all the reason in the World we should abstain from And if men would but do this they would be kept from the practice of sin And so this imaginary notion of a boundless liberty will appear to be only one of the false colours that sin puts upon evil actions on purpose to tempt men to the commission of them But there is another Poison which more subtilly and dangerously insinuates it self into the hearts of men and by which sin gets the possession there and that is the love of pleasure I do not mean the pleasure of the mind or the pleasure of a good conscience for there is no danger in these but it is the love of sensual pleasure which is most apt to ensnare men in the practice of sin It is under this representation chiefly that sin deceives betrayes entangles bewitches destroyes the souls of men It is this which fills the imagination and darkens the understanding with filthy steams and vapours and hurries a man on with the impetuous violence of passions without considering the mischievous consequence which attends it either as to his honour in this World or his salvation in another This danger which attends the pleasures of sin was well represented in one of the Eastern Parables of a man violently pursued by Wild Beasts to the top of a Precipice where there was a Tree growing on the side of a great lake and at the foot of it a prodigious Serpent lying ready to devour him the man being in this astonishment gets upon the first branch of the tree he could reach but he was no sooner there but his horrour increased at the apprehension of his danger on every side of him and that which added the most to his consternation was that the very branch on which he stood was almost eaten off while he was in this terrible fright he looks up to the top of the tree and there sees some wild honey trickling down the body of the tree which he was so taken with and so pleased with the sweetness of it that he forgets his danger till of a sudden the branch breaks and down he drops into the lake without recovery This is the true representation of the pleasures of sin which men are so much entertained with that they never consider the hazard they run and scarce think of their danger till they drop into that state of misery from whence there is no redemption But besides these soft and voluptuous sinners who are easily deceived and hardly drawn out of the snares they fall into there are others of a more busie restless and designing temper and to these sin appears under another shape to deceive them with all the advantages of external Splendour and Greatness And thus they who possibly might escape the baits of pleasure are carryed away by the more plausible temptations of Riches and Honour It is supposed by some that when the Devil tempted Christ with the offers of the Kingdoms of this world if he would fall down and worship him he did not know who he was but had a mind to try him by the most probable way of discovering what was within him But surely the Devil thought him some extraordinary person or else he would never have made so large an offer at first viz. of no less than all the Kingdoms of the World whereas very much less than one of these hath served to corrupt and debauch the minds of many who have been great pretenders to Piety and Vertue It was indeed somewhat a hard condition the Devil joyned with his offer to fall down and Worship him because he then designed not only a Victory but a Triumph but with others he conceals the condition and draws them on by degrees still rising higher and higher in his temptations thereby feeding and enlarging their desires till the love of this World hath gotten such an entire possession of their hearts that they scarce ever in good earnest think of another till their souls are passing into it And then it may be they sadly reflect on their own folly in that they have preferred the deluding scenes and pompous shews of worldly greatness before the compleat and endless felicity of another life But it very often happens that it is not so long as till their leaving this World that men come to understand the restless folly of ambition For the things of this World are like Epicurus his Atoms alwayes moving and justling one against another and one mans ambition serves to supplant anothers and they who cannot raise themselves may yet help to ruine others and oft-times those very designs by which they most hoped to advance themselves prove the occasion of their fall and destruction The Mahumetans have a story to this purpose In the time of Iesus three men in a journey hapned to find a Treasure but being hungry they sent one of their number to buy provisions he consults how he might get this treasure to himself and for that end resolves to poison their meat the other two agreed to share it between them and to kill the third assoon as he returned which they did and themselves soon after dyed of the poisoned meat Iesus passing by with his disciples said This is the condition of this world see what the love of it hath brought these men to Wo be to him that looks for any other usage from it This is the first way whereby sin doth insinuate into the minds of them viz. by false colours and representations of things 2. But when sin hath so far insinuated it self to bring men to a better opinion of it it doth not presently hurry them on to the greatest height of wickedness but leads them gently and by easie steps and degrees lest they should start back presently with the fright of some dreadful sin Which will appear if we consider how one comes to be corrupted by sin that hath had the advantage of a modest and vertuous education if those who design to debauch him speak out at first in plain words what they aim at a sudden horrour seizes upon him at the apprehension of it and it may be he hates their company for ever after But there is so much a sense of shame left in humane nature that men dare not tempt others to sin at least at first in plain terms and the same temptation which being represented one way would affright appearing with greater art and dissimulation may easily prevail And sin is a thing that men hate to be forced but too much love to be cheated into the practice of it How doth a young sinner struggle with himself and would if it were possible get out of the noise of his own Conscience when he hath offered force and violence to it He is very uneasie to himself and wisheth a thousand times he had never committed the sin rather than to feel such horrour and disquiet in his mind upon the sense of it But if this doth not make him
themselves God will not be mocked however men may be for because of these things the wrath of God will come upon the Children of disobedience No Sacrifices no prayers no penances no vows and promises will keep off this wrath of God without a hearty repentance and timely reformation Never any Religion or institution in the World made it so much its business to keep men from doing evil and to perswade them to do good as the Christian doth The Apostles thought it the greatest contradiction to their profession for any men to be called Christians and to live in the practice of their former sins Let the time past of your life suffice you saith S. Peter to have wrought the will of the Gentiles i. e. that time past when you were no Christians To be a Christian then was all one as of a loose profane dissolute person to become sober religious exact in his conversation To put on Christ was but another phrase for making no provision for the flesh to fulfil the lusts thereof To learn Christ was all one as to put off as concerning the former conversation the old man which is corrupt according to the deceitful lusts and to put on the new man which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness Those were the blessed dayes of Christianity when it was no hard matter to understand what it was to be a Christian when the niceties of disputes and the subtle artifices of men of corrupt minds had not yet debauched the notion of Christianity to reconcile it with the lusts of men To be a Christian then was not to be versed in the subtilties of the Schools or to be able to swallow contradictions without chewing them or to be as fierce and earnest for every doubtful opinion and uncertain custome as if the substance of Christianity were like Epicurus his World made up of a great number of very small and restless Atomes To be a Christian was not to fight for the Faith but to live by it not to quarrel for good Works but to practise them In short to be a Christian was to depart from iniquity and to do good to be meek and humble and patient and peaceable towards all men to be charitable and kind to be sober and temperate in all things to be holy sincere and innocent in his actions towards God and men This is the true Idea of a Christian and not a meer Idea but such as every one that owns himself to be a Christian is bound by the most Sacred vow of Christianity in Baptism to be like so that if either the consideration of their own eternal welfare or the nature design or honour of Christianity or their own most solemn engagements can restrain men from the practice of sin we see that those who are Christians are under the most powerful motives and engagements against it But yet such there have been I wish I could not say such there are who have broken through all these things and have been hardned through the deceitfulness of sin One might have thought if any persons had been out of this danger they had been such as the Apostle makes this exhortation to who had seen the miraculous operations of the Holy Ghost for confirming the doctrine and Motives of Christianity nay who had themselves been made partakers of the Holy Ghost and had tasted of this Heavenly gift and of the good word of God and of the powers of the world to come Who had testified their repentance for their former sins in the most publick and solemn manner and had entred into the most Sacred Vow of Baptism never to return more to the practice of it who had done this in the heat of persecution which they endured with courage and rejoycing yet after all these things the Apostle expresses a more than ordinary jealousie lest any of them should fall away and their hearts be hardned through the deceitfulness of sin When Critias and Alcibiades had forsaken the paths of vertue which they seemed very forward in while they continued under the instructions of Socrates Xenophon saith there were some that contended that they never had any vertue at all because those who once had it could never lose it but for his part he saith he was by no means satisfied with their opinion for as men by discontinuing bodily exercises make themselves uncapable of doing those things which they were most expert in before so men by the neglect of improving their minds in vertue and giving way to the temptations of honour and pleasure which was the case of Critias and Alcibiades may by degrees lose the force of all the Motives to vertue and consequently the vertue it self It is agreed by all men who understand any thing in these matters that even Grace although it be the effect of a divine power on the minds of men is of it self capable of being lost the great dispute is whether it may be lost past all recovery But as we have no more reason to set any bounds to the Grace of God in mens Recovery than as to their first Repentance so we ought to consider that there is such a falling away mentioned by the Apostle of those who have been once enlightned of which he saith it is impossible to renew them again to repentance and that Scripture deals with all persons in its exhortations and adomonitions and threatnings as if they were capable of falling to the utmost degree and to suppose that thing impossible to be done which the gravest counsels and the most vehement perswasions are used to keep men from the doing of is to make a severe reflection on the wisdom of them that give them And the Apostle here leaves none of them out but bids the most forward believers beware of an evil heart of unbelief and those who had been most softned by repentance take heed of being hardned through the deceitfulness of sin So that we see how powerful soever the motives to Vertue are how great soever the engagements against Sin yet the Apostle thought it needful to give them warning against the deceitfulness of sin 2. But what kind of deceitfulness is this in sin that the best and wisest men are so much caution'd against it What irresistible charms doth it use to draw men into its snares with what infusion doth it so far intoxicate mankind to make them dote upon it against the convictions of Reason and dictates of Conscience and the power of perswasion and the most solemn and repeated Vows and Promises against it nay to make men pursue it to such a degree as rather to be damned for it than forsake it If we were to consider this only by Reason we could imagine nothing less than that sin at one time or other hath laid such a mighty obligation on mankind that rather than part with it the greater part of men out of meer gratitude would be content to suffer for
have spent their lives in sin they shall make God amends by a few dying groans and such a repentance as can have no amendment of life Most men who are the greatest slaves to their sins are so much deceived by them as to think they have them wholly at their command and can when they please cast them off and such imaginations keep them faster in subjection to them For if they did apprehend themselves under such slavery as really they are they would grow weary and impatient of the yoak whereas now because they are not forced to commit their sins they suppose they can with ease forsake them But none are such incurable Fools as they that think themselves Wise and none are so miserably deceived as they that think themselves too cunning for their sins If it be so easie to shake off your sins remember that your condemnation will be so much more just if you do it not for God required no hard thing for you to do and if it be so easie why is it not hitherto done Why do you mock God so often and pretend every year to repent and yet are every year as bad if not worse than other Why are not the fruits of repentance seen in the amendment of life for one year or a moneth or one bare week Is it not worth while to do so little for him that hath done so much for you Methinks common ingenuity might prevail with men at least to let God have some part of their lives entire to himself without interfering with the Devil But therein lyes a great part of the deceitfulness of sin that it falls out here as in some malignant Diseases men seldom understand their danger till they are almost past recovery 3. None are so likely to be hardned in sin as those who delay and put off their repentance For the very putting it off is a sign that sin hath a greater power than the convictions of Conscience for why should men ever intend to repent if they did not think it necessary and if they think it necessary and yet do it not it is plain there is something within them stronger than Conscience which keeps them from it So that he that intends to repent and yet lives in sin hath that aggravation of sin above others that he sins against his Conscience all that time Tell me then O thou subtle sinner that hopest to be too hard for God and for sin too by enjoying thy sins as long as thou canst and then repenting at last to escape the vengeance of God dost thou in good earnest intend ever to repent or no If thou dost not never deceive thy self God will not accept these pretences and promises instead of real repentance If thou dost intend it sincerely what makes thee to intend it is it not that thou art convinced it is much better to be done than not but canst not find it in thy heart to do it yet Thou knowest all this while it were much better to leave thy sins than to live in them it were far better to be sober and temperate and pious and devout than to be debauched and profane and yet for all this thou dost not repent but goest on in the same course Consider then that this very circumstance deeply aggravates every sin that is committed after it For it is not a bare neglect of repentance which thou art guilty of but a contempt of God and Goodness it is not only not repenting but it is an obstinate and wilful resolution of sinning for there is no medium between living in sin and forsaking of it and nothing deserves the name of Repentance that is short of that And if thou art so wilful and unreasonable now as notwithstanding thy resolutions to repent to live still in thy sins how canst thou ever hope to repent at last when thy heart will be so much more hardned by continuance in sin 4. Lastly Consider the sad condition of those who are hardned through the deceitfulness of sin They are said in Scripture to be past feeling and to be given over to a reprobate mind i. e. to have lost all sense of their danger and of the ill condition they are in they despise all means of instruction and scorn all those who would do them good and who mean them no other injury but to perswade them to be happy With what disdain and contempt do those proud and lofty sinners who are once arrived at this height of wickedness look down upon all those who endeavour by Reason and Scripture to convince them of their sins As though it were not possible for any thing to make men seem more ridiculous to them than to see them concerned to plead the cause of Vertue and Religion To what purpose is all this ado about Repentance why should not men be let alone to do as they think fit for let them preach their hearts out men will do as they please This is the language of those who are already hardned in their sins but God forbid it should be so of any here present who make it our prayer to God to be delivered from hardness of heart and contempt of his word and commandments And we have great reason so to do for there is no judgement short of hell like to the being given up to a reprobate sense for all the most weighty arguments and most forcible perswasions are to such but like showres falling upon a Rock that make some noise and slide off again but make no impression or entrance into them God Almighty give us all his Grace to understand our danger and to repent in time that none of us be hardned through the deceitfulness of sin FINIS Heb. 10. 32 34. Heb. 6. 6. 10. 20. 26. 27. Heb. 3. 11. 12. Heb. 6. 1 2. Rom. 1. 26 27 28 29 30 31 32. 1 Cor. 6. 10. Ephes. 4. 17 18. 1 Pet. 4. 3. 1 Joh. 5. 19. Xen. ep ad Aesch. Rom. 2. 6. 1. 18. Gal. 6. 7. Eph. 5. 6. 1 Pet. 4. 3. Rom. 13. 14. Eph. 4. 20 21 24. Heb. 6. 4 5. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 p. 416. Heb. 6. 4 6. Perzoes Proleg 3. c. 10. ad Specim sapient vet Indorum Mat. 4. 8 9. Warn Prov. Persic p. 33. Eccl. 8. 11. Act. 17. 31. Psal. 50. 21. v. 22. Ezek. 33. 8. Eph. 4. 19. Rom. 1. 28.