to be thought that when the Soul and Body are ready to cleave asunder and tâ—e Spirit to be unsodered from Fleâ—h that it should make a higher flight towards eternal things The nearer every thing is to its own residence the more vehement is its motion said to be thither So there may very well be quick sallies of the Soul towards eternity before it enters into it when it is so near that everlasting Receptacle of it self Thirdly We may observe in the experience of all times every appearance of the other world hath strange effects of fear and affrightment upon mens minds vvhen any one is entring then into that whole World it may vvell put him upon purifying himself more then they that fall upon Leviathan Iob 41. 25. VVhen men are just upon that Region of Spirits vvhat appalements of mind and strong vvorking of thoughts must there needs be Much more if the Soul have any sense of its approach to the infinite Holiness of God at vvhose rebuke the pillars of Heaven tremble vvhose presence astonishes the Heb. 1â— 22 Isai 6. 5. Iob 42. 6. Dan. 10. 8. purer spirits of Angels and beates dovvn the souâ—s of good men to the Dust as of Moses Iob Isaiah c. in his intervievves vvith them Hovv much more of those that have never thought of God and novv must come near his Seat Nothing so composes the soul to this amazing change of condition and converse as long continued Treaties vvith God through Christ vvhen though men change their place they do not change their company Others vvhen this great light strikes them are in the very terrors of the shaddow of Death and Iob 24. 17 Iob â—3 13 shaken out of their place out of all the security and quiet sensuality they lived in Let us novv take the estimate or avail of these things to true Repentance and vve shall find vvhen the soul lyes thus uncovered to the things of Eternity it hath natural reasons for all it may seem to do like return to God and so that all argue nothing of the true Grace of God but if a man vvere again in his former state he would be the very same he was for first as one thing strikes upon another with a naturâ—l effect Light upon the eye Sound upon the ear so eternal things upon the immortal spirit when there is nothing between to intercept the â— Ioh. 2. 16. stroke Further when the lust of the Elesh the lust of the Eye and the pride of Life are as a Scene removed and a Play at an end and instead of them another World drawing near just as men defeated in all their attempts for riches and honours and beaten of from them to a private life call all these things cheats not out of true reason but because they cannot reach them on the other side they praise retirement and a Cloyster not that they like it but because they must live so which begeâ—s some kind of contentedness so to live Thus and no otherwise do many Dying men call all this World vanity and profess an high estâ—em for all things pertaining to to that to come Cause 3 There is yet a more pressing Account of the most notable motions that were ever found in any of their Repentances viz. The awakenings of Conscience usual at this time because of the sense of a Judgment while common experience tells men It is appointed to all men once to dy and sinking nature gives Heb. 9. 27. notice This is the time Conscience lifts up to the next things After that the judgment Now no man sees judgment a judgment omniscient omnipresent eternal without great shakes of Soul especially that hath done nothing seriously to agree with the adversary in the way Coascience then Luk. i2 18. rising up with the Awe of a Tribunal upon â—t stirs up all the powers to fly from the wrath that is to come by desires of pardon and resolutions of Amendment The very hearing of Judgment made Act. 24. 25 such a one as Foelix tremble When Judgment seems to us at the other end of Heaven all is quiet but when Death brings us to the very seat of it How loud may be the cries for mercy The bewayling the former evils of Life Now men pour on t their complaints for the want of God the misimprovement of former time Now they make large offers of a strict and fevere mortification and devotion to Religion Now they would give the the thousand Rams the Mic. 6. 6 7 ten thousand Rivers of Oyl their first born for their transgression the fruit of their Body for the sin of their Soul And yet all but the eye opened to see the flaming sword of Justice that makes even a Balaam wish Num. 22. 32. c. 23. 10. to dye the death of the Righteous and to have a Latter end Sober Just Religious The very suspition of a Judgment inclines men thus far universally almost that hardly any choose to die in a Rant in a madness but had rather by virtue and Religion be consigned over to another World and have their eyes closed by Mercy and Grace in Christ They would see the Salvation of God and so depart in Peace Object But it may be objected Seeing these Motions are granted to rise from true conviction and not to be dissimulation or counterfeit pretence why may not they have the worth of true Repentance Answ To answer this Let us consider pure conviction and inlighâ—â—ed apprehension and the affections begotten of them are no argument of true Goodness where the light hath noâ— a benign and free operation upon the Judgment an allurement upon the Will an indearment upon the Affections to turn them to a full delight and satisfaction in God and holiness to a dislike and abhorrence of sin For else the Devils I am 2. 19. who believe and tremble must be thought Converts For who have clearer sight of things than they Balaam whose eyes were opened and spoke so great things of God and his people must be concluded a Good Mat. 27. 4. Heb. 12. â—7 Dan. 4. â—7 6. 26. Luk. 6. 20. Act 24. 25 man Esau and Judas who had so sad apprehensions of Sin and their loss by it must be affirmed to be Penitents Nebucadne Zar's and Darius his acknowledgments of God must be taken for true Grace Herod his hearing John Baptist gladly Felix his trembling at Paul's Discourse may be thought evidences of true Repentance Obj. 2 But Secondly it may be supposed because these very convictions and affections are not universal but we see multitudes go out of the World without them carrying little better than a decent and civil Respect to Religion that therefore there is something of God something Heroique in them that have them Answ 2 This indeed may be no other than the wise and good Government of God over the World whereby he takes care there should be testimonies of himself and
when by repentance a man Isai 1. 16 17. Mat. 3. 8. ceases to do evil he learns to do well and brings forth fruits meet for repentance and amendment of life On the other side he that seems to make a hasty motion to Holiness without due sense of sin first thinks to overrule the method God hath set who requires humiliation godly sorrow anger revenge fear as preparing to Repentance and further he conceipts a freedom to himself when he is fetter'd and bound without a power given him from God he offers to cast out Devils with ease that cannot be cast out Mat. 9. 29. but by fasting and prayer that is severe courses of self abasement and lowliest dependances together with earnestest application to the Grace of God These unclean spirits therefore that dissemble a retreat return immediately and make a prey of Acts 19. 14 c. the deluded soul Although Heaven and Hell happiness and misery take up the thoughts of the true penitent yet not separated from God and Christ but as it were melted into the sense of God angry and the desire of attonement with him in Jesus Christ Happiness and misery considered apart are not the object of the gracious soul But God and Christ considered apart are an infinitely sufficient reason of Repentance The clear love of God towards the soul as a Father in Christ without reflections upon happiness is though not the single yet the paramount consideration in Repentance unfeigned But men a dying are generally so over possessed with the terrors of an eternal suffering and meer desires of Freedom from paâ—n and of well-being and so in haste that they generally miss these higher considerations which being further of not only from corrupt nature but even from natural conscience are not commonly espied but therefore argue greater sincerity and truth of Heart The truest Repentance lies in the bosome of Faith the apprehensions of the love and goodness of God in Christ melt the soule and give it most perfect Separation from sin the most effectual purification of the Heart all which express the height of repentance Upon the soâ—t fire of the pardoning goodness of God the soul most kindly distils into repentant tears Here flowes that Spirit of Grace and ingenuous goodness which bringeth forth the clearest and holiest affection towards God But at the time we are now speaking of It is very seldom that either horror or presumption do not swallow all Presumption where there is little sense or judgment of the Case Horror where the judgment is clearer and the sense quicker for every thing Rom. 8. 15 disposes now rather to Fear and to the Spirit of Bondage and a man naturally does all he does under a servile dread of God and his eternal Justice And though there may be much mention of Christ and desire of mercy through him yet it is but as a malefactor convicted beseeches the mercy of the Judge no otherwise than as of a Judge So such call out for the mercy of God to pardon them but still as a Judge not with the Spirit of the Son sent into the Cal. 4. 6. Heart the spirit of Adoption crying Abba Father Not with that Love that casteth out unworthy Fear And indeed how can it be otherwise there having been no Iob 22. 21 acquaintance with God in the way but a long enmity and the time now too strait for a free and full consideration of the riches of Grace such as may still an awakened conscience Fear presses in every way and shuts out Faith What can novv redeem the soul from this hellish Terror but a light from Heaven immediately darting into it a Grace above that Grace that ordinarily saves men for a vvell setled trust and confidence in mercy according to the general Rule is not but after some sad debates and experimental consultations that have passed betvveen the sense of sin and the affiancing acts of the soul upon Christ This Repentance then is in great danger of missing the spirit of the Gospel and falling into the rank of those repentances of Cain Esau Judas Thus I have endeavoured to shew that though we suppose a Dying man to spread his soul and thoughts every way and to all the parts of Repentance yet it is extremely to be suspected there will want the true and right quality of them in regard of the very disadvantageous circumstances wherein such an one is found and the great unfitness of the soul at that time to begin to do any thing worthy to which it hath not been before inured or if it did begin it would be much more unlikely to bring forth fruit as our Saviour speakes to perfection Luke 8. 14. I add nothing of the exercises of a full and well grown Repentance whereby it is dayly espying the risings of sin and suppressing them and filling up the defects of Holiness and Obedience because they are not to be thought possible in the point I am now speaking of and I have already given a resolution in that case I shall now set my self to find out the low causes that are alway to be suspected to have the great influence upon such a latter end penitency In general therefore we must take notice that there are several vapors of misapprehension rising upon the Soul when we are a dying that do so disguize it to it self and disfigure the true face of it that from thence arise dangerous mistakes concerning a mans condition towards God We see into how many shapes upon ordinary occurrences we change and how easily we exchange them for quite different without any good cause what continual Ebbs and Flows there are of the humours and how do these cast the ballance of the superiour soul One man is every hour some several sorts of men How much more do great Accidents and removes out of one condition into another alter us Which yet are but the sudden and just now state of our minds upon such alterations which not continuing we return to our former figure Vnstable and weak as water Gen. 49 3 we take the form of every vessel we are put into who knows then whether his Dying Repentance be any more than the mould not of his mind but of his dying condition approaching him big with so great a change We know many things befal us in our lives which put a greater sense of Religion upon us than we find at other times and yet how variable we are our goodness at such times is as the morning Dew Hose 6. 4. and as the early Dew it goeth away How often are we from the occasions of mercies afflictions fears hopes good discourses carried into high apprehensions of God And we lose them again we know not how Now out of doubt a dying condition of any thing vve meet vvith in the World is most apt to move us upon God and a sense of him But can vve think those fleeting shoots of the Soul that
have no certainty are accepted for Repentance Hovv strangely doth Melancholy and oppressions of that transform men vvhich vvhen it falls upon the motions of conscience gives us strong imaginaions of eternal things vvhich yet being nothing but the cast of that Melancholy upon the thoughts vvhen that is removed they are quite of another hue It is evident the Mind sees much through the Body and the representations are coloured by its temper as the Eye sees through yellovv or green Glass differently from the things themselves So the Serenity or Cloudiness of the humours makes a different reflexion of things upon the mind and the liveliness or heaviness of the Spirits incline us to very varying apprehensions Novv vvhat time is more like to be so incumber'd vvith these Clouds and Vapours than a dying Hour When every thing is ready to contribute them and nothing to scatter them If then natural conscience and implanted sense of God together vvith the notions given us from Scripture pass through these they become very impressive and affecting for the time and yet he much mistakes Repentance vvho thinks it no more than a fit of religious Melancholy But let us inquire after some more setled and constant causes of these penitential motions near Death and vve shall find many very likely to be so that are not yet vvorthy of true Repentance and therefore vvhat springs from them is not accepted before God 1. When men find all their Being in the vvorld at an end and feel themselves falling they knovv not vvhither It is no strange thing they should catch at God and that they may take hold of him at Holiness also Seeing ingraffed Principles together vvith general discourse teach every one hovv dear Holiness is to God If God and Goodness vvere no more than imaginary things It vvould be no vvonder if they vvho are tossed off the World and throvvn over board from it should snatch at them if there vvere no more in the case than this that every one hath heard so much speech and talk of them among men For to him that hath nothing in reality even a shadow a phancy are valueable Men that are dropping through the Ayre or sinking under water without consultation offer at everything they meet with In great extremities short of Death they that are bereft of all worldly assistance fly to the Divine succours though as Jonah's Marriners they pray to an Idol instead of the true God and their Devotion is no better than Superstition which is but a phancy in Religion What strange thing then is it for nature to cry out for God and Christ for pardon of sin to be delivered from Hell and to have Heaven for an everlasting Rest when all things else evidently fail as they do in Death and when not only phancy and general opinion but most substantial reason in lightned by the Scripture provoke up a man to iteven for Self-preservation Yet this differs but little from howling upon our Beds â—os 7. 14. for Corn and VVine and Oyle for though the things differ much in their nature yet the esteem men have of them and the desire they have after them is much upon the same ground for these spiritual things appear to that natural sense of Self-preservation as necessary in Death as the other do in Life and Healt But if the approaches of Death happen to be again drawn off the value of spiritual things removes with them and the things of this world with all the sensual and sinful delights of it return to their former price vvhich argues the ineffectualness of this cause of Repentance and the unacceptableness of the Repentance it self to God that flovves from it God disclaims men that have never come to him before their extremity and come then only because Ier. 2. 27. 28. of it In the time of their trouble tâ—ey will say Arise and save us But where are thy Gods that thou madest Let them arise if they can save thee thus to such Dying men crying out to him God saies Let your former lusts and pleasures now be your Happiness Fools and scorners that would not be warned call upon God Pro. 1. 14. in their calamity and seek him early when the whirlwind of their distractions hurries them but cannot make him hear cannot find him 2. Suppose the desires after God and eternal Happiness with all the retinue of those desires rise not so much from the necessities of remove from this Life and sensible supports but immediately from the sight of eternal things themselves yet will not this conclude the Repedntance sincere For we may easily pitch upon several so plain reasons of these quick apprehensions of another world that it is much more strange if any man be not struck with them and they that are are not in greater extasies of these considerations than that most dy in some fair inclinable temper towards them and others are extraordinarily surprized with them yet without true Repentance For First If it were no more but the leisure and uninterestedness of the mind in all worldly things that Death brings It is no wonder that the Action of it should immediately and necessarily flow upon God for it being always in action and motion from its very nature and God having made it for himself and the manner of its living here in the world being a slavery willingly undertaken for the service of the Body and the enjoyment of this present Life in its being fallen from God It is nothing strange that that drudgery being now at an end and the chains wherein it was held just a breaking it should fall upon God and spiritual objects whither the stream of it was prepared to run and which are most truly its own business For the distance being so wide and irreconcileable between man and this earth in Death the very having nothing else to do must carry him upon the future state seeing his foul is such a being as cannot naturally lye still and that state is all that it hath to work upon and further then that it is so nearly allied to it Secondly The very losening and uncementing the Soul from the Body wherein it dwelt and wherein the motions of it were restrained hath been thought very probably to give some men lesser degrees Multi euim quum remisâ—i liberi sunt sutura prospiciunt ex quo intelligitur quales futuri sint quum se plane corporis vinculis relaxaverint Cice. de Senectu Gen. 49. Deut. 32. cap 33. of those advantages near their death which naked and free spirits not inclosed and pent up in bodies have whereby they have been able to make conjectures of future things and to speak prophetically The less the Soul is bound to work by the Body the higher are its operations All extraordinary motions of the Soul are a kind of ravishment from Sense Those great prophetick Blessings of Iacob and Moses were near their Dying It is therefore very easie
the goodness of his ways that Atheism and wickedness may not carry it as if all were their own as if there were an unexceptionable concurrence on their side against God and Holiness For as he receives witness from the constant gracious and religious lives of good men so he constrains some of them that have lived contrary to him all their lives to give him glory at last for the good of others though without saving benefit to themselves Which he may justly do and without any injury to them Seeing all the service every creature can do to him is infinitely due he may make use of that which is his own so far as he pleases And because the word God puts in their Num 23. 5 mouths is not their own not arising out of the good Mat. 12. 35 treasure of their Hearts as appears in Balaam therefore their everlasting condition is not determined by it but by the constant course of their former Life the true image of their Hearts as we see in the same Balaam who after died by the Israelites hand whose Num. 31. â— greatness he had prophesied Yet I will not deny but they may have their reward in mitigation of punishment for any service done to God If God did not interpose thus sometimes he might seem vvanting in something that concerned him at least as a gracious Ruler of the World He therefore over-rules some vvho have lived so as to make a constant Argument against him and a future state so far as vvickedness could do it to retract the vvhole course of their Life and give their Vote for vvhat they had so long vvithstood I vvill yet further add another cause of a Death-Bed Repentance that sometimes falls out to have a most povverful influence and yet the Repentance that springs from it is very unsafe to confide in Cause 4 Dying men are oft under the Play and force of other mens reason and Religion For it is a general and necessary Charity of men affected to Religion themselves to offer the sense of it to others in a time vvhen they think it likely to be accepted and so infinitely necessary vvhich practice hovvever needful and most commendable in it self yet by accident may have raised higher the opinion of a Death-Bed Repentance and is often the occasion of great Error in the thing it self For suppose a man followed with sound and affectionate perswasions to do all that may be done for his Soul in this exigent how conceivable is it that man may be fo far wrought upon as to entertain a present sense of Religion and yet have no true Life no life that arises from a true intimate Principle But as those Bodies of Aire taken and moved by Angels seem to perform the functions of living bodies yet do but seem to do so for they have no principle of life natural to them but assoon as they are forsaken by the Spirits that made use of them they fly abroad and disperse themselves Thus that general sense of Conscience that lies scattered through the Soul and unable for action being gathered together and united by good and holy applications and acted thereby may have force so long as that union coatinues but that discourse that holds it together ceasing it immediately falls asunder and loses its efficacy The stone that receives motion from the Hand that throwes it goes on whilst that motion lasts when that is spent it falls to the ground so the force of exhortation ceases too often when he that gives it leaves those to whom it was given The instrument to which the Musicians hand gives tune and voice lies dead when he deserts it Mans soul is made by God capable of reâ—igious tune and moâ—ion and while a skilâ—ful hand playes upon it it may give that sound very distinctly and yet have no Life in it self The striking of Conscience makes the Sparkes fly out yea and sometime kindle in a flame and yet it presently dies because not supplied with a continual Oyl to feed it The mind of oneman is very apt to receive impressions from another we see what passions and motions are raised by an eloquent Speaker how the understanding is carried captive while the Orator works uponit and yet all the affection thus blown up falls flat again when the breath that svvell'd it lies still and is apt to be carried the contrary way by cross perswasions equally insinuated How much more may this be in religious things Conscience being so easily stirr'd by such applications as we see in Felix though it is as easily becalmed when sinful lusts through the efficacy of temptation are loud and high And all this is certainly much easilier done near Death vvhen men are so soft that they are apt to take any stamp so melting as to be gathered into any mould It is possible for one mans spirit to carry another for some considerable space of time as vve see in Iehoiadas influence upon Ioash vvho vvas not yet all that 2 Kin. 12. â— time possessed vvith the things themselves vvhereunto he vvas directed But true Repentance is a frame set up by the spirit of God in the Heart subsisting by that spirit upon it self and makes use only of all Helps subordinated to it by the vvisdom of that Spirit but doth not live from that Help but from it self through that Spirit its supreme Life To dravv these things therefore to a sum It vvill appear after all these causes have done vvhat they can these great Errors follovving are generally found and alvvays to be suspected in a Death-Bed Repentance 1. In a Death-Bed Repentance There is only a Judgment made of the case of Eternity considered by it self and without a counterpoise The excellency of God and eternal things are minded as they stand out of the aire of Temptation Now though this be a good opportunity for the first consideration yet that consideration must grow so strong as to retain the same sense in the midst of all pretences from the World and Sathan Else in the time of Temptation this Repentance falls away m Dr. Iackson Book 10. Chap. 23. Sect. 3. For there may be many true apprehensions which may make deep impression not only in the Brain and Phancy but upon our Affections whilest these are calm and unprovok'd and yet both the apprehension and impression quickly vanish upon the starting or provocation of contrary Fancies or Affections When the Blood cools in the Veins and the spirits are ready to stand still when a man is no longer to live in the world the season of the pleasures of Sin is over then to cast out his lusts VVhat excellent thing does he does not even nature whether he will or no the same Mat. 5. 46. True Repentance encounters temptation and resists unto blood when those pleasures of Sin are at the height and the tide of corruption from within swells most As Moses chose to suffer affliction with the people of God
all must be trusted with the prerogative of mercy for that mercy which is stated in the promises of the Gospel and is in ordinary cannot help them in the great point of salvation however it may alleviate their condemnation and lessen their torment I may add if that which appears a Messenger of Death should have a secret reprieve in its instructions and what seems a Death-bed prove only a discipline It may be a happy beginning of a true repentance to him who lives after his being near the Grave to perfect it according to that of Job 33. ver 22. 23. Thus this opinion doth not cut off the Action of its desperate person and if by that Action he pass the needles Eye and get through the strait Gate of Repentance and Regeneration it will be able to give him no resistance For those to whom the two-leav'd Gates of Faith and Repentance open this Air of discourse cannot barr that they should not enter into life But on the other side they that are confident and make themselves sure of Repentance and Mercy cannot when they meet the solid obstacles of things force their way by the breath of their Mouth but they and their intended Repentance are together locked up in the closeness and compactedness of those decrees First they cannot repent then they cannot be saved To conclude let such a decision of this case be never so austere it is a thousand times more just than the delay of our return to God in the contemplation of doing it at the last can be and the reasons upon vvhich it is planted are such that though they may not reach the height designed yet do they exclude thousands from eternal happiness and although they may not make good the complement of the censure yet are they of so awful a regard and so worthy of all observation that they are most vehemently to be pressed to the main scope that Men vvould by no means trust to this extream Repentance to vvhich purpose I shall hereaftet take further advantage of them But let us come to that tenderer apprehension of the generality of Divines vvith vvhich I vvill concurr that all things of opination and dispute may be taken away in so great a point Let it then be allowed that a Death-Bed Repentance is no impossibility First in regard of infinite mercy that cannot be limited but by it self Now long impenitency though it be often doomed irrevocably by God in particular generations of men or persons yet is not that sin that shall never be forgiven Nor is it upon that account that the Scripture saith of some It is impossible to renew them to repentance So that though there be many examples of such impenitency that hath proved in the event unpardonable yet not from the precise nature of the thing it self we may rather believe that as the unmeasurable Being of God hath delighted it self in so many varieties and gradations of the Creatures down from Angels to the darkest foot-steps of himself in the World so the unsearchable riches of his Grace is made known in all kinds of pardons As therefore it hath chosen some of the worst of sinners for the sorts of their sins chiefest of sinners and brought them home so some that have made the utmost adventure of continuance in sin that in these manifold Glasses it might be seen Where sin hath abounded grace hath abounded much more 2. Though the time of this repentance be short and narrow and the duties of Repentance exceeding long and broad yet where there are found the true signatures of Repentance unfeigned God beholds the fruit in the seed and root he knows the perfection of his own creation though Infant or we may conceive such 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in repentance Repentance born out of due time as Paul vvas in the Apostleship suddenly accomplished though they had not the regular time of forming like a Nation brought forth in a day c D Cypri an de coend Domini Thus thou Lord annointest in a moment Herdsmen into Prophets Shepherds into Kings Publicans thou ordainest Apostles nor doth their languor take leisure to remove whom thou recoverest but in that very moment thou makest them every whit whole wherein they have thee for their Physitian 3. Although there be according to the general Rule a necessity of living to God here in the World yet God may dispense with the continuation or drawing out of the Action of it in these late penitents as we easily allow in the case of Infants or men dying within short space after a Repentance begun upon sad consideration and not in the exigency of a sickness In the mean time it is not at all supposed that God dispenses with the sincere preparations and resolvedness of the mind to that Action but that they must be most true sound and unfeigned and the very Action it self according to the time high full and most significant and as extraordinary as the Repentance it self 4. Although the condition of a man dying do in many regards nearly resemble the state of him that is already in eternity as he is under a necessity of leaving sin and the world and set at a distance from temptation yet it differs in that great circumstance that he is not in Termino he is not fixt upon his unchangeable point he hath not undergone that sentence that immediately passes upon the soul removed and so may not neither have suffered that more secret one conceived by God upon long provocation The whole time of life may be a time of grace and he that hath not yet been concluded by the incommutability of Eternity may hear the voice of Christ and enter into his rest d Quando isthinc excessum suerit nullus jam poenitentiae locus Libr. ad Demetrianum St. Cyprian who is positive That whenever a man is launched into another world he finds no room for repentance he is out of the climate of repentance who is beyond the line of Time All kind of pennances which are a secondary satisfaction under the sufferings of Christ are then desperate and fruitless Yet he allowes the greatest liberty to repentance in this Life For he sayes e Inisto adhuc mundo manenti nulla poenâ—tntia sera est c No repentance is late that is earlier than the grave He sayes Here a man takes hold of life or loses it for ever Yet he grants f Ad immortalitatem sub iptâ morte traensitur De coenâ Domini It is possible by repentance though we are just a dying to be safely landed in a blessed immortality And g In eodem articulo temporis cum jam anima festinet ad exitum c. when the soul hath left its inner residences and is now sitting upon the dying lips before its last farewel to the body and when in haste to be gone yet even then infinite Clemency disdains not Repentance nor accompts that late tâ—at is true nor deprives
that of pardon which hath the free and full act of the soul in return to him Et quaecunque necessitas c. Yea though as he goes on this repentance had its first rise from necessity yet neither that nor the immenseness of guilt nor straitness of time nor the lateness of the Season nor the foulness of former actions foreprize from pardon when the humiliation is sincere and the soul exchanges impure delights for those of Holiness without counterfeit or dissimulation It may seem in all those discourses that he had forgot to enter a caution against presumption but it is to be considered while he thus franckly poures out himself he was one while inviting h In Libr. ad Demetrianum Credite vivite qui nos ad tempus persequimini in aeternum gaudete nobiscum persecutors of Christianity into the confessions of it whom he would not have debarred with the sense of so great past offences against it another while designing against the Novatian He esie which took upon it to tye up the freeness of grace as he saies i Velit nolit Novatus Haereticus omni tempore Dei gratia recipit paenitentes In spight of the Heretick Novatus the throne of Grace is early and late accessible to true repentance This therefore is not to be press'd beyond the design of the excellent and holy Writer but will very well agree with all that I am presently to add as a Ballance to this favourable judgment for such a Repentance For as that most prudent discourse of the right Daille use of the Fathers teaches us we must always attend their scope in the pursuit of which they were ofâ—en transported towards the other extreme But thaâ— a Dying repentance in the nature of the thing is no incompossibility we have fullest assurance in the example of the Text wherein we see one in a moment conceived brought forth and even a grown man in repentance one passing through some short Instants of holy action and entring into Paradise like Aaron's Rod budding blossoming and bringing forth ripe Almonds in a night and laid up in the Sanctuary for ever That it was most probably the first call he had to Repentance agrees fully with the intention of my Discourse which granting so much as a possibility would yet take all advantage against the easie confidence of those that living dayly under the offers of Grace and yet despising them commit themselves first to the â—ntentions and at last to the faint motions of a laâ—e Repentance To whom that admonition of St. Austin is most seasonable concerning the instance we have in haâ—d k Ad consequâ—ndam fidem non suit illi extremae hora sed prima Nec Religionem antè nec Christum scivit non remedia status sui in momenia ultima infoelici fraude posuâ—t Serm. 120 de Temp. If we respect his opportunities for attaining faith his repentance was not late but early and soon he took the very first season assoon as ever he descried Christ and Religion he embraced them He did not wretchedly cheat himself of the remedies of his miserable condition by adjourning the use of them to a late and incertain futurity which seldom or never succeeds well This consideration leads me therefore from the most favourable the light side of this milder sentence to the black and dark part of it That is to say There is an infinite peradventure whether God will give repentance at the last or not for this Grace being acknowledged extraordinary if it were common it would cease to be extraordinary Heb 3. 8 9 c. It is most undoubted in Scripture God is often provoked against men to swear they shall never enter into his rest when they have long tempted him and erred from his ways The Heart is dayly hardened by the deceitfulness of sin till it grew to that the Apostle calls 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Rom. 4. 2. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a heart that is irrepentable or that cannot be repented of Customes in sin long setled become Jerem 13 23. like the Aethiopians skin and the Leopards spots that cannot be changed And though it is true the spirit of God is not hiâ—dered in its inspirations but that it bloweth where it listeth yet the course of it is so attemper'd to the state and motion of the soul it self that it most usually takes the opportunity so generally requisite to the setling a constitution and temper in us that is the freest and most unprejudicâ—d and larger spaces of a mans life So that whenever it workes upon Dying men I mean those that have had the free use of the means of Grace oâ— old It works by such a prerogative that a man may as well expect a prerogative of providence to bear him walking upon the Sea because it did once so to Peter as this Most even of the fairâ—st appearances of this kind of Repentance miscarry having no true virtue in them and though in regard of their vehemency they are called early seekings of God yet which is horrible to be spoken they are as it were prepared for the triumphs of the Justice and indignation of Proâ— 1. 28. God over those who would have none of his Counsel in former times but despised all his reproofe Lastly Whoever seeing and knowing casts himself with design upon Repentance at death is like to fall headlong by tempâ—ing God and expecting he should stand ready for him with that Grace at last he hath so long resisted and refused And now when this judgment of Divines with this Ballance upon it is compared with the former the result will be only this The kindest Divinity in the point and that seems to do the most favor is very dreadful and leaves such men in a condition next to desperate which is but an aggravation of the danger when what men would choose to appeal to so far condemns them It is then agreed on all Hands That for any man to live so as if he did contrive forecast a Dying Repentance although it be yielded him It is no impossibility as the safe expedient first of an Irreligious life free from the troublesom thoughts of a present amendment and then of a secure passage into eternity is first an exceeding Irreligion and immorality in it self and then to run so desperate a risque and adventure for an immortal soul that he is a pardonable mad-man in comparison of such an one that drinks a deadly poyson because he hath heard there is a certain Antidote in the world that will expel it though he cannot tell whether he can have it at all much less whether time enough for his necessity and lastly whether the endeavours he uses for it will not be deluded with the counterfeits of it it being supposed they are thousands for one of the true kind and he thereby perish pleasing himself with the hopes he hath it when he hath indeed but a likeness