and unprofitable were noted by the word it self which we translate idle yet is it no unusual thing in the Scriptures by several words to mean and intend more than in their literal sense they do express Thus are the abominable works of darkness mentioned Eph. 5 called unfruitful works where the meaning surely is not only that they bring in no profit or advantage but also that they are most deadly and mischievous v. 11 and the wicked servant spoken of Mat. 25 is called the unprofitable servant v. 30. And after the same use of speech our words which do not only tend to none but to very ill fruit may be called idle or unprofitable words And so they are in this place For the idle words whereof our Saviour speaks v. 36 are such words as are not only idle and unprofitable but positively wicked and evil being indeed false slanderous and reviling words as will appear from the consideration of these particulars For the words which are threatned in that 36. ver are such as are a sign not of a trifling but of an evil heart How can ye says he being evil speak good things for out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh So that as a good man out of the good treasure of his heart bringeth forth or speaketh good things an evil man likewise out of the evil treasure of his heart bringeth forth evil things v. 34 35. And being the fruits of an evil heart they are the signs not of an impertinent but of an evil man The tree is corrupt says he if the fruit be corrupt for the tree is known by its fruits v. 33. And since they are such words as are thus sinful in themselves and an argument of so much sin in us they shall in the last Judgment be charged upon us to condemn us For by thy words says he as well as actions thou shalt be justified and by thy words if they be such idle words as I mean thou shalt be condemned v. 37. The words then which are spoken of in this place from the 33. to the 38. ver are such as are a sign of a wicked heart as make a wicked man and render us in the last Judgment liable to condemnation But now words of this black dye and of these mischievous effects are not every idle and impertinent but false slanderous railing or otherwise sinful and forbidden words But false and slanderous words are especially struck at in this place such as were those lying and contumelious ones that occasioned all this discourse when the Jews most reproachfully charged his Miracles upon the Devil telling him that he cast out Devils through Beelzebub the Prince of the Devils v. 24. Upon occasion of which black calumny he proceeds in all the following verses to warn them against such blasphemous speeches demonstrating clearly the unreasonableness of them v. 25 to 31 the sinfulness of them ver 33 34 35 and the mischievous effects of them in the two next verses Such reproachful words as these let me tell you says he you shall be called to an account for as well as for your works and actions I say unto you and you may believe me for you will find it true that every idle or slanderous and reproachful word such as now you have spoken against me that men shall speak they shall give an account thereof in the day of judgment For when that day comes think you of it as you please now mens words as well as their actions shall be called to an account by thy words thou shalt be justified and if they have been such as yours now are by thy words thou shalt be condemned ver 36 37. And thus by all this it appears that the idle word here threatned by our Lord is not every word that is vain and useless but only such as are railing false or slanderous And in this sense some Manuscripts read the place For in the Book of Steph. it is not every idle but every wicked word that men shall speak they shall give an account thereof in the day of judgment So that as for this third scruple it is as groundless as was the former no good man need to be disquieted by it since they shall never be condemned for it CHAP. VI. Of the Sin against the Holy Ghost which is a fourth cause of scruple The CONTENTS Some good mens fear upon this account What is meaâ—â— in Scripture by the Holy Ghost Holy Ghost or Spirit is taken for the gifts or effects of it whether they be first ordinary either in our minds and understandings or in our wills and tempers or secondly extraordinary and miraculous Extraordinary gifts of all sorts proceed from one and the same Spirit or Holy Ghost upon which account any of them indifferently are sometimes called Spirit sometimes Holy Ghost Holy Ghost and Spirit are frequently distinguished and then by Holy Ghost is meant extraordinary gifts respecting the understanding by Spirit extraordinary gifts respecting the executive powers The summ of this Explication of the Holy Ghost What sin against it is unpardonable To sin against the Holy Ghost is to dishonour him This is done in every act of sin but these are not unpardonable What the unpardonable sin is Of sin against the ordinary endowments of the Holy Ghost whether of mind or will the several degrees in this all of them are pardonable Of sin against the Spirit Blaspheming of this comes very near it and was the sin of the Pharisees Mat. 12 but it was pardonable Of sinning against the Holy Ghost The Holy Ghost the last means of reducing men to believe the Gospel that Covenant of Repentance The sin against it is unpardonable because such sinners are irreclamable All dishonour of this is not unpardonable for Simon Magus dishonoured it in actions who was yet capable of pardon but only a blaspheming of it in words No man is guilty of it whilst he continues Christian. ANother causless ground of fear which disquiets the minds and affrights the hearts of good Christian people is the sin against the Holy Ghost They hear very dreadful things spoken of it for our Saviour Christ who knew it best and who at the last Day is to judge of it has told us plainly before-hand that he who blasphemeth the Holy Ghost shall never be forgiven neither in this world nor in the world to come Mat. 12.32 or as S t Mark expresses it he shall never have forgiveness but is liable to eternal damnation Mark 3.29 This is a fearful Sentence upon a desperate sin and seeing they are in darkness about it and do not well understand it they know not but that they themselves may be guilty of it nay some of a timorous temper and abused minds go further and think that they really are But to cure their fears and to quiet their minds in this matter there needs nothing more be done than to give them right apprehensions and a clear
returning Repent and TVRN to God and do works meet for Repentance Acts 26.20 Repent and turn from all your transgressions and so iniquity shall not be your ruine Ezek. 18.30 For it is only when the wicked man TVRNETH away from his wickedness that he hath committed and in his works DOTH that which is lawful and right that he shall save his soul alive vers 27. Let no man therefore think that he ever savingly repents of any damning sin so long as he perseveres to practise and repeat it â—his Repentance must deliver him from sin before it rescue him from suffering for 't is then only when the wicked man forsakes his way and returns unto the Lord that God will have mercy upon him and abundantly pardon Isa. 55.7 And as for that part of Repentance viz. Regeneration a New Nature or a New Creature God tells us plainly that he accepts of them no further than they are principles of a new service and we obey with them The new Creature in Christs Religion is a being Created as St. Paul speaks unto good WORKS which God hath before ordained for us that we should walk in them Eph. 2.10 It is our actions which must evidence our nature the tree says our Saviour is known by its fruits so that we must either make the fruit good as well as the tree is good or if the fruit be evil the tree will be known to be so too Matt. 12.33 For do men gather Grapes of Thorns or Figs of Thistles Even so a good tree CANNOT bring forth evil fruit neither CAN a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit by their fruits therefore you shall know them Matt. 7.16 17 18. Nothing less than a good life will be allowed either by God or Men for a sufficient proof of a good heart nor any thing below a new Conversation and Obedience will pass for a good evidence of a new Nature Doth a Fountain send forth at the same place sweet water and bitter saith S t James can the Fig-tree bear Olive-berries or a Vine Figs Who is a wise man and endued with knowledge among you Let HIM show out of a good CONVERSATION his works with meekness of wisdom Jam. 3.11 12 13. Let no man therefore dare to think himself regenerate and born of God so long as he is disobedient and his works are sinful For whosoever is born of God doth not COMMIT sin because his seed his new nature remaineth in him and through the determining power and strength of that he is almost come to this that he cannot sin it is become the bent of his nature to do otherwise he is born of God Joh. 3.9 If any man therefore would pass a true judgment upon his nature whether it be the new or old Man from God or from the Devil let him consult his works and actions those undissembling effects of it and from thence he may have a sure evidence which will not deceive him For in this as S t John goes on in the next words is manifested who are Children of God and who are Children of the Devil whosoever DOTH not Righteousness is not of God vers 10. So that when Christ comes to judge us according to his Gospel we see plainly that no repentance will bear us out nor any pretended regeneration or new Nature avail us unto life but that only which either implies or ends in our Obedience For no man can with any show of reason hope to be acquitted and rewarded at that Bar but he that repents unto amendment that is Created unto good works and is born again to a new practice and obedience One case indeed there is wherein a new birth will surely save a man without a new practice and that is when a man is forthwith called away upon the change before any opportunities of action come Some men are listed into Gods service late at the eleventh hour of the day Matt. 20.6 They have just time to become obedient in will and purpose but not in life and practice they have no leisure left them to work in but the night comes suddenly upon them when all the time of labour is at an end And this is the case of all dying Penitents And here indeed the will shall be accepted for the deed For in heart and mind such Penitents are become Gods honest servants their desires are in great strength and their inward purposes are come up to effectual degrees that want nothing but time wherein to show themselves and are sufficient whensoever an opportunity should occur to beget a change of life and to make their actions answer them So that if they are destitute of an entire obedience and have not as yet evidenced their change of nature in their change of practice that is not for want of inward readiness but of outward opportunities and therefore it is not so ' much their fault as their unhappiness And when God sees it is thus he takes the inward will and choice for the outward service and performance He judges us by our wills which are in our own power and not by chance and fortune which are utterly without it This he doth in evil actions as shall be shown afterwards the will in them is taken for the deed and if once our hearts are effectually resolved and fully set upon them in his account we are guilty of them though by some intervening accidents we are hindred from committing them And since as S t Bernard argues undeniably in this matter he is much more prone to pity than he is to punish and had far rather interpret things to our profit than to our prejudice we may be sure that our obedient purposes shall have as much force to the full as our disobedient have and that an effectual will in them when nothing but time is wanting to perform in shall pass for the deed likewise God is by no means forward to seek our hurt and to take advantages of our necessities but in this and all other cases where there is first an effectually willing mind and nothing but opportunity is wanting to an answerable practice he takes as S t Paul says the will for the deed and accepts men according to that sufficient and effectual desire which they have and not according to that outward performance which through some unhappy and preventing accidents they have not 2 Cor. 8.12 And of this we have a clear instance in one dying Penitent the Thief upon the Cross. His return was late indeed he begun not to befit himself for the next world till he was in his departure out of this His conversion was in his very last hour under the pangs of Death and at the instant of Execution But when Christ saw that his change of heart was true full and sufficient and needed nothing but opportunity to show it self effectual he tells him that it should serve his turn and secure his happiness Because he would have been obedient in his practice
him for failing to do what he could not do Who would ever be so absurd as to reprove and punish a man for being low of Stature or weak of Body for being born of mean persons or to a small Fortune These and all other things of like nature which a man could never help may be his misfortune but not his fault and whatsoever he suffers upon the account of them may be and often is his calamity but by no means his punishment No man can justly be charged with that which was never subject to his own choice but if any imputation is laid upon him for its sake it rests not there but falls all upon that Cause whose free pleasure it was so to order him Agreeably whereunto the Wise man tells us That whosoever mocketh the poor reproacheth not him who cannot help his poverty but his Maker whose pleasure it was to dispose of him in that condition Prov. 17.5 And as a man can bear no just blame for that which it never was in his power to hinder so neither can he undergo any just punishment Barbarous cruelty indeed he may fall under which would have taken place without a Law as well as with it but legal and just penalties he never can And seeing no action is punishable but what is chosen it is plain that the Laws of God impose restraint and threaten punishment only to our voluntary actions Which will still further appear from another effect of every sinful and punishable action namely this Fourthly That it is such for which our own Consciences will blame and condemn us and which we shall lament in repentance and remorse One great part even of Hell torments is this remorse and worm of Conscience For there is no action for which we shall there be punished but when it is too late we shall endlesly repent of it Their worm there as our Saviour saith dyeth not Mark 9.44 But now it is an utter absurdity and downright madness for any man to be angry at himself for that which he could never help and to repent that ever he committed that which it was not in his power to hinder For doth it ever repent any man that he is not tall of Stature that he was not born as strong as Samson or made immortal as an Angel Was any man ever touched with remorse because he breathes and sleeps and thirsts and hungers No man ever is or ever can be angry at himself but when he sees that he has been wanting to himself when he has done that which it was in his own choice to have done otherwise For all remorse is for a willing offence a man chuses it when he commits it and therefore when afterwards he sees his errour he condemns himself for it And since a mans own Conscience condemns him for all those things for which God's Law will punish him and no man can condemn himself for doing any thing but what he chose to do neither his own Conscience can condemn nor the Law punish him for any but his voluntary and chosen actions And thus upon all these reasons we see That it is only our voluntary and chosen actions whereupon God's Laws lay restraint and wherefore at the last Day he will inflict punishment so that no sin is damning which is not chosen This is a very clear and well-grounded truth For the nature of Law which makes good and evil of obligation which enforceth it of rewards and punishments from God of acquiescence and remorse from our own Conscience which ensue upon it all these evidently evince and prove it For not any one of them is concerned about any actions but those which proceed from choice nor have to do with any works but what are wilful So that every action whereto there is Law and obligation exhortation and admonition reward or punishment commendation or reproof acquiescence or remorse as there are for all those which the Laws of God will sentence every such action I say is an effect of our own will or a voluntary chosen action Thus is it clear from the reason of the thing it self that all our actions are not governed by God's Laws so as to be strictly either enjoined or prohibited punished or rewarded by them but only those among them which are voluntary and chosen And this will appear yet further 2. From the plain declarations of the Scripture concerning it That whereby God looks upon his Laws to be either broken or kept is the choice and consent of the heart My Son give me thy heart saith Wisdom Prov. 23.26 So long as that is pure we can have no damning stain upon us for out of the heart as our Saviour assures us all those things must proceed which God will judge to defile a man Matth. 15.18 19 20. The lusts of our Flesh must gain the consent of our wills before they become deadly sins and consummate transgressions Lust says S t James when having won over the liking and approbation of our wills and a half consent to its impure embraces it has conceived bringeth forth the Embryo or rude Draught answerable to conception which is but a half production of sin and this Embryo of sin when by being brought on to a full choice and consent or what is more to action and practice it is finished bringeth forth its genuine Offspring Death Jam. 1.15 The consent of our hearts then must compleat our sin and our own wills must of necessity concurr to work our ruine For we must wilfully reject or cast off the Law which would keep us in and go beyond it when we behold it before our transgression will have got up to the pitch of a damnable pollution or a mortal crime Nay I add further till we are come thus far as wilfully to reject the Law and knowingly to transgress it we shall not be interpreted to commit that which the Gospel calls sin and which it strictly forbids and severely threatens under that name For if we will take S t John's word this is his explication of it Sin says he is the transgression as we render it but more fully and more agreeably to the Original it should be the renouncing or casting off the Law 1 John 3.4 And thus we see that from plain Scripture as well as from clear reason it manifestly appears that all our actions are not governed nor will hereafter be judged by Gods Laws but such only among them as are voluntary and chosen And therefore although there be no Law of Christ which gives men leave to sin without fear of punishment yet some actions there may be against many or most of Christ's Laws which shall not be judged to be punishable transgressions of them as are all our involuntary and unchosen actions And of this sort are all those consistent slips which as I shewed before not only are but needs must be born with and allowed by the Covenant of the Gospel For it is our involuntary
of Christ's Gospel whereby at the last Day we must all be judged Alas they know not of any such Laws nor ever think of being tryed by them In the Gospel 't is very true they are all recorded and by Christs Ministers at one time or other they are all proclaimed and by some exemplary good men although God knows they are very few in one place or other they are duly practised but yet for all this a great many Christian men are ignorant of some or other of them For either they cannot read the Scriptures where they are mentioned or they have not opportunity to hear the Preacher when every one of them particularly is taught or they are not in sight and observation of those patterns of piety by whom they are practised so that still they do not understand them Or if at last they do come to know them yet is it some time first and they acted several times against them before they saw that they were bound by them So that still we see there is room in the World for sins of ignorance from mens not knowing of the Law which they sin against Several particular Laws which lye more remote and are not so plainly of natural obligation nor startled at by natural Conscience are oftentimes and by many persons transgressed because they do not perceive themselves to be bound by them And as for this ignorance of one Branch or other of their Duty it is some mens unhappiness rather than their fault they do not so truly chuse it as through an unchosen necessity fall under it For it is necessary to all people whether they will or no for some time and to some for all their lives It is necessary I say to all people whether they will or no for some time For by the very constitution of our Nature which is before any thing of our own chusing we are born ignorant the mind of man being as Aristotle compares it like a blank paper wherein is nothing written No man ever since Adam came into the World in the free exercise of his understanding and with his perfect wits about him And when after some time we do begin to know yet even then is all our knowledg gradual and by little and little For we first learn one thing and then another and so by several steps attain at last to a competent pitch of knowledge When therefore any man doth begin to know Gods will and to discern his Laws yet is it not possible that he should understand them all at once but some of them every man must needs be ignorant of till he has had time to learn and know them all To some people I say it is necessary for their whole lives to their dying Day they do not arrive to the understanding of some things which God has required of them And that because they wanted either abilities or opportunities neither of which is of their own chusing They are of a slow understanding and have not those means of instruction or that time and leisure to attend upon it which others have And that by reason of their place and low condition in the world wherein it was Gods pleasure and not their own to dispose of them But now this ignorance of some or other of Christ's Laws being thus involuntary it must likewise be innocent For there is no damning sin and disobedience but in our own choice so that as long as the heart is true to God he will not be at enmity for any thing else which may seem to be against him And since our ignorance it self is innocent the sinning upon it will never be rebellious and damning For the disobedience is not any way chosen neither in it self nor in its Cause we do not chuse the sin because we do not see that the action is sinful nor do we chuse not to see it because we cannot help it But where there is no choice there will be there no condemnation So that the action which is done against the Law shall not be punished by the Law if we were thus innocently ignorant of the Law whereof it was a transgression And that it will not is plain For God never did nor ever will condemn any man for the transgression of a particular Law before he has had all due means and necessary opportunities such as may be sufficient to any honest and willing heart to understand it The Jewish Law obliged none but those whom it was proclaimed to who had the advantages of being instructed out of it It is they only says S t Paul who have sinned in or under the Law who shall be judged by the Law Rom. 2.12 The Law of Christ did not bind men until they had sufficient means and opportunities of knowing it and being convinced by it If ye were blind or wanted abilities says our Saviour to the Pharisees you should have no sin John 9.41 And again if I had not given them sufficient opportunities of knowing come and spoken unto them they had not had sin but now since I have they have no cloak or no pretence or excuse for their sin Nay if I had not given them all due means of conviction and done among them the works which no other man hath done they had not had sin still John 15.22 24. These slips of honest ignorance of our Duty are no more punished under the Gospel of Christ than they were under the Law of Moses For Christ our High Priest doth attone for them by virtue of his Sacrifice of himself as well as the Aaronical Priest in behalf of the ignorantly offending Jews made an attonement for them by his sin-offering Levit. 4.2 3 c. This S t Paul tells us in his comparison of Christ's Priesthood with that of the line of Aaron In his interceding to God and offering Sacrifice for sins he can have compassion on the ignorant Heb. 5.2 Ignorance therefore of the general Law which makes any thing a Duty so long as it is not wilful and affected by us through the merits of Christ's Sacrifice and the Grace of his Gospel renders those offences which we commit under it pardonable transgressions such as do not destroy a state of Grace but consist with it And this is the very determination which S t Cyprian gives in the Case of transgressing our Lords institution in the participation of the Lords Supper For some Churches in those Days were wont to make use of Water instead of Wine in which way of communicating several of them had been educated and brought up having received it ignorantly and in the simplicity of their hearts as they had done other things of their Religion from the practice and tradition of their Forefathers Now as for the usage it self S t Cyprian declares plainly that it is a breach of Duty and a custom very dangerous and sinful It is says he against our Lords Command who plainly bid us do what he did i. e.
are so hasty and unadvised as through the sudden resentment of that contest to separate companies and part asunder Act. 15.37 38 39. And since these slips of inconsideration through a sudden Grief Fear or Anger were incident to the most perfect Saints and the most assured Favourites and Heirs of Heaven 't is plain that they are a fit matter of Gods mercy and will be graciously born with and forgiven but not severely punished by him As for our slips of inadvertence then and inconsiderate transgressions whether we are inconsiderate through surprize or weariness or discomposure of our thinking Faculties they are such innocently involuntary sins as shall not at the last Day be charged upon us they do not unsaint a man or destroy a state of Salvation but consist with it But to prevent mens false confidences of pardon and groundless hopes of being excused upon this head I think fit to subjoyn these Cautions about inconsiderate sins 1. No sin is innocently inconsiderate where we have time and our understandings being undisturbed are able to make use of it If we have Time to think but our minds are troubled and distempered which makes them unfit to think and consider in it as it happens in the cases of a great weariness and a violent sudden passion mentioned above there 't is true we have no choice because we have not all that is necessary to consideration But if we have ability and power as well as time and leisure our thoughts are at our own choice and if we transgress inconsiderately the fault is our own for we might have helped it if we would and if we will not we must answer for it 2. No sin is innocently inconsiderate which is of a mischievous nature and greatly criminal For if a man has not brought himself into a habit of sin and under a great hardness of heart which is always his own fault and subjects him to a most dreadful punishment his own Soul must needs give back and his Conscience boggle at every great offence and where he doubts and demurs he cannot say he is rash and inconsiderate No man therefore can be guilty of an act of Idolatry Blasphemy Perjury Sacriledge Adultery Murder Sedition Rebellion Theft Slander or any other of those sins which are so great a Terror even to Natural Conscience and yet say he wist it not and ventured on them when he did not think of it For if his Conscience had any thing of that tenderness which it should and would have unless he has sinned it into numbness and stupefaction he could not commit any of these without checks of mind nor ever come to be guilty of them without fears and doubtings disputes and conflicts in his own soul. He must consider them over and over and view them on one side and on the other before he can be able to master his own fears and work himself into courage sufficient to venture on them As for lesser sins indeed a mans Conscience has not so quick a sense nor so great a dread of them and therefore he may be surprized sometimes into the commission of them before he considers of them A good man may speak a rash word and be carelesly angry or triflingly peevish through surprize and suddenness but he cannot contrive the death of his neighbour or stab a man to the heart without fear and consideration He may be insnared unawares into a wanton eye or a lascivous thought but he cannot fall into an act of fornication and adultery till he might look about him and should bethink himself He may rashly and unadvisedly be guilty of an uncharitable censure of a surly behaviour of a discourteous uncondescensive uncandid action but he cannot slander his neighbour or entertain malice wrath and implacable enmity against him without deliberation unless it be his own fault that he will not deliberate and consider of them He may run before he bethinks himself into a covetous wish but not into fraud and circumvention into theft and robbery into perfidiousness and oppression and the like is observable in other instances These lesser sins which are acted in more haste and need less deliberation because mens consciences are less sensible and afraid of them men may and very often do commit inconsiderately and unadvisedly they are surprized into them before they bethinks themselves and consider of them But then as for greater sins which either imply thought and contrivance or require time and leisure or for the heinousness of their guilt are frightful unto conscience we can have no excuse of inconsideration when we fall under them Some I say imply thought and contrivance as fraud and circumvention others require time and a long stay upon the very commission of them as rapes and adulteries thefts and robberies drunkenness and revellings wrath anger and malice and all of them are frightful and terrifying to any honest and truly tender Conscience And when we think and contrive for them or dwell long upon them or are frighted with them and put into doubts and disputes fears and demurs about them it is gross non-sence and absurd contradiction to say that we did we wist not what and committed them when we could not consider of them So that as for any sin which is of a mischievous nature or greatly criminal unless it be our own fault and we have made our Consciences hard and callous we cannot venture on it without considering it because we cannot act it without checks and fears of Conscience about it 3. No sin is innocently and involuntarily inconsiderate which we do not endeavour and strive against To endeavour against all sin is in our own power and at our own choice although it be not perfectly to overcome it and get free from it For our endeavours are our own and are either put forth or omitted at our own pleasure so that it is only because we would have it so if they are wanting And therefore if we are inconsiderate because we refused and wilfully neglected to prevent it our inconsideration enters upon our own choice and is so far owing to our own will For we were willing to come under it and would not strive against it and so far as it was willed by us it may be charged upon us and imputed to condemn us Let no man therefore indulge himself in an inconsiderateness of sinning and take no pains against it but quietly submit to it out of a fond conceit of being excused upon his inconsideration For if he make no opposition to his inconsiderateness but carelesly lays himself open to it and idly waits for it he makes it cease to be wholly his infirmity and in some measure to become his fault Because it is so far an effect of his own will as it is of his wilful negligence and as he wills it he shall not be excused but put to answer and account for it But if any man expect to have his inconsiderate slips excused as involuntary and
before an unerring and uncorrupt Judge who can neither be bribed nor deceived and who cannot mistake them or wrongfully condemn them howsoever they may mistake or wrongfully condemn themselves And since it is so they are really safe in their own goodness when they most of all suspect their own danger and secure from evil even whilst they are afraid of falling under it But although every good man is in this safety let his understanding of himself be what it will yet if in any of those things which he takes to be a matter of life or death he judges wrong of himself and thinks erroneously he can enjoy no peace and comfort He will go to Heaven full of fears and forbodeing thoughts and never think himself in the way to Bliss till he is actually inthroned in it and possessed of it He will meet indeed with happiness in the end but he will have no sight or expectation of it in the way for all his life long he will be tormented with doubts and suspicions fears and jealousies and be still by turns concluding himself lost as to the next World though he be lost no where but in his own fancy And this imagined future misery will bring him under a real one for the present it will make him have sad thoughts and a sorrowful heart it will bereave him of all joy and peace and almost overwhelm him in groundless perplexity and vexation But that pious Souls may not fear where no fear is nor torment themselves with unreasonable expectations having before shewn what that condition really is which renders any mans a safe condition I will go on now to remove their groundless scruples and mistakes concerning it by shewing what and of what force those things are which are wont without any sufficient reason to disquiet the minds and to disturb the peace of good and safe but mistaken Christians about it And as for the causes of good mens fears so far as I have been able to learn them they are chiefly these that follow 1. Good men are wont to call in question the saveableness of their present and the happiness of their future state because after all their care against them they find that some motions of the flesh some stirrings of their lusts some thoughts of evil do still arise up in them They feel themselves subject to delightsom fancies and desires of forbidden things They are liable to a lustful thought a covetous wish an insurrection of anger of envy and of several other damning sins 'T is true indeed that these lusts do not reign in them because they do not consent to their instigations nor do what they would have them They can only inhabit and stir in them but have not strength enough to give Laws to them for they repress them before they get so far and prevail over them before they go on to fulfil what they inclined to Not any of these sinful lusts whereof they are afraid has got so much power over them as to carry them on either to consent to them or to fulfil them for though they may think on some forbidden things in their minds or desire them in their hearts yet do they not will and chuse any of them and least of all do they work and practise them They may perhaps have a thought and fancy a wish and inclination after unchast pleasures but they correct themselves there and go no further for they never in their hearts consent to an unlawful embrace nor ever proceed to an unclean action In a sudden motion of anger it may be they may have several expressions of wrath and instances of revenge occur to their thoughts and obtruding themselves upon their fancy but they stop there and go no higher for they do not consent to utter an injurious word or to commit a spiteful action and the same they experience by themselves in other instances In all which several forbidden things will get into their thoughts and desires and steal from them a wish or inclination but when once they have done that they can do no more being unable either to gain their consent or to command their practice so as that they should not only desire but also chuse and fulfil them But although they do not suffer sin to reign in them so as to consent to it or to fulfil it in the lusts thereof yet they fear lest their very thoughts and inclinations after it should prove damnable For God requires the obedience of our whole man of the mind and affections as well as of our wills and actions and he is disobeyed by any as well as by all our faculties And seeing every sin is forbidden under pain of death who knows but that this admission of sin into our thoughts and desires is a deadly transgression This is one great cause of fear and a rock of offence to truly honest and good men But to take off all doubt and scruple upon this account we must know that our impotent lusts and ineffective desires of evil things if they are able to get no further than a thought or a wish though at present they are a matter of our exercise and humiliation yet at the Day of Judgment they shall be no Article of death or condemnation For Christs Gospel doth not sentence us severely upon these first motions of a lust or beginnings of a sin no if they arrive no higher than fancy and inclination through the merits of Christs Sacrifice there is Grace enough in store for them and in the Gospel account they are not grown up to be a matter of Death nor come within the Confines of destruction That I may speak with the more distinctness to this Point I will here shew these two things 1. That for our feeble lusts and desires after evil which are unconsented to and unfulfilled we shall not at the last day be condemned 2. For what lusts and desires of them we shall 1. I say For our feeble lusts and desires of evil which are unconsented to and unfulfilled at the day of Judgment no man otherwise good shall ever be condemned God will never sentence us to Hell for every sudden desire an inclination after sinful things but if it rests there and goes no further than bare desire he will pardon and pass it by but not eternally avenge it To speak distinctly to this Point these lustings and desires are considerable either as to their first birth or as to their indulged and allowed continuance the first are never damning and the latter many times are no Article of condemnation As for our bodily lusts and desires of evil in their first birth I say they are never damning nor shall any man who is otherwise vertuous and obedient be ever judged to dye for them And if it were otherwise who could possibly be saved For as long as we live in this World we have all of us these first motions of appetites after evil things more or less and there
noble and excellent reward we are in a safe state and have no need to disquiet our Souls with fears and jealousies lest they should eternally miscarry If any person then has used Gods Grace and improved his Talents to this measure he has not been unprofitable and useless but has profited so far as is necessary to his happiness He is bound indeed still to advance higher and in every instance of Vertue to improve further but this he is not under the loss of Heaven but only under the danger of falling back into such a state of sin as would destroy the hopes of it again and the forfeiture of greater glory and rewards there when an intire obedience in all chosen instances and a particular reformation and repentance of all wilful sins is once secured there is so much growth in grace as is absolotely necessary an exalted pitch and compleat measures of this obedience with more ease and pleasure constancy and evenness with less mixture of voluntary sins which need particular repentance and with a greater freedom from innocent and unwilled infirmities is necessary to more absolute degrees and greater hights of glory but till that can be had this is sufficient to a mans salvation Several other scruples there are which are wont to disquiet and perplex the minds of good and honest people who are safe in Gods account although their Case seems never so hazardous in their own And of this sort are their fears that their obedience is unsincere because they have an eye at their own good and a respect to their own safety since they serve God in hopes to be better by him and out of a fear should they disobey of suffering evil from him They are afraid also that it is defective in a main Point for they cannot love and serve him in that comprehensive latitude which the Commandment requires viz. With all their heart and with all their soul and with all their mind They doubt they are past Grace and Pardon because they have sinned after that they have been enlightned and that wilfully and the Apostles affirms that for such there remains no more Sacrifice for sins Heb. 10.26 These doubts are still apt to disturb their peace and make sad their hearts and some others of like nature But of these and several others I have given sufficient Accounts above such as I hope may satisfie any reasonable man who is capable to read and to consider of them and thither I refer the Reader not thinking fit here to repeat them And thus at last we have seen when an honest and entire obedience is taken care for in the first place how plainly groundless those fears are which are wont to perplex the thoughts of good and safe yet ignorant and misguided people about their state of happiness and salvation And now I have done with all those points which I thought necessary to be enquired into to the end that I might shew every man now before-hand how he stands prepared for the next world and which at the beginning of this whole Discourse I proposed to treat of I have shown what that condition is of bliss or misery which the Gospel indispensably exacts of us and that as I take it so particularly that no man who will be at the pains to read and consider of it can overlook or mistake it what those defects are which it bears and dispenseth with what those remedies and means of reconciliation are which it has provided for us and when all these are taken care for how groundless all those other scruples are which are wont to disquiet honest minds about the goodness of their present state and their title to eternal salvation And upon the whole matter the sum of all amounts to this that when Christ shall come to sit in judgment at the last day and to pass sentence of life or death upon every man according to the direction of his Gospel he will pronounce upon every man according to his works If he has honestly and entirely obey'd the whole will of God in all the particular Laws before-mention'd never willfully and deliberately offending in any one instance nor indulging himself in the practice of any thing which he knows to be a sin he is safe in the Accounts of the last Judgment and shall never come into Condemnation Nay if he has been a damnable offender and has willfully transgressed either in one instance or in many in frequent repetitions of his sin or in few yet if he repent of it before death seize him and amend it ere he is haled away to Judgment he is safe still For he shall be judged according as his works then are when God comes to enquire of them so that if ever he be found in an honest obedience observing everything which he sees to be his duty and willfully venturing upon nothing which his Conscience tells him is sinful he is found in the state of Grace and Pardon and if he die in it he shall be saved All his unwill'd ignorances and innocent unadvisednesses upon his Prayers for pardon and his mercifulness and forgiveness of other men shall be abated all his other causes of fear and scruple shall be overlooked they shall not be brought against him to his Condemnation but in the honest and entire obedience which he hath performed in that shall he live If then we have an honest heart and walk so as our own Conscience has nothing whereof to accuse us we may meet Death with a good Courage and go out of the World with comfortable Expectations For if we have an honest and a tender heart whensoever we sin willfully and against our Consciences our own Souls will be our Remembrancers They will be a witness against us both whilst we are in this World and after we are taken out of it and brought to Judgment Mens Consciences says the Apostle shall accuse or excuse them in the day when God shall judge the secrets of men according to my Gospel Rom. 2.15 Indeed if men have harden'd their hearts in wickedness and sin'd themselves out of the belief of their duty having come to call evil good and good evil then their Consciences having no further sense of sin will have no accusations upon it But if they really believe the Gospel and study to know their duty and desire to observe it and are afraid to offend in any thing which they see is sinful whilst thus their heart is soft and their Conscience tender they cannot venture upon any sin with open Eyes but that their own hearts will both check them before and smite them afterwards They will have a witness against them in their own bosoms which will scourge and awake them so that they cannot approach death without a sense of their sin nor go out of the World without discerning themselves to be guilty If our own Conscience then cannot accuse us of the wilful and presumptuous breach of any of Gods Commandments and we know