Rubbish is taken away a good Life should be built and all the goodly structure of Christian Vertues should be erected I come now to propose the Motives and Encouragements to perswade us to this great Duty and they are as many and as great as there are obligations to Vertue and Religion and disswasives from Vice and Wickedness For Repentance is but a Return to Vertue and Leaving Sin and tho' the passage from one to the other may not be so pleasant and delightful but like the Israelites we must pass through a Wilderness through a vale of Sorrow and a course of Contrition and Humiliation yet Vertue is the happy Land flowing with delights and all manner of good things and Vice is a more than Egyptian Servitude and Slavery which he is mad that will not get out of or that any way hankers again after it or after the Garlick and Onions the sordid pleasures and enjoyments of it I shall first examine the Temptations and Enticements to Sin and expose the false Reasonings and Arguments by which Men are drawn into that then offer the Motives and greater Arguments to Repentance both from the Nature and Reason of the thing and from the Gospel or Christianity SECT I. Of the Enticements to Sin THe Enticements and temptations to Sin and Wickedness are so great and many that if we should judge of them by the effect and power which they have upon Mankind they are much stronger than the Motives and Arguments to Vertue and a good Life for we see they prevail upon more than the other do Whole crowds follow the one and are drawn by them into the broad way of Vice whilst Vertue has but a small party who walk in her narrow path and are perswaded to keep closely to it Now surely there must be some mighty and powerful charms in Vice that make it so generally take with most Men there must be some secret and prevailing Reasons that bring them over and engage them so firmly on that side and make Vertue so generally forsaken and deserted Men are Rational Creatures and free Agents that have a power to consider and choose what is best for them what tends most to please and delight and make them happy and they must be greatly imposed upon if they choose that which tends only to make them miserable God sets Life and Death before them as Moses before the Jews Deut. 30.15 and it must be great madness to choose the worser part and what one would think it impossible for any man to do if his Reason were not cheated and deceived with false appearances of good in it and it were not represented to him in such a false light and such false colours as made it seem quite otherwise then it is in its own Nature For no Man can choose Evil as Evil naked in it self and with its own ugliness and deformity about it but it must be drest up under the show of Good and painted and decked up in a meretricious dress to hide its Native and abominable Filthiness Mens Imaginations must be deluded and so their Reason deceived and imposed upon by the Temptations to Sin and there must be a great many false reasonings used to entice them to it or else so many who have thoughts about them and who cannot do any thing without thinking some way or other could never be drawn over to consent to it and to commit it Now the chief Delusions and false Reasonings and Perswasions by which Men are drawn into Sin for there must be some such process in their Minds are such as these following 1. They see and feel the present Good of their Sins and the after Evil is so uncertain or so remote that they know not what to think of it and so are not much influenced by it for they think it unreasonable to part with the present Pleasure and the certain Profit which their Sins afford them for an unknown and unseen and unconceived Pleasure and Happiness they know not when or where they find and feel most Vices very grateful to their Natural Appetites and outward Senses and they are not such fools as to be perswaded out of those nor to put a force and restraint upon Nature and its proper enjoyments Vertue tyes them up to such severe and hard and unnatural restraints as they cannot endure its Mortifications and Self-denyals are very uneasie to Flesh and Blood and they look upon its Rules and Precepts as the morose dictates of peevish and melancholly Men who cannot so well enjoy what others do and therefore talk against the liberties and freedoms of Humane Nature and fright Men from the pleasures and enjoyments of Sin here with the terrours of another World and imaginary dangers hereafter Is it then so very certain that Vice is so pleasant here So desirable and comfortable upon the account of present enjoyment and that its punishment hereafter is so unknown and uncertain That 't is not to be taken into consideration nor worth being more minded than it is by these Sinners do they never think of dying or are they possessed with such a frenzy as to hope they shall live alwayes or that three or fourscore years will never be run out though few live so long and they perhaps have lived above half that time and see how quickly it is gone and then will any Man in his wits venture to be miserable for ever for the Pleasures or Profits of Sin which are but for a season were they never so great If there were a much greater uncertainty about another World then there is yet who would run so dreadful a hazard who would put so great a matter to such a dangerous venture Were not the evidence we have of a future state from Nature from Revelation from the Resurrection of Christ nay from the belief of all Mankind so strong as it is so that not only whatever the Jews or the Christians have believed and witnessed down through all Ages must pass for a fable if it be not true but what all Wise Men have ever believed about a God and Religion must be a meer dream and chimaera Yet however no Man can ever be sure but that there is another World he can have no positive proof or demonstration that there is not and were there no more in it but that there may be such a thing which the greatest Atheist or Sceptical Infidel cannot pretend to deny yet this might be enough to keep him from running upon so dreadful though meerly possible danger and exposing himself to such extream but irrecoverable mischief especially for the poor and pitiful temptations of Sin at present For alas however pleasant and delightful they may imagine them yet they are generally mistaken and there is more true pleasure and comfort a thousand times to be found in a Life of Vertue and Religion than in the most tempting Wickedness and the most gustful Sensuality For which yields most present pleasure and comfort of Life
nor no excuse to make for himself who has neglected and despised all the means of Grace that were offered to him and who would not be perswaded to any true Repentance before it was too late and therefore he must now Repent in vain for ever Who can express the bitter thoughts the fears the horrours the agonies of such a Soul at that time and who would ever feel them who has now power and opportunity to avoid them Death carries something of terrour in it to all Men as it is a punishment of Sin and a dark passage to the unknown Regions that are below and it may be either great presumption or great stupidity to have no Fear of it A good Man may not overcome all the Natural Fear of Death but the wicked has all reason to be scared and terrified with it when it comes near him or he thinks of it I shall therefore in the last place consider the Terrour of Death and how we are only freed from this by Repentance and Religion by the hopes and assurances of Christianity and our having sincerely Repented of all our Sins and so as I have shown fitted and prepared our selves thereby for Death SECT VII Of the Fear of Death and how we are delivered from it by Repentance and Religion THere is no Natural Evil so great as Death the King of Terrors and the chief of those dreadful things that Humane Nature is afraid of Skin for skin and all that a man hath will he give for his life Job 2.4 He is willing to part with every thing that he may compound with it nay what will not he not give to purchase a short reprieve from Death and the Grave that he may but set them back a while and gain a little more time to live How is the poor Man willing to endure any thing to linger out a miserable Life a little longer though in the midst of pains and aches and greater torments of Body perhaps then he would feel in Death it self How patiently will he submit to the most tedious penance and severest discipline that his Physician shall lay upon him and swallow down the most loathsome and bitter draughts that the more bitter cup of Death may pass from him How will he endure the utmost cruelties of Surgery and bear a living Martyrdom rather than dye have his Body burnt and scarified his Flesh cut and mangled to the Bone his Limbs cut off or sawn asunder that so he may dye by piece-meals and out-live some part of himself and escape out of the hands of Death though it be never so narrowly and run away from it though he leave a Leg or an Arm behind him This shows how Natural the love of Life is and how willing most Men are to preserve and purchase it at any rate and with what abhorrence they look at Death and how it frights and startles them when it comes near them when they behold its pale look and its terrible visage and see the ghastly monster laying hands on them and ready to lay them prostrate at its feet how does it then appalle and terrifie them and make their Blood chill and their Spirits cold and clammy and their Hearts dye within them when they think how their once brisk and sprightly bodies that have been long enjoying all the sweet Pleasures of Life and Sense shall in a moments time be deprived of all those and become only a heavy clod and a cold and senseless lump of Flesh laid out upon its once warm Bed and then lock'd up in its little Cabin and so laid in the proper place of Rottenness and Putrefaction where it is to molder into Dust and to be as clean forgotten in a little time as if it had never been This is a very mortifying and a very melancholly Consideration to most Men and when they consider that in a little time this must certainly be their own case and their own fatal condition this must keep them in perpetual fear and bondage if there were no provision against this Natural Fear of Death if Religion did not afford us some helps and assistances against it and there were not something to take off and abate its Natural Terrour and to support and strengthen and encourage the Mind of a good Man against it Death as it is the Punishment of Sin and was for that end ordained by God and brought into the World for by sin entered death as the Apostle sayes Rom. 1.12 carries some marks of his Anger and so must necessarily have some degree of Fear accompany it but Christ who was to deliver Mankind from the greatest Punishments which our first Parents drew upon themselves and their Posterity by their Transgressions and was to free us from the saddest effects of theirs and our own Sins he has tho' not quite taken away this Punishment no more than he has the other temporal ones occasioned by the Fall for we must still dye and still have some fear of Death yet the worst effects of Death and for which it was most to be dreaded those Christ has delivered us from and it was one great reason why he became a Man and why he took part of the same flesh and blood of which we are partakers and which makes us subject to Death That through death he might destroy him that had the power of death that is the Devil and deliver them who through fear of death were all their life time subject to bondage as the divine Author of the Epistle to the Hebrews assures us Heb. 2.15 Now the wayes by which Christ and Christianity do this are chiefly these two I. By assuring us of another Life II. By taking away the sting of Death which is Sin upon our true Repentance I shall 1. Show this Then 2. Enquire whether a true Penitent and good Man ought to have no Fear of Death 3. Give some Directions about thus overcoming the Fear of Death that so we may not be too much terrified with it when it approaches I. Christ and Christianity free us from the Fears of Death by assuring us of another Life and of a Glorious Immortality after Death Death would be very terrible indeed if it took away our Being and made an end of us when it came and put us into a state of Annihilation If the Grave were to swallow us up and we were to pass into the dark abyss of Non-Entity when we went out of the World If when we expired our last Breath our Souls were to pass with it into the soft Air and we were to be no more after we went off the stage of this World Nothing can be so close so desirable as our being which is the foundation of all Happiness and Enjoyment to us which some have thought so considerable that they have supposed it more eligible to be miserable than not to be at all though I can by no means be of their mind and think being only in order to be miserable to
like melancholly persons who read of such grievous diseases fancy immediately that they have them themselves and that such and such symptoms are already upon them If we cannot therefore assure all Persons of Pardon for all manner of Sins however great or however circumstantiated upon their true Repentance of them it will very much take off from the encouragements to this Duty and by taking off Mens hopes in many cases and shutting the door of Mercy against them hinder them from performing this Duty and make them if not act desperately and madly as Men without hopes generally do yet throw them into a comfortless and despairing condition and overwhelm them with remediless sorrow and trouble The general scope and design of the Gospel seems to be to remove all this To preach good tidings unto the meek to bind up the broken-hearted to proclaim liberty to the captives and the opening of the prison to them that are bound to comfort them that mourn Isa 61.1 To call those to come to Christ who are weary and heavy laden by reason of their Sins with a promise that he will give them rest Matth. 11.28 To preach Repentance and remission of sins in his name among all nations Luke 24.47 without excluding any Persons or excepting any Sins whatsoever to proclaim a general Amnesty and Act of Pardon to all who Repent and come in to the Gospel Had there been an exception as to a more notorious Traytor to any one though a single Sin which Mankind had been like to fall into this would have abated both from the Goodness of God and the Comfort of Men when he should be represented as implacable in some cases and never to be appeased and the other should be left in such danger and hazard that if they fell into some Sins which it was very possible for them to do that then there should be no hopes nor no means of recovery for them God I doubt not is more merciful and Mankind not so miserable as to have any Sin whatever utterly unpardonable which is Repented of but as our Saviour sayes All manner of Sin and Blasphemy shall be forgiven unto men Matth. 12.31 And as Isaiah told the Jews of old and it is not less so under the Gospel Though your sins be as scarlet they shall be white as snow though they be red like crimson they shall be as wooll Isa 1.18 that is of however high a nature or degree they are they shall upon Repentance and Amendment be done away and forgiven No Sin is too great for the infinite Mercy of God to forgive and the infinite Merit of Christs Blood to atone nor is any excepted in the Covenant of Grace which God has made with Mankind wherein he promises universally to be merciful to their unrighteousness and their sins and iniquities he will remember no more Heb. 8.11 Jer. 31.34 without any bar or reserve to any Sin of what nature or aggravation soever I shall therefore Examine and Answer those places of Scripture which seem to give any countenance to the other severe and cruel Doctrine as to Sins of Apostacy after Baptism or upon Relapse and then largely consider the Nature of the Sin against the Holy Ghost and how or whether that is unpardonable so as to free all honest Minds from any trouble about it SECT I. Of Apostacy Sins after Baptism Vpon Relapse FIrst then as to those places of the Hebrews which are brought as the ground of the Novatian Doctrine for the irremissibleness of wilful Sins committed after Baptism they do not belong to any Sins of a Christian whilst he continues such but to one renouncing Christianity and wholly Apostatizing from it even after he has professed it and had miraculous evidence and conviction of it They who were enlightened or Baptized 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and have tasted of the Heavenly gift have been sensible of the Benefits of Baptism and the Priviledges of Christianity and been made partakers of the Holy Ghost have further had those miraculous and extraordinary Gifts of the Holy Ghost conferred upon them which new Baptized Persons then very often had and have tasted the good word of God and the powers of the world to come have had a sense of the excellency of the Gospel and the Christian Revelation and those powerful and great Miracles 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which accompanied the dispensation thereof and the times of the Messiah or that have been duly affected with the powerful Considerations of Eternity and another World which are the great things their Religion sets before them if such as these shall like Julian afterwards or the Gnosticks then fall away from all this and apostatize from their Faith and Religion by the Fears of Persecution or the Love of this World it is impossible to renew them again to Repentance seeing this their revolt implyes no less than the crucifying to themselves the Son of God afresh and putting him to open shame i. e. the condemning of Christ as a Malefactor and Impostor and so joyning and consenting with the Jews in Crucifying him as such and bringing an open reproach and discredit upon him as if he were a false Prophet and that upon Tryal and Experience they found his Religion to be false and therefore forsook it This Apostacy and renouncing the whole Religion of Christ is meant also by Sinning wilfully after we have received the knowledge of the truth Heb. 10.26 It is sinning in the same word and sense as the Apostate Angels did when they revolted from Heaven 2 Pet. 2.4 for in the next Verses it is called Treading under foot the Son of God i. e. Contemning him as a vile miscreant and as if he were not Risen from the Grave but lay dead there and so were to be trod upon and counting the Blood of the Covenant wherewith he was sanctified an unholy thing as if it were shed justly and so were the Blood of a common Malefactor and doing despite unto the Spirit of Grace reproaching all the evidence by which the Holy Ghost confirmed the Truth of Christ and his Doctrine both in him and his Apostles This can be no less than a malicious apostacy and defection from Christianity in general and not only a wilful breach of any of its particular Laws And something like unto these is that Sin unto death in St. John 1 Ep. 5.16 that which deserved the utmost and severest censures as he which under Moses Law sinned presumptuously and was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 did make void and throw off the Law was to dye without mercy Heb. 10.28 So under Christianity this presumptuous Sinner was to be Spiritually cut off from all the Benefits of Christian Communion and from the Prayers of the Faithful as we find they were by the Discipline of the Primitive Church This was so severe at first that they denyed all Peace and Absolution to such Apostates and Lapsi even in articulo Mortis at the point of Death and
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
taken a great deal of liberty and had the full swinge of his Lusts and vicious Inclinations when they afterward grow calm and cool of themselves and he is tired or satiated with them then to leave them after he has had a full and a long enjoyment of them To Repent time enough to avoid all the bitter effects and punishments of them after they have fully tasted and exhausted all their sweetness and pleasantness and then throw away the poysonous core when they have sufficiently eaten of the dainty and forbidden Fruit. Men to be sure will draw such consequences to themselves when Religion they think puts such an Argument into the hands of their Lusts which are apt to be too strong of themselves against all Religion and Reason whatsoever and when they have such a fair colour and pretence as they suppose from Religion it self they will be sure to improve it to destroy all Religion by this one part of it and by turning its own weapons upon it self So that like the Eagle in the Fable it shall receive its mortal wound from a dart that comes feathered from its own wing and by this subtle contrivance it shall be made to countermine it self Is Heaven then to be thus out-witted and over-reach'd in its own policy And whereas it designed this priviledge of Repentance to bring Men to Vertue shall the Devil find out a stratagem whereby to be too hard for it even upon its own ground and make it an instrument to encourage Men in their Sins Has God like a soft and easie and indiscreet Prince granted such a Charter and made such Concessions to his Subjects as shall destroy his own Power and Government and make their Obedience loose and precarious No sure neither his Wisdom nor his Power is to be thus lessened and diminished nor is the Grace of God the greatest favour of the Gospel to be thus turned into wantonness and a principle of loosness and licentiousness as these Men make it who thus presume upon Sinning at present upon the advantage of an after Repentance and resolve therefore to run on in the score and to take up great summes in hand and be much in debt to Heaven because they think the whole may be compounded pounded at the last and made up for a very little We may be sure in the general there must be some great errour and mistake in this matter and that 't is either a false Principle that these Men go upon or that they draw a very false Conclusion from it for God must be a very easie Being and Religion must have a very weak place in it if it lye open to such a consequence 2. We commonly tell Men in the second place therefore to prevent this that the after Repentance is very hazardous and uncertain for no Man knows that he shall have time to do it hereafter or that he shall not be surprized with a sudden and unexpected Death before he has performed this Repentance he designed and this indeed is very considerable and were there nothing else yet a wise Man would not venture his Soul and its Eternal State upon so great an uncertainty as Life and Futurity is for that we know is no more in our own power to command than it is to recall the time that is past and who that thinks and considers what Eternity means would hazard it upon so ticklish a cast and so perfect a lottery as the continuance of Life is Do not we see most of the World snatch'd away on a sudden Death hardly giving them any warning but coming upon them with secret and undiscerned steps and stealing up to them and striking the fatal blow before they were aware of it and what shall this poor wretch do whose Life is done before his Repentance is begun He who intended so many years hence to begin his Repentance shall begin it sooner in another World but shall never end it but Repent in vain to all Eternity in weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth for his folly and madness in not Repenting sooner But though this be a monstrous hazard and no Man in his Wits would lye open to such a danger which can never be repaired but may be easily prevented yet this uncertainty of Life seems not a sufficient security to Religion because 't is a security only by accident and it is in great measure lost if a Man do live out the usual period which many do and which most hope to do and there ought to be greater Reasons to oblige them to a present Repentance and a constant Obedience than the meer fears that they may dye sooner and it would be strange if Religion should depend upon such an uncertainty and a Man should find a way to free himself from the necessity of it the greatest part of his Life if he were sure to live long 3. Therefore we strengthen this commonly with another Consideration and that is That though a Man may have Time to Repent hereafter yet God may not give him Grace to do it especially if he so provoke him by such a neglect and abuse of this Grace as quite defeats the end and design of it and nothing can be more highly provoking and a more just ground for God to deny us his Spirit than thus to abuse and pervert this Grace of the Gospel as to make it an encouragement not to Repent but to Sin because they may Repent Besides the longer the Custom and Habits of Sin continue upon us the more root they take and the more difficult are they to be pluck'd up and the Mind is in time so much hardened by them that like a chronical Disease or an old Ulcer by being suffered to run long upon it they grow almost incurable And he must be in a fad condition who lets the power of his Sins thus grow upon him and yet who finds them so difficult at present to be overcome and who has that power dayly lessened if not lost whereby he should do it But still though Gods Spirit shall not alwayes strive with man Gen. 5.3 yet we cannot positively determine to what degrees of wickedness a Man must arrive before God will wholly withdraw his Spirit from him nor can we say that God denyes necessary Grace to any whereby they may Repent so long as they are in this state of Tryal and Probation or that there are any such though the greatest of Sinners who are debarred or excluded from the power and priviledge of Repentance for this would tend to discourage a great many from Repentance and do as much harm by shutting those out of all hopes as by opening the gate too wide to others or letting it alwayes stand open to any that will come in at any time There must be therefore some other Considerations to take off the force of this mistake and to preserve the absolute necessity of a good Life and a constant Obedience which I shall endeavour to find out and
the day is far spent and night is at hand and just upon him So is it with a Man who hath been all his Life following his Vices driving on in a full career of Wickedness and galloping in the way to Hell and the broad road of Damnation and yet thinks by a Death-Bed Repentance and a short stop at the last to come to Heaven Good God! What thoughts have such Men of the great work and business of Religion which ought to be the great work and employment of our Lives who think to dispatch it all in a few moments as if God gave us not our Lives to spend them in his Service and to his Glory and to work out our Salvation and fit our selves for Heaven and do good and grow in Grace and the like great ends of Life but we might pass by all those and wallow in our Lusts and spend almost all our days in the gratifications of Vice and Wickedness and in the Devils service and think it enough to put off God with a very small part at the last and devote our dying hours or a short time when we know we must live no longer to Religion and Repentance This is to think God a very easie Master and Religion a very easie work and Heaven a reward very easily to be attained and come at and that none of them are to be so much minded and regarded but that a little time will serve the turn and that all may be done and taken care of at the last though not quite so well indeed yet upon a forced-put the whole business may be dispatcht in a very little time so as to secure the main chance and not fail of the great end of Religion which is to save a Mans Soul and go to Heaven If this can be done a sudden few Men will care to spend much time more time than needs about it and this very Mistake and Opinion is the reason why they do not but generally neglect and cast off Religion and go on i' their Sins and live carelesly and wickedly and can never he perswaded to a strictly Vertuous and holy Life though they believe Religion and are very far from any Atheistical Doubts and Denyals of it but they think to do all the great work at the last something that shall serve instead of all the rest i. e. to Repent and be sorrowful for their sins for they account this sufficient Repentance and that the dying thus penitent shall be as well as if they had minded Religion all their lives and discharged the great ends of it If it will by the fixt terms and standing provision of the Gospel save their Souls and carry them to Heaven it is as well and will serve their purpose as well and the great purpose of Religion and God designed and appointed it should do all this which we no where find in Scripture and which to suppose would destroy all Religion 3. Without those holy Habits and Dispositions Graces or Vertues of Mind we shall be shut out of Heaven notwithstanding all we can do at the last notwithstanding our most earnest Desires Prayers and Entreaties and all other applications we can make to enter in this the Foolish Virgins found though they beg'd hard and pray'd earnestly and knockt loud and cry d Lord Lord and were never so importunate with the Bridegroom to let them in and presumed no doubt upon having a peculiar Interest in him if not some Relation to him as many do to Christ yet all would not do without timely preparation and having Oyl in their Lamps i.e. Grace and Vertue in their hearts The door was shut and all their cryes would not open it and though they call'd the Bridegroom Lord Lord and had some pretended Acquaintance or Friendship with him and reposed some Trust and Confidence in him yet all was in vain and to no purpose without due qualifications in themselves His Answer was I know you not as Christ's will be at the last day to those wicked Men who yet put mighty hopes in him and trust and rely very strongly upon him for Salvation and think they have some claim and pretence to his special love and favour and call him Lord Lord Saviour Saviour and the like but yet if they have not done the will of his heavenly Father in their lives done their Duty and made themselves fit for Heaven he will profess unto them I never knew you depart from me ye that work iniquity Matth. 7.22 23. Earnest and importunate Prayers are very prevailing Applications to God when the thing is fit to be granted and we fit to receive it and when God can with consistency to his Wisdom and Justice and other Attributes bestow the favour we ask of him and 't is according to the promises he hath made to us so that we can ask in Faith and have good reason to believe it shall not be denyed because there is no bar or just cause either in God or our selves to hinder it then we shall be certainly sure of it and God will alwaies give to those who thus ask him but 't is not our unreasonable though never so importunate Prayers that will make God do an unfit or unreasonable thing or prevail with him to break the Rules of his Wisdom and Justice or out of pity and tenderness violate the standing wise Methods of his Providence and Government Pity and Compassion is not a weak passion in God as it is in Men who are in pain to see another fall into such a misery as they are subject to themselves and which may as well fall upon them and therefore they have a fellow-feeling of it because it touches them with the quick thought of their own frailty and liableness to it but God is subject to no such weakness and uneasiness and therefore pity in him is but a wise Exercise or Effect of his Goodness whereby he is inclined to inflict as little evil and do as much good to his Creatures as the Capacities of their Nature and the Perfections of his own will admit Should a Wise and Good Governour out of weak pity and commiseration to the cryes and lamentations of condemned Prisoners and dying Malefactors stop the course of Justice and suspend the Execution of wholesom and necessary Laws He would destroy his Government by his easiness and bring a thousand times more Mischief to the Publick and so his Pity instead of a Vertue would become both imprudence and cruelty in the highest degree God as he is Pityful and Mercyful so he is Wise and Just too and will not break the standing Rules of the Gospel nor the wise measures of his Divine Government by which he impartially distributes Rewards and Punishments according to Mens Works out of any fond consideration to any Mans particular case He will not he cannot act contrary to the unalterable Rules of Justice either in punishing the Innocent or clearing and letting the guilty go free He must lay
necessarily be miserable with them in another World It can sometimes avoid those inward pains and torments here because it has the gratifications of its Sins and other enjoyments and entertainments to bear it up and yet they will often get in and disturb it even amidst all its pleasures and jollities but in its separate Estate hereafter it will be wholly without those and so for ever subject to the inward misery and uneasiness which Sin ever causes in its own thoughts 5 Allowing Salvation to a meer dying Repentance as it seems contrary to all plain Notions and certain Principles in Religion namely that none but Vertuous and good Men can go to Heaven and that Obedience and a good Life is the only way thither and that Vice while it continues upon the Mind will necessarily make it miserable and the like which I have largely insisted upon So Lastly The consequences of it seem plainly to destroy all Religion For 1. It sets by all those general commands which are often given to Christians of Walking worthy of their vocation adorning their profession and letting their conversation be as it becometh the gospel Letting their light so shine before men that others may see their good works and so glorifie their Father which is in Heaven Doing all to the Glory of God and promoting that and Religion as much and as far as they can in the World Learning of Christ and following his Example and showing they are his Disciples by bearing much fruit Doing all the good they can to others and being useful in their places improving their Talents and not being unprofitable Servants Redeeming the time and taking all opportunities of serving the great ends of Religion Growing in Grace and being perfect as their Father which is in Heaven is perfect These are general Commands given to Christians and such as they are all obliged to though not in the highest degrees yet in such measures as God who knows our frame and our circumstances intended we should come up to They are not only Counsels of Perfection and Romantick unpracticable Directions of some Acts of Supererogation but they are strict Rules of necessary Duty and Christian practice which every good Christian is bound to live up to and if they wholly fail in doing so and do no way make them good in their Lives but act contrary to them they are not good Christians at present nor shall be rewarded as such hereafter but shall be condemned and punished eternally for being otherwise Now a notorious wretched Sinner who hath been so far from having any regard to these Christian obligations that he hath lived all his Life in direct opposition against them and now only Repents when he is a dying he must be wholly excused from all these they must be all set aside and signifie nothing in his case if he can go to Heaven not only without observing them in any sort or any tolerable manner but living wholly opposite and reverse to them for He instead of adorning his Profession and letting his Conversation be such as becometh the Gospel hath been the greatest shame and reproach to it and been unworthy the name of it and shall he now then share in the noblest rewards of it Instead of letting his Light shine before Men he hath been an example of the greatest Wickedness and dishonoured God in the highest manner all his days and shall he now be rewarded and honoured by him Instead of learning of Christ and living up to the example he set us he hath learn'd of the Devil and liv'd like a Bruit and practiced all sort of Diabolical and Bestial Wickedness and shall he now reign with Christ and be taken up into Paradise with him Instead of doing any good he hath done all the mischief imaginable in corrupting and debauching others and tempting them to all manner of lewdness and instead of promoting Religion he hath served the cause of Atheism and Irreligion and done all he can to make others disbelieve the truth of all Religion if not by lewd Principles yet by lewd Practices that are the greatest contradiction to it and shall he now partake of its Glorious Promises which he hardly believed and would never seek after all his Life Instead of improving his Talents in his Masters Service he hath wholly wasted and consumed them in Luxury and Prodigality and spent all the Blessings God had intrusted him with to quite other purposes than he gave them Instead of growing in Grace he hath grown to the utmost perfection almost of Sin and Wickedness and is become a Sinner of the highest rate and hath dayly improved in it Instead of redeeming the time he hath squandered it all away in folly and madness and took all opportunities to gratifie his Lusts and spent his whole Life in the persuit of sinful pleasures and now indeed he would redeem the time in a wonderful manner and do all the business of Life very compendiously and very concisely in a few days or hours before he is to dye And when he hath followed none of these Christian Rules and Directions but acted altogether against them yet he would have God set them all by and make them all have no meaning or be to no purpose but only a little dying Sorrow and Repentance to serve instead of all of them 2. As those general Commands must be set aside by this priviledge of a dying Repentance so must also those particular Commands which oblige us to the practice of several Vertues such as Piety and Devotion Sobriety and Temperance Purity and Chastity Self-denyal Heavenlymindedness overcoming the World governing our Passions and Appetites mortifying the Flesh with the Affections and Lusts and the like For 't is too late sure to begin to practice those when a Man is just upon dying if he has neglected it all his Life Shall he begin then to mortifie the Flesh which he hath gratified alwayes before with the most unlawful Lusts and forbidden Pleasures but now Sickness mortifies it indeed and Death will do so something more and he would have this Vertue as much in his Coffin or his Grave when he lyes cold there as he can pretend to it now his Lusts do then dye with his Body as a Candle goes out when all the nourishment is spent that should maintain it Is he now to govern his Passions and Appetites when both the causes and the objects of them are removed Is he to provide against the heat of the Sun when it is just Night or Winter with him and make a bank to stop the current when the water is all dryed up Is he to overcome the World when he is leaving it with an odd sort of Parthian victory Is he then to be Heavenly minded when he never minded Heaven before but now 't is the next thing when he can mind the Earth no longer Is he then to practice Self-denyal when he never denyed himself any Worldly Interest or Sensual Pleasure before on the score
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
A Practical Discourse OF Repentance Rectifying the Mistakes about it especially such as lead either to Despair or Presumption Perswading and Directing to the True Practice of it AND Demonstrating the Invalidity OF A Death-Bed Repentance By WILLIAM PAYNE D. D. Rector of St. Mary White-Chappel and Chaplain in Ordinary to Their Majesties LONDON Printed for Samuel Smith at the Princes Arms in St. Pauls Church-Yard 1693. THE PREFACE To His Loving Friends and Parishioners the Inhabitants of St. Mary White-Chappel IT was for your sakes and for your use chiefly I composed this Discourse and now offer it to your serious thoughts and most lasting consideration that it may teach you the Right Knowledge and perswade you to the True Practice of that Great Duty it treats of I have endeavoured to set it in such a Light as might remove the unreasonable Fears and Despairs of some Few and the Presumptuous and false hopes of the far greater number of Sinners I hope if you carefully peruse it with due thoughtfulness and application of mind it may give you both a Right notion and understanding of it so as to free you from all dangerous and mischievous Mistakes about it and that it will convey so much Warmth as well as Light to your thoughts as may by the Grace of God very much help to quicken and excite you to a speedy and thorough Repentance and to a Holy and Good life As it will in some measure give you clear thoughts of Religion in all the parts of it which some who have a strong sence yet have dark and confused apprehensions about and will enable you to make a right Judgment of your selves and spiritual state by evident and obvious and certain marks so I dare say that no Man who takes the whole force of it into his mind and duly considers and seriously attends to all the thoughts that it will suggest to him will ever live in his sins or continue to be a wicked Man One of the great Reasons that makes Men so even beyond Atheism and Infidelity it self for they being contrary to the natural sense of our minds prevaile not upon so many as Superstition False and corrupt Religion is the perverting Christianity and corrupting the Gospel by Doctrines of Looseness and Licentiousness that give false hopes of Pardon and Salvation without Obedience and a good life and by some imaginary Schemes and some comfortable but erroneous and even damnable Doctrines reconcile Religion to Mens Lusts and the hopes of pardon and happiness to a careless and wicked life How this is done in the Church of Rome by their doctrines of Penance Confession and Absolution Contrition and Attrition and the like has been shown and made out by the Protestant Writers against them and indeed I take those Principles to be the very Rotten Core of Popery the Poyson and Philter by which it bewitches so many wretched Souls into its Communion and the Antichristian cup of Fornication that it gives the Kings and People of the Earth to drink The Loose Notions of Repentance which came at first from them but have been taken up by many others since put me upon this Design of Examining and Rectifying them for I am perswaded there never was any Error or any Delusion of the Devil which hath destroyed more Souls then the fatal mistakes about this Duty especially about a Dying Repentanc which has been the wretched Reserve of most wicked Men all their lives and the broken Reed they have trusted to at their deaths whereby they have been encouraged in their Sins and had a kind of Protection as they thought against all the dangers of them by this priviledge of Repenting at the last and by having that allowed to be valid and sufficient by the terms of the Gospel By this they have all along had the reserved hopes of saving their Souls however wickedly they lived and so have excused themselves from and shifted off the necessity of a Good life by this more easie and compendious way which though it were liable to some more accidental hazards yet might as effectually do the Business by the standing principles of Religion and by having as was supposed an ordinary Title to Pardon and Salvation This hath greatly comforted Sinners and greatly encouraged them in their sins when as s commonly said of a great many they might hope though they lived very ill yet to dye well and make a good end and by being penitent at the last like the Thief upon the Cross to be surely pardon'd and go to heaven and so this Comfortable Disjunctive has been set up or twofold way of going to Heaven either by living well and being good Men before we come to dye or else by Repenting and being sorry at that time that we were not so The Consequences to Religion and a good life are so plain and fatal from hence and I have known so many sad Instances of its dreadful mischief in my frequent attending the Sick whereby my experience in this case if not my skill has made me a good Phisician that I thought I could not do more service to God and Religion and the Souls of Men then to reseue them from such false Notions and pernicious mistakes about a matter of so great consequence and do all I could effectually to perswade them to the Practice of such a true Repentance as is not to be Repented of The serving such an excellent Design makes me venture this Discourse into the World without being concerned for the many Defects and Imperfections in the Style Phrase and Words which a nice Critick may find in it but I am sure the pious and well-disposed Reader will excuse and overloook those when he is affected with the thought and matter which is of so great moment and importance and when he is satisfied with the vertue and wholsomness of the Phisick he will not I hope be so delicate as to find fault with its being either too much or too little gilded I confess some part of it hath layn by me many Years even beyond Horace's ninth and hath many youthful strokes in it to show it was drawn before the rest and to excuse its Dress and Colours but the thought and Notion is all of a piece and I have had it so long and consideered it so fully that if any shall differ from me after reading it thorough for the strength of it lies in the Frame and Contexture of the whole and not in any single part I should very much wonder and be glad to know his Reasons I have chosen sometimes to repeat the same Notion as there was occasion rather then to refer the Reader back again to another place where there would not be such an immediate connexion with what he was just reading so that he would lose the sight of what went before with looking after it and would not see the thing so well in one view I have often thought that we wanted a Just and entire Discourse
of Repentance and all that relates to it and have wondered that among all our Excellent Practical Treatises we should hardly have one such sitted for common use among other Reasons of which I believe this may not be the least That 't is one of the most difficult things to write on an easie Subject as t is the hardest to paint Light When I drew the Model of this and had some of the Materials lying by me and ready framed I thought the perfecting and finishing it would not have cost me half the charge and pains and expence that I found it has and most Writers I believe like Builders find this and even afterwards when they have done they see many things they could mend and alter though they care not for being at the cost of pulling down again and building up anew It was only the Strength and Vsefulness and Conveniency I had regard to and it may have those tho' like a House built by parts and not altogether it want all that regular Order and Beauty that should set it off It is to be looked on only as a Popular Discourse to teach an useful Truth in Religion and raise the Affections and Imaginations up to it without that care and exactness that is to be served in closer Writings It will fully answer its end if it can but corvey a cleare and lively an understanding and warm sence of Religion into Mens Minds and free their Thoughts from such Mistakes and their Lives from such Sins as are too prevailing in the World and which like the Sea and its Rivers proceed from and maintain and run into one another For Men's Lusts and Pices make them willing to take up with false and loose Principles in Religion and those Principles feed and promote their Vice and Looseness The Sincerity and Zeal of serving so good an end as I have had my Eye all along upon or at least of endeavouring heartily to do it hath sufficiently armed me against all manner of Censures whatsoever and hath given me more satisfaction then if I had either had the ability or could have vainly promised my self the Applause of writing the Wittiest or Learnedest Book in the World This however mean and imperfect it is as I here put into your Hands So I presume to Dedicate to the Great God and my Blessed Redeemer the best Patrons who will certainly reward those that serve them heartily praying that it it may be Serviceable to their Honour and Glory to the promoting Vertue and Religion the bringing Men off from Sin and Wickedness the Conversion and Salvation of Souls and the Turning of Sinners from the Errors of their ways unto Righteousness that so both they and I may have the Rewards promised to all such THE CONTENTS THE Introduction wherein the Mistakes about Repentance are Noted and a Distribution made of the whole Discourse Page 1 to 11. CHAP. I. Giving a full Account of the Nature of Repentance Sect. 1. Scripture Words for Repentance p. 12. Sect. 2. Kinds and Degrees of Repentance p. 15. Sect. 3. True Notion of Repentance p. 21. Sect. 4. Mental epentance imperfect without Actual p. 34. CHAP. II. The Motives to Repentance Sect. 1. Of the Enticements to Sin p. 48. Sect. 2. Motives to Repentance from Reason and the Nature of the thing p. 62. Sect. 3. Motives to Repentance from the Gospel or pecaliar to Christranity p. 80. Sect. 4. Motives to Repentance from the Consideration of Hell p. 103. Sect. 5. Other Gospel Motives to Repentance p. 122. Sect. 6. Exhortation to Repentance in order to fit and prepare us to dye p. 145. Sect. 7. Of the Fear of Death and how we are delivered from it by Repentance and Religion p. 172. CHAP. III. Whether all Sins are Pardonable and may have the benefit of Repentance p. 193. Sect. 1. Of Apostacy Sins after Baptism Vpon Relapse p. 199. Sect. 2. Of the Sin against the Holy Ghost its Nature and whether Fardonable or no p. 212. Sect. 3. Of Concupiscence the Lustings of the Flesh or struggle between that and the Spirit p. 255. Sect. 4. Of Trouble of Mind or a Wounded Spirit p. 277. CHAP. IV. The ill Consequences drawn from the Priviledge of Repentance Obviated and Prevented p. 294. CHAP. V. Of a Death-Bed Repentance Sect. 1. The Case of the Thief upon the Cross Examined p. 315. Sect. 2. The Pleas and Pretences on behalf of a Death-Bed Repentance Answered p. 336. Sect. 3. The Invalidity of a Death-Bed Repentance shown from the Parable of the wise and foolish Virgins p. 358. Sect. 4. More Positive Proofs against the validity and sufficiency of a Death-Bed Repentance p. 392. CHAP. VI. Rules and Directions concerning the Particular Exercise of this Duty of Repentance p. 442. CHAP. VII How we may know we have repented and are in a Pardoned State p. 471. Sect. 1. Not committing Sin the only sure Mark of a good State p. 478. Sect. 2. The Differences of Sins what are and what are not consistent with a good State p. 508. Sect. 3. The Benefits of Repentance or the happiness of being in such a good State p. 535. The Conclusion p. 553. A Practical Discourse OF Repentance INTRODUCTION REpentance is the great Gospel duty which John the Baptist came Preaching as a Preparation to Christianity Matth. 3.2 Our Saviour also himself began with the same Matth. 4.17 The Disciples chose the same subject to preach on Mark 6.12 They went out and preacht that men should repent St. Peter in his Sermon to the Jews whereby he converted three thousand Souls preaches to them this Duty Acts 2.38 And this was what St. Paul testified to the Jews and to the Greeks repentance towards God and faith towards our Lord Jesus Christ Acts 20.21 as if the whole summe of the Gospel lay in those two Nay our Saviour himself makes this the very end and design both of his Sufferings and of his Resurrection that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in his name Luke 24.46 47. It is a Duty therefore of the greatest moment and importance in Christianity and ought above all to be considered practiced and understood The only Question is Whether it be so proper and necessary to preach it to Christians now as it was at first to Jews and Gentiles The whole World then lay in wickedness and God had concluded all under sin and in a state of great corruption both as to Manners and Worship so that Christ came then as a Physitian to cure the sick and prescribed this Medicine of Repentance as proper to their case and condition at that time and tells us himself that he came not to call the righteous but sinners to repentance Matth. 9.13 But 't is to be hoped that the World is well amended under Christianity that they who have been brought up in the knowledge of that excellent Religion and been devoted to it all their lives and had all the opportunities and advantages as well as obligations
of being vertuous who have in their Baptism put on Christ and dyed to sin and by the most solemn Vows and Professions been engaged to a holy life all their dayes 't is not to be thought that they stand in need of such a Repentance or of having it so preacht to them or that they shall have the same benefit of it as the ignorant and unhappy World before the coming of Christ into it I Answer Repentance was not a Temporary Duty in the beginning only of Christianity and fitted to the Jews and Gentiles who were first brought over to it as the Socinians would have Baptism but it was a perpetual and lasting Duty such as the weakness and infirmity of Humane Nature and its aptness to fall into Sin would make alwayes necessary and sad would it be for Christians if they were not to have the benefit of it after baptism as well as before which would put them into a worse state than Mankind were in before without Christianity but though Repentance I own was preach'd to them then upon some peculiar accounts and implyed a total change of their Religion and their way of Life which belongs not to Christians and was a Duty previous to Christianity and what was to go before their Baptism and was hardly allowed to those who should afterwards Apostatize from it yet it still remains a Duty to us after we are become Christians so far as we are guilty of any Sin after we are washed in the laver of Regeneration the vertue and benefit of it is not transient and confined only to that time but permanent and in force afterwards all our lives if we truly perform it And according to the different nature and degree of our Sins such is our Repentance as Physick differently fitted to the nature of the disease so the best Authors represent it †〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Socrates apud Xenophon l. 4. de dict fact Socrat. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Chrysost Hom. 78. Tom. 6. to repair the several decayes and weaknesses of Humane Nature to cure it of them any maladies it is incident to and to bring it to such health strength and soundness 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Chr. Hom. 113. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Ibid. as belongs to the Spiritual and Christian and Divine Life of the Soul which is the aim and end and business of Repentance the great Panacaea of the Gospel which supposes us apt to be ill and recovers us as often as we are so It was not a duty so properly of natural Religion because it depended on and is mainly encouraged by the Promise of Gods free Grace and forgiveness of Sin which could not be known by natural light but by that it was evident that they who had done any thing foolishly and wickedly should become wiser and better and the reflection upon any bad actions was attended with sorrow from the Principles of Natural conscience as Plutarch excellently describes it * 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Plutarch de Animi tranquill The Soul throbbing and beating like a painful Vlcer exercising a Repentance with great shame that is biting and tormenting to it self But this was rather the Disease than the Remedy and they felt only the smart which was Natural but knew not the cure which was Christian and Evangelical The Prophets in the Old Testament preach'd Repentance to the Jews and Pardon upon it as fully and clearly as Christ and his Apostles in the New but it was by vertue not of the Old but the New Covenant which was in force before the Law as St. Paul assures us Gal. 3.17 and to this they owed all their Spiritual Blessings such as Grace Pardon of Sin and Eternal Life as they did their Temporal and the Land of Canaan to the other Many of the Jews did not think such a Repentance necessary to the partaking the benefits of the Messiahs Kingdom as was preach'd by John the Baptist and afterwards by Christ and his Apostles but they thought it was sufficient to be true Israelites or the Children of Abraham and that this would entitle them to the Kingdom of the Messiah here and Heaven hereafter The Talmudists have this comfortable Legend among them That Abraham stands at the Gates of Hell that if the Soul of a wicked Jew come thither he may keep it out like to which some ignorant Christians think now of Christ John the Baptist corrected this mistake when he bad them bring forth fruits meet for repentance and think not to say within your selves we have Abraham to our father Matth. 3.8 9. And so does our Saviour particularly in his Discourse with Nicodemus about the necessity of Regeneration John 3. and this was probably one great reason why they all began with and so earnestly pressed and recommended this Duty of Repentance as necessary in the first place to those who would be Disciples of Christ All Christians generally do acknowledge the necessity of it and since we cannot live perfectly innocent so as to be free wholly from all manner of Sin that we must instead of this entire Obedience perform true and sincere Repentance which next to it is the most acceptable to Heaven But there are grievous and fatal mistakes about this Duty of repentance which being made up of several parts many are willing to take some of them for the whole and to make the essence of it lye in those things which are only preparatory or instrumental to it this being a Panacaea the universal Medicine of the Gospel against all our Sins they would compound it of such pitiful and weak ingredients as will not work upon the disease and drive out the corrupt matter and have its due effect upon their Minds and Lives but if it a little gripe and disorder them and they feel some remorse and compunction upon their Minds and some transient Passions of Grief and Sorrow upon their Souls they think this is Repentance though it have no further influence to better and reform their Hearts and Lives They look upon Repentance as a kind of bitter draught that must be taken cum regimine like Spiritual Physick spring and fall perhaps or at some set times or after a debauch or some great Sin and this shall serve them for the whole year after and they may then return to their sins and looseness again with more freedom and greater appetite when that penitential course and discipline is over and thus they Sin and Repent Repent and Sin and never get out of that fatal circle Or they may not put themselves perhaps to all this trouble but leave it all to the last and then resolve to Repent at once for all the Sins of their whole lives and so do the business more concisely and yet as effectually all together This all proceeds from a wrong and wretched notion of Repentance as if it consisted only in some sudden passions of the Mind and inward workings of the Thoughts and not in the
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
new and holy Life and be available to his true Conversion and Repentance and I believe this is Gods usual way by which he begins to effect this upon most Sinners by thus bringing them to some serious thinking and considering It is very great Mercy when God thus checks them in their career and calls to them by the loud voice of his Judgments and thus as he generally does puts the first stop to them and makes them bethink themselves and consider but then this method must not only awaken but keep their eyes open and make them see and consider those other Thoughts and Reasons which are the more proper seminal Principles that will be more likely to produce and beget this true Repentance Such as are 2. In the second place a serious reflection and thorough conviction of the Evil that is in Sin and of the real Good of Vertue as the only thing which can make us truly happy for till Men have brought themselves to be fully perswaded and convinced of this and to believe it as firmly as they do any truth in Mathematicks or any other Science they will never be brought truly to Repent that is to dislike and hate and renounce the one and heartily to love and persue and embrace the other for Men will still love their Sins and hanker after them and be ready to comply and close with them upon every occasion if they only fall out with them sometimes as Lovers do with what they like and admire and tho' there may be some bickerings between them and some penitential passions and resentments now and then yet they may still have their Heart if they do not upon wise observations and thorough convictions believe them to be enemies to their Welfare and Happiness to the comfort of their Lives here and their Eternal Salvation hereafter and that they get nothing by them but poor and empty and sickly pleasures but that they bring substantial misery and bitter remorse and anguish of Mind and a thousand mischiefs and inconveniences along with them at present besides the terrible hazards and dangers of another World so that they are by no means to be loved or chosen if we love our selves or choose our own Happiness For we must bring it to this if we would be steddy and certain to the first Principles of Self-preservation and a desire of our own Happiness which lyes at the root of our Nature and what we shall alwayes act upon if we rightly understand it and do not grosly err and mistake about it and a few wise observations and a little sober thinking and considering will easily satisfie us and fully convince us that Vice is the certain cause of misery to us and that Vertue is the only way to be truly easie and happy The Sinner will be convinced of this by his own experience when he reflects upon his past follies and sees how little he has got by his Sins but shame and sorrow and trouble of Mind perhaps a sickly and diseased Body and a wasted Estate and wretched Beggery and every thing that shall make him miserable in this World before he goes to the greater misery of another For do we not dayly see this how one Man brings himself by his Sins to a morsel of bread how he shipwrecks his Fortunes as well as his Conscience by Luxury and Prodigality another consumes his Body as well as his Estate by Debauchery Lust and Intemperance by these they sin as the Apostle remarks against their own Bodies as well as against their Souls they make them bear the scars and marks of their Sins upon them and become Martyrs in the Devils service and endure often more torture of Body for their Sins than other Martyrs have done for their Religion sacrifice their Lives to them and by living too fast as they call it bring an untimely death upon themselves and are in so much hast sometimes to dye that their Bodies often rot before they come into their graves If these mischiefs do not follow all Sins yet some others do and the greatest of all is inseparable from them which is torment and anguish of Conscience and pain and uneasiness of Mind which every Man feels unless his Conscience be stupified and mortified which is a worse state than the other upon the commission of any great Sin and this is ten times greater than any fancied pleasure in it This is a sting a wound a prick upon the most tender part of a Mans Soul a dart struck through his Liver a Worm gnawing upon his Vitals nothing is so close and so cutting a pain and misery as a Man 's own ill Conscience when it is let loose upon him and like a Fury falls upon him with its utmost rage lashes him with its snaky whips and burns him with its fiery torches 't is then a Devil let loose and a Hell kindled within his own bosom They who have felt but a little of it know it is more exquisite pain than any belongs to the Body and what is it then to endure this for ever and lye under that and the further anger of God to all Eternity Oh madness and folly that wants a name that will do this for any Sin whatever Oh the dreadful Evil of Sin that brings all this and so many other mischiefs upon us But 3. Vertue on the contrary has a thousand Comforts Blessings and Goods belonging to it which should make us love it as we do our selves and choose it as heartily and firmly as we do our own Happiness When we rightly understand and consider it we shall find Reason to do so that neither disturbs our Mind nor diseases our Body nor squanders away our Estate nor brings any reproach and discredit along with it as Vice generally does and it takes away no real Good or true Pleasure or proper Enjoyment from us but it allowes us all that we can desire or that our Nature was made for within the due bounds and limits of our Duty and within those we may enjoy as much Vertuously and Innocently as the greatest Liberty and Debauchery can afford the Sinner Vertue does not destroy our Pleasures but refines and purifies them and so makes them sweeter and better and draws them off from the filthiness and sediment and bitterness that lyes alwayes at the bottom of all sinful Pleasures and Enjoyments No Man ever repented of his Vertues or was sorry that he had done a good Action but he finds great comfort and satisfaction within himself when he reflects upon it and it is a prop and stay to his Mind and he rests securely upon it and is chearful confident and erect under all accidents and all dangers and difficulties whatsoever His Heart standeth right and approveth it self to God and to his own thoughts having no ill designs no base and mean ends and purposes but such only as are good and vertuous and this gives him great peace firmness of Mind and bravery of Spirit and
he goes to a Glorious and Blessed Immortality and this will take away if not all Fear of Death yet such a troublesome and tormenting one as fills us with perplexity and confusion whenever we think of it and makes us all our life time subject to bondage as Scripture speaks And this will help to resolve that Question I proposed in the second place namely 2. Whether a true Penitent or good Christian ought to have no Fear of Death I Answer He ought to have no such Fear as makes him all his life time subject to bondage such a base slavish immoderate Fear as makes him not enjoy himself but sinks down his Spirit and depresses his Mind to that degree that he is alwayes uneasie and perplexed and disturbed at the thoughts of it Such as has been storied of some that they would not have the word Death named in their hearing for the very naming and thinking of it made such an impression upon them and struck them with such a panick Fear that like the Hand-writing upon the Wall to Belshazzar Dan. 5.6 in the midst of their jollity it would make their countenance change and their thoughts trouble them so that the joynts of their loins were loosed and their knees smote one against another But above all such a Fear of Death as makes a Man think it a greater Evil than Sin and so to avoid that will deny his Saviour and renounce his Religion or do any thing whatever is necessary to escape a present Fear of Death This makes him a slave to every one that has power to kill him and to save his Life he will deliver up his Conscience his Soul his Saviour his Religion and all those things which ought to be a thousand times more dear to us and which we should be much more unwilling to part with than our lives These are unreasonable and unlawful Fears of Death but there is still a Natural Fear of Death which may belong to a penitent good Christian and which it is not necessary he should wholly overcome as it is a Natural Evil as it is a Punishment of Sin as it is a going to our last great and terrible Tryal before the Bar of Heaven a Tryal upon which our Souls and their Eternal Fate of Happiness or Damnation does depend This may cause some Fear in a true Penitent or a very good Christian and I do not know that God has any where forbid it or that he has promised such a full assurance to every true Penitent and good Man as wholly to take away all kind of Fear of Death or that this is any want of saving Faith in him In some extraordinary cases God may give it as in cases of Suffering and Persecution when an extraordinary assistance of Gods Spirit and an extraordinary assurance of their Salvation took away all Fears of Death and made them go to the Flames and to the Gibbet rejoycing and triumphing but that this is ordinary and constant I see no Reason nor no Scripture to believe The Fear of Death is a Natural and Invincible Infirmity to many a true Penitent and good and humble and timorous Christian who though his Conscience accuse him not of any great and ill things yet may magnifie every little fault and imperfection and not forgive it himself tho' God does nor be at peace in his own Mind though he be with God 'T is a great perfection to conquer the Fears of Death if it be done upon good grounds for some have no Fear of Death out of a sensless stupidness because they have no sense of what follows after Death And we find the greatest part of Men who have most reason to be afraid of it to be the least so out of meer Natural courage and hardiness and for want of thinking or believing or considering the things of Religion and another World others from false Principles and Mistakes by thinking a Pardon or Absolution sets them right in the Court of Heaven and that they may boldly appear there with some such security or those that have low thoughts of Religion and think a little Sorrow for their Sins and a few Sighs and some Prayers when they come to dye will carry them to Heaven as well as if they had lived never so Holily and Righteously and Godly Now if Mens Confidence and Fearlesness arises from such Mistakes as these 't is like the hope of the Hypocrite that shall perish Job 8.13 and such presumptuous persons only rush into Hell with their eyes shut and see not their danger before they are in it On the contrary a modest and humble penitent Christian may be afraid where no Fear is may judge too hardly of himself and may be though quite out of danger yet not out of all Fear for after all God will not judge us by our own Fears or Hopes or Opinion of our selves which may be all groundless and mistaken but he will judge Righteous Judgment and correct the Errors by which we may pass Judgment of our selves and the Terms of the Gospel and not our own Thoughts shall be the Rule by which we shall be judged at the last day But to take off the Fear of Death as much as we can and to free our selves from a slavish and immoderate degree of it the best Directions that can be are these two 1. What hath been already given duly to prepare and fit our selves for it by a timely and thorough Repentance 2. To joyn the liveliest Act of Faith with this our Habitual Repentance and exert that at the time when Death is near us 1. To perfect our Repentance and so to live in the habit of that and of all goodness that we may be the best prepared to dye that we can be Dye we know we must Death if it be not now near us and yet we do not know but it may be dogging us at the heels yet will certainly in a little time come up to us and fright and startle us when it does if we do not take great care to be ready and prepared for it Since we must therefore necessarily encounter this great Monster this terrible Enemy which there is no escaping but we must certainly grapple with him let us all our lives prepare for the battle let us arm our selves with the whole armour of God and Religion with a careful and pious and good life with a timely and thorough Repentance of all our evil ways with a sincere and upright and good Conscience and with avoiding every thing that we know is sinful and unlawful and which will make Death terrible to us whenever it comes Let us not be such desperate Bravoes in Sin as to venture upon that with a false Courage which will make us the worst of Cowards when we come to dye but let us be so wisely afraid of Death now as to live with that care and exactness that we may not be afraid of it when we come to it It were well
Glutton and Wine-bibber a friend of Publicans and Sinners and to raise slanderous and false stories against any Mans Credit is one of the greatest though the commonest Sins but to proceed so far as to slander and reproach God this was accounted by one of the Heathens as bad or worse than to deny him but to represent the Holy and Blessed Spirit of God as an Apostate Angel as a Hellish Fiend and to reproach and scoff and calumniate whatever he does for the good and salvation of Mankind as the work and intrigue of the Devil This is such an horrid Sin that our Saviour says it should not be forgiven but bring certain Judgment upon them I come now to inquire how and upon what account it is Unpardonable which is the greatest difficulty about it Now though no Sin in its own Nature be unpardonable because none so great but that the infinite Mercy and Goodness of God does still exceed it and none is exempted from that General and Gracious Promise of Pardon which he hath made to Mankind and none has so much Guilt in it but that the Blood of Christ and Merit of his Sacrifice is able to atone and expiate for it and none does so far corrupt and deprave the Mind but that the Grace of God can restore and amend it yet a Sin may however be unpardonable by reason of some circumstances attending it and chiefly upon these three accounts 1. As not being Repented of for so every wilful Sin is unpardonable For though the Gospel proposes Mercy and Pardon to every Sin and Sinner without exception yet 't is upon this never failing condition of Repentance and Amendment without which we shall as certainly perish as if there had been no place for Mercy at all but we had stood under an irreversible decree of Condemnation for the first Sin we had committed The Covenant of Grace is made upon that Condition on our part which if we fail of we shall as certainly lose the benefit of it as if there had been no such Covenant made 2. That Sin is also unpardonable by the standing terms of the Divine Mercy which is not curable by all the ordinary means of the Divine Grace but resists and baffles all those remedies which can be used to that purpose As a Disease is uncurable when it is too strong for all the remedies that can be used against it so is a Sin unpardonable when it is too hard for all the means whatsoever that are proper to amend it As when a Man will be an Infidel and disobedient to God when he sees plain Miracles before his face and will not be convinced by all these which are the best and only means to that purpose when he will still be obstinate and harden himself against the highest evidence that is possible as Pharaoh did when he could not but confess that the Miracles were done by the Finger of God and yet would not hearken unto him or as the Pharisees and some of the Jews who would not be perswaded to Christianity by all the visible Wonders and extraordinary Miracles wrought by Christ and his Apostles What was there more to be done to satisfie those Men and how could any thing that God and the Divine Power was able to do convince them of their Infidelity if this would not And so now when all the considerations and all the credible evidences of Religion will not work upon a Man nor perswade him to a good Life when he resists all the means of Grace that God has appointed he then resists the last and utmost remedy that should do him good and so is necessarily in a hopeless uncurable state and condition 3. That Sin is unpardonable which provokes God to withdraw his Spirit and all the influences of the Divine Grace and to give them up to a spirit of slumber and a reprobate sense and hardness of Heart as he is sometimes said to do if not for one Sin yet for a great many obstinately and irreclaimably continued in And now let us examine the Sin against the Holy Ghost by these 3 ways 1. Can it be said to be unpardonable because unrepented of It seemeth not upon this account because it is probable that many of those who were guilty of it did afterwards Repent and turn Christians Among the many numerous Proselytes to Christianity in the time of our Saviour and especially of the Apostles it cannot be proved or thought that there were not some of those made Converts that had fall'n into it and Christ when he prayed for his Enemies and for his Crucifiers most earnestly entreated his Father to forgive them all without any exception Luke 23.24 by which he had plainly some hopes of their Repentance and Amendment and if he had not it would have been in vain to have used so many means as he did afterwards to that purpose besides that he intimates not the least word to them of their Impenitence nor was that to be said of them till the last this would not sufficiently distinguish this Sin from any other great and wilful one for any such unrepented of and that by a particular Repentance is unpardonable as well as this against the Holy Ghost unless we will venture to say what we have no sufficient warrant for and therefore is very bold and especially when 't is a kind of limiting the Grace and Mercy of God that Men could never Repent of this as they can of all others but that God who hath opened a door of Mercy and Repentance in all other cases hath absolutely shut it in this so that they shall never be able nor willing to enter in 2. Is it unpardonable upon the second account as it was not curable by any means that God had appointed and thought fit to use to that purpose This it seems not to be neither because God had not yet made use of all the means that he intended for the Conversion of the Jews and the Scribes and Pharisees Our Saviour indeed had done a great many Miracles to testifie his Divine Power but still there were a great many more which remained behind and which he had not yet performed If we look into the Gospel of St. Matthew and St. Mark and observe the time when our Saviour had his discourse of this Sin we shall find he wrought many very considerable Miracles after that and what was the design of all them but to perswade those to believe in him and to embrace Christianity who were not perswaded so to do by his former ones And there remained another Motive behind which was an evidence even beyond all and which was such an Argument to convince the Jewish Infidelity as did outdo almost all the other Miracles of our Saviour and that was his Resurrection from the Dead This was the great and irresistible proof for the Truth of Christ and his Religion and of this especially the Apostles were to be witnesses to all the World as being the
but it is without all Controversie to be supposed and the same allowances that are to be made to all these and the like expressions of Scripture without which if they are strained over-rigorously they would not be true these they think reasonable to apply to our Saviours expression concerning this Sin and that where it is said not to be forgiven that is not without a very particular and full Repentance of it And to strengthen this a little further they observe that there is another Phrase and Expression concerning this Sin used by our Saviour where the sense must not be forced so far as the words would seem to carry it and that is this That it shall not be forgiven neither in this world nor in the world to come Matth. 12.32 As if our Saviour did thereby intimate that any Sins should be pardoned in another World which are not in this Some Interpreters think that some of the Jews had this opinion as the Papists now have and that our Saviour therefore used the expression to take off all hopes from them that had such a vain belief and levelled his words against that but I rather think this to be the plain sense that it was only a common Phrase among the Jews that the thing should not be or never be without regard to any such opinion which we have not sufficient authority to prove the Jews had but only that Death they thought was a kind of Expiation for some Sins in their Life However this Phrase must have some allowance made for the words of it and so they would have the other 3. Another Reason for the abating the severity of the Expression concerning this is that there are other Sins which seem equal to this in guilt and heinousness which are yet all declared to be pardonable and those not only the most wilful Sins against Natural Light as well as Revealed Religion but against Christianity and even the Holy Ghost such as were those of the Heathen World described Rom. 2. and yet they were received into the Christian Religion and made partakers of the Christian Covenant as 't is plain many of the Corinthians also were whose Names were put in the List of the vilest Sinners 1 Cor. 6.11 And the Apostle expresly tells them That such were some of them to wit Fornicators idolaters adulterers effeminate abusers of themselves with mankind thieves covetous drunkards revilers extortioners ver 9.10 and yet these very Men were washed were sanctified were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God ver 11. And St. Peters denyal of his Master after he had seen all his Miracles and been so fully convinced by them that he was as he had confest the Son of God was a very great Sin yet upon his repenting and weeping bitterly for it it was forgiven Nay they who treated our Saviour with the basest and the cruelest usage and at last barbarously murdered him our Saviour prayed his Father even to forgive these and therefore that greatest of Sins the putting an innocent Man to death and Crucifying the very Son of God this was not excluded from Pardon but the very Blood that they thus villanously shed was an Expiation for the very Sin of shedding of it And if it be said that these however great and horrid Sins yet were not so immediately Sins against the Holy Ghost against whom peculiarly this unpardonable Sin is committed if we carefully examine the Bible we shall find a great many Sins and Provocations chiefly if not directly against him wherein he was particularly affronted if not blasphemed and reproached and yet not unpardonable St. Paul owns himself a Blasphemer as well as a Persecutor 1 Tim. 1.13 and wherein can we think his Blasphemy consisted not in blaspheming God the God of Israel for he was a very strict and Religious Worshipper of him according to the Law and the strictest Sect of the Jews but it must be in blaspheming Christianity and such things as were done to the spreading and confirmation of that And nothing seems to be so likely a subject of his Blasphemy as the Miracles of Christ and the Apostles because nothing was so strong an Argument for the Christian Religion which could not well be reproached unless those were evil spoken of and yet he obtained Mercy and became the great instance of an hearty Penitent and a zealous Convert But we have more particular Instances of some Sins against the Holy Ghost himself that tended to reproach and dishonour him in a high measure and yet are no where declared to be unpardonable Ananias is said to lye to the Holy Ghost Acts 5.3 and to tempt the Spirit of the Lord ver 9. and vertually to deny his Knowledge and Omniscience by denying part of the Money for which he had sold his Estate that was devoted by him to the Church and Simon Magus who offered Money that he might purchase the Holy Ghost and thought a few pieces of Silver a just Price and valuable Consideration for him and that the Power of God might be bought and sold for a little Money He did reproach the Holy Ghost by which the Apostles did their Miracles in the highest manner Acts 8.19 and therefore St. Peter very severely reproves him ver 20. Thy money perish with thee because thou hast thought that the gift of God may be purchased with money And that expression might have been thought to have put him into an irreversible state of Ruine and Perdition had not St. Peter added what shows it to be otherwise ver 22. Repent therefore of this thy wickedness and pray God if perhaps the thought of thine heart may be forgiven thee And there is another Instance that seems as great and immediate a reproach to the Holy Ghost as what the Pharisees were guilty of in charging the Miracles which Christ wrought by the Power of the Holy Ghost to an Evil Spirit and that was the mocking at the Disciples upon whom the Holy Ghost was poured out on the day of Pentecost as if they had been inspired with new Wine Acts 2.13 and yet this has no Mark set upon it by the Apostles whereby it can be certainly known to be either the Sin against the Holy Ghost meant by our Saviour or a Sin that was unpardonable 4. As there are other Sins that seem equal to this yet certainly Pardonable so there are expressions concerning some other Sins which seem as much to exclude them from all hopes of remission and to pass as severe and desperate a Sentence upon them as Christ does here upon this and yet the best Interpreters think they admit of an abatement and mitigation as in Heb. 6.4.5 6. For it is impossible for those who were once enlightened and have tasted of the heavenly gift and were made partakers of the Holy Ghost and have tasted the good word of God and the powers of the world to come If they shall fall away to renew them
is and hinder Men from ever becoming better 2 Let us take care to avoid all manner of wilful Sin and especially all those great ones that come near and any way approach to this Sin against the Holy Ghost A very wilful Sin in a Christian especially is in some fense a Sin against the Holy Ghost 't is a grieving a quenching and a resisting the Spirit in the language of Holy Scripture That Blessed Spirit is concerned as the great promoter of Vertue and Goodness in the World and as the great Principle of it in the Hearts of Men and whenever we do any wicked thing we offer violence to that and by our rude and vicious carriage we affront and grieve and at last banish and drive away that Blessed Guest out of our Souls Whatever is Wicked and Sinful is so contrary to his Pure and Excellent Nature that it is highly offensive to him and if we go on in a course of long and customary Wickedness we sin the more against him and come the nearer to that sad and wretched state that is unpardonable I do not think indeed that any one Sin or particular Act of any Sin whatever puts us into that condition but as every Sickness and Indisposition of Body is a tendency to Death and Mortality so every wilful Sin is a corruption of the Mind and an approach to a state of Spiritual Death And there are some Sins that bring this sooner upon us as the acting against our Consciences and the sense of our own Minds an opposing the Truth that is evident to us a scoffing at Religion and making a mock of Sin an abusing the Scriptures and ridiculing the Holy Word of God an obstinate resistance of all the motions of Gods Holy Spirit upon our Minds These and such like gross and obstinate impieties though I do not think they are any of them the very Sin against the Holy Ghost for that ought not to be extended further than we have a warrant from Scripture yet they are so many approaches as it were to it and have more of the ill symptoms of that upon them and therefore we ought especially to avoid them lest they bring us by degrees into that sad state which is unpardonable for though one Sin I believe do not do this yet a great many may and especially such as those which do so waste the Conscience and corrupt the Mind as to make it uncurable And this is the saddest State and Condition in the World next to the State of Hell and Damnation tho' it be not the immediate Sin against the Holy Ghost Having endeavoured to give the plainest and fullest Satisfaction I can to the most doubtful and scrupulous Minds about this Sin of the Holy Ghost I shall now Discourse of some other things of a Lesser Nature which many Penitents and good Men are apt to be greatly dissatisfied with and have dark and wrong thoughts about As I. Concupiscence the Lustings of the Flesh or struggle between that and the Spirit which they find in themselves II. Trouble of Mind and a wounded Spirit which many lye under by reason of their Sins or by reason of Melancholly or both together SECT III. Of Concupiscence the Lustings of the Flesh or struggle between that and the Spirit THE right understanding of our selves is very necessary to the right understanding of Religion Religion is fitted and adapted to Humane Nature in its present state and capacity in this World and is designed not to destroy it but to perfect and improve it and raise it to its true Happiness and Perfection We cannot be like the Angels in Heaven nor like pure and glorious Spirits whilst we live here upon Earth and have Bodies of Flesh and Blood united to our Souls God who made us and knows our Frame did not intend to destroy and undo his own Creation by the Precepts of Religion nor make us cease to be Men by becoming Christians We find indeed in our selves a great many weaknesses and corruptions strong passions and sensual inclinations which if we did not wisely govern would be great occasions of Sin to us and if we let them loose would carry us into a thousand Mischiefs as well as Sins and Wickednesses They who give the reins to those and the full swinge to their Natural Lusts and Passions run into all Vice and Debauchery and commit all uncleanness with greediness And the best of Men cannot be wholly free from that Original Concupiscence and those Sensual Motions and Desires that are not alwayes agreeable to Reason and Religion but they complain of this bondage of corruption and this body of death which they cannot be delivered from Rom. 8.21 and 7.24 Grace and Religion though it gives us another Principle and conveys new powers of a Divine and Spiritual Life into our Souls yet whilst the Animal and Sensual Life remains and whilst we are compounded of Flesh and Blood as well as Spirit and Reason and have a Carnal as well as Spiritual Principle in us there will be a mighty struggle and a great contest between those two and a kind of civil war in our breasts between those different Parties and which of those shall be uppermost and have the chief Power and gain the Victory is the great point and the great concern of all Vertue and Religion since in all of us as the Apostle sayes The Flesh lusteth against the Spirit and the Spirit against the Flesh and these are contrary one to the other so that we cannot do the things that we would Gal. 5.17 And this we know by Experience as well as by Revelation Now this Concupiscence that remaineth in good Men is often matter of great trouble to them and they know not what to judge of it or how far it is a Sin and ought to be Repented of and what way they may best overcome it I shall therefore to clear and satisfie their thoughts about this matter of the struggle or Lusting between the Flesh and Spirit show these three things First That mere Lusting on either side is not what makes either Sin or Vertue or denominates a bad or a good Man Secondly That these are the proper matter of Vice or Vertue in which the tryal and exercise of them lye Thirdly That we ought to lessen the Power of the Fleshly Lusting and increase that of the Spirit and what are the proper means to do this I shall briefly consider First That meer Lusting on either side is not what makes either Sin or Vertue nor what constitutes or denominates a bad or a good Man For this Lusting is in both good and bad though according to several degrees and measures in the one the Lusting of the Flesh prevails and in the other that of the Spirit and 't is from this the prevalency of either of these and not the meer contention of them that we are counted good or bad before God The best of Men may have the same Passions Appetites and
competency and sufficiency with food and rayment as the Apostle has fix'd a competency 1 Tim. 6.8 with what answers the wants of Nature and the circumstances of our Condition but to be alwayes craving after more without any use or occasion this is that immoderate desire of Riches which we call Covetousness and so in other things 't is the Excess the Irregularity the immoderate and the vicious Abuse not the Natural Passion and Inclination it self that is to be denyed restrained and mortified 3. To do this we must so check and restrain and deny even our Natural Appetites that we may have the power and government alwayes over them Now if we let them loose and lay the reins upon their neck and let them take their utmost liberties and go alwayes to the furthest bounds of what is lawful they will hardly be kept in as they ought to be but we shall walk upon the brink of danger and the side of a precipice where it will be hard to escape falling sometimes and our Sensual Inclinations will grow more heady strong and ungovernable by being alwayes indulged and not used to a more severe discipline and management which all wise Men have therefore prescribed by the Rules and Precepts of Mortification and Self-denyal 4. To abate these Lustings and Desires of the Flesh and increase and raise those of the Spirit let us consider how little and mean are the objects and gratifications of the one in respect of those of the other How the one are low sordid and Brutish the other Rational and Angelical such as the highest order of Beings next to God are capable of How little is there in all the Riches and Greatness and State of this World how much less in all the mad frollicks of Debauchery and all the beastliness and filthiness of Brutish Lusts in all those things that make up Carnal Enjoyments and are the summe as the Apostle reckons them up of all that is in the World The lust of the flesh the lust of the eye and the pride of life 1 John 2.16 How much greater and nobler is it to have a wise and sober and vertuous Mind easie Thoughts and a chearful Conscience Spiritual Desires and Affections set upon things above and strong and well-grounded hopes of an Eternal Life and a Glorious Immortality These are the Objects of our Spiritual Desires and we should increase those by representing the worth and value the greatness and excellency of these above any other things that we can choose or desire or any enjoyments of the Animal and Sensual Life 'T is a vain fancy and opinion of the latter whereby we raise our imagination and heighten our expectation of something great and extraordinary in them 't is that kindles our Affections and inflames our Desires after them but did we wisely consider how vain and trifling and inconsiderable they are and how poor and little and short and sorry gratifications they afford this would wean us from such weak fancies and opinions of them and so slack and cool our Desires and Lustings after them Lastly We must use all Religious Means and Methods to mortifie and abate the Lustings of the Flesh and strengthen and increase those of the Spirit by the Acts and Exercises of Religion Piety and Devotion 'T is in the growth and prevalence of the latter lyes our Moral State and the greatest exercise of all Vertue and in the right ordering and governing of our Passions Appetites and Inclinations so that we must use all possible Methods to keep the lower Appetites under and obedient to the superiour and not let them dethrone our Reason or disobey Religion and therefore we must use all the helps we can have from Religion and Philosophy and the Divine Grace and Assistance to tame our inordinate Lusts by Fasting by Watching by Prayer by due watchfulness and circumspection over our selves and over all the weak places of our Nature that Sin do not enter in at some of those inlets that are unguarded and do not surprize and easily beset us when we are unprepared and unarmed by Religion against the assaults of it and there is nothing so helpful to this and to increase and strengthen our Spiritual Desires so that they shall alwayes prevail over the Lusts of the Flesh as the constant and uninterrupted exercises of Piety and Devotion These give life and vigour and nourishment to our Spiritual Desires and keep them alwayes warm and heated and intent upon their proper Objects whereas a neglect of those begets a carelesness stupidity and senslesness of all those things and sinks Men into a meer Sensual and Animal and Worldly and Brutal Life Nothing is therefore so proper to bring us to these Spiritual Desires and to make those alwayes prevail over the Lusts of the Flesh as Devotion and Piety which raise the Mind to things above the Body and above this World and take off and abstract the Soul from Sensual and Carnal Enjoyments and make it live up as near as it can to that Life it shall have in Heaven when it shall be all Spirit and have no Flesh or Lusts to contend with or be contrary to it I shall in the next place consider another thing which befalls many a Sinner and which tho' a due effect of his Sins and an evidence of the sad state they bring him to and so may be of great use to be duly considered on this account yet is a kind of Excess of Repentance and sometimes too great an extream that way and what ought to have the nicest Resolutions and best Directions given about it to cure and remove it I mean Trouble of Mind or a Wounded Conscience which many a Sinner lyes under and which I shall briefly Represent and Discourse of by considering how great a Misery it is above all others in this World and what Cure and Remedy there may be for it or for those who are fallen under it SECT IV. Of Trouble of Mind or a Wounded Spirit THE greatest part of our Happiness or Misery lyes in our Minds and Spirits in those inward Faculties and Sensories which are distinct from our Body and outward Senses We feel very often more pleasure or pain in those distinct from the Body than the Body it self is capable of for these are quicker and more sensible than Matter and Body can be and are the proper subject of perception of any Pleasure and Pain and of all Rational Happiness or Misery A Mans inward Thoughts do often give him more torment and uneasiness anguish and disquietude of Soul and more real pain and misery than any Bodily torment or even Death it self and therefore some have chosen Death and have willingly endured any Bodily pain rather than lye under the greater pain agonies and horrours of their own Minds and many that have been under those yet have felt an inward ward joy comfort and satisfaction of Mind that has supported them under the worst pains and sufferings of
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
Heaven though it be a gift is a reward too and shall be exactly proportioned in the degrees of it to the deservings and actions and behaviours of Men. The main foundation then of this Doctrine of the Efficacy or Sufficiency of a Death-Bed Repentance must be the case of the Thief upon the Cross i. e. the History or Relation of a Man who dyed as a Malefactor and yet certainly went to Heaven for that is the whole of it Now I doubt not but many hundred such Malefactors have gone to Heaven and many Thousand Sinners that were once bad Men but yet had they never Repented till they came to dye I do as verily believe that not one of them had gone thither but to another place where Men shall for ever repent at the same rate that most Men do who have not done so before that time To Ground and Establish this Doctrine upon this Historical Case and 't is I believe the only Doctrine that has such a foundation we must examine whether it certainly and exactly comes up in all the Particulars and Circumstances of it to the case of a wicked Mans living a very ill life till he comes to dye and then only repenting of it We must then enquire whether it plainly and certainly appears from the account the Scripture gives us of it 1. Whether he were a very ill Man in the whole or general course of his Life 2. Whether we are sure he did not Repent long before he came to dye for if these two are not certainly known nor do appear from Scripture the case may be very different and no way suit or answer the late and dying Repentance of a very wicked Man And 3. Supposing those two yet how can we tell whether this might not be an extraordinary case and such as belongs to no other Sinner whatsoever 1. Whether it do appear from the account Scripture gives us of him that he was a very ill Man in the whole or general course of his life The reason of which inquiry is this that a general habit of irreligion and wickedness through the whole course of a Mans life puts him into a more wretched and dangerous and deplorable state than any particular Act of Sin or then any one sin whatsoever for that like a Leprosie spreads over and corrupts the whole Mind lays the whole Conscience waste and roots up all the Principles of Religion and puts Men in the number of those who have no fear of God before their eyes and who live without God in the World but a Man may not be so far gone not be a Sinner of so high a rate but may be an imperfectly good Man and yet fall into a wilful sin by the suddenness or greatness of the Temptation by Surprize and Inconsideration and laxness of Thoughts by a remissness in Religion and not being duely upon his Guard and by the struggle that is in his mind between the Flesh and the Spirit between this World and another which makes the one now and then get the better of the other such an one is a kind of borderer upon Vertue and lives between the confines of that and wickedness and sometimes he is governed and brought under the power of one and sometimes is overcome and made a prey by the other Now though such an one is not fit for the Kingdom of Heaven till he comes wholly off from every wilful sin and is more under the power of Religion yet he is nearer to the Kingdom of Heaven and may sooner by Repentance and becoming a good Man fit himself for it and so enter into it It does not at all appear in Scripture from the History of this Penitent Theif whether he had been a very ill Man or no in the general course of his Life only that he was a Thief which was enough to denominate him 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and suffered as he himself owns justly and received the due reward of his deeds Luke 23.41 But who knows what abatements his sin might have either by extream necessity or some other circumstances which God might fairly consider and allow for though he was brought to an infamous Death here by the severity of Humane Laws Even a good Man who is so in the general course and habit of his Life may fall into a particular act of wilful sin as we see in David Moses and St. Peter and let him that standeth take heed lest he fall as the Apostle advises 1 Cor. 10.12 For no Man is perfectly out of danger whilst he is in this state of probation and infirmity and though every such Sin breaks a Mans good State and puts him into an ill one till he recovers himself by Repentance and Amendment for Mens States of Grace and Damnation are no way fixt here but are alterable in this World according to the temper of their minds and behaviour of their lives yet 't is more easie to recover from a single act than a long habit as 't is to cure a green wound than an old Ulcer or a Chronical Disease And where there is an habitual soundness within where the Mind is not vitiated with habitual Corruptions and evil Principles and irreligious Habits and Customs but has a pretty good Sense of Religion though it happens to be over-powred with a temptation there it will sooner recover it self and throw off the Disease and the Corrupt Matter by its own inward Strength and the assistance of the Divine Grace There the inward Sense and the Principles of Religion will unfold and expand themselves by the power of Restitution since though they have been prest down and overpowred yet they have not been quite broken and destroyed the Religious and Vertuous Sense will revive again in the Mind which was not wholly extinguished though very much Damped and Choaked and weakned and thus they plainly seem to be in thus penitent Thief by his Carriage to our Saviour which I shall consider by and by by his rebuking the other Thief who was railing at Christ with that most sober Reprimand Dost thou not fear God seeing thou art in the same condemnation ver 40. and by the firm belief and full perswasion he had of the happyness of another State and his Devout and Religious Prayer to Christ to remember him when he came into his Kingdom These make it very probable that he was not a very profligate or ill Man in the general course of his Life but rather such a good one who lived not in the habit of many great sins but fell into a particular Act by a Temptation that might greatly lessen it before God though it made him an Example before Men But 2. Whatever his Sin was however great and however sinful a Man he had been yet who knows how long he had repented and how sincerely and what fruits he had shown of his Repentance We know not when the theft was committed and whether he did not immediately Repent of it and make
Baptism And therefore to suppose a Man may be saved upon Baptism though he is not a good Man is not allowable but if he dye just upon it God will judge him according to the present temper of his Mind and the past course of his Actions allowing him the Gracious Termes of the Gospel which he has now a right to by his Baptism but to think he can be saved without any Actual Goodness in his Mind and in his Life is I think very false though a less degree may save him that knows not Baptism or Christianity than him that does But as for the Baptism of Blood or allowing Martyrdom the priviledge of Baptism this is not founded upon ordinary right but presumptive equity and Salvation is allowed to them because no Man but must be presumed to be a very good Man and have a high degree of actual Vertue and Holiness who dyes a Martyr and prefers Religion before every thing in this World even his very Life And without this in some higher measure than meer Purposes and Resolutions and meer Sorrow and Repentance for not having it I deny that any Baptism or any thing else will save a Man This I say to prevent an Objection that it would not otherwise be easie to Answer which is this That if the Grace of Baptism will send a wicked and unqualified Soul to Heaven by vertue of a meer dying Repentance without any degrees of Actual Holiness without which the Scripture tells us no man shall see the Lord why may not the Grace of the Eucharist do the same by the like dying Repentance Or according to the Roman Principles the Grace of Penance and Absolution or of Extreme Unction which have all the same superstitious Error at the bottom SECT II. The Pleas and Pretences on behalf of a Death-Bed Repentance Answered HAving showed that there is nothing in the case of the Thief upon the Cross to support or justifie the validity and efficacy of a Death-Bed Repentance I shall now examine the other Pleas and Pretences which are brought for it and show how weak and ungrounded they are so that no Man may believe such a dangerous and mistaken Doctrine nor venture his Soul not only upon such an uncertain hazard but such a certain danger and inevitable ruine as that will bring upon him if he presume upon it and trust to it I shall consider and rectifie the common prejudices that are about it which are chiefly these following First That at whatsoever time a Sinner repenteth he shall find Mercy Secondly That if a Man do so heartily and sincerely resolve upon a good Life that God sees if he should live he would make this good then this Will shall be taken for the Deed. Thirdly That God may turn and change a Mans Heart on a sudden Fourthly That by denying the efficacy of a Death-Bed Repentance we throw Men into despair and take away the Arguments that should perswade them then to Repent and limit Gods Mercy and restrain his Grace and the like First That Expression Whensoever or at what time soever a Sinner repenteth he shall find mercy Now this though it be not express and in so many words in Scripture and therefore when the words in the Original would not fully bear such a Translation Ezek. 18.21 and some were offended at it as giving too much encouragement to the Doctrine I am opposing it was left out of the Sentences beginning our Morning-Prayer yet if we allow it to be true in the utmost and fullest sense and there is no great difference between when and whensoever or at what time soever yet it no way avails to the maintaining the efficacy of a late or Death-Bed Repentance for all that a Man can then do does not come up to true Repentance such a Repentance as has Pardon and Salvation promised to it by the Terms of the Gospel A Man may then be very sorry for his Sins and heartily troubled and concerned for them but this Sorrow alone were it upon never so good Reasons is not Repentance but that which may bring us to Repentance as St. Paul sayes Godly sorrow worketh Repentance 2 Cor. 7.10 and therefore it is not the thing it self We may as well suppose that feeling the smart of a Wound is healing it as meer Sorrow for Sin is true Repentance Few Sinners and few Malefactors but are thus sorrowful when they come near the place of Punishment and Execution They are sorry they must suffer for their Sins and the terrour of their Sufferings makes Sin very bitter to them but if that were removed they would love them and commit them perhaps as much as ever If Sorrow alone for Sin though never so deep and grievous were true Repentance then Cain and Judas were as great Penitents as any and so will all the damned be to all Eternity who will thus sorrow and thus repent for ever of their Sins but without any amendment and they will wish also a thousand times that they had been wiser and lived better and had not by their foolish and wicked courses brought themselves into such a miserable and wretched condition and would God but let them live over their Lives again oh how much better would they be how much otherwise would they live and how heartily would they purpose and resolve to leave all their Sins and lead a very good Life would God but give them opportunity and space and try them once more This is the language of Sinners both in this World and the next too when the day of Grace and the time of Tryal is over when it is too late to do all this which they now wish they had done but would not do it when God gave them time and so they have lost the only opportunity which it is impossible to retrieve Would God grant either the Sinner that is damned or the Sinner that is a dying opportunity to live again they would both be better perhaps but since he does not he will judge them not according to what they would be but what they have been not according to what they wish and resolve to do but what they actually have done since the Scripture no where tells us that Men shall receive according to their Wishes their Purposes and Resolutions but according to their Works and Actions whether they have been good or evil And therefore 2ly I believe there is no ground for that determination which has been often given about a Death-Bed Repentance n that if a Mans Purposes are then so sincere that he would make them good if he lived that then they may be sufficient to his Salvation Had God given him time to make them good and from a bad Man to have become a good one which is the only true Notion I know of Repentance then indeed he had fallen under the promises and the measures of the Gospel where God has declared Pardon to all Men that Repent and Amend but no where that I know
which we can never enjoy the true Happiness we were made for and to which our Minds are fitted Vertue alone can give that and all the Pleasure Peace and Joy that result from it whereas Wickedness will necessarily not only corrupt and impair the Mind and spoil its Faculties but disorder and wound and corrode it and make it very painful and uneasie and a Hell and Torment to it self 2. As none but good Men shall enter into Heaven so none can be made good on a sudden Those Vertuous and Holy Habits and Dispositions of Mind are not to be had or attained immediately in a little time and on a sudden hurry as is intimated here by the Virgins wanting Oyl and not being able to procure or buy it in their present distress when the Bridegroom was a coming We must be prepared and provided with those things that are necessary for our Future Happiness before Death comes and puts us on a sudden hurry and alarums us with its unexpected approach or else we shall be sadly disappointed and unprovided if we expect to procure or attain them then If we think to borrow of anothers Vertues and Merits to help out our own defects and wants at that time as they of the Church of Rome imagine something like these foolish Virgins or as others that the Bridegroom himself shall supply them in an extraordinary manner out of his stock though they have no Oyl at all in their own Vessels no Righteousness of their own All these vain hopes and expectations of idle and careless and foolish Sinners will then deceive and disappoint them and make them miserable If Men have not attained to the Vertues and Graces of Religion nor any degrees of Holiness and Goodness all their Lives and think to acquire them now on a sudden when they are near dying they may as well hope that a Tree that has bore no Fruit all the Year should on a sudden when it is just to be cut down and the Axe is laid to the root of it sprout and bud and blossom and bring forth Fruit. This would be a strange Miracle and it must be as great and unaccountable to have a wicked Man on a sudden become a good one and bring forth the Fruits of Vertue and Repentance All our Vertues are owing to the Grace of God as the growth of all Plants and Trees is to the Rain and warmth and influence of the Heavens but to think that Gods Grace which could not work upon a Man all his Life before will now in such an extraordinary manner change and convert him on a sudden as to make him immediately become a good Man is to suppose a Saint made as Adam was in full growth and perfect flature the first day he lived without passing through the degrees of Youth and Childhood as God thinks not fit to make Mankind so now but produces them by the ordinary and appointed way of his Providence so he makes good Men by the ordinary methods of his Grace and influences of Religion and the New Creature is formed by degrees and growes into a perfect Man and increases in Wisdom and Goodness till it comes to the measure of the stature of the fulness in Christ Jesus The Spirit worketh upon our Mind agreably to their Nature in a manner indiscernable from its own proper operation enlighteneth the Understanding and inclineth the will gently and kindly by the thoughts and considerations of Religion offering them clearly and imprinting them strongly upon the Soul and so in a rational way begetting right apprehensions and affections in it and so altering the temper and disposition of the Mind and by frequent acts and repeated practices bringing a Man to new habits and thus converting him from bad to good not in an instant but by long strivings and gradual operations upon him No very bad Man was ever made a good one on a sudden nor can any more be so by the Grace of the Gospel than a Child over night become a Man the next morning by the course of Nature and Providence or Seed sown in the ground spring up and ripen and bear Fruit in a few hours Such Mushroon Converts and Penitents have no good root but dye away and wither as suddenly and instantaneously as they came up with the first heat and tryal of a Temptation till Religion shoots deeper into their Hearts and gets better rooting in their Souls like the Seed that fell on stony ground it is quickly gone and does not grow at all nor bring forth fruit with patience as the Scripture emphatically speaks i. e. with due continuance Good Purposes and Resolutions and such like good Principles of Action must continue some time upon the Mind and exert their power and efficacy upon it by proper acts and tryals and experiments or else they are but like false conceptions that produce nothing like Clouds without Rain Blossoms without Fruit and abortive causes without any effects A sudden Sorrow upon a wicked Mind will no more make it good nor bring forth the worthy fruits of Repentance than a sudden shower upon the Sands of Arabia or Rocks of Caucasus will make them become fertile and good ground there must be long cultivation and great labour and pains taken with such barren ground before it will be a fruitful Soil and bring forth any thing by all the showers and influences of Heaven upon it A hardened Sinner who hath lived many years in the wretched courses and habits of Wickedness must by long time and great care and many methods of Gods Grace and Goodness have his Heart changed and his Life mended and his old Vicious Habits plucked up and new Vertuous ones planted in their place and these take root and grow up and bear Fruit in his Life before he can become such a good Man as is fitted for Heaven Such an one can never be made so in a little time just before Death but it must require at least a good part of his Life to become such and it should be indeed the business of our whole Lives to make our selves such as shall be thus fit for Heaven To think that great work can be done at the latter end when we are just a dying and may be dispatched in a very little time all on a sudden is as idle and unreasonable as for a Man that has a good dayes journey to take to lye loytering and never mind it till the Sun is near down and night is coming upon him and then to set out and think to reach it by a sudden start or by some unaccountable wayes to fly thither or be Magically transported and set down he knows not how at his journeys end Or rather to make the Case more exactly parallel to an old Sinner like one who hath travelled almost all the day in a wrong way and spurred and driven on very furiously in his vicious courses and is now to turn back and begin to take the right way when
of Religion and now he denyes those and his Life both alike because he cannot keep them Is he now to begin to practice the Vertues of Chastity and Temperance and Sobriety which he never did before then he hath put them off to a very convenient season when his Vices have quite left him and so if Vertues will come of themselves like guests uninvited there is no other company to hinder them but he was as vertuous and sober almost half his Life I mean when he was asleep as he can be now when he is as incapable of the contrary acts as he was then and is only like the Enthusiast cured of seeing vanity when he lost his Eyes but perhaps not of being vain for the ghosts and spirits of his departed Sins may still haunt and possess him If these Christian Vertues are necessary to be practiced in order to our Eternal Salvation a dying Repentance cannot be sufficient without them if it be then those particular Precepts and Commands must be set aside by it as well as the other general ones I mentioned for 't is certain he can no more practice these Vertues now than he could in his Mothers Womb and they might be as well infused into him then as they can be now without any practice and something better because there were then no contrary Habits to hinder them But the Doctrine of infused Habits is like the Hypothesis of Transfusion of Blood contrary to Nature and Experience and the dying Man may as well depend upon one for his Body as the other for his Soul 3. The salvability and sufficiency of a meer dying Repentance as it sets by and discharges us from all those general and particular Commands of Christianity so also from the whole Christian engagement and Baptismal Covenant For can that then be any way made good or performed in any measure when a Man has violated it all his Life and notoriously broken it in all the parts that belong to it Can he then sufficiently renounce the Devil and all his works when he hath hitherto complyed with them the pomps and vanities of this wicked World when he has minded nothing else and the sinful Lufts of the Flesh when he has followed them and been led by them all his dayes Can he then keep Gods Commandments who hath broken most of them and walk in the same all the dayes of his Life who hath walked all his days in the ways of Sin and the paths of Unrighteousness and never left them till just now he is at his journeys end and can live no longer Surely this Baptismal Covenant is made only pro formâ and is but a modish and mannerly Ceremony at our entring into Christianity if we are not more obliged to stand to it and make it good and expect the benefits of Christianity upon our so doing in some further and better manner of performance than a wicked Christian can do when he comes to dye If his meer Sorrows and Purposes and Resolutions will serve instead of all that is expresly or implicitely meant by it it is void and null in all the other parts of it and the Church has unfaithfully and unsincerely drawn it up in other words of a different sense and meaning that signifie nothing and the Scripture hath exprest it as odly and unfitly when it speaks of our dying to Sin and rising unto Righteousness by our Baptism That we are symbolically buried with Christ by baptism unto death that like as Christ was raised up by the glory of the Father even so we also should walk in newness of life Rom. 6.4 For if we have been planted together in the likeness of his death we shall be also in the likness of his resurrection Knowing this that our old man is crucified with him that the body of sin might be destroyed that henceforth we should not serve sin for he that is dead is free from sin ver 5 6 7. Likewise reckon ye also your selves to be dead indeed unto sin but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord ver 11. Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body that ye should obey it in the lusts thereof Neither yield ye your members as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin but yield your selves unto God as those that are alive from the dead and your members as instruments of righteousness unto God ver 12.13 Here is enough to give us the plain meaning of Baptism and the great obligation of it to renounce Sin and live a good and holy Life And we are then said to put on Christ and to put on the new man which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness Eph. 4.24 and to put off concerning the former conversation the old man which is corrupt according to the deceitful lusts ver 22. and to be regenerated and born again and have a Spiritual Principle of Life and Holiness communicated to our Souls and we then voluntarily consent to the terms of Christianity and solemnly engage and undertake to live according to them now all this which is very great and very obliging one would think is made very little and very easily took off and abated and dispensed with if when it has been utterly neglected and disregarded violated and broken all our lives a mere short and Dying Repentance will make it up and supply all the failures and the whole non-performance of it I own that true and timely Repentance will relieve us against the many failures and breaches of it by bringing us to performe it better afterwards sincerely endeavouring to make it good when we have broken it by any wilful sin and upon our performance of it though not with perfect exactness yet with sincere integrity depends our Title to all the Priviledges of Christianity But now to have no regard to it or take any care to observe it nor make it any way good in our lives but to live loosely and wickedly as if we had no such strict Engagement and Obligation upon us and to allow our selves in notorious Sins and unlawful Liberties expresly contrary to our Baptismal Covenant and yet think to salve all and have the whole benefit of it by a short Sorrow and Repentance when we come to dye this is either to make it have no meaning at all or that we are not obliged to the performance of it but let us not deceive our selves whosoever doth not make good his Baptismal Covenant in his Life which a wicked Man cannot at his Death as he is false to Christ and breaks his own most solemn and voluntary engagements so he forfeits all the benefits of his Christianity all that Pardon and Salvation which Christ hath purchased and proposed to him Thus all the Obligations to Christian Holiness and Obedience layd upon us either by our own Baptismal Vows and Promises or by the particular or general Commands of God and our Saviour are all taken away and dissolved by this loose Doctrine of
a Death-Bed Regentance being sufficient for Salvation so far as this is allowed in the case of one who hath been a great Sinner all his life so far there must be an exception to all those and they must all stand by and be set aside to make room for his going to Heaven All the Laws of Religion and the whole Constitution of Christianity and all the ordinary Rules and the standing Method of Salvation by the Gospel must be past by and over-ruled to make way for such an Extraordinary President and whether God will do this is to me no more a question than whether he will release the Devils and the Damned out of Hell I think there is scarce any more ground or more reason to hope for one than the other and that 't is as much a limiting the Divine Grace and Mercy and Confining Gods Extraordinary Power of showing Mercy where he pleases and denying his Infinite Pity and Compassion to his Creatures and entring into his unsearchable Councils and diving into his unfathomable Judgment to deny the latter as the former If God in one case may act contrary to all Rules and to his own Threatnings Judgment and Sentence pronounced against Sinners he may do so so far as I know by the same Extraordinary Mercy and unbounded Prerogative in the other But what shall we say then to such a wretched Sinner when he is a dying and never repented till he was so is his case hopeless and desperate Is there no comfort to be given him is this hard and cruel Sentence to be pronounced upon him And is he to be thus tormented before his time Can nothing be done or said to him to give him any manner of hopes and comfort and is he to be cast into the deepest gulph of despair What a Miserable Comforter must a Minister whom he then sends for be to him who is of this Opinion and talks at this rate What will all his Prayers and Tears and strong Cryes then signifie if they can do him no good to the saving of his Soul I Answer the case is I confess very sad and I know not what to say to it I dare not pervert the Gospel to give him false comfort I must not be unfaithful to the great God and my blessed Redeemer whose Minister I am in saying Peace Peace when there is no Peace in loosing what is bound in Heaven and by a false Key or Picklock rather pretend to open the Kingdom of Heaven when God has shut it I must not by any sweet and poysonous Opiates give a short and stupifying ease to his mind and put him into a secure sleep till he awakes in his sad mistake and lifts up his eyes being in torments I must not corrupt Religion and sow Pillows under his Arm-holes to put him into a state of false ease and quiet and by some drops of Spiritual Laudanum some comfortable false Doctrines and Narcotick Principles of Divinity take away his pains for a moment and give him hopes contrary to the Gospel I must not lye for God much less against him and bring a pretended Message from him to such a poor Wretch which he never sent me with and forge a Counterfeit Pardon for him which Christ or the Gospel has not signed only to chear and delude him for a few hours I must not I dare not then say any thing contrary to the Truth or to this Doctrine which I believe to be such to deceive him or others It may not be then so seasonable nor am I bound at that time to preach this to him as I do now to the living that they may never come to this sad Condition but may take care to prevent it by a timely Repentance and a good Life I would not for Ten Thousand Worlds be in that lamentable Case and I here warn every one that Reads this in the Name of God to avoid it But what then shall such an one do shall he not pray shall he not cry mightily to God shall he not lament and mourn and be deeply sorrowful and penitent Yes by all means as much as is possible and should be directed advised and assisted to do this by the Minister and his Friends and all about him but what will it signifie according to the former Doctrine 'T will not save his Soul or get him Heaven I answer I cannot say it will nor can any Minister assure him of this but it will abate his misery and lessen his torments and be a great mitigation to his future punishment it will though not obtain a pardon for all the sins of his wicked life yet lighten his Sentence in some measure and make his sufferings to be something less than they would otherwise be There are many degrees of Torment and Punishment even in Hell it self as there are of Glory and Happyness in Heaven as there are many Mansions above in our Fathers House so there are many Cells in the Infernal Prison and some are beaten there with more stripes and more intense torments than others The fire of Hell is kindled seven times hotter for some more profligate and daring and presumptuous Sinners and especially for those who defie Heaven and with their last breath deny or affront God and openly scorn and disown Religion such bold Hectors against Heaven who stand out to the last against it and show no signs of Sorrow or Religion but brave Hell and Death these provoke God to the utmost and challenge him as it were to do his worst and they shall terribly feel the weight of his Power and the force of his Almighty Arme and the Effects of his most incensed and provoked Anger but now a Penitent and fearful and sorrowful Sinner who trembles at Gods Judgments and is afraid of his indignation and laments over his Sins and humbles himself under his hand and Repents as well as he can and bitterly grieves for his Sins and owns God is just and righteous in punishing him and that 't is the due desert of his ways and confesses them before Men and warns others from them and does all he can to undoe them and make reparation for them and thus owns Religion though he has before denyed and opposed it and gives Glory to God though he before dishonoured and disobeyed him in his life such an one though for the reasons before given he has not a sufficient Title nor sufficient Qualifications for Heaven because he has not performed the Condition on which 't is promised nor can acquire the Vertuous Habits that can alone fit him for it nor can come up to the full terms on which God has promised Pardon and Salvation and all this dying Repentance is not enough to make him a truely good Man nor beget in him that holiness without which he shall never see God nor root out those old sinful Acts and Habits that will condemn and make him miserable yet he shall have a very great Abatement and Mitigation to his
future Misery and his Punishment shall be much lessened by it This is a very great thing if we duely consider it and worth all his most earnest Prayers and deepest Sorrow and Compunction and all he can do to save him from those highest and extremest degrees of Misery Hell indeed is a general word for future Misery in Scripture as Heaven is for Happyness but they consist not in one and the same indivisible thing but are Two States of very various and different and unequal degrees according to the Deserts and Capacities of those who are in them As there are several degrees of Good and Bad Men here upon Earth so there will be of happy and miserable Souls in Heaven and Hell some are very imperfectly but yet sincerely good and are far from such Obedience and perfection as Human Nature might come up to and those being without any wilful and deliberate and great Sin shall be in the lowest place in Heaven and lower than this the Scripture allows none to go thither they who live in any such one known and habitual sin and wickedness are such Sinners as are expresly excluded from thence They have another place and state allotted to them in the other World for there being no third or middle state revealed by Scripture but only those two of Heaven and Hell they must necessarily go to the latter and there according to the Nature or Quality or Degrees of their Sin be punisht with many or fewer stripes and be in a state of greater or lesser Misery according as their Lives and their Deserts have been The Valley of Hinnom from whence comes Gehenna which we translate Hell was a deep Valley near Hierusalem where the Canaanites burnt their Children alive to Moloch and used all direful noises to hinder their cries and lamentations from being heard and afterwards the Jews say that Josias turned it into the place of publick Executions and that all Carkasses and Dung and filthy things were thrown there to prevent the noysomness of which there was a perpetual fire always burning in that place that was never put out at any time The Scripture has made this the chiefest image and representation of Hell and from thence describes the Misery of it by fire and burnings which give one of the most general and sensible ideas of Pain and torment Both the Spiritual Happyness of Heaven and Misery of Hell must be thus represented to the gross Thoughts of Mankind by the most delightful and most painful things known to their Senses that they are best acquainted with in this World and which will make the strongest impression upon them though they may be in themselves of another Nature fitted chiefly to the Souls and Spirits and Rational faculties of Men in their separate state and the happyness or misery of those is chiefly designed by them God we know is a Consuming fire to the wicked but he will very differently punish them though fire seems to carry one equal idea of pain and torment yet as our Saviour says that it shall be more tolerable for Sodom and Gomorrah in the day of Judgment and they are set forth for an example in Scripture suffering the vengeance of eternal fire Jude 7. then for that City who rejected the Gospel Matth. 10.15 so it shall be more tolerable for such wicked Men who have been so in a lesser degree in their Lives and at their Deaths have been as penitent as they could be then for Sinners of an higher order and a more daring and impenitent sort Heaven and Hell being taken for Places rather than States seem to our Imaginations to imply and signifie one equal and indivisible perfect and complete and same idea of Happyness or Misery that shall belong to all alike who are sentenced to either of those but there are very great Differences and Degrees in them a thousand times more than there is in the different States of Happiness or Misery among Men in this World where in the same place and upon the same Globe we see some in very happy circumstances and mighty enjoyments others in great Pain and Misery and a most pitiable Condition this here is only a Tryal of them and not according to their deserts but it shall be so exactly in another Wold the great day of Recompence and Retribution Then they who have done most Evil and committed most sins and not repented of them in time but gon on to provoke and disobey God and despise and neglect Religion all their lives these shall suffer the sad and utmost Vengeance of God's Anger and of Eternal fire All other wicked Men of what sort soever whether they were Sinners above others or only lived in some sins without Repentance and Amendment these shall be for ever in a very bad state a state of Misery and loss of true happiness and their Misery shall be exactly proportioned to their sins and be in the same degrees and measures that those were which are all known to the infinitely wise and Just God who without respect of persons will then render to all according to their works and with an equal and impartial Justice distribute-those Rewards and Punishments to them They then who have served God best in their lives shall be best rewarded by him they who have suffered with Christ shall then reign with him they who endured any afflictions for his sake and the Gospels shall have the greater Glory which those are not to be compared to they shall receive a hundred fold for all they have done or suffered for Christ not only for suffering Persecution though Martyrdom has always had a brighter and a weightier Crown assigned to it but for denying any present Interest or worldly gain or unlawful pleasure and sensual Inclination for the sake of Vertue and Religion then those who have best improved their Talents to Gods Glory and the good of others and the Service of Religion shall have more gifts and rewards from their great Lord they who have turned many unto Righteousness shall shine as the stars in Glory in several Orbs and different degrees of Light and Lustre for as the Apostle says one star differeth from another in glory 1 Cor. 15.41 and So likewise shall it be at the Resurrection and in another World there shall be different degrees of happyness and glory for Good Men both in their Bodies and Souls according to their different degrees of Goodness Service and Obedience to God in this life There being but two places or rather two States in another World appointed for all rational beings that ever were created as seems plain by the Scripture Revelation where so far as it describes or gives us a Map of that Invisible and unknown World it divides it only into two Mighty Kingdoms or vast Regions an upper and a lower parted from one another by unknown bounds and inhabited by Good and Bad Spirits where the one are very happy and the other very miserable there being but
down his eyes Psal 119.136 And the Scripture describes Repentance by a broken and a contrite heart Psal 51.17 in opposition to a hard and impenitent one All Penitents are drawn with a sad and mournful look with tears in their eyes and sorrow in their hearts smiting their breasts and wringing their hands and all the figures of Grief and Lamentation and covered with a veil of sadness and disconsolateness For Grief and Sorrow are Passions of Soul upon the presence of any evil that is afflicting and uneasie to us and Sin being the greatest of those evils should cause the highest of those passions and we have more reason to be sorry and lament for it than a Widow over her lost Husband or a Mother over her first-born that is dead or a Friend over another that is murthered ruined and undone for our Souls ought to be dearer to us than any thing else and Sin kills ruins and murthers them But here I must interpose a Caution Sin is a Spiritual Evil and works not upon our Bodily Passions so strongly and deeply as those other objects may which are more suited to them and more fit to excite such animal sensations and impressions as Naturally rise from them Thus sensible Beauty may charm our Animal Spirits more than the Intellectual Pulchritude of Vertue and Musick may more ravish us than the harmony of Reason or then the thoughts of the Heavenly singing and Hallelujah and these and the tasts of some sensible dainties may more affect us with a sensible pleasure than the very joyes and pleasures of Heaven as we can now conceive them for they are more suited to our Animal Nature and more agreeable to the mixt Faculties arising from the union of our Souls and Bodies and so there may be more pain and sorrow felt for a Wound in a Mans Body than for a Sin in his Soul and more tears shed for the misfortune of a Friend or the loss of a Child or a near Relation than for the miscarriage of our Lives or the commission of a Sin for the one is a sorrow of another nature and another kind raised not by Sense but by Reason not Natural but Religious not from Mechanism of Body but Consideration of Mind and therefore the greatness or the sincerity of our Repentance is not to be measured by the quantity of our Tears or the number of our Sighs or the degrees alwayes of Animal Sorrow but rather by the sincerity of our Wills and the actual performance of our good Purposes of forsaking and amending our Sins which are the only sure marks of our disliking them and being sorry for them and having a true hatred and aversion to them for those secret and inward Passions of Mind are not to be known often either by our selves or others but by the effects and we can only know we love Vertue and hate Sin by following the one and forsaking the other for no Man loves a thing heartily but if it be in his power he will attain it and no Man otherwise loves Vertue or Heaven No Man hates any thing or is heartily sorry for any evil but if it be in his power he will remove it if present and avoid it if absent No Man can know he has the love of God but by this in which the Scripture places it by keeping his Commandments 1 John 5.3 and therefore I am afraid that School distinction between Contrition and Attrition that the one is a Sorrow from the Love of God and the other from the Fear of Hell and so the one is sufficient and the other is not has little or nothing in it but words by which Men may easily cheat and deceive themselves for the secret springs and principles of Mens Passions lye too deep to be discerned and they run into one another and are so mixt and confounded that they cannot be distinguished neither is there any great difference between them and only the effects of them are taken notice of in the account of God and the concerns of Religion It is a meer Nicety to distinguish such Principles in the first forming of Repentance like looking for the colours of Flowers or taste of Fruit in the several Seeds of them whereas he that from true Religious Principles be they either Love Hope or Fear and they generally are mixt and combined together and we cannot divide the force or weight of each of them severally upon the Mind whoever I say from these or any or all of these is so concerned for his past Sins that he leaves them and forsakes them and becomes a good Man he has undoubtedly true Repentance and whatever the Principle of it was whether Love or Fear and whatever degree there was in the sorrow and trouble and concern for it it is that fruit and effect and permanent issue and result of it that constitutes and denominates it true and perfect Repentance Let not therefore any Man doubt his Repentance who has this evidence and demonstration of it and let no Man deceive himself without this and think that the Keys of the Church any thing the Minister can do for him or any thing that Christ has done for him or the Merit of his Blood or any Free-Grace or any Faith in him or any thing that a deluded and impenitent Sinner is willing to catch hold off can turn his Sorrow be it never so great and be it from what Principle soever either of Love or Fear into perfect and sufficient Repentance without the effect of Reformation and a good Life and performing the Conditions of the Gospel necessary to Salvation Godly Sorrow is an excellent means and a good beginning of Repentance 't is sowing in tears those seeds of Religion which may grow up to maturity of goodness and amendment of Life and if those penitential tears wash away the filth of our Sins and cleanse the hands and purifie the heart of a Sinner they are then true Repentance If the Salt that is in them eat out our Corruption and preserve us from all impurities afterwards and the bitterness of the Sorrow makes us disrelish and dislike our Sins ever after and wean and turn away our Affections from them and like the Waters of Siloam work upon us and perform the Cure when they are thus stirred and impregnated with a Divine Vertue by the moving of Heaven upon them then they are of great Vertue and ought to be frequently used and cherish'd and indulged as they were of old for this purpose by the devout and tender Penitents But all Constitutions can no more weep and shed tears alike than they can make the Hairs of their Head white or black and tho' all should be sorry for their Sins as being convinced in their Minds of the evil of them yet the passionate degrees and the outward expressions of this Sorrow fall not under any rules or measures but are best judged and known by the effect which is leaving them as what we do not
like but hate Without this our Tears run wast and our Sorrow is but as an empty Cloud or Rain upon barren Ground without any Fruit and all our bitter Cryes and Lamentations are but as the mournings of the Ephesian Matron when we can strike up again immediately with our Sins and take the causes of our Sorrow and the murderers of our beloved Joy immediately into our Hearts and our Embraces 3. Humiliations Bodily Austerities and Mortifications and especially Fasting make up this Duty of Penitence or Exercise of Repentance For thus the Penitents of old put on Sackcloth and spread Ashes upon their Heads lay prostrate upon the ground and rent their Clothes in the Eastern Countries and fasted and denyed themselves their ordinary Food and afflicted their Souls with these severities upon their Bodies For Sin being committed chiefly by the Body as not only the Instrument but the Tempter to it and the Flesh and its Carnal gratifications being the strongest and commonest allurements to it therefore to show their anger and displeasure against it they revenged it upon their Bodies and chastized those servants of unrighteousness and used such a discipline upon them as might punish them for what was past and be a means to prevent their sinning for the future And to show the sense they had of their own vileness and unworthiness for having offended God they exprest and testified it by all acts of humiliation and lowly submission to his Power and Greatness which they had formerly opposed withstood and disobeyed Now these Acts or Exercises of Repentance were so acceptable to God when they were the signs and effects of a true penitent Heart that we find in Scripture how it prevailed with God so far to pardon Sin as to remove the Temporal Judgments he had denounced against it Thus Niniveh was saved from destruction Jonah 3. when they proclaimed a fast and put on sackcloth and decreed that neither man nor beast should taste any thing but be covered with sackcloth and ashes ver 7.8 And Josiah when he thus humbled himself and rent his Clothes upon his hearing the destruction of Jerusalem denounced by the Prophetess had it defer'd till after his Death 2 Kings 22.19 And even wicked Ahab had Gods Judgment respited and took off from himself because when he heard it He rent his clothes and put sackcloth upon his flesh and fasted 1 Kin. 21.27 God himself assigning this as a Reason to the Prophet Seest thou how Ahab humbleth himself before me because he humbleth himself before me I will not bring the evil in his days ver 29. And we find these Acts of Humiliation and this Discipline of Fasting joyned with Repentance not only in the Jewish Church but also in the Christian in the first and best Ages when this Penitential Discipline was most strictly observed by all Penitents Now the Question is 1. Whether these are necessary as proper acts or parts of Repentance or whether internal Repentance without these outward Exercises of it may not be sufficient 2. Whether if they be not necessary they are not useful and proper to promote or at least to express it Now as to the first Question The necessity of these we must make a difference between publick and private Repentance In publick Repentance as that of a Nation or City when they would remove or avert a Judgment and deprecate Gods Anger due to their Sins and exercise a solemn and publick Repentance for them this ought to be done by outward Humiliations and Fastings and such signs and expressions as are proper and usual to testifie great concern and trouble and mourning and humiliation that so they may make the best acknowledgment and satisfaction to God for their Sins and the best reparation to his injured Honour and Authority and may beget in others and propagate over the whole Kingdom or Nation the same penitential sense and concern for their Sins in order to avoid the danger and the judgment due upon them And thus in the publick Exercises of Penitence in the Christian Church when any had by a notorious and scandalous Sin brought a reproach and infamy upon the Church and their Religion the Governours were concerned for its Honour and Credit to take notice and turn them out of their Communion and put them in a state of publick Penitence for their grievous faults And here it was necessary for such Persons to satisfie the Church by their outward Acts of Repentance Mourning and humiliation that they were truly and inwardly penitent and were likely to live better and become other Men before they received them again into their Communion and this though it was but a Prudential Method and an External Discipline of the Church yet was excellently fitted for the reclaiming and reforming great and open Offenders by thus shaming them out of their sins and keeping the Rod over them and shutting them out of the Church by the power of the Keys till they were fit to be admitted and received in again upon the probable signs of a True Repentance and this our Church has good reason to wish for again and ought to restore it did not the state and circumstances we are in unavoidably hinder it but it is utterly impracticable under great Schisms and Divisions from the Church and great Looseness and Contempt of Religion which make it impossible for the Church to exercise this Discipline which were otherwise its Duty but this is at most but an Useful Discipline not a necessary or Essential part of Repentance to go through those penitential courses of Humiliation and Mortification which the ancient Penitents did all that is strictly necessary and all that the Scripture commands as a duty is an Internal Penitence towards God transacted between him and our own Souls wherein we humble our selves before him under a sense of our own vileness and unworthiness and with the greatest submission of our Souls bow down our selves and own his Power and Right to punish us and beseech him for Christ's sake not to use it i. e. to pardon and forgive us Now this I doubt not with sincerity of mind at present and Amendment of Life afterwards is a sufficient Exercise of this Duty to private and particular persons without all the other Solemnities and performaces of a publick Penitence for the design of those is hereby fully attained as to the Person himself which was to amend him and to recover him and to make him more careful not to offend for the future by his shame and sufferings for what is past The Church of Rome has turned this Discipline of Publick Penitence used in the Primitive Church into Auricular Confession and Private Penance which besides the folly of giving Absolution first and supposing some of the guilt and punishment remaining after the Sin is pardoned and making the Eternal Punishment easier to be got off than than the Temporal and imposing trifling and ridiculous penances and making them properly satisfactory is a shameful
corrupting an antient Practice and using the Keys of the Church only to unlock the Consciences first and then the Purses of the Laity and is a wretched Corruption of the true Notion of Repentance by making it a light and transient thing and that the least degree of Sorrow by the Power of the Keys is sufficient for Pardon and Salvation From them I doubt not came the first loose and wretched Mistakes about Repentance and these being joyned with the false and unwary Doctrines of others about Justifying and Saving Faith its being a mere fiduciary Relyance upon Christ and his Merits and that we were to be saved by the free Grace of the Gospel without Obedience to its Commands or Performing its Conditions and that God's Grace was so powerful and miraculous in the Conversion of a Sinner that it did its work Instantaneously and Irresistibly these hindred Men from performing that Duty that true Repentance and Obedience which they thought upon some accounts not so necessary or that they expected could be done for them in an instant and so they need not trouble themselves about it all their lives by these Reserves and false Principles and comfortable as they call 'em but deceitful Doctrines they shifted off the difficult task of leaving all their Sins and leading a good life which otherwise must be owned to be the only true way to Salvation and Happiness and when this appears clearly to us as it will if we rightly understand Religion nothing but downright Atheism and disbelieving it will hinder the Power and Efficacy of it upon our lives But as to the Usefulness of those Penitential Austerities and Mortifications and Acts of Humiliation though private Repentance may be without them yet they may be of some good Use and Advantage both as means to promote it and as signs fit to express it Thus fasting especially and abstinence from food is a proper way both of afflicting the Soul and of bringing the body into subjection and as feasting in the Nature of the thing is improper for one Sorrowing Mourning and Repenting as we ought often to be upon serious and sad Reflections made upon our Sins so for many Sins pampering and indulging the Carkass is adding fuel to them and to abate and substract from our Meat and drink is to cut off those Recruits and Nourishments which usually make provision for the flesh and maintain the lusts thereof Now then private prudence and discretion will advise every good Man to make use of that which he finds may be so useful and instrumental to the purposes of Vertue and to the designs of Religion but to enjoyn it further and lay an absolute necessity of it to all Persons and Tempers as of Prayer giving Alms and other Christian Duties this is more than either the Church or the Scripture does ever warrant I speak as to private Repentance which is effectual to every Mans Pardon and Salvation as to publick such as the Publick Fasts commanded by Authority either in the Jewish or Christian Church there the Nature of the thing and Obedience to those who were lawful Governours made it a Duty to comply with their Religious Commands and Designs and to Express our Publick and Solemne Repentance by such signs as are fit and usual on such an occasion and not to keep a Festival when our Governours and our Christian Neighbours and our Sins and the fear of some Judgment call upon us for Fasting and Humiliation but bow long we are then to fast and whether to eat nothing till the Evening and what kind of Meat is what our Health and Constitution and a little degree of Prudence joyned with a good sense of Religion will direct us in without a Confessor He is a Slave to his Appetite and makes a God of his Belly who cannot deny himself a meal now and then upon such an account and he is a weak and Superstitious Creature who thinks Religion lies in some strict and little niceties of performing this without regard to his Health and the more true and proper designs of it Fasting has been alwayes observed by Devout and Pious Penitents in all Ages as an Exercise of penitence and a help to Devotion and Religion and Lent or the Antepaschal Fast is especially of great Usage and Antiquity in the Christian Church but not observed alike in all places as is plain from Irenaeus and others but it was chiefly designed for Publick Penitence of notorious Sinners who were to be restored to the Communion of the Church and Receiving the Sacrament at Easter but it may be of good Use to the private Repentance of every particular Christian who ought to set aside some time for the Examining of himself and the Reflecting upon his past Sins and as long as he lives he ought to Exercise a particular Repentance for all the wilful Sins he ever committed and to have some appointed times to offer up the Sacrifice of a broken and contrite heart and to let his heart bleed afresh and pierce it self very deeply with the remembrance of its past Sins which though God has forgotten so as not to punish yet he ought never to forget so as not to Repent of them I mention not other Bodily penances such as putting on Sackcloth and Ashes which were Eastern Modes of Mourning but do no more oblige us than rending our Garments and pouring out Water which were used by them and as to whipping and going bare-foot which one calls the penance of a Goose Some of those which are in use in the Roman Church are rather Heathenish than Christian Customs like Baals Priests Cutting and Lancing themselves and they are no more proper to Cure Men of their Sins or be Helps to Repentance than the taking a Purge or Vomit which would work as effectually upon their Minds and expel their Vices and Corruptions as well as any of those Penitential Rods and Disciplines upon the backs of Fools who understand not what true Repentance is All such Bodily Exercise profiteth nothing to the freeing from their sins but is only a commuting with God for them and makes them believe that repentance lyes only in such an opus operatum which however severe it seems yet is much easier than to leave their Sins and their beloved Lusts as we find many of our Lovers of Wine rather choose to take Physick now and then to cure their Head-ach than to become sober which would do it much better But true Repentance is not to be known or judged of by such unnatural follies which they call the fruits but are not so much as the shadows of true Repentance nor by any of these External Symptoms or Acts of Penitence which are the most proper Exercises or Attendants of it but by the Change wrought upon our Hearts and Lives and the Effectual Amendment and Reformation of both as we are to judge of the Soundness and Goodness of our Health not by the strength or bitterness of the Physick we
may much more abound and he may make up the failures as far as he can of his former Life and give the best satisfaction and reparation he is able to God and Religion whom he had so highly injured and affronted that he may not be contented only to get out of an ill State and be just safe and out of danger but may endeavour to rise higher and grow in Grace and all manner of Goodness and attain to higher improvements and perfections of Vertue and Holiness This should be his aim and design and the business of his whole Life and this will certainly be so if he has the true love of Vertue of God or of Heaven in his Soul he will then be doing more good growing more vertuous more rich towards God and continually thriving and increasing in his good Condition and his Heavenly Treasure as Worldly Men are in their Earthly Trades and Riches he will be dayly adding to his store and knowing the worth of Vertue the more the more he hath of it he will by a laudable Covetousness be every day raising his Stock improving his Talents and abounding more and more in all useful Vertues and Christian good Works which should be the great business and design of every Christian all his Life This will give unspeakable comfort peace and satisfaction to his Mind and set him not only out of danger and free him from an ill state but out of all doubts fears and uncertainties in his thoughts about it for the more perfect we grow in Vertue the more chearful and well-grounded hopes and assurance we shall have in our selves and the more confidence towards God 'T is hard to know and distinguish exactly between the first lines and parting 's of Vice and Vertue of a bad and good State where the lowest degree of one begins and the other ends as 't is difficult to know the first conception and beginning of Life in an Embrio and the first day-break of the morning but when Life appears by sensible motions and visible acts and operations there is no doubt about it nor when the Sun is up and come to the Meridian that it is perfect day so what is the beginning of the Spiritual Life in a Christian Penitent or when he first is delivered from the Power of Darkness into Light and a Christian good State is not so easily known but 't is plain and clear when he performs the proper acts and operations of the Divine Life and walks as a child of light and his goodness shines more and more unto perfect day i. e. when he becomes more thoroughly vertuous and more perfectly a good Man it will be more out of doubt to himself and he will have all the chearful and comfortable evidence of it to his unspeakable satisfaction 'T is generally very low and imperfect degrees of Religion and Vertue that make us fearful and doubtful the more perfect we grow the more assured we shall have reason to be of our good State and though the Penitents tears at first bring clouds and darkness fear and melancholly over him yet perfect Vertue when he is restored to it will make a perfect day and bring in the clearest comfort peace and satisfaction to his Mind and thus though he sowed in Tears he shall reap in Joy FINIS A Catalogue of Books Printed for Samuel Smith at the Princes Armes in St. Pauls Church-Yard 1693. THE Wisdom of God manifested in the Worls of the Creation in two Parts viz. The Heavenly Bodies Elements Meteors Fossils Vegetables Animals Beasts Birds Fishes and Insects more particularly in the Body of the Earth its Figure Motion and Consistency 〈◊〉 the admirable Structure of the Bodies of Man and other Animals as also in their Generation c. By John Ray Fellow of the Royal Society The Second Edition very much enlarged In 8vo Three Discourses concerning the Changes and Dissolution of the World The First of the Creation and Chaos The Second of the General Deluge Fountains formed Stones Subterraneous Beds of Shells Earthquakes and other Changes in our Terraqueous Globe The Third of the General Conflagration Dissolution and means of bringing them to pass Of the Future State c. In 8vo Dr. Rich. Luck 's Practical Christianity Or An Account of the Holiness which the Gospel enjoyns with Motives to it and the Remedies it proposes against Temptations with a Prayer concluding each distinct Duty In 8vo Enquiry after Happiness in several Parts c. The Second Edition enlarged In 8vo The Duty of Apprentices and Servants 1. The Parents Duty how to Educate their Children that they may be fit to be employed and trusted 2. What Preparation is needful for such as enter into Service with some Rules to be observed by them how to make a wise and happy Choice of a Service 3. Their Duty in Service towards God their Master and themselves with suitable Prayers to each Duty and some Directions peculiarly to Servants for the Worthy Receiving the Holy Sacrament Published for the Benefit of Families In 8vo The Spiritual Year Or Devout Contemplations digested into distinct Arguments for every Month in the Year and for every Week in that Month Containing most of the Principal and Fundamental Doctrines of Christianity being very plain and useful for the Instruction of Families in all Christian Duties and for the disposing of them to a Religious and Spiritual Conversation In 8vo A Treatise of Church-Government or a Vindication of Dioocesan Episcopacy against the Objections of the Dissenters in Answer to some Letters lately Printed concerning the same Subject By R. Burscough M.A. In 8vo