he feels an inward strength and vigour in himself and the constant springs of joy and comfort rising up in his own breast and overflowing his Soul But Vice sneaks and is cowardly and fills a Man with fear and confusion and all the mean and little and uneasie and tormenting Passions that belong to Humane Nature Vertue approves it self to our Reason and agrees with the native sense of our own Minds and has a Natural beauty and loveliness that commends it to our first sight and apprehension and makes it amiable and desirable esteemed and honoured and admired by every one even by those who forsake it who cannot but be so just to it as to commend and approve it very often in others But Vice has a Natural ugliness and deformity that makes Men ashamed of it after they have committed it and commit it in darkness and obscurity and after to deny and extenuate it as being presently sensible of the folly and undecency and unreasonableness of it as having done what they cannot justifie and what presently flyes in their faces if they have not a brow of Brass and a forehead of Steel It is contrary and awry to our own Nature and against the first sense and tenderness of our own Minds so that great violence must be used to commit it at first and great pain follows upon it 'T is a force a Rape upon the Virgin-modesty and the Natural sense of Good and Evil that we are born with Vertue has alwayes very good and desirable effects upon us in this Life as well as great Rewards in another 'T is in the Wise Mans Phrase and in a true literal sense Health to our navel and marrow to our bones Prov. 3.8 It keeps our Bodies in good plight neither drains or exhausts them with forced Pleasures or unruly Passions nor choaks or suffocates them with immoderate loads nor drowns and washes them away with floods of drink and cups of intemperance It brings a Blessing of God upon our Estates and often makes us Rich by the help of Industry and Frugality whilst nothing is so expensive and so impoverishing as Vice which spends many times all upon its Lusts and the hungry Wolf comes often to the door where the Swine and the Goat have been used to dwell Though Vertue may not alwayes bring abundance neither is it desirable alwayes to a wise Man though Solomon puts Riches as the common Blessing in the left hand of Wisdom Prov. 3.16 yet it makes a little that the righteous hath better than great riches of the ungodly Ps 37.16 Honour and a good Name do more certainly belong to Vertue than Riches and whilst Vice brings a blot and a reproach upon a Mans Credit Vertue makes him loved and honoured and esteemed by all that know him while he lives and embalms his Name when he is dead and makes his Memory to be precious But above all it makes a Man truly easie and happy within himself it secures him the peace and tranquillity of his own Mind which is the greatest happiness in the World So that all Natural Good and all that is desirable to Humane Nature growes as a proper Fruit out of Vertue which is the true Root that Naturally brings forth all Good as Sin does all Evil and these are so annexed to them by the nature and constitution of things as effects to their proper causes that nothing can cut them off or precide them and these besides all the super-added Motives of revealed Religion are by plain Reason and observation of things very strong Arguments to bring Men off from Vice to Vertue i. e. to true Repentance 4. Therefore Fourthly A wise Man when he comes to reflect and consider finds that that which hindered him from seeing all this before was only his foolish Lusts and his corrupt senfual Inclinations and his strong Passions and violent and unreasonable Appetites which blinded his Reason and clouded his Judgment and darkened his Understanding and besotted intoxicated and bewitched him i. e. by some unaccountable wayes hindered him from discerning and considering these things which are so plain and evident and therefore the reason why he before chose Vice and forsook Vertue was because he did not see and consider this nor was so truly convinced of the Evil of Sin and the Good of Vertue but now he has quite other thoughts and apprehensions about them and therefore he is changed in his Will and his Affections by this change wrought in his Mind and his Understanding and this being a lasting and effectual change upon all the inward principles of action has a necessary influence upon his outward actions that are alwayes moved and turned by those inward springs and wheels within us for though a Man is still at liberty and is under no force and compulsion from without but acts freely from within himself yet his Will will follow the last dictate of his Understanding and he will not choose Evil as Evil when he apprehends it to be so and he must some way have his Reason corrupted and judge falsly and erroneously before he will practice so Omnis peccans ignorat If he has a true and lively sense of the Good of Vertue abiding upon his Mind he will not choose Vice again 'T is this sense I doubt not confirms the blessed Spirits above and will do the Souls of all good Men in Heaven when they see and know this so perfectly that 't will be impossible for them to fall but now we see things darkly and judge weakly and often change and alter our Minds as not having such a clear view of things nor attending so closely to the dictates of impartial Reason but our thoughts are often lured off by the temptations of the Flesh and our Minds hearken but to one side to the false reasonings and suggestions of the Devil and our own Lusts or are surprized with the sudden importunity of a temptation before they can recollect themselves Else no Man could say Video meliora proboque deteriora sequor for we cannot but love and choose Good when we apprehend it and hate and abhor Evil when it is visible and naked to us We must therefore strip Vice of its disguise and its false colours and wash off its paint and meretricious charmes and see it as it is in its deformity and ugliness and in the miserable and sad consequences of it and then we shall hate that which we once loved and throw away the gilded poyson and shake the smooth and shining Viper off of our hands and cast the rotten curtizan from our armes and embraces We shall be ashamed that we were so cheated and imposed upon so deluded by the deceitfulness of sin that we were so weak as to be governed by our mean passions and low inclinations which are the imperfection and the soft side of our Nature and that we should not live up to that Reason which is proper to us and distinguishes us from brutes that we
out the fierceness of his anger upon them and they drink of the cup of his fury and feel his wrath and indignation many a sinner has done this and cryed out in the Anguish of his Soul Thy wrath lyeth hard upon me Psal 88.7 Thy fierce wrath goeth over me thy terrors have cut me off ver 16. Fearfulness and trembling are come upon me and horror hath overwhelmed me Psal 55.5 Thine arrows stick fast in me and thy hand presseth me sore Psal 38.2 Who knoweth the power of thine anger even according to thy fear so is thy wrath Psal 90.11 For we are consumed by thine anger and by thy wrath are we troubled ver 7. God who is a Spirit as he can convey secret and unspeakable comfort into our Souls so he can impress intolerable and unspeakable horrors upon them and who is able to bear the weight of his Anger or endure the sense of his Wrath and Indignation In his Pleasure and Favour is Life and in his Anger is a double Death to the Soul The inward Sensation and Perception of Gods Love is the ohiefest joy and happyness to a Soul either in this World or the other and the Sense and Perception of his Anger is the greatest Misery God the fountain of all Happiness doth diffuse and communicate such a Peace Joy Comfort to good Souls such an inward Taste and Relish of Spiritual Pleasure and Delight as is unspeakable past understanding called joy in the holy Ghost and is no doubt the sweetest and most affecting pleasure a Soul is capable of this the Angels and blessed Spirits above enjoy and are transported with the most ravishing Sense and Rapturous Impressions of it and 't is what makes Heaven to them and a little foretaste of it when God lifts up the light of his countenance upon us when a pious Soul tasts and sees how good and gracious God is this puts more gladness in the heart than Corn and wine and oyl and all worldly enjoyments now on the contrary when God hides his face and withdraws his loving-kindness and imprints a strong sense of his Wrath and Anger upon the Mind this is the utmost and the deepest Misery this gives the bitterest sense of Evil fills it with the greatest horrors sinks it into the deepest gulph the bottomless Pit of Misery and is the very Punishment and Hell of the damned How happy is it then to be Reconciled to God by Repentance whom we had angred and provoked by our sins before we feel any of this and before his Wrath and Anger is poured out upon us it will certainly fall upon every Sinner some time or other unless he Repents for God though he defers his Anger for some time that his Goodness and long-suffering may lead us to Repentance yet his abused Love Patience and Mercy will turn to greater Wrath and Fury if we persist in our sins and in a course of impenitency As 't is a very terrible thing to have the great God our Enemy and he certainly is so whilst we are in a state of Sin so 't is the comfortablest thought in the World and what will alone make us happy to be Assured that he is our Friend and that we are in a State of Favour with him upon our Repentance THE CONCLVSION To Conclude As all general Christian Duties are meant by Repentance so all general Christian-Priviledges and Benefits belong to it and are the Rewards of it for as Repentance is the same thing in Scripture with Conversion Regeneration the New Birth the New Creature the New Man and the like those different words and figurative expressions denoting only the same duty importing the great Change and Alteration made upon the Mind and Life of a Sinner by the power of Grace and Religion So all the benefits and priviledges of Christianity such as Election Adoption Pardon Justification at present and Glorification afterwards which are free and gratuitous acts in God granting and bestowing those Favours upon us for Christs sake upon our being duely qualified and fitted to receive them These all belong to those who have truly Repented and become good Men and to none else For God hath only Chosen Adopted Pardoned Justified and will Glorifie such and no other and till we have Repented we have no good claim or title to any of those Our being in a good State towards God which is the thing meant by all those Phrases under some different considerations is on our side wholly owing to our true Repentance and Obedience and it is all lost and forfeited by our Impenitency and Disobedience which on the contrary make us the Children of Wrath the Children of the Devil and Heirs of Damnation put us into the worst Spiritual State of Reprobation Obduration and Excecation according to the degrees of our Sins and Impenitence and into that of Condemnation it self which is the word that directly answers to that of Justification All those Scriptural Phrases and Expressions of a good State belong to Repentance and to the true Christian Penitent and all those which signifie a bad one belong as truly to Wickedness and Impenitence for though without the Free-Grace and Mercy of God in and thorough Christ we could not be put into any such good State nor have a title to any such Priviledges meerly by vertue of our Repentance or any thing we could do yet to suppose that God will put us into those states without any regard to our own Actions or not upon the account of them is to destroy all Religion all Divine Government all Future Judgment and all Rewards and Punishments in another World I might clear and illustrate and enlarge upon these had not this Discourse already swelled upon my hands into too great a bulk and did they not run into something of Controversie which I would carefully avoid I shall therefore only give this last Advice to the Penitent who hath brought himself by the Grace of God into this Good and Happy State that when he is thus got out of the Paths of Death and of Sin into those of Life and Vertue that he would go on and proceed in the new and right way he is in and make a speedy and further progress in all Piety and Goodness that like St. Paul forgetting those things which are behind and reaching unto those which are before he may follow and apprehend them and so press forward towards the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus Phil. 3.13 14. that now he is become a Christian in good earnest he would more zealously promote that Religion which he opposed and was an enemy to before and show he is a true Convert by his zeal and earnestness against Vice and Irreligion that he would make all amends he can for his past miscarriages by doing the greatest good he is able by serving God and his Glory more heartily and thus loving much because much is forgiven him so that where sin abounded grace
is and hinder Men from ever becoming better 2 Let us take care to avoid all manner of wilful Sin and especially all those great ones that come near and any way approach to this Sin against the Holy Ghost A very wilful Sin in a Christian especially is in some fense a Sin against the Holy Ghost 't is a grieving a quenching and a resisting the Spirit in the language of Holy Scripture That Blessed Spirit is concerned as the great promoter of Vertue and Goodness in the World and as the great Principle of it in the Hearts of Men and whenever we do any wicked thing we offer violence to that and by our rude and vicious carriage we affront and grieve and at last banish and drive away that Blessed Guest out of our Souls Whatever is Wicked and Sinful is so contrary to his Pure and Excellent Nature that it is highly offensive to him and if we go on in a course of long and customary Wickedness we sin the more against him and come the nearer to that sad and wretched state that is unpardonable I do not think indeed that any one Sin or particular Act of any Sin whatever puts us into that condition but as every Sickness and Indisposition of Body is a tendency to Death and Mortality so every wilful Sin is a corruption of the Mind and an approach to a state of Spiritual Death And there are some Sins that bring this sooner upon us as the acting against our Consciences and the sense of our own Minds an opposing the Truth that is evident to us a scoffing at Religion and making a mock of Sin an abusing the Scriptures and ridiculing the Holy Word of God an obstinate resistance of all the motions of Gods Holy Spirit upon our Minds These and such like gross and obstinate impieties though I do not think they are any of them the very Sin against the Holy Ghost for that ought not to be extended further than we have a warrant from Scripture yet they are so many approaches as it were to it and have more of the ill symptoms of that upon them and therefore we ought especially to avoid them lest they bring us by degrees into that sad state which is unpardonable for though one Sin I believe do not do this yet a great many may and especially such as those which do so waste the Conscience and corrupt the Mind as to make it uncurable And this is the saddest State and Condition in the World next to the State of Hell and Damnation tho' it be not the immediate Sin against the Holy Ghost Having endeavoured to give the plainest and fullest Satisfaction I can to the most doubtful and scrupulous Minds about this Sin of the Holy Ghost I shall now Discourse of some other things of a Lesser Nature which many Penitents and good Men are apt to be greatly dissatisfied with and have dark and wrong thoughts about As I. Concupiscence the Lustings of the Flesh or struggle between that and the Spirit which they find in themselves II. Trouble of Mind and a wounded Spirit which many lye under by reason of their Sins or by reason of Melancholly or both together SECT III. Of Concupiscence the Lustings of the Flesh or struggle between that and the Spirit THE right understanding of our selves is very necessary to the right understanding of Religion Religion is fitted and adapted to Humane Nature in its present state and capacity in this World and is designed not to destroy it but to perfect and improve it and raise it to its true Happiness and Perfection We cannot be like the Angels in Heaven nor like pure and glorious Spirits whilst we live here upon Earth and have Bodies of Flesh and Blood united to our Souls God who made us and knows our Frame did not intend to destroy and undo his own Creation by the Precepts of Religion nor make us cease to be Men by becoming Christians We find indeed in our selves a great many weaknesses and corruptions strong passions and sensual inclinations which if we did not wisely govern would be great occasions of Sin to us and if we let them loose would carry us into a thousand Mischiefs as well as Sins and Wickednesses They who give the reins to those and the full swinge to their Natural Lusts and Passions run into all Vice and Debauchery and commit all uncleanness with greediness And the best of Men cannot be wholly free from that Original Concupiscence and those Sensual Motions and Desires that are not alwayes agreeable to Reason and Religion but they complain of this bondage of corruption and this body of death which they cannot be delivered from Rom. 8.21 and 7.24 Grace and Religion though it gives us another Principle and conveys new powers of a Divine and Spiritual Life into our Souls yet whilst the Animal and Sensual Life remains and whilst we are compounded of Flesh and Blood as well as Spirit and Reason and have a Carnal as well as Spiritual Principle in us there will be a mighty struggle and a great contest between those two and a kind of civil war in our breasts between those different Parties and which of those shall be uppermost and have the chief Power and gain the Victory is the great point and the great concern of all Vertue and Religion since in all of us as the Apostle sayes The Flesh lusteth against the Spirit and the Spirit against the Flesh and these are contrary one to the other so that we cannot do the things that we would Gal. 5.17 And this we know by Experience as well as by Revelation Now this Concupiscence that remaineth in good Men is often matter of great trouble to them and they know not what to judge of it or how far it is a Sin and ought to be Repented of and what way they may best overcome it I shall therefore to clear and satisfie their thoughts about this matter of the struggle or Lusting between the Flesh and Spirit show these three things First That mere Lusting on either side is not what makes either Sin or Vertue or denominates a bad or a good Man Secondly That these are the proper matter of Vice or Vertue in which the tryal and exercise of them lye Thirdly That we ought to lessen the Power of the Fleshly Lusting and increase that of the Spirit and what are the proper means to do this I shall briefly consider First That meer Lusting on either side is not what makes either Sin or Vertue nor what constitutes or denominates a bad or a good Man For this Lusting is in both good and bad though according to several degrees and measures in the one the Lusting of the Flesh prevails and in the other that of the Spirit and 't is from this the prevalency of either of these and not the meer contention of them that we are counted good or bad before God The best of Men may have the same Passions Appetites and
Mercy and judges himself as incapable of it as the damned in Hell when Gods Spirit has left him so that he can neither pray nor do any thing to relieve himself but lyes as a condemned Caitiff a Malefactor sentenced past all hopes of Pardon and only expecting Punishment and the last stroke of Vengeance this is a sad a deplorable condition which I have known many a Sinner in under a Wounded Spirit and had one great instance before me when I was writing this These Wounds are not felt indeed by many a Sinner in the heat of Blood in the career of his Lusts and the hot persuit of his Sins when in his high frolicks and jovial diversions he drowns the noise of his Conscience or lulls it asleep with charming Pleasures or full Cups or some unthinking madness but it will awake one time or other and like a sleeping Lyon when 't is roused up by some Judgment by some Sickness or Affliction it will fall terribly upon him with rage and fury and tear and consume him then all the wounds which sin gave it will bleed afresh and it will feel them afterwards unless they have been cured by a timely repentance if they have festered and gangrened and mortified the Soul for a time yet when it comes to it self it will feel them with unexpressible pain and anguish which nothing can asswage I mean when a Man has sin'd away his Life and Death and his Sins are set together before him and 't is hard to know which is the more terrible When the Sting of Death swelled up with Sin and Guilt strikes as deep into a Man's Conscience and wounds his Spirit as Death it self strikes into his Body with its fatal dart so that he suffers a double death at the same time and the Spiritual far more painful than the Bodily I take a Wounded Spirit here in the highest and most common sense and though when a Mans Spirit is dejected and sunk with any thing 't is very hard to bear it which may be the sense of the Wise Mans words in the forequoted place when the strength of a Mans Mind is lost which should support him under all his infirmities that he is subject to from without yet nothing does so sink it so wound and destroy it as Sin and Guilt especially when it is come to such a degree and to such a sad condition as we commonly mean by a Wounded Spirit i. e. a Mind deeply pierced with the sense of its own Guilt and of Gods Anger upon it This likewise admits of degrees and in some cases 't is a very happy thing for a Sinner and 't is to be sure alwayes a just Punishment I shall therefore in the Third place briefly consider what is the proper Cure and Remedy of such a wounded Spirit or troubled Mind for there is no Spiritual Illness but what is curable if we take it in time by Religion no Wound of Soul but what there is Balm for in Gilead in Christianity there is no Disease too great for our Heavenly Physician but what the Gospel has a proper and certain Remedy for if we duely and timely apply it A Man may tarry too long indeed and not use the Physick till it be too late till Death comes and puts an end to the time of Tryal and the time of Repentance and then a Wounded Spirit i. e. the extremest Sorrow for a Mans Sins the deepest Contrition of Soul for them cannot come up to true Gospel Repentance to which there is a certain promise of Pardon and Forgiveness for that is only upon turning to God and leaving all our Sins and leading a new Life and bringing forth the Fruits of Repentance by Obedience to the Gospel for the future which is a necessary condition by the terms of the Gospel which he cannot perform whom God cuts off before he can do it and therefore such an one must be left to the Infinite Mercy and Righteous Judgment of God to be dealt with by such measures as are not within the Covenant of Grace or the Terms of the Gospel for by those I cannot see any title he has to Pardon But in other Cases a Wounded Spirit may be the greatest Mercy and even the very beginning of Health or of a Cure to a Soul when God does not suffer a Man to go on senslesly in his Sins till he come to a seered Conscience and a reprobate Sense and to hardness of Heart and blindness of Mind but by some methods of his Grace and Providence alarums his Conscience and awakens his stupid Mind and brings his almost sensless and stupified Soul to some Spiritual sense of his condition Then his Soul will be wounded as Davids was when he reflects upon those Sins which he committed without consideration and he will be sore struck and smitten as every Penitent must at the remembrance of his evil wayes All Repentance is such a wounding of the Soul as makes its Heart bleed within it and its Blood and Spirits melt into Tears and Sorrow for what it has done 't is not such an easie thing as most men think it to be 't is such a Pain such a Wound to the Soul that the Pleasure of the greatest Sin is but a poor trifle to it and no man that rightly understood it would venture upon any Sin from the reserved hopes of it Repentance is a bitter Remedy made up of very strong and unpleasant ingredients and we must go through a long course to purge out the old Disease and take away the root of it so that before a wicked mind can be cured by it it must be cut and lanced and wounded and have very severe applications made to it The work of Regeneration or the New Birth cannot be wrought without many pangs or throwes nor does God ever almost bring a bad man to become a good one without some trouble and disorder of Mind There is a trouble of Mind indeed which is excessive and unreasonable for every Sinner ought in some measure to be troubled in Mind and he has not a due sense of his Sins if he is not but there is a trouble of Mind which takes away the hopes of Mercy and throwes Men into despair which is commonly called a Wounded Spirit and 't is so in the highest degree and whether there is any Remedy for that and what it is and what advice is to be given in such a case and what judgment to be made of it I shall briefly consider 1. Then this is often joyned with Melancholly of Body which is very hard to be cured and till it be so it is apt to darken the Mind and bring a cloud over the Spirits and to fill the Soul with very black Idea's and Imaginations and to hinder it from making true judgment of it self or its own actions and this is as pityable and ought as much to be remedied by Physick and Care as other Diseases of Body for I have known
fullest participation of him and his Perfections All Vertue and Holiness is an efflux or irradiation of the Divine Nature communicated to the Humane Gods Essential Holiness transfused into our Nature his Image imprinted upon our Minds and therefore it makes us the Children of God in the Scripture language and so naturally and necessarily beloved by him even in some degree as he loves himself and takes infinite complacency and delight in his own Essential Perfections and Original Holiness The righteous Lord loveth righteousness Psal 11.7 from his own Righteous Nature and for the same reason The wicked his Soul hateth for he cannot love any Being so contrary to himself and so repugnant to his own Righteous and Holy Nature for we may as well suppose him to hate himself or to love the Devils the most opposite to himself and therefore the most accursed Beings as to love a very wicked and impure Soul which does truly partake of the Diabolical Nature and is most repugnant to the Divine He cannot take such an one into his special Love and Favour and communicate any of his own Happiness to it and admit it into Heaven which is the highest degree and fullest participation of his Love and of his Happiness upon the account of its unlikeness and contrariety to the Essential Perfections and Holiness of the Divine Nature 2. God cannot bestow Heaven upon any but those who are Good and Vertuous as 't is a Gift and Reward proposed and promised by him only to such as are so God as he is a Just Judge and an Impartial Distributer of Rewards and Punishments and will render to every man at the last day according to his works he cannot without injury to that Character and the plain charge and imputation of Partiality and Injustice bestow and confer so great a Reward as Heaven is to be upon those who are wholly unworthy and undeserving of it who have lived wickedly and disobediently all their Lives had no regard to the Honour and Glory of God nor doing him any service in the World nor made Heaven and Religion and Vertue their great end but gratified their Vices and enjoyed their Lusts and allowed themselves in all the undue liberties of Sensual Pleasures and broken the Divine Commands and lived in a direct and open opposition to God and Religion If such Men shall be at last rewarded by God as well as those who have faithfully served him and sincerely obeyed him and made it their business to promote his Honour and promote Religion and do all the good they could in the World who have denyed themselves all unlawful pleasures and vicious gratifications and have took great pains with themselves to conquer their sensual inclinations and overcome the Temptations of this World and to live up to the strict rules and answer the great ends and designs of Religion if the reward of Heaven and the Crown of Glory be not laid up for these and they alone partakers of it and not the other then God will be thought at that great day when he says he will judge the world in righteousness not to have done right to his Creatures nor to have had a due regard to their Actions not to have loved and rewarded Vertue punish'd and hated Vice as they deserved and not to have dealt with Mankind according to the known measures of Justice among themselves and the certain rules of distributing rewards and punishments The whole Scripture assures us the contrary to this and the reason of the thing makes it impossible to be otherwise for tho' Heaven is the Gift of God infinitely beyond what is due to any of our Vertues yet 't is a Reward too and shall be given in a way of Justice and in such a manner as is agreeable to the rules of Righteousness 3. Such is the Nature of this Heavenly Happiness that none but good Men can partake of it for none but they can love God and delight in him and take any complacency and satisfaction in the enjoyment of him The wicked whilst he continues such is an enemy to God and a hater of him and whilst he is so were he carried to Heaven he would be only like a Traytor taken captive and brought in Chains to his Princes Court where it would be no pleasure to see him upon his Throne in all his greatness whom he hated against whom he had been a Rebel and from whom he could never expect any favour and therefore the being thus brought into his Presence and seeing all his Glory would be only a greater vexation to him and an adding to his misery and only more torment him as it does the Devils to see and know there is such a Being above them whom they can never have their friend or be reconciled to No Man while he is wicked can have any more hopes of this than those wretched Spirits and therefore can never have any or be capable of any happy communion or fruition of God in Heaven And as to the spiritual pleasures and noble enjoyments there they are no more suited and adapted to him than any other pleasures are to one that has lost the proper Faculties to which they should be agreeable and by which he should have the perception of them than Musick to one that is deaf or Light and Beauty to one that is blind and therefore such a vicious wretch cannot be imagined to be in any other condition in Heaven were he to go thither with his sinful Habits than all other Animals are when they are taken out of their proper Elements for Heaven is no place nor has no suitable pleasures and entertainments but for those who love God and Goodness and delight in the exercises and enjoyments of Religion 4. From the Nature of our own Minds 't is impossible we can enter into Heaven or be capable of Happiness without Holiness and Vertue Our Happiness there must be suited to those Faculties and Capacities which belong to us it must lye in the highest perfection and improvement of the several powers of our Minds and the most proper sense and enjoyment resulting from thence when our Understandings are advanced to the highest knowledge especially of God and the Divine Nature which is that Beatifick Vision that seeing of God as he is in which the Scripture places the chiefest part of Heavenly Happiness when the Will chooses the chiefest and supream good with the greatest vigour and ardour and enjoys it with the highest rapture and extasie of fruition When our Souls are thus improved with the brightest understanding of Truth and the strongest love and willing of Good When our Powers and Faculties are the most raised and perfected the most enlarged and opened and filled up with the fullest enjoyment of those their proper Objects then they are in the most happy and pleasurable state imaginable Now nothing can do this but Religion and Wisdom and Vertue which are the highest accomplishment and improvement of our Minds without
They might have some faint hopes and probable surmizes and small expectations of this from his Natural Goodness as Malefactors may presume and hope such a thing from the temper and disposition of a good Governour but they could not necessarily conclude it or be any way ascertained of it They might have such an uncertain encouragement to hope this as the Men of Niniveh had Jonah 3.9 Who can tell if God will turn and repent and turn away from his fierce anger that we perish not and this was as high as Mens hopes could rise without a Revelation of Gods pardoning them upon Repentance Their Repentance indeed was the most likely means to turn away his fierce Anger and the best thing they could do but they could not be certain that this would succeed and be effectual but in their greatest Humiliation and Mourning and Fasting they must with a doubtful Heart and a trembling Hand offer their Petitions to Heaven as a condemned Prisoner does to his angry Judge or incensed Prince not knowing whether he will vouchsafe to hearken to it or so much as to cast his eye upon it The greatest incouragement to Repentance is our being sure that it will obtain our Pardon and restore us certainly to Favour and set us right in the Court of Heaven and since we that know this can yet very hardly be perswaded to a Duty that is not so very pleasant or so very easie with what disadvantages must those who knew not this be brought to it with what desponding fears and uncertain hopes must the Prodigal Luke 15. take a weary journey and return home to his Fathers house who knew not whether he should be admitted or no when he came there with what a doubtful and perplexed Mind with what weary paces and dispirited motions must he take every step thither when he could not tell what he should meet with at his journeys end but had too much reason to fear he should for ever be cast out and excluded as he might have been by his good Father and this must be the case of the most penitent Sinner and of all Mankind when without a Revelation they had no assurance of Pardon though upon their Repentance but only an uncertain hope and presumption of it but now the greatest Sinner who has lived never so prodigally and wickedly has a thousand times greater incouragements to return and leave off all his vicious and riotous courses of living because he is most certainly assured that if he does so his Heavenly Father will receive him with open arms and the heartiest embraces and treat him as kindly and indulgently as if he had served him many years neither had transgrest at any time his commandment ver 29. In a word we have the same incouragements to repent and leave our Sins now under the Gospel as Rebels have to come in and lay down their Arms when there is a Proclamation of Pardon and an Act of Indemnity past to all that do so whereas before there was only an uncertain presumption of the Princes Mercy which they could not be sure of without a Revelation 2. We have not only Pardon given us upon promise now but granted upon a most valuable consideration and founded upon a full Expiation of Guilt and Atonement of Sin by a Sacrifice the most perfect Sacrifice of the Son of God and so purchased for us and made over to us by a Covenant established and confirmed by the Blood of Christ Pardon of Sin is so great a thing so Princely and so singular a favour the greatest Act indeed that a Prince can do and 't is so desirable so comfortable to a poor Criminal than which nothing in the World can be more valuable to him that it can never be too well assured to us and we can never be too much satisfied in it Guilt is alwayes so fearful and timorous so terrible and so uneasie a thing 't is such a heavy load and burden lying upon a Mans Mind such a deep wound upon the tenderest part of a Mans Soul that like a prick upon a Nerve it puts the whole Man into convulsions and agonies and fills him with unexpressible pains and tortures There is no such rack no such Hell indeed as what is set up and kindled in a Man 's own breast by his guilty Conscience when he is haunted by his own Sins as so many Hellish Fiends and lasht by them like so many snaky Furies that poyson and sting him to the very Heart and his own fears of Vengeance and future Punishment represent sad and frightful images like to so many Specters alwayes appearing before his Mind and therefore there is no such comfort as that which delivers us from Guilt no such 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or blessed news as what our Saviour pronounces to a Sinner by the Gospel Son be of good chear thy sins are forgiven thee there is no such anodine as that which plucks out the sting of Sin and takes away the pains and the smartings of a wounded Conscience that which does this puts not only Oyl into the Wounds but new Life into the fainting Soul 't is like taking a Man off from the Rack or the Wheel and giving him more ease than he feels when he has just voided a Stone after a sharp fit And therefore the Remedy that does this is the most choice the most precious and valuable thing in the World What that is we now know by the Gospel but Mankind could not know by Natural Light what would expiate Sin and certainly take away Guilt and therefore the Heathens though they tryed all means by their Lustrations Sacrifices Purgations and other ways for the sense of their Guilt put them upon all attempts to get rid of it yet they could never find what would certainly do it but must be still fearful and melancholly under their acknowledged Guilt and unattoned Crimes Whether thousand of rams or ten thousand rivers of oyl would be accepted as a price of their Sins they could not tell or whether it would not cost more to redeem a Soul whether if they brought their first-born and offered the fruit of their Bodies for the sin of their Souls or offered up their own Blood as was sometimes done 't would be effectual was very uncertain but there was nothing they thought too dear it seems nothing however cruel either to themselves or others that they would stick at in hopes to accomplish this The most barbarous and inhumane superstition of the Heathen World in offering up their Children to Molech in offering the Sacrifices of Men which was no unusual thing among them arose from the great streight and the great darkness they were in as to the expiation of Guilt and the atonement of Sin which was so dreadful so painful that they could not bear it and yet knew not how to remove it But now God be thanked we have that which should chear up our Spirits and put us upon a hearty
all the Corruptions and Imperfections of Humane Nature to conquer all those Sins that are thought never so difficult or even insuperable to Flesh and Blood and to practice all those Vertues that are most contrary to our Natural Temper or Sensual Inclinations Be there never so many Arguments to the doing of a thing and never so much danger in not doing it be it never so great and important or never so necessary yet if after all a Man be without power and without ability to do it they will be all in vain and to no more purpose than to perswade a blind Man to see by the conveniency of that Sense or a lame Man to run by the danger he may otherwise be in or a Man tumbling from a precipice to stop before he falls to the bottom 't is only to mock and deride us with Motives and Arguments to a thing if it be wholly out of our power to effect it and therefore there is no such Motive to the doing a thing that we are otherwise perswaded is of great moment and importance as to be assured of sufficient power to enable us to go through with it without which all our Vigour will be dampt and all the sinews of Industry cut and all our Endeavours blasted by which we should set about it and we shall run the Censure of those foolish undertakers our Saviour speaks of Luke 14. who would make War or build a Tower without power to go on with it God has therefore given us the greatest Encouragement by the Gospel that can be to set upon the practice as of all other Duties so especially of this hard one of Repentance when he thereby assures us that his Grace shall be sufficient for us that he worketh in us both to will and to do that his Spirit shall be given us and abide with us for ever and that we shall be mightily strengthened by it in the inner man so that a new and strong and vital Principle shall be added to Humane Nature to strengthen its weakness repair its decayes recruit its forces support its feeble powers raise its sunk state and restore it to the Vertue and Perfection it had lost by its Sins How weak and decayed how corrupted and degenerated Humane Nature was of its self both Scripture and our own Experience do sufficiently teach us how strong and violent our Passions are and how weak our Reason to master and govern them how prone the Will is to consent to what is evil be it but a little grateful to Flesh and Blood and what strong proclivities and inclinations are in us to many Sins The Heathens were very sensible of this corruption and decay of Humane Nature and into what a low and degenerate state it was sunk and therefore they complained very often of the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of the Souls being sunk into Matter and a Terrestrial State its wings being molted and its powers being drooping and sickly and what should raise and restore it and be a Cure to this Disease they could not find out they felt how strong were the propensions to Vice and how the Mind 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Hierocles speaks was carried by its Passions like so many weights hanging upon it and inclining it to Sin and what should ballance these what should turn and counterpoize those propensities and inclinations what should bear up against all the Corruptions from within and the Temptations from without and relieve and succour the weak forces of decayed Nature that was so strongly besieged and so little able to hold out of it self this they could not know for 't is only by the Gospel and Christianity that we have the Promise of Gods Grace and Holy Spirit to be given to us when we ask it and to belong as a right to all Christians by vertue of the New Covenant and be a standing Principle to prevent and restrain us from Sin and work Holiness and Vertue in our Minds And now by vertue of this we have the greatest incouragement to Repent and Leave our Sins which is a Power to do so We have a new Principle of Life conveyed into our Souls and a fresh and Heavenly and almost a miraculous Power given to us by which the Lame may walk and the Lepers be cleansed i. e. by which those who are Naturally Impotent may be enabled to do their Duty and the greatest Sinners may be cured of their foulest Sins All the Excuses which were more reasonable and plausible heretofore of the weakness and impotency of our Nature of the strength and power of our Corruptions of the necessity and unavoidableness of our sinful Actions are now quite taken away by this Divine Grace and Assistance of the Holy Ghost which the Gospel promises and bestowes upon us By this the greatest Sin may be conquered the strongest Lust and Temptation overcome and the longest Habit and Custom changed and broken so that no Sinner should be discouraged from breaking off his Sins by Repentance by reason of the difficulty or impossibility of it since no Sin is too strong for the Grace of God but we can in every thing be more than conquerours through him which strengtheneth us and greater is he that is in us than he that is in the world than the Devil or any Sin that we shall be in danger of which can never take such possession of any Soul as not to be cast out by the Power and Spirit of Christ However hard it is to overcome a long Custom and root out an ill Disposition and to restrain and check an unbridled Lust and Appetite that has too long had the reins thrown upon its neck yet a firm Resolution strengthened with the Divine Grace and Assistance of Heaven will be able even to quicken and raise those who are dead in trespasses and sins to create them again in Christ Jesus unto good works and to renew them again unto Repentance Heb. 6.6 That Lust which we thought was so violent that all the force of Reason could not stand against it that Temptation which we called irresistible that Custom and Habit which we imagined incurable that Vice which we counted too hard for Flesh and Blood to deny these may all be certainly not to say easily overcome by the Divine Grace if we will make use of it Let the greatest Sinner therefore with the Power of Christ and the auxillary forces of Heaven set upon his strongest Sins let him but boldly and resolutely fall upon them and he shall find they will give ground and in a little time their power will abate and he will by the help of God and his own constant endeavours obtain a full and a perfect victory over them God will not indeed without our own endeavours and cooperation do the whole work for us nor will his Spirit work upon us as if we were Machines and had not internal powers and principles of action within our selves by
very good Persons subject to it and one of the best means to cure it is to know that this is one cause of that trouble of Mind which will be so much abated when one is perswaded from whence it often comes or is heightened For Melancholly is not curable by Religion or Divinity and they who are subject to it should take the more care of their lives that there be no true and great cause to fall in and joyn with the Melancholly of their Bodies and they should make a judgment of themselves in their best tempers and when their thoughts are clearest and should trust others and especially their Spiritual Guides to judge for them since they are so unfit generally to pass judgment upon themselves 2. This Trouble of Mind which makes Men despair of Mercy is most unreasonable and contrary to the whole tenour and design of the Gospel for there is Pardon held out to the greatest Sinner by the Blood of Christ and to the greatest Sin or the greatest number of Sins if we Repent of them and leave them and become good Men before we dye This is as certain as the Gospel is true and therefore no Man has any just cause to despair for the greatest Sin or Sins who is so heartily troubled for them that he would not for the World commit them again and who resolves never to do so by the Grace of God but to practice the contrary Vertues and who makes good this Resolution by a Vertuous and Pious and Religious Life this Man will as certainly be happy as if he had been alwayes innocent and never had offended God I cannot say he will be in a state as comfortable and free from trouble though if he has thus Repented and become a good man he has good reason to be so but he will be as safe and if he has still some trouble of mind remaining upon the remembrance of his Sins though never so long past and he cannot see the Pardon of them with the same certainty and evidence that he knows he committed them yet this shall not hinder his Pardon nor affect his Salvation if he has truly and fully Repented of them For 3. And Lastly This Trouble of Mind which proceeds from judging too hardly or severely of himself is rather an Infirmity than a Sin and God will not condemn a Man for it though he may condemn himself for God will not condemn a Man unjustly though he should unjustly condemn himself much less because he does so Despair is indeed a sad state but I cannot say it is alwayes a damnable Sin or want of Faith as some think for it may arise not from a disbelief of the Gospel or of the Divine Goodness or the freeness and fullness of Gods Grace in and through Christ but meerly from a false and mistaken and too hard and humble an opinion of a Mans self and this is a fault not of a Mans Will but of his Judgment and a weakness and imperfection in his Understanding for which he shall never be condemned by a Righteous God but he will reverse this false Judgment which he made of himself when he lived or when he dyed and set it right in the Court of Heaven and do Justice to him at the great Tribunal though he did not do it to himself here That God will judge Men according to their Works is plain in Scripture but no where that I know that he will do so according to their Thoughts their vain Hopes and presumptuous or vain Fears and Troubles and Doubts and even Despairs of themselves So that tho' this Trouble of Mind or this Wounded Spirit be a comfortless and unhappy state yet it truly depends upon the cause to make judgment of it or to conclude any thing from it and true and timely Repentance is the best and certainest Remedy for it CHAP. IV. The ill Consequences drawn from the Priviledge of Repentance Obviated and Prevented THE most wicked and greatest of Sinners who have any thoughts of their Souls and of another World though they are not prevailed upon by this to become better yet make this reserve and refuge to themselves that they will Repent hereafter at some time or other and so escape the Wrath to come They know and are very sensible if they have not shaken off all Religion and all thinking and considering of these things that except they repent they shall all perish but they hope and intend to prevent this by the benefit of Repentance and so make use of that not to bring them off from their Sins but to encourage them in them with hopes to avoid all the miserable consequences of them and yet live in them and so by this priviledge of an after Repentance they set aside the present necessity of a good Life and wholly destroy or supersede all Religion I shall therefore endeavour to prevent that most common and most fatal abuse of it for I am confident there are more Souls perish by that than by any other mistake whatsoever and a thousand times more than by down-right Infidelity and Disbelief of all Religion which is a very rare thing and 't is hard to find out any certain instances that have ever been of it in the World 't is so much against the Natural Sense and Reason and Apprehension of Mankind but the other is the commonest thing in the World even for Christians perhaps above any others to make false Reasonings to themselves from this priviledge of Repentance which we have in the highest degree from the Gospel to think they may secure and save their Souls and yet indulge and allow themselves in the present enjoyment of their Sins because they may set all right by Repenting of them hereafter I shall therefore against this errour and abuse of Repentance and to obviate this mischievous Consequence offer these following Considerations 1. Can we think a Wise God would make such a Grant and Concession to his Creatures as should destroy all Religion and make void the necessity of Obedience and a good Life which according to these Mens thoughts is unavoidably done by this Gospel-priviledge of Repentance For since say they a Man is as certainly safe who comes in at any time upon Repentance and shall be as certainly saved by the Terms and Conditions of the Gospel as if he had spent all his Life in the strictest Vertue and Religion What need is there of such an early and constant and perpetual Obedience and spending a whole Life in the servitude and drudgery of Religion when coming in at the eleventh hour and working but a short space at the latter end of the day will have as much Wages and as sure a Reward and be as certainly accepted by God Shall not a Sinner when ever he returns and repents find Mercy Is there any time or bounds prefix'd to his Repentance so that he may not do it so many years hence as well as at present and after he has
which we can never enjoy the true Happiness we were made for and to which our Minds are fitted Vertue alone can give that and all the Pleasure Peace and Joy that result from it whereas Wickedness will necessarily not only corrupt and impair the Mind and spoil its Faculties but disorder and wound and corrode it and make it very painful and uneasie and a Hell and Torment to it self 2. As none but good Men shall enter into Heaven so none can be made good on a sudden Those Vertuous and Holy Habits and Dispositions of Mind are not to be had or attained immediately in a little time and on a sudden hurry as is intimated here by the Virgins wanting Oyl and not being able to procure or buy it in their present distress when the Bridegroom was a coming We must be prepared and provided with those things that are necessary for our Future Happiness before Death comes and puts us on a sudden hurry and alarums us with its unexpected approach or else we shall be sadly disappointed and unprovided if we expect to procure or attain them then If we think to borrow of anothers Vertues and Merits to help out our own defects and wants at that time as they of the Church of Rome imagine something like these foolish Virgins or as others that the Bridegroom himself shall supply them in an extraordinary manner out of his stock though they have no Oyl at all in their own Vessels no Righteousness of their own All these vain hopes and expectations of idle and careless and foolish Sinners will then deceive and disappoint them and make them miserable If Men have not attained to the Vertues and Graces of Religion nor any degrees of Holiness and Goodness all their Lives and think to acquire them now on a sudden when they are near dying they may as well hope that a Tree that has bore no Fruit all the Year should on a sudden when it is just to be cut down and the Axe is laid to the root of it sprout and bud and blossom and bring forth Fruit. This would be a strange Miracle and it must be as great and unaccountable to have a wicked Man on a sudden become a good one and bring forth the Fruits of Vertue and Repentance All our Vertues are owing to the Grace of God as the growth of all Plants and Trees is to the Rain and warmth and influence of the Heavens but to think that Gods Grace which could not work upon a Man all his Life before will now in such an extraordinary manner change and convert him on a sudden as to make him immediately become a good Man is to suppose a Saint made as Adam was in full growth and perfect flature the first day he lived without passing through the degrees of Youth and Childhood as God thinks not fit to make Mankind so now but produces them by the ordinary and appointed way of his Providence so he makes good Men by the ordinary methods of his Grace and influences of Religion and the New Creature is formed by degrees and growes into a perfect Man and increases in Wisdom and Goodness till it comes to the measure of the stature of the fulness in Christ Jesus The Spirit worketh upon our Mind agreably to their Nature in a manner indiscernable from its own proper operation enlighteneth the Understanding and inclineth the will gently and kindly by the thoughts and considerations of Religion offering them clearly and imprinting them strongly upon the Soul and so in a rational way begetting right apprehensions and affections in it and so altering the temper and disposition of the Mind and by frequent acts and repeated practices bringing a Man to new habits and thus converting him from bad to good not in an instant but by long strivings and gradual operations upon him No very bad Man was ever made a good one on a sudden nor can any more be so by the Grace of the Gospel than a Child over night become a Man the next morning by the course of Nature and Providence or Seed sown in the ground spring up and ripen and bear Fruit in a few hours Such Mushroon Converts and Penitents have no good root but dye away and wither as suddenly and instantaneously as they came up with the first heat and tryal of a Temptation till Religion shoots deeper into their Hearts and gets better rooting in their Souls like the Seed that fell on stony ground it is quickly gone and does not grow at all nor bring forth fruit with patience as the Scripture emphatically speaks i. e. with due continuance Good Purposes and Resolutions and such like good Principles of Action must continue some time upon the Mind and exert their power and efficacy upon it by proper acts and tryals and experiments or else they are but like false conceptions that produce nothing like Clouds without Rain Blossoms without Fruit and abortive causes without any effects A sudden Sorrow upon a wicked Mind will no more make it good nor bring forth the worthy fruits of Repentance than a sudden shower upon the Sands of Arabia or Rocks of Caucasus will make them become fertile and good ground there must be long cultivation and great labour and pains taken with such barren ground before it will be a fruitful Soil and bring forth any thing by all the showers and influences of Heaven upon it A hardened Sinner who hath lived many years in the wretched courses and habits of Wickedness must by long time and great care and many methods of Gods Grace and Goodness have his Heart changed and his Life mended and his old Vicious Habits plucked up and new Vertuous ones planted in their place and these take root and grow up and bear Fruit in his Life before he can become such a good Man as is fitted for Heaven Such an one can never be made so in a little time just before Death but it must require at least a good part of his Life to become such and it should be indeed the business of our whole Lives to make our selves such as shall be thus fit for Heaven To think that great work can be done at the latter end when we are just a dying and may be dispatched in a very little time all on a sudden is as idle and unreasonable as for a Man that has a good dayes journey to take to lye loytering and never mind it till the Sun is near down and night is coming upon him and then to set out and think to reach it by a sudden start or by some unaccountable wayes to fly thither or be Magically transported and set down he knows not how at his journeys end Or rather to make the Case more exactly parallel to an old Sinner like one who hath travelled almost all the day in a wrong way and spurred and driven on very furiously in his vicious courses and is now to turn back and begin to take the right way when
future Misery and his Punishment shall be much lessened by it This is a very great thing if we duely consider it and worth all his most earnest Prayers and deepest Sorrow and Compunction and all he can do to save him from those highest and extremest degrees of Misery Hell indeed is a general word for future Misery in Scripture as Heaven is for Happyness but they consist not in one and the same indivisible thing but are Two States of very various and different and unequal degrees according to the Deserts and Capacities of those who are in them As there are several degrees of Good and Bad Men here upon Earth so there will be of happy and miserable Souls in Heaven and Hell some are very imperfectly but yet sincerely good and are far from such Obedience and perfection as Human Nature might come up to and those being without any wilful and deliberate and great Sin shall be in the lowest place in Heaven and lower than this the Scripture allows none to go thither they who live in any such one known and habitual sin and wickedness are such Sinners as are expresly excluded from thence They have another place and state allotted to them in the other World for there being no third or middle state revealed by Scripture but only those two of Heaven and Hell they must necessarily go to the latter and there according to the Nature or Quality or Degrees of their Sin be punisht with many or fewer stripes and be in a state of greater or lesser Misery according as their Lives and their Deserts have been The Valley of Hinnom from whence comes Gehenna which we translate Hell was a deep Valley near Hierusalem where the Canaanites burnt their Children alive to Moloch and used all direful noises to hinder their cries and lamentations from being heard and afterwards the Jews say that Josias turned it into the place of publick Executions and that all Carkasses and Dung and filthy things were thrown there to prevent the noysomness of which there was a perpetual fire always burning in that place that was never put out at any time The Scripture has made this the chiefest image and representation of Hell and from thence describes the Misery of it by fire and burnings which give one of the most general and sensible ideas of Pain and torment Both the Spiritual Happyness of Heaven and Misery of Hell must be thus represented to the gross Thoughts of Mankind by the most delightful and most painful things known to their Senses that they are best acquainted with in this World and which will make the strongest impression upon them though they may be in themselves of another Nature fitted chiefly to the Souls and Spirits and Rational faculties of Men in their separate state and the happyness or misery of those is chiefly designed by them God we know is a Consuming fire to the wicked but he will very differently punish them though fire seems to carry one equal idea of pain and torment yet as our Saviour says that it shall be more tolerable for Sodom and Gomorrah in the day of Judgment and they are set forth for an example in Scripture suffering the vengeance of eternal fire Jude 7. then for that City who rejected the Gospel Matth. 10.15 so it shall be more tolerable for such wicked Men who have been so in a lesser degree in their Lives and at their Deaths have been as penitent as they could be then for Sinners of an higher order and a more daring and impenitent sort Heaven and Hell being taken for Places rather than States seem to our Imaginations to imply and signifie one equal and indivisible perfect and complete and same idea of Happyness or Misery that shall belong to all alike who are sentenced to either of those but there are very great Differences and Degrees in them a thousand times more than there is in the different States of Happiness or Misery among Men in this World where in the same place and upon the same Globe we see some in very happy circumstances and mighty enjoyments others in great Pain and Misery and a most pitiable Condition this here is only a Tryal of them and not according to their deserts but it shall be so exactly in another Wold the great day of Recompence and Retribution Then they who have done most Evil and committed most sins and not repented of them in time but gon on to provoke and disobey God and despise and neglect Religion all their lives these shall suffer the sad and utmost Vengeance of God's Anger and of Eternal fire All other wicked Men of what sort soever whether they were Sinners above others or only lived in some sins without Repentance and Amendment these shall be for ever in a very bad state a state of Misery and loss of true happiness and their Misery shall be exactly proportioned to their sins and be in the same degrees and measures that those were which are all known to the infinitely wise and Just God who without respect of persons will then render to all according to their works and with an equal and impartial Justice distribute-those Rewards and Punishments to them They then who have served God best in their lives shall be best rewarded by him they who have suffered with Christ shall then reign with him they who endured any afflictions for his sake and the Gospels shall have the greater Glory which those are not to be compared to they shall receive a hundred fold for all they have done or suffered for Christ not only for suffering Persecution though Martyrdom has always had a brighter and a weightier Crown assigned to it but for denying any present Interest or worldly gain or unlawful pleasure and sensual Inclination for the sake of Vertue and Religion then those who have best improved their Talents to Gods Glory and the good of others and the Service of Religion shall have more gifts and rewards from their great Lord they who have turned many unto Righteousness shall shine as the stars in Glory in several Orbs and different degrees of Light and Lustre for as the Apostle says one star differeth from another in glory 1 Cor. 15.41 and So likewise shall it be at the Resurrection and in another World there shall be different degrees of happyness and glory for Good Men both in their Bodies and Souls according to their different degrees of Goodness Service and Obedience to God in this life There being but two places or rather two States in another World appointed for all rational beings that ever were created as seems plain by the Scripture Revelation where so far as it describes or gives us a Map of that Invisible and unknown World it divides it only into two Mighty Kingdoms or vast Regions an upper and a lower parted from one another by unknown bounds and inhabited by Good and Bad Spirits where the one are very happy and the other very miserable there being but
being in a good State or a State of Grace which is the surest Touchstone by which every Christian may safely try himself and every Sinner know whether he is in a Pardoned and good State namely that they do not live in any known and wilful Sin whatever I shall I. Show the Truth of this II. Consider what other Sins are consistent with a good State III. Represent the Benefits and Effects of Repentance or the Happiness of being in such a good State SECT I. Not committing Sin the only sure Mark of a good State TO show this Mark given by the Apostle to be the true Test and Criterion by which we may make Judgment of our Spiritual Condition and know we are in a good State I shall offer these following Considerations to prove the Truth of it 1. Then those other Marks which come short of this by which too many are apt to deceive themselves are not safe and sufficient Many are apt to make some inward and secret things wrought upon their Minds the Marks of Grace to them and the signs and evidences of their good State whereby they may be sadly cheated and deluded unless these inward Marks are made more certain and evident by outward and visible Actions None can know they have any inward Principle of Spiritual Life in their Souls or the root of the matter in them as some love to speak but by such vital operations and visible effects of it in their Lives as we cannot know the Tree is alive at the root but by the sprouts and branches that shoot from it and show it to be so but we conclude it to be dead without those in their proper time and so we may our selves in a Spiritual sense without the Fruits of Repentance and Holiness in our Lives A Christian cannot know he hath Faith but by his Works nor be sure of Grace in the Heart but by the efficacy of it in restraining him from Sin and the visible effects of it in a Holy Conversation We cannot so perfectly feel and discern this secret and inward principle in our selves so as to be any way assured of it unless the force and power of it appear in our Actions and in reforming and bettering our Lives and to judge of our being in a state of Grace any otherwise from any voice or testimony within is very precarious and ungrounded and very liable to error and delusion for the Spirit bears witness to none but those whose Consciences at the same time bear witness that they are the children of God by not committing sin and it sealeth none but those who have this Mark and bear the Marks of Vertue and Holiness upon their Souls and in their Lives The presumptuous and conceited Enthusiast is very confident and assured of himself and his good state though he is evidently guilty of very great and notorious Sins and therefore he is forced to that lewd Principle that God sees no Sin in his Children and that he may be a Child of God notwithstanding those whereas this according to St. John is the only Mark of a Child of God that he doth not commit Sin To pretend to inward Marks of Grace when we are guilty of sinful Actions is as if a Man should judge himself to be sound at Heart and healthful within when the Plague is broke out upon him and the Spots appear and his Sores run to talk then of the goodness of his Pulse and other secret and uncertain signs within himself whereby he feels himself to be well is evident cheat and wretched delusion and so it is to judge of our Spiritual good State by any inward marks and tokens when our Lives are bad and we commit Sin in the Apostles sense i. e. live in the practice of any wilful Wickedness But further there are other imperfect signs not quite so deceitful and Enthusiastick as these by which many think they are in a good State though they are not brought off actually from every Sin as that they are troubled and concerned at their Sins and commit them with great reluctancy and uneasiness of Mind so that they do the things which they would not and that they often wish they were better and have a mind to leave their Sins and some purposes to do so though their Sins are so strong and powerful that they still prevail upon them and they cannot wholly get rid of them this they take to be good signs of Grace that they have some good motions and stirrings in their Souls some desires and wishes and this desire of Grace they take to be Grace it self and though they do not the good they would yet that they have some mind and inclination to do it Now all this may be in such as are truly Sinners and Unregenerate Persons that are still in an impenitent state and under the power and dominion of their Sins but are not quite sensless and stupified nor are come to what the Apostle calls a seared Conscience without sense of their Sins nor to a reprobate Mind void of all judgment about them which is the utmost degree of profligate wickedness till they are brought to those their Sins will be uneasie to them and fill them with trouble whenever they think and reflect upon them as they cannot avoid to do sometimes and they will feel sharp twitches and vellications of Conscience as long as they have any Conscience remaining and have not quite wasted and destroyed it and worn off all the Natural sense of Good and Evil upon their Minds but if they will still sin notwithstanding this and will not hearken to the secret calls or loud clamours of their own Consciences but will still follow their Lusts and Vices and be drawn away by the strong and alluring Temptations of them all this Regret and Trouble which they sometimes bring upon them is only a self-conviction and self-condemnation and is so far from giving any abatement to their Sins that it adds this highest aggravation to them that they are committed all the while against Conscience and against the inward sense of their own Minds And though now and then in a good mood and a melancholly fit when they are thus troubled for their Sins they have a mind to leave them and come to some faint Wishes Purposes and Resolutions to do so yet if these prove ineffectual and the next Temptation overcomes them and they commit the Sin again when it is offered again and the company or the charms invite again to it 't is certain whosoever thus committeth sin is the servant of sin as our Saviour sayes John 8.34 and 't is a sign he is such a slave to it and it hath got such power over him that it leads him captive at its will and is so far Master of him that he cannot throw it off notwithstanding his frequent Wishes and imperfect Desires that he could but how short all this is of Perfect Repentance and therefore of putting us into a
new and holy Life and be available to his true Conversion and Repentance and I believe this is Gods usual way by which he begins to effect this upon most Sinners by thus bringing them to some serious thinking and considering It is very great Mercy when God thus checks them in their career and calls to them by the loud voice of his Judgments and thus as he generally does puts the first stop to them and makes them bethink themselves and consider but then this method must not only awaken but keep their eyes open and make them see and consider those other Thoughts and Reasons which are the more proper seminal Principles that will be more likely to produce and beget this true Repentance Such as are 2. In the second place a serious reflection and thorough conviction of the Evil that is in Sin and of the real Good of Vertue as the only thing which can make us truly happy for till Men have brought themselves to be fully perswaded and convinced of this and to believe it as firmly as they do any truth in Mathematicks or any other Science they will never be brought truly to Repent that is to dislike and hate and renounce the one and heartily to love and persue and embrace the other for Men will still love their Sins and hanker after them and be ready to comply and close with them upon every occasion if they only fall out with them sometimes as Lovers do with what they like and admire and tho' there may be some bickerings between them and some penitential passions and resentments now and then yet they may still have their Heart if they do not upon wise observations and thorough convictions believe them to be enemies to their Welfare and Happiness to the comfort of their Lives here and their Eternal Salvation hereafter and that they get nothing by them but poor and empty and sickly pleasures but that they bring substantial misery and bitter remorse and anguish of Mind and a thousand mischiefs and inconveniences along with them at present besides the terrible hazards and dangers of another World so that they are by no means to be loved or chosen if we love our selves or choose our own Happiness For we must bring it to this if we would be steddy and certain to the first Principles of Self-preservation and a desire of our own Happiness which lyes at the root of our Nature and what we shall alwayes act upon if we rightly understand it and do not grosly err and mistake about it and a few wise observations and a little sober thinking and considering will easily satisfie us and fully convince us that Vice is the certain cause of misery to us and that Vertue is the only way to be truly easie and happy The Sinner will be convinced of this by his own experience when he reflects upon his past follies and sees how little he has got by his Sins but shame and sorrow and trouble of Mind perhaps a sickly and diseased Body and a wasted Estate and wretched Beggery and every thing that shall make him miserable in this World before he goes to the greater misery of another For do we not dayly see this how one Man brings himself by his Sins to a morsel of bread how he shipwrecks his Fortunes as well as his Conscience by Luxury and Prodigality another consumes his Body as well as his Estate by Debauchery Lust and Intemperance by these they sin as the Apostle remarks against their own Bodies as well as against their Souls they make them bear the scars and marks of their Sins upon them and become Martyrs in the Devils service and endure often more torture of Body for their Sins than other Martyrs have done for their Religion sacrifice their Lives to them and by living too fast as they call it bring an untimely death upon themselves and are in so much hast sometimes to dye that their Bodies often rot before they come into their graves If these mischiefs do not follow all Sins yet some others do and the greatest of all is inseparable from them which is torment and anguish of Conscience and pain and uneasiness of Mind which every Man feels unless his Conscience be stupified and mortified which is a worse state than the other upon the commission of any great Sin and this is ten times greater than any fancied pleasure in it This is a sting a wound a prick upon the most tender part of a Mans Soul a dart struck through his Liver a Worm gnawing upon his Vitals nothing is so close and so cutting a pain and misery as a Man 's own ill Conscience when it is let loose upon him and like a Fury falls upon him with its utmost rage lashes him with its snaky whips and burns him with its fiery torches 't is then a Devil let loose and a Hell kindled within his own bosom They who have felt but a little of it know it is more exquisite pain than any belongs to the Body and what is it then to endure this for ever and lye under that and the further anger of God to all Eternity Oh madness and folly that wants a name that will do this for any Sin whatever Oh the dreadful Evil of Sin that brings all this and so many other mischiefs upon us But 3. Vertue on the contrary has a thousand Comforts Blessings and Goods belonging to it which should make us love it as we do our selves and choose it as heartily and firmly as we do our own Happiness When we rightly understand and consider it we shall find Reason to do so that neither disturbs our Mind nor diseases our Body nor squanders away our Estate nor brings any reproach and discredit along with it as Vice generally does and it takes away no real Good or true Pleasure or proper Enjoyment from us but it allowes us all that we can desire or that our Nature was made for within the due bounds and limits of our Duty and within those we may enjoy as much Vertuously and Innocently as the greatest Liberty and Debauchery can afford the Sinner Vertue does not destroy our Pleasures but refines and purifies them and so makes them sweeter and better and draws them off from the filthiness and sediment and bitterness that lyes alwayes at the bottom of all sinful Pleasures and Enjoyments No Man ever repented of his Vertues or was sorry that he had done a good Action but he finds great comfort and satisfaction within himself when he reflects upon it and it is a prop and stay to his Mind and he rests securely upon it and is chearful confident and erect under all accidents and all dangers and difficulties whatsoever His Heart standeth right and approveth it self to God and to his own thoughts having no ill designs no base and mean ends and purposes but such only as are good and vertuous and this gives him great peace firmness of Mind and bravery of Spirit and
two such Receptacles for the Souls of all Men and Angels to spend an Eternity in for the fixt continuance and Eternal Duration of their state is more plainly revealed then their particular State and Condition so that all Rational Souls must be consigned to one of those States and Places for they who have made a Third or Fourth have made it only out of their own brains and imaginations not out of any Scriptural foundation or Authority there must be allowed to be very great differences and unequal degrees of happiness or misery in those two places or else neither the Justice of God nor the different Cases of Men can be accounted for with any tolerable ease and satisfaction to our thoughts or be any way reconciled to the principles either of Reason or Religion God the Just and All-knowing Judge will give all allowances to the hard circumstances the invincible ignorance the unavoidable failures the powerful temptations the particular cases and several disadvantages that any of Mankind have been under and with the fairest and most impartial equity will adjudge all their Conditions and proportion their future Rewards and Punishments according to what is due to them all things considered according to the right or wrong use of that freedom and liberty which he gave them and the faults or vertues under that light and knowledge they had of their own wills and choices by which alone they can either be or be denominated good or bad Men Some of Mankind seem not to have either vertues enough to qualifie them for Heaven or to be so wilfully vitious as to deserve Hell but to be in a kind of middle state here between Vertue and Vice whatever they shall be in hereafter and many who are guilty of some Vices which the Scripture declares damnable and exclusive of Heaven yet are not of such downright Irreligion and General Profligacy and Debauchery as others Thus also many have some real sense of Religion but yet are but weakly moved and influenced by it and do but just live in a very low way of Grace and Vertue and are not so Rich in good works nor do so abound in Acts of Piety Zeal Usefulness and Charity as others Therefore one Equal Complete Perfect Entire State either of Happiness or Misery cannot belong to all these alike but Heaven or Hell are proportionable unequal different conditions of both exactly suited and fitted to the Moral and Religious Deserts Capacities and Qualifications of all Rational Beings in which they shall be fixt to all Eternity without alteration though perhaps not without further improvements and gradual risings and fallings according to the Nature of either of those States These Thoughts have been a great ease and satisfaction to my self in the Conception of the great and amazing things of another World and I therefore communicate them not only on the fore-mentioned account but because they may be so to others who consider those greatest Objects of Meditation with any penetration of thought according to the best helps we have of Philosophy and Scripture and I am perswaded it would be good Service to Religion if it were thus fairly reconciled in all the revealed Truths and Articles of it to the thoughts of inquisitive Men as I doubt not but it may be but this is a subject of another Nature which I am not now to meddle withal CHAP. VI. Practical Rules and Directions concerning the Particular Exercise of Repentance I Shall now consider the Particular Exercise of Repentance taken as a single Duty distinct from all others of Obedience which are in the largest sense involved in it and without which it is not effectual to Pardon and Salvation as I have all along shown but Repentance taken singly for a particular act of a Sinner just struck and affected with a sense of his Sins and exercising at set times Penitential Reflections and proper Actions upon the thoughts and remembrance of them this which is often called Repentance and is so in some sense but not sufficient to compleat this Duty and to entitle us to all the effects of Repentance as they are promised to it in Scripture in a more large and comprehensive Notion as including a good Life and all manner of Obedience after we have failed and come short in any point This which I would call Penitence or Penance as being a Penal Exercise or Penitential Course and Discipline fit for a Sinner to go through after he has committed any great Sin or whenever he seriously remembers and considers and recollects as he ought often to do with himself the most considerable miscarriages of his Life This consists in these following things 1. In confessing of his Sin 2. In inward and outward Sorrow for it 3. In Humiliations Bodily Austerities and Mortifications and especially Fasting as the chief of them In these the Scripture and the Church and the custom of good Men in all Ages have placed this Exercise of Repentance as consisting of such Penitential Acts not as a permanent Habit of renewed Obedience and recovered Vertue nor as if the Essence or the formal Vertue and proper fruits of it lay in these but in Reformation of Heart and Life Conversion and Obedience to God but these are the buds and blossoms of those fruits of Repentance the seeds and the signs of it or at least the outward concomitants and attendants of it and such a retinue as are proper to go along with it for the solemnity at least and decent performance of it if not as absolutely necessary to the thing it self Necessary generally in private but alwayes in publick Acts or Expressions of Repentance wherein a publick reparation and satisfaction is to be given to Gods Honour and Authority his Judgments to be averted and his Anger deprecated and a common sense and apprehension of all this to be promoted and inculcated among others as in publick Penances and National Repentances and therefore we read chiefly of these upon such occasions both in Scripture and Ecclesiastical Writers Open Sins are a dishonouring of God an affronting and despising his Power and Authority a setting up our Wills against his a gratifying and indulging our selves in undue liberties and unlawful inclinations of Body Now 't is fit therefore in our Repentance for them wherein we make what amends we can to God and repair the injury we have done him and undo the Sin as far as we are able and show our utmost displeasure against it that we should fall down before him and confess it and be sorry for it and humble our selves to him and own our vileness and wretchedness and unworthiness and express the deepest resentments of it and show our anger against our selves and revenge it very severely and afflict our Souls and our Bodies with something that shall not be very grateful to them nor pleasant and acceptable to our Senses The design of all this is to beget in our Mind such thoughts of our Sins and such passions and