when by repentance a man Isai 1. 16 17. Mat. 3. 8. ceases to do evil he learns to do well and brings forth fruits meet for repentance and amendment of life On the other side he that seems to make a hasty motion to Holiness without due sense of sin first thinks to overrule the method God hath set who requires humiliation godly sorrow anger revenge fear as preparing to Repentance and further he conceipts a freedom to himself when he is fetter'd and bound without a power given him from God he offers to cast out Devils with ease that cannot be cast out Mat. 9. 29. but by fasting and prayer that is severe courses of self abasement and lowliest dependances together with earnestest application to the Grace of God These unclean spirits therefore that dissemble a retreat return immediately and make a prey of Acts 19. 14 c. the deluded soul Although Heaven and Hell happiness and misery take up the thoughts of the true penitent yet not separated from God and Christ but as it were melted into the sense of God angry and the desire of attonement with him in Jesus Christ Happiness and misery considered apart are not the object of the gracious soul But God and Christ considered apart are an infinitely sufficient reason of Repentance The clear love of God towards the soul as a Father in Christ without reflections upon happiness is though not the single yet the paramount consideration in Repentance unfeigned But men a dying are generally so over possessed with the terrors of an eternal suffering and meer desires of Freedom from paâ—n and of well-being and so in haste that they generally miss these higher considerations which being further of not only from corrupt nature but even from natural conscience are not commonly espied but therefore argue greater sincerity and truth of Heart The truest Repentance lies in the bosome of Faith the apprehensions of the love and goodness of God in Christ melt the soule and give it most perfect Separation from sin the most effectual purification of the Heart all which express the height of repentance Upon the soâ—t fire of the pardoning goodness of God the soul most kindly distils into repentant tears Here flowes that Spirit of Grace and ingenuous goodness which bringeth forth the clearest and holiest affection towards God But at the time we are now speaking of It is very seldom that either horror or presumption do not swallow all Presumption where there is little sense or judgment of the Case Horror where the judgment is clearer and the sense quicker for every thing Rom. 8. 15 disposes now rather to Fear and to the Spirit of Bondage and a man naturally does all he does under a servile dread of God and his eternal Justice And though there may be much mention of Christ and desire of mercy through him yet it is but as a malefactor convicted beseeches the mercy of the Judge no otherwise than as of a Judge So such call out for the mercy of God to pardon them but still as a Judge not with the Spirit of the Son sent into the Cal. 4. 6. Heart the spirit of Adoption crying Abba Father Not with that Love that casteth out unworthy Fear And indeed how can it be otherwise there having been no Iob 22. 21 acquaintance with God in the way but a long enmity and the time now too strait for a free and full consideration of the riches of Grace such as may still an awakened conscience Fear presses in every way and shuts out Faith What can novv redeem the soul from this hellish Terror but a light from Heaven immediately darting into it a Grace above that Grace that ordinarily saves men for a vvell setled trust and confidence in mercy according to the general Rule is not but after some sad debates and experimental consultations that have passed betvveen the sense of sin and the affiancing acts of the soul upon Christ This Repentance then is in great danger of missing the spirit of the Gospel and falling into the rank of those repentances of Cain Esau Judas Thus I have endeavoured to shew that though we suppose a Dying man to spread his soul and thoughts every way and to all the parts of Repentance yet it is extremely to be suspected there will want the true and right quality of them in regard of the very disadvantageous circumstances wherein such an one is found and the great unfitness of the soul at that time to begin to do any thing worthy to which it hath not been before inured or if it did begin it would be much more unlikely to bring forth fruit as our Saviour speakes to perfection Luke 8. 14. I add nothing of the exercises of a full and well grown Repentance whereby it is dayly espying the risings of sin and suppressing them and filling up the defects of Holiness and Obedience because they are not to be thought possible in the point I am now speaking of and I have already given a resolution in that case I shall now set my self to find out the low causes that are alway to be suspected to have the great influence upon such a latter end penitency In general therefore we must take notice that there are several vapors of misapprehension rising upon the Soul when we are a dying that do so disguize it to it self and disfigure the true face of it that from thence arise dangerous mistakes concerning a mans condition towards God We see into how many shapes upon ordinary occurrences we change and how easily we exchange them for quite different without any good cause what continual Ebbs and Flows there are of the humours and how do these cast the ballance of the superiour soul One man is every hour some several sorts of men How much more do great Accidents and removes out of one condition into another alter us Which yet are but the sudden and just now state of our minds upon such alterations which not continuing we return to our former figure Vnstable and weak as water Gen. 49 3 we take the form of every vessel we are put into who knows then whether his Dying Repentance be any more than the mould not of his mind but of his dying condition approaching him big with so great a change We know many things befal us in our lives which put a greater sense of Religion upon us than we find at other times and yet how variable we are our goodness at such times is as the morning Dew Hose 6. 4. and as the early Dew it goeth away How often are we from the occasions of mercies afflictions fears hopes good discourses carried into high apprehensions of God And we lose them again we know not how Now out of doubt a dying condition of any thing vve meet vvith in the World is most apt to move us upon God and a sense of him But can vve think those fleeting shoots of the Soul that
all must be trusted with the prerogative of mercy for that mercy which is stated in the promises of the Gospel and is in ordinary cannot help them in the great point of salvation however it may alleviate their condemnation and lessen their torment I may add if that which appears a Messenger of Death should have a secret reprieve in its instructions and what seems a Death-bed prove only a discipline It may be a happy beginning of a true repentance to him who lives after his being near the Grave to perfect it according to that of Job 33. ver 22. 23. Thus this opinion doth not cut off the Action of its desperate person and if by that Action he pass the needles Eye and get through the strait Gate of Repentance and Regeneration it will be able to give him no resistance For those to whom the two-leav'd Gates of Faith and Repentance open this Air of discourse cannot barr that they should not enter into life But on the other side they that are confident and make themselves sure of Repentance and Mercy cannot when they meet the solid obstacles of things force their way by the breath of their Mouth but they and their intended Repentance are together locked up in the closeness and compactedness of those decrees First they cannot repent then they cannot be saved To conclude let such a decision of this case be never so austere it is a thousand times more just than the delay of our return to God in the contemplation of doing it at the last can be and the reasons upon vvhich it is planted are such that though they may not reach the height designed yet do they exclude thousands from eternal happiness and although they may not make good the complement of the censure yet are they of so awful a regard and so worthy of all observation that they are most vehemently to be pressed to the main scope that Men vvould by no means trust to this extream Repentance to vvhich purpose I shall hereaftet take further advantage of them But let us come to that tenderer apprehension of the generality of Divines vvith vvhich I vvill concurr that all things of opination and dispute may be taken away in so great a point Let it then be allowed that a Death-Bed Repentance is no impossibility First in regard of infinite mercy that cannot be limited but by it self Now long impenitency though it be often doomed irrevocably by God in particular generations of men or persons yet is not that sin that shall never be forgiven Nor is it upon that account that the Scripture saith of some It is impossible to renew them to repentance So that though there be many examples of such impenitency that hath proved in the event unpardonable yet not from the precise nature of the thing it self we may rather believe that as the unmeasurable Being of God hath delighted it self in so many varieties and gradations of the Creatures down from Angels to the darkest foot-steps of himself in the World so the unsearchable riches of his Grace is made known in all kinds of pardons As therefore it hath chosen some of the worst of sinners for the sorts of their sins chiefest of sinners and brought them home so some that have made the utmost adventure of continuance in sin that in these manifold Glasses it might be seen Where sin hath abounded grace hath abounded much more 2. Though the time of this repentance be short and narrow and the duties of Repentance exceeding long and broad yet where there are found the true signatures of Repentance unfeigned God beholds the fruit in the seed and root he knows the perfection of his own creation though Infant or we may conceive such 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in repentance Repentance born out of due time as Paul vvas in the Apostleship suddenly accomplished though they had not the regular time of forming like a Nation brought forth in a day c D Cypri an de coend Domini Thus thou Lord annointest in a moment Herdsmen into Prophets Shepherds into Kings Publicans thou ordainest Apostles nor doth their languor take leisure to remove whom thou recoverest but in that very moment thou makest them every whit whole wherein they have thee for their Physitian 3. Although there be according to the general Rule a necessity of living to God here in the World yet God may dispense with the continuation or drawing out of the Action of it in these late penitents as we easily allow in the case of Infants or men dying within short space after a Repentance begun upon sad consideration and not in the exigency of a sickness In the mean time it is not at all supposed that God dispenses with the sincere preparations and resolvedness of the mind to that Action but that they must be most true sound and unfeigned and the very Action it self according to the time high full and most significant and as extraordinary as the Repentance it self 4. Although the condition of a man dying do in many regards nearly resemble the state of him that is already in eternity as he is under a necessity of leaving sin and the world and set at a distance from temptation yet it differs in that great circumstance that he is not in Termino he is not fixt upon his unchangeable point he hath not undergone that sentence that immediately passes upon the soul removed and so may not neither have suffered that more secret one conceived by God upon long provocation The whole time of life may be a time of grace and he that hath not yet been concluded by the incommutability of Eternity may hear the voice of Christ and enter into his rest d Quando isthinc excessum suerit nullus jam poenitentiae locus Libr. ad Demetrianum St. Cyprian who is positive That whenever a man is launched into another world he finds no room for repentance he is out of the climate of repentance who is beyond the line of Time All kind of pennances which are a secondary satisfaction under the sufferings of Christ are then desperate and fruitless Yet he allowes the greatest liberty to repentance in this Life For he sayes e Inisto adhuc mundo manenti nulla poenâ—tntia sera est c No repentance is late that is earlier than the grave He sayes Here a man takes hold of life or loses it for ever Yet he grants f Ad immortalitatem sub iptâ morte traensitur De coenâ Domini It is possible by repentance though we are just a dying to be safely landed in a blessed immortality And g In eodem articulo temporis cum jam anima festinet ad exitum c. when the soul hath left its inner residences and is now sitting upon the dying lips before its last farewel to the body and when in haste to be gone yet even then infinite Clemency disdains not Repentance nor accompts that late tâ—at is true nor deprives
of it I come now to the second Proposal which is to 2. Head make inquiry seeing the case is thus as it every way appears to be how the name or notion of a Death-Bed Repentance as such an universal Refuge came up in the world for it is a new Repentanc◠much like Deut. 32 17. those new-come-up Gods Mosis speaks of that Christianity and the Gospel know not The Scriptures that treat most professedly of Repentance always insist upon it as a reformed course of Life to be undertaken even now while the proposals of Grace and Reconciliation are made to us and only by very silent intimations the track of which is hardly discerned leave it possible that God should by miracle save some very few out of the Fire and pull them as Brands out of the Burning by giving them Repentance at the last Whereas this is now become the only repentance in use and hath devoured the other as if to press men upon it were to torment them before their time and to lessen the validity of this were to take away the mercy of God and deny the Grace that is so free and universal Let us search therefore how this sort of Repentance hath come into such Repute And if we observe we shall find it first rising from the intimate sense the conscience hath of the necessity of Repentance For were it not so clear and evident a Duty a Death-bed Repentance had never been heard of most would choose to go out of the world as they have lived in it not suffering any degree of the trouble of conscience or vexing themselves with reflections upon an unholy and ill-spent life As men have chosen to live freely and uninterruptedly in forgetfulness of God and an Ier. 2. 32. eternal condition days without number so would they choose to dye were there not a Law within that however it hath lyen covered vvith the dust of sensuality yet is novv restored to its authority and urges the soul vvith the terror of punishment for so long disobedience And secondly this necessity of repentance though secretly understood yet vvas not sufficiently considered in the time of Health for had it been equally regarded it had not been novv to begin He that had rightly measured it vvould not for a thousand Worlds so have adjourned it These tvvo things then meeting so oft together viz. The necessity of Repentance and the neglect of it all along our life the necessity it should be performed some time ere men go out of the vvorld and the neglect of it in the freer opportunities of life These I say bring forth hasty motions of it at last For it losing nothing of its necessity by its delay it must be done as vvell as it may be at that time even as the last moments vvherein businesses of great consequence are to be dispatched press for expedition the more earnestly because they must be done then or never though it often falls out the time is so far past they suffer not only much disadvantage but even defeat by the delay The Notion of a Death-bed Repentance then vve may perceive rising from the great indisposition to repent vvhile the pleasures of sin are in their season and flourish and men in health and strength to enjoy them and from the necessities of Repentance falling upon them at the last and vvringing from them sometimes very high acknovvledgments of God and an eternal condition passionate expressions of the folly evil and vanity of former life Desires of mercy professions of strong resolvedness to serve God and if they had many lives to give God they vvould give them all All vvhich being so unusual to hear formerly out of such mouths and coming from Dying men for vvhose sayings vve have a natural regard Charity tovvards them and vvillingness to hope vvell of them gives these semblances the reputation of Repentance To vvhich may be added That those vvho are Guides and Seers in Religion too often errante Clave by too liberal an Absolution open the Kingdom of Heaven to such and taking the instruments of a foolish Shepherd to themselves heal the hurt of their souls slightly so that their Repentance is saincted here and though it miscarry in the other World yet the miscarriage is hid also in that other World From all this hath arisen a dovvn-right opinion of this kind of Repentance as the only 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the prudent expedient that compounds tvvo so different Interests first that of a vvordly conversation to vvhich it gives no hinderance then that of eternal life in appearance because it assumes the promises of mercy to it self especially those gracious assurances in Ezek. 18. and Chap. 33. it reckons as made on purpose for it All vvhich argues a very vile sense of both the justice and mercy of God of his justice as if it had no authority of his mercy as if it had no sense of honour And lastly it is grovvn into a general expectation that hovvever ill and carelesly of God men have lived here yet they should go out of the vvorld vvith good vvords of him and religious professions as an Inbalm to their memory and a Dirge to their souls into the happiness of an everlasting condition Thus they call Repentance and Heaven after their Psal 49. 11 13 14 c. own name This their way is their folly yet their posterity men of like inclinations approve their sayings because such men as they speak go away like Lambs but as the Scripture says like sensless Sheep are laid in the grave and Death feeding upon them the error is not discovered till the morning when the upright have dominion over them that is infinitely excel them and their counterfeit Repentance which cannot stand in judgment nor they in the congregation of sincere penitents Now this account I have given of a Death-Bed Psal 19. Repentance obtaining among us is too comprehensive yet I must acknowledg That there are many whose Judgments are more enlightned and the sentiments of their consciences quicker than to be satisfied at so easie a rate who yet fall into the common unhappiness of not having repented till they come to dy I will therefore inquire further why many who are able to feel before hand the necessities of a speedy Repentance and also to draw their Death so near them as to dy dayly in the sense of death and thereby further perceive those necessities do not yet repent dayly but betray themselves to an Evening or Twilight Repentance The resolution of this lies not only in the immoderate love of sin and its pleasures and the too low apprehension of God and eternal things though these are always present in the case but chiefly it lies in the great confidence such men have in the present time not sensible of the continual waste of it Under the favour of which they put awa◠he evil day far from them and stretch themselves upon this moment Amos
to be thought that when the Soul and Body are ready to cleave asunder and tâ—e Spirit to be unsodered from Fleâ—h that it should make a higher flight towards eternal things The nearer every thing is to its own residence the more vehement is its motion said to be thither So there may very well be quick sallies of the Soul towards eternity before it enters into it when it is so near that everlasting Receptacle of it self Thirdly We may observe in the experience of all times every appearance of the other world hath strange effects of fear and affrightment upon mens minds vvhen any one is entring then into that whole World it may vvell put him upon purifying himself more then they that fall upon Leviathan Iob 41. 25. VVhen men are just upon that Region of Spirits vvhat appalements of mind and strong vvorking of thoughts must there needs be Much more if the Soul have any sense of its approach to the infinite Holiness of God at vvhose rebuke the pillars of Heaven tremble vvhose presence astonishes the Heb. 1â— 22 Isai 6. 5. Iob 42. 6. Dan. 10. 8. purer spirits of Angels and beates dovvn the souâ—s of good men to the Dust as of Moses Iob Isaiah c. in his intervievves vvith them Hovv much more of those that have never thought of God and novv must come near his Seat Nothing so composes the soul to this amazing change of condition and converse as long continued Treaties vvith God through Christ vvhen though men change their place they do not change their company Others vvhen this great light strikes them are in the very terrors of the shaddow of Death and Iob 24. 17 Iob â—3 13 shaken out of their place out of all the security and quiet sensuality they lived in Let us novv take the estimate or avail of these things to true Repentance and vve shall find vvhen the soul lyes thus uncovered to the things of Eternity it hath natural reasons for all it may seem to do like return to God and so that all argue nothing of the true Grace of God but if a man vvere again in his former state he would be the very same he was for first as one thing strikes upon another with a naturâ—l effect Light upon the eye Sound upon the ear so eternal things upon the immortal spirit when there is nothing between to intercept the â— Ioh. 2. 16. stroke Further when the lust of the Elesh the lust of the Eye and the pride of Life are as a Scene removed and a Play at an end and instead of them another World drawing near just as men defeated in all their attempts for riches and honours and beaten of from them to a private life call all these things cheats not out of true reason but because they cannot reach them on the other side they praise retirement and a Cloyster not that they like it but because they must live so which begeâ—s some kind of contentedness so to live Thus and no otherwise do many Dying men call all this World vanity and profess an high estâ—em for all things pertaining to to that to come Cause 3 There is yet a more pressing Account of the most notable motions that were ever found in any of their Repentances viz. The awakenings of Conscience usual at this time because of the sense of a Judgment while common experience tells men It is appointed to all men once to dy and sinking nature gives Heb. 9. 27. notice This is the time Conscience lifts up to the next things After that the judgment Now no man sees judgment a judgment omniscient omnipresent eternal without great shakes of Soul especially that hath done nothing seriously to agree with the adversary in the way Coascience then Luk. i2 18. rising up with the Awe of a Tribunal upon â—t stirs up all the powers to fly from the wrath that is to come by desires of pardon and resolutions of Amendment The very hearing of Judgment made Act. 24. 25 such a one as Foelix tremble When Judgment seems to us at the other end of Heaven all is quiet but when Death brings us to the very seat of it How loud may be the cries for mercy The bewayling the former evils of Life Now men pour on t their complaints for the want of God the misimprovement of former time Now they make large offers of a strict and fevere mortification and devotion to Religion Now they would give the the thousand Rams the Mic. 6. 6 7 ten thousand Rivers of Oyl their first born for their transgression the fruit of their Body for the sin of their Soul And yet all but the eye opened to see the flaming sword of Justice that makes even a Balaam wish Num. 22. 32. c. 23. 10. to dye the death of the Righteous and to have a Latter end Sober Just Religious The very suspition of a Judgment inclines men thus far universally almost that hardly any choose to die in a Rant in a madness but had rather by virtue and Religion be consigned over to another World and have their eyes closed by Mercy and Grace in Christ They would see the Salvation of God and so depart in Peace Object But it may be objected Seeing these Motions are granted to rise from true conviction and not to be dissimulation or counterfeit pretence why may not they have the worth of true Repentance Answ To answer this Let us consider pure conviction and inlighâ—â—ed apprehension and the affections begotten of them are no argument of true Goodness where the light hath noâ— a benign and free operation upon the Judgment an allurement upon the Will an indearment upon the Affections to turn them to a full delight and satisfaction in God and holiness to a dislike and abhorrence of sin For else the Devils I am 2. 19. who believe and tremble must be thought Converts For who have clearer sight of things than they Balaam whose eyes were opened and spoke so great things of God and his people must be concluded a Good Mat. 27. 4. Heb. 12. â—7 Dan. 4. â—7 6. 26. Luk. 6. 20. Act 24. 25 man Esau and Judas who had so sad apprehensions of Sin and their loss by it must be affirmed to be Penitents Nebucadne Zar's and Darius his acknowledgments of God must be taken for true Grace Herod his hearing John Baptist gladly Felix his trembling at Paul's Discourse may be thought evidences of true Repentance Obj. 2 But Secondly it may be supposed because these very convictions and affections are not universal but we see multitudes go out of the World without them carrying little better than a decent and civil Respect to Religion that therefore there is something of God something Heroique in them that have them Answ 2 This indeed may be no other than the wise and good Government of God over the World whereby he takes care there should be testimonies of himself and
been spoken this is the sum True Repentance is the most free election of the Soul inabled by the Grace of God upon a clear and just dictate of the Judgment attended with sincerest affection to give up it self to God through Jesus Christ and when it is most it self not under any irregular fear or constraint and at least would be the same in a time when it hath all the probability that can be to lay hold upon things present The other Repentance arises from a Soul all troubled and discomposed with the throwes of Death the fears of Hell the doubts what will become of it in another World the uproars of a guilty Conscience when it supposes it self necessarily at the full stop of its former courses by being cut off from longer Life in the midst of all which arise vehement resolutions to turn from sin to God and possibly with many fait apparencies but without opportunity to give proofe of themselves Let any one Judge between these two Repentances and accordingly even counsel himself concerning them Yet I must acknowledg this Discourse subject to these follovving limitations 1. That the Arguments I have insisted upon prevail not only against a Death-Bed Repentance but against all Repentances that have no higher spirit to move them than vvhat I have novv represented from hence therefore vve may take the trial of our Repentance in general for though a Death-Bed is most subject to these mistakes yet vvhatever Repentance falls under them is by reason of them invalid and the later any Repentance is or the more it is occasioned by any extremity vvhich it doth not out-live the more subject it is to them 2. What I have said is not at all to be understood of the perfecting and consummating Repentance by higher and fuller acts tovvards God at Death though enforced by the present circumstances of the Case For true Repentance running through the vvhole life takes advantage of every thing much more of so considerable an opportunity to unite all our strength for God as a Death-Bed brings vvith it All that hath been spoken is designed against trusting to the Extreme unction of a Dying Repentance just then begun 3. Hâ—ave before resolved upon that tenderest Doctrine that it is possible among all the unhappy circumstances of a Dying-Bed there yet may be this true Act of the Understanding Will and Affections turning to God and if there be this it vvould be the same and alike hovvever these circumstances alter and then it excels those temporary amendments undertaken in the freest times of life But because it is but possible and so almost impossible so unhappy a Case as not to have repented till just vve dye should fall out so happily the intention of this Discourse stands good notwithstanding 4. I acknowledg the choice of the Soul can never be so free but it must be subject to infinitely the most worthy and preponderating considerations of the love and goodness of God the Redemption of Christ the greatness of eternal Happiness most indearing on one side of the fear terror of the Lord the loss of a Soul everlasting perdition most perswaswe on the other side so that if a man cannot be free in his choice of Religion except he choose it without the force of any such consideration he can never be at all free for these are on all sides of him And further there is always the supreme motion of the Grace of God vvhich does not lessen but steer and exalt the freedom of the Will tovvards God The difference then betvveen true and false Repentance in this particular is the same that is betvveen just and rational consideration of all the motives of Hope and Fear And the hurry of them moving us not intellectually but as a Tempest or vvith the force of a meer Engine 2. Betvveen the highest reasons carrying the chiefest force and leading along vvith them the lovver ones and the lovver doing all vvithout the higher for vvant of vvhich they are Sensual or Hellish 3. Betvveen the government of meer Providence and of the Spirit of God 4. Betvveen the Repentance of â—ain Esau Saul Judas and the Repentance of Daâ—id Manasseh Peter and Paul 5. I acknowledg the first preparations of the Soul by God for himself may be with a great deal of noise and confusion Clouds and Darkness are the Dust of his Feet Storms go before him to prepare his â—ay while these last there cannot be a serene calm Act of the Soul and he that doth not live till he hear that still voice in which God is is in great danger of being lost in the Storm But if out of this darkness and confusion a holy and gracious settlement proceed it is not the worse for being so introduced but is agreeable with the usual method of God The fourth Head I proposed is to weigh the Repentance of the crucified Malefactor against our common Death-Bed Repentances which duely performed will be of great force against presumption rather than minister it any confidence For we shall find so much gathered together and pressed down into it that as Jewels have their riches in a little room so his short life of penitency had an age of Repentance in it It is so composed of extraordinaries that it can give very little encouragment in ordinary Cases except just thus much that Repentance at Death is no absolute impossibility 1. Let us observe how his Repentance look'd to the several parts of repentance for though it had but little time in this World to breath in yet with extraordinary diligence it was busie in all the great and most concerning points Yet I account this of the least remark in the History of his Repentance because it is easily imitable That in which it excelled was the Evidences of sincerity it carried 1. Yet take notice of his sense and acknowledgment of Sin which was not only a confession of Magnum est poenitentiae sig num in poena sua acqulescere Grot. in locum words but of his very soul for ceâ—iberating things in a moment he pronounced himself worthy of the condemnation and punishment he endured I confess this is not so infrequent in those who have forfeited their lives to Justice but how oft is it rather a formality than the inward sense of the mind condecently affected and possibly if we look upon the out-side of things we can find no great difference between him and others Yet it is a necessary part of Repentance The sacrifice of God is a broken and contrite â—sa 51. 17 heart 2. In his Repentance lay a lively Faith in Christ first resting upon the principle and truth of the thing That Christ was a just person that he had a Kingdom and then a particular application to him for mercy Lord remember me when thou comest into thy Kingdom 3. A quick sense of Eternity supplied vigor to his Repentance an evident sight of something be yond this World For what
accepts or gives Repentance at the last yet mercy being as much above our thoughts as the Heaven above the Earth what can we define concerning it And though there are so many circumstances of impossibility according to our measure of things Yet the things that are impossible with men with God are possible for with God all things are possible how can we then determine in this Case Can we by searching find out the Almighty in his Mercy and Power Can we find him out to perfection It is high as Heaven what can we do It is deeper than Hell what can we know The measure thereof is longer than the Earth and broader than the Sea Answer Now because in this Objection the sinews of allhope and expectation from this late Repentance meet I will indeavour to give the most punctual Answer to it And though I know after all that is or can be said men will not quit it Yet I shall rest upon this Answer as my last resolution of this Case and by it raise the disswasions from a trust in such a Repentance to the height the greatness of the hazard appearing most fully from it In general therefore it hath been noted The question is not whether God accepts a true Repentance how late soever but whether God will give a true repentance so late and herein the question is not of the limits the absolute limits of infinite mercy and power But what limits it hath set to it self and what seasons it hath limited to us and whether according to these a Death-Bed Repentance be not almost if not altogether an impossibility I 'le therefore lay down several degrees of impossibility notwithstanding infinite mercy and power that must necessarily abate the irregular confidence of such a repentance and under one of them I shall be bold to place it 1. The highest degree of impossibility is of those things that are utterly and absolutely impossible with God because they are irreconcileable with his Nature and such wherein if they were he must deny himself which he cannot do For though there is nothing above God not so much as any goodness or righteousness abstracted from himself that should give him Law Yet he being himself that supreme goodness and righteousness He is a Lavv to himself His nature is his supreme and inviolable Lavv And his Will stands alvvays even vvith his Nature For his Will is himself reciprocal vvith his Nature And all his Actions keep perfect correspondence vvith his Will Upon this immutable reason God cannot lye he cannot do any thing weak or that argues imperfection He cannot but be righteous in all his vvays holy in all his vvorks Upon this reason also he cannot he will not acquit the guilty He cannot he vvill not save or make happy men in their sins God himself speaks this sense Ezek. 18. 31 32. and c. 33. 11. As I live saith the Lord I have no pleasure in the Death of him that dieth why will ye dye Turn your selves and live ye As if he should say except ye turn all my mercy can do you no good For such a mercy vvould not be a mercy but either a foolish softness or loose indulgence to sin Such a povver vvere not a povver but an impotency or turning all things to confusion These therefore are as inconsistent vvith God as Folly Imperfection Sin The Gospel the highest display of mercy rests upon this principle being not a Salvation of men in sin but a most effectual redemption of men from sin Of all that God can be supposed to do for men there is nothing more impossible than this more repugnant to all the true sense of man more overthrowing of the undertaking of Christ more contrary to the nature of true Happiness An opinion of the damned in Hell being annihilated or recovered to Holiness and Hâ—ppiness after some Ages of torment were a high probability compar'd with this He that can tempt himself to believe this may believe any thing and needs no confutation but his own unreasonableness Against this I have been thus large because it secretly lurkes in mens Hearts that God may save them without so much ado about Faith and Repentance though being afraid to speak a thing so monstrous they diâ—guize it under the pretence of a faint Repentance at last But from what I have said It is plainly to be inferred First That some things which God cannot will not do are not the reproach either of his Mercy or Power but the Glory and Greatness of both And this that He neither can or will save men without sincere Faith and Repentance that is without a recovery to Holiness is one of these things The Death-bed Repentance then that is unto Salvation must without all dispute be a sincere change from sin to Holiness 2. There is an impossibility that arises from the peremptory and absolute and irrepealable determination of the Will and Counsel of God concerning any thing In this degree of things I account a I cannot acquiesce in the exposition of the learned Dr. Hammond in his Annot. concerning these two Cases the unpardonableness of the sin against the divine Spirit The unreneâ—ableness of total Apostates from Christianity to repentance The impossibility of repentance after this Life Now though those carry not their own evidence of being inconsistent with the Divine nature as the former yet the declaration of supreme pleasure against them is so effectual that we must needs look upon them as impossible And we may see a great consent a high congruity between the things themselves and the determination of God concerning them which reasons are yet clearer with God For in the sin against the Holy Ghost there is so mature so perfect so concocted a wickedness so high a contumely against the God-head it self that it is very irreconcileable with either Repentance or pardon The total Apostacy from Christianity and the evidences of it mentioned Heb. 6th from the very nature of the Case appears irrepairable because there is no other or higher Grace than that of the Gospel for the Apostates to remove to no more sacrifice for sin nor are there any higher Evidences of that Gospel than those he is supposed to revolt from and no more perfect Acts of contrariety to the Gospel than the crucifying the Son of God afresh and putting him to an open shame the doing despite to the Spirit of Grace the treading under foot the Son of God and counting the Blood of the Covenant an unclean thing in the paralel place Heb. 10. Besides all other reasons the unchangeable state of Eternity is so consolidate with so fixed into our very Being that the perpetuity of it is very accountable to our Reason From hence then we derive thus much farther against a Death-bed Repentance First that some things wherin we cannot find an express impossibility in their nature are yet made so by Gods absolute resolution concerning them into the reason of which he also is
of things gives it the advantage to rise I understand nothing that can be objected to this last Argument I have used to disable the confidence in such a Repentance except this It may be supposed the Repentance that is full of passionate and affectionate motions towards God though amidst the fears of Death may be good till it be blotted out by returns to sin and therefore if it be taken in the just time while it is good that is if a man dies before it be reversed it may serve the great purpose of eternity This Supposition I must confess hath a seeming countenance from that particular place Ezek. 33. 12. The righteousness of the righteous shall not deliver him in the day of his transgression as for the wickedness of the wicked he shall not fall thereby in the day that he turneth from his wickedness But if the scope of Scripture discourse in general or the very sense of morality be taken in the Case no man may trust so great a weight here For Christ looks upon the stony ground with the same Eye while it Mat. 1â— 20 21. Mat. 7. 26 receives the word with joy as when by and by it is offended and it was therefore truely no better at first than at last The House that is not founded upon the Rock is as ill founded in the calm as in the storm only the storm discovers what it was Morality it self requires a better rooting of virtuous Habits than that they should be set only in loose ground thrown up by extremity of condition and not in the soil it self That Repentance which will not bear the trial of time will much less sustain the test of Eternity wherein every thing that stands must be solid and substantial Things that suffer the loss of themselves when they are tried by mans day will suddenly be consumed by the hotter beams of Gods â— Cor. 4. 3 That hath need of good nealing that must undergo an eternity and have all advantage of conâ—â—ction that must be laid up for ever which the short moments of a Death-Bed without a miraculous assistance will not allow The fruit of it generally like that Hasty-ripe perishes while it is in the Hand This Repentance Isai 28. 4 gives up the Ghost assoon as it is born Now as for that place in Ezekiel so much vexed with controversie I do not think it convenient for me to intangle a Discourse intended wholly for practice with the perplexities of it Only I am concerned to shew that it doth not afford the favour supposed to this kind of Repentance For first We must not mistake the day it speaks of as if it signified so strait a compass of time as a day but that season wherein either the righteous man wasts and destroyes his righteousness or a sinner overcomes his vitious customs and inclinations neither of which are usually done on the sudden Secondly the turning from wickedness intended is certainly a sincere and impartial one and not such as we have rendered this dying Repentance suspicious to be Thirdly it must be justified by a walking in the Statutes and Judgments of God and doing that is right that is by a continued Reformation which will least agree to this Repentance and therefore this place of Scripture will not protect this supposition but rather damns it Having now in the foregoing Discourse in a practical and perswasive way endeavoured to engage men to a timely Repentance by setting out the hazard of a late one I have thought it yet necessary to make the state of the whole Doctrine as exact as I can by considering whatever might with fair appearance of Scripture-reason call into question and scruple what I have grounded my perswasions upon I will therefore as a supplement to all I have said First recollect what I have intended all along And then cast all I can possibly suppose against it into Objections and Answers that by closer attention to the Case it self every one that will be at the câ—st to consider it may be convinced to the main end viz. A present Religious Life First then I make it not the question Whether a true Repentance how late soever be a Repentance to Salvation Nor Secondly Whether God hath reserved it to the Prerogative of his Grace to give a true Repentance at last Nor Thirdly Whether a Repentance that is true and sincere though but in the seeds being surprized with a Death-Bed may not then break out and shew it self more fully Nor lastly Whether a man that hath the light of the Gospel brought to him but just before his Dying condition may not expect the Grace of God working with it then even as in the freer times of Life All these I do with great confidence acknowledg the substance of what I have said against a Death-bed Repentance will be comprised in these following Assertions which I restrain vvholy to men that have lived under the light and exhortations and applications of the Word of God vvith all usual Freedom and yet have not begun sincerely to repent till they come to dye The First is That a Death-bed Repentance hovv fair soever it may appear hath yet the greatest Doubt imaginable upon it vvhether it be true The Second There is greatest reason of Fear God vvill not give his grace to such a dying man to repent The third That a Repentance at Death is not that general Repentance the Scripture discourses of makes promises of pardon upon offers the assistances of the Spirit to enjoynes the Duty of with so many pressing commands For that Repentance immediately to be begun is supposed to govern a following Life It must therefore be an extraordinary and miraculous Repentance if true Lastly That it is therefore against all rules of Piety and Prudence by mispending Life to cast our selves upon the necessity of Repentance at Death This I say is the substance of what I have designed all along which I would now further clear and vindicate from these following Objections Object 1 Objection 1. Doth not the Parable of calling some Mat. 20. v. 1. c. Labourers into the Vineyard at the eleventh Hour imply That God doth in ordinary convert some at the last Hour as well as sooner Answ Answer The main scope of Parables is only argumentaâ—ive and so far as the scope of that Parable relates to this Case It is no more than what I acknowledg That God gives eternal Life to true Repentance if true at last even as to the first and earliest Repentance The reward being to all of Grace and not of Debt It is also to be considered there remained an Hour of working representing rather old Age than a Death-Bed if the colours of a Parable prove any thing and so are rather against this Repentance than for it Obj. 2 In the Second Objection I suppose men taking Sanctuary at infinite mercy and power in this manner Although no thought of man can reach the mercy that