for the odds is come over to the other side In the midst of Doctors and Nurses and Languors this is no less properly a sudden Death than that which strikes with Lightning Yea nor can it be denied to be in a fatal sense Sudden though Expected For though the man know himself dying yet III. A third Danger is that the same Disease which must shortly deprive the Man of Life hath already deprived him of all Power to do that which too late appeareth both Necessary and Impossible Moses had a Zipporah to help him but this spiritual Circumcision cannot be performed by Proxy nor so easily as the fleshly There are indeed that talk as if it were much easier It is no more but be Sorry and Absolved The former Nature will perform and the latter the Priest and the Death-bed is the most proper Season for both He that can do nothing else can grieve for what is past nor can that more Naturally or more Passionately be done than at sight of approaching Judgment Body and Mind are best disposed for this performance when disabled from all others When old age shall stoop my back then will my head naturally hang like a Bulrush when my head shall be full of Rheumatick Clouds then will my Eyes easily rain plentiful showers of Tears when my Palate can no longer relish Wine or Banquets nor any other parts of my Body feel pleasure then will it be easy to be sick at remembrance of my surfeits Or if I die by an acute Disease the pain will force me to howl upon my Bed But alas What is all this to saving Repentance The Psalmist promiseth that they which sow in tears shall reap in joy and immediately explaineth it he that now goeth on his way weeping and beareth forth good seed shall shortly return with joy and bring his sheaves with him It is the good seed not the showers without it that produce the sheaves he that soweth nothing but Rain cannot hope to reap any thing but Dirt. This Spiritual Circumcision is not like the Fleshly one short act but a constant course of life not performed by a few drops though of blood It is no less than a Death unto Sin but it is more a Resurrection to Newness of Life Old habits are not easily destroyed yet must this be done and that by new habits of contrary Vertues the one and the other are works of time and constant industry they require the best of a man's powers and the assistance of greater We cannot be too frequently admonished that this is the great design of the Gospel that all our Lords Actions and Sermons Precepts and Promises Death and Resurrection relate to this as Enconragements and as Emblems and must be answered by the Duties they represent His Birth by our Regeneration his Circumcision by our putting off the sins of the flesh his Death by our mortifying our old man his Baptism and Burial by our spiritual burying deep our mortified Lusts and his Resurrection by our New and better Life Let the malicious take notice I deny not with the Socinians That Christ died to purchase Pardon for penitent sinners but I deny and all the Apostles deny it with me That any shall have benefit of his Purchace without participation of his Holiness Yea I may further add That the Apostles are more frequent in declaring that he redeemed us from the Dominion of sin than from its wages And our Church Catechism teacheth us that by Baptism is signified a death to sin and a new birth to righteousness whereby we are made members of Christ and this sure is no easy or short Work nor wrought in a small or busy Time It requireth a Chamber but a Council-Chamber not a sick man's The Psalmist prosseth it with a Selah Psal 4.6 Stand in awe and sin not commune with your own hearts and in your Chamber and be still Selah Here is a weighty Affair to be setled a long Account to be stated and a steddy Course to be stablished To this end a solemn Conference to be held all Parties heard all Objections debated all Pleas fully heard that final Sentence may be given between God and Sin Let therefore the Rabble be excluded all Noise supprest all Disturbances prevented And can no privater Chamber be had than the sick man's No other wherein to be still but that which of all other is most troublesome How many Diseases are there that make any Consult impracticable The Fever by its Fires the Lethargy by its Waters the Colick by its Gripes and most other Diseases by their proper Torments give the Patient business enough to employ his whole mind and if he can bear them he doth all that is possible for humane nature And those Diseases which do not utterly disable the mind do certainly disorder it If they do not make the Consult utterly Impossible yet they make it more Difficult than in the day of Health when all Faculties are free and all Powers entire yet shun the work as too hard to be undergone Let us now suppose the man so happy as to enjoy the concurse of all the circumstances of Death which without warrant he promised himself He dieth not a violent Death but in his Bed He is not deluded with vain hopes but knoweth his Disease to be mortal It is not a disabling Disease but a gentle lingering one which alloweth him full exercise of his faculties and he employeth them all in the work which through the whole course of his life he cut out for this time He is upon due consideration so sensible of his past Follies and present Danger as to be firmly resolved that if God be pleased to grant him longer life he will make it a new one no less industrious in his service than he hath formerly been in that of his lusts These are the weak and dying Man's Resolutions And whether they be not weak and dying like himself at another time may be questioned General Experience telleth us that the Resolution which is brought by fear departeth with it and the former Life returneth with the health of the sinner But this Danger since it hath no place in my Text shall have none in my Discourse but I pass by it to IV. The last but not least Danger is that God will not pardon the impenitent upon his late Repentance as he did Moses upon the late performance of his neglected Duty What hope there is for a wicked Man's repenting upon his Death-bed is a question more disputeable and more worth disputing than any yea than all of those wherein we weary our selves and think them most Learned that can speak most of them to no purpose Let me admonish and request you to be so kind to your selves as to allow some serious thoughts to this most important Question which you cannot study in vain and do not rashly take every thing for Orthodox that is Vulgar The Question is not concerning God's secret but his declared Will not
The Danger of Delaying Repentance Set forth in a SERMON PREACHED TO THE UNIVERSITY AT St. Mary's Church in Oxford ON NEW-YEARS-DAY 1691 2. By Ar. Bury D. D. Rector of Exon Colledge LONDON Printed for Nathanael Ranew at the Kings-Arms in St. Paul's Church-Yard 1692. The Danger of Delaying Repentance Set forth in a SERMON Preach'd to the University of Oxford c. EXOD. iv 24 25 26. And it came to pass by the way in the Inn that the Lord met him and fought to kill him And Zipporah took a sharp stone and cut off the fore-skin of her Son and cast it at his feet and said Surely a bloody husband art thou to me So he let him go Then or as the vulgar Latin better When she said a bloody husband thou art because of the Circumcision MOses was now in a Journey undertaken with great Reluctancy in absolute Obedience to God's repeated Commands He made what shifts he could from the unwelcome Employment First on the People's part he pleaded that they would not believe him then on his own part that he was not qualified and when he was answered in both he fell from pleading to downright begging Then was the Lord's anger kindled against him Now therefore without delay or dispute he obeyeth the second Command and by the way in his lodging for Inns properly so called there were none in those Days by some praeternatural Disease which spake the immediate hand of God he fell into imminent Danger of Death and by what Revelation we know not the neglect of Circumcising his new-born Son appeared to be the provocation But the Disease which punished the neglect now hinders the performance and he must have perished had not his Wife with a sharp Knife for the word in the Hebrew is the same in Joshua 2.2 where it is so translated she circumcised the Child And as the fore skin and blood fell at his feet she uttered those words which our Learned Mede probably believed to have been the ritual Form in that Ceremony For the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 doth not signify a Husband but a Spouse not yet married and was often used for the nearest Allied and in this Office might be used by the Circumciser to the Child pronouncing him Circumcised and by the blood of Circumcision betrothed to the Covenant And this Opinion giveth a fair Account of the 26 verse not otherwise easily proved worth mention So the summ of the Story is this Moses had not circumcised his Son at the time prescribed by the Law which appointed the 8th day upon pain of death he was about to suffer death as a punishment of That neglect but escaped by his Wife's care in Performing what he had Neglected This neglect of Moses we may take as a Foil to illustrate that exact obedience of our Lord which we this day commemorate Moses was the Mediator of a Covenant whereof Circumcision was the Seal our Lord was Mediator of a Covenant whereby it was abolished yet did he submit to it and not only to Circumcision which was commanded but to Baptism too which without any command was practised by such as professed singular perfection For we read Matth. 3.13 Jesus came from Galilee to Jordan unto John to be baptized of him but John forbad him saying I have need to be baptized of Thee and comest thou to me and Jesus answering said unto him suffer it to be so now for thus it becometh us to fulfil all righteousness then he suffered him i. e. it is not necessary indeed but it becometh me to fulfil i. e. to be perfect in All Righteousness i. e. in what-ever is excellent Thus far the Letter but the Collect for this day assureth us that we do not thus solemnly celebrate the naked History but the Mystery therein contained which we find thus displayed Col. 2.10 Ye are complete in him which is the head of all principality and power in whom also ye are circumcised with the circumcision made without hands in putting off the body of the sins of the flesh by the circumcision of Christ Godliness is so adaequately the end of all our Lord's actions that not only his Moral but even his Ritual Performances are thereto referred Yea not his Obedience only but his Sufferings and Exaltation his Death Burial and Resurrection are made Engagements Encouragements and Emblems of it For so the Apostle goeth on Buried with him in baptism wherein also ye are risen with him through the faith of the operation of God who raised him from the dead And you being dead in your sins and the uncircumcision of your flesh hath he quickned together with him having forgiven you all trespasses Nor is this the only Text wherein we find the Apostle at this holy Chymistry distilling the Spirit out of the Letter This this is truly to apply Christ to our selves Thus doth our Church teach us to commemorate our Lord's Circumcision praying that God would grant us the true circumcision of the spirit Whereof to shew the Necessity and the Danger of delaying it I have thought it proper to view Moses's case and apply it to our own in his Sin and his Danger HIS SIN was his delaying the Circumcision of his Son beyond the time prescribed by the Law That this proceeded not from any compliance with his Wife or her Father as some imagin appeareth from this that Midian was one of the Sons of Abraham by Keturah and all Nations that came out of his Loins celebrated circumcision nor did Mahomet learn it of his Jew but derive it from his Ancestors Besides we hear of another Son of Moses Gersom whom we therefore must believe to have been duly circumcised because we find nothing to the contrary It was not therefore his neglect of the Law but the Time which he delayed not out of Contempt but upon plausible Reason He was in a journey upon God's Errand his Son so newly born as not to be able to undergo such an operation and then such a journey Such an excuse God himself afterward approved in the whole people who were all Uncircumcised and Blameless during a journey of 40 Years as appears Jos 2. I say not that Moses had Then God's approbation but he might Then well judge That a competent excuse which God in the like case admitted for such And that this was Moses's reason we may judge by his leaving his Wife and Child to stay till they might return to her Father of whom we read in the 18th Chapter that he brought them to Moses in the Wilderness So the proper weight of Moses's guilt seemeth to be this That he took his Wise and Child with him and thereby cast himself into such circumstances as made it necessary for him to delay his duty till the journey were ended and the Law transgressed And what is such an Errour in comparison of ours The Gospel maketh the circumcision of the Heart no less necessary than the Law made that of the Foreskin That
allowed 8 days respite but This by fixing no Future day maketh every day of Delay a day of Disobedience God be blessed there are not many who deny the duty to be necessary but too many who hope they may safely delay it And those hopes they build upon the unhappy Translation of the Greek word which importeth A Change for the future into a Latin one which signifieth only A Sorrow for what is past For thence men rashly if not wilfully infer that the Gospel promiseth pardon to every one that repenteth and That may be done at any time but never more seasonably than in the last scene of life when they shall have nothing else to do And what is this but a defiance to the Apostle's caution which the last time that I appeared in this place we heard him give the Galatians in these words Be not deceived God is not mocked for what a man soweth that shall be also reap I shall now repeat no more of what I then said but this That God hath established the same Rule for the other life as for this That the Harvest shall answer the Seed in Kind yet so as to multiply it but at some distance of time For there is one time to sow and another time to reap and in this spiritual husbandry the earliest season is alway the best for Two great Reasons First Because delay multiplieth Difficulties and Secondly Because it multiplieth Dangers 1. It multiplieth Difficulties because by repeated Acts the Habits will grow to a second Nature for so the Prophet declareth as little hope that those who are accustomed to do evil should learn to do well as there is that a Bluck-a-moor should change his skin or a Leopard his spots And as Difficulties encrease so do the Helps decay The Light of Conscience the Word preached and the Grace of God by frequent baffles lose their power and in time grieving the Spirit cometh to quenching the Spirit It is a dreadful Consideration That the day of Grace is shorter than the day of Life that there is a measure of iniquity beyond which God's Spirit will not strive with man but leave the Reprobate to his own ways wherein he must certainly perish This is lively set forth in the latter half of the first Chapter of the Proverbs of Solomon wherein Wisdom is personated first Wooing then Threatning and at last Deserting the obstinate and therefore perishing fool This brought us to the Frontier of the other Argument against Delay it multiplieth Dangers which it is my present business to survey taking our view from Moses's Case I. God sought not to slay Moses in the field but in his lodgings but we are not sure we shall die in our Beds II. Moses knew his danger but we know not when our disease is mortal III. When Moses was disabled his Wife acted his part but if our disease disable us from Repentance we cannot do it by Proxy IV. As soon as the Child was circumcised the destroying Angel left Moses in safety but we have no certainty that God will pardon us in consideration of a Death-bed Repentance I. THE first danger is That we may not die in our Bed and thereby have opportunity to repent What is there no other way to the Grave but from the Bed Or hast thou any Revelation that however many other ways there be and however many other men pass those other ways yet thou hast a particular protection against them What creature so Mean or so Weak as not to be able to destroy the Wisest and the Mightiest man Anacreon's Wit could not deliver him from a Grapestone nor Pope Adrian's triple Crown from a Fly nor Herod's joint Wit and Power from Worms Zeuxis was strangled with a fit of Laughter and many by a fit of Grief Wine engageth one Man in a Quarrel another in a Fever a third in a Ditch and others in other destructive Accidents How many every Year fall by some violent Death And what Year more fruitful than this in Apoplexies which have knocked down one in the Court where Laws are Made another in That where they are Executed one as he is about to sleep another when he is about to eat Sudden Deaths are almost daily of those who depended upon Death-bed-Repentance with as much confidence as any of us who survive perhaps to be made the like warnings to others From this slippery station let us view the fall In play we allow men to hazard so much as they may reasonably spend upon one pleasure but those who put their whole Livelyhood to the Mercy of a Die are Blamed though they prove Fortunate and Scorned if they be Ruined Yet have they as much Hope of Gain as Danger of Loss But the Impenitent staketh eternal Life against a Lust a Brutish Pleasure which is overpurchased at the much greater Loss of that which a vertuous man enjoys If it be pleaded that there is great odds against this danger because those who die in their Beds are many more than those who die otherwise we ought to reply that a man ought not to stake his All against Nothing though there were but one bad Chance in the Dice And we are further to consider that if we were secure from this yet there are other dangers For II. A second Danger is that if we die in our Beds we cannot Know and are loth to Believe that we must die by This Disease For on the contrary all our worldly Friends and spiritual Enemies combine with our own Self-love to flatter us The Physicians by their Art are obliged to fortifie their Patients Spirits the better if possible to resist the Disease and by the same rules all that come near him must speak Comfort or Nothing concerning his Condition So fondness for his ease tempts him to continue his Inveterate Practice of dismissing his Repentance to a more convenient season Yea so powerful is this fondness that it infatuateth those who have no hopes either to Escape their present sickness or to Continue any considerable time in it The Consumption which hath devoured all the inward and outward Flesh hath not consumed this Humour And in old men this Disease is no less incurable than the natural Infirmities of Age. No man saith Seneca is so old ut impiè alterum diem speret he may well hope to live some days longer and one of those days he will do the Work but for the present he cries with Solomon's Sluggard yet a little sleep a little slumber a little folding of the hands to sleep and death cometh upon the one as want upon the other like a Traveller not Expected and an armed man not to be Resisted For the Bed cometh within that Petition in our Litany from sudden death good Lord deliver us the Death that surpriseth us unprepared is sudden in whatever circumstances it seizeth us whether in Bed or Field Nor can it now be pleaded as before That the odds is great in favour of the Impenitent