transformed into a spiritual nature as St. Paul expresly tells us 1 Cor. 15. 42 43 44. It is sown in corruption it is raised in incorruption it is sown in dishonour it is raised in glory it is sown in weakness it is raised in power it is sown a natural body it is raised a spiritual body For as he adds 50 v. Flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God neither can corruption inherit incorruption Which is true of a fleshly Soul but here is understood of a Body of flesh and blood which is of a corruptible nature As our reason may satisfie us that such gross earthly Bodies as we now carry about with us cannot live and subsist in those pure regions of Light and Glory which God inhabits no more than you can lodge a stone in the Air or breathe nothing but pure Aether and therefore our glorified Bodies will have none of those earthly passions which these earthly Bodies have will relish none of the pleasures of flesh and blood that upon this account we may truly say that when we once put off these Bodies we shall ever after live without them Now the use of this Observation is so very obvious that methinks no man can miss it for when we consider that we must put off these Bodies and for ever live without them the very next thought in course is that we ought to live without our Bodies now as much as possibly we can while we do live in them to have but very little commerce with flesh and sense to wean ourselves from all bodily pleasures to stifle its appetites and inclinations and to bring them under perfect command and government that when we see it fit we may use bodily pleasures without fondness or let them alone without being uneasie for want of them that is that we may govern all our bodily appetites not they govern us For a wise man should thus reason with himself If I grow so fond of this Body and the pleasures of it if I can relish no other pleasures if I value nothing else what shall I do when I leave this body For bodily pleasures can last no longer than my body does what shall I do in the next World when I shall be striped of this body when I shall be a naked Soul or whatever other covering I may have shall have no flesh and blood about me and therefore all the pleasures I value now will then vanish like a dream for it is impossible to enjoy bodily pleasures when I have no body And though there were no other punishments in the next Life yet it is a great pain to me now to have my desires disappointed or delayed and should I retain the same fondness for these things in the next World where they cannot be had the eternal despair of enjoying them would be punishment enough Indeed we cannot tell what alteration our putting off these Bodies will make in the temper and disposition of our minds We see that a long and severe fit of sickness while it lasts will make men absolute Philosophers and give them a great contempt of bodily pleasures nay will make the very thoughts of those pleasures nauseous to them which they were very fond of in health Long Fasting and Abstinence and other bodily Severities are an excellent means to alter the habits and inclinations of the Mind and one would think that to be separated from these Bodies must needs make a greater alteration in our Minds than either Sickness or bodily Severities That I dare not say that a sensual man when he is separated from this body shall feel the same sensual desires and inclinations which he had in it and shall be tormented with a violent thirst after those pleasures which he cannot enjoy in a separate state But this I dare say that a man who is wholly sunk into flesh and sense and relishes no other pleasures is not capable of living happily out of this body unless you could find out a new Scene of material and sensible Pleasures to entertain him for though the particular appetites and inclinations of the body may cease yet his very Soul is sensualized and therefore is uncapable of the pleasures of a spiritual Life For indeed setting aside that mischief which the unruly lusts and appetites of men and the immoderate use of bodily pleasures does either to the persons themselves or to publick Societies and the true reason why we must mortifie our sensual inclinations is to improve our minds in all divine Graces for the Flesh and the Spirit cannot thrive together sensual and spiritual Joys are so contrary to each other that which of them soever prevails according to the degrees of its prevalence it stifles and and suppresses or wholly subdues the other A Soul which is ravished with the love of God and the Blessed Jesus transported with the spiritual hopes of another Life which feels the passions of Devotion and is enamour'd with the glories and beauties of Holiness and divine Vertues must have such a very mean opinion of Flesh and Sense as will make it disgust bodily pleasures or be very indifferent about them and a Soul which is under the government of Sense and Passion cannot tast those more intellectual and divine Joys for it is our esteem of things which gives a relish to them and it is impossible we can highly esteem one without depretiating and undervaluing the other It is universally true in this case what our Saviour tells us No man can serve two masters for either he will hate the one and love the other or else he will hold to the one and despise the other Ye cannot serve God and Mammon 6. Matth. 24. The least beginnings of a divine Nature in us is to love God above all the World and as we every day grow more devoutly and passionately in love with God and take greater pleasure in the spiritual acts of Religion in praising God and contemplating the divine Nature and Perfections and meditating on the spiritual Glories of another Life so we abate of our value for present things till we get a perfect conquest and mastery of them But he who is perfectly devoted to the pleasures of the Body and the service of his Lusts has no spiritual Life in him and tho' putting off these Bodies may cure our bodily appetites and passions yet it cannot give us a new principle of Life nor work an essential Change in a fleshly Nature and therefore such a man when he is removed from this Body and all the Enjoyments of it is capable of no other Happiness Nay though we are renewed by the divine Spirit and have a principle of a new Life in us yet according to the degree of our love to present things so much the more indisposed are we for the Happiness of unbodied Spirits And therefore since we must put off these Bodies if we would live for ever happily without them we must begin betimes to shake off Matter
c. 19 Luke 12 c. But suppose it were to be understood not of the Iewish and Christian Church but of particular Christians yet their being called to work in the Vine-yard at what hour soever it was though the eleventh hour was their first admission into the Christian Church their first conversion to the Faith of Christ and from this time they laboured in the Vine-yard lived a holy and religious life and I readily grant should a Iew a Turk or a Pagan be converted to Christianity in the eleventh hour in his declining Age and from that time live in obedience to the Gospel of Christ there is no doubt but he shall be greatly rewarded But what is this to any of us who were born of Christian Parents baptized in our very Infancy instructed in the Christian Religion from the very beginning and have always professed the Faith of Christ but lived like Pagans and Infidels We were not called into the Vineyard at the eleventh hour but early in the morning and though Men who were called at the last hour shall be rewarded for that hours work this does not prove that Men who enter into the Vineyard in the morning and play or riot away their time till the eleventh hour shall receive a day's wages for an hour's work But suppose this too yet it will not answer the case of a Death-bed Repentance such Men delay not till the eleventh hour but till night comes when they can do no work at all whereas those who came last into the Vineyard wrought an hour now that God in infinite grace and goodness will reward Men for one hour's work does not prove that he will reward those who do no work but spend their whole day idlely or wickedly and only ask his pardon for not working at night II. But what a fatal Cheat these Men put upon themselves will better appear if we consider the second kind of Repentance which is Repentance after Baptism when Men have relapsed into the commission of new Sins after they have washed away all their old Sins in the laver of Regeneration which is the only Notion of Repentance concerned in this Question for such Sinners when they come to die are to repent of a whole Life spent in wickedness after Baptism and this extreamly alters the Case for though Faith and Repentance as that Repentance signifies a sorrow for past Sins and the purposes and resolutions of a new life be the only Conditions of Baptismal Remission and Justification yet when we are baptized we then Covenant with God for an actual obedience and holiness of Life To deny all ungodliness and worldly lusts and to live soberly righteously and godly in this present world and therefore meer Repentance or a sorrow for Sin with the most solemn Resolutions and Vows of a new life which is all the Repentance dying Men can have cannot according to the Terms of the Gospel be accepted instead of the obedience and holiness of our lives Had the Gospel said you shall either abstain from all sin and do good while you live or repent of all your sins when you die this had been a sufficient encouragement for a Death-bed Repentance but when holiness of life is made the necessary condition of seeing God and the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all unrighteousness and ungodliness of men when we are so expresly forewarned That the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of GOD be not deceived neither fornicators nor idolaters nor aduliers nor effeminate nor abusers of themselves with mankind nor thieves nor covetuous nor drunkards nor extortioners shall inherit the kingdom of GOD When our Saviour expresly tells us That it is only the doers of the word are blessed that not every one that saith Lord Lord shall enter into the kingdom of heaven but he that doth the will of my Father which is in heaven that as for all others what pretences soever they make he will profess to them I never knew you depart from me ye that work iniquity I say whoever after such express Declarations as these can perswade himself that sorrow for Sin and some good resolutions and fair promises upon a Death-bed shall carry him to Heaven though he has done no good in his life and has been guilty of all or many of those sins which the Gospel has threatned with Damnation makes void the whole Gospel of our Saviour But you 'll say Is there no place then for Repentance under the Gospel no remission of Sins committed after Baptism God forbid for who then could be saved Our Saviour has taught us to pray every day Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive them that trespass against us and has taught us to forgive our Brother though he offend against us seventy times seven in imitation of God's goodness in forgiving us and if we must forgive so often surely God will forgive more than once But then Repentance after Baptism requires not only a sorrow for sin and some good purposes and resolutions of a new life for the future but the actual forsaking of sin and amendment of our lives In Baptism God justifies the ungodly 4 Rom. 5 that is how wicked soever Men have been whenever they repent of their sins renounce their former wicked practices and believe in Christ and enter into Covenant with him by Baptism all their former sins are immediately forgiven and washed away without expecting the actual reformation of their lives this was plainly the case both of Iewish and Heathen Converts whâ—â—â—pon the profession of Faith in Christ and renouncing their former wicked lives whatever they had been were immediately received to Baptism as St. Peter exhorted the Iews Repent and be baptized every one of you in the Name of Iesus Christ for the remission of sins and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost And the same day there were three thousand baptized This is Gospel-grace which is the purchase of Christ's blood that the greatest Sinners upon their Repentance and Faith in Christ are received to Mercy and wash away all their sins in Baptism but when they are in Covenant they shall then be judged according to the terms and conditions of that Covenant which requires the practice of an universal Righteousness such persons must not expect as St Paul reasons that if they continue still in sin grace will abound the very Covenant of Grace which we enter into at Baptism confutes all such ungodly hopes For how shall we that are dead to sin live any longer therein Know ye not that so many of us as were baptized into Iesus Christ were baptized into his death therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death that like as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father so we also should walk in newness of life 6 Rom. 1 2 3 4. This is the difference St. Paul makes between the Grace of the Gospel in receiving
the order of Nature to fall in love with our Slaves and change Fortunes and Shackles with them That our Saviour might well say He that commiteth sin is the Servant of Sin for this is a vile and unnatural subjection to serve the Body which was made to serve the Soul such Men shall receive the reward of Slaves to be turned out of God's Family and not to inherit with Sons and Freemen as our Saviour adds The Servant abideth not in the House for ever but the Son abideth for ever if the Son therefore shall make you free ye shall be free indeed 8 John 31 32. III. That Death which is our leaving this World is nothing else but our putting off these Bodies teaches us That it is only our union to these Bodies which intercepts the sight of the other World The other World is not at such a distance from us as we may imagine the Throne of God indeed is at a great remove from this Earth above the third Heavens where he displays his Glory to those blessed Spirits which encompass his Throne but as soon as we step out of these Bodies we step into the other World which is not so properly another World for there is the same Heaven and Earth still as a new State of Life To live in these Bodies is to live in this World to live out of them is to remove into the next For while our Souls are confined to these Bodies and can look only through these material Casements nothing but what is material can affect us nay nothing but what is so gross that it can reflect light and convey the shapes and colours of things with it to the eye So that though within this visible World there be a more Glorious Scene of things than what appears to us we perceive nothing at all of it For this vail of Flesh parts the visible and invisible World But when we put off these Bodies there are new and surprizing Wonders present themselves to our view when these material spectacles are taken off our Souls with its own naked eyes sees what was invisible before And then we are in the other World when we can see it and converse with it Thus St. Paul tells us That when we are at home in the body we are absent from the Lord but when we are absent from the body we are present with the Lord 2 Cor. 5. 6 8. And methinks this is enough to cure us of our fondness for these Bodies unless we think it more desirable to be confined to a Prison and to look through a Grate all our lives which gives us but a very narrow prospect and that none of the best neither then to be set at liberty to view all the glories of the World. What would we give now for the least glimpse of that Invisible World which the first step we take out of these Bodies will present us with There are such things as eye hath not seen nor ear heard neither hath it entred into the heart of man to conceive Death opens ours eyes enlarges our prospect presents us with a new and more glorious World which we can never see while we are shut up in Flesh which should make us as willing to part with this Vail as to take the Film off of our Eyes which hinders our sight IV. If we must put off these Bodies methinks we should not much glory nor pride ourselves in them nor spend too much of our time about them For why should that be our pride why should that be our business which we must shortly part with And yet as for pride these mortal corruptible Bodies and what relates to them administer most of the occasions of it Some men glory in their Birth and in their Descent from Noble Ancestors and Ancient Families which besides the Vanity of it for if we trace our Pedigrees to their Original it is certain that all our Families are equally Ancient and equally Noble for we descend all from Adam and in such a long Descent as this no man can tell whether there have not been Beggars and Princes in those which are the noblest and meanest Families now Yet I say what is all this but to pride ourselves in our Bodies and our bodily Descent unless men think that their Souls are derived from their Parents too Indeed our Birth is so very ignoble whatever our Ancestors are or however it may be dissembled with some pompous circumstances that no man has any reason to glory in it for the greatest Prince is born like the wild Asses Colt. Others glory in their external Beauty which how great and charming soever it be is but the beauty of the Body which if it be spared by Sickness and old Age must perish in the Grave Death will spoil those features and colours which are now admired and after a short time there will be no distinction between this beautiful Body and common Dust. Others are guilty of greater Vanity than this and what Nature has denied they supply by Art they adorn their Bodies with rich Attire and many times such Bodies as will not be adorned and then they glory in their borrowed Feathers But what a sorry beauty is that which they cannot carry into the other World And if they must leave their Bodies in the Grave I think there will be no great occasion in the other World for their rich and splendid Apparel which will not fit a Soul. Thus what do Riches signifie but to minister to the wants and conveniences and pleasures of the Body And therefore to pride ourselves in Riches is to glory in the Body too to think our selves more considerable than other men because we can provide better for our Bodies than they can And what a mean and contemptible Vice is Pride whose subject and occasion is so mean and contemptible To pride ourselves in these Bodies which have so ignoble an extraction are of so short a continuance and will have so ignoble an end must lie down in the Grave and be food for Worms As for the Care of our Bodies that must unavoidably take up great part of our time to supply the necessities of Nature and to provide the conveniences of Life but this may be for the good of our Souls too as honest Labour and Industry and ingenious Arts are but for men to spend their whole time in Sloth and Luxury in Eating and Drinking and Sleeping in Dressing and Adorning their Bodies or gratifying their Lusts this is to be vile Slaves and Servants to the Body to Bodies which neither need nor deserve this from us after all our care they will tumble into Dust and commonly much the sooner for our indulgence of them V. If Death be our putting off these Bodies then it is certain that we must live without these Bodies till the Resurrection nay that we must always live without such Bodies as these are for though our Bodies shall rise again yet they shall be changed and