But we must make these and all other the dutis of religion our imployments our care the work and end for which we came into the world and remember that we never do the work of men nor serve the ends of God nor are in the proper imployment and businesse of our life but when we worship God or live like wise or sober persons or do benefit to our brother I will not turne this discourse into a reproofe but leave it represented as a duty Remember that God sent you into the world for religion we are but to passe through our pleasant fields or our hard labours but to lodge a little while in our faire palaces or our meaner cottages but to bait in the way at our full tables or with our spare diet but then onely man does his proper imployment when he prayes and does charity and mortifies his unruly appetites and restrains his violent passions and becomes like to God and imitates his holy Son and writes after the coppies of Apostles and Saints Then he is dressing himself for eternity where he must dwell or abide either in an excellent beatifical country or in a prison of amazment and eternal horrour And after all this you may if you please call to minde how much time you allovv to God and to your souls every day or every moneth or in a year if you please for I fear the account of the time is soon made but the account for the neglect vvill be harder And it vvill not easily be ansvvered that all our dayes and years are little enough to attend perishing things and to be svvallowed up in avaritious and vain attendances and we shall not attend to religion with a zeal so great as is our revenge or as is the hunger of one meale Without much time and a wary life and a diligent circumspection we cannot mortify our sins or do the first works of grace I pray God we be not found to have grown like the sinnews of old age from strength to remisnesse from thence to dissolution and infirmity and death Menedemus was wont to say that the young boyes that went to Athens the first year were wise men the second year Philosophers the third Orators and the fourth were but Plebeians and understood nothing but their own ignorance And just so it happens to some in the progresses of religion at first they are violent and active and then they satiate all the appetites of religion and that which is left is that they were soon weary and sat down in displeasure and return to the world and dwell in the businesse of pride or mony and by this time they understand that their religion is declined and passed from the heats and follies of youth to the coldnesse and infirmities of old age The remedies of which is onely a diligent spirit and a busie religion a great industry a full portion of time in holy offices that as the Oracle said to the Cirrheans noctes diesque belligerandum they could not be happy unlesse they waged war night and day that is unlesse we perpetually fight against our own vices and repell our Ghostly enemies and stand upon our guard we must stand for ever in the state of babes in Christ or else return to the first imperfections of an unchristened soul and an unsanctified spirit That 's the first particular 2. The second step of our growth in grace is when vertues grow habitual apt and easie in our manners and dispositions For although many new converts have a great zeal and a busie spirit apt enough as they think to contest against all the difficulties of a spiritual life yet they meet with such powerful oppositions from without and a false heart within that their first heats are soon broken and either they are for ever discouraged or are forced to march more slowly and proceed more temperately for ever after 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 It is an easie thing to commit a wickednesse for temptation and infirmity are alwayes too neer us But God hath made care and sweat prudence and diligence experience and watchfulnesse wisdom and labour at home and good guides abroad to be instruments and means to purchase vertue The way is long and difficult at first but in the progresse and pursuit we finde all the knots made plain and the rough wayes made smooth jam monte potitus Ridet Now the spirit of grace is like a new soul within him and he hath new appetites and new pleasures when the things of the world grow unsavory and the things of religion are delicious when his temptations to his old crimes return but seldom and they prevail not at all or in very inconsiderable instances and stay not at all but are reproached with a penitentiall sorrow and speedy amendment when we do actions of vertue quickly frequently and with delight then we have grown in grace in the same degree in which they can perceive these excellent dispositions Some persons there are who dare not sin they dare not omit their hours of prayer and they are restlesse in their spirits till they have done but they go to it as to execution they stay from it as long as they can and they drive like Pharoahs charets with the wheels off sadly and heavily and besides that such persons have reserved to themselves the best part of their sacrifice and do not give their will to God they do not love him with all their heart they are also soonest tempted to retire and fall off Sextius Romanus resigned the honours and offices of the city and betook himself to the severity of a Philosophical life But when his unusual diet and hard labour began to pinch his flesh and he felt his propositions smart and that which was fine in discourse at a Symposiack or an Academical dinner began to sit uneasily upon him in the practise he so despaired that he had like to have cast himself into the sea to appease the labours of his religion Because he never had gone further then to think it a fine thing to be a wise man he would commend it but he was loth to pay for it at the price that God and the Philosopher sot upon it But he that is grown in grace and hath made religion habitual to his spirit is not at ease but when he is doing the works of the new man he rests in religion and comforts his sorrows with thinking of his prayers and in all crosses of the world he is patient because his joy is at hand to refresh him when he list for he cares not so he may serve God and if you make him poor here he is rich there and he counts that to be his proper service his worke his recreation and reward 3. But because in the course of holy living although the duty be regular and constant yet the sensible relishes and the flowrings of affections the zeal and the visible expressions do not alwayes make
God will forgive him and that repentance as it is now stated cannot be done At what time soever not upon a mans deathbed yet there are no such words in the whole Bible nor any neerer to the sense of them then the words I have now read to you out of the Prophet Ezekiel Let that therefore no more deceive you or be made a colour to countenance a persevering sinner or a deathbed penitent Neither is the duty of Repentance to be bought at an easier rate in the New Testament You may see it described in the 2 Cor. 7. 11. Godly sorrow worketh repentance Well but what is that repentance which is so wrought This it is Behold the self same thing that ye sorrowed after a godly sort what carefulnesse it wrought in you yea what clearing of your selves yea what indignation yea what fear ye what vehement desire yea what zeal yea what revenge These are the fruits of that sorrow that is effectual these are the parts of repentance clearing our selves of all that is past and great carefulnesse for the future anger at our selves for our old sins and fear lest we commit the like again vehement desires of pleasing God and zeal of holy actions and a revenge upon our selves for our sins called by Saint Paul in another place a judging our selves lest we be judged of the Lord. And in pursuance of this truth the primitive Church did not admit a sinning person to the publike communions with the faithfull till besides their sorrow they had spent some years in an 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in doing good works and holy living and especially in such actions which did contradict that wicked inclination which led them into those sins whereof they were now admitted to repent And therefore we find that they stood in the station of penitents seven years 13 years and somtimes till their death before they could be reconciled to the peace of God and his Holy Church Scelerum si bene poenitet eradenda cupidinis pravi sunt elementa tenerae nimis mentes asperioribus Formandae studijs Horat. Repentance is the institution of a philosophical and severe life an utter extirpation of all unreasonablenesse and impiety and an addresse to and a finall passing through all the parts of holy living Now Consider whether this be imaginable or possible to be done upon our deathbed when a man is frighted into an involuntary a sudden and unchosen piety 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith Hierocles He that never repents till a violent fear be upon him till he apprehend himself to be in the jawes of death ready to give up his unready and unprepared accounts till he sees the Judge sitting in all the addresses of dreadfulnesse and Majesty just now as he beleeves ready to pronounce that fearfull and intolerable sentence of Go ye cursed into everlasting fire this man does nothing for the love of God nothing for the love of vertue It is just as a condemned man repents that he was a Traytor but repented not till he was arrested and sure to die Such a repentance as this may still consist with as great an affection to sin as ever he had and it is no thanks to him if when the knife is at his throat then he gives good words and flatters But suppose this man in his health and the middest of all his lust it is evident that there are some circumstances of action in which the man would have refused to commit his most pleasing sin Would not the son of Tarquin have refused to ravish Lucrece if Junius Brutus had been by him Would the impurest person in the world act his lust in the market place or drink off an intemperate goblet if a dagger were placed at his throat In these circumstances their fear would make them declare against the present acting their impurities But does this cure the intemperance of their affections Let the impure person retire to his closet and Junius Brutus be ingaged in a far distant war and the dagger be taken from the drunkards throat and the fear of shame or death or judgement be taken from them all and they shall no more resist their temptation then they could before remove their fear and you may as well judge the other persons holy and haters of their sin as the man upon his death-bed to be penitent and rather they then he by how much this mans fear the fear of death and of the infinite pains of hell the fear of a provoked God and an angry eternall Judge are far greater then the apprehensions of publike shame or an abused husband or the poniard of an angry person These men then sin not because they dare not they are frighted from the act but not from the affection which is not to be cured but by discourse and reasonable acts and humane considerations of which that man is not naturally capable who is possessed with the greatest fear the fear of death and damnation If there had been time to cure his sin and to live the life of grace I deny not but God might have begun his conversion with so great a fear that he should never have wiped off its impression but if the man dies then dies when he onely declaims against and curses his sin as being the authour of his present fear and apprehended calamity It is very far from reconciling him to God or hopes of pardon because it proceeds from a violent unnaturall and intolerable cause no act of choice or vertue but of sorrow a deserved sorrow and a miserable unchosen unavoidable fear moriensque recepit Quas nollet victurus aquas He curses sin upon his deathbed and makes a Panegyrick of vertue which in his life time he accounted folly and trouble and a needlesse vexation Quae mens est hodie cur eadem non puero fuit vel cur his animis incolumes non redeunt genae I shall end this first Consideration with a plain exhortation that since repentance is a duty of so great and giant-like bulk let no man croud it up into so narrow room as that it be strangled in its birth for want of time and aire to breath in Let it not be put off to that time when a man hath scarce time enough to reckon all those particular duties which make up the integrity of its constitution Will any man hunt the wild boare in his garden or bait a bull in his closet will a woman wrap her childe in her handkerchiefe or a Father send his son to school when he is 50 yeers old These are undecencies of providence and the instrument contradicts the end And this is our case There is no roome for the repentance no time to act all its essentiall parts and a childe who hath a great way to go before he be wise may defer his studies and hope to become very learned in his old age and upon his deathbed as well as a vitious person may think to
were evill spirits who had seduced them and tempted them to such ungodly rites and yet they who were of the Pythagorean sect pretended a more holy worship and did their devotion to Angels But whosoever shall worship Angels do the same thing they worship them because they are good and powerfull as the Gentiles did the Devils whom they thought so and the error which the Apostle reproves was not in matter of Judgement in mistaking bad angels for good but in matter of manners and choice they mistook the creature for the Creator and therefore it is more fully expressed by St. Paul in a generall signification they worshipped the creature 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 besides the Creator so it should be read if we worship any creature besides God worshipping so as the worship of him becomes a part of Religion it is also a direct superstition but concerning this part of superstition I shall not trouble this discourse because I know no Christians blamable in this particular but the Church of Rome and they that communicate with her in the worshipping of Images of Angels and Saints burning lights and perfumes to them making offerings confidences advocations and vowes to them and direct and solemn divine worshipping the Symbols of bread and wine when they are consecrated in the holy Sacrament These are direct superstition as the word is used by all Authors profane and sacred and are of such evill report that where ever the word Superstition does signifie any thing criminall these instances must come under the definition of it They are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a cultus superstitum a cultus Daemonum and therefore besides that they have 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a proper reproof in Christian Religion are condemned by all wise men which call superstition criminall But as it is superstition to worship any thing 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 besides the Creator so it is superstition to worship God 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 otherwise then is decent proportionable or described Every inordination of Religion that is not in defect is properly called superstition 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 said Maximus Tyrius The true worshipper is a lover of God the superstitious man loves him not but flatters To which if we adde that fear unreasonable fear is also superstition and an ingredient in its definition we are taught by this word to signifie all irregularity and inordination in actions of Religion The summe is this the Atheist cal'd all worship of God superstition the Epicurean cal'd all fear of God superstition but did not condemn his worship the other part of wise men cal'd all unreasonable fear and inordinate worship superstition but did not condemn all fear But the Christian besides this cals every error in worship in the manner or excesse by this name and condemns it Now because the three great actions of Religion are to worship God to fear God and to trust in him by the inordination of these three actions we may reckon three sorts of this crime the excesse of fear and the obliquity in trust and the errors in worship are the three sorts of superstition the first of which is only pertinent to our present consideration 1. Fear is the duty we owe to God as being the God of power and Justice the great Judge of heaven and earth the avenger of the cause of Widows the Patron of the poor and the Advocate of the oppressed a mighty God and terrible and so essentiall an enemy to sin that he spared not his own Son but gave him over to death and to become a sacrifice when he took upon him our Nature and became a person obliged for our guilt Fear is the great bridle of intemperance the modesty of the spirit and the restraint of gaieties and dissolutions it is the girdle to the soul and the handmaid to repentance the arrest of sin and the cure or antidote to the spirit of reprobation it preserves our apprehensions of the divine Majesty and hinders our single actions from combining to sinfull habits it is the mother of consideration and the nurse of sober counsels and it puts the soul to fermentation and activity making it to passe from trembling to caution from caution to carefulnesse from carefulnesse to watchfulnesse from thence to prudence and by the gates and progresses of repentance it leads the soul on to love and to felicity and to joyes in God that shall never cease again Fear is the guard of a man in the dayes of prosperity and it stands upon the watch-towers and spies the approaching danger and gives warning to them that laugh loud and feast in the chambers of rejoycing where a man cannot consider by reason of the noises of wine and jest and musick and if prudence takes it by the hand and leads it on to duty it is a state of grace and an universall instrument to infant Religion and the only security of the lesse perfect persons and in all senses is that homage we owe to God who sends often to demand it even then when he speaks in thunder or smites by a plague or awakens us by threatning or discomposes our easinesse by sad thoughts and tender eyes and fearfull hearts and trembling considerations But this so excellent grace is soon abused in the best and most tender spirits in those who are softned by Nature and by Religion by infelicities or cares by sudden accidents or a sad soul and the Devill observing that fear like spare diet starves the feavers of lust and quenches the flames of hell endevours to highten this abstinence so much as to starve the man and break the spirit into timorousnesse and scruple sadnesse and unreasonable tremblings credulity and trifling observation suspicion and false accusations of God and then vice being turned out at the gate returns in at the postern and does the work of hell and death by running too inconsiderately in the paths which seem to lead to heaven But so have I seen a harmlesse dove made dark with an artificiall night and her eyes ceel'd and lock'd up with a little quill soaring upward and flying with amazement fear and an undiscerning wing she made toward heaven but knew not that she was made a train and an instrument to teach her enemy to prevail upon her and all her defencelesse kindred so is a superstitious man zealous and blinde forward and mistaken he runs towards heaven as he thinks but he chooses foolish paths and out of fear takes any thing that he is told or fancios and guesses concerning God by measures taken from his own diseases and imperfections But fear when it is inordinate is never a good counsellor nor makes a good friend and he that fears God as his enemy is the most compleatly miserable person in the world For if he with reason beleeves God to be his enemy then the man needs no other argument to prove that he is undone then this that the fountain of blessing in this state in which the
he can goe that goes from God his owne sorrowes will soon enough instruct him This fire must never goe out but it must be like the fire of heaven it must shine like the starres though sometimes cover'd with a cloud or obscur'd by a greater light yet they dwell for ever in their orbs and walk in their circles and observe their circumstances but goe not out by day nor night and set not when Kings die nor are extinguish'd when Nations change their Government So must the zeal of a Christian be a constant incentive of his duty and though sometimes his hand is drawne back by violence or need and his prayers shortned by the importunity of businesse and some parts omitted by necessities and just complyances yet still the fire is kept alive it burns within when the light breaks not forth and is eternall as the orb of fire or the embers of the Altar of Incense 3. No man is zealous as he ought but he that delights in the service of God without this no man can persevere but must faint under the continuall pressure of an uneasie load If a man goes to his prayers as children goe to schoole or give alms as those that pay contribution and meditate with the same willingnesse with which young men die this man does personam sustinere he acts a part which he cannot long personate but will find so many excuses and silly devices to omit his duty such tricks to run from that which will make him happy he will so watch the eyes of men and be so sure to doe nothing in private he will so often distinguish and mince the duty into minutes and little particles he will so tie himself to the letter of the Law and be so carelesse of the intention and spirituall designe he will be punctuall in the ceremony and trifling in the secret and he will be so well pleased when he is hindred by an accident not of his own procuring and will have so many devices to defeat his duty and to cosuen himselfe that he will certainly manifest that he is afraid of Religion and secretly hates it he counts it a burthen and an objection and then the man is sure to leave it when his circumstances are so fitted But if we delight in it we enter into a portion of the reward as soon as we begin the worke and the very grace shall be stronger then the temptation in its very pretence of pleasure and therefore it must needs be pleasing to God because it confesses God to be the best Master Religion the best work and it serves God with choice and will and reconciles our nature to it and entertaines our appetite and then there is no ansa or handle left whereby we can easily be drawne from duty when all parties are pleased with the imployment But this delight is not to be understood as if it were alwayes required that we should feele an actuall cheerfulnesse and sensible joy such as was that of Jonathan when he had newly tasted honey and the light came into his eyes and he was refreshed and pleasant This happens sometimes when God please to intice or reward a mans spirit with little Antepasts of heaven but such a delight onely is necessary and a duty that we alwayes choose our duty regularly and undervalue the pleasures of temptation and proceed in the work of grace with a firme choice and unabated election our joy must be a joy of hope a joy at least of confident sufferers the joys of faith and expectation rejoycing in hope so the Apostle calls it that is a going forward upon such a perswasion as sees the joyes of God laid up for the Children of men and so the sun may shine under a cloud and a man may rejoyce in persecution and delight in losses that is though his outward man groanes and faints and dies yet his spirit 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the inner man is confident and industrious and hath a hope by which it lives and works unto the end It was the case of our blessed Saviour in his agony his soule was exceeding sorrowfull unto death and the load of his Fathers anger crushed his shoulder and bowed his knees to the ground and yet he chose it and still went forward and resolved to die and did so and what wee choose wee delight in and wee thinke it to be eligible and therefore amiable and fit by its proper excellencies and appendages to be delighted in it is not pleasant to the flesh at all times for its dignity is spirituall and heavenly but therefore it is proportioned to the spirit which is as heavenly as the reward and therefore can feel the joys of it when the body hangs the head and is uneasie and troubled These are the necessary parts of zeale of which if any man failes he is in a state of lukewarmnesse and that is a spirituall death As a banished man or a condemned person is dead civilly he is diminutus capite he is not reckoned in the census nor partakes of the priviledges nor goes for a person but is reckoned among things in the possession of others so is a lukewarm person he is corde diminutus he is spiritually dead his heart is estranged from God his affections are lessened his hope diminished and his title cancell'd and he remains so unlesse 1. he prefers Religion before the world and 2. spiritually rejoyces in doing his duty and 3. doe it constantly and with perseverance These are the heats and warmth of life whatsoever is lesse then this is a disease and leads to the coldnesse and dishonors of the grave SERMON XIV Part III. 3. SO long as our zeal and forwardnesse in Religion hath only these constituent parts it hath no more then can keep the duty alive but beyond this there are many degrees of earnestnesse and vehemence which are progressions towards the state of perfection which every man ought to design and desire to be added to his portion of this sort I reckon frequency in prayer and almes above our estate Concerning which two instances I have these two cautions to insert 1. Concerning frequency in prayer it is an act of zeal so ready and prepared for the spirit of a man so easie and usefull so without objection and so fitted for every mans affairs his necessities and possibilities that he that prayes but seldome cannot in any sense pretend to be a religious person For in Scripture there is no other rule for the frequency of prayer given us but by such words which signifie we should do it alwaies Pray continually and Men ought alwayes to pray and not to faint And then men have so many necessities that if we should esteem our needs to be the circumstances and positive determination of our times of prayer we should be very far from admitting limitation of the former words but they must mean that we ought to pray frequently every day For in danger and trouble naturall Religion
a man should depart this world in one of those godly fits as he thinks them he is no neerer to obtain his blessed hope then a man in the stone collick is to health when his pain is eased for the present his disease still remaining and threatning an unwelcome return That resolution onely is the beginning of a holy repentance which goes forth into act and whose acts enlarge into habits and whose habits are productive of the fruits of a holy life From hence we are to take our estimate whence our resolutions of piety must commence He that resolves not to live well till the time comes that he must die is ridiculous in his great designe as he is impertinent in his intermedial purposes and vain in his hope Can a dying man to any real effect resolve to be chast for vertue must be an act of election and chastity is the contesting against a proud and an imperious lust active flesh and insinuating temptation And what doth he resolve against who can no more be tempted to the sin of unchastity then he can returne back again to his youth and vigour And it is considerable that since all the purposes of a holy life which a dying man can make cannot be reduced to act by what law or reason or covenant or revelation are we taught to distinguish the resolution of a dying man from the purposes of a living and vigorous person Suppose a man in his youth and health mooved by consideration of the irregularity and deformity of sin the danger of its productions the wrath and displeasure of Almightie God should resolve to leave the puddles of impurity and walk in the paths of righteousnesse can this resolution alone put him into the state of grace is he admitted to pardon and the favour of God before he hath in some measure performed actually what he so reasonably hath resolved By no means For resolution and purpose is in its own nature and constitution an imperfect act and therefore can signifie nothing without its performance and consummation It is as a faculty is to the act as spring is to the harvest as seed time is to the Autumne as Egges are to birds or as a relative to its correspondent nothing without it And can it be imagined that a resolution in our health and life shall be ineffectual without performance and shall a resolution barely such do any Good upon our deathbed Can such purposes prevail against a long impiety rather then against a young and a newly begun state of sin Will God at an easier rate pardon the sins of fifty or sixty yeers then the sins of our youth onely or the iniquity of five yeers or ten If a holy life be not necessary to be liv'd why shall it be necessary to resolve to live it But if a holy life be necessary then it cannot be sufficient meerly to resolve it unlesse this resolution go forth in an actuall and reall service Vain therefore is the hope of those persons who either go on in their sins before their last sicknesse never thinking to return into the wayes of God from whence they have wandred all their life never renewing their resolutions and vows of holy living or if they have yet their purposes are for ever blasted with the next violent temptation More prudent was the prayer of David Oh spare me a little that I may recover my strength before I go hence and be no more seen And something like it was the saying of the Emperour Charles the fifth Inter vitae negotia mortis diem oportet spacium intercedere When ever our holy purposes are renewed unlesse God gives us time to act them to mortifie and subdue our lusts to conquer and subdue the whole kingdom of sin to rise from our grave and be clothed with nerves and flesh and a new skin to overcome our deadly sicknesses and by little and little to return to health and strength unlesse we have grace and time to do all this our sins will lie down with us in our graves * For when a man hath contracted a long habit of sin and it hath been growing upon him ten or twenty fourty or fifty yeers whose acts he hath daily or hourly repeated and they are grown to a second nature to aim and have so prevailed upon the ruines of his spirit that the man is taken captive by the Devil at his will he is fast bound as a slave tugging at the oar that he is grown in love with his fetters and longs to be doing the work of sin is it likely that all this progresse and groweth in sin in the wayes of which he runs fast without any impediment is it I say likely that a few dayes or weeks of sicknesse can recover him the especiall hindrances of that state I shall afterwards consider but Can a man be supposed so prompt to piety and holy living a man I mean that hath lived wickedly a long time together can he be of so ready and active a vertue upon the sudden as to recover in a moneth or a week what he hath been undoing in 20 or 30 yeers Is it so easie to build that a weak and infirm person bound hand and foot shall be able to build more in three dayes then was a building above fourty yeers Christ did it in a figurative sence but in this it is not in the power of any man so suddenly to be recovered from so long a sicknesse Necessary therefore it is that all these instruments of our conversion Confession of sins praying for their pardon and resolutions to lead a new life should begin before our feet slum le upon the dark mountains lest we leave the work onely resolved upon to be begun which it is necessary we should in many degrees finish if ever we mean to escape the eternall darknesse For that we should actually abolish the whole body of sin and death that we should crucifie the old man with his lusts that we should lay aside every weight and the sin that doth so easily beset us that we should cast away the works of darknesse that we should awake from sleep and arise from death that we should redeem the time that we should cleanse our hands and purifie our hearts that we should have escaped the corruption all the corruption that is in the whole world through lust that nothing of the old leaven should remain in us but that we be wholly a new lump throughly transformed and changed in the image of our minde these are the perpetuall precepts of the Spirit and the certain duty of man and that to have all these in purpose onely is meerly to no purpose without the actuall eradication of every vitious habit and the certain abolition of every criminall adherence is clearly and dogmatically decreed every where in the Scripture For they are the words of Saint Paul they that are Christs have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts the work
temperate to have got a habit of sobriety or chastity or humility is the work of a life And if we do but consider that he that lives well from his younger yeers or takes up at the end of his youthfull heats and enters into the courses of a sober life early diligently and vigorously shall finde himself after the studies and labours of 20. or 30. yeers piety but a very imperfect person many degrees of pride left unrooted up many inroads of intemperance or beginnings of excesse much indevotion and backwardnesse in religion many temptations to contest against and some infirmities which he shall never say he hath master'd we shall finde the work of a holy life is not to be deferred till our dayes are almost done till our strengths are decayed our spirits are weak and our lust strong our habits confirmed and our longings after sin many and impotent for what is very hard to be done and is alwayes done imperfectly when there is length of time and a lesse work to do and more abilities to do it withall when the time is short and almost expired and the work made difficult and vast and the strengths weaker and the faculties are disabled will seem little lesse then absolutely impossible * I shall end this generall consideration with the question of the Apostle If the righteous scarcely be saved if it be so difficult to overcome our sins and obtain vertuous habits difficult I say to a righteous a sober and well living person where shall the ungodly and the sinner appear What shall become of him who by his evil life hath not onely removed himself from the affections but even from the possibilities of vertue He that hath lived in sin will die in sorrow The Invalidity of a death-bed Repentance Part. II. BUt I shall pursue this great and necessary truth first by shewing what parts and ingredients of repentance are assigned when it is described in holy Scripture Secondly by shewing the necessities the absolute necessities of a holy life and what it means in Scripture to live holily Thirdly by considering what directions or intimations we have concerning the last time of beginning to repent and what is the longest period that any man may venture with safety And in the prosecution of these particulars we shall remove the objections those aprons of fig-leaves which men use for their shelter to palliate their sin and to hide themselves from that from which no rocks or mountains shall protect them though they fall upon them that is the wrath of God First That repentance is not onely an abolition and extinction of the body of sin a bringing it to the altar and slaying it before God and all the people but that we must also 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 mingle gold and rich presents the oblation of good works and holy habits with the sacrifice I have already proved but now if we will see repentance in its stature and integrity of constitution described we shall finde it to be the one half of all that which God requires of Christians Faith and Repentance are the whole duty of a Christian. Faith is a sacrifice of the understanding to God Repentance sacrifices the whole will That gives the knowing this gives up all the desiring faculties That makes us Disciples this makes us servants of the Holy Jesus Nothing else was preached by the Apostles nothing was enjoyned as the duty of man nothing else did build up the body of Christian religion So that as faith contains all that knowledge which is necessary to salvation So repentance comprehends in it all the whole practise and working duty of a returning Christian And this was the sum totall of all that Saint Paul preached to the Gentiles when in his farewell Sermon to the Bishops and Priests of Ephesus he professed that he kept back nothing that was profitable to them and yet it was all nothing but this Repentance towards God and faith in our Lord Jesus Christ so that whosoever believes in Jesus Christ and repents towards God must make his accounts according to this standard that is to believe all that Christ taught him and to do all that Christ commanded and this is remarked in Saint Pauls Catechisme where he gives a more particular Catalogue of fundamentals he reckons nothing but Sacraments and faith of which he enumerates two principal articles resurrection of the dead and eternal judgement whatsoever is practical all the whole duty of man the practice of all obedience is called repentance from dead works which if we observe the singularity of the phrase does not mean sorrow For sorrow from dead works is not sense but it must mean mutationem status a conversion from dead works which as in all motions supposes two terms from dead works to living works from the death of sin to the life of righteousnesse I will adde but two places more out of each Testament one in which I suppose you may see every lineament of this great duty described that you may no longer mistake a grashopper for an Eagle Sorrow and holy purposes for the intire duty of repentance In the 18. of Ezek. 21. you shall finde it thus described But if the wicked will turne from all his sins that he hath committed and keep all my statutes and do that which is lawful and right he shall surely live he shall not die or as it is more fully described in Ezek. 33. 14. When I say unto the wicked Thou shalt surely die If he turn from his sin and do that which is lawful and right if the wicked restore the pledge give again that he had robbed walk in the statutes of life without committing iniquity he shall surely live he shall not die Here onely is the condition of pardon to leave all your sins to keep all Gods statutes to walk in them to abide to proceed and make progresse in them and this without the interruption by a deadly sin without committing iniquity to make restitution of all the wrongs he hath done all the unjust money he hath taken all the oppressions he hath committed all that must be satisfied for and repayed according to our ability we must make satisfaction for all injury to our Neighbours fame all wrongs done to his soul he must be restored to that condition of good things thou didst in any sense remove him from when this is done according to thy utmost power then thou hast repented truely then thou hast a title to the promise thou shalt surely live thou shalt not die for thy old sins thou hast formerly committed Onely be pleased to observe this one thing that this place of Ezekiel is it which is so often mistaken for that common saying At what time soever a sinner repents him of his sins from the bottom of his heart I will put all his wickednesse out of my remembrance saith the Lord For although at what time soever a sinner does repent as repentance is now explained
for us upon that condition and who then shall die again for us to get heaven for us upon easier conditions What would you do if God should command you to kill your eldest son or to work in the mines for a thousand yeers together or to fast all thy life time with bread and water were not heaven a great bargain even after all this and when God requires nothing of us but to live soberly justly and godly which very things of themselves to man are a very great felicity and necessary to his present well-being shall we think this to be a load and an unsufferable burden and that heaven is so little a purchase at that price that God in meer justice will take a death-bed sigh or groan and a few unprofitable tears and promises in exchange for all our duty Strange it should be so but stranger that any man should rely upon such a vanity when from Gods word he hath nothing to warrant such a confidence But these men do like the Tyrant Dionysius who stole from Apollo his golden cloak and gave him a cloak of Arcadian home-spun saying that this was lighter in summer and warmer in winter These men sacrilegiously rob God of the service of all their golden dayes and serve him in their hoary head in their furs and grave clothes and pretend that this late service is more agreeable to the Divine mercy on one side and humane infirmity on the other and so dispute themselves into an irrecoverable condition having no other ground to rely upon a death-bed or late-begun-repentance but because they resolve to enjoy the pleasures of sin and for heaven they will put that to the venture of an after-game These men sow in the flesh and would reap in the spirit live to the Devil and die to God and therefore it is but just in God that their hopes should be desperate and their craft be folly and their condition be the unexpected unfeared inheritance of an eternall sorrow Lastly Our last inquiry is into the time the last or latest time of beginning our repentance Must a man repent a yeer or two or seven yeers or ten or twenty before his death or what is the last period after which all repentance will be untimely and ineffectuall To this captious question I have many things to oppose 1. We have entred into covenant with God to serve him from the day of our Baptisme to the day of our death He hath sworn this oath to us that he would grant unto us that we being delivered from fear of our enemies might serve him without fear in holinesse and righteousnesse before him all the dayes of our life Now although God will not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 forget our infirmities but passe by the weaknesses of an honest a watchfull industrious person yet the Covenant he makes with us is from the day of our first voluntary profession to our grave and according as we by sins retire from our first undertaking so our condition is insecure there is no other Covenant made with us no new beginnings of another period but if we be returned and sin be cancelled and grace be actually obtained then we are in the first condition of pardon but because it is uncertain when a man can have masterd his vices and obtain'd the graces therefore no man can tell any set time when he must begin 2. Scripture describing the duty of repenting sinners names no other time but to day To day if ye will hear his voyce harden not your hearts 3. The duty of a Christian is described in Scripture to be such as requires length of time and a continued industry Let us run with patience the â—ace that is set before us and Consider him that endured such contradiction of sinners against himself lest ye be wearied and faint in your mindes So great a preparation is not for the agony and contention of an hour or a day or a week but for the whole life of a Christian or for great parts of its abode 4. There is a certain period and time set for our repentance and beyond that all our industry is ineffectuall There is a day of visitation our own day and there is a day of visitation that is Gods day This appeared in the case of Jerusalem O Jerusalem Jerusalem if thou hadst known the time of thy visitation at least in this thy day Well! they neglected it and then there was a time of Gods visitation which was his day called in Scripture the day of the Lord and because they had neglected their own day they fell into inevitable ruine No repentance could have prevented their finall ruine And this which was true in a Nation is also clearly affirmed true in the case of single persons Look diligently lest any fail of the grace of God lest there be any person among you as Esau who sold his birth-right and afterwards when he would have inherited the blessing he was rejected for he found no place for his repentance though he sought it carefully with tears Esau had time enough to repent his bargain as long as he lived he wept sorely for his folly and carefulnesse sate heavy upon his soul and yet he was not heard nor his repentance accepted for the time was past And take heed saith the Apostle lest it come to passe to any of you to be in the same case Now if ever there be a time in which repentance is too late it must be the time of our death-bed and the last time of our life And after a man is fallen into the displeasure of Almighty God the longer he lies in his sin without repentance and emendation the greater is his danger and the more of his allowed time is spent and no man can antecedently or before-hand be sure that the time of his repentance is not past and those who neglect the call of God and refuse to hear him call in the day of grace God will laugh at them when their calamity comes they shall call and the Lord shall not hear them * And this was the case of the five foolish virgins when the arrest of death surprized them they discovered their want of oil they were troubled at it they beg'd oil they were refused they did something towards the proouring of the oil of grace for they went out to buy oil and after all this stir the bridegroom came before they had finished their journey and they were shut out from the communion of the bridegrooms joyes Therefore concerning the time of beginning to repent no man is certain but he that hath done his work Mortem venientem nemo hilaris excipit nisi qui se ad eam diù composuerat said Seneca He onely dies cheerfully who stood waiting for death in a ready dresse of a long preceding preparation He that repents to day repents late enough that he did not begin yesterday But he that puts it off till to morrow is
own entertainment it gives us precepts and makes us able to keep them it enables our faculties and excites our desires it provokes us to pray and sanctifies our heart in prayer and makes our prayer go forth to act and the act does make the desire valid and the desire does make the act certain and persevering and both of them are the works of God for more is received into the soul from without the soul then does proceed from within the soul It is more for the soul to be moved and disposed then to work when that is done as the passage from death to life is greater then from life to action especially since the action is owing to that cause that put in the first principle of life These are the great degrees of Gods forwardnesse and readinesse to forgive for the expression of which no language is sufficient but Gods own words describing mercy in all those dimensions which can signifie to us its greatnesse and infinity His mercy is great his mercies are many his mercy reacheth unto the heavens it fils heaven and earth it is above all his works it endureth for ever God pitieth as a Father doth his children nay he is our Father and the same also is the Father of mercy and the God of all comfort So that mercy and we have the same relation and well it may be so for we live and die together for as to man onely God shews the mercy of forgivenesse so if God takes away his mercy man shall be no more no more capable of felicity or of any thing that is perfective of his condition or his person But as God preserves man by his mercy so his mercy hath all its operations upon man and returns to its own centre and incircumscription and infinity unlesse it issues forth upon us And therefore besides the former great lines of the mercy of forgivenesse there is another chain which but to produce and tell its links is to open a cabinet of Jewels where every stone is as bright as a star and every star is great as the Sun and shines for ever unlesse we shut our eyes or draw the vail of obstinate and finall sins 1. God is long-suffering that is long before he be angry and yet God is provoked every day by the obstinacy of the Jews and the folly of the Heathens and the rudenesse and infidelity of the Mahumetans and the negligence and vices of Christians and he that can behold no impurity is received in all places with perfumes of mushromes and garments spotted with the flesh and stained souls and the actions and issues of misbelief and an evil conscience and with accursed sins that he hates upon pretence of religion which he loves and he is made a party against himself by our voluntary mistakes and men continue ten yeers and 20. and 30. and 50. in a course of sinning and they grow old with the vices of their youth and yet God forbears to kill them and to consigne them over to an eternity of horrid pains still expecting that they should repent and be saved 2. Besides this long-sufferance and for-bearing with an unwearied patience God also excuses a sinner oftentimes and takes a little thing for an excuse so far as to move him to intermediall favours first and from thence to a finall pardon He passes by the sins of our youth with a huge easinesse to pardon if he be intreated and reconciled by the effective repentance of a vigorous manhood he takes ignorance for an excuse and in every degree of its being inevitable or innocent in its proper cause it is also inculpable and innocent in its proper effects though in their own natures criminal But I found mercy of the Lord because I did it in ignorance saith S. Paul he pities our infirmities and strikes off much of the account upon that stock the violence of a temptation and restlesnesse of its motion the perpetuity of its sollicitation the wearinesse of a mans spirit the state of sicknesse the necessity of secular affairs the publike customs of a people have all of them a power of pleading and prevailing towards some degrees of pardon and diminution before the throne of God 3. When God perceives himself forced to strike yet then he takes off his hand and repents him of the evil It is as if it were against him that any of his creatures should fall under the strokes of an exterminating fury 4. When he is forced to proceed he yet makes an end before he hath half done and is as glad of a pretence to pardon us or to strike lesse as if he himself had the deliverance and not we When Ahab had but humbled himself at the word of the Lord God was glad of it and went with the message to the Prophet himself saying Seest thou not how Ahab humbles himself What was the event of it I will not bring the evil in his dayes but in his sons dayes the evil shall come upon his house 5 God forgets our sin and puts it out of his remembrance that is he makes it as though it had never been he makes penitence to be as pure as innocence to all the effects of pardon and glory the memory of the sins shall not be upon record to be used to any after act of disadvantage and never shall return unlesse we force them out of their secret places by ingratitude and a new state of sinning 6. God sometimes gives pardon beyond all his revelations and declared will and provides suppletories of repentance even then when he cuts a man off from the time of repentance accepting a temporal death instead of an eternal that although the Divine anger might interrupt the growing of the fruits yet in some cases and to some persons the death and the very cutting off shall go no further but be instead of explicite and long repentances Thus it happened to Uzzah who was smitten for his zeal and died in severity for prevaricating the letter by earnestnesse of spirit to serve the whole religion Thus it was also in the case of the Corinthians that died a temporal death for their undecent circumstances in receiving the holy Sacrament Saint Paul who used it for an argument to threaten them into reverence went no further nor pressed the argument to a sadder issue then to die temporally But these suppletories are but seldom and they are also great troubles and ever without comfort and dispensed irregularly and that not in the case of habituall sins that we know of or very great sins but in single actions or instances of a lesse malignity and they are not to be relied upon because there is no rule concerning them but when they do happen they magnifie the infinitenesse of Gods mercy which is commensurate to all our needs and is not to be circumscribed by the limits of his own revelations 7. God pardons the greatest sinners and hath left them upon record
and there is no instance in Scripture of the Divine forgivenesse but in such instances the misery of which was a fit instrument to speak aloud the glories of Gods mercies and gentlenesse and readinesse to forgive Such were S. Paul a persecutor and S. Peter that forswore his Master Mary Magdalene with seven Devils the thief upon the crosse Manasses an Idolater David a murderer and adulterer the Corinthian for incest the children of Israel for ten times rebelling against the Lord in the wildernesse with murmuring and infidelity and rebellion and schisme and a golden calf and open disobedience and above all I shall instance in the Pharisees among the Jews who had sinned against the Holy Ghost as our Blessed Saviour intimates and tels the particular viz. in saying that the Spirit of God by which Christ did work was an evil spirit and afterward they crucified Christ so that two of the Persons of the most Holy Trinity were openly and solemnly defied and God had sent out a decree that they should be cut off yet 40. yeers time after all this was left for their repentance and they were called upon by arguments more perswasive and more excellent in that 40. yeers then all the Nation had heard from their Prophets even from Samuel to Zecharias And Jonas thought he had reason on his side to refuse to go to threaten Nineveh he knew Gods tendernesse in destroying his creatures and he should be thought to be but a false Prophet and so it came to passe according to his belief Jonah prayed unto the Lord and said I pray thee Lord was not this my saying when I was yet in my countrey therefore I fled for I knew thou wert a gracious God and mercifull slow to anger and of great kindnesse and repentest thee of the evil He told before hand what the event would be and he had reason to know it God proclaimed it in a cloud before the face of all Israel and made it to be his Name Miserator misericors Deus The Lord the Lord God mercifull and gracious c. You see the largenesse of this treasure but we can see no end for we have not yet looked upon the rare arts of conversion nor that God leaves the naturall habit of vertues even after the acceptation is interrupted nor his working extraregular miracles besides the sufficiencie of Moses and the Prophets and the New Testament and thousands more which we cannot consider now But this we can when God sent an Angel to pour plagues upon the earth there were in their hands Phialae aureae golden phials for the death of men is precious and costly and it is an expence that God delights not in but they were Phials that is such vessels as out of them no great evil could come at once but it comes out with difficulty sobbing and troubled as it passes forth it comes thorow a narrow neck and the parts of it croud at the port to get forth and are stifled by each others neighbourhood and all strive to get out but few can passe as if God did nothing but threaten and draw his judgements to the mouth of the Phial with a full body and there made it stop it self The result of this consideration is that as we fear the Divine judgements so that we adore and love his goodnesse and let the golden chains of the Divine mercy tie us to a noble prosecution of our duty and the interests of religion For he is the worst of men whom Kindnesse cannot soften nor endearments oblige whom gratitude cannot tie faster then the bands of life and death He is an ill natur'd sinner if he will not comply with the sweetnesses of heaven and be civill to his Angel guardian or observant of his Patron God who made him and feeds him and keeps all his faculties and takes care of him and endures his follies and waits on him more tenderly then a Nurse more diligently then a Client who hath greater care of him then his father and whose bowels yern over him with more compassion then a mother who is bountifull beyond our needs and mercifull beyond our hopes and makes capacities in us to receive more Fear is stronger then death and Love is more prevalent then Fear and kindnesse is the greatest endearment of Love and yet to an ingenuous person gratitude is greater then all these and obliges to a solemn duty when love fails and fear is dull and unactive and death it self is despised but the man who is hardened against kindnesse and whose duty is not made alive with gratitude must be used like a slave and driven like an ox and inticed with goads and whips but must never enter into the inheritance of sons Let us take heed for Mercy is like a rainbowe which God set in the clouds to remember mankinde it shines here as long as it is not hindered but we must never look for it after it is night and it shines not in the other world if we refuse mercy here we shall have justice to eternity Sermon XXVIII A FVNERAL SERMON Preached at the Obsequies of the Right Honorable and most vertuous Lady The Lady FRANCES Countesse of CARBERY Who deceased October the 9th 1650. at her House Golden-Grove in CARMARTHEN-SHIRE To the right Honorable and truly Noble RICHARD Lord VAVGHAN Earl of Carbery Baron of Emlim and Molinger Knight of the Honorable Order of the Bath My Lord I Am not ashamed to professe that I pay this part of service to your Lordship most unwillingly for it is a sad office to be the chief Minister in the house of mourning and to present an interested person with a branch of Cypresse and a bottle of tears And indeed my Lord it were more proportionable to your needs to bring something that might alleviate your sorrow then to dresse the hearse of your Dear Lady and to furnish it with such circumstances that it may dwell with you and lie in your closet and make your prayers and your retirements more sad and full of weepings But because the Divine providence hath taken from you a person so excellent a woman fit to converse with Angels and Apostles with Saints and Martyrs give me leave to present you with her picture drawn in little and in water-colours sullied indeed with tears and the abrupt accents of a real and consonant sorrow but drawn with a faithful hand and taken from the life and indeed it were too great a losse to be deprived of her example and of her rule of the original and the copy too The age is very evil and deserved her not but because it is so evil it hath the more need to have such lives preserved in memory to instruct our piety or upbraid our wickednesse For now that God hath cut this tree of Paradise down from its seat of earth yet so the dead trunk may support a part of the declining Temple or at least serve to kindle the fire on the altar My
they were alive We must not so live as if they were perished but so as pressing forward to the most intimate participation of the communion of Saints And we also have some wayes to expresse this relation and to bear a part in this communion by actions of intercourse with them and yet proper to our state such as are strictly performing the will of the dead providing for and tenderly and wisely educating their children paying their debts imitating their good example preserving their memories privately and publikely keeping their memorials and desiring of God with hearty and constant prayer that God would give them a joyfull resurrection and a mercifull judgement for so S. Paul prayed in behalf of Onesiphorus that God would shew them mercy in that day that fearfull and yet much to be desired day in which the most righteous person hath need of much mercy and pity and shall find it Now these instances of duty shew that the relation remains still and though the Relict of a man or woman hath liberty to contract new relations yet I do not finde they have liberty to cast off the old as if there were no such thing as immortality of souls Remember that we shall converse together again let us therefore never do any thing of reference to them which we shall be ashamed of in the day when all secrets shall be discovered and that we shall meet again in the presence of God In the mean time God watcheth concerning all their interest and he will in his time both discover and recompense For though as to us they are like water spilt yet to God they are as water fallen into the sea safe and united in his comprehension and inclosures But we are not yet passed the consideration of the sentence This descending to the grave is the lot of all men neither doth God respect the person of any man The rich is not protected for favour nor the poor for pity the old man is not reverenced for his age nor the infant regarded for his tendernesse youth and beauty learning and prudence wit and strength lie down equally in the dishonours of the grave All men and all natures and all persons resist the addresses and solennities of death and strive to preserve a miserable and an unpleasant life and yet they all sink down and die For so have I seen the pillars of a building assisted with artificiall props bending under the pressure of a roof and pertinaciously resisting the infallible and prepared ruine Donec certa dies omni compage solutâ Ipsum cum rebus subruat auxilium till the determined day comes and then the burden sunk upon the pillars and disordered the aids and auxiliary rafters into a common ruine and a ruder grave so are the desires and weak arts of man with little aids and assistances of care and physick we strive to support our decaying bodies and to put off the evil day but quickly that day will come and then neither Angels nor men can rescue us from our grave but the roof sinks down upon the walls and the walls descend to the foundation and the beauty of the face and the dishonours of the belly the discerning head and the servile feet the thinking heart and the working hand the eyes and the guts together shall be crush'd into the confusion of a heap and dwell with creatures of an equivocall production with worms and serpents the sons and daughters of our own bones in a house of durt and darknesse Let not us think to be excepted or deferred If beauty or wit or youth or Noblenesse or wealth or vertue could have been a defence and an excuse from the grave we had not met here to day to mourn upon the hearse of an excellent Lady and God onely knows for which of us next the mourners shall go about the streets or weep in houses 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 We have lived so many years and every day and every minute we make an escape from those thousands of dangers and deaths that encompasse us round about and such escapings we must reckon to be an extraordinary fortune and therefore that it cannot last long Vain are the thoughts of Man who when he is young or healthfull thinks he hath a long threed of life to run over and that it is violent and strange for young persons to die and naturall and proper onely for the aged It is as naturall for a man to die by drowning as by a fever And what greater violence or more unnaturall thing is it that the horse threw his Rider into the river then that a drunken meeting cast him into a fever and the strengths of youth are as soon broken by the strong sicknesses of youth and the stronger intemperance as the weaknesse of old age by a cough or an asthma or a continuall rheume Nay it is more naturall for young Men and Women to die then for old because that is more naturall which hath more naturall causes and that is more naturall which is most common but to die with age is an extreme rare thing and there are more persons carried forth to buriall before the five and thirtieth year of their age then after it And therefore let no vain considence make you hope for long life If you have lived but little and are still in youth remember that now you are in your biggest throng of dangers both of body and soul and the proper sins of youth to which they rush infinitely and without consideration are also the proper and immediate instruments of death But if you be old you have escaped long and wonderfully and the time of your escaping is out you must not for everthink to live upon wonders or that God will work miracles to satisfie your longing follies and unreasonable desires of living longer to sin and to the world Go home and think to die and what you would choose to be doing when you die that do daily for you will all come to that passe to rejoyce that you did so or wish that you had that will be the condition of every one of us for God regardeth no mans person Well! but all this you will think is but a sad story What we must die and go to darknesse and dishonour and we must die quickly and we must quit all our delights and all our sins or do worse infinitely worse and this is the condition of us all from which none can be excepted every man shall be spilt and fall into the ground and be gathered up no more Is there no comfort after all this shall we go from hence and be no more seen and have no recompense Miser ô miser aiunt omnia ademit Una die infausta mihi tot praemia vitae Shall we exchange our fair dwellings for a coffine our softer beds for the moistned and weeping turf and our pretty children for worms and is there no allay to this huge calamity Yes there