extremely in real Value beyond the injury he suffers And I verily think I now speak the unfeigned sense of his own Mind when he sees his Rival groveling in his Bloud when he reflects upon the sad Trophies of his Killing Honour and has surfeited himself with his unnatural Revenge The Occasions of Duelling are observed for the most part to be either too small and bashful or too shameful and reserv'd to appear in a Court of Judicature But let the Calumny be never so foul or publick or so maliciously contrived Nothing stains like Bloud which consideration alone ought to Restrain every man that is tender of his Honour or Salvation from shedding it upon the highest Provocation that can be given him But more than this there are other ways of healing our Reputation and living in brighter Fame than ever in the esteem of the wisest and best Judges of Honour The Law is open let the Parties Implead one another Or if they must be fighting let thy King and thy Country bind the Lawrels of Victory about thy Head or Embalme thy Memory This is certainly more Honourable then to Kill the worst Man upon Earth in a private Quarrel and makes the Case of Duelling extremely different from that of one mans Killing another when he is forst upon it in his own Defence And after all I hope it is no Affront to be reminded that we are Christians nor any diminution of Honour to adhere to the Rules of our Holy Profession Great Spirits as they are better fitted than others for great and excellent things 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 so as Plato observes they are Subject to great Failings and Errours They have commonly very quick and piercing Apprehensions and are very lively in the management of the greatest and most difficult Affairs but are not always so happy in their Memories if I may so express it as to forget the injuries that are offered them in Imitation of him who forgave his Enemies who forbid the drawing of the Sword in his own Quarrel and expresly told his Disciples that he came not to destroy Mens Lives but to save them And since the Son of God suffered the contradictions of Sinners Luk. 9 56. why should the Disciple aspire to be above his Master I am sure to Act contrary to the Author of our Religion looks as if we were ashamed of being thought his Disciples And if we are not we cannot think it too great a condescension for his sake and our own To consider 1. That the Pretence of Honour in the present Case is apparently contrary to the Honour of our Blessed Lord and Redeemer and the Rules he has given us to live by If we believe him to be the Son of God we cannot deny but his Laws are of much better Authority than any of those Rules of Honour which some Men prescribe to themselves Now our Saviour was so far from allowing men to Kill one another in a Quarrel that he forbids all Quarrelling and Provocation in Word or Action verse 22. of this Ch. and Represents the Danger of those Liberties which men give to their Passions tho' they proceed no farther than to Reproachful Language to be no less than that of Hell-Fire He also requires us to forgive our Brother Mat. 18.22 Ro. 12.19 as often as he Offends And not to revenge our selves but to give place unto wrath and has taught us to Pray for Forgiveness at Gods hand as we forgive them that Trespass against us Unless therefore to Kill be to forgive and to break Christ's Commandments must go for honouring him no Christian can engage with Honour in a single Combat and I cannot Imagine with what Success he can hope to do it while he Fight against Heaven and graples with one who he knew is infinitely stronger than himself 2. This is to fall greatly Short of the Righteousness of the Scribes and Pharisees which our Saviour tells us in the verse immediately before the Text unless we exceed we shall in no Case enter into the Kingdom of Heaven These men as I observed before never denied but that Killing a man either in Hot or Cod Bloud without Publick Authority was a Notorious Violation of God's Commandment Nay to do this in Hot Boud was in their opinion a Crime worthy of Death as is plain in the Case of Barabbas who by their Law was sentenc'd to dy at the time of our Saviour's Crucifixion Mark 15 7. for commiting Murther in the Insurrection And accordingly there was no Dispute between our Saviour and the Jews concerning this meaning of the Law And I heartily wish our fighting Gallants would consider whose Followers they are and whether they also do not prefer Barabbas before Jesus and under pretence of Revenging their own lay his with their own Honour in the Dust 3. For men to stake their Lives in a Duel is to run the most desperate hazard I mean of dying in a Sin which seldom allows a few moments to Repent of it or of Killing another Person it may be their old dear and confident Friend and perhaps eternally by cutting off his time of Repentance and making his Peace with God He that attempts to Kill his Brother whether he Kills him or not mortally hates him for he would be the Death of him if he could and then I fear he Forfeits something more than his Honour that attemps it 1 Joh. 3 15. For St. John tells us He that hateth his Brother is a Murtherer and we know that no Murtherer hath eternall Life abiding in him And this being the Case of Duellers what a dreadful venture is it to stake two precious Lives and two Immortal Souls upon a mere imaginary point of Honour If this be the Honour of Christians whose Religion as St. James describes it is first pure then peaceable Gentle Jam. 3 17. and easy to be intreated full of mercy and good fruits without wrangling 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and without hypocrisy then let Light and Darkness embrace and the plainest contradictions assume the Names of the brightest Reason and Truth And now I hope it is worthy of a serious thought whether this be not enough to ballance the mighty pretence of Honour I know it is commonly said that a Gentleman and a Man of Honour ought not to put up an Affront when it is in his Power to Revenge it But it is plain that a Christian of the best Rank and Quality ought to do this and that great Men must be Judged by the Gospel whether they will think fit to Live by it or not 2. For the Case of Self-Murther or casting away our own Lives when we are weary of them If we look to the Reason of the Commandment Thou shall not Kill viz. because every man bears the Image of God it is as plain a violation of it to Kill our selves as to Kill any other man And since we are commanded to Love our Neighbour as
can be returned to those that should Object against the Author of it that either our Sactification was not the thing he really design'd or if it was that he has taken effectual care considering our natural averseness to it and the fierce and rampant inclinations to Vice of those that stand in greatest need of it to disappoint himself of his end that he has left us all the gains and delights of Sin and himself the honour only of Pardoning our ungodly and malitious Lives that we may dabble and bemire our selves in all the Pollutions of the Flesh and of the World and wash off all with a few Penitential Tears when we die that we may be extreamly wicked with good management to the last and tho we never glorified God in our Lives be sure to receive a Crown of Glory from him at our Death 2. That the Gospel gives no such encouragement is certain because it expresly requires Holiness and Obedience to the Precepts of it as a necessary condition of future Happiness As it designs the Professors of it should be excellent men holy in all manner of Conversation so it excludes them out of Heaven who frustrate its design by wicked and unworthy Practices and expose its Blessed Author to Open Shame Meb 12.14 Without Holiness saith the Apostle i. e. purity of Heart and Life no man shall see the Lord. Mat. 19.17 If thou wilt enter into Life saith our Saviour keep the Commandments Mat. 7.21 Not every one that saith unto me Lord Lord shall enter into the Kingdom of Heaven But he that doth the Will of my Father which is in Heaven Rom. 8.13 For if ye live after the Flesh ye shall die But if ye through the Spirit do mortifie the deeds of the Body ye shall live Rom. 2.7 8 9. To them who by patient continuance in well-doing seek for Glory and Honour and Immortality God will render Eternal Life But to them that are contentious and obey not the Truth but obey Vnrighteusness Indignation and Wrath Tribulation and Anguish upon every Soul of man that doth evil These and many other Texts which we must own have nothing of the shade or dimness of a Parable in them do undeniably prove the indispensable necessity of a Holy Life to fit and qualifie us for Eternal Bliss and Happiness And then to apply the Promises of Heaven to men that have lived a wicked and are past living a godly Life is plainly to expound the Gospel into a direct contradiction to it self For can a man that is dying be said to have lived holily only because he is sadly troubled for a very sinful Life Or hath he kept the Commandments that has lived in a constant violation of them and of his own Covenant to keep them and only promises over again to keep them when it is too late Can we can him a Mortifiect Man that after he has gorg'd himself with the pleasures of Sin and sinned away the power of Lust resolves yet to be very chaste and temperate upon his Death-bed Or can we say that he seeks for Glory and Immortality by his Patience and Constancy in Well-doing who at the end of his Natural is to begin the whole Christian Life and has always been a perfect Stranger to the Conversation of Heaven 'T is true those that have made it their business to please God have lived soberly and kept a Good Conscience towards Men need not doubt the pardon of their Offences upon their Repentance for them because their Repentance is ever accompanied with actual Holiness and where Holiness is the Fruit of Repentance the End will be Everlasting Life But the case is vastly different in those that have left themselves no time to reform their lives and are forc'd to spend that little they have left in fruitless Vows and Wishes Because these men have neglected the main condition of the Covenant the great End of the Gospel and of their Lives I mean the Glorification of God by the Purity and Holiness of them A thing in its own nature necessary to their Happiness without which no man can see the Lord. But perhaps you will say tho those pangs of Sorrow and Devotion which men that have lived wretched and profligate Lives discover on their Death-beds cannot be called a Holy Life yet they are good signs of Repentance and Faith in Christ and are they not sufficient to intitle them to Pardon and Eternal Life To this I Answer 8. 'T is certain that no true Penitent and Believer in Christ shall finally perish But then the Question is whether the Gospel will allow that to be true saving Faith or Repentance which is destitute of the Fruits of Rigteousness after a fair season and opportunity for them And here it is but fair the Gospel should speak for it self Bring forth Fruits meet for Repentance Mat. 3.7 8. and think not to say within your selves we have Abraham to our Father Luk. 3.9 Every Tree which bringeth not forth Good Fruit is hewn down and cast into the Fire Mat. 16.2 For the Son of Man shall come in the Glory of his Father and then he shall reward every Man according to his Works What doth it profit Jam. 2.14 my Brethren tho a man say he hath Faith and hath not Works If a fruitless Faith and Repentance cannot profit I am sure they cannot save us Vers 17. If Faith without Works as St. James tells us is dead how sad is the condemnation of a dying Sinner whose Faith is dead before him and whose time of working is over tho' he seek it with Tears If sorrow for Sin may be without amendment of Life and then will not pass for true Repentance it can be no certain sign of it And if Christ will render to every man according to his works how sorrowful is the case of that man who has worn out his whole Life in Sin and hardly left himself the least remnant of time to amend it 2. No man can plead any Title to the Mercy or Favour of God but by virtue of his Covenant with him in Baptism 'T is by Baptism that we are made Parties in the Covenant which includes all the Promises God hath made to us in his Son and therefore ought to be the Standard of our expectations from him And whereas there are Conditions on our part and we vow Obedience to Christi's Commands as well as Faith and Repentance from Dead Works if we fail in any of these Conditions we bar our Title to the Promises which depend upon them We cut our selves off by our own Act and Deed from the Hopes of Pardon and Eternal Life For where a Promise is made upon more Conditions than one the keeping of all but one will not inable us to claim the Promise And why should we think that God will abate us the Righteousness of Faith as the Apostle styles Obedience to the Gospel or that he will
consider these easie and obvious things and they will assuredly find but small reason to build their hopes of Eternal Life upon any struggle or remorse of Conscience at their Death which few bad men that have any tolerable sense of another World are and even Judas himself was not exempted from 4th Prop. The fourth and last Proposition is Were we sure that the hiring of Labourers at the eleventh hour did signifie the late calling of Particular Christians to the Faith and Obedience of the Gospel yet this will not reach the case of a Death-bed Repentance There is a manifest disparity between them in several respects For 1. They that were called so late as the eleventh hour were guilty of no delays but embraced the first opportunity they had of labouring in the Vineyard The reason they gave why they stood so long Idle in the Market viz. because no man had hired them implies that they were ready to be imployed V. 7. and that they chearfully closed with the first invitation that was offered to them and so doing they were not to be blamed that they were not earlier at work For this is as much as Abraham the Father of the Jewish Church or the Apostles the first Labourers in the Christian did They came as soon as their Lord called them tho they were not in the Vineyard till the middle age of their Lives And I doubt not if a poor Indian that never heard of Christ till he entred upon the last stage of his Life shall then become a serious and faithful Christian but that his reward will be great in Heaven But this is not the case of those who were devoted to the Service of God in their Infancy who have lived many years under the ministry of his Sacred Word and the obligations of the Holy Sacraments Who have resisted the motions of the Blessed Spirit and the admonitions of Parents and Friends never hearkning unto any till the Rough Messenger of Death comes and tells them roundly in their Ears that now they must die and away to Judgment And 't is no wonder they are then sorry that they spent their time so ill while Hell and Destruction look them in the Face but they cannot but say they had fair and frequent Warnings to have used it better 2. They who came so late into the Vineyard had yet one hour of Trial and this in proportion to the Day which God allows us to work out our Salvation in is the twelfth part of our Lives 'T is true this is but a short time considering what engagements we are under of serving our Creator and Redeemer all the days of our Lives but still it is much longer than a Sinner who defers his Repentance to his Death allows himself to do the whole work of Religion to break the habits of Vice to exercise all the virtues of the Christian Life and to put himself into a posture for Eternity He vows perhaps and declares upon the word of a Dying-man what great things he would do but alas his Breath goes away with his Vows and gives him not a minute to prove his Sincerity in 3. The last Comers into the Vineyard wrought an hour and therein performed the whole Duty they contracted for But what is this to the purpose of men that work not at all For furely to ask pardon for what they have not done to be sorry for what they have or to resolve to do better if they had opportunity will not bring them within the notion of Labourers and then it cannot intitle them to the reward This is the state of Dying Penitents their whole work lies upon their hands and that 's the ground of all their Sorrow and resolution to work if it were not too late which therefore are not working and to suppose that God will accept them as if they were is to say that the Master of the Vineyard who was all the day hiring Labourers into it was very indifferent what they did there and would surely have been as Bountiful if there had been occasion to those that did him no service as to them that did the most provided they were but sorry they had not serv'd him at all and were willing to work just when Night came and forbid them And thus I think I have sufficiently proved that this Parable has no Relation to the Case of a late or Death-bed Repentance which was the First General propounded to be spoken to The second was 2. That there is no other ground of Assurance in the Gospel that the Repentance of a Dying Christian after a whole Life spent in Sin and an obstinate Violation of his Baptismal Vow and Covenant will secure him of Eternal Salvation That the Gospel gives no such Encouragement to Men that Trifle with the Grace of God we may be as sure as we can be that the Gospel does not contradict it self and that not in trivial Instances but in the great and most essential parts of it I mean the design of its being revealed to men and the conditions it requires of them in order to Eternal Life and Happiness For 1. Did the Gospel assure us that God will accept of Dying Vows and sorrows instead of a Life of Virtue and Holiness it would shew us a notable way to evade and overthrow its own great and admirable Design the very end for which it appeared unto men which was to teach and oblige us to lead holy and virtuous Lives to deny Vngodliness and Wordly Lusts and to live Soberly Tit. 2.11 12. Righteously and Godlily in this present World while we are resident here and capable of doing Service to God and Men. This is the end of all the Institutions of the Gospel and particularly of our Baptism by which we are amitted into Covenant with God For therefore saith St. Paul we are buried with Christ by Baptism into Death that like as Christ was raised from the Dead by the Glory of the Father Rom. 6.4 even so we also should walk in newness of Life i. e. From our first entrance into Christianity till we have finisht our Course and are got beyond the Dangers and Temptations of this sinful World But where is this New Life when we are just a Dying Do we answer the end of our Baptism tho we never set a step in our Christian Race till our Life is run out Or does the Gospel whatever it obliges us to do dispence with us for not doing it This perhaps in some mens Opinion would advance the Grace but surely no man will say it commends the Wisdom of the Gospel For who does not see that the design of making us Holy is lost should the Gospel once declare that we may be dispensed with for not being Holy or that it is enough to secure us of Heaven to be truly sorry at the last that we have lived wickedly all our days And were this the true sense of the Gospel I cannot see what Answer