedience to God's Laws which a Penitent performs upon his return to his duty that he should have performed before and 't is this only that commends him to God and gives him a title to the promises of the Gospel and procures Pardon and Salvation to him 'T is God's infinite Mercy in and through Christ to allow and accept of this After Obedience as the Condition of our Salvation when it is so broken and interrupted whereas the whole Obedience of our Lives is due to God and he might refuse to accept of this lame and after and imperfect one but still 't is Obedience to Gods Laws after we have broken them by our sins 't is this Obedience renewed ex postliminio as I may call it that recommends us to his favour obtains our pardon for what is past and entitles us again to the reward we had forfeited and without this we can never be reconciled to God nor received into Heaven for none shall go thither but the Vertuous and Obedient whither they have always been so or only after they have been otherwise but still they must be Vertuous and they must be Obedient or else they can never come thither for 't is certain Obedience which if after Disobedience in any instance is call'd Repentance is by the Gospel the absolute and indispensable Condition of our
he feels an inward strength and vigour in himself and the constant springs of joy and comfort rising up in his own breast and overflowing his Soul But Vice sneaks and is cowardly and fills a Man with fear and confusion and all the mean and little and uneasie and tormenting Passions that belong to Humane Nature Vertue approves it self to our Reason and agrees with the native sense of our own Minds and has a Natural beauty and loveliness that commends it to our first sight and apprehension and makes it amiable and desirable esteemed and honoured and admired by every one even by those who forsake it who cannot but be so just to it as to commend and approve it very often in others But Vice has a Natural ugliness and deformity that makes Men ashamed of it after they have committed it and commit it in darkness and obscurity and after to deny and extenuate it as being presently sensible of the folly and undecency and unreasonableness of it as having done what they cannot justifie and what presently flyes in their faces if they have not a brow of Brass and a forehead of Steel It is contrary and awry to our own Nature and against the first sense and tenderness of our own Minds so that great violence must be used to commit it at first and great pain follows upon it 'T is a force a Rape upon the Virgin-modesty and the Natural sense of Good and Evil that we are born with Vertue has alwayes very good and desirable effects upon us in this Life as well as great Rewards in another 'T is in the Wise Mans Phrase and in a true literal sense Health to our navel and marrow to our bones Prov. 3.8 It keeps our Bodies in good plight neither drains or exhausts them with forced Pleasures or unruly Passions nor choaks or suffocates them with immoderate loads nor drowns and washes them away with floods of drink and cups of intemperance It brings a Blessing of God upon our Estates and often makes us Rich by the help of Industry and Frugality whilst nothing is so expensive and so impoverishing as Vice which spends many times all upon its Lusts and the hungry Wolf comes often to the door where the Swine and the Goat have been used to dwell Though Vertue may not alwayes bring abundance neither is it desirable alwayes to a wise Man though Solomon puts Riches as the common Blessing in the left hand of Wisdom Prov. 3.16 yet it makes a little that the righteous hath better than great riches of the ungodly Ps 37.16 Honour and a good Name do more certainly belong to Vertue than Riches and whilst Vice brings a blot and a reproach upon a Mans Credit Vertue makes him loved and honoured and esteemed by all that know him while he lives and embalms his Name when he is dead and makes his Memory to be precious But above all it makes a Man truly easie and happy within himself it secures him the peace and tranquillity of his own Mind which is the greatest happiness in the World So that all Natural Good and all that is desirable to Humane Nature growes as a proper Fruit out of Vertue which is the true Root that Naturally brings forth all Good as Sin does all Evil and these are so annexed to them by the nature and constitution of things as effects to their proper causes that nothing can cut them off or precide them and these besides all the super-added Motives of revealed Religion are by plain Reason and observation of things very strong Arguments to bring Men off from Vice to Vertue i. e. to true Repentance 4. Therefore Fourthly A wise Man when he comes to reflect and consider finds that that which hindered him from seeing all this before was only his foolish Lusts and his corrupt senfual Inclinations and his strong Passions and violent and unreasonable Appetites which blinded his Reason and clouded his Judgment and darkened his Understanding and besotted intoxicated and bewitched him i. e. by some unaccountable wayes hindered him from discerning and considering these things which are so plain and evident and therefore the reason why he before chose Vice and forsook Vertue was because he did not see and consider this nor was so truly convinced of the Evil of Sin and the Good of Vertue but now he has quite other thoughts and apprehensions about them and therefore he is changed in his Will and his Affections by this change wrought in his Mind and his Understanding and this being a lasting and effectual change upon all the inward principles of action has a necessary influence upon his outward actions that are alwayes moved and turned by those inward springs and wheels within us for though a Man is still at liberty and is under no force and compulsion from without but acts freely from within himself yet his Will will follow the last dictate of his Understanding and he will not choose Evil as Evil when he apprehends it to be so and he must some way have his Reason corrupted and judge falsly and erroneously before he will practice so Omnis peccans ignorat If he has a true and lively sense of the Good of Vertue abiding upon his Mind he will not choose Vice again 'T is this sense I doubt not confirms the blessed Spirits above and will do the Souls of all good Men in Heaven when they see and know this so perfectly that 't will be impossible for them to fall but now we see things darkly and judge weakly and often change and alter our Minds as not having such a clear view of things nor attending so closely to the dictates of impartial Reason but our thoughts are often lured off by the temptations of the Flesh and our Minds hearken but to one side to the false reasonings and suggestions of the Devil and our own Lusts or are surprized with the sudden importunity of a temptation before they can recollect themselves Else no Man could say Video meliora proboque deteriora sequor for we cannot but love and choose Good when we apprehend it and hate and abhor Evil when it is visible and naked to us We must therefore strip Vice of its disguise and its false colours and wash off its paint and meretricious charmes and see it as it is in its deformity and ugliness and in the miserable and sad consequences of it and then we shall hate that which we once loved and throw away the gilded poyson and shake the smooth and shining Viper off of our hands and cast the rotten curtizan from our armes and embraces We shall be ashamed that we were so cheated and imposed upon so deluded by the deceitfulness of sin that we were so weak as to be governed by our mean passions and low inclinations which are the imperfection and the soft side of our Nature and that we should not live up to that Reason which is proper to us and distinguishes us from brutes that we
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
fullest participation of him and his Perfections All Vertue and Holiness is an efflux or irradiation of the Divine Nature communicated to the Humane Gods Essential Holiness transfused into our Nature his Image imprinted upon our Minds and therefore it makes us the Children of God in the Scripture language and so naturally and necessarily beloved by him even in some degree as he loves himself and takes infinite complacency and delight in his own Essential Perfections and Original Holiness The righteous Lord loveth righteousness Psal 11.7 from his own Righteous Nature and for the same reason The wicked his Soul hateth for he cannot love any Being so contrary to himself and so repugnant to his own Righteous and Holy Nature for we may as well suppose him to hate himself or to love the Devils the most opposite to himself and therefore the most accursed Beings as to love a very wicked and impure Soul which does truly partake of the Diabolical Nature and is most repugnant to the Divine He cannot take such an one into his special Love and Favour and communicate any of his own Happiness to it and admit it into Heaven which is the highest degree and fullest participation of his Love and of his Happiness upon the account of its unlikeness and contrariety to the Essential Perfections and Holiness of the Divine Nature 2. God cannot bestow Heaven upon any but those who are Good and Vertuous as 't is a Gift and Reward proposed and promised by him only to such as are so God as he is a Just Judge and an Impartial Distributer of Rewards and Punishments and will render to every man at the last day according to his works he cannot without injury to that Character and the plain charge and imputation of Partiality and Injustice bestow and confer so great a Reward as Heaven is to be upon those who are wholly unworthy and undeserving of it who have lived wickedly and disobediently all their Lives had no regard to the Honour and Glory of God nor doing him any service in the World nor made Heaven and Religion and Vertue their great end but gratified their Vices and enjoyed their Lusts and allowed themselves in all the undue liberties of Sensual Pleasures and broken the Divine Commands and lived in a direct and open opposition to God and Religion If such Men shall be at last rewarded by God as well as those who have faithfully served him and sincerely obeyed him and made it their business to promote his Honour and promote Religion and do all the good they could in the World who have denyed themselves all unlawful pleasures and vicious gratifications and have took great pains with themselves to conquer their sensual inclinations and overcome the Temptations of this World and to live up to the strict rules and answer the great ends and designs of Religion if the reward of Heaven and the Crown of Glory be not laid up for these and they alone partakers of it and not the other then God will be thought at that great day when he says he will judge the world in righteousness not to have done right to his Creatures nor to have had a due regard to their Actions not to have loved and rewarded Vertue punish'd and hated Vice as they deserved and not to have dealt with Mankind according to the known measures of Justice among themselves and the certain rules of distributing rewards and punishments The whole Scripture assures us the contrary to this and the reason of the thing makes it impossible to be otherwise for tho' Heaven is the Gift of God infinitely beyond what is due to any of our Vertues yet 't is a Reward too and shall be given in a way of Justice and in such a manner as is agreeable to the rules of Righteousness 3. Such is the Nature of this Heavenly Happiness that none but good Men can partake of it for none but they can love God and delight in him and take any complacency and satisfaction in the enjoyment of him The wicked whilst he continues such is an enemy to God and a hater of him and whilst he is so were he carried to Heaven he would be only like a Traytor taken captive and brought in Chains to his Princes Court where it would be no pleasure to see him upon his Throne in all his greatness whom he hated against whom he had been a Rebel and from whom he could never expect any favour and therefore the being thus brought into his Presence and seeing all his Glory would be only a greater vexation to him and an adding to his misery and only more torment him as it does the Devils to see and know there is such a Being above them whom they can never have their friend or be reconciled to No Man while he is wicked can have any more hopes of this than those wretched Spirits and therefore can never have any or be capable of any happy communion or fruition of God in Heaven And as to the spiritual pleasures and noble enjoyments there they are no more suited and adapted to him than any other pleasures are to one that has lost the proper Faculties to which they should be agreeable and by which he should have the perception of them than Musick to one that is deaf or Light and Beauty to one that is blind and therefore such a vicious wretch cannot be imagined to be in any other condition in Heaven were he to go thither with his sinful Habits than all other Animals are when they are taken out of their proper Elements for Heaven is no place nor has no suitable pleasures and entertainments but for those who love God and Goodness and delight in the exercises and enjoyments of Religion 4. From the Nature of our own Minds 't is impossible we can enter into Heaven or be capable of Happiness without Holiness and Vertue Our Happiness there must be suited to those Faculties and Capacities which belong to us it must lye in the highest perfection and improvement of the several powers of our Minds and the most proper sense and enjoyment resulting from thence when our Understandings are advanced to the highest knowledge especially of God and the Divine Nature which is that Beatifick Vision that seeing of God as he is in which the Scripture places the chiefest part of Heavenly Happiness when the Will chooses the chiefest and supream good with the greatest vigour and ardour and enjoys it with the highest rapture and extasie of fruition When our Souls are thus improved with the brightest understanding of Truth and the strongest love and willing of Good When our Powers and Faculties are the most raised and perfected the most enlarged and opened and filled up with the fullest enjoyment of those their proper Objects then they are in the most happy and pleasurable state imaginable Now nothing can do this but Religion and Wisdom and Vertue which are the highest accomplishment and improvement of our Minds without
down his Government of the World if he were merciful contrary to those and should not so far regard his own Honour and assert his Power and Authority and Justifie the goodness of his Laws as to revenge all open affronts against them and punish all great and notorious and habitual Sinners notwithstanding all their Prayers and Entreaties to the contrary If the cryes and lamentations of a dying Sinner should make God forgive him out of meer pity and tenderness though he had broke all the Laws of Heaven in his life and lived in direct opposition against them and never took any care to keep them this must alter the Rule of God's Government the Rule of the Gospel and the Rule of his last Judgment and he must for his sake break and act contrary to all those If notwithstanding those Gods Pity and Mercy to a poor Wretch could suffer or incline him to do this we might then as reasonably hope that this his pity might reach even to the damned in Hell their Case is very pitiable and very lamentable as well as the others and their cryes and howlings and lamentations are very loud and importunate but they are unreasonable and too late and therefore God is deaf to them one would think if Pity could so over-rule Justice as to prevail with it to dispense with the severe and righteous Rules lay'd down by the great God it would put out the flames of Hell or let the tears and cryes of the damned quench those dreadful and Everlasting burnings and not suffer so many poor and miserable Creatures to lye tortured for ever in the utmost Extremity but God's Justice and Judgment is as deep and bottomless as Hell it self and though we cannot search into all the reasons of it yet we know by his word that it shall take place and be duely executed notwithstanding his own greatest Pity and Mercy or his Creatures greatest Cryes and Lamentations A groundless presumption of God's Mercy and Pity hath ruined many Souls The Gospel declares the highest instances and degrees of it in the Redemption of the World by Jesus Christ and in pardoning our sins upon our Repentance and to show this required a wonderful Method and most Stupendous Expedient thus to find out a way to reconcile Gods Justice and Mercy together by the Sacrifice of Christ now this utmost Grace and Mercy of Heaven neither does nor could go farther than past Sins upon Repentance and Amendment Obedience and a good Life afterwards to expect any Mercy from God beyond this beyond the Gospel and the Rules and measures of Mercy there layd down is the most vain and groundless and presumptuous thing i' the World and so 't is for a dying unprepared Sinner to think he can do any thing then by which he may hope to prevail with Christ and to enter into Heaven For alass what can he then do He can use strong Crying and Tears and Prayers to God so did the Virgins and so may the Damned but alass for what can he pray That God would save him without Obedience and a good Life which he has declared he never will that he would not now punish him for a wicked and impenitent and disobedient life which he assuredly will do that he may not now be shut out when the Bridegroom is coming though he is no way prepared for it and has no Oyle in his Lamp no vertuous habits and Dispositions of mind to fit him to go in and now 't is too late to get them all on a sudden and in vain to expect to borrow this Oyl of others or to have it given by the Bridegroom himself would he pray now to God to give him Grace when he has despised and rejected it all his Life would he now have it grow up into vertuous habits and the frults of Obedience and a good life all on a sudden would he now become a new Man and a new Creature in a few hours and from a wicked Man all his life become a good one in a few days He may almost as well hope that God should make him young again now he is old and turn his old and weak and dying Body into a young and lusty and healthful one and work those mighty Miracles upon his Body as well as his Mind by his Prayers God can do the one by an Almighty Irresistible power as well as the other if he pleases but 't is very vain and groundless to depend upon the utmost of what God's power is able to do in any thing and therefore that is never to be brought in for or against any thing of this Nature The only question is not what God but what such a wicked Man and dying Sinner can then do can he have all his old habits of vice and wickedness rooted out and his Nature changed and a vertuous and holy disposition of mind planted in their stead Can that lust or sinful Inclination which was so hard to be conquered before that he pretended it was impossible for him almost to leave it can this now be so soon and so easily overcome All those Corruptions and Diseases of Soul which have been so long upon him that they are become chronical and habitual and which were before incurable by all the means of Grace and methods of Providence by all the advices and exhortations of his own Friends and God's Ministers are these now to be perfectly got off and cured on a sudden and the Mind restored to Soundness and Holyness Is that now to be done so easily and so quickly which he found so hard to do all his life and which is one of the hardest and most difficult things in the World to make a Bad Man a Good one No this is Unnatural and Impossible and cannot be in the Nature of the thing but a Man may be very sorrowful and heartily troubled that he was not so and have great trouble and remorse of Mind for his sins and so be heartily penitent for them This is all he can be and he cannot well be otherwise if he be in his Senses and hath the use of his Reason and sees such Terrible danger before him as is now unavoidable he must be greatly troubled that he hath brought himself to that that is that he must suffer for his Sin for he was never troubled at the Sin before nor would be now but like it and live in it still if that were all but he cannot but be concerned at the dreadful punishment of it and he must be very hardy indeed if he go not thus Shivering and Contrite and Penitent as they call it to his Execution this is only a Natural abhorring of pain or what is evil to us from a principle of Self-preservation not an abhorrence of Sin from Choice and Reason and free apprehension of Mind for all this is from a force and violence offered to the mind by a sense of present danger and from that Fear Terrour and Confusion that a
Sinner is then in when Hell and Eternity are just presented before him then he parts with his Sins as a Man does with his Money when he has a Sword or a Pistol held to his Breast out of mere fear not out of free choice No Man but must be afraid of Hell who believes it and has any sense of it and all this dying sorrow and Repentance arises only from hence some I know make a mighty difference both as to the Cause and the Vertue and Efficacy of this sorrow if it arise only from the fear of Hell it is Attrition if from the Love of God joyned with it is Contrition and so will be more effectual Now I am afraid the first is the chief spring if not only cause of it in dying Sinners and that there is no real difference between these two sorts of sorrows in the Nature of the thing but only an over nice distinction in words and thoughts and in considering the same thing by several mental conceptions when the passion is the same in it self and the causes of it are not to be so nicely distinguisht but whatever be the principle of this sorrow and however strong and sincere it be and whatever purposes and resolutions it may be joyned with yet that this mere Mental Repentance is not true and Perfect Repentance such as the Gospel promises pardon to I have shown before in giving the Notion and describing the Nature of Repentance and particularly proved how short and imperfect this is in the fourth Section of the first Chapter so that a Dying Sinner cannot then perform such a full Repentance as hath a certain title to Pardon and Salvation by the promises of the Gospel But to show further that a foolish unprepared Dying Sinner can have no hopes of entering into Heaven by all he can then do and that his most earnest Prayers and Entreaties his Cryes and Sorrows his Wishes and Purposes and Resolutions and all the parts of his dying Repentance put together are not sufficient to do this as the Parable here supposes I shall produce some more Positive and Express Proofs and as I think convincing Arguments against this Efficacy and Validity of a Death-Bed Repentance SECT IV. More Positive Proofs and Arguments against the validity of a Death-Bed Repentance FIrst It does no way come up to the plain and indispensable Conditions of Salvation required by the Gospel for those are no other than Faith and Obedience believing the Gospel and living according to it which are the plain and only pathway to Heaven by Christianity and he that thinks of Christs bringing him thither any other way abuses his Saviour and his Religion and puts a wretched cheat upon himself I know Faith and Repentance and Faith alone are often set down as the only Terms and Conditions of Salvation by the Gospel but then they are to be taken not in a strict and narrow sense but in a large one as they include all that belongs and is consequent to them all that Obedience and new Christian Life which is made as plain a Condition of Salvation by the Gospel as Faith it self and Repentance I have shown plainly takes those in so that the whole Practical Condition of the Gospel is meant by them Faith is the first Principle and Foundation of Repentance Obedience and all Christian Vertues and therefore as including and containing those is made the Condition of our being saved by a Metonymy whereby the Cause comprehends also the Effect Faith does so plainly in Scripture mean not only an assent to anothers words or a trust and affiance in them but that which worketh by love Gal. 5.5 and that which produces good Works and is dead without them that 't is a strange mistake to make that the Condition of our being justified and saved without Obedience 'T is to be observed and I think it may help to clear this matter that when Faith and Believing is made the only Condition of being saved and nothing else is mentioned this is alwayes spoken to those Jews or Heathens who were not yet Christians and Believers and the only way for them to be saved was to believe and embrace Christianity and become Disciples of Christ As when Christ sayes John 3.15 Whosoever believeth on the Son of Man shall not perish but have everlasting life This is spoken to Nicodemus who then exprest his disbelief of Christs words and was not brought fully to believe in him though he was disposed to it So John 6.40 when Christ saith This is the will of him that sent me that every one which seeth the Son and believeth on him may have everlasting life This is spoken to the Jews who murmured at Christ and were far from believing in him And so Christ bid the Apostles preach this to the unbelieving World Whosoever believeth and is baptized shall be saved Matth. 16.16 i.e. believing and professing Christianity puts them into a salvable state and if they live according to this Faith they shall certainly be saved As if we should say to a Person who desires to know how he may be a Schollar Go to School or to the University This would put him into a certain way to Learning but he must not only be enter'd and enroll'd and matriculated there but must study and read and do such things as belong to a Schollar When St. Peter advised the Jews who were pricked to the heart Acts 2.37 and St. Paul the Jaylor when he ask'd what must I do to be saved that they should believe in Christ and repent They meant thereby turn Christians which would put them into a salvable state but then they must perform all the other things which belong to Christians as well as have this Faith or else they would lose and forfeit this their good state When Christ therefore speaks to his Disciples who already believed in him and St. Paul writes to those who were Christians and Believers they tell them not only of Faith which is the first Christian Vertue and the root of all the rest but of Obedience and of all good Works of living as becometh the Gospel and adorning their Profession with all manner of Vertues which they make as necessary to Salvation as Faith it self Thus if ye keep my commandments saith Christ ye shall abide in my love John 15.20 And ye are my friends if ye do whatsoever I command you ver 14. And 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 Mat. 7.21 If ye know these things happy are ye if ye do them John 13.17 So St. Paul to the Corinthians Circumcision is nothing nor uncircumcision but keeping the Commandments of God 1 Cor. 7.19 and to the Galatians In Christ Jesus neither circumcision availeth any thing nor uncircumcision but a new creature Gal. 6.15 For by the gospel the wrath of God is revealed from Heaven against all
out the fierceness of his anger upon them and they drink of the cup of his fury and feel his wrath and indignation many a sinner has done this and cryed out in the Anguish of his Soul Thy wrath lyeth hard upon me Psal 88.7 Thy fierce wrath goeth over me thy terrors have cut me off ver 16. Fearfulness and trembling are come upon me and horror hath overwhelmed me Psal 55.5 Thine arrows stick fast in me and thy hand presseth me sore Psal 38.2 Who knoweth the power of thine anger even according to thy fear so is thy wrath Psal 90.11 For we are consumed by thine anger and by thy wrath are we troubled ver 7. God who is a Spirit as he can convey secret and unspeakable comfort into our Souls so he can impress intolerable and unspeakable horrors upon them and who is able to bear the weight of his Anger or endure the sense of his Wrath and Indignation In his Pleasure and Favour is Life and in his Anger is a double Death to the Soul The inward Sensation and Perception of Gods Love is the ohiefest joy and happyness to a Soul either in this World or the other and the Sense and Perception of his Anger is the greatest Misery God the fountain of all Happiness doth diffuse and communicate such a Peace Joy Comfort to good Souls such an inward Taste and Relish of Spiritual Pleasure and Delight as is unspeakable past understanding called joy in the holy Ghost and is no doubt the sweetest and most affecting pleasure a Soul is capable of this the Angels and blessed Spirits above enjoy and are transported with the most ravishing Sense and Rapturous Impressions of it and 't is what makes Heaven to them and a little foretaste of it when God lifts up the light of his countenance upon us when a pious Soul tasts and sees how good and gracious God is this puts more gladness in the heart than Corn and wine and oyl and all worldly enjoyments now on the contrary when God hides his face and withdraws his loving-kindness and imprints a strong sense of his Wrath and Anger upon the Mind this is the utmost and the deepest Misery this gives the bitterest sense of Evil fills it with the greatest horrors sinks it into the deepest gulph the bottomless Pit of Misery and is the very Punishment and Hell of the damned How happy is it then to be Reconciled to God by Repentance whom we had angred and provoked by our sins before we feel any of this and before his Wrath and Anger is poured out upon us it will certainly fall upon every Sinner some time or other unless he Repents for God though he defers his Anger for some time that his Goodness and long-suffering may lead us to Repentance yet his abused Love Patience and Mercy will turn to greater Wrath and Fury if we persist in our sins and in a course of impenitency As 't is a very terrible thing to have the great God our Enemy and he certainly is so whilst we are in a state of Sin so 't is the comfortablest thought in the World and what will alone make us happy to be Assured that he is our Friend and that we are in a State of Favour with him upon our Repentance THE CONCLVSION To Conclude As all general Christian Duties are meant by Repentance so all general Christian-Priviledges and Benefits belong to it and are the Rewards of it for as Repentance is the same thing in Scripture with Conversion Regeneration the New Birth the New Creature the New Man and the like those different words and figurative expressions denoting only the same duty importing the great Change and Alteration made upon the Mind and Life of a Sinner by the power of Grace and Religion So all the benefits and priviledges of Christianity such as Election Adoption Pardon Justification at present and Glorification afterwards which are free and gratuitous acts in God granting and bestowing those Favours upon us for Christs sake upon our being duely qualified and fitted to receive them These all belong to those who have truly Repented and become good Men and to none else For God hath only Chosen Adopted Pardoned Justified and will Glorifie such and no other and till we have Repented we have no good claim or title to any of those Our being in a good State towards God which is the thing meant by all those Phrases under some different considerations is on our side wholly owing to our true Repentance and Obedience and it is all lost and forfeited by our Impenitency and Disobedience which on the contrary make us the Children of Wrath the Children of the Devil and Heirs of Damnation put us into the worst Spiritual State of Reprobation Obduration and Excecation according to the degrees of our Sins and Impenitence and into that of Condemnation it self which is the word that directly answers to that of Justification All those Scriptural Phrases and Expressions of a good State belong to Repentance and to the true Christian Penitent and all those which signifie a bad one belong as truly to Wickedness and Impenitence for though without the Free-Grace and Mercy of God in and thorough Christ we could not be put into any such good State nor have a title to any such Priviledges meerly by vertue of our Repentance or any thing we could do yet to suppose that God will put us into those states without any regard to our own Actions or not upon the account of them is to destroy all Religion all Divine Government all Future Judgment and all Rewards and Punishments in another World I might clear and illustrate and enlarge upon these had not this Discourse already swelled upon my hands into too great a bulk and did they not run into something of Controversie which I would carefully avoid I shall therefore only give this last Advice to the Penitent who hath brought himself by the Grace of God into this Good and Happy State that when he is thus got out of the Paths of Death and of Sin into those of Life and Vertue that he would go on and proceed in the new and right way he is in and make a speedy and further progress in all Piety and Goodness that like St. Paul forgetting those things which are behind and reaching unto those which are before he may follow and apprehend them and so press forward towards the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus Phil. 3.13 14. that now he is become a Christian in good earnest he would more zealously promote that Religion which he opposed and was an enemy to before and show he is a true Convert by his zeal and earnestness against Vice and Irreligion that he would make all amends he can for his past miscarriages by doing the greatest good he is able by serving God and his Glory more heartily and thus loving much because much is forgiven him so that where sin abounded grace
it can never be imagined that he can have any love or kindness or show any favour to a wicked Man till he has turned away from his Wickedness What is so contrary to himself he can never love if he love himself for he might by the same reason as well hate himself as love that The love of God depends not upon any particular arbitrary inclination or unaccountable humour and fancy as in weak Mortals but it arises from his own Essential Excellencies and Perfections and is grounded upon a true and a lasting Principle his own Nature rather than his Will So that whilst God himself is unchangeably holy he will alwayes love any Soul that is truly holy and comes up to his original Holiness by such measures and proportions as its Nature will admit but whilst the Mind continues wicked it can never by any means in the World be reconciled to God 't is alienated from him 't is opposite to his Nature and 't is therefore the necessary object of his hatred and displeasure or as the Scripture speaks An abomination to him Sin is the only thing that God hates and the only cause why he is angry and displeased with any of his Creatures and as long as this remains there is an everlasting breach and a perpetual ground and foundation of enmity between them and not only Light and Darkness but Heaven and Hell are more irreconcilable than a Righteous God and a Wicked Soul All the Sacrifices that can be offered to atone and expiate for such an one if it continues such were they never so rich or never so many can no more commend it to God or make its peace with him than all the Bribes and Presents of the Indies could pervert a Just and Righteous Judge or blind the eyes of Justice and Integrity it self There can never be any other terms of Reconciliation between a Wicked Soul and a Righteous God but only this that it become Righteous and till it do so it can never become the object of Gods Love and Favour unless he change his own Righteous Nature and cease to be Righteous and Holy himself 3. Without this we can never be freed from the Natural and Necessary Evils of Sin upon our Minds whereby it will make us inwardly miserable till we are cured of them for though we should suppose all the Political Evils as I may call them of Sin taken away and removed i. e. all that outward Mischief and Punishment which is to be inflicted upon it from the Arbitrary Will and Threatning of the sovereign Lawgiver though he should out of tenderness and compassion or for the sake of a Sacrifice or other Consideration abate of that and not execute the utmost Penalties and those positive Severities that he had denounced against it yet so many are the Natural Evils that are annex'd to it that it would of it self make the Mind necessarily and inwardly miserable This does not depend upon the Will of God as a Governour only but as a Creator as he hath setled and ordered the nature of things and made it impossible they should ever be otherwise Misery is so entailed to Sin by the fundamental constitution of things that 't is impossible ever to cut it off It is as inseparable from and as closely connected to it as effects are to their causes and we may as well divorce Light from the Sun or Heat from Fire as Misery from Wickedness It springs out of it Naturally as a foul stream from such a corrupt fountain growes upon it as the proper and bitter fruit from such a poysonous root and Sin as a true Parent has the seeds of all Evil in its own bowels A Mind that is over-run with Vice will as necessarily be corrupted and weakened and vitiated as the Body is decayed and impaired by a Disease The one will as necessarily put the Mind out of order as Sickness does the other and till it be cured and made sound it will alwayes be in pain and uneasie Its Faculties will necessarily be weakened and impaired and disordered by it and so lose their true and proper happiness and it will be put into an unnatural frame and temper and be like the Body when its Limbs are out of joynt in great torture till it be set right again God must alter his own Nature and the Nature of things too or else Vice and Wickedness whilst 't is continued in will make the Mind miserable sickly and uneasie and fill it with restlesness and disquietude and make it a torment and vexation to it self 4. Without Repentance and being freed from our Sins we can never be capable of partaking or enjoying any true and positive Happiness much less that great and eternal one in Heave Happiness must be something within our selves like Health it consists in the right crasis and constitution of the Mind in the strength and vigour and regular operation of all its Faculties Till it be put into this state by Repentance and Vertue 't is uncapable of enjoying any true Happiness Our Vices must therefore be first cured and purged out or else our Souls will be as uncapable of enjoying their proper spiritual and rational pleasures with their Sins and wicked Habits and Dispositions upon them as our Bodies of enjoying their animal and sensual ones witha Lethargy or Apoplexy or whatever destroys their proper strength sense and perception Without Holy Minds and Vertuous Dispositions and Heavenly Affections and Inclinations as we can no way hope for Heaven so we are no way fitted or qualified for it and therefore our Minds must necessarily be disposed and prepared for that by Repentance and previous habits of Vertue and such a divine temper and holiness of Mind as can alone make us meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the Saints in light as St. Paul speaks Coloss 1.12 without which we should no more enjoy Heaven than a blind Man enjoyes the light of the Sun whose Organs are spoil'd and vitiated and who wants the use of those Senses and Faculties by which he should perceive it So that if a Sinner should be sent to Heaven with all his unrepented Sins unmortified Lusts and vitious Inclinations and without that love of God and Goodness which is to fit him for it he would be not only like him which came to the Marriage-feast without a Wedding-garment who must be turned out of that company he was so unfit for but like one that had the greatest dainties set before him but that was sick and had no stomach and so could not taste or relish any of them Till the Mind is brought to love God and delight in him and in all the actions of Vertue and exercises of Religion it canot be happy in Heaven but that would rather be unagreeable and an aversion to it than an Happiness Till a Sinner therefore be brought off from his Sins by Repentance and restored to a vertuous and holy and good Mind he cannot enjoy Heaven
or Happiness nor be freed from Sin and Misery nor can a Holy and Wise God be reconciled to him or forgive him Upon all these accounts we see his Repentance is absolutely necessary to entitle him to Pardon and Salvation and without this he must certainly and unavoidably perish Now 8. This absolute necessity of it is a strong and powerful Argument to perswade us to it Whilst Men have any hopes of escaping with their Sins this with the pleasures and temptations of them will encourage them to persist in them and to enjoy their Lusts and their Liberties which they have made very hard and uneasie to deny themselves but when they find they must either do this or else necessarily perish for ever this if any thing will prevail upon Men who believe and consider the dreadful horrour of Everlasting Damnation Now the absolute necessity of Repentance is as plain by the Gospel as the power and validity of it We are as much assured that without it we shall be damned as we shall be saved with it Now this above all commends a Medicine to us that it will cure us if we use it but that we shall dye if we do not however bitter and unpalatable it may be however it may disorder us while it is working upon us and however painful the operation may be yet if we must lose our Lives without it this will make us choose and endure it and go through with it Though we must cut off a Right-hand yet if the Gangrene will kill us if we do not we shall submit to it Though it be very painful to part with our Lusts and our beloved Sins yet since we must be damned if we do not this will bring us to it If a Man must sink unless he throwes away his richest lading and discharges himself of his weighty treasure he will lose that rather than his Life and if he be not mad he will for the same reason cast away his Sins rather than his Soul No Man disputes this when he is brought into such a necessity such a strait and exigency as to be thus tryed Now Christ has by the Gospel put this necessity upon us either Repent and leave your Sins or perish with them There is no avoiding this no possibility to prevent it any way and therefore when there is but one thing to be done and such a necessity for doing it one would think it should do it self but this is a necessity of Reason of Choice of Thought of Deliberation that requires our Minds to think of it and consider it or else it will not work upon us and therefore we can throw off the force and power of it by not thinking or not considering of it but if we did as we ought duly consider of it it would have an irresistible force and power upon us and no Man could hinder the effect of it but he that will shut his eyes and not see a precipice may fall down it and the greatest necessity of avoiding any danger is took off by not heeding or not being sensible of it though it be never the less great in it self for all that and the necessity would work upon any but those who are heedless and inconsiderate Sad is the state and condition of those under the Gospel who live in a state of Sin and Impenitence or in the habit of any unrepented Sin they are under as absolute a sentence of condemnation as if the great Judge had pronounced it upon them and bid them Go ye cursed Whilst they continue such there is no more hopes of Mercy for them than for the damned themselves Their state indeed is not as unalterable as the others is and this is the only difference for they are otherwise as much Children of Wrath as they They are not bound in chains of darkness nor confined to this state by an irreversible Judgment but they are fettered to their Sins and to their state by their own choice and till they break those bonds and get free from them they can never come out of that sad condition which should make every impenitent Sinner tremble and seriously bethink himself what a sad state and condition he is in what a doom hangs over his head and how near his steps take hold of Death how he walks upon the brink of Hell and Damnation and the least fatal accident or sudden death does irrecoverably throw him in without Redemption which should make his Heart tremble and his Blood chill and his Hair stand an end if he considered it as he ought Let him therefore resolve to snatch himself out of the fire and speedily recover himself from the jaws of Death Repentance alone can do this and this he should set about immediately and be perswaded to it by those powerful Motives and Arguments which the Gospel and Christianity proposes and which I have from thence offered to him I shall subjoyn to these another Motive or Exhortation to Repentance which I cannot call so properly Evangelical and peculiar to the Gospel but what arises from both Nature and Reason and some Gospel Considerations mixt together and complicated with those and that is the Consideration of Death and our being made ready and prepared for it by Repentance and therefore that nothing else can free us from the fears and terrors of it SECT VI. Exhortation to Repentance as a Preparation for Death or in order to make us ready to dye THE last Motive then I shall propose to Repentance is this that nothing else can prepare and make us ready and fit to dye and therefore nothing else can take off the fear and terror of Death to which in all reason we must otherwise be exposed and so all our life time subject to bondage as the Scripture speaks Dye we know we must in a little while and there is none so foolishly Sceptical as to deny or disbelieve this and to hope to escape the Grave where he has seen all his Fore-fathers laid before him and which is the common lot or fate of every Mortal There is nothing therefore more concerns us while we live than to be alwayes ready and prepared to dye this should be our great work and business if we considered the true end of living or understood the mighty consequence of dying as Religion represents them both to us and he that is not so foolish as to think he shall never dye should above all things take care so to live that he may be alwayes ready to dye and of the two 't is a greater folly to think we shall dye and not prepare for it than to think we shall not dye at all This it is then which a wise Man is concerned to do all his Life to be ready and prepared for Death which he knows will certainly come and because it is uncertain when it will come therefore to be alwayes ready and alwayes provided for it There is so much danger and hazard not to do this