World with the severest Instruments of human Cruelty It is certain that e'er long you must have died whether you had suffer'd Martyrdom or no only now you die a little sooner and so anticipate your eternal Happiness And if you had died a natural Death perhaps the Torment might have been much greater you might have languished much longer under the Gout or Stone or Strangury than under the Hands of the Executioner and endured the same Degree of Torment without the Comfort of dying in a brave Cause and being assured of an immortal Recompence Thus Religion sets the Evils of this World in a true Light and represents them to us in their own natural Forms and Colours without any of that terrible Pomp in which our Imagination is so apt to dress and disguise them it assures us that they are all design'd for our good and are convertible into it and if we take Care to make a wise and pious Use of them we shall be the better for them for ever it certifies us that they can deprive us of no Good but what e'er long will be insignificant to us and that they can do us no Hurt but what e'er long we shall be insensible of for ever and by thus exposing these Evils naked to us it shews us their Nakedness and Impotence and thereby deprives them of the Power they borrow of our Fancies to disturb our Tranquility and Peace 4. Another Cause of Disquiet of Mind is an effeminate Softness and Delicacy of Temper arising from our Neglect of exercising those Vertues which naturally tend to confirm and fortifie the Mind against troublesome and disquieting Accidents such as Faith Patience and Self-denial Submission and Resignation to God which when like so many Guardian Angels they pitch their Tents about the Soul are an invincible Defence to her against the Strokes and Impressions of Misfortune and without which she is left altogether naked and unguarded amidst all the disquieting Accidents that surround her For in the Absence of these heavenly Graces a Man hath nothing wherewithal to resist any Evil that befalls him but only the insensible Stupidity and brutal Sturdiness of his Temper which can never hold out long under any pressing Calamity and when once these are broke by the repeated Strokes and Impressions of unfortunate Accidents the Man presently dissolves into Softness and Effeminacy for now the natural Brawniness of Temper being worn away like a Stone with the continual Droppings of Rain his Mind will become so tender and sore and uneasie that every little Touch of Misfortune will pain and disturb him in which Case he can derive no Relief from his Reason having all along disused himself to advise and consult with it and so every Alarm of Danger from without presently raises a Tumult within and puts his whole Soul into an uproar in which his Mind is left naked of all Relief and utterly abandoned of those wise and brave Thoughts which should guard and defend it But now had he taken Care but to educate his Mind in the School of Christianity that by instructing him in all those manly Vertues of Patience and Temperance Constancy and Resignation to the Will of God would have inspir'd him by Degrees with such an invincible Stayedness and Firmness of Spirit as would have rendred his Peace and Tranquility impregnable against all the Assaults of Misfortune And when all is done these Vertues are the best Protection we have against the Power of those calamitous Accidents that surround us For when by Temperance a Man hath weaned himself from the Pleasures of the Body when by Patience he hath hardned himself against the Pains and Displeasures of it when by Constancy to himself he hath acquired a continual Presence of Mind and ready Use of his Reason and Consideration when by frequent Acts of Resignation to God he hath reduced himself to an Habit of embracing every Accident as a Token of Love and bidding every Thing welcome that befals him when I say these happy Effects are produced in him he is as safe and secure from the disquieting Power of these evil Accidents below as if he lived in the uppermost Regions of the Air where he enjoys a perpetual Calm and Serenity where he tramples upon Clouds and is above all Storms and with a chearful and composed Mind can sit securely smiling at the rolling Thunder below whilst it grumbles and bursts underneath his Feet Thus will the constant Practice of these excellent Graces so steel and harden our tender Minds that those Evils will be able to make no Impression on us which now do wound us to the Heart For as the Light of the Sun and Freshness of the Air which are apt to offend the Sickly and Tender are not only tolerable but delightful to Men of hail and vigorous Constitutions so many of the little Hardships which trouble and incommode the Tender and Delicate are so far from disturbing patient and temperate Minds that they rather refresh and divert them 5. And lastly Another Cause of Disquiet of Mind is our misplacing of our Happiness in Things that are out of our own Power For Happiness is the great Load-stone that attracts and governs all our Motions the Mark of all our Aims and Intentions and the End of all our deliberate Actions Whilst therefore we place our Happiness in Things that are out of our Power we must be governed by Things that are out of our Power and while we are so we can never be quiet For the Things that are out of our Power being all of them casual and contingent such as Honour and Greatness and Carnal-Pleasures we can never be secure of the Comfort and Happiness we place in them and consequently our Happiness and Misery must be as casual and contingent as the Goods and Evils are from whence they do arise And whilst we are governed by such casual Things as these we can never be our own Men but must live in Subjection to a forraign Power and be what the Things that govern us will have us and so long as the Passions and Appetites that over-rule us are over-ruled by the Chances and Contingencies without us we must be as various as sickle and as multiform as they Whilst therefore we place our Happiness in these uncertain Enjoyments it is impossible our Mind should ever be at rest but like a Ship in a tempestuous Sea must be perpetually tossed and driven to and fro by the furious Gusts of our own Passions which can never be calm and sedate till we fix upon a Happiness that is certain and Stable For as our Desires can never be satisfied till we are compleatly happy so our Fears can never be composed till such time as we are secure of our Happiness But so empty and fickle is all worldly Good that we can never be either happy in it or secure of it for when we have what we did first desire that only inflames our Thirst and makes us gasp
offended him as much as we are able and would never be persuaded to repent of our Wickedness till we were able to offend him no more I desire to have as large Apprehensions of the Mercy of God as can be reasonably admitted but withal I am assured he is the hardest to be imposed upon of any one in the World and being so it cannot well be expected that when in despite of his Authority and frequent Invitations to Repentance the Sinner hath squandred away all his Strength and Vigour in a Course of Wickedness God should be so indulgent to him on his Death-bed as to supply that Strength which he hath spent in sinning against him by the extraordinary Assistances of his own Grace especially considering how often he hath declared his Resolution of dispensing his Grace to us in greater or lesser Proportions according to the improvements we make of it So Iames iv 6 7 8. For the Scripture offereth more Grace and therefore saith God resisteth the proud but giveth grace to the humble Submit your selves therefore unto God resist the Devil and he will fly from you draw near unto God and he will draw near unto you And thus more expresly in the Parable of the Talents Matt. xxv 29. For unto every one that hath that is improves what he hath shall be given and he shall have abundance but from him that hath not i. e. improves not what he hath shall be taken away even that which he hath God therefore having thus declared that he will lessen or augment his Grace proportionably as we abuse or improve it we may reasonably expect that the oftener we do repulse its Motions the weaker will be its Attempts upon us and so weaker and weaker till 't is wholly with drawn and hath given us up for desperate and irreclaimable and consequently if God proceed in this Method as doubtless he most ordinarily doth then the longer a Man continues in sin the more he is abandoned of the Grace of God So that when the Sinner is arrived to his Death-bed he may reasonably expect that if Gods Assistance be not wholly withdrawn and lessened into nothing as he may justly fear it will yet it will be much less vigorous and powerful than in any former Period of his Life and if it be his Condition is next to desperate for if his Soul be not renewed and changed within a few Moments it is ruined beyond all recovery And since to effect this Change is a Work of mighty Difficulty what but a mighty Grace can enable the dying Penitent in so short a time and with so small a Strength to perform it So that the Summ of all is this though the Condition of him that remits his Repentance to a Death-bed be not absolutely desperate yet 't is so fearfully hazardous that nothing on this side Hell can be more wretched and deplorable and therefore for Men to put off their Repentance to the last and venture their Souls upon so great an Uncertainty is a piece of the most desperate Folly and Madness I confess when a Man hath been so desperate and cruel to himself as to run himself upon this fearful Venture I would by no means discourage his Repentance but rather use all Means to invite and persuade him to it for Repentance is always the best thing we can do and when a Man hath been so desperately besotted as to defer it to a Death-bed and put himself upon this woful Extremity this is the last Remedy he can apply and the best Refuge he hath to fly to But so long as Men are well and in Health and have a fair space of Repentance in their hands I would not for all the World encourage them to run such a desperate Hazard for next to leaping headlong into Hell without any Repentance at all doubtless the most desperate Folly a Man can be guilty of is to defer his Repentance till he is dying And so I pass on to 3. The Third and last thing proposed which was to shew you that supposing our Death-bed Penitent should repent effectually yet how impossible it is for him in an ordinary way to attain any comfortable Assurance of it And indeed considering how many Cheats and Frauds there are under most of our Resolutions of Amendment it is at least extreamly difficult for us to be any otherwise secure of them than by their Effects and Performances As for the dying Penitent therefore that doth not long enough survive his Resolution to see the Execution of it how can he be secure that it is sincere and perfect especially considering that the Circumstances in which he makes it are such as do conspire to render it extreamly suspitious For 1. He makes it under the fear of Death 2. In the Absence of Temptation 3. Under a great agony of Conscience 4. In the near Neighbourhood of Eternity 1. He makes his Resolution under a mighty fear of Death which gives him great reason to suspect it We daily see how much our Humours change and vary upon every Remove out of one Condition into another and how these do cast the Ballance of our Superiour Soul and make us every day so many several sorts of Men. Every Wind almost turns our Minds towards a new point and like Water we take the form of every Vessel we are put into So that we have great reason to suspect that our Death-bed Repentance is not so much the Mould of our Minds as of the Condition we are put into and that were we poured back again into an healthful Condition we should immediately lose our present Shape and return into our former Figure again For when Men see their Life is in Gods hand and that he is ready to cut it in sunder it is no wonder at all if they do what they can to bribe him to spare them a little longer and consequently if they resolve well and make fair Promises of future Obedience which is the best thing they can do in this Extremity But if their Resolution be founded in the Fear of Death its Foundation is contrary to its Performance the Motive of their Resolution to live well for the future being a presumption that they shall live no longer And it will be an Act of Reason and Iustice to themselves to stick to their resolution when the Motive of it is changed and on the Contrary of Imprudence and Unkindness to forsake the Conclusion when the Premises are consulted So that upon such grounds as these what can be expected but that this sick Resolver will resume his Sins with his Health if he should recover and leave his new Vows in that Bed where he first took them up and discharge his Fears and his good Actions his Physician and his Confessor together it being so how is it possible he should be assured that his Resolution is sincere unless he recover and perform it 2. He makes his Resolution in the Absence of Temptation which gives him also
for more and then the Tenure of all is so insecure that the Accession of more doth only increase our Fear of losing what we have So that our Mind must be perpetually ground between these Two restless Mill-stones the Desire of getting more and the Fear of losing what we enjoy and therefore seeing it is impossible for us to alter the Nature of these outward Goods or to render them either more secure or more satisfying the only way for us to be truly happy is to alter the Temper of our own Minds to wean them from this World and determin them to an Happiness that is more Solid and Substantial and within our own Disposal and such a Happiness is that which Christianity proposes to us an Happiness that depends upon our own free Acts and grows out of the Graces and Vertues of our own Mind For so that everlasting Heaven which the Gospel proposes to us is inseparably annexed to the right and good Use of our natural Liberty and consequently is as much within our Power as our own Resolutions and voluntary Motions Whilst therefore we are under the Government of this Christian Happiness we are Masters of our own Fortunes and do live independently on Chance and the Wills of Men and it is within our own Power to be happy without asking leave of any but God and our selves Now we are no longer Tenants at Will to the little Casualties and Accidents of the World no longer liable to be turned out of our Happiness by Storms or Fires or Invasions by the Contingencies of Providence or the Knaveries and Cruelties of Men no more exposed like miserable Vagrants to beg our Happiness from Door to Door to creep and cringe and fawn to the Humours of an inconstant World to court its Smiles or tremble at its Frowns For if Heaven be the Happiness we depend on there is nothing can deprive us of it but our own free Acts and it is as much in our Power not to be miserable as not to be wicked and our Happiness being all imbarked in the same bottom with our Piety and Vertüe they must both of them run the same Fate and eitherswim or sink together If therefore we would be at Peace within our selves we must put our selves under the Government of the Happiness of Christians which is the only one that we can be sure of there being no other within our own Power and Disposal for till this is done we are like Men in a Crowd encompassed about with so many cross rancountring Accidents as will never let us be at rest but be perpetually shoving and jostling us to and fro and still as we get free from one another will be pressing upon us and that which thrusts on this will still be thrust on by another without any Pause or Intermission and so our miserable Minds will be always hurried about and never want Causes of Disquiet But when once we have fix'd upon that Happiness above we shall be so much above these little Accidents below and their Force will be so broken before they can reach us that we shall scarce be sensible of their saint Impressions and so we shall pass on as quietly and undisturbedly through them as we do now through those Crowds of Motes that are always dancing in the Air about us And so I have dispatched the first Thing 〈◊〉 proposed which was to shew that our blessed Lord in order to his giving us his Peace hath removed from us all Causes of Disquiet 2. I now proceed to the Second which is to shew that he hath also taken Care to supply us with the most effectual Principles of Peace and Satisfaction of Mind and they are these following 1. That by the Sacrifice of himself he hath purged away our Guilts and thereby given us the most certain Ground of Peace of Conscience 2. That as he sacrificed himself for us while he was upon Earth so now he is in Heaven he hath the Ordering and Disposal of every Thing that concerns or befals us 3. That he hath procured for us a Futurity sufficiently happy to make us infinite amends for the worst Evils that can befal us here 4. That he hath established this happy Futurity upon such Terms and Conditions as are within the reach of our own Power 5. That he hath taken Care in his Absence to provide for us such Supports as are proportionable to every Burthen he will lay upon us 1. One Principle of Peace and Satisfaction of Mind wherewith our Saviour hath supplied us is this that by the Sacrifice of himself he hath fully purged away our Guilts and thereby given us the most certain Ground of Peace of Conscience For he declared that he died in our Persons and stead and that all those miserable Things he endured upon the Cross were in lieu of that Punishment that was due to God for our sins that the Blood he spilt there was designed by him for the Price of our Redemption and that the Life he laid down there was in exchange for the forfeited Lives of our Souls And to manifest God's Acceptance of it as an Equivalent for our Punishment he rose from the dead and was actually discharged from the Prison of the Grave by which he gave us an Acquittance under God's own Hand purporting that he had graciously accepted his Son's Death in lieu of our Punishment and that if now we would heartily repent and amend all our past Guilts and Obligations to Punishment should in Consideration thereof be for ever dissolved Who then can lay any thing to the Charge of God's Elect seeing it is Christ that hath died and thereby tendred a full Ransom for us to God yea rather that is risen again and thereby certified us that the Father of Mercies hath graciously accepted and allowed of it So that if now we repent we are as certain of our Pardon as we are of the Death and Resurrection of our Saviour which are such Facts of which we have as plain Demonstration as the Nature of Things will bear And having so certain a Ground of Peace of Conscience before us what can be more conducive to the Ease and Satisfaction of our Minds For a quiet Conscience is a Paradise within a Wilderness whereinto a Man may retire when he can find nothing else to live upon and live chearfully and merrily in despite of all Misfortunes which like Showers of Hail falling upon the Tiles of a Musick-House are not able with all their Clattering and Noise to disturb the grateful Harmony within As therefore when all is smooth and prosperous without a Man may shelter himself there from the Persecutions of his Conscience so when all is calm and serene within he may shelter himself there from the Persecutions of the World but when both are bestormed he hath no Refuge to fly to And therefore that we may never be left utterly forsaken and abandoned our blessed Saviour by washing away our Guilt in his own Blood hath
them and come to survey them more closely the Mountains presently dwindle into Mole-hills the Fields and the Groves into empty Shadows and after all our Labour and Care to possess our selves of them our Enjoyment of them amounts not to the Tithe of our Hope and so we are still restless and unsatisfied both while we are in the Quest and while we are in the Possession of them While we are in the Pursuit of them we are wild and imaginative we swell with fantastick Joys and juggle our selves into Expectations as great and eager as our own Desires but as soon as we are possessed of them we presently find their Vanity and Emptiness and perceiving how little they are able to perform of those vast Things they promised us our abused Fancy that had raised it self with such high and swelling Expectations falls flat underneath the Disappointments of Fruition and so while we are following we are restless and when we have overtaken them we are dissatisfied all which arises from those extravagant Estimations we make of them Whereas did we but value them as they are and according to the true Rules of Reason and Religion we should pursue them with far more Indifference and enjoy them with far more Content While we are in pursuit of them we should look upon them as Things without which we may be happy and consequently as Things that have not worth enough in them to deserve of us any mighty Care or Solicitude and so we should follow them with a calm and sedate Mind and entering into the Possession of them with a moderate Expectation we should find every Thing in them that we hoped for for all the Good that they promised they would be sure to perform and so we should have no disappointed Hope to vex disturb us but our Expectation would be intirely satisfied in our Enjoyment Thus would we take care to fix in our Minds a true Estimation of the good Things of this World and to prize them at those Rates that our Religion sets upon them they would never be able to give us half the Disturbance they now do for then we should look upon them as Things that are extrinsick to our Happiness as Things that we may want without Damage or enjoy without Advantage to our main Interest and esteeming them as such we should pursue them with much less Concern and enjoy them with much more Satisfaction We should not be vexed with such an impatient Desire of gaining them nor alarmed with so many tormenting Fears of losing them but with S. Paul we should know both how to want them and how to abound in them and to undergo both Fortunes with a calm and chearful Mind 3. Another Cause of Disquiet of Mind is our taking up wrong Measures and Opinions of the Evils of the World As for those Evils which are only the Objects of our Faith and Reason and such are the eternal Evils of the other World we are always apt to lessen and diminish them and flatter our selves with soft and easie Apprehensions of them but as for those that strike upon our Sense we are ever prone to swell and magnifie them which is the reason that the former disquiet us too little and the latter too much tho' our Disquiet for the one is necessary to prevent them whereas our Trouble for the other doth only serve to render them more grievous and oppressive For the greatest Power these outward sensible Evils have to hurt and damnifie us they derive from our own Imagination which oftentimes disguises them in grim and frightful Vizards and makes them appear to us a Thousand Times more terrible than they are insomuch that the Prospect and Apprehension is generally more grievous to us than the Sense and Experience of them and what we imagin in them is far more than what we feel And thus we turn each Whip into a Scorpion and swell our Mole-hill into a Mountain of Misery so that the greatest part of what we suffer is generally of our own creating because we suffer not only the real Evils which are in the Things themselves but which are commonly more the fantastick too which our own Imagination forms and affixes to them So that would we but take Care to strip Realities from Fantastry it would be impossible for those Evils which we feel or fear to give us half the Disturbance that they do and the only way for us to do this is to take our Measures of these outward Evils from Religion which will soon satisfie us that they are nothing near so formidable in themselves as we imagin them For as for Instance what mighty Matter is there in the loss of these outward Goods which are all so extrinsick to our Happiness which cannot help us in our greatest Needs nor make us easie in their fullest Enjoyment and which Thousands enjoy not and yet are a Thousand Times more happy than those who possess them in the greatest Abundance Again what great Evil is it for a Man to be contemned and reproached and vilified for as for these Things they are Good or Evil as we please to fancy them and there is scarce any other Venom in them than what our own Imagination doth infuse If we think them great Evils they will be sure to vex and discompose us which is the greatest Injury they can do us but if we scorn and despise them they are impotent Things which like Wild-fire do only crack and vanish into Air but leave no formidable Effects behind them To name no more what mighty Hurt is there in being persecuted for Righteousness sake Suppose I were banished from my Friends and native Country do I not see Men every Day undertake a voluntary Exile and banish themselves into the remotest Parts of the World only to get an Estate or to learn Experience or satisfie a Curiosity for all the difference between one and t'other is only this that the one is forced and the other voluntary and why the one should be worse than the other there can be no other Reason assigned but only this that we imagin it so Could we but cure our erroneous Fancy such Banishment would be only a more advantageous Travel since doubtless he who travels to save his Conscience and Innocence and secure his Hopes of everlasting Bliss makes the best Voyage in the World Suppose I should suffer a close Imprisonment and be secluded from human Conversation is it such a deplorable Thing for a Man to be kept within Doors to be snatch'd out of the Crowd and Hurry of the World and be forced to retire within himself and converse with God and Heaven and his own Thoughts Are not these Company enough to entertain our Solitudes and to supply the Want of the Noise of the World in which there is commonly so much of Discord and Impertinence But then suppose the worst that you can suppose that you should suffer a tormenting Death and be chased out of the