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
that we could reasonably desire or God in wisdom grant is a most groundless and unreasonable presumption which makes void all Gods threatnings and is a direct disbelief of his word and expresly contrary to what is plainly delared by the Gospel it self for in that Christ assures us that the word which he has there spoken the same shall judge men at the last day John 12.48 and therefore he will judge us by no other rule nor use any other measures in disposing his Mercy or his Justice to his Creatures than what he hath layd down and made known to us by the Gospel God shall judge the world says St. Paul in that day according to my Gospel Rom. 2.16 'T is not therefore to be expected that God should use any other Judgment or show any other Mercy to Sinners than what is according to the termes of the Gospel and the Conditions of Salvation there lay'd down and a Death-Bed Repentance doth not as I have shown come up to those 3. I have showed all along this Discourse that it is not such a True and Perfect Repentance as the Scripture promises Pardon and Salvation to for that consists not only in sorrow and trouble of Mind conviction of Soul and Compunction of heart but in actual Reformation and new Obedience and indeed 't is this alone is a Mans retracting his past folly and wickedness and being wiser for the future undoing all the evil he has done as much as he can and doing all the good he can for the time to come and so making all possible amends to the honour of Religion and the honour of God which have been highly injured and violated by him and though he can never make perfect reparation and satisfaction to them and therefore Christ alone did this by his Death and Sufferings yet he is to do all that he is able and that is in his power to do that he may thereby vindicate the Divine Authority and Government which he hath opposed and resisted and Justifie the wisdom and goodness justice and holiness of the Laws of Heaven which he hath broken and contemned and so make all the compensation he is able to repair the sad Mischief he hath done by his Sins We truly say that no injury to another person will be forgiven but upon Restitution and making all the reparation for it that can be because 'till this is done the sin remains and the evil effects of it continue and till a Man is willing to undoe that as far as he is able to take away and destroy all the effects of it he keeps the sin and does not truly Repent of it nor wish it undone now surely we owe as much to God and Religion in Justice as we do to our Equals and where we have done any thing to injure those as our sins are the greatest injury to them we can be guilty of there also we must make as much restitution and reparation as we are able and undoe the sins we have committed by a more zealous and hearty and new Obedience and making up if it were possible the past failures and defects of our Sinful Lives by greater care and zeal and diligence for the future We may do this by a timely Repentance but by a late and a dying one we cannot 4. A Sinner cannot be then freed at his Death from what will necessarily make him miserable his Sinful Habits which will sink his Soul into Hell by a Natural Causality as well as Divine Judgment God has expresly declared that neither fornicators nor idolaters nor adulterers nor effeminate nor abusers of themselves with mankind nor thieves nor covetous nor drunkards nor revilers nor extortioners nor such like shall inherit the Kingdom of God 1 Cor. 6.9 10. And who are such but they who have lived in the habit of any of those Sins And are therefore to be denominated and accounted such from the general practice of their Lives and have not been washed and sanctified or made better but only are now sorry for being so when they are dying If Sorrow would make Men to be otherwise and their Tears alone would blot out this black Character without a contrary Practice there would hardly be any such to be found though 't is plain the World is too full of them There would be no Thief or Felon or Traytor at any Assizes or Court of Judicature if when they came to be tryed and were found guilty and were to be condemned their meer sorrow and trouble would set them right and change their character and make them to be accounted otherwise in the eye of the Law But besides this Sentence and Judgment of God upon all kind of Sinners whereby he bars any such from Heaven and adjudges them to Hell their Sins Naturally sink them thither for that is the true place and center of Wickedness and therefore of Misery Filthy and impure Minds fall into it by a kind of Spiritual Gravitation or by such a Constitution of the Spiritual and Intellectual World which as necessarily carries them thither as the Mechanism of this material World carries a stone downward So that 't is as unavoidable for a Sinner loaded with his wicked Habits to fall into Hell and Misery in another World as if here he had a Millstone tyed about his neck and were cast into the Sea to fall to the bottom of it The weight of his Sins will of it self press and sink him down into the utmost gulph of Misery and when he is quite taken away from the diversions and pleasures and bodily enjoyments of this World and is left wholly to the reflections and agonies and dismal apprehensions of his own Mind his Conscience which is now stupified and amused with other imaginary pleasures of Body and this World will then awaken and fall upon him with all its rage and torment his Soul and make it unexpressibly miserable were there no other sentence or judgment upon him The dreadful horrors and apprehensions of his own Mind let loose upon him would always be a very great torment and Hell to him if he had nothing to relieve or divert him but was left naked and open to the full stroke of his Conscience and his thoughts were whollytaken up with the frightful Images and Ideas of his own Guilt and overwhelmed with all the bitter Passions of Fear Sorrow and Despair as they will hereafter Sin will as certainly fill him with those in another World and cause such painful sensations or perceptions within his Soul as he now feels in his Body upon a torturing Disease or any instrument of Cruelty applyed to it for that is as contrary to the Nature and Frame of the one as those are to the other and they would be alwayes felt here if the Body did not drown and stifle and choak the free and natural thoughts of the Mind which it cannot hereafter If the Mind therefore be not freed from its Sins and Evil Habits it will
down his eyes Psal 119.136 And the Scripture describes Repentance by a broken and a contrite heart Psal 51.17 in opposition to a hard and impenitent one All Penitents are drawn with a sad and mournful look with tears in their eyes and sorrow in their hearts smiting their breasts and wringing their hands and all the figures of Grief and Lamentation and covered with a veil of sadness and disconsolateness For Grief and Sorrow are Passions of Soul upon the presence of any evil that is afflicting and uneasie to us and Sin being the greatest of those evils should cause the highest of those passions and we have more reason to be sorry and lament for it than a Widow over her lost Husband or a Mother over her first-born that is dead or a Friend over another that is murthered ruined and undone for our Souls ought to be dearer to us than any thing else and Sin kills ruins and murthers them But here I must interpose a Caution Sin is a Spiritual Evil and works not upon our Bodily Passions so strongly and deeply as those other objects may which are more suited to them and more fit to excite such animal sensations and impressions as Naturally rise from them Thus sensible Beauty may charm our Animal Spirits more than the Intellectual Pulchritude of Vertue and Musick may more ravish us than the harmony of Reason or then the thoughts of the Heavenly singing and Hallelujah and these and the tasts of some sensible dainties may more affect us with a sensible pleasure than the very joyes and pleasures of Heaven as we can now conceive them for they are more suited to our Animal Nature and more agreeable to the mixt Faculties arising from the union of our Souls and Bodies and so there may be more pain and sorrow felt for a Wound in a Mans Body than for a Sin in his Soul and more tears shed for the misfortune of a Friend or the loss of a Child or a near Relation than for the miscarriage of our Lives or the commission of a Sin for the one is a sorrow of another nature and another kind raised not by Sense but by Reason not Natural but Religious not from Mechanism of Body but Consideration of Mind and therefore the greatness or the sincerity of our Repentance is not to be measured by the quantity of our Tears or the number of our Sighs or the degrees alwayes of Animal Sorrow but rather by the sincerity of our Wills and the actual performance of our good Purposes of forsaking and amending our Sins which are the only sure marks of our disliking them and being sorry for them and having a true hatred and aversion to them for those secret and inward Passions of Mind are not to be known often either by our selves or others but by the effects and we can only know we love Vertue and hate Sin by following the one and forsaking the other for no Man loves a thing heartily but if it be in his power he will attain it and no Man otherwise loves Vertue or Heaven No Man hates any thing or is heartily sorry for any evil but if it be in his power he will remove it if present and avoid it if absent No Man can know he has the love of God but by this in which the Scripture places it by keeping his Commandments 1 John 5.3 and therefore I am afraid that School distinction between Contrition and Attrition that the one is a Sorrow from the Love of God and the other from the Fear of Hell and so the one is sufficient and the other is not has little or nothing in it but words by which Men may easily cheat and deceive themselves for the secret springs and principles of Mens Passions lye too deep to be discerned and they run into one another and are so mixt and confounded that they cannot be distinguished neither is there any great difference between them and only the effects of them are taken notice of in the account of God and the concerns of Religion It is a meer Nicety to distinguish such Principles in the first forming of Repentance like looking for the colours of Flowers or taste of Fruit in the several Seeds of them whereas he that from true Religious Principles be they either Love Hope or Fear and they generally are mixt and combined together and we cannot divide the force or weight of each of them severally upon the Mind whoever I say from these or any or all of these is so concerned for his past Sins that he leaves them and forsakes them and becomes a good Man he has undoubtedly true Repentance and whatever the Principle of it was whether Love or Fear and whatever degree there was in the sorrow and trouble and concern for it it is that fruit and effect and permanent issue and result of it that constitutes and denominates it true and perfect Repentance Let not therefore any Man doubt his Repentance who has this evidence and demonstration of it and let no Man deceive himself without this and think that the Keys of the Church any thing the Minister can do for him or any thing that Christ has done for him or the Merit of his Blood or any Free-Grace or any Faith in him or any thing that a deluded and impenitent Sinner is willing to catch hold off can turn his Sorrow be it never so great and be it from what Principle soever either of Love or Fear into perfect and sufficient Repentance without the effect of Reformation and a good Life and performing the Conditions of the Gospel necessary to Salvation Godly Sorrow is an excellent means and a good beginning of Repentance 't is sowing in tears those seeds of Religion which may grow up to maturity of goodness and amendment of Life and if those penitential tears wash away the filth of our Sins and cleanse the hands and purifie the heart of a Sinner they are then true Repentance If the Salt that is in them eat out our Corruption and preserve us from all impurities afterwards and the bitterness of the Sorrow makes us disrelish and dislike our Sins ever after and wean and turn away our Affections from them and like the Waters of Siloam work upon us and perform the Cure when they are thus stirred and impregnated with a Divine Vertue by the moving of Heaven upon them then they are of great Vertue and ought to be frequently used and cherish'd and indulged as they were of old for this purpose by the devout and tender Penitents But all Constitutions can no more weep and shed tears alike than they can make the Hairs of their Head white or black and tho' all should be sorry for their Sins as being convinced in their Minds of the evil of them yet the passionate degrees and the outward expressions of this Sorrow fall not under any rules or measures but are best judged and known by the effect which is leaving them as what we do not
and bruises and putrifying sores i. e. They have been wicked in the general tenor and habit of their Lives and these must be wholly changed the whole mass being corrupted it must be quite altered The whole frame of their Minds and whole course of their Actions must be made quite otherwise like a defiled Body they must be wash'd all over or rather like a dead Carcass they must be raised to life again and restored wholly from their state of Death and Corruption which they were in before There are others who are not so diseased all over but yet have some mortal illness growing in some part upon them who are guilty of some particular Sins some known and wilful Faults that destroy their good state and put them into the rank though not of the greatest Sinners yet of such Sinners as shall not enter into Heaven nor escape Eternal Wrath and Vengeance unless they particularly repent of them and wholly forsake and leave them And thus every one who is conscious to himself that he is or has been ever guilty of any known and great Sin whatever it be though it should be but one such Sin must amend that and must get off that particular illness or else it will prove deadly and mortal if it continue upon him for one such disease or one such wound whilst 't is uncured upon the Soul will kill and destroy it as well as more Though a Man may not be universally depraved nor be wholly prostituted to debauchery and irreligion yet if he will indulge himself in any known Sin or in any particular Lust and Wickedness he is in a lost and undone state till he repents and wholly leaves that Sin And if a Man is in a good state and fall into a wilful and great Sin as we know David did that surely cuts him off for a time from his good state and renders him lyable to Gods Anger here and to Misery hereafter till by a serious and hearty Repentance he recovers himself and is so perfectly recovered from the Sin that he will never commit it again whatever Temptation is offered to him There are other Sins which are of a lower and less heinous Nature which do not destroy our good state nor put us out of the Favour of God nor exclude us out of Heaven and these are such as very good Men are subject to and may not be free from whist they are in this body of Sin and Corruption As the most healthful and best Constitutions may be subject to some smaller illnesses and indispositions of Body though not to great and mortal diseases so some frailties failures and imperfections will stick to the best of Men though not any mortal and wilful Sins and these frailties and infirmities are Sins in a strict sense as coming short of perfect Obedience to the Divine Law and these are in some sense also to be repented of i. e. we are to be sensible of them and sorry for them and we are every day to pray to God to forgive us these our Trespasses and we are to endeavour to overcome them as much as is possible and never let them grow as they may by neglect into wilful Sins but these are all pardonable by the Mercy of God and by vertue of the gracious Covenant which he hath made with us in Christ Jesus upon a general Repentance without a perfect and particular amendment of all of them which is utterly impossible and inconsistent with Humane frailty and infirmity There is therefore a great difference to be made in respect of several kinds of Sins and several sorts of Sinners of this great Duty of Repentance There are some of whom the Scripture sayes that they need no repentance Luke 15.7 i. e. who need not such a Repentance as shall change and alter their Spiritual state who never were in a bad state being early Baptized nor never were guilty in their whole lives of any one such great and wilful and heinous Sin as put them into a damnable state I hope there are not a few who are in this blessed condition and therefore who need not this greater Repentance as I think I may call it who by the blessing of God and by means of a very Vertuous and Religious Education have been early trained up in the wayes of goodness and never departed from them who were set right at first and never wandered or strayed out of the paths of Vertue whose Feet never slipt so far as to take hold of the paths of Death or be caught in the snares of the Devil who never defiled themselves with any great Sin but have preserved their virgin-purity and have had no foul spot to sully the whiteness and beauty of their whole unblemisht Conversation but were alwayes innocent and alwayes safe like Zacharias and Elizabeth were alwayes righteous before God walking in all the commandments and ordinances of the Lord blameless Luke 1.6 I cannot say these are wholly sinless and altogether perfect for so none of the Race of Adam or the Children of Men are except our Blessed Saviour for there are some infirmities and weaknesses and imperfections that belong to these and so they stand in need of that lesser Repentance I before spake of but they never were guilty of the great offence and so need not that greater Repentance which others do And 't is of that I now speak a repentance from dead works as the Apostle calls it Heb. 6.1 A Repentance from wilful and mortal Sins such as put us into an ill state and such as we shall certainly perish except we repent of them Luke 13.3 SECT III. True Notion of Repentance NOw this Repentance I would thus describe answerable to those three words by which it is exprest in Scripture A sorrow for our Sins joyned with change and alteration of Mind and amendment or reformation of Life or such a sense of Mind as makes us leave and forsake or turn away from every Sin or all the Sins we have been guilty of and practice the contrary Vertues or perform those other Duties we have broken or been wanting in Thus where we have been bad Men in any instance and violated our Duty and offended God and broken or transgrest his Laws it will make us become good Men afterwards and perform our Duty and return to God and keep or obey his Commandments in all those cases wherein we have done otherwise before This this alone is such a Repentance as avails to Pardon and Salvation as it takes away every Sin which would damn us and brings us to that Obedience and practice of all Vertue and Holiness without which no man can see God or be saved Repentance I own is a word of an equivocal meaning that signifies several things and has several senses belonging to it as sorrow and trouble of Mind change of Thoughts and the like which are meant by the Latin Paenitentia and Resipiscentia and by the Greek 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉
a sound and healthful Body a fair and good Reputation a quiet and easie Mind or a shattered and rotten Carkass a scandalous and infamous Life a guilty and disordered and distracted Conscience Are not most of the pleasures of Sin not only short but sickly That have a sharp and poysonous sting hid under all their sweetness so that however they go off to the Palate yet they are very bitter after they are gone down whereas the pleasures of Vertue are clear and pure and lasting not mixt with any of those dregs which foul and embitter Sin but purified from all the sediment and the lees that are at the bottom of Sensuality and Wickedness Religion does not deny us any truly Natural and proper Pleasure and Enjoyment but only keeps us within the bounds of Innocency and Vertue within which compass a Man may enjoy all the Pleasure that he can wish or was made for It does not by its Rules of Mortification and Self-denyal destroy or cut off any Natural Appetite or true part of us that is not the meaning of cutting off a right Hand or plucking out a right Eye Matth. 5.29 30. but only to destroy the unnatural Excesses to cut off the vitious Corruptions to take away the depraved and inordinate Affections and Lusts that will grow too strong and unruly without a wife conduct and government of our selves by the rules of Vertue and the restraints of Reason and Religion and would any Man think fit to have those let loose and have the reins thrown upon their neck without any check or controul Will he complain of the severity of Religion and the loss of his Natural Freedom by the restraints of morose and peevish Vertue as he calls it if he be not allowed the full swinge of his Lusts and the gratifying of his immoderate Passions and Desires in all manner of instances Then adieu not only to the government of Vertue and Religion but the government of all Humane Laws and Worldly Wisdom which for the conveniency of this World and the Peace Quiet and Comfort of this present Life has thought fit to keep Mens Lusts and Passions within such bounds under the severest penalties and to prohibit the same Sins under the punishments of this World that God has done under the far greater punishments of another for nothing is more pernicious and destructive to the welfare of a Kingdom as well as of particular Men then Licentiousness and Debauchery which besides the immediate Judgments of God upon it does by its own Nature bring a thousand present Miseries and known Evils along with it besides the unknown and unspeakable Miseries that attend it in another World Can any Sinner deny this when he seriously thinks and considers of it Does not his own observation and his own experience by which I hope he will be instructed if by nothing else teach him that this is the Nature of Sin That as 't is a common pest and plague to the World and to Mankind in general so 't is generally a disease to his Body a moth and canker to his Estate and a worm to his Conscience Whereas Vertue is health and soundness to his Body life to his Soul and grace to his Neck as the Wise Man observes That length of dayes are in her right hand and in her left hand riches and honour That she is a tree of life to them that lay hold upon her and happy is every one that retaineth her Prov. 3.16 17 18 22. This true Notion of Vertue which is not an empty Panegyrick but a strict Truth founded in Nature that will alwayes be true of it and that all Wise Men will find to be so this will sufficiently answer the first and greatest Temptation by which Sin entices and allures unthinking Men with the bait of present Pleasures and Enjoyments But 2. The next greatest Temptation to Sin is that of Example which is so strong and powerful that few can resist it who love to be modish and in the fashion as too many Vices generally are and therefore are more taking upon that account and lose their reproach and shame due to them by the great party and number they have on their side which otherwise would sneak and be confounded if they stood alone but when so many are brought over to them others follow if it be only for company and many Men are drawn in even contrary to their inclinations by the Example of others because they do not care to be singular nor to be reproached for being so but are willing to do what they see so many others do and hope they shall fare as well as they and escape all the seeming dangers of their Sins both here and hereafter as well as the rest of their Neighbours or the great number of their fellow Sinners Now this however common and powerful it be yet is the most unreasonable thing in the World for is any Man in another case willing to be sick or to dye for company Is any so easie or so complaisant as to pledge another in a cup of Poyson Or would he not stop the mad Frolick when he saw the rest of the company drop down dead before him Is any Man unwilling to avoid the Plague if he can because there is a general infection and because so many of his Neighbours or his Acquaintance have dyed of it Would any refuse the saving his Life and escaping if he could upon a plank because the rest of his company are sinking and drowning Did Men think it as much worth their while to save their Souls as their Lives how many others soever lost them had they as just and terrible apprehensions of their own Damnation as they have of their dying this Temptation of Example and Company would be quickly taken off and signifie nothing For alas what comfort will it be in the flames of Hell to hear so many others roaring and howling in them To hear their hideous cryes and tortures and lamentations will not abate their own but rather increase them therefore the Rich Man in the Parable Luke 16.28 did not desire the company of his Brethren there but rather sought to prevent their coming into that place of torment The Devils indeed from the unaccountable malice of their Nature tempt others to be as wicked and as miserable as themselves and every one does their work who entices another to any Sin but this will not ease their pains but augment them by adding more mischief and so more guilt to them No Man who knows what it is to be happy but must wish to be so tho' he were alone and no Man who knows that Vertue alone is the way to be happy but must choose to be Vertuous though he saw never so many others Wicked let them reproach and laugh at him as long as they please for a Man singular and by himself let them count his Life folly for being so strict and so precise if it be in the great
greatest motive to Repentance that can possibly be given for nothing is so strong and powerful upon most Men as their fears which is the quickest and strongest Passion in Humane Nature and is apt to make a very great impression where nothing else will and nothing can be so much an object of our fear as Hell and Eternal Misery which is the utmost and most dreadful Evil that can be either felt or imagined I shall particularly and largely offer and represent it to the Sinners thoughts both as to its Nature consisting in the greatest pains and torments of Body and Mind and in the most wretched and miserable state and condition and as all this is Eternal and shall never have end Both which if heartily believ'd and seriously consider'd would have a mighty power and almost irresistible force to bring Men off from their greatest Sins I. Then let us consider its Nature as consisting of the greatest pains and torments both of Body and Mind and in the most wretched and miserable state and condition I shall not attempt fully to describe or draw a picture of this place of Torments our imagination is to be help'd out with all the known instances of Misery and so to form an Idea of that future and unknown and invisible one It is certain it must be adapted to those two parts of which we consist our Bodies and our Minds and what are the proper Evils to either of those we very well know sensible Pain and great Anguish and Sorrow and other tormenting Passions and these we must suppose in the highest degree to belong to Hellish Misery for as Heaven is the utmost good our Natures can possibly receive and are capable of so Hell is the greatest evil and as such is represented to us by that Revelation which assures us of it attended with the most sad and woful circumstances that can be imagined I shall offer the thoughts of it to the Sinner under such Ideas and Representations as are given of it by the Holy Ghost in Scripture And 1. We must conceive a horrid dark and dismal dungeon in some deep cavern of the Earth designed for horrour and fill'd with the blackness of darkness and inhabited only by cursed Fiends and frightful Ghosts and Devils into which the wretched Caitiff is to be thrown bound hand and foot and so cast into outer darkness Matth. 22.13 and delivered into chains of darkness 2 Pet. 2.4 Darkness is the Natural image and symbol of horrour and disconsolateness as Light is of comfort and pleasantness so that the Scripture expresses Happiness by the dwelling in light as it does Misery by being cast into outer darkness where there is not any beam of light nor any the least glimpse of joy and comfort And thus to be shut up for ever in a place of darkness and horrour and confined to this dismal and infernal Prison to all Eternity would be a dreadful Misery were there nothing else but they are to be tormented there as well as imprisoned and that with the most exquisite pains and tortures as they are described to us in the second place 2. By Fire and Burning which is the most terrible the most keen and painful of Bodily punishments which enters the tender parts with pointed and piercing fury and dissolves and distorts them with its rapid motion and has nothing to abate its extreme cruelty but that it quickly consumes and dispatches and spends it self with its own rage and violence as well as destroyes its subject But this is the dreadful Nature of that infernal Fire that it never goes out but is as the Scripture calls it unquenchable and that the miserable wretches that are condemned to it shall endure the pain and the rage of it for ever and shall never be consumed or destroyed by it but shall be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy Angels and in the presence of the Lamb and the smoke of their torment ascendeth up for ever and ever and they have no rest day nor night Rev. 14.10 11. Let us then set before us a burning Lake of liquid Fire and melted Brimstone like Nebuchadnezzars fiery Furnace heat seven times hotter than any thing we here know and the damned wretches cast into it and like Dives sadly tormented in those flames over all their parts so that the Tongue is swelled with heat as in a raging Feaver and nothing would be so comfortable to it as a drop of Water to cool it and to slake and abate the scorching Calenture Some are inclined to think all this but Allegory and Metaphor and painted Fire but the Scripture speaks so often of it that I cannot but think it may be literally true and that Fire is made the instrument of those Bodily pains that are there to be suffered and inflicted after the general Judgment and Resurrection Or however that as great pains of Body are thereby signified and exprest and shall really be endured some way or other as by burning in Fire For if the Holy Spirit to help our weak thoughts and assist our imaginations has made use of those known things only as emblems and pictures of some real pains yet they are certainly as great or greater than any of those by which they are shadowed out and represented as the pleasure of Heaven is much greater no doubt and does far exceed that of a Feast a Wedding a Crown or any such Earthly resemblance As to the proper pain and torment of the Mind which is the other and the greatest part of Hellish Misery for the Mind has a more quick and keen and immediate sense than the Body that is represented in Scripture by the worm which never dyes Matth. 9.46 i. e. by a Passion that bites and gnaws and corrodes and pains us within as the Fire or something else torments the Body from without and this includes in it all those dismal and reflecting thoughts and apprehensions which the Mind has upon its dreadful state and condition As 1. A direful perception of the Divine Anger Wrath and Displeasure which when it lyes heavy upon the Mind in the highest degree will press it into the deepest gulph of Misery and fill it with the most terrible Ideas and most dreadful apprehensions Even in this World when a Sinner tasts but a little of the Cup of Gods Fury 't is a cup of trembling and a cup of astonishment as the Scripture calls it Isa 51.17 Ezek. 23.32 and what will it then be when all the dregs of it must be drunk up When God hides his Face but a little there is all trouble and horrour and what must it then be when he hides it for ever The sense and apprehension of lying under the displeasure of Almighty Power and provoked Justice and abused Goodness and all these highly incensed against a Man and never to be appeased must be very dreadful and make sad impressions upon the Mind The Presence and the Favour of God giveth
Religion if we are so fond of them that we will break through those to obtain them and prefer the short gratifications of Sin and Flesh for a season before the better Pleasures of Vertue and Innocence and the Glorious Rewards of them for ever then our choice is foolish and unreasonable and our destruction wilful and unavoidable The Spirit proposes to us the dictates of Wisdom and Reason and shows us both the folly and undecency of being thus governed by our lower Appetites and being led away by those like Brutes that have no understanding and not living up to the dignity of our Nature and letting our Reason curb and controll those sensual inclinations And it further layes before us the great obligations of Religion and the strong and powerful considerations of another World and by all these it prevails upon all that seriously think and consider let their Carnal Inclinations be never so strong and the Lustings of their Flesh never so fierce and violent tho' their first Motions cannot be quite hindered and supprest and the fire of Concupiscence cannot be quite extinguish'd and put out yet it may be kept under and hindered from ever blazing out from ever gaining any consent of the Will to what is unlawful and from ever committing it by outward deed or action and while it does so it is safe though it be still tryed though it be in a state of perpetual warfare and the Flesh be such an intestine enemy as cannot be wholly destroyed but like the Canaanites its Lusts may be still a thorn in our side to vex us Num. 33. and to buffet us 2 Cor. 12.7 yet we may still master and conquer it and keep it under and make it subject as a Vassal to the Laws of Reason and Religion It would be moe easie and more happy if we brought it into a condition that it could never stir or rebel or rise up against the Spirit but it may be as great Vertue and greater Victory and more highly rewardable to struggle and overcome and like Socrates though by Nature and Constitution we are never so perverse and ill disposed yet to become otherwise by thought and Philosophy and to owe our Vertue though not to our temper yet to our care and circumspection to the power of Grace and Religion That will change our Hearts and our Tempers and renew us inwardly in our Minds and instead of stony Hearts give us Hearts of Flesh Ezek. 36.26 and instead of Fleshly and Earthly Desires give us Spiritual and Heavenly ones and whatever we are by Nature make us meek and gentle sober and temperate pure and chast and entirely Vertuous by Principle Habit and Resolution 'T is very happy when a Natural Temper disposes us to acquire those Christian Vertues when the Soil is kindly and fitted for them to take root and grow up in it but we must prepare and cultivate it and weed out those corruptions that are in it till we plant it with all those Graces and it bring forth those Fruits of the Divine and Spiritual Life though we are at never so much care and pains about them How we may bring the Spirit to prevail alwayes over the Flesh and to conquer the Lustings of it and by what means we may lessen the Power of one and increase that of the other I am in the Third place to consider 1. These Lustings of the Flesh so far as Natural are not Sinful but but may be consistent with the contrary Principle of the Spirit when kept within due bounds and governed by the Laws of Vertue and Religion We cannot be without such Passions Appetites and Inclinations whilst we have Body and Flesh about us and these are part of Gods Creation and not made in vain but put in us for good ends so far as they were designed by God and Nature They were not given us to torment and vex us with unsatisfied Desires and impatient Appetites like Tantalus his Punishment to have the daintiest Fruit before him and be set up to the Chin in a cool River and yet not taste the one nor quench his thirst with a drop of the other No Religion does not tye us up from any proper Natural Enjoyments with a touch not taste not handle not but allowes us the satisfying and gratifying our Natural Appetites and Desires within the bounds of Vertue Decency and Lawfulness It lets us eat of all the Trees and Fruits and Dainties of this Earthly Paradise only it keeps us from the forbidden Fruit and suffers us not to gratifie our Desires brutishly and unreasonably and without regard to publick and private good which is more to be regarded than any Mans particular humour or pleasure God therefore as we are Rational Creatures who are to promote the universal Happiness of the whole World has given us such Laws as conduce to that end and we are alwayes to observe them and not transgress the limits and prescriptions by which he has bounded our Sensual Desires and Inclinations and without destroying them has made them useful and serviceable to the wise ends of his Providence So that we are not bound with the Stoicks to root up those nor with the Asceticks to deny our selves such gratifications as are Innocent and Decent Lawful and Useful But 2. We are to destroy the Excesses and Irregularities of them which are vicious mischievous and unbecoming and this Religion means when it bids us mortifie our earthly members and crucifie the Flesh with the Affections and Lusts and pluck out a right eye and cut off a right hand when they offend us or draw us to Sin not that we are to destroy hereby any part of our Nature or any of the Passions and Inclinations resulting from it but so far as they are unnatural and immoderate inflamed and heightened by folly and fancy and exceed the measures both of Nature and Reason Vertue and Religion and exceed the bounds both of Humane and Divine Laws so far we are to destroy kill and mortifie them for they become then mischievous and pernicious to the World and bring shameful and miserable effects along with them and are a reproach and a dishonour to our Reason and our Nature as being contrary to and below both The frame and make of our Bodies require to be sustained with Meat and Drink and the Natural Appetites of Hunger and Thirst are to be gratified with what is acceptable to the Taste and Palate but when this runs into Luxury Gluttony and Drunkenness when Vanity Brutishness and Debauchery mixes it self with our Meat and Drink then these Natural Appetites are vicious and immoderate forced beyond Nature by Folly Fancy and Custom and our Table becomes a Snare and a Sin to us We cannot but desire the good things the conveniences the plenty the riches of this World for we see the usefulness and the necessity of them to our present Life but to desire them so immoderately as not to be content with a moderate
ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who hold the truth in unrighteousness Rom. 1.18 And when the Lord Jesus shall be revealed from Heaven with his mighty Angels he will take vengeance on all them that obey not his gospel who shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord 2 Thess 1.8 9. And those Christians who do any such works of the Flesh as are mentioned Gal. 5.19 21. shall not inherit the Kingdom of God but for the sake of those the wrath of God cometh on the children of disobedience Colos 3.6 These things are as clear as if they were writ with a Sun-beam so that none one would think who reads the Gospel should suppose Faith alone without Obedience should justifie and save us or that Christ is a Saviour to any but those who obey him Heb. 5.9 since blessed are they who do his commandments for they only have right to the tree of life Rev. 22.14 From all which it is plain that Obedience to the Laws of the Gospel is the only and the indispensable Condition of our Salvation And indeed this is the very design of Christs giving us such excellent Laws that we should obey them and be happy for ever by doing so and if we do not but live wickedly we must be eternally miserable It had been in vain for God to have given us any Laws or commanded us any thing if he had not given them such a Sanction and obliged us to them by such Rewards and Penalties and therefore if Mens heads were not bewildred with odd schemes and disputes about decrees and strange methods of Salvation this would be the first and plainest Principle in all Religion as 't is the truest and there would never be any dispute about it that if Men live well here they shall be for ever happy if ill for ever miserable However ignorant Men call this a Legal Condition of Salvation and would have no such in the Gospel yet as I have shown Christianity requires it so does also the very Nature of Religion and of Divine Government and the belief of a Future Judgment and of Rewards and Punishments in another World do all suppose it For what are those Rewards for but for those who live Vertuously and those Punishments but for those who live Wickedly And what is a Future Judgment but to reward all Men according to their works where God as a Just and Impartial Judge shall without respect of persons judge according to every mans work 1 Pet. 1.17 And every one shall receive the things done in his body according to that he hath done whether it be good or bad 2 Cor. 5.10 For when the Son of Man shall come in the glory of his Father with his Angels then he shall reward every man according to his works Matth. 16.27 In the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God he will render to every man according to his deeds Rom. 2.6 To them who by patient continuance in well doing seek for glory and honour and immortality eternal life But unto them that obey not the truth but obey unrighteousness tribulation and anguish upon every soul of man that doth evil ver 8 9. Nothing can be plainer than this in the whole Gospel that Men must expect to receive hereafter according to the goodness or badness of their Lives here and that the only Condition of their Salvation is Obedience to the Laws of the Gospel 'T is a wretched misunderstanding and a total destroying of Christianity to set up any loose Principles of Faith and Free-Grace or the like which are not consistent with this and to delude our selves with hopes of Salvation by Christ upon any other Condition or by any other Means than this of Obedience God indeed hath granted us this favour and priviledge by the Gospel that though we have disobeyed him sometime and some part of our lives yet if we come off from this Disobedience and return to our Duty in time and performe Obedience to him for the future that then he will forgive our former Disobedience and not charge it upon us nor punish us for it but graciously pardon it for the sake of Christ and his meritorious sufferings and that he will receive us again into his favour and reward us for our new Obedience as if we had never done otherwise but had been always obedient and never transgrest his Commandments This is the great grace and favour and priviledge of the Gospel and this is what we call Repentance for Repentance is the same thing with Obedience only it comes after Disobedience 't is a Mans living well after he has lived otherwise which takes in Obedience and a good Life though after a bad one 't is like a Mans setting up again after he had once broke when after his kind Creditor has been pleased to compound with him and instead of his whole Debt to wit an entire and Universal Obedience all his Life to accept of such a partial and broken one he may again thrive and grow rich and so get free from his former poverty or as I have often represented the Nature of Repentance 't is like a Mans recovering health and strength and soundness of body after he has been weak and ill or distempered in the whole or any part Health and Strength is the same to him that it was before though he had once lost it as Riches is to the other now he hath got them again after he was broke so 't is the same vertue of Mind which we ought always to have have had that Repentance restores us to and 't is the same Obedience to God's Laws which a Penitent performs upon his return to his duty that he should have performed before and 't is this only that commends him to God and gives him a title to the promises of the Gospel and procures Pardon and Salvation to him 'T is God's infinite Mercy in and through Christ to allow and accept of this After Obedience as the Condition of our Salvation when it is so broken and interrupted whereas the whole Obedience of our Lives is due to God and he might refuse to accept of this lame and after and imperfect one but still 't is Obedience to Gods Laws after we have broken them by our sins 't is this Obedience renewed ex postliminio as I may call it that recommends us to his favour obtains our pardon for what is past and entitles us again to the reward we had forfeited and without this we can never be reconciled to God nor received into Heaven for none shall go thither but the Vertuous and Obedient whither they have always been so or only after they have been otherwise but still they must be Vertuous and they must be Obedient or else they can never come thither for 't is certain Obedience which if after Disobedience in any instance is call'd Repentance is by the Gospel the absolute and indispensable Condition of our
of Religion and now he denyes those and his Life both alike because he cannot keep them Is he now to begin to practice the Vertues of Chastity and Temperance and Sobriety which he never did before then he hath put them off to a very convenient season when his Vices have quite left him and so if Vertues will come of themselves like guests uninvited there is no other company to hinder them but he was as vertuous and sober almost half his Life I mean when he was asleep as he can be now when he is as incapable of the contrary acts as he was then and is only like the Enthusiast cured of seeing vanity when he lost his Eyes but perhaps not of being vain for the ghosts and spirits of his departed Sins may still haunt and possess him If these Christian Vertues are necessary to be practiced in order to our Eternal Salvation a dying Repentance cannot be sufficient without them if it be then those particular Precepts and Commands must be set aside by it as well as the other general ones I mentioned for 't is certain he can no more practice these Vertues now than he could in his Mothers Womb and they might be as well infused into him then as they can be now without any practice and something better because there were then no contrary Habits to hinder them But the Doctrine of infused Habits is like the Hypothesis of Transfusion of Blood contrary to Nature and Experience and the dying Man may as well depend upon one for his Body as the other for his Soul 3. The salvability and sufficiency of a meer dying Repentance as it sets by and discharges us from all those general and particular Commands of Christianity so also from the whole Christian engagement and Baptismal Covenant For can that then be any way made good or performed in any measure when a Man has violated it all his Life and notoriously broken it in all the parts that belong to it Can he then sufficiently renounce the Devil and all his works when he hath hitherto complyed with them the pomps and vanities of this wicked World when he has minded nothing else and the sinful Lufts of the Flesh when he has followed them and been led by them all his dayes Can he then keep Gods Commandments who hath broken most of them and walk in the same all the dayes of his Life who hath walked all his days in the ways of Sin and the paths of Unrighteousness and never left them till just now he is at his journeys end and can live no longer Surely this Baptismal Covenant is made only pro formâ and is but a modish and mannerly Ceremony at our entring into Christianity if we are not more obliged to stand to it and make it good and expect the benefits of Christianity upon our so doing in some further and better manner of performance than a wicked Christian can do when he comes to dye If his meer Sorrows and Purposes and Resolutions will serve instead of all that is expresly or implicitely meant by it it is void and null in all the other parts of it and the Church has unfaithfully and unsincerely drawn it up in other words of a different sense and meaning that signifie nothing and the Scripture hath exprest it as odly and unfitly when it speaks of our dying to Sin and rising unto Righteousness by our Baptism That we are symbolically buried with Christ by baptism unto death that like as Christ was raised up by the glory of the Father even so we also should walk in newness of life Rom. 6.4 For if we have been planted together in the likeness of his death we shall be also in the likness of his resurrection Knowing this that our old man is crucified with him that the body of sin might be destroyed that henceforth we should not serve sin for he that is dead is free from sin ver 5 6 7. Likewise reckon ye also your selves to be dead indeed unto sin but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord ver 11. Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body that ye should obey it in the lusts thereof Neither yield ye your members as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin but yield your selves unto God as those that are alive from the dead and your members as instruments of righteousness unto God ver 12.13 Here is enough to give us the plain meaning of Baptism and the great obligation of it to renounce Sin and live a good and holy Life And we are then said to put on Christ and to put on the new man which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness Eph. 4.24 and to put off concerning the former conversation the old man which is corrupt according to the deceitful lusts ver 22. and to be regenerated and born again and have a Spiritual Principle of Life and Holiness communicated to our Souls and we then voluntarily consent to the terms of Christianity and solemnly engage and undertake to live according to them now all this which is very great and very obliging one would think is made very little and very easily took off and abated and dispensed with if when it has been utterly neglected and disregarded violated and broken all our lives a mere short and Dying Repentance will make it up and supply all the failures and the whole non-performance of it I own that true and timely Repentance will relieve us against the many failures and breaches of it by bringing us to performe it better afterwards sincerely endeavouring to make it good when we have broken it by any wilful sin and upon our performance of it though not with perfect exactness yet with sincere integrity depends our Title to all the Priviledges of Christianity But now to have no regard to it or take any care to observe it nor make it any way good in our lives but to live loosely and wickedly as if we had no such strict Engagement and Obligation upon us and to allow our selves in notorious Sins and unlawful Liberties expresly contrary to our Baptismal Covenant and yet think to salve all and have the whole benefit of it by a short Sorrow and Repentance when we come to dye this is either to make it have no meaning at all or that we are not obliged to the performance of it but let us not deceive our selves whosoever doth not make good his Baptismal Covenant in his Life which a wicked Man cannot at his Death as he is false to Christ and breaks his own most solemn and voluntary engagements so he forfeits all the benefits of his Christianity all that Pardon and Salvation which Christ hath purchased and proposed to him Thus all the Obligations to Christian Holiness and Obedience layd upon us either by our own Baptismal Vows and Promises or by the particular or general Commands of God and our Saviour are all taken away and dissolved by this loose Doctrine of
unlawfully had it power and opportunity for those first Motions and Inclinations are necessary and unavoidable arising from the frame and constitution of our Nature and the Mechanism of our Body Blood and Spirits so that we can no more help or prevent them than we can the senses of Pain and Pleasure or the Appetites of Thirst or Hunger or the Motions and Impressions of outward Objects made upon our Senses and therefore they are not simply evil but good in themselves so far as they are Natural and intended by God to serve the good of the World and of particular Persons and the wise ends of Providence but as they are irregular and inordinate excessive and immoderate and destroy those ends for which God intended them so far they are sinful and when any of those Natural Appetites or Sensual Inclinations grow too strong and unruly and are not kept under the government of Reason or within the bounds of Vertue and Religion then they carry Men to all loosness and wickedness and make them commit Sin and Uncleanness with greediness A good Man may with St. Paul be very sensible and complain of this body of sin and of death and of the law of sin that is in his members of many irregular Appetites and undue Passions and weak and foolish imaginations and unreasonable desires and inclinations of too quick gusts of Sensual things and too much deadness of Spiritual of having too many thoughts and designs for Earthly and present things and too little zeal and affection for things Heavenly that are a thousand times more valuable These are imperfections that are in the best of us and we see that they are so and are very sensible and complain of them but yet we cannot wholly avoid them but after all our thoughts and all our care they still return upon us and the Flesh will lust against the Spirit and there will be a perpetual war and struggle between them but if the Spirit do so far prevail by the helps of Grace and considerations of Religion that it do never yield to any wilful Sin it shall then be rewarded as a Conquerour which though it did not wholly subdue and drive out that homebred enemy yet kept it alwayes under and made it submit to its Government and not keep up an open Rebellion against it Of this I have largely discoursed in the Third Section of the Third Chapter I proceed now to those Sins which are known wilful and presumptuous habitual and reigning in us any one of which is inconsistent with a good State and excludes us out of Gods Favour here and Heaven hereafter such as the Psalmist in the forequoted place prayes against Keep back thy servant also from presumptuous sins lest they get the dominion over me All known and wilful Sins are presumptuous as being done in defiance of a Divine Authority that we know has forbid them and in contempt of God and his Laws to whom we owe all Honour and Obedience and notwithstanding all those threatnings and severe punishments that God has denounced against them He that sins wilfully after he has received the knowledge of the truth of these things there remains nothing for him but a certain fearful looking for of judgment and fiery indignation which shall devour the adversaries This is despising the Law of God thus wittingly and wilfully to break it and is sinning with a high hand and a most presumptuous boldness when we choose to do that which we know is most highly displeasing to Heaven and which God has laid all the obligations he possibly can upon us not to do When any such Sin gets dominion over us so that it becomes customary and habitual to us it makes us the Devils slaves and captives at his Will and shows that he is our Master and that we are the Servants of Sin and overcome by that and brought in bondage to it that it prevails upon our Minds above all the Power of Reason and Principles of Religion and that we choose it above all the great things of Heaven and another World that Religion offers to us and think it more desirable than any of those and had rather gratifie a paltry Lust and a foolish Inclination than save our Souls and have all the favour of God that we prefer it before any other good and let it have the ascendant in our Love and Affections above all other things for it is utterly inconsistent with any Love of God or any due regard to him and banishes all Principles of Religion out of our Minds and destroyes all sincerity and uprightness of Heart towards God and abandons us to a state of enmity with him and everlasting destruction hereafter This I have shown is true of every wilful and chosen and known Sin I shall now from the distinction I have given you of these Sins from those of Infirmity Ignorance and Inadvertency make the following Inferences and Remarks 1. That those Sins of Infirmity are to be Repented of i. e. we are to be sorry for them and pray God to forgive them Though they do not destroy our good state nor deprive us of Gods Favour here or Heaven hereafter yet they are such as are to be matter of Trouble and Sorrow and Humiliation to us and we are dayly to pray God to forgive us our Trespasses as Christ has taught us in the Lords Prayer and the Psalmist in the place before mentioned prayes God to cleanse him from his secret faults as well as to keep him back from presumptuous Sins For 2. These are true and proper Sins and though they are not charged upon us to our Condemnation yet this is by the great Favour and Mercy of God and by Vertue of the Gracious Covenant made in Christ with Mankind for otherwise God in Rigour and Justice might punish and condemn us for them The Papists hold a distinction between Sins Mortal and Venial in their own Nature i. e. that some Sins are in themselves damnable and others not which the Protestants have generally opposed for this Reason because all Sin is in it self Mortal and in its own Nature deserves Death as being 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a breach and transgression of a Divine Law whose sanction is Death but it is pardonable only by Gods Mercy on the account of its circumstances which make it more excusable with a good and merciful God but that it is not of it self venial or so little as not to deserve Punishment they prove from hence that we are bound to pray God to forgive it Now it is pure Grace and Favour for God to forgive and what he is not obliged to and if he is not obliged to pardon it he may punish it were it not for his Mercy and Goodness and the Gracious Covenant he has made with us in the Gospel This should therefore 3. Make us very sensible of Gods infinite Mercy and kind dealing with us by the Covenant of Grace How many innumerable Sins and