mercifull it is not to be supposed that he will snatch Infants from their Mothers breasts and throw them into the everlasting flames of Hell for the sin of Adam that is as to them for their meer natural state of which himself was Author and Creator that is he will not damne them for being good For God saw every thing that he had made and behold it was very good and therefore so is that state of descent from Adam God is the Author of it and therefore it cannot be ill It cannot be contraray to God because it is his work Upon the account of these reasons I suppose it safe to affirme that God does not damne any one to Hell meerly for the sin of our first Father which I summe up in the words of S. Ambrose or whoever is the Author of the Commentaries upon the Epistles of S. Paul attributed to him In cap. 5. Rom. Mors autem dissolutio corporis est cum anima à corpore separatur Est alia mors quae secunda dicitur in Gehennâ quam non peccato Adae patimur sed ejus occasione propriis peccatis acquiritur Death is the dividing Soul and Body There is also another death which is in Hell and is called the second Death which we do not suffer for the sin of Adam but by occasion of it we fall into it by our own sins Next we are to inquire whether or no it does not make us infallibly naturally and necessarily vitious by taking from us Original righteousness by discomposing the order of our faculties and inslaving the will to sin and folly concerning which the inquiry must be made by parts For if the sin of Adam did debauch our Nature and corrupt our will and manners it is either by a Physicall or Natural efficiency of the sin it self or 2. Because we were all in the loyns of Adam or 3. By the sentence and decree of God 1. Not by any Natural efficiency of the sin it self Because then it must be that every sin of Adam must spoile such a portion of his Nature that before he died he must be a very beast 2. We also by degeneration and multiplication of new sins must have been at so vast a distance from him at the very worst that by this time we should not have been so wise as a flie nor so free and unconstrain'd as fire 3. If one sin would naturally and by physical causality destroy Original righteousness then every one sin in the regenerate can as well destroy Habitual righteousness because that and this differ not but in their principle not in their nature and constitution And why should not a righteous man as easily and as quickly fall from grace and lose his habits as Adam did Naturally it is all one 4. If that one sin of Adam did destroy all his righteousness and ours too then our Original sin does more hurt and is more punish'd and is of greater malice then our actual sin For one act of sin does but lessen and weaken the habit but does not quite destroy it If therefore this act of Adam in which certainly at least we did not offend maliciously destroys all Original righteousness and a malicious act now does not destroy a righteous habit it is better for us in our own malice then in our ignorance and we suffer less for doing evil that we know of then for doing that which we knew nothing of 2. If it be said that this evil came upon us because we all were in the loins of Adam I consider 1. That then by the same reason we are guilty of all the sins which he ever committed while we were in his loins there being no imaginable reason why the first sin should be propagated and not the rest and he might have sinned the second time and have sinn'd worse Adde to this that the later sins are commonly the worse as being committed not onely against the same law but a greater reason and a longer experience and heightned by the mark of ingratitude and deeply noted with folly for venturing damnation so much longer And then he that was born last should have most Original sin and Seth should in his birth and nature be worse then Abel and Abel be worse then Cain 2. Upon this account all the sins of all our progenitors will be imputed to us because we were in their loins when they sinn'd them and every lustful father must have a lustful son and so every man or no man will be lustful For if ever any man were lustful or intemperate when or before he begot his childe upon this reckoning his childe will be so too and then his grandchilde and so on for ever 3. Sin is seated in the will it is an action and transient and when it dwells or abides it abides no where but in the will by approbation and love to which is naturally consequent a readiness in the inferior faculties to obey and act accordingly and therefore sin does not infect our meer natural faculties but the will onely and not that in the natural capacity but in its moral onely 4. And indeed to him that considers it it will seem strange and monstrous that a moral obliquity in a single instance should make an universal change in a natural suscipient and in a natural capacity When it is in nature impossible that any impression should be made but between those things that communicate in matter or capacity and therefore if this were done at all it must be by a higher principle by Gods own act or sanction and then should be referred to another principle not this against which I am now disputing 5. No man can transmit a good habit a grace or a vertue by natural generation as a great Scholars son cannot be born with learning and the childe of a Judge cannot upon his birth day give wise sentences and Marcus the son of Cicero was not so good an Orator as his father and how can it be then that a naughty quality should be more apt to be disseminated then a good one when it is not the goodness or the badness of a quality that hinders its dissemination but its being an acquir'd superinduc'd quality that makes it cannot descend naturally Adde to this how can a bad quality morally bad be directly and regularly transmitted by an action morally good and since neither God that is the Maker of all does amiss and the father that begets sins not and the childe that is begotten cannot sin by what conveyance can any positive evil be derived to the posterity 6. It is generally now adayes especially believed that the soul is immediately created not generated according to the doctrine of Aristotle affirming 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that the soul is from without and is a Divine substance and therefore sin cannot descend by natural generation or by our being in Adams loins And how can it be that the father who contributes nothing to her
sixteen Heat and cold are both our enemies and yet the one always dwels within and the other dwels round about us The chances and contingencies that trouble us are no more to be numbred then the minutes of eternity The Devil often hurts us and men hurt each other oftner and we are perpetually doing mischief to our selves The stars doe in their courses fight against some men and all the elements against every man the heavens send evil influences the very beasts are dangerous and the air we suck in does corrupt our lungs many are deformed and blinde and ill coloured and yet upon the most beauteous face is plac'd one of the worst sinks of the body and we are forc'd to pass that through our mouthes oftentimes which our eye and our stomack hates Pliny did wittily and elegantly represent this state of evil things Lib. 6. Prooem Itaque foelicitèr homo natus jacet manibus pedibúsque devinctis flens animal caeteris imperaturum à suppliciis vitam auspicatur unam tantum ob culpam quia natum est A man is born happily but at first he lies bound hand and foot by impotency and cannot stir the creature weeps that is born to rule over all other creatures and begins his life with punishments for no fault but that he was born In short The body is a region of diseases of sorrow and nastiness and weakness and temptation Here is cause enough of being humbled Neither is it better in the soul of man where ignorance dwells and passion rules 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 After death came in there entred also a swarm of passions And the will obeys every thing but God Fertur equis Auriga neque audit currus habenas Our judgement is often abused in matters of sense and one faculty guesses at truth by confuting another and the error of the eye is corrected by something of reason or a former experience Our fancy is often abus'd and yet creates things of it self by tying disparate things together that can cohere no more then Musick and a Cable then Meat and Syllogisms and yet this alone does many times make credibilities in the understandings Our Memories are so frail that they need instruments of recollection and laborious artifices to help them and in the use of these artifices sometimes we forget the meaning of those instruments and of those millions of sins which we have committed we scarce remember so many as to make us sorrowful or asham'd Our judgements are baffled with every Sophism and we change our opinion with a wind and are confident against truth but in love with error We use to reprove one error by another and lose truth while we contend too earnestly for it Infinite opinions there are in matters of Religion and most men are confident and most are deceived in many things and all in some and those few that are not confident have onely reason enough to suspect their own reason We do not know our own bodies not what is within us nor what ails us when we are sick nor whereof we are made nay we oftentimes cannot tell what we think or believe or love We desire and hate the same thing speak against and run after it We resolve and then consider we binde our selves and then finde causes why we ought noo to be bound and want not some pretences to make our selves believe we were not bound Prejudice and Interest are our two great motives of believing we weigh deeper what is extrinsical to a question then what is in its nature and oftener regard who speaks then what is said The diseases of our soul are infinite Eccles Hier. c. 3. Part. 3. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 said Dionysius of Athens Mankinde of old fell from those good things which God gave him and now is fallen into a life of passion and a state of death In sum it follows the temper or distemper of the body and sailing by such a Compass and being carried in so rotten a vessell especially being empty or fill'd with lightness and ignorance and mistakes it must needs be exposed to the danger and miseries of every storm which I choose to represent in the words of Cicero In Hortens Ex humanae vitae erroribus aerumnis fit ut verum sit illum quod est apud Aristotelem sic nostros animos cum corporibus copulatos ut vivos cum mortuis esse conjunctos The soul joyned with the body is like the conjunction of the living and the dead the dead are not quickened by it but the living are afflicted and die But then if we consider what our spirit is we have reason to lie down flat upon our faces and confess Gods glory and our own shame When it is at the best it is but willing but can do nothing without the miracle of Grace Our spirit is hindred by the body and cannot rise up whither it properly tends with those great weights upon it It is foolish and improvident large in desires and narrow in abilities naturally curious in trifles and inquisitive after vanities but neither understands deeply nor affectionately relishes the things of God pleas'd with forms cousen'd with pretences satisfi'd with shadows incurious of substances and realities It is quick enough to finde doubts and when the doubts are satisfied it raises scruples that is it is restless after it is put to sleep and will be troubled in despight of all arguments of peace It is incredibly negligent of matters of Religion and most solicitous and troubled in the things of the world We love our selves and despise others judging most unjust sentences and by peevish and cross measures Covetousness and Ambition Gain and Empire are the proportions by which we take account of things We hate to be govern'd by others even when we cannot dress our selves and to be forbidden to do or have a thing is the best art in the world to make us greedy of it The flesh and the spirit perpetually are at * 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Macar hom 21. strife the spirit pretending that his ought to be the dominion and the flesh alleaging that this is her state and her day We hate our present condition and know not how to better our selves our changes being but like the tumblings and tossings in a Feaver from trouble to trouble that 's all the variety We are extremely inconstant and alwayes hate our own choice we despair sometimes of Gods mercies and are confident in our own follies as we order things we cannot avoid little sins and doe not avoid great ones We love the present world though it be good for nothing and undervalue infinite treasures if they be not to be had till the day of recompences We are peevish if a servant does but break a glass and patient when we have thrown an ill cast for eternity throwing away the hopes of a glorious Crown for wine and dirty silver We know that our prayers if
of it was sometimes by Deacons sometimes by themselves at home This therefore was the dispensation of the keys this was the effect of the powers of binding and loosing of re mitting or retaining sins according as the sense and practice of the Church expounded her own power The prayers of the Priest going before his ministration of the Communion were called absolution Isaac Lin. tit 1 c. 16. that is the beginning and one of the first portions of it absolutio Sacerdotalium precum so it was called in ancient Councels the Priest imposed hands and prayed and then gave the Communion This was the ordinary way But there was an extraordinary For in some cases the imposition of hands was omitted that is when the Bishop or Priest was absent and the Deacon prayed or the Confessor but this was first by the leave of the Bishop or Priest for to them it belong'd in ordinary And 2. this was nothing else but a taking them from the station of the penitents and a placing them amongst the faithful communicants either by declaring that their penances were performed or not to be exacted For by this we shall be clear of an objection which might arise from the case of dying penitents to whom the Communion was given and they restored to the peace of the Church that is as they supposed to Gods mercy and the pardon of sins for they would not chuse to give the Communion to such persons whom they did not believe God had pardoned but these persons though communicated Can. 78. non tamen se credant absolutos sine manus impositione si supervixerint were not to suppose themselves absolved if they recovered that sicknesse without imposition of hands said the Fathers of the 4th Councel of Carthage by which it should seem absolution was a thing distinct from giving the Communion To this I answer that the dying penitent was fully absolved in case he had receiv'd the first imposition of hands for repentance that is if in his health he submitted himself to penance and publick amends and was prevented from finishing the impositions they supposed that desire and endevour of the penitent man was a worthy disposition to the receiving the holy Communion and both together sufficient for pardon but because this was only to be in the case of such intervening necessity and God will not accept of the will for the deed but in such cases where the deed cannot be accomplished therefore they bound such penitents to return to their first obligation in case they should recover since God had taken off their necessity and restored them to their first capacity And by this we understand the meaning of the third Canon of the first Arausican Councel They who having received penance depart from the body it pleases that they shall be communicated sine reconciliatoriâ manus impositione without the reconciling imposition of hands that is because the penitential imposition of hands was imposed upon them and they did what they could though the last imposition was not though the last hand was not put upon them declaring that they had done their penances and compleated their satisfactions yet they might be communicated that is absolved quod morientis sufficit consolationi this is enough to the comfort of the dying man according to the definition of the Fathers who conveniently enough called such a Communion their Viaticum their Passeport or provision for their way For there were two solemn impositions of hands in repentance The first and greatest was in the first admission of them and in the imposition of the Disciplne or manner of performing penances and this was the Bishops office and of great consideration amongst the holy Primitives and was never done but by the superiour Clergy as is evident in Ecclesiastical story The second solemn imposition of hands was immediatly before their absolution or Communion and it was a holy prayer and publication that he was accepted and had finished that processe This was the lesse solemn and was ordinarily done by the superiour Clergy but sometimes by others as I have remonstrated other intermedial impositions there were as appears by the Creber recursus mentioned in the 3d Councel of Toledo above cited the penitents were often to beg the Bishops pardon or the Priests prayers and the advocations and intercessions of the faithful but the peace of the Church that is that pardon which she could minister and which she had a promise that God would confirm in heaven was the Ministery of pardon in the dispensation of the Sacrament of that body that was broken and that bloud that was powred forth for the remission of our sins The result is That the absolution of sins which in the later forms and usages of the Church is introduced can be nothing but declarative the office of the preacher and the guide of soules of great use to timerous persons and to the greatest penitents full of comfort full of usefulness and institution and therefore although this very declaration of pardon may truly and according to the style of Scripture be called pardon and the power and office of pronouncing the penitents pardon is in the sense of the Scripture and the Church a good sense and signification of power as the Pharisees are said to justifie God when they declare his justice and as the preacher that converts a sinner is said 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to save a soul from death yet if we would speak properly and as things are in their own nature and institution this declarative absolution is only an act of preaching or opening and reading the Commission an effect of the Spirit of prudence and government entring upon the Church but the power of the keys is another thing it is the dispensing all those rites and ministeries by which heaven is opened and that is the word and baptisme at the first and ever after the holy Sacrament of the supper of the Lord and all the parts of the Bishops and Priests advocation and intercession in holy prayers and offices But as for the declarative absolution although it is rather an act of wisdom then of power it being true as S. Hierom said In 16 Mat. that as the Priests of the Law could only discern and neither cause nor remove leprosies so the Ministers of the Gospel when they retain or remit sins do but in the one judge how long we continue guilty and in the other declare when we are clear and free yet this very declaration is of great use and in many cases of great effect For as God did in the case of David give to the Prophet Nathan a particular special and extraordinary commission so to the Ministers of the Gospel he gives one that is ordinary and perpetual He had a prophetical evidence but these have a certainty of faith as to one of the propositions and as to the other some parts of humane experience to assure them 1. of Gods gracious pardon to the
some crooked or deformed part But of the thing it self I have given such accounts as I could being ingaged on no side and the servant of no interest and have endevour'd to represent the dangers of every sinner the difficulty of obtaining pardon the many parts and progressions of Repentance the severity of the Primitive Church their rigid Doctrines and austere Disciplines the degrees of easiness and complyings that came in by negligence and I desire that the effect should be that all the pious and religious Curates of Souls in the Church of England would endevour to produce so much fear and reverence caution and wariness in all their penitents that they should be willing to undergo more severe methods in their restitution then now they do that men should not dare to approach to the holy Sacrament as soon as ever their foul hands are wet with a drop of holy rain but that they should expect the periods of life and when they have given to their Curate fair testimony of a hearty Repentance and know it to be so within themselves they may with comfort to all parties communicate with holiness and joy For I conceive this to be that event of things which was design'd by S. Paul in that excellent advice Obey them that have the rule over you Heb. 13.17 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 submit your selves viz. to their ordering and discipline because they watch for your souls as they that must give accounts for them that they may do it with joy I am sure we cannot give accounts of souls of which we have no notice and though we had reason to rescue them from the yoke of bondage which the unjust laws and fetters of annual and private Confession as it was by them ordered did make men to complain of yet I believe we should be all unwilling our Charges should exchange these fetters for worse and by shaking off the laws of Confession accidentally entertain the tyranny of sin It was neither fit that all should be tied to it nor yet that all should throw it off There are some sins and some cases and some persons to whom an actual Ministery and personal provision and conduct by the Priests Office were better then food or physick It were therefore very well if great sinners could be invited to bear the yoke of holy discipline and do their Repentances under the conduct of those who must give an account of them that they would inquire into the state of their souls that they would submit them to be judged by those who are justly and rightly appointed over them or such whom they are permitted to choose and then that we would apply our selves to understand the secrets of Religion the measures of the Spirit the conduct of Souls the advantages and disadvantages of things and persons the wayes of life and death the labyrinths of temptation and all the remedies of sin the publick and private the great and little lines of Conscience and all those wayes by which men may be assisted and promoted in the wayes of godliness for such knowledge as it is most difficult and secret untaught and unregarded so it is most necessary and for want of it the holy Sacrament of the Eucharist is oftentimes given to them that are in the gall of bitterness that which is holy is given to Dogs Indeed neither we nor our Forefathers could help it alwayes and the Discipline of the Church could seise but upon few all were invited but none but the willing could receive the benefit but however it were pity that men upon the account of little and trifling objections should be discouraged from doing themselves benefit and from enabling us with greater advantages to do our duty to them It was of old observed of the Christians 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 they obey the laws and by the excellency of their own lives excel the perfection of the laws and it is not well if we shall be earnest to tell them that such a thing is not necessary if we know it to be good For in this present dissolution of manners to tell the people concerning any good thing that it is not necessary is to tempt them to let it alone The Presbyterian Ministers who are of the Church of England just as the Irish are English have obtained such power with their Proselytes that they take some account of the Souls of such as they please before they admit them to their communion in Sacraments they doe it to secure them to their party or else make such accounts to be as their Shibboleth to discern their Jews from the men of Ephraim but it were very well we would doe that for Conscience for Charity and for Piety which others doe for Interest or Zeal and that we would be careful to use all those Ministeries and be earnest for all those Doctrines which visibly in the causes of things are apt to produce holiness and severe living It is no matter whether by these arts any Sect or Name be promoted it is certain Christian Religion would and that 's the reall interest of us all that those who are under our Charges should know the force of the Resurrection of Christ and the conduct of the Spirit and live according to the purity of God and the light of the Gospel To this let us cooperate with all wisdome and earnestness and knowledge and spiritual understanding And there is no better way in the world to doe this then by ministring to persons singly in the conduct of their Repentance which as it is the work of every man so there are but few persons who need not the conduct of a spiritual guide in the beginnings and progressions of it To the assistance of this work I have now put my Symbol having by the sad experience of my own miseries and the calamities of others to whose restitution I have been called to minister been taught something of the secret of Souls and I have reason to think that the words of our dearest Lord to S. Peter were also spoken to me Tu autem conversus confirma fratres I hope I have received many of the mercies of a repenting sinner and I have felt the turnings and varieties of spiritual entercourses and I have often observed the advantages in ministring to others and am most confident that the greatest benefits of our office may with best effect be communicated to souls in personal and particular Ministrations In the following book I have given advices and have asserted many truths in order to all this I have endevoured to break in pieces almost all those propositions upon the confidence of which men have been negligent of severe and strict living I have cancell'd some false grounds upon which many answers in Moral Theology us'd to be made to inquiries in Cases of Conscience I have according to my weak ability described all the necessities and great inducements of a holy life and have endevoured to do it so plainly that
or thrust through with a sword This we are taught by that excellent Author of the Divine Epistle to the Hebrews Heb. 10.28 29. He that despised Moses law died without mercy under two or three witnesses Of how much sorer punishment suppose ye shall he be thought worthy who hath troden under foot the Son of God and hath counted the blood of the Covenant wherewith he was saenctified an unholy thing and hath done despite to the Spirit of Grace So that under the Gospel he that sins and repents is in a farre better condition then he that sinn'd under the Law and repented For repentance was not then allowed of the man was to die without mercy But he that sins and repents not is under the Gospel in a farre worse condition then under the Law for under the Gospel he shall have a farre sorer punishment then under the Law was threatned Therefore let no man mistake the mercies of the New Covenant or turn the grace of God into wantonness The mercies of the Gospel neither allow us to sin nor inflict an easier punishment but they oblige us to more holiness under a greater penalty In pursuance of which I adde 3. The Covenant by which mankinde must now be judged is a Covenant of more Mercy but also of more holiness and therefore let no man think that now he is disobliged from doing good works by being admitted to the Covenant of Faith For though the Covenants are oppos'd as Old and New as a worse and a better yet Faith and Works are not oppos'd We are in the Gospel tied to more and to more excellent works then ever the subjects of any Law were but if after a hearty endevour we fall into infirmity and still strive against it we are pitied here but there we were not Under the first Covenant the Covenant of Works no endevour was sufficient because there was no allowance made for infirmities no abatements for ignorance no deductions of exact measures no consideration of surprises passions folly and inadvertency but under the New Covenant our hearty endevour is accepted but we are tied to endevour higher and more excellent things then they But he that thinks this mercy gives him liberty to do what he please loses the mercy and mistakes the whole design and Oeconomy of Gods loving kindness 4. To every Christian it is enjoyned that they be perfect that is according to the measure of every one Which perfection consists in doing our endevour He that does not do that must never hope to be accepted because he refuses to serve God by something that is in his power But he that does that is sure that God will not refuse it because we cannot be dealt withall upon any other account but by the measures of what is in our power and for what is not we cannot take care 5. To do our endevour or our best is not to be understood equally in all the periods of our life according to the work or effect it self nor according to our natural powers but it is accounted for by the general measures and great periods of our life A man cannot pray alwayes with equal intention nor give the same alms nor equally mourn with sharpness for his sins But God having appointed for every duty proper seasons and solennities hath declared that He does his best who heartily endevours to do the duty in its proper season But it were well we would remember that he that did a good act to day can do the same to morrow in the same circumstances and he that yesterday fought a noble battel and resisted valiantly can upon the same terms contend as manfully every day if he will consider and watch And though it will never be that men will alwayes do as well as at some times yet when at any time they commit a sin it is not because they could not but because they would not help it 6. He that would be approved in doing his best must omit no opportunity of doing a good action because when it is plac'd in its proper circumstances God layes his hand upon it and calls to have it done and there can be no excuse for the omission He does not do his best that does not do that Because such a person does voluntarily omit the doing of a good without just cause and that cannot proceed from an innocent principle 7. He that leaves any thing undone which he is commanded to do or does what he is commanded to forbear and considers or chooses so to do does not do his best cannot plead his privilege in the Gospel but is fallen under the portion of sinners and will die if he does not repent and make it up some way or other by sorrow and a future diligence 8. To sin against our Conscience can at no hand consist with the duty of Christian perfection Because he loves not God with all his heart nor serves him with all his strength who gives some of his strength and some of his affection to that which God forbids 9. No man must account that he does his duty that is his best or according to the perfection requir'd of Christians but he that does better and better and grows toward the measures of the fulness of Christ For perfection is an infinite word and it could not be communicated to several persons of different capacities and degrees but that there is something common to them all which hath analogy and equivalent proportions Now nothing can be perfect but that to which nothing is wanting and therefore a man is not any way perfect but by doing all all that he can for then nothing is wanting to him when he hath put forth all his strength For perfection is not to be accounted by comparing the subjects which are perfect for in that sense nothing is perfect but God but perfection is to be reckoned by every mans own proportions For a body may be a perfect body though it have not the perfection of a soul and a man is perfect when he is heartily and intirely Gods servant though he have not the perfection of S. Paul as a man is a meek man though he be not so meek as Moses or Christ But he is not meek if he keeps any fierceness or violence within * But then because to be more perfect is incident with humane nature he that does not endevour to get as much as he can and more then he hath he hath not the perfection of holy desires Therefore 10. Every person that is in the state of grace and designs to do his duty must think of what is before him not what is past of the stages that are not yet run not of those little portions of his course he hath already finish'd Vt cum carceribus missos rapit ungula currus Horat. Serm. l. 1 Satyr 1. Inflat equis auriga suos vincentibus illum Praeteritum temnens extremos inter euntem For so did the Contenders in the Olympick
or their ingenuity It is much very much better which we learn from a wise Heathen who gives such an account both of the words and thing as might not misbecome the best instructed Christian so far as concerns the nature and morality of the duty His words are excellent words and therefore I shall transcribe them 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 We ought principally to take care that we doe not sin but if we be overtaken then to make diligent haste to return to justice or righteousness as the cure of our wickedness that we may amend our evil counsels or wils by the help of a better For when we are fallen from goodness we receive or recover it again 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by a wise or well principled penitential sorrow admitting a Divine correction 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but repentance it self is the beginning of wisdome a flying from foolish words and deeds and the first institution of a life not to be repented of Where besides the definition of repentance and a most perfect description of its nature and intention he with some curiosity differences the two Greek words making 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to be but the beginning of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 sorrow the beginning of repentance and both together the reformation of the old and the institution of a new life But to quit the words from being the subject matter of a Quarrel it is observable that the Latine word poenitentia does really signify by use I mean and custome as much as the Greek 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and is expressive of the whole duty of Repentance and although it implies that sorrow and grief which is the natural inlet of reformation of our lives and the consequent of our shame and sin yet it also does signify correction and amendment which is the formality and essence of Repentance and therefore Erasmus more warily and in imitation of the old Latines sayes that poenitere is from pone tenere quod est posterius consilium capere to be wiser the next time to choose again and choose better Noct. Att. lib. 17. c. 1. and so A. Gellius defines it Poenitere tum dicere solemus cum quae ipsi fecimus aut quae de nostrâ voluntate nostróque consilio facta sunt ea nobis pòst incipiunt displicere sententiámque in iis nostram demutamus To repent is when those things which we have done displease us and we change our minds So that here is both a Displeasure and a Change a displeasure and sorrow for the evil and a change to better And there ought to be no scruple in this for by the first sorrow of a penitent man is meant nothing else but the first act of eschewing evil which whether it be by grief alone or by fear or by hope or by all these it is not without some trouble of minde and displeasure for if it were still in all senses a pleasure to go on they would never return back And therefore to suppose repentance without displeasure is to suppose a change of minde without alteration or a taking a new course without disliking the old But then to suppose any other sorrow naturally necessary then this which naturally is included in the change is to affirm that to be true which experience tels us is not true and it is to place self-affliction and punition at the head which is to be look'd for in the retinue of repentance to make the daughter to be before the Mother and the fruit to be kept in the root not to grow upon the branches But the Latine words can no way determine any thing of Question in this article and the Greek words are used promiscuously and when they are distinguished they differ but as the more and less perfect as the beginning of Repentance and the progress of perfection according to that saying Poenitentia erroris magnus gradus est ad resipiscentiam To acknowledge and be sorry for our sin is a great step to repentance and both together signify all that piety that change and holiness which is the duty of the new man of the Returning sinner and we can best learn it by the words of him that revealed and gave this grace to all his servants even of the Holy Jesus speaking to S. Paul at his Conversion from whose blessed words together with those of S. Paul in his narrative of that story we may draw this more perfect description To repent is to turn from darkness to light Acts 26.18 20. from the power of Satan unto God doing works worthy of amendment of life for the forgiveness of sins that we may receive inheritance among them that are sanctified by faith in Christ Jesus Upon this account the parts of Repentance are two 1. leaving our sins which is properly repentance from dead works And 2. doing holy actions in the remaining portion of our dayes actions meet for repentance so the Baptist called them This is in Scripture by way of propriety called Repentance 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Mat. 3.8 so the Baptist used it distinguishing Repentance from its fruits that is from such significations exercises and prosecutions of this change as are apt to represent and to effect it more and more such as are confession weeping self-afflictions alms and the like Acts 26 2◠So S. Paul using the same words before King Agrippa But by way of Synedoche not onely the fruits and consequent expressions but the beginning sorrow also is signified by the same word and all are under the same Commandement though with different degrees of necessity and expression of which I shall afterwards give account Here I onely account concerning the essentiall and constituent parts and definition of Repentance All the whole duty of Repentance and every of its parts is sometimes called Conversion Thus godly sorrow is a conversion or change and upon that account S. James cals upon sinners Be afflicted James 4. and mourn and weep let your laughter be turned into mourning and your joy into weeping This is the first change of our affections which is attended with a change of our judgement when we doe no longer admire the false beauties of sin but judge righteously concerning it And of this the Prophet Jeremy gives testimony Jer. 31.19 Surely after that I was turned I repented And by this word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Hebrews express the duty which the LXX indifferently render by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and is best rendred Conversion And then followes the conversion of the whole man body and soul minde and spirit all are set in opposition against sin and apply themselves to the service of God and conformity to Jesus §. 2. Of Repentance in generall or Conversion REpentance and Faith in Scriptures signifie sometimes more generally and in the foederal sense are used for all that state of grace and favour which the holy Jesus revealed and brought into the world They
sin is uncancell'd Of this nature is theft which cannot be cut off by a moral revocation or an internal act there must be something done without For it is a contradiction to say that a man is sorry for his act of stealing who yet rejoyces in the purchace and retains it Every man that repents is bound to make his sinful act as much as he can to be undone and the moral revocation or nolition of it is our entercourse with God onely who takes and accepts that which is the All which can be done to him But God takes care of our brother also and therefore will not accept his own share unless all interested persons be satisfied as much as they ought There is a great matter in it that our neighbour also do forgive us that his interest be served that he do not desire our punishment of this I shall afterwards give accounts in the mean time if the matter of our sin be not taken away so long as it remains so long there is a remanency and a tarrying in it and that is a degree of habit 9. Secondly if the single act have a continual fluxe or emanation from it self it is as a habit by moral account and is a principle of action and is potentially many Of this nature is every action whose proper and immediate principle is a passion Such as hatred of our neighbour a fearfulness of persecution a love of pleasures For a man cannot properly be said to have an act of hatred an actual expression of it he may but if he hates him in one act and repents not of it it is a vicious affection and in the sense of moral Theology it is a habit the law of God having given measures to our affections as well as to actions In this case when we have committed one act of uncharitableness or hatred it is not enough to oppose against it one act of love but the principle must be altered and the love of our neighbour must be introduced into our spirit 10. There is yet another sort of sinful action which does in some sense equal a habit and that is an act of the greatest and most crying sins a complicated sin Thus for a Prince or a Priest to commit adultery for a childe to accuse his Father falsly to oppress a widow in judgement are sins of a monstrous proportion they are three or four sins apeece and therefore are to be repented of by untwining the knot and cutting asunder every thred He that repents of adultery must repent of his uncleanness and of his injustice or wrong to his neighbour and of his own breach of faith and of his tempting a poor soul to sin and death and he must make amends for the scandal besides in case there was any in it In these and all the like cases let no man flatter himself when he hath wept and prayed against his sin one solemnity is not sufficient one act of contrition is but the beginning of a repentance and where the crime is capital by the laws of wise Nations the greatest the longest the sharpest repentance is little enough in the Court of conscience Paraenes ad poenitentiam So Pacianus Haec est novi Testamenti tota conclusio despectus in multis Spiritus sanctus haec nobis capitalis periculi conditione legavit Reliqua peccata meliorum operum compensatione curantur Haec verò tria crimina ut basilisci alicujus afflatus ut veneni calix ut lethalis arundo metuenda sunt non enim vitiare animam sed intercipere noverunt Some sins doe pollute and some doe kill the soul that is are very near approaches to death next to the unpardonable state * See Chapt. 5. and they are to be repented of just as habits are even by a long and a laborious repentance and by the piety and holiness of our whole ensuing life De peccato remisso noli esse securus said the son of Sirach Be not secure though your sin be pardoned when therefore you are working out and suing your pardon be not too confident 11. Those acts of sin which can once be done and no more as Parricide and such which destroy the subject or person against whom the sin is committed are to be cured by Prayer and Sorrow and entercourses with God immediately the effect of which because it can never be told and because the mischief can never be rescinded so much as by fiction of Law nor any supply be made to the injur'd person the guilty man must never think himself safe but in the daily and nightly actions of a holy Repentance 12. He that will repent well and truly of his single actual sins must be infinitely careful that he do not sin after his Repentance and think he may venture upon another single sin supposing that an act of contrition will take it off and so interchange his dayes by sin and sorrow doing to morrow what he was ashamed of yesterday For he that sins upon the confidence of Repentance does not repent at all because he repents that he may sin and these single acts so periodically returning do unite and become a habit He that resolves against a sin and yet falls when he is tempted is under the power of sin in some proportion and his estate is very suspicious though he alwayes resolved against that sin which he alwayes commits It is upon no other account that a single sin does not destroy a man but because it self is speedily destroyed if therefore it goes on upon its own strength and returns in its proper period it is not destroyed but lives and indangers the man 13. Be careful that you do not commit a single act of sin toward the latter end of your life for it being uncertain what degrees of anger God will put on and in what periods of time he will return to mercy the nearer to our death such sins intervene the more degrees of danger they have For although the former discourse is agreeable to the analogy of the Gospel and the Oeconomy of the Divine Mercy yet there are sad words spoken against every single sin Jam. 2.10 Whosoever shall keep the whole law and yet offends in one instance he shall be guilty of all saith S. James plainly affirming that the admitting one sin much more the abiding in any one sin destroys all our present possession of Gods favour Concerning which although it may seem strange that one prevarication in one instance should make an universal guilt yet it will be certain and intelligible if we consider that it relates not to the formality but to the event of things He that commits an act of Murther is not therefore an Adulterer but yet for being a Murtherer he shall die He is as if he were guilty of all that is his innocence in the other shall not procure him impunity in this One crime is inconsistent with Gods love and favour But there is something more in
provokes God to anger but that anger can be as soon rescinded as the act is past if it remains not by something that is habitual Indeed he is called a thief or an adulterer that does one action of those crimes because his consent in such things is great enough to equal a habit in lesser things The effect is notorious the prohibition severe the dangers infinite the reasons of them evident they are peccata vastantia conscientiam quae uno actu perimunt as S. Austin says they kill with one blow and therefore God exacts them highly and men call the criminal by the name of the vice But the action gives denomination but in some cases but the habit in all No man lives without sin and in the state of regeneration our infirmities still press upon us and make our hands shake and our foot to stumble and sometimes the enemy makes an inroad and is presently beaten out again and though the good man resolves against all and contends against all Pauca tamon suberunt priscae vestigia fraudis there will be something for him to be humbled at somthing to contest against to keep him watchful and upon his guard But if he be ebriosus or petulans if he be a drunkard or wanton an extortioner or covetous that is if he have a habit of any sin whatsoever then he is not the son of God but an heir of death and hell That therefore which in all cases denominates a man such both before God and before men when the actions do not that must needs have in it a proper malignity of its own and that 's the habit 4. This we may also see evidently in the matter of smaller sins the trifles of our life which though they be often repeated yet if they be kept asunder by the intercision of the actions of repentance doe not discompose our state of grace but if they be habitual they doe though it may be the single instances by some accident being hindred do not so often return and this is confess'd on all hands But then the consequent of this is that the very being habitual is a special irregularity 5. This also appears by the nature and malignity of the greater sins A vicious habit is a principle of evil naturally and directly And therefore as the capital sins are worse then others because they are an impure root and apt to produce accursed fruits as covetousness is the root of all evil and pride and envy and idolatry so is every habit the mother of evil not accidentally and by chance but by its proper efficacy and natural germination and therefore is worse then single actions 6. If natural concupiscence hath in it the nature of sin and needs a laver of regeneration and the blood of Christ to wash it off much more shall our habitual and acquir'd concupiscence For this is much worse procur'd by our own act introduc'd by our consent brought upon us by the wrath of God which we have deserv'd springing from the baseness of our own manners the consequent of our voluntary disobedience So that if it were unreasonable that our natural concupiscence should be charged upon us as criminal as being involuntary yet for the same reason it is most reasonable that our habitual sins our superinduc'd concupiscence should be imputed to us as criminal because it is voluntary in its cause which is in us and is voluntary in the effect that is it is delighted in seated in the will But however this argument ought to prevail upon all that admit the article of original sin as it is usually taught in Schools Churches For upon the denial of it Pelagius also introduc'd this opinion against which I am now disputing And lest concupiscence might be reckon'd a sin he affirm'd that no habitude no disposition nothing but an act could be a sin But on the other side lest concupiscence should be accounted no sin Lib. de peccat Grig cap. 6. 13. S. Austin disputes earnestly largely affirming and proving that a sinful habit is a special sinfulness distinct from that of evil actions malus thesaurus cordis the evil treasure of the heart out of which proceeds all mischief and a continual defluxion of impurities 7. And therefore as God severely forbids every single action of sin so with greater caution he provides that we be not guilty of a sinful habit Rom. 6.13 20. Let not sin reign in your mortal bodies we must not be servants of sin not sold under sin that sin have no dominion over us That is not onely that we doe not repeat the actions of sin but that we be not enslaved to it under the power of it of such a lost liberty that we cannot resist the temptation For he that is so is guilty before God although no temptation comes Such are they whom S. Peter notes that cannot cease from sin And indeed we cannot but confess the reasonableness of this For all men hate such persons whose minds are habitually averse from them who watch for opportunities to do them evil offices who lose none that are offered who seek for more who delight in our displeasure who oftentimes effect what they maliciously will Saul was Davids enemy even when he was asleep For the evil will and the contradicting minde and the spiteful heart are worse then the crooked or injurious hand And as grace is a principle of good so is this of evil and therefore as the one denominates the subject gracious so the other sinful both of them inherent that given by God this introduc'd by our own unworthiness * He that sins in a single act does an injury to God but he that does it habitually he that cannot do otherwise is his essential enemy The first is like an offending servant who deserves to be thrown away but in a vicious habit there is an antipathy The Man is Gods enemy as a Wolf to the Lamb as the Hyaena to the Dog He that commits a single sin hath stain'd his skin and thrown dirt upon it but an habitual sinner is an Ethiop Jer. 13.23 and must be flayed alive before his blackness will disappear 8. A man is called just or unjust by reason of his disposition to and preparation for an act and therefore much more for the habit Paratum est cor meum Deus O God my heart is ready my heart is ready and S. John had the reward of Martyrdome because he was ready to die for his Lord though he was not permitted and S. Austin affirms De bono conjugat c. 21. that the continency of Abraham was as certainly crown'd as the continence of John it being as acceptable to God to have a chaste spirit as a virgin body that is habitual continence being as pleasing as actual Thus a man may be a Persecutor or a Murtherer if he have a heart ready to do it and if a lustful soul be an Adulteress because the desire is
a sin it follows that the habit is a particular state of sin distinct from the act because it is a state of vicious desires And as a body may be said to be lustful though it be asleep or eatting without the sense of actual urtications and violence by reason of its constitution so may the soul by the reason of its habit that is its vicious principle and base effect of sin be hated by God and condemn'd upon that account So that a habit is not onely distinct from its acts in the manner of being as Rhetorick from Logick in Zeno as a fist from a palm as a bird from the egge and the flower from the gemme but a habit differs from its acts as an effect from the cause as a distinct principle from another as a pregnant Daughter from a teeming Mother as a Conclusion from its Premises as a state of aversation from God from a single act of provocation 9. If the habit had not an irregularity in it distinct from the sin then it were not necessary to persevere in holiness by a constant regular course but we were to be judg'd by the number of single actions and he onely who did more bad then good actions should perish which was affirmed by the Pharisees of old and then we were to live or die by chance and opportunity by actions and not by the will by the outward and not by the inward man then there could be no such thing necessary as the Kingdome of Grace Christs Empire and Dominion in the soul then we can belong to God without belonging to his Kingdome and we might be in God though the Kingdome of God were not in us For without this we might do many single actions of vertue and it might happen that these might be more then the single actions of sin even though the habit and affection and state of sin remain Now if the case may be so as in the particular instance that the mans final condition shal not be determin'd by single actions it must be by habits and states and principles of actions and therefore these must have in them a proper good and bad respectively by which the man shall be judg'd distinct from the actions by which he shall not in the present case be judg'd All which considerations being put together do unanswerably put us upon this conclusion That a habit of sin is that state of evil by which we are enemies to God and slaves of Satan by which we are strangers from the Covenant of Grace and consign'd to the portion of Devils and therefore as a Corollary of all we are bound under pain of a new sin to rise up instantly after every fall to repent speedily for every sin not to let the Sun go down upon our wrath nor rise upon our lust nor run his course upon our covetousness or ambition For not onely every period of impenitence is a period of danger and eternal death may enter but it is an aggravation of our folly a continuing to provoke God a further aberration from the rule a departure from life it is a growing in sin a progression towards final impenitence to obduration and Apostasie it is a tempting God and a despising of his grace it is all the way presumption and a dwelling in sin by delight and obedience that is it is a conjugation of new evils and new degrees of evil As pertinacy makes error to be heresie and impenitence makes little sins unite and become deadly and perseverance causes good to be crowned and evil to be unpardonable So is the habit of viciousness the confirmation of our danger and solennities of death the investiture and security of our horrible inheritance The summe is this Every single sin is a high calamity it is a shame and it is a danger in one instant it makes us liable to Gods severe anger But a vicious habit is a conjugation of many actions every one of which is highly damnable and besides that union which is formally an aggravation of the evils there is superinduc'd upon the will and all its ministring faculties a viciousness and pravity which makes evil to be belov'd and chosen and God to be hated and despis'd A vicious habit hath in it all the Physical Metaphysical and Moral degrees of which it can be capable For there is not onely a not repenting a not rescinding of the past act by a contrary nolition but there is a continuance in it and a repetition of the same cause of death as if a man should marry death the same death so many times over it is an approving of our shame a taking it upon us an owning and a securing our destruction and before a man can arrive thither he must have broken all the instruments of his restitution in pieces and for his recovery nothing is left unless a Palladium fall from heaven the man cannot live again unless God shall do more for him then he did for Lazarus when he raised him from the dead §. 4. Sinful habits do require a distinct manner of Repentance and have no promise to be pardon'd but by the introduction of the contrary THis is the most material and practical difficulty of the Question for upon this depends the most mysterious article of Repentance and the interest of dying penitents For if a habit is not to be pardoned without the extirpation of that which is vicious and the superinducing its contrary this being a work of time requires a particular grace of God and much industry caution watchfulness frequent prayers many advices and consultations constancy severe application and is of so great difficulty and such slow progression that all men who have had experience of this imployment and have heartily gone about to cure a vicious habit know it is not a thing to be done upon our death-bed That therefore which I intend to prove I express in this Proposition A vicious habit is not to be pardon'd without the introduction of the contrary either in kinde or in perfect affection and in all those instances in which the man hath opportunities to work The Church of Rome whose Chairs and Pulpits are dangerous guides in the article of Repentance affirms that any sin or any habit of sin may be pardon'd by any single act of contrition the continued sin of fourty years may be wash'd off in less then fourty minutes nay by an act of attrition with the Priestly absolution which proposition if it be false does destroy the interest of souls and it cannot be true because it destroys the interest of piety and the necessities of a good life The reproof of this depends upon many propositions of which I shall give as plain accounts as the thing will bear 1. Every habit of vice may be expelled by a habit of vertue naturally as injustice by justice gluttony by temperance lust by chastity but by these it is not meritoriously remitted and forgiven because nothing in nature can remit sins or
despair but neither must we presume without a warrant nay hope as long as God calls effectually But when the severity of God cuts him off from repentance by allowing him no time or not time enough to finish what is required the case is wholly differing But S. Chrysostome speaks words which are not easie to be reconciled to the former doctrine The words of S. Chrysostome are these Take heed of saying Ad Theodorum lupsum that there is a place of pardon onely for them that have sinn'd but little For if you please suppose any one abounding with all maliciousness and that hath done all things which shut men from the Kingdome let this man be not a Heathen but a Christian and accepted of God but afterwards an Whoremonger an Adulterer an effeminate person unnaturally lustfull a thief a drunkard a slanderer and one that hath diligently committed such crimes truly I will not be to him an author of despairing although he had persevered in these wickednesses to an extreme old age Truly neither would I. But neither could he nor any man else be forward to warrant his particular But if the remaining portion of his old age be well imployed according as the time is and the spending of that time and the earnestness of the repentance and the greatness of the grief and the heartiness of the return and the fulness of the restitution and the zeal of amends and the abundance of charity and the largeness of the devotion so we approach to very many degrees of hope But there is difference between the case of an extreme old age and a death-bed That may have more time and better faculties and fitted opportunities and a clearer choice and a more perfect resistance between temptation and grace But for the state of death-bed although there is in that also some variety yet the best is very bad and the worst is stark naught but concerning the event of both God onely is the Judge Onely it is of great use that Chrysostome says in the same Letters to Theodorus Quódque est majoris facilitatis argumentum etiamsi non omnem prae se fert poenitentiam brevem illam exiguo tempore factam non abnuit sed magnâ mercede compensat Even a dying person ought not to despair and leave off to do those little things of which onely there is then left to him a possibility because even that imperfect Repentance done in that little time God rejects not but will give to it a great reward So he did to Ahab And whatsoever is good shall have a good some way or other it shall finde a recompence but every recompence is not eternal glory and every good thing shall not be recompensed with heaven To the same purpose is that of Coelestinus Epist 1. reproving them that denied repentance to persons qui obitus sui tempore hoc animae suae cupiunt remedio subveniri who at the time of their death desired to be admitted to it Horremus fateor tantae impietatis aliquem reperiri ut de Dei pietate desperet quasi non posset ad se quovis tempore concurrenti succurrere periclitantem sub onere peccatorum hominem pondere quo se expedire desiderat liberare I confess saith he we abhor that any one should be found to be of so great impiety as to despair of Gods mercy as if he could not at any time relieve him that comes to him and ease him that runs to be eased of the burthen of his sins Quid hoc rogo aliud est c. What else is this but to adde death to the dying man and to kill his soul with cruelty by denying that he can be absolved since God is most ready to help and inviting to repentance thus promises saying In what day soever the sinner shall be converted his sins shall not be imputed to him and again I would not the death of a sinner but that he should be converted and live He therefore takes salvation from a man who denies him his hoped for repentance in the time of his death and he despairs of the clemency of God who does not believe it sufficient to help the dying man in a moment of time The thief on the Cross hanging on Christs right hand had lost his reward if the repentance of one hour had not helped him When he was in pain he repented and obtain'd Paradise by one discourse Therefore the true conversion to God of dying persons is to be accounted of by the minde rather then by time Thus far S. Coelestine The summe of which is this That dying persons must not be thrust into despair Because Gods mercy is infinite and his power is infinite He can do what he please and he may do more then we know of even more then he hath promised and therefore they that are spiritual must not refuse to do all that they can to such miserable persons And in all this there is nothing to be reproved but that the good man by incompetent arguments goes about to prove what he had a minde to If the hindring such persons to despair be all that he intends it is well if more be intended his arguments will not do it Afterwards in the descending ages of the Church things grew worse and it began to be good doctrine even in the dayes of S. Lib. 2. c. 14. de summo bono Isidore Nullus desperare debet veniam etiamsi circa finem vitae ad poenitentiam convertatur Vnumquemque enim Deus de suo fine non de vitâ praeteritâ judicat God judges a man by his end not by his past life and therefore no man must despair of pardon though he be not converted till about the end of his life but in these words there is a lenitive Circa finem vitae if he be converted about the end of his life that is in his last o◠declining years which may contain a fair portion of time like those who were called in the eleventh hour that is circa finem vitae but not in fine about not in the end of their life c. 80. But S. Austin or Gennadius or whoever is Author of the book De Ecclesiasticis dogmatibus speaks home to the Question but against the former doctrine Poenitentiâ aboleri peccata indubitantèr credimus etiamsi in ultimo vitae spiritu admissorum poeniteat publicâ lamentatione peccata prodantur quia propositum Dei quo decrevit salvare quod perierat stat immobile ideo quia voluntas ejus non mutatur sive emendatione vitae si tempus conceditur sive supplici confessione si continuò vitâ exceditur venia peccatorum fidelitèr praesumatur ab illo qui non vult mortem peccatoris sed ut convertatur à perditione poenitendo salvatus miseratione Domini vivat Si quis alitèr de justissimâ Dei pietate sentit non Christianus sed Novatianus est That sins are taken off by
chastity who cannot doe any acts of chastity or of temperance who have lost their stomack and have not any inclination or temptation to the contrary and every vertue must be cum potentiâ ad oppositum if it be not chosen it is not vertue nor rewardable And the case is almost the same to all persons young or old who have not opportunity of acting those graces in the matter of which they have formerly prevaricated To this I answer many things and they are of use in the explication of this material question 1. Old men may exercise many acts of chastity both internal and external For if they may be unchast they may also be chast But S. Paul speaks of the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 men that being past feeling yet were given to lasciviousness 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 half men half boyes pruriâ—ntes in sepulchro For it is not the body but the soul that is wanton And an evil man may sin with ineffective lusts as he that lusts after a woman whom he cannot have sins with his soul Now where ever these unlawful desires can be there also they can be mortified and an old man can love to talk of his past vanities or not rescind them by repentance or desire that he were young and active in wickedness and therefore if he chooses not to doe so and therefore avoids these and the like out of hatred of his old impurities he does the proper works of that grace which he also may doe the easier because then his temptations to the contrary are not so strong but this advantage is not worth staying for so long They that doe so venture damnation a long time together and may also have an evil proper to that state greater then this little advantage I instance 2. If there were no other act of chastity to be exercised by old persons by reason of their disability yet the very accepting from the hands of God that disability and the delighting in that circumstance of things in which it is impossible to sin as formerly must needs be pleasing to God because it is a nolition of the former sins and a desire of pleasing him 3. Every act of sorrow for unchastity is an act of chastity and if this sorrow be great and lasting permanent and habitual it will be productive of much good And if to these the penitent addes penal actions and detestations of his crimes revenge and apt expressions of his holy anger against his sin these doe produce a quality in the soul contrary to that which made him formerly consent to lust 4. When a vicious habit is to be extirpated and the contrary introduc'd it is not necessary that the contrary be acted by the body but be radicated in the soul It is necessary that the body doe not sin in that instance but it is not always required that contrary acts be done by the body Suppose Origen had been a lustful person before his castration yet he might have been habitually chast afterwards by doing spiritual acts of a corporal chastity And there are many sins whose scene lies in the body to which the body afterwards cannot oppose a bodily act in the same instance as he that by intemperate drinking once or oftner fals into a loathing of wine he that dismembers himself and many others for which a repentance is possible and necessary but yet a contrary specifick act cannot be opposed In these cases it is sufficient that the habit be plac'd in the soul and a perfect contrary quality superinduc'd which is to be done by a frequent repetition of the acts of repentance proper to the sin 5. There are some sins for which amends is to be made in the way of commutation when it cannot be in the proper instance Redime peccata tua eleemosynis Dan. 4.27 said Daniel to Nebuchadnezzar Redeem thy sins with alms and thy iniquities by shewing mercy to the poor Our English Bibles read this Break off thy sins by alms as if alms were directly contrary to pride or lust or gluttony or tyranny and the shewing mercy to the poor a direct intercision and interruption of the sin He that gives alms that he may keep his lust loses his soul and his money too But he that leaves his lust or is driven from it and gives alms to obtain Gods favour for his pardon by doing something that is gracious in his eyes this man is a good penitent if his alms be great and proportionable given freely and without constraint when he can keep them and receive and retain the temporal advantage and be assisted by all those other acts and habits of which his present state is capable It cannot be said that to give alms can in all such cases be sufficient as it will be hard to say that so many acts of the contrary grace will suffice to get a habit or obtain a pardon but it is true that to give alms is a proper action of repentance in such cases and is in order to pardon For 6. As there is a supreme habit of vice a transcendent vileness that is a custome and readiness to doe every sin as it is presented in its proper temptation and this is worse then the habit of any one sin so there is a transcendent habit of grace by which a man is so holy and just and good that he is ready to obey God in every instance That is malice and this is charity When a man hath this grace habitually although it may be so that he cannot produce the proper specifick habit opposite to his sin for which he specially repents yet his supreme habit does contain in it the specifick habit virtually and transcendently An act of this charity will not doe this but the habit will For he that does a single act of charity may also doe a single act of malice and he that denies this knows not what he says nor ever had experience of himself or any man else For if he that does an act of charity that is he who by a good motion from Gods Spirit does any thing because God hath commanded to say that this man will doe every thing which is so commanded is to say that a good man can never fall into a great sin which is evidently untrue But if he that does one act in obedience to God or in love to him for obedience is love will also doe more then every man that does one act to please his senses may as well be supposed that he will doe more and then no mans life should have in it any variety but be all of a piece intirely good or intirely evil I see no difference in the instances neither can there be so long as a man in both states hath a power to choose But then it will follow that a single act of contrition or of charity cannot put a man into the state of the Divine favour it must be the grace or habit of charity and that is a
truths nor yet ought to make the returning sinner to despair Onely this If he fears that there may be a secret habit unmortified let him go about his remedy 2. If he still fears let him put himself to the trial 3. If either that does not satisfie him or he wants opportunity let him endevour to encrease his supreme habit the habit of Charity or that universal grace of the love of God which will secure his spirit against all secret undiscernible vicious affections 5. This onely is certain No man needs to despair that is alive and hath begun to leave his sins and to whom God hath given time and power and holy desires If all these be spent and nothing remain besides the desires that is another consideration and must receive its sentence by the measures of the former doctrine But for the present a man ought not to conclude against his hopes because he findes propensities and inclinations to the former courses remaining in him even after his conversion For so it will be always more or less and this is not onely the remains of a vicious habit but even of natural inclination in some instances 6. Then the habit hath lost its killing quality and the man is freed from his state of ungraciousness when the habit of vertue prevails when he obeys frequently willingly chearfully But if he sins frequently and obeys his temptations readily if he delights in sin and chooses that that is if his sins be more then sins of infirmity as they are described under their proper title then the habit remains and the man is in the state of death But when sentence is given for God when vertue is the greater ingredient when all sin is hated and labour'd and pray'd against the remaining evils and struglings of the Serpent are signs of the Spirits victory but also engagements of a persevering care and watchfulness lest they return and prevail anew He that is converted and is in his contentions for heaven is in a good state of being let him go forward He that is justified let him be justified still but whether just now if he dies he shall be sav'd or not we cannot answer or give accounts of every period of his new life In what minute or degree of Repentance his sins are perfectly pardon'd no man can tell and it is unreasonable to reprove a doctrine that infers a man to be uncertain where God hath given no certain notices or measures If a man will be certain he must die as soon as he is worthily baptiz'd or live according to his promises then made If he breaks them he is certain of nothing but that he may be sav'd if he returns speedily and effectively does his duty But concerning the particulars there can no rules be given sufficient to answer every mans case beforehand If he be uncertain how Gods judgement will be of him let him be the more afraid and the more humble and the more cautious and the more penitent For in this case all our security is not to be deriv'd from signs but from duty Duty is the best signification and Gods infinite boundless mercy is the best ground of our Confidence §. 6. The former Doctrine reduc'd to Practise IT now remains that we account concerning the effect of this Doctrine and first concerning them that are well and vigorous 2. Them that are old 3. Them that are dying All which are to have several usages and receptions proper entertainments and exercises of Repentance The manner of Repentance and usage of Habitual sinners who convert in their timely and vigorous years 1. Let every man that thinks of his return be infinitely careful to avoid every new sin for it is like a blow to a broken leg or a burthen to a crushed arm Every little thing disorders the new health and unfinish'd recovery So that every new sin to such a person is a double damage it pulls him back from all his hopes and makes his labours vain and he is as far to seek and as much to begin again as ever and more For so may you see one climbing of a Rock with a great contention and labour and danger if when he hath got from the foot to the shoulder he then lets his hold go he falls lower then where he first set his foot and sinks deeper by the weight of his own fall So is the new converted man who is labouring to overcome the rocks and mountains of his habitual sins every sin throws him down further and bruises his very bones in the fall To this purpose therefore is the wise advice of the son of Sirach Hast thou sinn'd do so no more but aske pardon for thy former fault Adde not sin to sin for in one a man shall not be unpunished Ergo ne pietas sit victa cupidine ventris Metamorp 15. Parcite vaticinor cognat as caede nefandâ Exturbare animas ne sanguine sanguis alatur Let not bloud touch bloud nor sin touch sin for we destroy our souls with impious hands when a crime follows a habit like funeral processions in the pomps and solennities of death 2. At the beginning of his recovery let the penitent be arm'd by special cautions against the labours and difficulties of the restitution and consider that if sin be so pleasant it is the habit that hath made it so it is become easie and natural by the custome And therefore so may vertue And complain not that Nature helps and corroborates the habits of sin For besides that Nature doth this mischief but in some instances not in all the Grace of God will as much assist the customes and labours of vertue as Nature doth the habits of vice And choose whether you will Take any institution or course of life let it at first be never so violent use will make it pleasant And therefore we may make vertue as certain as vice is as pleasing to the spirit as hard to be removed as perfective of our nature as the other is destructive and make it by assuefaction as impossible to be vicious as we now think it difficult and impossible to overcome flesh and bloud * But let him remember this also that it will be a strange shame that he can be in a state of sin and death from which it will be very hard to remove and to confess our natures so caitiff and base that we cannot as easily be united unto vertue that he can become a Devil and cannot be like an Angel that he can decline to the brutishness of beasts and yet never arise up to a participation of the excellent beauties of the intellectual world 3. He that undertakes the repentance of his vicious habits when he hath strength and time enough for the work must do it in kinde that is he must oppose a habit to a habit every contrary to its contrary as Chastity to his Wanronness Temperance to his Gluttony or Drunkenness The reason is because if he had
without the revelations of the Gospel 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 So Suidas An animal man that is a Philosopher or a rational man such as were the Greek and Roman Philosophers upon the stock and account of the learning of all their Schools could never discern the excellencies of the Gospel mysteries as of God incarnate Christ dying Resurrection of the body and the like For this word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Animal and another word used often by the Apostle 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Carnal are opposed to 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Spiritual and are states of evil or of imperfection in which while a man remains he cannot do the work of God For animality which is a relying upon natural principles without revelation is a state privatively oppos'd to the Spirit and a man in that state cannot be sav'd because he wants a vital part he wants the spirit which is a part of the constitution of a Christian in that capacity who consists of Body and Soul and Spirit and therefore Anima without Spiritus the Soul without the Spirit is not sufficient * For as the Soul is a sufficient principle of all the actions of life in order to our natural end and persection but it can bear us no further so there must be another principle in order to a supernatural end and that is the Spirit called by S. Paul 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the new creation by S. Peter a divine nature and by this we become renewed in the inner man the infusion of this new nature into us is called Regeneration and it is the great principle of godliness called Grace or the Spirit 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The seed of God and by it we are begotten by God and brought forth by the Church to the hopes and beginnings of a new life and a supernatural end And although I cannot say that this is a third substance distinct from Soul and Body yet it is a distinct principle put into us by God without which we cannot work and by which we can and therefore if it be not a substance yet it is more then a Metaphor it is a real being permanent and inherent but yet such as can be lessen'd and extinguish'd But Carnality or the state of being in the flesh is not onely privatively oppos'd but contrarily also to the spiritual state or the state of Grace But as the first is not a sin deriv'd from Adam so neither is the second The first is onely an imperfection or want of supernatural aids The other is indeed a direct state of sin and hated by God but superinduc'd by choice and not descending naturally * Now to the spiritual state nothing is in Scripture oppos'd but these two and neither of these when it is sinful can be pretended upon the stock or argument of any Scriptures to descend from Adam therefore all the state of opposition to Grace is owing to our selves and not to him Adam indeed did leave us all in an Animal estate but this state is not a state of enmity or direct opposition to God but a state insufficient and imperfect No man can perish for being an Animal man that is for not having any supernatural revelations but for not consenting to them when he hath that is for being Carnal as well as Animal and that he is Carnal is wholly his own choice In the state of animality he cannot go to Heaven but neither will that alone bear him to Hell and therefore God does not let a man alone in that state for either God suggests to him what is spiritual or if he does not it is because himself hath superinduc'd something that is Carnal Having now explicated those Scriptures which have made some difficulty in this Question to what Topick soever we shall return all things are plain and clear in this Article Noxa caput sequitur The soul that sinneth it shall die Neque virtutes neque Epist 3. de morte Nepotian vitia parentum liberis imputantur saith S. Hierome Neither the vices nor the vertues of the parents are imputed to the children And therefore when Dion Chrysostomus had reprov'd Solon's laws which in some cases condemn the innocent posterity he adds this in honour of Gods law 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That it does not like the law of the Athenians punish the children and kindred of the Criminal but every man is the cause of his own misfortune But concerning this it will not be amiss in order to many good purposes to observe the whole Oeconomy and dispensation of the Divine Justice in this affair §. 3. How God punishes the Fathers sin upon the Children 1. GOd may and does very often bless children to reward their fathers piety as is notorious in the famous descent of Abrahams family But the same is not the reason of favours and punishments For such is the nature of benefits that he in whose power they are may without injustice give them why and when and to whom he please 2. God never imputes the fathers sin to the son or relative formally making him guilty or being angry with the innocent eternally It were blasphemy to affirm so fierce and violent a cruelty of the most merciful Saviour and Father of mankinde and it was yet never imagined or affirm'd by any that I know of that God did yet ever damn an innocent son though the father were the vilest person and committed the greatest evils of the world actually personally choosingly and maliciously and why it should by so many and so confidently be affirm'd in a lesser instance in so unequal a case and at so long a distance I cannot suspect any reason Plutarch in his book against Herodotus affirms that it is not likely they would meaning that it was unjust to revenge an injury which the Samians did to the Corinthians three hundred years before But to revenge it for ever upon all generations and with an eternal anger upon some persons even the most innocent cannot without trembling be spoken or imagined of God who is the great lover of Souls Whatsoever the matter be in temporal inflictions of which in the next propositions I shall give account yet if the Question be concerning eternal damnation it was never said never threatned by God to pass from father to the son When God punishes one relative for the sin of another he does it as fines are taken in our law salvo contenemento the principal stake being safe it may be justice to seise upon all the smaller portions at least it is not against justice for God in such cases to use the power and dominion of a Lord. But this cannot be reasonable to be used in the matter of eternal interest because if God should as a Lord use his power over Innocents and condemn them to Hell he should be Author to them of more evil then ever he conveyed good to them which but to imagine would be a horrible impiety And therefore when our blessed Saviour
be tied to any particular repentance relative to this sin the answer will not be difficult I remember a pretty device of Hierome of Florence a famous Preacher not long since who used this argument to prove the blessed Virgin Mary to be free from Original sin Because it is more likely if the blessed Virgin had been put to her choice she would rather have desired of God to have kept her free from venial actual sin then from Original Since therefore God hath granted her the greater and that she never sinn'd actually it is to be presum'd God did not deny to her the smaller favour and therefore she was free from Original Upon this many a pretty story hath been made and rare arguments fram'd and sierce contestations whether it be more agreeable to the piety and prudence of the Virgin Mother to desire immunity from Original sin that is deadly or from a venial actual sin that is not deadly This indeed is voluntary and the other is not but the other deprives us of grace and this does not God was more offended by that but we offend him more by this The dispute can never be ended upon their accounts but this Gordian knot I have now untied as Alexander did by destroying it and cutting it all in pieces But to return to the Question S. Austin was indeed a fierce Patron of this device and one of the chief inventers and finishers of it and his sense of it is declared in his Book De peccatorum medicinâ Cap. 3. homil 50. where he endevours largely to prove that all our life time we are bound to mourn for the inconveniences and evil consequents deriv'd from Original sin I dare say every man is sufficiently displeased that he is liable to sickness weariness displeasure melancholy sorrow folly imperfection and death dying with groans and horrid spasms and convulsions In what sense these are the effects of Adams sin and though of themselves natural yet also upon his account made penal I have already declar'd and need no more to dispute my purpose being onely to establish such truths as are in order to practice and a holy life to the duties of repentance and amendment But our share of Adams sin either being in us no sin at all or else not to be avoided or amended it cannot be the matter of repentance Neminem autem rectè it a loqui poenitere sese quòd natus sit aut poenitere quòd mortalis sit aut quòd ex offenso fortè vulnerató que corpore dolorem sentiat Li. 17. c. 1. said A. Gellius A man is not properly said to repent that he was born or that he shall die or that he feels pain when his leg is hurt he gives this reason Quando istiusmodi rerum nec consilium sit nostrum nec arbitrium As these are besides our choyce so they cannot fall into our deliberation and therefore as they cannot be chosen so neither refused and therefore not repented of for that supposes both that they were chosen once and now refused * As Adam was not bound to repent of the sins of all his posterity so neither are we tied to repent of his sins Neither did I ever see in any ancient Office or forms of prayer publick or private any prayer of humiliation prescrib'd for original sin They might deprecate the evil consequents but never confess themselves guilty of the formal sin Adde to this Original sin is remitted in Baptism by the consent of those Schools of learning who teach this article and therefore is not reserv'd for any other repentance and that which came without our own consent is also to be taken off without it That which came by the imputation of a sin may also be taken off by the imputation of righteousness that is as it came without sin so it must also goe away without trouble But yet because the Question may not render the practice insecure I adde these Rules by way of advice and caution §. 7. Advices relating to the matter of Original sin 1. IT is very requisite that we should understand the state of our own infirmity the weakness of the flesh the temptations and diversions of the spirit that by understanding our present state we may prevent the evils of carelesness and security * Our evils are the imperfections and sorrows inherent in or appendant to our bodies our souls our spirits * In our bodies we finde weakness and imperfection sometimes crookedness sometimes monstrosity filthiness and weariness infinite numbers of diseases and an uncertain cure great pain and restless night hunger and thirst daily necessities ridiculous gestures madness from passions distempers and disorders great labour to provide meat and drink and oftentimes a loathing when we have them if we use them they breed sicknesses if we use them not we die and there is such a certain healthlesness in many things to all and in all things to some men and at some times that to supply a need is to bring a danger and if we eat like beasts onely of one thing our souls are quickly weary if we eat variety we are sick and intemperate and our bodies are inlets to sin and a stage of temptation If we cherish them they undoe us if we doe not cherish them they die we suffer illusion in our dreams and absurd fancies when we are waking our life is soon done and yet very tedious it is too long and too short darkness and light are both troublesome and those things which are pleasant are often unwholsome wholesome Sweet smels make the head ake and those smels which are medicinal in some diseases are intolerable to the sense The pleasures of our body are bigger in expectation then in the possession and yet while they are expected they torment us with the delay and when they are enjoyed they are as if they were not they abuse us with their vanity and vex us with their volatile and fugitive nature Our pains are very frequent alone and very often mingled with pleasures to spoil them and he that feels one sharp pain feels not all the pleasures of the world if they were in his power to have them We live a precarious life begging help of every thing and needing the repairs of every day and being beholding to beasts and birds to plants and trees to dirt and stones to the very excrements of beasts and that which dogs and horses throw forth Our motion is slow and dull heavy and uneasy we cannot move but we are quickly tired and for every days labour we need a whole night to recruit our lost strengths we live like a lamp unless new materials be perpetually poured in we live no longer then a fly and our motion is not otherwise then a clock we must be pull'd up once or twice in twenty four hours and unless we be in the shadow of death for six or eight hours every night we shall be scarce in the shadows of life the other
well done are great advantages to our state and yet we are hardly brought to them and love not to stay at them and wander while we are saying them and say them without minding and are glad when they are done or when we have a reasonable excuse to omit them A passion does quite overturn all our purposes and all our principles and there are certain times of weakness in which any temptation may prevail if it comes in that unlucky minute This is a little representment of the state of man whereof a great part is a natural impotency and the other is brought in by our own folly Concerning the first when we discourse it is as if one describes the condition of a Mole or a Bat an Oyster or a Mushrome concerning whose imperfections no other cause is to be inquired of but the will of God who gives his gifts as he please and is unjust to no man by giving or not giving any certain proportion of good things And supposing this loss was brought first upon Adam and so descended upon us yet we have no cause to complain for we lost nothing that was ours Praeposterum est said Paulus the Lawyer antè nos locupletes dici quà m acquisierimus We cannot be said to lose what we never had and our fathers goods were not to descend upon us unless they were his at his death If therefore they be confiscated before his death ours indeed is the inconvenience too but his alone is the punishment and to neither of us is the wrong But concerning the second I mean that which is superinduc'd it is not his fault alone nor ours alone and neither of us is innocent we all put in our accursed Symbol for the debauching of our spirits for the besotting our souls for the spoiling our bodies Ille initium induxit debiti S. Chrys in cap. 6. Ephes nos foenus auximus posterioribus peccatis c. He began the principal and we have increas'd the interest This we also finde well expressed by Justin Martyr for the Fathers of the first ages spake prudently and temperately in this Article as in other things Christ was not born or crucified because himself had need of these things but for the sake of mankinde 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Dial. cum Tryph. which from Adam fell into death and the deception of the Serpent besides the evil which every one addes upon his own account And it appears in the greatest instance of all even in that of natural death which though it was natural yet from Adam it began to be a curse just as the motion of a Serpent upon his belly which was concreated with him yet upon this story was changed into a malediction and an evil adjunct But though Adam was the gate and brought in the head of death yet our sins brought him in further we brought in the body of death Our life was left by Adam a thousand years long almost but the iniquity of man brought it quickly to 500 years from thence to 250 from thence to 120 and at last to seventy and then God would no more strike all mankinde in the same manner but individuals and single sinners smart for it and are cut off in their youth and do not live out half their dayes And so it is in the matters of the soul and the spirit Every sin leaves an evil upon the soul and every age grows worse and addes some iniquity of its own to the former examples And therefore Tertullian calls Adam mali traducem he transmitted the original and exemplar and we write after his copy Infirmitatis ingenitae vitium so Arnobius calls our natural baseness we are naturally weak and this weakness is a vice or defect of Nature and our evil usages make our natures worse like Butchers being us'd to kill beasts their natures grow more savage and unmerciful so it is with us all If our parents be good yet we often prove bad as the wilde olive comes from the branch of a natural olive or as corn with the chaff come from clean grain and the uncircumcised from the circumcised But if our parents be bad it is the less wonder if their children are so a Blackamore begets a Blackamore as an Epileptick son does often come from an Epileptick father and hereditary diseases are transmitted by generation so it is in that viciousness that is radicated in the body for a lustful father oftentimes begets a lustful son and so it is in all those instances where the soul follows the temperature of the body And thus not onely Adam but every father may transmit an Original sin or rather an Original viciousness of his own For a vicious nature or a natural improbity when it is not consented to is not a sin but an ill disposition Philosophy and the Grace of God must cure it but it often causes us to sin before our reason our higher principles are well attended to But when we consent to and actuate our evil inclinations we spoil our natures and make them worse making evil still more natural For it is as much in our nature to be pleased with our artificial delights as with our natural And this is the doctrine of S. Austin speaking of Concupiscence Lib. 1. de nupt conâ—â—p c. 23. Modo quodam loquendi vocatur peccatum quòd peccato facta est peccati si vicerit facit reum Concupiscence or the viciousness of our Nature is after a certain manner of speaking called sin because it is made worse by sin and makes us guilty of sin when it is consented to It hath the nature of sin so the Article of the Church of England expresses it that is it is in eâdem materiâ it comes from a weak principle à naturae vitio from the imperfect and defective nature of man and inclines to sin But that I may again use S. Austins words Quantum ad nos attinet Lib 2. ad Julian sine peccato semper essemus donec sanaretur hoc malum si ei nunquam consentiremus ad malum Although we all have concupiscence yet none of us all should have any sin if we did not consent to this concupiscence unto evil Concupiscence is Naturae vitium but not peccatum a defect or fault of nature but not formally a sin which distinction we learn from S. Austin Ibid. Non enim talia sunt vitia quae jam peccata dicenda sunt Concupiscence is an evil as a weak eye is but not a sin if we speak properly till it be consented to and then indeed it is the parent of sin 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 so S. James it brings forth sin This is the vile state of our natural viciousness and improbity and misery in which Adam had some but truly not the biggest share and let this consideration sink as deep as it will in us to make us humble and careful but let us not use it as an excuse to lessen
commanded me to pray to thee in all needs thou hast made gracious promises to hear and accept me and I will never leave importuning thy glorious Majesty humbly passionately confidently till thou hast heard and accepted the prayer of thy servant Amen dearest Lord for thy mercy sake hear thy servant Amen CHAP. VII Of sins of Infirmity §. 1. 1. ALL Mankinde hath for ever complain'd of their irremediable calamity their propensity to sin For though by the dictates of Nature all people were instructed in the general notices of vertue and vice right reason being our rule insomuch that the old Philosophers as Plutarch reports said that vertue was nothing else but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a disposition and force of reason And this reason having guided the wisest was form'd into laws for others yet this reason serv'd to little other purposes but to upbraid our follies and infelicities and to make our actions punishable by representing them to be unreasonable for they did certainly sin and they could no more help it then they could prevent their being sick or hungry or angry or thirsty Nature had made organs for some and senses for others and conversation and example brought in all So that if you reprov'd a Criminal he heard and understood you but could not help it as Laius in the Tragedy 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Reason taught him well but Nature constrain'd him to the contrary his affections were stronger then his reason And it is no wonder that while flesh and bloud is the prevailing ingredient while men are in the state of conjunction and the soul serves the body and the necessities of this are more felt then the discourses of that that men should be angry and lustful proud and revengeful and that they should follow what they lust after not what they are bidden to do For passions and affections are our first governours and they being clearly possessed of all mankinde in their first years have almost secured to themselves the soul of man before reason is heard to speak And when she does speak she speaks at first so little and so low that the common noises of fancy and company drown her voice This I say is the state of Nature And therefore Lactantius brings in a Pagan complaining Lib. 4. Insti c. 24. Volo equidem non peccare sed vincor Indutus enim sum carne fragili et imbecillâ Haec est quae concupiscit quae irascitur quae dolet quae mori timet Itáque ducor incertus pecco non quia volo sed quia cogor Sentio me ipse peccare sed necessitas fragilitatis impellit cui repugnare non possum I would fain avoid sin but I am compelled I am invested with a frail and weak flesh This is it which lusteth which is angry which grieves which fears to die Therefore I am led uncertainly and I sin not because I will but because I am constrained I perceive that I doe ill but the necessity of my weakness drives me on and I cannot resist it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Medea apud Eurip. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I know well and perceive the evils that I go upon and they are horridones but my anger is greater then my reason So Medea in the Tragedy This is the state of a natural man in his meer naturals especially as they are made worse by evil customs and vile usages of the world Now this is a state of infirmity and all sins against which there is any reluctancy and contrary desires of actual reason are sins of infirmity But this infirmity excuses no man for this state of infirmity is also a state of death for by this S. Paul expressed that state from which Christ came to redeem us 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 when we were yet in infirmity or without strength in due time Christ died for us Rom. 5.6 that is when we were 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 impious or sinners such as the world was before it was redeemed before Christ came These are the sick and weak whom Christ the great Physician of our souls came to save This infirmity is the shadow of death and it signifies that state of mankinde which is the state of nature not of original and birth but in its whole constitution as it signifies not onely the natural imperfection but the superinduc'd evil from any principle all that which is oppos'd to Grace To this state of Nature being so pitiable God began to finde a remedy and renewed the measures of vertue and by a law made them more distinct and legible and impos'd punishments on the transgressors For by little and little the notices of natural reason were made obscure some were lost some not attended to all neglected some way or other till God by a law made express prohibition of what was unreasonable forbidding us to desire what before was unfit and unnatural and threatning them that did things unlawful But this way by reason of the peevishness of men succeeded not well but men became worse by it For what the law did forbid without the threatning of any penalty they took for an advice onely and no severe injunction And those Commandements which were established with a threatning to the transgressors they expounded onely by the letter and in the particular instance and in the outward act Before the Law men allowed to themselves many impieties which reason indeed mark'd out to be such but no law had forbidden them in express letter They thought it lawful to seduce and tempt another mans wife and invite her to his house and conjugation so he did not steal or force her away but if they found a coldness between her and her husband they would blow the coals and enkindle an evil flame It is supposed that Herod did so to Herodias his brother Philips wife even after the law They would not by violence snatch the estate from a young prodigal heir but if he were apt they would lend him money and nurse his vice and intangle his estate and at last devour it They would not directly deny to pay the price of a purchase but they would detain it or divert it or pay it in trifling sums or in undesir'd commodities This was Concupiscere rem alienam They did not steal but coveted it and so entred indirectly and this God seeing forbad it by a law Rom. 7.7 For I had not known lust or desires to be a sin saith S. Paul but that the law said Thou shalt not covet But because the law onely forbad lustings but imposed no penalty they despis'd it and those things which were forbidden with an appendent penalty they would act them privately For if they avoided the notice of the Criminal Judge they fear'd not the face of an angry God and this Lactantius observ'd of them Metus legum non scelera comprimebat sed licentiam submovebat Poterant enim leges delicta
and a long iniquity the unhappy man shall be restor'd because it wholly depends upon the Divine acceptance In smaller offences and the seldome returns of sin intervening in a good or a probable life the Curates of souls may make safe and prudent judgements But when the case is high and the sin is clamorous or scandalous or habitual they ought not to be too easy in speaking peace to such persons to whom God hath so fiercely threatned death eternal But to hold their hands may possibly increase the sorrow and contrition and fear of the penitent and returning man and by that means make him the surer of it But it is too great a confidence and presumption to dispense Gods pardon or the Kings upon easy terms and without their Commission For since all the rule and measures of dispensing it is by analogies and proportions by some reason and much conjecture it were better by being restrain'd in the Ministeries of favour to produce fears and watchfulness carefulness and godly sorrow then by an open hand to make sinners bold and many confident and easy Those holy and wise men who were our Fathers in Christ did well weigh the dangers into which a sinning man had entred and did dreadfully fear the issues of the Divine anger and therefore although they openly taught that God hath set open the gates of mercy to all worthy penitents yet concerning repentance they had other thoughts then we have and that in the pardon of sinners there are many more things to be considered besides the possibility of having the sin pardoned §. 4. Of the sin against the Holy Ghost and in what sense it is or may be Unpardonable UPon what account the Primitive Church did refuse to admit certain Criminals to repentance I have already discoursed but because there are some places of Scripture which seem to have incouraged such severity by denying repentance also to some sinners it is necessary that they be considered also lest by being misunderstood some persons in the days of their sorrow be tempted to despair The Novatians denying repentance to lapsed Christians pretended for their warrant those words of S. Paul Heb. 6.4 5 6. 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 seeing they crucify to themselves the son of God afresh and put him to an open shame and parallel to this are those other words Hebr. 10.26 27. For if we sin wilfully after we have received the knowledge of the truth there remaineth no more sacrifice for sins but a certain fearful looking for of judgement and fiery indignation which shal consume the adversaries The sense of which words will be clear upon the explicating what is meant by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 what by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and what by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 If they shall fall away viz. from that state of excellent things in which they had received all the present endearments of the Gospel 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a full conviction pardon of sins the earnest of the Spirit the comfort of the promises an antepast of heaven it self if these men shall fall away from all this it cannot be by infirmity by ignorance by surprise this is that which S. Paul cals 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to sin wilfully after they have received the knowledge of the truth Malicious sinners these are who sin against the Holy Spirit whose influences they throw away whose counsels they despise whose comforts they refuse whose doctrine they scorn and from thence fall not onely into one single wasting sin but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 they fall away into a contrary state into Heathenism or the heresy of the Gnosticks or to any state of despising and hating Christ expressed here by Crucifying the Son of God afresh and putting him to an open shame these are they here meant such who after they had worshipped Jesus and given up their names to him and had been blessed by him and felt it and acknowledged it and rejoyc'd in it these men afterwards without cause or excuse without error or infirmity choosingly willingly knowingly call'd Christ an Impostor and would have crucified him again if he had been alive that is they consented to his death by believing that he suffer'd justly This is the case here described and cannot be drawn to any thing else but its parallel that is a malicious renouncing charity or holy life as these men did the faith to both which they had made their solemne vows in Baptism but this can no way be drawn to the condemnation and final excision of such persons who after baptism fall into any great sin of which they are willing to repent There is also something peculiar in 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 renewing such men to repentance that is these men are not to be redintegrate and put into the former condition they cannot be restored to any other gracious Covenant of repentance since they have despis'd this Other persons who hold fast their profession and forget not that they were cleansed in baptism they in case they doe fall into sin may proceed in the same method in their first renovation to repentance that is in their being solemnly admitted to the method and state of repentance for all sins known and unknown But when this renovation is renounc'd when they despise the whole Oeconomy when they reject this grace and throw away the Covenant there is nothing left for such but a fearful looking for of judgement for these persons are incapable of the mercies of the Gospel they are out of the way For there being but one way of salvation viz. by Jesus Christ whom they renounce neither Moses nor Nature nor any other name can restore them And 2. Their case is so bad and they so impious and malicious that no man hath power to perswade such men to accept of pardon by those means which they so disown For there is no means of salvation but this one and this one they hate and will not have they will not return to the old and there is none left by which they can be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 renewed and therefore their condition is desperate But the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or impossible is also of special importance and consideration 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 It is impossible to renew such For impossible is not to be understood in the natural sense but in the legal and moral There are degrees of impossibility and therefore they are not all absolute and supreme So when the law hath condemned a criminal we usually say it is impossible for him to escape meaning that the law is clearly against him Magnus ab infernis revocetur Tullius umbris Mart. Ep. l. 4.
amends or satisfaction of repentance The meaning of this is That when we are grieved for our sins and deplore them we hate them and goe from them and convert to God who onely can give us remedy 75. Corporal afflictions Such as are Fastings watchings hair-cloth upon our naked bodies lyings upon the ground journeys on foot doing mean offices serving sick and wounded persons solitariness silence voluntary restraints of liberty refusing lawful pleasure choosing at certain times the less pleasing meats laborious postures in prayer saying many and devout prayers with our arms extended in the fashion of Christ hanging on the Cross which indeed is a painful and afflictive posture but safe and without detriment to our body adde to these the austerities used by some of the Ancients in their Ascetick devotions who somtimes rolled themselves naked upon nettles or thorns shut themselves in tombs bound themselves to pillars endured heats and colds in great extremity chastisements of the body and all ways of subduing it to the empire of the soul Of which antiquity is infinitely full and of which at last they grew so fond and enamoured that the greatest part of their Religion was self-affliction but I choose to propound onely such prudent severities as were apt to signify a godly sorrow to destroy sin and to deprecate Gods anger in such ways of which they had experience or warrant express or authentick precedents their Exomologesis being De poenit c. 9. as Tertullian describes it a discipline of humbling and throwing a man down conversationem in jungens misericordiae illicem enjoyning a life that will allure to pity de ipso quoque habitu atque victu mandat sacco cineri incubare corpus sordibus obscurare Penitential sorrow expresses it self in the very clothes and gestures of the body that is a great sorrow is apt to express it self in every thing and infects every part of a man with its contact Vt Alexandrum Regem videmus Vide Ciceron Tuscul 4. qui cum interemisset Clytum familiarem suum vix à se abstinuit manus tanta vis fuit poenitendi When Alexander had kill'd his friend Clytus he scarce abstained from killing himself so great is the effort and violence of repentance this is no other thing then what the Apostle said If one member of the body is afflicted all the rest suffer with it and if the heart be troubled he that is gay in any other part goes about to lessen his trouble and that takes off it does not promote repentance 76. But the use of this is material It is a direct judging of our selves and a perverting the wrath of God not that these penances are a paiment for the reserve of the temporal guilt remaining after the sin is pardoned That 's but a dream for the guilt and the punishment are not to be distinguished in any material event so long as a man is liable to punishment so long he is guilty and so long he is unpardoned as he is obnoxious to the Divine anger God cannot will not punish him that is innocent and he that is wholly pardoned is in the place and state of a guiltlesse person Indeed God punishes as he pleases and pardons as he pleases by parts and as he is appeased or as he inclines to mercy but our general measure is As our repentance is so is our pardon and every action of repentance does something of help to us and this of self-affliction when it proceeds from a hearty detestation of sin and indignation against our selves for having provoked God is a very good exercise of repentance of it self it profits little but as it is a fruit of repentance in the vertue of it it is accepted towards its part of expiation and they that have refused this have felt worse Et qui non tulerat verbera tela tulit But when God sees us smite our selves in indignation for our sins because we have no better way to expresse and act our repentances God hath accepted it and hath himself forborn to smite us and we have reason to beleeve he will do so again For these expressions extinguish the delicacies of the flesh from whence our sins have too often had their spring and when the offending party accuses himself first and smites first and calls for pardon there is nothing left to the offended person to do but to pity and pardon For we see that sometimes God smites a sinner with a temporal curse and brings the man to repentance and pardons all the rest and therefore much rather will he do it when we smite our selves For this is the highest processe of confession God is pleased that we are ashamed of our sin that we justifie God and give sentence against our selves that we accuse our selves and acknowledge our selves worthy of his severest wrath If therefore we go on and punish the sinner too it is all it is the greatest thing we can do and although it be not necessary in any one instance to be done unlesse where the authority of our superiour does intervene yet it is accepted in every instance if the principle be good that is if it proceeds from our indignation against sin and if it be not rested in as a thing of it self and singly a service of God which indeed he hath no where in particular required and lastly if it be done prudently and temperately If these cautions be observed in all things else it is true that the most laborious repentance if other things be answerable is the best for it takes off the softnesse of the flesh and the tendernesse of the lower man it abates the love of the world enkindles the love of heaven it is ever the best token of sincerity and an humble repentance and does promote it too still in better degrees effecting what it doth signifie As musick in a banquet of wine and caresses and indications of joy and festivity are seasonable and proper expressions at a solemnity of joy so are all the sad accents and circumstances and effects and instruments of sorrow proper in a day of mourning All nations weep not in the same manner and have not the same interjections of sorrow but as every one of us use to mourn in our greatest losses and in the death of our dearest relatives so it is fit we should mourn in the dangers and death of our souls that they may being refreshed by such salutary and medicinal showers spring up to life eternal 77. In the several ages of the Church they had several methods of these satisfactions and they requiring a longer proof of their repentance then we usually do did also by consequent injoyn and expect greater and longer penitential severities Concerning which these two things are certain 78. The one is that they did not believe them simply necessary to the procuring of pardon from God which appears in this that they did absolve persons in the article of death though they had