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
that we could reasonably desire or God in wisdom grant is a most groundless and unreasonable presumption which makes void all Gods threatnings and is a direct disbelief of his word and expresly contrary to what is plainly delared by the Gospel it self for in that Christ assures us that the word which he has there spoken the same shall judge men at the last day John 12.48 and therefore he will judge us by no other rule nor use any other measures in disposing his Mercy or his Justice to his Creatures than what he hath layd down and made known to us by the Gospel God shall judge the world says St. Paul in that day according to my Gospel Rom. 2.16 'T is not therefore to be expected that God should use any other Judgment or show any other Mercy to Sinners than what is according to the termes of the Gospel and the Conditions of Salvation there lay'd down and a Death-Bed Repentance doth not as I have shown come up to those 3. I have showed all along this Discourse that it is not such a True and Perfect Repentance as the Scripture promises Pardon and Salvation to for that consists not only in sorrow and trouble of Mind conviction of Soul and Compunction of heart but in actual Reformation and new Obedience and indeed 't is this alone is a Mans retracting his past folly and wickedness and being wiser for the future undoing all the evil he has done as much as he can and doing all the good he can for the time to come and so making all possible amends to the honour of Religion and the honour of God which have been highly injured and violated by him and though he can never make perfect reparation and satisfaction to them and therefore Christ alone did this by his Death and Sufferings yet he is to do all that he is able and that is in his power to do that he may thereby vindicate the Divine Authority and Government which he hath opposed and resisted and Justifie the wisdom and goodness justice and holiness of the Laws of Heaven which he hath broken and contemned and so make all the compensation he is able to repair the sad Mischief he hath done by his Sins We truly say that no injury to another person will be forgiven but upon Restitution and making all the reparation for it that can be because 'till this is done the sin remains and the evil effects of it continue and till a Man is willing to undoe that as far as he is able to take away and destroy all the effects of it he keeps the sin and does not truly Repent of it nor wish it undone now surely we owe as much to God and Religion in Justice as we do to our Equals and where we have done any thing to injure those as our sins are the greatest injury to them we can be guilty of there also we must make as much restitution and reparation as we are able and undoe the sins we have committed by a more zealous and hearty and new Obedience and making up if it were possible the past failures and defects of our Sinful Lives by greater care and zeal and diligence for the future We may do this by a timely Repentance but by a late and a dying one we cannot 4. A Sinner cannot be then freed at his Death from what will necessarily make him miserable his Sinful Habits which will sink his Soul into Hell by a Natural Causality as well as Divine Judgment God has expresly declared that neither fornicators nor idolaters nor adulterers nor effeminate nor abusers of themselves with mankind nor thieves nor covetous nor drunkards nor revilers nor extortioners nor such like shall inherit the Kingdom of God 1 Cor. 6.9 10. And who are such but they who have lived in the habit of any of those Sins And are therefore to be denominated and accounted such from the general practice of their Lives and have not been washed and sanctified or made better but only are now sorry for being so when they are dying If Sorrow would make Men to be otherwise and their Tears alone would blot out this black Character without a contrary Practice there would hardly be any such to be found though 't is plain the World is too full of them There would be no Thief or Felon or Traytor at any Assizes or Court of Judicature if when they came to be tryed and were found guilty and were to be condemned their meer sorrow and trouble would set them right and change their character and make them to be accounted otherwise in the eye of the Law But besides this Sentence and Judgment of God upon all kind of Sinners whereby he bars any such from Heaven and adjudges them to Hell their Sins Naturally sink them thither for that is the true place and center of Wickedness and therefore of Misery Filthy and impure Minds fall into it by a kind of Spiritual Gravitation or by such a Constitution of the Spiritual and Intellectual World which as necessarily carries them thither as the Mechanism of this material World carries a stone downward So that 't is as unavoidable for a Sinner loaded with his wicked Habits to fall into Hell and Misery in another World as if here he had a Millstone tyed about his neck and were cast into the Sea to fall to the bottom of it The weight of his Sins will of it self press and sink him down into the utmost gulph of Misery and when he is quite taken away from the diversions and pleasures and bodily enjoyments of this World and is left wholly to the reflections and agonies and dismal apprehensions of his own Mind his Conscience which is now stupified and amused with other imaginary pleasures of Body and this World will then awaken and fall upon him with all its rage and torment his Soul and make it unexpressibly miserable were there no other sentence or judgment upon him The dreadful horrors and apprehensions of his own Mind let loose upon him would always be a very great torment and Hell to him if he had nothing to relieve or divert him but was left naked and open to the full stroke of his Conscience and his thoughts were whollytaken up with the frightful Images and Ideas of his own Guilt and overwhelmed with all the bitter Passions of Fear Sorrow and Despair as they will hereafter Sin will as certainly fill him with those in another World and cause such painful sensations or perceptions within his Soul as he now feels in his Body upon a torturing Disease or any instrument of Cruelty applyed to it for that is as contrary to the Nature and Frame of the one as those are to the other and they would be alwayes felt here if the Body did not drown and stifle and choak the free and natural thoughts of the Mind which it cannot hereafter If the Mind therefore be not freed from its Sins and Evil Habits it will
and the folly of it is so visible and so amazing that no Man of common Prudence no Man in his wits one would think should neglect to do it 'T is so important so weighty so absolutely necessary a Duty that our Saviour most earnestly presses it in several Discourses and proposes it in two or three Parables that it may make a more strong and lively impression upon our Minds In the Parable of the wise and foolish Virgins Mat. 25. at the beginning where the coming of the Son of Man is compared to the unexpected coming of the Bridegroom at midnight ver 6. in others to a Masters surprizing his Servants unaware at the second or third watch Luke 12.38 Matth. 24. at the latter end and in both the Evangelists to a Thief stealing upon a Man at an unknown and uncertain hour of the night The design of all which is to press this great Duty upon us of being alwayes watchful and alwayes doing our Duty and alwayes prepared for our Lords coming This is the Inference which Christ draws from all those Parables and Discourses Be ye therefore ready for the Son of man cometh at an hour when ye think not Luke 12.40 Christ often calls himself the Son of Man and as such he is to be our Judge and as a Judge he is said to come when ever he passes Judgment upon us and therefore St. James represents the nearness of his Judgment by that phrase Behold the judge standeth before the door Jam. 5.9 and his executing Judgment and Destruction upon Jerusalem was called his coming Matth. 24.3 And as his final publick Judgment of all the World at the last day is called his coming 1 Cor. 15.23 and several times in that Chapter of St. Matthew so his private Judging of us at our Death is his coming also meant by these several Parables and for that coming of his we ought to be always ready i. e. always prepared for dying Here I shall show I. That this Readiness or Preparation consists only in Repentance and a holy Life as the fruit and perfection of it II. The great obligations we have to be alwayes thus ready and prepared for Death I. This Readiness or Preparation for Death consists only in Repentance and a good Life as the fruit of it For nothing else can fit us to dye but to Repent and live well neither can there be any other readiness and preparation for Death but only that For we must not imagine that we can be ready on a sudden and that though we were utterly unprepared before that at a few days or hours warning we can make our selves ready and fit to dye No our whole Life at least a considerable part of it is to be spent in making our selves ready for we must not think that our Souls can like our Bodies be drest in a few moments or that we can be fit to meet the Bridegroom when he calls us in hast and on a sudden Vertuous habits are not put on in a moment nor can vitious ones be so easily and quickly cast off as our cloaths are no rather like Diseases that are chronical and have by long time been growing upon us they require long time and great care and much pains and many remedies and a timely course before they can be cured and got off and before we can be well and so ready to meet the Lord. 'T is not a few penitential tears upon a Death-bed will wash away the filth of a wicked Life or cleanse a guilty and polluted Soul that has been many years contracting an habitual uncleanness whose Sins stick to it like an old Leprosie and have eat like rust or a canker into the very heart and substance of it and yet they must be all got out by Repentance and the Soul must be made sound and clear and recover it self into a vertuous and good habit before it can be ready for another World and duly prepared for a Future State Indeed there is a great difference to be made according to the past course of Mens lives there may be a great many such happy Souls who by a very careful Education and the good Example of their Parents and others and by a Vertuous disposition and inclination in themselves and above all by the Grace and Providence of God have been alwayes kept from great and mortal Sins and so never fell into a bad and damnable state all their lives but were alwayes vertuous and innocent as to any such offences as should forfeit and endanger their Salvation by the terms of the Gospel and the Covenant of Grace without that we were all in a damnable state and the Scripture hath concluded all under sin without that Gal. 3.22 For we have all sinned and come short of the glory of God and of that strict and exact Obedience which we owe to the Law of God so that if he should enter into Judgment with us and be severe and rigorous in demanding his utmost right over us we could not contend with him nor answer him one of a thousand as Job sayes Job 9.3 and no Man can upon these terms be just with God as he there sayes for so in his sight shall no man living be justified Psal 143.2 but by the Grace and Mercy of the Gospel according to which God will now deal with Mankind many I doubt not have been so justified that through their whole lives they never were in a state of Damnation for nothing puts us into that under Christianity but a great and known and wilful Sin or rather a course and habit of such Sins and though no Man liveth without Sin that is without some Frailties and Imperfections and lesser Sins which come not up to the perfection of the Divine Law for which he ought to beg pardon and say God forgive us our trespasses yet God forbid that those should put us into an ill state for then no Man in the World would be ever out of it But oh thrice happy are those Souls who have not defiled themselves with any great and damnable Sins who have alwayes kept to their first Love and preserved their first Vertue unstained and unspotted and have been so trained up in the wayes of Religion and Goodness that they never wandered or went astray from them nor never stept into the paths of wilful Sin so that their steps should at any time take hold of Death who never past out of that line which divides the two states of Grace and Damnation nor ever approached so near to the brink of Hell as to be in danger of falling into it These have reason to give thanks to God all their lives who has thus kept them out of the snare of the Devil and secured them from the jawes of Death and Destruction and whilst they persevere and go on in this good state and condition and pass from strength to strength and from one degree of grace to another and grow up in all manner of
a sound and healthful Body a fair and good Reputation a quiet and easie Mind or a shattered and rotten Carkass a scandalous and infamous Life a guilty and disordered and distracted Conscience Are not most of the pleasures of Sin not only short but sickly That have a sharp and poysonous sting hid under all their sweetness so that however they go off to the Palate yet they are very bitter after they are gone down whereas the pleasures of Vertue are clear and pure and lasting not mixt with any of those dregs which foul and embitter Sin but purified from all the sediment and the lees that are at the bottom of Sensuality and Wickedness Religion does not deny us any truly Natural and proper Pleasure and Enjoyment but only keeps us within the bounds of Innocency and Vertue within which compass a Man may enjoy all the Pleasure that he can wish or was made for It does not by its Rules of Mortification and Self-denyal destroy or cut off any Natural Appetite or true part of us that is not the meaning of cutting off a right Hand or plucking out a right Eye Matth. 5.29 30. but only to destroy the unnatural Excesses to cut off the vitious Corruptions to take away the depraved and inordinate Affections and Lusts that will grow too strong and unruly without a wife conduct and government of our selves by the rules of Vertue and the restraints of Reason and Religion and would any Man think fit to have those let loose and have the reins thrown upon their neck without any check or controul Will he complain of the severity of Religion and the loss of his Natural Freedom by the restraints of morose and peevish Vertue as he calls it if he be not allowed the full swinge of his Lusts and the gratifying of his immoderate Passions and Desires in all manner of instances Then adieu not only to the government of Vertue and Religion but the government of all Humane Laws and Worldly Wisdom which for the conveniency of this World and the Peace Quiet and Comfort of this present Life has thought fit to keep Mens Lusts and Passions within such bounds under the severest penalties and to prohibit the same Sins under the punishments of this World that God has done under the far greater punishments of another for nothing is more pernicious and destructive to the welfare of a Kingdom as well as of particular Men then Licentiousness and Debauchery which besides the immediate Judgments of God upon it does by its own Nature bring a thousand present Miseries and known Evils along with it besides the unknown and unspeakable Miseries that attend it in another World Can any Sinner deny this when he seriously thinks and considers of it Does not his own observation and his own experience by which I hope he will be instructed if by nothing else teach him that this is the Nature of Sin That as 't is a common pest and plague to the World and to Mankind in general so 't is generally a disease to his Body a moth and canker to his Estate and a worm to his Conscience Whereas Vertue is health and soundness to his Body life to his Soul and grace to his Neck as the Wise Man observes That length of dayes are in her right hand and in her left hand riches and honour That she is a tree of life to them that lay hold upon her and happy is every one that retaineth her Prov. 3.16 17 18 22. This true Notion of Vertue which is not an empty Panegyrick but a strict Truth founded in Nature that will alwayes be true of it and that all Wise Men will find to be so this will sufficiently answer the first and greatest Temptation by which Sin entices and allures unthinking Men with the bait of present Pleasures and Enjoyments But 2. The next greatest Temptation to Sin is that of Example which is so strong and powerful that few can resist it who love to be modish and in the fashion as too many Vices generally are and therefore are more taking upon that account and lose their reproach and shame due to them by the great party and number they have on their side which otherwise would sneak and be confounded if they stood alone but when so many are brought over to them others follow if it be only for company and many Men are drawn in even contrary to their inclinations by the Example of others because they do not care to be singular nor to be reproached for being so but are willing to do what they see so many others do and hope they shall fare as well as they and escape all the seeming dangers of their Sins both here and hereafter as well as the rest of their Neighbours or the great number of their fellow Sinners Now this however common and powerful it be yet is the most unreasonable thing in the World for is any Man in another case willing to be sick or to dye for company Is any so easie or so complaisant as to pledge another in a cup of Poyson Or would he not stop the mad Frolick when he saw the rest of the company drop down dead before him Is any Man unwilling to avoid the Plague if he can because there is a general infection and because so many of his Neighbours or his Acquaintance have dyed of it Would any refuse the saving his Life and escaping if he could upon a plank because the rest of his company are sinking and drowning Did Men think it as much worth their while to save their Souls as their Lives how many others soever lost them had they as just and terrible apprehensions of their own Damnation as they have of their dying this Temptation of Example and Company would be quickly taken off and signifie nothing For alas what comfort will it be in the flames of Hell to hear so many others roaring and howling in them To hear their hideous cryes and tortures and lamentations will not abate their own but rather increase them therefore the Rich Man in the Parable Luke 16.28 did not desire the company of his Brethren there but rather sought to prevent their coming into that place of torment The Devils indeed from the unaccountable malice of their Nature tempt others to be as wicked and as miserable as themselves and every one does their work who entices another to any Sin but this will not ease their pains but augment them by adding more mischief and so more guilt to them No Man who knows what it is to be happy but must wish to be so tho' he were alone and no Man who knows that Vertue alone is the way to be happy but must choose to be Vertuous though he saw never so many others Wicked let them reproach and laugh at him as long as they please for a Man singular and by himself let them count his Life folly for being so strict and so precise if it be in the great
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
very good Persons subject to it and one of the best means to cure it is to know that this is one cause of that trouble of Mind which will be so much abated when one is perswaded from whence it often comes or is heightened For Melancholly is not curable by Religion or Divinity and they who are subject to it should take the more care of their lives that there be no true and great cause to fall in and joyn with the Melancholly of their Bodies and they should make a judgment of themselves in their best tempers and when their thoughts are clearest and should trust others and especially their Spiritual Guides to judge for them since they are so unfit generally to pass judgment upon themselves 2. This Trouble of Mind which makes Men despair of Mercy is most unreasonable and contrary to the whole tenour and design of the Gospel for there is Pardon held out to the greatest Sinner by the Blood of Christ and to the greatest Sin or the greatest number of Sins if we Repent of them and leave them and become good Men before we dye This is as certain as the Gospel is true and therefore no Man has any just cause to despair for the greatest Sin or Sins who is so heartily troubled for them that he would not for the World commit them again and who resolves never to do so by the Grace of God but to practice the contrary Vertues and who makes good this Resolution by a Vertuous and Pious and Religious Life this Man will as certainly be happy as if he had been alwayes innocent and never had offended God I cannot say he will be in a state as comfortable and free from trouble though if he has thus Repented and become a good man he has good reason to be so but he will be as safe and if he has still some trouble of mind remaining upon the remembrance of his Sins though never so long past and he cannot see the Pardon of them with the same certainty and evidence that he knows he committed them yet this shall not hinder his Pardon nor affect his Salvation if he has truly and fully Repented of them For 3. And Lastly This Trouble of Mind which proceeds from judging too hardly or severely of himself is rather an Infirmity than a Sin and God will not condemn a Man for it though he may condemn himself for God will not condemn a Man unjustly though he should unjustly condemn himself much less because he does so Despair is indeed a sad state but I cannot say it is alwayes a damnable Sin or want of Faith as some think for it may arise not from a disbelief of the Gospel or of the Divine Goodness or the freeness and fullness of Gods Grace in and through Christ but meerly from a false and mistaken and too hard and humble an opinion of a Mans self and this is a fault not of a Mans Will but of his Judgment and a weakness and imperfection in his Understanding for which he shall never be condemned by a Righteous God but he will reverse this false Judgment which he made of himself when he lived or when he dyed and set it right in the Court of Heaven and do Justice to him at the great Tribunal though he did not do it to himself here That God will judge Men according to their Works is plain in Scripture but no where that I know that he will do so according to their Thoughts their vain Hopes and presumptuous or vain Fears and Troubles and Doubts and even Despairs of themselves So that tho' this Trouble of Mind or this Wounded Spirit be a comfortless and unhappy state yet it truly depends upon the cause to make judgment of it or to conclude any thing from it and true and timely Repentance is the best and certainest Remedy for it CHAP. IV. The ill Consequences drawn from the Priviledge of Repentance Obviated and Prevented THE most wicked and greatest of Sinners who have any thoughts of their Souls and of another World though they are not prevailed upon by this to become better yet make this reserve and refuge to themselves that they will Repent hereafter at some time or other and so escape the Wrath to come They know and are very sensible if they have not shaken off all Religion and all thinking and considering of these things that except they repent they shall all perish but they hope and intend to prevent this by the benefit of Repentance and so make use of that not to bring them off from their Sins but to encourage them in them with hopes to avoid all the miserable consequences of them and yet live in them and so by this priviledge of an after Repentance they set aside the present necessity of a good Life and wholly destroy or supersede all Religion I shall therefore endeavour to prevent that most common and most fatal abuse of it for I am confident there are more Souls perish by that than by any other mistake whatsoever and a thousand times more than by down-right Infidelity and Disbelief of all Religion which is a very rare thing and 't is hard to find out any certain instances that have ever been of it in the World 't is so much against the Natural Sense and Reason and Apprehension of Mankind but the other is the commonest thing in the World even for Christians perhaps above any others to make false Reasonings to themselves from this priviledge of Repentance which we have in the highest degree from the Gospel to think they may secure and save their Souls and yet indulge and allow themselves in the present enjoyment of their Sins because they may set all right by Repenting of them hereafter I shall therefore against this errour and abuse of Repentance and to obviate this mischievous Consequence offer these following Considerations 1. Can we think a Wise God would make such a Grant and Concession to his Creatures as should destroy all Religion and make void the necessity of Obedience and a good Life which according to these Mens thoughts is unavoidably done by this Gospel-priviledge of Repentance For since say they a Man is as certainly safe who comes in at any time upon Repentance and shall be as certainly saved by the Terms and Conditions of the Gospel as if he had spent all his Life in the strictest Vertue and Religion What need is there of such an early and constant and perpetual Obedience and spending a whole Life in the servitude and drudgery of Religion when coming in at the eleventh hour and working but a short space at the latter end of the day will have as much Wages and as sure a Reward and be as certainly accepted by God Shall not a Sinner when ever he returns and repents find Mercy Is there any time or bounds prefix'd to his Repentance so that he may not do it so many years hence as well as at present and after he has
by all the Evangelists yet by Three of them very shortly and briefly as a meer circumstance remarkable chiefly for this that the Legs of the Two Thieves were broken as was usual in crucifixions whereas Christ being sooner dead prevented this and so litterally compleated that Prophecy A bone of him shall not be broken And for the sake of another Prophecy That he should be numbred with transgressors and be a Companion and fellow-Sufferer with the most infamous Criminals and Malefactors and nothing farther was intended or designed by it so far as we know or appears to us from Scripture as the proper use and the genuine purpose of it though by accident indeed it was an honourable Confession of Christ and a bearing Testimony to him before his Crucifiers and also an Owning a future state of Bliss and Happyness after this Life when a Man was going out of the World by his desiring Christ to remember him in his kingdom and Christ's promising that he should be that day with him in Paradice but these were Truths not to be learnt from hence only but elsewhere tho' they were hereby very solemnly attested to But there has been a Doctrine raised from hence and not to be learnt from any other place of Scripture never taught by Christ or any of his Apostles but wholly taken up and founded upon this Instance of one of the Thieves upon the Cross which has from a matter of History and Circumstance been improved to Teach and Advance a new Doctrine no where else to be found in the Bible namely That a wicked Man when he comes to dye may hope to be happy and go to Heaven by vertue of a sudden Conversion and a short Death-Bed Repentance though he has spent his whole Life never so carelesly and wickedly Or that a Death-Bed Repentance may be by the Gospel sufficient and effectual for a Mans Salvation who has lived a very ill Life and who does not sooner Repent of it than when he comes to dye Now this I think is not only the falsest but the most Pernicious and Mischievous Doctrine that can be for it plainly takes away the necessity of a good Life since that is not necessary which a Man can any way hope to be saved without and so tends to encourage Men to continue in their sins with the hopes that they may have time enough to repent of them when they come to dye and that there is a possible if not a likely way to save themselves at the last though they live never so wickedly provided they have but a little time and warning which hardly one in five hundred but has to perform this sudden Repentance and are not prevented to do it by a sudden Death which is an accident that happens but to few If there be nothing else but this accidental uncertainty to secure Religion and the necessity of a good Life so that otherwise a Sinner may at the last claim the full benefit of Pardon by the Gospel-Covenant if he come in then by a short Repentance though he has stood out all his life in Rebellion against God and may as we commonly say dye well and make a good end though he lived never so ill If this be true then this Gospel-Priviledge of Repentance destroys the Gospel it self and the main End and Design of it and takes away the necessity of Gospel-Holyness and Obedience in order to our future Happyness it removes and alters those Conditions of Salvation which are indispensibly required by the Gospel it abates and remits the plain terms of it and by such a clause of Priviledge takes away all the Authority and force of its Commands and all the Terror of its Threats and Punishments and in effect unlooses all our Obligations to the Law of God and to a good Life whatever does this and has such mischievous Consequences and is so contrary to the first and plainest Truths in Religion as I shall show this is cannot surely be a Gospel-Doctrine and therefore I am perswaded that is not which allows Salvation to a meer Death-Bed Repentance by the terms of the Gospel The Great thing to support this is the instance of the Thief upon the Cross Luke 23.42 43. though I shall show there is no certain ground or true foundation to be had from that of any such thing if we fully consider and examine it As to the Parable of the Labourers in the Vineyard Matth 20. who came in at the Eleventh hour and were rewarded as well as those who were hired at the first this belongs to another matter and is spoken in favour of the Gentiles who though not so soon called and taken into the Covenant as the Jews yet should afterwards be called and received into it and have as great Priviledges and as great a Reward as the Jews themselves who were Gods first and peculiar People hired and called in long before them So that this is foreign to the case of a late and short Repentance of a dying Christian who was called or hired as soon as he was baptized and knew Christianity and if he loyter all the day and will not work at all no not one hour or any considerable part of his Life till Night comes and then when 't is too late and he cannot work at all only falls a crying and sorrowing and repenting for this his loytering and being idle there is nothing in the Parable to excuse such an one but only those at the most who had not the knowledge of Christianity or the means of Salvation sooner offer'd them but came in and worked as soon as they had as soon as they were called and hired The Parable taken altogether must not be applyed further than this as if it extended to all those Christians who come in and Repent only at the last or even to those who have one hours time in proportion to their whole lives to do a few Acts of Obedience for it is by no means true that he who works and is Religious a short and very little part of his Life shall be as well rewarded and have as full an hire and recompence of God in another World as he who does so the whole for then God would not render to men according to their works as he hath declared he will do at the last judgment for tho' he may do what he will with his own yet his rewards and promises are now fixt and determined by a Covenant and though God might bring in the Gentiles at the latter hour and reward them as well as the Jews because there was nothing to the contrary in theirs or any other Covenant yet now as he that knows his Masters will and does it not shall be beaten with more stripes so he that hath well used Ten Talents shall have a greater improvement and greater gifts bestowed upon him and he shall have a higher reward who does more and greater Acts of Vertue in his life than he who does less for
Happyness and Salvation Now no Man can in any sense call the Sorrows and Remorses and Repentance of dying Sinners Gospel Obedience but only a trouble and concern for the want of it and for the disobedience of their whole lives There would be no difference between Obedience and Disobedience if this were so No Master or Father would account him an Obedient Servant or Obedient Son who should only confess and be sorry that he had always disobeyed him until upon this his sorrow he showed himself Obedient for the future and did him some faithful Service How long a Man must be Obedient after he hath been Disobedient or how long time is required for a Sinner who repents to come off from his Sins and become a good Man is hard to determine exactly but there must be so much time as shall make a Drunkard sober a Whoremonger chast an unjust Man Righteous a Swearer and Prophane Person Devout and Pious the Covetous Man Just and Charitable and the like for we are assured that whilst Men are such Sinners as any of those they have no inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God Ephes 5.5 and therefore they must so long obey the Laws of God till they are truly become and may be denominated Sober Just Charitable Pure Holy Religious and the like for Heaven is a place only for such Men and such Souls as are thus qualified and who have obeyed Gods Laws so long till they are become thus It shall never be given to those who have been disobedient to God all their lives and can now performe no acts of Obedience to him such can never perform that Indispensable Condition of Salvation required by the Gospel and nothing less then this will do there is no such disjunctive any where in the Bible that I know of to this sense Be Holy and Obedient and lead a Good Life in order to be Fternally happy or else Repent and be Sorry for not doing it when you come to dye but only thus where you have sinned and been disobedient for the time past Repent and be Obedient for the time to come and this shall be accepted as in that known place when the wicked man turneth away from his wickedness which he hath committed and doth that which is lawful and right he shall save his soul alive Ezek. 18.27 'T is his doing that which is lawful and right i. e. his Obedience for the future shall save his soul alive all his transgressions that he hath committed they shall not be mentioned unto him upon his new Obedience or Repentance in his Righteousness that he hath done shall he live ver 22. it must be Righteousness afterwards or his obeying God after his former disobedience shall entitle him to Life and Happyness and be the Condition of it 2. As Obedience is the only term and condition of our Salvation by the Gospel so there is no just reason or good ground to hope that God will in any case abate of the termes of Salvation he hath there lay'd down or be mercyful beyond those for two reasons 1. Because this would be neither consistent with the Holiness of his Nature nor the wisdom of his Government for as he is a Holy and Righteous God he cannot love any but a righteous and good Soul and so cannot make any other happy because a wicked and impure Soul is contrary to his Nature and what he hates and abominates and what can never see or enjoy God neither is it consistent with the Wisdom of God as Governour of the World to reward any but the obedient and the righteous for it would reflect upon his Justice and his Authority if he should suffer Men to go on in their Wickedness and Disobedience all their lives and not punish them for it Mercy indeed and Clemency is the Honour of any Prince and that which commends him to the love and esteem of all but then it must be shown wisely to proper and fit Objects and for good Reasons to bring Men in to their Duty and draw them off from their Disobedience with the promise of a Pardon upon their doing so and returning to their Allegiance But if a Prince shall grant this to all sort of Offenders out of the weakness and softness of his Temper he will loosen his Government and weaken his Authority and make himself cheap and contemptible and as he will encourage Rogues and Rebels so he will injure the Publick and not take due care as becomes a wise Governour of the Common good should God grant a full and absolute pardon to Sinners who have lived never so long in their sins because they are very sorry for them when they come to dye and they can live in them no longer this would encourage Men who love their Sins to continue in 'em all their lives and then Repent at last and so save themselves the trouble as they think it of living a very good life God indeed has promised pardon to all who repent and turn from their sins and live good and holy lives after they have lived bad ones and this is sufficient encouragement to make a wicked Man become a good one with the certain hopes that when he does so God will receive him but to go farther and suppose God to pardon a long wicked life spent altogether in Sin and Disobedience merely for a little sorrow and remorse and trouble when Men come to dye is to open a wide Door to vice and wickedness and to supersede the necessity of Obedience and a good life and therefore should God grant this it would destroy Religion and take off the Obligations to Vertue and make all his Motives to Obedience and Threatnings against Sin to be void empty and ineffectual 2. There is no Reason to think God will abate of the termes of the Gospel and be more merciful than he has there promised to be because as the Gospel seems to contain the utmost Grace and Mercy that God can show to Men so it shall certainly be the Rule of the last judgment and God will then proceed and pronounce judgment according to the Rules and Measures of that 't is the most vain and impudent thing in the World to expect any further Mercy than God has revealed to vs by Jesus Christ He hath in all probability shown the utmost kindness and favour that is possible to Mankind for his sake he has opened the bowels of his Mercy and the Riches of his Grace as the Apostle speaks Eph. 1.7 and has exhausted all the treasures of love and compassion to poor Sinners that a Wise and Just God can possibly show with consistence to his own honour and the honour of his Laws and Government to expect therefore that God should be gracious beyond the Gospel and make farther and greater abatements to us and be more merciful than he hath promised to be by his Son whom he sent with the most full and gratious Message of loving kindness
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