nor no excuse to make for himself who has neglected and despised all the means of Grace that were offered to him and who would not be perswaded to any true Repentance before it was too late and therefore he must now Repent in vain for ever Who can express the bitter thoughts the fears the horrours the agonies of such a Soul at that time and who would ever feel them who has now power and opportunity to avoid them Death carries something of terrour in it to all Men as it is a punishment of Sin and a dark passage to the unknown Regions that are below and it may be either great presumption or great stupidity to have no Fear of it A good Man may not overcome all the Natural Fear of Death but the wicked has all reason to be scared and terrified with it when it comes near him or he thinks of it I shall therefore in the last place consider the Terrour of Death and how we are only freed from this by Repentance and Religion by the hopes and assurances of Christianity and our having sincerely Repented of all our Sins and so as I have shown fitted and prepared our selves thereby for Death SECT VII Of the Fear of Death and how we are delivered from it by Repentance and Religion THere is no Natural Evil so great as Death the King of Terrors and the chief of those dreadful things that Humane Nature is afraid of Skin for skin and all that a man hath will he give for his life Job 2.4 He is willing to part with every thing that he may compound with it nay what will not he not give to purchase a short reprieve from Death and the Grave that he may but set them back a while and gain a little more time to live How is the poor Man willing to endure any thing to linger out a miserable Life a little longer though in the midst of pains and aches and greater torments of Body perhaps then he would feel in Death it self How patiently will he submit to the most tedious penance and severest discipline that his Physician shall lay upon him and swallow down the most loathsome and bitter draughts that the more bitter cup of Death may pass from him How will he endure the utmost cruelties of Surgery and bear a living Martyrdom rather than dye have his Body burnt and scarified his Flesh cut and mangled to the Bone his Limbs cut off or sawn asunder that so he may dye by piece-meals and out-live some part of himself and escape out of the hands of Death though it be never so narrowly and run away from it though he leave a Leg or an Arm behind him This shows how Natural the love of Life is and how willing most Men are to preserve and purchase it at any rate and with what abhorrence they look at Death and how it frights and startles them when it comes near them when they behold its pale look and its terrible visage and see the ghastly monster laying hands on them and ready to lay them prostrate at its feet how does it then appalle and terrifie them and make their Blood chill and their Spirits cold and clammy and their Hearts dye within them when they think how their once brisk and sprightly bodies that have been long enjoying all the sweet Pleasures of Life and Sense shall in a moments time be deprived of all those and become only a heavy clod and a cold and senseless lump of Flesh laid out upon its once warm Bed and then lock'd up in its little Cabin and so laid in the proper place of Rottenness and Putrefaction where it is to molder into Dust and to be as clean forgotten in a little time as if it had never been This is a very mortifying and a very melancholly Consideration to most Men and when they consider that in a little time this must certainly be their own case and their own fatal condition this must keep them in perpetual fear and bondage if there were no provision against this Natural Fear of Death if Religion did not afford us some helps and assistances against it and there were not something to take off and abate its Natural Terrour and to support and strengthen and encourage the Mind of a good Man against it Death as it is the Punishment of Sin and was for that end ordained by God and brought into the World for by sin entered death as the Apostle sayes Rom. 1.12 carries some marks of his Anger and so must necessarily have some degree of Fear accompany it but Christ who was to deliver Mankind from the greatest Punishments which our first Parents drew upon themselves and their Posterity by their Transgressions and was to free us from the saddest effects of theirs and our own Sins he has tho' not quite taken away this Punishment no more than he has the other temporal ones occasioned by the Fall for we must still dye and still have some fear of Death yet the worst effects of Death and for which it was most to be dreaded those Christ has delivered us from and it was one great reason why he became a Man and why he took part of the same flesh and blood of which we are partakers and which makes us subject to Death That through death he might destroy him that had the power of death that is the Devil and deliver them who through fear of death were all their life time subject to bondage as the divine Author of the Epistle to the Hebrews assures us Heb. 2.15 Now the wayes by which Christ and Christianity do this are chiefly these two I. By assuring us of another Life II. By taking away the sting of Death which is Sin upon our true Repentance I shall 1. Show this Then 2. Enquire whether a true Penitent and good Man ought to have no Fear of Death 3. Give some Directions about thus overcoming the Fear of Death that so we may not be too much terrified with it when it approaches I. Christ and Christianity free us from the Fears of Death by assuring us of another Life and of a Glorious Immortality after Death Death would be very terrible indeed if it took away our Being and made an end of us when it came and put us into a state of Annihilation If the Grave were to swallow us up and we were to pass into the dark abyss of Non-Entity when we went out of the World If when we expired our last Breath our Souls were to pass with it into the soft Air and we were to be no more after we went off the stage of this World Nothing can be so close so desirable as our being which is the foundation of all Happiness and Enjoyment to us which some have thought so considerable that they have supposed it more eligible to be miserable than not to be at all though I can by no means be of their mind and think being only in order to be miserable to
be no desirable thing if the Misery be greater than the Comfort of being and bare existence is a very thin evanid abstracted thing to be compared with solid and substantial Misery but the closest Principles of Self-love and Self-preservation must make us very unwilling to part with our Beings and all the Pleasures and Enjoyments that belong to them and therefore if we were to resign up those by Death it would be very terrible And how could we be sure we did not if we had not firm and certain grounds of another Life after this or if we had nothing but the uncertain guesses and conjectures of it from Natural Light Most Men indeed had some dark intimations of this from thence and did either hope or fear there might be such a thing rather than believe it But now Christ hath brought Life and immortality to light through the Gospel 2 Tim. 1.10 He hath utterly dispelled that cloud which kept those of this World from seeing into another and hath clearly and manifestly revealed to us the certainty of another and an Immortal State and by his Resurrection from the Dead and Ascension into Heaven given visible and ocular demonstration of it And how should this take off the Fear of Death when we are sure of another Life after it when 't is only a passage to another and a better World too if it be not through our own fault if we are not unprepared and unfitted for it if we are then indeed this is no great Comfort to us but we might wish that Death would put an end to our Being but if we have Repented us of all our Sins and are truly prepared for Death this should much lessen and abate the Fear of it when though we may be a little unwilling to leave our old State and Circumstances our old Dwelling and Habitation our old Friends and Acquaintance and to go into a new and unknown place yet we are sure in the general that we shall be much better provided for and in a much better condition than we are here and tho' the passage seems to us rough and dangerous and we are loth to leave the shore and to launch into the mighty deep of Eternity yet this is a sort of Childish fondness in us to what we have been used to and like the humour of him that would not leave his poor and pitiful Cottage that he has alwayes lived in though he were to go and take possession of a Kingdom in another Country Do not Mankind that have more Wisdom and a larger Spirit willingly leave their own Native Country and Kinsfolks and Relations and transport themselves to an unknown place where there is any fair hopes and probability of mending their Fortunes and living in a more happy and comfortable condition and have we not as good evidence and as much reason to believe that Heaven is as rich and happy a Country as the Indies or any other place where we have never been and had only relations of them from others has not Christ given us as much assurance of this as we can desire and has not the Scripture described and drawn the Chart and Map of those Heavenly Regions and given us as true and full an account of the Pleasures and Riches of them as we can wish for or expect in this Mortal State If we knew them so fully and particularly as we shall do hereafter we should not so much love Life as we now fear Death but God has concealed the particular knowledge of them from us at present that we may be willing to live here but the general knowledge of a Future and Glorious Immortality which we have by Jesus Christ whereby we are assured that Death does not conclude our Being but only translate us to a much better State if we be fit for it by Repentance this should deliver us from the Fear of Death II. Christ has taken away the sting of death as the Apostle intimates 1 Cor. 15.56 and so has delivered us from the servile Fear of it for the sting of death as he there sayes is sin 'T is that which makes the darts of Death so sharp and poysonous because they are envenomed with our own Sin and dipt in our own Guilt Were that but once drawn out we might play with the harmless Serpent and it would not bite or wound us Could we disarm Death of those Terrours with which our own Sins dress it up it would not appear so ugly and so frightful to us 'T is they which put us in a state of Bondage and Servility and depress and sink our Minds with a slavish Fear that we are going to execution when we are going to dye and that we are committed to the Grave but as to a Prison where Death like a terrible Lictor or Executioner is to torment us or we are to be delivered over to him that has the Power of Death that is the Devil Now this may justly terrifie us when we think that whenever Death arrests us it hurries us only to a place of Torments and seizes us as condemned Prisoners to be carried where we must suffer 'T is not leaving the Pleasures of this Life makes Men so unwilling to dye as the fear of going to the Miseries of another 'T is not a present Temporal Death they are so afraid of as that Future and Eternal one which comes after it And this indeed is justly to be feared were Hell to swallow us up as well as the Grave and were we to sink into the bottomless Gulph when our feet take hold of Death but Christ has delivered us from all the danger of this if we do not wifully throw our selves into it He has taken away all that Guilt and all that Punishment due to our Sins which we are afraid of if we have but sincerely and timely repented of them and though Death summons us to Judgment and we know our selves Criminals yet by the performance of that we have our Pardon signed in the Blood of Christ and Heaven will certainly allow of it to a Christian if he have not forfeited it by a desperate Impenitence True and sincere and perfect Repentance will free us in great measure from the Fears and Horrors of Death when it comes near us Our Sins indeed will then be most apt to scare us when Death sets them in order before us but we have all the assurance of the Gospel all the assurance of Heaven that if we have duly repented of them they shall no way hurt or indanger us I will not say that they shall no way make us afraid for this perhaps would not become a very modest and humble and penitent Sinner to be quite fearless but he will have great hopes with his fears and very chearful and comfortable grounds that shall greatly lessen and abate them The righteous hath hope in his death Prov. 13.32 Hopes that his Sins are pardoned in and through Christ and that whenever he goes hence
Mercy and judges himself as incapable of it as the damned in Hell when Gods Spirit has left him so that he can neither pray nor do any thing to relieve himself but lyes as a condemned Caitiff a Malefactor sentenced past all hopes of Pardon and only expecting Punishment and the last stroke of Vengeance this is a sad a deplorable condition which I have known many a Sinner in under a Wounded Spirit and had one great instance before me when I was writing this These Wounds are not felt indeed by many a Sinner in the heat of Blood in the career of his Lusts and the hot persuit of his Sins when in his high frolicks and jovial diversions he drowns the noise of his Conscience or lulls it asleep with charming Pleasures or full Cups or some unthinking madness but it will awake one time or other and like a sleeping Lyon when 't is roused up by some Judgment by some Sickness or Affliction it will fall terribly upon him with rage and fury and tear and consume him then all the wounds which sin gave it will bleed afresh and it will feel them afterwards unless they have been cured by a timely repentance if they have festered and gangrened and mortified the Soul for a time yet when it comes to it self it will feel them with unexpressible pain and anguish which nothing can asswage I mean when a Man has sin'd away his Life and Death and his Sins are set together before him and 't is hard to know which is the more terrible When the Sting of Death swelled up with Sin and Guilt strikes as deep into a Man's Conscience and wounds his Spirit as Death it self strikes into his Body with its fatal dart so that he suffers a double death at the same time and the Spiritual far more painful than the Bodily I take a Wounded Spirit here in the highest and most common sense and though when a Mans Spirit is dejected and sunk with any thing 't is very hard to bear it which may be the sense of the Wise Mans words in the forequoted place when the strength of a Mans Mind is lost which should support him under all his infirmities that he is subject to from without yet nothing does so sink it so wound and destroy it as Sin and Guilt especially when it is come to such a degree and to such a sad condition as we commonly mean by a Wounded Spirit i. e. a Mind deeply pierced with the sense of its own Guilt and of Gods Anger upon it This likewise admits of degrees and in some cases 't is a very happy thing for a Sinner and 't is to be sure alwayes a just Punishment I shall therefore in the Third place briefly consider what is the proper Cure and Remedy of such a wounded Spirit or troubled Mind for there is no Spiritual Illness but what is curable if we take it in time by Religion no Wound of Soul but what there is Balm for in Gilead in Christianity there is no Disease too great for our Heavenly Physician but what the Gospel has a proper and certain Remedy for if we duely and timely apply it A Man may tarry too long indeed and not use the Physick till it be too late till Death comes and puts an end to the time of Tryal and the time of Repentance and then a Wounded Spirit i. e. the extremest Sorrow for a Mans Sins the deepest Contrition of Soul for them cannot come up to true Gospel Repentance to which there is a certain promise of Pardon and Forgiveness for that is only upon turning to God and leaving all our Sins and leading a new Life and bringing forth the Fruits of Repentance by Obedience to the Gospel for the future which is a necessary condition by the terms of the Gospel which he cannot perform whom God cuts off before he can do it and therefore such an one must be left to the Infinite Mercy and Righteous Judgment of God to be dealt with by such measures as are not within the Covenant of Grace or the Terms of the Gospel for by those I cannot see any title he has to Pardon But in other Cases a Wounded Spirit may be the greatest Mercy and even the very beginning of Health or of a Cure to a Soul when God does not suffer a Man to go on senslesly in his Sins till he come to a seered Conscience and a reprobate Sense and to hardness of Heart and blindness of Mind but by some methods of his Grace and Providence alarums his Conscience and awakens his stupid Mind and brings his almost sensless and stupified Soul to some Spiritual sense of his condition Then his Soul will be wounded as Davids was when he reflects upon those Sins which he committed without consideration and he will be sore struck and smitten as every Penitent must at the remembrance of his evil wayes All Repentance is such a wounding of the Soul as makes its Heart bleed within it and its Blood and Spirits melt into Tears and Sorrow for what it has done 't is not such an easie thing as most men think it to be 't is such a Pain such a Wound to the Soul that the Pleasure of the greatest Sin is but a poor trifle to it and no man that rightly understood it would venture upon any Sin from the reserved hopes of it Repentance is a bitter Remedy made up of very strong and unpleasant ingredients and we must go through a long course to purge out the old Disease and take away the root of it so that before a wicked mind can be cured by it it must be cut and lanced and wounded and have very severe applications made to it The work of Regeneration or the New Birth cannot be wrought without many pangs or throwes nor does God ever almost bring a bad man to become a good one without some trouble and disorder of Mind There is a trouble of Mind indeed which is excessive and unreasonable for every Sinner ought in some measure to be troubled in Mind and he has not a due sense of his Sins if he is not but there is a trouble of Mind which takes away the hopes of Mercy and throwes Men into despair which is commonly called a Wounded Spirit and 't is so in the highest degree and whether there is any Remedy for that and what it is and what advice is to be given in such a case and what judgment to be made of it I shall briefly consider 1. Then this is often joyned with Melancholly of Body which is very hard to be cured and till it be so it is apt to darken the Mind and bring a cloud over the Spirits and to fill the Soul with very black Idea's and Imaginations and to hinder it from making true judgment of it self or its own actions and this is as pityable and ought as much to be remedied by Physick and Care as other Diseases of Body for I have known
new and holy Life and be available to his true Conversion and Repentance and I believe this is Gods usual way by which he begins to effect this upon most Sinners by thus bringing them to some serious thinking and considering It is very great Mercy when God thus checks them in their career and calls to them by the loud voice of his Judgments and thus as he generally does puts the first stop to them and makes them bethink themselves and consider but then this method must not only awaken but keep their eyes open and make them see and consider those other Thoughts and Reasons which are the more proper seminal Principles that will be more likely to produce and beget this true Repentance Such as are 2. In the second place a serious reflection and thorough conviction of the Evil that is in Sin and of the real Good of Vertue as the only thing which can make us truly happy for till Men have brought themselves to be fully perswaded and convinced of this and to believe it as firmly as they do any truth in Mathematicks or any other Science they will never be brought truly to Repent that is to dislike and hate and renounce the one and heartily to love and persue and embrace the other for Men will still love their Sins and hanker after them and be ready to comply and close with them upon every occasion if they only fall out with them sometimes as Lovers do with what they like and admire and tho' there may be some bickerings between them and some penitential passions and resentments now and then yet they may still have their Heart if they do not upon wise observations and thorough convictions believe them to be enemies to their Welfare and Happiness to the comfort of their Lives here and their Eternal Salvation hereafter and that they get nothing by them but poor and empty and sickly pleasures but that they bring substantial misery and bitter remorse and anguish of Mind and a thousand mischiefs and inconveniences along with them at present besides the terrible hazards and dangers of another World so that they are by no means to be loved or chosen if we love our selves or choose our own Happiness For we must bring it to this if we would be steddy and certain to the first Principles of Self-preservation and a desire of our own Happiness which lyes at the root of our Nature and what we shall alwayes act upon if we rightly understand it and do not grosly err and mistake about it and a few wise observations and a little sober thinking and considering will easily satisfie us and fully convince us that Vice is the certain cause of misery to us and that Vertue is the only way to be truly easie and happy The Sinner will be convinced of this by his own experience when he reflects upon his past follies and sees how little he has got by his Sins but shame and sorrow and trouble of Mind perhaps a sickly and diseased Body and a wasted Estate and wretched Beggery and every thing that shall make him miserable in this World before he goes to the greater misery of another For do we not dayly see this how one Man brings himself by his Sins to a morsel of bread how he shipwrecks his Fortunes as well as his Conscience by Luxury and Prodigality another consumes his Body as well as his Estate by Debauchery Lust and Intemperance by these they sin as the Apostle remarks against their own Bodies as well as against their Souls they make them bear the scars and marks of their Sins upon them and become Martyrs in the Devils service and endure often more torture of Body for their Sins than other Martyrs have done for their Religion sacrifice their Lives to them and by living too fast as they call it bring an untimely death upon themselves and are in so much hast sometimes to dye that their Bodies often rot before they come into their graves If these mischiefs do not follow all Sins yet some others do and the greatest of all is inseparable from them which is torment and anguish of Conscience and pain and uneasiness of Mind which every Man feels unless his Conscience be stupified and mortified which is a worse state than the other upon the commission of any great Sin and this is ten times greater than any fancied pleasure in it This is a sting a wound a prick upon the most tender part of a Mans Soul a dart struck through his Liver a Worm gnawing upon his Vitals nothing is so close and so cutting a pain and misery as a Man 's own ill Conscience when it is let loose upon him and like a Fury falls upon him with its utmost rage lashes him with its snaky whips and burns him with its fiery torches 't is then a Devil let loose and a Hell kindled within his own bosom They who have felt but a little of it know it is more exquisite pain than any belongs to the Body and what is it then to endure this for ever and lye under that and the further anger of God to all Eternity Oh madness and folly that wants a name that will do this for any Sin whatever Oh the dreadful Evil of Sin that brings all this and so many other mischiefs upon us But 3. Vertue on the contrary has a thousand Comforts Blessings and Goods belonging to it which should make us love it as we do our selves and choose it as heartily and firmly as we do our own Happiness When we rightly understand and consider it we shall find Reason to do so that neither disturbs our Mind nor diseases our Body nor squanders away our Estate nor brings any reproach and discredit along with it as Vice generally does and it takes away no real Good or true Pleasure or proper Enjoyment from us but it allowes us all that we can desire or that our Nature was made for within the due bounds and limits of our Duty and within those we may enjoy as much Vertuously and Innocently as the greatest Liberty and Debauchery can afford the Sinner Vertue does not destroy our Pleasures but refines and purifies them and so makes them sweeter and better and draws them off from the filthiness and sediment and bitterness that lyes alwayes at the bottom of all sinful Pleasures and Enjoyments No Man ever repented of his Vertues or was sorry that he had done a good Action but he finds great comfort and satisfaction within himself when he reflects upon it and it is a prop and stay to his Mind and he rests securely upon it and is chearful confident and erect under all accidents and all dangers and difficulties whatsoever His Heart standeth right and approveth it self to God and to his own thoughts having no ill designs no base and mean ends and purposes but such only as are good and vertuous and this gives him great peace firmness of Mind and bravery of Spirit and
deter Men from Disobedience and to restrain them from Wickedness Now we easily see to how little purpose a less Punishment would ferve then that of Hell to those ends since there are so few awed even by that tho' God has so severely threatned it If then for the ends of Government and for publick good such a Punishment as this be necessary it is consistent both with Justice and Goodness however fevere it be for this is the only just measure and proportion of Punishments that they be able to attain their end and the Rule of Justice is to be taken not from any private but publick Reasons 2. God has given us free choice and proposed both Eternal Happiness and Eternal Misery to us He hath set before us life and death Deut. 30.15 so that if we obey him and live wisely and vertuously we shall enjoy the one but if we choose Sin we choose Death with it and our destruction is of our selves and we judge our selves unworthy of everlasting life Acts 13.46 as Paul and Barnabas told the Jews Gods proposing such vast Rewards and Punishments as 't is perhaps a necessary sanction of his Laws so 't is perfectly our own fault and madness if we refuse the one and incur the other Secondly I shall show how this Eternity is clearly and undeniably proved from Scripture which it seems to be because the word Eternal and Everlasting and what amounts to that is alwayes used upon this account as everlasting fire Matth. 25.41 and everlasting burnings Isa 33.14 and the fire that is unquenchable and that never goes out Mark 9.46 Luke 3.17 But to this they say that the word Eternal is often used in Scripture in a limited sense according to the nature of the thing to which it belongs as the Jewish Priesthood is called an everlasting Priesthood Exod. 40.15 and their Law of Atonement is called an everlasting statute Lev. 16.34 tho' neither were to be so strictly nor to last longer than the Jewish oeconomy So Sodom and Gomorrha and the Cities about them are said to suffer the vengeance of eternal fire in ver 7. of St. Judes Epistle because it brought eternal destruction to them though there be now none of that fire remaining so shall the fire of Hell say they destroy and annihilate the wicked and so as the Scripture speaks bring everlasting death and destruction upon them though if that shall last Eternally yet they shall not be Eternally tormented in it Now in reply to this I own that the word Eternal and for ever is often used in a limited sense but that it cannot be so when it is spoken here of Hellish Torments there is this evidence that the same word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which is spoken of Eternal Punishment is spoken also of Eternal Life so that if it be understood of a limited Eternity in the one it must be so in the other which no body ever held or supposed and yet there is as much Reason from hence to deny the absolute Eternity of Heaven as the absolute Eternity of Hell 2. That they suffer Eternal Death and are Eternally destroyed is not to be understood in a strict and literal sense so that they lose all Being but yet are not Eternally tormented is plain from those places where it is said They have no rest day nor night Rev. 14.11 which supposes them not to be in a state of non-existence but of actual pain 'T is said there also that they shall be tormented with fire and brimstone and that the smoke of their torment ascendeth up for ever and ever ver 10.11 which can never without violence be understood of the Fire which still lasts and which they suppose to be Eternal whilst they are not tormented in it but destroyed by it though it remains still as a monument of Gods Justice and Vengeance upon Sinners for the smoke of their torment ascending for ever supposes them to be for ever tormented and their having no rest night nor day necessarily implyes this Besides as it is said The fire is not quenched nor never goes out so it is said also that their worm never dyes Now though the Fire might possibly continue without its proper subject yet the Worm there meant never can for that is only that anguish and remorse and vexatious reflection of Mind which if it never dye the subject of it must last and continue and suffer it for ever So that though our Socinian Adversaries avoid the other places of Everlasting Punishment and Everlasting and Unquenchable Fire with some Art and Sophistry yet they can never evade those of the worms never dying and of the smoke of their torments going up for ever and their having no rest day nor night Rev. 14.11 But not to dispute further of these matters let the Sinner seriously conssder and meditate of these infinitely great and infinitely lasting and never ending Torments If there be such a thing as Hell it concerns him highly to Repent and so take care to avoid it If he do not think this to be true but secretly disbelieve it he must disbelieve all Religion and all Revelation and run into the utmost madness of Scepticism and Atheism and then let him consider that 't is not his belief makes things to be true or false but whatever he thinks of them they are and will be what they are in themselves and 't is certain he can never know them to be false however he is inclined to believe them so and therefore were they never so uncertain and were it but merely probable or indeed possible that there should be any such thing yet no Man in his wits should run the venture and lye open to so prodigious and dreadful an hazard as an Eternity of Misery But to such Christians that firmly believe them and have all Reason so to do both from Revelation and Reason too for all Mankind had ever some belief and expectations of sad Punishments in another World for Wickedness to them 't is unaccountable folly and madness to live in such Sins and in such courses as will throw them into this unquenchable Fire and consign them to this dreadful and everlasting state of Misery Is there any Sin whose charms are so great whose gains are so tempting that for the enjoyment of all these for a little season 't is worth enduring the Torments of Hell for ever If these Terrors of the Lord will not perswade Men to Repent and Leave their Sins nothing will Yet there is one or two other Motives or Arguments to Repentance from Christianity which I must propose after this of Hell and all the rest namely SECT V. Other Gospel Motives to Repentance 6. ANother Motive which may be said to be peculiar to the Gospel and which should encourage to Repentance above all others is the Promise of the Divine Grace and Holy Spirit to enable us to peform it to assist us to overcome all our evil Habits and to master
Grace and Goodness tho' they have not already attained neither are already perfect as the Apostle speaks of himself Phil. 3.12 yet they are alwayes safe and alwayes ready for the coming of the Son of Man and their whole Life is a most sure a most comfortable preparation for Death But these are very few I doubt not only to the general number of Mankind but even to good Men for most of the good Men we read of in Scripture were some time or other guilty of great and wilful Faults as Noah and Abraham and David and St. Peter and St. Paul and Mary Magdalene and whilst they were so and before they had recovered themselves by Repentance I cannot but think them in a bad state for Mens states are not fixt and certain in this Life but are alterable and changed according to their outward actions and the inward temper of their Minds and when ever a wilful and a known Sin breaks the course of Vertue and destroys the habit of Goodness in their Souls it breaks their good state and destroys their comfortable condition As when a Disease strikes the Vitals of our Body and overcomes the Strength and Health of our Constitution unless we get it off it will certainly bring Death along with it God indeed has prescribed us a certain Remedy and an infallible Cure for all Mortal Sins and the greatest Spiritual Maladies and Diseases that would otherwise destroy us and bring Death upon us and that is Repentance which for the sake of Christ and his Merits and by the Mercy and Promise of God shall recover us out of that miserable and mortal state into which every wilful Sin had cast us This shall set us right again in the Court of Heaven where we were cast and condemned before and this shall bring us to a state of Life and Grace who were before struck with the sentence of Death And blessed be God who has thus graciously provided for poor and otherwise lost Sinners by Jesus Christ But Repentance alas though it be a sure Remedy yet is not so easie a one as we imagine 't is a very bitter dose that must not only go down very unpleasantly but must work strongly and powerfully upon our Minds it must not only make us sick and sorrowful contrite and troubled at the very Heart for every Transgression but it must purge out of our Souls every Sin and carry off every vile Lust and wicked Inclination It must not only work upon the peccant humours and so put the Soul into great trouble and disorder but it must perfectly heal and cure it and to do that it must take away the root of the disease it must search to the bottom of the Heart it must touch us to the quick in the tenderest part of us in the most darling Sin and most beloved Lust and it must cut and launce so deep that no secret corruption remain within and no fomes Morbi be left behind In a word it must perfectly cure the Soul and whatever disease it laboured under it must quite remove it so that it never return again upon it for 't is but a palliating a counterfeit or an imperfect cure till this be done And till the Mind be perfectly restored and amended and made better it has not truly repented and therefore the Scripture requires in Repentance not only a broken Heart which is the most significant phrase in the World for the deepest trouble of Mind for our past Sins but it requires a new Heart and a new Soul and a new Creature and a new Man to make up true Repentance and not only that we be renewed in the Spirit of our Minds but that we bring forth fruits worthy of Repentance and that we turn from every evil way and leave and forsake every Sin that we have ever been guilty of as I have more largely shown before We must do all this before we can be said truly to Repent and before we can have any good grounds to expect Pardon of any wilful Sin we ever committed in our whole lives we must thus Repent of it And though we are as sure of forgiveness if we do so as if we had never committed it which is the greatest favour in the World yet how will a poor penitent be alwayes afraid that he has not been sufficiently sorrowful and fully repented of his Sins how will his former Guilt affright him when it stares him in the face and how will the sad load of all his Sins lye heavy upon his Conscience when he is brought to a due sense of them and how must he be contented to lose a great deal of that comfort in his Mind here though he may be safe hereafter and though his Repentance may put him into a good condition yet it will make his Heart sorrowful and the remembrance of his Sins will make it often bleed afresh within him And when he looks back upon his past danger he must tremble at it tho' he has reason to hope he has escaped it and it must keep him alwayes humble and not over-confident of himself and though he has his Pardon in his hand yet he must still look upon it with tears in his eyes Nothing can truly satisfie a Man that he has repented of his Sins but that he has left them out of Religious Grounds and Principles and has had so much tryal of himself as to know he would not commit them though he were in the same circumstances and temptations that he was in before And thus when a bad Man is become a good one when he that was careless and irreligious is become pious and devout when he that was vitious and debauch'd is become sober and vertuous when he that was unjust becomes just and righteous and besides restitution for all past injustice would not commit one act of it to gain all the World when he that stole steals no more and he that was given to drunkenness or uncleanness or any other Sin wholly leaves and forsakes it and is brought by Religion to be quite another Man than he was before then and not till then is his Repentance such as may make him hope for Pardon when he lives and prepare him to dye with comfort For to proceed a little further in this great concern to make a Soul fit and ready for its immediate entering upon another state it must have these two qualifications at that time 1. It must be thoroughly purged from every Vitious Habit or else it is neither meet to be partaker of the inheritance of the Saints in light nor capable of the Pure and Spiritual and Heavenly Happiness As the Tree falls so it lyes sayes the Wise Man Ecclesiastes 11.3 And the same habit and temper as to the main which the Soul carries out of this World will abide with it in the other If any one habitual Wickedness remain upon it or the love of any one Sin be so rooted in it that if it lived
Heaven though it be a gift is a reward too and shall be exactly proportioned in the degrees of it to the deservings and actions and behaviours of Men. The main foundation then of this Doctrine of the Efficacy or Sufficiency of a Death-Bed Repentance must be the case of the Thief upon the Cross i. e. the History or Relation of a Man who dyed as a Malefactor and yet certainly went to Heaven for that is the whole of it Now I doubt not but many hundred such Malefactors have gone to Heaven and many Thousand Sinners that were once bad Men but yet had they never Repented till they came to dye I do as verily believe that not one of them had gone thither but to another place where Men shall for ever repent at the same rate that most Men do who have not done so before that time To Ground and Establish this Doctrine upon this Historical Case and 't is I believe the only Doctrine that has such a foundation we must examine whether it certainly and exactly comes up in all the Particulars and Circumstances of it to the case of a wicked Mans living a very ill life till he comes to dye and then only repenting of it We must then enquire whether it plainly and certainly appears from the account the Scripture gives us of it 1. Whether he were a very ill Man in the whole or general course of his Life 2. Whether we are sure he did not Repent long before he came to dye for if these two are not certainly known nor do appear from Scripture the case may be very different and no way suit or answer the late and dying Repentance of a very wicked Man And 3. Supposing those two yet how can we tell whether this might not be an extraordinary case and such as belongs to no other Sinner whatsoever 1. Whether it do appear from the account Scripture gives us of him that he was a very ill Man in the whole or general course of his life The reason of which inquiry is this that a general habit of irreligion and wickedness through the whole course of a Mans life puts him into a more wretched and dangerous and deplorable state than any particular Act of Sin or then any one sin whatsoever for that like a Leprosie spreads over and corrupts the whole Mind lays the whole Conscience waste and roots up all the Principles of Religion and puts Men in the number of those who have no fear of God before their eyes and who live without God in the World but a Man may not be so far gone not be a Sinner of so high a rate but may be an imperfectly good Man and yet fall into a wilful sin by the suddenness or greatness of the Temptation by Surprize and Inconsideration and laxness of Thoughts by a remissness in Religion and not being duely upon his Guard and by the struggle that is in his mind between the Flesh and the Spirit between this World and another which makes the one now and then get the better of the other such an one is a kind of borderer upon Vertue and lives between the confines of that and wickedness and sometimes he is governed and brought under the power of one and sometimes is overcome and made a prey by the other Now though such an one is not fit for the Kingdom of Heaven till he comes wholly off from every wilful sin and is more under the power of Religion yet he is nearer to the Kingdom of Heaven and may sooner by Repentance and becoming a good Man fit himself for it and so enter into it It does not at all appear in Scripture from the History of this Penitent Theif whether he had been a very ill Man or no in the general course of his Life only that he was a Thief which was enough to denominate him 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and suffered as he himself owns justly and received the due reward of his deeds Luke 23.41 But who knows what abatements his sin might have either by extream necessity or some other circumstances which God might fairly consider and allow for though he was brought to an infamous Death here by the severity of Humane Laws Even a good Man who is so in the general course and habit of his Life may fall into a particular act of wilful sin as we see in David Moses and St. Peter and let him that standeth take heed lest he fall as the Apostle advises 1 Cor. 10.12 For no Man is perfectly out of danger whilst he is in this state of probation and infirmity and though every such Sin breaks a Mans good State and puts him into an ill one till he recovers himself by Repentance and Amendment for Mens States of Grace and Damnation are no way fixt here but are alterable in this World according to the temper of their minds and behaviour of their lives yet 't is more easie to recover from a single act than a long habit as 't is to cure a green wound than an old Ulcer or a Chronical Disease And where there is an habitual soundness within where the Mind is not vitiated with habitual Corruptions and evil Principles and irreligious Habits and Customs but has a pretty good Sense of Religion though it happens to be over-powred with a temptation there it will sooner recover it self and throw off the Disease and the Corrupt Matter by its own inward Strength and the assistance of the Divine Grace There the inward Sense and the Principles of Religion will unfold and expand themselves by the power of Restitution since though they have been prest down and overpowred yet they have not been quite broken and destroyed the Religious and Vertuous Sense will revive again in the Mind which was not wholly extinguished though very much Damped and Choaked and weakned and thus they plainly seem to be in thus penitent Thief by his Carriage to our Saviour which I shall consider by and by by his rebuking the other Thief who was railing at Christ with that most sober Reprimand Dost thou not fear God seeing thou art in the same condemnation ver 40. and by the firm belief and full perswasion he had of the happyness of another State and his Devout and Religious Prayer to Christ to remember him when he came into his Kingdom These make it very probable that he was not a very profligate or ill Man in the general course of his Life but rather such a good one who lived not in the habit of many great sins but fell into a particular Act by a Temptation that might greatly lessen it before God though it made him an Example before Men But 2. Whatever his Sin was however great and however sinful a Man he had been yet who knows how long he had repented and how sincerely and what fruits he had shown of his Repentance We know not when the theft was committed and whether he did not immediately Repent of it and make
shall deliver me from this body of death he comfortably replies to himself I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord ver 25. i. e. there is a remedy for it by Christ and Christianity and the law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death ver 2. chap. 8. The Answer to the other Objection will be fully given in the next Section SECT II. The Differences of Sins what are and what are not consistent with a good State THAT all Men are Sinners not only Experience but the Scriptures do in many places assure us that there is not a righteous man upon earth who sinneth not that in many things we offend all and that if we say we have no sin we deceive our selves and the truth is not in us by which is not only meant that no Man is wholly free from all manner of Sin in the whole course of his Life or can pass all his dayes without falling into some Sin or other but that no part of his Life even when he is come to his best State a State of Grace and Vertue is so perfect as to be quite sinless and without any Sin of what kind soever so that he should not be obliged to beg Pardon of God and say dayly Forgive us our Trespasses Now this as it is matter of Humiliation to the best Men so it is turn'd to another use and quite different purpose by the worst they comfort themselves in all their greatest Sins that all Men are Sinners as well as themselves that none are free from all Sins and let them that are so cast the first stone at them they plainly confound hereby the different states of good and bad Men and are not willing to distinguish or make such a true judgment as the Scripture does plainly between them for the same Scripture that tells us all are Sinners and hath concluded all under Sin yet declare that every wilful Sin is damnable and that they who commit it and live in the practice of it shall not enter into the Kingdom of Heaven and that he who shall keep all the law besides and yet offend in any one point is guilty of all and shall be punish'd as truly though not so fully for one wilful unrepented Sin as for more There is no way to reconcile this and take off any seeming difficulty about it but by that plain difference which both Scripture and Reason allow between Sins that some of them are Sins of Frailty and Infirmity which are unavoidable to us in our present state and which are consistent with a good one and which the best of Men cannot live wholly without whilst they are in this Body of Flesh and Blood and that others are wilful and presumptuous known and deliberate Sins which are committed with full consent of the Mind and against a plain Law of God and with that presumption and disobedience that makes them unpardonable without a particular Repentance and a perfect Amendment It concerns us very carefully to distinguish and know the difference between those and not to erre to be sure on the wrong side by judging too kindly of our Sins and calling those Infirmities and Weaknesses which are Sins of Wilfulness and Presumption nor can we without judging right and avoiding Mistakes on either hand judge truly and comfortably of our selves and know what our Spiritual state is or what condition we are in as to God and another World The only way to be safe is to avoid every Sin at least every wilful Sin and to grow up to as high a degree of Vertue and Goodness as we can and to get as much mastery over all our Imperfections and Infirmities as is possible but since some Sins and Frailties will cleave to us whilst we carry this body of Sin and of Death about us we may use the Psalmists excellent Prayer both for our Instruction and our Devotion Psal 19.12 13. Who can understand his errors Cleanse thou me from secret faults keep back thy servant also from presumptuous sins let them not have dominion over me then shall I be upright and I shall be innocent from the great transgression where he gives us an account of several sorts of Sins 1. Such as he calls Errors and secret Faults by which are meant Sins of Ignorance and Infirmity which we are to pray God to forgive and free us from as well as from others 2. Presumptuous Sins which implye such as are both known and wilful and those 3. such as have dominion over one a reigning habitual prevailing power now if we be kept free from these latter though not the former we are safe and out of danger in a state of sincerity and favour with God and shall be treated as Righteous and Good Men notwithstanding those lesser Faults Then shall I be upright and I shall be innocent from the great transgression i. e. from any such Sin as shall indanger my Soul and expose it to Misery and Damnation I shall consider and explain these several sorts of Sins 1. Errors and secret Faults Sins of Ignorance and Infirmity such as we knew not to be Sins when we committed them either by a downright ignorance and not knowing any Law of God that forbad them or by thoughtlesness surprize and inconsideration being unawares engaged in them before we could think or consider As to Sins of Ignorance our Saviour told the Pharisees John 9.41 If ye were blind ye should have no sin i. e. If ye had been perfectly ignorant of the Messiahs coming into the World and had had no knowledge of this by the Prophesies of old and by the Miracles which ye see me do then your Infidelity and Unbelief had been excusable and without Sin Where Christianity is not revealed as to the Heathen World where Faith is not proposed to Men with those Arguments and Reasons which should perswade to it there God will not condemn them for their Ignorance which they could no way help and which was only their misfortune and not their fault Our Blessed Saviour sayes of the Jews If I had not come and spoken unto them they had not had sin Joh. 15.22 i. e. the Sin of Disbelieving and Rejecting him as to other Sins known by their own Law those they had been answerable for to God as St. Paul sayes As many as have sinned in the law shall be judged by the law Rom. 2.12 and as many as have sinned without law shall perish without law i. e. the Gentiles who had not the Law of Moses shall be condemned for their Sins by the Law of Nature It has been an uncharitable Question whether any of the Gentiles should be saved Now tho' they cannot be saved in an ordinary way by Vertue of the Christian Covenant to which they have no title or claim yet God may in extraordinary Mercy let all Mankind have the benefit of it and save them by Christ though they know him not
A Practical Discourse OF Repentance Rectifying the Mistakes about it especially such as lead either to Despair or Presumption Perswading and Directing to the True Practice of it AND Demonstrating the Invalidity OF A Death-Bed Repentance By WILLIAM PAYNE D. D. Rector of St. Mary White-Chappel and Chaplain in Ordinary to Their Majesties LONDON Printed for Samuel Smith at the Princes Arms in St. Pauls Church-Yard 1693. THE PREFACE To His Loving Friends and Parishioners the Inhabitants of St. Mary White-Chappel IT was for your sakes and for your use chiefly I composed this Discourse and now offer it to your serious thoughts and most lasting consideration that it may teach you the Right Knowledge and perswade you to the True Practice of that Great Duty it treats of I have endeavoured to set it in such a Light as might remove the unreasonable Fears and Despairs of some Few and the Presumptuous and false hopes of the far greater number of Sinners I hope if you carefully peruse it with due thoughtfulness and application of mind it may give you both a Right notion and understanding of it so as to free you from all dangerous and mischievous Mistakes about it and that it will convey so much Warmth as well as Light to your thoughts as may by the Grace of God very much help to quicken and excite you to a speedy and thorough Repentance and to a Holy and Good life As it will in some measure give you clear thoughts of Religion in all the parts of it which some who have a strong sence yet have dark and confused apprehensions about and will enable you to make a right Judgment of your selves and spiritual state by evident and obvious and certain marks so I dare say that no Man who takes the whole force of it into his mind and duly considers and seriously attends to all the thoughts that it will suggest to him will ever live in his sins or continue to be a wicked Man One of the great Reasons that makes Men so even beyond Atheism and Infidelity it self for they being contrary to the natural sense of our minds prevaile not upon so many as Superstition False and corrupt Religion is the perverting Christianity and corrupting the Gospel by Doctrines of Looseness and Licentiousness that give false hopes of Pardon and Salvation without Obedience and a good life and by some imaginary Schemes and some comfortable but erroneous and even damnable Doctrines reconcile Religion to Mens Lusts and the hopes of pardon and happiness to a careless and wicked life How this is done in the Church of Rome by their doctrines of Penance Confession and Absolution Contrition and Attrition and the like has been shown and made out by the Protestant Writers against them and indeed I take those Principles to be the very Rotten Core of Popery the Poyson and Philter by which it bewitches so many wretched Souls into its Communion and the Antichristian cup of Fornication that it gives the Kings and People of the Earth to drink The Loose Notions of Repentance which came at first from them but have been taken up by many others since put me upon this Design of Examining and Rectifying them for I am perswaded there never was any Error or any Delusion of the Devil which hath destroyed more Souls then the fatal mistakes about this Duty especially about a Dying Repentanc which has been the wretched Reserve of most wicked Men all their lives and the broken Reed they have trusted to at their deaths whereby they have been encouraged in their Sins and had a kind of Protection as they thought against all the dangers of them by this priviledge of Repenting at the last and by having that allowed to be valid and sufficient by the terms of the Gospel By this they have all along had the reserved hopes of saving their Souls however wickedly they lived and so have excused themselves from and shifted off the necessity of a Good life by this more easie and compendious way which though it were liable to some more accidental hazards yet might as effectually do the Business by the standing principles of Religion and by having as was supposed an ordinary Title to Pardon and Salvation This hath greatly comforted Sinners and greatly encouraged them in their sins when as s commonly said of a great many they might hope though they lived very ill yet to dye well and make a good end and by being penitent at the last like the Thief upon the Cross to be surely pardon'd and go to heaven and so this Comfortable Disjunctive has been set up or twofold way of going to Heaven either by living well and being good Men before we come to dye or else by Repenting and being sorry at that time that we were not so The Consequences to Religion and a good life are so plain and fatal from hence and I have known so many sad Instances of its dreadful mischief in my frequent attending the Sick whereby my experience in this case if not my skill has made me a good Phisician that I thought I could not do more service to God and Religion and the Souls of Men then to reseue them from such false Notions and pernicious mistakes about a matter of so great consequence and do all I could effectually to perswade them to the Practice of such a true Repentance as is not to be Repented of The serving such an excellent Design makes me venture this Discourse into the World without being concerned for the many Defects and Imperfections in the Style Phrase and Words which a nice Critick may find in it but I am sure the pious and well-disposed Reader will excuse and overloook those when he is affected with the thought and matter which is of so great moment and importance and when he is satisfied with the vertue and wholsomness of the Phisick he will not I hope be so delicate as to find fault with its being either too much or too little gilded I confess some part of it hath layn by me many Years even beyond Horace's ninth and hath many youthful strokes in it to show it was drawn before the rest and to excuse its Dress and Colours but the thought and Notion is all of a piece and I have had it so long and consideered it so fully that if any shall differ from me after reading it thorough for the strength of it lies in the Frame and Contexture of the whole and not in any single part I should very much wonder and be glad to know his Reasons I have chosen sometimes to repeat the same Notion as there was occasion rather then to refer the Reader back again to another place where there would not be such an immediate connexion with what he was just reading so that he would lose the sight of what went before with looking after it and would not see the thing so well in one view I have often thought that we wanted a Just and entire Discourse
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 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉
Rubbish is taken away a good Life should be built and all the goodly structure of Christian Vertues should be erected I come now to propose the Motives and Encouragements to perswade us to this great Duty and they are as many and as great as there are obligations to Vertue and Religion and disswasives from Vice and Wickedness For Repentance is but a Return to Vertue and Leaving Sin and tho' the passage from one to the other may not be so pleasant and delightful but like the Israelites we must pass through a Wilderness through a vale of Sorrow and a course of Contrition and Humiliation yet Vertue is the happy Land flowing with delights and all manner of good things and Vice is a more than Egyptian Servitude and Slavery which he is mad that will not get out of or that any way hankers again after it or after the Garlick and Onions the sordid pleasures and enjoyments of it I shall first examine the Temptations and Enticements to Sin and expose the false Reasonings and Arguments by which Men are drawn into that then offer the Motives and greater Arguments to Repentance both from the Nature and Reason of the thing and from the Gospel or Christianity SECT I. Of the Enticements to Sin THe Enticements and temptations to Sin and Wickedness are so great and many that if we should judge of them by the effect and power which they have upon Mankind they are much stronger than the Motives and Arguments to Vertue and a good Life for we see they prevail upon more than the other do Whole crowds follow the one and are drawn by them into the broad way of Vice whilst Vertue has but a small party who walk in her narrow path and are perswaded to keep closely to it Now surely there must be some mighty and powerful charms in Vice that make it so generally take with most Men there must be some secret and prevailing Reasons that bring them over and engage them so firmly on that side and make Vertue so generally forsaken and deserted Men are Rational Creatures and free Agents that have a power to consider and choose what is best for them what tends most to please and delight and make them happy and they must be greatly imposed upon if they choose that which tends only to make them miserable God sets Life and Death before them as Moses before the Jews Deut. 30.15 and it must be great madness to choose the worser part and what one would think it impossible for any man to do if his Reason were not cheated and deceived with false appearances of good in it and it were not represented to him in such a false light and such false colours as made it seem quite otherwise then it is in its own Nature For no Man can choose Evil as Evil naked in it self and with its own ugliness and deformity about it but it must be drest up under the show of Good and painted and decked up in a meretricious dress to hide its Native and abominable Filthiness Mens Imaginations must be deluded and so their Reason deceived and imposed upon by the Temptations to Sin and there must be a great many false reasonings used to entice them to it or else so many who have thoughts about them and who cannot do any thing without thinking some way or other could never be drawn over to consent to it and to commit it Now the chief Delusions and false Reasonings and Perswasions by which Men are drawn into Sin for there must be some such process in their Minds are such as these following 1. They see and feel the present Good of their Sins and the after Evil is so uncertain or so remote that they know not what to think of it and so are not much influenced by it for they think it unreasonable to part with the present Pleasure and the certain Profit which their Sins afford them for an unknown and unseen and unconceived Pleasure and Happiness they know not when or where they find and feel most Vices very grateful to their Natural Appetites and outward Senses and they are not such fools as to be perswaded out of those nor to put a force and restraint upon Nature and its proper enjoyments Vertue tyes them up to such severe and hard and unnatural restraints as they cannot endure its Mortifications and Self-denyals are very uneasie to Flesh and Blood and they look upon its Rules and Precepts as the morose dictates of peevish and melancholly Men who cannot so well enjoy what others do and therefore talk against the liberties and freedoms of Humane Nature and fright Men from the pleasures and enjoyments of Sin here with the terrours of another World and imaginary dangers hereafter Is it then so very certain that Vice is so pleasant here So desirable and comfortable upon the account of present enjoyment and that its punishment hereafter is so unknown and uncertain That 't is not to be taken into consideration nor worth being more minded than it is by these Sinners do they never think of dying or are they possessed with such a frenzy as to hope they shall live alwayes or that three or fourscore years will never be run out though few live so long and they perhaps have lived above half that time and see how quickly it is gone and then will any Man in his wits venture to be miserable for ever for the Pleasures or Profits of Sin which are but for a season were they never so great If there were a much greater uncertainty about another World then there is yet who would run so dreadful a hazard who would put so great a matter to such a dangerous venture Were not the evidence we have of a future state from Nature from Revelation from the Resurrection of Christ nay from the belief of all Mankind so strong as it is so that not only whatever the Jews or the Christians have believed and witnessed down through all Ages must pass for a fable if it be not true but what all Wise Men have ever believed about a God and Religion must be a meer dream and chimaera Yet however no Man can ever be sure but that there is another World he can have no positive proof or demonstration that there is not and were there no more in it but that there may be such a thing which the greatest Atheist or Sceptical Infidel cannot pretend to deny yet this might be enough to keep him from running upon so dreadful though meerly possible danger and exposing himself to such extream but irrecoverable mischief especially for the poor and pitiful temptations of Sin at present For alas however pleasant and delightful they may imagine them yet they are generally mistaken and there is more true pleasure and comfort a thousand times to be found in a Life of Vertue and Religion than in the most tempting Wickedness and the most gustful Sensuality For which yields most present pleasure and comfort of Life
Life and Comfort what Death and Misery must it then be to be banished for ever from both with a Depart from me ye oursed 2. The Mind will reflect upon what is past with infinite remorse and anguish and with great regret curse its own folly and madness that has brought it to this sad condition when God had put it in its power to have made it self for ever happy had it been wise and considering as it ought to have been This will be the great sting of its Misery that it wilfully brought it upon it self and for a few foolish and rash and finful actions undid it self for ever and for some trifling reasons and pitiful temptations the little pleasures or profits of Sin which are now all gone made it self thus wretchedly and eternally miserable How with rage and envy will it look up to that Happiness it has lost and sees others enjoy and vex it self with fury that it should refuse and reject that when it was offered to it and this one thought will double and increase its Misery and make it curse and tear it self that it was its own choice 3. As the Mind with looking back will be filled with remerse and anguish upon its past Sins and past Madness so by looking forward and seeing no end of the Misery it is in it will be filled and overwhelmed with Despair which is a Passion of Mind so perfectly and so unspeakably miserable that I shall not venture to describe it for 't is beyond any thing we can imagine and it properly belongs to the next head which is the eternity and endless duration of these Torments and Misery which though it be but a circumstance of time and not properly that wherein they consist yet is the most dreadful perfection and completion of them which I shall consider by and by Let us now but seriously think with our selves what a dreadful state it is to be under all this torment of Mind and pain of Body to lye thus upon the rack of the greatest tortures both from within and without and that in such extremity that they shall make dreadful and hideous signs and expressions of it in weeping and mourning and lamentation and gnashing of teeth Matth 22.13 when they shall gnaw their tongues for pain and blaspheme the God of heaven because of their pains Rev. 16.10 11. And yet all their bitter cryes and dolorous exclamations shall only blow up and kindle the rage and fury of the surrounding flames for none of their sighs shall put out nor their tears extinguish any the least spark of those flames which are kindled by the Wrath of God who is a consuming fire Who can express or imagine the keenness and sharpness of those pains of Body or the pangs and agonies of Conscience the passions and anguish and remorse of Mind and nothing to take off or divert or give the least intermission to all these but an angry God above a dark and bottomless pit of burning Brimstone below and frightful and ugly and insulting Spirits like so many executioners all about it and no friend to call to to pity or to help it O sad and miserable and intolerable condition Who would not do all he could to warn others and himself that they come not to that place of Torments What pleasure or profit can there be in the most tempting Sin that should make a Man venture the enduring all this for the sake of it Who would endure this but one day or one month for all the things this World can afford Who would suffer it for so long a time as this life of Sin here lasts for all that he gets by it Who would endure it a thousand years for all the Kingdoms of this World and the Glories thereof much less who would for a trifling Lust or a sinful Inclination for a little unjust Gain or unlawful Pleasure endure it for ever Which is the next thing I am to speak to That II. This is Eternal and shall never have end This is the dreadful and amazing circumstance of this Misery and that which must confound him that suffers it that it shall last for ever so that there shall never be any hopes of having an end of it after never so many thousand years but there shall be still an infinite Eternity behind and so as much as there was at the first beginning Who can think of this without the utmost horrour and amazement and having his thoughts swallowed up with the dreadful consideration of it It is so great that some have had their Reason overcome and overwhelmed by it so that they have thought it unagreeable and inconsistent with Gods Goodness and Justice to inflict so long and so great a Misery upon any of his Creatures and have therefore endeavoured to limit this Eternity to a shorter compass of time and not to extend it to an absolute but a limited Eternity as sometimes it is understood in Scripture and therefore to reconcile all those places of Scripture to this notion of it and to interpret them so that Eternity in the fullest and utmost sense may not be understood by them I shall therefore briefly examine this Argument which on the one side seems very careful of the credit and honour of the Divine Justice and Goodness but on the other takes off extremely from the utmost terrour of Hellish Torments in denying them to be Eternal so that it may tend in great measure to take off the power and force of those which are the greatest restraints that God could lay upon Sin and Wickedness and since so few are prevailed upon by them though under the doctrine and perswasion of their being Eternal how much fewer would be so if they thought them otherwise I shall therefore First Briefly show how this Eternity of Hellish Torments is agreeable to Gods Goodness Secondly How it is plainly and undeniably proved from Scripture and Revelation First How ' tls agreeable to Gods Goodness to punish the few Sins of a short Life with such great and never ending Torments when in all Governments and all distributions of Justice the Punishment ought not to be so disproportioned and so much greater than the Crime And besides how a good and tender and pitiful God should keep a poor Creature in being for ever meerly to let it suffer and be miserable and endure infinite Torments To this I answer briefly 1. Whatever Punishment is necessary to secure the ends of Government to preserve Obedience to Laws and to keep bold and daring Men from breaking and violating them whatever is necessary to this end is just and necessary and agreeable both to the Goodness and Wisdom and Justice of the best Government for otherwise there must be no such thing as Government in the World but God must give up his Authority and throw the reins loose upon the necks of his Creatures if he have not a power to threaten and inflict such Punishments as shall be sufficient to
or Happiness nor be freed from Sin and Misery nor can a Holy and Wise God be reconciled to him or forgive him Upon all these accounts we see his Repentance is absolutely necessary to entitle him to Pardon and Salvation and without this he must certainly and unavoidably perish Now 8. This absolute necessity of it is a strong and powerful Argument to perswade us to it Whilst Men have any hopes of escaping with their Sins this with the pleasures and temptations of them will encourage them to persist in them and to enjoy their Lusts and their Liberties which they have made very hard and uneasie to deny themselves but when they find they must either do this or else necessarily perish for ever this if any thing will prevail upon Men who believe and consider the dreadful horrour of Everlasting Damnation Now the absolute necessity of Repentance is as plain by the Gospel as the power and validity of it We are as much assured that without it we shall be damned as we shall be saved with it Now this above all commends a Medicine to us that it will cure us if we use it but that we shall dye if we do not however bitter and unpalatable it may be however it may disorder us while it is working upon us and however painful the operation may be yet if we must lose our Lives without it this will make us choose and endure it and go through with it Though we must cut off a Right-hand yet if the Gangrene will kill us if we do not we shall submit to it Though it be very painful to part with our Lusts and our beloved Sins yet since we must be damned if we do not this will bring us to it If a Man must sink unless he throwes away his richest lading and discharges himself of his weighty treasure he will lose that rather than his Life and if he be not mad he will for the same reason cast away his Sins rather than his Soul No Man disputes this when he is brought into such a necessity such a strait and exigency as to be thus tryed Now Christ has by the Gospel put this necessity upon us either Repent and leave your Sins or perish with them There is no avoiding this no possibility to prevent it any way and therefore when there is but one thing to be done and such a necessity for doing it one would think it should do it self but this is a necessity of Reason of Choice of Thought of Deliberation that requires our Minds to think of it and consider it or else it will not work upon us and therefore we can throw off the force and power of it by not thinking or not considering of it but if we did as we ought duly consider of it it would have an irresistible force and power upon us and no Man could hinder the effect of it but he that will shut his eyes and not see a precipice may fall down it and the greatest necessity of avoiding any danger is took off by not heeding or not being sensible of it though it be never the less great in it self for all that and the necessity would work upon any but those who are heedless and inconsiderate Sad is the state and condition of those under the Gospel who live in a state of Sin and Impenitence or in the habit of any unrepented Sin they are under as absolute a sentence of condemnation as if the great Judge had pronounced it upon them and bid them Go ye cursed Whilst they continue such there is no more hopes of Mercy for them than for the damned themselves Their state indeed is not as unalterable as the others is and this is the only difference for they are otherwise as much Children of Wrath as they They are not bound in chains of darkness nor confined to this state by an irreversible Judgment but they are fettered to their Sins and to their state by their own choice and till they break those bonds and get free from them they can never come out of that sad condition which should make every impenitent Sinner tremble and seriously bethink himself what a sad state and condition he is in what a doom hangs over his head and how near his steps take hold of Death how he walks upon the brink of Hell and Damnation and the least fatal accident or sudden death does irrecoverably throw him in without Redemption which should make his Heart tremble and his Blood chill and his Hair stand an end if he considered it as he ought Let him therefore resolve to snatch himself out of the fire and speedily recover himself from the jaws of Death Repentance alone can do this and this he should set about immediately and be perswaded to it by those powerful Motives and Arguments which the Gospel and Christianity proposes and which I have from thence offered to him I shall subjoyn to these another Motive or Exhortation to Repentance which I cannot call so properly Evangelical and peculiar to the Gospel but what arises from both Nature and Reason and some Gospel Considerations mixt together and complicated with those and that is the Consideration of Death and our being made ready and prepared for it by Repentance and therefore that nothing else can free us from the fears and terrors of it SECT VI. Exhortation to Repentance as a Preparation for Death or in order to make us ready to dye THE last Motive then I shall propose to Repentance is this that nothing else can prepare and make us ready and fit to dye and therefore nothing else can take off the fear and terror of Death to which in all reason we must otherwise be exposed and so all our life time subject to bondage as the Scripture speaks Dye we know we must in a little while and there is none so foolishly Sceptical as to deny or disbelieve this and to hope to escape the Grave where he has seen all his Fore-fathers laid before him and which is the common lot or fate of every Mortal There is nothing therefore more concerns us while we live than to be alwayes ready and prepared to dye this should be our great work and business if we considered the true end of living or understood the mighty consequence of dying as Religion represents them both to us and he that is not so foolish as to think he shall never dye should above all things take care so to live that he may be alwayes ready to dye and of the two 't is a greater folly to think we shall dye and not prepare for it than to think we shall not dye at all This it is then which a wise Man is concerned to do all his Life to be ready and prepared for Death which he knows will certainly come and because it is uncertain when it will come therefore to be alwayes ready and alwayes provided for it There is so much danger and hazard not to do this
and the folly of it is so visible and so amazing that no Man of common Prudence no Man in his wits one would think should neglect to do it 'T is so important so weighty so absolutely necessary a Duty that our Saviour most earnestly presses it in several Discourses and proposes it in two or three Parables that it may make a more strong and lively impression upon our Minds In the Parable of the wise and foolish Virgins Mat. 25. at the beginning where the coming of the Son of Man is compared to the unexpected coming of the Bridegroom at midnight ver 6. in others to a Masters surprizing his Servants unaware at the second or third watch Luke 12.38 Matth. 24. at the latter end and in both the Evangelists to a Thief stealing upon a Man at an unknown and uncertain hour of the night The design of all which is to press this great Duty upon us of being alwayes watchful and alwayes doing our Duty and alwayes prepared for our Lords coming This is the Inference which Christ draws from all those Parables and Discourses Be ye therefore ready for the Son of man cometh at an hour when ye think not Luke 12.40 Christ often calls himself the Son of Man and as such he is to be our Judge and as a Judge he is said to come when ever he passes Judgment upon us and therefore St. James represents the nearness of his Judgment by that phrase Behold the judge standeth before the door Jam. 5.9 and his executing Judgment and Destruction upon Jerusalem was called his coming Matth. 24.3 And as his final publick Judgment of all the World at the last day is called his coming 1 Cor. 15.23 and several times in that Chapter of St. Matthew so his private Judging of us at our Death is his coming also meant by these several Parables and for that coming of his we ought to be always ready i. e. always prepared for dying Here I shall show I. That this Readiness or Preparation consists only in Repentance and a holy Life as the fruit and perfection of it II. The great obligations we have to be alwayes thus ready and prepared for Death I. This Readiness or Preparation for Death consists only in Repentance and a good Life as the fruit of it For nothing else can fit us to dye but to Repent and live well neither can there be any other readiness and preparation for Death but only that For we must not imagine that we can be ready on a sudden and that though we were utterly unprepared before that at a few days or hours warning we can make our selves ready and fit to dye No our whole Life at least a considerable part of it is to be spent in making our selves ready for we must not think that our Souls can like our Bodies be drest in a few moments or that we can be fit to meet the Bridegroom when he calls us in hast and on a sudden Vertuous habits are not put on in a moment nor can vitious ones be so easily and quickly cast off as our cloaths are no rather like Diseases that are chronical and have by long time been growing upon us they require long time and great care and much pains and many remedies and a timely course before they can be cured and got off and before we can be well and so ready to meet the Lord. 'T is not a few penitential tears upon a Death-bed will wash away the filth of a wicked Life or cleanse a guilty and polluted Soul that has been many years contracting an habitual uncleanness whose Sins stick to it like an old Leprosie and have eat like rust or a canker into the very heart and substance of it and yet they must be all got out by Repentance and the Soul must be made sound and clear and recover it self into a vertuous and good habit before it can be ready for another World and duly prepared for a Future State Indeed there is a great difference to be made according to the past course of Mens lives there may be a great many such happy Souls who by a very careful Education and the good Example of their Parents and others and by a Vertuous disposition and inclination in themselves and above all by the Grace and Providence of God have been alwayes kept from great and mortal Sins and so never fell into a bad and damnable state all their lives but were alwayes vertuous and innocent as to any such offences as should forfeit and endanger their Salvation by the terms of the Gospel and the Covenant of Grace without that we were all in a damnable state and the Scripture hath concluded all under sin without that Gal. 3.22 For we have all sinned and come short of the glory of God and of that strict and exact Obedience which we owe to the Law of God so that if he should enter into Judgment with us and be severe and rigorous in demanding his utmost right over us we could not contend with him nor answer him one of a thousand as Job sayes Job 9.3 and no Man can upon these terms be just with God as he there sayes for so in his sight shall no man living be justified Psal 143.2 but by the Grace and Mercy of the Gospel according to which God will now deal with Mankind many I doubt not have been so justified that through their whole lives they never were in a state of Damnation for nothing puts us into that under Christianity but a great and known and wilful Sin or rather a course and habit of such Sins and though no Man liveth without Sin that is without some Frailties and Imperfections and lesser Sins which come not up to the perfection of the Divine Law for which he ought to beg pardon and say God forgive us our trespasses yet God forbid that those should put us into an ill state for then no Man in the World would be ever out of it But oh thrice happy are those Souls who have not defiled themselves with any great and damnable Sins who have alwayes kept to their first Love and preserved their first Vertue unstained and unspotted and have been so trained up in the wayes of Religion and Goodness that they never wandered or went astray from them nor never stept into the paths of wilful Sin so that their steps should at any time take hold of Death who never past out of that line which divides the two states of Grace and Damnation nor ever approached so near to the brink of Hell as to be in danger of falling into it These have reason to give thanks to God all their lives who has thus kept them out of the snare of the Devil and secured them from the jawes of Death and Destruction and whilst they persevere and go on in this good state and condition and pass from strength to strength and from one degree of grace to another and grow up in all manner of
cometh Who that is unprepared knows what time he shall have to prepare himself Who can tell whether the next moment shall be his own and how little time he may have for so great a work And who would loyter any part of his time who knows how much that work will take up for 't is not a few spare hours or dying minutes will put the Soul into a readiness will change its temper and purge out its Sins and dispose and fit it for another World And who can set back Death but a few hours when it gives a short warning and is ready to strike us or perhaps without any warning seizes and hurries us to the other World It is every day making up to us and approaches nearer us every hour and with quick and undiscerned steps it dogs and follows us and may overtake us before we are aware of it A sudden Feaver may set the strongest Body on fire and presently flare out the Lamp of Life A Convulsion may seize in a moment the main fort of Life and surprize us in our greatest strength An Apoplexy or a Deliquium may stop the nimble wheels of Life that moved vigorously and strongly just before and make all the Vital Faculties stand still immediately Besides a thousand accidents from without make us in the midst of Life to be in Death so that we can never be secure but we may be a dying and every time we expire it may be so far as we know our last breath Who would not be then ready who may thus be called on a sudden who may have the Son of Man come in an hour when he thinketh not Come he certainly will but we cannot tell whether in the third or fourth watch of the night let us then watch the whole night that is be ready alwayes If we knew the time of his coming we might be careless and sleep and drowze perhaps till he was near us but since we are alwayes to expect him at an uncertain hour let us put our selves into a posture and readiness to receive him at his own time We can never be ready too soon though he come late but if we are too late before we are ready we lose an opportunity we can never regain and we slip that time which we shall bewail to all Eternity Let us think 2. Upon the certainty of his coming If there were any hopes that he would never come if there were any probability that we should never dye if any Man could be so foolish as to perswade himself to doubt of that he might have some reason to neglect the other but no Man can be Sceptical as to that point nor be so vain as to dispute himself out of the belief of it but he knows and is convinced of that fatal Truth that he must once dye and be laid in the same place of darkness where he has seen so many others laid before him why should he not then prepare and provide for that which will dertainly happen it can never be in vain or to no purpose to do this it can be no lost labour no unnecessary work but all must confess it ought to be done one time or other Why do we not then do that which we own to be necessary Why that it is indeed sayes the foolish Sinner but it may be done hereafter and at a more convenient season Would you not think a Man mad that should talk thus when he was in danger of drowning and would not take hold of the rope was thrown out to him till his last and third rising but let go what he had in his hand in hope to catch it again afterwards or he that was like to fall down a precipice and would not save himself when he might but trust to a twig that was near the bottom He deserves to perish that will not be willing to be saved till he is just perishing And he that allowes himself to live in a sinful state at present with hopes to get out of it hereafter is but like him that stabs himself with a design of being cured or swallows down a deadly Poyson upon presumption of taking an Antidote after he has done it the one is certainly strong enough to kill him and the other may not be strong enough to save him or he may be dead before he can take it Mens resolutions to Repent hereafter are alwayes insincere for if they were not they would Repent at present And besides what a sad state are they in till they do this they are like Prisoners lying under a sentence of Death and Condemnation who hope to procure a Pardon but will not endeavour to do it till they are called to Execution and it be too late Their unrepented Sins do put them into as damnable a state as if Heaven had past sentence upon them and though they know this yet they are willing to continue so till their state is desperate and they are never like to be otherwise For he has no reason to think he shall be ever ready who is not willing to make himself ready at present Let us not therefore delay one minute this great work of Repentance but let us set about it immediately and resolve to go through with it and to live in such a constant habit and practice of Repentance and a good Life as shall make us duly ready and prepared to dye For 3. Let 's consider how terrible Death must be to a wicked impenitent Sinner and what concern he will be in at the approach of it when he must leave all the pleasures of his Sins and the remembrance of them fills him only with terrour and astonishment when all their false charms and meretricious looks whereby they before pleased and enchanted him go off and they now look gastly and frightful and stare him in the face with a scaring appearance and with the sad apprehensions of what they are like to end in when a dreadful Eternity presents it self before him and is like to swallow him up in an horrid abyss of Misery when he comes so nigh to the other World that he can look as it were over to it and see the sad reception he is like to have there when he sees Hell open before him the bottomless Pit gaping to receive him and some of the Flames of it flashing as it were out upon him when Death like an Executioner comes to seize and apprehend him and hurry him before the dreadful Tribunal where all his past Actions must be examined all his secret Sins laid open and a dreadful Sentence shall be immediately pronounced upon him The thoughts of this is enough to make a good Man afraid and the best of us must tremble when we come before this Judgment-seat and are to have our everlasting Fates decreed and determined but the Wicked must be filled with terrour and amazement who can have no hopes no refuge to fly to who has no plea for any Mercy or Pardon
he goes to a Glorious and Blessed Immortality and this will take away if not all Fear of Death yet such a troublesome and tormenting one as fills us with perplexity and confusion whenever we think of it and makes us all our life time subject to bondage as Scripture speaks And this will help to resolve that Question I proposed in the second place namely 2. Whether a true Penitent or good Christian ought to have no Fear of Death I Answer He ought to have no such Fear as makes him all his life time subject to bondage such a base slavish immoderate Fear as makes him not enjoy himself but sinks down his Spirit and depresses his Mind to that degree that he is alwayes uneasie and perplexed and disturbed at the thoughts of it Such as has been storied of some that they would not have the word Death named in their hearing for the very naming and thinking of it made such an impression upon them and struck them with such a panick Fear that like the Hand-writing upon the Wall to Belshazzar Dan. 5.6 in the midst of their jollity it would make their countenance change and their thoughts trouble them so that the joynts of their loins were loosed and their knees smote one against another But above all such a Fear of Death as makes a Man think it a greater Evil than Sin and so to avoid that will deny his Saviour and renounce his Religion or do any thing whatever is necessary to escape a present Fear of Death This makes him a slave to every one that has power to kill him and to save his Life he will deliver up his Conscience his Soul his Saviour his Religion and all those things which ought to be a thousand times more dear to us and which we should be much more unwilling to part with than our lives These are unreasonable and unlawful Fears of Death but there is still a Natural Fear of Death which may belong to a penitent good Christian and which it is not necessary he should wholly overcome as it is a Natural Evil as it is a Punishment of Sin as it is a going to our last great and terrible Tryal before the Bar of Heaven a Tryal upon which our Souls and their Eternal Fate of Happiness or Damnation does depend This may cause some Fear in a true Penitent or a very good Christian and I do not know that God has any where forbid it or that he has promised such a full assurance to every true Penitent and good Man as wholly to take away all kind of Fear of Death or that this is any want of saving Faith in him In some extraordinary cases God may give it as in cases of Suffering and Persecution when an extraordinary assistance of Gods Spirit and an extraordinary assurance of their Salvation took away all Fears of Death and made them go to the Flames and to the Gibbet rejoycing and triumphing but that this is ordinary and constant I see no Reason nor no Scripture to believe The Fear of Death is a Natural and Invincible Infirmity to many a true Penitent and good and humble and timorous Christian who though his Conscience accuse him not of any great and ill things yet may magnifie every little fault and imperfection and not forgive it himself tho' God does nor be at peace in his own Mind though he be with God 'T is a great perfection to conquer the Fears of Death if it be done upon good grounds for some have no Fear of Death out of a sensless stupidness because they have no sense of what follows after Death And we find the greatest part of Men who have most reason to be afraid of it to be the least so out of meer Natural courage and hardiness and for want of thinking or believing or considering the things of Religion and another World others from false Principles and Mistakes by thinking a Pardon or Absolution sets them right in the Court of Heaven and that they may boldly appear there with some such security or those that have low thoughts of Religion and think a little Sorrow for their Sins and a few Sighs and some Prayers when they come to dye will carry them to Heaven as well as if they had lived never so Holily and Righteously and Godly Now if Mens Confidence and Fearlesness arises from such Mistakes as these 't is like the hope of the Hypocrite that shall perish Job 8.13 and such presumptuous persons only rush into Hell with their eyes shut and see not their danger before they are in it On the contrary a modest and humble penitent Christian may be afraid where no Fear is may judge too hardly of himself and may be though quite out of danger yet not out of all Fear for after all God will not judge us by our own Fears or Hopes or Opinion of our selves which may be all groundless and mistaken but he will judge Righteous Judgment and correct the Errors by which we may pass Judgment of our selves and the Terms of the Gospel and not our own Thoughts shall be the Rule by which we shall be judged at the last day But to take off the Fear of Death as much as we can and to free our selves from a slavish and immoderate degree of it the best Directions that can be are these two 1. What hath been already given duly to prepare and fit our selves for it by a timely and thorough Repentance 2. To joyn the liveliest Act of Faith with this our Habitual Repentance and exert that at the time when Death is near us 1. To perfect our Repentance and so to live in the habit of that and of all goodness that we may be the best prepared to dye that we can be Dye we know we must Death if it be not now near us and yet we do not know but it may be dogging us at the heels yet will certainly in a little time come up to us and fright and startle us when it does if we do not take great care to be ready and prepared for it Since we must therefore necessarily encounter this great Monster this terrible Enemy which there is no escaping but we must certainly grapple with him let us all our lives prepare for the battle let us arm our selves with the whole armour of God and Religion with a careful and pious and good life with a timely and thorough Repentance of all our evil ways with a sincere and upright and good Conscience and with avoiding every thing that we know is sinful and unlawful and which will make Death terrible to us whenever it comes Let us not be such desperate Bravoes in Sin as to venture upon that with a false Courage which will make us the worst of Cowards when we come to dye but let us be so wisely afraid of Death now as to live with that care and exactness that we may not be afraid of it when we come to it It were well
if some Men were more afraid of Death than they are and as I am sure they have all reason to be that so they might be brought off from their evil wayes and not run headlong upon those dangers which are very near them though they are not sensible of them The sword hangs over their head though they do not see it and nothing but the thin thread of Life keeps it from falling upon them they walk blindfold upon the brinks of Hell and Damnation and it would be well of Fear would open their Eyes and make them recover themselves before Death makes it too late Nothing can truly and throughly arm us against the Fears of Death but Repentance and a good Life To those who have lived in the practice of them Death is a very harmless thing 't is but lying down to sleep closing the eyes and going to rest the Bodies being sensless a while till it awakes at the great day of Judgment and passing a longer night in the Grave till it arises more fresh and lively in the morning of the Resurrection and as for the Soul 't is a short and quick passage from Earth to Heaven and therefore such have no reason to be afraid of it when it approaches them never so near But then 2. Let the true Penitent quicken his Faith at that time and raise that to the highest and strongest pitch that so he may then look beyond the grave and see and believe and desire those happy and glorious things which God has prepared for him in another World If we believed those as we ought we should never be so afraid to dye if we were so affected with those pleasures that are above and that are at Gods Right-hand for evermore we should not be so loth to part with the Pleasures shall I say rather with the Troubles and the Miseries of this Life Did we think as we ought of that perfect peace and joy and satisfaction which is not to be had here but to be met with only in Heaven we should not be so fond to abide in this Valley of Tears and not go up to those Mansions above where is full Joy and Contentment Let us fix our thoughts and set our hearts upon those happy Regions of Bliss and Glory and we shall not fear to pass through the shadow of Death to come to them tho' the way to that Heavenly Canaan is through a Wilderness through the dark and unknown Region of Death through which a thousand wandering Souls are alwayes passing yet we shall be conducted safely through it by Angels who will bring us to the Palace of the great King where we shall be received by our blessed Master and Saviour and by all the Saints and holy Souls that are gone before us who as they rejoyce at a Sinners Repentance will now welcome him to his Fathers house and we shall then as much wonder at our selves for fearing to dye as we are now willing to live If the account which Scripture gives us of those invisible Regions be true and we do fully believe that Joy that Glory that Blessedness that unspeakable Happiness which is there revealed to us this our Faith joyn'd with our Repentance should overcome the Fears of Death and make us not only not afraid but desire to be dissolved and to be willing to lay down this load and luggage of Flesh because we know that if our earthly house oâ— this tabernacle were dissolved we have a building of God an house not made with hands eternal in the heavens And there shall be no more Sin nor Sorrow nor Repentance but the blessed Penitent now he is safely arrived at his happy Port shall look back upon the past hazards and dangers he was in and comfortably remember how his Sins like so many Rocks had like to have split and shipwreck'd and swallowed him up in the gulph of Perdition and how by the wonderful Grace of God he hath happily escaped them and is come safe to Heaven and therefore will now offer Eternal Thanksgivings and pay his Vows of Praise to his great Deliverer and rejoyce evermore in his Glorious and Heavenly Salvation CHAP. III. Whether all Sins are Pardonable and may have the benefit of Repentance I Am next to consider Whether all Sins are Pardonable and may have this benefit of Repentance This has been denyed by a great many and particularly by the Novatians who would not allow Pardon and Absolution to wilful and great Sins committed after Baptism and this is charged upon Smalcius and other Socinians that they deny the same to heinous and habitual Sins of Relapse into which any shall fall after they have once Repented and been freed from them And there are some places of Scripture that seem very much to favour these hard Opinions as Heb. 6.4 5 6. For it is impossible for those who were once inlightened and have tasted of the heavenly gift and were made partakers of the Holy Ghost and have tasted the good word of God and the powers of the world to come if they shall fall away to renew them again unto Repentance And Heb. 10.26 For if we sin wilfully after that we have received the knowledge of the truth there remaineth no more sacrifice for sins And 2 Pet. 2.20 21 22. For if after they have escaped the pollutions of the world through the knowledge of the Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ they are again intangled therein and overcome the latter end is worse with them than the beginning For it had been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness then after they have known it to turn from the holy commandment delivered unto them But it is happened unto them according to the true proverb The dog is returned to his own vomit and the sow that was washed to her wallowing in the mire And in other places the Scripture speaks of a Sin unto Death 1 John 5.16 as of a more malignant and deadly Nature and different from all other Sins which are Mortal and Sins also unto Death without Repentance And our Saviour sayes expresly of the Sin against the Holy Ghost that it is unpardonable and shall not be forgiven neither in this world nor the world to come Luke 12.20 Matth. 12.32 i. e. as St. Mark expresses it It hath never forgiveness but is in danger of eternal damnation Mark 3.29 And what that is is not fully agreed on by Divines and so there may be fear if not danger of a Christians falling into it and so into an unpardonable state by the Holy Ghosts being so many wayes concerned in his Salvation and he having so many wayes to Sin against him This gives therefore great trouble to a great many Minds and if one particular Sin or any sorts of Sin be unpardonable by the Gospel they will be very fearful and can hardly be satisfied but that they have committed that Sin and so are cut off from all hopes by it and they will
taken a great deal of liberty and had the full swinge of his Lusts and vicious Inclinations when they afterward grow calm and cool of themselves and he is tired or satiated with them then to leave them after he has had a full and a long enjoyment of them To Repent time enough to avoid all the bitter effects and punishments of them after they have fully tasted and exhausted all their sweetness and pleasantness and then throw away the poysonous core when they have sufficiently eaten of the dainty and forbidden Fruit. Men to be sure will draw such consequences to themselves when Religion they think puts such an Argument into the hands of their Lusts which are apt to be too strong of themselves against all Religion and Reason whatsoever and when they have such a fair colour and pretence as they suppose from Religion it self they will be sure to improve it to destroy all Religion by this one part of it and by turning its own weapons upon it self So that like the Eagle in the Fable it shall receive its mortal wound from a dart that comes feathered from its own wing and by this subtle contrivance it shall be made to countermine it self Is Heaven then to be thus out-witted and over-reach'd in its own policy And whereas it designed this priviledge of Repentance to bring Men to Vertue shall the Devil find out a stratagem whereby to be too hard for it even upon its own ground and make it an instrument to encourage Men in their Sins Has God like a soft and easie and indiscreet Prince granted such a Charter and made such Concessions to his Subjects as shall destroy his own Power and Government and make their Obedience loose and precarious No sure neither his Wisdom nor his Power is to be thus lessened and diminished nor is the Grace of God the greatest favour of the Gospel to be thus turned into wantonness and a principle of loosness and licentiousness as these Men make it who thus presume upon Sinning at present upon the advantage of an after Repentance and resolve therefore to run on in the score and to take up great summes in hand and be much in debt to Heaven because they think the whole may be compounded pounded at the last and made up for a very little We may be sure in the general there must be some great errour and mistake in this matter and that 't is either a false Principle that these Men go upon or that they draw a very false Conclusion from it for God must be a very easie Being and Religion must have a very weak place in it if it lye open to such a consequence 2. We commonly tell Men in the second place therefore to prevent this that the after Repentance is very hazardous and uncertain for no Man knows that he shall have time to do it hereafter or that he shall not be surprized with a sudden and unexpected Death before he has performed this Repentance he designed and this indeed is very considerable and were there nothing else yet a wise Man would not venture his Soul and its Eternal State upon so great an uncertainty as Life and Futurity is for that we know is no more in our own power to command than it is to recall the time that is past and who that thinks and considers what Eternity means would hazard it upon so ticklish a cast and so perfect a lottery as the continuance of Life is Do not we see most of the World snatch'd away on a sudden Death hardly giving them any warning but coming upon them with secret and undiscerned steps and stealing up to them and striking the fatal blow before they were aware of it and what shall this poor wretch do whose Life is done before his Repentance is begun He who intended so many years hence to begin his Repentance shall begin it sooner in another World but shall never end it but Repent in vain to all Eternity in weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth for his folly and madness in not Repenting sooner But though this be a monstrous hazard and no Man in his Wits would lye open to such a danger which can never be repaired but may be easily prevented yet this uncertainty of Life seems not a sufficient security to Religion because 't is a security only by accident and it is in great measure lost if a Man do live out the usual period which many do and which most hope to do and there ought to be greater Reasons to oblige them to a present Repentance and a constant Obedience than the meer fears that they may dye sooner and it would be strange if Religion should depend upon such an uncertainty and a Man should find a way to free himself from the necessity of it the greatest part of his Life if he were sure to live long 3. Therefore we strengthen this commonly with another Consideration and that is That though a Man may have Time to Repent hereafter yet God may not give him Grace to do it especially if he so provoke him by such a neglect and abuse of this Grace as quite defeats the end and design of it and nothing can be more highly provoking and a more just ground for God to deny us his Spirit than thus to abuse and pervert this Grace of the Gospel as to make it an encouragement not to Repent but to Sin because they may Repent Besides the longer the Custom and Habits of Sin continue upon us the more root they take and the more difficult are they to be pluck'd up and the Mind is in time so much hardened by them that like a chronical Disease or an old Ulcer by being suffered to run long upon it they grow almost incurable And he must be in a fad condition who lets the power of his Sins thus grow upon him and yet who finds them so difficult at present to be overcome and who has that power dayly lessened if not lost whereby he should do it But still though Gods Spirit shall not alwayes strive with man Gen. 5.3 yet we cannot positively determine to what degrees of wickedness a Man must arrive before God will wholly withdraw his Spirit from him nor can we say that God denyes necessary Grace to any whereby they may Repent so long as they are in this state of Tryal and Probation or that there are any such though the greatest of Sinners who are debarred or excluded from the power and priviledge of Repentance for this would tend to discourage a great many from Repentance and do as much harm by shutting those out of all hopes as by opening the gate too wide to others or letting it alwayes stand open to any that will come in at any time There must be therefore some other Considerations to take off the force of this mistake and to preserve the absolute necessity of a good Life and a constant Obedience which I shall endeavour to find out and
which we can never enjoy the true Happiness we were made for and to which our Minds are fitted Vertue alone can give that and all the Pleasure Peace and Joy that result from it whereas Wickedness will necessarily not only corrupt and impair the Mind and spoil its Faculties but disorder and wound and corrode it and make it very painful and uneasie and a Hell and Torment to it self 2. As none but good Men shall enter into Heaven so none can be made good on a sudden Those Vertuous and Holy Habits and Dispositions of Mind are not to be had or attained immediately in a little time and on a sudden hurry as is intimated here by the Virgins wanting Oyl and not being able to procure or buy it in their present distress when the Bridegroom was a coming We must be prepared and provided with those things that are necessary for our Future Happiness before Death comes and puts us on a sudden hurry and alarums us with its unexpected approach or else we shall be sadly disappointed and unprovided if we expect to procure or attain them then If we think to borrow of anothers Vertues and Merits to help out our own defects and wants at that time as they of the Church of Rome imagine something like these foolish Virgins or as others that the Bridegroom himself shall supply them in an extraordinary manner out of his stock though they have no Oyl at all in their own Vessels no Righteousness of their own All these vain hopes and expectations of idle and careless and foolish Sinners will then deceive and disappoint them and make them miserable If Men have not attained to the Vertues and Graces of Religion nor any degrees of Holiness and Goodness all their Lives and think to acquire them now on a sudden when they are near dying they may as well hope that a Tree that has bore no Fruit all the Year should on a sudden when it is just to be cut down and the Axe is laid to the root of it sprout and bud and blossom and bring forth Fruit. This would be a strange Miracle and it must be as great and unaccountable to have a wicked Man on a sudden become a good one and bring forth the Fruits of Vertue and Repentance All our Vertues are owing to the Grace of God as the growth of all Plants and Trees is to the Rain and warmth and influence of the Heavens but to think that Gods Grace which could not work upon a Man all his Life before will now in such an extraordinary manner change and convert him on a sudden as to make him immediately become a good Man is to suppose a Saint made as Adam was in full growth and perfect flature the first day he lived without passing through the degrees of Youth and Childhood as God thinks not fit to make Mankind so now but produces them by the ordinary and appointed way of his Providence so he makes good Men by the ordinary methods of his Grace and influences of Religion and the New Creature is formed by degrees and growes into a perfect Man and increases in Wisdom and Goodness till it comes to the measure of the stature of the fulness in Christ Jesus The Spirit worketh upon our Mind agreably to their Nature in a manner indiscernable from its own proper operation enlighteneth the Understanding and inclineth the will gently and kindly by the thoughts and considerations of Religion offering them clearly and imprinting them strongly upon the Soul and so in a rational way begetting right apprehensions and affections in it and so altering the temper and disposition of the Mind and by frequent acts and repeated practices bringing a Man to new habits and thus converting him from bad to good not in an instant but by long strivings and gradual operations upon him No very bad Man was ever made a good one on a sudden nor can any more be so by the Grace of the Gospel than a Child over night become a Man the next morning by the course of Nature and Providence or Seed sown in the ground spring up and ripen and bear Fruit in a few hours Such Mushroon Converts and Penitents have no good root but dye away and wither as suddenly and instantaneously as they came up with the first heat and tryal of a Temptation till Religion shoots deeper into their Hearts and gets better rooting in their Souls like the Seed that fell on stony ground it is quickly gone and does not grow at all nor bring forth fruit with patience as the Scripture emphatically speaks i. e. with due continuance Good Purposes and Resolutions and such like good Principles of Action must continue some time upon the Mind and exert their power and efficacy upon it by proper acts and tryals and experiments or else they are but like false conceptions that produce nothing like Clouds without Rain Blossoms without Fruit and abortive causes without any effects A sudden Sorrow upon a wicked Mind will no more make it good nor bring forth the worthy fruits of Repentance than a sudden shower upon the Sands of Arabia or Rocks of Caucasus will make them become fertile and good ground there must be long cultivation and great labour and pains taken with such barren ground before it will be a fruitful Soil and bring forth any thing by all the showers and influences of Heaven upon it A hardened Sinner who hath lived many years in the wretched courses and habits of Wickedness must by long time and great care and many methods of Gods Grace and Goodness have his Heart changed and his Life mended and his old Vicious Habits plucked up and new Vertuous ones planted in their place and these take root and grow up and bear Fruit in his Life before he can become such a good Man as is fitted for Heaven Such an one can never be made so in a little time just before Death but it must require at least a good part of his Life to become such and it should be indeed the business of our whole Lives to make our selves such as shall be thus fit for Heaven To think that great work can be done at the latter end when we are just a dying and may be dispatched in a very little time all on a sudden is as idle and unreasonable as for a Man that has a good dayes journey to take to lye loytering and never mind it till the Sun is near down and night is coming upon him and then to set out and think to reach it by a sudden start or by some unaccountable wayes to fly thither or be Magically transported and set down he knows not how at his journeys end Or rather to make the Case more exactly parallel to an old Sinner like one who hath travelled almost all the day in a wrong way and spurred and driven on very furiously in his vicious courses and is now to turn back and begin to take the right way when
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
necessarily be miserable with them in another World It can sometimes avoid those inward pains and torments here because it has the gratifications of its Sins and other enjoyments and entertainments to bear it up and yet they will often get in and disturb it even amidst all its pleasures and jollities but in its separate Estate hereafter it will be wholly without those and so for ever subject to the inward misery and uneasiness which Sin ever causes in its own thoughts 5 Allowing Salvation to a meer dying Repentance as it seems contrary to all plain Notions and certain Principles in Religion namely that none but Vertuous and good Men can go to Heaven and that Obedience and a good Life is the only way thither and that Vice while it continues upon the Mind will necessarily make it miserable and the like which I have largely insisted upon So Lastly The consequences of it seem plainly to destroy all Religion For 1. It sets by all those general commands which are often given to Christians of Walking worthy of their vocation adorning their profession and letting their conversation be as it becometh the gospel Letting their light so shine before men that others may see their good works and so glorifie their Father which is in Heaven Doing all to the Glory of God and promoting that and Religion as much and as far as they can in the World Learning of Christ and following his Example and showing they are his Disciples by bearing much fruit Doing all the good they can to others and being useful in their places improving their Talents and not being unprofitable Servants Redeeming the time and taking all opportunities of serving the great ends of Religion Growing in Grace and being perfect as their Father which is in Heaven is perfect These are general Commands given to Christians and such as they are all obliged to though not in the highest degrees yet in such measures as God who knows our frame and our circumstances intended we should come up to They are not only Counsels of Perfection and Romantick unpracticable Directions of some Acts of Supererogation but they are strict Rules of necessary Duty and Christian practice which every good Christian is bound to live up to and if they wholly fail in doing so and do no way make them good in their Lives but act contrary to them they are not good Christians at present nor shall be rewarded as such hereafter but shall be condemned and punished eternally for being otherwise Now a notorious wretched Sinner who hath been so far from having any regard to these Christian obligations that he hath lived all his Life in direct opposition against them and now only Repents when he is a dying he must be wholly excused from all these they must be all set aside and signifie nothing in his case if he can go to Heaven not only without observing them in any sort or any tolerable manner but living wholly opposite and reverse to them for He instead of adorning his Profession and letting his Conversation be such as becometh the Gospel hath been the greatest shame and reproach to it and been unworthy the name of it and shall he now then share in the noblest rewards of it Instead of letting his Light shine before Men he hath been an example of the greatest Wickedness and dishonoured God in the highest manner all his days and shall he now be rewarded and honoured by him Instead of learning of Christ and living up to the example he set us he hath learn'd of the Devil and liv'd like a Bruit and practiced all sort of Diabolical and Bestial Wickedness and shall he now reign with Christ and be taken up into Paradise with him Instead of doing any good he hath done all the mischief imaginable in corrupting and debauching others and tempting them to all manner of lewdness and instead of promoting Religion he hath served the cause of Atheism and Irreligion and done all he can to make others disbelieve the truth of all Religion if not by lewd Principles yet by lewd Practices that are the greatest contradiction to it and shall he now partake of its Glorious Promises which he hardly believed and would never seek after all his Life Instead of improving his Talents in his Masters Service he hath wholly wasted and consumed them in Luxury and Prodigality and spent all the Blessings God had intrusted him with to quite other purposes than he gave them Instead of growing in Grace he hath grown to the utmost perfection almost of Sin and Wickedness and is become a Sinner of the highest rate and hath dayly improved in it Instead of redeeming the time he hath squandered it all away in folly and madness and took all opportunities to gratifie his Lusts and spent his whole Life in the persuit of sinful pleasures and now indeed he would redeem the time in a wonderful manner and do all the business of Life very compendiously and very concisely in a few days or hours before he is to dye And when he hath followed none of these Christian Rules and Directions but acted altogether against them yet he would have God set them all by and make them all have no meaning or be to no purpose but only a little dying Sorrow and Repentance to serve instead of all of them 2. As those general Commands must be set aside by this priviledge of a dying Repentance so must also those particular Commands which oblige us to the practice of several Vertues such as Piety and Devotion Sobriety and Temperance Purity and Chastity Self-denyal Heavenlymindedness overcoming the World governing our Passions and Appetites mortifying the Flesh with the Affections and Lusts and the like For 't is too late sure to begin to practice those when a Man is just upon dying if he has neglected it all his Life Shall he begin then to mortifie the Flesh which he hath gratified alwayes before with the most unlawful Lusts and forbidden Pleasures but now Sickness mortifies it indeed and Death will do so something more and he would have this Vertue as much in his Coffin or his Grave when he lyes cold there as he can pretend to it now his Lusts do then dye with his Body as a Candle goes out when all the nourishment is spent that should maintain it Is he now to govern his Passions and Appetites when both the causes and the objects of them are removed Is he to provide against the heat of the Sun when it is just Night or Winter with him and make a bank to stop the current when the water is all dryed up Is he to overcome the World when he is leaving it with an odd sort of Parthian victory Is he then to be Heavenly minded when he never minded Heaven before but now 't is the next thing when he can mind the Earth no longer Is he then to practice Self-denyal when he never denyed himself any Worldly Interest or Sensual Pleasure before on the score
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
future Misery and his Punishment shall be much lessened by it This is a very great thing if we duely consider it and worth all his most earnest Prayers and deepest Sorrow and Compunction and all he can do to save him from those highest and extremest degrees of Misery Hell indeed is a general word for future Misery in Scripture as Heaven is for Happyness but they consist not in one and the same indivisible thing but are Two States of very various and different and unequal degrees according to the Deserts and Capacities of those who are in them As there are several degrees of Good and Bad Men here upon Earth so there will be of happy and miserable Souls in Heaven and Hell some are very imperfectly but yet sincerely good and are far from such Obedience and perfection as Human Nature might come up to and those being without any wilful and deliberate and great Sin shall be in the lowest place in Heaven and lower than this the Scripture allows none to go thither they who live in any such one known and habitual sin and wickedness are such Sinners as are expresly excluded from thence They have another place and state allotted to them in the other World for there being no third or middle state revealed by Scripture but only those two of Heaven and Hell they must necessarily go to the latter and there according to the Nature or Quality or Degrees of their Sin be punisht with many or fewer stripes and be in a state of greater or lesser Misery according as their Lives and their Deserts have been The Valley of Hinnom from whence comes Gehenna which we translate Hell was a deep Valley near Hierusalem where the Canaanites burnt their Children alive to Moloch and used all direful noises to hinder their cries and lamentations from being heard and afterwards the Jews say that Josias turned it into the place of publick Executions and that all Carkasses and Dung and filthy things were thrown there to prevent the noysomness of which there was a perpetual fire always burning in that place that was never put out at any time The Scripture has made this the chiefest image and representation of Hell and from thence describes the Misery of it by fire and burnings which give one of the most general and sensible ideas of Pain and torment Both the Spiritual Happyness of Heaven and Misery of Hell must be thus represented to the gross Thoughts of Mankind by the most delightful and most painful things known to their Senses that they are best acquainted with in this World and which will make the strongest impression upon them though they may be in themselves of another Nature fitted chiefly to the Souls and Spirits and Rational faculties of Men in their separate state and the happyness or misery of those is chiefly designed by them God we know is a Consuming fire to the wicked but he will very differently punish them though fire seems to carry one equal idea of pain and torment yet as our Saviour says that it shall be more tolerable for Sodom and Gomorrah in the day of Judgment and they are set forth for an example in Scripture suffering the vengeance of eternal fire Jude 7. then for that City who rejected the Gospel Matth. 10.15 so it shall be more tolerable for such wicked Men who have been so in a lesser degree in their Lives and at their Deaths have been as penitent as they could be then for Sinners of an higher order and a more daring and impenitent sort Heaven and Hell being taken for Places rather than States seem to our Imaginations to imply and signifie one equal and indivisible perfect and complete and same idea of Happyness or Misery that shall belong to all alike who are sentenced to either of those but there are very great Differences and Degrees in them a thousand times more than there is in the different States of Happiness or Misery among Men in this World where in the same place and upon the same Globe we see some in very happy circumstances and mighty enjoyments others in great Pain and Misery and a most pitiable Condition this here is only a Tryal of them and not according to their deserts but it shall be so exactly in another Wold the great day of Recompence and Retribution Then they who have done most Evil and committed most sins and not repented of them in time but gon on to provoke and disobey God and despise and neglect Religion all their lives these shall suffer the sad and utmost Vengeance of God's Anger and of Eternal fire All other wicked Men of what sort soever whether they were Sinners above others or only lived in some sins without Repentance and Amendment these shall be for ever in a very bad state a state of Misery and loss of true happiness and their Misery shall be exactly proportioned to their sins and be in the same degrees and measures that those were which are all known to the infinitely wise and Just God who without respect of persons will then render to all according to their works and with an equal and impartial Justice distribute-those Rewards and Punishments to them They then who have served God best in their lives shall be best rewarded by him they who have suffered with Christ shall then reign with him they who endured any afflictions for his sake and the Gospels shall have the greater Glory which those are not to be compared to they shall receive a hundred fold for all they have done or suffered for Christ not only for suffering Persecution though Martyrdom has always had a brighter and a weightier Crown assigned to it but for denying any present Interest or worldly gain or unlawful pleasure and sensual Inclination for the sake of Vertue and Religion then those who have best improved their Talents to Gods Glory and the good of others and the Service of Religion shall have more gifts and rewards from their great Lord they who have turned many unto Righteousness shall shine as the stars in Glory in several Orbs and different degrees of Light and Lustre for as the Apostle says one star differeth from another in glory 1 Cor. 15.41 and So likewise shall it be at the Resurrection and in another World there shall be different degrees of happyness and glory for Good Men both in their Bodies and Souls according to their different degrees of Goodness Service and Obedience to God in this life There being but two places or rather two States in another World appointed for all rational beings that ever were created as seems plain by the Scripture Revelation where so far as it describes or gives us a Map of that Invisible and unknown World it divides it only into two Mighty Kingdoms or vast Regions an upper and a lower parted from one another by unknown bounds and inhabited by Good and Bad Spirits where the one are very happy and the other very miserable there being but
out the fierceness of his anger upon them and they drink of the cup of his fury and feel his wrath and indignation many a sinner has done this and cryed out in the Anguish of his Soul Thy wrath lyeth hard upon me Psal 88.7 Thy fierce wrath goeth over me thy terrors have cut me off ver 16. Fearfulness and trembling are come upon me and horror hath overwhelmed me Psal 55.5 Thine arrows stick fast in me and thy hand presseth me sore Psal 38.2 Who knoweth the power of thine anger even according to thy fear so is thy wrath Psal 90.11 For we are consumed by thine anger and by thy wrath are we troubled ver 7. God who is a Spirit as he can convey secret and unspeakable comfort into our Souls so he can impress intolerable and unspeakable horrors upon them and who is able to bear the weight of his Anger or endure the sense of his Wrath and Indignation In his Pleasure and Favour is Life and in his Anger is a double Death to the Soul The inward Sensation and Perception of Gods Love is the ohiefest joy and happyness to a Soul either in this World or the other and the Sense and Perception of his Anger is the greatest Misery God the fountain of all Happiness doth diffuse and communicate such a Peace Joy Comfort to good Souls such an inward Taste and Relish of Spiritual Pleasure and Delight as is unspeakable past understanding called joy in the holy Ghost and is no doubt the sweetest and most affecting pleasure a Soul is capable of this the Angels and blessed Spirits above enjoy and are transported with the most ravishing Sense and Rapturous Impressions of it and 't is what makes Heaven to them and a little foretaste of it when God lifts up the light of his countenance upon us when a pious Soul tasts and sees how good and gracious God is this puts more gladness in the heart than Corn and wine and oyl and all worldly enjoyments now on the contrary when God hides his face and withdraws his loving-kindness and imprints a strong sense of his Wrath and Anger upon the Mind this is the utmost and the deepest Misery this gives the bitterest sense of Evil fills it with the greatest horrors sinks it into the deepest gulph the bottomless Pit of Misery and is the very Punishment and Hell of the damned How happy is it then to be Reconciled to God by Repentance whom we had angred and provoked by our sins before we feel any of this and before his Wrath and Anger is poured out upon us it will certainly fall upon every Sinner some time or other unless he Repents for God though he defers his Anger for some time that his Goodness and long-suffering may lead us to Repentance yet his abused Love Patience and Mercy will turn to greater Wrath and Fury if we persist in our sins and in a course of impenitency As 't is a very terrible thing to have the great God our Enemy and he certainly is so whilst we are in a state of Sin so 't is the comfortablest thought in the World and what will alone make us happy to be Assured that he is our Friend and that we are in a State of Favour with him upon our Repentance THE CONCLVSION To Conclude As all general Christian Duties are meant by Repentance so all general Christian-Priviledges and Benefits belong to it and are the Rewards of it for as Repentance is the same thing in Scripture with Conversion Regeneration the New Birth the New Creature the New Man and the like those different words and figurative expressions denoting only the same duty importing the great Change and Alteration made upon the Mind and Life of a Sinner by the power of Grace and Religion So all the benefits and priviledges of Christianity such as Election Adoption Pardon Justification at present and Glorification afterwards which are free and gratuitous acts in God granting and bestowing those Favours upon us for Christs sake upon our being duely qualified and fitted to receive them These all belong to those who have truly Repented and become good Men and to none else For God hath only Chosen Adopted Pardoned Justified and will Glorifie such and no other and till we have Repented we have no good claim or title to any of those Our being in a good State towards God which is the thing meant by all those Phrases under some different considerations is on our side wholly owing to our true Repentance and Obedience and it is all lost and forfeited by our Impenitency and Disobedience which on the contrary make us the Children of Wrath the Children of the Devil and Heirs of Damnation put us into the worst Spiritual State of Reprobation Obduration and Excecation according to the degrees of our Sins and Impenitence and into that of Condemnation it self which is the word that directly answers to that of Justification All those Scriptural Phrases and Expressions of a good State belong to Repentance and to the true Christian Penitent and all those which signifie a bad one belong as truly to Wickedness and Impenitence for though without the Free-Grace and Mercy of God in and thorough Christ we could not be put into any such good State nor have a title to any such Priviledges meerly by vertue of our Repentance or any thing we could do yet to suppose that God will put us into those states without any regard to our own Actions or not upon the account of them is to destroy all Religion all Divine Government all Future Judgment and all Rewards and Punishments in another World I might clear and illustrate and enlarge upon these had not this Discourse already swelled upon my hands into too great a bulk and did they not run into something of Controversie which I would carefully avoid I shall therefore only give this last Advice to the Penitent who hath brought himself by the Grace of God into this Good and Happy State that when he is thus got out of the Paths of Death and of Sin into those of Life and Vertue that he would go on and proceed in the new and right way he is in and make a speedy and further progress in all Piety and Goodness that like St. Paul forgetting those things which are behind and reaching unto those which are before he may follow and apprehend them and so press forward towards the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus Phil. 3.13 14. that now he is become a Christian in good earnest he would more zealously promote that Religion which he opposed and was an enemy to before and show he is a true Convert by his zeal and earnestness against Vice and Irreligion that he would make all amends he can for his past miscarriages by doing the greatest good he is able by serving God and his Glory more heartily and thus loving much because much is forgiven him so that where sin abounded grace