tongue shall sing aloud of thy righteousnesse The sacrifice of God is a broken heart a broken and a contrite heart O God thou wilt not despise Lord I have done amisse I have been deceived let so great a wrong as this be removed The prayer for the grace and perfection of Repentance I. O Almighty God thou art the great Judge of all the world the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ the Father of mercies the Father of men and Angels thou lovest not that a sinner should perish but delightest in our conversion and salvation and hast in our Lord Jesus Christ established the Covenant of repentance and promised pardon to all them that confesse their sins and forsake them O my God be thou pleased to work in me what thou hast commanded should be in me Lord I am a dry tree who neither have brought forth fruit unto thee and unto holinesse nor have wept out salutary tears the instrument of life and restitution but have behaved my self like an unconcerned person in the ruins and breaches of my soul But O God thou art my God earnestly will I seek thee my soul thirsteth for thee in a barren and thirsty land where no water is Lord give me the grace of tears and pungent sorrow let my heart be as a land of rivers of waters and my head a fountain of tears turn my sin into repentance and let my repentance proceed to pardon refreshment II. SUpport me with thy graces strengthen me with thy Spirit soften my heart with the fire of thy love and the dew of heaven with penitentiall showers make my care prudent and the remaining portion of my dayes like the perpetuall watches of the night full of caution and observance strong and resolute patient and severe I remember O Lord that I did sin with greedinesse and passion with great desires and an unabated choice O let me be as great in my repentance as ever I have been in my calamity and shame let my hatred of sin be great as my love to thee and both as neer to infinite as my proportion can receive III. O Lord I renounce all affection to sin and would not buy my health nor redeem my life with doing any thing against the Lawes of my God but would rather die then offend thee O dearest Saviour have pity upon thy servant let me by thy sentence be doomed to perpetuall penance during the abode of this life let every sigh be the expression of a repentance and every groan an acccent of spiritual life and every stroke of my disease a punishment of my sin and an instrument of pardon that at my return to the land of innocence I may eat of the votive sacrifice of the supper of the Lamb that was from the beginning of the world slâ—in for the sins of every sorrowful and returning sinner O grant me sorrow here and joy hereafter through Jesus Christ who is our hope the resurrection of the dead the justifier of a sinner and the glory of all faithful souls Amen A prayer for pardon of sins to be said frequently in time of sicknesse and in all the portions of old age I. O Eternal and most gracious Father I humbly throw my self down at the foot of thy mercy seat upon the confidence of thy essential mercy and thy commandment that we should come boldly to the throne of grace that we may finde mercy in time of need O my God hear the prayers and cries of a sinner who calls earnestly for mercy Lord my needs are greater then all the degrees of my desire can be unlesse thou hast pity upon me I perish infinitely and intolerably and then there will be one voice fewer in the quire of singers who shall recite thy praises to eternal ages But O Lord in mercy deliver my soul. O save me for thy mercy sake For in the second death there is no remembrance of thee in that grave who shall give thee thanks II. O Just and dear God my sins are innumerable they are upon my soul in multitudes they are a burden too heavy for me to bear they already bring sorrow and sicknesse shame and displeasure guilt and a decaying spirit a sense of thy present displeasure and fear of worse of infinitely worse But it is to thee so essential so delightful so usual so desired by thee to shew mercy that although my sin be very great and my fear proportionable yet thy mercy is infinitely greater then all the world and my hope and my comfort rise up in proportions towards it that I trust the Devils shall never be able to reprove it nor my own weaknesse discompose it Lord thou hast sent thy Son to die for the pardon of my sins thou hast given me thy holy Spirit as a seal of adoption to consigne the article of remission of sins thou hast for all my sins still continued to invite me to conditions of life by thy ministers the prophets and thou hast with variety of holy acts softned my spirit and possessed my fancie and instructed my understanding and bended and inclined my will and directed or overruled my passions in order to repentance and pardon and why should not thy servant beg passionately and humbly hope for the effect of all these thy strange and miraculous acts of loving kindnesse Lord I deserve it not but I hope thou wilt pardon all my sins and I beg it of thee for Jesus Christ his sake whom thou hast made the great endearment of thy promises and the foundation of our hopes and the mighty instrument whereby we can obtain of thee whatsoever we need and can receive III. O My God how shall thy servant be disposed to receive such a favour which is so great that the ever blessed Jesus did die to purchase for us so great that the falling angels never could hope and never shall obtain Lord I do from my soul forgive all that have sinned against me O forgive me my sins as I forgive them that have sinned against me Lord I confesse my sins unto thee daily by the accusations and secret acts of conscience and if we confesse our sins thou hast called it a part of justice to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousnesse Lord I put my trust in thee and thou art ever gracious to them that put their trust in thee I call upon my God for mercy and thou art alwayes more ready to hear then we to pray But all that I can do and all that I am and all that I know of my self is nothing but sin and infirmity and misery therefore I go forth of my self and throw my self wholly into the arms of thy mercy through Jesus Christ and beg of thee for his death and passions sake by his resurrection and ascension by all the parts of our redemption and thy infinite mercy in which thou pleasest thy self above all the works of the creation to be pitifull and compassionate to thy servant
ignorance and prodigious errours made ridiculous with a thousand weaknesses worne away with labours loaden with diseases daily vexed with dangers and temptations and in love with misery we are weakned with delights afflicted with want with the evils of my self and of all my family and with the sadnesses of all my friends and of all good men even of the whole Church and therefore me thinks we need not be troubled that God is pleased to put an end to all these troubles and to let them sit down in a natural period which if we please may be to us the beginning of a better life When the Prince of Persia wept because his army should all die in the revolution of an age Artabanus told him that they should all meet with evils so many and so great that every man of them should wish himself dead long before that Indeed it were a sad thing to be cut of the stone and we that are in health tremble to think of it but the man that is wearied with the disease looks upon that sharpnesse as upon his cure and remedie and as none need to have a tooth drawn so none could well endure it but he that hath felt the pain of it in his head so is our life so full of evils that therefore death is no evil to them that have felt the smart of this or hope for the joyes of a better 2. But as it helps to ease a certain sorrow as a fire drawes out fire and a nail drives forth a nail so it instructs us in a present duty that is that we should not be so fond of a perpetual storm nor doat upon the transient gaudes and gilded thorns of this world They are not worth a passion not worth a sigh or a groan not of the price of one nights watching and therefore they are mistaken and miserable persons who since Adam planted thorns round about Paradise are more in love with that hedge then all the fruits of the garden sottish admirers of things that hurt them of sweet poisons gilded daggers and silken halters Tell them they have lost a bounteous friend a rich purchase a fair farm a wealthy donative and you dissolve their patience it is an evil bigger then their spirit can bear it brings sicknesse and death they can neither eate nor sleep with such a sorrow But if you represent to them the evils of a vitious habit and the dangers of a state of sin if you tell them they have displeased God and interrupted their hopes of heaven it may be they will be so civil as to hear it patiently and to treat you kindly and first commend and then to forget your story because they prefer this world with all its sorrowes before the pure unmingled felicities of heaven But it is strange that any man should be so passionately in love with the thorns that grow on his own ground that he should wear them for armelets and knit them in his shirt and prefer them before a kingdom and immortality No man loves this world the better for his being poor but men that love it because they have great possessions love it because it is troublesome and chargeable full of noise and temptation because it is unsafe and ungoverned flattered and abused and he that considers the troubles of an overlong garment and of a crammed stomach a trailing gown and a loaden Table may justly understand that all that for which men are so passionate is their hurt and their objection that which a temperate man would avoid and a wise man cannot love He that is no fool but can consider wisely if he be in love with this world we need not despair but that a witty man might reconcile him with tortures and make him think charitably of the Rack and be brought to dwell with Vipers and Dragons and entertain his Guests with the shrikes of Mandrakes Cats and Scrich Owls with the filing of iron and the harshnesse of rending silk or to admire the harmony that is made by a herd of Evening wolves when they misse their draught of blood in their midnight Revels The groans of a man in a fit of the stone are worse then all these and the distractions of a troubled conscience are worse then those groans and yet a carelesse merry sinner is worse then all that But if we could from one of the battlements of Heaven espie how many men and women at this time lye fainting and dying for want of bread how many young men are hewen down by the sword of war how many poor Orphans are now weeping over the graves of their Father by whose life they were enabled to eat If we could but hear how many Mariners and Passengers are at this present in a storm and shrike out because their keel dashes against a Rock or bulges under them how many people there are that weep with want and are mad with oppression or are desperate by too quick a sense of a constant infelicity in all reason we should be glad to be out of the noise and participation of so many evils This is a place of sorrows and tears of great evils and a constant calamity let us remove from hence at least in affections and preparation of minde CHAP. II. A general preparation towards a holy and blessed Death by way of exercise SECT I. Three precepts preparatory to a holy death to be practised in our whole life 1. HE that would die well must alwayes loook for death every day knocking at the gates of the grave and then the gates of the grave shall never prevail upon him to do him mischief This was the advice of all the wise and good men of the world who especially in the dayes and periods of their joy and festival egressions chose to throw some ashes into their chalices some sober remembrances of their fatal period Such was the black shirt of Saladine the tomb-stone presented to the Emperour of Constantinople on his Coronation day the Bishop of Romes two reeds with flax and wax taper the Egyptian skeleton served up at feasts and Trimalcions banquet in Petronius in which was brought in the image of a dead mans bones of silver with spondiles exactly turning to every of the Guests and saying to every one that you and you must die and look not one upon another for every one is equally concerned in this sad representment These in phantastic semblances declare a severe counsel and useful meditation and it is not easy for a man to be gay in his imagination or to be drunk with joy or wine pride or revenge who considers sadly that he must ere long dwell in a house of darknesse and dishonour and his bodie must be the inheritance of worms and his soul must be what he pleases even as a man makes it here by his living good or bad I have read of a young Hermit who being passionately in love with a young Lady could not by all the
little impertinencies and them imperfectly and that with infinite uncertainty But God hath been pleased with a rare art to prevent the inconveniencies apt to arise by this passionate longing after knowledge even by giving to every man a sufficient opinion of his own understanding and who is there in the world that thinks himself to be a fool or indeed not fit to govern his brother There are but few men but they think they are wise enough and every man believes his own opinion the soundest and if it were otherwise men would burst themselves with envy or else become irrecoverable slaves to the talking and disputing man But when God intended this permission to be an antidote of envy and a satisfaction and allay to the troublesome appetites of knowing and made that this universal opinion by making men in some proportions equal should be a keeper out or a great restraint to slavery and tyranny respectively Man for so he uses to do hath turned this into bitternesse for when nature had made so just a distribution of understanding that every man might think he had enough he is not content with that but will think he hath more then his brother and whereas it might well be imployed in restraining slavery he hath used it to break off the bands of all obedience and it ends in pride and schismes in heresies and tyrannies and it being a spiritual evil it growes upon the soul with old age and flattery with health and the supports of a prosperous fortune Now besides the direct operations of the Spirit and a powerfull grace there is in nature left to us no remedy for this evil but a sharp sicknesse or an equall sorrow and allay of fortune and then we are humble enough to ask counsell of a despised Priest and to think that even a common sentence from the mouth of an appointed comforter streams forth more refreshment then all our own wiser and more reputed discourses Then our understandings and our bodies peeping thorow their own breaches see their shame and their dishonour their dangerous follies and their huge deceptions and they go into the clefts of the rock and every little hand may cover them 3. Next to these As the soul is still undressing she takes off the roughnesse of her great and little angers and animosities and receives the oil of mercies and smooth forgivenesse fair interpretations and gentle answers designes of reconcilement and Christian atonement in their places For so did the wrastlers in Olympus they stripped themselves of all their garments and then anointed their naked bodies with oil smooth and vigorous with contracted nerves and enlarged voice they contended vehemently till they obtained their victory or their ease and a crown of Olive or a huge pity was the reward of their fierce contentions Some wise men have said that anger sticks to a mans nature as inseparably as other vices do to the manners of fools and that anger is never quite cured but God that hath found out remedies for all diseases hath so ordered the circumstances of man that in worser sort of men anger and great indignation consume and shrivell into little peevishnesses and uneasie accents of sicknesse and spend themselves in trifling instances and in the better and more sanctified it goes off in prayers and alms and solemn reconcilement And however the temptations of this state such I mean which are proper to it are little and inconsiderable The man is apt to chide a servant too bitterly and to be discontented with his nurse or not satisfied with his Physitian and he rests uneasily and poor man nothing can please him and indeed these little undecencies must be cured and stopped lest they run into an inconvenience But sicknesse is in this particular a little image of the state of blessed Souls or of Adams early morning in Paradise free from the troubles of lust and violencies of anger and the intricacies of ambition or the restlesnesse of covetousnesse For though a man may carry all these along with him into his sicknesse yet there he will not finde them and in despite of all his own malice his soul shall finde some rest from labouring in the galleys and baser captivity of sin and if we value those moments of being in the love of God and in the kingdom of grace which certainly are the beginnings of felicity we may also remember that the not sinning actually is one step of innocence and therefore that state is not intolerable which by a sensible trouble makes it in most instances impossible to commit those great sins which make death and hell and horrid damnations And then let us but adde this to it that God sends sicknesses but he never causes sin that God is angry with a â—inning person but never with a man for being sick that sin causes God to hate us and sicknesse causes him to pity us that all wise men in the world choose trouble rather then dishonour affliction rather then basenesse and that sicknesse stops the torrent of sin and interrupts its violence and even to the worst men makes it to retreat many degrees we may reckon sicknesse amongst good things as we reckon Rhubarb and Aloës and child-birth and labour and obedience and discipline These are unpleasant and yet safe they are troubles in order to blessings or they are securities from danger or the hard choices of a lesse and a more tolerable evil 4. Sicknesse is in some sense eligible because it is the opportunity and the proper scence of exercising some vertues It is that agony in which men are tried for a crown and if we remember what glorious things are spoken of the grace of faith that it is the life of just men the restitution of the dead in trespasses and sins the justification of a sinner the support of the weak the confidence of the strong the magazine of promises and the title to very glorious rewards we may easily imagine that it must have in it a work and a difficulty in some proportion answerable to so great effects But when we are bidden to beleeve strange propositions we are put upon it when we cannot judge and those propositions have possessed our discerning faculties and have made a party there and are become domestick before they come to be disputed and then the articles of faith are so few and are made so credible and in their event and in their object are so usefull and gaining upon the affections that he were a prodigie of man and would be so esteemed thâ—t should in all our present circumstances disbeleeve any point of faith and all is well as long as the Sun shines and the fair breath of heaven gently waâ—ts us to our own purposes But if you will try the excellency and feel the work of faith place the man in a persecution let him ride in a storm let his bones be broken with sorrow and his eyelids loosened with sicknesse let his bread be
horror of it then by the last dash on the pavement and he that tells his groans and numbers his sighs and reckons one for every gripe of his belly or throb of his distempered pulse will make an artificiall sicknesse greater then the naturall and if thou beest ashamed that a childe should bear an evil better then thou then take his instrument and allay thy spirit with it reflect not upon thy evil but contrive as much as you can for duty and in all the rest inconsideration will ease your pain 4. If thou fearest thou shalt need observe and draw together all such things as are apt to charm thy spirit and ease thy fancy in the sufferance It is the counsell of Socrates It is said he a great danger and you must by discourse and arts of reasoning inchant it into slumber and some rest It may be thou wert moved much to see a person of honour to die untimely or thou didst love the religion of that death bed and it was dressed up in circumstances fitted to thy needs and hit thee on that part where thou wert most sensible or some little saying in a Sermon or passage of a book was chosen and singled out by a peculiar apprehension and made consent lodge a while in thy spirit even then when thou didst place death in thy meditation and didst view it in all its dresse of fancy whatsoever that was which at any time did please thee in thy most passionate and fantastic part let not that go but bring it home at that time especially because then thou art in thy weaknesse such little things will easier move thee then a more severe discourse and a better reason For a sick man is like a scrupulous his case is gone beyond the cure of arguments and it is a trouble that can onely be helped by chance or a lucky saying and Ludovico Corbinelli was moved at the death of Henry the second more then if he had read the saddest Elegy of all the unfortunate Princes in Christendom or all the sad sayings of Scripture or the threnes of the funerall prophets I deny not but this course is most proper to weak persons but it is a state of weaknesse for which we are now providing remedies and instruction a strong man will not need it But when our sicknesse hath rendred us weak in all senses it is not good to refuse a remedy because it supposes us to be sick But then if to the Catalogue of weak persons we adde all those who are ruled by fancy we shall find that many persons in their health and more in their sicknesse are under the dominion of fancy and apt to be helped by those little things which themselves have found fitted to their apprehension and which no other man can minister to their needs unlesse by chance or in a heap of other things But therefore every man should remember by what instruments he was at any time much moved and try them upon his spirit in the day of his calamity 5. Do not choose the kind of thy sicknesse or the manner of thy death but let it be what God please so it be no greater then thy spirit or thy patience and for that you are to rely upon the promise of God and to secure thy self by prayer and industry but in all things else let God be thy chooser and let it be thy work to submit indifferently and attend thy duty It is lawfull to beg of God that thy sicknesse may not be sharp or noysome infectious or unusuall because these are circumstances of evil which are also proper instruments of temptation and though it may well concern the prudence of thy religion to fear thy self and keep thee from violent temptations who hast so often fallen in little ones yet even in these things be sure to keep some degrees of indifferency that is if God will not be intreated to ease thee or to change thy triall then be importunate that thy spirit and its interest be secured and let him do what seemeth good in his eyes but as in the degrees of sicknesse thou art to submit to God so in the kind of it supposing equall degrees thou art to be altogether incurious whether God call thee by a consumption or an asthma by a dropsey or a palsey by a feaver in thy humours or a feaver in thy spirits because all such nicety of choice is nothing but a colour to legitimate impatience and to make an excuse to murmure privately and for circumstances when in the summe of affairs we durst not owne impatience I have known some persons vehemently wish that they might die of a consumption and some of these had a plot upon heaven and hoped by that means to secure it after a carelesse life as thinking a lingring sicknesse would certainly infer a lingring and a protracted repentance and by that means they thought they should be safest others of them dreamed it would be an easier death and have found themselves deceived and their patience hath been tired with a weary spirit and a uselesse body by often conversing with healthfull persons and vigorous neighbours by uneasinesse of the flesh and the sharpnesse of his bones by want of spirits and a dying life and in conclusion have been directly debauched by peevishnesse and a fretfull sicknesse and these men had better have left it to the wisdom and goodnesse of God for they both are infinite 6. Be patient in the desires of religion and take care that the forwardnesse of exteriour actions do not discompose thy spirit while thou fearest that by lesse serving God in thy disability thou runnest backward in the accounts of pardon and the favour of God Be content that the time which was formerly spent in prayer be now spent in vomiting and carefulnesse and attendances since God hath pleased it should be so it does not become us to think hard thoughts concerning it Do not think that God is onely to be found in a great prayer or a solemn office he is moved by a sigh by a groan by an act of love and therefore when your pain is great and pungent lay all your strength upon it to bear it patiently when the evil is something more tolerable let your mind think some pious though short meditation let it not be very busie and full of attention for that will be but a new temptation to your patience and render your religion tedious and hatefull But record your desires and present your self to God by generall acts of will and understanding and by habituall remembrances of your former vigorousnesse and by verification of the same grace rather then proper exercises if you can do more do it but if you cannot let it not become a scruple to thee we must not think man is tyed to the forms of health or that he who swoons and faints is obliged to his usual forms and hours of prayer if we cannot labour yet let us love Nothing can hinder
religion we can do the works of a holy life but upon belief of the promises we can bear our sicknesse patiently and die cheerfully The sick man may practise it in the following instances 1. Let the sick man be careful that he do not admit of any doubt concerning that which he beleeved and received from common consent in his best health and dayes of election and religion For if the Devil can but prevail so far as to unfix and unrivet the resolution and confidence or fulnesse of assent it is easie for him so to unwinde the spirit that from why to whether or no from whether or no to scarcely not from scarcely not to absolutely not at all are steps of a descending and falling spirit and whatsoever a man is made to doubt of by the weaknesse of his understanding in a sicknesse it will be hard to get an instrument strong or subtle enough to reenforce and ensure For when the strengths are gone by which faith held and it does not stand firme by the weight of its own bulk and great constitution nor yet by the cordage of a tenacious root then it is prepared for a ruine which it cannot escape in the tempests of a sicknesse and the assaults of a Devil * Discourse and argument * the line of tradition and a never * failing experience * the Spirit of God and the * truth of miracles * the word of prophecie * and the blood of Martyrs * the excellencie of the doctrine and * the necessity of men * the riches of the promises * and the wisdom of the revelations * the reasonablenesse and * sublimity the * concordance and the * usefulnesse of the articles and * their complyance with all the needs of man * and the goverment of common wealths are like the strings and branches of the roots by which faith stands firm and unmoveable in the spirit and understanding of a man But in sicknesse the understanding is shaken and the ground is removed in which the root did grapple and support its trunk and therefore there is no way now but that it be left to stand upon the old confidences and by the firmament of its own weight it must be left to stand because it alwayes stood there before and as it stood all his life time in the ground of understanding so it must now be supported with will and a fixed resolution But disputation tempts it and shakes it with trying and overthrowes it with shaking Above all things in the world let the sick man fear a proposition which his sickness hath put into him contrary to the discourses of health and a sober untroubled reason 2. Let the sick man mingle the recital of his Creed together with his devotions and in that let him account his faith not in curiosity and factions in the confessions of parties and interests for some over froward zeals are so earnest to professe their little and uncertain articles and glory so to die in a particular and divided communion that in the profession of their faith they lose or discompose their charity let it be enough that we secure our interest of heaven though we do not go about to appropriate the mansions to our sect for every good man hopes to be saved as he is a Christian and not as he is a Lutheran or of another division However those articles upon which he can build the exercise of any vertue in his sicknesse or upon the stock of which he can improve his present condition are such as consist in the greatnesse and goodnesse the veracity and mercy of God thorough Jesus Christ nothing of which can be concerned in the fond disputations which faction and interest hath too long maintained in Christendom 3. Let the sick mans faith especially be active about the promises of grace and the excellent things of the gospel those which can comfort his sorrowes and enable his patience those upon the hopes of which he did the duties of his life and for which he is not unwilling to dye such as the intercession and advocation of Christ remission of sins the resurrection the mysterious arts and mercies of mans redemption Christs triumph over death and all the powers of hell the covenant of grace or the blessed issues of repentance and above all the article of eternal life upon the strength of which 11000 virgins went cheerfully together to their martyrdome and 20000 Christians were burned by Dioclesian on a Christmas day and whole armies of Asian Christians offered themselves to the Tribunals of Arius Anthonius and whole colledges of severe persons were instituted who lived upon religion whose dinner was the Eucharist whose supper was praise and their nights were watches and their dayes were labour for the hope of which then men counted it gain to lose their estates and gloried in their sufferings and rejoyced in their persecutions and were glad at their disgraces this is the article that hath made all the Martyrs of Christ confident and glorious and if it does not more then sufficiently strengthen our spirits to the present suffering it is because we understand it not but have the appetites of beasts and fools But if the sick man fixes his thoughts and lets his habitation to dwell here he swells his hope and masters his fears and eases his sorrows and overcomes his temptations 4. Let the sick man endeavour to turn his faith of the Articles into love of them and that will be an excellent instrument not onely to refresh his sorrows but to confirm his faith in defiance of all temptations For a sick man and a disturbed understanding are not competent and fit instruments to judge concerning the reasonablenesse of a proposition But therefore let him consider and love it because it is usefull and necessary profitable and gracious and when he is once in love with it and then also renews his love to it when he feels the need of it he is an interested person and for his own sake will never let it go and passe into the shadows of doubting or the utter-darknesse of infidelity An act of love will make him have a mind to it and we easily beleeve what we love but very uneasily part with our belief which we for so great an interest have chosen and entertained with a great affection 5. Let the sick person be infinitely carefull that his faith be not tempted by any man or any thing and when it is in any degree weakned let him lay fast hold upon the conclusion upon the Article it self and by earnest prayer beg of God to guide him in certainty and safety For let him consider that the Article is better then all its contrary or contradictory and he is concerned that it be true and concerned also that he do beleeve it but he can receive no good at all if Christ did not die if there be no resurrection if his Creed hath deceived him therefore all that
that the sick man make an universal confession or a renovation and repetition of all the particular confessions and accusations of his whole life that now at the foot of his account he may represent the summe totall to God and his conscience and make provisions for their remedie and pardon according to his present possibilities 5. Now is the time to make reflex acts of repentance that as by a general repentance we supply the want of the just extension of parts so by this we may supply the proper measures of the intension of degrees In our health we can consider concerning our own acts whether they be real or hypocritical essential or imaginary sincere or upon interest integrall or imperfect commensurate or defective and although it is a good caution of securities after all our care and diligence still to suspect our selves and our own deceptions and for ever to beg of God pardon and acceptance in the union of Christs passion and intercession yet in proper speaking reflex acts of repentance being a suppletory after the imperfection of the direct are then most fit to be used when we cannot proceed in and prosecute the direct actions To repent because we cannot repent and to grieve because we cannot grieve was a device invented to serve the turn of the mother of Peter Gratian but it was used by her and so advised to be in her sicknesse and last actions of repentance for in our perfect health and understanding if we doe not understand our first act we cannot discern our second and if we be not sorry for our sins we cannot be sorry for want of sorrows it is a contradiction to say we can because want of sorrow to which we are obliged is certainly a great sin and if we can grieve for that then also for the rest if not for all then not for this but in the dayes of weaknesse the case is otherwise for then our actions are imperfect our discourse weak our internall actions not discernable our fears great our work to be abbreviated and our defects to be supplied by spirituall arts and therefore it is proper and proportionate to our state and to our necessity to beg of God pardon for the imperfections of our repentance acceptance of our weaker sorrows supplies out of the treasures of grace and mercy and thus repenting of the evil and unhandsome adherencies of our repentance in the whole integrity of the duty it will become a repentance not to be repented of 6. Now is the time beyond which the sick man must at no hand defer to make restitution of all his unjust possessions or other mens rights and satisfactions for all injuries and violencies according to his obligation and possibilities for although many circumstances might impede the acting it in our lives-time and it was permitted to be deferred in many cases because by it justice was not hindred and oftentimes piety and equity were provided for yet because this is the last scene of our life he that does not act it so far as he can or put it into certain conditions and order of effecting can never do it again and therefore then to defer it is to omit it and leaves the repentance defective in an integrall and constituent part 7. Let the sick man be diligent and watchfull that the principle of his repentance be contrition or sorrow for sins commenced upon the love of God For although sorrow for sins upon any motive may lead us to God by many intermediall passages and is the threshold of returning sinners yet it is not good nor effective upon our death-bed because repentance is not then to begin but must then be finished and completed and it is to be a supply and reparation of all the imperfections of that duty and therefore it must by that time be arrived to contrition that is it must have grown from fear to love from the passions of a servant to the affections of a son The reason of which besides the precedent is this because when our repentance is in this state it supposes the man also in a state of grace a well grown Christian for to hate sin out of the love of God is not the felicity of a new convert or an infant grace or if it be that love also is in its infancy but it supposes a good progresse and the man habitually vertuous and tending to perfection and therefore contrition or repentance so qualified is usefull to great degrees of pardon because the man is a gracious person and that vertue is of good degree and consequently fit imployment for him that shall work no more but is to appear before his Judge to receive the hire of his day And if his repentance be contrition even before this state of sicknesse let it be increased by spirituall arts and the proper exercises of charity Means of exciting contrition or repentance of sins proceeding from the love of God TO which purpose the sick man may consider and is to be reminded if he does not that there are in God all the motives and causes of amability in the world that God is so infinitely good that there are some of the greatest and most excellent spirits of heaven whose work and whose felicity and whose perfections and whose nature it is to flame and burn in the brightest and most excellent love * that to love God is the greatest glory of Heaven that in him there are such excellencies that the smallest rayes of them communicated to our weaker understandings are yet sufficient to cause ravishments and transportations and satisfactions and joyes unspeakeable and full of glory * that all the wise Christians of the world know and feel such causes to love God that they all professe themselves ready to die for the love of God * and the Apostles and millions of the Martyrs did die for him * And although it be harder to live in his love then to die for it yet all the good people that ever gave their names to Christ did for his love endure the crucifying their lusts the mortification of their appetites the contradictions and death of their most passionate naturall desires * that Kings and Queens have quitted their Diadems and many married Saints have turned their mutuall vowes into the love of Jesus and married him onely keeping a virgin chastity in a married life that they may more tenderly expresse their love to God * that all the good we have derives from Gods love to us and all the good we can hope for is the effect of his love and can descend onely upon them that love him * that by his love it is that we receive the holy Jesus * and by his love we receive the Holy Spirit * and by his love we feel peace and joy within our spirits * and by his love we receive the mysterious Sacrament * And what can be greater then that from the goodnesse and love of God we receive Jesus Christ and
the Holy Ghost and Adoption and the inheritance of sons and to be coheirs with Jesus and to have pardon of our sins and a divine nature and restraining grace and the grace of sanctification and a rest and peace within us and a certain expectation of glory * who can choose but love him who when we had provoked him exceedingly sent his Son to die for us that we might live with him who does so desire to pardon us and save us that he hath appointed his Holy Son continually to intercede for us * That his love is so great that he offers us great kindnesse and intreats us to be happy and makes many decrees in heaven concerning the interest of our soul and the very provision and support of our persons * That he sends an Angel to attend upon every of his servants and to be their guard and their guide in all their dangers and hostilities * That for our sakes he restrains the Devil and puts his mightinesse in fetters and restraints and chastises his malice with decrees of grace and safety * That he it is who makes all the creatures serve us and takes care of our sleeps and preserves all plants and elements all mineralls and vegetables all beasts and birds all fishes and insects for food to us and for ornament for physick and instruction for variety and wonder for delight and for religion * That as God is all good in himself and all good to us so sin is directly contrary to God to reason to religion to safety and pleasure and felicity * That it is a great dishonour to a mans spirit to have been made a fool by a weak temptation and an empty lust and to have rejected God who is so rich so wise so good and so excellent so delicious and so profitable to us * That all the repentance in the world of excellent men does end in contrition or a sorrow for sins proceeding from the love of God because they that are in the state of grace do not fear hell violently and so long as they remain in Gods favour although they suffer the infirmities of men yet they are Gods portion and therefore all the repentance of just and holy men which is certainly the best is a repentance not for lower ends but because they are the friends of God and they are full of indignation that they have done an act against the honour of their Patron and their dearest Lord and Father * That it is a huge imperfection and a state of weaknesse to need to be moved with fear or temporall respects and they that are so as yet are either immerged in the affections of the world or of themselves and those men that bear such a character are not yet esteemed laudable persons or men of good natures or the sons of vertue * That no repentance can be lasting that relies upon any thing but the love of God for temporal motives may cease and contrary contingencies may arise and fear of hell may be expelled by natural or acquired hardnesses and is alwayes the least when we have most need of it and most cause for it for the more habitual our sins are the more cauterized our conscience is the lesse is the fear of hell and yet our danger is much the greater * that although fear of hell or other temporal motives may be the first inlet to a repentance yet repentance in that constitution and under those circumstances cannot obtain pardon because there is in that no union with God no adhesion to Christ no endeerment of passion or of spirit no similitude or conformity to the great instrument of our peace our glorious Mediatour for as yet a man is turned from his sin but not converted to God the first and last of our returns to God being love and nothing but love for obedience is the first part of love and fruition is the last and because he that does not love God cannot obey him therefore he that does not love him cannot enjoy him Now that this may he reduced to practise the sick man may be advertised that in the actions of repentance * he separate low temporal sensual and self ends from his thoughts and so do his repentance * that he may still reflect honour upon God * that he confesse his justice in punishing that he acknowledge himself to have deserved the worst of evils * that he heartily believe and professe that if he perish finally yet that God ought to be glorified by that sad event and that he hath truly merited so intolerable a calamity * that he also be put to make acts of election and preference professing that he would willingly endure all temporal evils rather then be in the disfavour of God or in the state of sin for by this last instance he will be quitted from the suspicion of leaving sin for temporal respects because he by an act of imagination or fained presence of the object to him entertains the temporal evil that he may leave the sin and therefore unlesse he be a hypocrite does not leave the sin to be quit of the temporal evil And as for the other motive of leaving sin our of the fear of hell because that is an evangelical motive conveyed to us by the spirit of God and is immediate to the love of God if the Schoolmen had pleased they might have reckoned it as the hand-maid and of the retinue of contrition but the more the considerations are sublimed above this of the greater effect and the more immediate to pardon will be the repentance 8. Let the sick persons do frequent actions of repentance by way of prayer for all those sins which are spiritual and in which no restitution or satisfaction material can be made and whose contrary acts cannot in kinde be exercised For penitential prayers in some cases are the only instances of repentance that can be An envious man if he gives God hearty thanks for the advancement of his brother hath done an act of mortification of his envy as directly as corporal austerities are an act of chastity and an enemy to uncleanness and if I have seduced a person that is dead or absent if I cannot restore him to sober counsels by my discourse and undeceiving him I can onely repent of that by way of prayer and intemperance is no way to be rescinded or punished by a dying man but by hearty prayers Prayers are a great help in all cases in some they are proper acts of vertue and direct enemies to sin but although alone and in long continuance they alone can cure some one or some few little habits yet they can never alone change the state of the man and therefore are intended to be a suppletory to the imperfections of other acts and by that reason are the proper and most pertinent imployment of a Clinick or death-bed penitent 9. In those sins whose proper cure is mortification corporal the sick man is to supply that part of
that it is not reasonable to think that every man and every life and an easie religion shall possesse such infinite glories * That although heaven is a gift yet there is a great severity and strict exacting of the conditions on our part to receive that gift * That some persons who have lived strictly for 40. years together yet have miscarried by some one crime at last or some secret hypocrisie or a latent pride or a creeping ambition or a phantastic spirit and therefore much lesse can they hope to receive so great portions of felicities when their life hath been a continuall declination from those severities which might have created confidence of pardon and acceptation through the mercies of God and the merits of Jesus * That every good man ought to be suspicious of himself and in his judgement concerning his own condition to fear the worst that he may provide for the better * That we are commanded to work out our salvation with fear trembling * That this precept was given with very great reason considering the thousand thousand wayes of miscarrying * That S. Paul himself and S. Arsenius and S. Elzearius and divers other remarkable Saints had at some times great apprehensions of the dangers of failing of the mighty price of their high calling * That the stake that is to be secured is of so great an interest that all our industry and all the violences we can suffer in the prosecution of it are not considerable * That this affair is to be done but once and then never any more unto eternal ages * That they who professe themselves servants of the institution and servants of the law and discipline of Jesus will find that they must judge themselves by the proportions of that law by which they were to rule themselves * That the laws of society and civility and the voices of my company are as ill judges as they are guides but we are to stand or fall by his sentence who will not consider or value the talk of idle men or the persuasion of wilfully abused consciences but of him who hath felt our infirmity in all things but sin and knowes where our failings are unavoidable and where and in what degree they are excusable but never will endure a sin should seize upon any part of our love and deliberate choice or carelesse cohabitation * That if our conscience accuse us not yet are we not hereby justified for God is greater then our consciences * That they who are most innocent have their consciences most tender and sensible * That scrupulous persons are alwayes most religious and that to feel nothing is not a signe of life but of death * That nothing can be hid from the eyes of the Lord to whom the day and the night publike and private words and thoughts actions and designes are equally discernable * That a lukewarme person is onely secured in his own thoughts but very unsafe in the event and despised by God * That we live in an Age in which that which is called and esteemed a holy life in the dayes of the Apostles and holy primitives would have been esteemed indifferent sometimes scandalous and alwayes cold That what was a truth of God then is so now and to what severities they were tyed for the same also we are to be accountable and heaven is not now an easier purchase then it was then * That if he will cast up his accounts even with a superficial eye Let him consider how few good works he hath done how inconsiderable is the relief which he gave to the poor how little are the extraordinaries of his religion and how unactive and lame how polluted and disordered how unchosen and unpleasant were the ordinary parts and periods of it and how many and great sins have stained his course of life and until he enters into a particular scrutinie let him only revolve in his minde what his general course hth been and in the way of prudence let him say whether it was laudable and holy or onely indifferent and excusable and if he can think it onely excusable and so as to hope for pardon by such suppletories of faith and arts of persuasion which he and others use to take in for auxiliaries to their unreasonable confidence then he cannot but think it very fit that he search into his own state and take a Guide and erect a tribunal or appear before that which Christ hath erected for him on earth that he may make his accesse fairer when he shall be called before the dreadfull Tribunal of Christ in the clouds For if he can be confident upon the stock of an unpraised or a looser life and should dare to venture upon wilde accounts without order without abatements without consideration without conduct without fear without scrutinies and confessions and instruments of amends or pardon he either knows not his danger or cares not for it and little understands how great a horrour that is that a man should rest his head for ever upon a cradle of flames and lye in a bed of sorrows and never sleep and never end his groans or the gnashing of his teeth This is that which some spiritual persons call a wakening the sinner by the terrours of the law which is a good analogie or Tropical expression to represent the threatnings of the Gospel and the dangers of an incurious and a sinning person but we have nothing else to do with the terrours of the law for Blessed be God they concern us not the terrours of the law were the intermination of curses upon all those that ever broke any of the least Commandements once or in any instance And to it the righteousnesse of faith is opposed The terrors of the law admitted no repentance no pardon no abatement and were so severe that God never inflicted them at all according to the letter because he admitted all to repentance that desired it with a timely prayer unlesse in very few cases as of Achan or Corah the gatherer of sticks upon the Sabbath-day or the like but the state of threatnings in the Gospel is very fearful because the conditions of avoiding them are easie and ready and they happen to evil persons after many warnings second thoughts frequent invitations to pardon and repentance and after one entire pardon consigned in Baptism and in this sense it is necessary that such persons as we now deal withall should be instructed concerning their danger 4. When the sick man is either of himself or by these considerations set forward with purposes of repentance and confession of his sins in order to all its holy purposes and effects then the Minister is to assist him in the understanding the number of his sins that is the several kinds of them and the various manners of prevaricating the divine commandments for as for the number of the particulars in every kinde he will need lesse help and if he did he
in temporall instances for he ever gave me sufficient for my life and although he promised such supplies and grounded the confidences of them upon our first seeking the kingdom of heaven and its righteousnesse yet he hath verified it to me who have not sought it as I ought But therefore I hope he accepted my endeavour or will give his great gifts and our great expectation even to the weakest endeavour to the least so it be a hearty piety * And sometimes I have had some chearful visitations of Gods Spirit and my cup hath been crowned with comfort and the wine that made my heart glad danced in the chalice and I was glad that God would have me so and therefore I hope this cloud may passe for that which was then a real cause of comfort is so still if I could disâ—ern it and I shall discern it when the veil is taken from my eyes * and blessed be God I can still remember that there are temptations to despair and they could not be temptations if they were not apt to perswade and had seeming probability on their side and they that despair think they do it with greatest reason for if they were not confident of the reason but that it were such an argument as might be opposed or suspected then they could not despair despair assents as firmly and strongly as faith it self but because it is a temptation and despair is a horrid sin therefore it is certain those persons are unreasonably abused and they have no reason to despair for all their confidence and therefore although I have strong reasons to condemn my self yet I have more reason to condemn my despair which therefore is unreasonable because it is a sin and a dishonour to God and a ruine to my condition and verifies it self if I do not look to it for as the hypochondriac person that thought himself dead made his dream true when he starved himself because dead people eat not so do despairing sinners lose Gods mercies by refusing to use and to believe them * And I hope it is a disease of judgement not an intolerable condition that I am falling to because I have been told so concerning others who therefore have been afflicted because they see not their pardon sealed after the manner of this world and the affairs of the Spirit are transacted by immaterial notices by propositions and spiritual discourses by promises which are to be verified hereafter and here we must live in a cloud in darknesse under a veil in fear and uncertainties and our very living by faith and hope is a life of mystery and secresie the onely part of the manner of that life in which we shall live in the state of separation and when a distemper of body or an infirmity of minde happens in the instances of such secret and reserved affairs we may easily mistake the manner of our notices for the uncertainty of the thing and therefore it is but reason I should stay till the state and manner of my abode be changed before I despair there it can be no sin nor error here it may be both and if it be that it is also this and then a man may perish for being miserable and be undone for being a fool In conclusion my hope is in God and I will trust him with the event which I am sure will be just and I hope full of mercy * However now I will use all the spiritual arts of reason and religion to make me more and more to love God that if I miscarry Charity also shall fail and something that loves God shall perish and be damned which if it be impossible then I may do well These considerations may be useful to men of little hearts and of great piety or if they be persons who have lived without infamy or begun their repentance so late that it is very imperfect and yet so early that it was before the arrest of death But if the man be a vitious person and hath persevered in a vitious life till his death-bed these considerations are not proper Let him inquire in the words of the first Disciples after Pentecost Men and brethren what shall we do to be saved and if they can but entertain so much hope as to enable them to do so much of their dutie as they can for the present it is all that can be provided for them an inquirie in their case can have no other purposes of religion or prudence and the Minister must be infinitely careful that he do no not go about to comfort vitious persons with the comforts belonging to Gods elect lest he prostitute holy things and make them common and his sermons deceitful and vices be incouraged in others and the man himself finde that he was deceived when he descends into his house of sorrow But because very few men are tempted with too great fears of failing but very many are tempted by confidence and presumption the Ministers of religion had need be instructed with spiritual armour to resist this fiery dart of the Devil when it operates to evil purposes SECT VI. Considerations against Presumption I Have already enumerated many particulars to provoke a drowzy conscience to a scrutinie and to a suspicion of himself that by seeing cause to suspect his condition he might more freely accuse himself and attend to the necessities and duties of repentance but if either before or in his repentance he grow too big in in his spirit so as either he does some little violence to the modesties of humilitie or abate his care and zeal of his repentance the spiritual man must allay his frowardnesse by representing to him 1. That the growths in grace are long difficult uncertain hindred of many parts and great variety 2. That an infant grace is soon dash'd and discountenanced often running into an inconvenience and the evils of an imprudent conduct being zealous and forward and therefore confident but alwayes with the least reason and the greatest danger like children and young fellows whose confidence hath no other reason but that they understand not their danger and their follies 3. That he that puts on his armour ought not to boast as he that puts it off and the Apostle chides the Galatians for ending in the flesh after they had begun in the spirit 4. that a man cannot think too meanly of himself but very easily he may think too high 5 That a wise man will alwayes in a matter of great concernment think the worst and a good man will condemn himself with hearty sentence 6. That humility and modesty of judgement and of hope are very good instruments to procure a mercie and a fair reception at the day of our death but presumption or bold opinions serve no end of God or man and is alwayes imprudent ever fatal and of all things in the world is its own greatest enemy for the more any man presumes the greater reason he hath to fear 7. That a mans