a silly Temptation and one such fatal Relapse sets it back a great way and makes it with great difficulty roll up the same stone which hath driven it so much downwards and with greater labour set upon the same work and design which such a miscarriage makes more hard to be effected They who make Repentance lye in some transient Acts which upon new Sins are to be repeated toties quoties like a Medicine to be taken as often as the same illness returns forget that Repentance is a state of Health after Sickness a state of Vertue and Obedience after Vice and Disobedience and that when such a state is once broken 't is not easie to be made whole again but like a broken Limb it cannot be set without great pain and long time to grow together again and that if it be often broken it will contract an habitual weakness and lameness How long God will suffer a Sinner thus to continue in a state of Falling and Rising Repenting and Relapsing before he cuts him off from any hopes of Pardon or benefit of Repentance we do not know nor how long a hardened impenitent wretch may go on in a course of sinning before the means of Grace and the day of Salvation may be over with him so that if he knock God will not open and there shall be no place found for his Repentance This is a secret likewise which is only in the breast of the Almighty who threatens that his Spirit shall not alwayes strive with man Gen. 6.3 And behold now is the accepted time now is the day of salvation 2 Cor. 6.2 And to day if ye will hear his voice harden not your hearts Heb. 3.15 And if thou in this thy day hadst known the things belonging to thy peace but now they are hid from thine eyes Luke 19. 42. And seek the Lord while he may be found call ye upon him while he is near Isa 55.6 So that God is not alwayes to be found nor alwayes near and it may be too late for the things of our peace and the accepted time and the day of Salvation may not continue alwayes but a Man may sin so long till God will withdraw his Grace and may come to an unpardonable pitch and an impenitent state and may despise the riches of Gods goodness and forbearance and long-suffering not knowing that the goodness of God leadeth to repentance But after his hardness and impenitent heart may treasure up wrath against the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God Rom. 2.4 5. This should keep us from neglecting the present opportunities and not put off our Repentance from day to day But to day while it is called to day hearken to his voice lest we be hardened with the deceitfulness of sin But if any be under those Fears that he has brought himself to that sad state this is the only true satisfaction can be given him Whilst he is willing to Repent and has a just sense of his Sins and of his ill state he is not hardened and if Gods Grace doth so far work upon his Mind as to make him see and apprehend the necessity of Repentance and the forsaking all his evil wayes then it is not quite withdrawn from him and if he be willing to try all means and use his best endeavours to get rid of his Sins there is great hopes that he may effect this for God will never be wanting to assist our sincere Wills and hearty Endeavours and if his Spirit worketh in us to will and to desire to leave our Sins from a right apprehension of the danger and mischief of them and produce such convictions and illuminations in our Mind it is certain it hath not abandoned or deserted us and it will work in us to do also and to effect and perform those good thoughts and purposes if we persist in them and endeavour with our utmost power to make them good and effectual No Man is cut off from Pardon who Repents and becomes a good Man tho' he has been never so bad an one and no Man will have Gods Grace denyed him who is at any time sincerely willing and desirous to make use of it but 't is a hard and insensible state that has sinn'd away its Life and its day of Grace and has only deep horrours and fruitless sorrows when it is too late to amend and become a good Man that is hopeless and desperate SECT II. Of the Sin against the Holy Ghost its Nature and whether Pardonable or no. WHat is the particular Nature of the Sin against the Holy Ghost and wherein that which is so dreadful does truly consist the Scripture methinks is very plain though they who have left that and followed their own or others conjectures and opinions about it are very confused and intricate and very different and divided among themselves They have made a great many Sins against the Holy Ghost when God has no where in Scripture made but one and that being of so dreadful and heinous a Nature we must be careful to apply it no further than we have warrant from the Word of God and from our Saviour who best knew it and it appears clearly from his Discourse about it to be this A blasphemous charging of the Miracles he did by the Power of the Holy Ghost to the Power of the Devil This the Pharisees did Matth. 12.24 when Christ had wrought a mighty Cure and Miracle upon a Demoniack to the admiration of all the People that had brought him unto him ver 21. Then was brought unto him one possessed of a Devil blind and dumb and he healed him insomuch that the blind and dumb both spake and saw And all the people were amazed and said Is not this the Son of David But when the Pharisees heard it they said This fellow doth not cast out devils but by Beelzebub the prince of the devils Our Saviour when he had confuted that unreasonable and malicious Calumny against him by showing how unlikely it was that the Devil should thus destroy his own Kingdom and Interest by being divided against himself and lending him his Power to cast out Devils and that it might as well be pretended that all Miracles that were done by their Prophets of old or by others amongst them afterwards were performed by a Diabolical Power as well as his and so they would destroy the force and credit of their own Miracles as well as those he did he immediately proceeds to discourse of this Sin Wherefore I say unto you all manner of sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven unto men but the blasphemy against the Holy Ghost shall not be forgiven unto them And he repeats it again in the next Verse And whosoever speaketh a word against the son of man it shall be forgiven him that is yet may with less guilt and danger abuse me for any thing else that does not so immediately reflect upon and reproach the Spirit
incurable hardness to all nor so far as we know to the Scribes and Pharisees themselves but there were means still used to recover them which would have been all in vain and to no purpose if they had been under an irrecoverable and judicial hardness and it had not been only blindness or hardness in part which had happened to Israel Rom. 11.25 or to the Jews And we shall venture too far out of our depth if we offer to say that God made use of many means and remedies to convince and convert the Jews the Scribes and the Pharisees when he had appointed and decreed that none of those should have any effect or good operation upon them this will hardly be consistent with the Goodness and Mercy or with the Truth and Sincerity of the Blessed God nor does he ever for any one Sin but for a long obstinate course of many provoking Sins continued in irreclaimably against the Methods of Divine Grace give up any Person to hardness of Heart There remains I confess another way by which a Sin may become unpardonable and that is by being exempted by God from the general Promise and Covenant of Pardon which he hath made with Mankind He who has all Sovereign Power and an entire Right of Punishment and upon whose Free Grace and Arbitrary Favour all Pardon and Forgiveness depends may except what Sin he pleases out of his General Act of Grace and Proclamation of Pardon and Indempnity but this surely should be done particularly and by name and in the very Act and Proclamation it self there in the very Charter and Covenant of Grace which God has signed with Mankind this ought to be expresly exempted and whether this Blasphemy against the Holy Ghost be so or no is the question or whether this expression of our Saviours concerning it that it shall not be forgiven may be mollified and understood not in the utmost rigour of the Word but as a great many of the best Interpreters of Scripture have judged particularly St Chrysostome of old and Dr. Hammond of late that this Sin shall hardly and not without great difficulty be forgiven and not so soon or so easily as other Sins that it supposes and proceeds from such a corruption of the Mind that is more dangerous and more hard to be cured than any other distempers it is subject to but yet that 't is not quite impossible as the words literally taken seem to imply I shall offer you the Reasons that plead for this Opinion and then determine what is most safe and satisfying in this matter 1. It is very usual in Scripture to represent a thing that is very hard and difficult as if it were utterly impossible and never could be This our Saviour himself does in the case of the Rich Mans entering into the Kingdom of Heaven to express the hardness of it he does it by a thing that is utterly impossible Matth. 19.24 It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God And so does the Prophet also make use of a Natural impossibility to represent the great difficulty of a Mans turning from a long course and custom of sinning Jer. 13.23 Can the Aethiopian change his skin or the leopard his spots then may ye also do good that are accustomed to do evil Not but it is possible notwithstanding those Proverbial expressions that a Man who has been accustomed to do evil a very great while may yet be brought off from his Sins and become a good Man or else all the Exhortations to Repentance and Promises of the Gospel are in vain and so may a good Man become a very bad one too and fall from his own stedfastness and become guilty of abominable Sins As David did that was a Man after Gods own Heart notwithstanding that St. John in the same way and manner of expression with these declares concerning him 1 Ep. 3.9 Whosoever is born of God doth not commit sin for his seed remaineth in him and he cannot sin because he is horn of God That Phrase he cannot denotes not an utter impossibility for the Prophet as well as Experience too plainly show the contrary that a righteous man may turn from his righteousness and commit iniquity and dye in it Ezek. 18.26 Things are sometimes so exprest in Scripture as they often are also amongst Men as if there were no hopes nor no probable means of effecting a thing when yet there are very certain ones as in that expression 1 Sam. 2.25 not a little parallel to this If one man sin against another the judge shall judge him but if a man sin against the Lord who shall intreat for him Not that there is no Advocate nor no way of interceding with God when a Man thus sins against him but to show the guilt and danger of it above the other That place of the Hebrews chap. 6. ver 4. For it is impossible for those who were once enlightened c. If they shall fall away to renew them again to Repentance that is by very good Interpreters thought to denote only great difficulty and not impossibility in the utmost rigour and strictness which it is plain none of the other Phrases however they may sound must be taken in and therefore this expression of our Saviour concerning the Sin against the Holy Ghost they think may be mollified and understood with the same largeness and latitude as those and to import only thus much that it shall be more difficultly repented of and so more hardly forgiven than any other Sins 2. Both the first part of this Verse That all manner of sin and blasphemies shall be forgiven unto men and many other absolute and unconditional Promises or Threatnings or like Declarations in Scripture must not they say be too rigorously and literally understood for if they are the truth which is now evident in them as they are taken with that fairness and equity and those supposals which must go along with them will be forced out and they will become false for it will not be true that all manner of sins and blasphemies shall be forgiven unto men for then none should be damned of made miserable in another World And when St. Paul sayes They that do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of Heaven Gal. 5.21 it must not be made a certain and general conclusion from thence that none who were ever guilty of any one of those Sins whereof he there gives us a black Catalogue shall ever be saved nor become capable of entering into Heaven but that they shall not be so without Repentance and Amendment though that is not there mentioned nor any provision concerning that is so much as intimated in that place nor is that tho' necessary Condition to the forgiveness of every Sin exprest or put down in our Saviours general Declaration that all manner of sins and blasphemies shall be forgiven unto men
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
lasting change both of Heart and Life and in the universal amendment of both Those who do not truly understand it account it so easie and slight and gentle a remedy that will perform its work so easily and suddenly that they are hereby greatly encouraged in their Sins because there is so present and ready and cheap a cure for them Others who are of a different temper made up of melancholly and timorousness they are apt to fall into the other extreme and to think their Sins though none of the greatest yet may be of such a nature as shall never be forgiven and they are extremely fearful and scrupulous that they are of that sort which the Scripture has declared unpardonable and since some seem to be so they can never be perswaded but theirs may be of that number or quality and so they run into a thousand doubts and fears if not into absolute despair of the truth and validity of their Repentance All the failings and imperfections which are unavoidable to our Nature and our present state these they magnifie into heinous and mortal Sins as others are apt to lessen those into weaknesses and infirmities I shall therefore as carefully as I can consider this great Subject with all the parts belonging to it in this following Method I. I shall give a full account of the Nature of Repentance with its Kinds and Degrees that so we may have a true Notion and Vnderstanding of it and avoid the common Mistakes about it II. I shall propose the great Motives to it especially those of the Gospel and such as are peculiar to Christianity III. I shall enquire whether all Sins are pardonable and may have the benefit of Repentance those after Baptism after Relapse And under this Head I shall particularly consider the Sin against the Holy Ghost the Nature of it and why or whether unpardonable and take notice also of other things of this kind but of a lesser nature such as Lusting of the Flesh and Trouble of Mind IV. I shall consider a Death-bed Repentance and enquire into the validity of it and consider the case of the Thief upon the Cross V. I shall endeavour to obviate the mischievous Mistakes and prevent the bad Consequences that too many are apt to draw from this Gospel Priviledge of Repentance VI. I shall give some Practical Rules about the particular Exercise of this Duty VII I shall lay down a certain Mark or Criterion by which we may know we have Repented and are in a pardoned and good state CHAP. I. Giving a full Account of the Nature of Repentance SECT I. Scripture Words for Repentance AS to a true Notion of Repentance there are several words in Scripture by which it is expressed the chief and most remarkable are these three 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The two first we translate by Repentance and have no other word for them the last is turning away from our Sins and turning to God and Goodness The 1. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is an after concern or trouble arising from our Sins when our Mind and Conscience smite us when we have done amiss and we feel inward trouble and horrour arising in our Souls upon the reflection of our past folly and wickedness This is attributed to Judas Matth. 27.3 Then Judas which had betrayed him when he saw that he was condemned repented 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 So that this is but a low part of Repentance though if it be duly qualified it may be that Godly sorrow which worketh Repentance not to be repented of 2 Cor. 7.10 If the bitterness we taste in Sin turn our appetite from it and our grief quite remove our love for it if our tears help to wash away our Sins and to cleanse our guilty and polluted Souls then however sharp or brackish they are they are sanative and medicinal and so have a true vertue and efficacy in them without which they are useless and insignificant 2. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is an after thinking or an after-Wisdom and Understanding when the Sin we thought before so charming and inviting so that it tempted us with its seeming Pleasure or Profit or some appearance of good which was the reason we chose and embraced it we now see and understand to be foolish and unreasonable mischievous and pernicious and are under full convictions of the sad consequences and effects of it and therefore have both wishes and desires that we had never committed it and purposes and resolutions not to be guilty of it again Now this goes a great deal further than the other but still it goes no further than the mind and the inward thoughts passions and affections there which may be if not insincere yet ineffective There must be something further to make up and perfect Repentance which is 3. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 turning from Sin and turning to God and Goodness Thus the Scripture speaks most clearly of Repentance Ezek. 18.21 If the wicked turn from all his sins that he hath committed and doth that which is lawful and right he shall surely live he shall not dye Again at ver 27. When the wicked turneth away from his wickedness and doth that which is lawful and right he shall save his soul alive And at ver 28. Because he considereth and turneth from all his transgressions that he hath committed he shall surely live he shall not dye So Acts 26.20 That they should repent and turn to God which are homonymous and turn from darkness to light and from the power of satan unto God ver 18. This is leaving a wrong path or course of actions we have been engageds in and entring upon a better And this more fully declares the nature of Repentance that 't is an actual amendment and reformation of our Lives a ceasing to do evil and learning to do well as the Prophet expresses it Isa 1.16 17. When they do good that are accustomed to do evil as another Prophet Jer. 13.23 when they who have been bad in any instance become good this is the very essence of Repentance as I shall further shew you 't is Obedience after Disobedience Vertue after Vice Good after Evil and these three together make up true Repentance which is indeed the whole practical condition of the Gospel as St. Paul summes it up SECT II. Kinds and Degrees of Repentance BUT before I come to discourse fully of that I must premise some Limits and Cautions about this Duty or else we shall talk very confusedly about it in general as belonging alike to all Persons Now there are several sorts and kinds of Repentance according to the several kinds and degrees of Sinners There are some Sinners whose Lives are like a leprous Body spread all over with corruption and filthiness as the Prophet describes the wickedness of the Jews Isa 1.6 From the sole of the foot even to the head there is no soundness in it but wounds
and bruises and putrifying sores i. e. They have been wicked in the general tenor and habit of their Lives and these must be wholly changed the whole mass being corrupted it must be quite altered The whole frame of their Minds and whole course of their Actions must be made quite otherwise like a defiled Body they must be wash'd all over or rather like a dead Carcass they must be raised to life again and restored wholly from their state of Death and Corruption which they were in before There are others who are not so diseased all over but yet have some mortal illness growing in some part upon them who are guilty of some particular Sins some known and wilful Faults that destroy their good state and put them into the rank though not of the greatest Sinners yet of such Sinners as shall not enter into Heaven nor escape Eternal Wrath and Vengeance unless they particularly repent of them and wholly forsake and leave them And thus every one who is conscious to himself that he is or has been ever guilty of any known and great Sin whatever it be though it should be but one such Sin must amend that and must get off that particular illness or else it will prove deadly and mortal if it continue upon him for one such disease or one such wound whilst 't is uncured upon the Soul will kill and destroy it as well as more Though a Man may not be universally depraved nor be wholly prostituted to debauchery and irreligion yet if he will indulge himself in any known Sin or in any particular Lust and Wickedness he is in a lost and undone state till he repents and wholly leaves that Sin And if a Man is in a good state and fall into a wilful and great Sin as we know David did that surely cuts him off for a time from his good state and renders him lyable to Gods Anger here and to Misery hereafter till by a serious and hearty Repentance he recovers himself and is so perfectly recovered from the Sin that he will never commit it again whatever Temptation is offered to him There are other Sins which are of a lower and less heinous Nature which do not destroy our good state nor put us out of the Favour of God nor exclude us out of Heaven and these are such as very good Men are subject to and may not be free from whist they are in this body of Sin and Corruption As the most healthful and best Constitutions may be subject to some smaller illnesses and indispositions of Body though not to great and mortal diseases so some frailties failures and imperfections will stick to the best of Men though not any mortal and wilful Sins and these frailties and infirmities are Sins in a strict sense as coming short of perfect Obedience to the Divine Law and these are in some sense also to be repented of i. e. we are to be sensible of them and sorry for them and we are every day to pray to God to forgive us these our Trespasses and we are to endeavour to overcome them as much as is possible and never let them grow as they may by neglect into wilful Sins but these are all pardonable by the Mercy of God and by vertue of the gracious Covenant which he hath made with us in Christ Jesus upon a general Repentance without a perfect and particular amendment of all of them which is utterly impossible and inconsistent with Humane frailty and infirmity There is therefore a great difference to be made in respect of several kinds of Sins and several sorts of Sinners of this great Duty of Repentance There are some of whom the Scripture sayes that they need no repentance Luke 15.7 i. e. who need not such a Repentance as shall change and alter their Spiritual state who never were in a bad state being early Baptized nor never were guilty in their whole lives of any one such great and wilful and heinous Sin as put them into a damnable state I hope there are not a few who are in this blessed condition and therefore who need not this greater Repentance as I think I may call it who by the blessing of God and by means of a very Vertuous and Religious Education have been early trained up in the wayes of goodness and never departed from them who were set right at first and never wandered or strayed out of the paths of Vertue whose Feet never slipt so far as to take hold of the paths of Death or be caught in the snares of the Devil who never defiled themselves with any great Sin but have preserved their virgin-purity and have had no foul spot to sully the whiteness and beauty of their whole unblemisht Conversation but were alwayes innocent and alwayes safe like Zacharias and Elizabeth were alwayes righteous before God walking in all the commandments and ordinances of the Lord blameless Luke 1.6 I cannot say these are wholly sinless and altogether perfect for so none of the Race of Adam or the Children of Men are except our Blessed Saviour for there are some infirmities and weaknesses and imperfections that belong to these and so they stand in need of that lesser Repentance I before spake of but they never were guilty of the great offence and so need not that greater Repentance which others do And 't is of that I now speak a repentance from dead works as the Apostle calls it Heb. 6.1 A Repentance from wilful and mortal Sins such as put us into an ill state and such as we shall certainly perish except we repent of them Luke 13.3 SECT III. True Notion of Repentance NOw this Repentance I would thus describe answerable to those three words by which it is exprest in Scripture A sorrow for our Sins joyned with change and alteration of Mind and amendment or reformation of Life or such a sense of Mind as makes us leave and forsake or turn away from every Sin or all the Sins we have been guilty of and practice the contrary Vertues or perform those other Duties we have broken or been wanting in Thus where we have been bad Men in any instance and violated our Duty and offended God and broken or transgrest his Laws it will make us become good Men afterwards and perform our Duty and return to God and keep or obey his Commandments in all those cases wherein we have done otherwise before This this alone is such a Repentance as avails to Pardon and Salvation as it takes away every Sin which would damn us and brings us to that Obedience and practice of all Vertue and Holiness without which no man can see God or be saved Repentance I own is a word of an equivocal meaning that signifies several things and has several senses belonging to it as sorrow and trouble of Mind change of Thoughts and the like which are meant by the Latin Paenitentia and Resipiscentia and by the Greek 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉
imperfection of our Nature gratifying a low passion a foolish humour a silly custom acting in opposition to Reason and doing things quite contrary to our own wise and calm thoughts but by rashness and inconsideration doing that which we shall afterwards repent of and condemn our selves for and wish we had never done and what we know will tend more to our mischief and prejudice than any real good to us only it pleases our fancy and tickles our senses and is a little grateful to us at present so that 't is a sort of Childishness and want of Understanding and of Manly and Rational Government of our selves to yield to it and be overcome by it this it must appear to any thinking Man to a Heathen and Philosopher that considered the nature of things and the difference of Good and Evil that arose from thence and therefore that to repent of it was as necessary as for a Man to act wisely and reasonably not to do what is weak and foolish below the Nature and the Reason of a Man but now Christ besides all this has represented Sin in more ugly and frightful characters by the Gospel as that which had thrown all Mankind into the most miserable and lost condition as the work of the Devil which he came to destroy as the device and stratagem of evil and malicious Spirits to destroy us so that whenever we are drawn into Sin we are drawn in by the Devil and used as tools by cunning infernal Fiends who this way over-reach us and sport themselves in our ruine and destruction so that when we think we are enjoying our Pleasures and gratifying our Lusts and using the freedoms and liberties of Humane Nature we are but inveigled by those Devils with the baits they lay for us and the snares they every where set to entrap us and are meer slaves and properties to their cunning and cursed designs upon us so that Christ came to rescue us from those by calling us to Repentance to rescue us from the snares of the Devil and redeem us from that servitude and slavery whereby we are led captive by him Christianity better acquaints us also with the Nature of Sin and the Evils of it than Nature could by showing us the ruins it had made upon Mankind and the cost and expences Heaven was at to repair Humane Nature by letting us see the wretched and miserable estate the Sins of Mankind had thrown them into irrecoverably without a Saviour Our Salvation by that stupendous and mysterious way makes the greatness of our danger and the mischief of our Sins more evidently known to us and the whole scheme and contrivance of it contains other considerations against Sin than Natural Religion could ever have known or suggested for by this Sin appears further to be so malignant and hateful to God so detestable and odious in his sight and so contrary to his wise Government of the World that he would not pardon it without the Blood of his own Son shed as an atonement for it nor forgive it to Mankind without such a valuable compensation and satisfaction made for it as that was Now this demonstrates to us above any thing its abominable and displeasing Nature to God and that according to the wise Rules and Maximes of his Government by which he manages the World it must suffer and be severely punished and that there was no escaping of this but by an extraordinary contrivance of Divine Wisdom and Mercy which found out a way by Jesus Christ to save Sinners by Repentance Sin is a greater debt a more deep provocation to Heaven a more horrid affront to Divine Power and Authority a more considerable injury to the good of the World and to the Justice and Holiness of God than to be easily forgiven and passed by as we find by the mystery of our Redemption and the dispensation of Christianity which shows us above any thing the Nature and Evil of it and consequently the great Reasons of our Repenting from it 5. As the Nature and Evil of Sin fo the Consequences and Punishments of it are greater by Christianity and Christ by the threatning of those greater Judgments upon it has called us more loudly to Repentance Nature and the light of Reason taught all Mankind the present and Natural Evils that were like so many Curses cleaving to Sin like Hercules his poysoned shirt clinging to it and sticking fast about it God had annexed a world of evils and mischievous effects to Vice and Wickedness by the original settlement and fundamental constitution of things it was a disease to the Mind and a torment to the Conscience and very often a disease to the Body and rottenness to the Bones a wound to a Mans Credit and a blemish to his good Name and an enemy to all his Interests and to all his Happiness in this World These plain and necessary effects of Sin Mankind could not but observe as so many bitter Fruits naturally growing out of it as from a proper Root and like so many plagues sent from Heaven steeming out of this Pandora's box And these Natural Punishments of Sin and the other as Natural Goods and Rewards of Vertue were the true sanction of the Law of Nature But besides all these there are a thousand times greater and more additional evils superadded to our Sins by Christianity if we do not in time Repent of them there are the positive and eternal evils of Sin in another World for I can by no means call the Torments of Hell Natural which God has revealed to us by the Gospel How little these were known to the World before I might show from the odd fancies of the wisest Heathens about the transmigration of Souls and the revolution of all things within such a period of years and whatever guess they had rather than belief of Punishments for Sin in another World yet that they should be so great as the Scripture now represents them and that they should be Eternal which is the most dreadful part of them this can only be known from the Revelation and Will of God who may continue our being and lengthen or shorten our duration to what time he pleases and therefore as Christ has brought Life and Immortality to light by the gospel 2 Tim. 1.10 so in like manner he has brought Hell and Damnation and revealed such intolerable and greater Punishments to Sin than the World knew before as cannot but fright the most daring Sinner and make the fondest Sensualist part with his Lusts when he considers that all their tempting charms and enticing gayety and momentany pleasures shall end in nothing but Hellish torments unquenchable flames and eternal howlings and gnashings of teeth which must be owned to be a thousand times greater than all the known and visible and Natural Evils of Sin SECT IV. Motives to Repentance from the Consideration of Hell NOW because this is the greatest determent from Sin imaginable and consequently the
greatest motive to Repentance that can possibly be given for nothing is so strong and powerful upon most Men as their fears which is the quickest and strongest Passion in Humane Nature and is apt to make a very great impression where nothing else will and nothing can be so much an object of our fear as Hell and Eternal Misery which is the utmost and most dreadful Evil that can be either felt or imagined I shall particularly and largely offer and represent it to the Sinners thoughts both as to its Nature consisting in the greatest pains and torments of Body and Mind and in the most wretched and miserable state and condition and as all this is Eternal and shall never have end Both which if heartily believ'd and seriously consider'd would have a mighty power and almost irresistible force to bring Men off from their greatest Sins I. Then let us consider its Nature as consisting of the greatest pains and torments both of Body and Mind and in the most wretched and miserable state and condition I shall not attempt fully to describe or draw a picture of this place of Torments our imagination is to be help'd out with all the known instances of Misery and so to form an Idea of that future and unknown and invisible one It is certain it must be adapted to those two parts of which we consist our Bodies and our Minds and what are the proper Evils to either of those we very well know sensible Pain and great Anguish and Sorrow and other tormenting Passions and these we must suppose in the highest degree to belong to Hellish Misery for as Heaven is the utmost good our Natures can possibly receive and are capable of so Hell is the greatest evil and as such is represented to us by that Revelation which assures us of it attended with the most sad and woful circumstances that can be imagined I shall offer the thoughts of it to the Sinner under such Ideas and Representations as are given of it by the Holy Ghost in Scripture And 1. We must conceive a horrid dark and dismal dungeon in some deep cavern of the Earth designed for horrour and fill'd with the blackness of darkness and inhabited only by cursed Fiends and frightful Ghosts and Devils into which the wretched Caitiff is to be thrown bound hand and foot and so cast into outer darkness Matth. 22.13 and delivered into chains of darkness 2 Pet. 2.4 Darkness is the Natural image and symbol of horrour and disconsolateness as Light is of comfort and pleasantness so that the Scripture expresses Happiness by the dwelling in light as it does Misery by being cast into outer darkness where there is not any beam of light nor any the least glimpse of joy and comfort And thus to be shut up for ever in a place of darkness and horrour and confined to this dismal and infernal Prison to all Eternity would be a dreadful Misery were there nothing else but they are to be tormented there as well as imprisoned and that with the most exquisite pains and tortures as they are described to us in the second place 2. By Fire and Burning which is the most terrible the most keen and painful of Bodily punishments which enters the tender parts with pointed and piercing fury and dissolves and distorts them with its rapid motion and has nothing to abate its extreme cruelty but that it quickly consumes and dispatches and spends it self with its own rage and violence as well as destroyes its subject But this is the dreadful Nature of that infernal Fire that it never goes out but is as the Scripture calls it unquenchable and that the miserable wretches that are condemned to it shall endure the pain and the rage of it for ever and shall never be consumed or destroyed by it but shall be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy Angels and in the presence of the Lamb and the smoke of their torment ascendeth up for ever and ever and they have no rest day nor night Rev. 14.10 11. Let us then set before us a burning Lake of liquid Fire and melted Brimstone like Nebuchadnezzars fiery Furnace heat seven times hotter than any thing we here know and the damned wretches cast into it and like Dives sadly tormented in those flames over all their parts so that the Tongue is swelled with heat as in a raging Feaver and nothing would be so comfortable to it as a drop of Water to cool it and to slake and abate the scorching Calenture Some are inclined to think all this but Allegory and Metaphor and painted Fire but the Scripture speaks so often of it that I cannot but think it may be literally true and that Fire is made the instrument of those Bodily pains that are there to be suffered and inflicted after the general Judgment and Resurrection Or however that as great pains of Body are thereby signified and exprest and shall really be endured some way or other as by burning in Fire For if the Holy Spirit to help our weak thoughts and assist our imaginations has made use of those known things only as emblems and pictures of some real pains yet they are certainly as great or greater than any of those by which they are shadowed out and represented as the pleasure of Heaven is much greater no doubt and does far exceed that of a Feast a Wedding a Crown or any such Earthly resemblance As to the proper pain and torment of the Mind which is the other and the greatest part of Hellish Misery for the Mind has a more quick and keen and immediate sense than the Body that is represented in Scripture by the worm which never dyes Matth. 9.46 i. e. by a Passion that bites and gnaws and corrodes and pains us within as the Fire or something else torments the Body from without and this includes in it all those dismal and reflecting thoughts and apprehensions which the Mind has upon its dreadful state and condition As 1. A direful perception of the Divine Anger Wrath and Displeasure which when it lyes heavy upon the Mind in the highest degree will press it into the deepest gulph of Misery and fill it with the most terrible Ideas and most dreadful apprehensions Even in this World when a Sinner tasts but a little of the Cup of Gods Fury 't is a cup of trembling and a cup of astonishment as the Scripture calls it Isa 51.17 Ezek. 23.32 and what will it then be when all the dregs of it must be drunk up When God hides his Face but a little there is all trouble and horrour and what must it then be when he hides it for ever The sense and apprehension of lying under the displeasure of Almighty Power and provoked Justice and abused Goodness and all these highly incensed against a Man and never to be appeased must be very dreadful and make sad impressions upon the Mind The Presence and the Favour of God giveth
Life and Comfort what Death and Misery must it then be to be banished for ever from both with a Depart from me ye oursed 2. The Mind will reflect upon what is past with infinite remorse and anguish and with great regret curse its own folly and madness that has brought it to this sad condition when God had put it in its power to have made it self for ever happy had it been wise and considering as it ought to have been This will be the great sting of its Misery that it wilfully brought it upon it self and for a few foolish and rash and finful actions undid it self for ever and for some trifling reasons and pitiful temptations the little pleasures or profits of Sin which are now all gone made it self thus wretchedly and eternally miserable How with rage and envy will it look up to that Happiness it has lost and sees others enjoy and vex it self with fury that it should refuse and reject that when it was offered to it and this one thought will double and increase its Misery and make it curse and tear it self that it was its own choice 3. As the Mind with looking back will be filled with remerse and anguish upon its past Sins and past Madness so by looking forward and seeing no end of the Misery it is in it will be filled and overwhelmed with Despair which is a Passion of Mind so perfectly and so unspeakably miserable that I shall not venture to describe it for 't is beyond any thing we can imagine and it properly belongs to the next head which is the eternity and endless duration of these Torments and Misery which though it be but a circumstance of time and not properly that wherein they consist yet is the most dreadful perfection and completion of them which I shall consider by and by Let us now but seriously think with our selves what a dreadful state it is to be under all this torment of Mind and pain of Body to lye thus upon the rack of the greatest tortures both from within and without and that in such extremity that they shall make dreadful and hideous signs and expressions of it in weeping and mourning and lamentation and gnashing of teeth Matth 22.13 when they shall gnaw their tongues for pain and blaspheme the God of heaven because of their pains Rev. 16.10 11. And yet all their bitter cryes and dolorous exclamations shall only blow up and kindle the rage and fury of the surrounding flames for none of their sighs shall put out nor their tears extinguish any the least spark of those flames which are kindled by the Wrath of God who is a consuming fire Who can express or imagine the keenness and sharpness of those pains of Body or the pangs and agonies of Conscience the passions and anguish and remorse of Mind and nothing to take off or divert or give the least intermission to all these but an angry God above a dark and bottomless pit of burning Brimstone below and frightful and ugly and insulting Spirits like so many executioners all about it and no friend to call to to pity or to help it O sad and miserable and intolerable condition Who would not do all he could to warn others and himself that they come not to that place of Torments What pleasure or profit can there be in the most tempting Sin that should make a Man venture the enduring all this for the sake of it Who would endure this but one day or one month for all the things this World can afford Who would suffer it for so long a time as this life of Sin here lasts for all that he gets by it Who would endure it a thousand years for all the Kingdoms of this World and the Glories thereof much less who would for a trifling Lust or a sinful Inclination for a little unjust Gain or unlawful Pleasure endure it for ever Which is the next thing I am to speak to That II. This is Eternal and shall never have end This is the dreadful and amazing circumstance of this Misery and that which must confound him that suffers it that it shall last for ever so that there shall never be any hopes of having an end of it after never so many thousand years but there shall be still an infinite Eternity behind and so as much as there was at the first beginning Who can think of this without the utmost horrour and amazement and having his thoughts swallowed up with the dreadful consideration of it It is so great that some have had their Reason overcome and overwhelmed by it so that they have thought it unagreeable and inconsistent with Gods Goodness and Justice to inflict so long and so great a Misery upon any of his Creatures and have therefore endeavoured to limit this Eternity to a shorter compass of time and not to extend it to an absolute but a limited Eternity as sometimes it is understood in Scripture and therefore to reconcile all those places of Scripture to this notion of it and to interpret them so that Eternity in the fullest and utmost sense may not be understood by them I shall therefore briefly examine this Argument which on the one side seems very careful of the credit and honour of the Divine Justice and Goodness but on the other takes off extremely from the utmost terrour of Hellish Torments in denying them to be Eternal so that it may tend in great measure to take off the power and force of those which are the greatest restraints that God could lay upon Sin and Wickedness and since so few are prevailed upon by them though under the doctrine and perswasion of their being Eternal how much fewer would be so if they thought them otherwise I shall therefore First Briefly show how this Eternity of Hellish Torments is agreeable to Gods Goodness Secondly How it is plainly and undeniably proved from Scripture and Revelation First How ' tls agreeable to Gods Goodness to punish the few Sins of a short Life with such great and never ending Torments when in all Governments and all distributions of Justice the Punishment ought not to be so disproportioned and so much greater than the Crime And besides how a good and tender and pitiful God should keep a poor Creature in being for ever meerly to let it suffer and be miserable and endure infinite Torments To this I answer briefly 1. Whatever Punishment is necessary to secure the ends of Government to preserve Obedience to Laws and to keep bold and daring Men from breaking and violating them whatever is necessary to this end is just and necessary and agreeable both to the Goodness and Wisdom and Justice of the best Government for otherwise there must be no such thing as Government in the World but God must give up his Authority and throw the reins loose upon the necks of his Creatures if he have not a power to threaten and inflict such Punishments as shall be sufficient to
an irresistible force and impulse which shall do all this in an instant and convert a Sinner in a moment No this must be done gradually and successively by the bringing in of other thoughts dispositions inclinations and practices by a kindly and gentle influence upon our Minds the Spirit descending like rain or shedding its Vertue like dew upon our Hearts and so bringing forth the fruits of Repentance in us not like a violent stream or a mighty torrent bearing down all immediately before it The Spirit of God which is compared in Scripture to the winds blowing where we see the effects though we discern not the cause does not by a sudden gust like a hurricane convert a Sinner and turn him from his Sins in such a manner as a tree is torn up by the roots with a violent tempest but by a fresh and gentle gale it carries the Sinner from Vice to Vertue by filling his Mind with new thoughts and strongly moving and determining him the right way and secretly inclining his Mind to choose and his Understanding to see and consider what is his true Interest and Happiness and by an inward energy and vertue as a principle of Life acts secretly and undiscernably upon all our Faculties changing our thoughts desires and affections and working upon our Minds though in a way agreeable to our Rational Faculties yet by a Power superiour and superadded to them And now let every Sinner consider what great Motives and Encouragements and so what Obligations he hath to Repent by the Gospel how powerfully and how endearingly by Motives both of Love and Fear Christ doth there call Sinners to Repentance It was his great work and for this purpose he came into the World to recover lost and undone Mankind and to rescue them from that state of Sin and Misery they were in and to restore them to a state of Vertue and Happiness This was a design worthy Christs coming into the World and all the mysterious dispensation of Christianity 7. And this is of such absolute necessity and importance to us that 't is impossible we can otherwise escape Misery and not perish inevitably God when he would show the greatest Mercy and Kindness to us in the World and demonstrate his Love to us in the highest manner as he hath done by the Gospel yet hath there told us that except we repent we shall all certainly perish Luke 13.5 This is the perpetual and indispensable condition upon which alone we must expect any benefit by Christ and the Gospel this is as low as God can go with us Perfect and uninterrupted Obedience all our lives is his due and when we have broken that and he compounds with us and accepts of Partial and Renewed Obedience instead of Entire i. e. of Repentance and returning to our Duty instead of keeping alwayes to it this is the utmost favour can be expected from him or that he can grant to us and Repentance is the only way by which it is possible for a Sinner to escape Wrath and Damnation This I shall a little clear and make out and then perswade to this Duty of Repentance from the absolute necessity of it 1. Then 't is this alone can consist with the Wisdom and Honour of God as he is Governour of the World God as he is a Being of Infinite Goodness and Compassion to his Creatures so he is a very Wise and Prudent Governour of the World and therefore though like a merciful Prince out of the Goodness of his Nature and the tender Inclinations he has for all his Subjects he is ready to shew all Mercy and Clemency to those that have offended him yet if he should do this too easily without any security of their good behaviour for the future or any care and provision for their better Obedience it would not a little reflect upon the Wisdom of his Government and represent him as too soft and easie a Being and render his Authority in time cheap and contemptible It would not only loosen the reins of Government but be a letting them go out of his hands and throwing them upon the necks of his insolent and rebellious Vassals if without any tyes or obligations for the future or letting them know upon what conditions they should be capable of his favour and continue in it he should take off all the Punishment their past Crimes had deserved this would be to encourage them to commit new ones and give them just grounds to hope for an absolute and perpetual impunity Should God have granted by the Gospel or any other way such an Unconditional Charter of Mercy and Pardon this would have certainly destroyed that very Power by which he granted it and such a Privilege or Concession as it would greatly have reflected upon his Honour so it would have quite undermined his Authority it would have been a resigning up his Throne and a laying his Crown at the feet of his own insolent Rebels For what would have remain'd to him of Power to Govern or to Punish if he had done this If he had set out a standing Act of Grace and Mercy to all Sinners without any Condition or Proviso that they turn from their Wickedness which they had committed that they should come in and lay down all their Hostile Weapons and be Faithful and Loyal hereafter or else be utterly uncapable of any benefit of it Without this it had been rather a Dispensation or Indulgence to be Wicked than a wise Proclamation of Mercy to serve the true Ends and Interest of Government God indeed has with great Wisdom and Goodness found out such a temper in his Government and contrived such an expedient as shews the most admirable Wisdom and the most wonderful Mercy both together and that is for the sake and by the mediation of a Sacrifice to pardon and yet to punish the Sinner by the same way to give an instance of his Mercy and a remonstrance of his Justice and the design of all that is to show that though he is the most inclined to Mercy and Clemency yet he will never show it but in such a way as is consistent with the Honour and Wisdom of his Government He is willing to abate of his extream Right over his Creatures and to take off the edge and severity of his Laws so far as Prudence and the Wise Ends of Government will give leave but not so far as shall give any manner of encouragement to Disobedience and Wickedness and that would be unavoidable if he should ever grant a Pardon to wicked Men upon any other condition than turning away from their Wickedness 2. As 't is this alone can consist with the Honour and Wisdom of God as he is a wise Governour so nothing but this can render us acceptable to him as he is a truly Righteous and Holy Being If we consider God as such as a Being essentially holy so that this is not only his Perfection but his very Nature then
or Happiness nor be freed from Sin and Misery nor can a Holy and Wise God be reconciled to him or forgive him Upon all these accounts we see his Repentance is absolutely necessary to entitle him to Pardon and Salvation and without this he must certainly and unavoidably perish Now 8. This absolute necessity of it is a strong and powerful Argument to perswade us to it Whilst Men have any hopes of escaping with their Sins this with the pleasures and temptations of them will encourage them to persist in them and to enjoy their Lusts and their Liberties which they have made very hard and uneasie to deny themselves but when they find they must either do this or else necessarily perish for ever this if any thing will prevail upon Men who believe and consider the dreadful horrour of Everlasting Damnation Now the absolute necessity of Repentance is as plain by the Gospel as the power and validity of it We are as much assured that without it we shall be damned as we shall be saved with it Now this above all commends a Medicine to us that it will cure us if we use it but that we shall dye if we do not however bitter and unpalatable it may be however it may disorder us while it is working upon us and however painful the operation may be yet if we must lose our Lives without it this will make us choose and endure it and go through with it Though we must cut off a Right-hand yet if the Gangrene will kill us if we do not we shall submit to it Though it be very painful to part with our Lusts and our beloved Sins yet since we must be damned if we do not this will bring us to it If a Man must sink unless he throwes away his richest lading and discharges himself of his weighty treasure he will lose that rather than his Life and if he be not mad he will for the same reason cast away his Sins rather than his Soul No Man disputes this when he is brought into such a necessity such a strait and exigency as to be thus tryed Now Christ has by the Gospel put this necessity upon us either Repent and leave your Sins or perish with them There is no avoiding this no possibility to prevent it any way and therefore when there is but one thing to be done and such a necessity for doing it one would think it should do it self but this is a necessity of Reason of Choice of Thought of Deliberation that requires our Minds to think of it and consider it or else it will not work upon us and therefore we can throw off the force and power of it by not thinking or not considering of it but if we did as we ought duly consider of it it would have an irresistible force and power upon us and no Man could hinder the effect of it but he that will shut his eyes and not see a precipice may fall down it and the greatest necessity of avoiding any danger is took off by not heeding or not being sensible of it though it be never the less great in it self for all that and the necessity would work upon any but those who are heedless and inconsiderate Sad is the state and condition of those under the Gospel who live in a state of Sin and Impenitence or in the habit of any unrepented Sin they are under as absolute a sentence of condemnation as if the great Judge had pronounced it upon them and bid them Go ye cursed Whilst they continue such there is no more hopes of Mercy for them than for the damned themselves Their state indeed is not as unalterable as the others is and this is the only difference for they are otherwise as much Children of Wrath as they They are not bound in chains of darkness nor confined to this state by an irreversible Judgment but they are fettered to their Sins and to their state by their own choice and till they break those bonds and get free from them they can never come out of that sad condition which should make every impenitent Sinner tremble and seriously bethink himself what a sad state and condition he is in what a doom hangs over his head and how near his steps take hold of Death how he walks upon the brink of Hell and Damnation and the least fatal accident or sudden death does irrecoverably throw him in without Redemption which should make his Heart tremble and his Blood chill and his Hair stand an end if he considered it as he ought Let him therefore resolve to snatch himself out of the fire and speedily recover himself from the jaws of Death Repentance alone can do this and this he should set about immediately and be perswaded to it by those powerful Motives and Arguments which the Gospel and Christianity proposes and which I have from thence offered to him I shall subjoyn to these another Motive or Exhortation to Repentance which I cannot call so properly Evangelical and peculiar to the Gospel but what arises from both Nature and Reason and some Gospel Considerations mixt together and complicated with those and that is the Consideration of Death and our being made ready and prepared for it by Repentance and therefore that nothing else can free us from the fears and terrors of it SECT VI. Exhortation to Repentance as a Preparation for Death or in order to make us ready to dye THE last Motive then I shall propose to Repentance is this that nothing else can prepare and make us ready and fit to dye and therefore nothing else can take off the fear and terror of Death to which in all reason we must otherwise be exposed and so all our life time subject to bondage as the Scripture speaks Dye we know we must in a little while and there is none so foolishly Sceptical as to deny or disbelieve this and to hope to escape the Grave where he has seen all his Fore-fathers laid before him and which is the common lot or fate of every Mortal There is nothing therefore more concerns us while we live than to be alwayes ready and prepared to dye this should be our great work and business if we considered the true end of living or understood the mighty consequence of dying as Religion represents them both to us and he that is not so foolish as to think he shall never dye should above all things take care so to live that he may be alwayes ready to dye and of the two 't is a greater folly to think we shall dye and not prepare for it than to think we shall not dye at all This it is then which a wise Man is concerned to do all his Life to be ready and prepared for Death which he knows will certainly come and because it is uncertain when it will come therefore to be alwayes ready and alwayes provided for it There is so much danger and hazard not to do this
if some Men were more afraid of Death than they are and as I am sure they have all reason to be that so they might be brought off from their evil wayes and not run headlong upon those dangers which are very near them though they are not sensible of them The sword hangs over their head though they do not see it and nothing but the thin thread of Life keeps it from falling upon them they walk blindfold upon the brinks of Hell and Damnation and it would be well of Fear would open their Eyes and make them recover themselves before Death makes it too late Nothing can truly and throughly arm us against the Fears of Death but Repentance and a good Life To those who have lived in the practice of them Death is a very harmless thing 't is but lying down to sleep closing the eyes and going to rest the Bodies being sensless a while till it awakes at the great day of Judgment and passing a longer night in the Grave till it arises more fresh and lively in the morning of the Resurrection and as for the Soul 't is a short and quick passage from Earth to Heaven and therefore such have no reason to be afraid of it when it approaches them never so near But then 2. Let the true Penitent quicken his Faith at that time and raise that to the highest and strongest pitch that so he may then look beyond the grave and see and believe and desire those happy and glorious things which God has prepared for him in another World If we believed those as we ought we should never be so afraid to dye if we were so affected with those pleasures that are above and that are at Gods Right-hand for evermore we should not be so loth to part with the Pleasures shall I say rather with the Troubles and the Miseries of this Life Did we think as we ought of that perfect peace and joy and satisfaction which is not to be had here but to be met with only in Heaven we should not be so fond to abide in this Valley of Tears and not go up to those Mansions above where is full Joy and Contentment Let us fix our thoughts and set our hearts upon those happy Regions of Bliss and Glory and we shall not fear to pass through the shadow of Death to come to them tho' the way to that Heavenly Canaan is through a Wilderness through the dark and unknown Region of Death through which a thousand wandering Souls are alwayes passing yet we shall be conducted safely through it by Angels who will bring us to the Palace of the great King where we shall be received by our blessed Master and Saviour and by all the Saints and holy Souls that are gone before us who as they rejoyce at a Sinners Repentance will now welcome him to his Fathers house and we shall then as much wonder at our selves for fearing to dye as we are now willing to live If the account which Scripture gives us of those invisible Regions be true and we do fully believe that Joy that Glory that Blessedness that unspeakable Happiness which is there revealed to us this our Faith joyn'd with our Repentance should overcome the Fears of Death and make us not only not afraid but desire to be dissolved and to be willing to lay down this load and luggage of Flesh because we know that if our earthly house oâ— this tabernacle were dissolved we have a building of God an house not made with hands eternal in the heavens And there shall be no more Sin nor Sorrow nor Repentance but the blessed Penitent now he is safely arrived at his happy Port shall look back upon the past hazards and dangers he was in and comfortably remember how his Sins like so many Rocks had like to have split and shipwreck'd and swallowed him up in the gulph of Perdition and how by the wonderful Grace of God he hath happily escaped them and is come safe to Heaven and therefore will now offer Eternal Thanksgivings and pay his Vows of Praise to his great Deliverer and rejoyce evermore in his Glorious and Heavenly Salvation CHAP. III. Whether all Sins are Pardonable and may have the benefit of Repentance I Am next to consider Whether all Sins are Pardonable and may have this benefit of Repentance This has been denyed by a great many and particularly by the Novatians who would not allow Pardon and Absolution to wilful and great Sins committed after Baptism and this is charged upon Smalcius and other Socinians that they deny the same to heinous and habitual Sins of Relapse into which any shall fall after they have once Repented and been freed from them And there are some places of Scripture that seem very much to favour these hard Opinions as Heb. 6.4 5 6. For it is impossible for those who were once inlightened and have tasted of the heavenly gift and were made partakers of the Holy Ghost and have tasted the good word of God and the powers of the world to come if they shall fall away to renew them again unto Repentance And Heb. 10.26 For if we sin wilfully after that we have received the knowledge of the truth there remaineth no more sacrifice for sins And 2 Pet. 2.20 21 22. For if after they have escaped the pollutions of the world through the knowledge of the Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ they are again intangled therein and overcome the latter end is worse with them than the beginning For it had been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness then after they have known it to turn from the holy commandment delivered unto them But it is happened unto them according to the true proverb The dog is returned to his own vomit and the sow that was washed to her wallowing in the mire And in other places the Scripture speaks of a Sin unto Death 1 John 5.16 as of a more malignant and deadly Nature and different from all other Sins which are Mortal and Sins also unto Death without Repentance And our Saviour sayes expresly of the Sin against the Holy Ghost that it is unpardonable and shall not be forgiven neither in this world nor the world to come Luke 12.20 Matth. 12.32 i. e. as St. Mark expresses it It hath never forgiveness but is in danger of eternal damnation Mark 3.29 And what that is is not fully agreed on by Divines and so there may be fear if not danger of a Christians falling into it and so into an unpardonable state by the Holy Ghosts being so many wayes concerned in his Salvation and he having so many wayes to Sin against him This gives therefore great trouble to a great many Minds and if one particular Sin or any sorts of Sin be unpardonable by the Gospel they will be very fearful and can hardly be satisfied but that they have committed that Sin and so are cut off from all hopes by it and they will
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
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
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
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
two such Receptacles for the Souls of all Men and Angels to spend an Eternity in for the fixt continuance and Eternal Duration of their state is more plainly revealed then their particular State and Condition so that all Rational Souls must be consigned to one of those States and Places for they who have made a Third or Fourth have made it only out of their own brains and imaginations not out of any Scriptural foundation or Authority there must be allowed to be very great differences and unequal degrees of happiness or misery in those two places or else neither the Justice of God nor the different Cases of Men can be accounted for with any tolerable ease and satisfaction to our thoughts or be any way reconciled to the principles either of Reason or Religion God the Just and All-knowing Judge will give all allowances to the hard circumstances the invincible ignorance the unavoidable failures the powerful temptations the particular cases and several disadvantages that any of Mankind have been under and with the fairest and most impartial equity will adjudge all their Conditions and proportion their future Rewards and Punishments according to what is due to them all things considered according to the right or wrong use of that freedom and liberty which he gave them and the faults or vertues under that light and knowledge they had of their own wills and choices by which alone they can either be or be denominated good or bad Men Some of Mankind seem not to have either vertues enough to qualifie them for Heaven or to be so wilfully vitious as to deserve Hell but to be in a kind of middle state here between Vertue and Vice whatever they shall be in hereafter and many who are guilty of some Vices which the Scripture declares damnable and exclusive of Heaven yet are not of such downright Irreligion and General Profligacy and Debauchery as others Thus also many have some real sense of Religion but yet are but weakly moved and influenced by it and do but just live in a very low way of Grace and Vertue and are not so Rich in good works nor do so abound in Acts of Piety Zeal Usefulness and Charity as others Therefore one Equal Complete Perfect Entire State either of Happiness or Misery cannot belong to all these alike but Heaven or Hell are proportionable unequal different conditions of both exactly suited and fitted to the Moral and Religious Deserts Capacities and Qualifications of all Rational Beings in which they shall be fixt to all Eternity without alteration though perhaps not without further improvements and gradual risings and fallings according to the Nature of either of those States These Thoughts have been a great ease and satisfaction to my self in the Conception of the great and amazing things of another World and I therefore communicate them not only on the fore-mentioned account but because they may be so to others who consider those greatest Objects of Meditation with any penetration of thought according to the best helps we have of Philosophy and Scripture and I am perswaded it would be good Service to Religion if it were thus fairly reconciled in all the revealed Truths and Articles of it to the thoughts of inquisitive Men as I doubt not but it may be but this is a subject of another Nature which I am not now to meddle withal CHAP. VI. Practical Rules and Directions concerning the Particular Exercise of Repentance I Shall now consider the Particular Exercise of Repentance taken as a single Duty distinct from all others of Obedience which are in the largest sense involved in it and without which it is not effectual to Pardon and Salvation as I have all along shown but Repentance taken singly for a particular act of a Sinner just struck and affected with a sense of his Sins and exercising at set times Penitential Reflections and proper Actions upon the thoughts and remembrance of them this which is often called Repentance and is so in some sense but not sufficient to compleat this Duty and to entitle us to all the effects of Repentance as they are promised to it in Scripture in a more large and comprehensive Notion as including a good Life and all manner of Obedience after we have failed and come short in any point This which I would call Penitence or Penance as being a Penal Exercise or Penitential Course and Discipline fit for a Sinner to go through after he has committed any great Sin or whenever he seriously remembers and considers and recollects as he ought often to do with himself the most considerable miscarriages of his Life This consists in these following things 1. In confessing of his Sin 2. In inward and outward Sorrow for it 3. In Humiliations Bodily Austerities and Mortifications and especially Fasting as the chief of them In these the Scripture and the Church and the custom of good Men in all Ages have placed this Exercise of Repentance as consisting of such Penitential Acts not as a permanent Habit of renewed Obedience and recovered Vertue nor as if the Essence or the formal Vertue and proper fruits of it lay in these but in Reformation of Heart and Life Conversion and Obedience to God but these are the buds and blossoms of those fruits of Repentance the seeds and the signs of it or at least the outward concomitants and attendants of it and such a retinue as are proper to go along with it for the solemnity at least and decent performance of it if not as absolutely necessary to the thing it self Necessary generally in private but alwayes in publick Acts or Expressions of Repentance wherein a publick reparation and satisfaction is to be given to Gods Honour and Authority his Judgments to be averted and his Anger deprecated and a common sense and apprehension of all this to be promoted and inculcated among others as in publick Penances and National Repentances and therefore we read chiefly of these upon such occasions both in Scripture and Ecclesiastical Writers Open Sins are a dishonouring of God an affronting and despising his Power and Authority a setting up our Wills against his a gratifying and indulging our selves in undue liberties and unlawful inclinations of Body Now 't is fit therefore in our Repentance for them wherein we make what amends we can to God and repair the injury we have done him and undo the Sin as far as we are able and show our utmost displeasure against it that we should fall down before him and confess it and be sorry for it and humble our selves to him and own our vileness and wretchedness and unworthiness and express the deepest resentments of it and show our anger against our selves and revenge it very severely and afflict our Souls and our Bodies with something that shall not be very grateful to them nor pleasant and acceptable to our Senses The design of all this is to beget in our Mind such thoughts of our Sins and such passions and
Frailties are we guilty of in our Lives which are in strictness deviations from the Divine Law How many secret Sins are we to be cleansed and freed from which we might be ignorant of when we committed or not remember afterwards and which are forgotten by us and blotted out of our memories tho' they are not out of Gods but he might impute and charge them to us would he enter into strict Judgment with us How many foolish Thoughts rash Words irregular Passions unreasonable Desires are we dayly guilty of and how many defects and omissions of doing our Duty with less degrees of ardency frequency and perfection then we ought to do these all stand in need of Divine Mercy and this we shall be sure of for Christs sake if we are sincere and hearty and upright in our Obedience but this is a mighty Favour of God and of the New Covenant and calls for a great sense of Thankfulness and Gratitude To say we sin dayly and that the best things we do have Sin mixt with them is true in a certain sense as there is some defect and imperfection in our most Holy Duties and that we have some Infirmities that we ought dayly to confess and beg forgiveness of at Gods hands but this is by no means true of any such wilful Sin as every good Man must be free from whilst he is in a good state and has a title to Heaven Under the Law God had provided a standing Expiation for the lesser Sins of Ignorance and Infirmity by the dayly and other Sacrifices but there was none for presumptuous Sins but he that was guilty of them was to be cut off and dye without Mercy by the Law of Moses Christianity is a more Gracious Dispensation and allowes Pardon for the greatest Sin upon Repentance and Amendment and the Blood of Christ is a standing Expiation for those and all the lesser and dayly Sins we commit and Christ is our dayly Advocate and Intercessor with God for them 4. When the Scripture sayes that we are all Sinners and that if we say we have no Sin we deceive our selves and that there is not a Righteous Man who liveth and sinneth not and we by our dayly Confessions own our selves to be dayly Sinners this is meant only of those lesser Sins of Frailty and Infirmity Ignorance and Inconsideration which I have explained to you which are consistent with a good State which regenerate and holy Men are not quite free from which neither destroy our own sincerity nor Gods love to us nor our reasonable hopes of Heaven but any other Sins that are of a wilful and presumptuous Nature those a good Man must be wholly free from or else he loses his Goodness and becomes a Child of Wrath and Damnation till he recovers himself by Repentance and if he ever falls into any such he must exercise a most bitter and particular course of Repentance and put himself into a state of great Penitence and bring himself to an entire amendment and forsaking of it till he can have any well grounded hopes of Pardon and Salvation There have been a great many Disputes about attaining Perfection of Obedience and Vertue in this Life some holding Erroneously that they could absolutely and fully come up to it and live wholly without Sin others as Erroneously that they were such dayly Sinners as deserved dayly Gods Wrath and Damnation and that they sinned in every thing they did Now these extreams of Errors are easily reconciled and cleared this way that no one can come up to absolute Perfection so as to live without the lesser Sins of Frailty and Infirmity but every good Man ought to be so perfect as to live without any wilful chosen and known Sin 5. Even those lesser Sins we must strive against and endeavour to overcome and master and pray for the Divine Grace and use all care and watchfulness against them else they become wilful and voluntary by our neglect of them and not using a due diligence to prevent and hinder them Smaller Sins like lesser and smaller Diseases may affect and indispose the most sound and healthful Constitution but if they are neglected and suffered to grow too much upon it they may become great and mortal The first motions of Concupiscence are not strict Sins or at most but Sins of Infirmity but if those first sparks are not put out as soon as they are kindled but are suffered to glow and kindle within by morose thoughts and indulged fancies and imaginations they will break out into some undue acts and outward effects If the Passions and Appetites that are Natural to us are not mortified by due care exercise and thoughtfulness they will grow masterless and ungovernable and be at the beck of every Temptation that invites them and run greedily after every Lust that layes a proper object in their way or sets it before them A hasty fit of Anger if it be not put out may not go off in a sudden blaze and expire in its own sudden heats and Passion but the Cholerick humour may concoct into malice and revenge and habitual spite and ill will and so may a fretful peevishness and sharpness of Temper spread like a Tetter and grow incurable and eat out all that sweetness and meekness kindness love and good Nature which are to be the Vertues of a Christian in all the proper acts of them however sower be their Blood or predominant their Spleen God may abate in great measure for an unhappy Constitution but he will never allow any wilful Sin as the effect of it We must guard our selves with greater care and watchfulness where we know we lye open to any such weakness and call in all the helps of Religion to fortifie and defend us against any such enemy that we are so much in danger of else an impure an angry a covetous an ambitious thought and inclination nourished in our Hearts and not watched over and corrected may like a poysonous seed or root of bitterness if suffered to grow up bring forth all the fruits that proceed from it and make all those sinful corruptions in the Heart become wilful Sins and produce actual Transgressions in our Lives We must not allow our selves in any Sins whatever upon pretence of their being little for if we do they become wilful and chosen and as the Wise Man sayes He that sinneth by little and little shall perish by little and little A small leak in a Ship may if it be not stop'd let in Water enough in time to sink it and a small breach in the banks of a Sea-wall may cause a general inundation Some little Sins will adhere to the best of Men but they must not be voluntary or consented to but brought upon them by ignorance surprize or inadvertency and some unavoidable cause or necessity which Morally speaking is so to them and they can never perfectly help it for so much of will as there is in any Sin so
aversations against them or at least to let those inward thoughts and passions which are supposed to arise in it from the reflection upon them to have such outward vent and expressions as Naturally belong to them and as other objects of grief and trouble are apt to excite in them for without those inward thoughts and passions which are the springs of these outward actions they are all but feigned and hypocritical and so a mocking of God who knows the Heart and then these outward penitences are like rains and showers to make the springs rise higher and to feed and increase those inward aversions and passions and displeasures against our Sins and thus they are instruments and helps to promote Repentance as well as acts and exercises of it But I shall consider them all singly and the particular Rules belonging to each of them 1. Then Confession of Sins is a necessary part of this Repentance If we confess our sins God is faithful and just to forgive us our sins 1 Joh. 1.9 i. e. this Confession with its due effects will procure forgiveness as 't is Prov. 28.13 He that confesseth and forsaketh his sin shall have mercy This is very necessary and fit to be observed concerning Repentance and other Duties in Scripture as Faith and the like that when Pardon or Salvation is promised or ascribed to any of them they are to be taken not singly and by themselves but with all their consequences and effects so that 't is a Metonymy of a part for the whole when it is said He that believeth shall be saved i. e. he that believeth and obeyeth the Gospel and he that repenteth or he that confesseth his Sin shall be forgiven i. e. if he so repent of it or confess it as to forsake and amend it and therefore though the Gospel promises often Blessedness to single Vertues as in our Saviours Sermon on the Mount yet it means to those Vertues joyned with the others and not separate from them for they are all necessary to our true Blessedness and when some particular Duties have the promise of Salvation 't is in conjunction with all the rest for universal Obedience to all the Laws of the Gospel is the only full Condition of our Salvation and neither Faith or Repentance or any one single Vertue or Duty without that will make us happy or save us as is plain by the whole tenour of it which yet some are not so willing to understand This Confession of Sin which is the first part of Repentance to owne we have done amiss is an acknowledging the folly and evil of our Sins that we are sensible they were acts of imprudence as to our selves of unbecomingness and unworthiness to God and very impudent breaches and violations of the Laws of Heaven for our Confessions are not to instruct God or to inform him of what he already knows as well as our selves nor is he pleased with a long roll or catalogue of our Sins recited before him but they are Inditements brought against our selves a charge and pleading guilty upon it of our many Treasons and Misdemeanours against Heaven and the reading or repeating of it is to strike us with an inward sense of the sad and dreadful state we are in by reason of them and how like notorious Criminals we stand convicted by our own Consciences and condemned by our own Confession and so without infinite Mercy justly obnoxious to the severest Punishment and Judgment of God Our Confession is to quicken and enliven and strike the sense of our Sins more deeply and keenly into our Souls to make our Hearts bleed afresh upon every remembrance of them and to renew the Passions of Grief and Trouble upon the thoughts of them Like those who brought Caesars bloody Coat into the Forum and shewed the People the holes thro' which his Murderers had stab'd him that so they might move their highest rage and indignation so we are to set our Sins before us that so we may stir up our anger and hatred and displeasure the more highly against them Though they are never so long past yet we should remember them with bitterness and sigh whenever we think of them and whatever brings them to our Mind should bring such Passions along with them as show we do not like them nor are pleased with them When they rise up in our Consciences or our Memories it should be cum ructu acido with a sowerness and loathing as things most unagreeable and offensive to us and our Confession should be a discharging and casting them from us The Soul may be loaded and opprest with them till it has thus eased it self by Confession which may be like lancing an Ulcer letting out the painful and purulent matter and laying open the Wound in order to the healing of it We ought to search our Hearts and Consciences to the bottom and to own and confess all our Sins that so we may be duly affected with the grievousness of them and may excite such penitential resentments as are fit often to be stirred up in our Souls He that is sensless and stupified under his Sins is in a grievous and lamentable case The Soul is then under the height of the Disease and has the most incurable Symptoms upon it when 't is thus under a Spiritual Lethargy and its ill Habit and Crasis is like to bring it to an Apoplexy of which it will dye more certainly and unavoidably If it be possible it must be brought to pain in order to cure it and the most smarting Remedies must be used to awaken it and bring it to it self it must be burn'd and cup'd and scarified to bring some feeling to its seared Conscience and the sharp sting of its Sins must prick it to the quick to make its brawny and callous Heart have any sense of them They must therefore be offered to its thoughts and memory with all their aggravations and bitter circumstances and the most rouzing and awakening reflections and considerations And this is the design of Confession to keep a lively and quick and due sense of our manifold Sins upon our Minds that we neither forget them nor become insensible of them God will not forget them nor does he need to be reminded of them but we must remind our selves and say with David My sin is ever before me Psal 51.3 and mine iniquity have I not hid Psal 32.5 that is not from my self and my own thoughts and remembrance for to hide it from God is impossible but I will alwayes have a sorrowful sense and bitter remembrance of it 2. This is to be joyned with inward sorrow and contrition and with our outward weeping and lamenting as Peter upon denying his Master went out and wept bitterly Matth. 26. and his Penitents in the Acts were pricked to the heart Acts 2.37 and were under great sorrow and compunction of Mind and David watered his couch with his tears Psal 6.6 and rivers of water run
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