are likewise unchosen and so unavoidable are not eternally punishable by the Gospel but consistent with a state of Grace and Salvation will further appear if we consider First The Nature of God Secondly The nature and plain declarations of the Gospel 1. I say their consistency with a state of Grace or Gods favour will plainly appear if we consider the Nature of God God is the most Gracious Loving and good natured Being in the whole world For all the love and kindness that appears among us men proceeds from him and makes us to resemble him and to be like unto him Nay he is not only Loving but even Love it self For God sayes S t John is Love and he who dwells in love dwells in God and God in him 1 Joh. 4.16 And if we will take that character which he gives of himself it is wholly made up of the various instances of Mercy and Goodness The Lord sayes he to Moses the Lord God mercifull and gracious long-suffering and abundant in goodness and truth keeping mercy for thousands forgiving iniquity transgression and sin Exod. 34.6 7. All his delight is in exercising Love and showing kindness For he swears to us as he lives that he has no delight at all in the death of a sinner but had rather that every wicked man should turn from his wickedness and live Ezech. 33.11 He is by no means forward to espie faults or malicious to misconstrue actions or prone to admit of provocation or implacably angry when he is once provoked or cruelly vindictive when once he is angred The Lord saith the Psalmist is mercifull and gracious slow to anger and plenteous in mercy He will not alwayes chide when he has just reason for it nor keepeth he his anger for ever Psal. 103.8 9. He is not at all of the humour of severe masters who are prone to take offence but like a most tender father he is all benignity and goodness For if any thing be pitiable he pities it if any thing is done amiss he is slow to wrath and easie to forgive it Like as a father pitieth his own children even so the Lord pitieth them that fear him Psal. 103.13 Nay take this Love and Pity of a Parent where it is at the highest pitch of all viz. in mothers towards their most helpless and so most pitiable infants and yet this tenderness of God doth infinitely exceed it Can a woman forget her sucking child that she should not have compassion on the son of her womb Yea they may forget sayes God by his Prophet Isaiah but I will not forget thee Isa. 49.15 Thus Loving Pitiful and Benign a Nature do the Scriptures represent God to be And what they declare of him all the world have experienced and found by him For every impenitent sinner is a lasting monument of his long-suffering and forbearance and every prosperous event and deliverance in the world is an effect of his boundless love and kindness He is infinitely good beyond all desert nay in spite of all provocation For he is loving even unto the unthankfull and the evil making his sun to shine and his rain to fall and all the other mâ—râ—ies of life to descend upon the unjust as well as upon the just upon them who contemn as well as on them who obey him as our Saviour observed Mat. 5.45 Luk. 6.35 And this he is to such an astonishing degree as to bestow upon them not only the blessings of his substance of his protection and of his kind providence but also what is a wonder to conceive for their sakes to part with his own well-beloved and so much the more beloved because his only begotten Son For God as saith the Apostle hath recommended his love to us in that whil'st we were sinners and enemies Christ his Son came from him and died for us Rom. 5.8 Thus wondrously pitiful obliging and good natured then is God according to that account which both the Scripture and the Experience of the whole world give of him And now let any man think with himself how so surpassing kind and infinitely gracious a nature as this is like to be affected with the ignorant or inconsiderate slips and errours of his Servants Will he be utterly offended with them so as quite to cast them off and for ever to condemn them No certainly but in great mercy he will pity and bear with them For these slips where we do not consider or where we err and do not understand our duty are such instances of disobedience as imply nothing of contempt or of a rebellious heart nor have any thing of our will in them They are clearly involuntary so that whatsoever the action may appear to be the will it self is innocent For the disobedience cannot be chosen since it is not understood which indeed in the notion and interpretation of Gods Law makes it not to be that sin and disobedience which is threatned but something else for that sin as S t John tells us is a rejecting or a renouncing of the Law whereas in these slips where we do not see it 't is plain that we cannot renounce it And since they have nothing in them of a disobedient will or of a rebellous heart can any man think that so gracious and pitifull a nature should be so highly provoked with them as for ever to condemn his own honest servants and otherwise obedient children upon the account of them Whosoever thou art who art inclined to think thus let me advise thee to consider a little what Love is and whether it can possibly be guilty of such hard usage If thou hast any competent degrees of that Love and Pity in thine own heart which are so infinite in God bethink thy self whether thou could'st do it for that is the way and thence take thy measures in judging whether or no God can Doth any gracious master use that severity towards the oversights and indiscretions of his honest servant or to rise yet higher can any tender Parent show that rigour upon every errour and inconsideration of his heartily obedient child Is not every good man prone to pass by such offences as are committed unwillingly against him and the more he has of goodness is he not still more forward to pardon and bear with them There is no Nature upon Earth that is kind and pitifull but will make allowances for those things which proceed from want of understanding and will pass over those miscarriages which imply nothing of ill will or ill intention Every good man will overlook and connive at them when they are committed by a perfect stranger but then most of all when they are incurr'd by his own intimate and dear acquaintance or relations by his own servant or his own child This I say every good and loving man doth and the more he has of love and goodness the proner still he is to do it For it is a natural and inseparable effect of charity so
Of Pardon promised to Repentance Regeneration a New Nature a New Creature The Nature of Repentance it includes amendment and Obedience The Nature of Regeneration and a New Creature It s fitness to produce Obedience Some mens Repentance ineffectual The folly of it Pardon promised to Repentance and Regeneration no further than they effect Obedience In the case of dying Penitents a change of mind accepted without a change of practice That only where God sees a change of Practice would ensue upon it This would seldom happen upon death-bed resolutions and Repentance The general ineffectiveness of this shown by experience Two reasons of it 1. Because it proceeds ordinarily upon an inconstant temporary principle viz. nearness of Death and present fears of it Though it always begins there yet sometimes it grows up upon a principle that is more lasting viz. a conviction of the absolute necessity of Heaven and a Holy Life 2. Because it is ordinarily in a weak and incompetent degree All TRVE resolution is not able to reform Men. Sick-bed resolutions generally unable Such ineffective resolutions unavailing to mens Pardon THirdly That condition which the Gospel exacts of us as the terms whereupon we must hope to find Life and Pardon at the last day is oft-times called Repentance Regeneration a New Creature or a New Nature Christs fore-runner John the Baptist came preaching Repentance for the remission of sins Luk. 3.3 And when Christ himself commissions his Apostles to publish his Gospel over all the world their instructions are to preach Repentance and remission of Sins in his Name to all Nations beginning at Jerusalem Luk. 24.47 And according to this order they practised Repent says S t Peter in his first Sermon and be baptized for the remission of sins Acts 2.38 And again Repent that your sins may be blotted out Acts 3.19 And then as for Regeneration a New Creature and a New Nature they are such qualifications as fit us for Eternal Life and without which we shall never be admitted to it It is says our Saviour to Nicodemus a mans being born again that must capacitate him to enter into the Kingdom of God Joh. 3.3 In Christ Jesus or the Christian Religion saith S t Paul neither Circumcision availeth any thing nor Vncircumcision but a NEW CREATVRE Gal. 6.15 The condition required of all men to Life and Pardon as the truth is in Jesus is this that they put off the OLD MAN and be RENEWED in the spirit of their mind and that they put on the NEW MAN which after the similitude of God is Created in righteousness and true holiness Eph. 4.21 22 23 24. Repentance in the constant and plain notion of the Scriptures is such a vertuous alteration of the mind and purpose as begets a like vertuous change in the life and practice It begins in our thoughts and resolutions and is made perfect in our works and actions It first casts all false principles and foolish judgments of the desireableness of sin and the dreadfulness of vertue all opinions that hinder a good life and encourage wickedness all inveagling thoughts and bewitching imaginations all firm purposes and studied contrivances of evil out of our minds and thereby purges all wickedness and disobedience out of our lives and actions It implies a change of mind as is well noted by the Greek name for Repentance which is very expressive of its nature For it signifies an alteration of the mind a transformation of our thoughts and counsels and is the same that S t Paul calls a being renewed in the spirit of our mind Eph. 4.23 And this God expressly calls for when he summons the wicked to repentance Isa. 55. Let the wicked man forsake his thoughts and turn them from his sin unto the Lord and then he will have mercy upon him vers 7. It includes also an alteration of the life and practice a forbearing to repeat the sin which we repent of And this is a natural effect of the former in as much as our works and actions will still go along with our studies and contrivances our purposes and resolutions Now this part of repentance from sin viz. a leaving or forsaking of it is its prime ingredient and the chief thing which the Scriptures express by it it is the main end whereto the former serves only as the principle and instrument Godly sorrow or the grief and trouble of our minds for having offended God working as S t Paul says that Repentance which will never fail us nor ever need to be repented of 2 Cor. 7.10 And that Repentance includes this alteration of our lives as well as that other of our minds the Scriptures plainly express to us when they stile it a Repentance FROM dead works Heb. 6.1 a TVRNING away from all transgressions and doing that which is lawful and right Ezek. 18.27 30. A CONVERSION FROM darkness unto light Acts 26.18 a putting AWAY the evil of our DOINGS by ceasing to DO evil and learning to DO well Isa. 1.16 17. These two changes a change of mind and a change of practice make up the essence and integrate the nature of a saving Repentance It implies first a change in our minds and tempers and upon that a correspondent change in our lives and actions Now as for the former of these this change of our minds and tempers in new thoughts new counsels new desires and resolutions this vertuous alteration both in our wills and understandings which are those two powers that make up our rational nature is that which the Scriptures call our new nature the begetting of which in us is called our regeneration or our being born again For the tempers and inclinations of our souls are usually in our common discourse called our nature A man of a loving condescensive disposition is called a man of a good nature and one of a sowr revengeful temper is called a man of an ill nature And the change from one to the other is called a change of Nature a making of him a new Creature and a new man And thus we are daily wont to say of any person who from wicked and sinful inclinations is changed to a disposition which is vertuous and holy that he is become a new man And as this is our language so is it the Scriptures too For our putting on the tempers and habitual inclinations of righteousness and true holiness is called our putting on the new man Eph. 4.24 The alteration from an unbelieving and uncharitable to a believing loving temper to a Faith that worketh by love S t Paul calls a New Creature Gal. 5.6 compared with Chap. 6. vers 15. And as for the renovation it self it is called a regeneration or new birth the Author of it a Father and the persons so renewed his Sons or Children All which are expressed to us by S t John when he tells us of all those which have received such vertuous and holy dispositions from God as make them resemble him
which are delivered in that Chapter are required as part of our walking as Children of the light and proving what is acceptable unto the Lord ver 8 10. Marriage is honourable and the Bed undefiled but Whoremongers and Adulterers God will judge Heb. 13.4 Wives are to be taught to be obedient to their own Husbands that the Word of God or Doctrine of the Gospel be not blasphemed Tit. 2.5 Let Wives be in subjection to their own Husbands For with this in old time the holy women adorned themselves even as Sarah obeyed Abraham calling and observing him as her Lord whose Daughters ye are as long as you do well and imitate her but no longer 1 Pet. 3.5 6. So that all the Laws in this relation are enjoined under the same necessity and confirmed with the same sanction as the former And as for the Particulars of the next relation they are imposed with the same strictness For natural affection the want of it S t Paul affirms plainly makes men worthy of death Rom. 1.31 The Children ought not to lay up Treasure or provide for the Parents but the Parents for the Children 2 Cor. 12.14 And if any man provide not for his own house he hath denied the Faith of Christ which indispensably enjoins it nay despising such a notorious and necessary Precept of mere Nature he is worse than any honest Infidel 1 Tim. 5.8 Fathers provoke not your Children to wrath against you by a harsh and austere Government of them but rule them in kindness and love and bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. And ye Children on the other side obey your Parents in the Lord for this is right Honour your Father and Mother that it may be well with you Ephes. 6.1 2 3 4. Which Precepts are of the number of those which he imposes on them as parts of their walking as Children of the light and proving what is acceptable unto the Lord Chap. 5.8 10. If any man have Children or Nephews let them first learn to shew piety at home and requite their Parents for this is good and acceptable to God But if any man provide not for his own especially those of his own house or Family as Parents are in the first place he hath denied the Faith and in his unnatural actions is worse than an honest Infidel 1 Tim. 5.4 8. And thus are all the Laws of this relation likewise established in the greatest strictness and our obedience to them made plainly necessary to our bliss and happiness And as for the particular Laws of natural affection and communicating upon occasion to each other of their Substance in the relation of Brethren and Sisters they are proved to be necessary in the proof of the former For the same places which require them in that relation require them in this also And then as for the Particulars of the last relation viz. that of Masters and Servants they are of equal necessity with all the foregoing If any man provide not for his own house whereof Servants are one part he hath denied the Faith and is worse than an Infidel 1 Tim. 5.8 Masters give unto your Servants that which is just and equal knowing that ye also have a Master in Heaven who will punish your unequal dealing towards them Col. 4.1 If I despise the cause of my man-servant or of my maid-servant when they argue in their own defence and contend with me what then shall I do when God rises up and when he visiteth what shall I answer him Job 31.13 14. Thou shalt not oppress an hired Servant that is poor and needy whether he be of thy Brethren a Jew or a Stranger of the Gentiles At his Day thou shalt give him his hire neither shall the Sun go down upon it for he is poor and setteth his heart upon it Deut. 24.14 15. Weep and howl O ye rich men says S t James for the miseries that shall come upon you for behold the hire of the Labourers who have reaped down your Fields and which is of you keept back by fraud crieth against you and the Cries are entred into the ears of the Lord who hearkens to them and in great Justice will one Day avenge them James 5.1 4. Ye Masters do the same things viz. good whether as to their Bodies in providing for them or to their Souls in religious instruction with a good will in expectation of a reward from the Lord to your Servants forbearing threatning knowing that your Master also is in Heaven who has threatned you if ye neglect this necessary Duty neither is there any respect of persons with him Ephes 6.8 9. Let as many Servants as are under the Yoke count their own Masters worthy of all honour that the name of God be not blasphemed as certainly it would upon their contrary practice And if any man teach otherwise he is proud knowing nothing 1 Tim. 6.1 3 4. Servants obey in all things your Masters according to the Flesh not with eye-service but in singleness or sincerity of heart without fraud or double dealing as persons fearing God And whatsoever you do do it heartily as to the Lord not to men knowing that of the Lord you shall receive the reward of the inheritance for such your obedient practice for in thus serving them you serve the Lord Christ Col. 3.22 23 24. Servants obey your Masters with fear and trembling not with eye-service as Men-pleasers but from the heart with good-will doing service as to the Lord who commands this of you and not only to men knowing that whatsoever good or ill in this particular any man doth the same shall he receive of the Lord Ephes 6.5 6 7 8. Exhort Servants to be obedient to their own Mâ—sters and to please them well by all manner of observance in all things either as to their reputation in vindicating it when 't is injured or concealing such defects as would stain and fully it or their other interests showing all good fidelity For the Grace of God which brings salvation hath appeared to all men teaching them as ever they hope to be saved by it That denying all ungodliness and worldly lusts whereof the contrary practices to these are the effect and offspring they should live soberly c. Tit. 2.9 10 11 12 13. And moreover these Precepts are part of that sound Doctrine which Titus is required to speak ver 1. in opposition to their Doctrine who in the Verse before are said to be abominable disobedient and to every good work reprobate Servants be subject to your own Masters with all fear or reverence not only to the good and gentle but also to the hard or hasty and froward For this is thank-worthy if for Conscience towards God you patiently endure grief suffering wrongfully This is acceptable to God and likewise
you either your persons by dishonour irreverence evil speaking mocking setting you at nought for your works sake or your Message and Commands by disobedience in Gods account despiseth me also whose Messengers and Ambassadors you are and in like manner he that despiseth me depiseth him withal who sent me Luke 10.16 Do you not know that they which minister in the Jewish Worship and Temple about holy things live of the maintenance of the Temple and that they which wait in sacrificing at the Altar are Partakers of some portion of the Sacrifices with the Altar Even so hath God ordained amongst us like as he did among them that they who preach the Gospel should for that have a due maintenance and livelihood and live of the Gospel And say I this as a man only from common reason equity and custom or saith not God by a peremptory way of Command in the Law the same also For there it is written Thou shalt not muzzle the mouth of the Oxe which treadeth out the Corn. Which is said not for the Oxen alone but for our sakes no doubt that we might not grudge the Labourer his hire 1 Cor. 9.8 9 10 11 13 14. And as he who should despise this Law under Moses could not escape death so much less can we since Christ has made it one of his Laws if we despise it now Heb. 2.2 3. Thou that sayest a man should not steal dost thou steal Thou that abhorrest Idols dost thou commit sacriledge By such scandalous sins as these the name of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles through you as it is written c. Rom. 2.21 22 24. And as for the prohibitions in the relation of Husband and Wife their sanction is the same also No man ever yet hated his own Flesh so as to be estranged to it or unconcerned for it or not to bear with its infirmities but by rubbing upon every sore place to vex and provoke it or not to hide and conceal its weaknesses but to publish and discover them And as unnatural is this usage between Man and Wife for they two are one flesh Ephes. 5.29 31. Which prohibition of hatred between Man and Wife as between a Man and his own Flesh is set down as a necessary part of ceasing to be darkness and becoming light in the Lord ver 8. No Adulterer shall inherit the Kingdom of God Gal. 5.19 21. Husbands love your Wives and be not bitter or passionate uncomplying and imperious against them And this you must do as you would be accounted the holy and elect of God Col. 3.12 19. He that provides not convenient maintenance especially for his own house whereof the Wife is the chief Member hath denied the faith of Christ and is worse than an Infidel 1 Tim. 5.8 Teach Wives to be obedient to their own Husbands lest if they disobey them the Word of God or the Christian Religion be blasphemed for such disobedience of Women that profess it Tit. 2.5 And as for the prohibitions in the relation of Parents and Children what their sanction is these places will inform us In the last days perillous times will come for men will be without natural affection disobedient to Parents from such turn away for they are people of corrupt minds and reprobate concerning the faith 2 Tim. 3.1 2 3 5 8. They who provide not for their own house and especially for so near a part of it as their own Children are have denied the Faith and are become worse than Infidels 1 Tim. 5.8 Fathers provoke not your Children to wrath and hatefulness of you by a rigorous and harsh Government of them but bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord Ephes. 6.4 Which are part of those Precepts our obedience whereof is necessarily required to our being accepted as Children of the light chap. 5. ver 8. He that curseth by reproaching and publishing the shame of his Father and Mother shall surely be put to death Exod. 21.17 The eye that mocketh at his Father and despiseth to obey his Mother although the offence be not come so far as words but is only a scornful and contemptuous look a jeering and abusive Countenance the Ravens of the vally shall pick it out and the young Eagles shall eat it Prov. 30.17 He that robbeth Father and Mother and saith it is no transgression but an innocent action in regard he takes nothing but what either is or one day will be his own the same is the Companion of a Destroyer i. e. he deserves to dye as well as a Murtherer Prov. 28.24 If a man have a stubborn or contumacious and rebellious Son who will not obey the voice of his Father or Mother when they have chastened him let them bring him to the Elders or Rulers of his City and to the Gates wherein were the Courts of Judicature of his place and let him be stoned to death Deut. 21.18 19 20 21. And as for the prohibitions in the relation of Brethren and Sisters we have their penalty established in these words Without natural affection who in the judgment of God are worthy of death Rom. 1.31 32. He that provides not for his own is worse than an Infidel 1 Tim. 5.8 And as for the prohibitions in the last relation viz. that of Masters and Servants their sanction is expressed in the places following Masters give unto your Servants that which is just and equal knowing that you your selves also have a Master in Heaven who will recompence your injustice rigour and unequal Government of them upon your own heads as Christ has plainly shewed us in the Parable of the Servants Matth. 18. from ver 23. to the end of the Chapter Col. 4.1 Masters love your Servants forbearing threatning and what is near akin to it opprobrious language or railing knowing that your Master also is in Heaven who in judging and punishing such offences as these is no respecter of persons Ephes. 6.9 If any man provide not for his own house or Family whereof his Servants are one part he is worse than an Infidel 1 Tim. 5.8 Weep and howl O ye rich men for the miseries that shall come upon you For the hire of the Labourers which is of you kept back by fraud cryeth against you for vengeance and the Cries are entred into the ears of the Lord who will most severely punish this injustice Jam. 5.1 4. Exhort Servants to be obedient to their own Masters and not to be unobservant of them but to give all diligence to please them well in all things Not answering again not purloining not being false or unfaithful in any matter but showing all good fidelity These things speak and exhort with all authority let no man dare under the pain of Gods high displeasure to despise thee Tit. 2.9 10 15. Which things amongst others he is bid to teach
Religion is not beholding to them but their own lusts it condemns their disobedient actions and unless their timely repentance prevent it God will most severely punish them So that as for this first pretence for a partial obedience viz. our allowing our selves in the transgression of some Laws whilst we obey in others because those wherein we indulge our selves are necessary to keep off persecution for the sake of Religion it is a vain deceitful ground and will certainly fail any man who relies upon it CHAP. VII Of the two remaining pretences for a partial Obedience The CONTENTS The second pretence for the allowed practice of some sins whilst men obey in others is the serving of their necessities by sinful arts in times of indigence An account of mens disobedience upon this pretence The vanity of it and the danger of disobeying through it A third pretence is bodily temper and complexion age and way of life A representation of mens disobedience upon this pretence The vanity of it and the danger of sinning through it No justifying Plea for disobedience from our age Nor from our way of life Nor from our natural temper and complexion So that this integrity of the object is excusable upon no pretence It was always required to mens acceptance ANother pretence whereby men justifie to their own thoughts the allowed transgression of several Laws whilst they obey in others is the serving of their necessities because those instances of disobedience wherein they indulge themselves are only such sinful arts compliances and services as are necessary to relieve their want and indigence They are in great streights and deep poverty and since God has not provided conveniencies nor it may be necessaries for them they think that they may be allowed to be their own Guardians and to use any means within their own compass whereby they can make provision for their own selves For they are born with the same appetites and indigencies as other men and some way or other they must satisfie and supply them And this they cannot do if in all things they must religiously obey and keep themselves intirely innocent They must lye and overreach cheat and cozen if not pilfer and steal to get maintenance And they must also use wicked arts and sinful compliances to get favour For not having of their own wherewith to relieve the wants to comfort the weaknesses and to appease the cravings of their natures they must be beholden and cannot help it to the good will and kind charity of others And other men are proud and humorous acted by self-will and vicious interests and will therefore reach out no help to them unless they please them and do any or all such things as they would have them do They must lye and dissemble fawn and flatter drink and swear bear them company in their sins and serve their vicious interests and boggle at no sort of sinful arts and disobedient compliances or else they are not for their turn nor must expect to feel any effects of their kindness This is the hard fate and the great temptation of a poor and indigent condition They who labour under it are brought thus into a seeming necessity of many sins because they cannot otherwise provide for their own maintenance and appetites For God has made their nature subject to several wants and he has made their condition low so that they are unable to relieve themselves in any comfortable degree but must depend as for that either upon the fraud and overreaching cunning of their own wits or upon the good will of others and his Providence has placed them among such Neighbours whose kindness and good will they cannot purchase but at the cost of their Vertue and Obedience And therefore if in this hard Case they disobey they hope that he will excuse it Their necessity they think will bear them out so long as all their transgressions are only to provide for themselves and for the competent satisfaction of their own appetites where his Providence has left them unprovided This is the wicked arguing and disobedient practice of men of a soft and delicate Religion They will obey God in any thing where they must not disoblige their appetites but no further than they will suffer them They are Servants of their own Bellies in the first place and God shall have just so much but no more than they can spare him For they will live easily and want for nothing in this world as well as be for ever happy in the next and if God will allow them both these then they are for him but otherwise they have nothing to say either to him or his Religion For they will not endure to serve a man of sorrows to follow Christ in wants to be subjects to that Sovereign who has no temporal rewards wherewith even in this life to recompence their service They will serve God just so long as he will suffer them to serve themselves and their own appetites but if his service doth not provide them all supplies or crosses the satisfaction of these they beg of him that he would excuse them In other things they will serve him if that will content him but here charity must begin at home and if they disobey he must give them a dispensation But God will not endure to be thus undervalued and served in the second place He can in no wise bear to have the world and our fleshly appetites set above him to see them served and himself sleighted because by this means we do not honour but debase not serve but renounce him For he can be no faithfull servant of God who loves any thing better than his master nor is he truly united unto Christ who can be drawn to disobey him by any temptation If we love any thing in the world then though never so dear to us better than him we are utterly unworthy of him and must never hope to be the better by him For he that loveth father or mother son or daughter more than me saith he is not worthy of me Mat. 10.37 Nay he that hateth not these and all things else when they stand in competition with my service that hateth not I say not barely his worldly goods and rich neighbours but even his father and mother and wife and children and brethren and sisters yea and his own life also he cannot be my disciple Luk. 14.26 If any cravings of our own flesh then cannot be satisfied without disobedience we must not seek to pleasure but subdue nor endeavour to fulfill but to deny them And if any wants or losses are brought so close to us that we cannot avoid them without breach of duty they are the burden of the Cross imposed upon us and unless we would cast off all relation to Christ we must not shun them For whosoever doth not bear his Cross sayes our Saviour when Gods Providence layes it upon his shoulders and come after me even then when he must
For we shall always live subject to them more or less and although we may labour and strive against them yet shall we never be able as long as we are in this world to get entirely free from them We have no power and choice to avoid what we cannot see and consider of and all these sins come in upon the account of our unwill'd ignorance or inconsideration and since we cannot see and consider of them we cannot particularly prevent them which is effectually to repent of them A particular Repentance and Reformation then is not the Gospel-remedy for our involuntary sins It cannot be the cure assigned for them because it is impossible to them their pardon must not depend upon it because then they were wholly impardonable and desperate since in them no man on earth can use it But that remedy which Christ has appointed for them and that repentance whereupon he will graciously pardon and forgive them is in the general an hearty repentance and reformation of all wilful sins and an entire obedience in all such actions as are voluntary and chosen If we serve God faithfully and truly in all our other actions where we do see our duty and can chuse to practise it he will connive at these slips which after an honest care and industry are involuntary and unchosen For any kind master would do so to his honest servant and more especially every tender father would to his obedient child And God who is Love it self being the first Fountain and the compleatest Pattern of all kindness in the world will never be out-done in any love that is excellent and praise-worthy by his own creatures But if their kindness would bear with such infirmities and oversights of an honest mind his will dispense with them much rather The faithful servants therefore and obedient children of God who repent particularly of all their other sins that are known and wilful and effectually amend them shall be sure to find this favour at the hands of their heavenly Lord and Father for all these failings which are involuntary and unchosen Their obedience in other things shall plead their excuse and make their unwill'd slips in these to be uncondemning But to be yet more particular these involuntary transgressions of men that are obedient in all their voluntary actions shall certainly be pardoned through the means of these particular duties 1. Their Prayers 2. Their Charity and forgiveness towards the offences of others 1. Their involuntary failings of ignorance and inconsideration shall be forgiven them upon their prayers if they beg Gods pardon for them he is as ready to grant as they are to desire it And this we are sure of because that no earthly Parent who is wise and good would refuse to bestow it in such Cases at the request of his Children whereas they have nothing near that pity and tenderness for their Children which God has for his And this is an Argument which Christ himself has taught us to rely upon in this matter If you says he being evil will yet for all that at their request give good gifts to your Children how much more shall your heavenly Father who has not the least taint of your illness give the best of gifts even the Holy Spirit to them that ask him Luke 11.13 And indeed that we may never want this remedy Christ has put a Prayer for this purpose daily into our mouths that since our involuntary sins are of daily incursion we may as daily beg pardon for them For he has made it a part of our daily prayers to ask pardon among others for our daily trespasses this being one of those Petitions which he has taught us to put up as often as we do that for our daily bread that he would forgive us our trespasses Matth. 6.11 12. And this S t Austin observes of it for those small sins saith he which no man can avoid was this Petition in the Lord Prayer inserted Nay long before him S t Clement teaches the same Doctrine of our prayers being a most sure expiation for all our involuntary sins For in his first Epistle to the Corinthians relating that truly Christian state wherein their great Apostle Paul had very lately left them among several other parts of their Character he gives this for one Being filled with holy desires and a vertuous will with a good and commendable forwardness of mind and with a pious assurance of being heard you lifted up your hands to Almighty God beseeching him to be merciful and propitious to you if in any thing you had sinned INVOLVNTARILY Having first as says the good Father a vertuous heart and a holily disposed will so that in nothing their heart was disobedient by sinning wilfully they were forward to ask God forgiveness for all those sins which they had committed involuntarily And this forwardness says he was good and commendable and their confidence of obtaining pardon upon their prayer was pious it was a godly and a pious confidence This is a plain and full testimony and withal it is authentick and such as we may rely upon as much in a manner as if an Apostle himself had told us so For this Clement as we may observe was one who was sent out by the Apostles themselves to preach Christ's will and intrusted by them to declare unto the World what are the terms of remission of sins and the condition of pardon so that what we hear from his mouth we may look upon as Gospel S t Paul himself makes honourable mention of him calling him his Fellow-Labourer Help Clement my Fellow-Labourer whose name is in the Book of Life Phil. 4.3 And the thing it self which he testifies is not so much a matter of saith and 〈◊〉 wherein an honest man may sometimes erre and be mistaken as an historical relation of a matter of fact For he is recounting what a brave and gallant Church they were in that state wherein the great Apostle left them and as one of the Particulars of that relation this comes in That as for their involuntary sins they begged Gods pardon and that too with a pious assurance of obtaining it So that as for this practice of a confident hope of pardon for their involuntary sins upon their prayers it was not only such as S t Clement the Companion and Fellow-Labourer of S t Paul approved but such moreover as the Apostle Paul himself who had planted Christianity amongst them had left with them This therefore is one great remedy for our involuntary slips They shall he forgiven us upon our prayers for pardon and forgiveness And so shall they 2. Upon our Charity and forgiveness of the offences of others As God himself delights in mercy so doth he require that we should and to oblige us to it the more he has made our kind dealing towards our Brethren the Condition of his kindness towards us Above all things says S t Peter have fervent Charity